Ralph,
Thank you for repeating valuable information provided by the CDC on their
surveillance program. What I was hoping to learn from you was your resource
for information on the number of individuals who were ill from Influenza
from a controlled study of vaccinated vs. non-vaccinated groups. You state,
boldly, that more people came down with influenza who were vaccinated than
those who were not. I am eager to read about this data, and plead with you
to share the resource.
Rick
<RSAMSON18 at cs.com> wrote in message news:e3.4a422fd.26582f57 at cs.com...
> In response to Rick Bright:
> From the Influenza Branch/CDC:
> Influenza is not a reportable disease. Unlike surveillance for some
> other diseases, the purpose of the influenza surveillance is not to count
the
> number of cases of influenza that occur. The data from the influenza
> surveillance systems
> should not be interpreted as a count of the number of cases of influenza.
> Influenza
> surveillance in the United States is designed to give an overall estimate
of
> the
> impact of influenza on morbidity and mortality each year, and to allow
> characterization of circulating vital isolates. --decisions about --
strains
> to be included in each year's influenza vaccine. There are currently four
> surveillance systems that track influenza -- in the US.
> 1) reporting from ~120 laboratores --in WHO Influenza Network of the
NREVSS.
> 2) the 122 cities mortality reporting system -- from death certificates.
> 3) weekly reporting by state and territorial epidemiologists.
> 4) sentinel physician surveillance system (currently 880 physicians
enrolled)
> which
> tracks percentage of patient visits that are due to influenza-like
illness.
> I think it is obvious from the above that an extremely high number of
> cases do not
> get into the data. I think what the CDC should do is pick a few sample
> locations, a
> gated adult community for example, and get as near as possible to 100%
> accuracy
> in reporting. Maybe then they would have some idea as to how well the
> vaccine is
> working. The vast majority of people who come down with the flu don't go
to
> a doctor.
> Mostly they just rest and wait for it to be over with. They know
antibiotics
> won't help.
> Ralph L. Samson
> ---
