Why do people get flu shots? Because they believe the advice of their doctors and health agencies who recommend the vaccines for most everyone, young and old.

Yet, many people are not aware of the real facts behind flu shots -- and their potential ineffectiveness, side effects, and harmful additives.

While it’s possible to find some positive data about flu shots, there is a significant amount of data from both mainstream medical journals and alternative media sources that question flu shots’ usefulness and efficacy. For instance:

• "We‘ve got an exaggerated expectation of what vaccines can actually do," said one study author, Dr. Tom Jefferson... "I‘m hoping American and European taxpayers will be alerted and will start asking questions."

• A study in The Lancet found that even among people for whom the vaccine is most recommended (the elderly), protection can be as low as 30 percent.

• Only 36,000 Americans die from the flu infection each year, yet an average of 195,000 Americans have died each year from 2000 to 2002 due to potentially preventable, in-hospital medical errors. This means that “over five times as many people will die because they happen to be in the hospital and are unlucky enough to experience a preventable error, than will die from getting the flu, if the vaccine itself doesn’t put them in the hospital.”