Anti-h1n1 vaccine fear-mongering runs amok in Canada

[Malthus]

First I've heard of it.

Anti-vaccine hysteria in CAnada is everywhere:

That's not really the same thing at all. What they are saying is that there is some unpublished epidimiological study that shows that having the seasonal vaccine increases the risk of swine flu.

To my mind it would seem very tenuous stuff given the lack of any biological mechanism to account for it (I'm thinking it is likely an artifact of the fact that people who get seasonally vaccinated are more likely to be in the 'at risk' group for swine flu, improperly taken into account in the statistics, but given that the study isn't published it is impossible to say).

I think it is bad science and bad public policy to base any descision on such stuff, but it is light-years away from claiming vaccines are some government plot. 

[Bluebook]

Gee, let me choose: get vaccinated and not worry about the flu pandemic, or get the flu on purpose to get immunized, but perhaps lose my lungs or my life in the process. This isn't some virtual game theory, dude: people get sick and potentially die in this.

As for the mass vaccination diminishing the immune system defence, yeah I guess mass vaccination against polio and smallpox decreased our collective immune defences as well. I guess smallpox would have disappeared better with vitamins and homeopathy?

I won't argue further than that. It's beyond the level of bullshit.

Not to diminish the quality of your arguments here, but it seems you have some very fundamental missunderstanding as to your level of protection after getting the vaccine. Now, I believe there are four different vaccines out there, and the one Sweden buys will give a 70-90 percent protection after two vaccinations. That means it is still a 10-30 percent risk of getting the flu despite getting the flu shots. You seem to be the kind of person who worrys alot, so my bet is that you will still be worrying despite the flu shot. The risk you run of getting a serious complication is calculated as something like this. Unless you are in a risk-group, you have 0,5 percent risk of getting ill enough to require medical treatment. Of those people getting ill enough to require medical treatment, 0,5 percent risk being ill enough to require artificial lung treatment (EMCO I believe its called). The people getting EMCO treatment have all survived so far. The two fatalities we have had in Sweden so far were both in the risk-group and they did not recieve EMCO treatment.

This is a numbers game. You can take the 0,5% x 0,5% x (unknown risk percentage for fatality) risk that everyone runs with this flu, or you can better your odds by adding the 70-90% protection of the flu vaccin or not. I suppose it all comes down to how paranoid you are. You should be aware though that the vaccin has not been tested to the same level as other types of vaccines. In Sweden for example, only short-term testing has been done on 168 adults.  They were given two shots and were required to report any side effects for the next seven days.

Vaccination significantly decreases the change of catching it in the first place. While not 100%, it is stil very high (preliminary results show around 98% for adults under 65, and 93% 65 and older, all of them with one dose). It is still better than zero, where every single people who has not already infected by h1n1 are right now.

I suppose Canada has one of the other vaccines then, the one we get has only a 70-90% protection. And, while it is better than zero, you still have to take into consideration the small risk of serious complication and the currently unknown risk for side-effects from the vaccine, you also have to take into consideration the benefit for the individual to actually get the flu and recover.

Bullshit, rushed to testing. Have you even read this thread? It has already been tested because it is the same flu vaccine as the seasoned flu vaccine. Current testings confirm that, as predicted, it is efficient in getting enough immune reaction. The only issue is whether we use adjuvant or not. Indeed, economic reasons enter into as well, but the main reason is that we don't want to have thousands of dead people  in our morgues, and even more sick people clogging our ICU in health care facilities. Because, you know, it is a health care issue?

Again, I dont know what version of the vaccine you get in Canada, but if it is the Glaxo Smith Klein-version, it was rushed through testing. And I suspect that goes for your vaccine aswell, unless your version went through long-time testing thanks to some rip in the space/time-continuum.

The only thing that stinks in this mess is how people are ready to cherry-pick factoids and spin it around to convince people to put their lives in danger for a silly belief proven to be falsehood.

On the contrary, it seems you are basing your opinion on a missunderstanding of the facts.

Pandemic as it spreads quickly throughout the world in a small time frame? Hell yeah. Nowhere the definition of a pandemic includes lethality, only the exponential world spreading of disease.

...And incidentally, that is why the WHO is discussing whether to change the definion of pandemic in the future. To avoid declaring pandemic every time a new flu emerges.

It is, perhaps, interesting to note that the lethality of this influenza is much smaller than the regular seasonal flu. The odd thing with this one is the age group of those that die or have a serious complication. The reason for this is believed to be that a variant of this strain was active in the early 1950:s, and therefore the oldest part of the population has a certain level of protection.  Ironically, those individuals would not have that protection had they gotten a vaccination in the 50s.

[Bluebook]

That's not true at all - you can get the flu year after year, because it isn't the same flu. What use is it to be "forever" immune to a single seasonal strain, if there is a new one every year? 

It actually is true though. If you take the flu shot, you are protected for a year. If you get the flu, you are protected for life. And while you are fully protected only against the one strain, apparently your immune system will be more efficient at fighting similar strains aswell. Ive had this explained to me by some biomedic-researcher at work, and I might be remembering some of the details wrong as I was only listening with half an ear, but apparently there is a difference. If this means much to you and you seriously doubt what Im saying then I can probably email her for more information.

It is true than not getting diseases diminishes the population's overall immunity, but that is rather a poor reason for willingly getting diseases.

But the benefit is there to the individual aswell.

[Fate]

Am I imagining things or do anti-immunization nuts tend to be Republican/conservitards? I suppose it makes sense since they are among the most selfish and backwards of a given population.

psst: the vaccine was produced by the GUV'AMMINT 

[Malthus]

It actually is true though. If you take the flu shot, you are protected for a year. If you get the flu, you are protected for life. And while you are fully protected only against the one strain, apparently your immune system will be more efficient at fighting similar strains aswell. Ive had this explained to me by some biomedic-researcher at work, and I might be remembering some of the details wrong as I was only listening with half an ear, but apparently there is a difference. If this means much to you and you seriously doubt what Im saying then I can probably email her for more information.

It is true than not getting diseases diminishes the population's overall immunity, but that is rather a poor reason for willingly getting diseases.

But the benefit is there to the individual aswell.

Again, this is a tiny benefit set against the fact that the flu continually mutates. If what you said was true, the flu would not be much of a problem without intervention - but it is. People can, and do, get it over and over again, in spite of the "immunity" conferred by having the disease previously.

Taking the vaccine every year provides a much better basis of protection. The adverse events are rare and mostly minor - the main one being fainting from the needle. Weighed against the adverse effects of getting the flu, it is a no-brainer of a decision. 

Plus, the added benefit is - less transmission of the disease. That means less chance of the truly at-risk population getting it. If the vaccine is (say) 80% effective, at a certain point of enough people are vaccinated - even strapping healthy people who won't suffer much from the disease - its transmission will be interrupted.

[ulmont]

It actually is true though. If you take the flu shot, you are protected for a year. If you get the flu, you are protected for life.

No, God no, you are not.  I've had the flu several times.  While the immunity may be lifelong against whatever strain you got, there will be a new variant next year.

[Bluebook]

It actually is true though. If you take the flu shot, you are protected for a year. If you get the flu, you are protected for life.

No, God no, you are not.  I've had the flu several times.  While the immunity may be lifelong against whatever strain you got, there will be a new variant next year.

Note the words "new variant" in your post.

[ulmont]

It actually is true though. If you take the flu shot, you are protected for a year. If you get the flu, you are protected for life.

No, God no, you are not.  I've had the flu several times.  While the immunity may be lifelong against whatever strain you got, there will be a new variant next year.

Note the words "new variant" in your post.

Yes, I put them there.  Chances of having an old variant come back next year:  low.  Chances of having a new vaccine against a new variant next year:  high.

[grumbler]

It actually is true though. If you take the flu shot, you are protected for a year. If you get the flu, you are protected for life.

No, God no, you are not.  I've had the flu several times.  While the immunity may be lifelong against whatever strain you got, there will be a new variant next year.

You are protected pretty much identically by getting the flu or getting the shot.  The reason why the shot is "only good for a year" is because the next year's flu strain is different, not because your immunity wears off in a year.

[Malthus]

I honestly have trouble with reasoning why anyone would not want a flu vaccine. It is true that, for adults, the disease isn't life-threatening; but it is damned miserable. Set against that, the adverse events of the vaccine itself are a nothing of a nothing.

I could understand it if it was horribly expensive, but many places give it out free to the end user - we get it free at work.

[Fate]

I honestly have trouble with reasoning why anyone would not want a flu vaccine.

It causes autism and the government shouldn't tell me what to do. 

[Berkut]

I honestly have trouble with reasoning why anyone would not want a flu vaccine. It is true that, for adults, the disease isn't life-threatening; but it is damned miserable. Set against that, the adverse events of the vaccine itself are a nothing of a nothing.

I could understand it if it was horribly expensive, but many places give it out free to the end user - we get it free at work.

I think people just *like* to be contrarian and play the "Rebel without a clue" thing. It is all emotional.

[BuddhaRhubarb]

I honestly have trouble with reasoning why anyone would not want a flu vaccine. It is true that, for adults, the disease isn't life-threatening; but it is damned miserable. Set against that, the adverse events of the vaccine itself are a nothing of a nothing.

I could understand it if it was horribly expensive, but many places give it out free to the end user - we get it free at work.

I think people just *like* to be contrarian and play the "Rebel without a clue" thing. It is all emotional.

Damned Straight!




do people still use that phrase to mean "you are so right"? after I posted it I thought this could be taken wrong.

[ulmont]

I honestly have trouble with reasoning why anyone would not want a flu vaccine. It is true that, for adults, the disease isn't life-threatening; but it is damned miserable. Set against that, the adverse events of the vaccine itself are a nothing of a nothing.

I could understand it if it was horribly expensive, but many places give it out free to the end user - we get it free at work.

[citizen k]

Am I imagining things or do anti-immunization nuts tend to be Republican/conservitards? I suppose it makes sense since they are among the most selfish and backwards of a given population.

psst: the vaccine was produced by the GUV'AMMINT 

We're talking about Canada here.