Vaccines may have increased swine flu risk!!!

[The Great Aztec Joe]

Vaccines may have increased swine flu risk!!!

www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/04/3155750.htm

"What was a bit surprising when we looked at some of the data from Canada and Hong Kong in the last year is that people who have been vaccinated in 2008 with the seasonal or ordinary vaccine seemed to have twice the risk of getting swine flu compared to the people who hadn't received that vaccine,"

... microbiologists say it is the opposite of what vaccines should do.

[The Great Aztec Joe]

Unless they have very substantial data, this article should not have been presented on ABC in Australia. Western Australia has the lowest vaccination rate in the more affluent nations.

Saying that having been vaccinated in 2008 against the seasonal flu seemed to increase the propensity of people getting Swine Flu in 2009 will only add to the problem in Australia.

People most likely to get immunized are those who want to avoid the flu because of bad experiences in the past. If you have not had a serious case of influenza you are unlikely to see the need to be immunized. About one out of every three people do not get the flu, or if they do only think it was a cold.

For these doctors (who are supposed to be intelligent people) to then go and compare the population of those who were immunized in 2008 to the general population is just stupid. People who have bad experiences with the Flu are most likely to continue to have bad experiences with the flu and they are the ones to go to the doctor when they have those bad experiences. Consequently they are tabulated by the medical authorities.

Unbelievable stupidity in that article, and it will lead to even more people not getting immunized and more deaths from influenza.

[The Great Aztec Joe]

I know from experience that immunizations work. I used to get the flu almost every year when I was a child. One time I almost died as the flu reached my lungs, caused tissue damage and then I developed pneumonia. I was placed in hospital about age six (1954 or 1955), and they did not think I would make it. My grandfather, a general practice doctor who was a devout Catholic called in a priest to pray over my failing body. I guess that was in anticipation of my death. All I know is that I rallied after the doctors stabbed me with lots of needles and am still alive to be typing this, well over half a century later. I assume the pneumonia was an opportunistic bacterial infection that was beaten back by penicillin.

I had the flu almost every year after that until I graduated from high school and entered the Navy where I started receiving the annual flu shot (as well as dozens of others). I did not have the flu once in the six years that I was a sailor before starting college.

After one year out of the Navy, I did not have my flu shot. I did not have a medical plan while going through college, and it had been so long that I had not been sick that I had the impression that I was indestructible.

About three months after I would have normally had the shot I got deathly sick from the flu again. I lost forty pounds from a very powerful frame (180 pounds down to 140) A pretty young lady that I had met just a week before came to my apartment every day after work to nurse me. We ended up getting married and I fell under her medical plan from her work, so started getting flu shots again.

I have had the flu only one time after that. I neglected getting my flu shot about six years ago, and sure enough I got the flu and it progressed to pneumonia again. That was really stupid of me. I should have known better.

I am one of those who gets seriously ill when I have the flu. I had three blood relatives who died of the Spanish Flu in 1918 - 1919. I did some research several years ago to find that out. I believe that propensity to die from pneumonia related to the flu is a genetic trait, and I have it. I will never neglect getting a flu shot again, as I know my life depends upon it.