Mumps?!?

[OakLeaf]

I wonder whether acceptance of vaccines might be higher if they weren't pushing the flu vaccine (and vaccines for other minor illnesses) so hard.

Diseases like polio and smallpox are one thing. But we've all had the flu. It feels awful for a couple of weeks, maybe a whole month occasionally, but is it really so bad that we want to monkey with our immune systems to prevent it? Yes, a very small percentage of people die of it ... people die. We are not immortal. Each and every one of us has to die of something.

I got the flu every year for years. Every time I'd be in bed for two weeks. When they came out with the flu vaccine I got that every year ... until I started having an inflammatory reaction to it (four to six months each time). So it was interesting to me that this year when I got an intense but short-lived flu, I had a milder and briefer version of the same reaction I get to the shots - it is the virus, not the adjuvants, that sets off an inflammatory arthritis. The possibility that that might progress really scares me. Would I be getting that reaction if I hadn't had so many shots? Would I rather have the flu once in a while than inflammatory arthritis (you bet I would)?


PS to the OP - try 1972, not 1952. Way to make the majority of us on this board who've had the mumps and chicken pox - two more diseases that make kids feel pretty sick for a while and that's all - feel old.