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As a now retired healthcare provider, I have seen complications from various medications, including vaccines, ranging from mild headaches to serious allergic reactions mainly from the transporting medium. The 5-9% risk rate would include ALL complications from minor to major, with most being in the minor to mild range. As one who prescribed medications conservatively, my philosophy was to always prescribe as to achieve the greatest positive risk/benefit ratio possible given the patients unique health circumstances. Again, for me, even the possibility of a minor headache made the risk/benefit ratio negative/not positive enough....for me individually. I have seen many of my patients and fellow colleagues contract the ‘flu’ after being vaccinated simply because the vaccine ‘missed’ the strain for that season. I chose not to ‘insult’ my system for a 40-50% chance of effectiveness against this particular malady. I do that with the consideration that nearly all medications/vaccines being an insult to some degree. That could change as my body ages and my ‘systems’ become less able to defend.....or not. Depends on the risk/benefit ratio for the given ailment. As a side, I did receive the Hep B vaccine series even though the complication rate at the time was between 8-10% but the effectiveness was 80-90%. A very positive risk/benefit ratio for me given my circumstances.

Yadent, thank you for providing a well stated rationale on flu vaccine risk / benefits. Evidence indicates it's a racket, see sources below - WHO, CDC, Pharma shisters along with programmed unquestioning drone doctors have fooled the public into believing "how valuable it is to have your flu shot". They deliberately co-mingle pneumonia AND influenza mortality rate statistics to scare public with falsehood statements that: "flu kills 36,000 Americans each year". Here's the truth of it from The American Lung Association: "Pneumonia consistently accounts for the overwhelming majority of the combined pneumonia and influenza deaths. In 2013, 53,282 people died from pneumonia and 3,550 people died from influenza." http://www.lung.org/finding-cures/our-research/trend-reports/pi-trend-report.pdf Just follow the money... WHO scientists and advisors made MILLIONS of dollars pushing BILLIONS OF DOLLARS of ineffective flu vaccines worldwide: Swine Flu Pandemic: World Health Organization Scientists Linked to Vaccine Companies - ABC News http://abcnews.go.com/Health/SwineFlu/swine-flu-pandemic-world-health-organization-scientists-linked/story?id=10829940 Scientists who advised the World Health Organization on its influenza policies and recommendations—including the decision to proclaim the so-called swine flu a "level 6 pandemic" had close ties to companies that manufacture vaccines and antiviral medicines like Tamiflu, a fact that WHO did not publicly disclose. The links between the advisors and the companies that make money from vaccines and flu treatments were detailed in a report published online by the British medical journal BMJ, which investigated the advisors' role in WHO's policy. Evidence of Bias in Studies of Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness in ... https://academic.oup.com/jid/article/201/2/186/2192007 Although studies have shown influenza vaccines to be effective in preventing death in the elderly population, these findings may be the result of sel. ... to inform health plan members ⩾65 years old that they could be vaccinated conveniently and at no cost; vaccination campaigns began after the second week of October. Flu Vaccine Efficacy Slips From Prior Estimate, CDC Says - Medscape www.medscape.com/viewarticle/882075 Jun 23, 2017 ... The vaccine worked the best among children aged 6 months to 8 years, at 61%, and the least among individuals aged 18 to 49 years, at 19%. For people aged 65 years or older — a demographic group that's especially vulnerable to the flu — effectiveness stood at 25%. The CDC reported the efficacy rates ... Why flu vaccines so often fail | Science | AAAS www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/09/why-flu-vaccines-so-o... Sep 20, 2017 ... For many decades, researchers believed the flu vaccine offered solid protection if it was a good match to the circulating strains; studies from the 1940s through the 1960s routinely showed an efficacy of 70% to 90%. But those studies relied on a misleading methodology. Without a simple way to detect the ...

Oh, I've been whacked by an allergic reaction to a "med"... an "inactive" ingredient in an Ester C tablet I took some years back thinking it would help me fight off a cold I was beginning to come down with. But I was no "pill popper" even then, as my outlook regarding medications in general is not that different from yours. Still, though, in the case of the flu vaccine, your calculation of risk / benefit ratio "escapes" me. Let's say the risk of a side effect of the flu vaccine, of the severity of a moderate headache, is 7%. The risk of getting a significant case of the flu in an average year appears to be, as best I can tell from some reading, roughly 10%, however, that # includes the approx. 46% or so of the population that gets vaccinated. This bumps the non-vaccinated population up to around 15% chance of getting the flu in an average year. So... we have 15% vs. 7%, or roughly a 2:1 ratio in favor of getting vaccinated.

However, that takes no account of the relative severity of the illnesses, nor the fact that a side effect is extremely unlikely to be communicable, whereas flu is highly communicable. Even if you don't have significant symptoms (ie., it's not a significant case for you), there is a 20-30% chance of passing influenza on. This is all hard to put a "solid" number on, but, a good case of the flu is surely 5x worse than a typical vaccine side effect, more like 10x IMO, and add on a couple points for communicability... I'll be conservative and say "7x",total.

Toss that in (multiply initial risk by severity + communicability) on both sides of the equation, and now you have a 14:1 ratio in favor of vaccination.