Over 40 percent of Americans say no to flu vaccinations

[coschristi]

Katarina;

I didn’t say vaccines cause sepsis.

I said last year’s flu season was of note due to the continuous uh ... FUD ... reporting of “flu related sepsis” deaths.

I quoted the NYT; that the senator was reported to have been feeling ill for about two weeks but didn’t go to the doctor because he thought he was just feeling the effects from his flu shot.

I referenced the Fact check site in saying that the senator had died from Sepsis.

I noted that both the expected immunity from the flu shot & Sepsis; result from a viral trigger of the immune system.

I recognized that flu related sepsis mortality is counted as flu mortality.

And that’s really all I said. Anything else would have been speculation. Or a result of critical thinking.

[Gaylenwoof]

Originally Posted by GuyNTexas

Worth reading for those who want to be informed:
https://www.collective-evolution.com...lly-dangerous/

Originally Posted by Katarina Witt

"Doubtful efficacy"? The efficacy is different every year. This year's is looking pretty good; 51% efficacy in kids for any A or B strain and 68.4% against the vaccine strains in kids.
https://www.beckershospitalreview.co...YeiflPkaD2Lz5A

So I finally found some time to look at the links in Jeremy Hammond's article and, for me, the results are mixed. Quick bottom line: I still plan to get a flu shot again next year and I still believe that getting the shot is the best way to avoid getting the flu. I think links like the one provided by Kat above are still powerful arguments in favor of the flu vax. But there is one worry that I have not yet been able to set aside. A particular quote from a January 2018 PNAS article has been surfacing over and over in anti-flu-vax sources (including the Hammond article), and I have no super-good argument against it.

The quote refers to "...an association between repeated vaccination and increased viral aerosol generation..."

Conveniently, most anti-vaxxers don't include the whole sentence:
"Our observation of an association between repeated vaccination and increased viral aerosol generation demonstrated the power of our method, but needs confirmation."
https://www.pnas.org/content/115/5/1081.full

Unlike social media, scientists tend not to jump to conclusions based on a single study. And, since this study was only published a year ago, there does not seem to be much further info to draw on. (At least nothing I've seen. Perhaps Kat can shed more light on this?) But I do see these results as potentially worrisome if, someday, they really are confirmed. Here is a bit more on the phenomenon: "...we observed 6.3 (95% CI 1.9–21.5) times more aerosol shedding among cases with vaccination in the current and previous season compared with having no vaccination in those two seasons." (from the same article linked above). In plain English: If you get the flu vax for a couple of years in a row, you can still spread the flu, which may slightly dampen our enthusiasm for the overall effectiveness of the vax for preventing spread of the virus. Why would getting immunized increase the shed of virus?

Again from the article:
"The association of current and prior year vaccination with increased shedding of influenza A might lead one to speculate that certain types of prior immunity promote lung inflammation, airway closure, and aerosol generation. This first observation of the phenomenon needs confirmation. If confirmed, this observation, together with recent literature suggesting reduced protection with annual vaccination, would have implications for influenza vaccination recommendations and policies."

Basically, until we can confirm or disconfirm the association between prior immunizations and the shedding of the virus, I have to remain at least a bit skeptical about the overall effectiveness of the current flu-vax technology for the purpose of public policy. And I can pretty much guarantee that quotes from the article linked above will keep resurfacing in anti-vax articles because the words "needs confirmation" probably won't carry much weight with most people who are already predisposed to be suspicious of the flu vax.