Hey, that dog just bit me! (Read 1376 times)

Yes, natural selection works for antibiotics and bacteria AND for vaccines and viruses, but the impact is infinitesimally smaller. This is in part because, for vaccine preventable diseases, the host typically does a far better job of killing off the entire deer herd, leaving fewer survivors to pass along their genes. Here is how. Bacteria are organisms that have lives independent of us. They can live in the world with their own machinery. They don't need us to survive, and can spread to others from the world around us, whether we pass them along or not. When we throw an antibiotic at them, the antibiotic kills off 99.999%. The remaining 0.001% may still be thousands of bacteria that all now carry a gene for resistance. In a few hours or days, they have multiplied. There is nothing in there environment killing off these remaining bacteria and countering their growth. And their resistance gene multiplies with them. Very quickly, these new superbugs take over. Viruses are organisms that cannot live independent of their host. Viruses require the cellular machinery of the organism they infect. When they rely on the hosts cellular machinery that helps them, they commit to having parts of their life cycle in which they are unprotected available to the host's defenses. So the influenza virus exposes every phase of its life cycle to the human host's immune system. From this, the immune system develops defenses that can attack each life cycle phase. The killing is more complete. The virus' method for carrying on its genetics is to spread to other hosts during the few days before the body eliminates it. All vaccines do is speed up the time it takes for the immune system to react to the virus, basically by introducing it to the virus at the beginning of the season rather than at the beginning of a subsequent infection. Does this make sense?

Oldest line in the book. I took the shot and got the flu. Doctors scuk and actors rule. And school teachers can cure the cold. Yada yada yada. So, gorilla dude, how do you know what you had was influenza? How do you know it was NOT a different flu-like virus? You do realize that we have excellent cheap and readily available influenza tests these days. But we did not in 1994. So unless you saw a specialist or were hospitalized and had a very expensive test done, there is really no good way to know if what you had in 1994 was influenza. And let's assume that it was and that the vaccine failed, or that it only offered incomplete coverage. How do you know that it would not have been worse? How do you know that the vaccine did not keep you from getting pneumonia as a complication of influenza? Cuz all the research suggests that it would have done so. And that the vaccine would have prevented this. Or gorilla man, do you simply believe that the vaccine, made from dead virus, somehow miracuklously came to life and infected you? Cuz that'd be cool. Reanimation is cool stuff. Dead virus becomes live virus. Heck, even Voledmort, even Dumbledore can't ressurect the dead. But clearly that microscopic virus you had injected did?

Oldest line in the book. I took the shot and got the flu. Doctors scuk and actors rule. And school teachers can cure the cold.

Pushing your buttons is like child's play. Why do you make this so darn easy? At least make me work for it. MTA: is it worth reading back through the thread to find out how "hey, that dog bit me!" ended up here? Or would that just ruin the mystery?

It is worth looking back, and I enjoy having my buttons pressed. It is all I have. Six weeks ain't up.

Dude. This is the longest six weeks ever, isn't it? Yes. You may have them.

There have been several years in which there was fear of vaccine shortage, as recently as last year's winter season. I believe it has never come to pass. Your pediatrician should not be making medical decisions for your childrens' parents unless said pediatrician is trained in adult medicine. Not everybody NEEDS one according to guidelines, but frankly, everybody NEEDS one. I just spent the weekend in clinic and saw a lot of very very sick otherwise healthy adults, testing positive for the flu. Remember, when YOU get vaccinated, you reduce the risk that YOU will bring the flu into your house to infect the kids.

So your saying it's selfish NOT to get the flu vaccine? I've always been told my my pediatrician (have had several of both) and family doctorsthat not everyone needs to get the vaccine. The only two in my family that have ever gotten the flu Vaccine are 2 of my older sons and was due to their severe asthma. In fact I recall many many years where there wasn't enough to go around and you could only get it for those that had higher risks. And here I thought I was giving someone who needed it more than I or my children a better chance of getting the vaccine

Guess I should of used General Practioners instead of family doctors Who knows maybe next year..... MTA: the odds are more than likely kids would bring it home not the other way around since I since the majority of time that I leave the house is to go out running

the odds are more than likely kids would bring it home not the other way around since I since the majority of time that I leave the house is to go out running

Grocery store? Gym? Mall?