On Thu, 18 Dec 2003, Robert Brockway wrote:

...

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.) Henry Spencer henry-lqW1N6Cllo0sV2N9l4h3zg at public.gmane.org -- 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