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Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness a ‘Dismal 10 Percent’

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On Feb. 26, 2015, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated the effectiveness of the vaccine against the predominant influenza A H3N2 viruses for the 2014-2015 season at 18 percent1 2—a level reportedly described by CDC researchers as having “little to no efficacy.” Later in 2015, the CDC adjusted its estimate for the effectiveness of the influenza vaccine that season to 19 percent.3

The 19 percent effectiveness estimate for the influenza vaccine in 2014-2015 was unusually low, even by the consistently low effectiveness standard of the annual influenza vaccines. During the previous 10 seasons, the average effectiveness estimate for influenza vaccines had been 42.5 percent.4 5 In only four of those 10 seasons had the effectiveness estimate surpassed 50 percent, and never more than 60 percent.4

In the first of those 10 seasons, 2004-2005, the effectiveness estimate was even lower than 19 percent. It was 10 percent. In other words, the influenza vaccine for that season was 90 percent ineffective.

Apart from the 19 percent estimate a few years ago, the effectiveness estimate for the influenza vaccine has not dropped anywhere close to 10 percent since 2004-2005… until this season, which was the preliminary estimate for the vaccine’s effectiveness in Australia during that country’s 2017 flu season. According to a recent article in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), the effectiveness estimate for the vaccine against the influenza A H3N2 viruses during 2017-2018 might be 10 percent.”6 7 Paul E. Sax, MD of NEJM Journal Watch refers to it as a “dismal 10 percent.”8

Despite the predicted gross ineffectiveness of this season’s influenza vaccine, the CDC and many doctors continue to recommend getting it based on the rationale that it’s “better than nothing.” Dr. Sax, for example, states:

We doctors, nurses, PAs, and pharmacists can be forgiven if the weak efficacy data might take some of the energy out of our annual recommendation. But let’s try to keep giving the vaccine.8

Perhaps this mindset is best highlighted by Egypt Galloway of Wilkes-Barre, PA, who notes, “I wouldn’t say the flu shots are a bad thing because nine times out of ten it doesn’t work.”9

There are 11 influenza vaccines licensed for use in the United States,10 including:

      • Influenza (Afluria) Trivalent & Quadrivalent
      • Influenza (Fluad)
      • Influenza (Fluarix) Trivalent & Quadrivalent
      • Influenza (Flublok) Trivalent & Quadrivalent
      • Influenza (Flucelvax) Trivalent & Quadrivalent
      • Influenza (Flulaval) Trivalent & Quadrivalent
      • Influenza (Fluvirin)
      • Influenza (Fluzone) Quadrivalent
      • Influenza (Fluzone) High-Dose
      • Influenza (Fluzone) Intradermal
      • Influenza (FluMist) Quadrivalent10

The ingredients in these and other vaccines can be found on the CDC’s vaccine Vaccine Excipient & Media Summary table.11 More information about influenza and influenza vaccines, including complete copies of influenza vaccine package inserts that also list contraindications, reported reactions, results of pre-licensure clinical trials and other facts, can be found on NVIC.org.10


References:

1 Cáceres M. On the Question of Vaccine Effectiveness. The Vaccine Reaction Aug. 19, 2015.
2 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC Presents Updated Estimates of Flu Vaccine Effectiveness for the 2014-2015 Season. CDC.gov (press release) Feb. 26, 2015.
3 Ault A. CDC Says Influenza Vaccine Only 18% Effective This Year. Medscape Feb. 26, 2015.

4 CDC. Seasonal Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness, 2005-2017. CDC.gov.

5 
Fisher BL. CDC Admits Flu Shots Fail Half the Time. NVIC Newsletter Apr. 26, 2016.
6 
Paules CI, Sullivan SG, Subbarao K, Fauci AS, Chasing Seasonal Influenza — The Need for a Universal Influenza VaccineNEJM Nov. 29, 2017.
7 
Sweeney D. Health experts: This year’s flu vaccine only 10% effective. Fox 8 Cleveland Dec. 4, 2017.
8 
Sax PE. Why, Even with Depressing Predictions About Flu Vaccine Effectiveness, We Should Still Recommend and Get It. NEJM Journal Watch Dec. 3, 2017. 
9 
Blackburne C. Doctors: Get Flu Shot Despite Questions of Effectiveness ABC 16 WNEP Nov. 30, 2017.
10 
Cáceres M. Those Who Give Vaccines Should Know The Ingredients in VaccinesThe Vaccine Reaction Oct. 12, 2017.
11 
CDC. Vaccine Excipient & Media Summary. CDC.gov.

14 Responses

  1. It either works, or it doesn’t. It makes no sense at all to say it helps 10%. They always come up with something to make us think it works, even a little. I have never had the flu. My doctor keeps telling me I should get it. I asked him if I never get the flu, why would I inject it into my body? He didn’t have an answer. He brings it up every time I go in for a checkup. They talked my father (age 88) into getting the shingles vaccine and at the same time a pneumonia vaccine. He did. He was at his yearly checkup and was in very good health. Within 1 week he started feeling sick. He blew up like a balloon, we took him to the hospital and they couldn’t find anything wrong with him. They checked everything. We finally took him home. 2 weeks later he developed chicken pox. My sister, a nurse, told the doctor it must have come from the shingles vaccine because he had already had the chicken pox. There are 11 of us children and we all had the chicken pox. He was exposed 3 different time as we had them in stages. And, wow, none of us died!! The doctors talked to my sister like she was crazy. Three weeks later my father passed away. I wish he hadn’t gone in for his yearly checkup. When he died, he had pneumonia. That vaccine didn’t do anything for him either. The doctor refused to put on his death certificate that he died from vaccines. All of us (11) children know that he did. Yes, they say they have the science, but that is only good until it is wrong!! If they have the science behind vaccines’ safety, why do they refuse all these years to turn over their evidence and let an independent study do their own investigation? I wonder…..

  2. When the public is denied true informed consent the dismal figures for flu vaccine effectiveness are especially troubling. If most people had any idea of the severe, long-lasting side effects of flu vaccines and the risks of injecting thimerosal-preserved vaccines in general then it appears to me that for most people the flu vaccine is worse than nothing. Not to mention the fact that there are effective ways to boost your immunity to flu without the toxic injection. I have been doing my homework on one flu vaccine, in particular. I am really concerned about what I believe is a potentially huge risk of autoimmune disease following vaccination with FLUAD. FLUAD is “adjuvanted” with squalene. Advertising for the vaccine touts the fact that squalene is a normal part of the body. However, if it is both adjuvant (designed to stimulate immunity) and a normal part of tissues, one must wonder if it could trigger autoantibodies to itself and thus prove damaging when injected. There have been high rates of illness and many deaths among the elderly in a community where I work this winter. FLUAD is approved for those 65 and older.

  3. 50% means they simply don’t know. By now, with these “dismal” records of decades, someone should be saying that the flu shot is worthless. (the strain is always different mutation from the shot given, and now this year they say it “mutated during processing???”) The only ones to benefit from this fake vaccine is the pharmaceuticals and the politicians. Record corporate profits and political donations. “Follow the money” – it is all in the public records. We don’t need ignorant and stupid and greedy politicians making health care decisions.

  4. Shoot all these officials, see what problems with these shots do. Ask Drs. on DNA vs/ RNA and the answers are wild, that there is no difference…

  5. Not having had a vaccine in a decade, flue or otherwise, except for tetanus when I had a major surgery, I’m doing fine and confident without vaccines. I’ve been exposed to many toxins many times in my line of work. All the flue requires is 7-up and alka seltzer aspirin and hot soup. What’s this big fear of the flue about anyways? If people are this afraid of germs they should walk around in plastic bubbles. These idiots, there are more germs on their toothbrush. If you gave them free plastic bubbles at the local grocery store pharmacy, I’d bet they’d wear them. Social experiment time, I propose the pro vaccine crowd has a much higher level of gullibility, and much lower level of critical reasoning skills. It would make a great youtube. We’ll get Mark Dice to offer them big plastic bubbles with their free flue shot, I’d bet people would wear them with the right fear mongering line. The 2018 mutated flue is coming for you! Run, Hide, Fear For Your Life!

  6. Not having had a vaccine in a decade, flue or otherwise, except for tetanus when I had a major surgery, I’m doing fine and confident without vaccines. I’ve been exposed to many toxins many times in my line of work. All the flue requires is 7-up and alka seltzer aspirin and hot soup. What’s this big fear of the flue about anyways? If people are this afraid of germs they should walk around in plastic bubbles. These idiots, there are more germs on their toothbrush. If you gave them free plastic bubbles at the local grocery store pharmacy, I’d bet they’d wear them. Social experiment time, I propose the pro vaccine crowd has a much higher level of gullibility, and much lower level of critical reasoning skills. It would make a great youtube. We’ll get Mark Dice to offer them big plastic bubbles with their free flue shot, I’d bet people would wear them with the right fear mongering line. The 2018 mutated flue is coming for you! Run, Hide, Fear For Your Life!!!

  7. I am TOTALLY AGAINST your VACCINES because MY HEALTH was destroyed from having over 2dozen vaccines forced on me while serving in Vietnam 1967 – 1968! I never again had a vaccine! But that hasn’t stopped the constant illness from them!!! It destroyed my health for life!!!

  8. FLUAD for those over 65 is a great way to develop dementia,alzheimers,and many other life threatening problems.Just ask for the manufacturers insert that comes with every vaccine which lists all the side effects.You will be horrified.When FLUAD was first advertised on TV it said double the adjuvants,That’s double the aluminum,mercury,sqaline,formaldyhide.A great way for you to lose your mind as all that poison goes to the fattiest tissue in the body(THE BRAIN).Today the ads have been changed no longer double the adjuvant now just adjuvated.Too many were probably inquiring what that meant.As Bill Gates had said on TV by accident or a slip of the tongue or a moment of truth.These vaccines I give to the poor in Africa will help reduce the population.

  9. I am in healthcare. I have been told by EVERY, let me stress EVERY institute that I have worked at that I do have a choice to not get the vaccine. It’s my choice. No one is forcing me to get it…..EXCEPT, if I don’t get the vaccine I can not work at the institute. So I have the right to refuse but then I am choosing to not work at the Institute where I am refusing the vaccine. Every health care institute mandates the flu vaccine now. So basically, if I want to work I HAVE to get the flu shot, The End!

    No one, not even 1 person, in the past eight years could tell me anything about the risks of the flu vaccine they were administering. I have read the risks and am quite aware of the poisons my body is being violated with with each flu vaccine I am forced to take.
    But as for those administering the vaccine
    none can explain how my commitment to hand washing and willingness to wear a mask is less effective and certain than a 10-50% effective flu shot and that’s why I need a flu shot yearly.

    Let me clarify for those who can not think outside the box when they say the vaccine is better than nothing. Without the flu vaccine there is something, something great called hand washing and masks. I would bet a mask and good hand washing against a flu shot any day when trying to prevent the spread of the flu.

  10. My sister got the flu vaccine this year. Shortly afterwards she got guillain barre syndrome. She was told by her doctors that the syndrome was due to her getting the flu shot. They told her that the doctors know that it can happen and that she should never get another flu vaccination. My brother-in-law had to ask them to file an adverse reaction report. They had not even considered it until he asked.

    My father got a flu shot years ago. He was sick for 2 months. He missed Thanksgiving and almost did not attend Christmas dinner.

    Our niece’s arm swelled “like a football” from the vaccination.

    Since most reactions aren’t reported the statistics are wrong.

    A few days ago I saw a medical doctor on TV promoting the flu shot and saying that there are no negative side effects from it. It just shows that you have to do your own research.

  11. I had never received a flu vaccine until I was 53 yrs. old. I was a healthy, vital, and active young woman, so why I received it, I’ll never know, as I wasn rarely ill. The result of this first, and last, Flu Vaccine was a very severe case of Guillain Barre’ Syndrome, which almost cost me my life. My symptoms began a couple days after the vaccine. Tingling, numbness in my extremities, weakness, which progressed, and within a little over a week, I was hospitalized, completely paralyzed, and on a respirator, for 2 1/2 months, which was followed by months of in patient, and out patient, Physical, Occupational, and Speech Therapy. I also suffered Psychosis; terrifying Nightmares, which were mostly about death and suicide, Hallucinations, Sensory Illusions, and Paranoid Delusions for which I was treated for PTSD for a year. I’m now 62 yrs. old, and will live the rest of my life with Chronic Fatigue, Chronic pain, from Nerve damage, and Neuropothy. I’ve been told by ALL of my doctors NEVER to receive ANY type of vaccine. I’ve been told, and have researched Flu related Vaccines, which all tell you that GBS is rare, but the % are much higher than we’re led to believe. I know of too many people in my own, small community, who had GBS, have it, and some of whom are severely disabled as a result. I was one of the lucky ones. I survived, but, again, with life long residuals.

  12. I am 34 and used to get the flu shot every year. Each time I got really sick the following day or 2. 10 years ago I stopped getting the flu shot because all it did was make me very sick. I haven’t had the flu in 10 years. Coincidence?

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