Wednesday, November 21, 2018 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
High-dose flu vaccine
reducing hospitalizations
PORTLAND — High-
dose influenza vaccine
reduces hospitalization for
the virus among Oregon
seniors, a new Oregon Health
Authority study has found.
The study of more than
144,000 seniors, ages 65 and
older, living in the Portland
metropolitan area showed
that high-dose flu vaccine
was 31 percent more effec-
tive at preventing senior flu-
related hospitalizations than
the standard-dose flu vaccine
during the 2016-2017 sea-
son, according to the study
appearing in the scientific
journal Vaccine.
A high-dose vaccine con-
tains four times the antigen
of a standard flu vaccine.
Antigens are the molecular
structures on the surfaces of
viruses that trigger the body’s
immune response. Seniors
typically have a weaker
immune response to stan-
dard influenza vaccines than
younger adults, and benefit
from vaccines that are high-
dose or “adjuvanted” specifi-
cally for seniors.
Putting another chemical,
an adjuvant, into the vac-
cine helps create a stronger
reaction to the antigen of the
vaccine. Seniors should get
a vaccine that is intended to
boost their immune response.
Steve Robison, epide-
miologist in the Oregon
Immunization Program, is the
lead study author. Co-author
is Anne Thomas, M.D., pub-
lic health physician in the
Acute and Communicable
Disease Prevention Section.
They say protecting vulner-
able seniors during flu sea-
son each year is a constant
challenge.
“Seniors are at greater risk
of severe illness from flu,”
Thomas said. “What’s more,
typical flu vaccine doses
aren’t adequately protective
for many seniors. We wanted
to know whether a widely
used high-dose flu vaccine
would benefit a large popula-
tion of seniors, particularly in
reducing hospitalizations.”
For their study, Robison
and Thomas focused on
seniors who reported
receiving a flu vaccine by
December 11, 2016, which
is roughly four weeks before
the typical onset of substan-
tial local flu disease activity.
It also ensured that seniors
who received the vaccine had
enough time to achieve full
“seroconversion,” which is
when flu antibodies develop
and become detectable.
The study population con-
sisted of 78,602 seniors who
received high-dose flu vac-
cine and 65,705 seniors who
received the standard vaccine
dose.
Robison and Thomas
found that senior use of high-
dose flu vaccine, compared
with standard-dose vaccine,
was associated with a “sub-
stantial reduction in the risk
of hospitalization” with lab-
oratory-confirmed influenza.
“The message is: do not
give the standard flu vaccine
to seniors. Give the high-dose
vaccine or adjuvanted vac-
cine,” Robison said. He said
that while the adjuvanted
vaccine was not addressed
in the study, it also is a good
alternative to the standard-
dose vaccine for seniors.
Robison explained that
because adult influenza is
not a reportable disease in
the United States, only lim-
ited data on actual amounts
of disease exist. However,
due to funding from CDC’s
Emerging Infections
Program, the OHA’s Acute
and Communicable Disease
Prevention program tracks
influenza hospitalizations in
the Portland metro area.
LETTERS
Continued from page 2
To the Editor:
I’d like to start by thanking those of you
who shared your appreciation of last month’s
letter and in honor of the Thanksgiving holi-
day, I would like to share a few things that I am
thankful for this November.
Even though enrollment is down two stu-
dents this month, it is still above our projected
enrollment for the start of the year. The past
two years, we have started below our pro-
jection, so starting above is evidence of the
growth that is happening in Sisters Country. I
am thankful to see the growth in our schools.
I am thankful to a great staff. The Sisters
School District At-A-Glance Profiles were
released by the state and English, math, and sci-
ence scores are up throughout the district. Our
third-grade language arts scores are 17% above
the state average. At Sisters Middle School our
language arts scores are 12% above the state
average and science is 26 percent above the
state average. At the High School, our fresh-
man “on track” rate improved to nearly 90 per-
cent, and our graduation rate is up.
I am thankful for a supportive community.
We have many great partners as well as a com-
munity that has supported us with both a facili-
ties and a local option bond. The community
not only values a strong school system, they
get involved as partners and volunteers that
support the many experiential learning oppor-
tunities for our students.
Please note the next board meeting is
December 12 at 5 p.m. in the District office.
These are public meetings and offer a great
way to see how our students, staff, administra-
tors, volunteers and community members all
come together to make our District one of the
best in Oregon!
Curt Scholl, SSD Superintendent
s
s
s
To the Editor:
The Central Oregon Rancher Magazine is
hosting an event November 20 in Prineville
titled “Log It, Graze It or Watch It Burn. The
Solution.” Their intention is to get together and
solve the problem of catastrophic fires in our
forests. All solutions and input from the pub-
lic will be hand-delivered to elected officials
in Washington, DC. (Isn’t it kind of cute how
some people still have faith that the Trump
administration could actually fix something?)
Not surprisingly, their announcement makes no
mention of climate change, the most significant
factor behind these monster fires.
Thinking that solving the forest-fire prob-
lem by simply logging it or thinning excessive
fuel load ignores the fact that the slash left over
can create its own problems. In Paradise, some
researchers found that logging in a burned area
after a fire in 2008, intending to clear out fuels
and make that area safer, may have had the
opposite effect because of fast-burning weeds
and young trees that allowed the fire to spread
even more rapidly.
One partial solution would be to stop sub-
sidizing the oil, gas and coal industries (and
grazing). The fossil fuel companies get corpo-
rate welfare to the tune of $14.7 billion from
the federal government and $5.8 billion in
state-level incentives for a total of $20.5 bil-
lion annually. This is a conservative estimate
based solely on production subsidies — tax-
payer money that goes directly to producing
more fossil fuels.
We should be subsidizing sustainable
resource companies like wind and solar and
small-diameter wood utilization for use as bio-
fuels instead of fossil fuels as energy sources.
Marketable biofuels would not only help to
reduce fuel loads and create jobs but would
help to slow down our use of fossil fuels, a
necessity in the ongoing effort to combat cli-
mate change.
Terry Weygandt
Smile,
Sisters!
We’re committed
to your dental
health!
Exceptional Health,
Prevention & Aesthetics
For Your Family!
Trevor Frideres d.m.d.
p 541-549-9486 f 541-549-9110
410 E. Cascade Ave. • P.O. Box 1027 • Sisters
Hours: Mon., 9 a.m.-6 p.m.; Tues.-Wed., 8 a.m.-4 p.m.;
Thurs., 7 a.m.-3 p.m.
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