Flu Vaccine Safety

"study... suggesting that people vaccinated against seasonal flu are twice as likely to catch swine flu"  "British Columbia announced Monday that it is suspending seasonal flu shots for anyone under 65 years old, joining Quebec, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Nova Scotia in halting the immunizations."  "Roy Wadia, spokesman for the B.C. Center for Disease Control. Rubinstein, who has read the study, said it appears sound. 'There are a large number of authors, all of them excellent and credible researchers,' he said. 'And the sample size is very large ? 12 or 13 million people taken from the central reporting systems in three provinces. The research is solid.' "

"Even if the statistical link is proven, the medical link between seasonal flu shots and H1N1 remains mysterious. One hypothesis suggests seasonal flu vaccine preoccupies the cells that would otherwise produce antibodies against H1N1. But, according to Rubinstein, the research shows that people who received the seasonal shot during the 2007-08 flu season remained vulnerable to swine flu well into 2009, an interval that should provide most immune systems ample restoration time."

"We don't understand the mechanism," Rubinstein said.  OMGoodness, Dr. Rubinstein said that in public?

"Researchers in the United States, Britain and Australia have not reported the same phenomenon."  While the US media pushes for us all to get the seasonal flu and H1N1 vaccines as quickly as possible, several of Canada's provinces are taking a more strategic approach, one that seems far more reasoned to me.  Our scientists aren't reporting the same?  Well, that may simply mean they aren't tracking the information as can far more easily be done in a country with broad public health coverage like Canada.

Should you get either of these vaccines?  It depends...

When people tell you the flu vaccine "reduces mortality by 50 per cent" you need to know that these stats come from cohort studies, which compare death rates in vaccinated people versus non-vaccinated people.

The truth is, those two groups may be very fundamentally different to start with and the vaccine might have had nothing to do with the observed outcomes.

This "healthy-user bias," as it is called, is rampant in vaccine studies. Without randomization and a true control group to compare, we don't really know for sure if flu campaigns achieve their intended outcomes.

Q: Isn't it public spirited to get vaccinated, so you won't spread the virus to others?

A: That sounds plausible, but is that recommendation evidence-based? Researchers who have combed through hundreds of flu-vaccine studies find very little evidence that suggests a vaccine will prevent the spread of the virus in the general population.

Of the hundreds of studies on flu immunization campaigns, only about four are of sufficient rigour to say anything definitive. And two of those studies show the vaccine in question to be useless.

Basing public health policy on only two quality studies doesn't seem sound to me.

Q: Is the vaccine safe?

A: Again, depends on what you mean by safe. Within the bounds in which it was studied, the H1N1 vaccine appears not to have much of a tendency to produce adverse effects.

The truth, however, is that we don't know of any rare but potentially serious effects of the vaccine campaign until we've inoculated many thousands of people.

Here's my sound bite: "If they randomize, I'll immunize." In the interim, government policies of calmness, coupled with accurate information for both professionals and public is my prescription. Hype can make us all ill.

WOW, I couldn't agree more!!!  Stop the hype!  Stop the hype to vaccinate, stop the hype not to do so.  Let people have the facts and make a rational decision for themselves.  It is utterly shocking that the Canadian study hasn't gotten ANY media attention in the US.

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