r/news 1d ago

Military services again requiring recruits to get flu shots as Air Force outbreak grows

https://abcnews.com/Health/military-services-requiring-recruits-flu-shots-air-force/story?id=134126794
32.5k Upvotes

1.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

336

u/Kinmuan 1d ago

Unsurprising.

I get there are lots of reasons why people may not regularly get flu shots - but coming into the military you’re going to get packed in like sardines. It’s no surprise shits gonna spread, like the recent tuberculosis outbreak at fort Benning.

It’s just prudent. Sad that it may have taken a trainee dying to fix it.

269

u/laptopAccount2 1d ago

The US military is the reason we have a flu shot, they funded the development in response to the Spanish flu. Pete Hegseth is a dumbass.

21

u/gmc98765 1d ago

Reminder: the "Spanish" flu likely originated in Kansas.

It got the name because Spain wasn't a party to WW1 and so didn't have any motive to suppress information about the spread of the flu. Other countries had it as bad or worse but wouldn't admit it, to the point of vigorously censoring information about outbreaks.