lesschumrahs – I wasn’t generalizing just based on her experience. She told me that she looked into it and found out that a certain percentage of people taking it will be harmed by it.
Additionally, I was taking into account that as you pointed out, the flu vaccine may not be that effective to begin with. I was also taking into account the fact that dying from the flu is not that common in my age group, ba”h, so I don’t think the potential benefits weighs highly enough against the risks (plus the time, energy and maybe money needed to get the vaccine), at least for me.
“Of all vaccines, flu is probably the least effective as it may end up not matching the actual flu strain”
I was only talking about flu vaccines, nothing else. But now that you mention it, wouldn’t it be likely that if there can bad effects from one type of vaccine, the same thing is likely to be true of other vaccines?
And in order to be worthwhile, it’s not really enough for the benefits to outweigh the risks – they have to outweigh them a lot. Let’s say the risk of dying of chicken pox c”v is as great as the risk of dying from the chicken pox vaccine or is even a drop more likely. It wouldn’t make sense to take the chicken pox vaccine since in the first case, you are not the one actively doing anything and in the second case, you are actively putting yourself at risk of something.
Note: I am not saying that there are any risks involved in taking the chicken pox vaccine. As I stated previously, I know nothing about it. It is quite possible that there are no known risks at all or that they are minimal compared to the benefits.