I don't see the problem as a scientific one if the vaccine is effective against what is't supposed to be effective against.<p>If the problem is that "people" believe that a vaccine against one flu strain will protect them from getting sick from a variety of <i>other</i> viruses, it's a marketing problem.
Not perfect, but better than nothing.<p><a href="http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/2009/10/journalists_sink_in_the_atlant.php" rel="nofollow">http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/2009/10/journalists_si...</a>
If memory serves me, yearly flu vaccines are formulated based on predictions about which strains will be most common for a given season. Is it really a surprise that they guess wrong sometimes? Easy, 100%-accurate predictions don't really happen much in science outside of Physics 101 homework.<p>Also, is influenza vaccination really recommended for healthy adults, anyway? My impression was always that it was only worthwhile for people who would be at high risk from the disease.<p>As for the whole "it's all misguided groupthink, only a few brave people are sacrificing career success to speak truth to power" thing, I kinda have to roll my eyes. Maybe the author of the article is right, but most of the time when I've heard people say things like that, they don't actually understand the ideas they're criticizing and are being reflexively contrarian because that's a good way to make applause lights blink in the heads of their audience. Really, if most specialists in a field agree on something <i>it's probably because it's true</i>, and if you <i>really</i> think you've seen the light where everyone else has gone astray your point will be stronger if it stands on its own without the rah-rah anti-establishment social signalling.
Are there any negatives to getting the flu shot? For me, if there's a chance that it could prevent me getting the flu, and there are no potential negatives, then at least I may be prevented from certain strains.
Hot News: Bullshit Metascience Calls Bullshit on Science.<p>"Odds are, it has." If you're going to call out research as pseudoscience, don't write unvalidated statements like this.