Have you heard the latest flu vaccine bombshell from anti-vaccine folks?
They think that they have evidence that flu vaccines spread the flu.
Does Getting a Flu Vaccine Increase Your Risk of Spreading the Flu or Getting Others Sick?
The latest anti-vaccine bombshell comes from Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, and is posted among a bunch of other articles that will have you scratching your head.
Did you know that Amazon’s Alexa is a ‘demon device,’ Apple is banning Christian apps in a war on Christianity, and that CHAOS is coming in the new year?
Not surprisingly, the “latest” anti-vaccine bombshell was a dud, even though it continues to be shared on the majority of anti-vaccine websites and Facebook groups.
What’s the problem?
Anti-vaccine folks are simply misinterpreting a small study, Infectious virus in exhaled breath of symptomatic seasonal influenza cases from a college community, from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Of course, that the study wasn’t a great anti-vaccine bombshell is easy to see if you actually read it.
Although the study did find an association between vaccination and greater fine-aerosol shedding for influenza A infections, if the flu vaccine really increases your risk for spreading the flu, then:
- why wasn’t getting a flu vaccine associated with coarse-aerosol or nasopharyngeal shedding?
- why wasn’t the association of vaccination and shedding significant for influenza B infections?
The answer is that because it was a small study, the finding about vaccination and shedding likely wasn’t really significant.
It wasn’t even what they were looking at in the study, which was instead trying to prove that you don’t have to cough and sneeze to spread the flu – simply breathing can spread infectious flu particles.
“Unvaccinated people are more likely to get the flu and transmit it to other people because they shed lots of virus into the nasal secretions into the air.”
Donald K. Milton
And as the authors of the study clarified, folks who aren’t sick because they got vaccinated and didn’t get the flu won’t shed and won’t get anyone else sick.
If anything, the study confirms just how hard it is to avoid folks sick with the flu and why everyone should get a flu vaccine each year.
And how hard it is to avoid anti-vaccine misinformation…
After all, anti-vaccine folks could have done a little digging and found that a previous study about influenza virus aerosols, Exposure to Influenza Virus Aerosols During Routine Patient Care, didn’t find a statistically significant difference among folks who got a flu vaccine and how much flu virus they shed (emitters vs non-emitters). In fact, they found that a small percentage of these patients were superemitters, who “exceeded average influenza virus aerosol concentrations by multiple times.”
What’s that mean?
It’s just another reason to get vaccinated and protected. While you don’t want to be exposed to a superemitter and get the flu, you also don’t want to get the flu and become a superemitter, getting lots of other people sick.
More on Does Getting a Flu Vaccine Increase Your Risk of Spreading the Flu or Getting Others Sick?
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- VAXOPEDIA – I Refuse to Listen to Bad Advice About Flu Shots, and I Won’t Apologize for It
- Flu shot won’t make you spread more influenza
- Flu may be spread just by breathing, new study shows; coughing and sneezing not required
- Study confirms flu likely spreads by aerosols, not just coughs, sneezes
- Study – Infectious virus in exhaled breath of symptomatic seasonal influenza cases from a college community
- Study – Exposure to Influenza Virus Aerosols During Routine Patient Care
- Family Stories – Families Fighting Flu
- Influenza virus transmission
- Flu Shots: Here We Go Again!
- No, the CDC did not just apologize and admit that this year’s flu vaccine doesn’t work
- Study – Detection of influenza A virus in aerosols of vaccinated and non-vaccinated pigs in a warm environment.