NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci Predicts “Severe” Flu Season Due To Weak Vaccines.

reports National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Dr. Anthony Fauci on Wednesday “warned ... that the United States could experience a ‘relatively severe influenza season’” if the US follows the pattern of Australia, where the Times says “health officials reported record-high rates of flu, as well as above-average numbers of hospitalizations and deaths,” because the country’s vaccine for the flu strain H3N2 – a vaccine also administered in the US – “had an effectiveness of only 10%.” Dr. Fauci wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine, “As we prepare for a potentially severe influenza season, we must consider whether our current vaccines can be improved.” He also said in an interview, “The very process of how we make the vaccine creates an unanticipated, almost accidental mismatch, which is what happened in Australia this year.” Dr. Fauci added that he has made developing a universal vaccine “a high priority.” ABC News (11/29, Thorbecke) reports online that Dr. Fauci and NIAID colleagues wrote in the journal that Australia’s season has “caused mounting concern, with record-high numbers of laboratory-confirmed influenza notifications and outbreaks and higher-than-average numbers of hospitalizations and deaths.” The piece adds the US CDC “says that an annual flu vaccine is the ‘the first and most important step in protecting against flu viruses.’” http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-flu-season-h3n2-story.html