At the risk of showing my ignorance I will share two thoughts that floated by as I read this.
So, recurring illness could be more about the strength of the bacteria, virus, etc. inside us (which may have been changed by the previous illness) than about a weakness in the immune system due to previous illness... and...
Is there a danger in targeting certain viruses or bacteria, etc. in the body, similar to the danger of creating an imbalance in an ecosystem if we target certain insects, animals or plants?
It should be noted that there was only one randomized trial included that looked at adults and this trial found no benefit of the pneumococcal vaccine on reducing overall viral RTI
Going to try this again, some weird "something went wrong" message when I tried to post before.
Anyway, thanks for doing the leg work! I as going to check it out last week, got busy with other things and forgot about it. FYI - BCG was trialed for COVID-19 but didn't worked out. I do have to wonder if Adjuvants plays a role here too?
This is WRT flu observational studies of vaccine effectiveness back in 2015. The same principles apply and the same problems have been identified with COVID in more recent analyses.
"Both confounding by indication and healthy vaccinee bias are likely to operate simultaneously in observational studies on influenza VE. Although adjustment can correct for confounding by indication to some extent, the resulting estimates are still prone to healthy vaccinee bias, at least as long as unspecific outcomes like all-cause mortality are used. Therefore, cohort studies using administrative data bases with unspecific outcomes should no longer be used to measure the effects of influenza vaccination."
I got the flu vaccine this year (the strong one for the aged) btw but I have not yet been convinced of the value of the Shingles or Pneumovax vaccines. Perhaps because EGYM tells me my biological age is 57 years and therefore I'm not at high risk :)
Thanks for sharing this. We’ll be getting the pneumonia shot asap. We have been planning to, but have procrastinated. We are both over 75.
Fascinating! Thanks for this! Going to encourage all my relatives who are eligible get the shot!
I just saw a news release that Merck is finishing stage 3 trials for a 21 valent pneumonia vaccine for adults— I’d put off getting my pneumonia vaccine and this is a good reminder to do it! Here’s Merck’s news release, they’re thinking it might be approved by summer : https://www.merck.com/news/merck-announces-positive-data-on-v116-an-investigational-21-valent-pneumococcal-conjugate-vaccine-specifically-designed-for-adults-demonstrated-immune-responses-in-adults/
At the risk of showing my ignorance I will share two thoughts that floated by as I read this.
So, recurring illness could be more about the strength of the bacteria, virus, etc. inside us (which may have been changed by the previous illness) than about a weakness in the immune system due to previous illness... and...
Is there a danger in targeting certain viruses or bacteria, etc. in the body, similar to the danger of creating an imbalance in an ecosystem if we target certain insects, animals or plants?
It should be noted that there was only one randomized trial included that looked at adults and this trial found no benefit of the pneumococcal vaccine on reducing overall viral RTI
Going to try this again, some weird "something went wrong" message when I tried to post before.
Anyway, thanks for doing the leg work! I as going to check it out last week, got busy with other things and forgot about it. FYI - BCG was trialed for COVID-19 but didn't worked out. I do have to wonder if Adjuvants plays a role here too?
Is that that same Chat GPT that thinks I did my fellowship at UCSF?
Re: our discussion about healthy vaccinee (aka vaccine) bias
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26474974/
This is WRT flu observational studies of vaccine effectiveness back in 2015. The same principles apply and the same problems have been identified with COVID in more recent analyses.
"Both confounding by indication and healthy vaccinee bias are likely to operate simultaneously in observational studies on influenza VE. Although adjustment can correct for confounding by indication to some extent, the resulting estimates are still prone to healthy vaccinee bias, at least as long as unspecific outcomes like all-cause mortality are used. Therefore, cohort studies using administrative data bases with unspecific outcomes should no longer be used to measure the effects of influenza vaccination."
I got the flu vaccine this year (the strong one for the aged) btw but I have not yet been convinced of the value of the Shingles or Pneumovax vaccines. Perhaps because EGYM tells me my biological age is 57 years and therefore I'm not at high risk :)