I work in healthcare (graphics/advertising, actually, for healthcare), and we get our seasonal jabs like everyone else. I’ve had mine 6 years running now.

What’s happened to me – or what I believe I have noticed – is about twice a year I feel just a very little run down, just a very little punky for a couple of days, after which it clears up.

What I believe is happening is I’ve been exposed to one of the flu viri I’ve been vaccinated for, and it’s been flattened by my amped-up immune system.

What I do not recall is having had these kinds of effects before I worked in healthcare. What I do recall from my pre-vaccination days is getting nailed, once a year, by the current damn virus.

In the last six years, I’ve only been hit once.

So do flu shots work? As I see it, in my experience, yes.

to all you anti-vaxx asshats: you’re welcome. i am doing my part to keep you selfish ignorant bastards from getting sick.

Meanwhile, Mr. I’m-too-busy-to-get-the-flu-shot has had the flu a couple of times, and each time he pisses and moans about how he hates to be sick.

CMAJ. 2001 November 27; 165(11): 1495â??1498. Past exposure to vaccines and subsequent risk of Alzheimer’s disease. René Verreault, Danielle Laurin, Joan Lindsay, and Gaston De Serres.
PMCID: PMC81665

I’m fending off a number of anti-vax commenters.

So you agree with “influenza vaccination,” but disagree with “flu shots?” What, in your pointlessly hairsplitting little mind, is the diference, exactly?

You sound like a creationist who insists he’s totally okay with evolution, but not with “neo-Darwinism” or “the neo-Darwinian paradigm.”

I wasn’t aware that the flu shot was costly…

It is low risk…I suppose. But people die from the flu. People are miserable from the flu. People miss work that they cannot afford to miss because of the flu. Children miss school because of the flu. Again, people die from the flu.

Tell me again, how flu vaccines are “over-servicing?”

@Greg

Interestingly, despite my requests, no one has identified the symbolism behind “The X Blog” (the name of the blog) even tough the clues are everywhere (especially in the first post).

The nature of my plan here, a mere blastula of an idea, is partly hidden in the name of this blog, which is a reference to something.

Hmmm…you are getting a sex change, an experimental sex change that turns all of your Ys to Xs? And then being inseminated with your own semen???!!? YOU MONSTER!!!1@1111!!!

Or perhaps…

That will be a topic addressed at The X Blog. You may not realize this, but for reasons that need to remain unspoken (there are rules) I am more than a little responsible, personally, for Michele Bachmannâ??s rise to power. Ooops. That certainly isnâ??t what I meant to do, but something I did was instrumental in the advancement of her political career. I am very, very sorry and I feel the responsibility acutely.

So, weâ??ll try to fix that over the next few months, but Iâ??ll need your help.

…you’ll be doing something like this…

http://torino.theoffside.com/files/2009/02/simpson-mr-x.jpg

Some sort of tell-all blogoir (blog+memoir)?

Or maybe something X-Files-y? But….more in blog form?