This time of year you can’t walk into a drug store or a supermarket in America without seeing government-sponsored messaging urging you to get a flu vaccine.
Government health officials have actually been making this recommendation since the 2010–2011 flu season.
‘Why God Gave Us Two Arms’
The government’s belief in the importance of a yearly flu vaccine is so strong that it has reached the pitch of religious fervor.“I really believe this is why God gave us two arms,” White House COVID response coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha said at a September 2022
news briefing, right at the beginning of the flu season: “one for the flu shot and the other for the COVID shot.”
Jha is “recognized globally as an expert on pandemic preparedness and response as well as on health policy research and practice,”
according to Brown University, where he has served as Dean of the School of Public Health.
Only 45.9 Percent of American Adults Vaccinated Against the Flu
But the thinking public appears to be a little less enthusiastic about this vaccine.
According to
CDC data that was last updated on Feb. 3, 2023, flu vaccination rates currently range from 36.3 percent to 76.9 percent among children, for a national average of 51.1 percent.
At the same time, only 28.3 percent of African-American women who are pregnant have said yes to the flu shot (less than a third), and only 45.9 percent of American adults have decided to get vaccinated against the flu.
It’s an open question and one that many people are unsure about: Is the flu vaccine actually a shot you should get every year or one that it makes more sense to skip?
What Is the Flu Vaccine?
Influenza vaccines are vaccines that change every year but are designed to protect people from getting four influenza viruses.Most are given via injection—in the arm—but consumers can also opt to get the flu vaccine via a nasal spray.
The composition of these flu vaccines changes every year. This is because new strains of influenza are constantly evolving, so the vaccine must be reformulated annually in the hopes that it will target the correct strains.
Influenza viruses evolve into new strains every year. New strains of the virus then travel the globe following certain patterns. For example, according to
this report in the journal Science, during 2002–2007, strains of influenza A (H3N2) first reached Oceania, then North America, Europe, and later South America.
Each year, vaccine manufacturers, along with public health authorities in North America, monitor what happens in Oceania to try to select vaccine candidates to target the “correct” flu lineages. The hope is that the strains that will subsequently infect people in Canada and the United States in a few months’ time will follow the path exactly, and that they will not change much before they reach North America.
In other words, the influenza vaccines are made prior to the flu season based on an “educated guess,” informed by the best data available, which is collected from flu virus surveillance information from 144 influenza centers in over 114 different countries,
according to the CDC.
A Hit or Miss Injection
The idea is that the four vaccine viruses chosen are actually the viruses that will infect people once the flu season hits. However, like meteorologists predicting the weather, there is no guarantee that the correct lineages will be chosen. And, also like meteorologists, influenza vaccines can be very hit or miss.
Sometimes the vaccine is a “bad match,” and offers very little—if any—protection against the circulating flu viruses. Other years, when the match is good, the vaccine can be highly efficacious.
Unfortunately, flu vaccine effectiveness for the 2021–2022 flu season was
reportedly only 14 percent. Other CDC data found it to be slightly higher—16 percent—but still too low to be statistically significant. According to the CDC’s weekly updates, based on data from over 3,500 children and adults enrolled in the Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness Network during Oct. 4, 2021–Feb. 12, 2022: “Overall, vaccine effectiveness (VE) against medically attended outpatient ARI associated with influenza A(H3N2) virus was 16% (95% CI = −16% to 39%), which is considered not statistically significant.”
During years where the vaccine is a good match, the flu vaccine hovers around 60 percent effective. Some years it has been
as low as 10 percent.
While many argue that some coverage is better than none, others choose not to get a flu vaccine because the real risk of the vaccination appears to outweigh any theoretical benefit it might confer.
While we only have preliminary data at this point, government officials announced in December that there was “
a very good match” to currently circulating flu strains, which means it will likely be between 40 and 60 percent effective.
So Why Not Get the Shot?
“We don’t get flu vaccines,” is a phrase you’ve likely heard before. Even people who unquestioningly give their children other vaccines choose not to get vaccinated against influenza. Some say “no, thank you,” to this vaccine because of its low efficacy. But others do not want to get a flu vaccine because of safety concerns.
The National Vaccine Injury Compensation program has paid out about
$4.8 billion to compensate people who have been injured or died as a result of severe adverse reactions to vaccines. From Jan. 1, 2006, to Dec. 31, 2019, the majority of people compensated (1,309) have had injuries directly following the influenza vaccine.
One of the most common, and devastating, side effects of the influenza vaccine is Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS). This is an immune system dysfunction. Because the immune system begins attacking the nervous system, people who have severe GBS can experience muscle weakness, lose their reflexes, become paralyzed, and even die.
At the same time, fewer than 1 percent of adverse vaccine events are reported, according to a 2010 study (
pdf) done by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
Concerning Ingredients
Multi-dose flu vaccines, which are the majority given in the United States, still contain thimerosal. This is a mercury-based preservative that is a powerful antibacterial and anti-fungal agent.
Mercury in any form is toxic, even in
trace amounts. It is known to harm the nervous system and the kidneys. Despite being established as neurotoxic and nephrotoxic in the
scientific literature, thimerosal was used in vaccines for several decades until manufacturers, concerned that the cumulative exposure to mercury via vaccines may have been responsible for the rising incidents of brain damage in children, began voluntarily phasing it out at the end of the 1990s. Yet thimerosal was never banned from vaccines and it is still in multi-dose flu vaccines.
Madin Darby Canine kidney cell protein, which is grown from cell lines from the kidney tissue of two female cocker spaniels and may not be acceptable to strict vegans.
Egg protein, which can be an allergen for some. Some
1.3 percent of children under five are allergic to eggs.
A Serial Mistake?
Another concern that has been raised in the scientific literature is that there is a growing body of evidence that suggests that repeated flu vaccines may actually
blunt vaccine efficacy in subsequent years.
Indeed,
scientists have found that people who were vaccinated against influenza for three years in a row actually had a higher risk of succumbing to an influenza infection than people who had received fewer or no vaccines.
This research has led even the most established government officials to call for a revision of the universal flu vaccine policy.
In 2015, Dr. Richard Schabas, who was the chief medical officer in Ontario, Canada,
was quoted in the Canadian Medical Association Journal asking for a “careful rethink of where we are,” and insisting that “we should be taking a long and sober look at our policies. There are more and more unanswered questions about how effective a universal program really is.”
What to Do If You Get the Flu?
Every winter people get sick from the flu and flu-like illnesses.
You can greatly reduce your risk of infection by supporting your immune system with the right lifestyle practices: plenty of high-quality sleep,
optimizing your vitamin D, especially in the form of sunlight on your skin, eating fresh healthy whole foods, and reducing your exposure to toxins as well as to
stress. Washing your hands with soap and water, especially if you’ve been exposed to someone with the sniffles, also greatly reduces the spread of the virus, according to a
2016 case-controlled study published in the journal Medicine.
If you do get the flu, make sure to rest; stop eating sugar (sugar feeds bad bacteria) but start eating nutrient-dense easy-to-digest foods like organic bone broth and homemade apple sauce. Try
not to take fever reducers, and be sure to stay as hydrated as possible. Most importantly, listen to your body. With just a little rest and relaxation, you should be back on your feet in no time.
