US health study done by CDC indicated too few American adults get vaccination.

Do you guys get your shots regularly? I wonder of adults get complacent in their old age that they believe in complete invulnerability in catching influenza.

http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSN2364067820080123

Sure do. I try to keep a full set of vaccinations on board and keep them up up to date. Even a few diseases which are not problems in the US. Things go south and that might change. Immunity, even partial immunity, beats even the best treatment.

Part of this is an age thing. When I was in school there were still a few kids around who were suffering the effects of polio. Most adults at the time had experience with polio stalking the summers like a deranged maniac. The polio vaccine was huge blessing that showed that medical science could do more than just stitch wounds and hold your hand while you died. Polio and smallpox showed that done well a disease could be driven off. Or even destroyed.

Fewer people vaccinated means there is an ever greater chance diseases we haven't seen for a couple of generations in the US could show up and spread rapidly.

My Uncle Sammy made me get flu shots, and a whole lot more, back in the 60's. I only got sick once in four years, figured that they must work, so I get one every year. My wifes Uncle Sammy made her get them too, in the '70's, she claims that the flu shots made her sick every time, so she refuses to get them anymore...

I've had all the recommended unless they've decided something needed a booster recently.

After 25 years of flu shots with the Air Circus I called it quits when I retired in 2006. Haven't been sick yet; of any sort. It is probably time for a tetanus or something. The flu thing (for me) was always viewed as "free Guinea pig" science. Since they could order us to have them so that we could be "worldwide-ready" they just pumped us with whatever the latest scare was. They even changed the names from "experimental drugs" to "investigational medications" to soften it up a little (thanks Bill). All that to say this..I'm done with them.

Given that the flu is a virus & will only last ~6-10 days, unless you are in one of the higher risk groups I don't see what all the fuss over getting vaccinated for it is. I can understand getting one for something that it will protect me for multiple years or longer or has long term consequences (i.e. polio, mumps, etc.) but not one that changes from year to year. Given my track record, I'll risk getting it at most three times in my life.

35,000+ flu-related deaths a year in the US.

I don't know if it's just lack of properly educating the public or just the "me" culture, but it seems that most people think that the sole benefit of vaccinations is to themself. And if they don't feel much risk of catching it themself or of suffering from a case of it, well then, "What's the point?" they ask.

That's a shame because the greatest benefit of vaccinations occurs when as much of the population gets vaccinated as possible, including healthy adults. By limiting the number of possible carriers or people who come down with the flu, you're limiting the number of chances to infect people who really need to worry about getting the flu--like the elderly or chronically ill people who are often vulnerable even after getting their own flu shots. I'm still fairly young, so I don't worry so much about getting the flu myself, but I do consider it a public service, as much as an act of personal protection, to get a flu shot every year.

By the way, it's still not too late to get a flu shot since the flu season can last well into the spring.

Flu and pneumonia shots here

I agree for diseases like MMR, polio, TB, etc. Vaccinations for these diseases will give you for immunity for decades or more. The vaccine for the flu may give you full, partial or no immunity depending on which strain you are exposed to. They can only cover IIRC three strains of it and have to make an educated guess as to which to include due to the manufacturing lead time.

Flu vaccinations would be great if - They guessed correctly and made the vaccination for the correct virus more than half of the time.

A quote from the CDC website: "In 16 of the last 19 U.S. influenza seasons, the viruses in the influenza vaccine have been well matched to the predominant circulating viruses."

Sounds like a pretty good track record to me. And the vaccine doesn't have to be a perfect match to provide a benefit.

[quote=Arney
A quote from the CDC website: "In 16 of the last 19 U.S. influenza seasons, the viruses in the influenza vaccine have been well matched to the predominant circulating viruses."

(In layman terms, they was a better match to profit than there was to prevention of the flu in the American market. They didn't change the formulation sold in the US for four years.)

Sounds like a pretty good track record to me. And the vaccine doesn't have to be a perfect match to provide a benefit. [/quote]

A quote from the CDC three weeks after they sponsored massive advertising to quickly sell out of the current flu vaccine - "...leaving the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to cavil that, after all, the vaccine "may provide some protection or lessen the symptoms..." They admitted having the wrong vaccine and delaying the news release until it was sold.

The next flu season they were forced to admit selling diluted vaccine via the same massive advertising.

As a health/housing inspector I get my flu shot every year and carry purell with me. You guys should see some of the S-holes I get into sometimes.

There are so many strains of the flu virus that very often they do fail to match the vaccination to the strain. This is because there are several strains going around the country at the same time. I have read this and it contradicts the CDC's claims to "accuracy" but I can;t point to an article - it's just knowledge stored in my under-sized over-stuffed little brain.

I never had a flu shot. I don;t get the flu shot because I worry that I'll be using a vaccine to do something that my immune system needs to identify and fight off. I don;t know if this is correct reasoning or not, but I've settled on it. Perhaps when I'm older I may need to re-evaluate this thought process...or maybe when I educate myself more on the benefits of the vaccine versus letting your body work it out on its own.

Where did you get these ideas, Ponder? That quoted bit looks like it came from this article by Kelly Patricia O'Meara, "Flu Secrets You Should Know; Critics ask why health officials are insisting that the public get a flu vaccine that doesn't match the flu strain but does contain mercury" but maybe you're referring to a secondary piece that refers back to O'Meara's article. This piece came out during the 2003-2004 flu season.

Reading it, it's obvious to me that O'Meara isn't a science writer (I double-checked, she isn't), doesn't seem to really understand how vaccines work or know much about the flu vaccine manufacturing process, and this is really more of an opinion piece than a news piece. "Cavil"? I'm a well read guy and I had to look that word up. When a writer who is out of their element also starts putting really obscure words in their pieces, that's a red flag to me.

Just for background info on stuff O'Meara raises, please read the entire Jan. 15, 2004 CDC press release for yourself that she refers to. You'll notice that she's referring to the results of a study done in the first half of the flu season, on a sample of Colorado healthcare workers, about "influenza-like illnesses." The researchers would have probably used questionairres about various symptoms, which can mix in symptoms from all kinds of bugs going around during the wintertime that can be confused for the flu. This wasn't the usual, rigorous, laboratory-confirmed study that would be done after the entire flu season was finished. If there was a lot of various illnesses going around at that time, the questionairre would tend to indicate that the vaccine wasn't very effective because a lot of people seemed to be coming down with these "influenza-like illnesses" even though they had been vaccinated.

After it was all over, however, it turns out that even though the 2003-2004 vaccine wasn't a great match, that year's vaccine was still 48% effective in preventing laboratory-confirmed influenza infections amoung 50-64 year olds with high risk conditions (for dying of flu-related complications), and 90% effective in preventing hospitalizations from the flu, i.e. preventing the flu infection from getting so severe that people were being hospitalized for things like pneumonia. So, the actual match wasn't good that year, but when it was all over, turns out that the actual benefit of that particular vaccine was still significant. And is the exact reason why the CDC was still recommending that people get the flu shot, even though it wasn't technically a good match that season. To say that the CDC was just trying to pawn off the supply of the "wrong" vaccine as quickly as it could before releasing the bad news on January 15 is the stuff of conspiracy theorists. If you really believe that, please, show me the evidence and I will consider it.


Diluted vaccine? Do you mean, like if someone takes one vial of chemotherapy drug, dilutes it into four vials, and makes four times the profit while four people get little to no benefit? If that's what you mean, then that is false. Where is the source for this? Maybe you're referring to FluMist, which uses very dilute concentrations of live flu virus, but in this case, "dilute" has no negative connotation because it really is a dilute vaccine.

As for this idea that vaccine manufacturers are making out like bandits on flu shots, that's also not true. Making and selling flu vaccine is a risky, low-profit margin business. Making the vaccine is tedious, takes a long time, and even if they sell all of their stock, they're not really making all that much. Certainly, selling pharmaceuticals is far, far more profitable than selling flu vaccines. Back in that 2003-2005 time window that I'm assuming we're talking about, there were only two companies who were willing to make flu vaccine for the US market. For an overview of that situation, I refer you to this Washington Post article written in 2004 about the economic state of the vaccine industry at that time. We're a little less vulnerable to another Chiron debacle today because now there are four companies approved to make flu vaccine for the US (although I'm not sure if all four are actually selling yet).

How does this compare to the protection rates for vaccines for other diseases?

Wow! Just… wow! Fantastic post.

It probably won't answer the question of whether too few U.S. adults get a flu vaccine (nor whether the CDC's press releases are more or less trustworthy than Ponder's source), but you might find Gina Kolata's book "Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It" interesting and informative.

Do/did you get Hep A/B vaccs?

how often does one need to renew Hepatitis A/B vaccination? every 6yrs?

Oh yeah, and the hep c series as well.

I don't think there is vaccination for Hepatitis C. Can someone confirm this fact?

It's been awhile, could have been just the Hep b, It's in my records at the Fire dept and at home somewhere.

I'm being lazy and not looking this one up, and I'm not exactly sure if the definition of disease and effectiveness is exactly the same as the flu vaccine stats I posted, but in general, for the normal vaccinations we get, like polio, MMR, DTaP, etc., you're looking at mid to high 90% range.

No Hep C vaccine yet. There's at least one candidate, maybe others, in clinical trials, but nothing on the market yet.

Ok, my bad. Thanks for the reality check.

DATELINE: 02.11.2008

Once again the CDC has delayed admitting they are selling the wrong flu vaccine until massive promotion has sold the inventory.

Four months of data has been withheld until todays announcement.

The past months massive promotion of "GET YOUR FLU SHOT" has ended today.

Stockholders of the vaccine companies still recommend "GET YOUR FLU SHOT" - it might help!

From the 2/11/2008 CDC News Conference on Influenza, Dr. Joe Bresee--"...the predominant virus so far this year is an H1N1 A virus. Of those, 96 percent, or virtually all those viruses, look very much like the vaccine strain and should be well covered by the vaccine..." The reality is more complicated than this single sentence, but it's definitely more accurate than saying it is the "wrong flu vaccine."

DATELINE: 02.15.2008 ABC NEWS

"Flu Season, and Vaccine, Looking Worse"

The flu season is getting worse, and U.S. health officials say it's partly because the flu vaccine doesn't protect against most of the spreading flu bugs.

(CDC continues massive promotion to sell last of vaccine inventory)

(FDA continues stall on limits to mercury & aluminum in vaccine)

(WHO demands new vaccine for next year)

It was generally a slow flu season through mid-January and the vaccine was matched well to the predominant strain, and that's what the CDC reported at the prior news conference. More recent data is now available, showing a very recent spike in cases for strains not well matched to the vaccine in the past couple weeks. But the mix could still swing back towards the H1N1 strain, which the vaccine is well matched against.

However, the important question of how beneficial this year's vaccine is despite not being a good match to the recent strains hasn't been answered yet. We don't yet know if vaccinated people are getting some benefit against the H3N2 or B strains or not. Yesterday, the news was reporting all these recent cases of flu and showing full hospital waiting rooms, but we don't know how many were vaccinated or whether they actually have flu or just something that looks like flu. The vaccine does not have to be an exact match to be beneficial but unfortunately, that can't be readily determined until after the fact. That's precisely why the CDC continues to recommend flu shots--in the end, there's a good chance that it will still be beneficial for many people.

At the previous CDC news conference, Dr. Breese mentioned that last season, Department of Defense data showed that when the H3N2 strain that has recently become predominant in the US now was prevalent in Europe, the H3N2 strain in the current vaccine was still 52% protective against it.