That's a little early for our area. "Usually, our influenza
season seems to start with Thanksgiving," says Dr. Brobson Lutz,
with the Orleans Parish Medical Society. "We get a little
increase in influenza around Thanksgiving when students from up
north come back for the holiday. But, typically, our cases
really start in late December or January." Still, he says now is
the time to get that flu shot. "You need two to three weeks for
that anti-body to build up," says Lutz. He says it's a good idea
to get the influenza vaccine annually. "It's usually a little
bit different every year. So, if you get it every year, that's
just like putting money into your immunological bank." Flu
strains that circulated in the Southern Hemisphere influenced
the contents of the U.S. vaccine, which includes the 2009 H1N1
plus new variants of Influenza A and Influenza B which haven't
been seen recently. Lutz says that's where that 'immunological
bank comes into play. It's possible that a flu shot taken in
2009 may still provide some