Kids' Flu Shot Largely Ineffective Over Past Few Years

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Dr. William Schaffner, department chairman of the division of infectious disease and professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University, noted that to be fully protected, young children need two doses of flu vaccine, which many don't get.

"Adults have had much more experience with both influenza and influenza vaccine," Schaffner added. "The likelihood that the vaccine is going to give you a boost in immunity is stronger in adults than it is in children," he said.

Schaffner noted that over the past 20 years, the match between the vaccine and the circulating flu virus has generally been good.

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"In about four-fifths of the time, the experts have been pretty much on target, including the appropriate material in the vaccine. Occasionally, because the flu is fickle, it outfoxes those of us who select what's going to be in the vaccine," Schaffner said.

As for the coming flu season, the CDC in September announced that it was "optimistic" that the vaccine created this time around will be a closer match to circulating viruses.

"It's not a great vaccine, [but] it's a good vaccine. The best tool we have is the influenza vaccine -- recognizing that every once in a while, getting your influenza vaccine is not going to give you perfect protection," he said.

And any protection may be vital, according to the study in Pediatrics. In that work, researchers at the CDC analyzed data on pediatric flu deaths from the 2004-2005 season through to the 2006-2007 season.

They found that the number of kids who died of the flu over the three seasons rose from 47 and 46 in the first two years, to 73 in the 2006-2007 season. Many of the deaths were attributed to tough-to-treat staph infections. More than half of the children who died were between 5 and 17 years of age and had previously been healthy, the team noted.

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