General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBlame Anti-Vaxxers for Your Flu
The bigger problem is that the anti-vax crowd waits for this sort of mess to pounce, as if the biologic unpredictability of a living virus is enough to make their point. Their point of course is a slippery one: One day it is poor vaccine efficacy; another its not efficacy at all but toxicity or side effects such as autism that make the argument against shots; or lastly, the most absurd and therefore best embraced, the argument is that catching the real infection is somehow more natural and health-makingand therefore better for the kid who is sick.
It is this fear of giving the anti-vaxxers a leg up that has stifled any sort of honest discussion about the very real limits of the flu vaccine. Because lets face it, by modern standards, where measles vaccine and hepatitis B vaccine are 99 percent effective in every study, a report card coming in at 60 percent efficacy is pretty lame.
Though this too is debatable given that 25,000 to 40,000 people a year die of influenzathe vast majority of them unvaccinated. A simple halving of the number with todays mediocre vaccine would represent a major public-health triumph. By way of comparison, about 14,000 people in the U.S. died of AIDS in 2011a vaccine to cut that number in half likely would result in a Nobel Prize.
In other words, the anti-vax crowd, basing their debate well outside the corridors of standard science, has somehow pushed the entire public-health discussion of how best to control infectious diseases to a place outside the rational and evidenced-based. And thats where a flimsy but emotionally effective argument can do real harm by causing an outbreak not of influenza but of deliberate and profound misunderstanding.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/01/when-you-get-the-flu-this-winter-you-can-blame-anti-vaxxers.html
zappaman
(20,606 posts)xchrom
(108,903 posts)Hari Seldon
(154 posts)How effective was the 2011-2012 seasonal flu vaccine?
Final vaccine effectiveness (VE) estimates for the 2011-2012 influenza season found that influenza vaccine was 47% (95% CI, 36% to 56%) effective at preventing medically-attended acute respiratory illnesses caused by circulating influenza A and B viruses in people of all ages. This estimate is adjusted for age, sex, race/ethnicity, study site, illness onset date, calendar date, assessments of self-rated health and pre-existing medical conditions. These results show moderate effectiveness against circulating influenza viruses, and are similar to the preliminary VE estimate reported earlier in the 2011-2012 season (52%, 95% CI, 38% to 63%).
47%.
Not quite as effective as a placebo.
DebJ
(7,699 posts)with the swine flu, and two years later finding out his kidneys were only functioning at 30%,
47% beats the hell out of zero protection.
Also, last time I had the flu in 2003 I wished I was dead, literally, I was in such agony.
Again, 47% sounds damn good to me, compared to zero.
Ms. Toad
(34,076 posts)an honest discussion of not only the limits of the flu vaccine, but honest discussions of anything other than mandatory vaccinations for everyone for every illness for which vaccination is available.
There are a number of people who have tried such discussions here on DU, who have been shouted down by the "vaccinate everyone for everything, no exceptions" crowd.
This black and white mindset, which insists there are only two possible positions, is one of the biggest barriers to maintaining responsible vaccine program.