Flu Vaccine: Do it or not?

[bennyboy]

You know, I did get the flu the year I got the flu shot. I don't like being called a liar. It was confirmed by my doctor. And no, if someone had dropped any sum of money on the sidewalk, I wouldn't have fetched it. It was likely the worst I've ever felt.

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That said, now that I've done more research and read some of your stories, I probably will get the shot this year. I think when I got the flu it must have been a rogue strain or something.

Sometimes in poker, a pair of aces loses to a lucky three-of-a kind. But losing in that way isn't a good reason to avoid making the smart bet.

The problem is that the shot is maybe 70% effective, so a lot of people with the shot WILL still get the flu. You'll also have some lucky people who for whatever reason didn't get the shot and didn't catch the flu anyway. This leads to confusion, as both groups are vociferous with their anecdotes. But I look at it another way. If I don't get vaccinated, and end up being a carrier, how many OTHER people am I putting at risk for a horrible time, and possibly even something that could harm them permanently? I don't know the number, but it's non-zero. I'd rather "risk" the shot than Risk putting someone else's loved ones in harm's way.

I see the refusal to get vaccinated as a kind of innumeracy: the inability to draw on the statistics in preference to the anecdotes.