culdeus said:
KidDoc said:
Never. Outside of just gathering data I cannot think of a reason to test for any antibodies routinely.
Isn't random antibody testing how they go back and evaluate the standard flu vax effectiveness after the fact?
Was under impression they would take samples from different major hospitals.
Good question I honestly don't know how they estimate flu vax efficacy year to year.
So I looked it up- it is not titers:
CDC typically presents vaccine effectiveness (VE) as a single point estimate: for example, 60%. This point estimate represents the reduction in risk provided by the flu vaccine.
CDC vaccine effectiveness studies measure two outcomes: laboratory confirmed flu illness that results in a doctor's visit or laboratory-confirmed flu that results in hospitalization. For these outcomes, a VE point estimate of 60% means that on average the flu vaccine reduces a person's risk of a flu outcome by 60%.
In addition to the VE point estimate, CDC also provides a "confidence interval" (CI) for this point estimate, for example, 60% (95% CI: 50%-70%). The confidence interval provides a lower boundary for the VE estimate (e.g., 50%) as well as an upper boundary (e.g., 70%). One way to interpret a 95% confidence interval is that if CDC were to repeat this study 100 times and calculate 100 confidence intervals, 95 times out of 100, the confidence interval would contain the true VE value. A simpler interpretation is that there is a 95% chance that the true VE lies within the confidence interval therefore, there is still the possibility that five times out of 100 (a 5% chance) the true VE value could fall outside of the 50%-70% confidence interval.
Source:
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/vaccines-work/vaccineeffect.htm No material on this site is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. See full
Medical Disclaimer.
