How Effective are Flu Vaccines?
An article in The Atlantic, based on research by Lisa Jackson, questions the conclusion that flu vaccines work. Here is the essence of her argument from a letter to the editor by Jackson and others in The New England Journal of Medicine:
In an 8-year study of a similar population of members of a health maintenance organization, we found risk reductions among vaccinated elderly persons during the influenza season to be essentially identical to those reported by Nichol et al. (Table 1).1 However, we also found even greater reductions before the influenza season.
Emphasis added. The lack of specificity suggests that those who get vaccinated are in better health to begin with than those that don’t. Other comparisons supported this conclusion.
Thanks to JR Minkel.
October 23rd, 2009 at 6:21 pm
I think vaccine discussions are much more fun when both sides are yelling “JUST LOOK AT THE SCIENCE!”
As if interpreting data and slowly digesting the myriad of subtleties in hundreds peer-reviewed publications were a trivial exercise.
On a related note, the posted article was a good read.
October 23rd, 2009 at 11:22 pm
What I got was that people who wouldn’t die from flu are less likely to catch it if stuck, but that people who can die from it catch it despite being stuck, and die anyway. Also, so many people skip getting stuck and catch it and spread it that the people who don’t because they were stuck don’t help. Probably if everybody healthy got vaccinated, the difference would be enough to avoid exposing the weak (who get no direct benefit from being stuck), but you never get more than 50% coverage. 50% coverage just isn’t enough to provide cover for anything virulent.
October 24th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
[...] 3. American culture demonizes animal fat. The conclusion that animal fat is bad rests on epidemiology. Once something becomes heavily recommended or discouraged, a big problem for epidemiologists arises: the people who follow the advice are likely to be different (e.g., more disciplined, better off) than those that don’t (the healthy-user bias). As I blogged yesterday, an example is vaccine effectiveness: Those who get vaccinated are different than those who don’t. [...]
October 25th, 2009 at 1:22 am
Amazing article.
So the flu vaccine has never been tested in a double blind trial? That is astounding.
Seth, you are probably familiar with this blog, but I wasn’t (self experimentation with giving up coffee):
http://www.kk.org/quantifiedself/2009/10/the-false-god-of-coffee.php
October 30th, 2009 at 8:48 am
Interesting discussion on Effect Measure: http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/2009/10/the_atlantic_article_sur_rebut.php
Main points:
1) Evidence does exist for efficacy of seasonal flu vaccination: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2638553/?tool=pubmed
2) There’s a longstanding controversy over efficacy of seasonal flu vaccine in the elderly, which doesn’t apply to swine flu.