Madison Czopek, PolitiFact
For mother and father of school-aged kids, the autumn to-do checklist can appear ever-growing. Buy faculty provides. Fill out countless faculty types. Block off parent-teacher nights. Do the children’ tennis sneakers nonetheless match?
Somewhere, in some unspecified time in the future, you would possibly keep in mind flu photographs. Get your flu shot. Get their flu photographs. Or do you have to? Can you? Is that also a factor?
Amid political chatter about vaccines and the federal government entities that oversee them, it’s comprehensible to surprise the place all this leaves the 2025-26 flu vaccine.
In brief: Yes, the flu shot continues to be a factor. And 4 medical doctors we spoke to stated they suggest you get your flu shot this 12 months. (See the supply checklist beneath this text.)
Here are some solutions to frequent questions:
Q: I heard the Trump administration might be altering vaccine suggestions. Does that apply to the flu vaccine?
There have been no substantial adjustments to the federal authorities’s flu vaccine suggestion: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still says that individuals 6 months old and up ought to get an annual flu vaccine.
That means most insurers will cowl it, and it ought to quickly be broadly out there.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has opposed vaccines, agreed that most people should get the flu vaccine. He adopted a suggestion from the board that advises the federal authorities on vaccine coverage; Kennedy changed the members along with his personal.
The panel voted in opposition to recommending multidose flu photographs that contained the preservative thimerosal, however the preservative had already been removed from most vaccines, together with most flu photographs.
Q: Who mustn’t get the flu shot?
Doctors acknowledged there are at all times exceptions to broad steerage. For instance, folks with severe allergies to flu vaccine elements mustn’t get vaccines that comprise these elements.
You ought to talk about your well being state of affairs along with your doctor for personalised steerage.
Q: Is this season’s flu shot totally different from final season’s?
Yes. The flu shot was up to date for the upcoming flu season, however the adjustments weren’t drastic. Like final 12 months’s flu shot, this 12 months’s vaccine is named a three-component or trivalent vaccine that protects in opposition to three influenza viruses — two influenza A viruses and one influenza B virus.
This season’s vaccine was altered to focus on a selected pressure of the influenza A/H3N2 virus anticipated to flow into this season, stated Ryan Maves, a professor of drugs at Wake Forest University and a member of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Those changes align with what the World Health Organization has recommended.
Q: When is the perfect time to get vaccinated?
September, October, or early November. This permits your physique time to build up its protecting antibodies as flu season begins and ensures your safety doesn’t wane earlier than it ends.
In the U.S., influenza an infection sometimes peaks in February, so that you wish to be sure to’re vaccinated and your safety continues to be sturdy by means of February and into March, stated William Schaffner, a professor of infectious ailments at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Q: Is this season’s flu vaccine assured to guard in opposition to the influenza pressure that’s circulating?
Guarantee all safety? No.
Reduce danger of dying? Yes.
Similar to the covid-19 vaccine, flu vaccines are finest at “protecting us from the most severe consequences of influenza,” Schaffner stated. That means the flu vaccine is simplest at retaining folks out of the hospital or the intensive care unit and retaining folks from dying.
“A flu vaccine may not guarantee perfect protection against the flu, but skipping your flu shot simply guarantees you’ll have no protection at all,” stated Benjamin Lee, a pediatric infectious ailments doctor on the University of Vermont Children’s Hospital and an affiliate professor on the University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine.
Q: Will the flu shot be available this 12 months?
All indicators level to sure.
The FDA handed its components suggestions to vaccine producers March 13 — early sufficient that the company anticipated there could be “an adequate and diverse supply.” The folks and locations that administer flu photographs ought to have them quickly, sometimes starting in September, stated Flor Muñoz, a Baylor College of Medicine affiliate professor of pediatrics and infectious ailments.
Q: I heard Kennedy canceled $500 million in funding for vaccine improvement. Could this have an effect on future flu vaccines?
Kennedy introduced the cancellation of funding for mRNA vaccine improvement. Some firms have been researching combined mRNA flu and covid photographs, however there are at the moment no authorised mRNA flu vaccines.
Still, specialists stated the federal authorities’s adjustments — funding cuts, vaccine committee purges, deviations from current procedures — are rising uncertainty.
SOURCES
Interview with Flor Muñoz, an affiliate professor of pediatrics and infectious ailments at Baylor College of Medicine, Aug. 4, 2025.
Interview with Ryan Maves, a professor of drugs at Wake Forest University and the medical director of the transplant Infectious Diseases Program at Wake Forest University, Aug. 4, 2025.
Interview with William Schaffner, a professor of infectious ailments at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Aug. 4, 2025.
Email interview with Benjamin Lee, a pediatric infectious ailments doctor on the University of Vermont Children’s Hospital and an affiliate professor on the University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine, Aug. 3, 2025.
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