And the Canadian government has finally admitted that the overall flu death rate this year could be MUCH lower than in an ‘average’ year, because those older people usually most likely to die of flu-related complications are protected by previously acquired, life-long immunity — something that the younger population will be unlikely to acquire, because the vaccine, at best, gives only moderate, temporary, and highly virus-specific protection, not the long-lasting and adaptable protection of natural viral exposure.

I weep for what humanity is doing to itself.

I’m not sure that I agree. If someone is very ill, they could have died/been hospitalized with or without the flu. A lot of people with chronic conditions are in and out of the hospital constantly even when they do not have the flu.

It could just be a coincidence that they got the flu at the same time that they were suffering from something else. I understand what you are saying and certainly getting the flu is risk for someone with underlying health conditions, but I don’t think we can *always* say that it was the cause of death/hospitalization, just as we can’t *always* say that the vaccine was the cause of medical event that happens after someone received it.

I do think your second criticism is a little off base though. The point is, kids sometimes have bad things happen to them out of the blue. Let’s say vomiting – most parents have seen a perfectly healthy-seeming kid start ralphing their guts out unexpectedly. So a child gets vaccinated, and they start vomiting within 24 hours. It is a fair chance that the vomiting is in no way related to the vaccination – they just coincidentally occurred around the same time.

However, deaths of people with underlying conditions who came down with H1N1 are actually causally related to the flu virus. Sure, the underlying condition is what made the flu more dangerous for them, but the flu itself contributed to the death.

I understand what you’re saying, and I’d like more details on flu statistics too, but I can’t get on officials for not using the same conservative language about flu deaths as they do about vaccine adverse events.

I also liked how the reminder ““It is important to remember that just because a medical event follows a vaccination (does not mean it has) been caused by the vaccine“ followed the information that “most” adverse reactions happened within minutes of receiving the vaccine.