On Thursday 18 December 2003 12:20, Henry Spencer wrote:

On Thu, 18 Dec 2003, Robert Brockway wrote:

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I know a lot of people who did who got sick anyway. This years strain seemed to have been missed...

...I don't believe this is a case of anyone being inept. From what I understand, figuring out which flu will be the serious one in any given year can be a matter of guess work, and as a result they can get it wrong.

Also, something that people often don't understand is that many vaccines do not provide foolproof protection against even the exact strain they are made for. They greatly *reduce* the odds of getting the bug, and if you do get it they tend to reduce its severity, but they don't necessarily preclude infection completely. (Notably, even if you are properly vaccinated against smallpox, if you are heavily exposed to it, you can come down with a mild case.)

I should mention that during the major smallpox outbreaks on record, people from one specific occupation in life were suprisinly immune to it. MilkMaids with their constant handling of cows and their raw milk, had built a strong resistance to cowpox. An occupational hazard, was in fact a blessing. In more recent 'Olden Times', parents with young children having heard of a neighbors kids with chickenpox, would hurry over so their kids would get it. "If you're not hungry and throw away the bread with the mold, you may find yourself buying it back with a cold." -- farmer6re9 Now where can I get that flu shot I heard about for my Windows PC? -- Eating Crow is better with MyCrowSauce -- The Toronto Linux Users Group. Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml