There is no update. Nothing is happening. Same old, same old. The FDA still hasn’t made their way to Canada to check out their manufacturing plants. I don’t know, maybe they’re waiting next season, or for a sunny day, or for armageddon.

Universal Vaccination

Some reports have mentioned that the CDC or HHS, or one of those places, is going to start recommending “universal vaccination” for the flu. Translation; every American should get a flu vaccine, regardless of age, health status, or whether they’ve ever even had the flu. This is to make it more profitable for manufacturers to get into the flu vaccine business, because selling 300 million vaccines is alot better for the bottom line than selling only 60 million.

So if they decide that universal vaccination is the only way to drum up more vaccine produers, then there’s going to be this push for everyone to go get their yearly flu shot. In fact, it will even be unpatriotic not to protect yourself against the flu.

Sigh…why am I surprised? Instead of doing something simple, like just guaranteeing that all flu doses currently manufactured will be purchased and paid for, they decide to take (maybe) this totally asinine approach. Like there aren’t enough health problems to worry about, without trying to project the flu as a major killer.

Between 5-20% of Americans come down with the flu every year. Of those, there are about 200,000 flu-related hospitalizations, and 35,000 deaths. Not to sound cruel, but of 300 million people in this country, that’s not a whole lot. The vast majority of hospitalizations and deaths are among people who are at high risk, the ones who the vaccine is recommended for anyway. We can go a step further and recommend that health care workers, especially those working with vulnerable populations in nursing homes, or with cancer patients, etc., get vaccinated, so they don’t inadvertantly spread the flu to those people. But at the end of the day, unless we get another Spanish flu pandemic, the flu is not a major threat or killer for most people.

That said, some people want to get vaccinated to avoid the discomfort, lost work days, etc. And that’s fine. Anyone who wants to should be able to get vaccinated. But what I don’t like is that “push” to try to convince people that they “need” a flu vaccine, and that they will somehow be jeopordizing the health of the nation if they don’t get one every year. Please, spare me.