This story was first published on CBS News in 2006. The video and story have been wiped from the Internet. However, a copy of the video can be found here and transcript can be found below.
An important and definitive “mainstream” government study done nearly a decade ago got little attention because the science came down on the wrong side. It found that after decades and billions of dollars spent promoting flu shots for the elderly, the mass vaccination program did not result in saving lives. In fact, the death rate among the elderly increased substantially.
The authors of the study admitted a bias going into the study. Here was the history as described to me: Public health experts long assumed flu shots were effective in the elderly. But, paradoxically, all the studies done failed to demonstrate a benefit. Instead of considering that they, the experts, could be wrong–instead of believing the scientific data–the public health experts assumed the studies were wrong. After all, flu shots have to work, right?
So the NIH launched an effort to do “the” definitive study that would actually prove, for the first time, once and for all, that flu shots were beneficial to the elderly. The government would gather some of the brightest scientific minds for the research, and adjust for all kinds of factors that could be masking that presumed benefit.
But when they finished, no matter how they crunched the numbers, the data kept telling the same story: flu shots were of no benefit to the elderly. Quite the opposite. The death rate had increased markedly since widespread flu vaccination among older Americans. The scientists finally had to acknowledge that decades of public health thought had been mistaken.
Read the government study that found no flu shot benefit in elderly
In 2006, lead author Lone Simonsen spoke with me on the phone and agreed to do an on camera interview with me on her study results, which she felt were very important. However, her bosses at the National Institutes of Health blocked the interview. I ended up finding one of her co-authors who was independent from the government and was able to interview him. These study authors who were honest, at their own career peril, should be commended.
After the Simonsen study, many international studies also arrived at the same conclusion. You probably haven’t heard much about these “incendiary” findings. Too much money being made promoting flu shots?
Read Simonsen’s commentary on her study
Read current CDC flu information
Here’s my original video story on the topic. The video has been removed. If anybody has a copy, please write to me at [email protected]
Transcript below:
Flu shots and elderly, CBS News, Sharyl Attkisson
2006
Millions of seniors swear by their annual flu shots. After all, 90% of the people killed by the flu are 65 or older. But CBS News has learned that behind the scenes, public health officials have come to a new and disturbing conclusion: mass vaccinations of the elderly haven’t done the job. Dr. Walter Orenstein was among the first to notice the problem when he headed up the Centers for Disease Control’s national immunization program. He says it’s now become a consensus among public health experts.
Dr. Orenstein: “What is absolutely clear is that there is still a substantial burden of deaths and hospitalizations out there that has not been prevented through the present strategy.”
Here’s what scientists have found. Over 20 years, the percentage of seniors getting flu shots increased sharply from 15% to 65%. It stands to reason that flu deaths among the elderly should have taken a dramatic dip making an “X” graph like this (refers to graphic). Instead, flu deaths among the elderly continued to climb. It was hard to believe, so researchers at the National Institutes of Health set out to do a study adjusting for all kinds of factors that could be masking the true benefits of the shots. But no matter how they crunched the numbers, they got the same disappointing result: flu shots had not reduced deaths among the elderly. It’s not what health officials hoped to find. NIH wouldn’t let us interview the study’s lead author. So we went to Boston and found the only co-author of the study not employed by NIH: Dr. Tom Reichert.
Dr. Reichert: “We realized we had incendiary material.”
Dr. Reichert said they thought their study would prove vaccinations helped.
Dr. Reichert: “We were trying to do something mainstream. That’s for sure.”
Sharyl: “Were you surprised?”
Dr. Reichert: “Astonished.”
Sharyl: “Did you check the data a couple of times to make sure?”
Dr. Reichert: “Well, even more than that. We’ve looked at other countries now and the same is true.”
That international study, soon to be published, finds the same poor results in Australia, France, Canada and the UK. And other new research stokes the idea that decades of promoting flu shots in seniors, and the billions spent, haven’t had the desired result. The current head of national immunizations confirms CDC is now looking at new strategies, but stops short of calling the present strategy a failure.
Dr. Anne Schuchat: “There’s an active dialogue about how we can do better to prevent influenza and its complications in the elderly.”
So what’s an older person to do? The CDC says they should still get their flu shots. That it could make the flu less severe or prevent problems not reflected in the total numbers. But watch for CDC to likely shift in the near future more toward protecting the elderly in a roundabout way by pushing to vaccinate more children and others around the who could give them the flu. (Note: the government quickly followed this news with a recommendation to vaccinate children and infants for flu.)
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If one takes an honest look at all of the statistics, it becomes obvious that “flu vaccines” seldom have an efficacy rate over 50%. I have never had a “flu shot”. I am 75, and remember “surviving” the 1957-58 “Asian flu” being very sick, at times hallucinating. Several of my former co-workers used to rag on me every year – “get your flu shot”. They had the flu more often than I did, and were sicker than I was when I did get it. Nothing replaces a robust immune system, which I appear to have.
Thank you for speaking the truth about flu shots. I still suffer from the damage a flu shot in 2005 caused.
The result of this article leaves this elderly with little reason but to get the recommeded shot aain this year. I have found no contradictory articles on avoiding the the shot.
Did they publish the results of their study? (I can imagine they weren’t able to get it published, but thought I’d check, just in case.)
A large university hospital is promoting flu shots with this language:
Who should get a flu shot?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)(link is external) recommends annual influenza vaccination for everyone 6 months and older. Flu vaccination is especially important for adults 65 years and older, who account for most hospitalizations and deaths from flu. High dose flu shots are recommended for adults age 65 and over.
High-dose flu shots are recommended for adults age 65 and over. High-dose flu vaccines will be available at any Michigan Medicine’s regional flu clinics and at Michigan Medicine health centers. No special scheduling request is necessary beyond the standard flu shot appointment.
https://www.uofmhealth.org/conditions-treatments/flu/flu-shots
And (correct me if I’m wrong) I believe from now on flu shots will also contain mRNA
https://time.com/6213110/mrna-flu-shot-2022/
If it contains mRNA, won’t they need to be kept a -70°? I don’t see that happening at the local CVS….
This just in:
Excellent Science Immunology study is very bad news to the mRNA/nanolipids platform!
Showing that vaccine-induced myocarditis is likely driven by the platform & not antigen specific (i.e., spike protein)!
Also providing another evidence of sustained heart scarring and abnormalities! Vaccine-induced myocarditis is NOT mild!
Recent research shows it’s the mRNA platform, not the spike protein, impacting the high levels of mycoarditis:
https://twitter.com/RetsefL/status/1688886870757847040
“Implying that future mRNA-based vaccines/drugs would have same risk!”
I owned and practiced at a minor emergency clinic for 15 years. I became so distrustful of Big Pharma that I wouldn’t prescribe any drug that had not been out at least 5 years since so many of the new drugs were withdrawn within 5 years. I began reading on herbals, supplements and Asian traditional and European traditional practices. I found research that the medical school in Galveston, my alma mater, used licorice root extracts to 100% protect mice from mega amounts of influenza A . I used this for myself, my family and my patients successfully for years. I know now that people who die from respiratory infectious diseases typically are low on vitamin D. I take 20,000 IU per day and my blood level is still in the normal ranges. I know now that high ferritinn, reflecting iron overload which is common in a society with high iron diets, is a huge risk factor for septicemia, cardiovascular risk and chronic illness. The government avoids telling doctors this type of preventative information because the elites who control our government profit from our illnesses and early demise. Start researching who these elites are and which families they represent.
Surprise???
Which ABC/NBC/CBS/PBS/MSNBC/CNN networks carried this story in its entirety?
The real surprise is that NIH did something against the NARRATIVE.
From what this layman knows regarding vaccines, the purpose of a vaccine is to inject a diluted sample of the virus to excite the immune system in an effort to fight the mild virus. If one already has a deficient immune system even the diluted virus will result in a case of the flu. That normally mild case may fester into a full blown episode in which the deficient immune system fails.
I had gotten annual flu shots for decades and never had serious bouts of the flu just minor head colds, chills and sniffles for a day or 2.
In 2020 I opted not to get any shots but boost the immune system with zinc, C, d3, b12 etc; and had no symptoms. I think I’ll stick with no vaccine and supplements.
The main reason I opted for no flu shot was the controversy over the COVID jabs. Now I refuse all vaccines and jabs.
I have had the flu most every year since I was 12. (1957) Since I started getting the flu shot back in the 80’s, I have had a case of the flu exactly once, and it was mild. I’m now 77. Maybe it doesn’t work for everyone, but it has worked for me. I had COVID before the injections came out. It was the worst thing I ever survived.
This Article and a lot of posters info here feedback put together in a New light reality Law makers as well as the CDC and all politicians in Washington and future politicians and there Family members should aknowledge as well as average citizens of America ? In light of all Sharyl good work in past few years and poster added feedback should prove to lawmakers the importance of not privatizing Social security Medicare for elderly and people with dis-abilities from life long work living around Benzene chemicals and many viruses Chemical or and contamination, and water contamination like Camp lajune base as well as other viruses and chemicals coming from other countries .Instead to help all people in America we should be negotiating Drug costs for Medicare and Medicaid and imposing a Risk higher Medicade Medicare tax on companies subjecting there Workers to Benzene and other Harmful chemicals causing damage to people’s health later in life .and Birth defects. Elderly people that develop diseases and get sick cannot get jobs if you get rid of Medicare and Medicaid ??
I DONT KNOW WHAT IT IS WITH ME =BUT ON DAY ONE I SEEN IT AS ALL ABOUT THE MONEY .MAYBE BECAUSE THE DEMOCRATES WAS PUSHING IT SO HARD .BUT ALL OF THIS HAS BEEN ABOUT THE DOLLAR . AND KNOW WE SEE 30% OF KIDS WITH THE SHOTS WILL HAVE HEART PROBLUMS FOR THE REST OF THERE LIVES ..THE MORE TRUTH COMES OUT . PROVES I WAS RIGHT ON DAY ONE (ALL OF THIS CAN BE PROVED BY LOOKING AT ME FACE BOOK AND TWEETERS ACCOUNTS
Great article, Sharyl..
Do you think you’d be ready for the next level discussion about germ theory? That no virus has ever been isolated and proven to infect another human being? That contagion is a myth? Please do an interview with either Dr. Thomas Cowan or Dr. Andrew Kaufman. I think your audience is ready for this. It’s all about the truth, right?..?
Here is some more anecdotal evidence to add to the pile. My dad has had pneumonia four times in his life and each time was about two weeks after getting a flu shot. He decided never to get the flu shot again.
My sister on the other hand works in pediatrics and her first two years in the business decided to get the flu shot since she was hanging around sick people all the time. She got the flu a month or two later both years. She decided not to get the shot in following years and hasn’t gotten the flu since.
I’m interested in the what the NIH and CDC “officially” say about this study and how it impacts their continuing recommendations regarding flu vaccines. Could it be as simple as saying that the vaccines are better now than the were in 2006? There must be an official response to this somewhere within these bureaucracies.
Knock on wood but I have only had the flu two times in the past 15 years. Both times, it was within a few days after my roommate got a flu shot. She also got the flu soon after getting the shot. No thank you.
I am 75. Because the only times I got the flu were in the years I got the shot, I asked my doctors (2) if it would be OK to just avoid the flu by avoiding the shot and they both concurred because as we all know the annually concocted flu soup is a guess and never more than 40% effective (and that’s a guess) – at the coming strain, a bigger guess at the health and environment of the patient, and it appears scientifically and anecdotally that avoiding seasonal flu can be done dozens of holistic ways without getting a shot. I’m thinking of course of a semi-nude shaman with feathered headdress and gourd rattles dancing around a fire, praying to unknown demons and speaking in tongues; to keep the flu demons away.