Flu Immune 500

The answer is – you get the flu symptoms, not the flu virus.

(So why am I writing on the yes side? Look out for the explanation with * and *)

The purpose of vaccine is to introduce a foreign body that is harmless so that your immune system will recognize it as a foreign body and it starts producing complementary antibodies that will combat this foreign body u are injected with. The vaccine introduced is usually harmless and does not cause problems except for the slight symptoms. When the harmful flu virus of the same shape attacks your immune system, your system is prepared to resist the attack.

It should be noted that there are basically 2 lines of defense in our immune system: 1st line of defense – to combat against ALL foreign bodies introduced 2nd line of defense – is to combat against foreign bodies that have once attacked. It should be noted that the latter is of higher effectiveness because antibodies are specifically produced for the purpose. The only drawback* is it needs longer time for the defense to be up.

I will provide 2 scenarios for this purpose.

1) Without prior vaccination, a harmful flu virus is introduced to the body and due to lower effectiveness of the first line of defense; the virus was able to penetrate further and cells are infected. The second line of defense takes time to produce antibodies to combat against the virus and by the time the antibodies are created, several irreversible damages has been done to the body. 2) A vaccine is like a virus cell without the viral genome or viral RNA (ribonucleic acid) hence it is harmless. When introduced to the body, it similarly penetrated through the first line of defense, as the body was not ready for the attack. As there is no viral genome in the vaccine, the vaccine do not proliferate within the body and infecting cells. The second line of defense has enough time to produce suitable antibodies that recognize the vaccine and destroy it. Shape-recognizing antibodies has been placed on the 1st line of defense after vaccination. Therefore, when a flu virus attacks, the 1st line of defense is then effective enough to combat against it.

This is why when the flu vaccine (harmless foreign body with the same shape as flu virus) is introduced, the first line of defense identified it as a foreign body and triggered the bodily response similar to flu symptoms to take down the suspicious foreign body.

I believe most readers did read about the smallpox vaccine story, which cowpox virus was intentionally introduced into the body to vaccinate against smallpox, as both virus has the same shape but smallpox was lethal enough to cause death while cowpox only result in mild discomforts.

*However, as mentioned earlier, the drawback of the second line of defense needs longer time to be up, and between the period when the 1st line of defense is ‘attacked’ by the flu shot vaccine until the 2nd line of defense is prepared and ready to resist similar attacks, the immune system is at it’s most vulnerable stage. Because of the antibodies in the body are not produced in time, when a real (harmful) flu virus attacks, the body will usually lose the battle and the victim will catch the flu.