CDC report says nasal flu vaccine ineffective

La Crosse County won’t carry vaccine

A nasal spray flu vaccine has been deemed ineffective by the Centers for Disease Control.

La Crosse’s health dept. will not carry the nasal vaccine this upcoming flu season because of its ineffectiveness.

“Initially the reports were showing it was as effective, if not more effective,” La Crosse County health director Jen Rombalski said. 

Two years after a federal advisory committee said that AstraZeneca’s FluMist — the only form of nasal spray flu vaccine on the market — was the “preferred” vaccine for kids, the same committee changed course on Wednesday and retracted that endorsement, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette wrote.

“We could not detect evidence that the [nasal spray] vaccine was working,” said Joseph Bresee, the chief of epidemiology and prevention with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Preventions’s flu division.

The CDC had a national team of experts review data from the last three years and they found FluMist was less and less effective, and did not work at all last flu season.

It is being recommended children 2-17 years of age not receive the nasal vaccine and should get shots, instead.