The gang over at Fox & Friends were up to their usual shenanigans: talking about how liberals are dumb and how Donald Trump’s upcoming State of the Union speech is going to be wicked awesome. They took a break to bring on their very own Dr. Siegel to remind everyone that there is a flu epidemic out there, partly in result to much lower effectiveness than normal of the flu vaccine. Fox News cannot tell you what kind of government policy or agency might be able to help mitigate this issue—already having spent much of the 2000s attacking places like the CDC—they can really just tell you the normal things: wash hands, stay away from licking children's’ faces—that sort of thing. As the segment ended, Dr. Siegel remembered at the last second there was a backdoor way of reminding people to get their flu shots—ask the “friends” Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt, and Brian Kilmeade. Both Doocy and Earhardt say they got theirs!
Kilmeade: No, I have not gotten mine.
Earhardt: He doesn’t get them.
Siegel: [maybe joking?] I’m going to try to give Brian one off the air.
Earhardt: He won’t do it.
Kilmeade: Only 30 percent, people are saying ―
Siegel: You have to protect your girls.
Kilmeade: Right. Alright, but they’ve got to build up their immunity, too.
The end of the clip is incredibly awkward as Siegel is pushing on Kilmeade who says everything after “No, I have not gotten mine,” through clenched teeth. If you don’t know who Brian Kilmeade is, he’s kind of a mix between dumb and dumber. The fact of the matter is that the nature of immunizations is to get the body to produce the immunities they would normally create once becoming sick with the flu. The benefit being that you get all of the tools to fight the certain sets of flu without actually getting sick—with the flu. Even though this season’s flu vaccine has been much less effective than anyone would like, it still provides some protection and can also help minimize the worst of the illness if you should end up getting the flu anyway.
The idea that the only way to build up immunity to things like the flu is to grin and bare it, is caveman talk. Anti-vaxxer caveman talk.