I was wondering about that the other day. I have to get them and the pneumonia vaccine (I have to check if it is time for that one again) because I seem to get pneumonia every time I get the flu My husband, after his recent heart surgery, has to always have one now too.

another pneumonia shot -- cause i can't remember when i got my last one.

I understand the elderly doing them. But I am 55 and will NEVER EVER do these shots. For the same reason that I will NEVER take any of the junk advertised constantly, with their Lonnnnnnng lists of side effects. Imo, Eat natural (local organic farms) and build up your immune system naturally. I don't trust the Pharm industry nor do I trust the FDA.

but please stay the hell away from me when you're spreading it...

Thank you.

I hope you don't get the flu. If you do, though, please stay home and don't spread it.

Since I'm 67, I get a double dose. But, not even a sore arm this time. Let the flu roll...it's one more year I won't get it.

Please, everyone, get your flu shot!

The high dose vaccine actually has four times the antigen as the regular.

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/vaccine/qa_fluzone.htm

Anyway, once again, good old science looks like it has improved things with this new version of the flu vaccine.

new strains.

The whole point of flu shots is that flu mutates rapidly. And constantly. Evolution at work, as it is. So every single year the flu shot makers make an educated guess about what strains will be coming up, and they mostly get it right.

However, I don't get flu shots either. I've had it more than once in the distant past, and feel confident that I'm already immune to everything out there. Now, if flu mutates in a truly major direction and we get a fourth major type, I might consider it.

But I'm amazingly healthy, try to eat reasonably well, get plenty of sleep (which is a totally underrated thing), exercise a little, never smoked, try to limit my alcohol intake, and basically never get sick. Really. I get a cold maybe once every other year. I did have one about two and a half years ago.

Our immune systems are designed to be challenged by disease and recover, usually with permanent immunity afterwards. I trust my immune system.

Unfortunately it means you can be a carrier - even without knowing you're sick - and spread the disease to others who don't have the luxury of trusting their immune systems.

I am also amazingly healthy and almost never get sick, but I get a flu shot because I want to reduce the risk to others.

I'm automatically a carrier.

In fact, I don't think I've ever seen anything about non symptomatic carriers of flu. We aren't Typhoid Mary. Really.

I don't get the shot because I want to leave my own immune system in its best operating condition. I know it quite callous, but those with immune systems so compromised that they'll die if they even think about getting the flu (okay, so I'm exaggerating and I need the sarcasm thingy here) maybe shouldn't be around to reproduce.

Really. Really. The current system of giving immunizations, way more many of them than are truly warranted, at increasingly younger ages, is NOT what our immune system was designed to work with. It's designed to work with challenges over a period of time. If we survive those challenges, we get to reproduce.

We really are facing a long-term problem that is currently not well understood or recognized. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe the future of the human race is to eliminate all potential diseases through vaccination, but I don't think that's really how it's going to work. Look at the huge increase in such things as severe allergy to peanuts. There are kids who are supposedly so incredibly sensitive to the slightest whiff of peanuts that they'll die if some kid in the lunchroom eats a PB&J sandwich. Unfortunately, such a child isn't going to be able to go out in public where other people actually eat peanuts.

There's a larger evolutionary issue here, and I'm not sure what the answer is, as calloused as I appear. I think small pox vaccinations were a very good thing. While getting smallpox gives you a permanent immunity, the death rate from the original small pox was so very high, and the scarring was truly dreadful. Towards the end of the 19th century a new strain showed up, one far less virulent, one with an immensely lower death rate that simply did not scar. And it conferred a lifetime immunity to both strains. Which means small pox was on the very cusp of becoming a childhood disease, like chicken pox, mumps, and measles at the very same time excellent vaccines were developed against that terrible disease.

I got the above-named childhood illnesses. My kids got chicken pox, but not mumps or measles because they were vaccinated against them. (My older son did get Fifth Disease, if you care to look that up.) It was convenient not having to nurse them through those other ones, as I distinctly recall what it was like back in the day. And I'm one of six children, meaning we all got all of those, plus Rubella (German Measles) and various bouts of other illnesses. I got flu any number of times in my youth, enough times that I'm quite certain I'm immune to all of the strains at this point.

I'm not saying others shouldn't get a flu shot. Indeed, it's quite clear that certain categories of people should get it, but I honestly think the current thinking that everyone over the age of six months should get it is misguided. But that's just my opinion.

It's the truth, whether you believe it or not. You can have the flu but no symptoms. It's actually quite common.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10580110
http://books.google.com/books?id=-plq6yO1ZUgC&pg=PA165&lpg=PA165&dq=symptomless+flu&source=bl&ots=SIvPa0BUUw&sig=W8wHGAQnfkHMBuKgTR5evweKTlQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=qSdsUIKKJqa6yQHjw4DACA&ved=0CEwQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=symptomless%20flu&f=false
http://www.upmc-biosecurity.org/website/resources/publications/2006/2006-03-15-dopublichealthandicpreventspreadofflu.html

From the last link:

Don't trust them... now more than ever