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Mystery Rays from Outer Space

There’s been a fair bit of discussion online about the new study in the British Medical Journal¹  throwing doubt on Tamiflu’s effectiveness against influenza.  (If you haven’t already seen this, see the Avian Flu Diary for an excellent summary of the situation, and an update here.² Also see the CDC’s recommendations for antivirals here.)

There’s a new paper³ that takes a similar skeptical look at the effectiveness of influenza vaccines in the elderly (I emphasize, the question is how well the vaccines work in the elderly; as far as I know there’s general agreement that the flu vaccines work reasonably well in younger people and children).  It’s long been agreed that flu vaccines don’t work as well in elderly people as they do in the young.  This is a real concern, because it’s also generally agreed that seasonal influenza takes its greatest toll on people over 65 years or so. ⁴

However, while it’s been agreed that flu vaccines don’t work as well in the elderly, this new paper suggests the situation is even worse than we thought; and in fact the vaccine may hardly work at all (in …