A new study from the prestigious Cleveland Clinic has raised serious concerns about the effectiveness of the influenza vaccine during the 2024-2025 respiratory viral season, finding that vaccinated individuals were more likely to get the flu than those who remained unvaccinated.
The study analysed data from 53,402 Cleveland Clinic employees in Ohio and tracked influenza infections over a 25-week period. Of those studied, 82.1% received the flu shot. Despite this, researchers found that the risk of contracting influenza was significantly higher in the vaccinated group compared to those who remained unvaccinated.
After adjusting for factors such as age, sex, and job type, the study found a hazard ratio (HR) of 1.27—meaning vaccinated individuals had a 27% higher risk of flu infection. This translated into a vaccine effectiveness estimate of −26.9%, suggesting not just lack of protection, but potential harm. The findings were statistically significant (P = 0.007), with confidence intervals indicating the effect could be as bad as −55%.
Researchers concluded that the flu vaccine was not effective in preventing illness among working-aged adults this season. In fact, they observed that infection rates rose more sharply among vaccinated individuals as the season progressed, contradicting the vaccine’s intended purpose.
This is not the first time questions have been raised about seasonal vaccine performance, but the Cleveland Clinic’s large-scale real-world analysis adds new urgency to re-evaluating flu vaccine recommendations and development strategies.
Image credit: Usman Yousaef
I only ever had one in 1993 . Got the flu immediately. Never again. God has designed my body to do what it needs.
I am old and never took the jab. Extra vit. B, C ,D . though.
You would have to be brain dead to inject that poison into your body.
They will never learn.
I never knew this. However after all the issues with covid linked cancer wont take any jab except B12
It is wrong that Big Pharma is allowed to advertise its products and brainwash NZ sheeple via the media. I think we are only 1 of 2 countries that allow that. It is wrong and normalises acceptance of big pharma drug solutions, much of which don’t appear very convincing when you look at the shorter lifespan of heavily medicated USA. Ahhh.. mmm.. nah, no thanks. Cheers.
Safe and effective, strikes again……
How strikes until finally struck out?
Note from the discussion section of the study:
“The study has several limitations. The vaccine was the 3-valent inactivated influenza vaccine in about 99% of our study cohort. The possibility that other influenza vaccines might have been more effective cannot be excluded. Infections diagnosed on the basis of home testing kits alone would have been missed. The study was not designed to compare the risk of influenza-associated hospitalization or mortality, or to examine if the vaccine decreased severity of illness, because these outcomes were not expected to occur in numbers large enough to allow for a meaningful analysis. Our study of healthcare personnel included no children and few elderly subjects and primarily consisted of individuals who were healthy enough to be employed. A minority would have been expected to have been severely immunocompromised.
The results are generalizable to relatively healthy adults in the USA, which is a major target of adult influenza vaccination efforts. Although the study was done in northern Ohio, there is little reason to assume that the effectiveness of the vaccine would have been different in a different geographic region within the continental USA.
Given all the variables that can influence the effectiveness of the influenza vaccine in any given year, and our current processes for developing the vaccine, it may be asking for too much to expect the vaccine to be highly effective year after year. It therefore becomes important to evaluate the effectiveness of the vaccine every year. This study found that influenza vaccination was associated with a higher risk of influenza among adults in the healthcare workforce in northern Ohio, USA, during the 2024-2025 winter season, suggesting that the vaccine has not been effective in preventing influenza this season.”