No I do not plan on getting the vaccine. And no, that does not automatically place me as public health enemy number 1. Allow me to point something out you fucking sheep. Just because you got the vaccine does NOT mean you won’t get the H1N1 flu. Yes, it probably will reduce the severity of the flu should you catch it but it does NOT absolutely prevent the flu.
Even if you get the vaccine and contract a milder form of the H1N1 you are still just as contagious as if I caught a rockin’ case of the H1N1. I am not any more of a threat than anyone else. Fuck!
—Nobody’s Pariah
This article appears in Nov 19-25, 2009.
You’re right, the H1N1 vaccine does not provide 100% protection from getting the H1N1 flu should you be exposed to it. It only provides a mere 90% ( adjuvanted version ) protection…I mean why even bother right?
I love how you refer to people who choose to get the vaccine as sheep. You seem like just another paranoid hippie who doesn’t want “the man” telling them what to do. Getting the flu shot is a personal choice. Just because someone gets the shot doesn’t make them a part of the sheep herd.
Well said lovinglife. The OP has no leg to stand on and gives no justifiable argument as to why not get the flu shot. Sorry I ruined your fucking day OP but I’m getting my shot in about an hour or so.
I’m in the high risk category and get my flu shot every year (this year 2 shots). Does this make me a sheep?
I love the sheep comment. Always used by ‘free thinkers’ who all say the same boring stuff and follow each other’s ‘radical’ leads…kind of like…sheep. So OP, if everyone ‘woke up’ and didn’t get the shot, would they still be sheep for doing what everyone else is doing?
Lovinglife is right to say it’s a personal choice. It just so happens that most people are choosing to get vaccinated. Sometimes, when a lot of people do things, they do it because it’s a good idea. To not do something smart because you don’t want to be associated with the ‘dumb sheep’ majority isn’t very smart.
If you don’t want to protect yourself, you should protect the welfare of others. Getting the vaccine isn’t about being a sheep, it’s about not wanting this virus to spread uncontrollably with devastating consequences.
Got my shot last week, along with my fiancee. I want to ensure that I’ve done everything to protect myself, and more importantly, her. She’s lived through cancer, and granted, while this flu would most likely not be fatal to her, I don’t want to take that chance. It’s not about being a sheep, fucker. If you choose not to get it, that’s fine. Just don’t come anywhere near me. Lovinglife and Miles, as always, you took the words right out of my mouth.
I’d like to lessen my chance of getting severe secondary infections too, thanks.
lol the comments here surprise me… the information is out there, if you choose not to read it and pretend it doesn’t exist, you’re just being ignorant, and you will get what is coming to you. Go back to your 6 o’clock news..
But Dr. Fever, what about the 200 yr conspiracy?
Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carey say it isn’t safe!
…sorry, I’m in Paris, and I can’t muster the energy for a good snark….
What information do you speak of hut? The information on conspiracy websites that say that it’s bad for you? Like everyone else has said here: just because we choose to get an inoculation does not mean we’re sheep. You’re not on a higher plane of consciousness because you didn’t get it. Arrogance will get you nowhere.
Matthew, yeah, the guy who talked out of his ass on camera, and the girl who blames her son’s Polio vaccine for her son’s Autism. Both I’m sure are certifiable medical experts among the celebrities, as Tom Cruise and John Travola are high priests of Scientology, with their good old Operating Thetans.
Me and my family had H1N1 before we could get the shot. I wasn’t planning on getting it anyway. I don’t get the regular flu shot either. I take care of myself, wash my hands regularly, and more importantly, I stayed home when I was sick to prevent spreading it as best as I can. A lot of people don’t. I know a lot of people who’s family have had H1N1 and didn’t stay home for the recommended week but were back to school and work within 3 days. The vaccines not going to help a lot of people if no one follows the guidelines either.
If you don’t want to get sick, you get the shot. If you don’t care, don’t get the shot. It’s a personal choice yes, but there is also a lot of fear mongering going around.
Some people in low risk groups are getting the shot because they feel threatened by H1N1. Whether this is real or imaginary is debatable, but the flu is just the flu, chances are you’ll be quite fine if you become ill, and get a week off school or work.
boy the herd here, really hates having that pointed out ;p
If you have any trouble breathing….get the fucking shot!
If you have any lingering health problems…..please get the shot! Someone I know just died last week from the H!N!
I don’t have any health issues the flue could exasperate…..and if I get sick….I’ll stay in bed ’till it’s over.
I don’t plan on getting the shot…..more for you guys that need it.
🙂 just follow the ass of the dog in front of ya….
I’m still on the fence with the vaccine… But I’m with Smee on this; for now I’ll wait and let those who need the shot get it, and if I get really sick (I don’t count a cough and sniffles as really sick) I will still home
Imagine a world where media was not in your face 24/7. How many people do you know personally whose lives have been devastated by the flu? NOW you understand the sheep reference. (No, I did not write this bitch)
Kay, before H1N1 season flu vaccine use rates were about 70% for people over 65 and about 30% for healthy adults over age 18. Every year, MILLIONS of Canadians get the flu vaccine in lieu of any significant media hype. Are they sheep, or are they just taking care of their health? Sure the media has sensationalized H1N1 but the fact still remains that people are getting sick and some are dying from H1N1. There is a safe, and for most people effective, way to minimize you risk of getting sick from H1N1. So, why is it sheep-like behaviour to want to take precautions to keep from getting ill? It just sounds like a good idea to me…and apparently it sounds like a good idea for the millions of Canadians who have already rolled up their sleeves and gotten vaccinated.
Miles, the flu didn’t exist to the “real” truth (which is the internet, by the way) until H1N1. Let’s just ignore 50 years of medical science and proof that vaccines work. A raving lunatic on the internet says that the vaccine is bad for you, so, therefore it is. The real cure is snake oil. I’m sure they sell that somewhere on the internet.
kay— to your point of “How many people do you know personally whose lives have been devastated by the flu?”, I can tell you that my mother contracted the flu 9 years ago, right around now, and nearly died from the complications arising from the flu (that being primarily pneumonia). She had never gotten a flu shot up until that point and now she gets it every year. Just because you don’t know anyone doesn’t mean that the flu doesn’t exist to other people. I’m sure if you ask anyone with elderly parents who are of any health if their parents haven’t had an issue arising from a flu, you would probably find a surprising number of people will tell you that they have had an issue.
I have a good number of high risk family members that I’m in regular contact with. I’m getting the shot for their sake, I don’t think that makes me a sheep.
Of course the fringes and their families are going flock for vaccine in interest of their own survival. It’s the other 98% who are flocking like sheep afraid the big bad wolf will identify them as part of the 2%. Boo!
The death rate is so VERY low chances are you do not and will not know anybody who will DIE from this flu although some of your family and friends will emerge immune after a week or 3 of downtime.
Kay I think you may have missed my point. A lot of Canadians (30-40%) are already getting the flu shot every year with at risk groups getting the shot in the 70-80% range. It’s not 98% vs 2% it’s more like 60% vs 40%. This year, it looks like they are expecting about half of all Canadians to get the H1N1 shot which is a 10-20% more of the population (~3-6 million people) than normal. They have already administered about 7million doses which is about 20% of the population. We’ll have to see how many actually finally get the vaccine, but it doesn’t really look like the sheep are behaving the same. If truly half the country doesn’t get the vaccine this year, then which half of the country are the sheep, those that get it or those that don’t?
http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/publicat/2008/u…
“The death rate is so VERY low chances are you do not and will not know anybody who will DIE from this flu although some of your family and friends will emerge immune after a week or 3 of downtime.”
Why not get the shot and emerge immune with NO downtime?
and do you lock yourself in the house in fear of getting run down by a bus?
Listen, I really think this pandemic is all about making sure we stay productive… follow the money!!! The world is suffering economic crisis that, normally, a war could solve. Since war is part of the economic problem this time round pandemic is the next best thing to stimulate the economy…. they gotchya right where they wantchya, Miles
And where is that Kay? Vaccinated?
No, I don’t lock myself in the house for fear of getting hit by a bus, but I do wait until they are stopped before I step in front of them. It’s about risk management. I have a small chance of getting the flu each year (about 10%) and I have a smaller chance of dying from it about ~0.1-0.5%). With the flu vaccine I have about a 10-fold less chance of getting it or dying from it. Getting the shot has an acceptable safety risk of about 1 in a million chance of death and 1 in 100,000 chance of severe but mostly temporary complications. When I consider those odds, I come up on the side of getting the vaccine. Others may not, and that’s fine. I only hope that people who don’t get the shot actually consider the REAL risks and not the bullshit pseudoscience they encounter on the internet and from Jenny Mac on TV.
And can you explain to me how this pandemic is good for the economy, which money trail we are supposed to be following and why it’s supposedly a bad thing to want to keep people productive?
People tend to distrust scientifically tested modern medicine in favor of all that bullshit pseudoscience these days. Even though modern medicine has doubled life expectancy in just fifteen years, saved billions of lives, decreased human suffering, people will still choose to spend hundreds of dollars on new age medicine than visit a doctor.
Money trail… let’s start with all those news anchors and investigative reporters delivering the goods 4,5,6… 10 times a day multiplied by each radio, television and newspaper company… on a world wide scale. That’s a shit load of people staying employed and services the advertising and marketing these companies do to make their bread. Follow the money.
Health professionals and IT people work in tandem to distribute the information. Even your own government paid out an expense to see this done. Are you catching on?
When news reporters and health professionals travel to report the news or attend WHO conferences and the like the hospitality industry thrives and never mind full jet loads of people being ported to where the news is. And can you imagine the revenue collected in long distance calling to organize and maintain these events?
When a reporter stays at a hotel even the maid’s job contributes to overall economy and if you think traveling folk don’t eat well, the farmers won’t believe you because the orders keep-a-comin’ and there’s a constant line-up at the local coffee shop.
Have we even talked about health care workers who happen to be in high demand as a result of this pandemic or the private labs who employ how many people, janitors included? They take their kids to day care to go to work providing yet another avenue of economic growth/stability. And what about infrastructure? Do you think nobody pays the rent for these ad-hoc clinics that are set up?
The economy benefits on a world wide scale from pandemic. There’s no two ways about it. Pandemic stirs the economy much the same way war does. Every united in a common goal and everybody working towards that goal. Even the women went to work during WW2.
So you got vaccinated. The demand is HUGE thanks to media and NOT to extremely low death rates. Miles, maybe you should just wash your hands often, eat right, exercise and get enough sleep since you KNOW generally health people will not die if they catch this flu. Isn’t that like looking both ways before you cross the street?
It’s not a bad thing to keep people productive but isn’t it a bad thing to LIE to them to keep them productive? Nobody says CHANCES ARE YOU’RE NOT GOING TO DIE FROM H1N1 but that’s the truth. If that’s what the media was spewing would demand be so high?
World governments are charges with the responsibility of keeping the economy flowing. What would YOU do if that were your responsibility? You’d likely convince yourself you’d have no choice like they did.
So, when people say “follow the money” there’s usually a trail leading to someone guilty of something. The trail you describe leads, I guess, to the government. The same government that has spent almost 2 billion dollars on H1N1 and gone into debt in some areas doing it. Are you saying this is all just another stimulus package? I think the more likely scenario is that the media is hyping it up because it keeps people watching. The Government acted on the best information it had at the time and is running a vaccine program to cover it’s ass in case H1N1 turned out to be more deadly than it actually has. Now that we’ve bought 50 million doses, we might as well use them. No one is lying to you about H1N1, especially the PHAC. The media is sensationalizing things, as they always tend to do, but the government websites are providing accurate data. They are promoting the vaccine because they promote it every flu season. This year people are just paying more attention. The only people who have really seized the H1N1 opportunity and capitalized on it are the media and the makers of purell and the H1N1 vaccine.
I got vaccinated because I work with people in high risk groups and I also am in a high risk group myself. I also eat right, exercise and wash my hands. I’m not getting vaccinated because I’m scared of dying, I’m getting vaccinated because, along with hand washing, vaccines reduce my chances of getting sick and spreading disease to others. I’ve had the flu before, I don’t like it so I try and do what I can to not get it again.
The money trail I describe leads to a recovered WORLD economy. The evidence is all around you. Pandemic is an effective means of stimulating the WORLD economy.
Yes, the flu is yuckie. Do you really think the gov’t should spend $2B combating a yuckie couple of weeks? If they don’t spend the money and alarm the public into action they run the risk of seeing the economy slump yet again due to a loss of productivity. If you can experience the complete opposite affect by making such a big deal of it (stroking news media), that’s what you do when you hold such responsibility. The proof is all around you.
“Pandemic is an effective means of stimulating the WORLD economy.”
Is she for real?
“The evidence is all around you.”
I don’t see any evidence the economy being stimulated due to the flu around me. Most of the workers are home with the flu.
I like being a carrier monkey…
like that cute one in outbreak.
🙂
stay clear when I’m near.
If spending $2B on vaccines results in more than $2B in productivity then yes, the government should spend $2B on vaccines. They spend money on flu vaccines every year and part of the reason they do that is because, other than saving some lives, there is an economic benefit through increased productivity that exceeds the cost of the vaccine. At least that’s the theory. So what’s different this year? A little more attention to the matter from the media because they, like everyone else, THOUGHT that H1N1 would be more deadly than it has turned out to be. It is still the #1 flu strain around this year and the vaccine is a safe and effective way to combat it.
I am not disputing that there are economic benefits to the pandemic, I’m just not convinced that the reactions by our leaders are that organized or orchestrated.
Doesn’t it bother you the gov’t wants to inject you with a drug in the name of economy? Do you LIKE being herded like sheep? One would think war is not organized or orchestrated by world leaders but did you notice the effect 911 had on the world? They’re as orchestrated and organized as all those clinics you see popping up to administer the vaccine. Might be a little rough and some wait times but they get the job done eventually, don’t they?
HKM, you go look at the economic effects of war, which is to say a people united in a particular cause, and tell me pandemic doesn’t have the exact same effect. Now apply it to the entire planet during an unprecedented economic crisis while wars are already in progress unable to stimulate economy like past wars have.
Kinda like math, huh? Not hard to see standing away from the herd.
It’s not in the name of economy, it’s in the name of public health. Economic productivity is just a consequence of improved health. That’s why we spend what we do on health care in the first place…healthy people are productive people. Purchasing and delivering a vaccine for a flu strain that was thought to be more deadly, but has none the less turned out to be the prevalent flu strain this year, was the right move for the government to make. Like I mentioned above though, a large number of Canadians already get the flu vaccine. We’ll have to wait and see how many people get the H1N1 shot, but so far it looks like it will only be 10-20% more of the population than usual for a total of about 1/2 of Canadian getting vaccinated. So, only 10-20% of the herd are going to behave any differently than they normally do. That’s hardly ‘united’ and we’ll have to wait and see what the full economic impact of this will be. We are already $2B farther in the hole than we normally are during flu season, so it’s questionable if the vaccine was worth it financially this year.
And WHAT exactly is the benefit to public health? Considering the very LOW death rate of H1N1 the ONLY benefit is economic productivity because if we do get sick we emerge alive WITH antibodies. No need for vaccine manufacturing and all the economy that surrounds it.
This is similar to creating a vaccine for mono. Unnecessary until someone in the media calls it a “pandemic” and the fear mongers become shepherd to the whole flock of mindless sheep.
You go ask the janitor of the vaccine lab if vaccine production this year was worth it, financially speaking. Don’t you see a recovering economy? I mean all the stimulus spending may have had something to do with but consider a lot of that money hasn’t even been dished out yet (ie. Nova Scotia). So, why is the economy stabilizing now… ALL over the world? There’s one thing other countries recovering from economic crisis have in common with Canada and that’s the flu vaccine.
Do you truly think that all the world leaders could and would get together to agree on and plan a fake pandemic? They can’t even do this to when it comes to important things that affect them all like peace, pollution and over-using natural resources. And, if it was the case, the government would hardly be concerned about the virus, yet, they set it up so that most of their employees got their shots before the general public did (medical workers, soldiers, etc.). This is not the action of one who knows that the whole thing is bogus.
There’s nothing fake about the pandemic. It’s the death rate that’s NOT being pumped in the media that should clue you in. Every single country in the world has been affected by economic crisis. The flu comes along. How convenient. They’re almost obligated to recognize the opportunity and capitalize on it in a GLOBAL movement, which this vaccination program is… global.
Public health and the economy go hand in hand. What is good for one is good for the other.
I don’t get what your problem is with the government sanctioning the production of a vaccine that is safe, effective and was ordered to protect people from a virus that was thought to be more severe but is still the most prevalent flu strain so far this season. How’s that bad? The media is the one using scare tactics, not the government. The news has even carried stories from public health officials telling people not to panic and informing people how not-deadly H1N1 turned out to be. Yes, they are still telling people to get vaccinated because the vaccine is available, it is safe, it is effective and it can help you to not get sick. No one is forcing you to get vaccinated but please, stop calling those who choose to get it sheep. It’s a dumb thing to say. There are lots of people that the vaccine helps and they are not stupid for getting it. If you don’t want to be one of them, fine. Not a problem.
You betchya Miles. YOU NAILED IT! “Public health and the economy go hand in hand. What is good for one is good for the other.” So the vaccine is necessary to ensure the economy recovers.
I’m not going to slag you for getting the vaccine but I’ll question your motives. Are you being herded like sheep or are you high risk and making a responsible choice? I refuse to be herded and I think pathetic others do NOT question the necessity of this vaccine nor governmental motives. Sheep. Baaaaaah
People are staying home. Businesses are losing money. Money is not being spent. And all because they are not sure if they have regular flu or H1N1. It was the government who asked them to take this precaution. So, unless the government is getting a $2B kickback from Purel, I fail to see how running a country at half-mast will stimulate the economy.
No, it’s not necessarily necessary to ensure the economy recovers. It remains to be seen if the economic benefit of the vaccine exceeds the ~$2B price tag for Canada. It may. It may not. There are other things that money could have been spent on to generate a higher return on the investment I am sure. Also, the economy may have recovered anyway. Clearly the vaccine is keeping some people employed, but I don’t think the news reporters were going to lose their jobs if H1N1 hadn’t come along. When the dust settles this spring and the numbers are in, we can assess how critical this pandemic was to the world economy. That is if you don’t die from the flu first 😉
And why question my motives. Even if one isn’t high risk, getting the flu shot is still a responsible choice. Maybe I just don’t get this sheep thing. Is it like breaking out the Hitler references…just something people say to get a reaction?
he he “half-mast”…..”stimulate”…..sorry, I just saw a viagra commercial on TV before I read that. Gave me the giggles.
Maybe that’s the code name for this devious conspiracy: “Operation Viagra”.
I’d get the vaccine, but I’d prefer walking forwards for the rest of my life.
LOL. I hear she’s getting better.
hmmm, don’t you think the gov’t recovers $2B in the taxation of a productive population? And that’s only ONE avenue of taxation.