Flu Shot Fever

Earlier in the week, I did a blog story called Vaccination Nation, urging the importance of vaccinating against childhood diseases that, as long as everyone vaccinates, are completely wiped out.  It's clear that there are compelling reasons to get your child vaccinated.

And then there's flu shots.  It started as something that a few did.  Then it moved to cover the more at risk groups - children and seniors.  Now it's approaching almost universality.  Alison and Benjamin now both regularly get flu shots.

I do not.  I have never had a flu shot.

It's not because of any inherent risk in the shot per se.  I have read that there are chemicals and elements in the shot, such as mercury, that could prove to be dangerous.  And they have to reformulate every year to combat new projected threats, and that causes  a greater risk that they may not get it right, maybe even makes things worse instead of better.  Or it may prove to be ineffective in combating what's to come.  But that's not why I don't get one. If it was, I would encourage Alison and Benjamin not to have it also.

I don't take it because I think it is better to develop your own immunities than to do so by artificial injections.  This may be naive.  This may be wrong.  But so far, it has not ill served me.  I rarely have flues or colds, certainly significantly less than those around me, many of whom have taken the flu shot.  It may be just a genetic gift of having a stronger immune system.  I don't know.

My childhood was not quite perfect.  In addition to the regular childhood diseases that are now wiped out by vaccination (well...WERE wiped out), I also had mono and pneumonia twice.  But as an adult, flues and colds have been rare.  I get them often enough to prove that I am not super human, or an alien from another planet (some might dispute that), but they are not very frequent.

I discussed this with someone recently who claimed that by not getting a flu shot that I was putting everyone else at risk.  That just because I didn't get sick didn't mean that I wasn't carrying the virus to someone else.  Like a typhoid Mary, I guess.

I don't know.  It's something I have to think about.  But for right now, I think I'll continue to skip it, although I am always willing to look at new research and results.


So....for the record.....

CHILDHOOD VACCINATIONS......YES!

FLU SHOTS......................................MAYBE.

What's up next time I do this?  ANTIBIOTICS!

Guess what the answer is for that one?