Apolicious, the link to the cracked site is dead on. Too many women follow celebrities like Gods in this country. Hopefully natural selection will take its course with these idiots.

“Of course you should feel free to research any medical treatment before accepting it. But ‘Listening to 1994′s Playmate Of The Year’ isn’t research. In fact, it proves you don’t even know how to use pictures of a Playmate, let alone medicine.”

That being said, if anyone is actually at risk of being seriously hurt by the flu (H1N1, or classic) they have no excuse for not getting the vaccine. And yes, I’m aware I can transmit it if I’m immune. That’s just going to require some flexible morality on my part.

Unfortunately, this is a problem I think is only going to get worse. I’m not about to point fingers at the people causing it, but knowledge about real science is declining depressingly fast in America. And so long as people base their actions on fear instead of logic (as they are wont to do) the anti-vax movement will keep going strong…

All that said, the “regular” flu does kill quite a few people — far more than are affected by the side-effects of vaccines — and every once in a while, a “regular” flu outbreak kills millions of people (think the 1918 flu outbreak — an H1N1 variant — that killed 50 million people. H1N1 in the form of the 1918 pandemic had a mortality rate of 10-20%, which is hugely higher than the complication rate of the vaccine.

In the US alone, 200,000 people are HOSPITALIZED every year with the flu, and 36,000 DIE every year from the flu. For comparison there are about 3,000 new cases of autism per year in the US — and of course these are not conclusively all linked to the vaccine, whereas all the deaths I just mentioned are linked to the flu. And of course the flu vaccines are not 100% effective either. Still, if one goes by logic and numbers alone, then it seems like vaccines are the significantly safer alternative.

It is 100% true that the vaccines have complications (whether they are linked to autism or not). However, NOT taking the vaccine comes with a different set of complications and risks, given the right circumstances and exposures. The relevant question is which of the two options — each with pros and cons — is safer, and it seems to me that taking the vaccine is a lot safer. That doesn’t mean it’s 100% safe. It just means it’s significantly safer than the alternative.

To my mind the equation is quite different where the vaccination carries a risk, however small, balanced against a possible infection from which the majority of people are reported to recover relatively easily. Admittedly that is a generalization which the individual must make his or her own mind up about.

As far as *ordinary* flu and swine flu are concerned, I’d rather take my chances and try and develop some sort of natural immunity if I can – or at least let my immune system deal with it perhaps with the aid of anti-inflammatories if need be. I think consenting adults should make their own informed choice balancing the risks against the consequences and not feel pressurized into deciding one way or the other.

That said, a lot of people have only seen the old study (or at most small subsections thereof), and there are still tons of people promoting an anti-vaccine view. Very unfortunate.