Flu Death Risk Often Exaggerated; So Is Benefit of Vaccine

October 27, 2005

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To promote vaccine use, many in the public health community have overstated the

risk of flu-related death and the effectiveness of the vaccine in preventing it.

" In fact, it is very difficult to know how many people die from any given

disease because there is often much uncertainty in determining the cause of

death. This is particularly true for the flu. That's because it shares symptoms

with so many other diseases, and because people most likely to die a flu-related

death are also at high risk for many other causes of death. "

" According to the CDC, 90 percent of flu-related deaths occur among people age

65 years and older. Based on this information and the age distribution of the

population, the chance of a flu-related death for people in that age group is

about one in 1,000. Another way of saying this is that the chance of not dying

from flu for those 65 and older is about 999 out of 1,000. (For context, the

chance of a flu-related death is slightly lower than the chance of dying from a

fall or other accident.) "

" For example, a 2003 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine

observed that the flu vaccine was associated with a 50 percent reduction in the

overall death rate (that is, death from heart disease, stroke, cancer

and all other causes combined). To attribute an effect of this magnitude solely

to the flu vaccine is ludicrous: Flu-related deaths make up less than 2 percent

of all deaths. If the claim were accurate, the vaccine's power would dwarf that

of any other medical intervention. There is, however, a much more likely

explanation: People who choose to get a flu shot are much healthier -- and

therefore already at much lower risk of death -- than people who do not.

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