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

Quit promoting it when it doesn't work

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Quit promoting it when it doesn't work

[hedwards]

This is a virus, your two main options are to either have people avoid human contact or give them a vaccination. Sure, things like washing hands might help a bit, but ultimately, there aren't a lot of options for something like the flu.

What's more, you're ignoring the fact that this year it worked for 9% of the people over 65 who got it. That's really not a good number, but it's better than zero and ignores the other people who received the vaccination as well.

Re:Quit promoting it when it doesn't work

[ColdWetDog]

Got a better idea, bozo? No? Thought not.

The influenza vaccines are the best tool that we have. It's a lousy tool, but oh well, play the hand that you're dealt.

And before somebody goes off on and thinks this is Scary New News, influenza vaccine has ALWAYS sucked on infants and older people. Precisely the people that the virus wreaks the most havoc on and likely for the same reason (poorly developed or worn out immune system). This year's vaccine seems to do particularly poorly on the strain of B that we've been seeing. But you never really know how good or bad the vaccine does in any given year until you can tally up all the statistics and look at previous years (and fudge a few numbers).

The bigger news is that Tamiflu is really worse than it was made out to be (which wasn't so hot to begin with). The usual suspects - money and political influence (but I repeat myself).

Re:Quit promoting it when it doesn't work

[The_PS4_Will_Fail]

Millions of years of evolution are more effective than a buch of vaccines made from questionable materials, under questionable manufacturing circumstances, and being monitored by a government agency that was probably bought and sold to the pharmaceutical industry decades ago.

Our, you know, continue to throw money at big pharma and have another double cheeseburger and a Coke. I'm sure they and their lobbyists have your best interest in mind.

Is that how you avoided polio? Better living through exercise and eating broccoli?

Re:Quit promoting it when it doesn't work

[h4rr4r]

Way to ignore the important part of this. For the rest of people it was 50% reduction meaning lots of those oldsters avoided it because others got immunized.

Re:Quit promoting it when it doesn't work

[flyingfsck]

And your homeopathics worked against smallpox too? Go back to the middle ages bozo.

Re:Quit promoting it when it doesn't work

[UltraZelda64]

-Removing chemicals from our water supply

But... but... then how am I supposed to get my precious H2O if all "chemicals" are removed from our water supply?! In fact, what would even come out without H2O... air? I don't think we'd live very long with "chemicals" coming out of our faucets or at least money to buy bottled chemicals in the store! Never mind those other chemicals naturally available in trace amounts in most water that give us nutrients, like calcium and magnesium... if we don't get those from water, then we'll have to get them from something else instead!

But really, watch out with the word "chemicals"... it doesn't mean what most people think it does when they try to use the word on its own with a negative connotation. *You* are made up of chemicals. Everything around you is, including the air you drink and the coffee, tea or Coke sitting on your table. This chemical scare is about as stupid as the virus and bacteria scare. How about instead leading up to it with the word "synthetic" or "man-made"? And to be fair, even that would be far from accurate, because nature itself cooks up some pretty nasty chemicals... they just tend to be found in very small quantities and in confined and expected locations.

I don't know when the word "chemicals" started being used in a negative connotation like the word "drugs," but it's annoying and it needs to stop. Just as not all drugs are bad, and in fact most are not bad when used properly, not all chemicals are bad... when used properly. You need them to live, and so do the plants and animals you have sitting mutilated and seasoned on plates on your dinner table. Fair enough--all drugs are a specific class of chemicals on their own--but you get the point. Like I said, practically everything either is, or is made of, at least one chemical.

I do agree that we need to rely less on little-tested unnatural crap completely made in labs, but at the same time I will not spin that to make it seem as if "all" chemicals are somehow bad and to be untrusted by misusing the word. I trust natural chemicals, for the most part, over shit that's synthetic and only produced in labs.

This is why homeopathy is better than science

[smooth wombat]

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.

Re:This is why homeopathy is better than science

[smooth wombat]

Either I touched a nerve with the homeopathic community or the mods don't understand the subtlety of sarcasm.

Re:This is why homeopathy is better than science

[femtobyte]

Well, you clearly understand nothing about homeopathy. You think it's about diluting until there is "only one molecule of that substance left in the water." But, at proper homeopathic dilutions of 10^100:1 (100 10x dilutions), you wouldn't have one molecule left among all the other matter in the universe. No wonder homeopathy gets a bad reputation, when quacks are handing out dangerously under-diluted mixtures with an entire molecule remaining --- that'll screw up all the imprinted energy resonances!

The fallacy of "Any is better"

[SuperKendall]

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.

Re:The fallacy of "Any is better"

[hedwards]

No, I'm not ignoring that. If they knew what the efficacy rate was like without administering the injections, that would be a completely different thing. But, you can't sit there with the numbers from the real world and judge the doctors for not having access to them before they even existed.

I said, that 9% isn't a good number, but pretending like they were giving these shots out knowing that whom they would and would not work for is just plain wrong. You're also assuming that these people are shut ins. If they were shut ins, then there would be no point in vaccinating them as they wouldn't be exposed to the flu in the first place. For the folks that actually go outside, they're already going to be exposed, suggesting that this is represents a greater exposure is just the typical anti-vaccs bullshit.

Re:Makes Sense.

[firex726]

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?

Re:The flu shot is hokum anyway.

[nblender]

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.

Re:Makes Sense.

[ColdWetDog]

Ah, anecdote. The cure for the common data infestation.

Re:The flu shot is hokum anyway.

[nblender]

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.

Re:The flu shot is hokum anyway.

[neminem]

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".

Financially responsible

[Overzeetop]

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.