I've never fully understood the point of the flu shot.
It's an estimated guess that they got the right strain. It's a pretty good guess, but still pretty much a guess.
So you get a jab, and you hope it works. Or maybe it won't.
Kinda like reality... maybe you'll get the flu anyway, or maybe not.
If you aren't exposed to a lot of children or adults, and spend a lot of time away from people, though, it doesn't make much sense to get a flu shot, does it?
You're at greater risk that you'll be injected with something against which your body reacts poorly, versus risking catching the flu from some asshat in a grocery store who didn't cover their mouth.
But then, we have fewer considerate people these days, and populations only grow, so, I dunno, maybe that risk is worse than I originally thought.
I just fucking hate needles, though.
2018-09-11 08:42 from Ragnar Danneskjold
Everyone I know who gets a flu shot feels sick for days after. Maybe
not quite the flu, but flu like symptoms.
Not me. When I get it, I have no response. None.
I haven't had a flu shot since 2005. My office offered free shots every year, but I decided I was better off not getting them. I've heard too many stories of the shots making people ill. I've also heard arguments that getting the flu every so often when your immune system is still healthy might actually be good for you.
I'll start getting the shots again when I'm 65 or 70.
You'll have several dogs and a pickup truck by then. It will be okay.
Whether you get shots each year or not, I think we all agree that flu vaccinations are less than they should be.
I just found a fascinating article that claims egg yolks provide SUBSTANTIAL protection from the flu. Maybe it's quackery, as a lot of these things are (and maybe vaccinations mostly are too) but it doesn't come across that way to me. In any event, if there's ever a serious flu epidemic, consider boosting your egg intake. It won't hurt and it might make a difference.
September 24, 2018
As Flu Scare Tactics Unfold, Skip The Vaccine, Eat Eggs
By Bill Sardi
LewRockwell.com
As the Earth begins to tilt away from the sun in winter, North America prepares for the seasonal spread of influenza. The annual flu scare promulgated by public health agencies is now underway. The public is told: “Next flu pandemic could be ‘DEADLIER than Spanish flu’ – wiping out 400 million across the globe,” say news reports.
Given recent evidence that news agencies spread fake news for political purposes, one would think by now the public would have caught onto this scare tactic as the Centers For Disease Control serves as a shill for vaccine manufacturers.
The news reports admit influenza viruses are unstable and rapidly mutate. But they never say they rapidly mutate into less deadly strains mid-flu season. Got to sell millions of doses of flu vaccine or they go unused.
Even worse, the public may be coerced to inoculate against the flu even though public health agencies know beforehand the vaccine will be ineffective.
Flu vaccines are produced in chicken eggs that are injected with flu strains predicted to circulate in the population in the next flu season. But this slow process of producing antibodies to a group of flu viruses in eggs is subject to mutation over the months the vaccine is being produced in the eggs, so the vaccine may not actually target the flu strains predicted to be in circulation. That means health authorities know in advance whether the vaccine will be effective or not but still market it under the guise it will provide what is called herd immunity. But for that to occur, 70% of the population needs to undergo vaccination. Only about 45% of the population actually chooses to get a flu shot.
Should such a calamity occur (a worldwide flu pandemic), a noted flu expert says “modern medicine would not be able to protect us in the face of a new pandemic.” The public is told “starvation, medicine supplies running low, energy systems crippling under the pressure and the collapse of the global economy if a flu pandemic was to hit again.” That deadly threat would come only every 40 years or so when a large mutation in the flu virus would predictably occur.
Flu vaccine antagonist Peter Doshi of Johns Hopkins University says:
Twenty years ago, in 1990, 32 million doses of influenza vaccine were available in the United States. Today around 135 million doses of influenza vaccine annually enter the US market, with vaccinations administered in drug stores, supermarkets—even some drive-throughs. This enormous growth has not been fueled by popular demand but instead by a public health campaign that delivers a straightforward, who-in-their-right-mind-could-possibly-disagree message: influenza is a serious disease, we are all at risk of complications from influenza, the flu shot is virtually risk free, and vaccination saves lives. Through this lens, the lack of influenza vaccine availability for all 315 million US citizens seems to border on the unethical… the threat of influenza appears overstated.”
Eggs: better than flu vaccines?
The quest for an alternative to vaccines may be at hand.
It was 1960. Dr. Alvin F. Coburn published a landmark report in British medical journal The Lancet. He had found cases of childhood rheumatic fever dramatically declined among children who ate eggs. Dr. Coburn had actually opened a clinic to treat rheumatic fever that had to be unexplainably shut down in 1955, which he associated with higher egg consumption among families under his observation. He also observed that children who developed rheumatic fever may have better diets rich in animal protein, milk, vitamins A and C, but did not eat more eggs. Another published survey reported children with rheumatic fever disliked eggs. The incidence of rheumatic fever was 2.8% among who ate the least eggs and only 0.6% among kids who ate the most eggs, almost a 500% difference.
So Dr. Coburn put eggs to the test. Here were the results:
Group A: normal diet, many nutritional deficiencies; recurrence in 11 of 29 children.Group B: Children with reinforced diet with two eggs, milk, meat, butter, fish-liver oil (vitamin A); 3 of 35 had a recurrence.
Group C: Normal diet reinforced with powdered egg yolk only: 1 of 25 had a recurrence.
Dr. Coburn then launched a two-year study with half of the children given four egg yolks a day. Among 28 children who developed a sore throat who received no medication and no eggs, 10 experienced recurrence of symptoms. Among 28 children who ate egg yolk powder equivalent to 4 eggs a day, only 1 showed fresh rheumatic fever.
Egg immunoglobulins
Eggs contain ~100-150 milligrams of immunoglobulins. These are proteins in blood serum that are also known as antibodies that bind to antigens such as bacteria and viruses, resulting in their destruction. Whereas modern medicine has developed monoclonal antibody drugs that target a single cell receptor site, egg immunoglobulins are polyclonal antibodies http://www.allsciencejournal.com/archives/2016/vol1/issue1/1-1-20.1 , they have many targets and can protect against a broad variety of bacteria and viruses.
Egg yolk antibodies are being considered as an alternative to antibiotic drugs that induce germ resistance. Whereas multiple monoclonal antibodies may be required to deal with mutating flu viruses, polyclonal antibodies from eggs provide protection against the broad spectrum of influenza viruses. This would certainly overcome the problem of vaccines that don’t address rapidly mutated viruses. Store bought eggs have been reported to produce full recovery from the flu. The ramifications of this are obvious in the event of a flu pandemic. Eggs are available worldwide and are cheap.
About 40 grams (40,000 milligrams) of egg immunoglobulins (identified as IgY – immunoglobin y) is produced in a year’s production of eggs from a single chicken. These immunoglobulins also afford widespread protection from entero (intestinal) viruses such as polio and coxsackievirus as well as rotavirus that causes diarrhea in children and bacteria such as Salmonella, E. coli, Staphylococcus, tuberculosis, Clostridium difficile and H. pylori.
A super-egg can also be produced by injection of specific bacteria or viruses so that chicken eggs specifically address gastrointestinal infections. These super-eggs would serve as alternatives to antibiotics and even problematic vaccines. Egg immunoglobulins are already being used among farm animals in order to avoid use of problematic vaccines that induce germ resistance. Animals that eat from the ground frequently consume soil organisms that induce diarrhea. Egg antibodies can bind to these pathogens and nullify their adverse effect.
Egg yolk powder may become modern man’s preferred immune booster.
Dr. Coburn reported that eggs contain a sub-fraction called palmitoylethanolamide (PEA) that has potent anti-inflammatory activity. PEA is available today as a medical food and dietary supplement. It is extolled for its pain relieving, anti-inflammatory properties and has application for a variety of maladies including mental depression, autism, even the common cold. Overcoming the entrenched vaccine industry could only be accomplished by public demand and usage of egg yolk powder and/or PEA in preference over vaccines.
Readers can assess the terrible consequences of the mistaken cholesterol phobia that has been the ruling paradigm in modern medicine for the past four decades. With cholesterol phobia came a reduction in egg consumption and the obvious onset of new diseases (Crohn’s, autism, Clostridium difficile deaths, to name a few). Egg yolk powder is widely available for bulk purchase. PEA hasn’t hit store shelves yet but is sold as a dietary supplement online.
Should a predicted pandemic ensue, vaccines would predictably be in short supply, taking months to produce, while eggs would be readily available to save the planet from an otherwise historic calamity.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2018/09/bill-sardi/as-flu-scare-tactics-unfold-skip-the-vaccine-eat-eggs/
Mon Sep 24 2018 03:26:15 PM EDT from IGnatius T FoobarI'd be ok with a flu epidemic wiping out 400 million people, as long as I could hand-select *which* 400 million. I want to play God. And then God keeps telling me "I've already got this, kthxbye".
I'm OK, with you assisting your deity in this. It's probably better if you do it, as I don't really care which 400 million, and we might accidentally lose someone we needed.
Friday, had a bit of a sore throat. Pity it wasn't a soar through, that'd be more fun.
Saturday, wracked with aching and splitting headpain to give me a hint why I couldn't reliably and strongly hit a high E the previous Saturday.
Sunday, slightly better, but still sucked.
Monday, better still, but not great.
Tuesday, better still, worked from home rather than come to the office.
Today, even better still, came to the office, wonder if I'm spreading this to everyone, but kinda forced to come because they want me to move my stuff out of my cubicle so they can replace the carpeting in a few weeks.
It's frustrating this thing won't just suddenly go away and allow me to feel that 100% 'Oh, so *this* is what good health is like' feeling you normally get when your body totally kicks some flu's ass. Instead, it's more like a wimpy kind of incremental update on the latest status effect as it chips away at the symptoms, making me wonder if I'll even notice I feel good again in a kind of reverse-boiling-frog effect.
The CDC says 80,000 Americans died of flu and flu-related complications last year.
I donno about you, but I kind of want to live.
And let's not forget that the Lancet is where Andrew Wakefield, Mass Murderer published his kid-killing paper.
Really? Where did you get that statistic? Did you get it from here:
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/season/flu-season-2017-2018.htm
(I tried looking that up for 2016-2017, but I couldn't find a number there... just as I couldn't really find a specific one for 2017-2018, just sort of a range, the highest of which is from 2012-2013 at 56,000 deaths).
Apparently, that particular season was especially awful, with 16 consecutive weeks of flu.. epidemic-level flu. So, yeah, it was pretty bad, but I can't find the statistic you quoted on CDC's web site.
I wanted to understand if the folks who died were generally older or something, and I was curious to know if any of them had been immunized, but the immunization didn't perhaps work because they got the wrong virus (these shots are best guesses at immunization).
I take a very dim view of alarmism in general. We get too much of that here in the states, so I push back now.
This said, I'm definitely not telling anyone whether or not to get the flu shot. That's really a personal choice. But I'm not going to let anyone scare me into taking it. I would prefer to be more calculating in my choices.
I have the ultimate vaccine - living in a rural location. After my son graduated from high school, my wife and I stopped getting sick. No colds, flus or poxes. Nothing for a year and a half. During that time, we retired and moved to forested country. Earlier this month, we drove to his college and spent ten days there. Wham! We're both laid up with nasty colds.
There's something to be said for living as a hermit.
Living in the sticks sounds like fun, but I like to have company.
My best wishes for a speedy recovery to Ruth Buzzi Ginsburg. Sources say that the Justice was despondent at the outcome of Tuesday's mid-term election and may have attempted suicide by flinging herself upon a stack of plush pillows. If you've ever seen what happens when a Triscuit cracker makes contact with a swiftly moving locomotive, you know how that went.