Sadly, it's Cursitor Doom and Jim Thomspon who are incorrigible. Post a correction to their erroneous propositions, and they kill-file the correction, rather than correcting their opinion.
-- Bill Sloman, Sydney
Not the majority opinion.
-- Bill Sloman, Sydney
Explaining this to tabb would be difficult, and would involve a certain amount of discussion of tabb's cognitive deficiencies, which he might object to as ad simian.
-- Bill Sloman, sydney
Jim does enjoy his seductive delusions.
-- Bill Sloman, Sydney
I know these :P I just don't know why I ever decided to respond to it.
NT
I went over to my neighbors to drop off a box of oranges. I sat down at the kitchen table, and he said, let me back up a little, I've been sick. Ok, bye, I'll talk to you in a few days. I can't remember the last time I've had a cold and I want to keep it that way. Mikek
What are the symptoms of this recent flu? Is is stomach, respiratory, or what? I heard the flu shot is not working. (Does it ever?)
My father always got an annual flu shot. My father always got the flu... every year.
I don't think I've ever gotten a flu shot. I last had the flu in
1964... sick as a dog... multiple days of barfing... but nothing since... knock on wood.I suspect that the best way to avoid the flu is to endure it in your youth and gain natural immunity. ...Jim Thompson
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| James E.Thompson | mens |
| Analog Innovations | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| STV, Queen Creek, AZ 85142 Skype: skypeanalog | |
| Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
It's what you learn, after you know it all, that counts.
Sure. It protected you against the strains you didn't get. :-)/2
Seriously, the flu shot may be what stamped out the strains they though might go around, that didn't.
Influenza doesn't work that way; the viruses are continually mutating to evade our defenses.
The problem is that they mutate and spread very fast - faster than the vaccines can be /manufactured/ and /distributed/. Hence the vaccine is /last/ year's best guess as to what will be prevalent /this/ year. Usually the educated guesses are correct, but not always.
I can't remember having the flu. My 96yo mother has had the vaccine for the last couple of decades. I've had it for a the last few years, so as to reduce the chance of her catching it from me when I see her. Some years the vaccine causes me to feel as if a cold might be coming on - but only for
Were you married and living with young kids at the time? (walking petri dishes.)
That's when I remember being miserably sick last.
George H.
Yep. Two children, 2 and new-born, new house, got sick while hustling furniture from rental to new house.
Miserably!!
I was 24 at the time. ...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson | mens |
| Analog Innovations | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| STV, Queen Creek, AZ 85142 Skype: skypeanalog | |
| Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
It's what you learn, after you know it all, that counts.
One virus invades a cell and starts making copies, 100K to a million copies before the cell bursts. Maybe 1000 of those copies are viable, which is plenty to make you get sick fast. But the rest are so mutated that they aren't even infectuous.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc lunatic fringe electronics
Nonsense. That's just the common misunderstanding about how vaccines and the immune system work.
With 'flu', I think it is more helpful to think of it as a family of viruses rather than one virus. There are a couple of key proteins on its shells, but each of these comes in several varieties - and since these are independent, the total number of combinations is quite large. Mutations are more relevant for what's inside the shell - the bit that makes you ill. That's the bit that controls how infectious the particular 'flu' variant is, and how serious the illness is.
It is not /that/ bad.
Each year's vaccine (for us in the Northern and Western parts of the world) is based on common cases in the Southern and Eastern parts half a year earlier, where most yearly flu starts (usually moving from birds, where flus are endemic, over to people).
Sometimes there are complications. This year it seems a couple of different strains have become active via different routes. So this year's vaccine is fine (the usual 90-95% effectiveness) against one strain, but not against the other couple of types that are more common.
There are many good reasons for taking the vaccine:
I think flu vaccines should be done by mobile vaccination teams that go around vaccinating everyone they can get hold of. They should go to schools, businesses, shopping centres, old folks homes - the aim being that as high a percentage of people should bump into one of the teams sooner or later, rather than people having to actively go to a health centre for the vaccine. And it should be publicly financed (state, federal, local, whatever) - it would easily pay for itself in avoiding sick leave, lost productivity, etc.
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Actually there may be some science behind that even though Thompson has no clue what it is.
The real problem is the vaccine induces an antibody process that is manmade and therefore not very effective, requiring re-vaccination each and every season. Researchers now have the means to do a more complete characterizati on of the viral proteins and think they have found several that are conserv ed across viral mutation. This holds out promise for a once in a lifetime i nfluenza vaccine. Which probably gets us back to Thompson's conjecture abou t natural immunity. His immune system obviously found an antibody that is c onserved.
Not in the U.S. where they're estimating 10% effectiveness, just nigh of no vaccine at all IOW. All they have to say about is vaccination will mitigat e the effects of the flue when you contract it.
They are manmade, but that has no influence on their effectiveness.
They do require re-vaccination every season, but not because they have become ineffective.
Roughly (and usefully) speaking, the problem is expressed by denoting the "type" of the flu virus as HxNy. A vaccine is effective for specific x and y. Unfortunately x any y vary each year. Currently the dominant strain in the UK is H3N2, called "aussie flu" by the tabloids.
A pleasant conjecture. Let's hope there turns out to be some useful mileage in it - in the not too distant future.
What proportion of the at-risk population is vaccinated in the US?
Over here there are many "advertising" campaigns including letters from your GP, and the vaccination is free. All I had to do was walk 200 yards and wait for my 2 minute slot.
They're always ineffective. Even in a good year they're lucky to get 60% effectiveness.
Of course they're ineffective because the past immunization is too strain specific.
It's not a conjecture.
It's free in U.S. too, if you have insurance.
Ah. So that's "free after paying a very large upfront fee".
That's a meaning of "free" that I am not familiar with.
You're paying too, in the form of tax, so not exactly free there either.
Last time I looked, I was only paying 25%-33% of what I would pay in the US. That's a big difference.
Plus there is no lifetime limit on the cost of care, nor any "excess amounts" :)
Plus there is 100% coverage; ISTR in the US 40m can't even afford insurance.
But (currently) I don't even pay any income tax :)
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