Friday, November 13, 2009

Flu vaccine

Despite having the seasonal vaccine I came down with the flu last week. I've been told by a health care worker that the odds are that it was the H1N1 since the seasonal flu is not really out yet - at least in the DC area. (Is this true?)

Regardless, my impression of flu vaccines have not been favorable. Of the 7 years which I've been taking the vaccine, I've had the flu maybe 2 or 3 times (counting this time). That's not a very good average for a vaccine. Yes, I realize that this is not the right way to make the inference - that it should be across a large population at one point in time but I think this emphasizes the point I'd like to make.

Which is, that medicine really is not a science if it has to rely on statistics to make conclusions for it. That randomized trials really cannot answer the question that really matters: What will it do for me?

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