In Britain, it's called a jab. Here, we usually refer to a vaccine "shot." But whatever, the vaccination is a valuable life-long essential for preventive health care. 

Vaccines have received an unfair rap from some fear mongerers. Vaccines do NOT cause autism in children, at least there's no more evidence for a vaccine/autism link than there is for a link between autism and the phases of the moon. (As a parent of an autistic child, I have a keen interest in its causes.)

For adults, most of us know about the annual flu shot, but there is also a short list of other vaccines -- most of them a one-shot-for-life deal -- that are quite useful.  Here it is: 

• Shingles vaccine once after age 60. This is for everyone unless you're taking immune-suppressing drugs or have some other unusual condition. (The recommendation used to be only for adults who had chicken pox as a kid. Shingles is caused by the same virus.)
• Annual influenza vaccine.  (Again, this is for all adults. It used to be recommended only after age 65.) 
• Pneumococcus vaccine, once after age 65 (if not previously vaccinated).
• Whooping cough vaccine.  Once as an adult, often combined with the tetanus and diphtheria vaccines. (Tetanus needs a booster every 10 years.)  You especially need the whooping cough (pertussis) vaccine if you're older and exposed to children under age one.  That means you, grandma and grandpa.
• Measles-Mumps-Rubella: At least one dose if you were born in 1957 or later. 
• Human papilloma virus. (This paragraph is mostly for parents and grandparents advising pubescent youngsters.) This vaccine is to prevent cervical cancer which is often caused by HPV infection. But since the vaccine only works if you've never been exposed to the HPV virus, the patient needs the shot before first sexual activity, which is why it's recommended for young teen-agers.  

See further authoritative advice on adult vaccinations from the Centers for Disease Control here.  And if you want a table of best advice for vaccine recommendations for children up to age 18, click here.

Notice how I put the shingles vaccination at the top of this list? That's because it's often neglected but can be the single easiest misery-preventive step you can take right now.  

I got a shingles vaccine shot a few months back, and even though my insurance didn't cover it, and it was fairly expensive ($200), the money was well spent. Read more about this important vaccine in our August 2010 newsletter here.

Here is a sampler of some of our recent posts on our patient safety blog that might interest you.

Tried and True Beats the New in Medical Devices, Yet Again: The new latest and greatest designs in hip replacements have a significantly higher failure rate than older designs.  Consumers need to understand that unlike the market for electronic toys and gizmos, in the health care field, newer designs can be slow to reveal their flaws, and in the meantime, patients who are early adopters are the guinea pigs. 

Our Nation's Hidden Elderly Deaths Scandal: It's frightfully easy to cover up a suspicious cause of death of an elderly person. The national lack of autopsies in all age groups is especially problematic when an elderly person dies outside a hospital. This article summarizes a special ProPublica and PBS Frontline investigation.

What Psychotherapy Won't Fix: A short guide to those aches and pains of the heart that psychotherapy can't help with, and those it can. 

Doing Hospital Care in the Home: This is going to be an important trend as the U.S. health care system struggles to make its care safer and more cost-effective. Unless a patient really needs intense, round-the-clock monitoring and ministrations, most hospital care can be better provided at home.  The problem right now is that new federal rules that are supposed to guide how this new kind of hospital-at-home care is provided are not yet ready for publication.