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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."
The CDC just keeps shooting themselves in the foot. Admit the problem and QUIT telling everyone to get the flu shot every year. It doesn't work as advertised and should not be relied on a the main defense against the flu.
- Cochrane Review - Vaccines for preventing influenza in healthy adults
http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD001269/vaccines-to-prevent-influenza-in-healthy-adults-
- Dr Lisa Jackson's out of season influenza vaccine research
http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/35/2/337.short
Using the proper tools for the job is very important and vaccines work best against stable targets like smallpox. Against the influenza virus it is a total joke. They go to manufacturing in June/July and the flu has 3-6 months to mutate and they wonder why it fails? Give it up. It does not work.
The more the CDC promotes something that clearly does not work the more people are going to throw out the baby with the bathwater and think that they are lying about all vaccines. Good to hear there are some advances in stopping the flu because the current approach has been a total failure.
I for one got the flu twice, despite having had a shot. Each time I had different symptoms (including hypothermia) and was told it was a different strain of the virus.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
With homeopathy, there is no need to test the results of taking a substance, putting it in water, then constantly diluting the amount of that substance in the water until there is only one molecule of that substance left in the water. Because water has such great memory, it "remembers" the powerful healing abilities of the substance while completely forgetting all the urine, feces, saliva and other bodily fluids the water has come in contact with.
Because of this miraculous memory, that one molecule has more healing and restorative powers than the most powerful, science-based vaccines, vaccines which do nothing except make people sick and keep big pharma rolling in the money like they do for afflictions such as smallpox, rinderpest and polio.
Unlike traditional science-based vaccines, homeopathic medicines can be done in the safety of your own home. No need to get doctors involved with their 8-10 years of medical training and untold hours of visiting patients, doing research and consulting with other so-called "medical experts". One can dispense with such safety protocols because no matter what, homeopathic medicines have been rigorously tested under the most stringent conditions including having a crystal suspended above them while the dilution occurs.
Not once has any side effect ever occurred from taking a homeopathic medicine. That one molecule in the water won't let it happen because of the exponential power it has from being the sole piece left of the original substance.
So do yourself a favor and pass on traditional vaccines and medicines. Homeopathic cures are the wave of the future, able to solve the world's medical ills in a single glass of water. It's only because the medical community doesn't want you to take matters into your own hands bypass the time-tested methods of science-based medical trials that homeopathy has such a bad rap.
Ignore the naysayers, the ones whose ills have been cured by Western medicine, they're just anomalies. Homeopathy is where it's at.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
What's more, you're ignoring the fact that this year it worked for 9% of the people over 65 who got it.
And YOU are ignoring the increased risk of exposure to flu people have by going to wherever the flu shot is administered.
That 9% number does not stand in a vacuum. There are many other factors and with that protection number being so low, to me it makes little sense to go somewhere and risk greater exposure to other people from which you would get the flu to begin with.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Vitamin C and vitamins in general are not some magic bullet against common illness.
http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/vitamins_common_misconceptions?open
http://www.cancer.org/treatment/treatmentsandsideeffects/complementaryandalternativemedicine/dietarysupplements/dietary-supplements-misconceptions
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/jul/18/medicineandhealth.sciencenews
Best research we got suggests if you take something like 1000mg a day at the start of a cold you can ease the effects, but you'll also develop nausea, headaches, and kidney stones.
So what's worse? runny nose of a kidney stone?
If you came down with the flu within 72 hours, you got the shot too late each and every time. You do not have much protection yet within 1 or 2 days of receiving the shot, and that's all the time your body had to get to know the flu shot since you usually don't show signs of infection until a day or two after getting most diseases.
As such, you're just blaming the wrong things. I would suggest you get the flu shot as early as you can, since you seem to be in a rather infected environment, so you can maximize your protection.
My wife, my son, and I have received the flu shot at least 10 times each and none of us have ever come down with the flu so using your logic, I can confirm that the flu shot is 100% effective...
Or perhaps your logic is wrong and your data points probably fabricated.
Ah, anecdote. The cure for the common data infestation.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Mmm, big Parma.. great cheese and cured ham there.
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
Yet more displays of terrible logic on your part. My data points disagree with yours, therefore I must be a big-pharma shill...
Laying it out in plain english: You used 3 data points to conclude the flu shot was bullshit. I countered with 10 equally useless data points that conflicted with yours. You throw a hissy fit.
Until last year, I had never gotten a flu shot, or the flu (at least, like you, not since I was a kid). Last year, my girlfriend made me get a flu shot, and I also haven't gotten a flu. Therefore, I can state that getting a flu shot is 100% effective, not getting a flu shot is also 100% effective, and the best way to prevent getting a flu is "don't be a kid".
I actually considered this once. I don't pay anything directly because it's a "covered" item in my health plan, but I would pay $25 out of pocket if I got one. So here goes:
When I was younger - in my 20s& 30s I got a flu - or flu-like symptoms requiring I miss work for 3 or more days - four times. I started getting the flu vaccine about 8 years ago, and I haven't had the flu for about 11 or 12 years.
Let's say my typical chance is once every 5 years. (4x in 20 years). If I were only to get the flu once every 10 years (56% effective in my target age group), that means that, on average I will miss 3 days less of work in 10 years. I'm a consultant, so I bill $150/hr, and I get nothing if I don't work. Whether I show up at the office or not, I pay for rent, electricity, licensing, insurance, etc. So...3 days at 6 billable hours in a typical day is $2700 is lost income (note I'm not counting the 3-4 hours of admin time a day, which is all rolled into those billable hours). $2700 a year over ten years is $270 a year, or an 11:1 payback on my "investment" of $25. As a bonus, I don't end up paying for a doctors visit, or for medications, or for the general crappiness I feel, or take the chance that my wife and daughter are then more likely to get it as well. Break even, without medication costs and such, would be around $13.60/hr.
If it were the worst case of 9% if I were over 65 and still working, then we're really talking statistical, but that would mean a theoretical reduction of 18 hrs/5yrs*9% = $49 a year return on a $25 flu shot, plus the above associated effects and medical costs, and the chance of dying from the flu because I'm just old and more likely to get a secondary infection.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
It's inconvenient to you, but if you transmit it to someone to whom it's actually life-threatening, you are fucking with them, which is kind of uncool. And it's not "God knows what" - the contents of the flu shots are well understood. It sounds like you simply don't know what you're talking about.