Should we, perhaps, be questioning whether it makes sense to vaccinate against things we can overcome in a few days without harm ?
Of course I am speaking of otherwise healthy adults, and YMMV.
We're all pretty used to it so it doesn't seem like a big deal but it's actually very dangerous.
There's actually a lot of controversy around these numbers, with the CDC itself acknowledging that it's challenging to truly know for a number of reasons [1].
Here's a pretty remarkable quote from that page:
>"most people who die from seasonal flu-related complications are not tested for flu, or they seek medical care later in their illness when seasonal influenza can no longer be detected from respiratory samples"
So, it's really tough to know. As a result, some allege that the estimates are inflated as part of the campaign to ensure vaccination.
[1] http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease/us_flu-related_deaths.h...
Pertussis is similar. Adults are highly unlikely to die from whooping cough, but it kills millions of kids every year. So as an adult, you should get the tdap booster at least every ten years.
For almost everyone these are painless shots with no side-effects, typically covered by insurance, and at least in the US, often available at the pharmacy, no appointment neeeded.
The impact is spreading the flu to potentially a huge number of people. Some of those people may ultimately die from the flu that you gave them, and that's a big deal.
At $25/shot it seems unlikely that the vaccine costs more. The fact that my HMO gives it away for free suggests that they think it's a net financial gain to vaccinate, and they don't even see the costs from lost productivity.
You assume nobody asked the question. Perhaps it has been asked and answered "yes."