Tag: flu

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I finally got my H1N1 flu shot today. My allergist called me this morning to say that they’d gotten five — yes, just 5 — doses of the vaccine, and wanted to know if I wanted one.

The CDC has been recommending for months that anyone with chronic respiratory conditions (*cough* asthma *cough*) get both the swine flu and seasonal flu vaccines, so I asked about it the last time I was in for a check-up. The office was expecting it sometime in October. That stretched out to late October, then November, then they began to wonder if they were going to get it at all.

Distribution on this thing has been just abysmal. I mean, I got the seasonal flu shot in September. And there have been other areas of the country that got so many doses they started offering them to the general public more than a month ago, because they didn’t have enough people in high-risk groups who wanted it.

Meanwhile, H1N1 proceeded to establish itself as the main flu of the season. I wasn’t terribly enthused about the possibility of being completely wiped out for several days and quarantining myself for another week afterward…

I did research other sources, though perhaps not as thoroughly as I could have. I checked in a couple of times at my regular doctor’s office, but they were in the same boat. I checked Google Flu Shot [Edit: This was a service that let you search Google Maps for flu shot providers that had the vaccine in stock, and is no longer available.] at least once a week after it launched, though it was always either empty or full of locations marked “Temporarily out of stock.”

Actually, I’d pretty much written it off at this point, figuring the vaccine would be available sometime in, I don’t know, February or March, by which time I’d either have gotten the flu or wouldn’t be getting it this year anyway. When my phone rang I figured it had something to do with an appointment I’d rescheduled.

For the record: no noticeable side effects (so far), and hardly any pain. My shoulder hurts less than it did after the seasonal flu shot I got a few months ago, and even that didn’t hurt much (and only after a few hours). Also, there was a patient survey and information sheet that went along with it instead of the standard “I solemnly swear that I am not allergic to eggs” (they grow the vaccine in eggs) waiver.

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  • Spam subject: “Your decent watch will upgrade your status.” You mean I won’t need my phone to update Facebook? AWESOME!
  • WTF? Google C&Ds Android modder Cyanogen. Isn’t it supposed to be licensed open-source in the first place? The cease-and-desist order is about Google’s apps (Maps, Gmail, etc.) that are pre-installed, not about the operating system itself, but still, it feels like a violation of the spirit if not the letter of the license.
  • Odd: it took 3 hours for my shoulder to get sore after the flu shot. Still, NOTHING compared to last year’s tetanus shot. Now THAT hurt!
  • This XKCD comic reminds me of the “uranium-free pizza” joke from some scouting event way back when.

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Swine flu doesn’t seem to cover it. First of all it’s not a swine flu anymore. Secondly, what do we call influenza that still only infects pigs…or the next flu virus that jumps from pigs to humans? Edit: And then you have morons who think you can get the flu from eating pork.

Mexican Flu, naming it after its country of origin like the Spanish Flu or Hong Kong Flu kind of makes sense, but in today’s politically-charged climate, it ends up sounding less like an identifier and more like blame. Edit: Plus we’ve already got jerkwads scapegoating anyone who might be Mexican. (Comment threads on news sites are depressing.)

The CDC and WHO seem to be going with H1N1, but that doesn’t work either, because people get it confused with the H1N1 human flu virus that’s one of the regular seasonal flu strains.

Yeah, on one hand, what’s in a name? A flu, by any other name, would still get you sick. But there’s something to be said for precision in terminology.

Update: For a less serious take on the subject, check out posts with the #namethatflu tag on Twitter.