http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/vaccine-deniers-abuse-appeal-authority/A Facebook friend posted an article today, based on a paper by Peter Doshi, a well-known anti-vaccine activist. The article claimed to show proof that the flu vaccine doesn't work, and that it's "dangerous". If you were convinced by that article, or others like it, you should read THIS article, which gives some perspective on Dr. Doshi, who is neither a Medical Doctor nor a research scientist. His "specialty", if you can call it that, is akin to that of an art critic in the art world. He can't "do", but he can sure criticize, and because there are no standards for being a critic, he is not accountable.
Yet he and other vaccine deniers, AIDS-deniers (of which he is also one!), and other self-proclaimed "experts" get national and international publicity for their whacko assertions. (Thanks a lot, Internet!) Doshi would be laughed out of the cafeteria at the NIH if he espoused his well-debunked "theories" there, but since there is no editorial control of the 'Net, scientifically ignorant folks can tout his stuff as if it actually has some credibility.
The plain fact about the annual flu vaccine is this: the overwhelming consensus of medical doctors & researchers, public health authorities and Infectious Diseases specialists is that the high rate of influenza vaccination over the past 20 years has been a true success and has saved lives and has done so with exemplary safety. As a primary care physician on the frontlines of disease diagnosis and treatment over that time frame and longer, I can personally attest to this medical fact. I get a flu vaccine every year, I give it to my patients, and I encourage all the people I care about to get their Fluvax every fall.
Read this article.
Don't get duped by a blind man into gouging your own eyes out.
