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This article is a preprint and has not been peer-reviewed [what does this mean?]. It reports new medical research that has yet to be evaluated and so should not be used to guide clinical practice.ABSTRACT Background The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the influenza vaccine during the 2024-2025 respiratory viral season. Methods Employees of Cleveland Clinic in employment in Ohio on October 1, 2024, were included. The cumulative incidence of influenza among those in the vaccinated and unvaccinated states was compared over the following 25 weeks. Protection provided by vaccination (analyzed as a time-dependent covariate)...

Americans are facing the highest death toll from influenza since 2018, just as more people become vulnerable because of growing vaccine skepticism taking hold in statehouses and the Trump administration.Flu-related deaths hit a seven-year high in January and February, the two months that usually account for the height of flu season, according to a Stateline analysis of preliminary federal statistics. There were about 9,800 deaths across the country, up from 5,000 in the same period last year and the most since 2018, when there were about 10,800.Despite that, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has canceled or postponed...

More than six months after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, as scientific understanding of the novel coronavirus continues to evolve, one question remains decidedly unanswered. How will this pandemic come to an end? Current scientific understanding is that only a vaccine will put an end to this pandemic, but how we get there remains to be seen. It seems safe to say, however, that some day, somehow, it will end. After all, other viral pandemics have. Take, for example, the flu pandemic of 1918-1919.

A US government laboratory mistakenly mixed a common flu strain with a dangerous and deadly type of bird flu and shipped it to another lab, authorities said Friday. The latest news followed admissions of mishandled anthrax and forgotten smallpox vials at separate US government labs, and raised new concerns about the safety of dangerous agents which could be used as bioterror weapons. No one was endangered by the mixed flu strain, said Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Tom Frieden, who nevertheless said he was "astonished" that protocols could have been violated in that way. "Everything we have looked...

Dr. Leana Wen, who said during the COVID pandemic that Americans should be forced to take a vaccine, says Biden should be pushing a Bird Flu injection on “vulnerable” people before the Trump inauguration

Experts from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US are warning that the country is close to a vaccination tipping point: a point where there aren't enough vaccinated people to protect the unvaccinated, leading to deaths that would otherwise have been prevented. A new commentary, written by FDA Commissioner Robert Califf and FDA vaccine regulator Peter Marks, highlights COVID-19, influenza, and respiratory syncytial virus as three diseases where vaccinations are crucial in protecting communities. Measles also gets a mention, with a record number of people no longer getting vaccinated against it. That has meant a number of recent...

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has acknowledged there is no data supporting the co-administration of vaccines for mpox, COVID-19, and influenza, in contradiction of advice a top agency official gave to the public."There are no data on administering JYNNEOS vaccine at the same time as other vaccines," the CDC said.The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta, Ga., on Aug. 25, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)The acknowledgment was made in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by attorneys for the nonprofit Informed Consent Action Network, which regularly challenges health agencies...

It’s like clockwork: first comes a brisk fall breeze, then comes the public health push to get a flu shot. But the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s messaging this year might look a little different from previous vaccination seasons. The agency has launched a messaging campaign dubbed “Wild to Mild” that uses adorable critters to illustrate how a vaccine can tame a bout with the flu by reducing its strength from that of an elephant or a lion to that of a mouse or a kitten.The framing might come as a surprise to those used to a blunter...

Health Minister Stephen Donnelly will update the Cabinet this morning about plans to deal with viruses circulating this autumn and winter. It is understood the Minister will say there could be “significant levels of community transmission” and a co-circulation of COVID-19 and flu. The plans include the rolling-out of a vaccination program which will commence in the first week of October. Vaccines for COVID-19 and flu will once again be co-administered free of charge to eligible people. Minister Donnelly will say that Ireland has secured the adapted Pfizer vaccine, under the EU Vaccines Strategy, which will be administered as the...

influenza pandemic of 1918–19, also called Spanish influenza pandemic or Spanish flu, the most severe influenza outbreak of the 20th century and, in terms of total numbers of deaths, among the most devastating pandemics in human history. Influenza is caused by a virus that is transmitted from person to person through airborne respiratory secretions. An outbreak can occur if a new strain of influenza virus emerges against which the population has no immunity. The influenza pandemic of 1918–19 resulted from such an occurrence and affected populations throughout the world. An influenza virus called influenza type A subtype H1N1 is now...

Some of you might have jumped with elation on Tuesday after hearing the news that the FDA had de-authorized the original series of COVID shots. What the agency is really doing, however, is reloading so it can enshrine the shots into the permanent immunization schedule and mix them with an ever-growing list of respiratory viral vaccines they are rolling out over the coming months. Now is the time for Congress to step on the gas pedal in opposing these shots, not tabling the issue as if it’s over. The FDA and CDC had a problem. There was no way to...

[snip] Before motorized vehicles, horses were the backbone of the transportation industry. And so the Great Epizootic of 1872, a horse epidemic in North America, is history that deserves to be remembered. [/snip]Horse Flu: The Great Epizootic of 1872 | 16:59The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered1.14M subscribers | 3,532 views | January 23, 2023

Ireland is in the midst of a “medical workforce shortage”, according to the Irish Medical Organization’s Chairman of the Consultant Committee, Dr. Matthew Sadlier. “We are facing an international, global medical workforce shortage,” he said on RTÉ’s Drivetime. “We are competing against countries like Australia and Canada for doctors and frankly we are losing those competitions in being able to recruit doctors.” Dr. Sadlier said it is “increasingly difficult” to recruit junior doctors and there are many vacant consultant posts. He added that if the solution is to make the doctors already in the system work longer hours, that will...

The HSE’s Chief Operations Officer has warned that Ireland is dealing with a “triple wave of viruses” as new advice is issued to the public. Listing the issues at hand, Damien McCallion said that there are 600 people are in the hospital with COVID, 300 patients have the flu and 250 children are in hospital with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Speaking to RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, he described the situations as a “unique position that we have never had before”. He went on to say that having all three illnesses spiking at the same time means the healthcare system is under...

Masks are back, and, this time, they’re not just for Covid-19. A “tripledemic” of the coronavirus, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus, known as R.S.V., sweeping through the United States has prompted several cities and counties, including New York City and Los Angeles County, to encourage people to wear a mask in indoor public spaces once again...... There is strong evidence that masks help to reduce the transmission of several respiratory viruses. One paper published in 2020 by researchers in Hong Kong showed that people sick with either Covid-19 or the flu breathed out fewer viral particles when they were wearing...

By all accounts, the risk of another winter surge of COVID-19 in the U.S. is high. And this time coronavirus is on the prowl alongside two pals — influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). In some areas, hospitals are already overwhelmed. Just how severe this “tripledemic” is going to be is unclear. But what is very clear is that a pandemic-weary public isn’t taking the threat seriously enough. Shockingly, neither is government. Biden administration officials have expressed concerns for months, but there’s been no loud alarm bells, so far. That includes at a White House briefing on Tuesday where officials...

BOSTON — Even after leading the charge combating the worst pandemic in a century, vaccine researcher Kathrin Jansen doesn’t feel that she can relax. Another pandemic — this one based on an influenza virus — is inevitable, Jansen said at the annual STAT Summit on Tuesday. “Before SARS-CoV-2, we had worried about pandemic flu. And just because corona came first doesn’t mean flu is just sitting there,” Jansen, who recently retired as head of vaccine R&D at Pfizer, told STAT senior writer Helen Branswell. An influenza-based pandemic is only a matter of time, Jansen added: “The question is, does it...

Recipe for DisasterRecently both Pfizer and Moderna announced they were developing a combination injection utilizing mRNA coding for the BA4/BA5 Omicron subvariant and new mRNA coding for antigens contained in the influenza virus.[i] Because the COVID-19 component is under Emergency Use Authorization, has failed in animal studies and no human trials have been reported, that component should be off the table from the start. A recent paper from Chemaitelly and colleagues demonstrated in the Omicron era, COVID-19 boosters had unacceptably low protection against acquiring the infection and no valid study has ever demonstrated reductions in hospitalizations and deaths.[ii] To make...

As respiratory illnesses are rapidly rising among children, President Joe Biden's top medical advisor is warning of a potential triple-threat heading into winter. "This is particularly problematic because as we get into the flu season, you might have a convergence of three significant respiratory illnesses at one time in children," said Dr. Anthony Fauci. "RSV, which you just mentioned, influenza and of course there's always the concern, as we get into the winter, about a surge of a new variant of COVID-19."

Hospitals across the United States are overwhelmed with children suffering from a specific respiratory illness, according to reports. According to a report from The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), data showing Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) cases spiked over the last month. Typically, RSV causes children to contract the usual mild-cold symptoms, but the impact could be far worse for those with a compromised immune system or a heart defect. ... “We are treating a very high number of severely ill children,” Sarah Combs, an emergency medicine physician at Children’s National, told The Washington Post.