Michael Jackson’s got the flu, or so he says. It’s quite convenient to get ill on the way to court!.

I’ve never gotten a flu shot: I just suffer like a caveman. My thinking on this is that I’ll be protected and the rest of ya’ll die like the Native Americans did when the Europeans brought smallpox to the New World. Who knows? Maybe in the near future the Influenza virus will mutate into something that “outsmarts” the vaccines.

Related to this, a report yesterday revealed that the flu shot isn’t effective in preventing death among those 65 and older.

If you look at this chart on deaths since 1976, you can see an initial drop in the number of deaths, but there has been a rapidly diminishing “return on investment” as use of the vaccine becomes more widespread.

The primary author of the report thinks that we shouldn’t stop immunizing, but that we should produce more effective immunizations. I’m just a simple layman, but I think he’s looking at a loosing battle there.