It’s that time again, Flu season, and you have probably already been told to get your flu shot.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) readily support the vaccine, saying that the more people who get the vaccine in the community the less people will get sick. I ask though, how can that be true when new strands of the flu are popping up every year? The influenza is constantly changing and mutating throughout the years, which is called the Antigenic drift, so the strains of the virus that are put into the vaccine are only predictions. The vaccines we all are given are only about 70 to 90 percent effective against the three or four most common flu virus strains, that may or may not even be the strains of the seasons.

I’m still conflicted though, because if by chance I get sick with the shot, it doesn’t hurt to get it right? Everyone has heard the ‘I’m not getting a flu shot because it will give me the flu’ excuse, but according to Harvard’s Medical School there is no possible way the flu vaccine, as a shot or as a nose spray, can cause you to actually get the flu. The virus strains in a shot have been killed or have been made unable to replicate in humans. The disease-causing virus, in our case the influenza, is passed through a series of cell cultures or chick (like a baby chicken) embryos, with each passage through the cell or the embryo the virus loses its ability to replicate in the human body, thus not being able to infect anyone. The nasal spray can’t survive the warmth of the lungs, so it can’t flourish.

Okay, so if I am going to get a vaccine, I’d want to take the best one, right? My best friend gets the nose mist because she claims it’s easier and much less painful. Sounds great, but recent studies from the CDC show that the spray is not effective in preventing the flu. Like I said, sounds great.. The FluMist is out for me. There is also the Intradermal shot, which is only available to people aged 18 to 64, so that vaccine is out for me as well. Which leaves the regular flu shot, which is injected into your upper arm and normally leaves said arm sore for a few days. Personally, I would go with that one, if any at all.

The decision to get a vaccine, or which kind to get, is your own. Do your research and make your own decision. Unless of course, your parents have already made your doctor’s’ appointment.