5 Reasons Why Nerds Should Get The Flu Vaccine
Perhaps it’s because I’m sensitive about the issue, or perhaps it’s because I’m just surrounded by programmers who style themselves well-informed libertarians, but lately I’ve been hearing about a lot of flu Vaccine denial. Many people I know have decided they are young, healthy, and generally don’t really trust that the flu vaccine actually does anything.
Well I’m here to tell you that even if you are confident you could shrug off a case of the flu, you should get a flu shot. Further, I’m here to tell you that if you deny the flu vaccine’s efficacy you’re falling into a trap that vaccine deniers have laid with their cleverly reserved judgement and subtle false dichotomies. You, as a card-carrying rational nerd, should get a flu shot, and I’m going to do my best to show you why.
And since people love lists, let’s do it in a nice big list format.
Reason 1: You are exposed much more than the average person.
You travel, you go to conferences, you use co-working spaces, and share computers with others. You’ve probably gone to at least once social event involving hackers in the last month. Because you gather and cluster with geographically diverse crowds, your exposure risk to the flu is much higher. You’re a vector for the flu into your community. If you could prevent or reduce the danger of your exposure to your friends, relatives and office, wouldn’t that be a good thing?
Reason 2: Because you’d prefer not to kill older people (they might be your angel investors!).
Seasonal flu is most dangerous to the elderly. Unfortunately, the elderly and those with weakened immune systems get the least benefit from vaccines. As such, the best way we can protect your parents, grandparents, or older friends is by trying to buffer them from the flu with herd immunity. If you can prevent the spread to them, they’re much less likely to suffer secondary infections. The two most common secondary complications from influenza are bacterial pneumonia and myocardial infarction. Both can kill or cripple the elderly or pose serious risk to children. The best way to protect someone from the flu is to never expose them to it in the first place, and vaccines are the only practical way to do that.
Reason 3: Because you believe in statistics.
A lot of people criticizing the flu vaccine say that it isn’t “proven to prevent the flu.” And it’s absolutely true that the seasonal flu vaccine is–at best–a sub-optimal vaccine. Influenza mutates rapidly because of the way it can re-assort its genetic structure, and so it can be hard to predict exactly what kind of vaccine to make months in advance. Lots of people argue that if it is not 100% effective, it’s basically worthless (the libertarian word for this is “cost-effective”).
But a really interesting comparison study was done in Canada when Ontario decided to pursue an aggressive vaccination program for its population while other Provinces did not. The result? You can read for yourself if you want the raw stats, but the gist goes that Ontario had less flu, less people going to doctors for the flu, less secondary complications experience because of flu.
The takeaway science-jargon is:
Overall, influenza-associated health care use decreased more in Ontario than other provinces for hospitalizations (RR = 0.25 versus 0.44, ratio of RRs = 0.58, p < 0.001), ED use (RR = 0.31 versus 0.70, ratio of RRs = 0.45, p < 0.001), and doctors’ office visits (RR = 0.21 versus 0.53, ratio of RRs = 0.41, p < 0.001). In age-specific analyses, greater decreases were consistently observed in Ontario than other provinces for age groups <65 y. For seniors, greater decreases were observed in Ontario than other provinces for hospitalizations among those aged 65–84 y and for ED use among those 65–74 y.”
The flu vaccine helps save lives, drives down seasonal flu medical costs by reducing costly doctors trips, reducing work interruptions, and less expensive aggressive end-of-life care. It certainly is not a perfect buffer against the flu, but when given in large doses the population at large benefits, and health care costs are subsequently reduced.
Mark Crislip did a great article all about the efficacy and difficulty of the flu vaccine with a boatload of links to published papers and statistical love if you want to really dig deep on this issue.
Reason 4: Because you probably don’t appreciate being played the fool.
You may not be aware of it, but there is actually a sizable group of people who seem to believe that vaccines are basically the cause of everything wrong in this country, and in particular are the root of autism. These people might have their heart in the right place, but when it comes to their science they’re full of shit and they’re notoriously good at hiding that fact. When you parrot their oh-so-carefully-crafted verbal caltrops, you’re unwittingly hurting the cause of health care.
I hesitate to even link it, but here’s an example of one of these people. These people make up a huge load of horseshit to push their agenda. This list was ruthlessly dissected by Dr. Mark Crislip, but I’ll just show an example of the scare tactics these vaccine deniers are using to try and undermine your confidence in what, by all rights, is the single greatest triumph of modern medicine and one of the top 5 in modern science.
… Adjuvants are added to vaccines to boost production of antibodies but may trigger autoimmune reactions. Some adjuvants are mercury (thimerosal), aluminum and squalene. Would you permit your children to be injected with lead? Lead is very harmful to the brain. Then why would you sign a consent form for your kids to be injected with mercury, which is even more brain-toxic than lead? Injecting mercury may fry the brains of American kids…
Check out this so-stupid-its-insulting paragraph! “Would you inject acid into your child’s brain? No! Well then surely these other chemicals should scare you as well!” Never mind that aluminum isn’t present in either of the flu vaccines used in America, and neither is thimerosal (which is not even an Adjuvant, so what’s it doing on this list!) And the worst lie? “Squalene”… a compound that the anti-vaxers think will scare people. But if you actually look it up, it turns out your body produces squalene every day in much larger amounts than the tiny amount in a dose of vaccine.
These people spread misinformation and play off your noble desire to listen to all sides of an issue. They’re counting on the “Dihydrogen Monoxide” effect to scare you into believing their bullshit.
Reason 5: Because Science is Awesome.
Every day we use the benefits of science to carry out our jobs and help with our day-to-day lives. If there’s one thing that science is good at, it’s evaluating options and finding one that works. Sure, we may not yet know the best way to make a flu vaccine yet, but we do know how to make one that has significant effects and improves medical outcomes. Will we one day find a way to make a better, even safer vaccine? Sure. But that doesn’t change the fact that we can still go quite far with what we’ve got now.
Vaccines are a triumph of medical science that most people don’t think much about. But when you consider what they’re actually doing–namely pre-training your immune system to fight off infection in a “dry run” condition–you start to realize what an amazing wonder-drug they really are. With minimal risk of side effects, they greatly reduce your risk of getting sick in the first place. They don’t require you take a daily dose of some chemical, or get something implanted or removed, or even leave a lasting component in your body. They just train your body to be a master of viral and bacterial kung fu, stopping infections before they start or reducing their severity. They are “all natural” “immune boosters” that really work!
Every year millions of people around the world get the flu, and hundreds of thousands of people die as a direct consequence of that infection. Yet more die from complications brought on by the flu. You can help reduce its spread by paying what amounts to one night out at a bar and getting a quick, relatively painless shot. And as a pleasant side effect, you’ll probably get to skip on 1-2 weeks laid up in bed feeling like shit and doing your best not to throw up again.
So don’t delay. Go out and get a flu shot. Chances are your fancy tech-startup insurance covers it anyways.
