Mary Talley Bowden on flu shot: what the evidence says · JRE #2335
SUBJECT: FLU SHOT
Not a true/false call. Every claim is logged with its sources; read the exhibits below.
There was a, I think the Cleveland Clinic study said that people who took the flu shot Oh yeah, more. 24% more likely to get the flu or get other Okay, is that what the results said you 24% more likely to get sick.
What the evidence says 01 / RECORD
A 2025 Cleveland Clinic preprint tracking 53,402 health system employees during the 2024 to 2025 season did find vaccinated workers had a higher rate of influenza (hazard ratio 1.27, a calculated vaccine effectiveness of negative 26.9 percent), so the direction of Bowden's claim has a real basis, though the figure was about 27 percent, not 24 percent, and it applied to laboratory-confirmed influenza, not general sickness. The study was a non peer-reviewed preprint limited to relatively healthy healthcare workers in Ohio, and per PolitiFact it did not represent the general population and, critically, did not measure the vaccine's main purpose: reducing severe illness, hospitalization and death. Experts told PolitiFact the analysis was subject to testing bias (vaccinated staff were more likely to be tested) and other confounders, and the study's own coauthors rejected using it to claim the vaccine should be withdrawn. Presenting this single-season, one-population preprint as evidence that flu shots make people 24 percent more likely to get sick omits these limitations, so the claim is mixed.