Thanks, I didn’t know he died of flu until it was stated at the funeral - I did know he was taken to hospital a couple of weeks ago in a coma but not the reason. It was very sad.
Sorry to hear about your friend.
However the flu vaccination is a complete red herring in this story and it’s pretty lame using such unfortunate news as part of a pro vaccine argument. It amounts to emotional blackmail to others.
The facts about the vaccine remain unchanged. It’s ineffective, proven so by Cochrane and the Flu Mortality rates are rising year on year despite the vaccine being given to millions of people.
Your friend obviously had a poor immune system which was unable to cope with the onslaught of viruses and complications. I sympathise. Many people die every year from such complications, often they get pneumonia and die from that. It comes down to how well you look after your immune system, whether you put harmful things into your body and what existing illnesses/conditions are already present.
I sympathise, but the facts about the ineffectiveness of the flu vaccine remain.
On the flip side my grandfather is going to be 100 this year and has never had a flu vaccination. He has all his marbles, is totally coherent. He only gave up driving his car this year after pressure from his sons and daughters who worry about him collapsing and causing an accident. He doesn’t drink or do drugs and eats healthy food and lives frugally. Makes his own bread too ! Such is life.
Realist gives advice about building up our immune system prior to the flu months and I am doing just that as I do get caught with the virus as my daughter is a teacher as I mentioned before she gets infected when the children have the sniff vaccine and it shreds to the whole family its unavoidable for us . I used to have the vaccine but I always got very ill with horrendous sore throats and wiped out for days . So although I hope each year I can avoid it if I get it I am stronger or as strong as I can be .
It’s a horrible time isn’t it and I understand many choose to be vaccinated and if it works for them or they feel it does then well and good .
Good post Susan and thank you for your last paragraph, I appreciate that. 
Interesting statement but in reality how on earth can anyone determine if the vaccine has worked for them?
The notion is absurd.
There are not many possibilities TBH:
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I had the vaccine this year, I didn’t get the Flu
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I had the vaccine this year, I got the Flu
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I didn’t have the vaccine this year, I didn’t get the Flu
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I didn’t have the vaccine this year, I got the Flu
In either case you can’t draw any meaningful conclusion.
You can’t determine if the vaccine works from any single person’s case. You can only do it through a systematic review of 100s or 1000s of studies involving a great many people.
This is an important aspect that people need to get their head round. The truth can never come from annecdotal evidence. Only from systematic reviews.
It’s a bit like saying,
I played the lottery this week, and didn’t win therefore lotteries simply don’t work and lose you money or . . . .
I played the lottery this week and did win, therefore lotteries do work and are great
Either way the conclusions are wrong.
A systematic analysis of all lottery players, the amounts spent and the amounts paid out tell you that lotteries are a nonsense, as are Premium Bonds.
Flu vaccines are hugely ineffective, simple as. Proven through systematic review of 100s of studies involving a great many people.
I get it now Realist, whatever anyone says, you always know better (or think you do) and you are always Mr Right. 
I’m of the opinion that some people are basically more prone to catching colds and the flu than others. Simple as that, there’s no scientific formulae to it. It just happens.
As I mentioned earlier, I had the flu jab once and got the most horrendous bout of flu I’d ever had that year. But then, that may have just been a coincidence - I may have got it anyway.
I’ve had flu four times over the years.
I was intending to have the jab, but on speaking to a nurse at the hospital recently, he said I’d be better off not having it.
He said I probably had a good resistance anyway by now and there was no evidence that the flu jab worked anyway.
I may change my mind when I’m offered it for free mind !!
Yes, it’s up to the individual if they have the jab or not, their decision and they shouldn’t be criticised because they decide to.
To call people ‘stupid’ for having the jab is utterly insulting.
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He wore a condom this time, I didn’t get pregnant
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He wore a condom this time, I got pregnant
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He didn’t wear a condom this time, I didn’t get pregnant
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He didn’t wear a condom this time, I got pregnant
Therefore condoms are useless? Condoms sometimes work and sometimes they don’t. Does this mean everyone should stop using condoms and take their chances? After all it’s not like you always get pregnant when having sex. Plus some people are less fertile than others so wearing a condom for them is a waste of time.
Good post, Mags.
I entirely agree. 
Whether someone chooses to have it or not is nothing to do with anyone else.
If they are uncertain, I am sure we are all capable of googling information, which is all Realist is doing.
As has been said many times, he has no qualifications, just Google, same as the rest of us.
I know I would very much resent anyone ramming their opinion down my throat at every opportunity for months on end, especially when I hadn’t even asked for it!
Excellent post, Mups
Being opinionated with a huge ego is an awful character trait. Whoever it may be who is opinionated with a huge ego that is.
Thank you Floydy.
I have no time for people who cannot say what they think, and leave it at that.
Give one’s opinion by all means, even enjoy a discussion to a degree, but it’s the not knowing when to stop, the ongoing repetetiveness for months and months on end that I can’t understand.
It is like a form of bullying almost.
It is an odd, and strangely obsessive behaviour to me, and probably makes the majority of people switch off rather than getting them to listen.
:-p It’s getting ever closer on deciding…will I …won’t I…such an exciting time on the good ol’ OFF 
Interesting recent report on why the flu can affect some people worse than others and the work going on behind the scenes to find a cure.
I would like to point out that many of us had jabs for smallpox, polio & other illnesses, when we were children. I am sure that very few of us were likely to come into contact with the diseases, but a few did and suffered the horrendous consequences.
The whole point of vaccinations is to stop the disease becoming an epidemic & ending the lives of many & the flu vaccine is given for the same reason!
I have my flu jab every year, even though I believe my chances of getting it are unlikely. Why do I have it then?
I have it because I don’t want to take the risk of catching it, but also because I don’t want to pass it on to people I spend time with either!
Everybody is entitled to make their own decision on whether they have the flu jab, or not, but I don’t want to be responsible for infecting others if I did get flu.
I don’t know anybody that has died from flu, but I have heard of many who have died from Pneumonia, an infection that many catch when they are weak & in hospital with breathing difficulties.
There is normally a 5-10% chance of death in these circumstances, as the lung sacs fill with mucus…and not having a flu jab may be the reason you are in these circumstances.
Pneumonia is often the cause of death, in many patients, because it is caught by people who are already suffering from other illness.
It takes a few days for you to realize you have the flu, and you could pass it on before you know you have it… so I don’t want to risk the lives of others in my family ( and that includes children) just because a company on the internet say I don’t need my flu jab. When the flu jabs were started, I had them & will continue to do so for the rest of my life , as I have never suffered anything more that a slightly sore arm for a couple of days.
You cannot get flu from having the jab, but you may get a cold virus, as that is likely to be around when the flu jabs are given… but you are not likely to die from having a cold, are you?
There is no evidence whatsoever that the flu vaccine could or will stop or prevent any epidemic of Flu. None at all. This is empty rhetoric. In fact I am 100% sure that if there were an epidemic we would discover extremely quickly how utterly useless the flu vaccine has been and is as millions of vaccinated people would get the Flu.
Your reasoning is badly flawed but you are free to do as you wish of course but others should know why that reasoning is flawed.
When your body becomes exposed to Flu virus you will contaminate other people just as you would if you didn’t have the vaccine. In fact a study has shown that vaccinated people spread Flu to others 6 TIMES MORE than unvaccinated people. So the TRUTH is that those people having the flu shots are the ones putting everybody else at risk. Quite possibly killing others along the way.
Either way, being vaccinated DOES NOT stop you passing Flu virus onto other people. Do the research and you will find this out for yourself.
As stated above, you SHOULD NOT have the flu shot then as by doing so you ARE infecting others up to 6 times more than if you didn’t have the vaccine.
This is annecdotal. People suffer badly from Pneumonia because their immune systems can not cope with the sheer volumes of virus invading the body. That happens because they have weak immune systems (either through bad lifestyle or other illness). Having the Flu shot stresses the immune system as it has to expend valuable resources fighting off what it thinks is a Flu virus and it does so at that critical time in the year when colds, ILI’s and Flu are circulating. Not a good thing to do imho.
Pneumonia is NOT flu it’s entirely different. Weak and vulnerable people can get Pneumonia simply by following bogus advice to take paracetamols and Neurofens to bring down a fever/temperature during a cold or ILI. Doing so completely obstructs the body’s natural defenses as the fever is purposely there to stop the virus replicating. Bring that fever down and the virus replicates with gay abandon and overruns the body in no time. For older people this can kill them simple as.
Correct and this is the same whether you have the vaccine or not.
You ARE risking the lives of those people because when you get the Flu you will spread it up to 6 times more than if you didn’t have the vaccine.
This is only true for adults who get inactivated virus shots. Children on the other hand get LIVE virus and so very much ARE BEING GIVEN THE FLU. Those children will then infect everyone else around them for a period of 1 to 2 weeks.
Regardless, the problem remains also for adults. The inactivated virus flu shot still causes your body to react as it it were fighting Flu and thus it stresses your immune system and uses up valuable resources. This happens at the same time that colds, ILIs and Flu viruses are circulating (the “Flu Season”) and so leaves older adults vulnerable for a period of time. If they catch a cold, ILI or FLu in that time then they are not likely to fare well. If instead they had not had their Flu shot and simply taken time and responsibility to boost their immune system through eating good foods and staying healthy then they would have vastly improved their chances.
This post epitomises the extent of misconceptions about both Flu and the Flu vaccines imho. Vaccines don’t stop you getting the Flu. They help the body deal with it if/when you do get the Flu, however, peer reviewed studies and research have shown that the extent of how much they help is extremely tiny as to be next to useless. They help about 1 in 100 people.
The very best way to prevent suffering from Flu is to keep your body and immune system in good condition.
Vaccinated children should, imho be completely isolated and quaranteed for a perion of at least 1 week. This should be taken extremely seriously because there’s no doubt in my mind that children are spreading Flu from vaccines and that in turn is killing older people.
Imagine if they were being given live EBOLA virus and released into the population!
There would be an outcry. Yet when it’s Flu we seem to just let it pass ! Go figure !
I don’t know why I bother posting on Flu jab threads because i know you will try to dispute what I say.
I am not going to argue with you because you just want to continue your battle with Pharmaceutical companies who make money on medicines.
I will make 2 points though…
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Of course pneumonia kills people because their immune system isn’t working well, that was my point! Flu & other illnesses makes people very ill, so when their immune system is overtaxed, an easily acquired infection like pneumonia will be what kills them. That isn’t my thoughts it is facts that come from the many doctors who see it happen & a consultant who helped a friend on mine survive pneumonia on 3 occasions. Not because my friends didn’t have a healthy lifestyle, but because he had a tracheotomy which exposed his chest, more readily, to pneumonia. The answer was to move to a drier climate like Australia…and he did!
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Many of the members on here take medication, and without those medications, which are researched & manufactured by Pharmaceutical companies, some may have become very ill or even died without them. There would be no medicines if Pharma didn’t research and manufacture them! I certainly wouldn’t be alive today if it wasn’t for the work the pharmaceutical companies do. Don’t knock them because one day it may be you that needs their help! :shock:
I think we are all sick of hearing flu jab arguments, so I am going to ignore them in future. The members on here are intelligent enough do their own research & make the right decisions for themselves! If they think they are not, they would be better served speaking to somebody with the right qualifications, that they can share their health problems with!
BTW, I have a full understanding of how vaccines work and have never suggested that they stop you catching the virus.
They stimulate your immune system to create many anti-toxins which fight the infection & some will remain in your body ready to fight any further cases.
And your credentials for giving such advice are???
Oh yes. NADA. Zip! Zilch. Zero!
Why not let others google for their own advice instead of playing make believe Dr. Realist.
I mean… get real. 