Flu shot zealots.

So you trust the government and the drug companies to be fair and honest and to put your interests ahead of their profit and wealth?
I do. Why wouldn't I? It's well-known that people's well-being is their primary concern. I don't know what your issue is. Next you'll be claiming that mainstream media isn't committed to being neutral and as objective as possible
 
U.S citizens cannot by law sue pharmaceutical companies for damages from vaccines. Nope, congress gave complete immunity in the 80's. There is a special "vaccine court" a compensation program funded through a tax on vaccines. Alarm bells anyone? You have to hire an attorney to fight tax funded government attorneys. As you can see from the last years report some of the cases have take years. Now consider this is but a tiny fraction of what you hear and know. They fork out mountains of compensation every year, out of court and out of the medias eye. Why?

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I never get the flu shot because it's not necessary for me. The flu is never more than a minor inconvenience for me so what's the point?

The point is to increase herd immunity and by doing that reduce the number of people who get the flu. If you do that, you reduce the deaths due to flu.

By the way, a minor inconvenience? Influenza makes you fucking miserable for a week. I've heard as a joke that in the first couple of days, you feel so bad that you're concerned that you might die. But a couple of days later, your're concerned that you might not die. That's how miserable.

But the bigger point is to protect those that you could pass it on to. For example, my mother is 86, and she gets a flu shot each year, but in the elderly with weakened immune systems, the shot is not as effective in protecting her. So I and the other people who she's around need to get their flu shots to protect her. She could easily die if she came down with the flu.

It's not perfect, but in general, the more people get the flu shot, the fewer people die from the flu. I consider it to be part of the social contract.
 
The point is to increase herd immunity and by doing that reduce the number of people who get the flu. If you do that, you reduce the deaths due to flu.

By the way, a minor inconvenience? Influenza makes you fucking miserable for a week. I've heard as a joke that in the first couple of days, you feel so bad that you're concerned that you might die. But a couple of days later, your're concerned that you might not die. That's how miserable.

But the bigger point is to protect those that you could pass it on to. For example, my mother is 86, and she gets a flu shot each year, but in the elderly with weakened immune systems, the shot is not as effective in protecting her. So I and the other people who she's around need to get their flu shots to protect her. She could easily die if she came down with the flu.

It's not perfect, but in general, the more people get the flu shot, the fewer people die from the flu. I consider it to be part of the social contract.

I don't have a job that requires me to come in contact with a lot of people, so it's all good. It's fairly easy for me to not spread my colds. If it were really that bad I always have dust masks and latex gloves in my vehicle.

And while it isn't any fun, for sure, but it's certainly not that bad for me.
 
in general, the more people get the flu shot, the fewer people die from the flu. I consider it to be part of the social contract.
Nonsense.

Here's one article of many. the facts are out there for those who want them.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/lawrence-solomon/death-by-influenza_b_4661442.html
Flu results in "about 250,000 to 500,000 yearly deaths" worldwide, Wikipedia tells us. "The typical estimate is 36,000 [deaths] a year in the United States," reports NBC, citing the Centers for Disease Control. "Somewhere between 4,000 and 8,000 Canadians a year die of influenza and its related complications, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada," the Globe and Mail says, adding that "Those numbers are controversial because they are estimates."

"Controversial" is an understatement, and not just in Canada, and not just because the numbers are estimates. The numbers differ wildly from the sober tallies recorded on death certificates -- by law every certificate must show a cause -- and reported by the official agencies that collect and keep vital statistics.

According to the National Vital Statistics System in the U.S., for example, annual flu deaths in 2010 amounted to just 500 per year -- fewer than deaths from ulcers (2,977), hernias (1,832) and pregnancy and childbirth (825), and a far cry from the big killers such as heart disease (597,689) and cancers (574,743). The story is similar in Canada, where unlikely killers likewise dwarf Statistics Canada's count of flu deaths.

Even that 500 figure for the U.S. could be too high, according to analyses in authoritative journals such as the American Journal of Public Health and the British Medical Journal. Only about 15-20 per cent of people who come down with flu-like symptoms have the influenza virus -- the other 80-85 per cent actually caught rhinovirus or other germs that are indistinguishable from the true flu without laboratory tests, which are rarely done. In 2001, a year in which death certificates listed 257 Americans as having died of flu, only 18 were positively identified as true flus. The other 239 were simply assumed to be flus and most likely had few true flus among them.
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Nonsense.

Here's one article of many. the facts are out there for those who want them.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/lawrence-solomon/death-by-influenza_b_4661442.html

Holy cow, what a piece of crap article. I hadn't heard of Lawrence Solomon before, but he's quite the crackpot - anti-vaccine, climate change denier, who knows what else. He's trying to count flu deaths just by looking at the cause of death listed on death certificates. But if a person dies after catching influenza, and he probably would not have died if he hadn't caught it, then that death should count as being influenza-caused. But it's rarely reported that way. If a person with cardiac disease gets the flu and dies, but probably would not have died without the flu, his death certificate would list cardiac disease.

People who estimate the actual numbers use statistical data, but they're solidly in agreement that it's tens of thousands per year just in the US. Any controversy is around the margins - is it 25% lower or 25% higher? But we know that the flu-associated deaths are in the ballpark of 40,000 in an average year in the US.
 
I don't normally get a flu shot because studies indicate that they are just not that effective.

Consider the most recent flu study from our friends at the Cochrane group. Here is part of the conclusion:

The preventive effect of parenteral inactivated influenza vaccine on healthy adults is small: at least 40 people would need vaccination to avoid one ILI case (95% confidence interval (CI) 26 to 128) and 71 people would need vaccination to prevent one case of influenza (95% CI 64 to 80). Vaccination shows no appreciable effect on working days lost or hospitalisation.

This small effect is actually an improvement from previous versions of the study, which explicitly stated "Universal immunization of healthy adults was not supported by the results of this review."

Tom Jefferson, one of the world's leading influenza experts, has previously stated his opposition to the "universal vaccination" campaign. Jefferson instead promotes physical measures, such as handwashing:

...why don't you randomize against masks, hand-washing, gloves, distancing — public health measures that have proven to be effective?

There is solid evidence that they work against all [flu viruses], not just specific strains. They are culturally acceptable and cheap, and they reduce transmission rates of other viruses too. A great American called Stephen Luby of the CDC has published a study from Karachi, Pakistan, that found that physical interventions are lifesavers. He should receive a Nobel Prize for his work, but I'm sure he never will.

He also notes that many of the existing studies are of poor methodological quality, and that there is a disconnect between what is promoted to fight the flu and what has been proven to actually work:

In a separate study we looked at the science that policymakers use, and it's disturbing how large the gap is between policy and evidence. We looked at the World Health Organization, CDC and U.K., Australian and German authorities — they have what it is called a "citation bias." They cite some studies that support vaccines, but other studies that find no effect are left out. Most importantly, there is no critical appraisal of the methods. It's disturbing. I think with influenza there's a feeling in governments that "we have to do something." Well, you can do something: you can better promote cheap public health measures such as hand-washing. They work.

People always ask me if I am against other vaccines. I am not. I have five children. They have all been vaccinated against the major diseases as part of the standard childhood-vaccination program. Those vaccines have strong evidence to back them up. I am not antivaccine. I am anti-poor evidence.

So I don't normally get the vaccine. It's not part of any political statement or ideological position, and I have no opposition to others who choose to get vaccinated. I just don't really feel it is that beneficial.
 
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Holy cow, what a piece of crap article. I hadn't heard of Lawrence Solomon before, but he's quite the crackpot - anti-vaccine, climate change denier, who knows what else. He's trying to count flu deaths just by looking at the cause of death listed on death certificates. But if a person dies after catching influenza, and he probably would not have died if he hadn't caught it, then that death should count as being influenza-caused. But it's rarely reported that way. If a person with cardiac disease gets the flu and dies, but probably would not have died without the flu, his death certificate would list cardiac disease.

People who estimate the actual numbers use statistical data, but they're solidly in agreement that it's tens of thousands per year just in the US. Any controversy is around the margins - is it 25% lower or 25% higher? But we know that the flu-associated deaths are in the ballpark of 40,000 in an average year in the US.

Oh brother. You must live a life of great certainty. You have everything figured out.
 
Oh brother. You must live a life of great certainty. You have everything figured out.
Seriously Craig, there are few forum members who express more certainty than you on the core Skeptiko themes (not that we would want you any other way ;))
 
Holy cow, what a piece of crap article. I hadn't heard of Lawrence Solomon before, but he's quite the crackpot - anti-vaccine, climate change denier, who knows what else. He's trying to count flu deaths just by looking at the cause of death listed on death certificates. But if a person dies after catching influenza, and he probably would not have died if he hadn't caught it, then that death should count as being influenza-caused. But it's rarely reported that way. If a person with cardiac disease gets the flu and dies, but probably would not have died without the flu, his death certificate would list cardiac disease.

People who estimate the actual numbers use statistical data, but they're solidly in agreement that it's tens of thousands per year just in the US. Any controversy is around the margins - is it 25% lower or 25% higher? But we know that the flu-associated deaths are in the ballpark of 40,000 in an average year in the US.

You sir - don't know any such thing. You believe, indeed passionately cling to - the standard spin. But you're right only a crackpot would count flu deaths by using what's on the death certificate. So now, much in keeping with the spin-doctoring of those whom you credit, it's about "flu-associated" deaths. Lol.

You will no doubt continue to believe the nonsense you do as it is what the "powers that be" are spouting and of course they are all about what's best for the public.

Anyway, here's another "piece of crap by a crackpot" article. There are hundreds of them.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/a.../03/hype-vs-evidence-of-influenza-deaths.aspx

Now, 37,000 influenza hospitalizations is five times less than the 200,000 hospitalization figure the CDC uses. That is because what CDC employees did to come up with their influenza hospitalization "estimate" was to count a lot of people hospitalized between 1979 and 2001 – not just with influenza but also with pneumonia, respiratory and circulatory illnesses – which they counted as probably associated with influenza.29, 30

And they got away with it.

Counting Influenza Deaths & A Whole Lot More
In 2003, CDC employees also used a convoluted statistical modeling scheme to "estimate" that 36,000 people die from influenza in the U.S. every year. Again, they counted not just influenza death cases but also threw in other respiratory, circulatory, cardiac and pulmonary deaths they thought might have been associated with influenza.31

And they got away with it.

In 2005, a young PhD candidate at MIT published an article in the British Medical Journal and asked the question: "Are U.S. Flu Death Figures More PR Than Science?"32 He analyzed the U.S. Vital Statistics Mortality Data, which has been carefully recorded for more than a century by the National Center for Health Statistics. I recently looked at that Vital Statistics data, too, and created a chart of influenza and pneumonia deaths recorded between 1940 and 2010.33

Recorded Influenza Deaths Dropping in 21st Century
Here is what I found: Since 1940, the highest number of influenza deaths recorded in a single year was 21,047 deaths in 1941. In fact, the mortality rate from influenza was NOT rising in the late 20th century – as the CDC employees have alleged – it was dropping.

There were only between 600 and 750 influenza deaths recorded annually between 1995 and 1997.34 The most influenza deaths recorded in a single year since 1979 was about 2,900 deaths and that was in 2009, the H1N1 swine flu pandemic year!

CDC Expanding the Flu Vaccine Market Between 2000-2010
But that didn't stop CDC policymakers, along with drug company and medical trade association lobbyists ever present at the policymaking table, from using inflated influenza hospitalization and mortality estimates to justify expanding the influenza vaccine market:

  • In 2000, CDC policymakers voted to expand flu shot recommendations to all healthy Americans over age 50.35 Out of a population of 300 million, there were 1,765 recorded influenza deaths that year.
  • In 2002, CDC voted to add all healthy babies from six to 23 months.36 There were 727 recorded influenza deaths that year.
  • In 2006, CDC voted to recommend flu shots for all healthy children up to five years old as well as all healthy pregnant women in any trimester.37 There were 849 recorded influenza deaths that year.
  • In 2007, CDC voted to add all healthy children up to eight years old.38 There were 411 recorded influenza deaths that year.
  • In 2008, CDC voted to recommend annual flu shots for all healthy children up to age 18 years.39 There were 1,722 recorded influenza deaths that year.
  • In 2009, the Secretaries of Health and Homeland Security declared a national emergency because they said pandemic H1N1 swine flu was sweeping the country and tens of thousands of people could die. Liability free drug companies were told to rush an experimental swine flu vaccine to the market.40
  • In 2010, a year when there were 494 recorded influenza deaths, the CDC officials finally reached the ultimate goal of their long game: they told doctors to give annual flu shots to every American, healthy or not, from the year of birth to the year of death.41
And they got away with it.
 
Seriously Craig, there are few forum members who express more certainty than you on the core Skeptiko themes (not that we would want you any other way ;))

If you paid any attention, you would know that I am also clear about what I don't know. And I sure as hell am not even the least bit clear on flu shots and the like. And, neither is Dakota Rider. I can almost always be certain that I know more than he does on a lot of the stuff we discuss. He's super opinionated, but scratch the surface and you can tell he doesn't know much.

While you are an annoying snark sniper, you're really not THAT bad.
 
I'm clear on this issue.

Oh and come on man - don't belittle the sarc/snark.:)

You're clearly informed on this as evidenced by the, y'know facts that you present. I confess to not caring a whole lot because as I mentioned earlier, the flu isn't really all that big a deal for me.
 
I thought this was an interesting article. Apologies for the Canadian slant again.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/flu-deaths-reality-check-1.1127442

"Influenza prevention has become an industry fuelled by poor science and propelled by conflicted decision makers," Jefferson said. "This is the significance of the upward creep that you have been witnessing and the chasm that now exists between policy makers and evidence.

"The proof of what I am saying is in the answer to the question: How many die every year? Answer: maybe 300 or maybe 9,000. We are not sure. If you do not know, how can you have such a costly policy and most of all how can you evaluate it?"

When I asked him if there are consequences from over-stating the mortality impact of flu, Jefferson answered: "Yes. Scaring people justifies evidence-free policies. Yes, no one knows exactly what the threat is. The only certainty are the returns for industry."



.
 
The issue of who to trust comes up, rightly. For me, it's hardly worth conversing with someone who hasn't read, for example, "Our Daily Meds" or even better, "The Cancer Industry," which I consider essential reading for anyone. Not to say those books represent the be-all-end-all to medicine, but there is so, so much there that is so damning it obliterates one's trust completely . . . faked and fudged trials and tests galore, smearing of anyone who questions or opposes big pharma or big medicine . . . big medicine/pharma is arguably worse than big oil, IMO.
 
For me, It boils down to this:

1. It is not selfish for you to live your life (not others) as you see fit.
2. It is selfish to say to others how they should live their life to satisfy your wants/wishes/fears/needs.

Why I don't vaccinate? My body and my life (incl. my risk).

My reading of the meta-reviews (btw, Cochrane database has 3 studies relevant to the matter, further the are weighted risk/benefit ratios to read as well) concludes that the benefits are minimal, risks are necessarily not as minimal. Then there's the cost (time/hassle/money).

Others want to vaccinate themselves, that's ok. Their life, their bodies.

As for the argument "you should do X, for the benefit of a avoiding a hypothetical/possible risk to a portion of the larger population" doesn't cut the statistical test (see the Cochrane studies). Further, it violates the rights to self-determination (which was, the last time I checked, not only part of declaration of human rights, but also of patient rights to decline treatment).

As for the issue of vaccinating kids, I won't touch that with a ten foot pole :-D

But yes, it is a very emotional issue. What I find curious is that why do others seem to have an idea that:

1) They know better in universal terms and in infallible way as if science is settled and will not change on this (not only for themselves, but for everybody else)
2) If other's don't agree, they are idiots
3) They have the right to impose their beliefs (yes, it's a belief) onto other by means of verbal abuse, legal wranglings, social blackmail and whatnot

This I find both peculiar and intriguing and claim not to understand where it arises from.

Does anybody have an idea?
 
You're clearly informed on this as evidenced by the, y'know facts that you present. I confess to not caring a whole lot because as I mentioned earlier, the flu isn't really all that big a deal for me.
lol. I've presented facts. Whether you choose to accept them or not is up to you. Oh and leave the snark to me, it clearly isn't your forte.
 
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