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There is no need to leave. You will find help here. It is one of the main purposes of SF. The study of language has a scientific (logical) basis. Answering your questions are off topic in this thread so I have started another.

That is worrying, as it is clearly not the case. An actual influenza infection feels really bad, whereas side effects of the vaccine are generally no worse than a passing fever (and only in 1-2% of the population). The CDC estimates influenza-related death between 2010-2014 (which is a bit broader than direct deaths due to flu) ranging from 12k (2011-2012 season) to 56k (2012-13). In Europe, as mentioned, the decline in life expectancy in several European countries in the last few years were related to rather bad flu seasons. A challenge with flu vaccination is that the outbreaks change every year and if the prediction is off, folks may get vaccinated against the wrong strain which only offers limited protection. In addition, there are certain strains for which the efficacy of vaccines is somewhat low. However, even imperfect protection has an important impact on human health. As mentioned the vaccine was less effective for the 2014-15 influenzaA H3N2 outbreak. But even with the diminished vaccine, the CDC estimates that ca. 67k hospitalizations were prevented by the vaccine, as well as ca. 1.9 million illnesses. Obviously those numbers are higher for seasons where the vaccines were more effective. As such, recommending not to vaccinate, especially for elderly folks does seem somewhat irresponsible.

I do a stool sample every year. It's free in the UK after a certain age. There's nothing in the instructions on our kits about food restrictions, it must be a different process. It does say that finding blood can be from a range of different causes, so it's not the time to panic, but obviously it wouldn't be wise to skip the colonoscopy. My next door neighbour actually got colon cancer a few years ago, he's only about fifty. He was successfully treated and has had no subsequent problems at all. But anyway, hope your results are good.

They did. Several, in fact. They show all the weird stuff during the news segments, however (but it bleeds into pretty much all other shows). There are crowd pleasers such as "Shit the president says near a helicopter", "Democratic primaries battle royale-don't talk while I am yelling", "Republican Conspiracy-o-Rama - how Clinton is the actual deep-state shadow president". There are of course underappreciated spin-offs such as "Border wars- let's lock up children as deterrent", but we tend to forget about these. But seriously, the stuff is almost exactly like scripted shows. Just look the Conways for example.

I think you did not understand the article or the concept of herd immunity. Obviously vaccinating just the elderly does not create herd immunity. Herd immunity is the effect of having a sufficiently large immune population, which inhibits disease spread. This allows passive protection of susceptible populations, such as elderly , even if they are not vaccinated, or when vaccines are less effective. I took a quick look at the article and it actually describes precisely that (which is actually what you quote before, but seemingly misunderstood): Thus having school-age children vaccinated creates herd immunity for the elderly. The above passages are also example of similar effects (e.g. vaccinating children against rotavirus protects older children and adults). One thing that may have thrown you off is the weird phrasing, which is often a bit of an issue with wikipedia as folks often take passages from other sources without adjusting the context properly. However, in the cited publications were discussing whether it is enough to immunize high-risk groups alone (i.e. the elderly) or whether there is a need to increase protection via the herd effect (e.g. via universal immunization). The general conclusion is that herd immunity for influenza is rather crucial and strongly suggest that all health workers should be mandated to be vaccinated for that reason.

This reminds me of a type of joke that was popular in the USSR as a way of commenting on state propaganda and the dishonesty of politicians: "I gave $1000 to a poor kid with cancer. Okay. I didn't give $1000. I gave $500. And it wasn't a poor kid, it was my nephew. And he doesn't have cancer, it was his birthday. But it's the same thing in principle." (I posted this earlier in the thread, but didn't want it to taken as a comment on anything going on in the thread, which I have not read, so I have moved it here.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Yerevan_jokes

Today I learned that male turkeys are called Toms

Metaphysics is the basis of science. It is the meaning of science and every experiment. Meta-metaphysics is simply language. Science is founded in metaphysics and metaphysics in language. Since we each think, learn, understand, and communicate with language it is foundational to science. Until we understand this the concept of consciousness will always elude us. The knowledge and meaning of science will elude us. And if I am right, a unified field theory will elude us.