NIH 20 Year Study on Elderly Flu Shots and Death
Here’s what scientists have found. Over 20 years, the percentage of elderly getting flu vaccine shots increased sharply from 15% to 65%. It stands to reason that flu deaths among the elderly should have taken a dramatic dip, making an X-graph like this. Instead, flu deaths among the elderly continue to climb. It was hard to believe, so researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) set out to do a study adjusting for all kinds of factors that could be masking the true benefits of the flu vaccine shots. No matter how they crunched the numbers, they got the same disappointing result.
News Reporter Goes to a Independent Author of the NIH Study for Truth
Flu vaccine shots had not reduced deaths among the elderly. It’s not what health officials hoped to find. NIH wouldn’t let us interview the study‘s lead author, so we went to Boston and found the only co-author not employed by NIH, Dr. Tom Reichert.
Dr. Tom Reichert: We realized that we had incendiary materials.
News Reporter: Dr. Reichert says they thought their study would prove flu vaccine shots had helped.
Dr. Tom Reichert: We were trying to do something mainstream, that’s for sure.
News Reporter: Were you surprised?
Dr. Tom Reichert: Astonished.
News Reporter: Did you check the data a couple of times to make sure?
Dr. Tom Reichert: Well, even more than that. We’ve looked at other countries now, and the same is true.
Same Results in Other Countries for Flu Vaccine Shots
That study, soon to be published, finds the same poor results in Australia, France, Canada, and the U.K. Other new research stokes the idea that decades of promoting flu vaccine shots in elderly and the billions spent haven’t had the desired result.
The current head of national immunizations confirms CDC is now looking at new strategies, but stops short of calling the present policy a failure.
CDC: There’s an active dialogue into how we can do better to prevent influenza and its complications in the elderly.
So what’s an older person to do? The CDC says they should still get their flu shots, that it could make flu less severe or prevent other problems not reflected in the total numbers. But watch for CDC to likely shift in the near future more toward protecting the elderly in a roundabout way by vaccinating more children and others around them who could give them the flu.
NIH Study – Impact of influenza vaccination on seasonal mortality in the US elderly population
JAMA Internal Medicine – Original Investigation: Impact of Influenza Vaccination on Seasonal Mortality in the US Elderly Population
