I have to wonder if in 20 years we will be as concerned about the over use of the regular seasonal flu shot as we are now about the overuse and abuse of Anti-biotics.
The Human Immune system is not an infinite bucket that can store and an infinite amount of different immunities.
I would much rather have my immune system be primed for the really nasty stuff, (Polio, Mumps, Measles, Rubella, Hepatitis, HIV, etc...) and to heck with the seasonal flu which is like the common cold, constantly mutating but not that serious if you catch it and you are healthy.
But suggesting that normally healthy people should take the flu shot every year is kinda like prescribing antibiotics for everyone who isn’t sick. What if we are so successful in eliminating the regular flu stains that we inadvertently make room for the really nasty stains.
Or even worse, what if a flu shot affects our immunity to the other nasty stuff that is not flu related. We still don’t know everything about the immune system I would hate to overload it or create so many different immunities that the body decides itself is an invader and we start having more cases of auto immune disorders.
"What if?" If it were so, we'd know by now.
There's no trial quite as big and uncontrolled as the yearly flu shots given to our large and diverse population in this country.
We have nearly 50 years of use of the attenuated (like the nasal mist vaccines) and killed (like the shot for the H1N1 this year) virus vaccines and about 20 of experience with the recombinant DNA vaccines for flu (most of the seasonal flu vaccine shots). The numbers of shots given over that time is huge.
Vaccines train your immune system to watch out for a given set of proteins and speed the response to them when you are exposed by being infected.
The only way that vaccines could be said to leave the population vulnerable to other infections is that more people who would have died from the original disease are living.
The history of the 1918 influenza that killed one fifth of the world's population has interested me since I read "Pale Horse, Dark Rider" by Katherine Anne Porter nearly 30 years ago. Miss Porter nearly died of the flu and lost her hair, which then came in all white. She was stunned by the loss of friends and loved ones - and the sheer numbers. (I think her fiance died of the flu.)