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On 12 January 2018, Erin Elizabeth of Health Nut News posted what was, in essence, a regurgitation of a factual article from the Santa Barbara Independent discussing how virulent this year’s flu season is shaping up to be: In keeping with her website’s primary modus operandi, Elizabeth uses these tragic deaths to push her own flawed political argument. Her article (bearing the headline 8 Die of 'Flu' in 2 Weeks in Santa Barbara. 7 Had Their Flu Shot) appears to cast doubt on the very existence of influenza, speciously repurposing the story as evidence that people shouldn’t get the flu vaccine: Half-hearted disclaimer aside, Elizabeth attempts to make or allude to two medically dubious points while offering her own vitamin D-based treatment plan: The Flu Vaccine Is Ineffective, So Why Bother? The effectiveness of the flu vaccine, as well as the strains it covers, varies year to year depending on — among other things — how well researchers are able to predict which strains will be the most virulent each season. That selection is made each year primarily by the World Health Organization Global Influenza Surveillance Network (WHO GISN) in collaboration with research centers all around the world. How well matched their work is to the strains that become problematic each flu season is a primary driver of the vaccine’s effectiveness. As referenced by Elizabeth, data from Australia had suggested that the 2017-2018 influenza season's most virulent strain was H3N2. The season's flu shot did include that strain, however, so a mismatch is not likely the issue; according to an increasing body of research, the issue may be with the strain itself. H3N2 is more difficult to vaccinate against because it can mutate more rapidly during the vaccine production process and as a result, produce antibodies that do not actually impart immunity against the form of H3N2 to which humans are susceptible. In a 4 January 2018 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, scientists have suggested that this year’s prevalence of H3N2 could be related to this fact. Despite the variable effectiveness of annual flu shots — which have never claimed to provide 100 percent certainty of immunity against various strains of the flu — doctors and scientists (even the ones writing about its ineffectiveness against H3N2) still strongly recommend getting the shot. Aaron Carroll, a professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine, argued in an 11 January 2018 New York Times piece that even an ineffective vaccine year can provide tangible benefits, save lives, and reduce hospital visits and deaths: The Flu Vaccine Will Make You More Susceptible to the Flu and Other Viruses Next Year The flu vaccine has been the subject of a number of either completely or mostly incorrect claims made about its safety, which we have previously reviewed in detail. Here Elizabeth adds to that list with a new claim, made in the form of a link to a YouTube video featuring anti-vaccine activist, Natural News contributor and former nephrologist Suzanne Humphries in which she claims that plenty of medical literature demonstrates that a flu shot increases your risk of getting the flu or other respiratory diseases in following years. This is a stretch. One small-scale study published in 2012 found an increased risk of virologically-confirmed non-influenza infections, arguing that being protected against influenza, [flu shot] recipients may lack temporary non-specific immunity that protected against other respiratory viruses. No other studies have replicated this result (though many have tried), and a number of larger-scale studies have, in fact, found no evidence that this is the case. Elizabeth's effort to turn the tragic deaths of eight senior citizens from the flu into an argument against influenza inoculation rests only on the premise that there is a significant risk to getting the flu shot in the first place. She has provided no credible evidence to support that claim because no credible evidence exists. Instead, she uses the testimony of someone who once provided a biblical rationale for avoiding vaccines to make her argument. The fact is, unless you belong to a class of immunocompromised individuals, the flu shot is extremely safe but its effectiveness does vary year to year. Even in its least effective years, though, influenza immunization has been shown to reduce significantly the incidence of the virus at the population level, which ultimately means there will be fewer opportunities for someone to infect, as an example, eight Santa Barbara County residents.
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