Flu Vaccines Found Useless for Seniors

Flu Vaccines Found Useless for Seniors

The benefits of influenza vaccines on senior citizens have been "greatly exaggerate[d]," according to a major review of the evidence published in the medical journal Lancet Infectious Diseases.

Researchers examined prior studies on the effectiveness of the vaccine, and concluded that it is impossible to tell whether flu vaccines decrease winter deaths among senior citizens at all, let alone by the vast degree often claimed.

A commonly cited statistic is that flu shots lead to a 50 percent reduction in winter deaths among the elderly. But the study authors point out that flu itself is only responsible for 5 percent of winter deaths in that population, making such a claim absurd.