[Bagor]

Interesting. Hope they fast track the peer review.

TORONTO - An unpublished Canadian study that suggests seasonal flu shots raise a person's risk of catching swine flu is causing a lot of concern internationally, a senior official of the World Health Organization said Thursday.
Dr. Marie-Paule Kieny, who heads the WHO's vaccine research initiative, said there's a keen interest, internationally, to go through the data in the study and see whether the research is correct or flawed.
"There's really intense international discussions on that," Kieny told The Canadian Press in an interview.
"Because now that it's out, everybody feels that we must go to the bottom of it and see what's real there."
She noted in a news conference that Canadian officials are trying to put together an expert panel to assess the data.
Drawn from a series of studies from British Columbia, Quebec and Ontario, the findings appear to suggest that people who got a seasonal flu shot last year are about twice as likely to catch swine flu as people who didn't.
A scientific paper has been submitted to a journal and the lead authors - Dr. Danuta Skowronski of the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control and Dr. Gaston De Serres of Laval University - are constrained about what they can say about the work. Journals bar would-be authors from discussing their results before they are published.
Skowronski, who at first declined to speak after news of the findings hit the media Wednesday, said it's important that the work gets the expert scrutiny the journal peer-review system provides.
"Good scientists know that methods can influence results," she said from Vancouver.
"For me, it's very important that we respect the peer-review process as good scientists. Because the implications ... are important. And if there are methodologic flaws, we need to be assured that every stone was turned over to make sure what we're reporting is valid."

http://news.ca.msn.com/canada/cp-art...entid=21891242