Via CTV.ca, a Canadian TV network: Report casts doubt on flu vaccine effectiveness. Excerpt:
With flu season upon us, a controversial editorial in the British Medical Journal is warning that the flu shots many Canadians get every fall may not be as effective as we believe.
Across the world, health agencies recommend the use of inactivated flu vaccines, or vaccines containing dead flu viruses, to protect the population from seasonal outbreaks of influenza.
But because influenza viruses mutate from year to year, argues vaccine expert Dr. Tom Jefferson, it's difficult to study the precise effects of the widely-prescribed vaccines.
In fact, Jefferson says there's evidence proving these vaccines have little or no effect on things such as hospital stay, time off work, or even death resulting from influenza and its complications -- especially in elderly people.
Jefferson makes his arguments in a controversial report titled "Influenza vaccination: policy versus evidence," published in volume 333 of the British Medical Journal (BMJ).
I can't find the report mentioned, but a Google search tells me that Dr. Jefferson has been promoting this view for at least a decade. I have no idea how right he may be, but it's always interesting to overhear what the grownups are arguing about.
