Tag Archives: flu shots

Are Flu Shots Necessary for your Family?

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DO YOU KNOW ENOUGH TO DECIDE IF YOUR FAMILY SHOULD GET FLU SHOTS?

Vol. 6 Issue 132

With flu season soon upon us, you should consider the following information before deciding if your family will get the flu shot.

Each year a “flu shot” is prepared based on the guess-work of Federal health agency officials, who try to determine which of three flu strains will be prevalent in the U.S. during the following year, so they can select which strain to include in the vaccine.

The flu vaccine is prepared from fluids of chick embryos that have been inoculated with a specific type of influenza virus. The virus is then activated with formaldehyde and preserved with thimerosal — a derivative of mercury.

If health officials select the correct strain of the virus, the vaccine is thought to be 70-80% effective in preventing the flu in healthy persons under 65 years of age — the efficacy drops to only 30-40% among those over 65 years. Health officials don’t always make the right prediction, which lowers the effectiveness for that year.

According to the National Vaccine Information Center’s fact sheet, “Influenza is a respiratory infection that produces fever, chills, sore throat, muscle aches and cough.” Symptoms can last for a week or longer and can be deadly for the elderly or those suffering from diabetes, kidney dysfunction and heart disease.

The vaccine does not protect against throat, respiratory, gastrointestinal and ear infections caused by bacteria or other kinds of viruses; it serves only to provide temporary immunity against the three specific viral strains included in the year’s vaccine.

Adverse reactions typically being within 12 hours of vaccination and last for several days; these include fever, fatigue, painful joints and headaches. The most serious reaction, which occurs within two to four weeks of vaccination is Guillain-Barre Syndrome, which is characterized by muscle weakness, unsteady gait, numbness, tingling, pain and sometimes paralysis of one or more limbs or the face.

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, those at high-risk include any person who is sick with a fever, has an impaired immune system, has an egg or mercury allergy, and has a history of Guillian-Barre Syndrome. Pregnant women should be aware the flu vaccine contains the mercury-derivative thimerosal, which has been linked to causing brain damage and developmental delays in babies whose mothers were exposed to high levels of mercury during pregnancy.

SOURCE: National Vaccine Information Center, NVIC, www.909shot.com/Diseases/influenzafacts.htm; 800-909-shot.

Vaccinations for Profit, Not Safety

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Standard Vaccination Schedule For Profit, Not Safety

Vol. 14 Issue 43

The immunization schedule in this country keeps growing ever more complex as time goes on. (Or, we might say, as “Big Pharma” finds more and more ways to make a profit.)

Thirty years ago, infants were only vaccinated against five diseases – diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, rotavirus and polio. Now, according to standard immunization schedules, healthy infants are scheduled to receive immunizations against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis B, Haemophilus influenzae type b, varicella, and pneumococcus.

The CDC’s recommended vaccination schedule now states that American children should receive 25 to 30 vaccines before they are 5 years old. But look at the grid for these immunizations: When your tiny, helpless baby is just 2 months old, he or she could visit the doctor and be immunized for – all in one day – Hepatitis B, rotavirus, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, Haemophilus influenza B, pneumococcal and polio. At 12 months, the list is even more horrible.

And while an adult may have more strength with which to fight back, the assault does not stop. What vaccines would the CDC recommend for healthy adults? The Singer Health Report writer, an exceedingly healthy female of 58 years, consulted the CDC’s quiz, What Vaccines Do You Need? (http://www2.cdc.gov/nip/adultImmSched). Answering the questions (not living in a nursing home, don’t plan to travel internationally soon, etc.) the writer found that she needs a booster of Tetanus, Diptheria and Pertussis and a seasonal flu shot. By receiving these shots, she would receive 50 mcg. of thimerosal, and doses of aluminum, hydrochloric acid and formaldehyde!

Next, the quiz was consulted for an extremely healthy 45-year-old male who travels internationally for business and who lives with his mother-in-law from Venezuela. He would need the following vaccines: Measles, mumps and rubella, Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, seasonal flu, Meningococcal and the Tetanus, Diptheria and Pertussis booster. This healthy person, if he caught up on his vaccinations before his next international trip, would receive 75 mcg of thimerosal plus multiple doses of aluminum, hydrochloric acid, monosodium glutamate and formaldehyde.

To understand this assault on health from this multiplicity of vaccines, it would be necessary to go much further than just an analysis of the effects of thimerosal. The effects of all the other additives and the forms of the viruses themselves – and the sheer volume of confusing and challenging material to the immune system – must be examined in detail before this subject is put to bed.

Source: National Academy of Sciences, Infant Immunizations Not Shown to Be Harmful to Children’s Immune Systems, February 20, 2010, http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=10306

Source: Centers for Disease Control, Recommended Immunization Schedule for Persons Aged 0 Through 6 Years, 2010, http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/recs/schedules/downloads/child/2010/10_0-6yrs-schedule-pr.pdf

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, What Vaccines Do You Need?, January 12, 2010, http://www2.cdc.gov/nip/adultImmSched/

Source: Institute for Vaccine Safety, Thimerosal Content in Some US Licensed Vaccines, February 23, 2010, http://www.vaccinesafety.edu/thi-table.htm

Effectiveness of Flu Shots

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Flu Vaccine Posts Dismal Performance

Vol. 13 Issue 31

The results are in regarding the effectiveness of flu vaccinations for the year 2007, and the statistics are not very good for the drug companies. During this year, the effectiveness of the vaccine in protecting Americans dropped way down to just 44 percent.

Not only did the effectiveness of the shots drop, but so did public demand for the number of doses produced. According to information released by the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, 18 million of the 121 million produced for the 2006-07 flu season went unused. The following year for the 2007-08 season, 27 million of the 140 million doses produced where never delivered.

Given this dismal rate of success, and with more and more information coming out on the potentially harmful side effects of vaccinations, wouldn’t it seem logical that doctors and government advisors would be guiding Americans to alternative flu-fighting solutions?

Unfortunately this is not the case, mainly because flu shots are a multi-billion dollar annual business in the United States and worldwide. Consider this projection: By the year 2012, the global vaccine market is expected to top $23.8 billion.

What the government and doctors did was get together with drug company representatives to see if they could come up with ways to sell the public on getting more flu shots. The American Medical Association, together with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) held a 2-day “National Influenza Vaccine Summit” that was also attended by representatives of the five pharmaceutical companies that sell flu vaccine in the United States.

One idea that came out of this conference was that doctors should become much more aggressive in “suggesting” to their patients that they get their flu shots. One attending physician said this is how his office became more proactive in making sure their patients received the shot. “When the patient signs in, the lady who is taking their information asks, ‘Have you had the flu vaccine this year?,’ and if the answer is ‘No,’ we say, “Well, today you are getting it.’”

One such aggressive effort was naming the week following Thanksgiving “National Influenza Vaccination Week” and urging people to get their flu shot. Regardless of such hype, Americans didn’t respond to this public information campaign according to CDC. Public use did not increase during this time.

It’s good to see that Americans did not respond to this added pressure to get their flu shots and that drug companies were left with millions of unused vaccine doses in their warehouses.

Americans would be wise to learn more about non-drugging means to protect themselves during the flu season. Simply staying well-rested, well-hydrated by drinking ample water, and keeping their body defense mechanisms up through good nutrition and additional vitamin intake as needed, could offer the best defense against getting the flu.

Source: The World Chiropractic Alliance. “Flu Vaccine Success Rate Down to 44% in 2007.” November 2008. http://www.worldchiropracticalliance.org/tcj/2008/nov/a.htm

Are Flu Shots Necessary?

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FLU SHOTS IN ELDERLY DON’T CUT MORTALITY RATE

Vol. 9 Issue 144

The assumed impact of flu shots in preventing death in the elderly population is in serious doubt following the release of results of an extensive statistical study.

A group of researchers under the leadership of Dr. Lone Simonsen of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases collected and analyzed massive amounts of data on flu related mortality dating from 1968 to 2001. The aim of the research was to see if observational studies claiming that flu vaccinations reduced winter mortality risk by up to 50% in the elderly population were indeed accurate.

Analyzing the data was quite a task and did involve some statistical corrective techniques to correlate the increased numbers of seniors, reported death rates in this population and increased numbers of seniors receiving inoculations.

Prior to 1980, only 15-20% of the population over 65 years of age received flu shots. By 2001, this figure had risen toward 65%. Subsequently, flu related deaths should have declined as a result. Factually, flu related deaths continued to rise as well during this period.

The only declining mortality rate statistic noted during this period was following a particularly tough flu season of 1968 and extending to the early 1980s. Researchers concluded that the decline during this time had to do with higher immunities following exposures in 1968.

However, following the early 1980s through 2001, flu related mortality figures remained constant in the 65-74 age groups despite a major rise in the number of persons receiving vaccinations. Surprisingly, mortality rates remained flat in the over 85 population throughout the years of the study.

Basically, the researchers concluded that previous observational studies had greatly overstated the benefits of influenza vaccinations. Statistically, they could not correlate declining death rates in any portion of the elderly population to increased vaccination protection. These findings should ease potential panic in the elderly population if flu shots were either unavailable or the person did not get one.

SOURCE:www.fic.nih.gov/news/inthenews/simonsenarchives.pdf