Reader react
Each week, the Observer-Reporter asks Facebook friends to respond to a question about an issue in the news. This week, we asked: In 2017, and in every flu cycle since 2010, less than half of American adults chose not to be vaccinated against the flu, which killed nearly 80,000 people last year alone. What are your thoughts about flu vaccines?
Letitia Stark: I’m allergic: It has egg in it, and don’t believe in all these shots that the babies have to take.
Jerry Hickman: Born in 1959 and graduated 1977, so only those shots that were mandatory in that time span is what I got. Other than the occasional tetanus shots on ER visits now and again. It always seemed to be the ones who got the flu shot would be the ones who would call off sick for a couple of days with the flu. I’ve got seven, maybe eight actual sick days (not counting the five days for gall bladder removal) in 40 years. So my choice to not get them seems to work for me okay, but may not be the right decision for everybody.
Jill Dolen: I stopped because I broke out in hives, my shoulder swelled where the shot was given and I was sicker than when I would have got the flu.
Carrie J Perrell: Get shots every year and haven’t had the flu for 27 years.
Brenda Neckerman: My thoughts are I haven’t had the flu vaccine in 35 years. I had a mild case of possible flu once in those 35 years. Aside from that, in the winter when the flu epidemic gets bad and people who have had the flu shot still got terribly sick, the CDC says, “well, we never know which strain of flu will show up. We weren’t prepared for this strain.” So you’re getting flu shots for strains of the flu that might never show up, and won’t work on the ones that do show up. How does that make sense? It doesn’t. I also worked in a large office building with several hundreds of co-workers. The company would pay to have a nurse go around desk to desk and offer you a free one. Two to three weeks later, three-fourths of the people that had the shots were sick. Sore throats, fevers, headaches, upset stomach. Then after another two or three weeks of being surrounded by sick people and I, who didn’t get the flu vac, I am still fine. I only ever had one or two as a child. I’m 65 and have never come down with any disease. My mom is 90, probably only had one as a child, same for her. I truly think that the flu shots are nothing more than a big Black Friday for all the big pharma companies and medical institutions.
Gwen Davis: “Big Black Friday for all the big pharma companies” … perfect analogy. I agree