Should I get a flu shot by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (12/8/16)

Wednesday, December 28, 2016 8:43

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Armed with Knowledge

Numerous peer-reviewed scientific studies have shown that the flu vaccine is not effective either at reducing the flu or reducing flu-related deaths.

When a team of researchers at the National Institutes of Health compared flu vaccine rates with influenza-related illness over a 19-year period, from 1980 to 1999, they found that deaths from the flu increased as vaccination rates increased. “In conclusion, the increase in elderly influenza vaccination coverage in the U.S. after 1980 was not accompanied by a decline in influenza-related mortality,” the researchers concluded.

A study, led by a researcher at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and published in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine, found that increasing vaccination coverage did not correlate with declining mortality and the decline in influenza-related mortality could not be attributed to the flu vaccine but was rather the result of naturally acquired immunity. Observational studies crediting the flu vaccine with contributing to decreased deaths from the flu, “substantially overestimate vaccination benefit,” these researchers concluded.

A study published in the American Journal of Perinatology of vaccine effectiveness in pregnant women in Northern California across five flu seasons found that women who received flu vaccines during pregnancy had the same risk for influenza-like illness as unvaccinated women, and infants born to women who received flu vaccines also had the same risks for influenza or pneumonia as infants born to unvaccinated women. In other words, vaccine status made no difference to whether or not pregnant women or their offspring got the flu.

A study published in Pediatrics International of Japanese children ages 6 months to 2 years who were vaccinated against the flu found that the influenza vaccine did not reduce the rate of influenza A infections in children under two.