Do you get a flu shot?

[Ravioli]

I agree with you...

The other mantra was, "if you DO take a sick day, take two, because you don't need a doctors note until day three. Why waste a sick start?"

 

[Stuart Fraley]

As already said, don’t confuse a cold with the flu. You might never get a cold. That’s irrelevant. Also, don’t confuse diarrhea with flu. Don’t confuse a bellyache with flu.

If you didn’t think you were about to die, burning with fever and drowning in gurgling muck, you didn’t have the flu. If you didn’t spend a minimum of three days in bed, you didn’t have the flu.

As to whether the vaccine works.....sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. The mist probably works better, certainly works longer (if it works). I’m agnostic on the vaccine, but a true believer in the deadliness of the disease. I get the vaccine as a work requirement. I don’t know whether I would if I didn’t have to.

One more thing: you have never “got the flu from the vaccine.” Neither you nor anyone else. You might’ve gotten a sore arm. That’s not flu. You might have even gotten a low grade fever and a little achiness that made you take a Tylenol. That’s not flu; that’s an immune response to the viral capsule, which means you’re responding appropriately. It’s a good thing!

 

[Ravioli]

Oh, and there was a VP with whom I only agreed on one thing.

The United Way campaign (different rant) was getting started and someone recommended that for $X donated the employee could have an extra PTO day. He said, "We should NEVER do anything that implies that coming to work is to be avoided."

 

[Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe]

But I also blame the parents who effing send their kids to school knowingly sick b

Well, I work at a small university where the students make their own decisions. And they do come to my lab when they are sick. And, of course, dorms are a veritable breeding ground for disease. And, medicare covers the shot 100%, so, hell yes - I get it.

 

[Mooney Fan]

No how, no way....

 

[Salty]

I did this year for the first time in decades. I hardly ever get the flu, but My wife has serious medical issues and catches everything, so her doctor insisted I get the shot.

 

[jsstevens]

The Government tracking microchip battery lasts approximately one year.

Just sayin.

Clearly they should get with Elon and get better batteries.

 

[Mtns2Skies]

Well, I work at a small university where the students make their own decisions.

Whoa whoa whoa... As a recent undergrad from a large public university I will say that students do NOT get to make their own decision. Professors at large universities are completely unsympathetic to illness around exams, yeah yeah I know, some will take advantage of the situation and leniency. At my university it was next to impossible to get a make-up exam unless you were an athlete . I have taken exams with strep, colds, and probably the flu and have seen other engineering students do the same - no other option was realistically given.

 

[Juliet Hotel]

I'm one of those guys who believes in science and that vaccines work,

I am also a guy that believes in science. Which is why I don't bother to get one. The flu virus mutates too quickly. You can't make a vaccine for what the flu is. You can only make one for what you speculate it will mutate into in about 3 months time. That speculation is a guess at best or a dart thrown toward a wall that may or may not have a dart board on it at worst.

I'm married to a scientist. I'm all for vaccinations. But only vaccinations that are known to be effective. I'd prefer something a little better than 'Stan and I think its going to be formula 27 this year but Brian thinks its going to be formula 34, Stan and I think Brian is a whacko so here try 27 and let us know how it goes for you' before I put it in my body. If they ever end up with an effective universal flu vaccine, I'll line right up. But if its going to continue to be a dice roll, I'll continue to put my money on skipping the shot every year.

 

[PaulS]

Ain't Dat da truth..... my herd goes out of their way to bring crap home. But I also blame the parents who effing send their kids to school knowingly sick because they won't take a sick day and stay home with them. This is the real problem with sickness..... Adults are guilty too.... They go to work el sicko and get others sick... Friggin selfish ..... yea, some of you guys know what I'm talking about. If the shoe fits, right....

This...… last week at the grocery store, a lady, obviously sick, was sneezing into the open air, pretty much continuously. Some people are misery givers...… Another pet peeve is awards for perfect attendance, the winners are usually more misery givers, talk about a useless award.

 

[Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe]

Professors at large universities are completely unsympathetic to illness

Just one of the perks. I sure as heck ain't here for the pay.

 

[Ted]

I see and appreciate your point. I do not believe myself to be smarter than epidemiologist, doctors, and science in general, but I do not get flu shots. I count myself among the cynics who think the merits of the shot are overstated by the commercial and other interests of those who peddle it.

And for what it's worth, I have not been "gotta stay in bed" sick since the day the Challenger blew up (that event made the day memorable, considering I was a news reporter at the time) and at the age of 59 have taken absolutely no medications at any time for 40 years except the occasional Alleve when I overdo the yard work. My family history has everyone living to 105. So I think you can appreciate my attitude that if it ain't broke ...

Sums up my opinion well.

But I also blame the parents who effing send their kids to school knowingly sick because they won't take a sick day and stay home with them. This is the real problem with sickness..... Adults are guilty too.... They go to work el sicko and get others sick... Friggin selfish ..... yea, some of you guys know what I'm talking about. If the shoe fits, right....

My son's school tells us every week to keep kids home if they're sick. We have a good setup with our nanny (who's watching the girls anyway) so it's not a problem and neither of us have to take time off if he's sick. Early in the year he was having a string of colds and then the principal eMailed us saying he was missing too much school. We let it slide but if she does that again we're going to call her out on it.

Workplace sick policies can be a pain too. My last company had what I considered to be the best sick policy I'd ever seen. You had 4 weeks of sick time per year. However, the expectation was that you only took it for when you were sick. You had PTO/vacation for other time off. Most people followed that rule because they understood it was a really good policy. So except for the chronically ill, most of us were out one or two days a year. I've not seen another company do that.

 

[tawood]

... I really believe its pushed to make money, like other medications, but that's for a different thread. Just remember this, money controls everything.

Flu shot=$20
Hospital stay because you got the flu=$10,000
Seems like if the goal was to make money, the push would be to avoid the flu shot.

 

[Stingray Don]

We should NEVER do anything that implies that coming to work is to be avoided.

Yes, employees should be able to figure that out on their own

 

[RJM62]

Sums up my opinion well.



My son's school tells us every week to keep kids home if they're sick. We have a good setup with our nanny (who's watching the girls anyway) so it's not a problem and neither of us have to take time off if he's sick. Early in the year he was having a string of colds and then the principal eMailed us saying he was missing too much school. We let it slide but if she does that again we're going to call her out on it.

Workplace sick policies can be a pain too. My last company had what I considered to be the best sick policy I'd ever seen. You had 4 weeks of sick time per year. However, the expectation was that you only took it for when you were sick. You had PTO/vacation for other time off. Most people followed that rule because they understood it was a really good policy. So except for the chronically ill, most of us were out one or two days a year. I've not seen another company do that.

One company I worked for gave us 12 sick days and two personal days per year. Unused sick days rolled over but could only be used for extended illnesses or terminal leave. Unused personal days didn't roll over but could be used to extend a vacation or weekend during the slow season.

Most employees used all their sick days every year, which caused management to complain at one of their useless company meetings that sick day coverage cost the company 2 1/2 times the employee's wages for the day. (Someone else had to cover the work, usually at time and a half; plus they had to pay the "sick" employee.) So they told us they were cracking down and would require doctor notes for even a single sick day.

I suggested that a better option would be to pay the employees for unused sick days, at time and a half, every November. Time and a half is better than double-time and a half, after all. They looked at me like I was nuts.

Rich

 

[X3 Skier]

I feel like I pretty much get the flu every year. I was surprised to hear how many people said they have never had it.
I will say I got it last year and it is the first time I was like WTF is going on? I want to die! Maybe a bad strand or getting older. who knows.

This year it was something you sat on when you went to the FSDO.

Cheers

 

[Ken Ibold]

Workplace sick policies can be a pain too. My last company had what I considered to be the best sick policy I'd ever seen. You had 4 weeks of sick time per year. However, the expectation was that you only took it for when you were sick. You had PTO/vacation for other time off. Most people followed that rule because they understood it was a really good policy. So except for the chronically ill, most of us were out one or two days a year. I've not seen another company do that.

We do 2 weeks of "personal leave", which includes stuff you can't schedule for after hours or that pops up unexpectedly. Illness, jury duty, doctors visits, etc. If you use 5 or fewer hours in a year, the leftover hours are accumulated into a bank that is capped at 240 hours. Then, if you get REALLY sick, as in hospitalized, you can tap that 240 hours for full pay before you go into short term disability. Vacation is a separate set of hours. All in all, I think it's a great approach.

Yes, there are some people game the system to treat the personal leave as extra vacation time, but at the expense of their sick bank. Some are better at it than others.

 

[simtech]

Flu shot=$20
Hospital stay because you got the flu=$10,000
Seems like if the goal was to make money, the push would be to avoid the flu shot.

Nah...If all 350 million people in the US got the shot that's over $7 billion. They said in 2015 52k died so let's assume 200k of the population went to the hospital..Thats only $2 billion..

Plus hospital cost are inflated to make bank on top of the payouts they are getting for vaccines and other meds. don't even get me started on medical insurance. hahaha that's a whole 'nother topic.

Just look at the vaccine as another stream of income. Got to have multiple streams of income. it's all about money and not so much our health.

 

[bobmrg]

I mentioned going to get a flu shot at work today and the discussion that broke out went full tin foil hat, flat earth, chemtrail.

What say the peanut gallery?

Every year without fail. When the first clinic is announced we are there before the doors open.

 

[Wheels]

Until this year I haven’t gotten the flu shot since retiring from the Navy. This year the wife talked me into the shot because Publix was giving a $10 gift card to everyone who got the shot. Not sure if I needed the shot but I’ll take the free groceries.

 

[Rushie]

I am also a guy that believes in science. Which is why I don't bother to get one. The flu virus mutates too quickly. You can't make a vaccine for what the flu is. You can only make one for what you speculate it will mutate into in about 3 months time. That speculation is a guess at best or a dart thrown toward a wall that may or may not have a dart board on it at worst.

I'm married to a scientist. I'm all for vaccinations. But only vaccinations that are known to be effective. I'd prefer something a little better than 'Stan and I think its going to be formula 27 this year but Brian thinks its going to be formula 34, Stan and I think Brian is a whacko so here try 27 and let us know how it goes for you' before I put it in my body. If they ever end up with an effective universal flu vaccine, I'll line right up. But if its going to continue to be a dice roll, I'll continue to put my money on skipping the shot every year.

This is my position.

And, I'll not follow recommendations by parties lying to me. The total flu deaths reported are not laboratory confirmed influenza cases much less the few strains actually addressed by the vaccine. Stop lying to me, give me the real data and maybe I'll consider it.

 

[Zeldman]

So older folks might want to seriously reconsider if you are thinking about skipping the shot.

What age makes someone an older folk.??

 

[Rushie]

I got the flu shot every year while in the Air Force. Every year I got sick right after the shot. I know I know its not a live vaccine you didn't get sick from the flu shot. Regardless, every year I got sick after the flu shot. For the past 12 years I have never got the flu shot and I have never got the flu, heck I rarely get a cold for that matter anymore.....but now I screwed myself so there it is. Ive always heard once you get the flu you will get the shot from then on. haha

Not in my case. I got it bad last season, was sick for three whole weeks. I went to the doctor twice. She told me the shot would not have saved me because the strain I had, naturally, was not the one in the shot. She said she was treating cases all day long of people who had gotten the shot and in fact had gotten it herself and she got the flu. Whatever was going around our community that shot was useless against.

So no, I'm not going to get a useless shot. Make it so it works and stop lying and manipulating the data and I will reconsider.

 

[SkyDog58]

What age makes someone an older folk.??

I covered that in another thread.

 

[Ken Ibold]

What age makes someone an older folk.??

5 years older than whoever writes it.

 

[Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe]

What age makes someone an older folk.??

If you have to ask...

 

[Lachlan]

Fine I'll go there.. it is the easiest money making thing for drug companies. Raise a ton of hysteria and make a lot of profit all under the prophylactic of the greater common "feel good" thing..

It really is social engineering at its finest, you don't want to feel left out, and heck everyone else gets the flu shot at your work and it is free, so you might as well get it too.. you have millions of perfectly healthy people risking infections and other complications just to inject stuff in their body that, for an otherwise healthy person, might not even make you sick..

Brilliant. How do feel about polio and smallpox? I’m sure you’ve never injected horrible chemicals into your body via your pie hole, either.

 

[jsstevens]

 

[Half Fast]

In order to help prevent a large epidemic, those in charge of marketing the idea of flu vaccination (an extremely useful tool) rightly appealed to our naturally selfish nature:
"You need the flu shot" "Protect yourself from the flu".
I think they wanted to use the fact that most people have an innate self-preservation instinct, and they wanted to use that fact to achieve the goal of maximal vaccination, in order to prevent another pandemic (an honorable goal indeed).
(As much as we might proclaim otherwise, most of us really don't care a whole lot about a bunch of anonymous people, and certainly not about a population of say, a couple hundred million people -- so a more honest marketing tactic would never have worked.)

So it is true, the flu vaccine may indeed help YOU; but look up Herd Immunity. We do it as a group in order to maximize the immunity of the community as a whole to help prevent (or minimize) a huge problem - that pesky old "1918-1920, 75,000,000 dead people thingy".

In short, if people were told, "do it for others" that marketing scheme would've fallen flat on its face.

Unfortunately, these days, we have a growing pool of people who believe themselves to be smarter than epidemiologists, doctors, and science in general - or they are skeptical (which is perhaps a more refined state of 'thinking they are smarter') and refuse to become a part of it.
(In addition, I think there is also a huge lack of 'team' or unity in our country, and our world.)

Finally, I know many of us will gladly do incredible acts of charity for our fellow man. However, I don't think many of us can see that we can easily do one of the most charitable acts possible by being vaccinated; and preventing someone else's death.

It is truly an interesting study in human behavior.

Perhaps I misunderstand you.

But,....

It appears that the first half of your post tells us that the medical and scientific communities are comprised of a bunch of lying SOBs who haven't told us the truth about the reason for the shots, but instead have given us a false narrative designed to manipulate our behavior.

Then the second half of your post tells us that we should not be skeptical of these folks and that we must not arrogantly question the wise counsel of the same medical and scientific communities.

Now I admit to being rather dumb and easily confused, as I am just an engineer and not a physician, but I do find your two conflicting premises to be rather conflicting.

 

[Cooter]

It amuses me that some suggest we should “believe in science” as if it’s this monolithic being that has our best interest in mind. Science is comprised of people who err, and who are not immune to ideology. Even well intentioned mistakes can be costly if an undue amount of belief or trust is given.
Medical science recently almost cost me my health and my career, and would have if not for a healthy skepticism towards their judgement. I think the doctors acted in good faith, but they were very mistaken.

 

[jsstevens]

Perhaps I misunderstand you.

But,....

It appears that the first half of your post tells us that the medical and scientific communities are comprised of a bunch of lying SOBs who haven't told us the truth about the reason for the shots, but instead have given us a false narrative designed to manipulate our behavior.

Then the second half of your post tells us that we should not be skeptical of these folks and that we must not arrogantly question the wise counsel of the same medical and scientific communities.

Now I admit to being rather dumb and easily confused, as I am just an engineer and not a physician, but I do find your two conflicting premises to be rather conflicting.

I think he's saying we were manipulated for our own good. I suppose it's kind of a gray area, but I've always preferred being told the whole truth and encouraged to make the right choice. (But I, too, am an engineer...)

 

[dell30rb]

I mentioned going to get a flu shot at work today and the discussion that broke out went full tin foil hat, flat earth, chemtrail.

What say the peanut gallery?

I am forced by my corporate overlords to get a flu shot every year.

I used to skip the flu shot, no tin foil hat stuff, just didn't bother. Now that I travel (airlines) a lot, I think its best that I do continue to get one every year. I have not experienced any side effects and I don't find the shot painful.

 

[Lachlan]

Perhaps I misunderstand you, <snip> but I do find your two conflicting premises to be rather conflicting.

It’s gonna be hard to convince you of anything when you’re operating on closed logic.

 

[Half Fast]

I think he's saying we were manipulated for our own good. I suppose it's kind of a gray area, but I've always preferred being told the whole truth and encouraged to make the right choice. (But I, too, am an engineer...)

I don't think it should be a gray area for a scientist, though. If science doesn't hold an unswerving allegiance to truth, and full disclosure of conflicting and questionable data when truth is indeterminate, then it is a failure. When scientists start deceiving us "for our own good" they destroy the stature of science.

 

[Mooney Fan]

Anything pushed as hard as 'getting the flu shot' should be taken with a grain of salt. My Dr gets so excited when the vaccine becomes available and without fail will ask me if I want to get one then he mumbles, 'that's right, you don't take it'

 

[cowman]

I think you have to look at it from the public health perspective.

As a healthy individual you probably have something like a 99.9% chance of surviving the flu. However, that .1% out of a billion people is a lot of people dead from the flu, and that doesn't count the very young/elderly/compromised immune system folks who have worse odds. So from their perspective it makes a ton of sense that they should try to push this and get a lot of people vaccinated even if, from your perspective as a healthy individual it doesn't seem like a big deal.

 

[Tantalum]

polio and smallpox

Bit of a slippery slope there.. something that will kill or severely maim a healthy person should be inoculated against (yes I wear a seatbelt). But for what is basically a cold? My posts above pointed out the "healthy adult" aspect to this. If you work with the sick, elderly, or immune compromised, then yes, absolutely, go get the flu shot. But seeing millions of healthy people line up in order to go get a flu shot because "everyone else got it, it's free at work" just seems very sheep-like mentality to me.. sorry.

Plus, I see the flu as just a "life risk" type of thing.. I could die in a car crash (or plane crash), get cancer, be hit by a drunk driver, etc... I have no kids, work from home (tech) and my friends are all healthy adults. At this time in my life I elect not to stand with the masses at Walgreens getting flu shots. If I had a child at home, or had an elderly parent I saw often, worked with immune comprised, etc., that would change my mindset (I'm not an ass hole after all, but I do drive a Cirrus)


ALSO.. someone above posted about how the flu kills more people than car accidents, drug overdoses, etc.. that number varies, there are some years where the flu kills 12,000 people (per CDC).. but if we're going to look at the leading causes of death in the US, then to put this into perspective: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm and the graph below

..somehow people don't seem to get as into mass hysteria over heart disease and these other leading causes as they do about the flu shot (in fact, "millennial" people get ridiculed for eating healthy) . If you don't get a flu shot you are a social tin foil hat pariah.. but shove down a greasy cheeseburger every day for lunch and dinner and no one bats an eye.. or for that matter, suicide prevention receives remarkably little attention, yet that is one of the saddest (if not the saddest) leading cause of death. The reason why? Because the corporations want their money from the cheeseburgers, and then treating people for their heart disease.. etc. but there is very little money in mental health so outside of volunteer organizations posting crisis phone hot lines you don't get much attention about that

Someone said it above.. follow the money. Anyway. That's that for me.

 

[Stuart Fraley]

I find the paranoia and cynicism on this thread fascinating.

 

[Matthew]

I started looking at the numbers.

With 1918 being the end of WWI (15-19 million dead) and the Spanish flu pandemic (50 million dead), those are some staggering numbers. Roughly 3-4% of the global population from those two events over a few years.

Nothing like the plague in the mid-1300's, though. 75-200 million dead, about 60% of Europe's population.

 

[FastEddieB]

I find the paranoia and cynicism on this thread fascinating.

I was about to say the same thing concerning “motivated reasoning”.