Study: Flu Shots Are Only About 59% Effective In Adults

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - If you're somebody who likes medicine to be perfect, you are not going to be happy by a report in the journal The Lancet. The report looked at flu vaccine and finds it's only about 59-percent effective in adults who receive the shot.

The report is based on 31 studies going way back to 1967. The study also found that the newer nasal spray, which is used in children six months to seven years of age, works about 83-percent of the time.

So where does this leave all of us with the flu vaccine? My suggestion is to still get it because it does provide protection.

In addition to that, you need to realize that what they try to do with these vaccines is guess what flu strains will be attacking. They don't know in advance which ones are coming, so they just try to predict it with the best information they have. Critics of the flu vaccine say we have to do better in the future.

Reported by Dr. Brian McDonough, Medical Editor, KYW Newsradio 1060