I personally think most vacines are are over used and that the flu vaccine is no exception. I think people are so scared to get sick, that we are creating scronger bacteria and viruses by pre-vaccinating. I do not think (as some in the anti-vacination community suggest) that it is a conspiracy by the vaccine manufactures, but I think demand has allowed them to supply.
Anyway, I think that this mishap with flu manufactures and the federal government regulating how they are imported has actually worked to our advantage. I know everyone sees on the news every year, “this is the worst flu season ever” and “hurry and get flu shots before they are gone or you die”. I don’t think flu vaccine manufactures actually do this, I think it is just human nature to keep this kind of thing going. However, this year, since there is a vaccine shortage, the only panic that can happen is, “we have no flu shots and are going to die” No one can acctually do anything about it, just sit back and wait to die…but, people are not dying, and this years flu season is actually being reported as “off to slower than normal start” http://www.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/10/20/flu/ Of course, the news then says, “That gives us a little more time to get those doses out there.”
I think all this flu stuff is just paranoia which leads to over vaccinating, which leads to people getting sick from the shots, which leads to outbreaks of the flu, which keeps the whole thing in a loop. Of course, you have the CDC saying that 54,000 people died in 2001 from the flu, but when you look at their numbers it says deaths from flu and pneumonia. I bet everone hear knows someone that has dies from pneumonia (probably an elderly person) but does anyone know anyone that has died from the flu? According to Dr. Mercola (who I acctually think is a quack, but he has a link to a CDC PDF that should back him up, I haven’t read all 116 pages) only 753 people died of the flu in 2002. Does that sound like a reason to vaccinate the entire US population?
