[alnorth]

All that said, there are some perfectly reasonable reasons not to get a flu shot if your healthy. I'm not even talking about paranoid fears of "danger", because thats just a laughable non-issue to me.

Some people hate shots and needles to the point where they would rather get sick than get stuck. Fine, in that case they really arent getting a benefit.

Some people may look at this as a cost-benefit economic issue. The cost: about $29, and the hassle of making time to chase down a shot in some clinic, then dealing with the needle, etc. The benefit: You are roughly 50-75% less likely to get the flu, but without the shot just from the luck of the draw you can probably avoid the flu at least half the time unless you are around large groups of germ-ridden kids or sick people. When you dont get the flu in a given year, its not usually because your immune system is simply terrific, its usually because you just didnt get the virus at all that year. Its not automatic that youll get the virus every year, so some years the shot is a waste of time and money. When you do get the shot and dont get sick, you wont really know if the shot helped, you may not have even gotten the virus. On top of that, some years the CDC guesses wrong and a different flu strain comes over.

So, at best, if your a teacher who gets exposed to all the bugs every single year, getting the shot can help you not get sick when you otherwise would have every other year. For most people its only once every 3 years it saves you from 3 or 4 days of flu.

So, there's that potential of it being a waste of money, plus some people arent bothered by the flu as much. Not necessarily because they have fewer symptoms, but just they have a higher pain/sick tolerance and can "tough it out" more than some people. To them, that $29 shot is not worth as much as someone who gets laid out on the couch for 3 days.

For me the shot is basically free (work pays for it) and convenient (shot given at work), plus I hate being sick so its worth it, but it might not be for someone who is always busy, money is tight, and the flu doesnt bother them.