The study, which has yet to be peer reviewed, was conducted by the Cleveland Clinic on its own employees.
Less than 100 days into the second Trump administration, the Department of Health and Human Services’ newfound skepticism of vaccine claims under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. seems to be prescient, notwithstanding media hand-wringing.
The current flu vaccine, whose effectiveness is a tossup every year, in fact makes infection substantially more likely than not getting jabbed, according to the latest Cleveland Clinic study of its own employees. The study has yet to be peer-reviewed, which means it’s new medical research that has yet to be evaluated and so should not be used to guide clinical practice.
Nearly 44,000 of its 53,000 employees for whom age and sex data were recorded received the flu vaccine during the 25-week study, a research feat made possible by the Cleveland Clinic’s free, mandatory vaccination for employees without a medical or religious exemption.
About 2% got infected, according to the Cleveland Clinic research team led by infectious diseases physician Nabin Shrestha, also a professor in its medical college.
“The cumulative incidence of influenza was similar for the vaccinated and unvaccinated states early” but “increased more rapidly” for the former as the study went on through March 26, eventually reaching negative effectiveness of 27%, the researchers found.