In fact, Jefferson says there's evidence proving these vaccines have little or no effect on things such as hospital stay, time off work, or even death resulting from influenza and its complications -- especially in elderly people.
Jefferson makes his arguments in a controversial report titled "Influenza vaccination: policy versus evidence," published in volume 333 of the British Medical Journal (BMJ)...
...To highlight his claim that there's a lack of evidence backing the vaccine's effectiveness, Jefferson cites a study in the Cochrane review, "Vaccines for preventing influenza in healthy children," which found that in children under two years old, inactivated vaccines had the same effectiveness as placebo.
Further, a study in the same review for adults found that "in healthy people under 65 vaccination did not affect hospital stay, time off work, or death from influenza and its complication."
Jefferson says there is a "surprising" gap between what the policies of health agencies surrounding influenza tell us and the actual data.
"The reason for this situation are not clear and may be complex," says Jefferson.
He suggests there may be a confusion between influenza and influenza-like illness, where people are being diagnosed with the flu when they have something else.
"This confusion leads to a gross overestimation of the impact of influenza, unrealistic expectations of the performance of vaccines, and spurious certainty of our ability to predict viral circulation and impact."
Well, this doctor had been my GP for some time and had, in fact, seen me through cancer. He knew that I was generally very fit and seldom succumb even to coughs and colds.
