Pentagon Makes Flu Shots Optional as WHO Warns of Ongoing Threat
It turns out the last flu vaccine was a dud.
Some good news for our troops, in terms of real choices they can make for their personal health.
The War Department has ended its long‑standing requirement that U.S. service members receive an annual flu shot, making the influenza vaccine voluntary instead of mandatory for most troops and many civilian personnel.
War Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the end of the Pentagon’s long-running flu vaccine mandate for US troops.
“The War Department is once again restoring freedom to our Joint Force,” Hegseth announced in an X post, linking to a video statement of his signing the new policy.
“We are discarding the mandatory flu vaccine requirement, effective immediately.”
Hegseth said service members would no longer be forced to take the annual flu shot, and instead could decide for themselves whether it was in their best interest, casting the move as part of a broader rollback of what he called overly aggressive medical mandates imposed under the Biden administration.
The War Department is once again restoring freedom to our Joint Force.
We are discarding the mandatory flu vaccine requirement, effective immediately. pic.twitter.com/9K5W8g0NsD
— Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (@SecWar) April 21, 2026
This move follows a May 2025 memo outlining a policy shift to make the vaccine optional rather than mandatory.
In a May 29, 2025, memo, Deputy Secretary of Defense Steve Feinberg wrote that the department would “conserve its resources by requiring seasonal flu vaccination for service members only when doing so most directly contributes to readiness.”
The directive states that only reserve troops activated for at least 30 days would be required to receive flu shots, and the Pentagon would no longer pay reservists or members of the National Guard for their time spent getting the vaccine on their own.
It’s probably good that the War Department is giving our service members a choice. It turns out the last flu vaccine was a dud.
A new strain that dominated the early winter was not well matched to the vaccine, leading to an intense early onslaught of flu.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday posted data that showed a continued decline in doctor’s office and hospital visits for flu symptoms through last week. The number of states reporting high flu activity dropped to 16, many of them in a belt stretching from Colorado to Virginia.
“The winter respiratory virus season is slowly coming to a close, and we’re all very grateful for that,” said Dr. William Schaffner, a Vanderbilt University vaccine expert.
This season’s vaccines were around 25% to 30% effective in preventing adults from getting sick enough from the flu that they had to go to a doctor’s office, clinic or hospital, according to a CDC report this week. Children who were vaccinated were about 40% less likely to get treatment at a doctor’s office or hospital.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) is revving up its recommendations for the next flu season.
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced its updated recommendations for the 2026-2027 Northern Hemisphere seasonal flu vaccine on Friday, a critical adjustment driven by the rapid global dominance of a new A(H3N2) variant known as subclade K.
Following four days of intense consultation by the Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System (GISRS), experts finalized the flu vaccine composition to ensure it matches circulating threats.
While announcing these seasonal updates at a press conference on Friday, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s Director ad interim for Epidemic and Pandemic Management, pointed to the broader danger of respiratory viruses, warning that “the threat of an influenza pandemic is real and everpresent”.
She emphasized the critical need for flu vaccination to protect against severe disease and death.
In light of these developments, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the War Department’s new approach to flu shots is both overdue and welcome: after years of top‑down “for your own good” mandates tied to a vaccine that, this season, significantly underperformed against a fast‑moving strain, our troops are finally being treated as adults capable of weighing the risks and benefits of an optional medical intervention for themselves.
This will be an effective counter to global health bureaucrats doubling down on ever‑more‑urgent calls for updated formulations and broader uptake.
The stark contrast between centralized public‑health edicts and a renewed American respect for individual choice and informed consent within the ranks has never been clearer.
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Comments
Flu shots have been linked with an increase in dementia along with the pneumonia vaccine
Something is causing sky rocket numbers of Alzheimer’s and autism
Mass vaccines , what could go wrong
And what have we done to ourselves?
I was in the Army from 1978 to 1999 and was required to take the flue shot every year. Aside from a bout with food poisoning after a trip to Mexico while stationed at Ft. Huachuca, the only times I got seriously ill in that time was within a week of getting that required jab. Not every time, certainly, but three times out of four is more than just chance.
Since I retired in 1999, I haven’t had a flu shot, despite the urgings of my doctor and the national chain pharmacies touting “free flu shots”, and I haven’t gotten sick, either. And I retired a second time rather than let my employer dictate my medical treatment during the COVID scare. I didn’t get sick with that, either.
I applaud this move, though I can’t agree the flu vaccine mandate was an artifact of the Biden administration.
“In 1986, Ronald Reagan signed into law the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA). This law created immunity for pharmaceutical companies from lawsuit over claims from vaccine injury.”
Repeal this law and much of this malignant cult of vaccines will disappear.
No, I’m not anti-vaxx. There is a core of 6 or 8 decades-old, tried and true vaccines that have meta study safety and reliability for public health.
But when my youngest grandsons are currently up against a CDC recommended FOUR DOZEN childhood vaccines over the next few years of their early lives – THAT is a malignant cult of vaccines.
Fortunately, their parents are wise enough to say, “Like hell they are! Just the basics, Doc”.
My daughter too but too late for her 8 year old oldest
By 4 they got yeah, but the younger one has escaped many of them
She herself is allergic to pertussis and infact had a horrible reaction to mandated Hep B in 7 th grade. She was sick for 2 years and still has effects that I believe have caused her autoimmune problems
like the EO,/hate crimes ,giving immunity is just another political move that hurts the middle class and civility as it sanctifies the caste system
When they started running ads pushing cervical cancer vaccines to pre-teen BOYS, I began to suspect it might not all be about health risks. Side-hugs my *ss.
The military has had research for some time that shows that troops who take the flu shot are more susceptible to getting sick from colds. I will try to find this research again and post it.
lefty making their big pharma partners more wealthy would be the correct pr agenda
how did pfizer “settle” with 3 other drug manufactures to allow Pfizers drug to not be challenged in the free market???
https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-reaches-three-settlement-agreements-vyndamax
dont get me wrong..not knowing anything else about this ,,it appears that the free market is at work,,,again,,unless something nefarious is going on behind the scenes in our mostly ( completely?) socialist economy
Never had a flue shot, never will. I rarely get sick. And that’s at most a one day think. Except for my second Wuhan virus shot. Couldn’t eat for two days. Not even drink coffee, which posed more of a danger to others.
The flu is not the threat, the WHO is.
The WHO is pretty much Townsville and Daltrey now
..😄😅But not Don Felder so much 😄😅
I get the flu shot every year. I never have had a problem with it. I will continue to get it as long as it is not based on mRNA technology. I don’t think that is ready for prime time and may never be ready.
Even at best it’s a total crapshoot. They get together at the end of every flu season to guess which variant is going to strike next season, so they can prepare the vaccine in time. If they guess the wrong variant, you may as well be shooting up Karo syrup.
I think I’ve had one flu shot in my life, as a kid. Had flu maybe twice before age 18, then never again. Everybody’s body chemistry is different, certainly, but I’ve given mine a longer trial period than any flu vaccine they offer.
I’ve gotten the flu pre-shot a number of times. Whenever I got it I had it bad. Since getting the flu shot I haven’t gotten the flu. Coincidence? Who knows. I have c=morbidities so it is better I get the flu shot and it works.
The flu shot cannot give you the flu. That said as pointed out above, you are statistically more likely to get the flu- some variety other then what was in the shot- or a flu like illness in the 10 days following the shot then someone who didn’t take it. This apparently, has been both well known for some time and completely ignored by the medical establishment. Why? Probably a combination of a lot of reasons. I have refused flu shots since I refused the covid shot- and was treated worse then a criminal for doing so. The beginning of the covidiocy is when I became aware of the flu shot statistics. Statistics tell you the truth- but only if you have the truthful statistics.
At 70 I’m old enough to have had all the standard childhood diseases before there were vaccines. The polio vaccine came out while I was young. One of my early childhood memories is that when the Sabin oral polio vaccine served on a sugar cube was first introduced into my town my family was the first in line that Saturday to get it. Not near the beginning of the line- the first. My 2 year older sister had a mild bout of polio before the vaccine came out.
With the information now available, I have a lot of questions about the childhood vaccination schedule. And one very firm opinion- HEP B vaccine should not be administered to all infants. Look at how it’s transmitted then try to justify it.
The measles vaccine is the one I have the most questions about. From what I’ve read, the death rate from the vaccine is roughly the same as the death rate from measles itself. Measles kills (mostly) unhealthy children. The measles vaccine appears to kill both otherwise healthy and unhealthy children. There doesn’t appear to be a positive risk-reward ration. And having had measles,, it’s really not that bad. Chickenpox is a lot worse. And if you get measles- or the vaccine- you want to get them before any other childhood diseases. Measles wipes out immune system memory. I don’t know if the vaccine does. So I wonder if we should go back to holding measles parties (yes, I went to one or two) or continue to vaccinate all (or most) children. It wasn’t known when I had it that high dose Vitamin A reduced symptoms and severity of measles. Perhaps allowing children to get measles with the Vitamin A supplement immediately upon diagnosis would be safer then the vaccine.
By the way, if you do look at the recent deaths attributed to measles in the USA- they were all of children who were unhealthy to begin with. Unhealthy for different reasons, not just one thing. Being a sickly child is dangerous.