Hello anonymous, hope you had a good Thanksgiving. Wanted to let you know we received a response from the American Lung Association and here's what they had to say ...
"There is no evidence or link that I can find that would connect the influenza vaccine to an outbreak of shingles. I think this might be nothing more than bad timing. We hear from people who swear that they got the flu from the flu vaccine, even though this is not possible.
What usually happens is that they were just unfortunate enough to either be exposed before their immunity was obtained from the flu shot (it can take 2 weeks), or they simply contracted a strain of the flu that was not covered in the vaccine. This may be similar for those who come down with shingles after the flu vaccine. If this happened to me, it would make me wonder if the two were related. I would encourage these people to report this to the FDA’s Consumer Complaint Coordinators for the state they live in: http://www.fda.gov/opacom/backgrounders/complain.html. This is also a good time to talk about the Shingles vaccine. This vaccine is approved for people over age 60, and is shown to reduce the risk of shingles by 50% in this population: http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/vis/downloads/vis-shingles.pdf. Although most of us gained immunity during childhood with chickenpox, the resistance may fade as we get older. Not everyone should have this vaccine, so it is important to talk to your physician about this."
Comment Reply
Hello anonymous, hope you had a good Thanksgiving. Wanted to let you know we received a response from the American Lung Association and here's what they had to say ...
"There is no evidence or link that I can find that would connect the influenza vaccine to an outbreak of shingles. I think this might be nothing more than bad timing. We hear from people who swear that they got the flu from the flu vaccine, even though this is not possible.
What usually happens is that they were just unfortunate enough to either be exposed before their immunity was obtained from the flu shot (it can take 2 weeks), or they simply contracted a strain of the flu that was not covered in the vaccine. This may be similar for those who come down with shingles after the flu vaccine. If this happened to me, it would make me wonder if the two were related. I would encourage these people to report this to the FDA’s Consumer Complaint Coordinators for the state they live in: http://www.fda.gov/opacom/backgrounders/complain.html. This is also a good time to talk about the Shingles vaccine. This vaccine is approved for people over age 60, and is shown to reduce the risk of shingles by 50% in this population: http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/vis/downloads/vis-shingles.pdf. Although most of us gained immunity during childhood with chickenpox, the resistance may fade as we get older. Not everyone should have this vaccine, so it is important to talk to your physician about this."
December 3, 2008 - 10:11amThis Comment
Reply