seasonal flu
gregladen | October 8, 2009There are several answers to this question. One was overheard the other day among a bunch of well educated people oriented towards science who were taking a break from their job.
Person 1: "So, how effective is the seasonal flu shot?"
Person 2: "I heard about 1%. If you get the flu shot, you'll have a 1% difference in if you get the flu."
Person 3: "That's crazy. I don't know where you are getting your data from. It can't be 1%, but I admit I don't know what the actual answer is, but it can't be that."
Persons 4 through 6: "Well, if YOU don't know, and HE says 1%, I'm going with the 1%.…
ddobbs | October 5, 2009Lots of flu news out there. Here's my short list for the day:
Helen Branswell reports that WHO is unpersuaded by the unpublished paper showing seasonal flu vaccine may raise chance of getting swine flu. (Anomalies are usually anomalies.) Canada has been thrown into quite a bit of confusion by this report, with some provinces holding off on seasonal flu vaccines.
Meanwhile, an OB notes an extraordinary death toll of H5N1 among pregnant women.
Greg Laden has an extremely short post suggesting how difficult these two bits of news are when you (or your wife) are actually pregnant. The gist: The…
oracknows | September 17, 2009Even with the H1N1 pandemic flu going around you should still be vaccinated against the seasonal flu. revere has the details.
I guess that means Dr. Doug Bremner must think that revere is an idiot. After all, Bremner tells us that the flu vaccine is all a plot for big pharma to make money, don't you know? Subtlety and weighing of risk-benefit ratios in a manner that doesn't turn into an anti-big pharma rant is beyond him. Fortunately it is not beyond revere:
The truth is this. No one knows what's going to happen. We're all guessing. But in my estimation, the risk-benefit calculation for…