Flu Primer |
Con-flu-sionThere is a lot of confusion about Flu in general. Some of that confusion has been caused by the media giving us misleading information. For example, we have been told that 36,000 people die from flu each year. That sounds scary except if you go to the CDC website page on the Flu, you learn that is an estimated figure. The page is called "Estimating flu deaths"! They admit they don't know how many people (if any) die from the flu each year so what they do is take a percentage of those who have died from pneumonia and assume that they died from the flu! In 1976, the news warned us of a "swine flu" pandemic and vaccine was encouraged. Only some folks got sicker from the vaccine with a neurological disorder (called "French polio") than they would have gotten from the flu. French polio can cause permanent paralysis and more. In 2009, we were told the Swine flu was back. The media and the World Health Organization (the WHO) warned us for several months that a new and potentially dangerous flu which had killed many people in Mexico was headed our way and they very much advocated that we needed to get vaccine and even wear face masks and not shake hands in church and more. It was front page news every week and scared many people. But as in 1976, many who got the new vaccine found that they got more sick from the vaccine than those who did not take the vaccine. In July 2010, the World Health Organization (the WHO) announced that the pandemic they scared us all about, never happened. And this Swine Flu turned out to be an extremely mild flu which only lasted a couple of days. Their announcement that the "pandemic" never happened, wasn't a front page item in the media and it wasn't repeated. Were they hoping that people would forget that the WHO scared us for months - for nothing? The next year we were told that it's the bird flu which was going to hit us (that's the flu that was so not contagious a few years ago that even many bird handlers did not get sick! Every year we have a flu scare and vaccine is advocated but more and more people are avoiding the vaccine. For example, one survey found that 75% of medical providers do not get the flu vaccine! Places like Walgreen's have many signs saying they have flu vaccine. You can even get a gift certificate to make a present of flu vaccine for someone else! The vaccine, they tell us, will protect us from not only the regular flu but the H1N1 (swine flu). The reason they have H1N1 viruses in the vaccine this year is because they made it back when they thought the swine flu was going to be a danger. Flu VaccineThe vaccine is like any other medication - it has side effects. Here are some of the side effects you can get:
One scare tactic the media uses is to remind us of 1917 when flu killed a million people. Here are some things to remember about the differences between 1917 and now..
Bottom line, it's not the same at all! You might want to visit the National Vaccination Information Center to get more information so you can make the choice which will work the best for you. |