Now is a great time for a flu shot

[The title was written by my editor. Myself, I prefer evidence-based health decision-making, which means I never, NEVER opt for the annual flu vaccine. It doesn't do any good!]

Officials are getting an early start this year in promoting the annual flu vaccine by telling people to arrange to be vaccinated now before flu season kicks in next month.

by John Tyburski

Copyright © Daily Digest News, KPR Media, LLC. All rights reserved.

First published at Daily Digest News on September 3, 2014

Autumn is right around the corner and with it is coming an earlier-than-ever push for people to be vaccinated for influenza, or the “flu” as it is commonly known.

Getting the annual flu shot is a civic duty according to Betsy Price, mayor of Fort Worth, Texas.

“You can spread it to other people and you feel miserable,” Price said. “It kills a lot of people every year needlessly.”

Price attributes her flu-free life to routinely being vaccinated for the flu and is urging everyone to fall in line and get their shots to “protect themselves, their families, and their co-workers.” Price and Tarrant County health officials held a “Stop the Flu Day” on Wednesday, even though the county public health department was delayed in receiving the flu vaccine due to a glitch.

“We don’t have our flu vaccine right now,” conceded Ann Salyer-Caldwell, interim director of Tarrant County Public Health, “It’ll be in later this month. There was a little glitch with our shipment.”

Meanwhile, a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that a newer vaccine called Fluzone High-Dose decreases flu cases in older adults by 24 percent. The Fluzone High-Dose vaccine consists of a higher-than-standard dose of trivalent, inactivated influenza vaccine and is produced and marketed by multinational vaccine maker Sanofi Pasteur. Sanofi Pasteur funded the new study of almost 32,000 participants in the U.S. and Canada.

Not all health experts are supportive of the flu vaccine’s value in preventing influenza. Last year, a study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases indicated that the annual flu vaccine failed to reduce the number of influenza cases during the 2011–2012 flu season.

Regardless, last month the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued its recommendations for the 2014–2015 flu season, including support flu vaccination.