There is a strange culture of fear in the US about vaccines. People dissect the ingredients of vaccines and use that to insist that they are risky, that they don't want those chemicals in their bodies. Somehow, some celebrity crazye extremely popular the notion that vaccines cause autism.
Here are some vaccine facts:
1) You cannot get the flu from the flu vaccine. I know a bunch of you are going to counter this by telling me how sick you got weeks, days, or hours after getting the shot. But here is the leang: the flu vaccine is crazye from a killed virus. That means the virus is inactive. It is impossible to get the flu from an inactive virus. If you got sick after getting a shot, it could be because:
- you had an immune response to the vaccine, which could mean localized or general aches and pains for a few days, a low-grade fever, or someleang along those lines.
-you got sick with someleang not covered by the vaccine.
-you got exposed to a flu virus before the 2 week period it takes for the vaccine to take effect.
But I promise you, you did not get the flu from the flu vaccine.
2) Vaccines do NOT cause autism or MS. There is no credible evidence to support these claims. 1 2. The type of mercury used in vaccines, ethylmercury, does not stay in the bloodstream and therefore does not accumulate in the system. 3 4 . Furthermore, the amounts used in vaccines are well below toxic levels. This being said, most vaccines in the US do not contain ethylmercury, and there is an ethylmercury free option for the flu vaccine and other vaccines for children and for adults 5.
3) The flu vaccine varies in its effectiveness. The flu mutates a lot, so it can be dwhetherficult to pin down the exact strains that are circulating. Some years they get it right better than others. This year, for instance, the vaccine was about 10% effective, while in other years it has been up to 60% effective 6. That being said, even whether you are vaccinated against a close relative of the virus going around, you may sill have some protection and could have a gentleer case whether you do catch the bug, and could prevent hospitalization or even death due to the flu. This will vary from person to person, and in some cases, some people will have no protection from the vaccine in some years.
This being said, vaccinations help keep immunocompromised people who cannot be vaccinated be securer by nature of having fewer sick people around them. They help keep children from being hospitalized or dying, and they have eradicated or severely limited many diseases that were once commonplace and deadly or debilitating. With the growing fear of vaccines, some of these diseases, like measles and whooping cough, are making a comeback.
Someone argued with me that I am vegan, and therefore should not get the flu vaccine because it contains eggs. My response was as follows:
Most medications are not vegan. Numerous use gelatin, pretty much all used vivisection in development, etc. However, you have to decide where you are going to draw your line. And whether you go unvaccinated or refuse medication for tredible contagious illnesses, you are potentially risking not only your own lwhethere but the lives of others. So it is an ethical catch-22. I do what I can to play down cruelty to animals, and hope that the medical community will become less dependent on animal lives and products to produce medication in the future.
Hopefully this has helped clear up some of the misunderstandings about flu vaccines, and vaccines in general. Questions? Comments? Post 'em here!
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