Generalizing much? H1N1 2009: "It has two genes from flu viruses that normally circulate in pigs in Europe and Asia and bird (avian) genes and human genes. Scientists call this a "quadruple reassortant" virus. (http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/qa.htm)

The seasonal flu vaccine is made to respond to three strains of influenza virus, not 15-20 strains. (Google it.)

Your aunt was probably hit by the Guillain-Barré -syndrome which affects 1 in a million people vaccinated. Anecdotal evidence is the root of many evil and should not appear in medical debate.

Well done. You've managed to use the trick employed by the anti-vaccination crowd and other sensationalists in their fear mongering.

Please keep your "why won't anyone think of the little girl with cancer" FUD to yourself. Your comment proves nothing about the efficacy of the yearly flu jab.

Maybe the granny should get the jab then?

I don't think that conducting a double-blind placebo controlled trial for flu vaccine would be unethical in the least. Placebo controlled studies are unethical only if the participants' health would be seriously jeopardized when receiving the placebo treatment (i.e. death or serious/irreversible health problems). I wouldn't count having a three day flu as a very serious problem.

Moreover, to state that flu vaccines work because, in general, vaccines are a good thing blatantly violates how medical science should work. If there is no well designed study to show that flu vaccines are effective then we cannot state that as such.

As Ben Goldacre would put it, getting the flu vaccination is a medical intervention and as such will always carry a risk of some magnitude. Without conducting a careful risk-benefit study, you cannot give a clear recommendation.

Theoretically, and I'm just going on a hypothetical limb here, you could apply pressure on the papercut, thus preventing the blood flow. Furthermore, if you were to get tired from applying said pressure, you might use some implement to perform the same task, some sort of an aid..hmmm I think I might be onto something here!

Errr, what? THAT was your first concern?

I guess if she had a pointy nose you'd be concerned she might be mistaken for a witch?

I mean wtf..

Which makes it all the easier for the chinese fast food places to utilize the gorillas! Just like pulling them straight out of a freezer, brilliant!

Haha. I learned only this summer that the haggis is "marketed" to the US tourists as this small round animal. You could buy little haggis soft toys at the souvenir shops!

Sitation required? http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2003/nov/27/travelnews.travel

Another ridicule on the american tourist was the Edinburgh castle's tourist guide's anecdote about an american asking whether the coastline behind the bay (the Forth?) that you can see from the castle might be France?

Uhh..you would make the players do engineering work. With the added fun of rest of the time reviewing everyone else's engineering work! That'll sell like cupcakes!

I run HP-UX you insensitive clod!

Symmetrically, if their time and productivity isn't worth the price, society will stop compensating.

You must be new here.

Fixed that for you.

I colleague of mine once pondered if anyone had the idea to make a virus (for windows I presumed) that would do exactly that. It could also throttle the CPU(s) down. I bet 99% of users wouldn't notice.