Getting a flu vaccine increases your risk of getting the flu next year notes Suzanne Humphries, MD in the video clip below.

Getting a flu vaccine also increases your risk of getting a pandemic strain.

Dr. Humphries also notes that getting a flu vaccine also increases your risk of shedding and spreading the virus for longer periods of time as a result of what the vaccine did to your immune system the year before.

In this 2.5-minute video clip Boyd Haley, PhD shows a chart of how influenza deaths in children under 5 increased from about 15 per year in 2002 to about 90 per year in 2003, a 6-fold increase, after the by the US CDC mandated flu vaccine in early childhood in mid-2002.

In this 1.5-minute video clip Boyd Haley, PhD shows a chart included in an article from the Washington Post, Oct 25, 2005 in an article titled As Vaccination Rates Rise, Flu Deaths Little Changed that says,

    ”Despite a rapid rise in vaccination among the elderly between 1980 and 1998, the death rate from flu-related illness in this population has remained flat.”
    “One implication: The vaccine is not all that effective in lowering the risk of death.”

— A Shot of Fear: Flu Death Risk Often Exaggerated; So Is Benefit of Vaccine: As Vaccination Rates Rise, Flu Deaths Little Changed written by Lisa Schwartz, MD, Steve Woloshin, MD and H. Gilbert Welch, MD as a Special in the Washington Post, Oct 25, 2005, F4.
    They are the authors of the book Overdiagnosed: Making People Sick in the Pursuit of Health.

“Influenza vaccines have a very modest effect in reducing influenza symptoms and working days lost in the general population, including pregnant women,” concludes a review by the Cochrane Collaboration.

They note that “at least 40 people would need vaccination to avoid one [influenza-like illness] case… and 71 people would need vaccination to prevent one case of influenza. Vaccination shows no appreciable effect on working days lost or hospitalisation.”

They also note that “Over 200 viruses cause influenza and [influenza-like illness], producing the same symptoms (fever, headache, aches, pains, cough and runny noses). Without laboratory tests, doctors cannot distinguish between them as both last for days and rarely lead to death or serious illness. At best, vaccines may only be effective against influenza A and B, which represent about 10% of all circulating viruses.”

Their 2010 review on the same subject also noted that, “The review showed that reliable evidence on influenza vaccines is thin but there is evidence of widespread manipulation of conclusions and spurious notoriety of the studies.”

The 2010 review also noted that, “There is no evidence that they affect complications, such as pneumonia, or transmission [of the flu to other people].”