Flu Shots Or Not?

It sounded like agood idea when New York City'smayor,Rudollph Giuliani,advised New Yorkers recently to get a flu shot.Afterall,20,000 Americans each year die of

influenza. And thisyear in particular,the mayor suggested,getting a flu shot might be anespecially good idea, since it could help doctors distinguish between flu andthe

deadly inhalational（吸入的）form of anthrax（炭疽）.How? Both anthrax and flu exhibit strikingly similarsymptoms-fever, chills and muscle aches-in the early days of

theinfection.Physicians would be quick to suspect anthrax in anyone who wasvaccinated（接种疫苗）againstflu and still developed fever and chills. That would give them

a better chance toidentify any new victims of terror while their infection was still in itsearliest,most treatable stages.

Or so the mayor'sreasoning went. Unfortunately,there are a couple of problems with his log-ic.For one thing,getting vaccinated against influenza doesn't guarantee you won't

get sick .Al-thoughhighly effective,the flu vaccine（疫苗）protects against only the dominant types of the dis-ease and eventhen does not provide 100% protection.It takes

a couple of weeksfor your body to respond to the vaccine with a sufficient number of antibodies（抗体）.Each year thousands of

Americans who getthe vaccine nevertheless still get the flu.

There are alsoplenty of reasons you might develop fever,chills and muscle aches that havenothing to do with either anthrax or flu .Indeed,doctors estimate that morethan

80%of all flu-likeillnesses each winter are caused by other groups of viruses.Getting vaccinatedagainst flu can't protect you against suffering from these other illnesses.

In the worstcase,asking all healthy adults to get vaccinated could actually have theopposite effect to the one intended,leading to even more deaths if it means werun out of

shots for those whoare most vulnerable to the infection.Already there have been delays in gettingthis year's shipment of vaccine to clinics and doctor's offices.Those who

should be at thefront of the line in-clude folks who are 65 or older,nursing-home residents andadults and children with chronic health problems as well as anyone who cares

for or lives withsuch people .Flu shots are also im- portant for men and women whose immunesystem is weakened by HIV（艾滋病病毒）or other conditions.

The best reason toget the flu vaccine is that it proteets against most flus-not that you'reworried about getting anthrax.While inhalational anthrax has killed only fivepeople

so far,many morecould be at risk from flu-related complications.There's no need to worsen thetragedy by making this year's influenza epidemic any worse.Those who get theflu vaccine are surely protected form the disease.

A.Right

B. Wrong

C.Not mentioned