I'm curious, given your priviledged knowledge based on your work. Let's hear it...you have more intelligent comments on this than most of the doomsday-ers and conspiracy theorists on here.
First, I will give you a simplified explanation as to why "
I" believe they are useless (for the most part) and if you desire literary proof from peer-reviewed studies, I can guide you to a group of studies as well.
Let's delineate the most important parts to my argument first:
- Viruses are smart & adaptive.
- The Flu vaccine isn't a "perfect bullet" able to encompass strain variability.
- Antibody stimulation & production is not always achieved by way of a single vaccine, especially when trying to target a large pool of viruses, which constitute the total picture of influenza infection.
- The efficacy of the flu vaccine wears off after 6-8 months
Viruses are smart and adaptiveViruses are smart critters and highly adaptive to the environment, or better said vector, which they dwell within. Once a virus enters the body of one person it adapts to its surroundings and slowly experiences various mutations to the original strain. By the time the virus travels from the original host to about the 10th person, it has become immune to many defenses and mutated into a pretty versatile strain. Ergo, if you think that by getting a vaccine for the original strain will help you avoid catching the flu, what isn't taken into account is that the strain which you will now catch is completely different from what your body is able to defend itself against. Consider the new strain a "2.0" version that has smartened up and realized that someone is after it and found ways to dodge the original bullet shot towards its trajectory.
The Flu vaccine isn't a "perfect bullet" able to encompass strain variability.
Feeding off from the information stated in my first point. Since you can not produce flu vaccines on a daily, weekly or even monthly basis, the microbiologists and virologists that put together these vaccines do so in a way that attempts to provide a "universal" vaccine that can hopefully aid in keeping people protected. Unfortunately, in an ever-changing world, where viruses can mutate from person-to-person, it's futile to even think that a flu vaccine will do much.
Antibody stimulation & production is not always achieved by way of a single vaccine, especially when trying to target a large pool of viruses, which constitute the total picture of influenza infection.Alright, so you get a vaccine and what you are truly getting are bits and pieces of inactivated viruses in order to stimulate production of antibodies towards the most popular strains of the virus that causes the worst type of disease manifestations. Now, putting aside what I mentioned previously about viruses being smart and adapting to their new environments (regardless of how harsh the environment is and the immune response staged by lymphocytes within our body), lets consider the fact that even if you have been vaccinated, your body might still not be ready or capable to truly tackle the virus if you are exposed to it.
Why?
Consider these points:
Morphology (as previously mentioned) leading to your body being incapable of identifying the new strain.
Becoming infected much too soon before your body is capable of producing adequate antibodies to stage a full-blown attack. If you get infected within less than 10 days after receiving that vaccine, you will not have enough antibody production to properly fend off that virus.
Your immune system can't recognize the FULL VIRUS once you are infected by it, because you were vaccinated (as mentioned earlier) with mere fragments of various forms of flu viruses and not identical or intact matches. If your body doesn't recognize the host virus that infects you in its entire form, the defense that is staged is not as potent as it would be if you had a complete virological blueprint of the strain.
Co-morbidity drains your system of its ability to stage a true attack against the virus. So, imagine you're presently battling a bad case of bronchitis, gastroenteritis or any other form of bad bacterial and/or viral infection and then you get hit with that devastating strain of the flu that everyone has been talking about. What happens next? You guessed it. Your body is incapable of properly staging an attack due to an already weakened immune system not being capable of serving (or in this case waging war on) two masters.
The efficacy of the flu vaccine wears off after 6-8 monthsLapse in time since becoming vaccinated and becoming exposed. If you get vaccinated at the beginning of the year and you get exposed to the virus (regardless of its mutations) 7-8 months later, it might not have the same efficacy due to the vaccination losing its effectiveness over time. Unlike the type of antibodies your body produces from a naturally acquired infection, a flu vaccine does not produce the same lifelong and potent antibodies that your body produces when it is exposed to a natural infection with it's subsequent disease process and recovery (this is backed by the CDC, the proof of that can be seen in this pamphlet put out by the CDC:
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/flu/downloads/PL-dis-influenza-color-office.pdf).
***********************That's my basic argument as to why the flu vaccine does not work as intended (universal bullet) or being as effective as some proclaim it to be. Remember though, I am not a virologist or microbiologist. I have a strong medical background (was pre-med and got a degree in Biology and Chemistry -BS & MS- prior to going into business), but I am not on the leading edge of medical research.
Sorry that I couldn't get to this earlier, but I was swamped with work and only got to this about 30 minutes ago.
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