I\u2019d like to talk about some facts versus folk wisdom and pseudoscience about vaccinations, and flu shots in particular.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the flu shots just makes me sick,\u201d you say. \u201cWhy take a shot that makes me sick?\u201d<\/p>\n
A fair question, and one that is easily answered, but we\u2019re all too damn overworked, underfunded and harried to explain it, plus, we hear any anti-vaccine stuff and we just roll our eyes and punch a wall, pretending it\u2019s Jenny McCarthy.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Now, I know Ms McCarthy has tried to make amends for her crimes against public health by posing again in Playboy, and we\u2019re grateful, but, Jenny, that\u2019s not quite gonna cut it.<\/p>\n
So, anyway, here goes: <\/p>\n
The flu shot does not \u201cmake you sick.\u201d It\u2019s a dead virus. Your body recognizes the foreign invader and the body\u2019s immune response can make you feel lousy. Fever, inflammation, nausea, these are all part of your body\u2019s immune response. <\/p>\n
The reaction to the flu shot lasts a day, and can be unpleasant. My five year old son got the shot and was cranky and achy for one evening. He coped, and HE\u2019S FIVE.<\/p>\n
The alternative is he maybe gets the flu.<\/p>\n
Influenza is a highly contagious and dangerous disease. 250,000 to 500,00 people DIE worldwide each year from the flu.\u00a0 Mostly older people, very young people and those with preexisting medical problems, but even the healthy flu sufferer will have severe symptoms for a week or two. And the flu sucks. You\u2019re not limping in to work, like you have a cold. You are lying in bed with a high fever, praying for death\u2019s sweet release.<\/p>\n
Plus, once one member of the family has it, it will rage through the household like Chlamydia through a Christian Youth Bible Camp, and you lose a week\u2019s sick time (or pay, if you\u2019re one of us who doesn\u2019t have all that much sick time) taking care of a sick kid while praying for death\u2019s sweet release.<\/p>\n
And if you follow Mitt\u2019s advise and call an ambulance, we will take you to the ER, where they won\u2019t be able to do a damn thing to cure the flu, but will subject everybody else to your germs, and run up a bill.<\/p>\n
All the while, thinking \u201cWhy didn’t you just get the fucking shot?\u2019<\/p>\n
This has been a Public service announcement by Bitter Medics Against Pseudoscience. We return you to the internet.<\/p>\n
Yeah, we kinda know we\u2019re fighting a losing battle, but there ya go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019d like to talk about some facts versus folk wisdom and pseudoscience about vaccinations, and flu shots in particular. \u201cBut the flu shots just makes me sick,\u201d you say. \u201cWhy take a shot that makes me sick?\u201d A fair question, and one that is easily answered, but we\u2019re all too damn overworked, underfunded and harried […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,12,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ems","category-tin-foil-hats","category-vaccines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}