Myth Buster: Do You Still Need Vaccinations?

Myth: Vaccinations are for kids.

Facts: Most of us line up for flu shots once a year and consider ourselves well protected. That’s a big mistake, say public health experts. Each year some 50,000 adults die from vaccine-preventable diseases or complications of those diseases.

Every adult over 50 should get an influenza vaccine in the fall, before flu season starts roaring, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Each of us also needs a booster of the vaccine against tetanus and diphtheria every 10 years. If you’re younger than 65, one of those boosters should be the so-called Tdap, which wards off pertussis, also known as whooping cough. “This is not only for your own protection, but for those around you,” says Gina Mootrey, associate director for adult immunization at the CDC. In an adult, pertussis may seem like a very bad, long-lasting cold, but it can kill children. “So many adults are caretakers for young children, the vaccine protects the most vulnerable,” she says.

The pneumococcal vaccine, recommended for everyone over 65 and certain adults under 65—in particular, cigarette smokers—defends your body from a bacterium that causes thousands of meningitis cases, some 50,000 bloodstream infections and half a million cases of pneumonia every year.

Adults over 60 also need the herpes zoster vaccine to prevent shingles. “That’s a new vaccine,” Mootrey says, and very important. After a bout of shingles, she says, some people develop “postherpetic neuralgia, which can make them become almost recluses because the touch of clothing or the feel of wind against their skin can be so painful.”

If you were born after 1956, you may also need a vaccine to protect against measles, mumps and rubella.

Other inoculations, such as the hepatitis A vaccine, are recommended for some overseas travelers, health care workers and people with certain behavioral or occupational risks.

“We find that the number one reason adults don’t get vaccinated is because they don’t know they’re at risk,” says Mootrey. “They don’t know it’s recommended for them.”

To find out what shots you may be due for, visit the CDC’s Adult Immunization Schedule.