The Claim:
This prolific environmental lawyer claims that flu vaccinations render a person 4.4 times more likely to get a non-influenza respiratory illness.
The Facts:
The lawyer is citing this paper to support the claims about non-influenza illness. The study has a very small sample size of 115 people, and the authors admit that the results “could be an artefactual finding,” meaning that the results could have arisen from one of several biases, including measurement or reporting bias.
In direct response, a much larger study followed 3000+ people over six influenza seasons, testing them for 19 respiratory viruses. That study concluded that “Influenza vaccination was not associated with detection of noninfluenza respiratory viruses.” Boom.
Disclaimer: Science is always evolving and our understanding of these topics may have evolved too since this was originally posted. Be sure to check out our most recent posts and browse the latest Just the Facts Topics for the latest.
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