Flu Shot Doing Poor Job of Protecting Older People This Year

New submitter Gunilla sends this news from an AP report: "It turns out this year's flu shot is doing a startlingly dismal job of protecting older people, the most vulnerable age group. The vaccine is proving only 9 percent effective in those 65 and older against the harsh strain of the flu that is predominant this season, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. Health officials are baffled as to why this is so. But the findings help explain why so many older people have been hospitalized with the flu this year. Despite the findings, the CDC stood by its recommendation that everyone over 6 months get flu shots, the elderly included, because some protection is better than none, and because those who are vaccinated and still get sick may suffer less severe symptoms." An anonymous reader adds information about a new drug that treats influenza by hijacking its own infection mechanism. The compound "binds to an enzyme on the surface of the flu virus called neuraminidase. This enzyme is responsible for severing the connection between the flu virus and human cell so it can move on and infect other cells. The new class of drugs — DFSAs — permanently bind to the enzyme, blocking its action and stopping it from spreading further, the journal Science reported (abstract). Currently available antivirals also work by attaching to this enzyme. But DFSAs do so in such a way that the flu virus cannot evolve to be resistant to the drug without rendering itself useless."

Comments

Sometimes it helps kill you

[transporter_ii]

I have a relative that just died because she had a reaction to the flu shot and it killed her. So, yeah, when it not only isn't working but also killing people, it is doubly bad.

The flu shot is hokum anyway.

[RocketRabbit]

I have received the flu shot 3 times and every time came down with the flu within 72 hours. Since then I have never gotten the flu shot and have also never gotten the flu as a result of my prudence.

Please don't jibber jabber some bullshit study funded by either big Parma or a doctor or university on big pharma's take at me either, I am not interested. Judging by the incredibly ridiculous advertising hype these past few years, it looks like more people are catching onto the scam called flu shots as well.

Re:The flu shot is hokum anyway.

[RocketRabbit]

I would guess that, instead, you're a marketing shill employed by big pharma hired to push a dangerous, adjuvant-laden mystery shot. Right?

Flu shots are dubious, and the proof is that in many European nations, they do not recommend them at all, and their flu incidence is similar to the USA's.

Might want to do some checking on actual data points, not just those pushed by US-based big pharmacorps.

Re:The flu shot is hokum anyway.

[RocketRabbit]

No, no, forget logic. Mine's no worse than yours, anyway - and probably much better, depending on which authority you intend to appeal to. I appeal to the authority of European health care systems and academic institutions, whom do not recommend flu shots, and you are appealing to American big pharmacorps, and their pet academics, who say, oh yeah you need a flu shot.

Of course, you have no real way to respond to this so you go off and throw a little fit of your own.

Flu shots don't work, they are bullshit, and the entire top level of the CDC is infested with pharma shills and people who (or whose spouses) are heavily invested in big pharma, or work for big pharma, or worked for big farma and will work for them once their tenure in gubberment is over.

Trust the machine, little one. it's looking out for you!