Total BS Propaganda, Big Pharma Answer Follows:
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), flu vaccination reduces the risk of flu illness by between 40% and 60% among the overall population during seasons when most circulating flu viruses are well-matched to those used to make flu vaccines. While vaccine effectiveness (VE) can vary, recent studies show that flu vaccination reduces the risk of flu illness by between 40% and 60% among the overall population during seasons when most circulating flu viruses are well-matched to those used to make flu vaccines. In general, current flu vaccines tend to work better against influenza B and influenza A (H1N1) viruses and offer less protection against influenza A (H3N2) viruses1.
Even when the vaccine doesn’t completely prevent the flu, it may lessen the severity of your illness. It also may lower the risk of serious complications and serious illness needing hospital stays2.
No actual study is cited.
Then on google they stick to the propaganda.
From one article:
Since the flu vaccine’s first civilian use in 1945, flu vaccines have consisted of dead (or inactive) strains of influenza A and influenza B viruses. Because these flu strains are dead, it’s impossible for the shot to give you the flu. The nasal spray flu vaccine (like FluMist) is made with the weakened virus, but it also cannot give you the flu.
1. No virus is alive. So suggesting that vaccines consist of dead or inactive strains is retarded.
2. Definition of a virus: a small piece of genetic information (DNA or RNA) inside of a protective shell (capsid). Some viruses also have an envelope. Viruses can’t reproduce without a host.
3. Virus composition is about 64% protein, 21–25% dsDNA and 5–10% lipid. The virus contains at least 50 structural proteins, ranging in size from 10–200 kDa. Four proteins, including the major capsid protein (Vp54), are located on the virion surface.
4. When making a vaccine how are viruses made “inactive?”
Inactivation of the virus is done with heat. Occasionally, inactivation is done with chemicals such as formalin. When the vaccine under production is fractional, meaning it is protein or polysaccharide-based, the vaccine undergoes further purification so that only the subunits of interest remain.
Note: The capsid surrounds the virus and is composed of a finite number of protein subunits known as capsomeres, which usually associate with, or are found close to, the virion nucleic acid.
5. All viruses depend on cells for reproduction and metabolic processes. By themselves, viruses do not encode for all of the enzymes necessary for viral replication. But within a host cell, a virus can commandeer cellular machinery to produce more viral particles. Bacteriophages replicate only in the cytoplasm, since prokaryotic cells do not have a nucleus or organelles. In eukaryotic cells, most DNA viruses can replicate inside the nucleus, with an exception observed in the large DNA viruses, such as the poxviruses, that can replicate in the cytoplasm. RNA viruses that infect animal cells often replicate in the cytoplasm.
6. A relatively small dose of administered virus or bacteria replicates in the body and creates enough of the organism to stimulate an immune response. To be clear, most vaccines replicate the same as a virus, through the host. It is a combination of the small dose and the altering of the virus with heat or a chemical that may prevent the virus from making a person as sick as getting the virus in the wild, but in fact the vaccine can create a “sick” response whether it is a huge bump at the spot of injection to a fever with the body itself trying to fight off the infection to a full blown infection as the replication continues more than expected.
To whether a vaccine can lessen the severity of a case of the flu, you have go back to the fact that most people only get mild cases of the flu regardless of a vaccine or not so any study that suggest that a vaccine has anything to do with a case of the flu being mild is in itself highly suspect. There is no way to establish a proper control group to prove point. Most cases of the flu last only a few days to maybe two weeks in a worse case scenario. Of course not all so called flu’s (flu strains) are the same where some are more severe than others. And the reason the flu vaccine is less than 40% effective in some years is because often the flu shot is not developed with the correct strain since no one knows for sure what strain is going to be spreading. If the shot is based on the wrong strain, it is NOT going to reduce your symptoms.
And remember most doctors do NOT test for the flu but rather diagnose based on symptoms and maybe in some cases ruling other things out.
Should you get the flu shot? That is entirely up to you.