There is trivalent and quadrivalent vaccine. Most people get trivalent vaccine. This year it’s primarily protecting against a California virus that looks a lot like H1N1, the truly nasty stuff, and a couple of others that aren’t much fun either. The one-in-four it’s not protecting against is a piffly type B which amounts to a cough and runny nose, the sort you can kind of shrug off. They reserve the quadrivalent vaccine, I think, for people who are really healthwise compromised.
And it takes 2 weeks to get any kind of immunity out of your shot, and the shot is valid about 4 months for an older person: youngers may go longer.
The upshot of it all is that I was exposed to a type B (Jane’s brother had a cough and cold when we visited) before this vaccine had any kind of chance, and probably it’s a type B that wasn’t covered by the shot anyway. Incubation for the flu being 1-4 days, I can figure that’s probably what I got; and Jane, who got her shot a week before me, is having some symptoms too—not as bad, however.
There’s a lot of sincerely bad info floating around on the flu shots: I do recommend them. I feel bad enough with this slips-through-the-cracks type piffle of a flu. An H1N1 relative is no joke. If you haven’t gotten your flu shot, go for it. Even if you still get this sort, not getting the major-nasty sort is a biggie. Especially if you go around people who are unable to stand bad flu, get the shot.
This is the info on vaccine types: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/vaccine/quadrivalent.htm#can-receive
I’ve been getting “flu shots” every year for a dozen years or more, and wouldn’t consider not. In that time I’ve never had more than a mild cold every few years, but being an old retired bachelor I’m home alone more than “out and about” so perhaps less exposed than most.
I recall reading once that the “Bird Flu”, SARS, was believed to be less severe in people not of an “East Asian genome”.
I’m hopeful that finally medicine has the technology to begin to investigate the genomic influence on diseases and actually use that for more effective treatments. It’s starting in some cancer treatments. It’s been recognized for some years in HIV, and speculated about in plague survivors.
Definitely. It’s one reason I don’t buy the ‘dinosaurs were dying of a plague that would have killed them anyway’ before the asteroid/comet strike. The human species has faced many such, and while they argue that dinos were of closely related species, ergo one virus could take them out—I wonder how they know anything about the soft tissue of now-extinct species and their immune systems; and we got through the Athenian Plague, and the Black Death, and the Spanish Flu, and we’re still here. I tend to think that a 6-mile wide asteroid or comet and concomitant disasters could be a better reason.
I’ve never heard anyone speculate either what such a hit might do to Earth’s atmosphere and our magnetic shield, which might be one reason that, outside of aquatic species, nothing much about 30 lbs survived.
Interestingly, from what I recall the genes for plague resistance seem to be linked to those for HIV resistance.
You can also think about plant/ flora survival. When blight hit the American Chestnut they were all cut as it was thought all would die anyway. Yet a friend of my late sister’s had a healthy American Chestnut in her yard; we used to gather them every year.My mother-in-law had a healthy American Elm in her yard that never showed any sign of disease. I think there are survivors from any plague. The question is why?
Why? I’m not a biologist, so my terminology will be a bit off, but any disease is a parasite and needs a host. Even viruses. Whether you want to call Viruses life or not, they reproduce and evolve. So, a disease that mutates to kill its host is not survival prone, especially not with humans around. Look at what we do to protect ourselves against the flu, much less ebola. These are not successful parasites.
On the other hand, the common cold is quite successful. It just keeps going and going because it’s no more than a minor inconvenience to us. As a result, we keep spreading it. The viruses we never notice–like Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) caught by 90+% of adults–is even more successful.
Even better examples are the bacteria in our digestive systems. These are symbiotic: we provide an environment for them; they help us process food. And for every cell in your body, about ten bacteria are hitching a ride. Extremely successful!
“The law of controlled predation.” You can’t kill off your food supply and survive as a species.
@Walt – You’re entirely correct, from the predator’s perspective. There’s another aspect though from the survivor’s perspective, equally important, and perhaps more to the point for diseases.
Pathogens have to find their host cells. They do this with matching cell surface receptors. Of course, these receptors are there because they are used in the normal ways the cells function and interact. Mutation can cause some individuals to have slightly different receptors. If they are too far off, they might not function normally enough to permit life. Some fortunate survivors may be in that middle zone, where their mutated receptors are close enough for normal processes to work, but the “matching” receptors on a specific pathogen just can’t “latch on”. This seems to be the main cause of disease resistance.
Of course, to your point, the pathogens that infect “susceptibles” survive themselves and may be subject to their own receptor mutations, establishing a different “strain” that may infect someone who survived infection by the original.
Humans have called it “the perennial arms race.”
Yes. I took the question as, “Why are there survivors from any plague?”
If I remembered it correctly, “The law of controlled predation,” is from Chanur. 🙂
It might simply have been far enough from other infected chestnut trees to avoid the blight. There’s also this NPR story: Rare American Chestnut Stands Tall In Northern New York; is this your friend’s tree they’re talking about, or another survivor?
There also seem to be efforts to cross-breed the American chestnut with Asian varieties for disease resistance.
Elms, as well—many people cut them down as a precaution, once the blight hit, but there are survivor elms. I’m pretty sure that my neighbor has one, unless I’m mistaken in the species. Then there’s one of the really notable survivors: the OKC bombing couldn’t kill it. http://www.americanforests.org/blog/the-survivor-tree/
Sci-Fi Critters, Makeup, Muppets, and BJD’s
By Ben W. | BlueCatShip
http://shinyfiction.com/blog/?p=41
A blog post with Farscape angle, in defense of muppets and dolls, with some other things thrown in.
My work (school) offers free flu shots every year and I get one. We get an allotment because faculty and staff are exposed to so many students. I also get it because the three medications I take to combat my ‘itises’ kills off my autoimmune system. I need all the help I can get!
The flu shot (like just about any vaccine) doesn’t provide 100% protection, but vaccinating the majority of the population greatly lessens the chance of the disease getting a good foothold, so even the unvaccinated are somewhat protected (the herd effect). I’ve had the “real” flu once, and hope never to experience it again (to paraphrase Art Buchwald, “You think you’re going to die, but you’re afraid you won’t”).
For another example of the importance of treating the entire population, consider the effort to eradicate lymphatic filariasis (http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/06/treating-the-village-to-cure-the-villagers/?hp&rref=opinion).
I get it now because of my work, but back in my younger days did not. I had a good bout of flu back in my younger days, high fever, body aches, the works. I was so sick I should have been in the hospital, but I was 20 something and stupid. I would not wish it on anyone old, certainly, or of ill health to begin with.