A Shot of Fear

[Why Syzygy]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/22/AR2005102200042.html

Flu Death Risk Often Exaggerated; So Is Benefit of Vaccine

For years, the public health community has used fear as one strategy to promote the flu vaccine. A vaccination poster distributed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), for example, emphasizes that "36,000 Americans die of flu-related illnesses each year," implying that the vaccine could prevent many of these deaths.

When it became aware of the vaccine shortage last October, the federal government changed course and tried to reassure Americans that going without a shot was no big deal. "We all need to take a deep breath. This is not an emergency," CDC director Julie Gerberding advised the public. (...)

We deal here with what is known about typical flu seasons, based on data that form the basis for the federal government's flu-risk figures.

By choosing to highlight the annual number of flu deaths, the CDC employed an attention-grabbing tactic often used by public health and disease advocacy groups. It's a tactic readers should be inoculated against if they want a clear picture of the risks they face. (...)

To promote vaccine use, many in the public health community have overstated the risk of flu-related death and the effectiveness of the vaccine in preventing it. While the flu vaccine may have some important benefit (less flu-related illness), we really do not know whether it reduces the risk of death. For younger individuals -- for whom the chance of flu-related death is extremely small -- any death-protection benefit can only be very modest (and it is unlikely we will ever reliably know whether it even exists). However, we do know that the vaccine reduces the risk of being sick and time lost from work. But because the effect is small, individuals will have to judge for themselves whether it's worth the bother. (...)

[SheilaT]

1. You're going to have to repost in a week or so,

after the deluge of posts regarding Ted Kennedy's death eases.

But at least ten years ago I cut an article out of my local paper saying exactly the same thing. I may still have it somewhere, or it may have been among the things I tossed out when I moved recently.

It was buried somewhere in an article recently that flu shots are perhaps 30% effective with older (older than 65 or so) adults, but supposedly at least 70% effective in children. Or maybe that number was for younger adults. But the interesting thing is that for so many years it was only older people who were encouraged to get flu shots, then all adults, and in recent years children. The question to ask is: How necessary is it to pharmaceutical profits that all Americans get flu shots?

[trotsky]

2. "How necessary is it to pharmaceutical profits that all Americans get flu shots?"

Answer: It's not. Remember the flu shot shortage a few years back? One huge factor was the fact that no American pharmaceuticals were making them anymore. Why? Because there wasn't enough profit in it. We could only get flu vaccine from overseas.

BTW, one reason why flu shots are less effective in the elderly is that it takes more antigen to generate an immune response in older people. Some scientists have suggested increasing the amount of virus substance (or adjuvants) in the shot as a way to counter this.