Vaccination is the primary method for preventing influenza and its complications and getting an annual influenza vaccine is the best way to protect yourself and your family from the flu.

by Wesley P. Elliott for Military Health System

SAN ANTONIO – The recent Influenza Awareness Week, Dec. 2-8 educates military personnel about the potential impacts of influenza, or the flu, on the Department of Defense mission and Force Health Protection Readiness.

Army Col. Tammy K. Mayer, Consultant for Army Public Health Nursing and Health Promotion for the U.S. Army Surgeon General said, ”The more that the community knows about flu prevention the better. Stopping the spread of influenza allows us to stay healthy and avoid missing school or work. We are fortunate to have a vaccine to help us in the fight against this deadly disease.”



Vaccination is the primary method for preventing influenza and its complications and getting an annual influenza vaccine is the best way to protect yourself and your family from the flu.

Vaccination is needed every year because the Influenza viruses change every few years and scientists continue to monitor which viruses are circulating, and change the ingredients in influenza vaccines to match them.

How well the influenza vaccine works (or its ability to prevent influenza illness) can range widely from season to season. The vaccine’s effectiveness also can vary depending on who is being vaccinated.

The two main factors in the effectiveness of the vaccine is the health of the patient and the match between the influenza viruses that the influenza vaccine is designed to protect against and the influenza viruses spreading in the community.

“Each year, the flu vaccine must be reformulated to ensure it is effective. It’s a complex process and can take several months to research and then manufacture the vaccine. Currently there is research underway to develop a universal flu vaccine that provides improved protection against more subtypes of the virus. It may also eliminate the need to get a flu shot every year. There is also ongoing research to reduce the time to manufacture and develop the vaccine from months to weeks,” said Mayer.

“The Army takes flu prevention seriously because of the potential impact of an outbreak on individual and unit readiness. The vaccine is mandatory for service members and strongly encouraged for all other beneficiaries. Most people can recover from the flu by staying home and resting. This also helps to stop the spread of flu” said Mayer.

Patients without access to a military treatment facility can get the influenza vaccine from a participating retail network pharmacy or their health care provider. Active Duty Service members should follow their service policy for getting vaccinated and making sure it’s recorded.

Annual influenza vaccination is mandatory for civilian healthcare personnel who provide direct patient care and highly recommended for all other hospital employees who work in DoD facilities.

Pregnant women are at an increased risk for severe illness and complications if infected with the influenza virus. The Centers for Disease Control recommends that pregnant women with continued concerns or questions about the influenza vaccination should discuss these with their healthcare provider in order to make an informed decision regarding vaccination.

For those who feel the vaccine may make them sick, Mayer recommends understanding their concerns.

“Everyone who presents for a flu shot will be screened to make sure it’s safe for them to receive the vaccine. I try to help people understand the science behind vaccine development and how the body develops immunity. I also share that there are many other precautions in stopping the spread of the flu and other illnesses, including good washing, cough etiquette, and staying home when you are sick,” said Mayer.

Like any medication, vaccines can cause side effects. The most common side effects are mild and resolve on their own within 24-48 hours. More serious adverse events are rare. Some children should not get certain vaccines for medical reasons, while others should receive more vaccines due to high-risk medical conditions.

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13 COMMENTS

  1. When I went into army during VietNam war, they gave everyone a huge dose of “vaccines”. A lot of them got mennigitis and some died from it.

  2. 80% of us soldiers, well vaccinated against everything, who went to destroy Iraq to end all wars, came home incapacitated to varying degrees.

  3. Carol, I don’t believe you are advocating for the flu vaccine. Total bullshit. You’re doing a great diservice, and throwing any credibility you have built up right out the window. Sad.

    • joetv, Notice who wrote the article…Military Health System. No me, I just published it…I also do not censor information that I deem that our readers might want to know about. That being written, I am not against flu shots for those who have chronic illnesses that might make their immune systems more susceptible to viral infections and DO NOT FORGET that people do die from having the flu….I am not making this up.

  4. The “one size fits all” obviously does not work since they admit the vaccine is not 100% effective for all patients. Therefore alternatives are called for but not mentioned in prejudiced articles like this one.
    pwww.doctoryourself.com/klennerpaper.html
    http://orthomolecular.org/library/jom/1991/pdf/1991-v06n02-p099.pdf
    The late Frederick R. Klenner, M.D. became fascinated by the safe, simple and cheap powers of high dose Vitamin C to cure and prevent viral diseases in man and many other medical problems. The criminals in the FDA have obstructed just the study of these facts and only approved a trivial daily dose of 60 milligrams to prevent scurvy when much higher doses, given intravenously, are necessary to cure viral diseases up to and including polio which Klenner proved before 1949! While it is good to take Vitamin C by mouth, it leaves the body in about 2 hours in the urine. This is why it must be given intravenously to get a high enough concentration in the blood. But no ordinary patient is able to prepare the preparation of Vitamin C to be injected into their own body. Only a trained pharmacist can do this job. But because the criminals at the FDA have obstructed this knowledge most pharmacists fear making such preparations. There is no reason to believe high dose Vitamin C can’t cure all additional viral diseases as well. I urge everyone to read the above two seminal articles. Fred Klenner, M.D. lived from 1907 and died in 1984. He was a top biology…

    • He was a top biology student from Pennsylvania who earned his M.D. degree at Duke University in 1936. He was a true research scientist in addition to treating patients. Even poisonous snake and insect bites can easily be cured this way. It is similar to the way Vitamin B-12 shots are administered. An Iron man died from a rattlesnake bite in Colorado in the ER waiting for the test for the slow, expensive and painful anti venom procedure. He would be alive today if the Vitamin C procedure of Fred Klenner M.D. had not been obstructed by the criminals in the FDA.

    • Everyone has heard the wisdom: “There are many ways to skin a cat”. In any field, medicine, engineering, physics, mathematics, politics, etc. one must always have more than one way to solve and approach problems and not be tied blindly to a single way because a single way might not work on the problem at hand. It is ignorance to blindly follow only one path to a problem. For example the cancer generals have spent between $100 billion and $1 trillion studying cancer but most doctors can’t even tell you what cancer is, let alone how to cure and prevent it in the human body! About one person dies every minute either from cancer, treatment or both, usually treatment but falsely reported as from cancer. This is not success but dismal FAILURE.

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