FLU Shot and the Elderly: Nothing New

You will have heard in recent days that the spin on the recent flu vaccine failure, especially with the elderly, is making the rounds on almost all media outlets.  When I first heard this I thought where have these people been and why aren't they reporting with real facts and connected reporting of the same issue for many years past.

February 21, 2013

ATLANTA (AP) — It turns out this year's flu shot is doing a startlingly dismal job of protecting senior citizens, the most vulnerable age group.

The vaccine is proving only 9 percent effective in people 65 and older against the harsh strain of the flu that is predominant this season, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. SOURCE

I guess it is the continuation of the promotion of confusion or just plain not wanting you to know. 

In general the issue of vaccinating Elders and getting poor results is not new.  And if it is well established that the effectiveness is  just not there then why continue the practice?

"... the vaccine's ability to keep the elderly alive was, "if present at all...very small and statistically non-significant and may simply be a healthy- user artifact that they were unable to identify".

" If an elderly person is not in good health, flu vaccination does little to help ward off lung infections, Dutch investigators report."

" In a review of 64 studies in 98 flu seasons, For elderly living in nursing homes, flu shots were non-significant for preventing the flu. For elderly living in the community, vaccines were not (significantly) effective against influenza, ILI or pneumonia.

Reference: “Vaccines for preventing influenza in the elderly.” The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 3(2006)."

NB: Also note that water fluoridation suppresses immunity and is having the effect of limiting vaccine effectiveness at an average rate of 50%.  Funny how this number is similar to the reported diminished effectiveness in the 2012 vaccine.

From the top 30+ posts on this topic from Natural Health News...

Natural Health News: FLU SHOT UPDATE

Feb 22, 2005

It will come as no surprise to vaccine critics that flu vaccination does not result in a decreased incidence of deaths in the elderly. In my book The Vaccine Guide (North Atlantic Books, 2002) I stated that, "The primary targeted ...

http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/

Natural Health News: Reverberating Issues with Flu Vaccine

Mar 25, 2010

In a review of 64 studies in 98 flu seasons, For elderly living in nursing homes, flu shots were non-significant for preventing the flu. For elderly living in the community, vaccines were not (significantly) effective against influenza, ...

http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/

Natural Health News: More Vaccine Failure Reported

Oct 12, 2006

If an elderly person is not in good health, flu vaccination does little to help ward off lung infections, Dutch investigators report. They found that annual flu shots appear to reduce the risk of developing lower respiratory tract ...

http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/

Natural Health News: Comment on Flu Data Double Speak

Nov 05, 2009

They split 704 elderly patients into two groups, one of which had gotten a flu shot and one had not. They adjusted for criteria that had been ignored in other studies – like education, income and social status – and concluded ...

FDA licenses high-dose flu vaccine for elderly

I just finished having a conversation with an investigative reporter regarding over-drugging of the elderly in care homes.  This followed on Diane Sawyer's news piece last evening on ABC News.

Then I happened to check a message from Dr. Tenpenny about a vaccine targetted to the elderly containing foru times the amount of the reguar flu vaccine dose.  The premise is alleged to be because the elderly have a less active immune system.

Someday I hope that these people who beleive that if you have a vaccine for every ailment you will health the world will wake up to the fact that the germ theory was completely debunked and we need to have a new paradigm.

By Robert Roos, News Editor


Dec 28, 2009 (CIDRAP News) – The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a high-dose seasonal influenza vaccine for elderly people, whose aging immune systems may not respond effectively to flu vaccines intended for younger people.

The vaccine, Fluzone High-Dose, made by Sanofi Pasteur, contains four times as much antigen (active ingredient) as standard seasonal flu vaccines. The FDA and the company announced its approval Dec 23.

The vaccine is intended for people aged 65 years and older and will be available in time for the 2010-11 flu season, Sanofi officials said in a press release. It apparently is the first flu vaccine licensed in the United States specifically for older people.

In a large phase 3 trial conducted during the 2006-07 flu season, the vaccine induced significantly stronger immune responses than standard-dose vaccine did. Nonserious side effects were more common with the high-dose vaccine, but the overall safety profile was similar to that of the standard vaccine, the company said. The study did not assess actual protection from flu.

The FDA used its "accelerated approval pathway" to review the vaccine, the company having filed its application in March, according to Michelle Yeboah, an FDA spokeswoman. As part of that process, Sanofi will be required to conduct further studies to determine whether the vaccine decreases flu in recipients, the agency said.

"As people grow older, their immune systems typically become weaker," said Karen Midthun, MD, acting director of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, in the FDA announcement. "This is the first vaccine that uses a higher dose to induce a stronger immune response that is intended to better protect the elderly against seasonal influenza."

Researchers estimate that elderly people account for about 90% of the deaths related to seasonal flu each year. In contrast, younger and middle-aged adults bear most of the burden of severe cases and deaths related to the pandemic H1N1 virus.
Each dose of Fluzone High-Dose will contain 180 micrograms (mcg) of antigen—60 mcg for each of the three flu strains normally targeted in seasonal vaccines, the FDA said. Standard seasonal flu vaccines contain 15 mcg for each strain, for a total of 45 mcg.

Sanofi Pasteur has been the largest producer of flu vaccine for the US market in recent years. Ellyn Schindler, a company spokeswoman, declined to say today how many doses of the high-dose vaccine might be made for the next season, commenting that production plans are proprietary and will depend in part on customer reservations.

"We have two influenza vaccine production facilities licensed in the U.S. which should provide adequate capacity to produce this vaccine as well as our other formulations of influenza vaccines for the 2010-2011 season," Schindler said.

Sanofi made 50.5 million seasonal vaccine doses this year and is producing 75.3 million doses of pandemic H1N1 vaccine, she noted.

The phase 3 trial of Fluzone High-Dose involved 3,856 elderly people, about two thirds of whom received that vaccine and a third the standard dose of Fluzone, according to Sanofi. A report of the trial was published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases (JID) in July.

Volunteers who received the high-dose vaccine had significantly stronger immune responses than those who received the standard dose. The response to the two influenza A strains (H3N2 and H1N1) in the vaccine met predefined superiority criteria, while the response to the B strain met noninferiority criteria, according to the JID report.

Injection-site reactions were more common in those who received the high-dose vaccine, but they were mild to moderate, the report said. The FDA said the rates of serious adverse events were comparable for the two vaccines.

In an editorial that accompanied the JID report, vaccine experts Gregory A. Poland of the Mayo Clinic and Mark J. Mulligan of Emory University commented, "Overall, the rate of adverse events in the HD [high-dose] vaccine group was acceptable although somewhat increased, as would be anticipated" for high-dose trivalent influenza vaccine (TIV).
Multiple studies now have yielded "uniform evidence of enhanced immunogenicity, acceptable reactogenicity, safety, and some evidence of efficacy for HD TIV influenza vaccines," Poland and Mulligan wrote.