The SkepDoc

Flu Shots: Facts and Fallacies

BY HARRIET HALL, M.D.

VACCINATION IS ONE OF SCIENCE’S greatest accomplishments; vaccines have prevented millions of deaths and eliminated smallpox forever. But rejection of vaccination is as old as vaccination itself. Some objections to it needn’t be taken seriously, like the argument that illness and death are part of God’s plan and humans mustn’t try to thwart His will. Or the chiropractor who told me “germs don’t cause disease.” However, some objections to specific vaccines require serious scrutiny: those that are based on an interpretation of the evidence that differs from the interpretation of the experts who write the immunization guidelines.

Of all vaccines, flu shots have come in for the most criticism. There are valid reasons to be skeptical. They are the least effective of all our vaccines. The influenza virus is constantly changing, and there is a lot of guesswork involved in choosing which strains to use in each year’s vaccine. And some of the studies on which the recommendations are based are flawed.

One of the flu vaccine’s most outspoken critics is Tom Jefferson, head of the Vaccine Field Group at the Cochrane Database Collaboration. He says “Flu researchers have been fooled into thinking vaccine is more effective than the data suggest.”1 He is absolutely right about that. But he goes too far when he characterizes all the published research as “rubbish.” Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is more circumspect. He says, “I have no doubt that it is effective in conferring some degree of protection. To say othotherwise is a minority view.”