Get your flu shot

[Aristus]

85. I can't even begin to count the number of ethical boundaries you have contravened.

It might be better if you just take down your post.

Read my posts above. The flu shot does not give you the flu. You've never gotten the flu from the flu vaccine. That's flat. No ifs, ands, or buts. No maybes, no supposes. You have never gotten the flu from the flu vaccine. You got a common, garden-variety cold completely unrelated to the vaccination, and you convinced yourself it was the flu because that would conform to your previously-developed, erroneous bias.

The immunologists who develop the yearly vaccine strain do not throw darts at the wall. That's gambling, and immunology and virology have as much to do with gambling as the game of blackjack has to do with that heavy little weapon you hit people with before mugging them.

They develop a hypothesis in advance of flu season as to which strain is most likely to be the prominent variety that year, and act accordingly. If you care to classify that as a guess, just be sure to acknowledge that it is a very highly-educated guess, backed by decades of experience assessing the potency of a particular strain, its potential for virulence, and an expected immune-response in a vaccination-naive population.

I encourage you to continue washing your hands. At least you are acknowledging that pathogenic micro-organisms exist. But influenza is spread primarily through droplets from coughs or sneezes. Wash your hands, wear a mask in public if you have a respiratory illness that causes you to cough and/or sneeze, and get your flu shot.