Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Is the flu vaccine for everyone?




I was going to follow up on how I want people not to look at pain as a warning sign of something to go bad but as a sign that there is already significant underlying injury generally by the time one is hurting. I will get back to that as over the last week I have been seeing and reading a lot about how ineffective the flu vaccines have been in recent history and the fact that not all people should take them and even those that do should not take them yearly for their own best interest. I know this may rub some of you the wrong way but the truth is that last year’s vaccine was over 62% INEFFECTIVE, and this year’s shot so far has been shown to be as much as 82% INEFFECTIVE. So in other words 82% of people who got the vaccine still got the flu and this doesn’t even take into account the side effects the of the vaccine itself. I do know that much fewer than 82% of the non-vaccinated individuals, in fact less than 20% and possibly as low as 8% have gotten the flu this season. My point is this AGAIN has been proven to be fairly ineffective and unless someone is truly in a life or death potential situation the vaccine may not be the best idea and you and your doctors need to make that decision not pharmaceutical companies with their millions in advertising and strong hold on the American people’s fears. Also a small video clip on some new research I found on weather.com is suggesting (as been stated for years by many) that taking the flu shot every year is probably a bad idea even if the vaccine were effective. The truth is medical research has generally proven the shot is intended for high risk individuals (not most people), is highly ineffective (again 62% on average and thought to be 82% this year), and not something people should take on an annual basis for their own best interest.