Here’s what changed my mind
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Why I always skip the flu shot
Hey, Matt Cook here, and every year we are told to get the flu vaccine – especially us older folks!
We are told that the flu vaccine helps prevent severe illness and death from the virus in susceptible people.
Strong strains of the flu can cause severe illness and death.
But according to research carried out by the NIAID and NIH, the increasing uptake of flu vaccine since 1980 has had no effect on deaths from the virus.
Don’t believe it? Here is a direct quote from the paper…
“We could not correlate increasing vaccination coverage after 1980 with declining mortality rates in any age group.”
The human research was carried out at National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health in Bethesda. This paper was published in Archives of Internal Medicine.
Some studies have claimed that taking the flu vaccine leads to a halving of deaths in older people during flu season.
“Observational studies report that influenza vaccination reduces winter mortality risk from any cause by 50% among the elderly.”
Only a few decades ago, a small minority of older people got the flu vaccine.
These days, the majority of over 65s get the flu vaccine in any given year.
“Flu vaccine coverage among elderly persons in the United States increased from between 15% before 1980 to 65% in 2001.”
But when the researchers at the National Institutes Of Health crunched the numbers…
…they found that deaths related to flu infection INCREASED as older people took more flu vaccines.
“Unexpectedly, estimates of influenza-related mortality in this age group also increased during this period.”
They scrambled to find a reason for this…
To try to find something which might explain why their vaccines don’t seem to work the way they are supposed to work.
They included many other factors in their models…
Including taking a close look at a particularly bad strain of flu called A H3N2 – originally known as the Hong Kong flu
The Hong Kong flu popped up in 1969, and allegedly killed a million people worldwide.
“We tried to reconcile these conflicting findings by adjusting excess mortality estimates for aging and increased circulation of influenza A(H3N2) viruses.”
They were surprised to find that this nasty strain of the flu seemed to trigger decreases in excess mortality in older folks related to flu infections over the next 12 years.
“For people aged 65 to 74 years, excess mortality rates in A(H3N2)-dominated seasons fell between 1968 and the early 1980s but remained approximately constant thereafter.”
In the very old, it had no effect.
“For persons 85 years or older, the mortality rate remained flat throughout.”
Deep analysis of another nasty strain of flu did not help the vaccine cause either.
“Excess mortality in A(H1N1) and B seasons did not change. All-cause excess mortality for persons 65 years or older never exceeded 10% of all winter deaths.”
In fact, they were forced to conclude that decreases in flu deaths were attributable to natural immunity generated by the Hong Kong flu.
“We attribute the decline in influenza-related mortality among people aged 65 to 74 years in the decade after the 1968 pandemic to the acquisition of immunity to the emerging A(H3N2) virus.”
This is yet another deep look at flu vaccines that indicates they are useless at best.
“We could not correlate increasing vaccination coverage after 1980 with declining mortality rates in any age group.”
The previously mentioned observational studies used to argue that flu vaccines reduce deaths of older people by 50% were seen to be over estimates in this deeper analysis.
(“Over-estimate” is a polite way of putting it…)
“Because fewer than 10% of all winter deaths were attributable to influenza in any season, we conclude that observational studies substantially overestimate vaccination benefit.”
You should always consult your healthcare practitioner for guidance on medical diagnosis and treatment.
