Dangerous Bacon
What the linked article notes is that administering this vaccine in the elderly is protective against pneumococcal pneumonia, but not for as long as previously hoped.
It also talks about evidence that giving this vaccine to infants establishes herd immunity that keeps the elderly from getting infected - something we've mentioned in this forum. If you keep your kids immunized, outbreaks of disease that otherwise would target other susceptible populations like the elderly are held in check.
The typical use of pneumococcal vaccine in this country (for immunizing infants)
is projected to have the following effect:
"Vaccination of healthy infants would prevent more than 12,000 cases of meningitis and bacteremia, 53,000 cases of pneumonia, 1 million episodes of otitis media, and 116 deaths due to pneumococcal infection."
Good news for children, their parents, and the rest of us who care about public health.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/283/11/1460