Flu shots fall short…again
Dear Friend,
Remember that shot you got in the arm at the beginning of last winter to ward off the flu? Well, turns out it didn't work (which was no shock to me - I think all vaccinations are both needless and potentially dangerous). According to reports, this year's flu season was the worst in three years - and they're saying it's because the virus that so many people had injected into their systems was completely ineffective against the flu.
So you had some strange flu virus injected into your system for no reason at all. That should make you feel great, huh?
The last time the flu season was this bad was the winter of 2003-2004, which was also blamed on the fact that the inoculation addressed the wrong virus. What's more disturbing is that a flu season is graded on the number of adult deaths from flu or pneumonia throughout the country. And this year, flu and pneumonia accounted for a whopping 9 percent of all reported deaths in early March.
But the CDC doesn't see failure even when it's staring them in the face. Even though the deputy director of the CDC's influenza division, Dr. Dan Jernigan, was forced to admit that this year's vaccine was "not a good match," he chose to look at the bright side that it "still offered 44% protection overall."
Yep. "Protection" for less than half of the millions who received the vaccine, with a spike in deaths in early March. Even with sorry stats like that, the CDC and the healthcare community will surely plough ahead with their support of vaccine programs.
The CDC's big fear in all this? Not that the vaccine didn't work, but that people could potentially "lose faith" in the flu vaccine and skip it all together next year. I, for one, fervently hope that's exactly what happens. If the public perception of failure can help gain more anti-vaccination converts, I'll consider that a victory.
William Campbell Douglass II, M.D.
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