"Every year before influenza itself arrives to circulate, misinformation and misconceptions about the flu vaccine begin circulating. Some of these contain a grain of truth but end up distorted, like a whispered secret in the Telephone game."

"But if you're looking for an excuse not to get the flu vaccine, last year's numbers of its effectiveness would seem a convincing argument on their own. By all measures, last season's flu vaccine flopped, clocking in at about 23 percent effectiveness in preventing lab-confirmed influenza infections."

"But that's not the whole story, said Lisa Grohskopf, a medical officer in the influenza division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."

"'Twenty-three is better than zero, but the 23 percent was overall. If you were one of the people who got an influenza B strain, it was closer to 60 percent,' she said. 'Even if it's not going to work against one virus very well, there are other viruses circulating.'"