Doctor - "Only proper randomized trials can resolve this issue, but they have never been done”

Doctor - "Only proper randomized trials can resolve this issue, but they have never been done”

“In any discussion of influenza epidemiology we should acknowledge the careful and steady (one could even say fearless) work of Danuta Skowronski and her Canadian public health colleagues. It was they who found that the 2008-9 flu shot doubled the risk of illness from the 2009 H1N1 pandemic flu. Their observations were considered important enough to alter Canadian vaccine recommendations for the 2009-10 season however, for some reason, they had a good deal of difficulty getting their study finally published.”

“This observational study was a revelation, even a shock, to many public health experts. US officials never publicly acknowledged the findings…..This is just one of a number of important papers published over the years by Skowronski and her colleagues, who have a reputation for high scientific and ethical standards.

Wipond does not mention another technique used to dismiss legitimate vaccine safety conce
s, having to do with “statistical significance.” Recently, a large cohort study found that flu shots given during the first trimester of pregnancy were associated with a 20% increase in autism spectrum disorder in the offspring. P for the association was 0.01, and the authors acknowledged that, if it was causal, would mean four additional autism cases for every 1000 mothers vaccinated. However, they incorrectly used a statistical manipulation to adjust the finding into “non-significance.”

One typical media headline about the study was, “Flu vaccine during pregnancy not linked to autism.” (Shute, NPR, 11/28/16)….This kind of thing goes on all the time with news releases for vaccine research.”

“We were recently reminded of the possible SIDS-vaccine link by Jacob Puliyel and colleagues, who observed a doubling of unexplained deaths within 3 days following pentavalent vaccine (DTP/Hib/hep B), compared with DTP. (Puliyel, Med J DY Patil Vidyapeeth, 3/17/18) US vaccine authorities dismissed DTP as a cause of SIDS many years ago, based on some observational studies, but there are other observational and ecological studies and case reports that suggest otherwise. Only proper randomized trials can resolve this issue, but they have never been done”

References

'Official doubletalk hides serious problems with flu shot safety and effectiveness' Skowronski, PLoS Med 2010;7(4):e1000258 (as accessed 16 May 2019).

'Over 65s flu vaccination programme was ineffective, data show' Hooker, Donzelli, Zerbo. JAMA Pediatr 2017;171:600 (as accessed 30 July 2018).

‘Official doubletalk hides serious problems with flu shot safety and effectiveness’ https://www.bmj.com/content/360/bmj.k15/rr (as accessed 30 July 2018).

‘Tricky statistics, vaccine hesitancy, and vaccine safety’ https://www.bmj.com/content/360/bmj.k1378/rr-6 (as accessed 30 July 2018).