Canada Health Alliance

Influenza Vaccination: Policy Versus Evidence

Tom Jefferson

Each year enormous effort goes into producing influenza vaccines for that specific year and delivering them to appropriate sections of the population. Is this effort justified?

Public policy worldwide recommends the use of inactivated influenza vaccines to prevent seasonal outbreaks.

Because viral circulation and antigenic match vary each year and non-randomised studies predominate, systematic reviews of large datasets from several decades provide the best information on vaccine performance.

Evidence from systematic reviews shows that inactivated vaccines have little or no effect on the effects measured.

Most studies are of poor methodological quality and the impact of confounders is high.

Little comparative evidence exists on the safety of these vaccines.

Reasons for the current gap between policy and evidence are unclear, but given the huge resources involved, a re-evaluation should be urgently undertaken.

Latest articles

Dawn Lester & David Parker … As we have shown in many...
Dawn Lester & David Parker Modern medicine is widely acclaimed as being...
Dawn Lester & David Parker In parts one and two, we showed...
Dawn Lester & David Parker In the three previous parts of this...
Roger Koops For those who may not recall Chicken Little (AKA Henny...
Tristan Coleman Does the latest ‘climate consensus’ study show a genuine agreement...

Thank you!

Thank you for your membership application. As soon as your payment has been received your membership will be activated and you will be informed via email.

Thank you.

Thank you!

The form has been submitted successfully!