Winter Flu Vaccine by Jane Thurnell-Read

There is a lot of concern at least in the UK about the lack of flu vaccines. The headlines say that old people won't be able to get their usual winter jab, but does the flu vaccine actually work?

A study published in the prestigious UK medical journal The Lancet on September 22nd 2005 suggested it probably isn't as effective as most people think. The study suggests that the vaccination is only 'modestly effective' for people in residential homes, and even less effective for elderly people who are still living in their own homes.

Dr. Tom Jefferson, the author of the study and an epidemiologist with the Cochrane Vaccines Field in Rome, has said:

"The vaccine doesn't work very well at all. Vaccines are being used as an ideological weapon. What you see every year as the flu is caused by 200 or 300 different agents with a vaccine against two of them. That is simply nonsense."

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention not surprisingly does not agree. A spokesman for the Centers said: "We certainly do hope that people will not be sidetracked from this important point. There are studies that show that the vaccine is effective in preventing serious complications of the flu,"

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