Available evidence insufficient to assess safety and effectiveness of flu vaccines for older people
- Correspondence to Edward Purssell
Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery, King's College London, James Clerk Maxwell Building, 57 Waterloo Road, London SE1 8WA, UK; edward.purssell{at}kcl.ac.uk
Vaccines for preventing flu in older people
Flu is a major cause of morbidity and mortality, and one of the cornerstones of its control is annual vaccination. This Cochrane Review looks at the prevention of seasonal flu in people aged over 65 years. Despite finding a large number of studies, the authors were unable to come to a conclusion about the effect of vaccination in this group, in part because of the low methodological quality of the studies reviewed.
Vaccine research is complex, and the complexities are multiplied when disparate studies are combined, which also probably accounts for some of the lack …
