Mercola and vaccines

[Guest guest]

OK, I did as suggested and checked out his info

and sheesh, I'm getting really bummed by Mercola. He's

doing what Sally always accused the " anti fat " people

of doing, mainly severely misquoting studies. One

example:

Mercola's headline:

Government Now Admits Flu Vaccine Did Not Work

Amongst reports that this year’s flu season started out earlier and was harsher

than normal, the <http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5301a3.htm>Centers

for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that this year’s flu vaccine

had " no or low effectiveness " against influenza or influenza-like illness.

Depending on how the data were analyzed, the vaccine protected from zero percent

to 14 percent of study participants.

What the CDC actually said:

The preliminary findings presented in this report demonstrated no or very low

effectiveness of TIV against ILI. However, these findings do not provide a basis

for assessing the effectiveness of TIV against more severe illness outcomes or

against influenza B or influenza A (H1N1), nor do they assess the effectiveness

of live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV). Despite a suboptimal antigenic

match, TIV can still provide protection against influenza complications. In a

study conducted among patients aged >65 years, TIV was effective in preventing

61% of influenza-related deaths when the vaccine and circulating strains were

well matched and 35% when they were not well matched (7).

Estimates of vaccine effectiveness generally are lower against ILI than against

laboratory-confirmed influenza. During the 1998--99 season, when the vaccine and

circulating strains were well matched, TIV effectiveness among healthy adults

was 86% against laboratory-confirmed influenza and 34% against ILI; during the

1997--98 season, when the vaccine and circulating strains were not well matched,

TIV effectiveness was 50% against laboratory-confirmed influenza and zero

against ILI (8). Further studies are under way or planned to estimate the

effectiveness of the 2003--04 influenza vaccine against laboratory-confirmed

influenza and influenza-related complications.

I.e., " ILI " (Influenza-like illness: which may or may not actually be " the flu. "

In other words, people might get something that feels like the flu, even though

they got their flu shots. The flu shot only hits 3 strains of flu, and maybe 10

are circulating in any given year (tho they try to get the WORST strains in the

shot). All the caveats are in the study, as they should be in a scientific

study. But the CDC ALSO says that the flu shot has a 61% success rate at

preventing *death* among folks over 65, which is who they recommend get the shot

anyway. That is a far cry from the Mercola headline " Government admits vaccine

didn't work " . Preventing death is a good thing!

Ditto for Mercola's numbers about the CDC saying flu isn't a big cause of death.

The CDC rates it right under diabetes mellitis and above Alzheimer's and way

above AIDS, but the actual numbers are hard to come by because in a lot of cases

for older folks it's not clear what virus they actually had. Death rates from

the different strains of flu do vary a LOT ... the 1918 version was pretty

horrific and the bird flu strain is horrific too (tho not very transmissible

right now, fortunately). Now if Mercola wants to say the CDC is lying, that's

his call. But to say the " CDC admits " is just wildly inaccurate reporting. So

I'd recommend people do their own research. In my own admittedly sporadic

research, it seems some people are just being very, very unscientific: coming

from Mercola I find that disappointing.

-- Heidi Jean