The CDC is still encouraging people to get flu shots in spite of the fact that recent reports give them a dismal %23 effectiveness rating:

The flu vaccine for 2014-2015 is not the worst ever — the past decade has ranged from 10 percent to 60 percent effective — but its record is worrying enough that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have urged doctors to ramp up the use of antiviral medications in people who fall ill with influenza.

Its lack of punch is being blamed on multiple strains of the H3N2 virus that are circulating and making people sick, but that were not included in this season’s vaccine.

I don’t understand why people are so vaccine-obsessed. Life-debilitating and possibly life-threatening illnesses like polio? Sure, get vaccinated. The seasonal flu? Please. Even if it were 100% effective, I would still consider it yet another attempt by vaccine manufacturers to make money despite flagging population growth. What do I mean by that?

In order to be effective, polio vaccines have to work without being regularly re-administered. This means that no degree of planned obsolescence is allowed. One shot and you’re done. If people quit getting vaccines, or quit having children (both of which things are happening more and more), the companies that make vaccines have to find some other way to make money. The solution? Yearly flu shots. This was always a scam.

The CDC itself has a list of “possible side effects” from the flu shot. Though they insist that you can’t get the flu from flu shots, their list of side effects looks an awful lot like the symptoms from a typical case of the flu: muscle aches, sore throat, and fever. What does it matter? If it feels like you have the flu, does it matter what the CDC calls it?

And then, after all that, there is still a 77% you will get the (real) flu anyway. Sheesh. Just don’t do it.