What Made the News About Flu Vaccines this Winter is Obvious; What’s Really Important is What Didn’t

Though the media and the government keep telling you to get the flu shot, the highly respected Cochrane Collaboration found that “[e]vidence from systematic reviews shows that vaccines have little or no effect on the effects measured” (BMJ 2006;333:912).

So, flu vaccines have not helped prevent the flu. But that still leaves the constant claim that the flu vaccine protects seniors from serious complications from the flu that can lead to death? But this claim, too, fails to stand up to scientific scrutiny. Canadian research has found that, when subjected to proper analysis, the claimed protection against risk of death in the elderly drops to statistically insignificant levels (Am J Respir Care Med 2008 ;178: 527-533).

And if you do get the flu? One of the most commonly recommended pharmaceutical drugs for influenza is Tamiflu. The Cochrane Collaboration has just published an analysis of 20 studies on Tamiflu and 26 studies on the related drug Relenza.

They found that there was no difference for hospital admissions, no reduction in pneumonia or other complications of influenza, and no significant difference in the speed at which people improved.

Though they found absolutely no reason to take the drug, they did find reasons not to. The drugs increased adverse events, including nausea, vomiting, psychiatric effects and renal events (Cocharane Database Syst Rev 2014 April 10;4:CD008965).

 

For more on what works and what doesn’t work for colds and flus, see Vol.18 No.4 of The Natural Path.