Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey brain
Speaker 1: Stuff Lauren Vogelbaum here. Influenza is such a common part
Speaker 1: of our lives that it's easy to forget how dangerous
Speaker 1: this viral infection can be. The reason it comes back
Speaker 1: year after year is that the flu virus isn't a monolith.
Speaker 1: It's constantly evolving and developing different strains. So even if
Speaker 1: your immune system foughted off last year, your body probably
Speaker 1: won't recognize the new strains going around this year, and
Speaker 1: therefore won't fight it off before it makes you sick.
Speaker 1: Every year, about a billion people around the world get
Speaker 1: the flu, some five to ten percent of adults and
Speaker 1: twenty to thirty percent of children. The virus attacks your
Speaker 1: respiratory system, including the nose, throat, and lungs. The symptoms
Speaker 1: include fever, coughing, painfully sore throat, muscle aches, headaches, and
Speaker 1: extreme tea. Although most people recover in anywhere from a
Speaker 1: few days to a couple weeks, However, there are some
Speaker 1: three to five millions severe cases every year in which
Speaker 1: a flu patient can also develop severe dehydration, sepsis, and
Speaker 1: organ failure. Also, it weakens your body, making you more
Speaker 1: vulnerable to secondary infections. Overall, about a million people die
Speaker 1: every year due to influenza. It's also really expensive, not
Speaker 1: that that's anywhere near as important as a human life,
Speaker 1: but in the US alone, we spend over ten billion
Speaker 1: dollars a year in flu related medical expenses, and we
Speaker 1: lose out on an additional sixteen billion dollars in potential
Speaker 1: earnings while we're sick. All of this is especially wild
Speaker 1: considering that the flu is highly preventable. One of the
Speaker 1: kindest and most helpful things you can do for your
Speaker 1: fellow humans is to stay home if you're sick, and
Speaker 1: if you have to go out, mask up and keep
Speaker 1: your hands washed to avoid spreading the infection. But beyond that,
Speaker 1: every year, teams of researchers around the globe work together
Speaker 1: to watch strains of the flu as they develop, and
Speaker 1: then make an educated guess about the strains most likely
Speaker 1: to cause a problem in the coming year. Every individual
Speaker 1: country reviews that data and then decides which strains to
Speaker 1: create that year's vaccines to fight specifically against. The Centers
Speaker 1: for Disease Control and Prevention or CDC recommends that all
Speaker 1: Americans ages six months in older get the flu vaccine
Speaker 1: every year. Unfortunately, there's a lot of misinformation out there
Speaker 1: about the seriousness of the flu and the safety and
Speaker 1: effectiveness of flu vaccines, which can prevent people from taking
Speaker 1: simple precautions to prevent getting sick and help stop the spread.
Speaker 1: So today, let's talk through some of those misconceptions. First up,
Speaker 1: there's the idea that getting the flu isn't any different
Speaker 1: than getting a bad cold, But that's not true. Colds
Speaker 1: can be serious too, but some strains of the flu
Speaker 1: have killed millions of people, such as the pandemic of
Speaker 1: nineteen eighteen, which killed somewhere between twenty and fifty million
Speaker 1: people worldwide, more than the number who died in World
Speaker 1: War One. Many flu related deaths actually occur a week
Speaker 1: or two after a person comes down with the flu,
Speaker 1: when they develop a secondary infection, such as bacterial pneumonia.
Speaker 1: In other cases, the flu aggravates an existing chronic illness,
Speaker 1: like congestive heart failure or chronic pulmonary heart disease. People
Speaker 1: with asthma may experience potentially fatal attacks when they come
Speaker 1: down with the flu, so yes, it is more serious
Speaker 1: than the common cold. Next up, there's the idea that
Speaker 1: going outside in cold weather will make you more likely
Speaker 1: to catch the flu, especially if your hair is wet
Speaker 1: or you're not wearing a hat or a coat, or
Speaker 1: even that you're more likely to get the flu if
Speaker 1: you sit by a drafty window. It is true that
Speaker 1: the peak months for flu infections are in the winter,
Speaker 1: when it's colder outside and the air is drier, and
Speaker 1: it's probably true that cold weather can dampen your immune
Speaker 1: system a bit. Researchers think that because we get less
Speaker 1: sun in the winter, our bodies may be low on
Speaker 1: vitamin D, which is essential to immune system function. That cold,
Speaker 1: dry air may also make it easier for the flu
Speaker 1: virus to get in through your nose, because that air
Speaker 1: dries out our mucous membranes and constricts their blood vessels there,
Speaker 1: So the virus isn't stopped by mucus or white blood cells.
Speaker 1: But this myth seems to be a case of correlation
Speaker 1: versus causation. The flu, after all, isn't blocked by a
Speaker 1: coat or a hat. It's transmitted through tiny droplets that
Speaker 1: a sick person breathes out or coughs out or sneezes
Speaker 1: out that then hang in the air and can be
Speaker 1: inhaled by someone else. So experts think that the reason
Speaker 1: for the uptick and illness in the winter is that
Speaker 1: people spend more time indoors in close quarters with each other,
Speaker 1: so if one person is sick, it's more likely that
Speaker 1: other people will be exposed. It's technically staying in, not
Speaker 1: going out in the cold that makes us more susceptible
Speaker 1: to the flu in winter. Then there's the idea that
Speaker 1: if you haven't caught the flu by December in the
Speaker 1: northern hemisphere anyway, you're gonna avoid it that year. This
Speaker 1: is a remarkably persistent belief, but there's really no truth
Speaker 1: to it. The timing of flu outbreaks is unpredictable from
Speaker 1: year to year, but data show that February has been
Speaker 1: the peak month about half the time, with January and
Speaker 1: March being the runners up. So even if you haven't
Speaker 1: gotten sick by the end of the year, it's absolutely
Speaker 1: still worth getting vaccine to help keep you healthy in
Speaker 1: the new year. Let's talk about that vaccine. One of
Speaker 1: the most pervasive myths about the flu is that the
Speaker 1: vaccine doesn't work, And okay, it doesn't always work any
Speaker 1: given years, flu vaccine will be effective in preventing a
Speaker 1: recipient from getting the flu about sixty percent of the time.
Speaker 1: How well it works depends upon your age and your health.
Speaker 1: Young healthy people are most likely to get the desired results.
Speaker 1: Another factor is how well this year's vaccine matches the
Speaker 1: flu strain that emerges as a print. But even if
Speaker 1: you get a flu shot and still get the flu,
Speaker 1: your precaution didn't go entirely to waste. The vaccine can
Speaker 1: help to protect you against some of the diseases harsher complications. Furthermore,
Speaker 1: the flu vaccine absolutely cannot give you the flu. The
Speaker 1: types of flu vaccine that are injected use what's called
Speaker 1: inactivated viruses. We say inactive instead of dead, because there's
Speaker 1: scientific argument about whether viruses can ever really be considered
Speaker 1: alive in the first place. But yes, the viruses that
Speaker 1: go into vaccines have been chemically inactivated. The process leaves
Speaker 1: just enough proteins in the outer coating of the virus
Speaker 1: intact that it tricks your immune system into thinking that
Speaker 1: the virus is a threat. That causes your body to
Speaker 1: produce white blood cells that are primed to attack any
Speaker 1: subsequent viral invader that has those same telltale proteins. In
Speaker 1: its coating. Meanwhile, the nasal spray types of flu vaccine,
Speaker 1: like flu Mist, which is sometimes given to kids, do
Speaker 1: contain active flu viruses, but they've been weakened and what's
Speaker 1: called cold adapted, meaning that the viruses can only live
Speaker 1: in the relatively cool temperatures found in the nose. They
Speaker 1: can't survive in the heat of the rest of your body.
Speaker 1: It works because white blood cells fight off the virus
Speaker 1: in the nose and then transmit information about it to
Speaker 1: the rest of the body, but which itself has stayed safe.
Speaker 1: That said, the flu vaccine can sometimes cause side effects.
Speaker 1: You might experience a bit of swelling or redness at
Speaker 1: the side of an injection, or a low grade fever, headache,
Speaker 1: or a bit of a throat scratch and sniffle. These
Speaker 1: are all signs that your immune system is reacting to
Speaker 1: the vaccine as intended. It's on high alert, attempting to
Speaker 1: prevent infection from what it sees as a threat, and
Speaker 1: therefore producing these annoying symptoms. But okay, how long does
Speaker 1: the vaccine keep you safe? Another misconception out there is
Speaker 1: that if you get a flu shot to early in
Speaker 1: the season, it'll wear off before spring has sprung. This
Speaker 1: one germinated from a seed of truth. Health authorities used
Speaker 1: to be concerned about the possibility of this, but as
Speaker 1: of the early two thousands, research has shown that the
Speaker 1: immune that you gain from the vaccine will generally last
Speaker 1: until the flu season ends in the spring. In some cases,
Speaker 1: a person's immunity may last for as long as a year,
Speaker 1: so experts urge everyone to get their flu shots as
Speaker 1: soon as possible so that we're protected throughout the entire
Speaker 1: flu season. That's not to say that you don't need
Speaker 1: to get vaccinated every year. The body's immunity does indeed
Speaker 1: decline over time, and as we said early on in
Speaker 1: this episode, flu viruses don't just stay the same year
Speaker 1: after year. They mutate and evolve very quickly in order
Speaker 1: to survive. Unlike plants and animals, including humans, the only
Speaker 1: way a virus can reproduce itself is by invading a
Speaker 1: host cell and injecting its genetic material into that cell.
Speaker 1: That material then gives the cell instructions to make more
Speaker 1: copies of the virus, which then kills the cell and
Speaker 1: spreads to other cells. But post organisms like the human
Speaker 1: body don't go along with this. Willingly, our immune system
Speaker 1: learns to recognize those distinctive proteins out a particular virus's
Speaker 1: outer coding and attack it. Thus, in order to overcome
Speaker 1: that obstacle, viruses continually have to reinvent themselves and become
Speaker 1: essentially new attackers that your body won't recognize. This can
Speaker 1: and does happen in less than a year, and that's
Speaker 1: why we have to get an annual vaccination to protect
Speaker 1: against these new threats. The flu vaccine and vaccines in general,
Speaker 1: are very safe. They are profusely studied, and healthcare professionals
Speaker 1: wouldn't recommend them if they were more dangerous than the
Speaker 1: diseases they protect against. In that vein, let's talk about
Speaker 1: the myth that vaccines like the flu vaccine can cause autism.
Speaker 1: This is absolutely not true, and it stems from a
Speaker 1: scientifically bad article that somehow mistakedly made it through the
Speaker 1: publishing process to appear in the esteemed British medical journal
Speaker 1: The Lancet in nineteen ninety eight. In this article, the
Speaker 1: authors claimed to have found links between a childhood vaccination
Speaker 1: for measles, bumps and rubella two a loss of developmental
Speaker 1: skills in children. This prompted a lot of further research
Speaker 1: and review. The scientists have since proven that there is
Speaker 1: no link between vaccines and autism, and furthermore, researchers and
Speaker 1: journalists uncovered the fact that the authors of that Landset
Speaker 1: paper deliberately falsified facts and picked and shows data in
Speaker 1: order to come up with their result because they were
Speaker 1: hoping to make a lot of money selling pre autism
Speaker 1: test kits to scared parents. The authors of that paper
Speaker 1: are no longer allowed to practice medicine because of this
Speaker 1: deliberate fraud. The lead author, by the way, was one
Speaker 1: Andrew Wakefield, and he is still out there trying to
Speaker 1: fraudulently scare people out of their money. So watch out
Speaker 1: for anything that Andrew Wakefield is connected to. Some people
Speaker 1: have also raised questions about thy marisol, which is a
Speaker 1: preservative containing mercury that started being used in some vaccines
Speaker 1: and other products back in the nineteen thirties. Because the
Speaker 1: seasonal flu vaccine is produced in large quantities for annual
Speaker 1: immunization campaigns, some multi dose files contain this preservative to
Speaker 1: protect against contamination once the containers are opened. According to
Speaker 1: the CDC, there is no scientific evidence that thy marasol
Speaker 1: causes any harmed people except for minor reactions such as
Speaker 1: redness and swelling at the injection site. But irregardless, there's
Speaker 1: no hazard to children because only adults get any vaccines
Speaker 1: containing the preservative. Out of an abundance of caution, the
Speaker 1: US Food and Drug Administration eliminated the use of this
Speaker 1: preservative in medications given to children back in two thousand
Speaker 1: and one. Our understanding of health and the human body
Speaker 1: is updating all the time, but again, vaccines are made
Speaker 1: to be as safe as possible. One important caveat here
Speaker 1: there are some people who shouldn't get a flu shot
Speaker 1: without first consulting a healthcare provider. This includes people who
Speaker 1: are severely allergic to chicken eggs because egg protein is
Speaker 1: used in some vaccine formulations. Also, anyone with a family
Speaker 1: history of gian Bar syndrome, which is a paralytic illness,
Speaker 1: should talk to their provider about the extremely small increased risk.
Speaker 1: And if you already have a moderate severe illness with
Speaker 1: a fever, you should wait to get healthy before getting
Speaker 1: any vaccine so that your immune system is only dealing
Speaker 1: with one thing at a time. We live in an
Speaker 1: amazing era wherein we know so much more about our
Speaker 1: bodies and the microbes that cause disease that anyone even
Speaker 1: dreamed of more than two hundred years ago. Because of vaccines,
Speaker 1: there are so many terrible diseases that we no longer
Speaker 1: have to suffer from, or that we can at least
Speaker 1: extremely reduce our chance of getting So get out to
Speaker 1: a healthcare provider for a flu shot and talk to
Speaker 1: them about it if you have any other concerns. Today's
Speaker 1: episode is based on the article ten Misconceptions about the
Speaker 1: flu on HowStuffWorks dot Com, written by Patrick J. Hider.
Speaker 1: Brainstuff is a production of by Heart Radio in partnership
Speaker 1: with how Stuffworks dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang.
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