[SA Chris]

Something that always causes furious debate at work at this time of year.

Am I the only one who gets annoyed by these being on offer to young, fit, healthy people (or people who rarely come into contact with those "at risk")?

Surely this is NHS money going straight into the pockets of pharmaceutical companies?

[SA Chris]

I am cleary the only one then.

[slackline]

Nope, I too think its pretty pointless (and a waste of money) giving flu jabs to those who aren't "at risk".

[R.J.]

ahem...  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity

[slackline]

ahem...  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity

Great, but it just promotes more virulant strains to evolve and the situation becomes much worse the next year (viz. the problem of anti-bioitic resisitant strains of bacteria in hospitals or "superbugs").

Too much relience on a magic bullet/tablet is a bad thing as are hyper-sterile environments that many kids seem to be bought up in these days.

[SA Chris]

Precisely

Ahem hem...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRSA

It would be nice if the vaccines were actually effective against all forms of flu too. 

[grumpycrumpy]

Too right ..... Especially the dreaded 'man flu ' which is so much worse than all the rest .....

[slackline]

An(other) interesting tool from Google that tracks flu trends in the US.

Seems to do okay when stacked up agains the statistics from the CDC.  Obviously its going to be missing a massive proportion of the population, and in particular those who are most susceptible to the effects (i.e. the deprived areas who can't afford 'net connection and in turn have poorer health overall as well as being unable to afford private healthcare in the US; the old who may not all be "silver surfers").