(NaturalNews) Every year around this time, we begin seeing and hearing the warnings urging us to receive our annual flu shots. Many of us fall for the scare tactics and line up to get our dose of the vaccine, because the flu is deadly and kills tens of thousands of people every year, right?Wrong.If you haven't already succumbed to the propaganda, you may want to think twice about getting the yearly injection. There are several good reasons to avoid ever getting a flu vaccination, even if you are in one of the high-risk groups, such as those over the age of 65.First of all, the figures that we commonly read or hear are grossly exaggerated -- the mainstream media often cites the number of flu deaths to be as high as 36,000 per year, but there is no real evidence that this is actually the case.In fact, the National Vital Statistics System estimates the number of yearly flu deaths in the U.S. to be around 500. And even that number may be too high, according to theand. Many of the deaths attributed to the flu may be due to other causes, such as rhinovirus.Lawrence Solomon wrote inThe Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is the government agency responsible for tracking outbreaks of the flu and other diseases, and although they freely admit that they don't actually know the real numbers, they are the ones who have furnished the inflated figures that we often hear.So why does the CDC lie to us about the numbers?In 2003, the CDC received communications from vaccine manufacturers stating that they weren't selling enough of their products. CDC officials responded by launching a campaign to (in their own words) "publicly (e.g. via media) state concern and alarm (and predict dire outcomes) -- and urge influenza vaccination."As Solomon noted:In case you haven't already guessed the real reasoning behind this fear campaign, let me point out that the global flu vaccine industry is worth $3.6 billion, and the U.S. is the largest and most profitable market for flu shots.And as if this were not reason enough to begin to question whether or not you should get a flu shot, you should also be aware of the lack of efficacy of the vaccine as well as the dangers associated with receiving it.Once again, the real figures are hard to come by, but most estimates regarding the effectiveness of the vaccine are lower than you might have imagined. The best estimates are, that for healthy adults between the ages of 18 to 64, the efficacy rate is only 60 percent of the 2.7 percent of people who would have gotten the flu. For the elderly, efficacy rates are even lower -- from 17 to 53 percent, studies have shown.From all the reliable evidence available, it appears that the vaccine is far more dangerous than the flu itself. As of 2014, nearly 100,000 adverse reactions (including 1,147 deaths) have been reported in people who received the flu vaccine Reactions range from mild (such as redness and swelling around the site of injection) to extremely serious (convulsions, paralysis, brain inflammation and more).The chances are, if you contract the flu virus, you'll have a few days of discomfort and then you will fully recover. Why run the risk of having an adverse reaction to a vaccine that is not only unnecessary, but also quite possibly ineffective to begin with?