23 June 2013 (12:21 UTC-07 Tango)/14 Sha’ban 1434/02 Tir 1392/16 Wu-Wu (5th month) 4711

Researchers in Japan revealing a new way to get you to take those rarely effective flu shots, the Flu Patch.

The patch is made up of about 250 tiny needles around 0.8mm long.  The needles are not metal, but are a combination of compressed vaccines and hyaluronic acid.  The needles dissolve into your skin.

Researchers say testing is promising, with the usual reactions to vaccines.  What does that mean? They say 50% of their test subjects developed flu like symptoms, and/or redness and swelling around the vaccination area.  Mmmm, 50% is considered usual?

Creating a truly effective influenza vaccine is almost impossible, because flu is an RNA virus.   RNA viruses, like AIDS, evolve so fast that by the time a vaccine is developed it’s already out of date (the flu shot you get this year is actually based on last year’s flu, and not even all of the flus out there are covered).

Vaccines work well on DNA viruses, because they evolve very slowly.  The patch would be very useful to help fight DNA viruses.  The researchers say they’ve got another five to ten years of testing and refinement before their vaccine patch is ready.