Had Your Flu Shots Yet?

[billcoe]

Kevin....in response to your statement

I have never nor will I ever get a flu vaccination.

I only have 2 questions which I want you to google and learn the answers too.

 

 

 

1st) How many people, total, died in battle during World war 1? (refresher course update, WW1 was the years 1914-1918.

2nd) How many people, total, died due to the 1918 flu pandemic?

 

 

After you have those numbers, touch base again. I want to see if this still applies:

I have never nor will I ever get a flu vaccination.

I'm not joking.

[billcoe]

ps, can I have your cams?

 

reference quote:

I have never nor will I ever get a flu vaccination.

[ivan]

my great-grandfather, a tough-as-nails philadelphia full-irish beat-cop (as the family legend tells) died in the great flu pandemic - he was in the prime of life, and never sick a day they said - he died on his couch, as hospitals couldn't do shit but stack you outside the morgue, so everyone stayed home

 

anecdotes aside, the threat of a new flu like that wouldn't be ameliorated (at first at least, as i understand it) by mass vaccines

 

 

[glassgowkiss]

1st) How many people, total, died in battle during World war 1? (refresher course update, WW1 was the years 1914-1918.

2nd) How many people, total, died due to the 1918 flu pandemic?

How many people died during WW1 due to simple bacterial infections, because surgical instruments were not sterilized? How many died due to shock, because there was no anesthetic procedures? Your question is completely moronic and more importantly irrelevant. I think our knowledge about microbiology have advanced in the last 100 years, don't you think. At the time of WW1 people were also dying from typhoid. All we had to do to stop that was to wash our hands after taking a shit. Gee, get a clue...

[denalidave]

Personally, I shoulda, woulda, coulda got a flu shot. But, like the past decade or two, I never did get one. No warning sign of a sore throat, it just hit me like a freight train. Thought I had it beat after a day or two, then it knocked me down for three more days. I ain't had my ass kicked by a microorganism like that since I was a wee lad. Whatever don't kill ya, will make you older. Er some such...

[lummox]

Isn't this flu vaccine another leftist ploy to take away our guns?

[ivan]

1st) How many people, total, died in battle during World war 1? (refresher course update, WW1 was the years 1914-1918.

2nd) How many people, total, died due to the 1918 flu pandemic?

How many people died during WW1 due to simple bacterial infections, because surgical instruments were not sterilized? How many died due to shock, because there was no anesthetic procedures? Your question is completely moronic and more importantly irrelevant. I think our knowledge about microbiology have advanced in the last 100 years, don't you think. At the time of WW1 people were also dying from typhoid. All we had to do to stop that was to wash our hands after taking a shit. Gee, get a clue...

i think you missed the point, but that's assuming both that i understood bill's rather simple post and your more typically byzantine one

 

[denalidave]

Another round of byzantine on the house!

[JosephH]

I find it interesting how virulent this years strain is, and I can't help but thinking that the virus, just like HIV, is creating escape mutations that circumvent the immunity created by the vaccine. In the case of HIV, the virus will constantly mutate to evade the immune responsive even if it poses a short-term decrease in fitness, but when given the opportunity will mutate back into it's prior form when protection to that particular epitope is lost.

It isn't one flu that's out there, there's Influenza A (79%) consisting of H1N1(A/California 2%) and H3(A/Victoria 98%) subtypes and Influenza B (21%) consisting of B/Wisconsin(67%) and B/Victoria(33%) subtypes. Take a look at this to see how fast an Influenza A strain can kick out subtypes:

 

 

The nomenclature above is deciphered as:

 

 

Also keep in mind, if multiply infected which a lot of host will be, the various flu strains and subtypes will either coexist with, or compete against, one another along with swapping genetic spit (see: Ecological and evolutionary dynamics of influenza viruses). Then there is the matter of Influenza A mutating by both antigenic 'drift' (slow) and 'shift' (fast), whereas Influenza B mainly mutates by antigenic 'drift' alone.

 

 

But overall these things are fast mutation machines in general and in that pose threat enough with just antegenic 'drift' mutations jumping from individual-to-individual. They don't really need the kind of long-haul episodic hide-and-seek strategies used by HIV and Malaria within a single host. In the time all that would take in a single human, Influenza will be rolling out new subtypes as it marches from host-to-host.

[JosephH]

You keep just saying about ignorance on my part, yet somehow this is where your argument ends. I asked you directly- what are the health risks for a healthy adult associated with contracting flu, and what are the chances of developing long term complications from this illness by a healthy adult? Please be specific.

 

My point is that we do not know long term effects on things like mutations of these strands. The same way as antibiotics helped to create necrotizing cellulitis, necrotizing faciatis and a whole slew of other fun infections. Are the antibiotics bad? I am not saying that. What is bad was overprescription for mostly viral infections.

 

And for the ending argument-ignorance is having 70% of adults overweight or obese and not doing anything about it. It's not a flu that kills millions a year, it's a cardiovascular disease that kills millions a year. Somehow it's OK, let's panic about the flu.

First off, as pointed out, a novel form of obesity isn't going to come out of the blue and wipe out 5% of the world population. Second, who gives a fuck about "long-term complications" of influenza when pandemic form of the virus could overnight wipe out vast tracts of mostly healthy adults between the ages of 20 and 65 with half of those deaths being adults between the ages of 20 and 40.

 

I will grant you some unintended substance relative to a tie to the overuse of antibiotics, though. However, the parallel is not with vaccination, which is simply a matter of getting the body to recognize any given virus, but rather with the use of antivirals against the flu. And that isn't a matter of 'overuse', but rather of any use at all. It's hard to see how this virus won't quickly adapt to antivirals given it's mutation rate. See this article for more:

 

Global migration dynamics underlie evolution and persistence of human influenza A (H3N2)

 

As for worrying about potential threats to human existence goes, I'd put the risk of a deadly global flu pandemic at the top of the list way, way ahead of any industrial, environmental, military, geological, or astrophysical concerns. If we had a numerical repeat of the 1918 flu pandemic it would kill roughly a quarter billion people today.

 

 

 

 

[billcoe]

Your question is completely moronic and more importantly irrelevant.

 

Ivans got it. I don't know what you thought you read that brought that tirade off but I was pointing that specifically at Kev who will NEVER get a flu shot. Do the research and what we believe was huge death toll from the horror of WW1 was quietly equlipsed in a shorter time by teh Flu pandemic.

 

No - I don't need to be lectured to about the reality of WW1 being horrific or all the other bullshit. My grandfather survived WW1 stuck in a rat infested trench in Belguim whereas my wifes grandfather kicked back in lovely sunny Hawaii was taken out by the flu. A bit of research for Kevin would have him change his mind in short order about NEVER getting a flu shot. You have yer flu, and then ya have yer flu.

 

 

Gee, get a clue...

[ivan]

i suspect, should a mass-killing pandemic flu like in 1918 revisit us, and The Man then released a vaccine which stood a similiar chance of stopping it as the more harmless ones of today, that kev would find himself in a doctors office as the corpses creeped closer to his doorway.

 

no atheists in foxholes, right?

[glassgowkiss]

Your question is completely moronic and more importantly irrelevant.

 

Ivans got it. I don't know what you thought you read that brought that tirade off but I was pointing that specifically at Kev who will NEVER get a flu shot. Do the research and what we believe was huge death toll from the horror of WW1 was quietly equlipsed in a shorter time by teh Flu pandemic.

Gee, get a clue...

 

Again, it's a simpleton explanation, which doesn't take into consideration a huge number of factors. Like for one- general hygiene, second - nutrition. I was born near the area where the front line was stationed for 2 years. My grandfather remembered the fighting, he actually participated a couple of years later in (completely unknown here, in the US) war between Poland and Soviet Union in 1919/20. During that time hunger and malnutrition were rampart. Add bad sanitation and you have a perfect storm for pandemic. Would it be possible without the war? Probably not- so, it was related to war and general lack of knowledge.

[glassgowkiss]

i suspect, should a mass-killing pandemic flu like in 1918 revisit us, and The Man then released a vaccine which stood a similiar chance of stopping it as the more harmless ones of today, that kev would find himself in a doctors office as the corpses creeped closer to his doorway.

 

no atheists in foxholes, right?

 

Mass killing pandemic like that would not happen due to knowledge we have now about viruses, better hygiene and better nutrition. Food shortages were rampart and vast amount of population was suffering from heavy malnutrition, so after 4 years it would be hard to have a robust immune system. Your argument boils down to fear mongering.

[JosephH]

Mass killing pandemic like that would not happen due to knowledge we have now about viruses, better hygiene and better nutrition. Food shortages were rampart and vast amount of population was suffering from heavy malnutrition, so after 4 years it would be hard to have a robust immune system. Your argument boils down to fear mongering.

You're really not following along are you? There is absolutely nothing about our knowledge of viruses, better hygiene and better nutrition today that would mean diddlysquat in the face of a novel flu pandemic. Nothing. In fact, about the only real difference is today's transportation system just insures the much more rapid spread of any such a virus. Otherwise there's nothing about our current health or readiness which would halt such a pandemic or lessen its toll.

[ivan]

i suspect, should a mass-killing pandemic flu like in 1918 revisit us, and The Man then released a vaccine which stood a similiar chance of stopping it as the more harmless ones of today, that kev would find himself in a doctors office as the corpses creeped closer to his doorway.

 

no atheists in foxholes, right?

 

Mass killing pandemic like that would not happen due to knowledge we have now about viruses, better hygiene and better nutrition. Food shortages were rampart and vast amount of population was suffering from heavy malnutrition, so after 4 years it would be hard to have a robust immune system. Your argument boils down to fear mongering.

i didn't say it would happen, thus no fear mongering, merely making the joke that IF it were to happen, kev, like most sane people, would be happy to take any proposed cure.

 

i suspect, when the next super-flu evolves, that, like most modern ailments, it will still take a bite out of the 1st world, yet will concentrate most of the pain further down the food chain in places that, yes, have worse sanitation and generally much greater poverty.

[rob]

kev, like most sane people, would be happy to take any proposed cure.

 

are you sure about that comparison?

[tvashtarkatena]

i suspect, should a mass-killing pandemic flu like in 1918 revisit us, and The Man then released a vaccine which stood a similiar chance of stopping it as the more harmless ones of today, that kev would find himself in a doctors office as the corpses creeped closer to his doorway.

 

no atheists in foxholes, right?

 

Mass killing pandemic like that would not happen due to knowledge we have now about viruses, better hygiene and better nutrition. Food shortages were rampart and vast amount of population was suffering from heavy malnutrition, so after 4 years it would be hard to have a robust immune system. Your argument boils down to fear mongering.

 

A mass pandemic is, famously, arguably the greatest threat to humanity today. A highly mobile population of 7 billion petri dishes, half of whom live in crowded cities, along with modern animal husbandry, primes the pump. In contrast, our immune system hasn't gotten any faster at adaption.

 

This isn't fear mongering, this is just a simple reality I thought most folks by now were well familiar with. It gets hyped, sure, but that doesn't make it any less real.

 

 

[glassgowkiss]

Mass killing pandemic like that would not happen due to knowledge we have now about viruses, better hygiene and better nutrition. Food shortages were rampart and vast amount of population was suffering from heavy malnutrition, so after 4 years it would be hard to have a robust immune system. Your argument boils down to fear mongering.

You're really not following along are you? There is absolutely nothing about our knowledge of viruses, better hygiene and better nutrition today that would mean diddlysquat in the face of a novel flu pandemic. Nothing. In fact, about the only real difference is today's transportation system just insures the much more rapid spread of any such a virus. Otherwise there's nothing about our current readiness, health or readiness which would halt such a pandemic or lessen its toll.

How about this as biggest bullshit statement of the day? The best is you are contradicting all your earlier posts- good job!

[tvashtarkatena]

kev, like most sane people, would be happy to take any proposed cure.

 

are you sure about that comparison?

 

Switching genders would make Bone saner, braver, and more admirable.

[JosephH]

How about this as biggest bullshit statement of the day? The best is you are contradicting all your earlier posts- good job!

There is nothing about my statement that in any way contradicts anything I've posted up-thread. Are you really this obtusely clueless?

[kevbone]

obtusely clueless?

 

Say that ten times as fast as you can.......

[tvashtarkatena]

Obtueless

Edited January 15, 2013 by tvashtarkatena

[JosephH]

...so after 4 years it would be hard to have a robust immune system. Your argument boils down to fear mongering.

Just to follow up. In 1918, it was exactly the folks with the most robust immune systems who died. Fully half, or twenty-five million, of the deaths were healthy adults age 20-40 who died of cytokine storms precisely because they were so healthy.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

obtusely clueless?

 

Say that ten times as fast as you can.......

 

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