Four years later, Cochrane published a follow-up meta-review including dozens of more recent scientific studies and again concluded bluntly that the body of scientific data provides "no evidence for the utilization of vaccination against influenza in healthy adults as a routine public health measure."
In other words, despite CNN's relentless hectoring, there is no scientific evidence that all the billions of dollars America spends on influenza vaccination each year actually provides any health benefit, much less a net economic benefit apart from the financial windfall to the four pharmaceutical companies that manufacture these vaccines and who happen to be among CNN's top advertisers.
"[a study published in PNAS] found that influenza vaccination actually increased transmission of the virus, with vaccinated individuals shedding more than six times as much aerosolized virus in their breath than unvaccinated individuals.
CNN assertion: You and CNN frequently parrot CDC's claim that a flu shot reduces the chances that an individual will transmit the flu to others. Pandemic repeated this assertion. CNN offers this supposed benefit as the justification for school vaccine mandates.
Fact: However, in their 2010 systematic meta review of the literature, the Cochrane researchers found "no evidence that vaccines prevent viral transmission or complications".
Even more worrisome, a study from January 18, 2018, in the Journal of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, PNAS, found that influenza vaccination actually increased transmission of the virus, with vaccinated individuals shedding more than six times as much aerosolized virus in their breath than unvaccinated individuals.
Those scientists were not altogether surprised by this finding explaining that "certain types of prior immunity"in this case, the kind of immunity conferred by the vaccine as opposed to naturally acquired immunity "promote lung inflammation, airway closure, and aerosol generation." They conclude that, "If confirmed, this observation, together with recent literature suggesting reduced protection with annual vaccination, would have implications for influenza vaccination recommendations and policies."
CNN assertion: CNN frequently repeats CDC's advice that children should get the flu shot, which you assure CNN's audience has been proven safe. Fact: A 2012 Cochrane review looking at studies of influenza vaccination in healthy children found no safety studies in children under age two, and declared that safety studies were "urgently required".
Every influenza vaccine package insert contains warnings about the lack of safety studies in pregnant women and nursing mothers.
5. CNN assertion: CNN also promotes CDC's recommendation that all pregnant women get a flu shot.
Fact: CDC recommends the flu shot for pregnant women despite the fact that the FDA the agency charged with assessing vaccine safety has refused to license the flu shot during pregnancy due to grave safety concerns. (Sanjay; I encourage you to confront FDA and make inquiries about this inter-agency conflict.) Every influenza vaccine package insert contains warnings about the lack of safety studies in pregnant women and nursing mothers.
A 2014 Cochrane review found that the number of randomized, placebo-controlled trials examining the safety and effectiveness of vaccinating pregnant women was zero.
A 2019 article by Alberto Donzelli in Human Vaccination & Immunotheraputics, asks the question, "Influenza vaccination for all pregnant women?" and argues, "So far the less biased evidence does not favour it". Donelli found that public health recommendations on flu shots during pregnancy had systematically overestimated "the vaccine effectiveness and safety"and that the published science showed "an excess of local adverse effects and a tendency for serious adverse events with uncertain or very limited protection against influenza".
Donzelli observes that flu vaccine trials in Africa and Asia have shown excessive infection and deaths in infants associated with flu shots during pregnancy. Although the vaccination rate for elderly people had increased by as much as 67 percent from 1989 to 1997, there was no evidence that vaccination reduced hospitalizations or deaths. On the contrary, mortality and hospitalization rates continued to increase rather than decline.
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