A new study has concluded that this year's flu vaccine was only 10% effective.

The study, from the journal Eurosurveillance, found that the flu vaccine was only 10 percent effective against H3N2 (the main flu subtype going around this season) among adults in Canada.

“The evidence is mounting, from Australia and now from Canada, that the vaccine protection is low [this year],” said lead study author Danuta Skowronski, an influenza epidemiologist at the British Columbia Center for Disease Control.

....in Australia, where the flu season peaks in August and H3N2 struck as well, early flu vaccine estimates suggested the shot was only 10 percent effective there too.

“Our findings reinforce the concerns that were expressed from Australia using the same vaccine [formulation] for their 2017 epidemic,” she said.

The article claims that the flu vaccine is more effective in some years than others, because the flu virus mutates and scientists have to guess what the virus will be like in a year's time.

I'm skeptical about this. A vaccine that is supposedly 10% effective? It sounds like natural immunity is stronger than the "vaccine." You have to wonder how many of those ten percent would have caught the virus anyway even if they hadn't been vaccinated.

The vaccine is not risk free. It has side effects. Past statistics about 50% or 70% effectiveness have been manipulated just as much as global temperature readings. A claim of 50% effectiveness does not mean that 50% fewer people get infected. And other studies have shown that the flu vaccine is questionable at best:

• The Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine has reported that giving young children flu shots appeared to have no impact on flu-related doctor visits or hospitalizations during two recent flu seasons.
• A large-scale, systematic review of 51 studies published in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews found that the flu vaccine was no more effective for children than a placebo.
• And research published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine similarly reports that there has been no decrease in deaths from influenza and pneumonia, despite the fact that vaccination coverage among the elderly has increased from 15 percent in 1980 to 65 percent today.

The primary purpose of the flu vaccine seems to be to make the government look like it's being effective and to enrich certain drug companies.

What will it take to get people to stop believing in the flu vaccine? A 5% effective rate? A 1% effective rate? The people who believe in the flu vaccine in the face of contrary evidence remind me of the cultists who believe in global warming, the cultists who believed in Obama... and other people like that whose only immunity are to facts.

Ed Straker is the senior writer at Newsmachete.com.