A Flu Shot Menu has been customized for senior citizens. Good News! You see, “People 65 years and older are at higher risk of developing serious flu complications compared with young, healthy adults.” Therefore, this group in their golden years has an increased risk.
The Reason Behind the Risk
Before You Get Your Pumpkin Spiced Coffee, Get Your Flu Shot.
You might ask why seniors have a greater risk, and it does not necessarily mean you are sickly. The change in your system is a natural part of aging.
The human immune system simply decreases the power of your immune defense as you get older. Therefore, it is logical. You might need more help to fend off the flu—more help than either your 29-year-old son or your 8-year-old granddaughter.
A Flu Shot Menu of Flu Facts
Are you aware that, in most flu seasons, patients 65 and older suffer the most from severe flu disease?
1. Between 70 and 85 percent of flu-related deaths have happened in this age group.
2. Likewise, between 50 percent and 70 percent of the seasonal flu-related hospitalizations have happened to the segment of our society in their golden years.
3. Immune responses to vaccines might be lower in older people.
4. However, studies reveal special benefits for seniors who take their flu shots. Experts state, “flu vaccination has been effective in reducing the risk of medical visits and hospitalizations in older people.”
A New Flu Shot Menu Customized for the Over-65 Group
Over 65? Get Your Flu Shot. It Could Save Your Life.
With these facts in mind, our scientists have devised a flu shot menu of Higher dose and adjuvanted flu vaccines that are customized for the older generation. They will probably be more effective for you than the less-customized standard dose.
For the first time, the CDC is making strong recommendations for you to use the higher-does flu vaccines if you are over 65. Below, check out the menu of higher-dose vaccines:
1. Fluzone High-Dose Quadrivalent inactivated influenza vaccine,
2. Flublok Quadrivalent flu vaccine.
3. And adjuvanted flu vaccine (Fluad Quadrivalent vaccine)
A Flu Shot Menu for Your Golden Years
Any one of these three choices is far better for seniors than the standard-dose unadjuvanted flu vaccines. They are customized for younger people.
Checking Out the Details: Recipes Beyond the Flu Shot Menu
Let’s take a closer look at how these three special recipes for flu shots help protect our older citizens.
1. Fluzone High-Dose Quadrivalent (The Flu Shot Menu)
is an inactivated influenza vaccine “It contains four times the antigen, the part of the vaccine that helps the body build up protection against flu viruses…” Compare this to standard-dose inactivated flu vaccines, and you will see the standard dose is only ¼ as strong.
At 65 or older, you need a better, faster immune response. Fluzone High-Dose Quadrivalent will bring you better immunity and therefore, better protection.
2. Another Option Flu Shot Menu: Fluad Quadrivalent
Just as a Wolf Brings Danger to Sheep, the Flu Brings Killer Complications to Humans Over 65.
This vaccine is an “adjuvanted inactivated influenza vaccine approved for use in people 65 years and older.”
The recipe for this vaccine includes the same amount of antigen as the standard. However, it has a powerful additive called MF59, which gives older people a better immune response.
3. Third on the Flu Shot Menu, But Equally Powerful: The Flublok Quadrivalent
We also recommend the Flublok Quadrivalent. This recipe uses a “recombinant protein influenza vaccine.”
FLASS approves it for patients 18 years and older. Put simply, the manufacturer has created this recipe with a different production technology from the previous two above.
However, it contains 3 times the “the antigen dose compared with standard-dose inactivated flu vaccines…” Of course, “The higher dose of antigen is intended to give people 65 years and older a better immune response to vaccination…”
Therefore, this is a choice for better protection from flu and its serious symptoms.
Terrific Take-Aways from the FLASS Flu Shot Menu
Seriously, which of the following two options would your grandmother prefer?
1. She could be moderately ill at home in her own bed for about a week.
2. Or consequently, she could spend 4 weeks seriously sick in the hospital with complications of the flu.
In the above scenario, we know the answer most grandmothers (or grandfathers) would choose. As stated above, we know that “People 65 years and older have an increased risk of severe flu illness, hospitalization, and death compared with younger populations.”
Additionally, FLASS believes this point intensifies our mission to create more effective vaccines for our older generation. (We also offer this advice to those over 65. Get the standard-dose flu vaccine if the special ones are unavailable.)
A Final FLASS Plea for Getting Your Flu Shot at Any Age. (The Flu Shot Menu)
With a wry smile, we want to acknowledge a recent clever television commercial developed by OTC: Allergies, Cold & Flu industry in the tradition of a fine public service announcement.
Keep their metaphor in mind when you go get your flu vaccination. Check out Fluzone’s 60-second TV commercial, ‘The Flu: Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing from the OTC: Allergies, Cold & Flu industry. It was cleverly created by Havas Media.
In it, the flu is depicted as a wolf who is thinly disguised in a sheep’s skin costume. He walks through restaurant, office, and hospital scenarios claiming, “I’m just the flu.”
An Epic Fable for Our Time
The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing: Stop Him (the Flu) With a Flu Shot!
Meanwhile, the humans in restaurants, offices, and hospital scenes are falling deathly sick. As a result, the wolf passes contagion through the crowd. And of course, they dramatize all the very worst flu complications.
The Flu-Wolf says, “Don’t mind me.” And he keeps infecting people.
Then, we see them stricken with flu complications like heart failure, pneumonia, “encephalitis, sepsis, multiple organ failure,” and death. Meanwhile, the disguised wolf keeps walking through the crowds, declaring, “I’m quite harmless, really.”
He repeats he is only the flu. Then, he walks into a medical facility where they are dispensing a flu vaccine menu. …And the next shot shows the wolf being taken away in a paddy wagon.
The Flu-Wolf’s Statistics and the Flu Shot Menu
The World Health Organization estimates that, globally, between 290,000 to 650,000 people die from flu complications each year.
And in 2017, it is estimated that 80,000 Americans died from complications of the flu. . In fact, in spite of our flu shot menu, we lose “12,000 to 56,000 people in the US every single year.
But, as the toothy wolf in the commercial says, “Don’t mind the flu—he’s quite harmless, really.” FLASS reminds you that the flu is only as harmless as a wolf in sheep’s clothing among a herd of sheep.
Additionally, FLASS says, “Please check out the flu shot menu, and get your flu shot immediately. It’s time.”