1) Simenson et al.’s (1) influential 2005 paper on the overestimation of the effectiveness of influenza vaccines in the elderly.

But also 2) Nichol et al. (2)’s sensitivity analysis measuring the effects of an unnamed confounder on elderly survivorship. Confounders might include race, income, or–Brownlee and Lenzer’s bugaboo–functional status.

Nichol et al. concluded that even in the face of a healthy-vaccinee effect, vaccines remained significantly protective across the 18 cohorts of community-dwelling elderly and across the year-to-year variation of their 10-season study. For the record, the study did not include nursing homes, in which the frailest, with less responsive immune systems, live.

For the two seasons in which the vaccine provided a poor match, vaccination still offered a significant reduction in hospitalization and death, although less so than seasons with a better match. In other words, mismatched vaccines may still provide protection at the population level (although this may play out differently from person-to-person). I’d like to add the hypothesis–perhaps already offered elsewhere–that herd and partial immunity have a longer expiration date than over a single season. Is the protection accumulative?

Other countries (3) have shown declines in elderly mortality upon introduction of a nationwide vaccine program. As the immune response is in part social in origin (4), one wonders if vaccines’ coverage-response surface is structured by the state of an area’s socioeconomics. Do vaccines fail more across seasons in which, and in regions where, the elderly population–and the institutions that support them–are in severe fiscal stress or social crisis?

Consider this, Eric O., a heartfelt invitation to cull the literature too. And the more the merrier (and the faster we’ll all learn).

(1) http://origem.info/FIC/pdf/Simonson%20et%20al%20Impact%20of%20Influ_Arch%20Intern%20Med%2005.pdf
(2) http://www.preventinfluenza.org/newsletters/nejm.pdf
(3) http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TD4-4T890SX-2&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=ffac9428733c9d2ffb78e98f733e0c98
(4) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11932203

I wonder if some scientists dislike religion NOT because they believe religion has caused so much trouble through the ages, but because they hate the idea of others not viewing them as gods. It’s the only explanation I have for this obsession with demonising all religious people and labelling them as imbeciles.

There are plenty of decent religious people who harm no one, but they never get a mention. There are also scientists who are happy to harm any number of people, such as those that worked for Nazi Germany.

I’m agnostic. However, I still cannot see how it is the height of rationality to believe, or how it is obvious, that the universe – or whatever mechanism gave birth to it – created itself, upholds itself, and does so for no reason WHATSOEVER other than it – “it” being nothing – feels like it.

And how is it perfectly reasonable to claim consciousness is caused by matter. Perhaps you can tell me how, because even Einstein couldn’t see how it could be done – he said science will NEVER be able to explain consciousness.

According to the scientific orthodoxy, I’m just a collection of particles, none of which is conscious. All the experiences I’m having, therefore, are not real – particles do not experience anything! – and my sense of identity is also not real, as I’m just a lump of matter, made of the same stuff as a rock. Quite remarkable. I’m alive, but really I’m dead! I’m conscious, but really I’m not!

As for death being the end. We have all been dead already. Before I was born, I was a bunch of atoms floating in space – I was dead! But then I was born. In the future, I will die, and become atoms dispersed in space once more. So, who’s to say I won’t wake up again? I was dead once before, but I woke up.

The only way to make sense of the above is to DENY consciousness, which is what many scientists do, especially those with an axe to grind against religion.

Instead of attacking religion, scientists should explain consciousness, because that is why religion exists – because we are conscious beings! Religion is NOT mere indoctrination, it is part of our evolutionary heritage, so to speak.

(Joseph Levine is an atheist, has a PhD from Harvard, yet can’t explain consciousness: in his book, “Purple Haze”, he admits science is clueless. I wish scientists today could be this honest. I wish there could be a respectful debate).

Let’s leave aside Matt’s attempts to 1) minimize a pandemic of agricultural origins as an “unfortunate health problem”, 2) pawn off the pandemic onto nature alone and 3) frame multinational land grabs as good for rural Mexicans. His efforts refute themselves.

The more intriguing fallacy is that if the livestock industry didn’t exist during the 1918 pandemic, livestock intensification isn’t to blame for the latest pandemic. Something else must account for influenza’s recurrence.

What the argument misses is that pathogens have as much their own histories as humans do. They adapt to new ecological circumstances as they arise. Just because factory farms weren’t around in 1918 doesn’t mean that influenza hasn’t adapted to them now. Otherwise it’s kind of like arguing oil isn’t a cause for war today because the Romans never fought for it. We acknowledge our own historical trajectories. We should be able to acknowledge those of our pathogens.

I address this point in more detail here and here.

I address the point more specifically in the influenza post that follows here.