The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Wild Card => Topic started by: Asherdan on October 21, 2010, 09:20:42 pm
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(http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--k5m636Zb--/m5dvkzj95cd6xl0k4nnx.gif)
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i got'em when the company i worked for payed.
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I've never had a flu shot. When I worked in the medical field, I found a surprising number of my coworkers, including doctors, were against them, mostly because the long term effects haven't been sufficiently tested, and the clinical trials, especially when it came to the H1N1 vaccine were not sufficient enough for their liking. Probably because I was working with HIV care workers, who have seen decades of humans being treated as guinea pigs to sometimes catastrophic effects, their concern was more heightened in this regard than the average medical health provider or person in the general populous though.
I have considered it in the past, as I do have auto immune problems and therefore tend to get really sick when I do get sick. I don't get sick that often though.
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I'm generally a fan of vaccines and building up immunities.
I've seen some stuff about our fortified immune systems being tied to allergies (immune system is designed to search and destroy, and lacking any significant threats it targets benign material). Any thoughts on this from med/science folks? I'm not talking about autism or anything like that--just allergies.
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What a vaccine does is give a weakened form of the virus to develop a reaction to. The immune system does get challenged, it's just that it's by something that can't make you sick, which is pleasanter for you. But as far as the immune system is concerned, it is a threat. So even if it were true that an immune system with nothing to do went after harmless stuff, I don't see how vaccines would cause that. They're doing the opposite, giving it something to work on, so they wouldn't cause you to have an immune system that was, like bored and looking for stuff to beat up on.
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I have gotten the shot in the past. the one year of college that I said "yeah, right" and was all rude to my mom about it (you can't tell me what to do!) I got hit really bad right in the middle of exams. Puking in garbage cans on the way to my exam, etc.
I don't know if I'll do it this year. I probably should.
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never bothered. if i get the flu, it probably won't kill me.
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Every time I got the flu shot, I got the flu that year.
About half the years I didn't, I didn't. I dunno.
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The only times I've ever gotten them are the last two years (just got mine yesterday) because the state pays. I don't know if it makes a difference or not, because I'm not big on recognizing that sort of thing.
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I got a flu shot for the first time last year. I also got the flu last year.
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I get the shot every year and can't remember the last time I got the flu. That is good enough for me to keep getting them.
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What a vaccine does is give a weakened form of the virus to develop a reaction to. The immune system does get challenged, it's just that it's by something that can't make you sick, which is pleasanter for you. But as far as the immune system is concerned, it is a threat. So even if it were true that an immune system with nothing to do went after harmless stuff, I don't see how vaccines would cause that. They're doing the opposite, giving it something to work on, so they wouldn't cause you to have an immune system that was, like bored and looking for stuff to beat up on.
I understand the concept of vaccines. The question is whether the antibodies developed via vaccines make life too easy for the immune system.
Edit: It may go without saying, but I will specify that I would rather risk developing a peanut allergy than risk getting polio or the like. I'm just wondering about the net benefit of vaccines against the flu, chicken pox, etc.
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Right, and what I am saying is, why should they make life any easier? What is the argument that the challenge presented by a vaccine is any different from that presented by other stimulus? Making antibodies is the immune system's job, and vaccines make it do its job.
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To those who got sick the same year you had a flu shot, were you actually diagnosed with influenza or did you just have symptoms and self-diagnose?
I get one nearly every year and I haven't had the flu in at least a dozen years, but I don't get sick all that often anyway.
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I only get a flu shot if there's not a shortage. I make sure the kids get theirs, though. Pedro's company pays for all of us, so cost isn't the issue, but I feel like if I get the flu it won't kill me, but it might kill a child or elderly person, so if there's a shortage I go without.
Wow, when that's all typed out that way, it sounds embarrassingly smug. Sorry about that, it's all true though.
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I got the flu about 10 years ago and that was about as sick as I've been. I started getting the shot after that. Haven't had it since. Woot. Get 'em free at work.
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When I got my shot this year, I jumped in front of an elderly person in line. Pushed 'em down, too.
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Go for it. I push little kids out my way at the zoo, too.
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To those who got sick the same year you had a flu shot, were you actually diagnosed with influenza or did you just have symptoms and self-diagnose?
Prob'ly half the time, yeah.
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I've never heard of vaccines causing allergies by way of making it too easy on your immune system. It's not getting exposed to parasites that's thought to make the immune system go nuts, as it were.
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I think a dude is talking about the hygiene hypothesis, which basically says that people tend to do this thing where they don't let kids get exposed to anything when they're young (particularly parasites, as per the lovely Ms. Waterfield) which results in a naive immune system that over-reacts and predisposes you to hypersensitivity reactions later in life. This is a real thing, though the actual mechanisms involved are a bit murky. Vaccines are basically the opposite of that though, they're giving your immune system something to react to and as far as I know the hygiene hypothesis is only really talking about what your system is exposed to at a young age so having a vaccine when you're 30 is doubly irrelevant.
Things I have been taught to tell people about vaccines:
There is no good evidence they cause autism.
Just because you get a flu shot doesn't mean you won't get a cold (which isn't the same) or even the flu. There are lots of different flu strains and it mutates all the time, the shot generally protects against the most prevalent around that year.
There is NO good evidence they cause autism.
You may feel a bit groggy for a couple of days after the shot, you are taking something that causes your immune system to react, so yeah your immune system might react. In some, very very rare, cases it might even over-react, that's why they often keep you around for half an hour after certain types of vaccine. The odds of this happening are infinitesimal compared to the odds of getting badly sick if you actually get the disease.
THERE IS NO GOOD EVIDENCE THEY CAUSE AUTISM.
You might think you don't need a shot because you never get the flu, or you get over it pretty quickly, this is probably true but the thing we're more interested in with vaccines is something called 'herd immunity' that is when enough people in a given population (something like 80%) are immune to a disease, it doesn't have anywhere to live anymore and basically dies out. This is how we got rid of smallpox and polio. Point being you might get over the flu or not even notice you have it but in the mean time you might pass it on to your grandmother, or your newborn nephew, who aren't as strong and may be made very sick. No, the medical profession is not above unsubtle emotional manipulation.
You know what? Sure, vaccines cause autism. Also the CIA created AIDS to kill Freddy Mercury and end British domination of the pop charts.
That said, I often forget to get mine because as a Caucasian male aged between 18 and 50 I only go to the doctor when I can actually see bone and putting a band aid on it for two days hasn't helped.
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What does caucasian have to do with it?
And the CIA created AIDs to kill gays and minorities. You want to be a doctor? Get yer facts straight first, son.
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What does caucasian have to do with it?
And the CIA created AIDs to kill gays and minorities. You want to be a doctor? Get yer facts straight first, son.
Not much, I just felt like being overly specific about demographic.
And way to buy into what The Man wants you to believe, man.
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i have a hard time believing that the government can create anything as sophisticated as aids.
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To those who got sick the same year you had a flu shot, were you actually diagnosed with influenza or did you just have symptoms and self-diagnose?
Down with the Sickness (http://www.flickr.com/photos/pmcd9/3971014652/)
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THERE IS NO GOOD EVIDENCE THEY CAUSE AUTISM.
I hate Jenny McCarthy.
Last year, I actually had friends & relatives call me and ask me if they should let their kids have the H1N1 vaccine "because of thimerisol." Like I'm some kind of vaccine expert because I've got a kid with autism? How bizarre, how bizarre.
I told them, "My kids are getting it, just like they get all the recommended vaccinations. You can do what you want, but there's no correlation between vaccines and autism, so I don't know why you wouldn't."
You might think you don't need a shot because you never get the flu, or you get over it pretty quickly, this is probably true but the thing we're more interested in with vaccines is something called 'herd immunity' that is when enough people in a given population (something like 80%) are immune to a disease, it doesn't have anywhere to live anymore and basically dies out. This is how we got rid of smallpox and polio. Point being you might get over the flu or not even notice you have it but in the mean time you might pass it on to your grandmother, or your newborn nephew, who aren't as strong and may be made very sick.
How true is this, really, for things like the 'flu, which you also say has multiple strains that are constantly mutating? Am I killing babies by failing to get a 'flu shot? Or are medical professionals just interested in getting healthy people immunized so they don't have to deal with as many cases of the 'flu?
Forget what you've been taught to tell us -- we want the TRUTH, man!
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The autism-vaccine "link" is another one of those things that people get really het up about on the internet. Strange phenomena, really.
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There was a big-ass article in Wired a few months ago about the vaccines vs. autism debate. Wired, not surprisingly, took the side of actual scientists.
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/10/ff_waronscience/
I'd like to hear an interview with an anti-vaccine parent after their kid comes down with whooping cough or some other disease that had been seemingly eradicated. I mean, I don't want to wish bad shit on anyone's children, but it's happening, and I wonder if such people are willing to admit they fucked up.
Anyway. I don't typically get a flu shot. I know I probably should, but I've just never felt the need. Strong like moose. The missus gets them, and we get them for the kids.
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The autism-vaccine "link" is another one of those things that people get really het up about on the internet. Strange phenomena, really.
Not just on the internet, my friend. You ever try talking IRL to a parent with an autistic kid who truly believes that her child "got autism" from a vaccine? It makes you want to slap their face off.
Especially when they talk about how taking the chance that their kid will die of polio or the measles or some other horrible, preventable illness is preferable to getting vaccinated and (in their minds) risking "becoming autistic." It's practically hate speech, it makes me sick.
Carlos, there was a case a couple of years ago where an anti-vaccination activist took her un-vaccinated kids on some global expedition (can't remember where exactly they went) and brought home a case of the measles. The activists' kids got better quickly, but there was a major outbreak in their community among unvaccinated people (which included voluntarily unvaccinated kids as well as people with suppressed immune systems and babies under 1 year). One baby actually did die as a result. That's the problem with anti-vaccine parents -- like drunk drivers, they usually end up killing someone else's kid. If you want more info I might be able to track down a link to the story, but that's the basic gist of it.
See also: Doc's explanation of herd immunity, above.
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How true is this, really, for things like the 'flu, which you also say has multiple strains that are constantly mutating? Am I killing babies by failing to get a 'flu shot? Or are medical professionals just interested in getting healthy people immunized so they don't have to deal with as many cases of the 'flu?
As far as I understand it, it's as true for flu as it is for anything else in as much as if enough people have an immune response against a particular strain then the ability of that strain to propagate drops to zero. Which flu (or variety) they make the vaccine for in a given season though is guess work, I think they see what the biggest strain is in the opposite hemisphere (opposite seasons work for us sometimes) and target that, just because it isn't possible to culture enough vaccine in time if you wait to see what strain people actually start getting when flu season rolls around. It happens sometimes though, that's what they did for the H1N1 vaccine, near me anyway. I did get that one for what it's worth because I was in a hospital at the time and didn't feel like accidentally passing the worst flu around onto some poor cancer fighting dude who had enough to worry about. I'm not familiar with the shot/mist distinction that Ash is talking about, but I assume it's similar principles.
tl;dr - I still think it's valid because it's one less disease I won't give my Nana. At a basic level that's what it's about.
And Ash gets a can for giving me an image I can bust on some poor unsuspecting soul one day.
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Oh, I don't believe in the vaccine-autism link stuff at all, don't get me wrong.
So many things have changed about the human race's living conditions in the last coupla generations that trying to correlate autism's higher prevalance (or, anyway, higher number of diagnoses) with vaccinations seems insane to me.
Plastics? Lead? Electromagnetic radiation? Hormones in the foods? Generally lower infant mortality rates creating a larger pool of people with neurological disabilities? Simply understanding what it is and doctors pointing out what it is now?
I got no idea. My education is in mass media communications and world religions. I took a course in neurobiology in college and I have people in my family with different kinds of neurological problems so I probably know a LITTLE more than an average person but a lot less than jay-elle as the mother of an autistic kid and a lot less than someone with actual medical training.
All I know is I've been around for around thirty flu seasons and I have tended to get the flu less often in years I don't get the shots.
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When I walk into the barn and do the first hoss the others get all antsy about what they got coming. They know they are next.
Why, is it administered rectally?
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Why, is it administered rectally?
if not, shots dont feel good, even if youre a hoss.
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there was an NPR story at some point about the vaccine/autism thing, and they interviewed a mom whose kid almost died of whooping cough. he was too young to get the shot, and lots of older kids in their area were not vaccinated. She basically said "when people tell me their kids are not going to be vaccinated, I have a hard time not telling them I hope they die in a fire."
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Vaccination is good. Vaccination works. People trying to outlaw vaccinations against HPV because 4,000 annual cases of cervical cancer is "worth it" as a deterrent to having sex make me ill and/or violent. I wish there were a vaccine for that.
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Amen, brother.
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What we need more of is science.
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And hoss worming stories!
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I wonder how people get their not-vaccinated kids into day care, pre-school or regular school? The youngest started a pre-K program this school year and the immunization card and doctor health statement was part of the entry deal-io. I wish A-Dawg was around for a public health aspect on some of this.
You can get a waiver for "religious observance."
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If you get the waiver but your kid ends up catching the measles can you get kicked out on the basis that apparently God doesn't like you that much?
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See, I am for science, but also against it. I think it is pretty cool we can do these things, but I think it is probably bad for the society. You got to weed people out, that's where our problems are coming from. Or, like we could change the way we live, but that is pretty unlikely with tea baggers running free. I don't plan on going to a doctor again unless I have a broken bone.
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I would definitely be someone who would get weeded out. Scrawny little dude? Can't see very well? "Science doesn't exist, leave him on the hill" says Roman dad.
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I guess that is just my personal philosophy. We should stop where we are though, unless we are going to make changes to society at the same time.
We should definitely have glasses and lsd and amoxicilian and ships and maps and the ability to set bones and stuff. Just I don't see that too much more than that is improving peoples lives. Lengthening? Yeah.
Also, people who say smokers cost money to the system and such: fuck all that. We die earlier and open up resources for other people. Plus, people got to die (and go to the hospital and such) some time.
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Diseases are happy to weed out good smart people and leave evil stupid people behind. At this point in history if we want to improve the species I think we need to find a different method.
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Also, people who say smokers cost money to the system and such: fuck all that. We die earlier and open up resources for other people.
Man, normally I am fairly liberal and easy going about life-choices cause I've done plenty to shorten my own but that's some bullshit. The majority of smokers probably won't get lung cancer (not that dying of lung cancer is cheap on the system by the way, chemo drugs, expensive surgeries etc), many many more get emphysema and end up as crazy skinny old dudes who need to be admitted every other week because every breath off pure oxygen is an ungodly struggle. Not to mention they need tonnes of professional care even when they're not in hospital because they can't even open a dang bag of bread without getting winded. It all costs, dawg.
Of course if you've paid your insurance/taxes (depending on your universal healthcaredom) then you're entitled to all the medical care you need/can convince your insurance company to pay for.
Probably not unsurprisingly I'm not down with the idea of letting nature weed us out either, I don't spend much time fussing over whether something's natural or not. We're the first species we know of that can intentionally and drastically alter our environment (and ourselves) to our own benefit. I'm not saying we should be reckless about it, we've seen where that goes, but we shouldn't be bashful about doing it either. I'm not going to be satisfied until I'm in my solar-powered 1000 year old body.
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See, I am for science, but also against it. I think it is pretty cool we can do these things, but I think it is probably bad for the society. You got to weed people out, that's where our problems are coming from.
This reminds me of the origin of Karl Pilkington's Apple Pip Reproduction Theory (http://www.pilkipedia.co.uk/wiki/index.php?title=Apple_Pip_Reproduction_Theory). He complains about rent being too high in London already, so a cures for cancer and AIDS would not be good things. And then he unleashes the theory. If you have the Ricky Gervais Show podcast, it starts at 4:58 in the first episode of the first season. The theory is a wonder of crazy person logic, "the ramblings of someone you'd find by himself in a hospital eating flies."
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Probably not unsurprisingly I'm not down with the idea of letting nature weed us out either, I don't spend much time fussing over whether something's natural or not. We're the first species we know of that can intentionally and drastically alter our environment (and ourselves) to our own benefit. I'm not saying we should be reckless about it, we've seen where that goes, but we shouldn't be bashful about doing it either. I'm not going to be satisfied until I'm in my solar-powered 1000 year old body.
I ain't too worried about it because even with a 1000-year-old body, we'll all be striding across a bleak and sun-blasted wasteland of a planet.
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I ain't too worried about it because even with a 1000-year-old body, we'll all be striding across a bleak and sun-blasted wasteland of a planet.
Nah, we'll be living in lush green colonies on other worlds.
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I ain't too worried about it because even with a 1000-year-old body, we'll all be striding across a bleak and sun-blasted wasteland of a planet.
Save it for the Fallout 3 thread, buddy.
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Totally unrelated to what you're talking about, but every time I see this thread title, I hear Jim Mora saying it my head.
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Totally unrelated to what you're talking about, but every time I see this thread title, I hear Jim Mora saying it my head.
Goddamn I wish I had the thousand can ability. This has been itching at my brain and I didn't know what it was.
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i'm all for science and shit. and for medicine. and all that good crap.
what scares me, is how many years ago were we spraying DDT around and wrapping everything in asbestos, and it was science and progress and the future?
i have faith in man, primarily man's ability to get stuff done "just enough so it looks like it works".
and, sure, i am WAY fuck*ng BETTER OFF than if noone had done stuff good enough so it looks like it worked.
don't get me wrong.
but somedays it seems like people look at you funny if you ask too many questions nowadays.
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arkabee, man, sometimes i don't know about you :\
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Asking honest questions isn't the problem, ark.
"Hey, what's up with flu shots?" is a fine question that can be quickly answered by consulting good medicine and science books. It is all in there.
The problem is when "asking the question" is really just a framing device/opening thrust for someone's batshit agenda.
"Hey, can you PROVE TO ME that flu shots aren't a conspiracy to change Obama's birth certificate?" for example is a question that presumes its own answer along the lines of "FLU SHOTS changed Obama's birth certificate AND caused 9/11 and HERE is a disgraced doctor who has had all his credentials pulled and has been convicted of fraud three separate times to tell you how that works."
Reasonable questions are rad!
Questions that cannot be answered with anything other than "magnets are a fuck*ng miracle" should be dismissed out of hand.
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And as much as I love to bash the profit-hungry drug companies, there are massive reporting systems in place these days because of exactly that kind of thing (DDT, Thalidomide etc.) to try and discover Bad Consequences while they are still in their infancy. Because there's some stuff you honestly won't notice until 100,000 people have taken your drug because it's so rare and there's no practical way to look for that until it's on the market.
Vaccines as a general principle have been around for ages now though, so if there was something fundamentally wrong with them we'd probably have noticed, doesn't mean there can't be anything wrong with specific preparations and so on though.
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With all that talk of 'herd immunity' earlier in the thread, it makes me wonder what changed around here to have something like Whooping Cough spike back up...
You're only a few miles from pinhead central with Jenny McCarthy and the antivaxers.
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And as much as I love to bash the profit-hungry drug companies, there are massive reporting systems in place these days because of exactly that kind of thing (DDT, Thalidomide etc.) to try and discover Bad Consequences while they are still in their infancy. Because there's some stuff you honestly won't notice until 100,000 people have taken your drug because it's so rare and there's no practical way to look for that until it's on the market.
Vaccines as a general principle have been around for ages now though, so if there was something fundamentally wrong with them we'd probably have noticed, doesn't mean there can't be anything wrong with specific preparations and so on though.
Here's a can for reasonableness and informativeness.
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oh man, now I am thinking about a Personal Thing where someone refuses to take certain medications because they know someone who had a bad reaction. "____ kills people" even though that person didn't die, and there is no reason to think that the drug is unsafe, and they clearly have testing in place to make sure that that drug does not kill people.
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oh man, now I am thinking about a Personal Thing where someone refuses to take certain medications because they know someone who had a bad reaction. "____ kills people" even though that person didn't die, and there is no reason to think that the drug is unsafe, and they clearly have testing in place to make sure that that drug does not kill people.
It's the opposite of "Grampa smoked like a chimney and he lived to 108".