(Press-News.org) Promotion of influenza vaccines is one of the most visible and aggressive public health policies today, writes Doshi. Today around 135 million doses of influenza vaccine annually enter the US market, with vaccinations administered in drug stores, supermarkets - even some drive-throughs.
This enormous growth has not been fuelled by popular demand but instead by a public health campaign that delivers a straightforward message: influenza is a serious disease, we are all at risk of complications from influenza, the flu shot is virtually risk free, and vaccination saves lives.
Yet, Doshi argues that the vaccine might be less beneficial and less safe than has been claimed, and the threat of influenza appears overstated.
To support its case, the CDC cites two studies of influenza vaccines, published in high-impact, peer-reviewed journals and carried out by academic and government researchers with non-commercial funding. Both found a large (up to 48%) relative reduction in the risk of death.
"If true, these statistics indicate that influenza vaccines can save more lives than any other single licensed medicine on the planet," says Doshi. But he argues that these studies are "simply implausible" and likely the product of the 'healthy-user effect' (in this case, a propensity for healthier people to be more likely to get vaccinated than less healthy people).
In addition, he says, there is virtually no evidence that influenza vaccines reduce elderly deaths – the very reason the policy was originally created.
He points out that the agency itself acknowledges the evidence may be undermined by bias. Yet, he says "for most people, and possibly most doctors, officials need only claim that vaccines save lives, and it is assumed there must be solid research behind it."
He also questions the CDC's recommendation that beyond those for whom the vaccine is contraindicated, influenza vaccine can only do good, pointing to serious reactions to influenza vaccines in Australia (febrile convulsions in young children) and Sweden and Finland (a spike in cases of narcolepsy among adolescents).
Doshi suggests that influenza is yet one more case of "disease mongering" - medicalising ordinary life to expand markets for new products. But, he warns that unlike most stories of selling sickness, "here the salesmen are public health officials, worried little about which brand of vaccine you get so long as they can convince you to take influenza seriously."
But perhaps the cleverest aspect of the influenza marketing strategy surrounds the claim that "flu" and "influenza" are the same, he concludes. "All influenza is "flu," but only one in six "flus" might be influenza. It's no wonder so many people feel that "flu shots" don't work: for most flus, they can't."
Earlier this year, the BMJ launched a 'Too Much Medicine' campaign to help tackle the threat to health and the waste of money caused by unnecessary care. The journal will also partner at an international conference Preventing Overdiagnosis to be held in September in the USA.
### END
Expert questions US public health agency advice on influenza vaccines
Marketing influenza vaccines involves marketing influenza as a threat of great proportions, argues Johns Hopkins fellow
2013-05-17
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Returning genetic incidental findings without patient consent violates basic rights
2013-05-17
MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL (05/15/2012)—Informed consent is the backbone of patient care. Genetic testing has long required patient consent and patients have had a "right not to know" the results. However, as 21st century medicine now begins to use the tools of genome sequencing, an enormous debate has erupted over whether patients' rights will continue in an era of medical genomics.
Recent recommendations from the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG) suggest no. On March 22, the ACMG released recommendations stating that when clinical sequencing is undertaken ...
Change in cycle track policy needed to boost ridership, public health
2013-05-17
Boston, MA – Bicycle engineering guidelines often used by state regulators to design bicycle facilities need to be overhauled to reflect current cyclists' preferences and safety data, according to a new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers. They say that U.S. guidelines should be expanded to offer cyclists more riding options and call for endorsing cycle tracks – physically separated, bicycle-exclusive paths adjacent to sidewalks – to encourage more people of all ages to ride bicycles.
The study appears online May 16, 2013 and will appear in ...
World's melting glaciers making large contribution to sea rise
2013-05-17
While 99 percent of Earth's land ice is locked up in the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, the remaining ice in the world's glaciers contributed just as much to sea rise as the two ice sheets combined from 2003 to 2009, says a new study led by Clark University and involving the University Colorado Boulder.
The new research found that all glacial regions lost mass from 2003 to 2009, with the biggest ice losses occurring in Arctic Canada, Alaska, coastal Greenland, the southern Andes and the Himalayas. The glaciers outside of the Greenland and Antarctic sheets lost an ...
Sea level: One-third of its rise comes from melting mountain glaciers
2013-05-17
How much all glaciers contribute to global sea-level rise has never been calculated before with this accuracy. An international group of researchers involving two geographers from the University of Zurich has confirmed that melting of glaciers caused about one third of the observed sea-level rise, while the ice sheets and thermal expansion of sea water account for one third each. So far, estimates on the contribution of glaciers have differed substantially. Now 16 scientists from nine countries have compared the data from traditional measurements on the ground with satellite ...
Breakthrough for IVF?
2013-05-17
Amsterdam, May 17, 2013 - Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, today announced the publication of a recent study in Reproductive BioMedicine Online on 5-day old human blastocysts showing that those with an abnormal chromosomal composition can be identified by the rate at which they have developed to blastocysts, thereby classifying the risk of genetic abnormality without a biopsy. In a new study the same group has undertaken a retrospective study, using their predictive model to assess the likelihood ...
Global health policy fails to address burden of disease on men
2013-05-17
Men experience a higher burden of disease and lower life expectancy than women, but policies focusing on the health needs of men are notably absent from the strategies of global health organisations, according to a Viewpoint article in this week's Lancet.
The article reinterprets data from the 'Global Burden of Disease: 2010' study which shows that all of the top ten causes of premature death and disability, and top ten behavioural risk factors driving rates of ill-health around the world, affect men more than they affect women (see tables in Notes to Editors).
In every ...
Sanford-Burnham researchers identify target to prevent hardening of arteries
2013-05-17
ORLANDO, Fla., May 16, 2013 — The hardening of arteries is a hallmark of atherosclerosis, an often deadly disease in which plaques, excessive connective tissue, and other changes build up inside vessel walls and squeeze off the flow of oxygen-rich blood throughout the body. Now, researchers at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute have described the molecular and cellular pathway that leads to this hardening of the arteries—and zeroed in on a particularly destructive protein called Dkk1.
Their study was published online today by Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and ...
World's biggest ice sheets likely more stable than previously believed
2013-05-17
For decades, scientists have used ancient shorelines to predict the stability of today's largest ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. Markings of a high shoreline from three million years ago, for example – when Earth was going through a warm period – were thought to be evidence of a high sea level due to ice sheet collapse at that time. This assumption has led many scientists to think that if the world's largest ice sheets collapsed in the past, then they may do just the same in our modern, progressively warming world.
However, a new groundbreaking study now challenges ...
Women with chronic physical disabilities are no less likely to bear children
2013-05-17
Philadelphia, Pa. (May 16, 2013) – Like the general public, health care professionals may hold certain stereotypes regarding sexual activity and childbearing among women with disabilities. But a new study finds that women with chronic physical disabilities are about as likely as nondisabled women to say they are currently pregnant, after age and other sociodemographic factors are taken into account. The findings are reported in the June issue of Medical Care, published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.
Health care professionals can expect—and ...
Beautiful 'flowers' self-assemble in a beaker
2013-05-17
"Spring is like a perhaps hand," wrote the poet E. E. Cummings: "carefully / moving a perhaps / fraction of flower here placing / an inch of air there... / without breaking anything."
With the hand of nature trained on a beaker of chemical fluid, the most delicate flower structures have been formed in a Harvard laboratory—and not at the scale of inches, but microns.
These minuscule sculptures, curved and delicate, don't resemble the cubic or jagged forms normally associated with crystals, though that's what they are. Rather, fields of carnations and marigolds seem to ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
Printed skin to replace animal testing
Precision medicine could be possible in the fight against antibiotic resistance
Researchers at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University identify new targeted approach to protect neurons against degeneration
Western diet causes inflammation, traditional African food protects
Electrochemical method supports nitrogen circular economy
How researchers are shining a light on kidney disease
Some gut bacteria could make certain drugs less effective
PEPITEM sequence shows effects in psoriasis, comparable to steroid cream
Older teens who start vaping post-high school risk rapid progress to frequent use
Corpse flowers are threatened by spotty recordkeeping
Riding the AI wave toward rapid, precise ocean simulations
Are lifetimes of big appliances really shrinking?
Pink skies
Monkeys are world’s best yodellers - new research
Key differences between visual- and memory-led Alzheimer’s discovered
% weight loss targets in obesity management – is this the wrong objective?
An app can change how you see yourself at work
NYC speed cameras take six months to change driver behavior, effects vary by neighborhood, new study reveals
New research shows that propaganda is on the rise in China
Even the richest Americans face shorter lifespans than their European counterparts, study finds
Novel genes linked to rare childhood diarrhea
New computer model reveals how Bronze Age Scandinavians could have crossed the sea
Novel point-of-care technology delivers accurate HIV results in minutes
Researchers reveal key brain differences to explain why Ritalin helps improve focus in some more than others
Study finds nearly five-fold increase in hospitalizations for common cause of stroke
Study reveals how alcohol abuse damages cognition
Medicinal cannabis is linked to long-term benefits in health-related quality of life
Microplastics detected in cat placentas and fetuses during early pregnancy
Ancient amphibians as big as alligators died in mass mortality event in Triassic Wyoming
Scientists uncover the first clear evidence of air sacs in the fossilized bones of alvarezsaurian dinosaurs: the "hollow bones" which help modern day birds to fly
[Press-News.org] Expert questions US public health agency advice on influenza vaccinesMarketing influenza vaccines involves marketing influenza as a threat of great proportions, argues Johns Hopkins fellow