Resistance to flu drug widespread in US: study

[icarus]

And this would be why I don't get a flu shot:

Resistance to flu drug widespread in US: study

Viruses are highly adaptive. We've overused antibiotics. Many antibiotics are now ineffective. Now three flu drugs are ineffective: rimantadine and amantadine and Tamiflu. It's obvious to me that we've overused flu vaccines. Those should be for small children, the sick, and the elderly. Not pushed by companies that don't want to pay for sick days.

In other news: looking at a mountain of work for school.

Starting. That's the hard part. Starting.


ETA: Folks keep thinking that I'm mixing up vaccines with the drugs used to treat influenza. No. I'm not.

Doctors will still say get the flu vaccine, the same way they used to prescribe antibiotics like candy.

I was leery back in the 80s when everyone was prescribed an antibiotic for everything.

I evaded the antibiotics then. I'm not a bit surprised to find they were overused to the point of uselessness. People argued with me then, too.

Now I'm not buying it on the flu vaccines.

This is just one person's anecdotal observation, but I've noticed the flu season has been getting worse and worse. That spike began in the mid-to-late 90s when flu vaccines started being used to inoculate everyone who'd take it, and not just the vulnerable. (Actually, the spike started when flu vaccine makers began marketing to businesses that they'd have less loss of productivity if they got their employees to take it.)

Mark my words. In three to five years we'll start seeing studies that show an increase in the severity and number of flu viruses. In ten, we'll see a link between overuse of flu vaccines and the sheer variety and severity of flus.

Flu vaccines just aren't the same as your typical mumps, rubella, etc. vaccine. Viruses mutate. That constant mutation is why the flu vaccine has to be different each year, and why it only includes an immunization for the top seven or eight viruses the CDC guesses will be the "bad ones" for the season.

Comments

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Measles, mumps, and rubella are viruses too. *Some* viruses mutate, and flu is one of them.

I still think that resistance-to-antivirals is more directly linked to use of antivirals than it is to the vaccines.

I don't think the vaccines are going to become useless, except for years when they guess the strain wrong (like last year). Unless you've got multiple anecdotal of people who got the shot *this* year and still got the flu?

I have read theories that flu viruses are mutating faster now because of rural Chinese farming practices that allow the virus to pass back and forth between poultry, pigs, and humans with great ease, facilitating changes, and that increased travel between China and the West lets these newly changed strains spread more rapidly.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I still think that resistance-to-antivirals is more directly linked to use of antivirals than it is to the vaccines.

Well, yes, of course. My concern is the increase in the severity and number of flu viruses.

The flu vaccines will never become useless because the vaccinations are different every year.

I have read theories that flu viruses are mutating faster now because of rural Chinese farming practices that allow the virus to pass back and forth between poultry, pigs, and humans with great ease, facilitating changes, and that increased travel between China and the West lets these newly changed strains spread more rapidly.

That would square with what happened to the Native American and South American populations in the 15th century, when European settlers brought influenza with them.

But increased travel doesn't account for the spread across the US.

It could be as simple as the person who gets the vaccine is unaware they are a carrier of the flu because they don't have any symptoms. Thus they don't take precautions to separate themselves, aren't careful to wash their hands, etc., and flus spread more widely among those who didn't get the inoculation, or who are vulnerable for whatever reason. The flu vaccine companies have already proved that they can't produce enough vaccine to inoculate every man, woman and child in the US. The law of unintended consequences.

The increased severity of the flu viruses is another matter altogether. That's where I suspect the vaccines are pushing viruses to mutate more rapidly and into more dangerous strains.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

It could be as simple as the person who gets the vaccine is unaware they are a carrier of the flu because they don't have any symptoms. Thus they don't take precautions to separate themselves, aren't careful to wash their hands, etc., and flus spread more widely among those who didn't get the inoculation, or who are vulnerable for whatever reason. The flu vaccine companies have already proved that they can't produce enough vaccine to inoculate every man, woman and child in the US. The law of unintended consequences.

And, given that the flu virus is hardier outside the body than many others, that makes a lot of sense. So there's less of a firebreak effect from vaccinated people than there is for less hardy viruses that require an infected human host for transmission. The vaccinated person won't get infected, but can spread it through surface-to-surface contamination, having picked it up on their hands from someone who IS sick. (They won't spread it via airborne droplets, though.)

I'm not as convinced as you that the vaccines are pushing the viruses to get more dangerous -- because I'm not sure that "more dangerous" is an effective strategy for viral reproduction in the face of vaccines. Resistant-to-antivirals is a super effective strategy in the face of widespread antvirals, of course.

(this got wordy, I will continue)

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

I do think that the likely more rapid mutation -- whether driven by widespread vaccines or caused by a really useful pig-poultry-human incubation cycle -- might lead to more people being affected, because the strains will be DIFFERENT enough from previous years' versions to hit more people and hit them harder -- a lot of the reason that some people get "mild" cases of the flu is that they have partial immunity from the last time a related strain came around. So if, say, Hong Kong A came around in 1968, and you were alive then, and caught it, and the next time a Hong Kong A showed up was, say, 1982 (I am making these years up, but it's based on reading I did when I had the flu in January, I wanted to know why I wasn't dropping dead as if it were 1918), even though the Hong Kong A would have changed somewhat, you'd still have some antibodies that'd work on it, and you'd have a less severe case.

And it's pure random chance determining whether we get a variant that causes cytokine storms like the 1918 strain -- and if that happens again, we're screwed, and may be somewhat less screwed WITH vaccines than without. Because while they MIGHT be able to treat cytokine storms with ACE inhibitors, IF they catch it fast enough, I have no faith that they'd be able to do this under epidemic conditions, or even that they'd have enough ACE inhibitors manufactured to cover everyone, so vaccination's still the best strategy.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I do think that the likely more rapid mutation -- whether driven by widespread vaccines or caused by a really useful pig-poultry-human incubation cycle -- might lead to more people being affected, because the strains will be DIFFERENT enough from previous years' versions to hit more people and hit them harder

Yes. And --

-- crap, I have to go to class.

But yes, rapid mutation is a problem. And a greater variety of viruses will hit naturally more people, too.

100% vaccination is the strategy that will work. But we can't do that, the flu vaccine manufacturers aren't able to, and so the result of half-assed immunization is this increasing mutation and wider spread of the flu.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Hope class goes well, and I'm still not 100% sold on widespread-but-not-total immunization being the key factor in increased pace of mutation, rather than something else, but... you are making MUCH more sense than I thought you were in your initial post. If in ten years we hear it's the fault of the vaccination strategy, I'll admit you were right and I was wrong.

[keenoled.livejournal.com]

My dad is working on a new kind of vaccination; nasal. So far, in mice, it seems to be working. Cross vaccination and immunity in babies born to vaccinated moms side effect. :)
http://www.eurocine.se