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Originally Posted by highthief
Well, as to your first point, you'll have to provide some stats. The CDC, the Canadian health agency, all point to - in general most years - good protection and good forecasting. You'll really need to refute that with similar stats.
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I love this game. Why is it that people "call you out" on stats when they themselves provide no supporting evidence.
If you like, go and scan the primary literature on epidemiology and/or the CDC for cold hard data on the effectiveness of the flu shot. You won't find any. Why is that? Well, its like the Schroedinger's cat experiment really .. all you can do is compare how effective the flu shot is at protecting the inoculated individual against that very same strain. And by the way, most people who get the flu shot suffer (maybe to a very slightly lesser degree) the exact symptoms they are trying to avoid.
Here are a few publications to consider:
Wilde, J. et al. 1999. Effectiveness of Influenza Vaccine in Health Care Professionals. JAMA. Vol. 281 No. 10
---(shows roughly 80% effectiveness against -same- strain exposure .. and NOT "general" flu exposure)
Gross, P. et al. 1995. The Efficacy of Influenza Vaccine in Elderly Persons. Annals of Internal Medicine. Vol. 123 No. 7
---meta analysis of many flu-vaccine studies indicates only slightly better than 50% efficacy in elderly
.. I would quote from journals that require you to have a subscription (ie. Nature, New England J. Medicine) but that would defeat the purpose and make me look like a snob. So my "evidence" ends here.
PS: where are your "stats" to support your claims?
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Originally Posted by highthief
As to your second point about China - I believe it was Thailand that innoculated, not China.
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Oh sorry, maybe I should have remained as ambiguous as you to prevent such petty scrutiny. And for what its worth "I believe" is not a very strong stance from which to nit-pick from. And 'innoculated' only as one n - ie. inoculated .. since we are going down that path now ...