Quote Originally Posted by OakLeaf View Post
Some preliminary studies have seen a strong correlation (like, double the expected infection rate). They don't know at this point if it's actually causation, or even whether the numbers will hold up - that's why I said "there's a chance that it might." But why take the risk? It's enough for the public health authorities in three Canadian provinces to put their seasonal flu vaccinations on hold until there's adequate H1N1 vaccine.
Thanks. It's of course, up to you to decide what's best for your body, and I'm mostly just posting the latter because I'm curious about the studies and how the groups were made:


The only article I found that had more details said:
http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2009/...-seasonal.html

And to me key was:
Four Canadian studies involved about 2,000 people, health officials told CBC News. Researchers found people who had received the seasonal flu vaccine in the past were more likely to get sick with the H1N1 virus.


I'm assuming that people that regularly get the seasonal flu vaccine generally have a reason for doing so - they're immunosuppressed, they're in public jobs where they deal with large numbers of people daily, or they catch the flu a lot. But I can't find anything addressing how they compared the groups and how they're made up - so whether by comparing people that have had the flu vaccine in the past, they're selecting for a group that is more likely to get exposed to the swine flu to begin with.

The other possible explanation that I can come up with for those results is that generally the flu vaccine does not give you long term lasting immunity against the flu - so if you're getting it regularly, you haven't been exposed to the flu in a long time. And that people who regularly have had the flu over the years actually have long term immunity naturally, and some of this immunity is slightly protective against swine flu.

But either way, by past, I think they mean last year and not that taking this year's flu vaccine will pre-dispose you to the swine flu this year.