venta

Er, yeah... but my grumble is that this is what people do. Which (a) devalues 'flu and (b) offends my objectionably pedantic side which likes things called by their right names ;)

If you hve a cold, and want to take a day off, it is sufficient to say you have a cold.

As it is, I'll be lucky to get back to work within the week... but people will say "you only had flu" :(

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lathany.livejournal.com

Hope you feel better soon.

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davefish.livejournal.com

Hugs
Hope you get well soon, and take it easy for a while.

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lanfykins.livejournal.com

And I agree with you entirely.

On those rare occasions when I do have the flu, I don't want people wandering around thinking I'm a bit sniffly and feeling like shit. I want them to realise that my lungs hurt, I can barely stand up, and I'm hallucinating, dammit!

So if you indeed have the flu, or flu-like symptoms, you may have all the sympathy that I withold from evil cold-upgraders.

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The fact there is a Flu vaccine would help, if the government would make it available to everyone. Someone claiming to have flu would get looked at funny and all those people currently mislabelling colds would have to own up to colds and stress how serious there are.

So clearly you should campaign for free Flu vaccine for all ;-)

You should get better soon, its good for you.

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if the government would make it available to everyone

What's the cost per unit? I suspect that a lot of companies would be quite happy to pay for it if it saved them the lost days work.

Someone claiming to have flu would get looked at funny

Unless they claimed to have one of the n strains of 'flu per year which aren't in the vaccine.

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What's the cost per unit? I suspect that a lot of companies would be quite happy to pay for it if it saved them the lost days work.
I'm not actually sure. It isn't high because this year there have been private vaccinations available in cubicles in some of the big London stations and from the station located medical centres for about 20-30 and that included their man power and profit.

A couple of paragraphs from the governments public health site:

"The virus is constantly changing – genetic shift and drift - with new strains and variants constantly emerging. People develop immunity either as a result of becoming infected, or through vaccination. And as immunity is specific to individual strains of the virus, the emergence of a new strain will mean that people will contract the disease and a new vaccine will need to be developed. Each year one or two subtypes of influenza A may be in circulation and one type of influenza B.

Q Wouldn’t it be better to vaccinate everybody who wants it?
A. For the majority of people flu is not life-threatening, however unpleasant it may be. A bout of flu offers long term protection against the same and closely related strains of influenza. It is the ‘at risk’ groups who benefit most from vaccination.

Calculated numbers of vaccine doses are available to supply the high-risk groups – the vaccine should therefore be targeted at those most in need and for whom it will be most effective."

Now you see I don't agree with that reasoning, because the vaccine also protects you against the same and similar strains of Flu.

Not surprisingly there are cost analyses which support both full population vaccination and selective vaccination.

Unless they claimed to have one of the n strains of 'flu per year which aren't in the vaccine.

They could try but we really do know what all the strains are this year and where they are.
http://www.who.int/emc/diseases/flu/country.html

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That's only amalgamated statistical data by region, though. If I claimed to have caught a 'flu strain which was reported as only being present in, say, China, then I doubt that the WHO would stand up in court and call me a liar. Especially if I hang around airports a lot.

And, more to the point, what proportion of 'flu cases are never identified as belonging to a particular strain and therefore don't appear in the statistics?

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If you caught a strain that was only found in China then either you were hanging around airports or you were one of the first in a predicted wave. The 'Flu tracking system is getting better every year and has a very well mapped and studies transmission system. It isn't 100% perfect but it is very good.
More importantly if there was blanket vaccination then the chances of the ariport hanger on getting the strain would be reduced in two ways:
1) There would be fewer carriers of other strains entering the UK because they would have been vaccinated against their local strains.
2) People like airport workers, health workers etc are often vaccinated against more diseases than the general population and are likely to have had the additional strain vaccinations.

Another point is that new 'flu strains tend to appear in the same parts of the world with occasional exceptions. The 'flu virus which caused havoc during the second world war originated in the US because of unusual conditions in army barracks.

I'm not sure what percentage of cases are never identified but the strains are likely to be caught overall because of the infectiousness of 'Flu, an new strain will, unless significantly reduced in infectiousness or increased in virulence, spread and be caught in a check.

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More importantly if there was blanket vaccination then the chances of the ariport hanger on getting the strain would be reduced in two ways:

1) There would be fewer carriers of other strains entering the UK

All very well, but global blanket vaccination against 'flu surely isn't feasible? Not only because of needing 6 billion 'flu jabs per year, but because in order to vaccinate against 'flu you have to have first globally vaccinated against everything that's higher on the list of important things to deal with - polio is on the resurge, then there's yellow fever and typhoid to worry about before we do anything else.

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To be fair blanket vaccination in this country isn't the ideal solution, we are just more likely to manage that sooner than the ideal solution.

Ideally there should be blanket vaccination in Hong Kong, China and a couple of other area's of the far east which is where the vast majority of strains originate from. There should also then be a mandatory vaccination certificate needed for entry into those countries (like the Yellow Fever scheme). This would cut down the world wide incidence of 'Flu by some large significant percentage. There would then only be the occasional oddity to deal with.

Oh and because lj user="chrestomany"> said this:
The Gibbon's flu is also not recorded by the BMJ, and The Gibbon doubts the other 4 people in the office who caught it (and gave it to The Gibbon, who incidentally may have passed it on to you) contacted relevant health authorities either.

I would also like to say that the strain variation of 'Flu happens on a fairly longterm basis so long as a couple of people in that oubreak overall have been tested the strain will have been registered.

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If it weren't for all the people I know who've caught 'flu from the vaccine, I might agree with you :)

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Sigh.
Well if they did they have a magic immune system which is capapble of bringing viruses back to "life" - where life is a dodgy term to use in reference to a virus.
Influenza vaccines are inactivated vaccines which mean they can contain whole virus particles, split virus particles or purified envelope antigens (subunit vaccines).
Vaccines can often cause very 'flu like symptoms however regardless of whether they are a 'flu vaccine or not because many of the symptoms of influenza, colds and other virus infections are actually the immune systems effect on the body rather than the virus' direct effect on the body. Aches, fever, running eyes and nose, that kind of thing. Worse when they are also affected directly by the virus though ;-)
The other major side effect caused by the 'flu vaccine is in individuals who are allergic to hens egg protein because that is where the virus particles are grown.

References:
http://www.cdc.gov/nip/vacsafe/concerns/side-effects.htm#flu
http://www.who.int/vaccines-diseases/safety/infobank/influenza.shtml (for a fuller report)

End of Andie rant, your broadcast will now return to normal - Sorry ;-)

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It's irrelevant what causes the symptoms, though - if the vaccine is worse than (the disease)*(the probability of catching the disease), then there's a strong argument for not having the vaccine.

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You're right it would be. The symptoms however don't last for a week (usually), don't kill anyone and only include the symptoms caused by the immune reaction not the damage done by the influenza virus.

The Influenza vaccine has one of the shortest list of side effects compared to some vaccines which are given to everyone for example Tetanus and MMR.

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But you get MMR once, not once a year. And tetanus supposedly every 5 years (or is it 10?), but in practice for most people only when they get a puncture wound or bite.

The point is that if 'flu makes you ill off work for 10 days, and 10% of the population gets it per year, then the vaccine only has to make you ill off work for on average of 1 day before it's not economically viable.

And the whole point of vaccinating high risk groups is that if you do that, very few people will die of 'flu anyway. Inflicting a day or two of 'flu symptoms on the rest of the population every year may well not be worth the lives saved. In my view it's up to the population to decide whether they want to take their chances, because in the case of 'flu we don't need to care about population immunity.

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1) The 'Flu vaccine is most effective once a year, there is also a general effect on similar strains in Influenza type A and B which means that low risk groups need not be vaccinated every year.
2) We do care about general population immunity because that restricts the potential for transmission of the virus to those who are vulnerable. A significant proportion of the population would get mumps have very few problems, a few may die. Everyone is vaccinated to reduce the overall chance of infection as well as protect the individual in danger. (Some of us get mumps 4 f*!king times because we never had the vaccine and because their immune system didn't do the adaption after one or two cases it was supposed to do...)

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The other reason mumps is different is that most people vaccinated against it in childhood. It's easy to give healthcare treatment to children.

It is practically impossible to persuade adults to take preventative measures - look how difficult it has been to persuade people to have regular screening for breast cancer. That's a disease that you might already have, never mind one that you know for sure you don't have now (well, barring a few days incubation, in which case the vaccine presumably won't help you anyway), but may or may not catch sometime this year.

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Unless there is a monetary or health incentive to do otherwise, most vaccination programs count on there being at least a generational delay before the full effect of the program is felt.
Exceptions to this tend to be campaigns in response to biological warfare threats and rapid spreading lethal strains. There have been relatively few vaccination programs which have attempted to deal with something as rapidly mutating as Influenza.

If a blanket government scheme was introduced I would expect the scheme to be something like:

An increase into the research funding for a more widespread Influenza vaccine with a stronger effect either over both types A and B or one for each.

A blanket innoculation of children at an early point in their school stage and updates for severe new strains with a change to a single blanket innoculation as the overall vaccine improves. (many years time scale).

A campaign and assisted funding to get companies to provide facilities and encourage the vaccination of their employees if not every year then every few.

This would slowly on a year by year basis reduce the overall incidence in the population.

I admit the main sticking point is the lack of a general 'Flu vaccine which makes the program rather a problem over an extended period of time. I also think that if a decision to try the program was made the impetus and extra funding could well increase the chances of the research succeeding by a siginificant time period.

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Fair enough, you've better informed on this kind of thing than I am.

Just in the last few years, 5 friends of mine have been seriously-to-dangerously ill with 'flu-like things immediately following a 'flu jab. It kind of puts me off.

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addedentry.livejournal.com

I have never had, and never claimed to have, flu so I can't imagine how rotten you're feeling. Get well soon.

There was a cartoon in Private Eye recently with a pharmacy divided into COLD REMEDIES and FLU REMEDIES (MEN ONLY). I've taken time off with a cold - normally encouraged by cow-orkers who don't want to catch it...

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bateleur.livejournal.com

This comment hereby certifies the validity of your claim to have genuine Influenza (TM) and not some wussy second-rate cold virus.

To help us certify other people's illnesses too, please tick all that apply:

[ ] Runny nose.
[ ] Splitting headache.
[ ] Stomach ache.
[ ] Nausea.
[ ] Fever.
[ ] Jedi.

(That last one was Steve's fault - sorry !)

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Aww, you missed my favourites... aching joints, stiff neck, hypersensitive skin and chronic sinus pain...

On the plus side, though, I now feel positively healthy as I don't have stomach ache. Though that might be something to do with having not really eaten since Friday night.

(That last one was Steve's fault - sorry !)

Apparently even if everyone writes in on their sicknotes, though, it still won't get in the BMJ...

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chrestomancy.livejournal.com

SYMPATHY

That's about all the sympathy The Gibbon can send, electronically.

The Gibbon maintains he had flu, and is prepared to give details if you doubt him. The Gibbon phoned his doctor, but the doctor simply specified at which point The Gibbon should call an ambulance, and maintained that the doctor could do nothing to help. So The Gibbon's flu is also not recorded by the BMJ, and The Gibbon doubts the other 4 people in the office who caught it (and gave it to The Gibbon, who incidentally may have passed it on to you) contacted relevant health authorities either.

The Gibbon hopes you're better soon.

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Generous though it is of The Gibbon to offer himself as target no. 1 for The Infectious Bastard, I was sickening [*] before I left the US, so feel it would be unfair to blame him.

[*]but we knew that anyway

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You were ill before you left? That'll be the bloody swamp fever, then.

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