Comments on: VA: Sick

By: Koliedrus

Koliedrus — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 03:00:24 +0000

I’ve cashed in my email updates for the RSS feed.

Tend to life, V.

Kol

By: Myroid

Myroid — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 06:51:03 +0000

Sami wins.

By: Sami

Sami — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 05:03:49 +0000

AIDS

By: sunny

sunny — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 23:42:08 +0000

You are right that the memory cells from a vaccine aren’t as strong as if you actually got the illness, because vaccines usually just contain surface antigens. however, i believe (i could be mistaken) if you take two people who are exposed to the virus, one who had the vaccine and one who didn’t, the one who didn’t would get sick and build immunity whereas the one who did get the vaccine wouldn’t get nearly as sick but should also build the same immunity. The reason for this is they are still both being exposed to the full virus so can raise antibodies, but its cleared in the person who was immunized before they got the bad symptoms. The end result is they both have the same amount of protection from subsequent exposures, yet one person didn’t get the full flu (or sick at all). As a note, I could be wrong, but it seems that is how it works.

As for the Spanish Flu, it is believed to be a mutated strain that previously only infected birds, and the mutations made it a particularly virulent strain. You are right that the named viruses are named because of the pandemics they cause. However, the reason that so many young people died is believed by many scientists to be because this particular strain overstimulated the immune system to produce a “cytokine storm.” It is the cytokine storm that destroyed lung tissue in people, causing their death. The virus can only overstimulate a healthy immune system, so children and elderly were less susceptible to this overactivation of inflammation because their immune systems were not as hearty as the young people. That is the reason so many young people were affected - not because they were being exposed to a virus they had no previous immunity for. Besides, flu vaccines were first developed in the 1940’s, so they had nothing to do with the Spanish Flu.

By: Matthew

Matthew — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 21:30:53 +0000

Those memory cells are not as strong if you get the vaccine as if you get the real flu. Either way they are strong enough to protect you from this year’s flu, but if you get strong memory cells you build protection not just against the flu going around right now, but also to a couple of the very similar strains to it as well. And that is why* the Spanish flu killed so many young people, but not the old: It wasn’t a completely new strain, it was very similar to a strain that went around in the 1870s or so, (that wasn’t nearly as fatal.) Note it wasn’t the same strain as the 1870s one, so if you’d gotten a vaccine for the 1870s one it wouldn’t help in 1918, but it was similar enough that the people that got it and built good strong memory cells from it wouldn’t get as sick from the 1918 one. Also, the named flus weren’t special because they were completely new mutations, those flus were special because they were more fatal than others. Completely new mutations come around a lot, but most of them aren’t very strong and don’t kill us.

*Their is another reason Spanish flu was very fatal for young people, and that was because young people, (mainly men,) were living in trenches in close contact with each other while eating bad food and with poor hygiene while under stress and gunfire: also known as world war one. But even accounting for that, it still killed more than it’s share of young people.

By: Sami

Sami — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 07:29:26 +0000

No it’s sorry GRANDMA, you have AIDS.

By: Sorry!

Sorry! — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 07:19:09 +0000

YOU HAVE AIDS.

By: Sami

Sami — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 20:52:34 +0000

It’s actually quite interesting to read. It seems it’s somehow rather nasty one. What interests me is I never take any medicine, vaccines or other chemical shite unless I really have to, but I’m very rarely sick.

And if I am sick, I get a bit tired, is all.

This one knocked me out for almost three days straight. Most of my friends are shivering at the moment. I can now stay up with only one woolen shirt on, so I feel a bit better. I can’t recall a time I had it this bad.

If it is as bad on the other side of the ocean it makes me wonder if it is related. And how. And why.

By: emerild

emerild — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 07:16:43 +0000

…unless she has a compromised immune system, of course!

By: sunny

sunny — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 03:01:11 +0000

Matthew, I don’t think you understand how the flu vaccine works. The flu in general changes a bit every year, so scientists try to guess what antigens will be present in the virus that stimulate the immune response. They take these antigens, removing virulence, and make a vaccine out of it, so your body mounts an immune response to these parts of the flu virus. Then, you will have memory immune cells that will kick into action if you are exposed to the virus and clear it before you get any symptoms. These memory cells are also present if you had gotten sick with the flu the firt time - that’s why you don’t get the same flu 2x in a row in the same year.

the spanish flu, asian flu, etc came about because in those cases the flu virus mutated a lot, and so they were totally new viruses essentially. whether someone had taken a vaccine or not would have not made a difference in the outcome.

you’re right - we will never get rid of the flu. but that isn’t the point. its to protect people from getting sick, especially the immune-compromised (including the elderly). however, if people like V want to get it, no harm done. their immune system will be just fine if scientists had misguessed the virus - they’ll just be sick for a few days is all.