I've been forgoing the flu vax because of some sort of reaction to it a couple years running - I had never been so extremely sick with flu symptoms (or actual f

I've been forgoing the flu vax because of some sort of reaction to it a couple years running - I had never been so extremely sick with flu symptoms (or actual flu, I don't know for sure) then after taking annual flu shots. Now, I skip the flu vax and keep up on all other vaccines - so neither side is happy with me. When I looked into it, the thing that bothers me about the flu vaccines vs most other vaccine formulations is that the flu vaccine is basically constructed every year as new from a mixture of flu strains. While they do have safety monitoring systems, and the way of replicating them is the same, the core portion is new. The safety monitoring is basically keep track of reports of side effects and try to detect if too many hit a warning threshhold. So between that, and my past experiences, I pass too. For the other vaccines, I think I agree with especially school requirements for a standard set of vaccinations. I think that in CA they should go a bit further and limit ratios of students accepted with waivers at individual schools if it brings the numbers below that of needed for herd immunity benefits. Edit: For the flu shots, it seems from my layman's reading of the literature that their efficacy is low and highly variant compared to other vaccines, enough that there is no consistent herd immunity to be gained from current flu formulations.