In this Jan. 12 photo, Ana Martinez, a medical assistant at the Sea Mar Community Health Center, gives a patient a flu shot in Seattle. Flu season continues to get worse, as this has become the most intense the country has seen since a pandemic strain hit nine years ago, U.S. health officials said in January. AP FILE PHOTO
It hit me like a sledgehammer, like the Eagles’ offense hit the Patriots last weekend.
The flu. Count me in.
Ah, the chills, the headache, the constant trips to the bathroom, and that just overall blah, achy, icky feeling — like someone has opened my skull, drained out all the energy and poured ice cold water inside.
At least I had the weekend to suffer through it, huddled on the couch, blanket wrapped around me, watching Super Bowl coverage and news reports from Washington — though neither made me feel better. What a great way to spend Super Bowl party weekend, enjoying ginger ale and saltines.
The flu has hit all 50 states with a vengeance. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention projects there are still several weeks left in what has been described as the worse flu season in 10 years. To date, at least 53 children have died from the flu, according to the CDC.
In Massachusetts, the state Department of Public Health says the number of laboratory-confirmed cases of flu is well above the number normally seen by this time of year. Emergency rooms across the state are overwhelmed with people complaining of flu-like symptoms.
Like many of us, I seemingly did all the right things to prevent the flu. I got my shot early. I wash my hands. I use hand sanitizer. I eat right, I get my rest, I exercise, I take my vitamins ... but none of that stopped me from getting the bug.
I should be grateful. I may be miserable but I’m miserable in the comfort of my own warm house, with two cats purring beside me for therapy.
I look out my window and I’m thinking of the homeless or anyone with no heat. How do they cope with the flu? For the young and elderly, the flu can also be life-threatening. It doesn’t take much to go from the flu to pneumonia or a bacterial infection, especially if you’re already weak and your system is down.
Some say finding a cure for the flu is as futile as the quest for the holy grail — it will never happen, they say. But yet, I got to ask: We can put a man on the moon but we can’t prevent the flu?
Researchers say the flu shot has been only 17 percent effective this season overall, and only 10 percent among working adults. Apparently, the way we make vaccines isn’t a good match for the type of virus circulating this year.
“It’s essential that we have a new and better flu vaccine,” Michael Osterholm, of the University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, said in an interview with NBC.
But with flu shots providing “Big Pharma” with big profits, there’s little incentive to invest billions in research for a universal vaccine that offers more protection.
“It’s money but it’s also the leadership — who’s going to take charge of this on a global basis and see this through?” asks Osterholm.
Speaking from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston last week, U.S. Sen. Edward Markey called on Congress to spend $1 billion to develop a universal flu vaccine.
“We still fall so short in our response to this annual menace,” Markey said. “Flu season shouldn’t be Groundhog’s Day for our universal health community.”
Markey’s point also illustrates a broader problem and one voiced by his colleague, Elizabeth Warren — the need for increased government funding for research.
The budget for the National Institutes of Health, less than 1 percent of the federal budget, has been flat for years and is a fraction of what it was 15 years ago, after inflation.
In Warren’s 2017 book, “This Fight is Our Fight,” she describes her attempts to find funding for medical research, introducing a bill that would have required pharmaceutical firms to pay a portion of their profits to the NIH when they break the law and have to pay a settlement. She called the bill a “swear jar” for drug companies — a form of accountability and a way to increase research investments.
The bill went nowhere.
Congress has since supported a negligible bump in NIH funding, but last year the Trump administration proposed sweeping cuts.
Meanwhile, the flu epidemic is not letting up. Do we accept defeat?
In addition to work on a better flu vaccine, consider some of the other work that NIH funding could be supporting in areas such as cancer research and finding cures for Alzheimer’s, ALS and other diseases that kill our loved ones.
Think about it — lifesaving medical science breakthroughs that aren’t hap pening.
That alone is about to get me sick. I may be over the worse of my flu, but excuse me if I’m about to throw up.
John Paradis, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel, lives in Florence and writes a column published the second Friday of the month. He is a veterans’ outreach coordinator for VA New England Health Care System, and can be reached at opinion@gazettenet.com.
