Why get flu & pneumonia vaccines....

Today's Post: Monday, 12-5-2011

One of the health information emails I get had a question from another reader.

It seems that his employer asked that all employees get the flu shot. He asked if the doctor who writes that newsletter recommended he do so.

That doctor said no he did not.

1. He said that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention claims for deaths from getting the flu each year were about ten to one or more overstated.

Based on what he said, it may be that for people who have no chronic health conditions and don’t get something else when they are sick with the flu, he may be correct.

I thought that was a very weak reason indeed. Even he acknowledged that having the flu does have a death rate although a small one. I prefer to avoid such things when I can!

You may have type 2 diabetes and not know it yet or you might come down with the flu and a bad cold or pneumonia at the same time. If so, your risk would be a lot higher if you got the flu.

He also apparently is OK with people getting horribly sick, feeling horrible, and maybe missing work for several days to a week or more. I prefer to avoid such things when I can!

So his first reason I thought was far too weak to back his recommendation. In fact, this part of his answer to me SUPPORTS getting the flu shot!

2. He said that some flu vaccines have mercury in them. That reason has more merit.

However, apparently the amount of mercury in one flu shot is quite small and once a year is a very small multiplier.

The amount of mercury some people get from ingesting high fructose corn syrup over 20 times every week or get from eating too much tuna per month that is high in mercury IS dangerous.

Except for people with the gene to not get rid of mercury, however, it may well not be a problem to get this exposure once a year from your flu shot.

But there is better news. You can get the flu shot at many locations. And, at some of them, the vaccine comes in a single use container. Our HMO had those this year. And, there is no mercury I found out in the single use container.

3. But his strongest argument was that he stated that “flu vaccine is not very effective.”
That would be a problem if it was true.

However, this one is not quite accurate which considerably weakens his case against getting a flu shot.

The average person getting one flu shot for the first time I read recently will escape 57% of the risk of getting the flu.

Given how horrible the flu is to have, escaping over half the risk sounds great to me!

But, besides that, there are two ways to make the flu shot more effective.

He suggests getting an optimum amount of vitamin D3 to make getting the flu less likely without the shot. That much D3 we now know does make your immune system much more effective. So he is correct that by itself taking enough D3 will help prevent the flu.

But getting enough D3 makes the vaccine more effective too!

If two or three weeks or more before you get your flu shot, you begin taking that much D3, the flu shot will give you closer to 60 to 95% protection!

To do this you need to take at least 2,000 iu a day of vitamin D3 and 4,000 to 8,000 iu is better some research suggests, for you in many ways and likely more effective.

Secondly, flu vaccine immunity does drop off somewhat unless it’s renewed. But if you are exposed to a strain not in this year’s shot but which WAS in the flu shot last year or the year before AND you get the flu shot every year, you have a shot at escaping that flu even if it wasn’t in this year’s shot. Or you may get a mild case instead of a bad case of that flu.

To me, this set of things completely destroys his best argument to pass on getting the flu shot.

Take vitamin D3 each day and get the flu shot each year and you WILL escape cases of the flu you otherwise would not. I think that’s effective enough to be worth doing.

5. Then there is the reason his employer wants people to get the flu shot. This doctor said nothing about that.

Sure, it benefits the employer if their employees are sick or absent less time from getting the flu.

But that’s not all.

If you get the flu shot and take vitamin D3, you not only will avoid the flu; but some of your coworkers who would have caught it from you will avoid it too.

And, the reverse is true. If your co-workers get the flu shot and escape it, they may very well avoid giving it to you!

6. One of the ways the flu can kill you is if you get pneumonia when the flu has weakened your immune system. And, regardless of how you get it, pneumonia has a higher death rate than the flu.

But there’s excellent news. You can get the pneumonia vaccine too.

Research found that for people who get enough vitamin D3 the pneumonia vaccine is effective. Better yet, you only need to get it about once each ten years.

To me that’s a lot of protection for not very much effort.

So, I completely disagree with this doctor about flu vaccines although I like some of his other work.

For the reasons I’ve described here, I believe in getting the flu shot each year as early in the season as I can. I take 8200 iu a day now of vitamin D3. And, I’ve had my pneumonia vaccine and will renew it once it has been 7 or 8 years.

If you hate having your life threatened and being sick as much as I do, consider doing the same!

Be SURE to get your flu shot this year!....

Today's Post: Monday, 10-11-2010

HealthDay News ran a story on Thursday, 10-7-2010, last week that I somehow missed. Mercifully Yahoo news decided to feature it today. So, I got to see it after all.

The article was titled: “Many Americans Plan to Skip Flu Shot This Year.”

Although the flu vaccine protects people from getting it AND helps prevent the spread of the flu, many Americans said they & their children won't be getting a shot this time.

Despite the attention surrounding last year's outbreak of H1N1 flu, 43 % of Americans say they will not be getting the flu vaccine this fall, according to a survey from the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases…

Another survey from the same group found a third of American mothers who said they have no plans to get a flu shot for their children.

This may be a VERY bad idea indeed!

Flu puts people in the hospital often and even kills people. Every year millions of people get the flu; and more than 200,000 people are hospitalized and thousands of people die.

So, in general even if the flu shot is less than a 100 % effective, it’s both important for your quality of life and your safety to get yourself and everyone in your family and household to get the flu shot.

A mild case can make you feel awful and be less productive at work and a medium case can cost you a week at work -- which for some means that much income lost. If all the flu shot did was to increase your odds of missing THOSE things, which it DEFINITELY does, it would be well worth it.

But it also can prevent you from paying up LOTS of money in medical costs or even save your life.

Every single year that’s so including this year.

But this year, there are two new reasons to make sure that even if you miss some years, it isn’t this year!

1. They lost some of the people last year who got bad cases of the H1N1 flu. And, many people, including me, did not get the extra H1N1 flu shot.

It WILL be back this year. And, this year, the regular flu shot has the H1N1 flu protection in it. And, even if you got the H1N1 flu shot last time, by getting the flu shot with it this time, your protection will be better.

2. With so many people this year NOT getting flu shots and so many families NOT getting them for their kids, you are as much as four times as likely to be exposed to the flu this year and NEED the protection of the flu shot.

HealthDay news quoted Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as saying this:

“"There is plenty of vaccine available," he said. "This year we think that the three strains of influenza in the flu vaccine are going to be excellent matches with the flu that's circulating."

He also said that this year's shot contains vaccine against the H1N1 flu that caused the major outbreak last year.

They also quoted flu expert, an associate professor of medicine at New York University, Dr. Marc Siegel, as saying that many people who choose not to get a flu shot are falling prey to myths about the vaccine. "It's all because of this nonsense that's been circulating that somehow the flu shot is dangerous," he said.

"The fear of the vaccine outweighs the fear of the disease and that's a huge mistake, because the disease is more dangerous than the vaccine."

He also said that children should get the flu shot not only so they won't get the flu, but so they won’t spread it.: "Children don't have any immunity. They are super-spreaders of the flu," “

HealthDay closed by saying the most knowledgeable people, doctors, nearly all have gotten the flu shot already or plan too soon

And, “most doctors recommend flu shots to their families, friends and patients, the survey found.”

Of course, healthy people are less likely to get the flu or a serious case of it. And taking things like 2,000 iu a day or more of vitamin D3 and a daily probiotic supplement might help you avoid colds and the flu. So will going out less in public and washing your hands every time after you have and touching your nose or the corners of your eyes ONLY with a clean tissue and NOT directly with your fingers.

But as obnoxious as having the flu can be and as horrible as a bad case can be, this year because you are almost certainly going to be exposed to the flu, I very, very strongly urge you to get the flu shot AND do the list of things in the last paragraph!