Daxie

On the news tonight they were doing a bit about all these people lining up for hours and hours and hours to get the shot, and a lot of people turned away because supply ran out.

So, I'm wondering... how many of you here are getting/gotten the N1H1 vaccine because of fear of pandemic? How many are required because of employment? How many of you are getting your kids vaccinated but not yourself? And how many feel there's no need and that it's all hype?

Discuss

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>Hagar: "Before we go into battle today let me remind you what we're fighting for! We're fighting for justice! We're fighting for equality! What could be more important than that?"

>>Eddie: "How about a steady paycheck, health insurance and a good retirement plan?"

Closet Racist

If my workplace offers it to me like they do with the annual flu shots, I'll take them up on it. I know some folks that already caught it and, except for major inconvenience, it didn't even hospitalize them.

[FAMOUS LAST WORDS] Not worried about it. I have no pre-existing conditions and am in excellent health. [/FAMOUS LAST WORDS]

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Cymro

Not that concerned to be honest. I'm rarely affected by contagious diseases.

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"But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time and those friendly, intelligent, wonderful people...will become as nasty and as violent as the most blood-thirsty klingon."

Sirgets

I am getting it and so are my wife and kids. I have 3 young kids so i am not taking any chances.

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NX-47

No plans to get it... I won't object if my kids' school has it, but we're not worried about it. In fact, my kids may have already had it back in August... had all the symptoms (verified by their doctor), but the tests were negative. *shrugs*

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Daxie

I personally am not getting it. Since I don't have any kids to worry about, I'm not all that concerned about it. I don't get the regular flu shot either. I believe that the CDC and the media are making it a bigger issue than what it really is. I understand that people have died from it and it's sad, but look at the number of deaths compared to the number of people infected and got over it, the total loss is actually low, and those that did die from it, we don't know what their helth was like before catching this strain of flu. I think the CDC and media ue the word 'pendemic' too often and it puts the public in a tizzy.

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>Hagar: "Before we go into battle today let me remind you what we're fighting for! We're fighting for justice! We're fighting for equality! What could be more important than that?"

>>Eddie: "How about a steady paycheck, health insurance and a good retirement plan?"

Sam Cogley

I'm routinely exposed (through work) to people who's idea of hygiene isn't what we would call "good," and I know of one co-worker who's already had a nasty bout of H1N1 - so I should probably get one.

Bean

I'm not getting it, and my kids won't be getting the first rounds of it either.

Couple of thoughts before anyone tells me how stupid that is...

Right now H1N1 is labeled as a pandemic by most medical bodies. The term is based on the rapid spread of the infection and has absolutely nothing to do with the lethality of it. A pandemic is a disease or other affliction that spreads quickly and with ease. So people panicking about it being a deadly disease because it's called a pandemic are retarded and not paying attention. For example, the common cold when it breaks out could in most cases be called a pandemic.

Next, the number of fatalities in Canada to this point is 94 people. People are panicking over this number. News networks are sensationalizing this number. People are acting like it's the next plague because of this number. The fact is, this number is not only (I know it's cynical) low, it's also completely in line with the regular flu that presents itself every year. The average flu season in Canada (Mid November to early March) on average passes with 700 to 2500 deaths directly attributable to the common flu. Make sure you read that, NOT H1N1, the COMMON flu. 94 people in a few months is hardly a scratch on the surface of those numbers.

Now, I don't dispute that H1N1 is a serious issue, but I do dispute the severity to which people are reacting. "Well the government said we should do it" "But the newsman keeps talking about it" etc etc... The fact of the matter is that when this broke out in the US and Mexico, people panicked. The news networks LOVE panic. It drives their ratings up, so the more serious they can make this situation seem, the longer they can keep milking it for more money.

Now, again, I don't dispute it's a serious issue, and were I just basing my opinion on these points alone, I'd have my kids vaccinated. But there's more to it than just that.

The average approval time for a drug on the canadian market is 18 months. This vaccine only started human testing in July of this year. Now obviously a flu vaccine is going to be approved faster than average, but that doesn't account for the fact that it was being produced en masse before testing even began. Ergo, it was pushed through in a panic.

The manufacturers and doctors themselves admit that H1N1 stands a very likely chance of mutating enough to make the vaccine ineffective by the time we get it in my region with any severity. So that means, I'd be having my kids vaccinated with an unproven vaccine, that obviously has skipped some serious standards testing, and possibly puts them at risk of further complications and it might not even do what it's supposed to?? Are you serious? No thanks. My kids aren't going to be guinea pigs as a result of mass sensationalism and overreactions.

Now, I don't say this to insult anyone who IS getting it (Like Sirgets). It's your choice to do it or not and what it all basically comes down to is a mental coin toss. And it's just as likely that I'm wrong, the vaccine is wonderful and I'm an idiot for not getting my kids vaccinated. On the other hand though, the chances that it's a needless risk are just as good.

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"I haven't faced death. I've cheated death. I've tricked my way out of death and patted myself on the back for my ingenuity. I know nothing."

--James T. Kirk

Daxie

Bean, what you're saying about the government and the media using tatics to scare people into getting vaccinated is spot on to my thinking... you just say it better than I do I've never had the common flu shot because I've felt like, since I'm somewhat healthy and should I get the flu, my natural immune system will kick in to fight it off. Sure I'll feel like shit and death warmed over for a few days, but I'll survive. My biggest fear ever since the flu (common) vaccine came out, has been that the vaccine would cause my own natural immune to become dependent on the vaccine and weaken and the flu viris would find a way to get around the synthetic man-made imminuity and mutate. I do wonder though if this N1H1 isnt some sort of mutation of the common flu viris, even though "swine flu" has been around for decades, why is it only now that it's become so wide spread? My peronal belief is that so many of the world's population has gotten the flu vaccine for so many years that when a strain is introduced to the body that you're natural immune system would normally fight off, it simply steps to the side to allow the synthetic stuff do the fighting, which it was not designed to fight or protect against this particular strain, and therefore the N1H1 becomes more aggressive and easily spreadable.

With that being said, of course it's an individual choice to a vaccine (of any kind) or not, but I think that people should be more informed than what they are about the risks or getting a vaccination. On the fliside of that coin, I do feel that people who already have a low immune system should seriously consider getting vaccinated, as well as those who work in healthcare feilds aroud those with low immunities should also consider it.

As for my thoughts on the children, if I had children I would most likely have them vaccinated for at leat the common flu and here's why... as an adult I'm not that concered for my self because I understand the chain of events of how a germ is passed form one person to another and therefore I use common sense and take percautions, such as washing my hands, coughing/sneezing into the arm of my shirt ect.. Children on the ohter hand, expecially young ones, don't have the full understanding of how germs are spread and don't think twice about tossing a ball with outher kids then eatting a sandwich without washing their hands first. Even though your child might not be sick, you don't know about the other children that yours are playing with. So for that reason, I would be more likely for my kids to get vaccinated rather than myself.

__________________
>Hagar: "Before we go into battle today let me remind you what we're fighting for! We're fighting for justice! We're fighting for equality! What could be more important than that?"

>>Eddie: "How about a steady paycheck, health insurance and a good retirement plan?"

Bean

I think you're working under some misconceptions about how a vaccine works Daxie. A flu vaccine doesn't introduce a drug to your system that fights off the virus. In most cases a vaccine is actually a form of the virus itself, in the case of H1N1 a dead virus, that's introduced to your body. Your body attacks this virus (vaccine) and learns how to fight it so that if you are actually exposed to the real thing your body knows already how to stop it and you don't get sick.

So it's not an artificial defense against the virus, it's more like a warm up or a crash course for your immune system in how to fight it.

__________________
"I haven't faced death. I've cheated death. I've tricked my way out of death and patted myself on the back for my ingenuity. I know nothing."

--James T. Kirk