As we enter peak vaccine silly season, we are counselled by our public health betters in government and academia to get vaccinated for the flu, RSV, and COVID-19 viruses.  A worthy article could be written on any one of these viruses.  But our interest here is on the effectiveness (or rather ineffectiveness) of the influenza vaccine — the flu shot — for people aged 65 years or older, which includes us.

Numerous medical studies promote the effectiveness of the influenza vaccine for elderly people to prevent hospitalizations and deaths.  For example, see here, here, or here.  However, the types of designs used in these studies suffer from a bias known as selection bias.  Very simply, a “healthy-user effect” — the tendency of healthier people to be more likely to get vaccinated for influenza than the general population — may render the effectiveness measures in these studies not credible.

On the other side of the coin, a 2020 Annals of Internal Medicine (AIM) study examined patient surveys and administrative records in the U.K. for influenza vaccinations, hospitalizations, and mortality.  It used a particular design that protected against selection bias.  The study included 9.6 million patient-years of data collected between 2000 and 2014.

What did the AIM investigators report?  “Our results showed a sharp increase in influenza vaccination rates at age 65 years with no matching decrease in hospitalization or mortality rates.”  Although more elderly people were getting vaccinated for influenza, it did not result in fewer hospitalizations or deaths.

Secondly, Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson penned a 2024 article showing that only about 11% of reported “flu cases” are actually caused by influenza.  The other 89% are caused by a category of influenza-like illnesses — a flu-like syndrome caused by some 200 known and countless unknown microorganisms.  They rightly offer the following: “no wonder the [flu] vaccines don’t work.”  The reality is that most cases of flu have nothing to do with influenza.

Thirdly, a 2024 Journal of Infectious Diseases (JID) study examined the effect of repeated annual influenza vaccinations in five U.S. locations.  Their data set was collected over eight seasons (2011−2012 through 2018−2019).  It included 55,728 people from Wisconsin, Michigan, Washington, Pennsylvania, and Texas.

What did the JID investigators report?  “Timing of vaccination and clinical infection history, cannot fully explain the increased infection risk in repeat vaccinees compared with non repeat vaccinees.”  People getting vaccinated for influenza each year were more likely to get infected with an influenza virus than those not getting vaccinated.

There you have it.  Getting vaccinated for influenza may or may not prevent you from being hospitalized or dying, and there appears to be an increased risk of influenza infection from getting annual vaccinations compared to not getting vaccinated.

Nothing has changed since Doshi noted in the British Medical Journal back in 2013 that influenza vaccine–supporters employ the rhetoric of science to push an “influenza vaccines save lives” policy.  Yet the scientific studies underlying this policy are often of low quality, suffer from bias, and do not substantiate officials’ claims.

Americans have just cause to mistrust public health advice from government and academia regarding vaccines, given the lies they fed us about social distancing, lockdowns, masking, and the rollout of the vaccine during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Hopefully, Americans will smell a rat being pressed into taking flu, RSV, and COVID-19 vaccines.

So as vaccine-supporters prattle on about why we should get a flu shot, evidence and common sense say you may want to think twice and ask more questions about whether it is worth it.  Public health betters: The ball is back in your court!

Warren Kindzierski, Ph.D. is a retired college professor (public health) in St Albert, Alberta.  S. Stanley Young, Ph.D. is the CEO of CGStat in Raleigh, North Carolina and is director of the National Association of Scholars’ Shifting Sands Project.

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