Flu Vaccine. Necessary or Harmful?

[UnbrokenRN09]

Just curious as to what you guys think about the flu vaccine. Don't sit here and feed me the CDC's "recommendations", as I am well aware of them and also their "statistics". From my own personal research, I've found that the number of cases of flu related deaths seem to be blown out of proportion. Also that the vaccine contains questionable ingredients, such as formaldehyde and mercury, which are known to be quite toxic to the body...particularly the brain. And it also disturbs me about the strange phenomenon of guillian-barre syndrome that occurs in some people as well as other neurological types of side effects. There are documented vaccine-related deaths from extreme allergic reactions, to unknown reasons, but there is suspicion that these are underreported. I have also ALWAYS been puzzled as to the process of creating the vaccine itself. We basically just make an educated guess as to which strains of flu will be most prevalent during the upcoming flu season and place those strains in the vaccine. So in otherwords, it might work or it might be totally useless.

This leaves me to question as to why are we injecting our patients and ourselves with this every year? Do the risks of getting or spreading the flu truly outweigh the risks associated with the vaccine? And is it ethical to force all healthcare workers to get an annual flu vaccine or be terminated? In my area, there are hospitals who have fired hundreds of employees who refused to take the vaccine. That's pretty extreme in my opinion. I mean...I've had the flu. Other than feeling like a truck ran over me for a week....I survived. And it really wasn't THAT bad.

Why are we so paranoid of the flu? Yes it can be a deadly disease....usually only in the sickest, most immunocompromised of patients, like the elderly or those with many comorbidities, so I get that. But...the average healthy person just gets knocked on their keester for a week or so, then they are just fine. And in the process formed new immunities against whatever strain of virus they had. To some extent, it is good for the body to be exposed to pathogens because of the immunities that are developed.

There are some studies suggesting that annual flu vaccines lead to Alzheimer's later in life. I would personally rather take my chances with the flu every year. And have the right to make that decision for myself without having my job/livelyhood dangling over my head. I just feel like trying to prevent a (in most cases) non-fatal illness is a waste of resources. This really makes me question the true motives of this "flu paranoia" and the use of scare-tactics and bullying to get people to take the vaccine. Yes, threatening your job over a vaccine is bullying in my opinion and it's not right. If there was an outbreak of (insert deadly disease) going on, cities were being quarantined and health care workers were refusing the vaccine....that's a whole different scenario.

No, I am not a conspiracy theorist that thinks the government is deliberately trying to inject us with "something".

And for you people with the "it's the right thing to do to proctect your patients" mantra...save it. I wash my hands, I stay home if I have a fever. Period. Your 50/50 flu shot doesn't make you any less likely to spread flu virus if you don't wash your hands. Your hands are a vector whether you are immune or not.

I welcome all your comments....pro vaccine or against.

[macawake, MSN]

Nice sources!

No really, this is about as rich as saying "Well obamacare is good because obama said so!"

Cite your sources, and lets make it a little challenging, give us research from sources that aint in bed with big pharma.

Oh and you cite webmd:

Washington Times reports: WebMD pockets millions in taxpayer dollars to promote Obamacare (Stock up big today) | AgainstCronyCapitalism.org

So, again, where are YOUR sources? Its easy to talk, you say its so safe, I can just counter and say no they are not. Theres a difference, I cite sources.

I pointed you in the direction of PubMed (a search engine that allows you to access abstracts from medical research), not WebMD, whatever that is.

I realize that you provided many sources. It's the scientific quality of these sources that I seriously question.

There are many, many old threads on AllNurses on this subject with credible arguments and scientific data in favor of vaccines. If they haven't managed to sway you, I'm reasonably convinced that I won't either. That is the reason that I didn't spend the time and energy required to compile the research that supports the benefit of vaccines.

[wtbcrna, MSN, DNP, CRNA]

https://allnurses.com/nursing-news/new-back-school-852273.html. All the arguments against vaccines and the scientific rebuttal for each one.

Those that state this all just Big Pharm paying off researchers I dare them to prove it. A lot of this research is not payed for by pharmaceutical companies, and the VAERS system is open to researchers wanting to do retrospective analysis on vaccines safety. Public health statistics are also open records, so how is this one big conspiracy when everything is out in the open.

There can be no debate if only one side provides any scientific evidence, which is exactly what happens in every one of these discussions. The pro-vaccine people provide tons of peer-reviewed scientific literature, and the anti-vaccine people provide here say and commentary that is presented as scientific literature. Finally, it's my body and my children argument is also useless because this essentially makes these non vaccinated people public health threats to everyone else. HCPs that refuse vaccines are the worst kind of public health threat since we are the ones taking care of people that are in most need of protection from being exposed to illnesses during a time when patients are most likely to be immune compromised.

[BostonFNP, APRN]

The YouTube videos and pseudoscience editorials didn't sway me but the myriad of blog posts sealed the deal. It's obvious now all of us are being duped by big pharma because the internet says so.