Vaccinations Archive

Now that flu season is here you may be scheduling your annual vaccination against influenza. But this can also be a good time see if all of your shots are up to date. It's important, since immunization to disease doesn't last a lifetime.

"Pretty much everything gets weaker as we age—our joints, heart, lungs, kidneys, brain. The same thing happens to our immune system," explains Dr. Paul Sax, clinical director of the division of infectious diseases at Brigham and Women's Hospital and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Older people still need immunizations, including vaccines against pneumonia; influenza; tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis (every 10 years); and possibly shingles.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revises its immunization guidelines every year, and there are some changes for 2011, in particular ones that apply to people at middle age or older.

For people who have had shingles, the question of whether or not to get the vaccine to prevent a recurrence is not easily answered.

For many men, vaccinations are kids' stuff. Indeed, most immunizations are designed for children, and most new vaccines are headed for pediatric offices and clinics; the newly approved rotavirus vaccine, which will prevent many cases of childhood diarrhea, is an example. But infections strike people of all ages, and immunizations are important for adults, too.

Aside from travelers and people with special needs and vulnerabilities, healthy adults have had only three vaccines to keep track of: For everyone over 50, a flu shot every fall; for everyone at age 65, a pneumococcal pneumonia shot; and for all of us, a tetanus-diphtheria (Td) booster every 10 years. But two new vaccines have joined the list.

A new vaccine promises to save lives, but won't replace the Pap test.

Cervical cancer once killed many American women — mothers, daughters, and wives. But over the past 30 years, the number of cervical cancer deaths in the United States has dropped by half. Today, fewer than 4,000 American women die each year from the disease.