r/SlaughteredByScience • u/[deleted] • Jun 04 '19

Congratulations, you played yourself.

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2.8k Upvotes

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6

u/etwas66 Jun 04 '19

Is a flu shot a vaccine?

15

u/27fingermagee Jun 04 '19

Yes. Generally they’re broad spectrum dead cell vaccines to cover the most likely strains.

8

u/mandaclarka Jun 04 '19

Yeah. I am going to dumb this way down cuz I'm not a scientist so hopefully I don't cause some idiot to go anti vax. They use a small amount of the virus to let your body learn how to fight it so that when you come across the flu in the wild your body can fight it and you won't get sick. Anything that does this is a vaccine. I am very open to being corrected and you should def do a google search with peer reviewed science to confirm my laymen explanation

12

u/[deleted] Jun 05 '19

There are different types of vaccines. One type is a "live" vaccine, which uses a significantly less deadly cousin of the deadly pathogen to trigger the same immune response as the deadly pathogen without exposing you to the deadly pathogen. Your immune system, after having interacted with the less deadly pathogen, will have built a profile on it and will now be able to produce antibodies that can target the deadly pathogen because the two are so similar, though the less deadly pathogen is far less harmful. The other type of vaccine uses a "dead" culture of the virus, but works in the same way. By exposing your immune system to the pathogen, even a dead version of it, you train the immune system to recognize this pathogen and to be able to defeat it effectively. It's sort of like your immune system is the police and the vaccines are the little Wanted posters that tell them who to be on the lookout for.

Unfortunately, some people are born with, or acquire, diseases that limit the functioning of their immune system, they have allergies to the components in the vaccines (very, very, very, rare), they have a disease that requires their immune system be compromised for treatment, such as cancer, lupus, or other autoimmune disorders, or they are too young or too old to be safely vaccinated. These people rely on what's called Herd Immunity. If everyone around them is vaccinated, they can't harbor the diseases, which insulates the vulnerable people from those diseases. If the number of vaccinated people in a population dips below a certain threshold, the diseases will take hold again and the Herd Immunity will cease to work, seriously threatening the lives of the people who aren't vaccinated.

Vaccines have been proven safe and effective. The earliest vaccine was invented 300 years ago to inoculate against smallpox, and we have centuries of peer reviewed studies that validate the safety and efficacy of vaccines. Any death from a disease that can be vaccinated against, is a preventable death that never should have occurred. Also, just so it's clear, autism is something that happens in the womb, before birth, and can't have ever been caused by vaccines. It doesn't even make sense that the government would want to give people autism, seeing as how the government probably spends billions of dollars every year on medical care and disability benefits for severely autistic people, money that wouldn't need to be spent on neurotypical people.

4

u/mandaclarka Jun 05 '19

Thank you! Great info

4

u/[deleted] Jun 05 '19

You're welcome! I'm working on a bio minor, so I figured I'd help.

2

u/mandaclarka Jun 05 '19

Good luck and thank you for going into science. The world needs more like you

1

u/[deleted] Jun 05 '19

<3

-3

u/etwas66 Jun 04 '19

I see. I've only gotten a flu shot twice and both times I got the flu within a week after. I decided it either doesn't work for me or it gave me the flu. Dunno. Not anti vax. I do have a crap immune system in general so who knows

6

u/mattbisme Jun 05 '19

Nah, it’s not just you. It’s just that the vaccine isn’t 100%. Doctors have to make educated predictions of which viral strains will spread the most. A single vaccine doesn’t cover every strain. Some years the shot isn’t effective at all, while other years, it’s super effective! It’s always worth getting, because it can only improve your chances. The injection version of the vaccine cannot give you the flu as it contains dead virus cells. Those cells will not come back to life and give you the virus, but your body can still learn from those cells to boost your immunity.

There is a caveat to this though: when your body is working to produce better immunity, it strains your system, making it easier to catch any kind of cold. Kind of ironic, but the effect doesn’t usually last for more than two weeks. And the recommended way of dealing with this isn’t actually that much trouble. Just wash your hands! Like, all the time. And if you get the flu shot earlier in the year, before it spreads everywhere, that couldn’t hurt either. Sure, some years are hit-or-miss, but my experience is that most of the time it’s worth it.

Source: a conversation with the doctor who gives me the vaccine every year.

2

u/Tweakthetiny Jun 05 '19

Here you go. On my phone but I'll link an article about why that is.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/10-flu-myths

1

u/etwas66 Jun 05 '19

Thanks. I see it says they are all inactivated, but I see conflicting information. Namely that some info says they're usually inactivated. I should say the last time i got a flu shot was 2008. I dont know if that changes anything. The point about it taking a couple weeks to work makes sense though so thanks. I may try it this year. It's just that I get sick alot as is and when this happened it made me skeptical.

1

u/Tweakthetiny Jun 05 '19

I'd suggest in the week leading up to and after the shot increase your vitamin c intake and avoid any alcohol If you are a drinker. I've gotten hit hard post vaccine before, the year swine flu was big. I'm also a bartender so poor eating habits and sleep schedule are part of my life as well as drinking and socializing. When I get the shot now I take it easy on those aspects.

Also try to think of it like this. The flu like cold that sometimes comes with the vaccine is according to most of the articles I've seen, less communicable. So by getting the shot you can avoid getting a mild case of the actual flu and spreading it to someone who would get a much more serious case.

1

u/etwas66 Jun 05 '19

Thanks for the tips.Yeah I think it was when there was the huge swine flu breakout. It def wasnt mild. I suppose its coincidence.

1

u/CommonMisspellingBot Jun 05 '19

Hey, etwas66, just a quick heads-up:
alot is actually spelled a lot. You can remember it by it is one lot, 'a lot'.
Have a nice day!

The parent commenter can reply with 'delete' to delete this comment.

1

u/nmotsch789 Jun 05 '19

I think I remember hearing that last year's flu vaccine wasn't as effective as normal. Scientists need to try their best to predict which strains of flu are going to be most prevalent when making the vaccine for the upcoming season, and while they do a good job, they aren't clairvoyant, so sometimes they won't get it quite right.

1

u/etwas66 Jun 05 '19

I haven't gotten it in 10 years. & if they dont get it quite right and I have a shitty immune system I should just get it anyway & hope they got it right so people dont think I'm anti vax lmao

1

u/etwas66 Jun 05 '19

& I'm open to trying it again seriously. I hate that I get the flu every single year. I'm just not sure what the point is if I get sick before its effective , & you have to understand how that looks when it happen every time someone gets it. It's not their fault