THE HISTORY OF FLU VACCINATION suggests other reasons to doubt claims that it dramatically reduces mortality. In
2004, for example, vaccine production fell behind, causing a 40 percent drop in immunization rates. Yet mortality did not
rise. In addition, vaccine “mismatches” occurred in 1968 and 1997: in both years, the vaccine that had been produced in the
summer protected against one set of viruses, but come winter, a different set was circulating. In effect, nobody was
vaccinated. Yet death rates from all causes, including flu and the various illnesses it can exacerbate, did not budge. Sumit
Majumdar, a physician and researcher at the University of Alberta, in Canada, offers another historical observation: rising
rates of vaccination of the elderly over the past two decades have not coincided with a lower overall mortality rate. In 1989,
only 15 percent of people over age 65 in the U.S. and Canada were vaccinated against flu. Today, more than 65 percent are
immunized. Yet death rates among the elderly during flu season have increased rather than decreased.
The preceding excerpted from Theatlantic.com
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/11/does-the-vaccine-matter/307723/