{"id":8032,"date":"2020-02-29T13:46:24","date_gmt":"2020-02-29T17:46:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=8032"},"modified":"2020-02-29T13:46:24","modified_gmt":"2020-02-29T17:46:24","slug":"the-utter-failure-of-the-influenza-vaccine-according-to-the-medical-literature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=8032","title":{"rendered":"The Utter Failure of the Influenza Vaccine According to the Medical Literature"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Failure of the Influenza Vaccine According to the Medical Literature<\/h1>\n

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Vaccine Failures, Part 3: Influenza Vaccination<\/h3>\n

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By the Children\u2019s Health Defense Team<\/p>\n

[Note: This is the third in a series of articles examining the serious problem of vaccine failure\u2014a problem that, scandalously, remains unacknowledged by the public health officials and politicians promoting draconian vaccine mandates<\/em>.\u00a0Previous articles examined\u00a0<\/em>measles<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>pertussis<\/em><\/a>\u00a0vaccination.<\/em>]<\/p>\n

Each year, U.S. public health officials and their media partners renew the campaign to sell the entire country (including pregnant women, six-month-olds and fragile senior citizens) on the need for and benefits of flu vaccines. Ordinarily, to persuade the public that a given vaccine is beneficial, officials must show that it is\u00a0effective<\/a>\u2014in other words, that it is able to \u201cprevent outcomes of interest in the \u2018real world.\u2019\u201d However, influenza vaccination\u2019s infamous\u00a0in<\/em>effectiveness makes this talking point a bit tricky. And when vaccination does not \u201csignificantly reduce medically attended influenza illness,\u201d it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the vaccine has\u00a0bombed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As public health experts are well aware, many factors can lessen influenza vaccine effectiveness (VE), including particular characteristics of\u00a0vaccine recipients and the vaccines<\/a>\u00a0themselves. The scientific literature also points to serious wrinkles that underscore influenza vaccination\u2019s inability to deliver meaningful benefits and its propensity to create new problems. For example, studies show that getting flu vaccines year after year reduces the level of vaccine\u00a0protection<\/a>\u00a0available; flu-vaccinated individuals are also more susceptible to other\u00a0strains of influenza<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0severe respiratory infections<\/a>. Recent studies even suggest that childhood influenza vaccination can lead to\u00a0larger epidemics<\/a>\u00a0and \u201can overall health loss.\u201d A vaccine expert who recently admitted to knowing less about influenza today than a decade ago lamented, \u201cIt\u2019s much\u00a0more complicated than we thought<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2026in over half (8\/15) of the years since 2004, influenza vaccines have failed 60% or more of the time\u2014including 90%, 79%, 81% and 71% in 2004-05, 2005-06, 2014-15 and 2018-19, respectively.<\/div>\n
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Failure #1: Influenza vaccination has been 40%-90% ineffective over the past 15 years.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Thus far for\u00a02019-2020<\/a>, the CDC says that it can only speculate about how well the season\u2019s influenza vaccines \u201cmight\u00a0<\/em>work\u201d [emphasis added]. To compensate for this vagueness, the agency touts VE in past seasons as being \u201cin the range of 40% to 60%\u201d (a range that vaccinologists would consider abysmal for any other vaccine). What the CDC does not mention is that\u00a0last year<\/a>\u00a0(2018-19), overall VE (across all age groups and influenza viruses) was a mere 29%, and for the pesky influenza A(H3N2) viruses that predominated after February 2019, flu vaccines were ineffective\u00a091% of the time<\/em>. Moreover, VE has attained the CDC\u2019s vaunted upper limit of 60% only once in the\u00a0past fifteen years<\/a>; in over half (8\/15) of the years since 2004, influenza vaccines have failed 60% or more of the time\u2014including 90%, 79%, 81% and 71% in 2004-05, 2005-06, 2014-15 and 2018-19, respectively.<\/p>\n

Failure #2: Influenza vaccine effectiveness is highly inconsistent and ignores immune system complexities.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

More so than with other vaccines, researchers view influenza viruses as \u201cdynamic<\/a>\u201d and influenza VE as a \u201cmoving target<\/a>.\u201d These characteristics have thwarted efforts to develop effective vaccines, with dramatic\u00a0seasonal fluctuations<\/a>\u00a0in VE being the inevitable result. Under such circumstances, influenza vaccines\u00a0theoretically<\/a>\u00a0will be most effective when manufacturers correctly guess which strains of virus to include in a given year\u2019s vaccines. In practice, however, influenza vaccines also \u201cstand out for their variable effectiveness by age group . . . and by recent vaccination status,\u201d suggesting an important role for\u00a0immune history<\/a>\u00a0as well.<\/p>\n

Illustrating the \u201ccomplex\u00a0host-virus interactions<\/a>\u00a0that affect vaccine protection,\u201d some researchers hypothesize that\u00a0imprinting<\/a>\u2014how a person\u2019s first influenza infection \u201cshap[es] immune memory . . . over the individual\u2019s lifetime\u201d\u2014may play a key role in subsequent infection risks. Proponents of this hypothesis point to a study showing that vaccination tampered with protective childhood imprinting in a cohort of 35\u201354-year-olds; vaccinated individuals in that age group had a\u00a0more than four-fold increased risk<\/a>\u00a0of illness from certain circulating influenza viruses compared with same-age unvaccinated individuals.<\/p>\n

In another example of how immune factors influence VE, studies show that obese individuals have a\u00a0decreased response<\/a>\u00a0to seasonal flu vaccines compared with non-obese individuals. Researchers explain this by noting that overweight introduces changes in metabolism that alter and age\u00a0immune system cells<\/a>; one researcher says that a 30-year-old obese person\u2019s immune cells look \u201ca lot like what you might expect in an 80-year-old individual.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2026 flu vaccination programs are predicated on assumptions on top of assumptions.<\/div>\n
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Failure #3: Influenza vaccine effectiveness dwindles with repeated vaccination.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

A 2020 study published by Canadian researchers assesses the impact of\u00a0repeated influenza vaccination<\/a>\u00a0on \u201ccurrent season\u201d VE, furnishing results that will hardly be good news for proponents of annual vaccination. The study included senior citizens with laboratory-confirmed influenza who were at least 65 years old at the time of vaccination, examining the impact of prior vaccination for up to 10 previous flu seasons\u2014the first study to review such a long time period. In seniors who received a vaccine in 2015-16 but none in the preceding decade, VE was an unimpressive 34%, but it was\u00a0significantly worse<\/a>\u00a0when accounting for 10-year vaccination history\u201426%, 24%, 13% and 7% in those who received 1-3, 4-6, 7-8 or 9-10 vaccines in the prior decade, respectively. A Spanish study of older (><\/u>\u00a060 years) influenza patients documented low VE (20% or lower) with just\u00a0one prior vaccination<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What about at the younger end of the age continuum? The authors of a 2017 meta-analysis point out that, based on average life expectancy and current vaccine recommendations, a child born in 2017 can \u201cexpect to receive 70-80 annual influenza vaccinations\u201d over the course of his or her lifetime\u2014but the effects of so many annual vaccines \u201con individual long-term protection, population immunity, and virus evolution remain\u00a0largely unknown<\/a>.\u201d Another researcher\u2014commenting on why influenza vaccines so often fail\u2014remarks that flu vaccination programs are \u201cpredicated on\u00a0assumptions on top of assumptions<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The authors of the 2017 meta-analysis note that \u201csignals of concern<\/a>\u00a0regarding potential negative effects of repeated vaccination\u201d are nothing new, having first been observed in the 1970s and 1980s. In their conclusions, not only do these authors argue that repeated vaccination \u201cblunts\u201d the antibody response\u2014particularly for the\u00a0H3N2 influenza viruses<\/a>\u00a0that caused U.S. vaccine effectiveness to plummet in 2019\u2014but that the long-term immune effects of \u201cblocking natural infection in healthy individuals with a low risk of influenza complications are unknown.\u201d Their take-home message, again, is hardly reassuring:<\/p>\n

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“Our current understanding of repeated vaccination effects is inadequate to inform vaccine policy recommendations<\/em>.”<\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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\u2026 children who received a seasonal influenza vaccine (versus placebo) were more susceptible to acute noninfluenza respiratory viruses in the nine months following vaccination \u2026<\/div>\n
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Failure #4: Influenza vaccines can increase recipients\u2019 susceptibility to non-vaccine influenza viruses and other acute infections.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In the aftermath of the 2009 influenza A (H1N1) pandemic, two Canadian researchers reported a more than\u00a0two-fold increased risk<\/a>\u00a0of H1N1 illness in individuals less than 50 years who had received a 2008 seasonal flu vaccine. To explain this finding, one of the investigators theorized that the seasonal vaccine \u201cprotected against an H1N1 virus that was related to\u2014but not similar enough to\u2014the pandemic virus,\u201d which \u201cmight actually have\u00a0facilitated infection with the pandemic virus<\/a>.\u201d Although the Canadians characterized the 2009 pandemic as relatively mild, they observed that \u201ca potential doubling of pandemic infection risk among prior seasonal vaccine recipients could be\u00a0disastrous<\/a>\u00a0in the event of a more severe pandemic involving a higher per-case fatality risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not long after the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, other investigators reported on the potential for vaccination programs to shift influenza infections in such a way as to produce less favorable outcomes\u2014a scenario rarely considered during pandemic planning. They hypothesized \u201cthat vaccinating to prevent a fall pandemic wave might delay it long enough to inadvertently increase influenza infections in winter, when primary influenza infection is more likely to cause severe outcomes [and] potentially cause a\u00a0net increase in severe outcomes<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

A 2012 study of 6\u201315-year-olds found that children who received a seasonal influenza vaccine (versus placebo) were more susceptible to acute\u00a0noninfluenza respiratory viruses<\/a>\u00a0in the nine months following vaccination, whether during winter or summer. In an effort to explain this unexpected result, the investigators discussed the phenomenon known as \u201cvirus interference\u201d and speculated that vaccination \u201ccould increase influenza immunity at the expense of reduced immunity to noninfluenza respiratory viruses, by some unknown biological mechanism.\u201d Interestingly, a 2020 study of virus interference in highly vaccinated U.S. military personnel reported an\u00a0increased odds<\/a>\u00a0of coronavirus and human metapneumovirus (a virus that causes respiratory infections) in personnel who received influenza vaccines, although the findings pointed in the opposite direction for the other noninfluenza viruses examined.<\/p>\n

Failure #5: Many influenza vaccine researchers are disingenuous or worse when they report on vaccine effectiveness.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

As Children\u2019s Health Defense has enumerated elsewhere, the proponents of flu vaccines\u2014whether public health officials, the media or researchers\u2014are only too willing to provide\u00a0misleading information<\/a>. A multicountry study funded by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and authored by GSK employees and shareholders\u2014published in\u00a0The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal\u00a0<\/em>in\u00a02019<\/a>\u2014furnishes an illustrative example:<\/p>\n