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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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?