re: Four year old Iowa girl who didnt get flu shot now blind

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Seizures? I must admit: never knew these were symptoms of the flu.

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My mom had the flu 5 years ago. It messed up her electrolyte levels and caused her to have a seizure from low sodium. Put her in the hospital for several days and wiped her memory. She has little to no recollection of any of that time period.

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You mention exceptions but not rules. The rule is that flu is much worse than colds. The flu virus has body-wide effects while colds affect upper respiratory areas

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I wasn't disagreeing that the flu isn't worse than a cold most of the time. Your original statement was just flat out wrong though. You said,

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Genuine influenza cases are debilitating. 

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. That is just not true. They typically are, but for people with strong immune systems who almost never get the flu or never get the flu...it is less likely to be debilitating. It wasn't shite for me....as I said, I've had colds that were worse and far more miserable. Fighting off the flu and/or not getting it at all has and always will have more to do with the strength of your immune system and your habits of washing hands, not touching your face, etc. The flu shot will do more for someone with a weak immune system than it will for someone with a strong immune system. I'm not at all against it, but some people do not need to take it, as the benefit is much more marginal than it is for others.

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and it has been proven that it is cumulative, meaning people that get it every year have even greater chance of not getting the flu

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Not necessarily true, at least not for all subtypes. There does appear to be a cumulative effect for H1N1 strains, but for H3N2 strains that have experienced antigenic drift (and possibly for B strains as well), research is fairly consistent in showing that serial flu vaccination can result in reduced and even negative effectiveness in years when H3N2 strains are the dominant circulating strains. That’s not an automatic justification against getting a regular flu vaccine, obviously, but it’s the kind of critical information that often gets left out when people who label themselves “pro-science” are more concerned with popular influence than determining actual best practices.

Oh, and I have a primary immune deficiency, I’m not antivax in principle for myself or my kids, I faithfully got the flu shot until I was medically advised not to continue, and I have a master’s with a core component in healthcare-related research. I am also vigorously opposed to using one-sided information, sloppy research, outright propaganda, heavy-handed social pressure, or punitive legislation to control others’ medical decisions in this arena, particularly regarding flu shots. People can make of that whatever they will, as long as they’re aware that applying ridiculous and derogatory stereotypes as a debate tactic is probably going to backfire.

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The disappearance of the sane middle ground on this topic is alarming.

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I agree. Allowing emotion to overwhelm reason to the point that it pushes the population as a whole to one extreme or the other sets a very dangerous and unstable precedent. Continued inquiry and refinement of one’s theories, methods, and analysis are integral parts of the scientific process and cannot become so divorced from policy and perception that we silence or shame people for simply asking questions. That’s exactly what’s happening, and it’s the complete antithesis of science.

The anti-vaccine side gets called out for their bias and ignorance constantly, but if things continue as they’re going, they won’t have the market cornered for long.

She may have still gotten the flu, but she would have already had built up anti-bodies to fight the illness. She would have had a much more mild experience having the flu. Get the vaccine. Listen to the professionals.

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So yeah....just get the flu shot

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No.

Excuse me for not having wholesale belief in a multibillion-dollar corporation who has a legal obligation to maximize shareholder stock.

Factor VIII

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Some years it’s as low as 5% effective

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No.

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in a good year you’ll get 30%.

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Just no. Jesus Christ, people.

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Without the flu or with an immune system already prepped to defend against the flu she would not have had febrile seizures.

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You can’t be serious. Kids can have seizures secondary to lots of febrile illnesses. The fever doesn’t even have to be that high; a modest increase in body temp can cause a seizure if the rise occurs very quickly. The vast majority of time they’re harmless, and they’d have to be exceptionally severe and long-lasting to cause brain damage.

So maybe in this case there were febrile seizures triggered by the flu, but that’s strictly incidental. Not that you can fairly conclude that from this shitty article, though, since it doesn’t actually offer any causal mechanism to explain why this little girl ended up blind, or even specify that she had lab-confirmed influenza.