How the Flu Works

and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, There's Jerry. This is Stuff you Should Know about the flu, which I have. Do you know the flu? Do you? I don't know, man, I can't. I can't. I've been on the planet for forty one years. Okay, I still can't really tell the difference between a flu and a cold. I think the difference that I can tell. And I don't get the flu much. You know, always get the stomach bug, which, as it turns out, as

not a flu. I just learned. But um, I don't get the flu flu much. But I can always tell though when I'm super achy, Like the flu just makes me feel like dog do do? Right, where's the cold? Is just a big inconvenience? Yeah, I've had no, I've definitely had like lots of aches and um, I woke up like shivering one night. I don't know you had a fever for sure, I guess so. Um, I guess it must have just been one night in the middle of the night. So that's that's the flu, right, probably,

So I guess I do have the flu. No, no joke, everybody. Well, I'm erecting the clear glass in between us. Yeah. I think that I've had it long enough now based on the research from this article that I'm not contagious, or else I would have called this off. So did you get it in New York? I wonder, I think so? Yeah? Right, yeah, which I was like, I was just walking walking around like with my hands um in side of a couple

of like plastic Dwayne Read bags and it still didn't work. Well, that was your problem probably right there, Read because I didn't take them off when I ate gross. Yeah. So, yes, we were in New York for some Bellhouse shows, right, those went pretty well? Yeah, I thought they were great. Alright, so the flute, we won't reminisce about past victories. We'll just talk about the flu instead. Yeah, how about a

stat right off the get go here? Um, the flu and also, sorry everybody for the sniffling that's going to inevitably happen. I'm trying hard not to do it your method podcaster, Uh, which is also what I said in my very first episode. That's right, remember that it's not any funnier now. So the CDC right here in Atlanta Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, not the c d c P. No, they just stuck with the original. Um

they reckon that. About five to between five of United States people's get the flu each year, compared to about ten in dirty cold Canada, right, I know. And normally when you get the flu, um, it's just you're laid up for a couple of days. Right, Yeah, you like you said, you feel like dog do or something like that. Um, that's the seasonal flu. But even with the seasonal flu, which usually here in the United States are in North America,

runs from what like October to March, yeah roughly. Uh. And then I didn't really think about this before, but in the southern hemisphere it runs the opposite and actually peaks in August. Yeah. Um, most of the time it's just an inconvenience for you, but it actually kills people sometimes.

They can be dangerous, for sure. So in two thousand eleven and twelve, that was a pretty low year, and for deaths from the flu in the US, there were twelve thousand people who died from the flu or complications from the flu. Two thousand and twelve thirteen flu season, fifty six thousand people died that year, and I think the average is something around thirty six thousand people in

the US die from the flu every year. Yeah, and apparently the World Health Organization says around the world as many as a quarter of a million people to a half a million people can die every year from the flu. Right, there's a lot of a lot of folks, it is. So, I mean, in the idea of dying from the flu, that's that's awful because I mean, if you feel bad enough as it is from a flu that you recover from in a few days, imagine dying from that. That

would just be a terrible way to die. Um, And the whole thing, chuck comes down to this little tiny virus, the influence of virus, and there's different types and influence. I found um is actually really a shout out to the Italian name for it. Originally Did you know this? Uh? Did not, So I'm gonna say it normally, but then you have to say it in your famous Italian excit

Uh influenza defredo. Are you talking about the influenza de Yeah, which means influence of the cold, all right, A lot of for for many many, many many years, because the flu um is most predominant in the colder months. Um, everybody just assumed that it was the actual cold that was getting you sick. Um. That turns out not to be true. It's it's an actual it's a virus that does seem to favor the cold, drier conditions of the

winter months. Um. But this little tiny virus gets into your body and it starts this chain reaction that is just fascinating. Yeah. So it is a respiratory illness. So, like I said before, when you hear people say the stomach flu which I've said a lot in my life because I get it once a year with the poopy butt and the vomitist mouth. In this the ill belly at the same time, though I can't. I think I've asked you this before, but it literally ever happened at

the same time. I think once in my life. Man, that's rough. I was on the john with a bucket. It's so rough. Uh, well, the worst time I ever had it. And I may have told the story before. I was sick at a friend's house, which is the worst as when I was not living in Atlanta, but I was in Atlanta, and I was like, I gotta, I just gotta get to my mom's house. Yeah, And I was like, I just was much more comfortably being sick there and he was working. It was just one

of those things. And so I got in my brother's car that I was borrowing what I was in town. I don't like where this story is going. And I drove no Lie, probably about a hundred miles an hour to Snellville from Atlanta, thinking and I pooped in my pants in the car, and I remember thinking, if a cop pulls me over, he would have to be a cold heartless individual to give me a ticket, because I would just say, sir, don't take me to prison, take me to a hospital because I'm dying. Yeah. So I

drove a hundred miles an hour. It's kind of fun. So you made at home, you showed up with poopy pants and your mom took care of you, showed up to to Diane's house, and uh, I lived. But anyway, Uh, that was a long way of setting up this, which is that is actually not a flu. The stomach flu is not because the flu is a respiratory illness, right, and it's not something that happens in your stomach or

in your in your butt. Right. And let's let's talk first before we talk about the actual effect of the flu. Let's talk about the virus a little bit. I was thinking. Okay, So back in one there was this Iowa farm physician, which is to say he was a human physician of humans, but he probably lived on a farm because it was Iowa one. His name was Richard Chope, and he was trying to figure out what this bug that was getting

people was UM. And he investigated with pigs first, because there are plenty of other animals that can come down with the flu, not just humans, right, UM. And he finally isolated isolated a flu virus in swine and it led to this discovery of UM. The isolation of the flu virus in humans too. So right after that they started classifying the flu by strains. You got A, B, and C. Right, So A is the most common and most severe, that's the bad news. Yeah, B is a

little milder, a little less prevalent. And then we go all the way down to sea, which is I get the feeling seed doesn't happen a lot, and it definitely isn't the one that you're gonna have, like a a big epidemic of the flu from a sea. Yeah. I couldn't find much unsee influenza either or see Yeah, it will make a comeback one day, and it'll it'll shock

the heck out of all of us. Right, So um, Type A infects all sorts of different species, right, humans, birds of all kinds, pigs, bats, horses, even Yeah, I mean remember the Avian flu that was that scared the world, And that was A right, that was a strain. B strain is almost exclusively infective of humans. Apparently the only other species we've ever found a type be influenza virus in his seals. God knows where they got it from, or if we got it from seals, who knows. Maybe

up north. I don't know, and then that CE one. It just infects humans and pigs. So you've got the three types. And then one other thing about them, um, about the classification of of flu strains is that there are also subtypes, right, And so you mentioned like avian flu, and the one that scared everybody was I think H five N one, Yeah, that was it. I remember. So that H and the N are the they refer to the two kinds of the two main proteins that you

find on the outside of a flu virus. Um, uh, he me gluten in and neurominias, Okay, And so depending on those types of H protein or M protein. Uh, that's that's how they sub type flu stream. Yeah. So I mean that's a good little facto. I don't think anyone really understands what those letters mean. That's what they mean, you know. Yeah, But as far as you're concerned, just pay attention to the news, and when they talk about the scary ones, they'll mention those letters and numbers, and

then you can impress your friends. Yeah, you can be like, oh, well they're talking about hema glutenin and neurominidase, and they'll say shut up, nerd. I hope you get sick. So as far as the standard flu that we're talking about here, the virus, it gets into your body and it kind of makes a bee line to your respiratory tract, uh, and it binds with your cells. It's viruses. Did we do one a general on viruses? The one I think we really went in depth on was HIV where we

talked about how virus enters the body takes over. It's just vicious, it is, but it's also it's kind of like admirable in a really like deadly efficient way, you know. So they bind to the surface of your of the cells and that respiratory tract and then they say, hey, I'd like you to meet my little friend r n A. Why don't Why don't I inject my genetic information into

your nucleus and see how you like it? Right? And when it does that, the uh, the cell has been officially hijacked, and the virus uses the cell's own um RNA transcription process two create the proteins that are needed

to make new versions of the virus. So thevirus is using this host cell in your respiratory tract to um make copies of itself and suddenly before the cell knows what's going on, It's made millions of copies of these viruses, right, and apparently when you talk about it step by step, it seems like this takes a little while, no in seconds. Seconds after that, the virus has entered your respiratory cell.

Millions of copies of it have been made. Yeah, like that, this is happening so fast it moves in there, it says, I'm in charge now, so out of the way. Yeah, completely the other way. I'm running the show here. Uh, we're copying each other and we're gonna move out to the cell membrane because this cell is gonna die very quickly, and then that's just gonna poof me out into the body further to infect other cells. And it's it's scary

how quickly this happens. Right, So, if you think about it, if that first cell produces millions of viruses, viral copies, and then there at least um from the cell out into the rest of the other respiratory cells, and each of those infects another cell, and then those cells all make millions. You see how quickly these um these virus is reproducing your body. And once that starts to happen. You are infectious. I think once that first cell ruptures,

you become infectious. Um. But this can be like a day before symptoms, right, So this is this is something people are always saying, like, oh, I'm not infectious anymore, Like me, I said it earlier too. Right now, But supposedly the day before you you even know you're sick, the day before the first symptoms start, before you start like sniffling a little bit or whatever, you're infectious, buddy, And you're infectious up to seven days after that day

you first start showing symptoms with the flu. And if you're a kid, you can be infectious even longer because if kids are anything, they're walking germ factories. They're disgusting monsters. It's hilarious. Um, it's true. Man. Like my kid didn't get sick at all for the first eighteen months of her life, and I thought, I've got a wonder baby. Yeah, really, I don't know what's going on. We put her in daycare a couple of days a week, and she was

sick NonStop for the next six months. Man. That is rough. It is rough. And then they get the family sick and we'll talk a little bit about that and how that happens. But all this is to say, during flu season, especially if you work in like an office where you know, when you hear like the flu is going around or whatever, or in anywhere you work, or in school, if you hear about the flu going around, even if you don't feel sick or your cube mate doesn't feel or look sick,

just start washing your hands a lot. Oh yeah, that's like they they say, that's the best way to prevent getting the flu or spreading the flu is washing your hands a lot. And it's it's so simple that you almost might discount it, but it's actually true, Like that's the best way to do it. You can wash the flu virus off of your hands with some soap that will bind. Do it and the water will wash it right off. Wash that flu right out of your hair. Yeah,

and if you have the flu, stay home. Yeah, everybody but me stay home. Well, we we're up against it week. We had to record today. And also wash your hands just constantly, Like if I'm about to touch anything, I'll wash my hands first. If I'm gonna go somewhere outside of the hot zone, which is whatever room I'm sequestered in, you know, I will wash my hands. You know I appreciate that. I mean, trust me. We're in this tiny studio now, the three of us. I know, I'm trying

not to breathe. Uh. You know you've done all this one one breath. It's impressive. I know. Um, Well, quickly before we take a break so you can breathe again. Uh, We're gonna talk about symptoms afterward. Before you get these symptoms though, what's happening is your respiratory system is gonna become inflamed, and this inflammation might stick around for a few weeks, but from there it moves into your blood stream, and then that's when you're going to get these symptoms

once it sort of moves into the blood stream. And we're gonna talk about the symptoms as promised, right after this. Alright, Chuck, let's breath, Yeah a little bit, let's talk symptoms. Okay, you know what I need? I need one of those like um reads that bugs Bunny used to like hide in the water when aud was hunting him. I could just like get a long one and maybe a crazy straw would be even better, and just like pipe it out to the air duct right there. That's a great idea.

We'll get everybody else sick except you into here. So, um, the symptoms sound a lot like a cold because the symptoms are kind of the same. A cold is is usually not as fraught with potential complications and maybe a little less severe. But they're pretty close, which is why you couldn't tell earlier if you had a colder feet or flu, right, you know the but that fever, um, that's the big one. Apparently it's a big distinction between

the Yeah. I think that's kind of the way I just distinguish it, right, Yeah, And the cold colds are also caused by viruses are caused by coronaviruses, which can There are types of coronaviruses that are really bad that cause like mirs and stars. Um. But for the most part, when you catch a cold from a coronavirus, it's a low level virus or it's a rhinovirus. Um. That's the other one that caused that causes the common cold, right, So it's just a different kind of virus producing similar

symptoms to a flu. Do you remember when Peter sars Guard was on Saturday Night Live years ago? He was you know, the actor he was on there during the ours when there was a Star Scare in the United States, and one of their skits was he had developed the Stars Guard stars Guard just basically a surgical mask, but it was just funny. They said Stars Card, Stars Card like thirty times and I laughed every time. Um, it's I think his younger brothers was Pennywise, the clown in

the movie right. Oh, I don't know. I'm pretty sure that was a Star's card and he is amazing. Yeah have you seen it? No? Oh, you gotta see it. You're gonna love it. And now was he a stars Guard or a Scars Guard? Oh? God, I didn't know there were two different things. Well, they're the Scars Guards, which is like Stelen scars Guard is the dad, and then the Sun was the dude on uh, True Blood, the Vampire Show, and then recently on that pretty Little Liars.

I think one with Nicole Kidman, that's Alexander scars Guard. I think that might be him. Is stars Guard the one who's in Fargo Star No, who is that? Peter? Yeah, that's another dude. What is up with all these guys? So? Are you sure you're not just dropping the kof of Peter's Scars Guard. All right, here's the deal. The guy in Fargo, Man, this is such a bad sidetrack already,

it's pretty bad. The guy in Fargo was Peter Stormare. Okay, so he's not even any equation then, no, but I definitely know that there is Peter stars Guard because he either was or is married to Maggie Gillen Hall. Oh yeah, I guess I knew that Peter stars Guard. Okay, and then they're Stelen an Alexander Scars Guard. And I don't know who the clown was. It's Bill scars Guard. And is he related to the Scars Guards? I guess so yeah, I believe he's the youngest of them. Okay, Oh, I'm sorry,

I was wrong. It was Tim Curry I was talking about. No, actually we never looked stuff up. But I didn't look that up because the headline here says Alexander Scars Guards reaction to his brother Bills clown costume. Yeah, he's it's his acting. It goes way beyond the costume. They did get with the costume, but it was oh yeah, it was. It was good. I know there were so many people screaming at their phones, but I think we finally got

it right. Yeah, sorry about that everybody. I also want to apologize for any medical students who are being forced to listen to this as part of their class. Hopefully your instructor fast forwarded through that part all right. In fact, this all got started with stars Guard Stars Guards. Oh yeah, that's right, because that's from the coronavirus. This is the influenza virus we're talking about that creates this inflammation which is your immune response right in your lungs. That's correct.

And uh, the symptoms like a cold or coughing, sneezing, that the fever which is different, like we said with the flu, achy body which usually comes with that fever, and then's running nose and congestion that you can hear, and your overall lethargy. Yeah, I am a little under the weather, I guess is a good way to put in. UM. So those are just standard flu symptoms. You can have

secondary symptoms from complications of the flu, right. Um. One thing that that has long gone hand in hand with the flu as far as like death from flu complications goes as bacterial pneumonia and UM. For a very long time, science wasn't quite sure why that was why you were just so susceptible to bacterial infections when you were battling the flu, and they figured it out. It's actually your

body's immune response that is responsible for it. Right. So when you have the flu and your body starts to battle it off and you get a fever um and and your lung to become inflamed, that's that's your immune

your immune system's response to the flu virus. But when your body says, okay, calm down, everybody, let's bring the temperature back down um, and your body represses its own immune response, it opens the door for bacteria that normally it would be able to fight off, to take advantage of this kind of naturally weakened state that your immune systems in, and you can You're much more susceptible that

infections from bacteria, and that's where pneumonia comes from. You can get viral pneumonia, but you you usually get bacterial pneumonia. And that's the stuff that people can die from because that bacteria infects your air sex and your lungs, which feel a fluid and puss and blood, and you die from choking on bloody froth that fills up your airway. Yeah, it's not. It's a bad jam man. Uh. Severe dehydration

is another secondary symptom of the flu. That's why, of course you always wanted to drink plenty of water when you have a cold or flu. I look that one up to chuck because if you think about it, why why would you be dehydrated from the flu. It's from sweating your nose running um, it's just leaking fluids. You you are, and like they start to add up and all of a sudden you're dehydrated before you even knew it. That's right. Uh. Ear infections, especially if you're a kid,

um sinus issues. Emily always gets bad sinus problems along with this stuff. I know she was starting to get a little Sniffley is she's sick? She did get sick, that poor lady. Yeah, New York man. Yeah, it killed everyone. I love um. And then if you like in Emily's case, she's slightly asthmatic. But if you are asthmatic, you have like diabetes, it can make that stuff worse. Yeah, she

doesn't have diabetes right now. Well, the reason diabetes is um is co morbid with the flu, or is problematic when you have with the fluid is because uh, type one diabetes especially is an autoimmune disease, So your immune systems already repressed, I guess. Yeah. And then heart conditions can be exacerbated by it because you're getting less oxygen from your lungs into your bloodstream, which strains the heart. And if it's already weak, people have heart attacks from

the flu if they already have a heart condition. Isn't that crazy? Yeah? Again, it's a bad jam. Well, actually we in uh in the episode coming up about the silly one about the ten Cursed movies. Remember the little girl from poulter Geist died from at twelve from a heart attack brought on by the flu. Yeah right, yeah, or she had like a stomach blockage. They initially diagnosed it as the flu. Oh okay, but I thought it was not never like a virus like that. I don't

think so. I think they mistook it all right, Well then forget all that, but people do, so your point still remains correct. Okay. Um, So how you get the flu is this? Um? Like you said, it is generally about November through March January February tend to be the worst of it here in the United states and UM as we mentioned offices and schools, especially because children are filthy monsters who just don't wash hands, and they breathe on each other and touch each other, and they don't

cover their mouths when they call for sneeze. But it's pretty cute when they hug each other. It's very cute. Actually, it's worth it's worth all the sickness in the world. It's pretty great. But um, that's the reason that kids tend to spread it more because as much as you try and teach them to cover their mouth and they cough and sneeze and wash their hands a lot, it's just not really on their radar like it is for adults,

you know, because they are dirty, dirty, dirty creatures. Uh. And then you know, the kid then in turn brings it home, and then the family gets infected pretty quickly because tries you might. Um, there's just a lot of close contact with kids that you can't avoid. And even if you're washing your hands, uh, they will find a way to infect you. Right. And if you go even further back, there's an even earlier origin before kids picking

it up at daycare or preschool. UM. For the flu, usually it comes from other animals we were finding, right,

that's frequently birds, like we were saying, right. And they used to think that that for a human to catch a flu from a bird, especially um, that flu had to show up in a mixing vessel, usually a pig, which was capable of taking it could be infected by a bird flu and a human flu and flu viruses have this amazing talent called reassortment, where a flu strain and another flu strain can get together and be like, oh, hey, you have eight proteins that make up your your RNA.

I do too, Let's mix and match and see what happens. And they thought for a long time that this really only took place in pigs, and then out would come a new supervirus that no one had ever seen before that humans could catch. But from Southeast Asia, people being in close contact with infected birds, especially like in the poultry industry or something. Um. There have been cases that started in the nineties of avian flu coming directly from birds to humans, so that that theory went out in

the window. UM, and that's what set off those fears of a bird flu pandemic that we lived with for many years. Yeah, that's right, as far as and you know that a lot of that was just spread from bird poop. Yeah, and it's scared people because that that those bird flus are no joke. Like they have like a sixty percent mortality rate. Sixty six out of ten people who come down with H five N one bird flu die. Right. Luckily, it's really really difficult to catch

it even when you are around sick birds. It doesn't very frequently make the jump to humans, but it can, is they what they found. Yeah, as far as the regular flu, the garden variety flu that we're talking about mainly here, Uh, it spreads from uh well, like we said, from from touching stuff, from coughing and sneezing. When you cough and sneeze. Even even if you think you're covering your mouth pretty well, um, there may be little little fluids squirting out between your fingers up to a few feet.

It's in the air around you. Um, that stuff can travel, you know. So if that lands on a door knob, or if someone covers her mouth like a like a normal and then opens a door or borrows a stapler or whatever, it's gonna be on that door knob and then you touch it. And that's why I like handwashing by the sick and by the non sick is so crucial. And if you're like having an anxious day at work and you're doing your normal thing of chewing on your state are to relieve anxiety. And the guy who borrowed

it it was sick. Your toast. You are toast. And as you mentioned earlier, it bears repeating. You can be sick a day before symptoms, and you can or you can be contagious a day before symptoms and still remain contagious up to seven days after the symptoms start. Right, So even if you feel better after day four, you could still be spreading that junk around her a few

more days. Right. And they say that even after you feel better, you should stay in bed an extra day because again, your immune system is is compromised and you are are like you can catch other stuff, so you want to be careful. That extra day really pays off, and that's when you just lay in bed and watch Stranger Things too, Right, I haven't seen it yet? Is it good? Yeah? We just finished it last night. Cool. Did you see the first season? Oh? Yeah, yeah, that

was great. Season two is just as great, if not better. I'm I'm glad to say that too. I was a little nervous, you know, because it was something I loved and it's like, oh man, season two a lot of pressure. Well, yeah, that's how it happens. The sophomore season is very frequently like uh, every everyone's aware of the success of the show and what people are saying about. They try to adapt to the expectations rather than continuing on doing what

they were doing before. But good for you guys Stranger Things. Yeah so great. I want to get those Duffer brothers on the movie Crush. Oh yeah, it'd be cool. Those guys be great. Um. Should we take a break, Yeah, I think so. All right, we'll come back and talk a little bit about pandemics alright, Chuck. So we were talking about how seasonal flu has seasons. That's why it's called seasonal flu. Right. Um, that's that's I guess one

classification of flus. There's also a pandemic flu, and the same kind of flu virus can be a pandemic flu or a seasonal flu. And I think usually the way it happens is a new virus will emerge from say like livestock or poultry or something like that. And infect humans, and if it's totally novel where no human has ever

encountered a flu of this type before. It can just lay waste to people, can kill a lot of people, It can infect a lot of people that can spread the world, and when that happens, it becomes classified as a pandemic flu. After a couple of rounds around the world, people will have started to develop an immunity to it, but it will still be passed around and so for the decade or so, it can be the predominant strain of the flu, but it will be it'll have changed

overdue a seasonal type of flu. So it's almost like the pandemic versus seasonal type flu. Describes how contagious it is and the how how virulent it is. I think that's the big distinction. Yeah. And I think also in the pandemic, doesn't that mean it is left the country? Yeah, I think that is kind of one of the indicators of it too. Yeah. Uh, nineteen eighteen that was this.

These numbers are staggering. This is the worst flu pandemic in world history in nineteen eighteen for I don't know what months exactly, but nineteen eighteen and nineteen and it killed more than twenty million people around the world, and it killed most of those people actually in four months from September to December. Isn't that crazy? More lives were lost then all twenty century wars combined to to the flu. Yeah, well you said twenty million, twenty million worldwide, about half

a million in the United States. I saw in many reputable places. Fifty million people died in the world. It's just it's staggering. Yeah, And that was like right at the end of World War One and just came out of nowhere. And one of the other really noteworthy things about it that just baffled people was it was killing like healthy people under the age of like twenty two, like just healthy young people killed by the flu, and

a lot of them died from pneumonia. And they finally figured out that it was because it had been about twenty something years since a flu resembling that type of strain had made the rounds, So people undersay, like age five had never been exposed to it, So it was a novel flu which just leveled the people it was exposed to. It never never encountered something like it before. It's I mean, it's scared to think about. I mean, surely that couldn't happen today, could it? Or could it? Man?

You think that we could had something like that off these days? Um? Do you know like a third the population of the world was infected with that flu that year? Wow? Isn't that crazy? I know that's hard to believe. Yeah, that can totally happen. It's a it's a real concern, alright. So as far as your risk of getting the flu. Uh, if you're a kid, like there's different risk groups like

high risk, low risk, whatever, medium or average risk. But if you're under two years old, your your little immune system isn't quite smart enough yet to know how to fight things off, so you're definitely more at risk. And as always, what affects the children also affect the elderly. So if you're over sixty five, um seniors as elderly

wrong to say, I think elderly technically eighty one? Really all right, so we'll go with seniors, seniors, active senior adults who have decades left to ahead of him, that's right. Who else? Anyone who has any kind of chronic like I mentioned asthma or diabetes, any kind of chronic condition, if you're pregnant, if you work in a hospital or a doctor's office, yea, or nursing home. Nursing home is not just people who work there, but the residents too

are in a really vulnerable position. Because they are in the elderly age range. Their immune systems are pretty compromised. If they're in a nursing home, they're probably ill already, and then they're living in close quarters with other people who are ill. That's that's a that's a recipe for a disaster. Yeah, sure is UM. It's also a recipe

for tapioca pudding. It is the best around UM remedy wise, And we'll talk about vaccinations here in a minute, because I thought that was kind of one of the most interesting parts of this UM. But as far as remedies, if you get the flu um, it's a it's a virus. So you can't take anti biotics. Uh, you can't take a pill that's gonna cure you. There are some anti viral drugs, which I've never tried any of these of you. No, no, no, I tried zy Cam last year or once. I think

that's for colds. Yeah, I thought that was like that discredited. Well, it I mean I had a few people say, oh, you know, you try zycam. It helps not got your cold faster. It killed my sense of taste and smell. Oh no, for several days, to the point where I was scared. I don't remember that. I'll bet you were scared. Yeah, And I looked it up and it's a thing. Oh I do remember that. Actually, yeah, yeah, that's that's just really unnerving, the idea of maybe it's permanent. Yeah it was.

It was pretty pretty freaky and super noticeable. It wasn't like a subtle thing. You'd be like chilling. I miss you. So that was my experience. I'm not making some sweeping statement about that medication. Way to see you, amen. But there are anti viral drugs called there's one called tama flu relenza flumidine. Little woman knows if you ask me flu stop well, any viral drug. They seem like a good idea. But they seem like a good idea under the premise that seasonal flu streams were used to think.

They used to think that they died out at the end of the season. Right, Well, they started tracking them, like our global monitoring system is really top notch, and they can track flu around the world, and they've found that seasonal flu at the end of the season in

North America, it just goes to South America. Um So, since since that's the case, when you use anti virals and you're exposing these flus that go on to survive, you're also training them evolutionarily speaking, to adapt so that those those antiviral drugs are useless against them for people who really need them. So, just like with antibiotics, using anti virals just to to cure a common flu or to shorten a common flu is probably a bad idea

when you're talking about the whole population. Yeah, and that's what they do. They they what they try to do is just keep the spread cellular spread from happening is as much as it can. And that's sort of the easiest way to say it. Yeah. Yeah, there's there's one keeps them well to a pair of them, keep them from replicating, and then another one traps them inside a cell. Once they enter, it's like, oh God, I can't get out the door is locked, and then death. And they're

all prescription drugs, right if I'm not mistaken. So vaccines are like pretty hot. They're like the hot thing to do on a Friday night is to go get a flu vaccine. Right. Yeah, I didn't get I didn't get flu shots for many, many, many many years until I had a kid. Yeah, And they say like if you, if you, especially if you have a baby under six months of age, they can't be vaccinated. Um and so everyone around them should be vaccinated, is the recommended recommendation

from the CDC. Yeah, like our close family, the grand grand in, the abbas all uh and the pop pops and the papas and the poopas and the memangs and the momos. That's all right. Yeah, uh yeah, Momo got a flu shot. That was nice of her. She's very kind. Uh So, yeah, we all got flu shots. And I just wasn't you know, I never got the flu much. I'd never I didn't have a disbelief in the flu vaccine. I was just like, I don't I don't really need to bother with that. Yeah, that's kind of do you

get them now though? Now is it a habit of yours? Now? Well? Yeah, now, just they just sort of recommend it. When you have kids up up until they're a certain age, you should get vaccinated as a family, right, and when you have kids, if you get them vaccinated, you um, once they're able to be vaccinated again under six months, they say, no, no, no, I don't do that. UM. When they're young though, and you're getting them vaccinated, they need to be vaccinated twice,

like a month apart. Yes, And so with flu vaccines in general, they recommend that you get it as early in the season and as possible because it takes about two weeks for that to take effect. So with a kid, then I guess you would want to get UM so that six weeks before the flu season. I don't know, or is that there is that second one pretty much like okay, now it's taking effect four weeks plus two weeks, or just don't remember the schedule? Um, yeah, I don't

remember the schedule. Well ask your doctor. Okay, we're not doctors. Stop pressure. They'll tell you, like when you go to get your little kitty check ups, they say, you know, come back at this month and get your flu shot number one, and then flu shot number two, and so for UM a while there they there were two kinds

of flu shots that the CDC recommended. One was an actual shot the flu vaccine that was in a shot form, and then there was another one that's called live attenuated influenza virus UM, which came in the form of a nasal spray, and that was usually recommended for kids. I don't know if it's because kids are like needles or what, but the CDC IS officially stopped recommending UM nasal flu vaccines. Yeah,

you don't do those right well. And when they were doing it, when we say kids, you had to be over five because it was a like you said, alive alive virus, right, it was a live, weakend virus. Yeah, And that's different. Like if you think, all right, I'm gonna get a flu shot, so that means I'm gonna get the flu virus shot into me, and so I might feel like I have the flu, that's not really the case. It's it's really kind of neat how they

do it. These the scientists and doctors, like you said, track what's going on in the world of flu all over the world, and they they sort of make up they don't sort of. They very definitely make a prediction and say, here's the flu strain specific to the United States. Let's say that I think we're going to be faced with this year, and they make their best scientific guests possible, and that is the you get a a not live version of that virus injected into your body. Your body sees, hey,

foreign invaders here, let me produce antibodies. Then if that virus or if the real flu knocks on your door later that winter, your body says, wait, I've met you before, and I don't fight you. But it's pretty cool like and it literally the effectiveness I looked up this year

and it's a year to year thing. It's on this year's strain, and it it varies because it really just depends on how well those scientists have predicted how much they get it right right, because if if they get all three wrong, well, then your toast when you encounter the flu that's going around that season. But even when they do get it right, it's kind of baffling that sometimes the flu vaccine just doesn't bestow any kind of immunity.

Apparently Australia just came out of a really bad epidemic flu season down there, and what didn't cause a lot of deaths, but everybody was sick with the flu um It was an H three type flu that went around and even though that strange showed up in the vaccine that was given out UM only like fent of people who got vaccinated and were exposed to the flu were immune to it. People who got flu vaccines and then encounter the flu still got sick. That's a pretty bad

track record for a flu vaccine. And they're they're just not sure why and what. One of the theories is. So when they make um flu vaccines, they grow them in egg protein, typically like eggs. That's the medium they used to actually grow the viruses that they then kill UM. One researcher pointed out that at least one kind of flu virus mutates in the presence of egg protein, so that this the virus that you put in to grow in there is different from the one that comes out.

It's a mutated version, and so maybe that would would prevent UM your body from recognizing the original one that you're trying to introduce it to in the vaccine. So interesting, it is pretty interesting. Well, and they say there's a list of h people who should not receive the flu shot, and one of the one of those qualifications is if you are allergic to chicken eggs, then you shouldn't get a flu shot. Yeah, there's like a couple of other ways that they make flu shots UM flu vaccines, but

that chicken egg is the most predominant way to do it. Yeah, if you're currently have a fever weight on your flu shot under six months, of course, we said you cannot uh, if you have had flu shots in the past and you had a bad reaction, because like I said, it's not gonna make you sick, but you might feel a little achy or have sore muscles or something. But you

can have a bad reaction. And if that's the case, and maybe flu shots aren't for you, right, and if you're an anti vaxer, then you probably are decided that flu shots aren't for you, correct, which we will never do an episode on that vaccinations, right, Oh you don't think so, I don't know, man. So the the idea that of flu vaccine can you know, check all the boxes but still just be wrong, wrong, wrong, or not confer immunity. UM has some people looking for a universal

vaccine or one that lasts way longer than just a year. UM. What they're targeting is so when you get a normal vaccine, that vaccine is based on that h a protein, the hima hema gluten. Yeah, um, And that's the most quickly evolving part of any flu virus, right, So they're saying, well, let's look at other parts of the flu virus that don't evolve nearly as quickly and target that. And some of those parts are even basically universal among all flu viruses.

So if you can find if you can create a vaccine based on a stable part of a flu virus that's a part of every flu virus, one vaccine could confer ideally lifelong immunity from all influenza for anybody who takes the vaccine. One vaccine to cure them all exactly. Wow. Yeah, So are you got anything else? No? I mean, I guess we're not going to cover the boogie woogie flu. I thought that was boogie woogie fever. No, it's the rock and pneumonia and the boogie wiggie flue. Oh that's nice.

What's that from? Is that an Atlanta Rhythm Section song? No, they're they're better than that. Okay, Uh, well, since I said Atlanta Rhythm Section everybody, that means it's time for a listener mail. Uh. Yeah, this is a Simpsons over a looked overlook Simpson's bit from us and This is not one of those. We got plenty of things where people like, hell, could you not have mentioned this quote or this episode? But the response was good. Then people

weren't necessarily poopooing it. No. And also I want to say thank you to everybody who wrote in to just say congratulations or to thank us. Um that was all. Every single one of those emails or tweets or posts were all well received. So thanks for those guys, totally. But this is something we we failed to mention which definitely deserves its own email. And this is from rich our Man on Cape Cod As he says, Hey, guys, was listening to The Simpsons two partter enjoyed it very much.

You explained how an episode came to be from conception to animation, etcetera. And you paid respect to each portion. But then you slide it off one of the most important men in the franchise, you just said, and then they slapped Danny Elpin score on it, and it's done well. Is any true Simpsons officionada would know Danny Elfin has never once written a score to the Simpsons. Uh, he wrote, as we know, just the title or the theme, the

theme so on. So he says, uh, that job fell to the immensely talented and recently terminated via email, Alf Clawson. For twenty seven years, every score, every queue, every song was composed, orchestrated and conducted by Clawson and his live orchestra. He's won two Emmy's and seven Annie Awards for his work. The reason this is such a painful site, uh, it was because this omission has been happening for years. Clawson has worked insane hours writing music for a live orchestra

to a company and animated show. He's always played second fiddle. Nailed it, he said to all those who think Elfman is any part of the show, after he penned the main title. In fact, the main title theme song We All Know and Love is actually Clawson's re orchestration of Elfman's theme that took place uh mid season three with a lusher, more crisp orchestration. I bet you anything. Rich plays the oboe, Alf Clawson. I'm so sorry, I know, he said, imire your podcast for bering liked information that

has been stuck lurking in the shadows. You always make sure credit is given to those who sometimes went their entire lives without getting a nod. They deserve this guy's really turning the nine in our backs doesn't and I feel you Oak Clausen that respect. So Alf Clausen for real. And then he was a bit of a longer email. He told the story of how he was recently fired by email, which is not cool. No, it's definitely not Yes,

seven years of dedicated work man not cool, guys. So that is a rich art man on Cape cod Well, thanks a lot, rich, appreciate that. That was one of the better emails I've heard in a while. I agreed. If you want to try and top rich, let's see what you got. You can tweet to us. You can join us on Facebook, but you send us an email. Stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot com and join us at our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this and thousands of

other topics. Is it how stuff? What's that car? M