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A CDC panel has concluded that a spray version of the influenza vaccine is ineffective and shouldn't be used during the 2016-2017 flu season:
What led to the abrupt fall of FluMist — the nasal spray version of influenza vaccine — which until recently was considered the first choice for younger children? On Wednesday, an advisory panel to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded that the spray version was so ineffective, it shouldn't be used by anyone during the 2016-2017 flu season.
Just two years ago, that same Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices [ACIP] recommended FluMist as the preferred alternative for most kids ages 2-8, after reviewing several studies from 2006-2007 that suggested the spray was more effective in kids than the injectable forms of the vaccine.
What changed to make the spray so much less effective than studies had shown it to be in the past? The bottom line is that right now "we don't understand what it is," said David Kimberlin, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, who said academic researchers and those at MedImmune, the subsidiary of Astra Zeneca that makes FluMist, are working to get answers.
AstraZeneca, the maker of FluMist, says its own numbers conflict with the CDC's. The ACIP recommendation must be reviewed by the CDC's director before it can become official policy. The FluMist spray comprises 8% of the projected vaccine supply for the upcoming flu season.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @02:16PM
First off: I'm not anti-vax by any means. In fact, I regularly chortle and guffaw loudly at the expense of the anti-vaxtards--even though I know a few personally.
Second: Is it possible to admit that however helpful and effective the flu vaccine is (in all its forms) for at-risk individuals (aged, immunocompromised, etc.) it's generally just a big ole moneymaker for big pharma?
Every year it's the same thing. "Oh, we thought we had the right strain, but we were wrong and for 70-80% of you, you'll get sick anyway, but, but, uh...OH YEAH! you won't get AS sick! heh heh see you next year!"
I call "bollocks" on all this. All it does is provide more ammunition for the antivaxnuts while lining the pockets of everyone (except me, apparently).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by EvilSS on Tuesday June 28 2016, @02:30PM
There's actually not a whole lot of money in common vaccines like the flu vaccine. Sure they don't lose money but they make more money selling a single bottle of boner pills than they would of off enough flu vaccine shots for a few dozen people.
(Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Tuesday June 28 2016, @08:49PM
There's actually not a whole lot of money in common vaccines like the flu vaccine. Sure they don't lose money but they make more money selling a single bottle of boner pills than they would of off enough flu vaccine shots for a few dozen people.
Sure, the profit margins are lower for vaccines - but selling them has a lot of advantages. They make up the small profit margin with huge volume, for one thing (there were 3.4 million units of an ED pill sold in 2013 - compare that to over 175 million doses of flu vaccine). In addition, pharmaceutical companies are indemnified and held harmless for any defects or health issues caused by vaccines. You can sue the pill company if your boner goes pear-shaped, but if your daughter contracts Guillain–Barré syndrome from a vaccine, you are not allowed to seek recompense from the manufacturer.
I am a crackpot
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Wednesday June 29 2016, @01:52PM
What "advantages" exactly? Sure they can't be sued (sometimes, this isn't 100%) but vaccines are labor intensive and most common ones are not covered by patents any longer. If it wasn't for the sheer volume most companies wouldn't bother with common vaccines like the flu vaccines since they can reap much larger rewards elsewhere.
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Tuesday June 28 2016, @02:42PM
You are exactly on the money. It is this type of boondoggle, that bends the methodology of verified, experimental and observational research, which fuels general anti-vax sentiments, to the general detriment of public health.
Epidemiology when used predicatively, is often on shaky ground to begin with. Distorted by both profit motive and unsound, independently irreplicable results, the practice for medicine has been an absurdity.
I have yet to see blind-studies done, tracing the 20-year history of those who'd received annual flu vaccines, those who'd received a placebo, and those who'd had nothing at all. The numbers in the three populations would also have to number in the many thousands, to account for difference in diet, hygiene, travel and a myriad of other factors for which no reasonable controls could be established over such a period.
Even this, would be inconclusive. You'd have to be able to reproduce the result. More than once.
But epidemiology, over actual virology or endocrinology, make BIG DOLLARS and are the focus of massive international efforts. As such, they threaten the perception and funding of valid, scientific vaccination approaches - while encouraging those magical thinkers who would usher us into a return of small pox and rubella.
As a series of tangental, yet still related anecdotes, I refer you to the latest epidemiology-driven panic over the harmless zika virus. Remember, truth is hard to meter, and is generally a threat to somebody's bottom line.
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2016/06/not-the-zika-virus-but-fighting-it-is-likely-to-have-caused-birth-defects.html [moonofalabama.org]
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @02:55PM
Very interesting link.
Sumitomo sold a poison in Brazil which was supposed to prevent the spread of mosquito borne Zika virus by hindering the development of mosquito larvae. Suddenly cases of the human development disorder microcephaly occurred. The company knew that their insecticide could cause birth defects in mammals. But they continued to blame the Zika virus which then increased demand for their poison to "prevent" the further spread of that false Zika cause....
But the media should also be held responsible. First for spreading a false panic and for attributing all kinds of nonsense to a harmless flue virus. They should also be held responsible for not diligently investigating the possibly human-effected cause of the development disorder. The one that now seems to turn out to be the real culprit.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @03:26PM
Also, look up microcephaly. The disease you are thinking of is micrencephaly, microcephaly is a superset of micrencephaly that includes normal people along with disabled micrencephalic people by definition. I do mean that, by definition, 2% of the population must always have this "disease".
Also something like 80% of people with "microcephaly" while in the womb no longer have this "disease" when they are a toddler, yet parents are recommended to get abortions for it. I looked this up last time there was a zika story on here, you can find a number of references in the comments to the thread this post was part of: https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=13799&cid=352647#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday June 28 2016, @06:25PM
We covered that story here, https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=16/02/15/0234252 [soylentnews.org]
There were lots of links in the comments to sites somewhat better than Moon over Alabama:
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2987137/argentine_and_brazilian_doctors_suspect_mosquito_insecticide_as_cause_of_microcephaly.html [theecologist.org]
http://www.nature.com/news/proving-zika-link-to-birth-defects-poses-huge-challenge-1.19330?WT.mc_id=TWT_NatureNews [nature.com]
http://www.reduas.com.ar/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2016/02/Informe-Zika-de-Reduas_TRAD.pdf [reduas.com.ar]
http://ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications/Publications/zika-microcephaly-Brazil-rapid-risk-assessment-Nov-2015.pdf [europa.eu] (This one is quite a comprehensive read).
However, it seems that most medical authorities have moved on from these suspicions of pesticides and have focused on the Zika virus. Why? Probably because the affected zone had widened beyond the pesticide sprayed areas, and also beyond the life-time travel range of a mosquito.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday June 28 2016, @06:40PM
Oh, and also the current news story on NPR:
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/06/28/483774367/nobody-is-immune-bracing-for-zikas-first-summer-in-the-u-s [npr.org]
suggests that the pesticide theory is now pretty well debunked, because that pesticide was never used in the US.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Tuesday June 28 2016, @08:58PM
That article make no such suggestion.
I am a crackpot
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday June 29 2016, @06:48PM
Yes it does.
Sexual transmission of pesticide damage by people never subjected to the pesticide rules out pesticides.
Mosquito born transmission of pesticide damage by people never subjected to the pesticide rules out pesticides.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Thursday June 30 2016, @10:36AM
They only talk about transmission of the Zika virus by sexual transmission. But they don't say there's any cases of sexually-transmitted Zika causing microcephaly. So, no, it doesn't.
I am a crackpot
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday June 28 2016, @03:11PM
Is it possible to admit that however helpful and effective the flu vaccine is (in all its forms) for at-risk individuals
Is it? With 80% failure rates in a culture of generally bad sick day support, all it means is money was spent not saving anyone from the flu.
However... that money could have been spent on extensive pneumonia screening of at risk flu victims or hiring more medical personnel to handle the inevitable flu.
The argument boils down to the flu vaccine being faith healing alternative medicine type stuff... sure go have fun but it certainly is not going to work and don't waste any serious money on it.
On a micro scale it costs me time and money and since it has placebo level effectiveness I'm better off keeping my time and money.
I believe it provides a good propaganda weapon in that truly dangerous flu epidemics are uncontrollable and inevitable sooner or later and the government is better off with a population blaming themselves for not getting a (placebo) injection than a city rioting like a zombie movie for the .gov to "do something".