The anti-vax movement was astroturfed by the influenza vaccine industry, so they could label critics of their severely flawed methodology as loonies. (Conspiracy)

submitted ago by o0shad0o

In case you don't know, the influenza vaccine is produced like weather reports are; they have to predict what types of virus will make up that year's seasonal flu - two years ahead of time. They can vaccinate against a handful of varieties at the same time, but it's often inaccurate - and they have to sell a lot of the vaccine in order to stay in business. So there's a huge commercial push for everyone to be vaccinated, even if the effectiveness is only 30% that year, even if it's completely useless for "herd vaccination".

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YugeDick ago

Except that they do have a way of knowing what strains are emerging as most prevalent. They go right to the source and test the afflicted before it spreads to the cities then the rest of the world. That source of course being rural China where the people still bring their farm animals into the home with them for the winter. Which increases the likelihood of animal strains making the leap to humans. This is where such names as swine flu and bird flu come from.

outside-the-box ago

That explanation is so bad!

YugeDick ago

From Dr. Nancy Cox, director of the influenza division of the CDC.

“If we do see a new variant virus, we then look at the spread of that virus within China or other countries. If we see that pattern, we take that virus and test it against serum from people who have been vaccinated to see if they have antibodies against that new virus.”

Like I said, they test the afflicted in the rural areas of China, and elsewhere obviously, to determine new strains before they spread to the rest of the world.

o0shad0o ago

It's still a guess, and they've been guessing especially badly lately. The effectiveness was about 60% a few years ago, and now it's down to 30% or so? And you need 90+% immune for herd immunization to work for humans.