The Washington Post: MPH’s Schaffner advises adults to get vaccinated
Some adult vaccines are boosters, building your immunity against those illnesses. Others protect against diseases that are more common in adulthood. All adults should have these key vaccines, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: an annual flu shot; a Td booster every 10 years to ward off tetanus and diphtheria; a zoster vaccine at age 60 to guard against shingles; and the pneumococcal vaccine at age 65 to protect against a type of pneumonia. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, advises holding off until age 60 on the zoster vaccine, which protects against shingles. The infection occurs when a dormant chickenpox virus “wakes up,” causing a burning, stinging rash and nerve pain (postherpetic neuralgia, or PHN) that can linger long after the rash. The vaccine cuts shingles risk by half and the odds of PHN by almost 70 percent.