2 ms·

> CDC reckoned they reduce the risk by about 40-60%. curious, Do you have a link to this by any chance? According to this https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/ar

> CDC reckoned they reduce the risk by about 40-60%. curious, Do you have a link to this by any chance? According to this https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3693492/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3693492/ After looking at "328 households with 1441 members, including 839 children," for an entire year (2011) these authors determined that there was a difference of 4/10ths of one percentage point between those who received flu vaccine and those who didn't. The infection risk was 8.5% in the vaccinated and 8.9% in the unvaccinated. According to this CDC study https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/64/5/544/2758477 https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/64/5/544/2758477 "We observed decreasing vaccine effectiveness with increasing time. Maximum vaccine effectiveness was observed shortly after vaccination, followed by a decline..... Vaccine effectiveness remained greater than zero for at least six months for influenza A(H1N1) and influenza B and at least five months for influenza A(H3N2) viruses." They say "greater than zero" , far cry from 40- 60% :D Cannot post more replies atm, but for people saying 5% is still something. > Going from 8.9% to 8.5% is a 5% reduction in flu cases. If this translates to 5% fewer sick days during the flu-period and a 5% reduction in doctor visits that are due to flu symptoms (some people go to the doctor for everything), that can absolutely be a reason for the government to want people to get their flu shots. This line of reasoning assumes that there are only positive effects from vaccines. There are many many side effects of flu vaccines. Just to quote one, http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0136539 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.... "Hospitalizations were slightly more common among subjects who were vaccinated than among the others" "hospitalizations for pneumonia and influenza, that were 47% more likely among subjects who received the tetravalent vaccine as compared with those who were not vaccinated."

bonzini 9y ago
That's a 0.4/8.9 reduction, about 5%. However, flu vaccine isn't useful to the general population. In many countries is usually administered to people that are most likely to develop complications such as pulmonitis.
- dominotw 9y ago
  > However, flu vaccine isn't useful to the general population. CDC makes no such distinctions in USA. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/vis/vis-statements/flu.html https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/vis/vis-statements/flu.html Any references to your claims?
  - bonzini 9y ago
    Italian only, but see item 11 of http://www.salute.gov.it/portale/p5_1_2.jsp?id=103 http://www.salute.gov.it/portale/p5_1_2.jsp?id=103 - should be easy for Google to translate it. Though I should have written "isn't _equally_ useful to everyone in the general population".
moccachino 9y ago
Going from 8.9% to 8.5% is a 5% reduction in flu cases. If this translates to 5% fewer sick days during the flu-period and a 5% reduction in doctor visits that are due to flu symptoms (some people go to the doctor for everything), that can absolutely be a reason for the government to want people to get their flu shots. Personally I have never had a flu shot and am not inclined to start doing so, but I know people who have and according to them, if they do get the flu it affects them less in the years they get their shots vs. when they don't. So assuming that the flu vaccine is harmless and the cost is not too great, it can make sense to get it even if the effectiveness rate is low.
PeterStuer 9y ago
As far as I remember flu vaccines work by looking at the origins of the yearly epidemic (in the east, typically china etc.), predicting which strains will become the dominant ones and then starting to cultivate neutered forms of those (in eggs) on a mass scale to have the vaccines ready by the time the epidemic hits 'the west'. Some years the predictions of the strain are wrong and the vaccines less useful as most people will get another strain.
- kdelok 9y ago
  They do strain selection twice a year (once for northern, once for southern hemisphere). The years where they get it wrong are usually the years where the strain jumps between different clusters. It's really interesting stuff. Take a look at https://www.whocc.infectiousdisease.cam.ac.uk/antigenic-cartography https://www.whocc.infectiousdisease.cam.ac.uk/antigenic-cart... for a bit of an overview on that stuff.
moccachino 9y ago
To quote your quote of my response: ---- > > Going from 8.9% to 8.5% is a 5% reduction in flu cases. If this translates to 5% fewer sick days during the flu-period and a 5% reduction in doctor visits that are due to flu symptoms (some people go to the doctor for everything), that can absolutely be a reason for the government to want people to get their flu shots. > This line of reasoning assumes that there are only positive effects from vaccines. There are many many side effects of flu vaccines. ---- This is why I also said: >So assuming that the flu vaccine is harmless and the cost is not too great, it can make sense to get it even if the effectiveness rate is low.
- dominotw 9y ago
  oh sorry. missed that line from your response.
bluGill 9y ago
That is for 2011. The effectiveness of the vaccine is different every year. Some years it gets close to 80% (from memory and probably wrong), some years it is only 10%. The average across all years tends to be 40%.
- dominotw 9y ago
  Do you have references to numbers your are quoting? I searched for 60-80% number quoted by GP but found nothing even close.
  - bluGill 9y ago
    https://www.cdc.gov/flu/professionals/vaccination/effectiveness-studies.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/professionals/vaccination/effectiven... Where my numbers disagree with the above (nearly all!) I stand corrected.
kdelok 9y ago
Yeah, I didn't look particularly critically at it, but this is where I got the figure from: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/qa/vaccineeffect.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/qa/vaccineeffect.htm

bonzini 9y ago

That's a 0.4/8.9 reduction, about 5%. However, flu vaccine isn't useful to the general population. In many countries is usually administered to people that are most likely to develop complications such as pulmonitis.

dominotw 9y ago
> However, flu vaccine isn't useful to the general population. CDC makes no such distinctions in USA. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/vis/vis-statements/flu.html https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/vis/vis-statements/flu.html Any references to your claims?
- bonzini 9y ago
  Italian only, but see item 11 of http://www.salute.gov.it/portale/p5_1_2.jsp?id=103 http://www.salute.gov.it/portale/p5_1_2.jsp?id=103 - should be easy for Google to translate it. Though I should have written "isn't _equally_ useful to everyone in the general population".

moccachino 9y ago

Going from 8.9% to 8.5% is a 5% reduction in flu cases. If this translates to 5% fewer sick days during the flu-period and a 5% reduction in doctor visits that are due to flu symptoms (some people go to the doctor for everything), that can absolutely be a reason for the government to want people to get their flu shots. Personally I have never had a flu shot and am not inclined to start doing so, but I know people who have and according to them, if they do get the flu it affects them less in the years they get their shots vs. when they don't. So assuming that the flu vaccine is harmless and the cost is not too great, it can make sense to get it even if the effectiveness rate is low.

PeterStuer 9y ago

As far as I remember flu vaccines work by looking at the origins of the yearly epidemic (in the east, typically china etc.), predicting which strains will become the dominant ones and then starting to cultivate neutered forms of those (in eggs) on a mass scale to have the vaccines ready by the time the epidemic hits 'the west'. Some years the predictions of the strain are wrong and the vaccines less useful as most people will get another strain.

kdelok 9y ago
They do strain selection twice a year (once for northern, once for southern hemisphere). The years where they get it wrong are usually the years where the strain jumps between different clusters. It's really interesting stuff. Take a look at https://www.whocc.infectiousdisease.cam.ac.uk/antigenic-cartography https://www.whocc.infectiousdisease.cam.ac.uk/antigenic-cart... for a bit of an overview on that stuff.

moccachino 9y ago

To quote your quote of my response: ---- > > Going from 8.9% to 8.5% is a 5% reduction in flu cases. If this translates to 5% fewer sick days during the flu-period and a 5% reduction in doctor visits that are due to flu symptoms (some people go to the doctor for everything), that can absolutely be a reason for the government to want people to get their flu shots. > This line of reasoning assumes that there are only positive effects from vaccines. There are many many side effects of flu vaccines. ---- This is why I also said: >So assuming that the flu vaccine is harmless and the cost is not too great, it can make sense to get it even if the effectiveness rate is low.

dominotw 9y ago
oh sorry. missed that line from your response.

bluGill 9y ago

That is for 2011. The effectiveness of the vaccine is different every year. Some years it gets close to 80% (from memory and probably wrong), some years it is only 10%. The average across all years tends to be 40%.

dominotw 9y ago
Do you have references to numbers your are quoting? I searched for 60-80% number quoted by GP but found nothing even close.
- bluGill 9y ago
  https://www.cdc.gov/flu/professionals/vaccination/effectiveness-studies.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/professionals/vaccination/effectiven... Where my numbers disagree with the above (nearly all!) I stand corrected.

kdelok 9y ago

Yeah, I didn't look particularly critically at it, but this is where I got the figure from: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/qa/vaccineeffect.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/qa/vaccineeffect.htm