"Flu viruses are constantly mutating, so the vaccine is updated annually based on researchers' best guess of which virus strains will be circulating among people in a given season."
"Several flu viruses are circulating all the time, which is why people may still get the flu despite being vaccinated since the vaccine is specific to one strain."
Source: World Health Organisation
Best guess, eh? So in effect, the flu vaccine we received this year is not the same as the flu vaccine from last year, or the year before, or even the year before that, and doesn't necessarily prevent infection after being vaccinated.
Sounds suspiciously similar to people still getting COVID after being vaccinated, due to the different mutations, such as Delta, Omicron, etc.
BUT, although vaccines are rigorously tested before release, there have been some horrendous incidences of newly released vaccines causing major health issues.
The “Cutter Incident” (1955): The Salk polio vaccine produced by Cutter laboratories actually contained the live poliovirus, resulting in permanent paralysis, even deaths, among not only vaccinated individuals, but also close contacts.
Swine Flu (1976): The large scale vaccinations in the USA resulted resulted in a high number of Guillain-Barré syndrome cases. Although now reportedly the only negative reaction to flu vaccine, and occurring so rarely as to be negligible, rigorous monitoring of the Flu vaccine for this potentially fatal disease is undertaken very year.
Source: National Library of medicine.
As a direct result from both of these incidents, the FDA "
now requires extensive testing to evaluate the safety and efficacy of vaccines prior to licensure. After licensure, FDA requires ongoing lot-release testing and manufacturing facility inspections. Additionally, manufacturers are required to conduct post-licensure safety monitoring for their products and report to the FDA."
Source: National Library of Medicine.
So onto the most important question of all, and one which
@mack341 rightly has major concerns about. Will all the recently developed COVID vaccines prove to be another Cutter/Swine Flu incident, or have the rigorous development measures taken been enough to ensure vaccine safety?
"Because of the high volume of use, coincidental adverse events including deaths, that are temporally associated with vaccination, do occur. When death occurs shortly following vaccination, loved ones and others might naturally question whether it was related to vaccination."
Source: World Health Organisation
Many instances of the COVID vaccine causing deaths are reported to VAERS, which is then taken as gospel by many people. However,
"VAERS is a voluntary reporting system which accepts any submitted report of an adverse event without judging its clinical significance or whether it was caused by a vaccination."
Source: World Health Organisation.
To summarise: Is there really a major issue with the COVID vaccines that is steadily being exposed? Or are most cases due to misunderstanding the VAERS database? Or even - as stated by WHO - a natural tendency to associate deaths immediately after a vaccine to the vaccine itself?
Regrettably, at this point in time, it is impossible to make an informed judgement one way or another. In a few more years, when more information is available, there might prove to be a "Long Vaccine" issue alongside the "Long COVID" issue. Or not.
All any of us can do is to act according to our beliefs. And hopefully, we will all live to tell the tale.
EDIT: Appears as if I am steadily taking over VWM's role in producing wordy (rappinghood) posts.
