Thoughtful responses to this H1N1 poster:

[J-Funk]

Ok so don't punch me but I have to ask. Is it not possible to over medicate the body to the point that it over reacts to illness instead of simply dealing with infections in a natural way?

Given that human being had much shorter lifespans when we only had the "natural way" to deal with infections why should we consider it better than any unnatural ways to fight infections that have extended our lives? It's also unclear to me why any methods that some might consider unnatural aren't more accurately classified as natural as well?

I do understand that my experiences are not typical and that they are not empiricle, but at the same time I do subscribe to the idea that if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Saying that people should get a vaccination is not saying that anything is broken and vaccines are used to aid the immune system not fix it. A virus might just make you feel like crap for a while and that's it but getting a vaccine might mean you can avoid feeling like crap altogether and that's a good thing. At the same time you won't be passing the virus on to someone else to feel like crap or maybe it would be much worse in them. Vaccinations also cuts down on the spread of drug resistant infections because fewer people get sick, fewer people need drugs and there is less chance for misuse of antibiotics and antivirals.

 

[Travis]

Why does this all have to be about death? I got the flu a couple of winters ago and it put me in bed for a week and took me nearly two months to fully recover. I lost two and half weeks of work and was miserable for weeks afterward. Seriously, who wants to invite that kind of misery?

I think part of the problem is many think a bad cold is like the flu when the real flu is a whole other ballgame.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Isn't the vaccine fairly new? If so, most of those deaths predate the availability of the vaccine.



If Mommy had a handgun she wouldn't need to be afraid of what Daddy would say when he finds out she killed their baby.

Not my version of reality, gtc.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Under which heading are the 36,000 whose deaths are related to seasonal flu in the US alone being tallied?

Extrapolating to the entire world population, that's about 700,000 deaths related to seasonal flu every year, or about 1.4% of the 50 million deaths on the poster.

Seasonal flu deaths in the US refer to the 08-09 season as the 09-10 season has yet to start unless you count the H1N1 pandemic strain as the beginning of the season.. The estimate includes influenza and influenza related deaths during flu season as not every case is definitively diagnosed by organism.

How many people die from seasonal flu each year in the United States?

The number of seasonal influenza-associated (i.e., seasonal flu-related) deaths varies from year to year because flu seasons often fluctuate in length and severity. CDC estimated that about 36,000 people died of seasonal flu-related causes each year, on average, during the 1990s in the United States. This figure includes people dying from complications of seasonal flu. This estimate came from a 2003 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), which looked at the 1990-91 through the 1998-99 flu seasons [10]. Statistical modeling was used to estimate how many flu-related deaths occurred among people whose underlying cause of death on their death certificate was listed as a respiratory or circulatory disease. During these years, the number of estimated deaths ranged from 17,000 to 52,000.

In 2009, CDC published additional estimates of seasonal flu-related deaths comparing different methods, including the methods used in the 2003 JAMA study. The seasons studied included the 1993-94 through the 2002-03 flu seasons [9]. Results from this study showed that during this time period, 36,171 flu-related deaths occurred per year, on average.

The page contains more about the 36,000 figure which is bandied about quite a bit.

Does 2009H1N1 appear to be protective against seasonal flu? Any data from the southern hemisphere which could be used to test this idea?

No idea, I haven't had time to look at this data yet. But going by typical experience with flu, it is unlikely to protect against the antigenically different H1N1 seasonal flu since that did not protect against the 2009 version. And neither will protect people from the H3N2 strains which also are expected to circulate this year.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Perspective.

Clever person.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

So your answer is a lot of people died from the common cold? How many in the past 300 days?

I just got done saying that was a meaningless question. Did you not get it?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

It's important to keep in mind in this banter about, was the investment in the H1N1 vaccine worth it for the number of lives saved? That is, how the hell would you know how many people any flu strain was going to kill until it killed them? Should we have waited another year and just added the vaccine to next years' seasonal batch? If it only killed a few hundred thousand worldwide, we could skip it. If it killed millions we could move forward.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Why does this all have to be about death? I got the flu a couple of winters ago and it put me in bed for a week and took me nearly two months to fully recover. I lost two and half weeks of work and was miserable for weeks afterward. Seriously, who wants to invite that kind of misery?

I think part of the problem is many think a bad cold is like the flu when the real flu is a whole other ballgame.

The number of work days lost from flu more than justifies the investment in vaccine.

And one of the main reasons to vaccinate kids under 5 is not because it prevents deaths as much as it prevents hospitalizations, which are costly and dangerous in their own right.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Guess who Alberta is allowing to be vaccinated at the moment? Seniors!!! And kids UNDER 5. Yep, everyone in between that doesn't have asthma or diabetes are still spreading this around. Yeah, I'm still pissed my kids were sick for a week. Although, I'm happy it didn't kill them.

That sucks. I wish I could mail you a dose.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

If true, I wonder why that happened?

Why should 2009H1N1 reduce the number of people who contract seasonal flu?

I'd like to see the data on that before taking a member's anecdotal word for it. It may be true, but I'm just saying, the actual data would be more reliable.

In the US seasonal flu continued to circulate along with H1N1 well into May. Currently we have just experienced an H1N1 epidemic but it's really early in the season for flu. No one knows what we will see come January.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Am I really in the dark here? I haven't gotten the vaccine for either my kids or myself. It just seemed like a lot of hooplah to me over nothing. Every year we hear about the new flu that is supposed to be the second coming of the black plague. I just always expect my body to be able to do it's job and handle diseases.

I have never given my kids immunizations past the ones you need to get into school. I've never given them amoxicilin or any of the doctor prescribed things that make parents feel like they are "fighting disease" and seriously my kids are never sick. I have a 15 year old a 14 year old and a 9 year old. All boys and all in public schools.

I can count on three fingers the number of times they have been sick enough to stay in bed since they have been born.

So someone please explain to me why we don't expect our bodies to be able to fight off infections on their own?

I've worked in the infectious disease field now for almost 20 years. I would no more let my kid go without flu vaccine than I would let him ride/drive without a seatbelt. It's an extremely easy, inexpensive intervention for a rare but potentially fatal event.

Here's the latest tragedy from our area: Family still in shock over boy’s death

One minute, Russell Woodruff was helping his son Conner get dressed, and the next minute the boy collapsed backward in his bed, his heart stopped.

“It was like being struck by lightning,” Russell said. “It was just like a light went out. From that time on, it was unbelievable that this could be happening.”

Conner Woodruff, a 12-year-old student at Robert Gray Elementary in Aberdeen, had just celebrated his birthday on Halloween. He loved to read and play guitar and he had a kind heart.

“I don’t think he had a mean bone,” Russell said. “He was just a happy, really good kid.”

An inflammation in his heart, caused by the H1N1 swine flu, caused his death.

It's so sad.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Back to the supposed waste of money invested in vaccine, here's another reason the vaccine is important unrelated to fatalities:

H1N1 flu 'pushing hospitals to their limit'

The press of children with swine flu was so relentless that doctors opened an annex in a hospital dining room to handle the overflow. "Our worst day" was Sunday, Oct. 11, says Goldstein, one of the ER doctors. "We had 15 to 20 patients an hour. It was 24/7. There wasn't a lull."

Last week, the epidemic of ailing children let up somewhat. But doctors here are expecting a new run of flu patients — the children's parents. "What we see first in (children) we see two to three weeks later in adults," says Trish Perl, the hospital's director of infection control.

The scenes at Johns Hopkins are being repeated at hospitals in Denver and Duluth, Seattle and San Diego, as waves of flu patients arrive at their doors, doubling their emergency room volume. Just as significant is the effect on intensive care units: A relatively small number of flu patients are requiring intensive care, but some are so ill they will need round-the-clock care for weeks.

Doctors at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere expect the number of patients needing hospitalization and intensive care to rise. Such an influx of intensive care patients eventually could force some hospitals to cancel services such as elective surgery, they say.

"Why did President Obama declare a national emergency? Because what's going on at Hopkins is happening across the country," Perl says. "An infection that generally doesn't appear to be severe is pushing hospitals to their limit."

 

[Dr Adequate]

Hi. I'd just like to make a point which I've made before about other subjects.

Some person says: "2000 people died of cause A last week, and we spent $500000 per week trying to stop it. But only 1000 people died of cause B last week, and we spent $2000000 per week trying to stop it. Shouldn't our spending priorities be the other way round?"

Now, if we were spending that money to kill people, then option A would indeed be more attractive than option B. Eight times more people are dying per dollar spent. Hooray!

Only that's not what we're trying to do. We're not trying to kill people, but to save lives. The death rates from the two causes are absolutely immaterial. What we need to know is the number of lives saved per dollar spent, not the number of deaths per dollar spent.

I see this point being missed time and time again. Since our objective is to save lives, the real question is not what cause produces the most deaths, it's what action saves the most lives.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

Hi. I'd just like to make a point which I've made before about other subjects.

Some person says: "2000 people died of cause A last week, and we spent $500000 per week trying to stop it. But only 1000 people died of cause B last week, and we spent $2000000 per week trying to stop it. Shouldn't our spending priorities be the other way round?"

Now, if we were spending that money to kill people, then option A would indeed be more attractive than option B. Eight times more people are dying per dollar spent. Hooray!

Only that's not what we're trying to do. We're not trying to kill people, but to save lives. The death rates from the two causes are absolutely immaterial. What we need to know is the number of lives saved per dollar spent, not the number of deaths per dollar spent.

I see this point being missed time and time again. Since our objective is to save lives, the real question is not what cause produces the most deaths, it's what action saves the most lives.

That is a slightly misleading argument though. Sometimes the big killers require huge sums of money to be spent on such things as R&D into effective treatments before even a single person is saved.

 

[Travis]

It's important to keep in mind in this banter about, was the investment in the H1N1 vaccine worth it for the number of lives saved? That is, how the hell would you know how many people any flu strain was going to kill until it killed them? Should we have waited another year and just added the vaccine to next years' seasonal batch? If it only killed a few hundred thousand worldwide, we could skip it. If it killed millions we could move forward.

Strange as it sounds that does seem to be what they are advocating. They basically think we should rush to get vaccines only after a few million are already dead.

 

[Dr Adequate]

That is a slightly misleading argument though. Sometimes the big killers require huge sums of money to be spent on such things as R&D into effective treatments before even a single person is saved.

Sure, no question.

I was just pointing out the silliness of the people who divide deaths by dollars and then cry: "Unfair!"

If the "big killers" require billions of dollar sunk into them before they can save one life --- and then the results of this research saves millions of lives per year, then of course my reasoning approves of this.

My only point was that when establishing the cost/benefit ratio of medical investment --- including research --- then the benefit should be counted by reckoning the number of people whom we can keep alive, rather than the number of people who die. People often get confused about this issue.

 

[truethat]

Because we are dealing with a virus, and because vaccines are not "medication".

Vaccines cause the exact same immune response that the virus does, so your resulting immunity against the harmful virus is "natural" if you should come across it after vaccination.

The vaccine then is excreted/broken down/etc. and you have no "medication" to worry about in this case.

You're mixing this up with bacteria and antibiotics. Bacteria eat you, while viruses get inside your cells and kidnap your dna. Bacteria have to be fought with antibiotics, or not, depending on how severe the infection is. Most people don't need antibiotics and should try to fight it off first without running to the doctor every time. Most ear infections resolve on their own, etc.

I only go see the doc if my bacterial infection has not started to clear up in a week, and then I make sure I take ALL the medication as directed. If you have a virus, then there's no point in seeing the doc for anything since you can't take antibiotics for it. With the flu, there's some antivirals available, and these are recommended if you start experience shortness of breath, etc.

If you like, I can try to find something that helps to let you know if the infection is caused by a virus, or caused by a bacterium.

Vaccines are the best prevention of a viral infection, they are not a "medication", and they aren't really used as a "treatment" unless you think you need to get a rabies or tetanus shot.

Oh I see what I've been confusing here. Thanks for posting that. I've been confusing the vaccine with an antibiotic to help the body fight the disease.

So this would be the same sort of thing as chicken pox. I'm understanding now the contagious angle and I certainly wouldn't want to be the one to cause someone else to get sick.

So I will consider it. But at the same time the article skeptigirl posted actually made me grimace. It's pure sensationalism. And that is the part that makes me suspect. When professionals are touting this sort of thing as "evidence" it just seems off to me.

 

[Cuddles]

So someone please explain to me why we don't expect our bodies to be able to fight off infections on their own?

OK, I'm having trouble replying to this without getting myself banned for incivility, but I'll try to restrain myself. Tens of millions of people die every year from infections. The example you mention in your own post, the plague, wiped out something like a quarter of the population of the Earth at one point. It's already been pointed out in this thread that the flu you so happily dismiss has been responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of people in some years, and routinely kills tens of thousands. As far as I am aware, there isn't a single human culture that has ever existed on the planet that hasn't had some kind of attempt at medicine. It's so mind-numblingly obvious that we can't just fight off infections on our own that even elephants, monkeys and birds have been observed to self-medicate.

I honestly struggle to comprehend how anyone can be capable of reading, writing and using the internet, and yet still show such an incredible lack of understanding of something so incredibly basic and obvious.

 

[truethat]

There is a reason I am asking a question and as a moderator I would think you'd be able to check yourself and just answer the question. I've made it clear that I don't understand and that I'm not trying to be deliberately obtuse.


I don't see it being basic and obvious because I've been told for years that my kids and family ought to get this or that vaccine. It has never made a whit of difference in our lives that we don't get them.

I rarely take my kids to the doctors and when I do they get a clean bill of health. So to me, despite what is being written and printed it doesn't ring true in my personal experience.

I would think that this is something that those who like yourself like to get all outraged at those of us who don't jump and run when science tells us we ought to do something, might want to consider.

Additionally since "science is flexible" and answers change all the time, I generally tend to hesitate when they swear up and down that something is true. On top of this the media hype and frenzy are over the top so I'm READING things that don't sound very scientific to me.

For example skeptigirl's post about the boy who dropped dead of a heart attack. I presume that you would consider it unscientific for a woo to suggest a "curse" killed him and would insist on an autopsy before diagnosing the cause of death.

I struggle to comprehend why people insist that everyone needs to get the vaccine. This fails to take into consideration that going down to a location to get the vaccine is placing you near people that most likely know someone who caught it. Additionally I'm not very convinced that injecting a disease into my body is the way to go about this.

The only moral question here is the Typhoid Mary question which to me would be the only reason I would get the vaccine.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

<snip>

Additionally I'm not very convinced that injecting a disease into my body is the way to go about this.

<snip>

You do not have a disease injected into your body when you have a flu vaccination. The virus is dead. There is an attenuated vaccine, but that is administed via a nasal spray.

Apart from that, viruses and bacteria are getting into your body all the time. When you were young you got sick. Now that you're immune system has developed, you remain healthy because your body destroys the pathogens before they have a chance to cause disease.