New Data Emphasizes Importance of Flu Vaccine, Especially for Children

Did you hear early in the season how the flu vaccine was worthless and only going to have about 10 percent effectiveness?

You probably did, but hopefully that didn't prevent you from getting your child's flu vaccine.

New data from the CDC suggest that the vaccine was 50 percent effective for pediatric illness, which is actually a fair year. We’ve had better. We’ve had worse. But it's definitely way better than the 10-30 percent estimates that were being thrown around earlier this year.

In previous years, data have shown that nearly two-thirds of pediatric deaths have occurred in children who were not vaccinated. This data is even more significant as three-fourths of pediatric deaths have occurred in children who were not completely immunized (either no vaccines or only one vaccine in a baby who needs 2 for full protection).

Only 54 percent of children who died of flu had a condition that characterized them as high risk. This means that they were older, healthy kids who got the flu and died.

Is the flu shot perfect? No. Do I wish it were better? Yes.

But do any of these reasons for not getting one hold up?

"It doesn't sound like it's going to work very well this year anyway.""My kid's healthy, so I don't think they really need one.""We stay really careful to avoid others who are sick so we'll be good."

Nope. Nope. And, unless you live in a bunker from October to March: Nope!

It's actually still not too late. You can get protection from this year that will help and there is mounting evidence in adults that getting flu vaccines year over year may provide more protection than just for that season. We're still waiting on that evidence in kids, but logic says it could still apply.