Sorry, children — your pediatrician wants you to get a flu shot, not nasal spray vaccine

Sorry, little one, this news is going to pinch for a couple of seconds: This year’s flu vaccine probably will have to come in the form of a shot, not those two little puffs up the nose. Because when it comes to preventing the misery of the flu, that nasal spray vaccine has proved to be a bit of a flop.

No, the adults don’t really know why. But when they went back over the last three flu seasons and did the math, they found that kids between 2 and 17 who got the vaccine made with live attenuated virus — the puff up the nose — were 2 times more likely than children who got the shot (which uses an inactivated virus to teach the immune system) to get sick with the flu.

So for the coming year, at least, the American Academy of Pediatrics is recommending that FluMist “should not be used in any setting.”

About a third of kids who got vaccinated against the flu in recent years were able to avoid the prick of a needle by getting the nasal spray instead.

But in the end, calculations cited Tuesday in the journal Pediatrics showed that FluMist didn’t give any protection against the flu

That’s bad because every year, some children get really sick from influenza. Last year, the American Academy of Pediatrics said, at least 85 kids died after catching one of two strains of flu virus that circulated throughout the season.

People tend to think that only children who have other illnesses — such as cancer or heart problems or asthma or diabetes — die of flu. But last year, half of the children who died of flu didn’t have any such diseases.

That’s why the pediatricians’ group is saying anyone older than 6 months — no exceptions — should be getting vaccinated against flu this year. And so should the people who are around children all the time or who care for them.