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Researchers found that giving workers a flu vaccine
costs more than not vaccinating -- as much as $65.59 per person during one
flu season.
Dr. Carolyn Buxton Bridges of the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia and colleagues looked at 1,184
employees of the Ford Motor Company during the 1997-1998 flu season and
1,191 during the 1998-1999 season.
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Half of these people received the vaccine.
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During the first season, the
flu shot did not make a dent in flu cases because the strains
included in the vaccine did not match the strains that actually circulated
that year.
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During the second season, the vaccine matched
the circulating flu strains and significantly cut illness: 1% of the
vaccinated workers got the flu, while 10% of unvaccinated workers
did.
- Nevertheless, even during the second season, the
cost of vaccinating workers still
outweighed the economic benefits, by over $11 per person.
Dr. Bridges told Reuters Health that most of the
respiratory illnesses healthy adults get during the flu season are not
the flu at all.
Vaccination did prevent illness and cut back on doctor
visits and missed workdays, but only during one of the two flu seasons
studied.
According to guidelines, people older than 65, the
chronically ill, and women who will be in their second or third trimester
of pregnancy during flu season are some of the groups who should get vaccinated.
The Journal of the
American Medical Association (JAMA) October 4, 2000;284:1655-1663, 1677-1682
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