Effectiveness of the children's flu vaccine

The NHS says: 

‘The children's flu vaccine aims to protect children against the most common types of flu viruses. 

There's still a chance your child might get flu after getting vaccinated, but they're less likely to get seriously ill or need to go to hospital. 

The vaccine usually takes up to 14 days to work. 

Protection from the flu vaccine goes down over time and the types of flu the vaccine protects against are updated each year. This is why it's important to get the flu vaccine every year.’ 

Doc Malik has written a lengthy deep-dive into the children’s flu vaccine, available here. He has also produced an accompanying podcast episode. 

Among other things, he notes: 

• The vaccine is described as being free, but it is actually paid for with our taxes. 
• The NHS doesn’t offer parents clear information about exactly how risky (or not risky) flu is for their child – despite government data being available. 
• Giving a child a vaccine to protect others is ethically questionable. 
• The three virus strains inside Fluenz are not fixed, they are swapped out every single year. This has implications for safety studies, both complete and ongoing, as the product is not the same each year. 
• Parents of asthmatic children should be particularly cautious about the vaccine. 

Doc Malik states: 

‘...when the government and health authorities talk about flu causing “complications” and “hospitalisation,” what they are actually describing, in their own data, is a risk to your child of just over one in 100,000 per year, and roughly half of even that small risk sits in children too young to be eligible for the nasal vaccine at all.’