Word: influenza
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Jefferson and colleagues have published several systematic reviews of existing studies on the efficacy of influenza vaccines. Weighing the data, they conclude that there is insufficient evidence to indicate that flu vaccines reduce infection rates or mortality, even in the elderly. Jefferson, a former British army doctor now based in Rome, spoke with TIME about his quest to spur further research into flu vaccines. (See TIME's special report on how to live...
...found an implausible sequence of results. We have studies that claim up to 90% effectiveness against death from all causes [in inoculated patients compared with the nonvaccinated]. If you were to believe that evidence, you would believe that flu vaccine is effective against death not only from influenza, but also from heart attack, stroke, hypothermia, accidents and all other common causes of death among the elderly. That is quite clearly nonsense...
...citation bias." They cite some studies that support vaccines, but other studies that find no effect are left out. Most importantly, there is no critical appraisal of the methods. [Cochrane reviewers examine the methodology of all studies they include in their systematic reviews.] It's disturbing. I think with influenza there's a feeling in governments that "we have to do something." Well, you can do something: you can better promote cheap public health measures such as hand-washing. They work. (See the top 10 medical breakthroughs...
...will convene a special panel that could begin the process of declaring an official end to the pandemic. "We hope that the worst is behind us and the overall trend will be going down," said Dr. Keiji Fukuda, the WHO's special adviser to the director-general for pandemic influenza, in a Feb. 18 press conference. (See what you need to know about the H1N1 vaccine...
...close of the H1N1 pandemic does not eliminate the long-term threat from influenza. Another pandemic could arise at any time, and a new paper published in the Feb. 22 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) demonstrates that it could even come from an existing flu virus that many of us have forgotten about: the H5N1 bird flu, which has infected 478 people in 15 countries since 2003, with 286 deaths - a fatality rate higher than...