“After long silence, at last, something…”
Posted on | November 1, 2009 |
I’ve been quiet for a couple of weeks now, and it’s because I had the flu. Yes, I got the vaccination, and promptly fell sick; sick as a whole pack of dogs. I recall that last time I had a vaccination, seven or eight years ago, the same thing happened. At that time I also gave in to the hype about professors and teachers needing to be vaccinated. The moral of this tale seems to be that flu shots don’t work for me.
Since I’ve been back at work I’ve told people about getting sick from the shot, and a huge number of my colleagues have told me that they had the same thing happen, or that they don’t get shots anymore for exactly that reason. Only one person said that she gets a flu jab every year and has no problems.
Admittedly this is a small and biased sample, but…. well, you make the connection. So then I went to the Guardian on-line (a British newspaper) where one of the stories was that the National Health Service was considering ordering its doctors and nurses to have flu shots. Why? Because the word in the wards was the shots don’t work or make those who have them sick. Some 80% of health care professionals weren’t getting the vaccination.
The real moral of this story? There’s a lot of hype out there about a lot of things, and it amounts to fear mongering. I’m ashamed to say I got sucked in.
Comments
4 Responses to ““After long silence, at last, something…””
Leave a Reply
Princes, Frogs & Ugly Sisters:
The Healing Power of the Grimm Brothers' Tales
Pre-order on —
Write Your Memoir:
The Soul Work of Telling Your Story
Buy on—
The Six Archetypes of Love: From Innocent to Magician
Buy on—
Stories We Need to Know: Reading Your Life Path in Literature
Buy on—
Life Passages: Writing Exercises for Your Life Journey
Buy on—
Hi—I’m Allan Hunter, author of The Six Archetypes of Love and Stories We Need to Know as well as two books on writing for self-exploration, Life Passages and The Sanity Manual. If you’re looking to live your best life I hope you’ll find lots of inspiration here.
You can find me on Facebook —
and also on Intent.com
Recent Comments
- Allan Hunter on Now I know
- Marnie on Now I know
- Mary McIntyre on Memoir - the past is rarely over
November 2nd, 2009 @ 2:06 am
Allan,
Glad you are feeling better.
Be well,
Jean
November 4th, 2009 @ 10:46 pm
So glad you are feeling better.
I do think it’s worth noting, though, that getting the flu shot does not give you the flu. It is easy to assume as causal link because the flu shot will protect you from a single strain of flu and may heighten your defenses against certain similar flu strains but people who are regularly exposed to a great number of other people (such as teachers) are bound to be exposed to a variety of strains of flu and cold which happen to be spreading right around the time that shots become available. That is, the cold or flu you had may be unrelated to the strain you were inoculated against.
http://www.cdc.gov/Flu/about/qa/misconceptions.htm
I’m with you on being critical of hype and I think that’s true on all sides of the debate. But thousands of people die of flu a year and anything we can do to mitigate that is good. It is interesting that the seasonal flu tends to target the very old and the very young while the H1N1 strain tends to target healthy kids and young adults, which makes this a particularly concerning year. Luckily, while it is highly contagious, it doesn’t have the severity of the 1918 flu so hopefully all the extra measures governments are making will be unneeded, but I’m glad that they are preparing for the worst, just in case.
I think the bigger problem is that many of us have more exposure to sensationalism than we do to good science, which can make it hard to distinguish good information from bad. When you hear that your choice is between having a deadly disease mixed with mercury injected in you or dying of a flu, it becomes hard make a reasoned decisions, and that’s often the message you hear. There’s a lot of money in fear.
Sorry to be so disagreeable I’m listening to the audio book, The Great Influenza, and it’s absolutely wonderful, but also makes me somewhat overly aware of the potential risks of a pandemic. I really hope I never live to see one the likes of it. I do recommend the book, though.
November 5th, 2009 @ 1:08 pm
Dear Marnie,
Thanks so much for your reply - with its careful research into things flu-related. I suppose I can’t claim the vaccination ‘gave’ me the flu as there are too many variables to create an iron-clad link. I can say it made me feel unwell enough to notice; and then, within a short amount of time I was stricken. Perhaps the jab weakened me enough to allow something else to take over. I don’t know. Still, I don’t think I’ll be getting another such jab any time soon…. And I’ll be very cautious around hype of a similar sort.
A friend writing from Holland tells me that their ‘mexican flu’ outbreak sent many scurrying for vaccinations. Now there is a court case because the person who was the prime mover in whipping up public panic turns out to have been in the pay of the company that makes the vaccinations.
Fun fun fun.
With a big smile, Allan
November 5th, 2009 @ 3:54 pm
I believe it. There have been some really seedy cases of people making wild and scary claims to further their own financial gain.
There’s no easy answer but I think it’s good to question everything.
Stay well and best wishes!