Flu jab!! what's going on?

[Rupert_Baehr]

Wouldn't catch me having the jab. Strangely at our workplace last year most people who took it still ended up getting ill and a lot felt rotten afterwards.

 

You have a perfectly good immune system which you know hasn't been tampered with. As for the flu jab, do you honestly know what's in it?

 

Here's what's in this year's vaccine.

 

Your 'perfectly good immune system' will not necessarily prevent you from getting flu. In fact, unless your body has experienced this year's virus (or one very like it) before, then - if you are exposed to flu virus - you stand a good chance of getting flu.

 

There are 2 main reasons for having a flu shot:

 

1. To prevent you from getting flu (and becoming ill.)

2. To prevent you from spreading flu to other people (and making them ill.)

 

The more people in any given population who are vaccinated against a virus, the fewer (of the un-vaccinated people) are likely to become infected, because there will be fewer carriers.

 

The elderly and those with chronic illnesses are more likely to be seriously affected by influenza. The recent swine flu epidemics (during the last 2 years or so) had a lesser effect on the elderly than had been predicted.

 

Could that be because as we get older, the total number of strains of flu virus to which we are exposed increases? (and if you've been having flu shots for some years, then your body will have 'seen' a number of variants of H1N1) - one variant of that type is in each year's vaccine.

 

I got swine flu before the vaccine was made available and although it was not a lot of fun, I've had rather worse bouts of flu before ... but my body has, by now, seen a large number of flu viruses including many H1N1 types.

[medusa]

Wouldn't catch me having the jab. Strangely at our workplace last year most people who took it still ended up getting ill and a lot felt rotten afterwards.

 

You have a perfectly good immune system which you know hasn't been tampered with. As for the flu jab, do you honestly know what's in it?

 

But that's the point- I don't have a perfectly good immune system. I've had a full lifetime dose of radiotherapy which has been shown to suppress the immune system for anything between 10 and 20 years, and on top of that I'm predisposed to chest problems because of my asthma.

 

And yes, I know what's in a flu jab and I'm still happy to have one because I've had both normal flu and swine flu, and both made me really rather poorly and very miserable.

 

I'll take my chances having an immune reaction to a flu jab rather than trying to cope with a whole dose of the flu thank you.

[Rupert_Baehr]

...It isn't offered to anyone and everyone.

 

That varies from country to country. I suspect that the reasons for not offering the flu shot 'to anyone and everyone' in the UK include cost. Both the cost of the vaccine itself and the cost of arranging for people to vaccinate patients.

 

This link suggests: "Vaccine Recommendation

Who should get vaccinated this season?

Everyone 6 months and older should get a flu vaccine each year."

 

In the US, flu shots are not free (though they may be covered by your insurance or they may be available through your employer at no charge.) They're available through your GP, or through a pharmacy (and most supermarkets have in-store pharmacies.)

 

A flu shot costs about £15 (I wonder what is the annual cost to the UK economy through work days lost to flu? - Either time off for those who have got it or time off for those who have to stay at home to look after people who've got it?

[twibstix]

I'm supposed to have it but won't. Daddy had his a fortnight ago and it really knocked him for six, he came back to work sweating and shivering, most not daddy like

[Ms Macbeth]

I had mine a month ago, along with my OH. He didn't feel a thing, mine hurt. You couldn't see where he'd had his injection, my arm swelled up and was red and swollen for about 5 days. Unfair!

 

And tomorrow, I've to have a pneumonia jab. Never had one before, lets hope I don't have another poorly arm.

[Bulgarian]

The recent swine flu epidemics (during the last 2 years or so) had a lesser effect on the elderly than had been predicted.

 

Was there really an epidemic or just loads of people claiming they had it to get two weeks off work ?

[Rupert_Baehr]

... tomorrow, I've to have a pneumonia jab. Never had one before, lets hope I don't have another poorly arm.

 

Go for it, Ms M!

 

Pneumonia causes more deaths worldwide than any other infectious disease.

 

Pneumovax has been available elsewhere for about 20 years (though it was only 'discovered' in the UK a couple of years ago.) The 'Mark 1' version was good for 10 years - and it was a once-only shot. (So it was usually reserved for people over 65.)

 

I've had pneumonia before (not a lot of fun!) and as a result, I used to be prone to bronchitis. Get a bad cold and get bronchitis. Every time.

 

My doctor recommended that I have pneumovax early. I did - and that was the end of bronchial infections. (The 10 years was up some time ago, but you can have pneumovax 2 every 3-5 years.)

 

My mother had a total of ⅔ of a lung (the other 1⅓ was removed when I was a child - she had TB.) If she got any form of chest infection (And she did, frequently) it was a major problem.

 

She had a pneumovax and a couple of months later, the doctor came to see her and diagnosed pneumonia. She went to hospital and the next morning there was no pneumonia.

 

The Doctor told her: "I did not get the diagnosis wrong. When I sent you to the hospital, you had pneumonia. 12 hours later, you did not have pneumonia."

 

The vaccine certainly worked for her.

[MAC33]

The ingredients are the smoking gun.

 

 

[Rupert_Baehr]

Was there really an epidemic or just loads of people claiming they had it to get two weeks off work ?

 

There were rather a lot of people (initially in Mexico, but then elsewhere) who got rather longer than 2 weeks off work.

 

I've no doubt that there were people who used a cold as an excuse to take a couple of weeks off work, but (certainly during the first few months) in many cases, the virus was typed and the WHO monitored the disease.

 

The outbreak was classified (by the WHO) as a Pandemic (trumps a mere epidemic) in June 2009. In Aug 2009, they said that the disease was in 'Post-pandemic' stage, but noted that ' localized outbreaks of various magnitudes are likely to continue' and that ' the H1N1 (2009) virus can be expected to remain for many years and that individual influenza seasons themselves can be highly variable. In some years, the impact can be mild while in other years it can be quite severe.' - Which is, presumably, why both this year's flu shot and last year's version contained an H1N1 type which is very similar to the type which caused the 2009 Pandemic. If the 2009 virus is still hanging around (and according to the WHO it probably is) then although it may well have mutated, the version in the 2010/11 and 2011/12 flu shots (or the version you got if you caught swine flu) may give some protection.

 

The British government was very quick off the mark in placing vaccine orders and the UK received stocks rather earlier than did many other countries.

 

We tend to forget quickly, but the 2009 pandemic killed 70 children in the UK (1 in 5 of whom had no pre-existing illness) and the pandemic caused 15921 deaths worldwide.

 

The WHO (and a number of countries which had been typing individual flu cases) stopped doing so, but in November 2009, all of the cases of flu which had been reported in Germany were believed to be H1N1 and none had been identified as being the predicted seasonal flu. - The seasonal variant (if it did show at all) was late in arriving.

[MAC33]

Finland has suspended the swine-flu shot, linked to causing 79 cases of narcolepsy.

 

 

http://prisonplanet.dk/content/finland-suspends-swine-flu-shots-after-vaccine-linked-neurological-disorder