mental_floss magazine
SUBSCRIBE >
GIFT SUBSCRIPTIONS >
DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTIONS >
subscriber services >
It’s flu shot time around here, so I guess I have the flu on the brain. I thought if I did, maybe you guys do too, so I did a little research today.
WebMD and had a particularly interesting article on flu myths. I summarized a couple of their myths, but you can get the full article here. Disclaimer, though: If you end up surfing around WebMD and diagnosing yourself with all kinds of horrible ailments (which I have a tendency to do), I take no responsibility.
1. The flu vaccine can’t give you the flu. The vaccines only contain a dead piece of the flu virus, and a dead virus can’t infect you. There is a nasal vaccine that contains a live virus, but that particular vaccine is designed to seek and destroy the part of the virus that actually makes you sick.
2. You can treat the flu. Within 48 hours of contracting it, a doctor can prescribe antiviral medicine that will help. It’s not going to get rid of it entirely, but it will lessen the time that you’re curled up on the couch, watching bad daytime T.V. and wanting to die.
3. The Spanish Flu is the most well-known pandemic of the flu – it took out anywhere from 40 to 100 million people from 1918 to 1920. It was so severe that it registered a Level 5 on the Pandemic Severity Scale, which is the highest level that exists. The mortality rate was incredibly high – some estimates say up to 20 percent. People that got it and survived, though, include FDR, Walt Disney, Mary Pickford, General Pershing and Woodrow Wilson.
4. Recently (September), Sir Mark Sykes of England was dug up so scientists could study the Spanish Flu virus, hoping to understand more about the current bird flu. Even though Sykes has been six feet under for the past 90 years, the fact that he was buried in a lead coffin makes scientists hope that the virus has been preserved.
5. In the U.S. alone, the flu season results in 36,000-ish deaths and 200,000 hospitalizations. As if those facts weren’t painful enough, the flu costs Americans a collective $10 billion annually.
6. While we have the Freshman 15, the Brits have Freshers Flu. Up to 90 percent of people during their first few weeks at college end up getting sick, and whether it’s actually the flu or not (it’s usually just a cold), the nickname has a nice ring to it.
7. People who say they have the “stomach flu” probably don’t really have the flu. It’s just a nickname that came about because you feel crappy in similar ways to the real flu. But, WebMD says, if you don’t have fever or body ache, you likely don’t have the flu – just a gastrointestinal virus of some sort.
8. This one is Snopes-verified – Donald Rumsfeld owns stock in Gilead Sciences, the company that makes Tamiflu. Tamiflu, for those that don’t know (I didn’t), is a drug that can reduce the severity of the flu. It’s one of those drugs I mentioned up in #2. Some people think this is a big conspiracy theory – that the avian flu and other strains have become a huge deal in recent years because the government, including Rumsfeld, wanted to make a tidy profit from his stocks. Seems a little farfetched to me, but… who knows?
9. The flu has been around for a loooong time – Hippocrates wrote of an illness with a description closely matching today’s modern flu symptoms.
10. The most recent flu pandemic was the Hong Kong Flu in 1968-69, which registered as a Level 2 on the Pandemic Severity Index. About 500,000 people were infected in Hong Kong, about 50 million were infect in the U.S. Around 34,000 of those 50 million died.
P.S.: Ryan reminded me in the comments that I said I was going to work Clark Gable into my Q10 all week. So, here are your farfetched Gable-related bits of flu trivia:
How did they “pick” Mark Sykes? And why was he buried in a lead coffin?
posted by Beth on 11-12-2008 at 3:55 pm
I work in communications for a state agency and recently attended a planning meeting for pandemic flu. I came out of it both impressed and scared by how much and how little planning my particular state has done. There are stockpiles of Tamiflu, gloves, masks and other supplies just waiting for a flu epidemic. It’s anticipated that 25 - 50% of the workforce could be off the job should panflu hit in the next ten years or so.
posted by Lindsey on 11-12-2008 at 4:26 pm
But what about Clark Gable and the flu? There has to be a connection.
posted by Ryan on 11-12-2008 at 4:36 pm
My great-grandparents on my mothers side both died of Spanish influenza. It’s a miracle that my grandmother didn’t die.
posted by Alice on 11-12-2008 at 4:58 pm
Ryan - Absolutely. It’s fixed now :)
posted by stacy on 11-12-2008 at 5:17 pm
Not so fun fact: The extremely high fever caused by the flu can cause a form of temporary dementia - I was having nonsensical arguments with myself about what part of the pillow I could put my head on once my temp hit 105. There were also some very vivid hallucinations, the brain just does odd things at that temperature. Just get the shot.
posted by PartiallyDeflected on 11-12-2008 at 7:17 pm
#2 doesn’t seem to do much good, since when you call the doctor for an appointment, the soonest they can ever see you is a week out.
#3 is nice to know, but some significant people, including Edward Cullen, did not survive the Spanish Influenza. (My wife will love me for that one)
posted by Admiral Byrd on 11-12-2008 at 7:39 pm
Isn’t -ish the best and most useful suffix ever?
posted by Lissa on 11-12-2008 at 10:27 pm
Survivors of the Spanish Flu that were only young children in 1918 still show the presence of antibodies to the flu in their blood when tested today. The Spanish flu is of the same strain as the avian flu - H5N1 - and researchers are trying to see if these preserved antibodies might be made into a vaccine for the present-day avian flu.
Another fun fact - the Spanish Flu is thought to have been a combination of a very virulent influenza strain and a bacterial infection, and unfortunately it hit before antibiotics were around. A doctor from that era is credited with saying that influenza “condemns”, but a secondary infection “executes”. And it didn’t even start in Spain - it is thought to have originated in US recruits stationed in Kansas before being shipped to Europe in WWI.
posted by Chelsea on 11-12-2008 at 10:46 pm
Your post is about two weeks late for me! I had just commented to my husband that we had made it through the (NZ) winter without getting sick this year, when I came down with the flu. I should know better than to jinx myself like that!
Fortunately, it’s easy to get a Dr. appt here, and I saw my doctor right away. No mention of anti-virals, though; just bed-rest and fluids. And lots of Mental Floss reading!
posted by Dawn on 11-12-2008 at 11:53 pm
thanks for the comment adimiral byrd :)
technically, #1 is incorrect simply because a virus is a non-living thing. they don’t have dna and are therefore, not alive. which is why i freaking hate that kleenex commercial where they say they kill 99.9% of viruses. you can’t kill something which has never lived!!
posted by kat on 11-13-2008 at 12:44 am
Cheap shot at D Rumsfeld. You think everyone who owns stock in pharmaceutics does so because of some desire to see people get sick? Come on. Conspiracy theories are just that, theories. Rarely ever proven to be true because they aren’t true.
posted by Valerie on 11-13-2008 at 5:22 am
kat- you’re correct about viruses being non-living, but it’s because they can’t reproduce on their own (they have to hijack other cells to do so), not because they lack DNA. Some viruses have DNA (such as the herpes viruses), while the rest have RNA (such as influenza). You have the right idea, and I’m not trying to be condescending. Just don’t want the Kleenex Corp.’s confusion to spread.
posted by jld on 11-13-2008 at 9:55 am
I’m organizing the flu shot clinic for my office, and I came across a nice piece of advice from a nurse in Colorado. If you’re afraid of getting the shot because of the needle-ouch factor, here’s a trick: just before the shot, blow out through your mouth as though you were blowing bubbles in your drink through a straw. It’s almost impossible to unconsciously tense your muscles while blowing out, and relaxed muscles minimize the pain of the shot. I’m getting my first flu shot tomorrow and I am SO trying this.
posted by Chelsea (a different one) on 11-13-2008 at 10:27 am
Is anyone else a bit freaked out by the thought of scientists digging up potentially ‘preserved’ Spanish flu? I’m getting a flashback of the opening scene of that Stephen King miniseries with the Moody Blues “Don’t Fear the Reaper” in the background….
posted by Bethy on 11-13-2008 at 11:53 am
Chelsea just had be blowing out at my desk and feeling my muscles for a few minutes…
I think everyone around me thinks I’m crazy now. :)
Recaptcha toast–To ceremonies!
posted by Orange on 11-13-2008 at 12:01 pm
Coincidentally, I got my very first flu shot ever this morning before reading this, and it was the most painless shot I have ever gotten. I was actually glad that my doctor, who I know and trust, gave it to me, because if it was anyone else I would have thought they didn’t administer it correctly.
So don’t let that ouch factor stop you -as someone once said, “Piece of pie; easy as cake!”
posted by Betsy on 11-13-2008 at 12:41 pm
So are you wanting to die because of the sickness or because you have to watch bad daytime T.V. I can see it both ways. :)
posted by Marty on 11-13-2008 at 1:42 pm
You’re right, Marty!
posted by Sara on 11-16-2008 at 3:23 pm