Which flu shot should you get? Here’s what you need to know.
My kids and I tried something different for our flu shots this year. Instead of making separate visits to my doctor and their pediatrician, we all went to the same place: our local Target, where the in-store clinic offered us each a $5 gift card for getting vaccinated.
The visit was convenient: We walked right in without an appointment on a Saturday morning. For the first time, my 5-year old didn’t scream as the needle went in. And the boys were thrilled to shop for new toys after their shots.
Just before the injections started, however, I started to wonder which flu shot we were going to get. Was it the same one that we’d get at our doctors’ offices or that my husband received at a nearby hospital? Was it the best one? Was there even such a thing as the “best one”?
The number of choices available for getting immunized against influenza is unrivaled in the vaccine world. There are 10 varieties of flu vaccine made by multiple companies approved for use in the United States.
Options vary in the way they are produced, the way they are delivered and how many strains of influenza virus they include. Also, unlike other types of vaccines, flu shots are available seemingly everywhere: not just in health clinics and pharmacies but in grocery stores, fitness centers, and pop-up fairs at schools and workplaces.
“Nothing approaches flu in terms of the numbers of products available and the number of different ways they are made,” says Paul Offit, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia who also serves on the Food and Drug Administration advisory committee that determines which strains to include in the seasonal vaccine. “There are no other vaccines that offer so many choices.”
So, what’s a confused flu-shot seeker to do?
For most people, simply getting the flu vaccine — any flu vaccine — is what matters most, says David Cennimo, an infectious-disease specialist at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School in Newark. And in practice, most of us don’t really end up making a decision at all. Each clinic decides which varieties to carry, so by the time you get there the decision has been made.