After volunteering with this past season’s flu shot campaign on campus, I’ve heard more than anyone: “Flu shots don’t work”, “Flu shots cause the flu”, or my favorite comment, “I don’t need one, because I got one last year”. These types of comments are so discouraging given the amount of information available.

As a future health professional, I feel partly responsible for the health education, or lack of in my community. Many of the misconceptions about flu shots are due to simple ignorance on the subject, and skepticism from word on the street. I’m here to debunk the myths, highlight the truths, and help you avoid unnecessary illness.

Misconception #1: I don’t need one, I got one last year

The Influenza virus is still an issue because of its adaptability. The virus is constantly changing, resulting in different “versions” season to season. Antibodies for one type will do nothing in defense against another. For this reason, the flu vaccine is updated every year in response to the specific viruses present. If you were vaccinated during a previous season, your antibodies will not offer any help in the face of a mutated virus. Furthermore, your body’s immune response weakens over time. Similar strains of the virus should be vaccinated for again to get the best protection.

Misconception #2: The flu shot causes the flu/makes me sick

If I had a dime for every time someone told me this…There are many angles to this problem, but most likely you or a friend received the vaccine and shortly after fell ill. There are a couple of possibilities for what happened, none of them being that the flu shots caused you to get the flu.

Too Late

After receiving the vaccine, your body begins producing antibodies. However, you are not considered to be protected from the virus until 2 weeks have passed. This process is not immediate, so if you did contract the flu, you were either exposed to the virus before receiving the vaccine or before the vaccine had produced enough antibody.

Either way, while the timing made the two seem unfortunately linked, you actually would’ve been better off getting the vaccine earlier in the flu season. The CDC recommends getting vaccinated during the month of October. In my opinion the earlier the better.

Not the Flu

Another explanation is that you didn’t contract the flu at all. Many people contract similar viruses to the flu and assume it’s the flu because of flu-like symptoms. But unless you received positive test results that you indeed had the influenza virus, you can’t expect the FLU virus to protect you from anything else.

Side Effects

Yet another explanation is that you had symptoms from the injection itself. The CDC states that the flu shot can cause symptoms including “Soreness, redness, or swelling where the shot was given, fever (low grade), and aches”.

While these may not seem fun, they are a whole lot better than contracting the flu, they’re temporary and mild unless you have a specific allergic reaction, which is rare, and most of the time you won’t experience any symptoms anyway. Regardless, even with the worst symptoms possible, anyone with the flu would trade for that any day. It’s not contagious. It won’t take you out of school or work. Odds are, you won’t even notice it.

Not Sufficient Prevention

The rare occurrence does happen where someone who gets the vaccine contracts the flu later on. However, this has to do with the effectiveness of the flu shot, which cannot be perfect when confronted with an ever-changing virus. In this case, the flu was not caused by the shot but was merely not prevented by it.

If you did test positive for the flu than, unfortunately, the vaccine that year was poorly matched with the present virus. You probably encountered a strain that you were not vaccinated for because those designing the vaccine could not predict its prevalence. However, this is no excuse for skipping your shot. More often than not, the flu vaccine will protect you from the current virus.

Misconception #3: The flu shot doesn’t work

First, I will explain how the flu shot works. The vaccine is either filled with flu virus that has been killed and can no longer infect or with weak virus proteins that cannot cause infection either. This is why the vaccine cannot CAUSE the flu, there is no virus strong enough to infect you.

Your body’s immune response produces antibodies to the virus as if it were alive and well, without the virus actually attacking your system. So, these antibodies can quickly build up as a defense, since there is no actual virus fighting back, for the event that you do encounter that same virus in its active state. In this case, your body can skip the process of building antibodies and can immediately defend against the virus, giving you the edge to win the microbial battle. If you don’t have these antibodies pre-developed, you lose the upper hand and will most likely come down with our friend, the flu.

Statistics

Now that you know how it works, let’s look at some statistics on effectiveness from the CDC.

• Flu vaccine prevents millions of illnesses and flu-related doctor’s visits each year. For example, during 2016-2017, flu vaccination prevented an estimated 5.3 million influenza illnesses, 2.6 million influenza-associated medical visits, and 85,000 influenza-associated hospitalizations.
• A 2018 study showed that from 2012 to 2015, flu vaccination among adults reduced the risk of being admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU) with flu by 82 percent.
• A number of studies have shown that in addition to helping to protect pregnant women, a flu vaccine given during pregnancy helps protect the baby from flu infection for several months after birth, when he or she is not old enough to be vaccinated.
• A 2017 study was the first of its kind to show that flu vaccination can significantly reduce a child’s risk of dying from influenza.

You can read more concerning effectiveness in this double-blind placebo study in healthy, working adults.

Misconception #4: I don’t need one

While many people look at the flu as an unfortunate 5 days off from work/school, some crummy symptoms, and a potential doctor’s visit… the flu is no joke. According to the CDC, “millions of people get the flu every year, hundreds of thousands of people are hospitalized and thousands or tens of thousands of people die from flu-related causes every year”. During the 2017-2018 season, the percentage of deaths attributed to pneumonia and influenza (P&I) was at or above the epidemic threshold for 16 consecutive weeks.

With these statistics, would you rather take your chances with your “good” immune system? Is it good enough? The flu shot is cheap (free in many places as well) and readily available, specifically during the onset of flu season.

If that’s not enough to convince you, consider those too young (under 6 months) to be vaccinated. They already have a fragile immune system, and you may unwittingly pass influenza to one of these innocent bystanders. If not for yourself, get vaccinated for those who can’t and help stop the progression of the virus.

 

Source: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/keyfacts.htm