A new report released by the Chicago Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Julie Morita and Lurie Children’s Hospital created controversy last week after the report indicated a large amount of flu shot refusers.

Morita’s report showed that at least 83% of local parents refuse the flu shot and that 14% refuse all vaccines.

“In fact, 14 percent overall refused vaccines, and 83 percent of parents refused flu vaccine, in particular,” Dr. Matthew Davis of Lurie Children’s Hospital said. “It was the most commonly refused vaccine overall.”

Morita blames the large swath of refusers on people thinking it is “too late” to get a flu shot. But here’s the rub, 2/3rds of the people cited concerns over adverse effects, both on the long and short term.

“There’s usually a little bit of redness or pain at the site where the vaccine is given, but what I emphasize to my patients is that minor inconvenience of a flu vaccine is much better than the seriousness of flu illness,” Dr. Davis said in response.

It seems that more people are timid to get the flu shot, rather than worried about the timeline regarding when they get it. Nevertheless, the new message is that it “is not too late to get your flu shot.”

“It’s a really serious infection,” Morita said. “For most people, they will recover, but for some people, young children, people with chronic underlying health disease, such as diabetes, asthma, heart disease, those kinds of individuals can get very, very sick and end up in the hospital.”

COMMENT: We here at Vaxxter think Morita’s comment is simply not true and fear-mongering

What can you do instead, even if you have chronic health problems? Wash your hands frequently (but not obsessively); make sure your 25-OH Vitamin D level is between 80 and 100 nmol/l; take Vitamin C Ascorbates 3000mg/day; avoid white sugar, white flour and white rice. You don’t need a flu shot; in fact, you can get flu shot and still become ill with another infection that causes flu-like symptoms. For detailed information, check out Dr. Tenpenny’s 2-hour DVD series on the flu and flu shots.

feature photo attribution: CC BY-SA 4.0Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago.jpg /Created: 9 June 2012