Quickbeam, the flu shot is not useless, they just guessed wrong about which would be the most common strain running around, it will still protect you against the others. But as was already mentioned only after about 2 weeks or so.
When they make the stuff up they have to do it before the flu season starts, so they don't know yet what kind of flu is going to be most common.
So unless you're one of the special people that get sick from the shot, there is nothing to loose by getting it and you might have been destined for one of the kinds that is covered by it.
My wife gets the shot early every year since she works at the hospital and has never gotten sick or had any bad reaction to it. She has also never gotten the flu since she started getting the shot each year /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
The flu vaccine as given to adults still has thimerisol as the preservative, so if you're getting it for young children you might want to ask for the low thimerisol version which is available in lesser amounts. (there is still nothing but intellectual posturing that suggests this might be bad for children, but if there is a low level version available to you, what the heck) There is also the "Flu Mist" that children and adults between 5 and 49 can use which wont even give you a sore arm. Also children under 6 months shouldn't get the shot at all (But their parents should)
The vaccine is made from "inactivated" viruses. This is not a live virus culture like the small pox shot. Each batch is tested to be sure about this, and if something did slip by it would make everyone getting those thousands of doses sick with multiple flu strains at once and they would know about it. It would be big news. You can have reactions to it, your immune system can react badly to it, you can get the flu anyway but you won't get the flu from the shot.
Also, anybody who is allergic to eggs shouldn't get it as it's actually grown in egg protein.
The flu puts over 100,000 people in the hospital each year just in America alone. It kills between 20,000 and 30,000 each year, in America alone. Unless you know you react badly to it, go get the shot, or try the inhaler version this year. Thats 30,000 people, in America. Not some third world country where people live in the jungle in huts, we're talking about modern city dwellers. Yes, the younger and healthier are not the main make up of that number, but it is a very serious and debilitating problem in anybody!
EDIT: Actually, after posting that I decided to look up some info and make sure I was remembering things properly /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif It takes 8 months to make the vaccine, and while the specific strain that is most common is not in there they say that a closely related strain is in there and that it will offer "some immunity" but nobody qualifies how much because they don't know and it will be different for different people.