Seasonal Flu Shots Double Risk of Getting Swine Flu, Says New Study 258
krou writes "A Canadian study currently under peer review apparently suggests that individuals given seasonal flu shots are twice as likely to get swine flu. The 'perplexing' study has thrown influenza health plans into disarray, with Quebec, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Nova Scotia all suspending seasonal flu shots for anyone under 65 years of age. The study appears to be confined to Canada; the US, Britain, and Australia have not reported the same problem, so some are suggesting that the research has 'study bias.' However, the research appears to be 'solid' according to Dr. Ethan Rubinstein, head of adult infectious diseases at the University of Manitoba. 'There are a large number of authors, all of them excellent and credible researchers. And the sample size is very large — 12 or 13 million people taken from the central reporting systems in three provinces.''
Re:Don't forget: (Score:2, Informative)
Already possibly debunked (Score:5, Informative)
I did a little googling, and found this via the who's article site: http://repository.searo.who.int/
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090930/h1n1_vaccine/20091001?hub=Health&s_name=
One day after the above article was published.
I think this is the case of the media reporting some scientific findings before it went completely through the peer review process. Sounds like it still isn't decided yet.
Re:Don't forget: (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, a blanket statement that surgery had no placebo-controlled trials is false. Googling for 'surgery placebo trial' results in a first page full of links to double-blind studies done of various surgical techniques, including a trial indicating arthroscopy of the knee is essentially pointless, and several talking about tests of specific drugs during and after surgery. It may be true that some surgeries haven't received a double-blind test in full. I certainly wouldn't wish my name attached to a double-blind study involving kidney transplants for end-stage renal disease patients, on humanitarian grounds alone.
Secondly, it is not true that the flu vaccine has not received double-blind testing. Just last year, Australia ran a study to determine the effectiveness of the flu vaccine for the strains common in 2008. The mechanism of flu vaccines has been quite well studied and tested. The specific variant of the flu vaccine that affects the swine flu has also been individually studied. I haven't read of any placebo-controlled studies for it, but it would certainly be unusual if that hadn't occurred. Of the half-dozen tests a cursory search was able to dig up, all indicated a positive result with very low side-effects. It would be preposterous for any researcher to publicize the results of a trial without a control group, so I think that railing against the vaccine because of a presumed lack of placebo-controlled tests is, simply, inane.
And as a final dig, if you continue to get your medical news from the NY Times, you'll live in a constant state of near-panic from whatever health scare they've dug up to boost ratings this month. They begin by talking about the elderly, then reference a study 'not designed to look at this age group' as their supporting evidence to disparage vaccines for the elderly. They may have a point that vaccines for octogenarians are not as powerfully protective as previously believed. However, spreading FUD about our best weapon against the flu is irresponsible at the very least, and slanders the doctors and researchers who've spent their lives doing good.
Re:Fallicy (Score:2, Informative)
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Missing an important underlying correlation, and implying a causation where one does not exist is beyond irresponsible.
Re:would not be surprised (Score:2, Informative)
Health doesn't prevent a primary viral infection. (Score:3, Informative)
There is a misconception that being "healthy" will prevent you from getting a primary viral infection, but this is not true. For example if you have never been exposed to varicella-zoster virus (the virus that causes both chicken pox and shingles) and if you inhale viral particles then you WILL come down with chicken pox - I don't care how "healthy" you think you are. Being healthy will, however, usually limit the severe the primary infection.
Being healthy will also allow you to build up a strong specific immune response after exposure to an antigen, so secondary infections by the same or similar viruses can be prevented. As we age and our immunity wanes then the varicella-zoster virus that has been stored in our nervous system for decades will have a chance to erupt again - now you have a case of shingles.
Being "healthy" can prevent a primary bacterial infection, just not a viral one.
If you are young and healthy and think that you don't need the vaccine because you "never get the flu" then you need to realize that you are actually the most likely person in the world to get the flu. Older people are more likely to be resistant to swine flu because many have been exposed before and they carry specific neutralizing antibodies.
So one of the reasons that the conclusion of the article is unlikely to hold up under analysis is that if you've never been exposed to the pandemic H1N1 virus then you are completely vulnerable. Getting the seasonal flu vaccine can't make you any more vulnerable than you already are. Actually I think that the best reason not to draw conclusions from the article is the fact that multiple other countries failed to observe what the Canadians observed.
There is so much paranoia about vaccines that people will seize on any bizarre pseudo-scientific reason not to get one. Unless you are anaphylactic to egg proteins (and I know you aren't) the only non-paranoid reason you should be giving for not getting vaccinated is that you are too lazy and unmotivated, or maybe you have a crippling phobia of needles. Everyone else who gives a different reason is just wearing a tin-foil hat.
Re:Don't forget: (Score:4, Informative)
You are forgetting something. If you catch the flu and can bear it you are a vector to infect others who might not be able to survive an infection. So if you regularly see your old granny or mother-in-law you might want to get the shot anyway if you'd like to be able to see her again.
Apart from that - flu is one ugly disease to have. It just doesn't put you down flat with 40 fever but the other infections that sneak in while your immune system is overwhelmed will give you trouble for weeks. Of course, if you get pneumococci into your lungs, you won't have to worry about that, you'll just drown in your own mucus.Flu is rarely deadly, but the opportunistic infections that follow are.
Re:You probably shouldn't get it in the first plac (Score:3, Informative)
Still very interesting. Thanks for pointing this out.
Re:How did they collect their data (Score:4, Informative)
Here's the CDC's weekly summary [cdc.gov] - not exactly what was asked for, but it does contain (among other things) the latest week's breakdown by age group.
The thinking behind that statement (in the GP post) is that many older people have already been exposed to a relative of the current novel H1N1 - perhaps the swine flu outbreak from the late 1970s.
Re:Don't forget: (Score:5, Informative)
Flu shots are for people with weak immune systems and old people that are at higher risk to "die" from it.
Where do those people with weak immune systems get the flu from? Could it be from us healthier people don't get shots because we can handle the flu?
Never get one done if you don't _need it_. I've see more people almost die due to allergic reactions to shots than i have due to a bad case of the flu.
Well the only real serious allergic reaction I'm aware of is Guillain-Barré syndrome, which literally affects 1 in a million people who get the shot and has a mortality rate of 2-3% and 5-10% of recovery with a severe disability.
The flu however kills about 36,000 people in the states each year, so a little more than 1 in 10,000.
So the numbers seems to indicate that the flu shot is still a LOT less likely to kill you than the flu.
Re:As usual, correlation is not... (Score:1, Informative)
There is a vaccination for Swine Flu available right now, actually. It should be widely available by the middle of the month.
Re:Don't forget: (Score:5, Informative)
Flu shots are for people with weak immune systems and old people that are at higher risk to "die" from it. Never get one done if you don't _need it_. I've see more people almost die due to allergic reactions to shots than i have due to a bad case of the flu.
There is actually a good reason for healthy people to get vaccinated in general. We have been able to eradicate various viruses because enough of the population in the world gets vaccinated so that it makes it incredibly difficult for the viruses to spread. This phenomenon is called herd immunity. If you look at local populations where vaccination rates are poor (usually due to parents being duped by anti-vaccine pseudoscience) you see outbreaks of all kinds of viruses that have not been an issue since aggressive vaccination programs took effect.
Re:Don't forget: (Score:5, Informative)
It's also interesting that (according to the story I linked above) there has not been a placebo-controlled trial of the flu vaccine. So, anyone out there who rails against any sort of complimentary/alternative medicine and says they would never receive a treatment that can't produce placebo-controlled trials, can't get flu shots. (Of course, you also can't get surgery...)
Widespread flu shots are a great subsidy to big pharma, but as a public health measure, they're a questionable use of resources.
Utter nonsense. Unlike virtually the entirety of Complementary and Alternative Medicine, vaccines work via relatively well understood mechanism. The mechanisms for most CAM modalities (such as say, homeopathy) are usually highly implausible and often would require a complete reworking of the Standard Model. Then throw in the fact that rarely is there even good scientific evidence that shows CAM modalities do anything at all and where are you left?
Moreover, there is a perfectly good reason why there is not nor will there be double-blind placebo controlled trials for vaccines. It's simply unethical. Anti-vaccine nuts love to point to the lack of placebo controlled trials for vaccines in an attempt to explain away the lack of any good evidence for their own favorite CAM modalities.
To suggest that vaccination is a plot of "Big Pharma" is to (1) have no understanding of vaccines and the incredible evidence for their general efficacy (2) have no understanding of the relationship between pharma and physicians. You are basically accusing most physicians of being corporate shills. That's a quiet a disgusting sentiment, really.
You know what the true travesty is? The fact that things like herbal supplements are more or less highly unregulated. In the USA at least we have "Big Natural" and various CAM quacks to thank for that. If you are upset about the tactics of Big Pharma I suggest you learn more about the history of the CAM movement and how exactly it has gained popularity over the last 30 years.
Re:You probably shouldn't get it in the first plac (Score:3, Informative)
Two anecdotal stories doesn't outweigh all the evidence that flu shots save many more lives than they take.
H1N1, unlike other flu strains, has shown signs of attacking healthier immune systems, producing cytokine storms. The CDC didn't recommend that 19-24 year olds get the vaccine just for the heck of it.
H1N1 is predicted to have a 0.05 to 0.08 percent chance of death. Multiple that by the number of people that normally get the flu each year, and you can see why the medical community is worried.
Do me a favor if your in the "flu vaccines are bad" crowd. Please be extra careful to not catch the flu (hand washing often, don't touch your eyes, nose, etc..), and if you do catch it, at the very first sniffle, please stay home.