HEALTH & WELLBEING
Adjuvanted flu vaccine, Fluad, approval extended to Australians aged 50 and over
Fluad, an adjuvanted influenza( flu) vaccine, has now been approved for Australians aged 50 and over, expanding access to additional protection against seasonal flu.
Since 2018, Fluad has been funded under the National Immunisation Program for adults aged 65 and over, with millions of Australians receiving the vaccine free each year. The expanded approval recognises that people from mid-life may face an increased risk of severe illness.
From around the age of 50, the immune system begins to change, and the likelihood of underlying health conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular and respiratory disease increases. These factors can raise the risk of catching the flu and experiencing serious complications. At the same time, the body’ s response to vaccines may not be as strong as in younger people.
Each year in Australia, influenza is estimated to cause more than 13,500 hospitalisations and over 3,000 deaths among adults aged 50 and over. Despite this, vaccination rates remain relatively low, with only around one in three Australians aged 50 – 64 vaccinated in 2025.
Public Health Physician and GP Professor Paul Van Buynder said many people underestimate their risk.“ If you’ re over 50, your immune system has changed – even if your lifestyle hasn’ t. Catching flu could mean hospitalisation or worse,” he said.
Dr Nick Coatsworth from Patients Australia added that flu should not be dismissed.“ There’ s really no such thing as‘ just the flu’. Even a mild case can leave you unwell for weeks and disrupt work and family life,” he said.
CSL Seqirus Vaccines Medical Director Dr Jules Bayliss welcomed the broader access, saying it supports efforts to reduce the impact of flu on families, communities and the health system.
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Most people coming to the clinic with shoulder problems respond well to muscle elongation therapy, however rarely people fail to respond as well. Here ongoing shoulder pain may not be driven only by an original injury. On such occasions gut-derived autoimmune / inflammatory processes should be considered as a possible contributor.
Recently a patient presented with two sore shoulders, brought on by workers-comp pre-return-to-work shoulder-strength testing. Ultrasounds showed evidence of bursitis, slight shoulder-tendons‘ wear & tear’, pain in the front of both shoulders; extremely limited range-of-motion‘’ especially of the left.
The patient received physical therapy for several weeks with minimal improvement. She was advised that the inflammatory processes in her shoulders may be being exacerbated by components in her diet. Initially, not keen to make suggested dietary changes,, and within one week, achieved almost full range-of-motion. Why might dietary change help sometimes? The patient history showed a previous but unrelated work injury requiring years of pain-medication. Long term intake of such medications may lead to compromised integrity( leakiness) of the intestinal lining. This allows immune-stimulating proteins from foods such as grains and milk(& even whole microbes) to leak across to where immune cells reside. Immune cells see such foreign proteins and microbes as signs of danger and become activated. They enter the blood stream, migrate to other sites of injury, and produce large amounts of inflammatory mediators that augment local inflammation increasing pain at those sites.
For this client, her strenuous shoulder-strength-tests likely caused some local injury. Once such local shoulder inflammation began, it attracted circulating and activated gut-derived immune cells. These cells then exacerbated the local shoulder inflammation and prevented the shoulder tissues from moving from the‘ inflammatory-phase’ into the‘ repair & resolution’ phase of the healing process.
In this case dietary change likely reduced exposure of gut-immunecells to immune stimulating proteins, resulting in a relatively quick reduction in shoulders pain. So, if you have unresolved shoulder( or neck) pain, you may want to consider the impact of your diet. Feel free to give Andreas a call at the clinic to discuss your issues.
22 ISSUE 191 // APRIL 2026 theindependentmagazine. com. au THE HAWKESBURY INDEPENDENT