Should we vaccinate everyone (except babies) against the flu?

 

CURRICULUM: Responsibility to Others: Your Inner Circle

 

Summary: Vaccination--medicating as insurance--provides an economic boom for pharmaceutical companies. For some diseases, vaccination can be a vital preventative measure, but for others, the therapeutic effect may be less impressive. Our specific question about opens the door to a multi-perspective view of common practices.

 

Basic Understanding:

• What is the flu? Why are there so many types (strains) of flu?

  Extremely contagious respiratory illness caused by a variety of influenza A or B viruses

  Made more complicated by variety of subtypes, lineages, strains

  Can be serious, especially for certain at-risk groups; can trigger serious complications

  Peak flu season is winter; there may be a relationship between sunshine, vitamin D and flu

  Possible connection to proper diet, fitness/exercise, time spent outdoors

  Time spent indoors with others: good way for flu to spread

  Preventions include good hygiene, and, for many, vaccination against this year’s strain

• Vaccines, vaccinations, immunization

  Vaccine produces immunity from disease; vaccination places dead or inactive organism in new host (patient) and provides immunity; immunization is the process that results in protection

  Many types of vaccinations: chicken pox, tuberculosis, mumps, polio, many more

  Efficacy: measure of effectiveness for stated purpose - how effective are flu vaccinations?

  Standards used to measure usefulness vs. potential dangers

  Efficacy of other types of vaccines

  Economics of annual vaccination; number of people vaccinated annually

  Cost of a flu epidemic: human life, lost productivity

 

Issues / Open Questions:

• Ongoing concerns about flu epidemic and pandemics (why haven’t we licked this yet?)

• Reasons to be concerned about annual flu shots / what we know, what we don’t know

  Are Americans driven to annual habits to profit the pharmaceutical industry?

  Liability: side effects, failure to provide sufficient protection

• How is flu handled outside the U.S.? - Europe less focused on vaccination, more on sick leave

  Focus on specific at-risk populations; others not usually vaccinated

• Following the herd: analyzing the potential dangers, the potential risks of associated with treatment, doing as others do (and encouraging family, friends and neighbors to follow along)

  How much should we know; should we trust our doctors; or in the case of flu shots, often administered to large numbers of people in a gymnasium, do community leaders ask the right questions (or simply follow other community leaders or public health officials)?

  Is critical thinking part of the equation? How do we manage to ask a question and receive a proper answer?

 

Conversation Pit: Possible Topics

• Do you agree with allegations of a link between flu shots and autism?[1] 

• Do flu shots cause more harm than good?

• Why are chemicals that are bad for us, like aluminum, being put into the shots?

• Are you irresponsible for not getting a flu shot?

• If you don’t get vaccinated, what is your role and responsibility in spreading the flu?

 

Notebook Contents

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Examples of Web Assets

• Worldwide sales of flu vaccines for 2011-2012[2]

• The flu vaccine is 61% effective, but too few adults get it[3]

• Flu attack—animation of how a flu virus invades your body[4]

• Psychotic clown and death nurses rampage city to tell dangers of flu vaccine[5]

• Flu vaccines contain mercury which is known to be hazardous to human health. Do flu shots do more harm than good?[6]

 

Scholars, Books, Other Sources

• NIH, CDC experts - influenza, communicable diseases, vaccination

• Daniel Levitin, Ph.D. and author, The Organized Mind - the science and logic of alternative medicine

• Paul A. Offit, American pediatrician specializing in infectious diseases and expert on vaccines, immunology an virology. Co-inventor of a rotavirus vaccine that has been credited with saving hundreds of lives a day.

• Senior scientist, pharmaceutical company / large supplier of vaccines

• Alternative advocate - why flu vaccines are a bad idea

• Law professor - individual rights and public health

 

Creative / Educational Opportunities

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[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xv_IaLHwgAQ

[2] http://www.fiercevaccines.com/special-reports/top-10-selling-flu-vaccines-2012

[3] http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2014/02/cdc-flu-vaccine-61-effective-too-few-adults-get-it

[4] http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2011/06/01/114075029/flu-attack-how-a-virus-invades-your-body

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDrTDA1RoLI

[6] http://www.bewellbuzz.com/general/10-reasons-flu-shots-dangerous-flu/