Swine Flu/H1N1 Vaccination - Yes or No?

[Ron99]

Originally Posted by sphelps

You shouldn't have wasted all your time posting information in this thread if this was your final point
Just saying, you have as much credibility here as anyone else and any medical advice posted in a fish forum would probably qualify as random crap on the internet

Sorry not trying to argue just thought it was funny

No Worries. I don't think I ever said anything was my final point, just that I was getting frustrated and questioning the value of posting here. And I do think that on this subject my many years of work in both medical microbiology and pharmaceutical R&D makes my opinions somewhat more credible then some of the contributors here. You wouldn't ask your accountant for medical advice or your doctor for tax advice would you? I do have knowledge and experience that is directly relevant to the discussion. I'm also trying to post scientifically accurate information so people can make an informed choice rather then relying on fear and the huge volume of misinformation making the rounds.

What might be more useful is for people to post legitimate questions here such as "should I be concerned about the mercury in this vaccine?" which could then be constructively answered as I did above. But just getting on here and posting things like "the vaccine has mercury in it so I'm not taking it and you shouldn't either" is not only unhelpful it is actually harmful and foments more fear and uncertainty without actually informing people or addressing legitimate concerns.

Originally Posted by sphelps

Hey I'm not saying they are evil, nor I am taking a general side in this topic, I'm just saying they are just like many other industries like you said. They make large investments in hopes to turn a profit just GM for example. Is GM an evil company? Because this company has preformed life value analysis on many occasions to decide whether it's more profitable to fix a dangerous or faulty component or payout the injury or death claims. This is scary but common practice in almost all large industries and the bigger the investment the more of these types of analysis are preformed. All I'm saying is think for yourself and decide whether something is right or wrong for you which seems to be your general feeling as well. Let's not try and deliberately turn this into an argument.

I just think it is also maybe wrong to mistrust the vaccine automatically because you mistrust the pharma industry, along with most other industries. I think that is doing yourself a great disservice. It might be better to focus on the specifics of this case and ask yourself, what are the risks to me from contracting H1N1? What are the risks to society from an uncontrolled H1N1 pandemic? What are the risks to me associated with taking the vaccine? All I would like to see is a rational discussion supported by facts and evidence rather then the hysteria and misinformation that seems to prevalent.