Military branches restore flu shot requirement after virus swept through base
arstechnica.com232 points by tzs a day ago
232 points by tzs a day ago
The United States military is nothing to sneeze at (it would kill them).
I have a close friend who is an officer nearing twenty years. He has not had a tendency to criticize his job. However, he has been adamant that vaccines are incredibly important for the military and the policy changes have really angered him, specifically because of the damage it does to readiness.
> However, he has been adamant that vaccines are incredibly important for the military ...
https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/smallpox-inoculation-revolu...
> During the 1700s, smallpox raged through the American colonies and the Continental Army. Smallpox impacted the Continental Army severely during the Revolutionary War, so much so that George Washington mandated inoculation for all Continental soldiers in 1777. Just fifty-six years earlier, in 1721, Bostonian doctors and clergy introduced the procedure to the American colonies. Without the vision and determination of these early Bostonians in normalizing inoculation, Washington may not have made the decision to mandate inoculation for the Continental Army. Though it was a controversial action, many historians credit the medical mandate with the colonists’ victory in the Revolutionary War and the creation of the United States of America.
https://www.mountvernon.org/education/primary-source-collect...
> HEAD QUARTERS MORRIS TOWN 12TH MARCH 1777
> Sir
> You are hereby required immediately to send me an exact return of your regiment, and to send all your recruits, who have had the small pox to join the Army. Those, who have not, are to be sent to Philadelphia, and put under the direction of the commanding officer there, who will have them inoculated.
If I remember correctly, the Battle of Agincourt, where the Welsh archers destroyed the French knights, was fought by archers with their pants around their ankles.
Apparently, there was a dysentery outbreak. They didn’t retreat, because they couldn’t. Maybe that was the thinking behind this edict.
The covid refusal also became a scam. If you refused then you couldnt be deployed. But it tool months to kick people out. So people who didnt want to deploy would refuse and then agree to get the shot at the last minute. So it kept them home for up to six months while thier buddies went overseas..
The US has a volunteer army, if you don't want to do army things why be there in the first place?
Young people want the benefits like the promised free college, but don't want to get sent off to die for a cause nobody believes in and nobody approved.
Add this to the list of reasons the US will never have nationalized free education or even student loan reform.
More accurate to call it a mercenary army. These people presumably collected paychecks and benefits the whole time.
Volunteer, but only on the way in. And new recruits are very young. Things in thier lives change. They grow up a bit and often want out, but cant get out. Being stuck in a multi-year term of service doesnt feel like a volunteer army to them.
yeah this be the answer.
easy to volunteer when you're a hoodrat or hillbilly and it's the only way out of your situation.
but that's just the way in. Problem is you're on the hook for 4+ years and you can't just quit. I've definitely had white collar jobs I got to, realized it was fuckin miserable, and noped out in < 2 years. Cuz, like, I can just quit.
you end up in a shitty unit with a shitty boss, you get to eat shit for ~4 years, and will go to jail if you fuckup or disappear.
put another way, there is some statistic like 25% of military recruits who get kicked out get kicked out in the first year; it wasn't what they thought it'd be
> specifically because of the damage it does to readiness.
I have habit of watching historical YouTube videos and so many times battles were lost or sieges were broken because one side got sick and could not keep fighting.
Only an ignorant who never studied history would voluntarily remove vaccination from army units.
>he has been adamant that vaccines are incredibly important for the military and the policy changes have really angered him, specifically because of the damage it does to readiness.
Your friend knows his history; disease has been the leading cause of death in warfare, historically, killing more soldiers than actual combat.
Did we ever get a vaccine for trench foot?
No, because trench foot is something not treatable by vaccines.
However, we did receive a lot of training in how to avoid and treat it, along with better equipment. Does that count as a “vaccine”?
> Did we ever get a vaccine for trench foot?
> No, because trench foot is something not treatable by vaccines.
Isn’t that tautological?
History and the future are full of things that can be treated with a vaccine that were not previously.
I apologize if I’m missing the point you’re making, but trench foot and vaccines are completely unrelated.
Vaccines fundamentally impact viruses. Trench foot is not caused by a virus, or any infection. It’s more akin to frostbite.
We’re really pushing the boundaries of what we can do with vaccines, but the root cause of trench foot is poor circulation, and a vaccine can’t really fix that.
"Under President [Donald J.] Trump, the War Department continues to take decisive action to once again restore freedom and strength to our joint force. We're seizing this moment to discard any absurd overreaching mandates that only weaken our warfighting capabilities." - Secretary Hegseth in April 2026
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
And stupidity is intelligence.
Democracy dies when stupid people become convinced that they know best and have all the answers.
Wait no?
Democracy works exactly because of this?
We just poll all the people, including the dumb ones, and then average out the answers. The dumbs all cancel out in the end. (Yes, of course, I know it is a lot more complex than this)
The whole point of democracy is that we don't know what is the dumb or smart answer so we have these complex functions and dances to squeeze out the best one we can think of at the time. (Yes, I know that the reasons for states to turn democratic are complex)
We don't poll all of the people. We exclude everybody below 18, for example. We exclude a lot of people with criminal records. We use a multi-stage representative democracy, such that large numbers of voters basically don't count at all. (And that's before we go out of our way to draw districts specifically to exclude people).
To the degree that democracy works, it works as you say. But we systematically fail to include all of the people, so the dumbs often don't cancel out.
I remember a professor once told us “democracy might not be the best kind of government. It’s just the best we have found to organize a peaceful power transition”. And .. to this date .. I agree .. it’s not about making the best decision.. it just allows us to come to a decision on a seemingly fair process.
Given the Weberian definition of government I'm wont to go on about, democracy optimises for legitimacy, rather than optimal decisionmaking, speed, efficiency, or any number of other possible goals.
But it doesn't do that. It allows a majority to do whatever it wants, including redefine the rules to guarantee its permanent majority.
Or the rules are written to avoid that, in which case the power rests with the minority who is happiest with the status quo.
It works only if most people don't want to push their advantages to the limits. But if men were angels, there would be no need of laws. The system will always fall prey to whoever is most willing to push their advantage as far as it will go.
We also have politicsl organs to keep the powerfull busy schemeing so they can not destroy or deprecate the organs.
The point of democracy is consent of the governed. We very much do know the dumb or smart answer as to whether or not to vaccine the military.
Hegseth - renames "Department of Defense" to "Department of War", fights one war and loses.
Chesterton's Fence strikes again
I'm not sure "Chesterton's Fence" is an applicable fable/analogy when the fence has a big sign on it explaining exactly why it's there, and if you stop to look at it for a minute someone will come along and explain in great detail, answer all of your questions, and provide copious citations to the last several hundred years of public health and virology.
>"The decisions were based upon thorough risk assessments..."
Both decisions? Or just the walkback one?
Not justifying it by any means, but the first one could have been done on a risk assessment of how it would affect recruitment, retention, and morale. There are some worlds in which that could have been the rational choice, especially with knowledge that it would likely get rolled back in time.
There are some worlds
Yes, that world is one based more on reality and common sense rather than politics and rhetoric.
Unfortunately, this does not describe the world we are currently trapped in.
You've got to be able to deploy. Simple as that.
In a sane administration, the complete and total lack of judgement that allowed vaccine mandates to go away should have led to an instant loss of confidence in sec def and anyone in the chain that didn't raise concerns about that decision. Anyone that studies even the slightest amount of military history knows that disease used to kill more people in war than bullets until -very- recently. The fact that potentially the single most effective combat enabler is not taken seriously shows the complete and utter lack of qualifications the people this administration puts into positions of power.
There's a double layer of irony here, where the people criticizing people of the ignorance of "unintended" consequences of vaccine fear will play defense for the unintended consequence of causing that fear by the extremely aggressive pushing of vaccine policies during covid
If it was Ebola instead of COVID-19, 1000% guaranteed that all those antivaxxers would have been banging down the doors to get a vaccine, and would have been raging if the government hadn't rushed it out. All their antivax outrage was because they didn't think they personally were going to die from COVID, and didn't want to help save anyone else's life.
2 million dead Americans later and people still complain that they were asked to get a vaccine to try to save lives. or complain about a shutdown which should have lasted a few months max if people had done what they were supposed to and would have saved millions of lives.
> If it was Ebola instead of COVID-19, 1000% guaranteed that all those antivaxxers would have been banging down the doors to get a vaccine, and would have been raging if the government hadn't rushed it out. All their antivax outrage was because they didn't think they personally were going to die from COVID, and didn't want to help save anyone else's life.
I think you are largely right, but I dont think they have any obligation to save anyone else's life.
I think there would have been better uptake amung republicans if it was presented a optional healthcare choice or suggestion.
> I dont think they have any obligation to save anyone else's life.
That’s the problem with republicans. They reject basic tenets of a society.
You do have a responsibility to do the absolute minimum to not harm other people.
> I dont think they have any obligation to save anyone else's life.
I reject this framing, the person here is not a passive observer in the first place, they are a participant with obligations.
Consider a pet dog: You aren't merely responsible if it bites someone after-the-fact, you also have a proactive obligation for a reasonable level of control and monitoring, so that your erratic property doesn't harm another person in the first place. That might mean blocking off where it can go with doors and fences, a muzzle, a leash in public, certified obedience training, etc.
Your body is like that dog: Both are biological property which can erratically move to harm others without your permission. In this case, the risk is it will start spewing tiny bioweapons at other people. As the owner, you again have some obligation to exert reasonable control and supervision over your property, whether that's quarantine, vaccines, masks, home tests, etc.
____
On the heels of the "if Ebola" thought-experiment, let's try another: Imagine we somehow had forensic knowledge of how every individual SARS-COV-2 victim got sick and exactly how plus a frictionless legal system for lawsuits to recover damages from lost-work, medical bills, or deaths.
Simply by having awareness and justice, a lot of people would be singing a very different tune. If Mr. "I'm too cool for masks" infects several strangers and causes them to miss days of wages, it'll actually show up as a $5,000 bill.
>I think there would have been better uptake amung republicans if it was presented a optional healthcare choice or suggestion.
Cut to Republicans outraged reaction to Michelle Obama fitness initiatives...
> If it was Ebola instead of COVID-19, 1000% guaranteed that all those antivaxxers would have been banging down the doors to get a vaccine
Sadly, no. There is a theory that Ebola cases are really just arsenic poisoning from the mines in the area. That’s the kind of narrative that would take hold realistically.
I would also point out that prior to Bidens election it was mostly Democrats who were saying they weren’t going to take the vaccine when it came out, that it would be rushed and have something wrong with it.
> it was mostly Democrats who were saying they weren’t going to take the vaccine
Sadly, no. I live in one of the bluest corners of the US. A constant discussion was when the jab would come available so that we could get it. I knew no one who didn't want it.
> prior to Bidens election it was mostly Democrats who were saying they weren’t going to take the vaccine
Nope, look at Figure 10 in this poll [0]. Asked about a hypothetical vaccine in the next ~2 months before the election was held, the answer "Yes, would want to get vaccinated" was 50% for Democrats and only 36% for Republicans.
Democrats may have become more confident after the election--for damn good reasons--but there was no flip or reversal.
[0] https://www.kff.org/health-information-trust/kff-health-trac...
I appreciate the data and am prepared to concede the point. It seems like a mixed result though, as quite a bit of sentiment did flip after the election. From your study:
“85% of Democrats say they are worried the FDA will rush to approve a vaccine, while fewer Republicans (35%) express this level of concern. Notably, women are more likely than men to say they are worried the FDA will rush to approve a vaccine (70% vs. 55%).”
Lots of Democrats were worried that Trump's FDA would do something stupid or bad around the vaccine, but those democrats largely changed their mind when Trump's FDA presented good evidence of the vaccines efficacy and safety.
They responded to evidence by changing the way they view the world. Like you are supposed to.
Meanwhile, Republicans while Trump was in the whitehouse were not very concerned that the vaccine would be rushed or unsafe, and as soon as Biden is in the whitehouse instead, are suddenly terrified of the vaccine.
> All their antivax outrage was because they didn't think they personally were going to die from COVID, and didn't want to help save anyone else's life.
Suppose you're right. They're still entitled to their views, they're entitled to honesty from their government, and frankly I'd say the government should not be trying to coerce people into taking an officially-experimental vaccine by the back door any more than they should be directly forcing people to do so.
> 2 million dead Americans later
Maybe. Depends very much on who's doing the calculations.
> complain about a shutdown which should have lasted a few months max if people had done what they were supposed to
Bullshit. Countries with much higher social compliance saw the same endless lockdowns.
> taking an officially-experimental vaccine by the back door
Two things.
1) mRNA technology was not experimental
2) I don't know about you but I got my shot in the shoulder, not the back door
> 1) mRNA technology was not experimental
Perhaps, but the specific vaccines were.
> 2) I don't know about you but I got my shot in the shoulder, not the back door
As I'm sure you understood, I was talking about coercion by the back door - the whole "we're not going to force individuals to vaccinate, but we're going to force restaurants and gyms to require vaccination" approach. (And don't try to say it was an objective public health measure - if that was the case they would've made natural immunity as acceptable as vaccination)
>And don't try to say it was an objective public health measure - if that was the case they would've made natural immunity as acceptable as vaccination)
It was an objective public health measure, because it is well-known from actual examples that opening such option would lead people to try to get infected instead of being vaccinated, breeding even more variants and hospital saturation.
Note also that "previous contamination" has never been an acceptable derogation in any public health system for any of the compulsory vaccinations.
I'll bite. The Covid vaccines were extremely effective. This information brought to us by a data leak of the report blocked by the US government...
"NEW YORK (AP) — A study on COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness has finally been published after being blocked from a government health journal.
The vaccine was found to be about 55% effective against COVID-19-associated hospitalizations, and reduced COVID-19-related trips to emergency departments and urgent care clinics by 50%, according to the study published Tuesday by JAMA Network Open."
https://apnews.com/article/cdc-covid-vaccine-effective-study...
I dare a grammarian to take the above-sentence and diagram it out. No, I'm not "feigning surprise", I am legitimately struggling to figure out exactly who's being blamed for what.
Some minutes later, and this is my best guess in the form of original with code comments. I got to the end and then backfilled the group names.
There's a double layer of irony here, # There is something wrong and hypocritical.
#
where the people # People who thought vaccines were good
criticizing people # criticized anti-vaxxers,
of the ignorance # saying the anti-vaxxers didn't realize
of "unintended" consequences # the damage they would cause
of vaccine fear # by scaring everyone away from proper treatment.
#
will play defense # Those people give excuses
for the unintended consequence # for the problem they actually created
of causing that fear # by MAKING the anti-vaxxers afraid in the first place
by the extremely aggressive pushing # since they tried too hard
of vaccine policies during covid. # to get everyone vaccinated to stop the virus.
Compare to: "Well, the car I was driving is wrecked, and it's all your fault! You should have known that I don't like being told what do to, so by telling me to slow down you forced me to accelerate into that barrier to prove that you aren't the boss of me. We could have avoided this whole mess if you'd simply babied my special needs and irrationalities like an adult."
> Compare to: "Well, the car I was driving is wrecked, and it's all your fault! You should have known that I don't like being told what do to, so by telling me to slow down you forced me to accelerate into that barrier to prove that you aren't the boss of me. We could have avoided this whole mess if you'd simply babied my special needs and irrationalities like an adult."
This is also known as "Look what you made me do."
Especially over the last few years, I've become worried that a certain sizeable minority exists who will read the phrase and not see any problem.
Anyone who “fears” vaccines because the government said they were a good idea (with provable statistics instead of whatever nonsense you read on Facebook) is a fucking doorknob. Full stop.
Some of you need to realize that writing some React pages doesn’t actually make you a polymath.
More and more I believe the idea that Rome fell due to lead and pollution, because only stupidity could end an empire that had no rivals.
I don't buy it. Empires thrive when they are broadly expanding wealth, whether that's by plundering neighbors or making their economy more effective.
There's always a tension between growing the pie or taking more of the pie for yourself. If growth appears to be slowing and there's a lot of pie to fight over, more and more people will focus on the latter. Sometimes that's healthy, but without external pressure it usually takes the form of corruption, pettiness, and other destructive behaviors.
RFK Jr has elevated mercury; he says due to eating top predator fish. He underwent chelation therapy and still exhibits some of the symptoms in my opinion.
This administration might be the exception, but it is actually normal for the US military to be getting more vaccines than average, even when their effectiveness is suspect (some past flu vaccines) or side effects are moderate to severe (e.g. anthrax vaccines).
Readiness - a matter of national security - tends to trump most concerns that, in civilian populations, might warrant greater choice and debate.
There is (was?) a mandatory list of vaccines all military had to receive upon enlisting.
Back during the Iraq war, it even applied to civilians who deployed into the war zone. I had to get yellow fever and smallpox. I was just a software engineer that worked for the navy, but I had to do so I could go do my job over there.
You'd think other aspects of health, like general fitness and mental well-being would be factored in too, but strangely, the only requirement they seemed to take a hard stance on previously was over-vaccination.
Almost like it was politically-motivated and it's not truthfully a "matter of national security"
If they could make every soldier super jacked, buff, zen masters with just an annual injection I guarantee you they would order that too.
It turns out eventually you have to deal with reality.
> Before writing off the totalitarian world as a nightmare that can't come true, just remember that in 1925 the world of today would have seemed a nightmare that couldn't come true. Against that shifting phantasmagoric world in which black may be white tomorrow and yesterday's weather can be changed by decree, there are in reality only two safeguards. One is that however much you deny the truth, the truth goes on existing, as it were, behind your back, and you consequently can't violate it in ways that impair military efficiency. The other is that so long as some parts of the earth remain unconquered, the liberal tradition can be kept alive. — Orwell
https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...
> The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' [...] 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do'.
I'm still waiting to hear that soliloquy in a movie.
It's pretty much a rewrite of a famous monologue in Network, for those who haven't seen that before. At least in tone and delivery.
It ruins the chance at dunking on the opposition but the key word is "discernable".
It's reality as it appears to be to a person on the outside. Not actual reality.
The actors of the empire are dismantling said empire. It will be studied, not least by its adversaries.
> 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality‘
The American reality of stepping on rake after rake after rake. A gag that meanders repeatedly between funny and sad.
However, they already got their headline. While I saw the original policy covered heavily in conservative news sources, I've not seen this retraction covered at all. Thus the base believes that the military is no longer "woke", and 100% of the desired value has been achieved.
Maybe. But long before that, many other people have to deal with the consequences of a few others' disbelief in reality.
"Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid."
All of this talk about reality is giving them way too much credit.
The simple fact is that we’re dealing with idiots and pure stupidity. Idiots elected them and the idiots are having their day in the sun. Unfortunately, their stupidity is no longer contained to the office environments and executive leadership roles they had before. They are unfortunately able to make decisions that affect the general population.
The US did an okay-ish job for a long time keeping people like this from gaining a foothold of too many positions of power. Unfortunately, we lost control and we may never get it back on the right track.
Secretary Hegseth earned a BA from Princeton and an MPP from Harvard.
Princeton and Harvard are graduating idiots?
Thank goodness! Such a relief! In that case, since he went to Princeton and Harvard, we shouldn’t consider his actions idiotic. Instead his actions are malicious intent.
Sadly, all the time spent deferring reality ends up hurting a lot of bystanders. The debt they've run up is going to be painful, maybe moreso than the damages incurred from the anti-science and anti-transparency policies.
The debt would be less painful if the pricks that were responsible for this mess would be billed for the consequences of their poor king-making.
We can start with whomever showed up to that inauguration, and expand from there. If they could afford that bribe, they can certainly afford to pay for repairing the damage their golden boy has caused.
And/or if the debt was for something useful. There’s nothing wrong with running up massive low-interest debt if it’s invested in high-return projects. I’ll borrow every cent anyone will lend me at 2% if there’s a 4% savings account handy, and that’s the leverage the US used to enjoy.
But just cutting taxes for the rich is not that model.
Hopefully sanity prevails and we retroactively declare those tax cuts as loans, now due with interest. Yeah, not how contracts are supposed to work. So what.
As we discovered to our cost here in the UK a few years ago, increasing government debt to give tax breaks to the rich doesn't just cause huge economic damage, it also makes it difficult for more responsible governments to borrow for actual investment, however critical.
Hot take but we should let reality deal the blow. There's so many things that people think is redundant and unnecessary but actually have an army of people and machination that are working tirelessly to curb it. Only to called bloat and the deep state.
Vaccines should not be given automatically, because that causes people to not think about why they need it. They think that it is something is imposed on them. But if they always have to request it (and the request is quick and always given, or super cheap at the shop) then people would have to know to get vaccinated. Parents will talk to each other about which vaccine is necessary (and its going to be all of them because they will know someone that died from it)
This is true for any crisis really. For example, lets say that you are managing someone's finances or health, you found out that they are in a horrible situation. But then, you discovered a solution that does not require their attention. So you work tirelessly behind the scene to fix their finances or develop new cure. Voila! Problem solved. Or is it? You have not fixed the fundamental problem that they are an obese with obese lifestyle.
If millions more people are obese than were obese 50 years ago, clearly something has changed systemically that has made people more sedentary and eating more. People 50 years ago were not paying more conscious attention to their health than people today, but the background environment of available food and sedentary jobs/entertainment were different.
The personal responsibility model of obesity works for individuals (including myself), but falls flat when discussing how to lower the weight of millions.
What changed 50 years ago is the US government decided saturated fats were bad and complex carbohydrates were good, and began setting policy to rebuild the food supply and culture around that worldview. We're now living in the result of that population-wide experiment.
Nothing has changed. Fat and sugar are appetizing, always have. The free market gave it to all of you by the truckload at the lowest price.
Try to assume your choices instead of blaming "the US government" and telling yourself fairytales.
No, it was literally government policy. The free market didn't give us the McGovern committee or the following half-century of subsidies, regulations, and guidelines to promote low-fat diets.
Markets don't exist in a vacuum. In this case, it was substantially shaped by state-driven incentives. If nothing had changed, we wouldn't be having this conversation. It's a historical fact that something did change: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_United_States#/....
“Freedom works for me but I want to also control millions of other people, for the good of me and their own good since they don’t know any better”
"Well you need to exercise more and eat more vegetables" is true, but it's only practicable advice if people have access to exercise facilities and healthy food, and the time to make use of them. Otherwise you may as well be blaming fire victims for not being incombustible.
“You need to x” is still the (apparently flawed?) personal responsibility model.
Replace “you” with “we will do x to you whether you like it or not” and now we’re talking
“Finding and halting the boot stomping on your friends and neighbors is a violation of your friends’ and neighbors’ freedoms”
Sounds nice but is that what you really mean? The government created Covid, let it leak from a lab and now people want to give them power to force millions of innocent people take the medicine they also created. “Finding and halting the boot” would look a little different from that in my mind
The problem with this thinking on something like vaccines is that vaccines literally rely on a certain percentage of the population having received the vaccine. It's not actually possible to allow a personal choice policy if you want a vaccine to be effective.
I wouldn't necessarily declare that vaccines rely on sufficient population vaccination, but there's always going to be people who cannot take the vaccine (e.g. immune-compromised individuals) and their protection comes from the population having a high percentage of immunity due to the vaccines. Of course, having the majority being immune means that any outbreak tends to finish quickly as the virus runs out of people/vectors to infect.
That seems like the opposite of using intelligence to deal with issues.
Throughout history, human civilisations have tried to deal with problems (e.g. droughts, floods, famines etc) by proactively taking measures to increase their chance of survival. Simple things like storing grain to be used during the winter is an effective strategy, whereas letting people starve to death so that they can learn about storing grain seems like a really stupid idea for stupid people.
Also, throughout history, human civilization used to get rid of those who didn't play nice with others. Ostracism was common and there was no recourse.
Indeed - it was far more obvious to people that participating in society was not only desirable but often necessary (except for maybe the hermits). I'd argue that it's even more necessary these days in terms of global agriculture and production, but all the interconnected systems aren't as visible to people who are not involved in those industries.
What does this mean
The vaccine was mandatory, like in pretty much every army base of every half developed country, because not having it mandatory led to infection waves and in the army that's even worse than in genpop.
The reasons for not doing the vaccine anymore were, essentially, "the vaccine is more dangerous than the sickness" and "the vaccine is not necessary to avoid the sickness".
Both of those statement are, factually, scientifically, not true. That's reality. Which is what parent meant, no matter the deep conviction and the political innuendo, ultimately reality is you either do the vaccine and are safe for no risk or you don't and you get infection waves.
> because not having it mandatory led to infection waves and in the army that's even worse than in genpop
It also makes a stupidly-obvious tactic viable for the enemy.
Specifically, there is a reason the US military still vaccinates for smallpox, a virus that was eradicated world-wide 50 years ago. As a civilian, you can't get it even if you wanted it, but as a soldier, you have to take it even if you don't want it.
There is also the legend of sieging cities by catapulting diseased cows over the city walls. And if anyone knows the citation for that story, I'd love to see it.
"The earliest documented incident of the intention to use biological weapons is possibly recorded in Hittite texts of 1500–1200 BC, in which victims of tularemia were driven into enemy lands, causing an epidemic" [1].
Smallpox is a can of worms. But if you learn your enemy are idiots and don't have a flu vaccine, and you know your own forces do, I don't think you're going to get yourself sanctioned by your trade partners for exposing them to the flu. It will take out a statistically-measurable fraction of their troops, at a predictable interval, something you can plan to exploit with manoeuvre.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_biological_warfare#...
> Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said that the Pentagon had granted exceptions to Hegseth’s optional flu shot policy to the Army, Navy, Air Force, National Security Agency, and the Defense Health Agency.
So which ones are still exempt from the vaccines? Space Force, USMC, Coast Guard, who else?
There are a few obscure ones.
Uniformed Health Service (the reason the Surgeon General is a General), which I'm certain is vaccinated.
NOAA also has uniformed personnel.
These do not fall under DoD or SECDEF and are not military.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniformed_services_of_the_Unit...
So basically, the "Pentagon" has refused directions from it's "leadership" on the basis that it is not conducive to good military order?
Sounds like we have a leadership issue.
Because freedom!
Looks like Hegseth learned who the true victor of WW1 was.
Absolutely none of this should have happened. None.
The 1918 "Spanish flu" was cultivated in the trenches and spread through military camps and demobilization.
Hesgeth should be removed from his position ASAP.
Edit:
>Around 60% of previously unvaccinated trainees at Lackland initially declined the flu shot during the vaccine requirement’s lapse, according to the defense official.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/06/24/politics/flu-shot-outbrea...
Forget about Hesgeth. The USA is completely effed up.
Meanwhile, down the street, you've got RFK and POTUS making measles and polio great again.
While also lying about taking Tylenol during pregnancy causing autism. They've done more studies since that misinformation to prove once again there's no connection.
RFK should be removed along with the POTUS who put him there.
Back in 2010 the situation was already extremely grim. Yes, they did test for tuberculosis upon intake and took blood samples for many hepatitis variants and possible a few other things. However, they let severe respiratory viruses run through everyone like wildfire for weeks without the slightest effort to prevent disease. They purposely let people get extremely cold and wet and didn't give a damn if people got sick. This is NOT new.
We were all sick as dogs for the first weeks of boot camp with Ricky (that is “recruit”) Flu. Didn’t matter; still did thousand of pushups and ran miles with severe sleep deprivation.
The (tear) gas chamber was a blessing in disguise, because it caused everyone to expel every dram of mucus that’d been stuck in our lungs. It was the first time I could breathe freely through my nose in a month.
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Usually you have to chastise someone for not reading the article, but this time they only needed to have read and understood the headline.
> Anticipating all the downvotes
Please don't do this: "Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading" [1].
> flu vaccines are extremely ineffective
They're not. They're not particularly effective for preventing flu in an individual. But at the group level, they have a clear and useful effect.
> They're not. They're not particularly effective for preventing flu in an individual. But at the group level, they have a clear and useful effect.
This is my understanding. It basically would have marginally reduced the cost of the flu coming through, right? But thats not the impression that I would get from any of the discussion here. Am I wrong?
> not the impression that I would get from any of the discussion here. Am I wrong?
On your own impression? Probably not.
I’m not militant about getting the flu shot every year. I think I would be if I were in a company where my getting sick could get a friend killed.
Parent poster is saying that even though the effect on an individual is low relative to other vaccines, the effect of a whole group taking the vaccine is actually very high.
This the opposite of your understanding. The benefit to the individuals in a group from the whole group taking the vaccine is actually much larger than the benefit to an individual in the group of taking the vaccine solo.
You can read more about it here (and ask more questions!). https://claude.ai/share/8e8ffef7-ba33-44aa-a2a6-ca3b9be6d516
Are you sure? Your link ends with this:
> Combined with the brutal arithmetic at higher R0R_0 R0 , this is a large part of why flu vaccination programs are generally justified on individual protection against illness and severe outcomes rather than on a realistic expectation of achieving herd immunity and stopping circulation.
On the one hand, in a military setting you can feasibly achieve 100% compliance. But if you don't stop transmission (which it sounds like we don't have good data saying it would), you don't get herd immunity.
So I think you're back to just the benefits of reduction in disease, which is not nothing, but it is marginal like I said originally.
I mean, I would say that preventing 40% of disease (depending on what you're measuring, etc etc) is not marginal. I guess I'd turn it around and ask, if 40% is marginal, what number would not be marginal, and why do you draw the line there?
(For me, "marginal" would mean that the costs were roughly equal to the benefits. I think you'd have a hard time convincing me that saving the lives of even just 1% of the people who would normally die from the flu -- between 10k and 50k people a year -- is roughly equivalent to the cost of giving out flu shots. I suppose you could argue that the benefit is marginal to individuals who have a low probability of dying from the flu, and marginal to a society which has relatively low vaccination rates overall.)
The other thing is that, according to the Claude data here, the vaccine is actually relatively effective at preventing the transmission of some flu variants, 50% effective against influenza B! If so, there would be a clear group benefit to that, you only need (1 - 1/1.3) / 0.5 = 46% of people to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity to that strain.
Willing to discuss it but I am definitely one who thinks it's a "scam", "mainstream" example articles on ineffectiveness:
"Flu vaccines didn't work that well in the US, officials find (2026)"
https://abc7chicago.com/post/flu-vaccines-didnt-work-us-offi...
https://apnews.com/article/flu-season-cdc-subclade-k-vaccina...
"Flu Vaccine Was Not Very Effective This Season, the C.D.C. Says (2022)"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/search/research-news/15706/
"Flu shot fail: Why doesn't the vaccine always work? (2014)"
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/flu-shot-fail-why...
It's an amazing fact of mathematics that even a vaccine that has relatively low efficacy can completely neutralize transmission if enough people in a group take it.
This is especially true in the case of the flu because it has a relatively low R0 of approximately 1.3, meaning that without intervention/vaccines, each infected individual infects on average 1.3 other people. The vaccine just needs to be effective enough to drive the reproduction rate below 1 for the virus to die out.
We do not have good data on how effective flu vaccines are at neutralizing transmission. But for the sake of argument, let's take these relatively "bad" years for the flu where they prevented 40% of doctor's visits. Suppose that corresponds to merely preventing 40% of transmissions. The other 60% of transmissions still occur.
In that case is it even possible to drive R_eff (the effective reproduction rate of the virus) below 1? It turns out, yes! With an R0 of 1.3 and an effectiveness of only 40%, you stop the spread of the virus after vaccinating only 60% of people.
Details on the math: https://claude.ai/share/8e8ffef7-ba33-44aa-a2a6-ca3b9be6d516. You can also extend the conversation and ask more questions!
The first example cites "the worst performance ever".
Taking that as a given how bad was it?
This season's vaccines were around 25% to 30% effective in preventing adults from getting sick enough from the flu that they had to go to a doctor's office, clinic or hospital, according to a CDC report this week.
Children who were vaccinated were about 40% less likely to get treatment at a doctor's office or hospital.
The questions really should be .. did people die that could have been saved, was it cost effective to vaccinate a hundred million people to reduce the percentage of those who contacted flu and then got sick (and did the vaccination reduce the numbers of people in contact).
As it stands, by your examples, the flu vaccine didn't perform well that year, in comparison to others, but it hardly looks as though it had no effect whatsoever.
There are a handful of factors, I'll approach this as if you're acting in good faith.
1) Most people who claim to have "the flu" don't actually have influenza. Thus, if they take a flu vaccine, and get "the flu", they blame the flu
2) The vaccine does not create a perfect boundary. It's a population scale benefit. It makes it less likely one gets infected, it makes it less likely that someone who gets infected has serious disease, and it makes it less likely that someone infected passes it along
3) The "flu vaccine" is a prediction, trying to guess the strains that will be prevalent in the upcoming season Sometimes they guess wrong, and it's less effective. If we supported mRNA technology this could be improved.
> but flu vaccines are extremely ineffective
Sorry, this is absolutely bullshit. They’re wildly effective in the easiest population to look at - MA Seniors, who are highly incentivized to get them because of their efficacy.
Sometimes, it’s best to stop talking when you know you don’t have any clue what you’re talking about.
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They're also anti-"freedom". (Individual freedom being one of the paramount values of the military.) (edit: Sorry, thought the sarcasm would be obvious…)
Yes, nothing says "freedom" quite like having virtually every aspect of your life dictated and strictly controlled by the military establishment.
But fortunately, "leadership" decided to allow recruits the freedom to be stupid and contagious and ultimately detrimental to the military mission and readiness.
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We can’t really blame anyone these days for genuinely believing what The Onion writes about this administration.
I assume you don’t know what The Onion is. I suppose I can hardly blame you as the Onion struggles to write satire as absurd as reality these days.