Med-O-Meter

2

MedHead Message:

I know of no other more controversial subject in healthcare than that of the annual flu vaccine. In my passion for providing the best evidence-based recommendations, I found that there have been many studies on flu vaccination and outcomes. However, several are quite biased. Thank goodness Cochrane put it all into perspective. You would need to vaccinate 71 healthy people to prevent one case of the flu, and 167 vaccinations in healthy adults to avoid one flu-related hospitalization. No differences in mortality were observed.

References:

1. Demicheli, V et. al. Vaccines for preventing influenza in healthy adults.Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2018 Feb 1;2:CD001269. 2. https://health.costhelper.com/flu-shot.html