Originally published September 28 2005
Flu vaccine becoming less useful to elderly, study finds
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
The stockpiling of the flu vaccine has been called into question by a Cochrane Vaccines Field study, which shows the vaccine may not be as useful to the elderly, the demographic that needs vaccination the most, Daily News Central reports.
The flu vaccine, a cornerstone of public health policy, is only mildly effective in the population for which it is supposedly most critical: the elderly.
According to a study appearing in the Sept. 22 online issue of The Lancet, vaccines against influenza are only "modestly effective" in people in long-term care facilities and even less effective for elderly people still living in the community.
That research is twinned with another flu study, which found more bad news: that resistance to drugs used to treat influenza has risen 12 percent in the past decade.
This finding, the authors stated, raises questions about the government's policy of stockpiling such drugs.
"We have set up a situation where a fear is created, and then we try to create the treatment for this fear.
Health officials worldwide, including those at the CDC, push to get as many elderly individuals as possible vaccinated against the flu each year.
Earlier this month, US health officials starting urging all eligible persons to get a flu shot, with priority given to the elderly and certain other groups.
The current study provided no new data but, rather, looked at 64 existing studies which looked at the effectiveness of the flu vaccine over 96 flu seasons.
For elderly people living in the community, inactivated influenza vaccines prevented up to 30 percent of hospitalizations for pneumonia but were not effective against the flu, flu-like illnesses or pneumonia.
The authors of the second study screened 7,000 influenza A isolates for gene mutations known to confer drug resistance to the antivirals amantadine and rimantadine.
The study authors voiced concern that rising rates of resistance will render amantadine and rimantadine ineffective for treatment or prevention in the event of an influenza pandemic.
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