The CDC estimates that 90 percent of flu-related deaths occur in people 65 years of age or older, and their recommended protocol is that all senior citizens get their annual flu shot. However, Sharyl Attkisson, formerly an investigative journalist for CBS, has uncovered evidence that the flu shots are not actually doing any good. In fact, she says those vaccines may actually be costing the lives of some seniors.

In her blog, Attkisson cites a buried JAMA study from almost a decade ago which showed that there was no improvement in mortality rates among senior citizens with a flu vaccine, even after greatly increased vaccination rates. The study “got little attention,” she says, “because the science came down on the wrong side.” Whereas the researchers had set out to prove that the push for massive flu vaccination would save the world, the researchers were “astonished” to find that the data did not support their presupposition at all. The data actually shows that deaths increased, not decreased, among seniors following vaccination.

Johns Hopkins scientist, Peter Doshi, Ph.D., issued a report in the prestigious British Medical Journal, according to NewsLI, asserting that the CDC policy of routinely recommending the flu vaccine is being based on “low quality studies that do not substantiate claims.” He says there is no evidence that the vaccine reduces deaths among senior citizens. Interestingly, Doshi cites an Australian study which found significant risks for children as well, stating that “one in every 110 children under the age of five had convulsions following vaccinations in 2009 for H1N1 influenza.”

During the drug trials for the Fluzone flu vaccine, 23 seniors out of 3,833 died after receiving the shot, according to the drug’s package insert, reported by Health Impact News. Another 226 experienced “serious adverse effects.” The manufacturer denies any connection between the deaths and the flu vaccine.

There appears to be growing public skepticism that the flu vaccine is as beneficial as the experts say, according to an earlier Inquisitr report. The level of doubt is strongly correlated to the incidence of accounts of research fraud in the vaccine industry, an industry which makes billions of dollars of profit every year.

Often when an article about the dangers of a vaccine comes out, there are people who write in to tell about a family member who was harmed by the vaccine, and the flu vaccine for senior citizens in no exception. A number of people have written to report that their grandmother, or uncle, or brother died shortly after getting a flu shot, sometimes after receiving their first ever such shot. Their stories are frequently minimized, yet the government pays out more compensation from the flu vaccine than any other vaccine.

Despite this, it is increasingly expected that every senior citizen line up for their annual flu shot.

A nursing home near Atlanta, Georgia, now reports a devastating outcome to such a policy, according to Health Impact News. All of the residents of the Hope Assisted Living & Memory Care were given a flu vaccine on Friday, November 7. Every one of the senior citizens developed an immediate fever. Within the week following, five of them died. The source reports that the facility’s typical pattern is one or two losses every six months, frequently due to Alzheimer’s.

“The facility is not saying they are related to the flu shot but we all know they are, and they know they are.”

Questions must be asked, then, such as: do the benefits of getting a flu vaccine outweigh the risks, especially among vulnerable senior citizens? Or would they be better off choosing to reject the shot? Who benefits if evidence showing the harm of the vaccine is buried? And what would be the motive for fabricating evidence of harm if none exists? If the facts are as solid as some insist, then why do they seem to be threatened by the data being challenged? Shouldn’t truth be able to stand up under scrutiny?

[images via NY Daily News and GalleryHip]