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Flu Vaccine....responsible for the most vaccine injuries until 2020.

The Illness: The Flu is a respiratory virus that is usually mild and rarely serious. Serious infection is most likely to affect the elderly, whose immune function is not optimal.

Cost/Benefit: There is very little benefit to the flu vaccine for several reasons. Its design does NOT enable it to effectively prevent transmission of the influenza virus because it does not produce mucosal immunity the way infection with the live virus does. The Flu vaccine is largely ineffective because what immunity it does confer wanes quickly and the vaccine is rarely a good match to the strain in circulation. Multi-dose vials also still contain large amounts of the mercury-based preservative, thimerosal. This type of inactivated vaccine also mis-trains the immune system in such a way that the body only neutralizes flu strains that are almost an exact match to the vaccine, often causing the immune system to largely ignore new variants. This allows new variants to set up an strong infection. While flu vaccination is somewhat effective in the first year the influenza vaccine is given, studies have shown that vaccination against flu in multiple successive years results in greater incidence of hospitalizations for both flu and non-influenza respiratory infections in both children and adults. The book Vax-Unvax: Let the Science Speak, by Dr. Brian Hooker summarizes this information quite well using easy to read graphs. A study by Rikin et. al. showed that children 4 yrs. old and younger that were vaccinated against influenza were 4.8 times more likely to suffer from a respiratory infection other than the flu. Similarly, another study by Cowling et. al. demonstrated that vaccination did not really affect the incidence of influenza infection in children between the ages of 6 and 15 yrs. old. However, children vaccinated against influenza were 4.40 times more likely to suffer from a non-flu respiratory infection. Importantly, Joshi et. al. found that children vaccinated against influenza were 3.67 times more likely to be hospitalized for influenza respiratory infection.

The Vaccines: There are at least nine different brands of Flu vaccine. Some are licensed for children, while others are not. Most are grown on tissue culture derived from chicken embryos. Many manufacturers have taken the mercury-based preservative, thimerosal, out of their vaccine in the last few years. Unless explicitly noted to contain mercury, the vaccines listed below do NOT contain significant amounts of mercury (as per the package insert, which I have linked to).

Age Given: Once yearly from 6 months of age

Package Insert information can be found by clicking on the name of each brand of Flu vaccine.

Information concerning adverse events can be found in section 6, which contains information on the clinical trials as well as the post-marketing data.

Flu Vaccine Ingredients by Vaccine Manufacturer

Approved for infants 6 months and older

Afluria–