If You've Been Getting Flu Shots You May Not Have Much To Worry About

A couple of doctors discussed the effect of flu shots on the Swine Flu outbreak, and if you've been getting regular immunizations you may not have much to worry about:

Q: Dr. Manny: The reason that this flu pandemic seems to be less deadly than what we saw in Mexico is perhaps that the American population has some passive immunity to some portion of this new virus — and that indeed — one of the unintended benefits of the regular flu vaccine we have been administering over decades is that it’s created some protection — even from this latest virus that has popped up. Is there any truth to this?

A: Dr. Gross: In the flu vaccine — for more than the past 30 years — we’ve had an H1N1 strain in the standard flu vaccine that everyone gets… at least since 1976 when we had the last swine flu scare. So the theory goes that if you’ve had a vaccine that has a N1 in it... when you encounter a slightly different H1 (which is what the swine flu is) that you will be protected from severe illness and death, but not from getting a cold or a bad cold from that flu strain.

The other thing is we haven’t seen reports of a lot of older people getting H1N1 influenza A… so they must certainly be immune. An educated guess here would be that these older people may not be coming down with this new strain because most of them – particularly if they got the standard vaccine — would have some degree of immunity.

So the big question to ask here is: Did most of the people in the U.S. that had pretty mild cases of swine flu — did they get vaccinated with the regular influenza shot in the past couple years?

And the same goes for the victims in Mexico.

Did the people who fell ill or die get the standard flu vaccine?

These are very good indicators about the effectiveness of our standard influenza vaccine. And of course this all points to the importance of getting immunized every year.

At the advice of my doctor I've been getting flu shots every year since 1994, back when people who were my age weren't encouraged to get them. At that time they only recommendeded shots for elderly or people with unusual health issues. Today they recommend it for everyone and I make sure and get my whole family a shot every Fall.

It's the best $30 you'll spend.