Author Topic: Flu Vaccines  (Read 4229 times)

Ben

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Flu Vaccines
« on: January 14, 2018, 10:38:49 AM »
The interesting part of this story for me was that annual flu vaccine research only gets funded in the tens of millions, while HIV get $1 billion annually. The math on priority should be pretty simple, but I guess not.

I'm by no means an anti-vaxer, but have never received a flu shot in my life. I might be more inclined to get one if the vaccine was better and longer lasting, versus an annual roll of the dice. Seems like it would take a lot more research funding to get to that point.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/08/opinion/flu-pandemic-universal-vaccine.html

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dogmush

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Re: Flu Vaccines
« Reply #1 on: January 14, 2018, 10:54:24 AM »
I just got over the flu.

It's a fun one this year.

FWIW I also had the vaccine this year.

charby

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Re: Flu Vaccines
« Reply #2 on: January 14, 2018, 11:10:48 AM »
The interesting part of this story for me was that annual flu vaccine research only gets funded in the tens of millions, while HIV get $1 billion annually. The math on priority should be pretty simple, but I guess not.

I'm by no means an anti-vaxer, but have never received a flu shot in my life. I might be more inclined to get one if the vaccine was better and longer lasting, versus an annual roll of the dice. Seems like it would take a lot more research funding to get to that point.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/08/opinion/flu-pandemic-universal-vaccine.html



Influenza is constantly morphing, like the common cold it would impossible to create a lasting or 100% annual vaccine.
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Ben

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Re: Flu Vaccines
« Reply #3 on: January 14, 2018, 11:18:33 AM »
Influenza is constantly morphing, like the common cold it would impossible to create a lasting or 100% annual vaccine.

The story implies researchers are looking at multi-year vaccines for the "A" strain.
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Ben

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Re: Flu Vaccines
« Reply #4 on: January 14, 2018, 11:22:02 AM »
I just got over the flu.

It's a fun one this year.

FWIW I also had the vaccine this year.

We've had I think 12 deaths this year in the county so far. My plumber fell and hit his head a couple of weeks ago, and had to wait 7 hours in the emergency room to be diagnosed with a severe concussion that had him hospitalized for two days, because almost everyone in front of him was there for the flu.
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T.O.M.

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Re: Flu Vaccines
« Reply #5 on: January 14, 2018, 11:52:48 AM »
Read a story about the flu, and some complicating factors.  A lot of hospitals are having trouble getting supplies, like IV fluids, because there's a shortage of IV bags.  Turns out the major suppliers of bags and other medical equipment are in Puerto Rico.  A lot of hospitals are pushing fluids using Gatorade as opposed to using IVs.  Not exactly the best way to push fluids into someone really sick...
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RoadKingLarry

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Re: Flu Vaccines
« Reply #6 on: January 14, 2018, 12:46:04 PM »
Quote
there's a shortage of IV bags.  Turns out the major suppliers of bags and other medical equipment are in Puerto Rico

Something about putting all your eggs in one shithole basket...

I had to take the annual flu shot when I was in the Navy. Haven't taken one since I got 25 years ago. Since then I cannot definitively say I've had a case of flu.
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Kingcreek

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Re: Flu Vaccines
« Reply #7 on: January 14, 2018, 12:46:43 PM »
I suppose you would say I'm moderately anti flu vaccine. At least it should be a personal choice and not pushed at people so much.
The effectiveness of the flu shot is debatable. Atleast a couple euro national health plans dropped it. I believ adverse reactions are underreported. It bothers me that the US govt is the sole purchaser of all flu vaccines and then distributes and promotes it and the govt and many politicians have too many cozy relationships with pharma.
I've had the flu one time in the past 20 years and never had a flu shot. So personally, I'll take my chances.
I'm not against individuals making an informed decision assuming that information is unbiased, but I don't support the mass vaccination of everyone and aggressive marketing and subsidizing of flu shots.
What we have here is failure to communicate.

lee n. field

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Re: Flu Vaccines
« Reply #8 on: January 14, 2018, 01:26:14 PM »
I just got over the flu.

It's a fun one this year.

That it is.  I'm not quite over it.  It just lingers and lingers.

Quote
FWIW I also had the vaccine this year.

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Hawkmoon

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Re: Flu Vaccines
« Reply #9 on: January 14, 2018, 02:23:59 PM »
I just got over the flu.

It's a fun one this year.

FWIW I also had the vaccine this year.

I'm still getting over it. Came down with it on Christmas day. I've managed to make it to work for a single half day in the three weeks since Christmas.

I also had a flu shot. Maybe it would have been worse without the shot, but I don't know how much worse it could possibly be.
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BobR

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Re: Flu Vaccines
« Reply #10 on: January 14, 2018, 02:54:15 PM »
I imagine it has the ability to be much worse, that is if you consider a dirt nap worse than an extended illness.  =|


https://www.vox.com/2018/1/12/16882622/flu-season-epidemic-prevention-vaccine


bob

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Re: Flu Vaccines
« Reply #11 on: January 14, 2018, 03:12:12 PM »
I imagine it has the ability to be much worse, that is if you consider a dirt nap worse than an extended illness.  =|


https://www.vox.com/2018/1/12/16882622/flu-season-epidemic-prevention-vaccine


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MillCreek

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Re: Flu Vaccines
« Reply #12 on: January 14, 2018, 05:30:48 PM »
Fun fact: in recent years, more and more healthcare systems are requiring employees to have the flu vaccine and will fire you if you decline.  The court decisions on this are all over the map in terms if you can be successfully fired for refusing the vaccine: in some states you can, and in others you cannot.
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dogmush

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Re: Flu Vaccines
« Reply #13 on: January 14, 2018, 05:38:32 PM »
Fun fact: in recent years, more and more healthcare systems are requiring employees to have the flu vaccine and will fire you if you decline.  The court decisions on this are all over the map in terms if you can be successfully fired for refusing the vaccine: in some states you can, and in others you cannot.

.mil requires an annual flu vaccine. Including Reserves and NG.



sumpnz

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Re: Flu Vaccines
« Reply #14 on: January 14, 2018, 06:01:47 PM »
I generally don't get the flu shot.  Many years where SWMBO did, and I didn't.  She always would suffer much worse flu-like illnesses. 

Kingcreek

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Re: Flu Vaccines
« Reply #15 on: January 14, 2018, 06:32:43 PM »
Our local hospital system requires employees either get the flu shot or wear masks at all times during patient encounters.
What we have here is failure to communicate.

charby

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Re: Flu Vaccines
« Reply #16 on: January 14, 2018, 10:52:06 PM »
The story implies researchers are looking at multi-year vaccines for the "A" strain.

Mmm, yea, I really don't see that happening with A.
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Firethorn

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Re: Flu Vaccines
« Reply #17 on: January 15, 2018, 05:17:30 AM »
I've gotten the flu shot for years and have managed to avoid getting the flu for years as well.

I'll note that immunity is a complicated thing when it comes to the flu, but one thing they have noted is that flu vaccines do actually last multiple years.  IE if you have gotten the flu shot every year for the last 5 years, you are less likely to get the flu than if you only got this year's vaccine.  The previous year's vaccine might be a better match for the virus you happen to be exposed to.

As Ben noted HIV gets about 10 times as much funding as Flu does, but some of this stuff overlaps.  There's some fascinating research into targeting the parts of the virus that can't mutate as much and still be a functional virus for antibody development.

Basically, those who survive with the virus long enough will often develop antibodies that are basically like terminators for the HIV virus.  They're so effective that patients with them often don't need antivirals or other drugs at all to keep their virus loads low enough to be considered non-infectious.  Only because the virus is so widespread by that point, as well as being a retrovirus that can hide.  The theory is that if a non-infected person has those antibodies, that the HIV can't spread far enough early enough, for it to create a sustained infection.

HIV infectees are most infectious after the first couple weeks until the first couple months, on average.  After that, they're only highly infectious again when full blown AIDS starts.

So, if you can eliminate the first couple months where the virus is rampaging without opposition...

So vaccine research is going into how to most effectively teach somebody's body to make those antibodies in particular.  HIV specifically, but much of the research can be adopted elsewhere.

Jamisjockey

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Re: Flu Vaccines
« Reply #18 on: January 15, 2018, 02:14:27 PM »
The CDC can eat it.  They push a vaccine that is based off of old strains, which always and will always mutate to stay ahead of immunity, there is no promise of true immunity against any strain.
There is literally no benefit to the flu vaccine. 


If you don't get regularly sick, it's because you wash your hands, avoid contact with sick people, and are generally healthy. A robust immune system due to diet, nutrition, and washing your hands regularly (plus not doing things like chewing your fingers or putting your fingers in your mouth unwashed) will keep you from getting sick.

When the CDC is now admitting that the flu vaccine doesn't work, that should give anyone considering it pause.
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K Frame

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Re: Flu Vaccines
« Reply #19 on: January 15, 2018, 03:34:53 PM »
The flu shot is just one part of a multilayered defense.

It's not a do all be all.

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brimic

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Re: Flu Vaccines
« Reply #20 on: January 15, 2018, 03:37:47 PM »
Influenza is constantly morphing, like the common cold it would impossible to create a lasting or 100% annual vaccine.
That.
influenza is a RNA virus- RNA replication doesn't have proofreading, so nearly every replication of the virus is a mutant.
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charby

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Re: Flu Vaccines
« Reply #21 on: January 15, 2018, 03:37:59 PM »
The flu shot is just one part of a multilayered defense.

It's not a do all be all.

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What he said.
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230RN

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Re: Flu Vaccines
« Reply #22 on: January 15, 2018, 03:50:23 PM »
Something about putting all your eggs in one shithole basket...


Hadda laugh at that one.  TNX fer the grin.

What's also amusing to me is that the complete word seems to have almost been made printable now.  As opposed to being "unprintable."


Jamisjockey

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Re: Flu Vaccines
« Reply #23 on: January 15, 2018, 04:37:08 PM »
The flu shot is just one part of a multilayered defense.

It's not a do all be all.

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The flu shot is like trying to hit a moving target with an unguided missile. 
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Ben

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Re: Flu Vaccines
« Reply #24 on: January 15, 2018, 04:56:45 PM »
Mmm, yea, I really don't see that happening with A.

Well, NIH, which is staffed by people who know more about it than any of us here, thinks it will happen.

https://www.niaid.nih.gov/diseases-conditions/universal-influenza-vaccine-research
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/universal-flu-shot-may-be-nearing-reality
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