I get the flu almost each year and I get it badly. Usually when I get a flu shot I don’t get – or at least not as bad. When I forget the vaccination I am always close to getting hospitalized, because the flu really knocks me down.

Modern Medicine is not perfect, but preferable over NO medicine at all. Vaccinations do help – people should stop their often irrational resistance, because at the end of the day they will run to their doctors and get treatment when it’s already to late …

The flu is virus we will battle for a long time and vaccinations are helping you to fight it BETTER.

UPDATE (after I got some flak):

Let me rephrase my point. The flu – or any – vaccination is "risky" by it’s very definition – it’s an weakened or even live form of the bacteria or virus. This is meant as a training exercise for your bodies anti-immune system to build anti-bodies for that particular bug.

Basically the process is designed to make you "mini-sick", so you can form anti-bodies. (I know that vaccinations are bit more complex than that.)

This is of course "risky" – just as getting the flu is "risky" as well. but doing nothing is also "risky".

The question is: Is a calculated and controlled risk better than facing the chance of the full impact of the flu?

We all do not react the same to a "medicine" and our bodies often contain many chemical (either induced willingly like alcohol, drugs or certain) that can cause unexpected and bad reactions.

But I think that the small risk of a vaccination outweighs the negative risk of side effects or the full impact of the flu.