Flu Shots May Build Fewer Antibodies in Kids
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New research has found the flu vaccine may weaken some children’s immune systems to other influenza viruses. While experts do not recommend halting flu vaccines, they do recommend further research to eradicate adverse side effects, according to a study published in the Journal of Virology.
Researchers from the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, collected blood samples from 27 healthy, unvaccinated children with an average age of 6 years old, and 14 children with cystic fibrosis who received an annual flu shot. Children with chronic illnesses like cystic fibrosis are required to get flu shots in the Netherlands.
Children who were not vaccinated built up more antibodies across a wider variety of influenza strains than kids who were vaccinated, the small study found.
“Annual vaccination against influenza is effective but may have potential drawbacks that have previously been underappreciated and that are also a matter of debate,” lead author Rogier Bodewes said in a statement.
While the current vaccine, which has been around for more than 60 years, is not a perfect one, Dr. Andy Pavia, chair of the Infectious Diseases Society of America’s Pandemic Influenza Task Force, said people should not be discouraged against getting the vaccine from this study.
“For kids with cystic fibrosis, their lungs are already bombarded with other infectious agents,” said Pavia. “We’d really like to see whether the unvaccinated or vaccinated kids do better when faced with a new strain of influenza. The ideal study would compare healthy kids to healthy kids to really see if the results are true.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently recommends that everyone older than 6 months of age receive the flu vaccine. Pregnant women, children under 5, health care workers, those over 50 and people with chronic medical conditions are at especially high risk of flu-related complications, and should receive the shot as soon as it becomes available each year.
“We’re seeing a lot of work on a wide variety of promising vaccines,” said Pavia. “It isn’t perfect, and the study does point out how vaccines could get even better in preventing viruses.”
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This is interesting preliminary research, but it has a number of significant shortcomings. For one, the sample size in each arm is very small. Second, as mentioned, it does not compare healthy kids to healthy kids or CF kids to CF kids. Hopefully, they’ll follow up with a larger, more powerful study, since the results could have significant policy implications when it comes to preventative medicine.
Posted by: Minorkey1 | November 29, 2011 November 29, 2011, 12:36 pm
This headline is way, way too strong for the research that was done. A tiny sample size, and no control group. A group of kids who are very ill who don’t get vaccinated is not a control. This research isn’t worthless necessarily but ABC blew this out of proportion and frankly to the point of dishonesty.
Posted by: shan | November 29, 2011 November 29, 2011, 1:28 pm
I’ve, in capitals, added information that puts a different spin on the study: “Children who were not vaccinated built up more antibodies across a wider variety of influenza strains than kids WITH BODIES WEAKENED FROM CYSTIC FIBROSIS who were vaccinated, the small study found.”
Posted by: The_Mick | November 29, 2011 November 29, 2011, 3:32 pm
Here’s one more example of the media implying claims the scientists are NOT actually making themselves due to incomplete studies. My first research paper in Chemistry took two entire years of research and, when published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, began: “One POSSIBLE mechanism for the Dienol-Benzene Rearrangement…” If the press had found that study newsworthy the headline would surely have been “Rearrangement Mechanism Discovered!”
The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating, pp. 27-28, says: “The problem is that the…news venues often turn the baby steps of scientific research into “major advances,” breakthroughs,” and “possible cures” or highlight the confusing contradictions.
…Unfortunately, these…never carry warning labels like “Educated Guess: Subject to Change,” and after being repeated thousands of times they acquire a ring of truth.
…For…research, the rhythm is more like a cha-cha -two steps forward and one step back- than a straight-ahead march…researchers can’t get it right the first time…because these conflicts and contradictions are the way science works. It happens this way in every field, from archeology to zoology, nuclear physics to nutrition. Men and women carry out their studies and report their results. Evidence accumulates. Like dropping stones onto an old-fashioned scale, the weight of evidence gradually tips the balance in favor of one idea over another. It is only when this happens that you should make changes in your life [nutrition is this quote's topic].”
Posted by: The_Mick | November 29, 2011 November 29, 2011, 3:35 pm
I refuse to get a flu shot and it would be over my dead body my children got one! The ingredients list looks like a hillbilly’s meth recipe!
In a society in which mothers pass off their infants at 6 weeks of age to a minimum wage daycare employee to raise for 8 to 12 hours a day, followed by moms serving dinners from bags obtained in the driver thru, and as soon as they can walk being paraded like prized cattle for participating in sporting events after a full 7 + hours at daycare then school… It’s no wonder parents would rather depend on a vaccine to keep their kids healthy.
Posted by: Hedda Lettuce | November 29, 2011 November 29, 2011, 3:44 pm
Hedda lettuce, you have an interesting look at how kids are raised these days. There are volumes of material on the efficacy of vaccines that you must believe are hogwash. I would much prefer to trust my health to controlled studies than to someone who does not know the difference between inert ingredients and hillbilly meth. Of course I must say I have a wife who is a medical professional who has 20+ years of hospital experience and 13 in pharmaco safety and a daughter who is a bio chemist and we talk about all those hillybilly meth addatives.
Posted by: John | November 29, 2011 November 29, 2011, 6:36 pm
“I refuse to get a flu shot and it would be over my dead body my children got one! The ingredients list looks like a hillbilly’s meth recipe!” ~~~~~~~~~ A. Have you checked the list of ingredients in your drinking water, your food, your vitamin or mineral supplement, etc? B. Have you never learned that it isn’t so much the simple presence of a chemical that makes the difference in toxicology but the AMOUNT of it that is present. As we learned in medical school, the DOSE makes the poison. Even absolutely pure water or any health food or vitamin you care to name is poisonous in the right amount, and the substances in flu shots have proven to be non-toxic at the doses administered.
Posted by: Minorkey1 | November 29, 2011 November 29, 2011, 8:21 pm
Ever since I can remember, I NEVER take Flu Shots for myself. And to make the medical profession – including my very own eldest sister who’s a Harvard medical school graduated surgeon – awfully surprised is that I NEVER take physical exam throughout my career. After working for the same IT Company for more than 29 years, I recently retired and currently I’m living on my pension and my social security benefit along with my better-half. I’m very healthy. I eat just about anything and I do a lot of indoor and outdoor exercises.
Posted by: Get_Down | November 29, 2011 November 29, 2011, 11:18 pm
Very poor analysis/interpretation of study results. OF COURSE un-vaccinated people have more antibodies…Un-vaccinated people also have a much higher death rate due to dying from diseases
that vaccinations prevent..
Posted by: Tom Jefferson | November 29, 2011 November 29, 2011, 11:36 pm
I love how some people claim that because they are doctors or have a doctor in the family with X amount of experience that qualifies them to make a better assessment, usually supporting pharmaceuticals. Med students are indoctrinated to prescribe drugs, they barely have enough time to learn the names and functions of the different drugs and they have no time (or will) to question anything because they assume the information they are getting is supported by research and that’s good enough for them.
My wife is a Physician Assistant and I saw her go through P.A. school and taking many of the same classes with the Med students. NONE of them ever questioned anything. It was all memorize, memorize, memorize. Now they are all P.A.’s and M.D.’s and still don’t question anything.
We live in a society that has glorified the medical profession and regards doctors as “incredibly intelligent people”, so we listen to them thinking they know what they are talking about. But of course, their knowledge is limited and pharmaceutics are a WHOLE DIFFERENT SCIENCE that is almost as obscure and unknown to doctors as it is to the rest, and they are almost as gullible as everyone else.
Posted by: Luis | January 3, 2012 January 3, 2012, 10:27 am