Posted on 02/11/2018 10:20:00 AM PST by SMGFan
The way we make vaccines isn’t a good match for the virus type circulating this year.
he first data on how well the flu vaccine is working this season in North America has just been published — and it helps explain why everyone appears to be sick right now.
The study, from the journal Eurosurveillance, found that the flu vaccine was only 10 percent effective against H3N2 (the main flu subtype going around in the US this season) among adults aged 20 to 64 years old in Canada — the age group that made up the majority of participants in the study. The protection rate rose to 17 percent when considering all age groups.
In most adults, the study suggests the shot would only prevent 10 percent of H3N2 flu cases. So if 100 in 1,000 unvaccinated people develop flu, the number would drop to 90 in 1,000 among vaccinated people — a very small difference in flu risk between vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals. And more than 80 percent of confirmed US flu cases have involved H3N2.
“The evidence is mounting, from Australia and now from Canada, that the vaccine protection is low [this year],” said lead study author Danuta Skowronski, an influenza epidemiologist at the British Columbia Center for Disease Control. “Given the same H3N2 subtype [is circulating in the US], our estimate of low vaccine protection should also apply to the US.”
(Excerpt) Read more at vox.com ...
[[My Grandmother used to tell us about the 1918 epidemic. Over 500,000 in the U.S. died.]]
You can go to many cemeteries and note that certain years lots of young people died all around the same time- likely when flu epidemics hit-
Yes. The 1918 pandemic was horrible. That said, the reason why we haven't had the same recently is not because of the flu vaccines. They can be helpful, when the vaccine developers get it right, but there are a variety of other factors that determine the number of people who are infected with influenza virus, and the number who survive. These include:
1. The virulence of the particular strains involved.
2. The living conditions and the general health of the population (e.g. immune compromised people, and those with poor nutrition and general health will be more susceptible). In a new flu pandemic, it is estimated that 90% of deaths would be in developing countries.
3. The infrastructure and development of the health care system (e.g. critical care for severely affected patients, public health system response capacity to decrease exposure and spread, the availability of Tamiflu, and yes the availability of ‘effective’ vaccines).
There are more factors, and it truly is multi-factorial. Still, a bad pandemic could happen.
also according to the CDC 4054 people in us have died from the flu this year- thsat’s pretty significant
Youtube has a very good documentary from the PBS series American Experience: Influenza 1918 — well worth the viewing.
I got socked with a flu in 1972. But it had a beneficial side effect. After feeling for about 5-6 days like I just wanted to die, I realized on feeling better that I hadn’t smoked a cigarette in all that time. I’d been smoking since joining the Army in ‘67, though after that flu, I never lit up again.
I can’t remember my last flu shot. I am a hospital auxiliary volunteer and during certain months out of the year, I cannot work because I don’t get the shot. Many in the auxiliary who are convinced of the flu shot’s value have been ill. My sister had a dear friend who took the shot last year because someone thought she needed it. . . my sister told her not to do it. . .nothing wrong with her. . . and a few months after the flu shot she died. . . one doctor attributed her death to the shot.
“4054 people in us have died from the flu this year- that’s pretty significant”
It sure is if you’re one of them.
This is the fourth or fifth CONSECUTIVE year the CDC, vaccine makers etc have guessed WRONG on which strain will be prevalent.
If it wasn’t a condition of employment, I would NOT be getting a flu shot.
That was a very well done documentary and well worth watching. Especially the interviews with the survivors who were young children at the time and the letters and newspaper articles and some of the surviving film clips from the time.
While I have at least two relatives who likely died from the great influenza pandemic during the 1918-1919 outbreak, I knew next to nothing about them or of the influenza pandemic until a few years ago. I didn’t even know anything about these young children in my family who died, likely because people back then, didn’t want to talk about it.
The influenza pandemic got the name “The Spanish Flu” not because it started there or was any worse in Spain, but because of news censorship during WWI. Spain was neutral during the war so their press freely reported on the severity of the outbreak and the number of deaths, whereas other countries including the US suppressed any news stories that might be thought to hinder the war effort and in fact tried to down play it as any news that may negatively affect morale was forbidden and with a press that was overall willing to comply. It was also exasperated here in the US because so many qualified doctors and nurses had been sent to Europe to support the war effort so that in many places there were very few left to treat the sick. And after a time, ordinary people became too afraid to volunteer.
But the truth was that more people died from the great influenza pandemic over the course of less than a year than were killed in action during the entire length of WWI. And more people died worldwide from that strain of influenza than died in a comparable time span and the very worse year during the Black Death. In some places in the US like Philadelphia, funeral homes ran out of coffins and Catholic priests would accompany wagons calling for families to literally bring out their dead.
Many young and otherwise healthy people woke up one day, felt a bit sick by the evening and dro[[ed dead, sometimes in the street the very next day.
Well golly gee, we guessed wrong... ;-)
One of my grandmothers was a teenager in MA during the 1918 flu pandemic. She used to tell the tale of her friend a neighbor boy who was confined to his house with flu symptoms. She spoke with him from a distance through his window to try to cheer him up. By the next day he was dead. It was over quickly.
H3N2 = Hong Kong Flu Remember catching this in 1968 when first appeared
Real ugly - was ick for week......
Problem is that CDC and other agencies have to guess which strains and sub type will be active almost year before to craft vaccine
Virus only grow in living tissue so have to use eggs as growth medium
At our population, flu vaccination is running about 30 percent effective in preventing the flu but the big difference we are seeing is in hospitalization, very few immunized are needing supportive care.
Yes. Tragic isn’t it?
Sounds like what I got. Sinuses into top of chest followed by a constant fever for a week. I finally had to do a round of steroids and that broke the fever and drained my sinuses. Been on a Cipro derivative too that was doing nothing before the steroid round.
I’m a Remicade user and have to really watch what I get doesn’t get out of control.
[I got socked with a flu in 1972. But it had a beneficial side effect. After feeling for about 5-6 days like I just wanted to die, I realized on feeling better that I hadn’t smoked a cigarette in all that time. I’d been smoking since joining the Army in ‘67, though after that flu, I never lit up again.]
Same thing happened to my dad at about the same time. He stopped the Muriel Air-tips. He used to call it “The Grip” rather than flu.
They didn't have flu vaccines in the 19th century, and everyone born in that century is dead (except for one woman born in 1900 who is still alive).
I had a second cousin, once removed, who was one of the children in a family of 9 boys and 2 girls. I remember him telling me how both of his sisters died of the flu a few days apart during the Spanish flu epidemic. None of the boys died from it.
My dad would sneak in with a shot of Whiskey after mom went to bed.
They have the technology to do this with Tobacco but they won’t approve it for use, it has been held up for years on the slow track.
It would allow faster, accurate, and cheaper vaccine production.
Why is the FDA holding it up? because it is tobacco?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.