AD, believe me, you are just one of thousands who have said that to me about the flu shot. (There are at least four or five who tell me that at work every year when it's flu shot time.) And yes, I stil think it's funny. It's so illogical.
The flu vaccine is what they call a "killed virus" or inactive so it can't give you the flu. Here -- I'll quote from the Centers for Disease Control Website:
"The viruses in the flu shot are killed (inactivated), so you cannot get the flu from a flu shot."
They try to cover three of the influenza strains predicted for that year, but sometimes they're off. It's a guessing game. And according to the CDC site, "the vaccine prevents influenza in about 70 percent-90 percent of healthy persons younger than age 65 years."
So even if you're healthy and under 65 and you get the flu vaccine, you still have a chance of getting the flu. That's exactly what happened to me last year and it sucked.
But consider that when I was a kid, I got the flu nearly every single year in late winter. I would miss a week of school, I would barf my brains out (flu in children commonly causes vomiting while in adults, it doesn't), I'd have a huge fever and hallucinations, I'd get dehydrated. If I'd had the option to get the flu shot (it just wasn't common in the '60s and '70s), I would have been spared all that year after year.
So it's just funny when otherwise sensible people tell me they got the flu shot and then got the flu so they're never getting the flu shot again. How exactly does that follow? I'm never going without my flu shot again, if I can help it.
Here's another stat from the CDC page: "Every year in the United States, on average 5% to 20% of the population gets the flu; more than 200,000 people are hospitalized from flu complications, and; about 36,000 people die from flu."That's 36,000 people a year who die from the flu. I'm just sayin'.
Would you like 2 exchange blog links? Best wishes... 
Merry Christmas, Jeanie!! 
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