Some Flu Vaccines May Work Better Than Others — but Guidance to the Public is Scant

At the most recent meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), vaccine researcher Stanley Plotkin recommended the committee consider issuing preferential recommendations for influenza vaccines that appear to have performance advantages over the competition, reports STAT . However, flu experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) claim they do not have the authority to signal a preference for some vaccines, due to a lack of evidence that the vaccines people believe are more protective really are. Next week the CDC is expected to publish interim estimates of how well the flu vaccine is working this year, but those studies are too small to assess how each individual brand of vaccine performed. Michael Osterholm at the University of Minnesota has urged increasing the sample size to extract detailed efficacy information. The CDC's Dan Jernigan notes companies may eventually decide they want to perform studies themselves to show their vaccines are more protective, and said Sanofi did this with a high-dose vaccine it wanted to focus on adults 65 and older. Some experts warn if the CDC's preferential recommendation is not evidence-based, the advice could be misguided.