Flu Season Vaccines

The Fall and Winter flu season is approaching and it’s time to get flu shots. Kids going back to school need to be especially careful of taking every precaution to keep themselves healthy. Vaccines are important tools to prevent disease because they present a tiny, safe amount of the disease to the body that allows it to “learn” how to defend against the disease. When the real disease appears, the body’s immune system will already know how to eliminate the threat.

Anyone above the age of six months old should acquire an annual flu vaccine shot.

This is especially true for kids that don’t have fully developed immune systems and seniors that have deteriorating immune systems.

The Center for Disease Control recommends these annual shots be provided by a licensed health care professional. These could be at a hospital or clinic, but most likely will occur at the local pharmacy or even school premises.

There are four primary types of vaccines, these include live virus vaccines which are the living embodiment of the disease but in a very small component which is not dangerous. The second type is Inactivated vaccines which are dead and pose no risk. Toxoid viruses protect against the toxin of a disease because they introduce a small amount of that toxic chemical. Finally, biosynthetic viruses are completely man-made attempts to re-create the inactive disease which can then be absorbed by the immune system. The choice of vaccine is usually based on what is most effective or medically possible.

In recent years, some people have worried that vaccines could cause the infecting disease or other related diseases. However, studies have shown that this worry is not medically credible. Kids and adults are far more likely to become infected with the flu, polio, diphtheria, mumps, measles, whooping cough if they do not get a vaccine. By not getting vaccinated, not only is someone putting their own health in danger, they are also endangering others.