I typically visit a doctor (for medical reasons) ...
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I guess I'm not indestructible after all (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I only go... (Score:2, Insightful)
You assume the gp is doing the "body fight it off" at work. I do the same while staying home and resting, just not going to the Dr.
Re:I only go... (Score:5, Insightful)
No!
If I get the flu shot, I will feel lousy for two or three days, and my arm will hurt for at least 2 days. That only means I won't get the flu IF they guessed correctly what strain would be going around this year.
If I don't get the shot, I have a CHANCE of getting the flu, but most years I don't get it, and if I do get it. What happens? I feel lousy for two or three days. (But my arm doesn't hurt.)
I will continue to use a system that works for me, thanks.
Re:I only go... (Score:5, Insightful)
You seem very proud of the fact that you do not get an annual flu shot or other vaccinations.
You really shouldn't lump the annual flu shot with other vaccinations. Other vaccinations protect extremely well for a long time against very serious diseases with insignificant side effects. None of these describe the flu shot. The flu shot is a hastily concocted stew that, if it works at all, only works for one season against a disease that, in most forms, is not serious if you are otherwise healthy. Herd immunity doesn't work if you can't rely on those can be vaccinated to be immune. Unfortunately, even if absolutely everyone who could get the flu shot did, we still widespread flu in years where the primary strain was guessed incorrectly and limited cases even they guessed right because there is never just one strain.
Re:I only go... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm the same here with 10+ years of no doctor visits. I rarely even get sick though so there's no worry about spreading; maybe happens every 18mo or so where I just get floored. Though there are times I do go in to work... because it's warm there and the medicine cabinet is free. I'm closed in with my own office though so there's that.
So for all you know, your blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol are enormous and you're ready to pop.
Re:I guess I'm not indestructible after all (Score:5, Insightful)
A quarter of medicare payments happen in the last year of life (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2838161/). Those "ghetto-rat-wanna-be-gangstas and trailer-trash-nascar-fans" are still racking up some pretty spectacular healthcare bills as they die of cogestive heart failure and lung cancer. If they have health insurance (from changing tyres at nascar races or whatever) then the cost is carried by all of us through increased premiums. If they make it to age 66 then it's carried by all of us through taxes. If they get their healthcare through the emergency room then you better believe we all carry the cost because that's about the most expensive form of healthcare on the planet, and we all pay for it through either taxes or insurance premiums or a mix of both depending on whether the hospital is public or private. As many many other coutries have discovered, it's a lot fucking cheaper to just have universal healthcare and remove the profit-making middlemen from the equation.
Re: I only go... (Score:5, Insightful)
"I'm not mercury/thimerisol basher, but it isn't entirely true that vaccination can't cause autism."
[Citation needed]. Preferably one not involving made up data that's since been retracted by the journal it originally appeared in.
It's actually a moot point. Even if there were a proven link between vaccines and autism the risk of getting measles, chicken pox, influenza, or other nasty and potentially fatal diseases is far greater than the risk of getting autism. Any parent who doesn't vaccinate for fear of autism is showing *horrible* risk assessment skills.
Re:I only go... (Score:4, Insightful)
The poster you just replied to took the words right out of my mouth.
While I agree with you, and not a lot of people seem to disagree here, that vaccinations against dangerous diseases are a good thing, I think over-medication is the bane of our health care systems.
In the Netherlands, doctors have a reputation for not easily medicating people. We're cautious about antibiotics, we're cautious about many types of drugs. The usual response of a Dutch doctor to fever is that as long as it's not over 40 degrees C and doesn't last for longer than three days, it's nothing to worry about. Of course this can be nuanced based on symptoms seen, but you get the gist of it.
This means that the amount of people that develop an immunity to antibiotics and whatnot is much lower than in countries such as Israel and Bulgaria, where people tend to be over-medicated in my view.
To get back to vaccination, I do think it's our collective responsibility to weed out things like polio, diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus as much as we can, not getting flu shots is hardly morally offensive for the reasons already stipulated by the poster above.
In the Netherlands there's a huge debate over religious freedom vis a vis the vaccination of children from families that are religious to the point where they don't vaccinate. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that it's a collective responsibility to make sure these children don't fall victim to their parents' backwards views.
What you believe should be your prerogative, but as soon as you let it endanger unsuspecting minors your belief should be a secondary concern relative to the safety of those unsuspecting minors.
Either which way, a degree of nuance is called for in any such debate, so I don't think you should make messaging as simple as a blanket statement of "please get vaccinated" any more than you should advise people not to get vaccinated at all.
Re:I guess I'm not indestructible after all (Score:4, Insightful)