A 2014 Vaccine poll reported that 43% of respondents would not get the vaccine because they believed it would cause influenza, but physicians are breaking down the myth and urging their patients to get the influenza vaccine.
“That’s fallacious reasoning,” William Schaffner, MD, professor of preventive medicine and medicine, Vanderbilt University, and medical director, National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, said of the Vaccine survey. “There have been many studies that have shown there is no association of consequences to the flu vaccine.”
Healio Family Medicine asked Schaffner, who is also an Infectious Disease News Editorial Board member, and Jennifer Caudle, DO, board-certified family physician and associate professor of family medicine, Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine, Stratford, New Jersey, for suggestions on how primary care physicians can discuss and dispel this myth with their patients.
