Dr. Brownstein: New Shingrix Vaccine for Shingles Fails 97% of Time

A recent article in the New York Times got me going–it was titled, “CDC Panel Recommends a New Shingles Vaccine.” The new vaccine—Shingrix—is manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline for adults 50 and older. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which is part of the CDC, now recommends Shingrix over the old shingles vaccine—Merck’s Zostavax. Amazingly, the new recommendations now state that adults who have received the older shingles vaccine should now get the new one. The article in the NYT states, "…clinical trials showed {Shingrix} to be about 98% effective for one year and 85% effective at preventing shingles for three years." I have written about the failure of the older vaccine-Zostavax—for many years. In those articles, I show you that Zostavax fails nearly 99% who take it. Naturally, anything that fails 99% who take it, should not be prescribed. Let’s look at the Shingrix data. A true statement about Shingrix is that it takes 34 people to be vaccinated with Shingrix to prevent one case of shingles. That means the drug failed 33 out of 34 who took it which is a 97% failure rate!

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"Therefore, a more appropriate determination of the effectiveness of Shingrix is that it is 2.9% effective"

Uh...no. Eqivocating the concepts of ARR and "effectiveness" is a logical fallacy. The data says 2.83% of unvaccinated people got shingles while 0.07% of Shingrix-vaccinated people got shingles. And while it is true that the number 2.83 minus the number 0.07 equals the number 2.76, it is false to say that the vaccine "is 2.76% effective". It is only true to say that the vaccine prevents 98% of the 2.83% who would have gotten shingles from getting shingles, and thus "is 98% effective". Of course, you personally might believe that lowering your chances of suffering life-altering neurological damage from "only" 1 in 35 down to 1 in 1,224 is not worth $300...but to a vast majority, it is. This is what the FDA is rightly recognizing.

Jamie said:

Table 2 in the package insert for Shingrix lists the incidence of HZ in the placebo group (N=7,415) as 210 cases over all age groups...this is strange to me as the incidence of HZ in the general population is 8-12 cases per 1000 individuals...so in a group of 7,415 wouldn't we expect to see 56-84 cases of HZ?

Since incidence is not uniform throughout the general population, a particular group can differ considerably depending on how it is selected, and I think it likely these groups were weighted toward higher risk segments.

With respect, for someone who professes to be an MD, your knowledge of risk and math is shockingly deficient. As a result, not surprisingly, your conclusions are backwards. For starters, see "Vaccine efficacy or vaccine effectiveness" in Lesson 3: Measures of Risk at the CDC. Unless and until you learn more about risk and math, please refrain from spreading this kind of dangerous misinformation.

You are counting people who get the vaccine, but would not have gotten the disease without the vaccine, as a "failure." That's misleading. Your method would show a huge "failure" rate for seat belts, air bags, and using your turn signals. Most car trips do not include a crash. That's not a "failure" of the seatbelts. Most turns made without using turn signals will not result in a crash or a ticket. That's not a "failure" of the turn signals. Reducing my risk of a painful and debilitating disease from 2.9% to below one-tenth of a percent sounds good to me -- and well worth $300 and two jabs in the arm! I like shedding risk.

You need to learn your statistics... and math. 210 cases vs 6 would be calculated thusly percentage wise.

210/6x100=2.875 percent subtracted from 100 would 97.125 percent less cases than the control group. It also appears you dropped a couple zeros from your .08 figure which should be .00008 which would then give you the 97% success rate.

Sorry your math is wrong you dropped to decimal point in your .08 figure which would correctly give the 97 percent success rate figure.

Could be that the study only used those 50 and over of which there is a much a higher rate of shingles occurence.

Table 2 in the package insert for Shingrix lists the incidence of HZ in the placebo group (N=7,415) as 210 cases over all age groups...this is strange to me as the incidence of HZ in the general population is 8-12 cases per 1000 individuals...so in a group of 7,415 wouldn't we expect to see 56-84 cases of HZ?