Influenza is a horrible virus. I want it eradicated as much as anyone. What I don't want is for us to pretend we have a solution, when we clearly do not.
That removes the incentive for us to find a real answer.
I took my infant daughter to get her second flu shot last week (babies get two). She contracted a stomach virus at the doctors' office. She was puking for hours, repeatedly, even when she had nothing to throw up. We took her to the emergency room. A day later, fever and diarrhea for me. Same for my wife. Fun, right?
If my baby doesn't get the flu, this will count as a success story. Part of the "50%" that worked. I don't even want to think about the years they don't get up to that 50% ...
And I'm supposed to do this every year?
> Are you really saying that risk of nosocomial infection is sufficient to offset the value of influenza vaccination? Really?
Yes. If you think I'm off, I want to see math, not hysterics and italics.
At best, twice as many people die from nosocomial infection as influenza in the US. At worst, twenty times as many. That's all from the CDC.
Zeroth, that's terrible to hear about your daughter. I sincerely hope that she's better. First, there is no answer to a zoonotic infection as mutable as influenza. There are only degrees of remediation. Finding a cure for flu is almost certainly impossible.
Second, nobody disputes the seriousness of nosocomial infection; but to baldly state that you face the same risk in an outpatient vaccination clinic as in e.g. the ICU or the ER is just flat out bonkers.
Finally, I was intemperate in my original language. I apologize.
That removes the incentive for us to find a real answer.
I took my infant daughter to get her second flu shot last week (babies get two). She contracted a stomach virus at the doctors' office. She was puking for hours, repeatedly, even when she had nothing to throw up. We took her to the emergency room. A day later, fever and diarrhea for me. Same for my wife. Fun, right?
If my baby doesn't get the flu, this will count as a success story. Part of the "50%" that worked. I don't even want to think about the years they don't get up to that 50% ...
And I'm supposed to do this every year?
> Are you really saying that risk of nosocomial infection is sufficient to offset the value of influenza vaccination? Really?
Yes. If you think I'm off, I want to see math, not hysterics and italics.
At best, twice as many people die from nosocomial infection as influenza in the US. At worst, twenty times as many. That's all from the CDC.
[1] http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease/us_flu-related_deaths.h...
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosocomial_infection