by Mick Marten

Created on: June 07, 2008

Having been a member of our nation's military for over a decade, and having traveled in that capacity for tens (if not hundreds)of thousands of air miles to remote, less vaccinated places, I have learned quite a bit about vaccinations. Mostly, I learned that the military loves to give them, and that the soldiers know more about receiving them then most doctors do.

For years, it was required (not suggested; mandated) that all military members receive an annual flu shot, and for years we all dreaded it. Each and every year the inoculations would be given, and most of us would get sick. Usually I had mild flu symptoms for two or three days. It was still better than having the full-blown flu, though.

We all dreaded the shot, and we all hated to be sick. Most of us would take our shot, and suffer through the symptoms, and many wouldn't; our unit leadership would chase and threaten absconders for months until they finally got everyone vaccinated

And next year they would do it all again, and still do.

We all hated that shot with a passion.

Then one year we were told that the shot would no longer make us sick. Of course we all balked; we had been receiving that shot for decades, and we always got sick. But our leadership assured us that the base clinic had informed them that there was no longer a live virus contained in the serum. Having been chased, bullied, coerced, threatened and, ultimately, vaccinated each and every year, we found it easy to believe that dishonesty was next on the list of tactics.

But, lo and behold, we got the shot and almost no one got sick; those that did had only the mildest of symptoms, akin to hay-fever, with runny noses and slight muscle aches being the absolute worst (we had no actual allergic reactions, which are an entirely different discussion).

From that year forward, flu shots were not a problem.

The way it was explained to me, and this is backed up on the Center for Disease Control's website, is that the shot works by introducing the pathogen into your body so that your body's own defenses can 'learn' how to defend against it (your body develops specific anti-bodies for each virus or germ it encounters). This lets your body 'practice' fighting the virus, so that when it really encounters it, the deck is stacked in your favor. There's no way around the fact that to immunize you, they have to infect you with what they are immunizing against.

So, for years and years they would 'weaken' the virus, but not kill it, and then inject it

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>