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Flu vaccine not working well; only 23 percent effective
By Mike Stobbe THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK — As predicted, this year's flu vaccine is doing a pretty crummy job. It's only 23 percent effective, primarily because it doesn't include the bug that is making most people sick, according to a government study released Thursday.
That's one of the worst performances in the last decade, since U.S. health officials started routinely tracking how well vaccines work. In the best flu seasons, the vaccines were 50 to 60 percent effective.
''This is an uncommon year,'' said Dr. Alicia Fry, a flu vaccine expert at the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who was involved in the study.
The findings are not surprising. In early December, CDC officials warned the vaccine probably wouldn't work very well because the it isn't well matched to a strain that's been spreading widely.
Each year, the flu vaccine is reformulated, based on experts' best guess at which three or four strains will be the biggest problem. Those decisions are usually made in February, months before the flu season, to give companies that make flu shots and nasal spray vaccine enough time to make enough doses.
But this year's formula didn't include the strain of H3N2 virus that ended up causing about two-thirds of the illnesses this winter. And that strain tends to cause more hospitalizations and deaths, particularly in the elderly, making this a particularly bad winter to have a problem with the flu vaccine.
Indeed, the flu season is shaping up to a bad one. Health officials are comparing it to the nasty flu season two winters ago, and this one may prove to be worse. Hospitalization rates in people 65 and older are higher than they were at the same point in the 2012-2013 season, according to CDC data.
The results from the preliminary study weren't large enough to show how the vaccine is working in each age group, although flu vaccines traditionally don't work as well in elderly people.
The study involved 2,321 people in five states — Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas, Wisconsin and Washington — who had respiratory illnesses from November to early January. The researchers said vaccinated people had a 23 percent lower chance of winding up at the doctor with the flu.
The CDC began regularly tracking the effectiveness of the flu vaccine during the 2004-2005 season, but the results for the first few years were from smaller studies and are considered less reliable. Over the years, effectiveness has ranged from 47 percent to 60 percent in the last half-dozen years, when studies involved larger numbers of patients.
It's only in those last several years that ''we really understand what's really going on'' with the flu vaccines, said Dr. Arnold Monto, a University of Michigan flu expert and another author of the study.
CDC officials say people should still get a flu shot this year. Recently, the flu season in the U.S. has peaked in January or February, but people can continue to get sick for months. And they could get infected by the flu strains that were included in this year's version.
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Why would you take something that is only 23% effective?
Of course Saddam had WMDs: how the US knew
ReplyDeleteBy Jon Rappoport
January 24, 2015
www.nomorefakenews.com
Yes, prior to Gulf War 2, all sorts of people were lying about WMDs in Iraq. There was the whole business about the yellowcake and Niger, and Colin Powell speaking before the UN.
There was a WMD depot in Iraq that wasn't a depot.
There were people who said they had secret evidence Saddam shipped weapons out of the country. And maybe they did have evidence.
But this is a different story. It involves the prospect of inspectors finding very serious weapons and then saying, "Wait! The weapons containers have American labels on them!"
That didn't happen, but it could have. And then what a fiasco would have ensued, since the US government was about to wage war to "end Saddam's threat." Yet, the US had armed him.
In 1975, the US signed on to an international treaty banning the production, use, and stockpiling of biological weapons. Ditto for chemical weapons, in 1993. Another treaty.
Here's a quote from the Washington Post (9/4/13): "The administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush authorized the sale to Iraq of numerous items...including poisonous chemicals and deadly biological viruses, such as anthrax and bubonic plague..."
Between 1985 and 1989, a US 501C3 firm, American Type Culture Collection, sent Iraq up to 70 shipments of various biowar agents, including 21 strains of anthrax.
Between 1984 and 1989, the CDC (yes, the Centers for Disease Control) sent Iraq at least 80 different biowar agents, including botulinum toxoid, dengue virus, and West Nile antigen and antibody.
This information on the American Type Culture Collection and the CDC comes from a report, "Iraq's Biological Weapons Program," prepared by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.
Then we have a comprehensive article by William Blum in the April 1998 Progressive called "Anthrax for Export." Blum cites a 1994 Senate report confirming that, in this 1985-1989 time period, US shipments of anthrax and other biowar agents to Iraq were licensed by...drum roll, cymbal crash...the US Dept. of Commerce.
ReplyDeleteBlum quotes from the Senate report: "These biological materials were not attenuated or weakened and were capable of reproduction. It was later learned that these microorganisms exported by the United States were identical to those the United Nations inspectors found and removed from the Iraqi biological warfare program."
This 1994 Senate report also indicates that the US exported to Iraq the precursors for chemwar agents, actual plans for chemical and biowar production facilities, and chemical-warhead filling equipment. The exports continued until at least November 28, 1989.
Blum lists a few other biowar agents the US shipped to Iraq. Histoplasma Capsulatum, Brucella Melitensis, Clostridium Perfringens, Clostridium tetani---as well as E. coli, various genetic materials, human and bacterial DNA.
Blum also points out that a 1994 Pentagon report dismissed any connection between all these biowar agents and Gulf War Illness. But the researcher who headed up that study, Joshua Lederberg, was actually a director of the US firm that had provided the most biowar material to Iraq in the 1980s: the American Type Culture Collection.
Newsday revealed that the CEO of the American Type Culture Collection was a member of the US Dept. of Commerce's Technical Advisory Committee. See, the Dept. of Commerce had to license and approve all those exports of biowar agents carried out by the American Type Culture Collection. Get the picture?
Now, as to other US companies which dealt biowar or chemwar agents to Iraq-all such sales having been approved by the US government-the names of these companies are contained in records of the 1992 Senate hearings, "United States Export Policy Toward Iraq Prior to Iraq's Invasion of Kuwait," Senate Report 102-996, Senate Committee on Banking Housing and Urban Affairs, 102d Congress, Second Session (October 27, 1992):
Mouse Master (Georgia), Sullaire Corp (Charlotte, North Carolina), Pure Aire (Charlotte, North Carolina), Posi Seal (Conn.), Union Carbide (Conn.), Evapco (Maryland), BDM Corp (Virginia), Spectra Physics (Calif.).
There are about a dozen more.
ReplyDeleteThis also from the Blum article: "A larger number of American firms supplied Iraq with the specialized computers, lasers, testing and analyzing equipment, and other instruments and hardware vital to the manufacture of nuclear weapons, missiles, and delivery systems. Computers, in particular, play a key role in nuclear weapons development. Advanced computers make it feasible to avoid carrying out nuclear test explosions, thus preserving the program's secrecy. The 1992 Senate hearings implicated [Hewlett Packard, Palo Alto, CA - among others]."
Hewlett Packard said that the recipient of its shipments, Saad 16, was some sort of school in Iraq. But in 1990, the Wall St. Journal stated that Saad 16 was a "heavily fortified, state-of-the-art [Iraqi] complex for aircraft construction, missile design, and, almost certainly, nuclear-weapons research."
If you review and think about all these WMD shipments from the US to Iraq, you understand there were many US officials and corporate employees who knew about them. Knew about them then, in the 1980s, and knew about them later, during 2 US wars in Iraq, when American soldiers were sent to Iraq, and could have been exposed to the bio/chem weapons.
And these officials and employees said nothing.
Officials at the CDC and the Dept. of Commerce said nothing. People at the American Type Culture Collection said nothing. People at the Pentagon and the CIA and the NSA said nothing. Presidents said nothing. Employees of the corporations who supplied germs and chemicals said nothing.
It's clear that the US government shipped those bio/chem weapons to Iraq to aid it in its war against Iran. And yes, Iraq did use chemical weapons against Iran---and also against the Iraqi Kurds. Perhaps you remember that, much later, the US government repeated, over and over, "Saddam used chemical weapons against the Kurds, his own people," as a reason for attacking Iraq.
So is there any limit beyond which the US government wouldn't go to foment war, to wage war?
That's a rhetorical question.
Does it bother anyone that the agency (CDC) who is a watchdog for Vaccines and Fluoridation are handing out weapons of mass destruction to Iraq?
ReplyDelete