Anonymous #1 3w

Totally unrelated note but the Spanish flu started at an army base in Kansas

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Anonymous #2 3w

They literally are

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Anonymous #1 3w

As someone studying for the MCAT I can’t figure out the conservative obsession with denying the entire field of public health at every chance they can

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Anonymous #3 3w

A 30% reduction in severity is not something worth mandating lol. It does not promise to keep you from getting it, nor transmitting it. It is literally only advertised as a slight reduction in personal risk to the virus. That is not grounds to mandate. There’s a reason why anyone can go to school without it

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Anonymous #2 3w

Nah, see, the problem is people making flu vaccines are in a little bit of an arms race. There’s a ton of different strains and they’re constantly mutating, so you need to pick the strains that are as similar as possible to what’s going to be “big” that year ahead of time. Officials are happy if it’s 40-60% effective- effectiveness is defined as “you don’t need to seek medical attention”. You might still catch it, but it’ll be less bad and you won’t need to be hospitalized.

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Anonymous OP 3w

Okay? So like I said, no one advertises it as effective. They’re happy with a slight reduction because that’s as good as it gets. There’s a reason polio, chickenpox, hep, MMR and more are mandated but the flu is not. There’s zero reason to have a mandated flu shot

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Anonymous #2 3w

And that’s not guaranteed, because back in the day the flu could be deadly, easy. Influenza is far worse than a common cold if you can’t vaccinate against it, and there’s not actually much you can do to treat it other than symptom relief after the first 2 days. That’s why the first flu vaccine was actually made during WW2 specifically for the use of the US army. It’s easy for disease to spread in a close environment like that.

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Anonymous OP 3w

You have soldiers sleeping in row after row of bunks all together, showering together whatever. In the navy, you have everyone locked in a boat together- remember how fast disease spreads on cruise ships? Now combine that with needing every service member you can to be as healthy as possible, because you are literally responsible for national security. It’s just not smart. There’s a reason soldiers do PT. Because you need your army to be of acceptable physical fitness. This is the same.

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Anonymous OP 3w

The flu vaccine is not advertised to reduce transmission. It is to reduce risk/severity to the vaccinated individual. Argue what you will, but there’s really no reason to force a service member to get it. No one is arguing to get rid of the measles vaccine, this is the freaking flu shot we’re talking about

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Anonymous #2 3w

No, it does reduce transmission, actually. And like- you have a very privileged view of the flu, because people don’t literally die from it as much anymore, because people get vaccinated against it. “this is the freaking flu shot” you can consider it less important because we don’t die of it as much anymore. Because we get vaccinated against it. So we don’t get pneumonia. If you think that the measles vaccine is necessary for soldiers, good! So is the influenza vaccine.

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Anonymous OP 3w

So go advocate for less fortunate nations to mandate the flu shot, all of us as Americans are privileged. And this the US Military we’re talking about. Anyone is welcome to get it, no one is banning it. In no way is the flu shot on the same footing as the measles vaccine. That’s idiotic

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Anonymous OP 3w

And again, no, the vaccine does not reduce transmission and they don’t claim it does. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3693492/

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Anonymous #2 3w

do you know what herd immunity is also the sample size in that article is small (they note it in the paper itself), try doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.46814, which was specifically intended to look at transmission. Reduces it by about 20%. The paper you linked was not, and runs counter to other research from that year. Also try doi.org/10.1093/cid/cis518, which was cited by the paper you linked. CDC says it as well.

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Anonymous #2 3w

yes, actually, I think everyone should get the flu shot, thanks for asking everyone happens to include the US military

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Anonymous OP 3w

Heard immunity cannot be achieved for a virus that admittedly mutates every year to the point where the vaccine cannot grant its recipient immunity. It "helps towards" achieving heard immunity but we physically cannot get there with the flu vaccine. Heard immunity is always the goal but the cdc admits it's close to impossible to achieve for the flu.

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Anonymous OP 3w

“Everyone should get” and “everyone must get or else” are two completely different things. Unlike Measles or MMR or others, this literally only affects the vaccine recipient. What happened to bodily autonomy?

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Anonymous #2 3w

bodily autonomy stops when your choices affect others, and vaccines do in fact reduce transmission. Additionally, they signed up to be military and are subject to physical fitness requirements to ensure readiness. That means PT, that means vaccination. Are we saying you can get out of PT because of bodily autonomy? “No, I don’t want muscles”? No, because that’s ridiculous.

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Anonymous OP 3w

Not every vaccine is the same, stop pretending it is. You hurt the reputation of public health when you do that. Physical fitness to ensure you can do your actual job function is also not the same as an injection that MAY reduce YOUR risk to a virus by 30%

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Anonymous #2 3w

they signed up for the military, and sometimes that means you have to do things you don’t like. I’d say something that affects your physical health and likeliness of being hospitalized is pretty important. Is anyone screaming about being required to get short haircuts? If you don’t like giving up some of your bodily autonomy, then don’t join the military.

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Anonymous OP 3w

Much fairer argument than what you were saying before. I’d still argue more autonomy is better so removing one level is better. Plus there’s a 0% chance of adverse effects from a haircut and a nonzero from an injection. But I don’t really subscribe to that anyways, just isn’t 1:1 between the two

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Anonymous #2 3w

I like how you make a false claim based on faulty evidence and then when facts are presented to you, that you don’t let them get in the way of your feelings. That’s so brave of you!

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Anonymous moderatemonkey 3w

And your contribution to the conversation is your feelings? That’s not very valuable here. If you want to call a claim disputed then sure, that’s how science works. But calling claims false just because you disagree with them is letting your feelings get in the way

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Anonymous #2 3w

Your attempt to turn my critique of your inability to think critically and accept when you’re wrong back in me fails miserably when you scroll up and read how you ignored conflicting data that far exceeds your own. Maybe introspect on what it is you really want, friend. Also, it doesn’t really sound “disputed” when as stated above the preponderance of evidence is weighed against you… your own source even cast’ doubt in its limitations…

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Anonymous moderatemonkey 3w

The only claim I’ve brought to the table is that the cdc does not list reducing transmission as a feature of the vaccine. You’re denying it but the fact that independent studies say secondary transmissions fell, at most, 20%. That’s not achievable for heard immunity. The appeal of the flu shot is reduced personal risk.

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Anonymous moderatemonkey 3w

These are things you can argue against if you want because there’s so many studies with variable data. But you’re clearly letting your feelings get in the way that this is also an accepted scientific reality

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Anonymous moderatemonkey 3w

Now if you want to argue about the extent of autonomy soldiers should get then that’s a much more nuanced question. But it’s not what OP started their argument as

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Anonymous #2 3w

Nah, they do say that actually. “Vaccination to prevent influenza”, “protect those around you” and so on would suggest lowering the rate of transmission. If they were just focused on “it becomes less bad”, they would say makes it less severe, and they do say that as well!

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Anonymous OP 3w

I did say the “CDC says that as well” bit in a previous comment, but I think you just kind of ignored that one…

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Anonymous #2 3w

Wrong again it sounds… Does it get embarrassing for you or is this a shame kink?

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Anonymous OP 3w

The study you yourself sent said the vaccine reduces your risk to catching it, not that it reduces transmission. The key word is transmission bro. Your ability to transmit has a negligible difference between vaccinated and not. Whether you have the shot or not reduces your chances of catching it, not giving it. There’s a huge difference.

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Anonymous moderatemonkey 3w

The more you cheerlead from the sidelines the more you just show you’re doing zero critical thinking, just jerking off ur bud who shares the same predetermined opinion

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Anonymous #2 3w

Yea sure I’ll insert myself in to the argument. Transmission is the process that a pathogen spreads from one infected person to another. So if you are less likely to catch the virus what does that mean for transmission? If we scale that up, what would that look like?

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