I don't get it

I saw this on facebook and it is true.

Warning: Flu Shots Are Coming to Your Church

Really to your church, flu shots, those shots the doctor gives you to keep you from getting sick. Right through the front door, up the aisle and onto the dais. Or maybe, even more frighteningly, they'll sneak 'em the back door and down to the basement to hide among the stacks of hymnals, and old creches, ready to jump out at you on your way to the little girls room, or to the little boys room if you are a man of god. It seems that, according to the linked article, the federal government is conspiring with faith based organizations to immunize living breathing human beings, United States citizens, against a disease!

There must be something terribly wrong here. Religious groups usually recommend prayer for protection from illness, and the government just mandates that you buy insurance. Same thing really. Prayer is cheaper, only ten percent of your income. So what is wrong, why do we need be alarmed about this new, "Lets work together to bring affordable preventive medicine to the populace", policy? The article doesn't really make that clear. Other than citing another internet article that does interesting things with statistics trying to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of the vaccine and the pushing of its own brand of health care, it gives no reason to worry about what goes on in your local prayer circle.

All I can say is: Thank you. Everyone needs to know this. Influenza is a serious disease! Projectile vomit, diarrhea and the attendant danger of dehydration and opportunistic infection, especially pneumonia, make it a major killer of the old, the very young, the infirm and those with weakened immune systems. The last time I had the flu I could not keep water down and I was a healthy forty year old. One of the factors which limit your chances of getting the flu is the fact that many others get immunized. The article referenced does exactly what it accuses the CDC of, it lies with statistics. It implies, quite falsely that out of 100 people who take the vaccine 98.5 get the flu. Then it states, with a strange way of using numbers that a flu shot prevents 1.5 in 100 people from getting the flu. Lets assume for a moment, because they make a lot of assumptions, that this is correct. Most of the others don't get sick for other reasons, like the fact that their neighbors were vaccinated thus they were not exposed. Even so it means 1 million shots prevent 15,000 cases of flu. 15,000 less people in schools and hospitals spreading a deadly disease. And if each of these people gave it to two other people, etc. we would soon have an epidemic. The 10th level is 15,000,000 cases. If they each gave it to three, quite easy with such a communicable disease among an non-immunized population, the 10th level is three quarters of a billion!

The article goes on the show a video about a woman who had a severe reaction to a flu vaccination. It does not show video of the millions in the past century and hundreds each year who have had a severe reaction to the virus itself. They wound up in hospitals with all the symptoms of having died!

The under-advantaged now have a chance to get the vaccine if they desire it. No one is forcing anyone to take it. Making it unavailable to some, as the article seems to encourage, forces them NOT to take it.

Warning: Flu Shots Are Coming to Your Church

OWL

December 15, 2011