It has been a while since I bothered to check, and I'm at home now and on a couple of days off work, so I'm not about to bother to check now, but...

Last time I actually cared enough to check, they (CDC) were no longer using the dead virus for immunizations. They have progressed in their techniques to the point that that is a bit old fashioned.

As I understand it, they coordinate with public health agencies all around the world and track the strains of influenza that are the biggest culprits of what happens to be going around at the moment at different places on the globe. Apparently, the flu travels around in a relatively predictable pattern from country to country in a cyclical pattern mutating and changing as it travels and reproduces. This cyclical pattern has seemed to remain in place despite the advent and growth of jet travel in the modern age. Months before anybody is thinking about flu season in the U.S.A., researchers attempt to make their best guess on which strains of flu will strike and become the major players in illness and death. It is not a single strain that is identified nor is it ALL strains, but usually it is just a few of the several different ones that they are monitoring as the potential heavy hitters.

Then, proteins that make up the outer layer of the body of the influenza viruses are identified as those antigens that will stimulate your immune system. The virus isn't used, the dead virus isn't used, parts of the virus aren't used, but the protein component of the part of a piece of the virus is manufactured chemically. They then combine together several of these proteins from several different strains that they guess (months in advance) are going to be the most likely culprits in this season's flu outbreak to create a cocktail of various proteins that will "stimulate" your immune system. Unlike psuedo scientists and new age twats who throw around the term "stimulate" your immune system and have NO CLUE what that means, it actually has a very precise meaning here, that I can go into in more detail if anybody is interested, but that would be a topic for another post.

When these proteins are injected into your body, your immune system (again a somewhat vague term that we can define much more precisely for anybody who is interested--and since I doubt there are any here, I'll skip it) recognizes these proteins as foreign invaders and does several things to mobilize a protective army of cells. The initial reaction of your immune system is to set off an alarm that creates a generalized inflammatory response that is the culprit for the vague "flu-like" symptoms you feel. It isn't the flu causing it. It is your own body causing it. Those messengers flooding your bloodstream raising the alarm to your body are created by you and sort of wake up your resting army of protective soldiers and begins cranking up the industrial machinery of your body to start manufacturing several very specific agents. You make some antibodies who are just investigators snooping around every part of your body for any more of the invaders and specialized assassins who will lurk in the shadows waiting for the call from the investigators that an enemy has been spotted and will then spring into action and kill the invader.

That initial alarm that goes off in your body and mobilizes your defenses is not harmful, and it does not mean you are sick, but it may make you feel bad. About 100 years ago it was discovered that some people notice this alarm phase much more than others do. Some don't notice it at all while others feel very bad from it.

When you actually do get the flu or any other infectious disease, your body is going to go through that initial inflammatory reaction phase if you have a functioning immune system. It is not the illness, it is just a sign from your body that you have gotten sick and are starting to mount a defense. Also, if you have already been exposed to that enemy before, you will likely have a much less dramatic alarm phase, and those hunter-killer cells are already in your body on duty and ready to more efficiently kill the invader and prevent the REAL damage of getting sick.

If that inflammatory phase of "flu-like symptoms" was the only bad thing about catching the flu, nobody would bother spending all those resources monitoring the flu and making vaccinations. It is the destruction and damage to your body by the living viral invaders tearing up tissue as they get inside your cells, take over the cell's own metabolic and reproductive machinery, and begin replicating until they burst out leaving behind destroyed tissue like so many cracked eggs. That is what actually kills people.

I get the flu shot every year. I work around hundreds of people who get the flu shot every year. I have never gotten sick from a flu shot and I have never personally known anybody who has ever gotten sick from a flu shot, but I have heard from many people I don't know that they did "get sick". Since I understand that some people have a dramatically different experience and can feel very bad, I don't doubt that it happens.

I don't really get the flu shot to avoid getting sick from the flu, I'm pretty healthy and am constantly exposed to many infectious agents--least concerning of which is influenza. I get the flu shot so that I don't carry the flu and give it to somebody else who may not be so healthy and may not have a functioning immune system and may die if I expose them to the flu. And I know that if I limit the length of time that I am a carrier of the flu if I ever do get exposed to it, I will be minimizing the impact of the flu on a community wide scale.

It has been estimated that the flu has killed more people than all the wars and all other global pandemic diseases.

I can't believe I spent time on my day off writing this.