Kim Beckham, insurance agent in Victoria, Texas, had his friends so much suffering for the blanket (shingles) that he wanted to receive the first approved vaccine against this infection as soon as he was available, even if he had to pay it out of his pocket.
His doctor and various pharmacies told him that they could not administer the vaccine because he was not recommended at that time, who was 60 years old. So in 2016 he celebrated his 60th birthday on his local CFS.
“I was there when they opened,” Beckham recalled. After receiving his injection from Zostavax, he said, “I felt very relieved.” Since then he has received the Cubal vaccine, more recent and more effective, in addition to others: against pneumonia, the synchronization respiratory virus (VRS), the annual doses against the flu and all those against COVID-19.
Some older people are very happy to be vaccinated.
Robin Wolaner, 71, a retired editor of Sausalito, California, knows her because she is insisting on her friends who take to receive the recommended vaccines, send relevant medical studies. “I have them a little seromed,” he admitted.
Deana Hendrickson, 66, who provides three small grandchildren in Los Angeles, asked for an extra dose of the triple viral (Spr), although she was vaccinated against measles, paper and girl’s rubella, she did it in case her immunity for measles.
For older adults who express more confidence in the safety of vaccines than younger groups, they have conducted very positive research in recent months.
Recent studies have discovered important benefits of a new vaccine, improved versions and another that could offer an important advantage that nobody provided.
The new studies come at a tense political moment. The secretary of the health of the nation, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has long loved certain vaccines and qualifies them as uncertain and explains that the government officials they regulate are corrupt and compromised.
On June 9, Kennedy rejected a panel of scientific advisers of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and then replaced by some skeptical about immunisations. Until now, however, Kennedy has not tried to limit access to vaccines for large Americans.
The proof that vaccines are favorable is still overwhelming.
The “Vaccines are no longer alone for children” He has become one of William Schaffner’s favorites, a specialist in infectious diseases at the University of Vanderbilt Medical Center.
“The population older than 65, who often suffers from the worst impact of respiratory viruses and others, now benefits from vaccines that can prevent many of these serious diseases,” Schaffner said.
Let’s take the flu, which sends 140,000 to 710,000 people to hospitals every year, most of them seniorsAnd is deadly for 10% of the older adults admitted to the hospital.
For about 15 years, CDCs have approved various improved flu vaccines for people aged 65 or older. More effective than standard formulation, these vaccines contain higher levels of antigen that generate protection against virus or contain an adjuvans that creates a stronger immune response. They are also recombinant vaccines, developed with a different method, with higher levels of antigen.
In a Meta analysis published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, “all improved vaccines were higher than the standard dose to prevent hospital admissions,” said Rebecca Morgan, health research methodologist at Case Western Reserve and author of the study.
Compared to standard flu vaccine, improved vaccines They reduced the risk of flu -international In older adults between 11% and 18%. Recommend CDC Adults older than 65 Receive improved vaccines, as many already do.
More good news: vaccines to prevent the synchronization -breathing virus in people older than 60 yielding good results.
The VRS is the most common cause of hospitalization in babies and also forms significant risks for older adults. “Season after temporad, produces outbreaks of serious respiratory diseases that rival flu,” said Schaffner.
As the United States Drug and Food Administration (FDA) approved a VRS vaccine for the first time in 2023, the 2023-24 season “offered the first opportunity to observe it in a real context,” said Pauline Terebuh, epidemiologist of the Western Reserve and author of the Faculty of Medicine A recent study Published in Jama Network Open Magazine.
When analyzing electronic medical records of nearly 800,000 patients, researchers discovered that vaccines had an efficacy of 75% against acute infection, that is, serious diseases such as patients ask for an appointment with a care provider.
Vaccins had an efficacy of 75 % in preventing visits to first aid and 75 % in hospital admissions, in people aged 60 to 74 and older.
Although they obtain a slightly lower level of protection from the vaccine, immunosuppressive patients will also benefit from vaccination, Terebuh said.
With regard to the side effects, the study revealed a very low risk of Guillain-Barré syndrome, an unusual condition that causes muscle weakness and usually appears after an infection, in approximately 11 cases per doses of vaccin. This, he emphasized, “should not scare people.”
Now CDC vaccination recommends VRs for people older than 75, and for 60 to 74 years if they have a higher risk of serious illness (for example, due to heart conditions).
Since data is available from the 2024-25 season, researchers hope to determine whether the vaccine of a single dose remains or whether immunity requires every determined period of time.
People older than 65 hours express the greatest trust in vaccine security than any other group of adults, according to a KFF survey in April. More than 80% claimed to have “a lot” or “something” trust in measles vaccines, rubella, pneumonia and flu.
Although the Covid vaccine received lower support in adults, more than two -thirds of the elderly people expressed trust in their safety.
Even skeptics can become enthusiastic about a possible advantage of the general vaccine: this spring, researchers at Stanford University reported that vaccination against the sake reduced The risk of dementia at 20%A finding that stood in the headlines.
Prejudices often undermine observational studies that compare vaccinated groups. “The healthiest people and with the greatest health motivation are those who vaccinate,” said Pascal Geldetzer, an epidemiologist of the Knight initiative for Stanford’s brain power, and main author of the study.
“It is difficult to know if it is a relationship of cause and effect or whether they have less chance of developing dementia,” he added.
The Stanford team therefore benefited from a ‘natural experiment’ when the first vaccine against Herpes Zóster, Zostavax, was introduced to Wales. The health authorities have set a strict age limit: the people who became 80 on 1 September 2013 or earlier did not qualify for vaccination, but who were even a little younger.
In the sample of nearly 300,000 adults whose birthdays coincided with that date, almost half of the eligible group received the vaccine, but practically nobody from the older group did it.
“As in any essay, these comparison groups must be comparable in all aspects,” Weldetzer explained. A substantial reduction in dementia diagnoses in the eligible group for the vaccine, with a much greater protective effect on women, is therefore a “more powerful and convincing evidence,” he said.
The team has also observed a reduction of dementia rates after the introduction of vaccines against Herpes Zentster In Australia And other countries. “We will continue to observe this in a data set after another,” concluded Geldetzer.
In the United States, where a more powerful vaccine, shingrix, was launched in 2017 and Zostavax replaced, researchers from the University of Oxford noticed An even stronger effect.
When comparing nearly 104,000 large Americans who received a first dose of the new vaccine (full immunization requires two) with a group that had received the previous formulation, they saw a delay in the appearance of dementia in the Shingrix group.
It has not yet explained how a vaccine against herpes could reduce dementia. Scientists have suggested that viruses can contribute to dementia themselves, so suppressing them could protect the brain. Perhaps the vaccine reactivates the immune system in general or influences inflammation.
“I don’t think anyone knows,” said Paul Harrison, a psychiatrist at Oxford University and the main author of the study. But: “Now I am convinced that there is something real here,” he said.
Shingrix, now recommended for adults older than 50, has An efficacy of 90% In the prevention of Herpes Zóster and the persistent nerve pain that it can generate. In 2021, however, Only 41% of adults 60 years or older He had received a dose of a few vaccines against the Herpes Zóster.
The connection with dementia requires more research and Voeldetzer tries to raise money from philanthropes for a clinical test.
And “if I needed another reason to be vaccinated, you will have it here,” said Schaffner.
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