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"... would you take aspirin to prevent a heart attack if the chance of it working was only 10%?"
Why would I not take it?
Yes. I would take the 10% benefit. The actual benefit of taking aspirin at the onset of symptoms of a heart attack is about 20%. You see, I am not a victim of the Nirvana fallacy. I do not believe a medical treatment has to be 100% effective to be beneficial.
By the way, daily aspirin for prevention of cardiovascular disease carries a significant risk of gastrointestinal bleeding and hemorrhagic stroke. For certain groups of people the benefits of aspirin outweigh the risk.
Taking daily aspirin is riskier than taking the flu vaccine.
Exactly, but this was not publicized for some time. I was aware of this long before some of the medical community was. It was suggested that my husband take it when he had a physical exam at a VA clinic, I debated that and surprised them with the facts. Thus, my reason for weighing in on everything before the bid medical machine decides to let people know what harm may come to them.
"Given that the potential risks could outweigh any benefits, it is not currently advised that healthy people with no risk factors for cardiovascular disease take aspirin to prevent possible cardiovascular events such as heart attack and stroke."
I believe that as time passes, Big Pharma and the Medical Machine, when they find something else to make big bucks off of, will publish the facts that many of us already know when it comes to the flu vaccine. In this case, the harm will already have been done, has been done!
Most Americans are making an informed choice and choosing not to get the flu shots. In the age of the internet, people are going to be making more informed choices for themselves and their families. I have no idea why someone would get a flu vaccine, my guesses are (1) brainwashed, gosh, I don't have any other guesses! Oh wait, they can get it for "free" with their insurance, and some people love "free" stuff!
Are you aware of the risk of taking daily aspirin for a heart attack? Still worth it for a 10% chance it might prevent a heat attack?
I don't think I'm the one falling victim to nirvana fallacy.
The magnitude of the decrease in risk with the use of aspirin depends on the magnitude of the risk of developing heart disease, including the presence or absence of factors such as hypertension, diabetes, and pre-existing heart disease.
For anyone who has already had one heart attack, the benefit of aspirin in preventing another one is so clear that heart experts around the world recommend it. For those who have never had a heart attack or stroke there are tools that can be used to estimate risk. If the risk is predicted to be 10% for a heart attack or stroke in the next 10 years, using aspirin has a beneficial risk ratio.
I do not think you understand what the Nirvana fallacy is. It is the belief that if a treatment is not 100% perfect, then it is worthless. That is what you are saying about this year's flu vaccine: that a 10% effectiveness rate makes the vaccine worthless. Your position on the vaccine is a prime example of the Nirvana fallacy.
Even if this year's flu vaccine is only 10% effective in preventing the predominant strain of flu, that 10% decrease is worth having. In addition, people who get infected despite the vaccine may have less severe illness, meaning the vaccine may make the difference between being hospitalized or not.
If there were serious adverse effects from flu vaccine, then the benefit would be less. However, the risk of a serious adverse reaction from flu vaccine is tiny.
Of course, to understand any of this you have to understand the concept of risk. That includes the concept that risk statistics apply to groups of people, not individuals. When the physician has a patient in the office there is no way to predict whether that individual will or will not get influenza if not vaccinated. Obviously, many will not, and for them the vaccine was not "needed". Until there is a way to know in advance who "needs" the flu vaccine (or any vaccine, for that matter) and who does not, the physician will offer the vaccine to every patient over the age of 6 months in the US.
A 10% reduction in heart attack with taking aspirin is not a trivial benefit, and neither is a 10% reduction in the risk of influenza with the flu vaccine.
Exactly, but this was not publicized for some time. I was aware of this long before some of the medical community was. It was suggested that my husband take it when he had a physical exam at a VA clinic, I debated that and surprised them with the facts. Thus, my reason for weighing in on everything before the bid medical machine decides to let people know what harm may come to them.
"Given that the potential risks could outweigh any benefits, it is not currently advised that healthy people with no risk factors for cardiovascular disease take aspirin to prevent possible cardiovascular events such as heart attack and stroke."
I believe that as time passes, Big Pharma and the Medical Machine, when they find something else to make big bucks off of, will publish the facts that many of us already know when it comes to the flu vaccine. In this case, the harm will already have been done, has been done!
Most Americans are making an informed choice and choosing not to get the flu shots. In the age of the internet, people are going to be making more informed choices for themselves and their families. I have no idea why someone would get a flu vaccine, my guesses are (1) brainwashed, gosh, I don't have any other guesses! Oh wait, they can get it for "free" with their insurance, and some people love "free" stuff!
You are acting as if the risks of aspirin are a new finding. They are not, having been known almost as long as aspirin has been used.
The question is which patients can benefit from the anti-platelet effects with respect to preventing heart attack. The answer is that anyone who has already had one heart attack should take aspirin forever unless he is allergic or intolerant to it.
For prevention of a first heart attack, some evaluation of the risk without treatment has to be made. For a young, healthy person with no risk factors, doctors do not recommend daily aspirin. Do you have any source that says otherwise?
The overall uptake for the flu vaccine in the US is about 42% for adults and 60% for kids. Getting information from anti-vax websites on the internet in order to decide whether to take flu vaccine is hardly making an "informed" choice.
Apart from the misery flu can cause, the major reason to take the vaccine is to prevent dying from the disease. That is why truly informed people make the choice to be vaccinated.
The risk of a severe adverse reaction to the flu vaccine is far, far, far lower than the risk of getting severely ill from flu.
What "facts" do you know about flu vaccine that "BIG Pharma and the Medical Machine" have not published?
The magnitude of the decrease in risk with the use of aspirin depends on the magnitude of the risk of developing heart disease, including the presence or absence of factors such as hypertension, diabetes, and pre-existing heart disease.
For anyone who has already had one heart attack, the benefit of aspirin in preventing another one is so clear that heart experts around the world recommend it. For those who have never had a heart attack or stroke there are tools that can be used to estimate risk. If the risk is predicted to be 10% for a heart attack or stroke in the next 10 years, using aspirin has a beneficial risk ratio.
But if that daily aspirin was only effective 10% of the time in preventing a heart attack, would you still take it? If you were trying to prevent a pregnancy, would you rely on birth controls if they were only 10% effective? If you were suffering from depression and your doctor recommended antidepressants that were known to be 10% effective, would you take them?
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I do not think you understand what the Nirvana fallacy is.
I know what it is. Thanks. I just don't think you understand that not everyone thinks the same way that you do about health. I do think it's weird that you cannot accept that not everyone will jump up and get every vaccine, much less one with a 10% rate of effectiveness.
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If there were serious adverse effects from flu vaccine, then the benefit would be less. However, the risk of a serious adverse reaction from flu vaccine is tiny.
There are real side effects that one can get from the flu vaccine. It's not water that's being injected. The chances of getting the flu are small already and the chances of having complications from the flu are even smaller. A vaccine that might prevent 10% of cases is hardly reason to argue and try to convince people that they must get it.
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Of course, to understand any of this you have to understand the concept of risk.
Oh I do. No need to assume or insinuate that people are stupid.
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A 10% reduction in heart attack with taking aspirin is not a trivial benefit, and neither is a 10% reduction in the risk of influenza with the flu vaccine.
One also needs to consider the health risks involved with taking the medicine. That is part of understanding the concept of risk.
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Originally Posted by suzy_q2010
The overall uptake for the flu vaccine in the US is about 42% for adults and 60% for kids. Getting information from anti-vax websites on the internet in order to decide whether to take flu vaccine is hardly making an "informed" choice.
I know that you like to get most of your information from blogs but just because that is your preference does not make it so for others. All one has to do to understand the flu vaccine is look to the research. People who are informed have good reason to question the flu vaccine.
But if that daily aspirin was only effective 10% of the time in preventing a heart attack, would you still take it? If you were trying to prevent a pregnancy, would you rely on birth controls if they were only 10% effective? If you were suffering from depression and your doctor recommended antidepressants that were known to be 10% effective, would you take them?
If all of those 10% options were the only option, then taking the 10% would be the reasonable thing to do.
I have already said that I would indeed take the 10% decrease in risk of heart attack. Heart attacks kill people.
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I know what it is. Thanks. I just don't think you understand that not everyone thinks the same way that you do about health. I do think it's weird that you cannot accept that not everyone will jump up and get every vaccine, much less one with a 10% rate of effectiveness.
Why not take the 10% decrease in risk?
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There are real side effects that one can get from the flu vaccine. It's not water that's being injected. The chances of getting the flu are small already and the chances of having complications from the flu are even smaller. A vaccine that might prevent 10% of cases is hardly reason to argue and try to convince people that they must get it.
What side effects are you concerned about?
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Oh I do. No need to assume or insinuate that people are stupid.
No, I do not believe you do. Why is preventing 10% of cases of a potentially fatal disease not a good thing?
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One also needs to consider the health risks involved with taking the medicine. That is part of understanding the concept of risk.
What risks of flu vaccine are you concerned about? The risk of a serious adverse reaction is about 1 in a million.
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I know that you like to get most of your information from blogs but just because that is your preference does not make it so for others. All one has to do to understand the flu vaccine is look to the research. People who are informed have good reason to question the flu vaccine.
No, I do not get "most" of my information from blogs. I quote Science Based Medicine articles frequently because the authors are scientists who step by step deconstruct the pseudoscience of the anti-vax contingent and alt med nonsense like homeopathy.
Please let us in on the "research" that you use to "understand the flu vaccine". I already pointed out to you the deficiencies in the Cochrane review of flu vaccine you cited, including the author's close ties with the anti-vax community and evidence of bias in omitting studies from the review that showed flu vaccine is effective under the age of two.
If all of those 10% options were the only option, then taking the 10% would be the reasonable thing to do.
I disagree that taking these medications, with their side effects at a ten percent rate of effectiveness would be reasonable. Drugs, vaccines, etc. are rarely the only or even the best options available for health.
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I have already said that I would indeed take the 10% decrease in risk of heart attack. Heart attacks kill people.
Side effects also kill people.
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What risks of flu vaccine are you concerned about? The risk of a serious adverse reaction is about 1 in a million.
If that number is actually correct then you might be able to understand that your risk of dying from the flu is even smaller then one in a million.
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Please let us in on the "research" that you use to "understand the flu vaccine".
I gave you an excellent, credible, respected source and it was not not good enough. You prefer your biased, pro-pharma shill blogs.
I disagree that taking these medications, with their side effects at a ten percent rate of effectiveness would be reasonable. Drugs, vaccines, etc. are rarely the only or even the best options available for health.
Side effects also kill people.
If that number is actually correct then you might be able to understand that your risk of dying from the flu is even smaller then one in a million.
I gave you an excellent, credible, respected source and it was not not good enough. You prefer your biased, pro pharma blogs as sources.
A lot of people would be dead without drugs, including my son, who took multiple medications with side effects that could have killed him for his leukemia. Millions of people do not have heart attacks, strokes, or kidney failure because they take medication for high blood pressure - and no, not all of them have high blood pressure due to poor lifestyle choices.
What specific side effects of specifically the vaccine against influenza are you concerned about?
The 1 in a million figure is for all serious adverse reactions, not deaths.
The death rate from influenza in the US in 2014 was 1.4 per 100,000. That is equivalent to 14 per million. No, the risk of dying from flu is not less than the risk of dying from the vaccine. If the vaccine was riskier, it would never get approved.
"A study published in 2013 using electronic health record databases reviewed health information on over 13 million vaccinated persons and compared causes of death in the vaccinated study population to the general US population. The death rate 1 or 2 months following vaccination was lower than that in the general US population, and the causes of death were similar. This study provides convincing evidence that vaccinations are not associated with an increased risk of death at the population level."
You keep referring to my sources as "biased" but you have never, in this thread or any other, described a specific example of bias in any of them.
Choose one of the "blogs" I have cited in this thread and give one example of bias, please.
The Cochrane review you cited is biased because it left out studies that showed flu vaccine was effective in younger children.
What specific side effects of specifically the vaccine against influenza are you concerned about?
All of them should be taken into account when weighing risk.
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The death rate from influenza in the US in 2014 was 1.4 per 100,000. That is equivalent to 14 per million. No, the risk of dying from flu is not less than the risk of dying from the vaccine. If the vaccine was riskier, it would never get approved.
The death rate from flu is an estimate. These are not based on lab confirmed flu deaths. Anyone who dies from pneumonia during flu season will be counted as a flu death even though only 8.5% of all pneumonia deaths are influenza related. The number is grossly over estimated. Also keep in mind that most people won't get the flu so even by using that grossly overestimated number, one's risk of dying from the flu is nowhere near 1.4 per 100,000. It is tiny.
On that same note, it's also impossible to get an accurate assessment of serious adverse reactions to the influenza vaccine, including death since VAERS only represents a tiny portion of all reactions and among those only a small proportion seek compensation from the vaccine court and even if they win, the vaccine makers still don't take any responsibility.
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You keep referring to my sources as "biased" but you have never, in this thread or any other, described a specific example of bias in any of them.
Your blogs utilize inflammatory language, half truths and twisted info in order to promote vaccines, pharmaceuticals and denigrate anything that could be considered alternative. I stopped reading your links long ago after seeing the very blatantly obvious pattern of propaganda and misinformation. I am sure these blogs are very well funded by the industry they support.
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The Cochrane review you cited is biased because it left out studies that showed flu vaccine was effective in younger children.
If your bloggers' accusations stand and these studies that were not included were actually studies that were up to scientific rigor and not just excluded because they were junk science then why does the meta analysis stand to this day? Are you seriously taking the bloggers word over the scientific community's word on this one?
Last edited by MissTerri; 12-11-2017 at 07:55 AM..
We could go on until the end of time on which drugs save and which ones kill. I know enough in my life who died in spite of all the drugs given them. A friend just lost her 50yr old son to cancer and he did his share of drugs for years. My grandkids dad too lost the battle at 55.
So we all have stories.
A neighbor who helps me with shopping on weekend sent me a message that she has the flu and guess what, she and husband got the flu shot.
Become competent enough to be able to trust yourself in such matters as health for you and your family members.
I made the decision years ago that my son would not be a victim of big pharma or the medical machine. He glows with health and happiness, so..............
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