JOIN USA study, published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine, finds that Fluzone High-Dose does indeed prevent influenza in older adults, reducing cases of the flu by 24 percent compared with the standard version.
In the new study, scientists, working for the manufacturer and at several universities, compared 15,982 older adults who received the high-dose vaccine in 2011 and 2012 to 15,983 who got the standard vaccine. The key finding was that 1.4 percent of the first group contracted the flu versus 1.9 percent of the second group.
Some experts acknowledged the results but raised several concerns about flu vaccination generally. “The truth is we have very little evidence about the extent to which flu vaccine works in older adults” because “good, randomised controlled studies have never been done in the older population,” said Lisa Jackson of the Group Health Research Institute in Seattle. Another concern relates to the small portion of older adults who came down with the flu in the new study: less than two percent.
“We have probably substantially overestimated how much influenza contributes to deaths in the older population and how much improvement occurs due to vaccination,” said Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy.
The CDC nonetheless continues to recommend annual flu shots for all older adults, and there is no evidence that the high-dose vaccine causes unusual side-effects.