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Phamacist Prakash Deshpande injects Judith Echevarria with influenza vaccine at a Manhattan pharmacy. Americans are clamoring for influenza vaccine thanks an an unusually early flu season this year.
Drugs stores running out of vaccine. One company’s supply nearly sold out. An unusually early flu season has Americans clamoring for vaccines and all of a sudden they are scarce.
Yet back in September, public health officials were begging people to get vaccinated. Why the disconnect?
There are four main reasons:
- Flu vaccine is hard to make and it takes months
- Americans are ambivalent about vaccines in general and only want flu vaccines when they are scared (like now)
- Doctors are not paid to encourage and remind patients to get a flu shot, and they are afraid to order too much in case they’re stuck with the extra
- Vaccine makers only want to make as much as they can sell and last year the U.S. threw away 30 million doses
It may be 2013, but the United States still uses technology developed in the 1940s to make flu vaccines. In fact, the process for making next year’s flu vaccine is just starting to gear up right now, even though this year’s flu season is nowhere near to being over.
Experts have to first predict which strains of flu virus will be circulating next year. Influenza mutates all the time and there are different strains, so this is tricky. It’s also the reason people have to get a new flu vaccine every year.
The virus must be isolated from patients’ blood, purified, and injected into chicken eggs to grow. These aren’t just any chicken eggs, either – they have to be fertilized, have a chicken embryo inside and they need to be a certain size. The process is fraught with danger and often breaks down if eggs don’t develop right or if there’s contamination.
Then the virus is purified and made into vaccine. New technology is in the works and Novartis now makes flu vaccine at a factory in Holly Springs, North Carolina, using dog cells instead of eggs—a process that’s slightly faster, easier to control and that can be scaled up more quickly.
The hope is for a universal flu vaccine – one that would work against all strains of flu and protect people for years at a time, but progress is slow.
“A vaccine that would provide protection against all of the known strains of influenza has been a goal since flu vaccine was discovered,” says Dr. John Treanor, a vaccine researcher at the University of Rochester in New York. “It’s not going to be a straightforward, easy shot.”
In the meantime, companies predict how much demand there will be months before flu season even starts, and there’s no way to ramp up production when a season like this one hits and there’s suddenly a surge in demand.
This leads to the next problem: Americans don’t like getting flu shots. It’s the main reason demand is hard to predict. About 128 million people, or about 42 percent of the U.S. population, got immunized against influenza last year. That’s even though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says everyone over the age of six months should get a vaccine – every year. More than 30 million doses of flu vaccine never got used and were almost certainly thrown away, according to CDC.
“If people followed the recommendations every year, there would be no shortages,” says Dr. Walter Orenstein of Emory University’s Emory Vaccine Center and a former head of the CDC’s immunization program.
“The first issue is that Americans are pretty deeply divided on whether they think flu vaccination is a good idea,” says Katherine Harris, a RAND Corporation economist who studies flu vaccine issues.
“There are the people that get it and the people that don’t, and the people that don’t get it have pretty bad attitudes about it.”
And people aren’t afraid of the flu, even though it kills as many as 36,000 people in a bad year, including 100 children every year. Flu puts as many as 200,000 people into the hospital every year. But in some years it may be a mild season and kill 4,000 people. This variation lulls people into thinking flu isn’t a problem. “Many people who don’t get flu vaccine don’t get it because they don’t feel they, personally, are at risk,” Treanor says.
The flu vaccine isn’t perfect, either, leading many to think it’s a waste of time to get one. This year’s is only 62 percent effective. On top of that. lots and lots of viruses act like flu – causing coughing, headache, muscle aches and so on – so many people believe they have flu even if they don’t. But Orenstein says if 80 percent of Americans got vaccinated with this vaccine, it would provide “herd immunity” against flu.
“I have had in the last three weeks two respiratory illnesses,” Orenstein says. “And I was vaccinated. But even if one was the flu, the other one was not. Maybe neither of them was flu.” But such uncertainty can make people doubtful about the value of vaccination.
The belief that flu vaccine causes flu is still rampant, although doctors all agree it’s not true. Many people also fear side-effects from the vaccine. Vaccine regulators and public health experts still remember the 1976 swine flu debacle, when the U.S. government rushed out a mass immunization against a swine flu virus that never spread off one military base.
Several hundred cases of a rare neurological disease called Guillain-Barre syndrome were reported afterward and the incident made many people mistrustful of immunizations. More recent fears center on a mercury-based preservative called thimerosal, which was taken out of most vaccines after activists claimed it could cause autism. The link is discredited by many scientific studies but suspicion persists among some parents and activists.
Harris says people do trust their personal physicians, but doctors are not usually paid by health insurance companies to talk people into getting flu vaccines, and they aren’t paid much to administer them. Doctors have to compete with pharmacies, big companies that buy up vaccine to give to their employees, and large stores like Wal-Mart and Target to even get vaccine to stock, and they have to eat the cost if they don’t sell all the vaccines they buy to patients.
“It is a cost that comes right off their books,” Harris says. So many don’t even bother.
“We don’t really have a way for compensating health care providers for encouraging us to take preventive steps,” she said. The 2010 Affordable Care Act does have provisions for rewarding preventive medicine, however, which take effect in 2014.
Harris believes that if doctors’ offices worked harder to remind people to get a flu shot, more people would get it, vaccine makers would provide more supply, and flu shot shortages would ease up.
The Trust for America's Health agrees. It recommends that insurers be required to cover flu vaccines under public and private insurance without cost-sharing. "For instance, currently, 12 states and Washington, D.C. do not require Medicaid to cover flu shots with no co-payment requirements for beneficiaries under the age of 65," the group said in a statement released Tuesday.
The federal government is trying to help in other ways, too. Ten years ago, just four companies made flu vaccines. This year, the U.S. government has licensed vaccines made by seven manufacturers. They include a nasal spray that’s been shown to work especially well in children and a special formulation for older people, whose immune sytems don’t respond as well to vaccines.
The idea is to spread the risk as well as to increase availability. Sanofi Pasteur, which provides about half of the flu vaccine in the U.S., says it has sold out of four of its six formulations of its Fluzone seasonal flu vaccine because of late-season demand.
Companies are wary of making too much vaccine, however, because they can’t re-sell it next year. The flu strains will likely have changed enough to make this year’s vaccine out of date for next year. “It’s not like you can carry it over if you don’t use it,” says Orenstein.
In 2008-2009 the U.S. government shipped 162 million doses of vaccine, but only 90 million were used. And last year 30 million doses or more went unused – most at a loss to the drug makers.
As a result, this year the seven companies made 135 million doses of flu vaccine. So far 128 million have been distributed to pharmacies, doctors’ offices and other providers.
“We have received reports that some consumers have found spot shortages of the vaccine,” Food and Drug Administration commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg says in her blog. “We are monitoring this situation and will update you at our Website and at www.flu.gov.” There’s a flu vaccine finder on those websites.
“The flu season usually peaks in January or February, but can extend as late as May,” Hamburg adds – meaning it’s not too late to get a vaccine if you can find one.
“All of us should be encouraging our friends, our neighbors – everyone – to get vaccinated,” Orenstein said.
- Related links:
- Nasty flu season sparks shortages
- Flu shot isn't perfect
- Flu shot still a hard sell
- Teen death shows flu can kill
Leave a Comment:
If the flu vaccine only covers a minute number of strains, how can that provide "herd immunity"? Also, people are not comfortable injecting themselves and their children with chemicals with the chance that the big flu strain of the year will be included in the vaccine. The article is correct however that either you really support the vaccine or you are really opposed.....
Here's a CDC presentation of a "how to" to get the media involved in selling flu shots to the public.
Your thoughts are not your own. Enjoy these slides. You'll find all of the parts here.
http://www.iom.edu/~/media/Files/Activity%20Files/PublicHealth/MicrobialThreats/Nowak.pdf
Creating concern anxiety and worry. Thats right. Your government (CDC and it's business partners) would like to cause anxiety and worry.
And here we see the problem identified and the actions taken on the public, medical doctors, nurses,etc, to remedy the problem of low sales. Behaviors don't match policy. Force the behavior. coerce the behavior. This is pure propaganda. The arrogant doctors don't even know what is hitting them. They think they are so smart that they don't believe they are being propagandized.
Because we act like Chicken Little.
Can wait unit Uncle Sam runs the whole show..
You can have my shot. I'll just fight it the good old fashioned way, like nature intended.
robert,
any confirmation those slides are real? ie, are we sure they are 100% accurate from the CDC and have not been adulterated in any way?
Because one slide is flat out incorrect--it recommends the flu vaccine only for people >50 years old and infants--this is not the current recommendation
Now, it may be outdated, but im not sure that was ever a recommendation...
Are we sure that YOU are real? How do we know that you are a doctor? The website I gave is the Iom.edu. It's the Institute of Medicine. It is a real website. It's called the Institute of medicine.
The presentation is not from 2012. That may be why you found what you thought to be erroneous. Therefore the slide is correct in it's recommendation. Your attempt to discredit based on a technicality is noted.
Public relations and propaganda within the government and it's corporate partners are a reality. A reality you not ready to deal with.
Public relations and controlling the masses through media is real. Controlling your education is real. Controlling how you think and teaching how you think and what to think is real. So real you don't even notice.
you don't. Healthy skepticism about anything online is normal. Hence my (unanswered) question
Not exactly. The address APPEARS to be the IOM, but i tried to find the presentation from the actual site and it wasn't there. MOreover, when I try to follow the link to anything else it won't let me
Suspcious. Not saying definitely, but smells fishy for sure
Like I said, the presentation may be old, but I don't recall the recommendation listed EVER being accurate; ie, at any time
Its more than a technicality. If someone allegedly from the CDC made such an egregious error on their presentation you got from the internet, it would make the case for it being a fake a whole lot stronger. Come on...
Parenthetically, you try to discredit my degree on alleged technicalities all the time
Hmmm...define propaganda. Also, I don't really care. Even if that presentation is real, it doesn't mean the vaccine doesn't work. Moot point
this makes no sense.
The presentation is about using public relations tricks to get compliance with the influenza vaccine. It does not address evidence of effectiveness. It's a" how to market by appealling to emotions" presentation.
Other terms for that sort of marketing is "bio terror" or "fear mongering for profit"
antivaccine people do it all the time
that wasn't the subject of the talk
ok, so?
Are you going to address if it is actually real? Cause your arguments so far were all destroyed by me--namely, you can't show it directly links to IOM and you haven't shown that those were the flu recs at the time of the presentation...
@don
The cdc is nonprofit, bub
The slide is not incorrect.
uh, yeah it is. the flu vaccine is recommended for everyone >6mos old. Get it right.
I repeat : The slide is not incorrect. You are having an episode of cognitive dissonance. This presentation doesn't fit with your worldview. So you selectively dismiss it.
Context is important. The flu vaccine has not always been reccommended to everyone over 6 mos.
Also context is important.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5430a4.htm#tab
the CDCs MMWR report also lists the reccomendation for particular years. You are welcome to look that up and see how it changes.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5306a1.htm
No error in the slide. Public relations and propaganda tactics are real. The CDC uses them. We know drug companies use them.
Alright Robert you established evidence for "propaganda" but just one question, even if the tactics are true, what establishes or demolishes the proof of effectiveness in the flu vaccine? And before attacking the basic theory, it works, sure it's hitting a metaphorical fly with a minigun but its better than per say running blind. Besides if it was impossible to get the flu mix right, then how did the smallpox vaccine get the mix right? Oh and you seem to suffer from some confirmation bias; if you want to get the best conclusions, gather all data, examine for consistency, throw all preconceptions but keep a general skepticism THEN draw a conclusion.
fine robert, its right. So show me any other source that claims the same thing as that slide as far as the recommendations for who gets the flu shot...
shouldn't be a problem for you if the slide is correct
I did. The CDC reference shows this recommendation. It's on their website. I gave the link. But I suppose you think it's fake too. Nothing is proof for a close minded person.
robert,
you read it wrong, as usual. those patients were only told to get the vaccine under the old guidelines if extra was available. thats what YOUR OWN SOURCE says but not what the slide show says
I didn't read it wrong. I understand what the reccomendations are. I remember when they change it. It used to be for 65 and older.
Anyways this presentation is on the AMA and IOM website and the presenter is the CDC's director of media relations. You will not entertain any more of your conspiracy theories. You can choose to believe or not believe whatever EVIDENCE you choose to. I cannot force you to see. Just like you can't force me to get the flu vaccine.
they were never as stated in the slide
its not on the ama website--that was a different presentation
its not on the iom website-just made to look like it--don't believe me? Try and access it directly from the IOM
the author is irrelevant--even if it is who you say, the presentation couldve been altered and repasted on an official looking website. sounds weird, but finding a different presentation under the same guys name gives credence to this theory. If you disagree, im open to suggestsion
The only evidence this presentation is of, if true, is of aggressive marketing of the flu vax by the cdc. So what
You don't know what you're talking about. You going conspiracy theory on me. YOur getting deep.
the above post did nothing to refute any of my claims. Well done
conspiracy is your only claim. That's it. And you haven't even proven it's a conspiracy. You're just grasping at straws.
then why can't I access it directly from the AMA?
why can't I access it from the IOM website directly?
Why are there two, similiar but different presentations floating around by the same guy?
Either way, the only evidence this presentation is of, if true, is of aggressive marketing of the flu vax by the cdc. So what??
Dig into your conspiracy theory. You'll find the answer. You always do.
your post was nonresponsive and worthless
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1309667/
Are US flu death figures more PR than science?
At the 2004 “National Influenza Vaccine Summit,” co-sponsored by CDC and the American Medical Association, Glen Nowak, associate director for communications at the NIP, spoke on using the media to boost demand for the vaccine. One step of a “Seven-Step `Recipe' for Generating Interest in, and Demand for, Flu (or any other) Vaccination” occurs when “medical experts and public health authorities publicly...state concern and alarm (and predict dire outcomes)—and urge influenza vaccination” (www.ama-assn.org/ama1/pub/upload/mm/36/2004_flu_nowak.pdf). Another step entails “continued reports...that influenza is causing severe illness and/or affecting lots of people, helping foster the perception that many people are susceptible to a bad case of influenza.”
Preceding the summit, demand had been low early into the 2003 flu season. “At that point, the manufacturers were telling us that they weren't receiving a lot of orders for vaccine for use in November or even December,” recalled Dr Nowak on National Public Radio. “It really did look like we needed to do something to encourage people to get a flu shot.”
If flu is in fact not a major cause of death, this public relations approach is surely exaggerated. Moreover, by arbitrarily linking flu with pneumonia, current data are statistically biased. Until corrected and until unbiased statistics are developed, the chances for sound discussion and public health policy are limited.
i see. So how many people exactly have to die before you start giving a crap?
Eric doesn't know what's going on. but the answer is always more flu vaccine. And rationalize any small lie or deception to get it done.
You don't prescribe acid reflux drugs do you? You're putting your patients at risk of pnuemonia and the vaccine won't help them.
there are many more americans now than in the 60s. duh.
I am aware of that risk, I do prescribe them, and I warn patients. This risk is most pronounced in patients who cannot control their secretions--rarely my patient population
The pnuemovax may help, though.
The above is interesting but completely and utterly irrelevant
It would make sense and be possible only if you had evidence.
The point is nobody,doctors cdc, local health authorities,etc., don't know the real numbers. They aren't accurate. But we have seen the cdc in concert with vaccine manufactures use whatever numbers they please to sell vaccines by inciting anxiety fear and concern. This is dishonest and can undermine government credibility. This is not good for national security even though it's done under the guise of national security.
Cochrane systematic review of influenza vaccines
that there were less americans in the 60s? Obvious, but ok...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_United_States_Census
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_Census
We have almost doubled in population...so comparing real numbers from 1960 to today have to be taken in that context.
Not exactly, thats true. But we know a few things:
a) the number is in the thousands
b) the vaccine reduces the morbidity of both proven influenza as well as influenza like illnesses
c) the vaccine reduces all cause mortality
d) no large scale trials have ever demonstrated a negative effect that would outweigh all of the above
all numbers they use are backed in evidence. You act as though they were picked out of thin air
even if true, doesn't mean the vaccine doesn't work.
I mean, I think if people cited the reasons they don't trust the government, this would not rate very highly
I have addressed this numerous times already, but I gather you are a bit slow...
Yes, its concerning that the flu vaccine has yet to demonstrate a reduction in flu deaths. Much of this may be due to the fact that the vaccine is not very efficacious in the people who die most often of the flu. This may be true.
Alternatively, many of those trials used the young person dose in older people. Any drug, even antibiotics or insulin, will not work well if the proper dose is not used.
Secondly, as I have shown in other posts, the flu vaccine results in a decrease in deaths from diseases like COPD. Because of the difficulty and futility of obtaining proof of influenza infection in these patients, these deaths are recorded as secondary to COPD, and no mention of influenza is made. This view is supported by both the reduction in all cause mortality, which includes CHF and COPD (and motor vehicle crashes, which are irrelevant to this discussion so don't even try it) and the evidence cited above--that meta-analysis looking at COPD deaths confirmed a reduction with vaccination.
Thirdly, even though directly vaccinating older people may not have the mortality benefit hoped for, preventing them from getting the flu in the first place by vaccinated others may help to reduce flu mortality, though this would NOT be recorded as a reduction in flu deaths (as people who got the flu would still die at the same rates)
Im absolutely sick and tired of typing the same information to you. Anytime you are confronted with incontrivertible evidence, as with the cochrane review below, you change the subject, only to return to the same point later
and around and around we go....
"young person dose" is an after the fact marketing term. The inactivated flu vaccine is the flu vaccine. It's the same for every person. Critics knew the influenza vaccine was crap and not affecting mortality as sold and marketed. the CDC and their doctor pupils were taught to scream that it did work and saved lives. It was confirmed with science that the vaccine didn't work at all or very little in the targeted group, the frail elderly. They just couldn't muster the antibodies because of a weak immune system(for varying reasons).
Voila the super high dose vaccine was created to address the failure of the current vaccine.
I'll await the the CDC mortality numbers to see if this vaccine works in the targeted group. You can clinch small drug funded papers all day and say see it reduced morbidity but until the ACTUAL mortality stats reflect that then you've got nothing for evidence. So far the evidence doesn't suggest it does. There should be a massive decrease in influenza and pneumonia deaths in the 65+ group. So far hasn't happened. I don't think it will. People with weak immune systems could die of a cold or any virus. The guessing game called the trivalent flu vaccine isn't going to change that.
But as I've shown before the P n I deaths are fabrications anyways. If they artificially change the stats again then they'll run into a marketing conundrum. They need those numbers to be alarming in order to sell the vaccine.
this paragraph is pure and unadulterated opinion without a shred of evidence behind it. Additionally, there is evidence to the contrary; higher doses in older people show a stronger immune response.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23261045
what about the cochrane trial? and which of my cited trials was sponsered by industry?
what about the cochrane trial?
ive explained why numerous times, most recently in my very last post. Additionally, the evidence in the COPD cochrane trial showed a mortality benefit to flu vaccination
where?
Dr. Rider at MIT has developed a broad-spectrum anti-viral that he demostrated is effective against the flu (H1N1) as well as more than 10 other viruses. His team is subsisting on a single NIH grant meant for one researcher. Pharmas are not lining up to pick up the work...
I wrote up an article on his work and I explain the science behind it...
blog <dot> readingthinkingandwriting <dot> com / ?p=500
British Medical Journal:
"An independent meta-analysis of vaccines against influenza has found that claims of benefit have been significantly exaggerated.
The report, released last month by the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, was based on a comprehensive review of data published from 1967 to 2012.1
Evidence for “consistent high-level protection is elusive,” the researchers concluded. Although vaccination was found to provide modest protection from infection in young healthy adults who rarely have complications of flu, the authors found that “evidence for protection in adults 65 years of age and older [who represent over 90% of deaths from flu] . . . is lacking.”
The authors also analyzed recommendations issued by the federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which provides expert advice to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and which are “often considered the standard of practice . . . around the …"
I have no intention of getting vaccinated, so someone can have my dose.
I'm not anti-vaccine, but I think we as a society try to prevent too many things from occurring. Polio vaccine? Genius. TDap? Check. Flu? Nope. Not unless I'm required to and here's why (mind you, I have absolutely no scientific proof to back any of this up, it's just my opinion).
We need to get sick. We need to let our bodies fight off viruses and infections. I am a firm believer that we're causing weakened immune systems to become the norm in our society. Why do so many kids have allergies? Because we've become too hyper-vigilant about cleanliness. Are my kids clean? Sure they are. Do I wipe down every surface with lysol 15 times a day and make my kids scrub with anti-bacterial soap? I absolutely do not. And yet amazingly enough, I can't tell you the last time one of them had a cold.
Now this doesn't mean I'm against all medicine. Antibiotics are wonderful. But if you watch/read the news, they talk about new strains of antibiotic-resistant bugs. We did that. We created that "superbug". Scientists have done and continue to do amazing things but I think we sometimes need to take a step back and evaluate how much meddling with nature we should really be doing.
This flu will kill approximately 50k this year.
Amalizzy - as long as you stay home when you get sick and don't spread your germs, your welcome to get the flu as often as you can. That is one of the reasons why people are encouraged to get the shot - if you have it, you'll pass it around, and possibly to people with a system less able to fight it off.
I'm 100% with you on this!!! We are coddling our kids too much and this new movement about cleanliness is going to make humans weaker in the long run... Imagine if you lived in a bubble, and then all of a sudden you went out in the real world... you would get sick immediately, that's kind of what over-cleaning and and over-sanitizing has done to us.
robert
couple points:
1) the study acknowledges a benefit in everyone but the elderly. Now while they don't make up the bulk of deaths, young people still can and do die from the flu. Not to mention that while mortality is arguably the most important outcome, it is far from the only one. If vaccination decreases infective time, symptoms, or mortality from other causes, then certainly its very difficult to argue against
2) Did this study evaluate studies that used the high dose vaccine in the elderly? Do you even know? Because anything else is fairly worthless. The dose used in young people is clearly not the same dose that should be used in older patients. And you can't judge vaccine efficacy if you use the wrong dose
What if I gave a patient an inadequate dose of an antibiotic and they died from infection? Can I saw that was an antibiotic failure? Or if a diabetic usually requires 10 units of insulin and I give them only 1?
No influenza vaccine regardless of dose or immunogenicity has shown a drop in elderly mortality.
"No influenza vaccine regardless of dose or immunogenicity has shown a drop in elderly mortality."
Vaccines for preventing influenza in the elderly.
Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2010 Feb 17;(2):CD004876. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD004876.pub3.
"Authors Conclusions: The available evidence is of poor quality and provides no guidance regarding the safety, efficacy or effectiveness of influenza vaccines for people aged 65 years or older. To resolve the uncertainty, an adequately powered publicly-funded randomised, placebo-controlled trial run over several seasons should be undertaken."
sigh, wrong as usual...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21821084
Don,
see above. In addition, your study does not say the vaccine was ineffective, only that the availabe studies did not show efficacy. I already addressed this by stating the the available trials looked at in that review used the young person dose, not the correct dose for the elderly
Sorry that is not a cause and effect study. It's a cohort study. I wonder how many of those they had to perform to get the numbers they wanted. Probably a lot.
FYI no medical intervention in all of medicine prevents all cause mortality by 54%. Nothing. That should be the first statistic that causes a raised eyebrow.
sorry, that doesn't matter. Its still a significant correlation you cannot explain otherwise
speculation on your part in an attempt to discredit actual data. Not gonna fly
This is one of the dumbest comments I've ever read. Stenting in acute prox LAD infarcts reduces all cause mortality by more than 54% over a 5 year period.
Treating type 1 diabetes with insulin also does
Treating acute appendicitis does
Treating bowel perforation does
wow, just wow.
your second post commentary does not apply in my cited case because the case I cited was prospective. The theoretical flaws you point out only apply to retrospective cases
Since patients in my study were randomized and matched for all confounders, there are no lifestyle differences that may make one group choose vaccination that would also affect the study results. Look at the abstract and also table 1.
Then it must prevent death from falls, automobile accidents, homocide, etc.,
You don't even think about what you say do you?
None of those reduce all cause mortality by 50%. None of those. I promise. If it did then
This is not cause and effect this is a miracle from God. But you don't believe in god.
no, just cardiac mortality and sepsis--thats including in all cause mortality, bub
That's not all cause mortality. It's obvious this is not the case. Relative statics mislead.like I said ealier if I buy 1 lottery ticket instead of 2 I just decreased my chances of winning by 50%. Or I could increase my chances by 100% by buying 2 tix instead of 1. These stats are misleading. It's an over representation. An exaggeration. It's dishonest. Researchers know it. But medical scientists and pharma companies are no more moral and ethical than the avg person.
wow, you are even worse off than I thought. You are absurd. So mortality from any cause, such as sepsis or MI, is not included in all cause mortality? Really? Than what is? And why are these excluded?
only for idiots
So its true with small numbers. However, with the number of flu sufferers a year, which is in the tens or hundreds of thousands, even a 10% relative reduction is huge. This is basic math robert
do you want me to post non medical, phd driven research that uses relative statistics? Will that shut you up?
YOu are not a critical thinker. YOu have gaps in logic that you fill in. These are assumptions. You're questions are the wrong questions so I will not answer them. Are you still beating your wife? See how the question is misleading and dishonest? Are you dishonest?
All causey mortality includes all causes. All causes.Do you understand that? All causes. Each category which represents all cause is only a certain and differing percentage of all cause. Got it? Good. The flu makes up a small percentage of overall deaths each year. If the flu vaccine totally wiped out all ilnfluenza viruses in the world and no one ever died again from flu. Could you please explain how the flu vaccine could drop all cause mortality by 50%
Could you mathematically explain each and every technology above and how they each cause a drop of 50% in all cause mortality. Because as of right now you have about 250% reductions in all cause mortality that you're claiming. do you see the absurdity in your belief system? It is severely flawed. It's based on faith and wishes not science like you claim.
your first paragraph makes no sense
easy. studies have shown that half of the number of people who receive the flu vax die compared to a control group who does not receive it. Why? You actually answered this question yourself
You have stated multiple times on other threads that people don't die from the flu. You have used the pandemic of 1918 as an example; you have stated that most of them died from pneumonia
It is well known that the flu predisposes patients to pneumonia--those deaths would be classified as deaths due to pneumonia--NOT the flu. However, would those patients have died if they had not contracted the flu first? Hard to say for sure, but its certainly a risk factor
In addition, cause of death is not as straightforward as you think. You do not have much experience with it, but every doc, regardless of skill, deals with death frequently. And I can tell you that cause of death is often a guessing game. Lets say a patient with severe heart failure comes in with an exacerbation. she is intubated and eventually expires due to pump failure. Her cause of death would be listed as CHF. But what if flu caused her exacerbation in the first place? It would not be listed as a flu death, but it is likely that had she gotten a flu shot, and had it been efficacious, she might have not gotten sick in the first place and survived
so these are not additive. I shouldnt have to explain this to you--its statistics 101. but if you do 3 things that reduce your cause of death by 50% each, youre overall risk is reduced by 78%. its not 50+50+50. Thats honestly ridiculous that you do not know this.
If you need an example: lets say you are playing cards, and your chance of winning your hand are 30%. You then make a move that reduces your chance of winning by 50%--it is now 15%. You make another move that reduces your chance by another 50%--it is now 7.5%. As you can see, it progressively gets smaller but doesn't reach 0 and certainly doesn't go below. The same would be true if the moves increased your chance by 50%.
I really shouldn't have to explain this to you.
None of this means anything to your arguments. except for the part about it being built on a house of cards. But you are consistent about avoiding statistical lies particularly about all cause mortality. Waiting for you mathematical explanation on how flu vaccine reduces all cause mortality by 50% when it only makes up less than 10% of all deaths. Waiting ....Waiting...waiting...and done.YOu have no answer because you don't understand the lie. You actually believe it.
patience grasshopper.
1) I have already told you that people die of other causes that are indirectly caused by the flu. So not every death that is partially or even completely due to the flu is recorded as a flu death
For example, I have seen many die of a COPD exacerbation. I have never seen anyone check an influenza panel in these patients...why? Because it doesn't change their care at all. Since we have no truly effective antivirals (tamiflu is only good within the first 24hours, and is still not like an antibiotic for bacterial infections) the main strategy is still treating the underlying lung disease.
Many more of these patients come in during the winter season than the summer. Its very likely that a good number of these exacerbations are caused by flu
but the biggest reason is #2...
2) You are confusing relative numbers and absolute numbers. Flu deaths are 10% of all deaths. But vaccination causes a RELATIVE reduction of 50% in all cause mortality. Allow me to illustrate:
You start with 2 groups of 100 people, one vaccinated, one unvaccinated. 10 of them in the unvaccinated group die from the flu (10% flu deaths). 10 others in the unvaccinated group die of other causes, leaving you with 20% all cause mortality total in the unvaccinated group (10 of flu +10 of something else)
In the vaccinated group, you have 8 flu deaths and 2 deaths from other causes, giving an all cause mortality of 10%. This is a 50% reduction relative to the unvaccinated group
This is really, really, really basic stuff robert. Im getting a new opinion of you, and its even worse
In the second group
You start with
now you can quibble about the numbers I chose--those were random just to illustrate a point.
Ive read the papers youve cited by Tom Jefferson, as he is the only reputable person youve mentioned. And I must admit, some of what he says is persuasive. He does make a point that we cannot show much of a flu mortality reduction in the people that die of the flu most often.
However, in those same papers he finds a significant reduction in all cause mortality. Here's where people's biases come in. He claims this doesn't make sense, and just dismisses it. Clearly he's biased against vaccines
A pro vaccine person, such as myself and most others, would use some of the reasons I stated above (too weak of a dose in the elderly, many deaths due to flu are not attributed to the flu, etc) and embrace the results as positive
Who's right? Hard to say. But the truth remains that the data you have shown me demonstrates a real reduction in morbidity and mortality, and despite my claims about mechanisms, when peoples lives are at stake, thats good enough for me.
Flu vaccine reduces death of car accidents and falls? And all you can say is "when lives are at stake that's good enough for me"?
Not a critical thinker. You have an extreme bias if you can't see the problem with those manipulated statistics. You just accept them as truth. And you're a cardiologist? This is as baffling as the Manti Teo hoax. Your critical thinking skills just aren't consistent with being a real doctor.
You are assuming with no evidence. You are guessing with your extreme bias. You are really grasping and reaching.
You really should try and stay objective about this. Stick with the evidence. Not youre made up possibilities. Especially when you're so cocksure of your ideas lacking evidence.
no, but copd and heart failure are two examples I gave you that are plausible and youve ignored
you keep saying that yet I have completely embarassed you with your ignorance of basic statistics and even elementary arithmetic. You asked for a mathmatical solution to the alleged 10%/50% question and I shoved a good one in your face.
Easy to talk a big game but only one of us backs it up. And it aint you
how are they manipulated?
YOU PROVIDED THE NUMBERS GENIUS!!!
like I said, see above. I solved a problem in 2 seconds that obviously confused the hell out of you. Again, you talk a big game, but get embarassed on every post. That statistics issue that confused you was a joke for me to figure out
Um, its a well established fact that more people die in the winter of CHF, CAD, and COPD. There is plenty of evidence for this
As for my hypothesis that the flu may be responsible for some of these:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23084847
your ignorance of the evidence is astounding
aren't you just a little embarassed now?
Im going to pile it on you just to drive home the point
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20518273
and finally, from the cochrane group we both love so much
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16437444
Im looking forward to seeing how you try and wriggle out of this one...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1309667/
Are US flu death figures more PR than science?
At the 2004 “National Influenza Vaccine Summit,” co-sponsored by CDC and the American Medical Association, Glen Nowak, associate director for communications at the NIP, spoke on using the media to boost demand for the vaccine. One step of a “Seven-Step `Recipe' for Generating Interest in, and Demand for, Flu (or any other) Vaccination” occurs when “medical experts and public health authorities publicly...state concern and alarm (and predict dire outcomes)—and urge influenza vaccination” (www.ama-assn.org/ama1/pub/upload/mm/36/2004_flu_nowak.pdf). Another step entails “continued reports...that influenza is causing severe illness and/or affecting lots of people, helping foster the perception that many people are susceptible to a bad case of influenza.”
Preceding the summit, demand had been low early into the 2003 flu season. “At that point, the manufacturers were telling us that they weren't receiving a lot of orders for vaccine for use in November or even December,” recalled Dr Nowak on National Public Radio. “It really did look like we needed to do something to encourage people to get a flu shot.”
If flu is in fact not a major cause of death, this public relations approach is surely exaggerated. Moreover, by arbitrarily linking flu with pneumonia, current data are statistically biased. Until corrected and until unbiased statistics are developed, the chances for sound discussion and public health policy are limited.
this is just a repeat of your above post, and is completely nonresponsive to this line of debate.
Fine, I'll concede that the CDC has an aggressive advertising, even propaganda campaign aimed at increasing flu vaccination.
Done? Ok. Now address my points
You've said that before. I don't believe you. I reposted the presentation and you lied and called it a fake. Misrepresenting me. After you said you conceded that it was real.
are you terrified to address the cochrane study? You seem it...
They dont' say what you say they say. quote from the link
No Value in Any Influenza Vaccine: Cochrane Collaboration Study
Alone...taken in conglomeration, they represent a huge data pool. That is what a meta analysis is. They even say that if you bother reading past the first line...
YOu will look for any excuse to continue your worldview
asked and answered above. And these studies DID show a benefit, if you actually read them
It doesn't change the facts of the review
sure it does. the number of patients studied is in the thousands..thats plenty. Thats the same number as the studies YOU cite...
Furthermore, as you have said numerous times, cochrane is the gold standard for evidence review. Why would they publish such a study if they did not believe they had enough patients to come up with an accurate conclusion?
Alone..hence why they did a meta-analysis. Here is their conclusion:
It appears, from the limited number of studies performed, that inactivated vaccine reduces exacerbations in COPD patients. The size of effect was similar to that seen in large observational studies, and was due to a reduction in exacerbations occurring three or more weeks after vaccination, and due to influenza. There is a mild increase in transient local adverse effects with vaccination, but no evidence of an increase in early exacerbations.
NOthing you have stated counters this.
here's more evidence
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21289042
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15578359
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22172681
i usually don't like blogs, but this one is great as it cites many relevant articles
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/flu-vaccine-efficacy/
There's a 5th main reason, which this article fails to address - the fact that the flu shot isn't very effective. There is a huge disconnect between what the "industry" studies show, versus what the "independent studies"show, in regards to efficacy.
I got the flu shot this year, and I'm home sick with a very nasty flu, as I write this. I know at least a dozen people who got the flu shot, and still got the flu.
So a big reason people don't bother getting the flu shot, is because they still get the flu regardless...
really? any citations to back this up?
The Cochrane collaboration or
You could watch this if you like:
http://www.ted.com/talks/ben_goldacre_what_doctors_don_t_know_about_the_drugs_they_prescribe.html
irrelevant. Nothing to do with the flu vaccine itself. It would be more interesting if you had these alleged negative results for the flu vaccine that have remained hidden...do you?
If not, then you are just guessing. More accurately, you are playing make believe
And negative trials are released all the time....Here are some examples
Courage (stenting no better than medical management)
Closure I (closing PFOs offers no benefit)
AIM-HIGH
http://www.nih.gov/news/health/may2011/nhlbi-26.htm
I'm really starting to think that Eric is a paid shill for one of the companies that makes the vaccine.
much easier to attack the man than the ideas, isn't it pvblivs?
Especially in an intelligent discussion where you are unarmed...
Alright I have to side with eric since he does have a few valid points. But just my two cents, just how many of the people that have come down with the "flu" got the shot only a few days to weeks ago? The vaccines all need TIME to work, these aren't medications that work automatically! Also just how many of the cases of "flu" were confirmed using a petri dish or culture plate?
Eric:
One: It's just an observation. Your posts read like advertising copy. Two: Discourse with you is inherently not intelligent. You bring nothing to the table. I note that you have accused a few people of "attacking the man." And while it is true that you being a paid shill does not necessarily mean what you say is false, it does mean that your objectivity is lacking.
pvl,
one--your observations are unsupported opinion full of bias
two-my posts contain citations. Proof. Evidence. Numbers. Facts. You wouldn't recognize those if they slapped you in the face
three-never clamed to be objective--but numbers are. See #2
Your posts do not contain proof. This is false.
Eric:
My observations are observations. Your posts are the ones that are full of bias. That is why you look like a paid shill. Advertising copy always touts a product as though it had only virtues and no flaws. It usually tries to convince people that everybody "needs" the product. And paid shills try to silence or discredit (in the public mind) any critics. That is what you have done.
As long as you keep saying there are no downsides to getting a flu shot and that everyone needs to get one and treating dissenters the way you do, you will sound like a paid shill.
Agreed Pvblivs. Unfortunatley there are flaws with every medication, etc. to say otherwise is incorrect.
Pvblivs:
but still on the flip side every compound can be used medicinally, as there is no single compound that can be considered "completely" harmful. Lets look at the toxin used in botox, it's lethal in less than a gram but it still has its uses.
Sure the flu shot has problems that can affect a percentage of the population, such as nerve damage, fever, hives, numbness, just to name a few but it has been shown effective at times. Even if eric is a paid shill, so was Andrew Wakefield, and guess who did more damage?
robert,
I have including links, like the one showing a reduction in mortality in the elderly which 100% proves you wrong. You chose to ignore it. thats your own darn fault
pub,
ignore everything I say then. Just try and refute my citations, if you can...
He double dog dares you. If you keep ignoring this doctor and his authority he may triple dog dare you.
I never had a flu shot until about 5 yrs ago and then it was offered at my job free of charge. Honestly I can't remember the last time I had the flu (Knock on wood). Also my child is grown and gone which might make a difference I think you tend to be more suseptable when you have kids at home.
Why don't we vaccine all the pigs and poultry? That's where the vector starts.
It's a little late to be getting the flu shot now, anyway. To be most effective, it needs to have been given in October. Some employers REQUIRE employees to get the vaccine, or face termination. How 'bout THEM apples??!!
Does anyone notice how the flu got worse since the shots started? I am not taking one. I will stay home and not go any where I dont have to go. When I do I will wash my hands. Because people who have had the shot spreads it like children who get it at walmart and then the parents continue shopping. You know children are going to touch it and then touch everything. Hello where is the common sence out there or have we a shortage of common sense?
this is an example of falsely linking an outcome to an event. For example, if I raised airline prices around the holidays, and ticket sales spiked (as they usually do around this time), could I then infer that the high prices caused more people to buy tickets?
@eric-2573068 "really? any citations to back this up?"
Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2012 Aug 15;8:CD004879. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD004879.pub4.
Vaccines for preventing influenza in healthy children.
"This review includes trials funded by industry. An earlier systematic review of 274 influenza vaccine studies published up to 2007 found industry-funded studies were published in more prestigious journals and cited more than other studies independently from methodological quality and size. Studies funded from public sources were significantly less likely to report conclusions favourable to the vaccines. The review showed that reliable evidence on influenza vaccines is thin but there is evidence of widespread manipulation of conclusions and spurious notoriety of the studies.."
@eric-2573068 "really? any citations to back this up?"
Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2010 Jul 7;(7):CD001269. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD001269.pub4.
Vaccines for preventing influenza in healthy adults.
Authors Conclusions: Influenza vaccines have a modest effect in reducing influenza symptoms and working days lost. There is no evidence that they affect complications, such as pneumonia, or transmission.WARNING: This review includes 15 out of 36 trials funded by industry (four had no funding declaration). An earlier systematic review of 274 influenza vaccine studies published up to 2007 found industry funded studies were published in more prestigious journals and cited more than other studies independently from methodological quality and size. Studies funded from public sources were significantly less likely to report conclusions favorable to the vaccines. The review showed that reliable evidence on influenza vaccines is thin but there is evidence of widespread manipulation of conclusions and spurious notoriety of the studies. The content and conclusions of this review should be interpreted in light of this finding.
those citations do nothing to support the claim of the poster. You mustve misread it. Here it is again:
It's possible that the media just reports it more. To create anxiety and concern in order to sell more flu vaccine. Just like the CDC presentation says.
Much of medical news is canned reports. Fed to journalists and AP writers. This creates third party credibility.
you mean your fake presentation?
You are becoming unhinged Eric. You can choose to ignore or just believe whatever it is you want to believe.
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama1/pub/upload/mm/36/2004_flu_nowak.pdf
http://www.iom.edu/~/media/Files/Activity%20Files/PublicHealth/MicrobialThreats/Nowak.pdf
http://www.shotsfortots.com/NCIHC_Sponsorship_2012_final%20draft/presentations/Presentations%20Organized%20by%20Session/C3%20Media%20Relations/Glen%20Nowak-%20The%20Foundation,%20Media%20Relations%20and%20Successful%20Media%20Campaigns.pdf
easier to attack the man than the ideas. All your name calling proves is that:
1) youre immature
2) you can't compete on an adult level
Robert, robert, robert!! Thank you for being so careless!!!
Did you even look at the link you posted for the ppt just now? Its COMPLETELY different from the one you posted earlier!!!
All the offensive slides are gone!!! This proves conclusively that the first one you posted was tampered with!!!
hahahahahahahahahah!
You just proved my point for me!!!
Not only is your logic fallacious so is your eyesight. Slides aren't "missing so it doesn't prove anything. Even if they were not exactly the same it still does not conclusively prove anything. A critical mind would know this.
YOu are really slipping and becoming emotional. The presentation is a different presentation by the same CDC media relations director except is for the AMA.
The point that your fail to see is that the CDC engages in emotional ploys using the media to gain compliance of vaccine product.
Your laughing proves nothing but arrogance.
You've proven nothing except ignorance of influenza vaccine recommendation.
hahahahah! You mean this guy made two presentations, almost exactly the same, and just changed a couple slides that happen to make it much more inflammatory?
Why is this more likely than the fact that his presentation was doctored by someone else after the fact?
Hahahahahah! sure, robert, sure....
Eunice,The flu has gotten worse as it is a virus that keeps on changing and mutating.Hope this answer helps.You should have gotten a flu shot because if you ever contract it and it gets in your lungs to the point of pneumonia you'll wish you had of been vaccinated.
Inflammatory? What makes it inflammatory? It's a CDC presentation to the media. And what slides were changed and how does that change the tone of the presentation?
Do you need more evidence of this happening or do you want to just stick you head in the sand? The enterprise of science is not all empirical as you wish it to be.
your "evidence" is a tampered slide set
Eric just likes to argue no matter what. I just ignore his posts really.
great job ignoring me biscuits. I really wish you would do better
This is true!
There is only 1 reason - nobody cares.
Flu vaccine is still made using 1960s tech.
There is technology available to make a vaccine for everybody in US in ~ 5 weeks for pennies per dose, but nobody cares because US is relatively healthy and any losses are acceptable to the people in charge.
Shut up and get the flu shot, the sooner the better. Please dispense with your homespun mythology regarding vaccinations. It is all a bunch of garbage. If you are too stupid or lazy to get the flu shot or anything else then don't whine about it. Please move out of the country, preferably Africa, and see how you fare there. Pasteur, Salk,Fleming(penicillin) and his cronies here and above must be wondering what kind of idiots we have here. Get the flu shot stupid.
Coop:
You can have mine. I don't care how much money the companies paid you to call everyone who doesn't buy into the propaganda "stupid." If you're right, you shouldn't care who else doesn't get the shot because you're already protected, right? So why tell other people they should get the shot. It can't be out of any concern. You wouldn't be calling anyone stupid or telling anyone to leave the country if it were. You must really think the vaccine is a bad deal.
j coopThe best comments by far.
When Bush was president it was his fault that there was a shortage of the vaccine. Now there is a rush to explain how tough it is to get flu shots out to the public in the Obama era. What a surprise.
"When Bush was president it was his fault that there was a shortage of the vaccine."
Really? Says who? You? I don't recall any articles that placed the blame on President Bush, and I'm a reader.
Politics has nothing to do with it. You simply felt the need to make some chump change political statement.
as for me and mine. LOL. there is no way we would ever get this vaccine. before the vaccine people would get the flu then get over it you never heard any mention of multiple strains. now everywhere you look pharmacists and doctors are pushing the vaccine. has it helped? well they say it has of course as for me i don't believe them. you do as you want i think i will take my chances without it. same for that cervical cancer vaccine they keep trying to push. from what i have read it has killed more in the last 10 years than cervical cancer has in the last 100 years. seriously i think they have another motive behind this. i will wait 30 years and see were it goes
us citizen,The strains have mutated.Hopefully you and yours will stay home when you start to get the symptoms so as not to pass it on to babies,little children and the elderly so that you don't cause their death.
Funny, drug companies don't seem to have any problem pushing a myriad of drugs on television. Sounds like their marketing department sucks.
Interesting. I am one of those "arrogant" doctors, and I know enough to know we are being sold a load of bovine excrement. The real problem of the flu is how to efficiently market the vaccine so the makers can maximize profits. And, no, I will not have a flu shot myself. I haven't died yet.
what kind of doctor are you? Whats your field/degree?
howard fein,You do know that there is a law that was passed to make it a crime to misrepresent yourself on the internet.Everything you type on the internet lasts forever.
it is all about money ;they are there to make profit ; vaccines are just like any other product; profit to the companies ; convenient to sell since the government is on board ; why to talk how to strengthen your immune system when they are selling you junk and gmo food on tv? what do you expect? your best interest to be served? no way ; look at the government ; they can not get their books right what else you can expect ? that they will know what you need to be healthy? here is you pill and chill out that is all they can think of or someone else thinks for them like pharma and drug companies + monsanto being at the top of it; what do you expect?
You are what you Eat.Actually there is little profit to be made on flu vaccines.The big ticket items are anti- rejection drugs for transplant patients and cancer drugs.
You mean there is little profit per dose. If you can get several million people coming back year after year for those doses, that's a lot of money. The target market for anti-rejection drugs is small.
I refuse to get the shot. I agree that this hyper-sensativity towards germs has only made our immune systems weaker.
*face palm*
Jesus, did you pay attention at all in school? ( I know, I know, you say it's the liberal agenda). Viruses do not equate to bacteria.
But they have important similarities, Matt. They mutate; and if we try to shield ourselves from them too much, our immune systems become ineffective at fighting them off. Excuses aside, if you need a new vaccination every year something is wrong.
pvb
this is literally the dumbest thing ive ever heard. Please give me your biological mechanism for this. I want specifics, not analogies. Is this a CD4 mediated, or antibody mediated process? Are interleukins decreased? Any citations or supporting evidence?
I know you have no idea what the above words mean but feel free to look them up and get back to me. Or have someone explain them to you. I'll wait
You don't listen to your own comments?
yes,, and this one of yours is the dumbest comment by far.
and your inability to answer my questions proves it
Eric:
You set a low bar for yourself and a high bar for all critics. Your "questions" are designed to be inherently unreasonable. The level of stupid in your comments is so high that it burns. But let me help you. We can observe the fact that immune systems have become less effective over time without nneding to cite the exact mechanisms by which it does so. This is the same as the fact that you don't need to be a mechanic to tell if your car is being sluggish and non-responsive. You need to be a mechanic to fix the problem, but not to see the result
Actually, that is a good analogy. I have noticed that your car is not very good because it is slow to respond, guzzles gas, and gets a maximum speed of 10 mph. You (the salesman) respond by insisting that I prove I am a mechanic certified specifically by your dishonest shop. Well, I am not doing business with your crooked dealership.
opinion...worthless and uneducated
this is why I specifically stated no analogies. Its what people do when they don't know the answer, so they try and relate it to something they do know
Last I checked, people do not have gas tanks or fuel injectors, and ford has not invented an internal combustible immune system; ie, people are not cars
I want a specific mechanism--otherwise, your entire post is conjecture
Your worthless, uneducated opinion is duly noted.
Analogies are a useful means of expressing an idea -- in this case, how you are being dishonest. My direct observation that the immune system becomes weaker under certain circumstances. I do not need to provide an underlying mechanism that causes the fact to be so in order to observe that the fact is so. Another analogy for your dishonesty: If I observe that a bank robber has sped off in a car, it is dishonest of you to insist that I "provide a mechanism for how the car operates -- otherwise it is pure conjecture."
Now let's provide some objective criteria for my assertion that your "questions" are deliberately unreasonable.
Deliberately unreasonable arguments or questioning impose undue restrictions (e.g. "no analogies") on the responder. Further any requirement that a direct observation must be explained in terms of mechanism or the observation is regarded as conjecture is unreasonable.
Unless you be honest, we are done; and I will assume that you are as stupid as you pretend me to be. It is dishonest to discount my observations because I either cannot or do not explain how an event came to be so.
He claims to be a practicing cardiologist therefore his opinions are worth everything and yours are worth nothing. And you're stupid because you are not him. He is your intellectual superior. He will not deny this.
So, I assume you went to high school. An example of an average high school biology question might be to write an essay on evolution. If your essay included an analogy to cars, and nothing about random mutation or selective pressures, or survival fitness you would fail.
Is your teacher being dishonest? Is it an unfair question? No.
The fact is mechanisms are important because they help establish causation. You would like to somehow link vaccines and weakening immune systems in a cause and effect relationship. However, just because they occur together by no means establishes that one causes the other. Without a plausible mechanism, there is as much evidence that rock music or global warming is to blame.
Seriously, give me one reason why vaccines are the cause instead of maroon 5. You can't without trying to invoke some mechanism. You actually indirectly try to accomplish this by invoking some mechanism (ie "shielding the immune system"). However, when pressed, you cannot explain further without analogies because your understanding of biology is lacking
And so is roberts, which is why I ignore all posts like the one above that contribute nothing except displaying his extreme immaturity
You don't understand causation yourself. You repeatedly mistake association with causation. The rest of your post is blah blah blah.
fine, lets test you then robert...how does one establish causation?
and if you had a science background, my post would make sense to you . But with your ignorance, I have no doubt its over your head
"....and they have to eat the cost if they don’t sell all the vaccines they buy to patients."
I doubt it. I'm almost certain that they can write off the loss when they file their taxes, although I could be wrong.
Each year the vaccine contains three strains.
Let's say there are 6 strains circulating - and they're guessing at the top 3. So everyone gets a shot and those 3 are protected against, but someone out there picks up strain #5, which was NOT in the vaccine. Since it wasn't, people who got vaccinated and those who didn't can contract it. And spread it to others. Who spread it to others, who spreads it to the rest of the world.
SO - in other words - all the vaccine is doing is to insure that whatever strains were NOT chosen are the ones that are going to circulate. Guaranteed.
It doesn't take rocket-science-intellect to be able to figure this out.
I'm with you except the guaranetee because there are years when three or less rear it's head. It's not often but that does happen.
"It doesn't take rocket-science-intellect to be able to figure this out."
No, but it does in order to apply a situation across millions of individuals.
I was a disbeliever in the flu vaccine and at age 29 I got the flu that caused pneumonia in both lungs being 2/3 full of fluid. And a slight sinus infection on top for good measure. The hospitals were full I had to go home to bed, take meds and not get out for 10 days. My mattress was ruined needless to say once I recovered. I RUN to get a flu a shot and I get pneumonia shot every ten years since.
Not getting a vaccine is playing Russian roulette with your life and at times 46,000 people lose that game. However, it is your choice to take your chances doing nothing.
My suggestion has always been to make a nation registry of those who get the vaccine and be sure they are FIRST to get it the next year. People who flee in for a shot on bad years only makes it hard to gauge the total number of those who will walk in for a shot in any given year.
Disinformation supporting medicalization of the human body for profit and just main stream article to distract from the truth and breaking news that oddly exists nowhere in news searches and only on a few blogs here is one deeply buried article over a at huff
Vaccine Court Awards Millions to Two Children With AutismPosted: 01/14/2013 9:43 am
I guess lots of vaccines create lots of Autism to study and develop "medicalization" treatments for. Twisted when you are afraid to trust your health professionals. How long have they been denying the vaccine link to harm? long long time
because there is no harm in excess of any other comparable medical procedure (which is negligible)
which is negligible
"The federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, better known as "vaccine court," has just awarded millions of dollars to two children with autism for "pain and suffering" and lifelong care of their injuries, which together could cost tens of millions of dollars."
Possibly medical officials should consider the risk and follow "do no harm"?
Or maybe realize that medicalization carries a toll on the humans experimented on?
Trials are not scientific proof. More often then not, they are settled for fear of larger verdicts against them, warranted or not
The cases you are talking about happened during the height of vaccine paranoia. The studies used in those trials were later found to be fradulent, and the author stripped of his research creds.
Im not sure if you are arguing for or against vaccines with that post...
That ruling was yesterday Eric get real.
I don't believe you. show me
Dec. 13, 2012 is when it was awarded. http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/CAMPBELL-SMITH.MOJABI-PROFFER.12.13.2012.pdf
You can show Eric but he won't believe it. He doesn't like facts that oppose his beliefs. He attacks them like Don Quixote attacking a windmill.
i see, so you claimed a million dollar lawsuit judgment in favor of 2 kids was handed down this week.
Out of that, what was false?
a) 2 children
b) millions of dollars
c) this week
d) all of the above
Robert, why don't you take this one?
Talk to anyone who is still alive about what life was like before vaccines. I think they would whack you upside the head with their cane for being so stupid to refuse vaccination. If I could travel back in time and take this type of medical magic with me to the time of the 1918 flu pandemic that killed between 35 million to 6o million people or to any other point in history that vaccination would save lives, I would of been revered as a god & wealthy beyond belief.
The Pandemic that wasn't? The flu strain changes constantly.
The elusive definition of pandemic influenza – Peter Doshi
Bulletin of the World Health Organization 2011;89:532-538. doi: 10.2471/BLT.11.086173
#R5
“Central to this debate has been the question of whether H1N1 influenza should have been labelled a “pandemic” at all. The Council of Europe voiced serious concerns that the declaration of a pandemic became possible only after WHO changed its definition of pandemic influenza. It also expressed misgivings over WHO’s decision to withhold publication of the names of its H1N1 advisory Emergency Committee. …
At stake in this debate are the public trust in health officials and our collective capacity to respond effectively to future disease threats…..”
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14458-bacteria-were-the-real-killers-in-1918-flu-pandemic.html
Also living conditions were much different back then. Improvements in these conditions has been shown to have a much more profound affect on mortality than any medical technology.
What is the evidence for a causal linkbetween hygiene and infections?
even if bacteria were the agent directly responsible for death during the 1918 pandemic, influenza is agreed upon as the initial insult in the majority of cases.
Viruses predisposing bacterial infection is so well known that the two were even confused in the past. H. influenzae is named so because it was cultured so often from patients with the flu.
so?
Eric why is pharma so dead set on giving people vaccines with mercury one of the most toxic substances on the planet in them? Care to explain that agenda? There are known alternatives aren't there.
so the single dose flu shots, which are the ones you are likely to recieve, do not contain mercury.
Absurd. Would you rather touch a miligram of mercury or a miligram of plutonium?
mercury is not toxic in the doses in vaccines. Dose is important in toxicology. Iron in small doses is necessary for human life; in large doses it is fatal.
I know mercury isn't necessary for life, so don't try to play that old card. The point that we both now realize is that the effects of a substance can change drastically, even all the way from life promoting to fatal just by dose
sure, they just don't work as well
He says mercury is safe to be injected into small babies. I kid you not. Not because he can provide scientific studies showing but because he believes so and his consensus "believes" so. His consensus trumps yours. That's his "science".
wrong. I said there is no evidence that its not safe
Ive shown you many studies demonstrating the safety of vaccines in children, even those containing mercury
/facepalm
science is my science but you only hear what you want to. You are a fanatic.
but here is evidence again. So now stop lying
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15342825
cohort studies fraught with potential bias and are not safety studies. You should know this.
all studies have potential for bias. Everyone knows this. However, what seperates the men from the boys, and the smart people from you is the ability to critically analyze the studies and find specific examples of bias. This is beyond your level
Why not? Specifically? Using a statistical explanation, please.
Youre wrong and in above your head. You can only reply in stock phrases and copy and paste posts directly lifted from much smarter people than yourself
Trust me, I know this and found it out quickly
Before engaging me you knew absolutely nothing about the vaccine debate. You have learned more from me on the internet than you ever learned in medical school.
You could less about the damage vaccines have caused people or the actual necessity of massively vaccinating the population. You just want to prove how smart you are. And in so you are learning how to handle vaccine objections.
But this debate turns in a complete wheel. This is about philosophy, ethics, and policies. This is what drives you nuts because you don't understand that. You think the world is entirely explainable by empirical measures. An entirely mechanistic world. And that's fine. That's your belief system. But you have to understand that it's only a philosophy. You don't have the corner market on people's values let alone empiricism.
From what I have gathered of your views you are a socialist in policy and an atheist. Is this correct?
if that makes you feel better.
You don't know me. And if given proof of serious injury caused by vaccines, I would acquiesce. However, you can't do it. You are typical of all fanatics and wackos. You ask for double blind, placebo controlled, randomized prospective studies as evidence from your detractors, but only provide minimal case reports in response. If I asked you to show evidence of vaccine injury, you would do what you always do and show hannah polings case, or some small series of rats damaged by mercury. You provide nothing even close to what you ask for.
This is the truest mark of a fanatic
Not true. But I think theories demand evidence. Without that, we'd still praying to rocks for rain. You always bring up cigarettes and cancer as a failure of medicine. However, this really was a failure of evidence--no independent body did the proper studies trying to link the two.
You are ironically making the same mistake
Not really. Im a fiscal conservative and Jewish. But hopefully this was a good lesson for you in making conclusions without evidence
If you are Jewish you are secular. Your previous statements that YOU are god are not consistent with belief in a god and worship of that god. Jews are monotheistic.
Your views are socialist not conservative.
I don't care if you are Jewish. Do you believe in God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? You do you reconcile that with your empirical/materialistic godless philosphy?
How do you know this god exists? Is revelation a way of knowing? Does it give us knowledge?
You are about to step into an epistemological conundrum that you are not ready for. Cognitive dissonance must be your coping mechanism. Or you don't believe in a god.
im conservative. I don't know what else to tell you. I voted for Romney
I think a belief in abraham is consistent with a belief in science
the rest of your post is uninteresting to me
The G-d of Abraham. not believing in Abraham. Do you believe in revelation? Does G-d reveal to people?
im not answering these questions. A) theyre a little personal. B) debating religion is stupid because there is no point
The answers will show your inconsitencies in your character and arguments. You are in a corner.
not happening robert. Im much more interested in seeing your answers to the cochrane study I cited above
I nailed you!
how so?
“If people followed the recommendations every year, there would be no shortages,” In other words, "Do what we say and you will be fine." There are plenty of people I know that never get a flu shot and are fine, including myself. How about they leave us alone and quit hammering us with "recommendations" (read "orders"). And since when can people not afford $15 to get a shot? Why should it be covered under insurance? That's a minuscule amount for insurance to bother with. Insurance should be for major problems, not everyday or common things.
It cost me $30.00 but if I were to get sick I'd lose out on hundreds of dollars of business.I get it every year and it is well worth the money spent.
I cannot wait for a flu vaccine to come out that doesn't use eggs. I am exceedingly allergic to eggs - enough so that I do react to the flu shot (tried it). Hopefully, I won't be allergic to vaccine made without eggs when it comes out.
I am also one of those people that is highly recommended to get the flu vaccine -- I am in medicine and I have severe asthma. Well, after seeing 64 flu-test confirmed influenza patients in the course of 15 days, I got the flu this year. OMG, I couldn't breathe, I hurt, I was so very, very sick. I ended up in the emergency room and nearly admitted - the only reason I wasn't admitted was because I said I needed to go home (I'm a single mom and didn't have anyone to provide for my kids while I was inpatient). I get bronchitis every year, but compared to the flu, bronchitis is a walk in the park.
btw, of the 64 influenza patients I saw, approximately 2/3 were those that did NOT get the vaccine. 1/3 had received the vaccine. All the patients I saw were pediatric patients (I was on a peds rotation during this time). We ended up admitted 10 patients to the hospital -- all were children that had not been vaccinated. The children that had been vaccinated and got the flu were far LESS sick than those that had not been vaccinated.
i hate to tell you this dear reporter, but they did have the supply right. the fact is they did an over supply. the supply they made was higher then current demand prior to flu season. the supply and demand of the flu vaccine did not come into question, until your free advertising went into effect. prior to that they where losing money on the vaccine. you know the reports of people that kept dieing from the flu that you spammed the American public with. i don't know, i have yet to see one death from the flu in obituaries in my area, or the hospital my sister in law works at, even though the news says hundreds have died in my area!
once again bad journalism in effect. ole Walter is definitely rolling over in his grave on this one.
eric1964,Obituaries don't always tell you what a person died from.