Officials urge flu vaccine for unpredictable 2012-2013 season

An electron micrograph of influenza virus particles.

/ CDC

(CBS News) Health officials are urging Americans to start thinking about their flu vaccine for the upcoming 2012-2013 influenza season. Though last year's flu season was considered mild, health experts warn influenza is unpredictable and the disease could take a serious toll on many Americans.

Flu season begins as early as October and may last until May, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

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"I urge everyone to join me and get a flu vaccine this year," Assistant Secretary for Health and Human Services Dr. Howard K. Koh said in a press release. Koh was the first to receive his flu vaccine during a Thursday National Foundation for Infectious Diseases' news conference in Washington, D.C. where he was joined by officials from the American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American Pharmacists Association, AARP, National Medical Association and CDC.

"When it comes to flu, we can't look to the past to predict the future," Koh said. "Stay healthy - get vaccinated!"

Koh called on everyone ages 6 months and older to follow the CDC's universal recommendation of getting vaccinated each year. The CDC cautions that even healthy people can not only get very sick from the flu, and spread it to others who may fare even worse. The agency reports between 1976 and 2007, up to 49,000 people have died from influenza. Ninety percent of deaths during a typical seasonal flu season occur in people older than 65.

The CDC also unveiled new statistics today on how many people actually got last year's vaccine in the Sept 27 issue of its journal, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The report showed vaccination rates remained steady with that of previous years, with about 128 million people getting the shot during last year's flu season - about 42 percent of the U.S. population.

That's significantly lower than the CDC's goal of vaccinating 80 percent of the U.S. population. The new research also showed vaccination rates varied widely between certain age groups for last year's 2011-2012 flu season.

The greatest year-to-year increase in vaccination rates was a 6 percent increase seen in infants ages six to 23 months old -approximately 75 percent of them were vaccinated for the 2011-2012 season. Overall, rates for kids ages 6 months to 17 years old held steady at 52 percent. The older children became, the fewer got vaccines, with only a 34 percent rate for children ages 13 to 17.

Adults with the best vaccine coverage were 65 and older, with approximately 65 percent getting vaccines last year, but that reflects a 10 percent drop in coverage rates for the age group since the 2008-2009 flu season.

About 47 percent of pregnant women got the flu vaccine last year which was consistent with the previous year's rates, the report found.

"Influenza is five times more likely to cause severe illness in pregnant women than women who are not pregnant," Dr. Laura Riley, director of obstetrics and gynecology infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, said in a press release. "Research shows it can decrease the baby's risk of getting the flu for up to six months after birth."

The CDC's report also looked a workers in the health care industry to see if they too were heeding the government's advice. The report found approximately 67 percent of health care workers got vaccinated in 2011-2012 - a 3 percent rise from the prior flu season - and physicians were most likely (86 percent of them) to get a flu vaccine.

Officials say if health care workers get vaccinated, it will better encourage the general population to get the shot.

This year's flu vaccine consists of one H1N1 strain from last year's vaccine, plus two new strains. It is available as the standard shot that is injected into muscle, nasal spray, a high-dose injection for people 65 and older and a new "Fluzone Intradermal" vaccine with a much smaller needle that is injected into the skin that is recommended for adults 18 to 64 years of age.

Besides vaccination, the government urges everyday actions like hand washing, covering your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze, and taking antiviral flu medications if you're at high risk for flu or develop influenza - in both cases, people should check with their doctor.

Said infectious disease expert Dr. William Schaffner, former president of NFID and chair of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine: "It is every individual's responsibility to put prevention to good use and make vaccination part of their routine healthcare."

[Joudee303]

Both myself and my daughter got the flu over Christmas and New Years, My daughter started Christmas seven days later on New years even I came down with it. I Missed a week of work, with Cough, Cold, Fever Chills, Body Aches and Lethargy I slept for four days. It been 10 days for me now.. feeling better still have a horrific cough and sound like my head is in a can when I speak... and guess what! we both had a flu shot In late October 2012!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So what's the deal, LOL!

[imkain]

In my opinion the Flu shot is a joke. I have never received a single Flu shot in my entire 34 years of existence and have been around plenty of people who have had the Flu...so key point for me is not to buy into the pharmaceutical hype and don't get the flu shot. You are basically injecting yourself with a close to dead strain of the Flu, with the possibility of you getting sick due to the vaccine. Needless to say...how are we as a species going to evolve properly if we keep using the lab created flu virus, which could have unpredictable results...when you could rely on your natural defenses to protect you. That's my two cents on any kind of vaccine in the world. We as a species die a little each day due to possible corruptions of our own genetic code...little by little we are de-evolving ourselves due to modern medicine...sorry a bit of a tirade, but it is true.

[James_Silva]

I hope that nobody will buy into IMKAIN's anecdotal (in the worst way) hype and disinformation.

The flu shot is not and will probably never be 100% effective - if you read what they said, they said this round is 62% effective. That doesn't mean you shouldn't get vaccinated because what you need to remember is those 62% of people aren't going to spread it even further which means everyone is less likely to get the flu. And even though YOU might weather the flu just fine, the very young, the elderly or the immuno-compromised are at a much higher risk of death from the flu.

Furthermore, IMKAIN's noise about 'evolve properly' is the same ignorant misapplication of evolution that the early eugenicists made. You, Mr Eugenicist, are not intelligent enough nor are you in possession of the perfect information about the future you would need to second-guess Nature.

Evolution is a long-game, not a short one, and it rewards with survival those species that can support the broadest variation because those variations will be the 'best fit' for unknown future circumstances (e.g., Sickle-cell increasing survivability against malaria).

There is NO SUCH THING as de-evolving, nor is there 'more evolved'. Everything is EXACTLY the same 'amount' of evolved - from the smallest bacterium on up. Every cell alive today is a copy of a copy of a copy of some original cell from 3.9 billion years ago. Every cell alive at this moment is a survivor through variation and adaptation, and every minute of every hour of every day trillions upon trillions of cell lines terminate. For each child you have who survives to reproduce represents 1/2 of one cell of yours carrying that genetic lineage forward, while billions of other "close copies" carry forward in parallel (other people). But only maybe .000000000000000001% of your genetics will continue forward while the 100's of trillions of others will die, ending their unbroken lineage of billions of years in an altruistic march through genetic time.

This person simply does NOT know what they are talking about -- they are using a very immature and dangerously delusional talking point in other to misinform others. They probably have good intentions but that alone is not sufficient when you are playing with the health of other human beings.

Doctors and scientists are not perfect, they make mistakes -- but their advice is 1000 times more rational than the ranting of someone who isn't even trained in the field they are claiming to be more expert in than our best doctors and scientists.

ALWAYS be skeptical - do your research, do your best to understand the subject and to evaluate your best course of action. But when tens of thousands of the very best and most educated scientists & doctors are recommending a course of action it is just absurd to beg off to a conspiracy theory.

When evaluating claims look for markers of quality like discussions of methodology (hint: IMKAIN's has none), look for presentations that contain measured results and actual data, look for discussions about sources of error and bias.

Watch out for results that are 'too good', if it claims to be a miracle then it almost certainly is a fraud.

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/professionals/vaccination/effectivenessqa.htm

[travis123abc]

Here is a funny joke I saw about the Flu shot, http://ponderingstuff.com/2012/10/14/flu-shot-shortage/

[Misle_Farhat]

this ryan jaslow character sounds sexy.

[RubberBuggyBabyBumpers]

Last year was one of few years that I did not get the flu, knock on wood, but I will continue to get my flu shot every year, especially as I age with my horrible health issues.
I dread thinking that the vacines will be less productive and I hope they can produce a vacine that will help everyone to knock out this horrible sickness..

[Nessarose87]

Get the flu shot if you want but pregnant women need to be aware that there are 5 different one's and none of which has been tested on pregnant women. Read the inserts always before getting one, and if you get one, dont go to Walgreens or Walmart, these shots are suppose to be injected by people who know what they are doing. Please be careful.

[EdelweissKnits]

My mom is an ICU nurse full time, and gives flu shots at Walmart. The people aren't allowed to give flu shots or other shots there unless they are licensed. Not sure where you are getting your information, but they do know what they are doing.

[maemali2]

I was wanting to know if the CDC recamends the high dose vaccine for people that are at risk with other health problem as it has for other flu seasons know matter the age. Thanks

[wolfwalk47]

I just got my flu shot this past Wednesday. It is recommended that those over 65 and with special health issues get the high dose vaccine this year. I did. . .I'm 65 and have what I consider minor health issues, but better safe than sorry!