Korean Job Discussion Forums

[earthquakez]

Just because an anti vaccination article mentions conspiracies, it doesn't follow that we should always jump to attention when Governments tell us to do everything for our own good including taking vaccinations.

The mostly false alarm 'swine flu' scare back in the day of Gerald Ford's presidency ended up in vaccinations being linked to Guillame Barr (maybe misspelt) Syndrome. This is otherwise known as 'locked in syndrome' which induces paralysis. It is an incredibly frightening condition, relatively few sufferers only have it temporarily. A famous French journalist for Le Monde had it and died some time ago.

Some medical authorities believe those vaccinations caused the syndrome because of patterns of frequency among those vaccinated for 'swine flu'. Flu vaccinations can attack the nervous system and it's really a lottery because you do not know if you will have the adverse reaction that will lead to incapacitation in one way or another or illness, even death. What has been diagnosed as 'swine' flu in fact has been proved to be other strains and not related to the flu that appeared in Mexico.

Authoritarian societies with a history of dictatorship and anti democracy governments are prone to forcing procedures on their citizens. Given that Asian societies are less likely to question government instrusion in their lives regarding medical matters and in fact still don't grasp the concept of medical confidentiality, anybody who has a 'swine flu' vaccination because a hagwon or school tells them is making a mistake. Doctors in Korea and Asia generally can't be questioned - it's the culture.

If you want a vaccination, make sure you get it at home where you can ask your own trusted doctor all the questions you need to ask.

Obviously there are foreigners in Korea, too, who don't realise that the vaccination they were trying to force on some of us when the hysteria hit here over foreigners while Koreans were still coughing and spitting TB over others, putting dirty masks down on dirty desks and wearing them again, and sharing food and utensils thus swapping saliva (with potential Hepatitis ramifications), actually was a vaccination that was not being used in some western countries because of problems with trialling it.

Koreans will be prone to flu strains because of their cultural habits described above and because they take too many antibiotics and don't finish the course, which assists in flu strains becoming more virulent.

There is also a significant TB problem in Korea, partly because sufferers don't finish their course of medication, cultural saving face which won't admit that certain habits spread TB (and Hepatitis), and the focus on diseased foreigners while Koreans pose health hazards that could be prevented.

In Germany one of the most respected doctors and public health experts warned against getting vaccinated without checking out just what was in it and where it was trialled, and where it was made. He also said that many have immunity to the flu from past exposure to all kinds of strains and vaccination en masse is not the way to go.

Intelligent people ask questions about such important matters as vaccinations. I would never get a vaccination without talking to my own trusted doctor in the UK and given the level of 'expertise' shown by hagwon owners, Korean teachers and public servants, you'd be a sucker to run off and get this because they say so.

[thegadfly]

Earthquakez,

A cursory search of the vaccines recommended for students in the UK showed that the H1N1 vaccine is on the list.

Follow the link from this site:

http://london.angloinfo.com/countries/uk/schooling.asp

to the link provided for this site:

http://www.nhs.uk/Planners/vaccinations/Pages/childvaccines.aspx.

If it is recommended for the students, it is expected of the teachers that work with the students...in some places it would be required, but I know court battles about these things sometimes go either way....

Perfectly acceptable and common in my home country, perfectly acceptable and common in YOUR home country, and yet, somehow, when it is asked of someone HERE in Korea, it becomes a hysterical over-reaction, or else a sign of racism?

There are plenty of REAL problems faced by foreigners in Korea, and to claim that being asked to take a free vaccine to stem the potential spread of a frightening (to the public at least) disease trivializes the real issues folks here face. Stop providing these straw men for the opposition, please!

[earthquakez]

No, it's mostly ignorance in any country if somebody goes and gets a flu vaccination without checking up on just which variety of the vaccination you are allowing to be put in your body.

Korea was distributing and enforcing a vaccination that European countries for example, wouldn't touch because it hadn't been trialled properly. If you're going to tell people to put cancer cells of mice in their bodies via a vaccination, you'd better damned well be prepared to justify it.

You are making the case for 'do what you're told because the Government tells you'. This approach has been a recipe for potential disaster for as long as certain people have assumed the right to rule others, elected or otherwise.

I don't believe everything some Goverment body in the UK or elsewhere says without doing my research. I've spent time (non vacation) in European countries like Germany and that's why I can read German and keep up with developments there - same as France and French sources. I prefer what German medical experts in their field say to what the Big Brother UK authorities say in this case.

As for the Koreans - if they spent 1/5th of the energies they spent banning foreigners from visiting the Blue House etc and distributing masks to school students who take them to the toilets, leave them on the desks where the virus can live for a certain time etc, they could eradicate the very serious TB problem.

Korea won't deal with TB, a very serious disease that can be spread by droplets such as when some infected person continually coughs around non infected people and spits their phlegm around which is common in Korea. If they wanted to, they could implement all sorts of measures including public health campaigns to stop the saliva swapping and tell people to take their medication for TB and finish the course.

Yet we don't see this. However, we do see a certain level of hysteria about 'swine' flu. You can be an apologist all you like but your defence of Korean ignorance on health issues makes no objective sense.

[thegadfly]

Earthquakez,

I am not being an apologist -- I am advocating a pro-active stance against the spread of disease. You are right about TB being more common in Korea than in other countries -- but then, I taught in the US, and I was required to have the TB vaccine too, so by the time I came here, I was all set. I have since had the boosters and fairly regular tests, as I have elderly relatives that I visit when I return to the US.

If Korea launched a "quit horking and hacking" campaign to curb the spread of disease, I would be in support of that as well -- and at that point, I suppose that you would argue the potential health benefits of horking and hacking, or else decry the "loss of foreigner freedom in this repressive culture" since they would ask folks to cover up when they cough.

You cited the 1976 vaccination problems with Guillain-Barr� syndrome -- roughly 1 in 80,000 people developed that. Roughly 1 in 2,000 people die from slipping in the shower -- or, each and every time you take a shower, you are 40 times as likely to die as you would be to develop Guillain-Barr� syndrome, assuming that you got revaccinated each and every day...so are you advocating that we all stop showering -- hell, we are taking our lives into our own hands every single day, just because Big Soap and Shampoo tell us that we need to clean ourselves each day! We should consult proper hygenic authorities before deciding if daily showering is right for us?

I don't want an unwashed teacher teaching my kids, nor would I want an unvaccinated teacher teaching my kids.

[sojusucks]