Question: “Are you giving the quadrivalent Flu vaccine this season?”

Answer: “…mmm, that doesn’t sound familiar, all of ours start with ‘F’”

This question/answer above recounts a verbatim conversation I just had this week at my primary care physician’s healthcare facility. I went in to get my annual influenza vaccine (#flushot), and I wondered if they were using the trivalent or quadrivalent there. This year’s quadrivalent has an additional B-type strain, and so far it’s been a good match against circulating strains in the Southern Hemisphere—Australia has had one of its absolute worst and deadliest flu seasons in history.

Why does this conversation snippet captured in the title of this article matter? Well, for one, it undermines all credibility to arrive at your PCP’s office to ask about a healthcare intervention and have them totally unaware of what they are administering. If I’m going to give this person the benefit of the doubt, he or she probably was thinking of the names of the flu vaccines—e.g.,
Fluarix, Fluzone, Flublock, etc.

Then, it got worse. The practitioner asked me if I was feeling feverish or under-the-weather prior to administering the shot. So far so good, since these are contraindications in some cases. But then the query free-wheeled into scientific nonsense with, “Are you taking any antibiotics?” So now I had to take pause. Where was this going? “…because, you know, when your immunity is trying to build with the flu shot, the antibiotics can mess that up by killing the cells.”

Stop. Right. There.
Outside of spending time at an intelligent design rally, listening to a speaker about the paranormal, while simultaneously taking a sham homeopathic supplement, I’ve never thought it was possible to cram so much unscientific nonsense into so few sentences. Antibiotics, if they’ve resolved a health condition (e.g., infection with fever), are not contraindicated with the flu vaccine, and neither do they ‘kill the cells’ which are manifesting your antibody response to the vaccine antigen.

This is the type of naïve discourse which leads people to think that the bastion of healthcare information exists on Facebook. A healthcare discussion at your PCP’s office shouldn’t be a fanciful jaunt into conjecture on erroneous microbiological and biochemical beliefs.

In the vaccine development and production world, new therapies can’t be devised with using the ingredients ‘hope’ and ‘belief.’ It takes empirical science, experimentation, and clinical trialing to develop, test, and produce safe and effective immunizations to benefit the public against existing and emerging threats. So why is it ok after the entire vaccine development and production lifecycle has iterated (over several years!) that when the treatment is facing the patient, they are offered personal beliefs and embarrassing uneducated hypotheses by healthcare practitioners?

Answer: It’s not ok. Just remember to be vigilant, because you are your own best advocate, and ignorance is out there. And by the way, this n = 1 anecdotal experience does not categorically indict the healthcare industry as a whole. Of course, if you have your own experiences, please share them below.

And P.S., get vaccinated—as long as it’s not specifically contraindicated for your health status. If you’re not among the 5,000-45,000 people in the U.S. who die every year from influenza and its complications, you can thank me. 

Addendum Pro Tip: This year’s live nasal spray vaccine is again, like last year, not recommended by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) because of lack of efficacy.

References and Further Reading on the Topic:

1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2017). Quadrivalent influenza vaccine. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/vaccine/quadrivalent.htm
2. Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (2017). ACIP recommendations. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/index.html
3. Baidawi, A. (2017). Why Australia wasn’t ready for a dangerous flu season. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/19/world/australia/flu-vaccination-deaths.html
4. Offitt, P. (2012). Deadly choices: How the anti-vaccine movement threatens us all. Basic Books.

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Ben Locwin

Ben Locwin, PhD, MBA, MS, MBB, is an international healthcare speaker, has been a long-time advocate for evidence-based medicine, and has advised and guided vaccine manufacturers, global immunization committees, and vaccine congresses on best scientific practice and principles for vaccine composition and schedules.