Professor Michael Baker’s Flu Vaccine Claims: The Evidence He Isn’t Discussing

Professor Michael Baker’s Flu Vaccine Claims: The Evidence He Isn’t Discussing

Professor Michael Baker has been all over New Zealand media this winter, warning of record high deaths in the worst flu season in a decade and promoting the flu vaccine as protection against heart attacks and strokes. But the research he cites is weaker than his messaging suggests, and the modifiable risk factors he ignores are stronger. And there is theory and evidence to suggest our immune-injured population is uniquely vulnerable. 

The Cardiovascular Claim

Baker claims influenza vaccination reduces heart attacks and strokes by about 30%. There is indeed some data from high-risk groups. A 2021 Norwegian study found reduced relative risk of heart attack (RR 0.72), stroke (RR 0.77), and pulmonary embolism (RR 0.73) among cardiovascular medication users. A 2022 Alberta study of 4 million adults found reduced stroke hazard (HR 0.775).

However both studies were observational and neither reported the number needed to vaccinate to prevent one event, nor the absolute risk reduction from which it could be calculated. The relative risk reductions sound impressive, but without knowing the baseline risk, the absolute benefit for any individual remains unstated. This is a recurring feature of the evidence base Baker and his colleagues rely upon.

Trying to be fair, there is a plausible mechanism. Influenza infection (like all infections) triggers inflammation, and clotting tendency goes with it. But this is not the vaccine “protecting the heart” – if it does prevent an infection then it prevents a trigger. And the benefit concentrates in those already at high cardiovascular risk, whereas vaccines go predominantly into healthy people who have a different risk-benefit calculation. 

If Baker is going to claim flu jabs are good for cardiovascular disease, then what about the covid-19 injections? Those same risk factors of clotting, endothelial dysfunction and myocardial inflammation are precisely the ones the gene transfer products can cause. The difference is that Baker looks in one direction only. If influenza vaccination reduces cardiovascular events by preventing an inflammatory trigger, what does repeated mRNA vaccination do to that same system when the spike protein it produces is itself pro-inflammatory and pro-thrombotic? The question answers itself. You cannot claim credit for preventing a trigger while ignoring the trigger you inject.

What Baker Does Not Mention

• Vitamin D. A meta-analysis of 25 randomised trials found a 12% reduction in acute respiratory infections overall, and a 30% reduction in those with levels below 10 ng/mL. A 2026 Harvard analysis of over 36,000 adults found those with the lowest levels were 33% more likely to be hospitalised.

• Zinc. A 2026 review in Nutrients found zinc supplementation reduces the incidence and burden of respiratory infections, particularly in children with recurrent disease and in zinc-deficient populations. Starship Hospital has been overwhelmed this winter. Zinc deficiency is common in growing children.

• NAC. A randomised double-blind trial of 262 subjects found long-term NAC (600mg twice daily) significantly reduced the frequency, severity, and bed-rest days of influenza-like episodes. Among those with confirmed infection, only 25% of the NAC group developed symptoms compared with 79% of the placebo group.

• Hand hygiene. A 2023 Cochrane review found hand hygiene reduced acute respiratory illness by 14%. School trials in Bangladesh and Egypt found 50 to 53% reductions in laboratory-confirmed influenza.

• Saline nasal rinses and gargles. Multiple studies support their role in respiratory infections, including covid-19.

These interventions cost almost nothing and have no serious adverse effects. Baker does not mention any of them. The vaccine is the only solution offered.

Burrell and the Absence of Numbers

Dr Buzz Burrell, Chair of General Practitioners Aotearoa, ‘joined the choir’ on RNZ’s Saturday programme this winter to discuss “surviving winter flu season.” He was non-specific about the degree of protection the vaccine offers. He did not mention the number needed to vaccinate to prevent one case. He did not discuss absolute risk reduction.

So we have two mainstream doctors, both promoting the flu jab, neither quantifying its benefit, neither discussing the evidence for prevention strategies that work.

On Flu Jab Safety, Baker Is on More Solid Ground, if He Ever Mentions It

The flu jab is held up as being safe, reliably enough that other vaccines are compared to it. But here is where some of the most damning evidence against the covid gene transfer products comes from. Baker’s claims of their safety have to deal with proportionate reporting ratios of complications, for instance related to pregnancy and women’s health, of hundreds of times greater than for the flu jab, as reported by Thorp, Rose, McCullough and others.

Dr James Thorp, a board-certified obstetrician with over 45 years of experience, testified to the Allison Inquiry in Canada this year. At this powerful (unofficial) parliament examination of the damage to Canadians he cited a 271-fold increase in miscarriage reporting compared to the influenza vaccine in his letter to the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology, a 177-fold increase in the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons journal, and a 114-fold increase in Science, Public Health Policy and the Law.

Thorp acknowledges VAERS reports do not prove causation, but he is claiming that extreme safety signals must not be ignored, and who would disagree? Further, his analyses do not stand alone. He cites Michelle Gershman in Fresno, who saw stillbirths go from one to two per quarter to multiple per week. He cites Lions Gate Hospital in Vancouver, with 13 stillbirths in 24 hours, figures supported by five care providers. He cites Czech data showing a 30% reduction in birth rates. He cites a Turkish rodent study showing 60% of primary ovarian follicles destroyed.

The Cochrane Evidence for Children

Baker promotes, and the government now funds, the flu vaccine for children down to 6 months. The Cochrane review found overall efficacy of inactivated vaccines was 64% against laboratory-confirmed influenza, but only 28% against influenza-like illness. More critically, data on hospitalisation were not available.

The Hospitalisation Fear Message

The fear message is that really sick kiddies are filling hospitals and the flu vaccine is the answer. A 2007 study calculated that with 50% vaccine efficacy (actually optimistic as flu jabs go), the number needed to vaccinate to prevent one hospitalisation ranged from 1,031 to 3,050 for children aged 6 to 23 months, and from 4,255 to 6,897 for those aged 24 to 59 months. Those numbers are nowhere in the public messaging. Parents, the chance of your child being destined to get the flu than having its infection prevented is really this small. 

The Cleveland Clinic Study Showed It Doesn’t Always Work

A 2025 Cleveland Clinic study found flu vaccine recipients had a 27% higher risk of testing positive for influenza than unvaccinated employees, tracking over 53,000 employees. The same clinic published the Shrestha study on covid-19 boosters causing more covid infections. It is inconsistent to accept one while ignoring the other.

The GVDN Study

Concerning causes of vascular disease, the Global Vaccine Data Network study assessed 99 million covid-vaccinated individuals across 10 sites. Typically portrayed as reassuring, it actually confirmed safety signals for myocarditis, pericarditis, Guillain-Barré syndrome, and cerebral venous sinus thrombosis. Acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (brain inflammation) showed an observed-to-expected ratio of 3.78 after the first mRNA-1273 dose.

Full study: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38350768/

The GVDN is hosted by UniServices, owned by the University of Auckland. Its co-director was Dr Helen Petousis-Harris. The study was CDC-funded and terminated 13 months early after a US Department of Government Efficiency review in March 2025. It examined only 13 selected events. And these systems suffer under-reporting by factors of up to 20 to 40 times. Actual harms can be many times greater than published.

Other Safety Signals Baker Has Never Discussed

Ischaemic stroke. The CDC’s Vaccine Safety Datalink met statistical criteria to prompt investigation into ischemic stroke in people 65 and older who received the Pfizer bivalent injection.

Renal disease. A 2024 review of autoimmune kidney disease following covid jabs identified 35 cases, 74% following mRNA vaccines, with acute kidney injury the presenting feature in 43%.

These are vasculopathy-correlated conditions and deserve investigation.

The Immunology of This Winter’s Flu

The strain supposedly dominating this winter is influenza A/H3N2, subclade K. Influenza immunity is shaped by lifetime exposure. Immunology 101 says the first strain you encounter imprints your immune system most strongly. Subsequent infections and vaccinations produce progressively narrower responses. This is called original antigenic sin.

But here is the question we want to raise: does this standard model still apply to the covid-19 vaccinated?

There is evidence that repeated mRNA vaccination induces antibody class switching to IgG4 (tolerance of infections, and cancer cells, rather than attack), reduces CD4 and CD8 lymphocyte responses, and may exhaust T cell populations critical to innate immunity. If the immune system’s baseline set point has been altered, does the standard model of influenza immunity still hold?

‘Original antigenic sin’ appears to have played out for covid-19 too. This is where the first strain exposed by vaccine or infection can skew subsequent responses as the virus evolves, known as antigenic drift. A 2023 Nature paper by Cao Yunlong’s team confirmed this immune imprinting. Separately, a 2023 study in Circulation by Yonker et al detected free, unbound spike protein in adolescents who developed post-vaccine myocarditis, but not in asymptomatic controls.

If original antigenic sin has already played out for covid-19, why can we not ask whether it also affects immunity to influenza?

Finally, ‘vaccine interference’ is recognised in immunology, where one vaccine might suppress resistance to other infections. The 2019 Department of Defense study by Wolff examined virus interference and found an odds ratio of 1.36 for seasonal coronaviruses among influenza-vaccinated personnel, though the study’s overall conclusion – perhaps as insurance to get published – was that there was little to no evidence supporting virus interference

So What Has Changed?

New Zealand has had reliably predictable influenza pandemics before and coped far better. Although it had its moments the health system was not overwhelmed every winter. The hospitals did not fill with children in respiratory distress every year.

So what is different this time?

The rise in sudden deaths, cancer, excess mortality, the increase in long-term sickness, the overwhelmed paediatric wards – none of these are explained by influenza alone. Something has altered the baseline health of the population.

Baker’s answer is more vaccination. Our response is a question, though clearly rhetorical. What if the immune-skewing, clot-forming interventions of the past five years are part of the explanation, not the solution?

Conclusion

The relentless promotion of yet more vaccines for the ills of the health system is worse than fiddling while Rome burns. It is adding petrol, in the form of the gene transfer modified RNA jabs, while the absolute silence on non-drug strategies such as vitamin D, nutrients, rinses and gargles – not to mention quality sleep, stress reduction, exercise – is akin to turning off the fire hose.

But, generally, vaccine hesitancy is increasing, so Professor Baker scrabbling around for something good to say about one of them is a predictable response. They will be telling us soon that mRNA jabs cure cancer, not cause it. But wait..

What is your assessment? Is Baker’s cardiovascular claim a distraction from the real safety questions? Are covid-vaccinated children and adults at particular risk from all infections including influenza? And why do modifiable risk factors like vitamin D, zinc, and NAC receive so little public health attention when the evidence for them is far stronger than the evidence for some vaccines?