The Flu Shot

[EastWest Gal]

Yes they were billed, but they didn't pay $40. Probably they paid $5-$6 (the cost of the drug and it's administration).

Rita

It's actually more expensive than that. Vaccines are not huge money makers. If they were, pediatricians would make as much as surgeons. We've had to fight with insurance companies to get them to pay enough to even cover the cost of the vaccines. The CDC quotes the price per dose as $11.30-19.13, depending on the brand, and weather it is preservative free, etc. Needles, alcohol swabs add to the cost. And those administering the vaccine aren't being paid minimum wage.

Also, the American billing system is weird. You always bill about 40% more than the insurance company pays, just to get what it pays.


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[aja8888]

You can't get the flu from the flu shot, even the live virus can't give you the flu.

You can still get the flu even after getting the flu shot, there are about 40 types of flu and the shot protects you against 3 (or 4 if you get the quadravalent shot). Hopefully, if you still get the flu it will be less severe than the flu blown flu. i.e. 10 days of feeling like death warmed over....

I understand the variables and will take my chances without the shot. Maybe I have been lucky for the last 30 + years by not getting a flu shot.

DW just got her flu shot yesterday. She seems to get sick at the drop of a hat though.

 

[Rustic23]

We are all in the risk business. Some of us take financial risk we shouldn't and some of us ride motor cycles. The flu shot is no different. It is a risk. However, if you look at the 1918 flu, which went pandemic, https://virus.stanford.edu/uda/ killed between 20,000,000 to 40,000,000 people! Not a risk I am willing to take.

 

[M Paquette]

I understand the variables and will take my chances without the shot. Maybe I have been lucky for the last 30 + years by not getting a flu shot.

DW just got her flu shot yesterday. She seems to get sick at the drop of a hat though.

Your approach works well as long as those you come in daily contact with are resistant or immunized. Hurrah for herd immunity!

We have some school districts where 20-30% of students are not immunized, well below the 'herd immunity' target of 5% or less not immunized. There's a push starting here to move all students that file 'personal belief' exemption papers and are not immunized to one school in the district to preserve the herd immunity benefits for the other students, what I think of as the 'designated plague school'.

 

[aja8888]

Your approach works well as long as those you come in daily contact with are resistant or immunized. Hurrah for herd immunity!

We have some school districts where 20-30% of students are not immunized, well below the 'herd immunity' target of 5% or less not immunized. There's a push starting here to move all students that file 'personal belief' exemption papers and are not immunized to one school in the district to preserve the herd immunity benefits for the other students, what I think of as the 'designated plague school'.

Good info, thanks for the link. I really need to get my shingles shot though. My annual physical is coming up and I plan to have that included. It's also time for a colonoscopy too.

 

[EastWest Gal]

Your approach works well as long as those you come in daily contact with are resistant or immunized. Hurrah for herd immunity!

We have some school districts where 20-30% of students are not immunized, well below the 'herd immunity' target of 5% or less not immunized. There's a push starting here to move all students that file 'personal belief' exemption papers and are not immunized to one school in the district to preserve the herd immunity benefits for the other students, what I think of as the 'designated plague school'.

I like it. Vaccines are the #1 preventive medicine of all time. Millions if not billions of lives have and will be saved by vaccination. If we would educate our citizenry on health history the way we do on "world history" and U.S. history" we would have far fewer vaccine naysayers. Let the parents who are fools stick together, and I feel sorry for their kids, but what can we do?

My kid with childhood asthma got every vaccine available and appropriate. I only delayed one vaccine--the chicken pox vaccine came out in May 1995 and we were scheduled to travel in June so I planned to wait until after our trip. Dang if he didn't get chickenpox 4 days before the trip and he and I had to delay our flight until he was no longer contagious. Not a disaster but expensive.

Please, if you don't choose to vaccinate, reconsider.

 

[travelover]

.......... Vaccines are the #1 preventive medicine of all time. .......

Oh sure, but what about all the kids that were vaccinated and are now artistic?

 

[aja8888]

Oh sure, but what about all the kids that were vaccinated and are now artistic?

My vaccinated daughter ended up showing Quarter horses. Being artistic would have been less expensive.

 

[travelover]

My vaccinated daughter ended up showing Quarter horses. Being artistic would have been less expensive.

Sorry to hear that. Maybe you can talk her into a hobby that is a lot cheaper, like owning her own plane.

 

[Ronnieboy]

Your approach works well as long as those you come in daily contact with are resistant or immunized. Hurrah for herd immunity!

We have some school districts where 20-30% of students are not immunized, well below the 'herd immunity' target of 5% or less not immunized. There's a push starting here to move all students that file 'personal belief' exemption papers and are not immunized to one school in the district to preserve the herd immunity benefits for the other students, what I think of as the 'designated plague school'.

The above situation has helped whooping cough start to come back, hopefully there won't be other preventable diseases doing the same

 

[MRG]

We are all in the risk business. Some of us take financial risk we shouldn't and some of us ride motor cycles. The flu shot is no different. It is a risk. However, if you look at the 1918 flu, which went pandemic, https://virus.stanford.edu/uda/ killed between 20,000,000 to 40,000,000 people! Not a risk I am willing to take.

Both DF GP died of flu. Not 1918. There were many regional flus, His GP died in 1893 and 1895. My orphaned GF was raised by his GPs.

Pretty simple decision for me.


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[EastWest Gal]

Oh sure, but what about all the kids that were vaccinated and are now artistic?

I guess you mean autistic. What a scam that was. You are referring to the MMR vaccine, not any other vaccine. A researcher named Andrew Wakefield in Britain published his findings linking MMR vaccine to autism in Lancet in 1998. The article was later retracted. Dr. Wakefield was paid ~$400K by some lawyers to put forth his research. Dr. Wakefield faked his data. After court proceedings he lost his medical license.

The vaccine naysayers then attacked thimerosal, a stable mercury compound used as a preservative. The problem here is that it was blamed for autism years after it was removed from childhood vaccines.

There is no factual basis for linking autism and vaccines. Autism is not due to vaccination. Period. And this has nothing to do with flu vaccine so I'm done going off topic. Sorry.


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[Rustic23]

Thanks eastwestfal. I knew it had been debunked but did not know the history.


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[EastWest Gal]

Sorry to hear that. Maybe you can talk her into a hobby that is a lot cheaper, like owning her own plane.

Thanks for making me laugh.


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[aja8888]

Sorry to hear that. Maybe you can talk her into a hobby that is a lot cheaper, like owning her own plane.

I'm not so sure a plane would have been cheaper.....

 

[travelover]

I guess you mean autistic. .......

Vaccines causing autism? That's ridiculous.

 

[Sarah in SC]

Travelover, you are hilarious.
MPaquette, that is a really great idea, of moving the kids to a school by themselves whose parents goose not to immunize, thus protecting the ones who do.
Fwiw I don't get the flu shot...yet. But I will when I'm older. I have had vaccinations for Hep A and B, typhoid, and yellow fever, though!

 

[tinlizzy]

http://nightofthelivingdad.net/2014/08/13/why-we-didnt-vaccinate-our-child/

So far I've only had one flu shot in my life and coincidentally ended up with the other strain that year. I've had the pneumonia vaccine though and it has worked phenomenally well completely stopped my yearly bouts of pneumonia every summer.


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[travelover]

........ I have had vaccinations for Hep A and B, typhoid, and yellow fever, though!

Don't forget the shingles vaccine. I believe that it is more effective for younger people.

 

[bjorn2bwild]

Don't forget the shingles vaccine. I believe that it is more effective for younger people.

Good advice, you never know what you'll bring home from a shingles bar.

My hang-up with the flu shot is the need for annual renewal. If I had high exposure to the public, I would more inclined to get the vaccine. Without the shot I get the flu on about a ten year cycle - awful but not a near death experience so far. I will give more thought to this as I get older.
It is worth noting - getting the flu probably gives lifetime immunity to the offending strain and close mutations. The effect is less certain (weaker) from the shot.

 

[kramer]

If you are interested in vaccinations, you will find learning about the nanopatch very interesting. It will probably go down as one of more important inventions of the 21st century and will possibly save many millions of lives. The Ted Talk is fascinating and just 13 minutes.


Nanopatch Technology - Overview - Pain-free Vaccination

Nanopatch Technology - Benefits - Needle-free Vaccine Delivery

Don't miss this Ted Talk by the inventor if you have time, just 13 minutes:
https://www.ted.com/talks/mark_kend...atch_that_s_safer_and_way_cheaper?language=en

 

[Sarah in SC]

Don't forget the shingles vaccine. I believe that it is more effective for younger people.

Hey now, the CDC says that is for ages 50 and older! I'm a good ways from there, my friend! But I will tell DH, he's practically a fossil!

 

[travelover]

Hey now, the CDC says that is for ages 50 and older! I'm a good ways from there, my friend! But I will tell DH, he's practically a fossil!

I keep forgetting you are just a kid. But you can get shingles at any age, just more likely as you age.

 

[kramer]

Shingles is much less severe, as a rule, and less frequent in those under 50. Preventing shingles becomes more important as you age due to growing weakness in the immune system and the growing possibility of Postherpetic neuralgia (ongoing pain that can last for months or years). Fortunately, the Shingles vaccine is even more effective at reducing the severity of severe Shingles cases than in preventing Shingles itself.

This is probably why it does not yet make sense for those under 50 to get the vaccine.

This matches my personal experience. I was shocked to get Shingles at age 47. And it lasted around 6 weeks. It was so minor at first that I did not recognize it and thus I was not able to treat it in time with the standard treatment (start a course of Aciclovir or Valtrex in the first 72 hours).

But the only time I felt anything was during vigorous exercise (and still not enough to prevent that, more like little pin pricks than pain). The outbreak was under the skin and although you could see it there, it didn't break through like the typical outbreak.

If I were 57 or 67 instead of 47, I am sure my experience would have been MUCH different. I plan to get the vaccine about age 50.

 

[Totoro]

Not sure it is mentioned here already, but the flu vaccine is something like 60% effective. So it just about halves your risk of getting the flu. There is also some evidence that if you do get it, it will be less severe with a vaccinnation.

This means that herd immunity doesn't really apply for this, and is also the reason I believe that vaccination is mostly recommended for people with weaker immune systems.

I guess that's also the reason why flu vaccination is not part of the regular vaccination program for everyone (cost/benefit) in most 'developed' countries.