Pandemic Flu Vaccine Made People Sicker Moreover, a number of studies have now suggested that vaccination may actually increase the future risk of infection. Case in point: the 2008-2009 flu vaccine actually made people more prone to pandemic swine flu. As noted in the Canadian press two years ago:14 Canadian researchers noticed in the early weeks of the pandemic that people who got a flu shot for the 2008-2009 winter seemed to be more likely to get infected with the pandemic virus than people who hadnt received a flu shot. Five studies done in several provinces showed the same puzzling and unsettling results... a new study suggests the findings may indeed have been real. The study in question was led by Dr. Danuta Skowronski, an influenza expert at the B.C. Centre for Disease Control in Vancouver, and the findings were presented at the the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) in 2012. Thirty-two ferrets were divided into two groups: one group receiving the 2008 flu vaccine and the other a placebo. All the ferrets were then infected with the pandemic H1N1 virus. End result? The vaccinated ferrets became significantly sicker than the unvaccinated animals, which is the exact converse of what vaccines are supposed to do. At the time, Dr. Skowronski noted that: The findings... are consistent with the increased risk that we saw in the human studies. Its still unclear what caused this effect, but two theories suggested at the time were described as follows: The original antigenic sin hypothesis: if the virus in the vaccine is close but not an exact match to the pandemic virus in circulation, it might actually facilitate infection, as the antibodies generated are not able to adequately neutralize the virus. The infection block hypothesis relates to vaccine-acquired versus naturally-acquired immunity. When you recover from a bout of the flu, its possible that your body creates antibodies capable of defending against other similar strains of the virus—at least for some time. The flu vaccine, on the other hand, only offers protection against the strains included in the vaccine. The theory here is that those who received a flu shot in 2009 (and didnt get sick with the flu) were therefore more susceptible to the pandemic virus the following year. Indeed, when blood samples from healthy, unvaccinated children and children who had received an annual flu shot were compared, the unvaccinated group was found to have naturally built up more antibodies across a wider variety of influenza strains compared to the latter vaccinated group. Needless to say, this gives those who are unvaccinated a clear advantage when a really nasty viral flu comes along...
Posted on: Tue, 04 Nov 2014 14:54:35 +0000
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