Quote:
Originally Posted by Bagor
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Hopefully there is at least some review before the seasonal vaccination becomes available. There doesn't really seem to be a plausible mechanism for a previous flu vaccine making someone more susceptible to H1N1 (based on the current knowledge of immunology), and statistically significant results can be obtained in a study by random chance, but a 2x difference seems large. The result could be methodology related, or due to people who are more likely to get influenza also being more likely to get vaccinated, but it's all speculation without seeing the actual paper. I certainly wouldn't panic over the media spin on preliminary, unreviewed results (lots of times before results like this have been found to be false alarms after careful review), especially since the study authors themselves haven't said anything, but will be keeping an eye on this all the same.
Edit - apparently health agencies in several other countries (including the US and Australia) have done similar studies and not found this result, and there is a lot of skepticism about the study. There's also been a lot of criticism of the journal for holding back the results rather than letting the scientific community look at the study, given the potential importance.