Expert: Flu vaccine needs an overhaul

(CBS News) The flu season usually doesn't kick into high gear until after Christmas, but almost every state is reporting cases of it already.

Dr. Adam Murdock

/ CBS News

Five southern states, including Texas, are showing the highest rates of suspected cases. In Tennesse, schools in three counties have been shut down.

Dr. Adam Murdock is already treating two flu patients a day at his Dallas clinic. Last year at this time he wasn't seeing that many in a week.

"The fact that we've seen an uptick this early in the season means that potentially this could be a bad flu season," Murdock said.

CDC warns flu season off to earliest start in decade
Flu season at work: How to keep yourself healthy
FDA approves first flu shot made from animal cells

The best way to prevent flu-like illness, Murdock said, is the flu vaccine.

"But it is not 100-percent preventative," he said.

Michael Osterholm, who specializes in infectious diseases, says the vaccine is roughly 59 percent effective in young, healthy adults. Osterholm studied medical records and flu studies dating back to 1936 and determined the nation's flu vaccine program needs to be overhauled.

"If we don't change our current vaccines, we will have some protection, but we will in two ways miss two very important goals: one, protecting old people at the highest risk of death and two, when the next pandemic emerges, we will miss the opportunity to protect against pandemic," he said.

A woman gets a flu shot

/ CBS News

The report calls current vaccine production -- which involves growing viruses in chicken eggs -- slow, inexact and outdated.

Researchers also found the flu vaccine is most effective in children, but offers little to no protection in those 65 and older. Even though a growing number get vaccinated, deaths from the flu haven't decreased. Ninety percent of deaths in a typical flu season occur in the elderly.

Despite his concerns, Osterholm still recommends that people do get the flu vaccine. He says the vaccination is safe that some protection is better than none.

[bahtat]

I had my flu shot and a few weeks later got the flu. I was really miserable. It is now 8 days since I came down with it, and am still very weak. I am wishing that I never had that flu shot.
P.S. I am 84 years old.

[mivenho]

Given that the vaccine is well matched to this season's flu virus, I'm surprised that it offers "little to no protection in those 65 and older", esp. since seniors receive about twice the vaccine dose as younger people.

[pericleseMMXX]

The flu vaccine definitely needs an overhaul, which contains thimerosol, a mercury-based preservative used in vaccines for more than 70 years. People have access to information, unlike the pre-Internet era, and less likely to swallow whatever the CDC or WHO mandates regarding vaccines. As long as they are infused with mercury, the link to autism and other childhood illnesses persists. There's gotta be a better way to protect our children from the long-term negative effects of mercury. Parents have a responsibility to protect their own children despite brainwashing efforts by our government agencies to convince us what's best, and if it means we don't want our kids and grandkids to continue to be guinea pigs...so be it.