
Health & Wellness
Flu vaccines may not be as effective as people think, an expert has warned.
There is little clinical evidence that the vaccines have an effect on things like hospital stay, time off work, death in healthy adults or even those with conditions like asthma and cystic fibrosis, he said.
Vaccines given to children under the age of two have the same effect as if they were given a dummy drug, he added.
Tom Jefferson, co-ordinator of the vaccines field of the highly-respected Cochrane Collaboration, called for an "urgent" re-evaluation of vaccination campaigns.
Writing in the British Medical Journal, he said that, because influenza viruses mutate and vary from year to year, it was difficult for scientists to study the precise effects of vaccines.
Most studies are of poor quality, and there is little comparative evidence on the safety of the vaccines, he said.In addition, policy makers wanted to be seen to be doing something, all of which leads to a "large gap" between policy and the evidence, he said.
The difficulty in distinguishing between flu and flu-like illness added to the confusion, with some illnesses listed as flu when they were not, he said.
Earlier this month, there were fears that vulnerable people in the UK might have to wait for flu jabs after the Government confirmed stocks would arrive late.
The jab is given to high-risk groups first, including the over-65s, people with respiratory conditions such as asthma, and those with chronic conditions such as diabetes.
There is little clinical evidence that the vaccines have an effect on things like hospital stay, time off work, death in healthy adults or even those with conditions like asthma and cystic fibrosis, he said.
Vaccines given to children under the age of two have the same effect as if they were given a dummy drug, he added.
Tom Jefferson, co-ordinator of the vaccines field of the highly-respected Cochrane Collaboration, called for an "urgent" re-evaluation of vaccination campaigns.
Writing in the British Medical Journal, he said that, because influenza viruses mutate and vary from year to year, it was difficult for scientists to study the precise effects of vaccines.
Most studies are of poor quality, and there is little comparative evidence on the safety of the vaccines, he said.In addition, policy makers wanted to be seen to be doing something, all of which leads to a "large gap" between policy and the evidence, he said.
The difficulty in distinguishing between flu and flu-like illness added to the confusion, with some illnesses listed as flu when they were not, he said.
Earlier this month, there were fears that vulnerable people in the UK might have to wait for flu jabs after the Government confirmed stocks would arrive late.
The jab is given to high-risk groups first, including the over-65s, people with respiratory conditions such as asthma, and those with chronic conditions such as diabetes.
See Also:
Latest News
- U.S. Ambassador to Moscow returning to Washington 'for consultations' amid rising tensions
- Russia block of Black Sea would be 'escalation': Washington
- 'You're next': NBA star and Biden supporter LeBron James ripped for seemingly threatening officer in Ma'Khia Bryant shooting
- Alarms go off near Israel's nuclear reactor amid reports of explosions & missile defense system being activated
- UK & allies "reserve the right" to launch NEW military action in Afghanistan
- America's domestic political turmoil is making world unstable & fueling conflicts with its main adversaries - Iran, China & Russia
- David Cameron and the Greensill scandal is just the tip of the fatberg
- How Russian Intel foiled CIA military coup and assassination of the President of Belarus
- As chemical weapons watchdog's credibility crumbles, OPCW member states strip Syria's voting rights
- Trump 'very seriously' considering running in 2024
- Boris Johnson sets major new climate target to slash UK emissions 78% by 2035
- White House formally backs bill to grant DC statehood
- Michael Gove arrives in Israel for 'vaccine passport talks'
- Czechs exclude Rosatom from nuclear tender amidst absurd accusations against Russia
- Dozens report bright meteor fireball in New Hampshire skies
- Thousands gather in Berlin to protest Covid restrictions while parliament debates giving Merkel's govt MORE power to impose lockdowns
- Study says nuclear fallout showing up in U.S. honey decades after bomb tests
- Hypocrite: Mad Maxine had the nerve to demand a police motorcade, escort before calling for violence at anti-police event
- A powerful cold front brought April snow as far south as Oklahoma
- 'People are not starving, they're being starved': Millions at risk of famine, NGOs warn
- U.S. Ambassador to Moscow returning to Washington 'for consultations' amid rising tensions
- Russia block of Black Sea would be 'escalation': Washington
- Alarms go off near Israel's nuclear reactor amid reports of explosions & missile defense system being activated
- UK & allies "reserve the right" to launch NEW military action in Afghanistan
- America's domestic political turmoil is making world unstable & fueling conflicts with its main adversaries - Iran, China & Russia
- David Cameron and the Greensill scandal is just the tip of the fatberg
- How Russian Intel foiled CIA military coup and assassination of the President of Belarus
- As chemical weapons watchdog's credibility crumbles, OPCW member states strip Syria's voting rights
- Trump 'very seriously' considering running in 2024
- Boris Johnson sets major new climate target to slash UK emissions 78% by 2035
- White House formally backs bill to grant DC statehood
- Czechs exclude Rosatom from nuclear tender amidst absurd accusations against Russia
- Hypocrite: Mad Maxine had the nerve to demand a police motorcade, escort before calling for violence at anti-police event
- Ukraine's Zelenskiy invites Putin to meet in war-torn Donbass
- Sunbeams from cucumbers: The view from the khanate of Kaganstan
- Putin's key state-of-the-nation address: "Swift & tough" response coming for those crossing 'red line'
- Negotiators see signs of progress in Iran nuclear talks
- 'Britcoin': Bank of England considering central bank digital currency
- UK gov to set up body with pharmaceutical companies to find 'novel antiviral Covid pills'
- Internet censorship bill will make Canadians 'safer' says minister
- 'You're next': NBA star and Biden supporter LeBron James ripped for seemingly threatening officer in Ma'Khia Bryant shooting
- Michael Gove arrives in Israel for 'vaccine passport talks'
- Thousands gather in Berlin to protest Covid restrictions while parliament debates giving Merkel's govt MORE power to impose lockdowns
- 'People are not starving, they're being starved': Millions at risk of famine, NGOs warn
- Sex robot 'clones' of dead partners using 3D-modeling technology now sold by company
- The myth of 'stupid' Brexit voter undone by study that discovers affluent and educated 'Comfortable Leavers' actually won the day
- RSF decries 'dramatic deterioration' in press freedom since start of pandemic
- Best of the Web: To mark 'victory' in Floyd 'murder' trial, Black mob in NYC demands 'abolition of police', tells White diners to "F-off outta New York"
- Rules for thee, but not for me: Michigan's lockdown-championing Gov. Whitmer traveled to Florida after warning residents to avoid spring break trips
- Nonsense and Insensibility: Trying to rewrite Jane Austen for 'links' to slavery shows the idiocy of woke historical revisionism
- Alleged bigot busted after spewing anti-Asian threats at undercover NYPD cop - UPDATE: Suspect released without bail
- Train accident north of Cairo has killed at least 11 people - Egypt's 2nd deadly rail accident in a month
- Ex-Hollywood Foreign Press president called BLM a 'racist hate movement', UPDATE: He's cancelled
- Richard Dawkins loses 'humanist of the year' title over trans comments
- BMJ: 2020 was less deadly than every year before 2009
- Corrupt media who accused Trump of 'inciting' violence are silent when Democrat Maxine Waters does just that
- Best of the Web: Protesters gather in Columbus, Ohio after police shoot 16-year-old black girl attempting to stab another Black teen with kitchen knife
- Best of the Web: Minnesota cop Chauvin found guilty of 'murdering' George Floyd, faces up to 75 years in prison - Leftists, led by Biden, demand 'moar justice'
- BLM protesters rallied after Minneapolis police shot a man Sunday afternoon, then called it off when they learned he was white
- Best of the Web: In global lockstep: French govt launches Israeli-style 'Covid vaccine passport' for 'future freedom of movement'
- Archaeology in the ashes of Notre Dame
- Ancient DNA hints at complex social groupings in Neolithic Anatolia
- Ancient 'untouched and highly unusual' tomb discovered on Dingle Peninsula, Ireland
- New research reveals multipurpose nature of Australian boomerangs
- Best of the Web: Extreme weather - such as drought and floods - signals looming wars, warns medieval Korean manuscript
- Sexual division of labor in Europe evident at advent of farming
- Gagarin's history-making flight, 60 years on: How a bizarre Russian dream to resurrect the dead led to a Cold War victory in space
- Best of the Web: Leninthink
- Life And Fate: Coming to a country near you?
- Before becoming a terrorist leader, ISIS chief was a prison informer in Iraq for US
- Egyptian archaeologists reveals details of 'lost golden city of Luxor'
- SOTT Focus: MindMatters: Do Not Watch, Comrade! 'The Lives of Others' Is Thought Crime
- Bronze Age slab found in France is 'oldest 3D map in Europe'
- The harmony between Tianxia and Westphalia
- A Damned Murder Inc: Kennedy's Battle Against the Leviathan
- 100 years later, the Scientific American reversal on CO2
- Papers reveal US-backed Brazil's role in installing and supporting Pinochet in Chile
- Rock shelter in Kalahari Desert show early humans as innovative as their coastal neighbours
- 6,000 year old salt hub reveals extraction was happening in Britain 2,000 years earlier than first thought
- 3,000-year-old mural of knife-wielding spider god discovered in Peru
- Study says nuclear fallout showing up in U.S. honey decades after bomb tests
- Mystery solved: Scientists crack 'the Brazil-nut' puzzle, how do the largest nuts rise to the top?
- Fearsome tyrannosaurs may have hunted in packs study suggest
- How to survive a killer asteroid
- Laser to zap space debris, funding for SKA observatory in Australia
- Unlikely Twitter war: Steak-umm vs. Neil deGrasse Tyson
- Human cells grown in monkey embryos reignite ethics debate
- Solar cycle 25 arriving ahead of schedule
- Mother Nature's on top of climate change: Polar bears are mating with grizzlies to produce 'Pizzly Bears'
- New Nova in Scorpius
- A small asteroid just gave Earth and some satellites a very close pass
- Ancient impactor that created the Moon may still be inside Earth
- Researchers want to talk to spiders
- NASA releases stunningly enhanced image of Mars
- Billions of Cicadas to invade District of Columbia after 17 years underground
- Living fossil discovered below Earth's surface say researchers
- Male animal brains show a chaotic aging process compared to females
- Current climate model simulations are overestimating future sea-level rise
- The chances of powerful geomagnetic storms may have just doubled
- The Cambrian Explosion has just gone nuclear
- A powerful cold front brought April snow as far south as Oklahoma
- Three killed in elephant attack in Odisha, India
- England's coldest April since 1922, Germany's chilliest since 1917
- Rare mass stranding of 'sea potato' shells at UK beach
- Man killed by brown bear in Hokkaido, Japan
- Up to 16 inches of spring snowfall hits Colorado
- Montana guide mauled to death in grizzly bear attack outside Yellowstone
- 528 died in human-elephant conflict in the Indian state of Odisha in last 5 years
- Flash floods leave 14 dead in Luanda, Angola
- Magnitude-6.0 quake strikes near Indonesian coast - USGS
- Wildfire descends Table Mountain in South Africa, torching University of Cape Town
- Hailstorm blankets Saudi Arabia's Ha'il in white
- Adapt 2030 Ice Age Report: Signs of volcanic cooling
- Taiwan struck by M6.2 and M5.8 earthquakes three minutes apart
- Flash floods in Mauritius after 15.7 inches of rainfall in 24 hours
- Flash floods in Singapore after 6 inches of rain in 3 hours - 91% of average April rainfall
- Flash floods kill two in northern mountain province of Vietnam
- Australia dingo attack: toddler airlifted to hospital after being mauled on Fraser Island
- Super Typhoon Surigae brings intense wind, rain battering eastern Philippines - winds peak at 190mph
- France declares emergency as freak cold snap wipes out one-third of wine crop
- Dozens report bright meteor fireball in New Hampshire skies
- Meteor fireball blaze caught on police body cam at Surfers Paradise, Australia
- Bolide over Cádiz and Málaga, Spain (April 20th)
- Fireball spotted above Bournemouth, UK
- Meteor fireball blazes over Ohio
- The amazing 'fireballs' over North Wales which have left plenty of people puzzled
- Spectacular meteor fireball flies across Spain
- Loud 'boom', shaking in Charlotte, North Carolina was not an earthquake
- Basingstoke, UK residents baffled by 'loud bang that shook the ground'
- 'What is that in the sky?' Floridians catch meteor fireball's close brush with Earth
- Bright meteor fireball turns the Central Asian night sky green
- Meteor fireball observed over Scotland
- Meteor fireball over Sevilla and Cádiz, Spain (4 April)
- Meteor fireball over Toledo, Spain (April 1)
- Fireball spotted over Oshkosh, Wisconsin
- Bright meteor fireball blazes over Denmark
- Stunning meteor fireball over Spain on March 28
- Bright meteor fireball lights up sky from New Hampshire to North Carolina
- Daytime meteor streaks over Jersey, Channel Islands - Update: Sonic boom reported
- Spectacular meteor fireball in Belem, Brazil
- SOTT Focus: Objective:Health - Kids and Covid Shots
- Feeling hungry all the time? Study confirms link to blood glucose levels
- Sweden's Professor Johan Giesecke, epidemiologist: "I think I got most things right, actually"
- Stanford study quietly published at NIH.gov proves face masks are absolutely worthless against Covid
- FDA to extend Emergency Authorization of COVID-19 Vaccine to adolescents without advice from Advisory Committee
- 18 reasons I won't be getting a Covid Vaccine
- Psychedelic experience may not be required for psilocybin's antidepressant-like benefits
- Oxygen therapy and saturation levels
- Booster shots may be needed within 12 months, US officials say
- CDC says the 3,005 recorded deaths following COVID-19 experimental "vaccines" total MORE than vaccine deaths for last 13+ years
- New gene discovered that could revolutionize heart attack treatment
- Cloth masks lower oxygen intake, limit performance - British Journal of Sports Medicine
- SOTT Focus: Objective:Health - Papers Please! Vaccine Passports and the Death of Human Liberty
- U.K. variant isn't linked to more severe disease or death, study finds
- More blood clots: US govt pauses rollout of Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine
- SOTT Focus: Three Things Most People Don't Know About Physician-assisted Death
- Israel COVID-19 study finds South Africa variant able to 'break through' Pfizer vaccine
- DARPA working on COVID vaccine - Implantable microchip to detect virus
- Masks are a ticking time bomb
- New analysis finds UK in grip of mental health crisis, with children worst affected
- Taking sex differences in personality seriously
- How dreams change under authoritarianism
- SOTT Focus: MindMatters: Interview with Tom Costello: Yes, Virginia, There Is a Left-wing Authoritarianism!
- Dunning-Kruger Effect: New study says ignorance and overconfidence affect intuitive thinking
- New study reveals brain basis of psychopathy
- The Slave, The Orator & The Emperor: Stoicism in the age of Covid and other insanities
- New blueprint of brain connections uncovers extensive reach of central regulator
- We have many more than five senses — here's how to make the most of them
- The "mind viruses" creating social justice warriors
- SOTT Focus: MindMatters: Campy Covers, Deep Psychology: Discover a Most Surprising Oasis of Virtue and Values
- Blood and soul: An essay in metagenetics
- Best of the Web: Michel Foucault, most-cited academic ever and father of woke ideology, outed as pedophile
- New study says hypnosis changes the way our brain processes information
- SOTT Focus: The Emerging Totalitarian Dystopia: Interview With Professor Mattias Desmet
- Reading minds with Ultrasound
- Some genes come to life in the brain after death says new research
- A mind made out of silk?
- Study shows stronger brain activity after writing on paper than on tablet or smartphone
- SOTT Focus: MindMatters: Stalking the Night Stalker: Richard Ramirez, Intraspecies Predator
- Best of the Web: On the psychology of the conspiracy denier
- Mystery over sheep standing in concentric circles
- US Navy releases footage of pyramid-shaped 'UFOs'
- Drones that swarmed US warships are still unidentified, Navy chief says
- US military and spy agencies blocking government investigators of UFO sightings
- Former Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe, speaks out about the UFO phenomenon
- Airliner encountered unidentified fast-moving cylindrical object over New Mexico
- Pentagon sort of but not really admits it has been testing wreckage from UFO crashes & findings may 'change our lives forever,' expert says
- Intriguing cigar-shaped object spotted hovering motionless above California
- String of lights seen in sky near Charlotte sparks UFO debate. What was it?
- Airline pilots capture video of 'extremely bright UFO' during flight in Pakistan
- US Government paid millions to chase UFOs and werewolves
- CIA releases UFO 'Black Vault' documents early: How to see them online
- The truth is in there? 'All' of the CIA's files on UFOs are now available for download
- US agencies have less than 6 months to reveal what they know about UFOs thanks to coronavirus relief bill
- Harvard professor says alien technology visited Earth in 2017
- Large blue UFO startles Hawaii residents: Appeared to plunge into ocean
- FAA notified after large blue UFO seen above Oahu, Hawaii appeared to drop into ocean
- Best of the Web: Ex-CIA boss Brennan says Pentagon's declassified UFO videos are 'eyebrow-raising,' advises 'to keep an open mind'
- Jeremy Corbell interviews author of piece on former Israeli Space Program Director, professor Haim Eshed's UFO revelations
- Best of the Web: 'Fast Movers' and Transmedium Vehicles - The Pentagon's Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force
- College student aces final exam by just answering 'racism!' to every question
- Minneapolis business owner prudently ups her peaceful protest insurance
- Russians say LMAO after Salisbury poisoning suspects linked to explosion at Czech ammo depot: 'Did they shake Biden's stairs too?'
- BLM founder calls for abolishing police in all the areas where she doesn't live
- 'We're not tearing up the Constitution, we're untearing it,' say Dems while ripping the Constitution apart
- Minneapolis City Council to offer looting passports to 'peaceful protesters'
- In effort to boost ratings, CNN showing reruns of the Russia investigation
- Flashback: Nike releases commemorative shoe to honor looters
- Immigrant who lived off welfare dies in England
- Return to normal: Texas announces they will go back to shooting people wearing masks on the assumption they're stagecoach robbers
- Ron DeSantis dyes hair, gets spray tan in preparation for 2024 presidential run
- In new Captain America, Steve Rogers is swayed by Red Skull videos - takes responsibility, cleans room
- 60 Minutes releases exclusive secret photos of Ron DeSantis clubbing baby seals with Hitler
- Delta Airlines now requiring Republicans to ride in the overhead bin
- Jesus criticized for leaving his face covering behind in the tomb
- Biden passes alzheimer's test with flying colors, silencing doubters
- In push for diversity, military canine units to give equal opportunities to chihuahuas
- Controversial Georgia law requires poll workers to check voters for a pulse - Stacy Abrams to organize protests over 'discrimination against the deceased'
- Deja vu? 'Evergreen' truсk paralyses car traffic in China
- Service stations installing wider signs in preparation for Biden's higher gas prices
Quote of the Day
The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same.
- Stendhal
Recent Comments
meet biden? a senile sexual predator hair sniffer with the morality of a hyena
And Washington escalates: Senate Committee Passes Bill To Ramp Up Lethal Aid To Ukraine. US Congressional committee passes bill to boost military...
The painfully obvious scam that keeps on scamming. Here's an early biblical quote that was omitted from the Bible at the First Council of Nicaea...
India faces an “asphyxiation” crisis [Link] #astrology
If it bothers you that much, buy your favorite nuts in big bags separately at Costco, then just mix and serve them as desired.