[Mick]

I never had a flu shot in my 20s, and then, in 1992, I was laid up for 10 days with the flu. I've had a flu shot every year since, and have never had the flu. I mentioned this to an anti-Big Pharma neighbor of mine, and he informed me that it was 31 consecutive coincidences.

Oh.

I am pro vaccine, but your neighbor is only mostly wrong.  Every year, about 10% of the US population (5% on a good year, 20% on a bad year) catch the flu (influenza), and the effectiveness of the flu vaccine varies, but on average it's about 50% (so it would cut your risk from about 10% to about 5%, though some years it's much better than that and some it's not a good match for the circulating virus).

Taking the midpoint of each, the chances of not ever getting the flu if you've been vaccinated for 31 consecutive years is about 40%, so you have had some fortune smiling on you.  The chances of never catching the flu if you had never been vaccinated would have been about 7%, so while unlikely that you wouldn't have gotten the flu had you not been vaccinated, it is not impossible.

Vaccines are a wonderful thing.  We've stamped out some really awful diseases (like smallpox) and nearly done so for a number of others thanks to vaccination.  The flu kills between 20,000 and 100,000 Americans each year and the benefits of the vaccine vastly exceed the benefits.  COVID is still killing thousands of people.  Even if you don't have risk factors that put you at high risk of complications, why wouldn't you want to cut your chances of feeling miserable for a couple days in half.

BC

We have a National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program and a Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System.  People take that to mean that vaccines cause injuries and other adverse events, and people are not good at weighing those risks against the benefits you mentioned.

Edit:

Taking it a step further, many people in the U.S. don't seem to be good at taking care of their health.  People don't take their medication as prescribed or don't fill prescriptions at all:
https://www.aamc.org/news/why-don-t-pati...prescribed.

That's leaving aside things that take more effort like maintaining a healthy diet and exercising regularly.

Apropos of nothing...fast food revenue barely took a dip during COVID. I'm going out on a limb to say that Americans didn't learn our collective lessons:

[Mick]

I never had a flu shot in my 20s, and then, in 1992, I was laid up for 10 days with the flu. I've had a flu shot every year since, and have never had the flu. I mentioned this to an anti-Big Pharma neighbor of mine, and he informed me that it was 31 consecutive coincidences.

Oh.

I am pro vaccine, but your neighbor is only mostly wrong.  Every year, about 10% of the US population (5% on a good year, 20% on a bad year) catch the flu (influenza), and the effectiveness of the flu vaccine varies, but on average it's about 50% (so it would cut your risk from about 10% to about 5%, though some years it's much better than that and some it's not a good match for the circulating virus).

Taking the midpoint of each, the chances of not ever getting the flu if you've been vaccinated for 31 consecutive years is about 40%, so you have had some fortune smiling on you.  The chances of never catching the flu if you had never been vaccinated would have been about 7%, so while unlikely that you wouldn't have gotten the flu had you not been vaccinated, it is not impossible.

Vaccines are a wonderful thing.  We've stamped out some really awful diseases (like smallpox) and nearly done so for a number of others thanks to vaccination.  The flu kills between 20,000 and 100,000 Americans each year and the benefits of the vaccine vastly exceed the benefits.  COVID is still killing thousands of people.  Even if you don't have risk factors that put you at high risk of complications, why wouldn't you want to cut your chances of feeling miserable for a couple days in half.

BC

We have a National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program and a Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System.  People take that to mean that vaccines cause injuries and other adverse events, and people are not good at weighing those risks against the benefits you mentioned.

Edit:

Taking it a step further, many people in the U.S. don't seem to be good at taking care of their health.  People don't take their medication as prescribed or don't fill prescriptions at all:
https://www.aamc.org/news/why-don-t-pati...prescribed.

That's leaving aside things that take more effort like maintaining a healthy diet and exercising regularly.

Apropos of nothing...fast food revenue barely took a dip during COVID. I'm going out on a limb to say that Americans didn't learn our collective lessons: