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| The flu shot - ineffective, expensive and mandatory in BC for health workers unless they use a mask |
And stop associated fear-based campaigns that benefit pharmaceutical manufacturers.
Bill Tieleman’s 24
Hours Vancouver / The Tyee
column
Tuesday January 19, 2016
By Bill Tieleman
"Why are we vaccinating so many people in whom we have no
proof that it works?"
- Glasgow Dr.
Margaret McCartney on flu shots
After the repeatedly failed effectiveness of flu shots, it's
time to rein in their expensive use, end mandatory flu shots or use of masks
for B.C. health workers and end the fear campaign that benefits pharmaceutical
manufacturers.
The facts are that flu shots are remarkably ineffective -- just
seven per cent protection last flu season; that influenza deaths are
exaggerated; and that forcing doctors, nurses and health care workers to either
have the flu shot or wear a mask up to 16 hours a day is counterproductive and
creates a false sense of security for patients.
And to be clear -- none of this is remotely in the Jenny
McCarthy anti-vaccine conspiracy
theory category -- it's based on publicly available scientific research and
government statistics.
Gambling with millions
First -- flu shots are a stunningly poor but expensive way to
prevent the illness.
Each year is a multi-million-dollar gamble with high odds
against correctly guessing which strain will be dominant the following flu
season.
And last year's flu shot was a nearly complete bust.
"I would say overall it's signalling no protection,"
flu expert Dr. Danuta Skowronski from the BC Centre for Disease
Control said
in January 2015 following release of a Canadian study on the 2014-15 flu shot's
lack of effectiveness.
"So probably the most important message to get out now is
for high-risk individuals not to count on vaccine to have protected them this
season," Skowronski added. "Other backup options should come to the fore
because the vaccine protection is so disappointing this year."
The effectiveness of this season's vaccine hasn't been fully
measured and fortunately reported flu cases are very low so far.
But it has only reached over 50 per cent once
in the past 10 years and last year dropped to a lowest-ever seven per cent.
Would you buy a car or a television that had a 50 per cent
chance of working at best and at worst only seven per cent? Not likely, but
that isn't stopping the flu shot industry.
Pharmacies are constantly promoting flu shots throughout the
winter -- at your expense unless you are in the most vulnerable categories --
which means government pays.
Forced shot 'coercive tool': arbitrator
Fortunately, some common sense has been injected -- by an
Ontario arbitrator's decision last year striking down mandatory flu shots or
use of masks for health workers in Sault Ste. Marie -- with implications across
Canada -- including B.C.
Arbitrator Jim Hayes ruled that a mandatory vaccine-or-mask
policy was a "coercive
tool" and "unreasonable" based on evidence presented.
"What is extremely clear is that the evidence underpinning
an assessment of the burden of disease caused by unvaccinated health care
workers has come under heavy criticism from several reputable sources apart
from the experts who appeared in this case," Hayes wrote
in his 136-page decision. "In my opinion the extremely limited, not to say
absolute lack of, assistance of such evidence was demonstrated."
While Saskatchewan announced in reaction that flu shots or masks
would be voluntary, B.C. chief medical health officer Dr. Perry Kendall refused
to back down despite BC Nurses' Union requests to revoke the policy.
It's unlikely the issue will go away as controversy continues.
And now scientists fear repeated vaccination may actually be
lowering -- not raising -- the effectiveness of the shots, with the recent
Canadian study
finding that paradoxically, those who did not have the shot the previous year
seemed to have more protection than those who got it both years.
Fear-based advertising
Second -- government and health officials continue to heavily
promote getting flu shots through the use of fear mongering by exaggerating the
risk of death.
The Public Health Agency of Canada states
on its website: "It is estimated that, in a given year, an average of
12,200 hospitalizations related to influenza and approximately 3,500 deaths
attributable to influenza occur."
But PHAC also says elsewhere on the same website
that in the past four years the range of flu-related reported fatalities was
100 to 600 annually, while hospitalizations ranged from 2,000 to just under
8,000.
And in the 2015-16 season, the number of deaths with statistics
to Jan. 9 is 10 while hospitalizations are 201.
PHAC notes "not all provinces and territories participate
in reporting" but does not say which don't and shows nine or 10 did most
years.
But that reporting is still likely far more accurate than the
PHAC estimate of 3,500 deaths a year -- since it was based on a computer
"regression modelling" study and not actual cause of death
statistics.
"This is a scientific guess. This is not the truth,"
Dr. Michael Gardam, director of the infection prevention and control unit at
Toronto's University Health Network told
the CBC in 2012.
Every fatality is a tragedy and clearly high-risk individuals
such as the elderly and those with compromised immune systems need to take all
precautions -- including the flu shot if recommended by their doctor.
But for government officials to overestimate flu deaths
repeatedly as a reason for the shot is inaccurate and misleading.
More research needed: doctor
So why is the flu shot so heavily promoted?
Clearly much of the medical establishment thinks even a very
limited effectiveness is worthwhile until a better product can be delivered.
And for some patients that may be true so long as other precautions are taken
too.
But it's also true that major pharmaceutical companies make
millions selling a product that fails to do its advertised job more than half
the time, year after year.
That hasn't stopped groups like the International Federation of
Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations from taking
to social media with infographics promoting flu shots.
Their campaign hasn't convinced Dr. McCartney, who wants to see "randomized
controlled trials of the vaccine in healthy over 65s and health care workers,
at least" -- and who, like me, does not get an annual flu shot.
"I would have the vaccination if a high-quality trial
showed that it was worth it for me or my patients. But flu vaccination is
offered millions of times every year at huge opportunity cost; given so much
uncertainty, this policy is impossible to justify," Dr. McCartney concludes in an article in
the British Medical Journal.
Canadians
deserve the full story on flu shots -- and spending massive amounts of public
money on ineffective vaccines, while forcing B.C. health workers to have shots
or wear masks, is simply dead wrong.
.
