Just received an e-mail at work about scheduling flu shots this fall. I know the stains are picked months in advance for the human flu vaccine and that those strains are not the same as AI, H5N1. Does any one have any idea how having the flu shot would hurt or be helpful.
In general, flu stinks and is potentially debilitating and dangerous. And it would sure help your chances of surviving H5N1 if you weren’t totally wiped out with a different flu at the same time.
Any time you can avoid needing medical care is good
- but, it might be a life or death matter during a pandemic, when things are overwhelmed and not available.
(Meanwhile, proper hygiene at work and disinfecting commonly-touched surfaces isn’t such a bad idea, either. No one has time to be sick. Flu shots, and the pneumonia vaccine, if you can get it, will help some to reduce chances of getting sick any year.)
I have mixed emotions about the flu shot, but my entire family has been getting it for the past few years with generally good outcomes.
The point of getting the flu shot in the face of pandemic is that it reduces the overall number of regular flu cases allowing docs to diagnose and pick up on “irregular” cases more readily. At least in theory.
The problem we have here is that it is hard to get flu shots. Most of the shots go to the people in the big cities or those at special risk. You just can not go into the local doctor in town and get a shot. You can try to go the the county seat but they are always out and the shots have gone the Santa Fe or other large city.
Actually the purpose of getting a flu shot in the face of a pandemic is that you’ll know when you get sick, it’s not from the “normal” flu.
Cross your fingers folks, that we don’t have another shortage like the 2004–2005 season fiasco. (I believe it was Chiron who got their license lifted due to contamintion problems.)
Sanofi-Pasteur has gotten a nasty warning letters from the US Food and Drug Administration over sterility controls and their response (or lack thereof) to previous warnings from the FDA.
A link to the story is here.
The actual warning letter and FAQ’s from the FDA are here.
A word of caution: while IMHO everyone should get a flu shot, don’t let yourself be lulled into a false sense of security. No vaccine is ever 100 percent effective and the flu shot does not necessarily protect you from every strain that is going around. I have a child with chronic asthma who always gets a flu shot. However, last flu season, she got very sick two different times with two different strains of influenza, neither of which were the strain covered by the vaccine. So, while I was glad that she did not get the strain that she was vaccinated against, she still contracted influenza twice, and we found out that, due to severe side effects, she is unable to take Tamiflu.
WIT
In my experience, a lot of people who think they have the flu really have something milder or even a mild case of food poisioning. When you have influenza, you DEFINITELY know you have the flu. Some people claim that they get the flu from the shot itself because they run a slight temperature and feel a little achey. I wish the flu were that mild.
Watching in Texas – at 11:47 “due to severe side effects, she is unable to take Tamiflu.”
I wonder how many other people are like that.
HB:
I second that! I knew for certain I had the flu when I had to suck on an ice cube thru a damp washcloth and couldn’t sit up without drowning in nausea. That was after fever, chills, and total weakness that sent me to bed. When I called in sick at work the NM said, “I’ll need a doctor’s excuse.” So, here I am single and dry heaving cause I had to sit up to call her. I asked her to send one right over and hung up. I was out over a week. I never called a bad flu or diarrhea flu again.
Wah. The flu season is here. People out of work, sneezing, coughing, sore throat. Muscles aching. Temperature going upwards. If this bug would have been the pandemic, we would have been among the first deads. Not a nice thought. And after all the prepping : / I plan to go to the doc tomorrow and ask for the throat virus culture. Just to know is this influenza, parainfluenza or what.
Watching in Texas – at 11:47 due to severe side effects, she is unable to take Tamiflu.\\ Hillbilly Bill – at 12:10 I wonder how many other people are like that.
Side effects per tamiflu.com:
Nausea 10%
Vomiting 9%
Diarrhea 7%
Bronchitis 2%
Abdominal pain 2%
Dizziness 2%
Headache 2%
Cough 1%
Insomnia 1%
Vertigo 1%
Fatigue 1%
Additional adverse effects occuring in <1% of patients receiving TAMIFLU for treatment included unstable angina, anemia, pseudomembranous colitis, humerous fracture, pneumonia, pyrexia, and peritonsillar abscess.
HB, are you really thinking so? Want to wager? (:
Dusty – at 11:09 Actually the purpose of getting a flu shot in the face of a pandemic is that you’ll know when you get sick, it’s not from the “normal” flu.
Not so. It is entirely possible to come down with seasonal influenza despite having received the annual flu shot. The shot only protects against the most likely strains to be circulating during the upcoming season—not every conceivable virus in circulation.
The flu ran through our family in March despite the fact that we all had shots in Oct. The kids had it first, then DH and me.
And it *was* the flu, not food poisoning or anything else. I was feeling just fine, finishing an edit on a manuscript for one of my clients. Kissed my husband hello when he got home from work at about 6:10. At 6:20, I was flat on my back on the bathroom floor with the full spate of flu symptoms. DH staked his territory in the other bathroom about five minutes later. It was 48 hours before either of us could even conceive of moving out of bed except under the most necessary conditions.
The kids were, thankfully, somewhat recovered by the time DH and I fell ill. Neither DH or I recall ever being so sick. And never had we been sick simultaneously (usually we overlapped a bit, but one was always a little ahead or behind the other in order to provide care). We were barely cognizant of our children, who, thankfully, are old enough to conduct themselves on autopilot for short periods of time with minimal adult supervision.
The kids had run us low on clear fluids. Thankfully, my mother was able to pick up Rx, gingerale, and ice pops for us and drop them at the door. Did not let her in as she has frail enough health without getting what we had.
My spouse got the flu last January, despite getting a flu shot. She had all the symptoms of the flu, except she did not run the typical high fever associated with seasonal flu. Her doc said the flu shot had given her partial protection, but she was still flat on her back for a week. Strangely, I didn’t catch it.
The last time I had the flu was several years ago. That year I was interviewing for teaching positions, and a school in North Carolina called. I had just returned from the doctor and been given some marvelous medicine that made me feel sooo goood. I don’t think they believed me over the telephone when I told them I was down with the flu. I’m sure they thought they had a lush on their hands. They never called back.
It seems to me that people who don’t get the flu shot either are just one of the lucky ones never to have had the flu (yet) or they came down with a cold bug during some flu season and thought they had the flu and it wasn’t so bad so now they poo-poo the flu. If you really had the flu, you were on your back for a week — dead to the world — and you’ve been trying to get flu vaccinations ever since.
When my daughter was 6 months old, My husband, me and the baby all got the flu. The baby had a 105 temperature and we both knew we had to get her to the hospital and fast. It was all we could do to get in the car and drive to the Children’s Hospital. We walked in the door and handed the baby to the triage nurse and both fell on the ground. We slept on towels in the floor of the waiting room. You know I was sick if I handed my sick child over to the nurse and collapsed. The regular flu is a nightmare and I have been finding ways to get the flu shot for all of us ever since. I think we were all pretty close to the end that night. I’ll never forget it. I would have been terrified except for the fever induced catatonia. I can only imagine this flu will make that day look like a walk in the park.
Shots will most likely be delayed again this year.
MANY problems with growing the A virus in the eggs.
Batch yields have been horrible, so there will be a shortage again this year.
I gotta say…I got my annual “company mandated” flu shot in the fall of 2004. Over the course of that following winter, I got the flu TWICE. The first time, over Christmas, er I mean, WINTER holiday, I had a 103 fever and simply wanted to just end it! It really sucked…I couldn’t get out of bed, I was starving and couldn’t keep food down, I couldn’t drink enough water to quench my thirst. 3 days of it….the only plus side is that I lost about 10 pounds! Helluva way to do it, though!
The second bout was the middle of February. Not as bad…had a low-grade fever of about 101. Aches and pains everywhere, but I could function.
What I’m getting to here is that even though you may get your flu shot, there’s no guarantee that you won’t still catch the flu!
The type A in the shot this past year drifted VERY quickly, so a lot of people did not have immunity even though they got the shot.
It’s a crap shoot since the development time is so long and the trivalent has to be identified early in the southern hemisphere season.
It’s still better than nothing however.
It’s still better than nothing however.
Especially as a marker if an H5N1 infection should be suspected in a patient…
I’m going to try and get a flu shot this year. Last 2 years, I had the flu once each January. It was miserable, and kept me energy-depleted for weeks after resoltion of active symptoms. My parents, both age 80, have never in their life had a flu. I know quite a few people of their generation who can make the same claim. It’s befuddling…
Bronco Bill – at 17:19
About people still getting the flu even though they had “the shot”…
Every so often there is a report about one of these street-corner flu clinics giving out fake flu vaccine. How much of that goes on that doesn’t get discovered, do you think? Seems to me a lot of so-called “vaccinated” people could end up catching the flu this way…
April:
Good point and I don’t recall it ever coming up before. thanks.
April – at 19:12 --- I’ve never seen that. Good article. I really don’t see someone as big as Exxon running street-corner flu clinics. Hundreds of large companies do these “in-house”, usually in a large meeting room or company cafeteria. The company I work for is a major health insurer, and as such contracts only with the local acute-care hospital to give out the shots, and 3 in-house doctors (we have several hundred doctors and nurses working at my company) all check, verify and sign off on the lot numbers on the vials.
I fault Exxon for not performing a background check to verify whether Mr. Abu Hawa was indeed a trained professional, and also for not having another doctor there onsight, either one of their own (Exxon DOES have it’s own corporate medical facility) or another, neutral medical professional. The company should have also been held accountable if anything had happened to the recipients of the innoculations.
What is most disturbing is that after 9/11, no one conducted a background investigation of someone coming to inject something into the arm of over a thousand of your company’s employees. Terrorists probably had a laugh about the fact that someone named Iyad Abu El Hawa, age 35, would be welcomed with open arms into the largest oil company in the US to inject ANYTHING into the arms of many many employees. He could very well have been a terrorist injecting a bioweapon into those people. Political correctness run amok. Time to develop an ethnic profile or two.
Edna Mode – at 14:16 Not so. It is entirely possible to come down with seasonal influenza despite having received the annual flu shot. The shot only protects against the most likely strains to be circulating during the upcoming season—not every conceivable virus in circulation.
True regarding protection, however, I stand by my comment. Though it was unfortunate that your family was ill and that any flu shot is not 100% effective in stopping the flu, if someone gets a shot, it’s more likely they won’t (otherwise, why have them) and it can help a person determine their true flu “status” in light of a pandemic. This is the stand of our hospital and county health department, not just my opinion. I was just sharing, not entering a debate. I hope those who want to get one can, and I respect those who are against them in their choice. It’s just that, a choice. Thanks.
No vaccine is 100% effective. There is always a percentage of people (and it varies) whose immune systems don’t respond to the vaccine - that the vaccine doesn’t ‘take’. It happens with smallpox vaccine, hepatitis B vaccine and flu vaccine. No one individual is guaranteed to have immunity on the basis of having received a vaccination. Sometimes the effectiveness of a vaccination can be observed, as with the scab and scar from a smallpox vacciantion or; measured, as by antibody titer for influenza antibodies. Most however, especially in the case of flu vaccine, won’t ever know for sure. They must still practice good hygeine and infection control practices as if they were not vaccinated, because indeed they may not be!
Hi friends. This very interesting thread brings up for me so many doubts about the efficacy of the seasonal flu vax and unanswered questions about ‘’’any’’’ vax for both seasonal and killer BF. My observation is that many here on the Fluwiki Forum have reported seasonal flu’s in the summer months with heavy symptoms and long-term aftereffects. I had myself it in July and I rarely get it even in the winter. Perhaps wikians are more alert about various illmesses than the general public, but is there not an unusually larger number of seasonal flu cases and repiratory ailments? Have we already been infected with a mild strain of BF? Comments, please. I’m reminded of TomDMV’s discussion on a recent thread about the N1 infection in the Netherlands, affcting not only farm workers but also their families. I gotta dive deeper into that story- I live there.
My DH (59) and I (53) were thinking of getting a prophylactic dose of seasonal vax for the first time this year. We can get it but will have to pay for it; despite health insurance; we’re srill too young. With all my spare money going towards prep, it’s a relatively big chunk to pay. It’s begnning to sound risky, however, with all the cons- side-effects from adjuvants (see the MF-59 link by anon-22), contamination during the production process, limited effect because of “drifting” strains, plus the strong opinions of another poster that ‘’’all’’’ vaccines are dangerous. I’ve put it off for now. I’m not even considering Tamiflu- I get the impression it will not be effective (enough). A clear argument for preventative vaccination is absent, but then so much of the scientifically-based information about BF is absent.
Guano Bird at 17:52- “It’s still better than nothing”- Why do you say this? On what research is this based ? I’be really happy if you could provide a link. If it is your opinion, that’s ok, too but then please preface your remark with, “ïn my opinion.” I need facts on which to base my decision.
Dusty – at 07:30
Wasn’t trying to start a debate. Just pointing out that flu shots aren’t 100% effective, as many others have pointed out above. Whether having a flu shot will help individuals discern seasonal flu from pandemic flu obviously remains to be seen. I personally think the symptoms will tell the story. The flu we had, while bad, was clearly an entirely different symptom set than H5N1’s current presentation.
We should keep in mind that about the only thing that pandemic flu has in common with seasonal flu, is that it is an influenza virus. Clinically, the course of illness is something like an order of magnitude more severe and; the vulnerable age groups shift or expand (the “W” shaped mortality distribution attributed to the 1918 pandemic).
H5N1 has shown multi-organ tropism (it affects more than just the respiratory system), at least in some species and has been averaging about a 56% fatality rate in cases that present in medical facilities since 2003.
It is a very different animal.
There are always fake doctors, even some who get jobs in hospitals. We had a patient who was treated in a southern hospital, by the buddy of a E.R. physician. Don’t ask, a strange story. I think with terrorism on the rise, and with their use of civilians even women with babies, everyone has to be guarded. Know who is giving you shots. I go to the visiting nurses community flu vaccine roundups.It is a strange, new world we are living in. We can’t take anything at face value and trust. To my great regret.
This is why sites like the Flu wiki, flutrackers and others are so important.
Closed to maintain Forum speed.