To vaccinate or not

[Grand Illusion]

The Choice Is Yours

Viruses like the flu bug are not the problem. The real problem: Most people have weakened and impaired immune systems that are unable to function as they’re designed to because of horrendous dietary habits.

It is believed that elderly people and young children die from the flu not because of the virus itself but because they are already sick, are bearing heavy toxic burdens, and have severely compromised immune systems.

Many Doctors and the CDC seem to multiply the danger and risk of viruses because, without exaggerated stories, flu vaccines just would not sell because the virus is not dangerous in and of itself.

CDC has claimed that 36,000 people died from the flu in 2004. After a major investigation, they found that 753 people actually died from the flu, not 36,000.

The CDC deals with diseases, not health. Research has shown that patients who exercise would be better protected form the dangers of flu then from patients who took vaccines.

The Choice Is Yours

The 1918 “Spanish” flu pandemic is estimated to have infected up to one billion people. The virus killed more people than any other single outbreak of disease.

Dr. Elanor McBean, who lived through the 1918 Influenza epidemic, testified, “AS far as I could find out, the flu hit only the vaccinated. Those who had refused the shots escaped the flu.

In 1997 the Associated Press stated that about 70 percent of doctors and nurses do NOT get annual flu shots.

The Maine (US) Lung Association says, for the USA, "Over the past twenty years, age specific death rates for pneumonia and influenza have increased in the older adult populations [over age 65]..."

However, since 1980, death rates in the over 65 age group from influenza have been increasing, while flu vaccination rates since 1987 also increased from 33% to 65%. These figures show that vaccination is the wrong approach for achieving improved health or reducing the number of deaths.

For most people, the flu shot does not prevent illness, but actually does the polar opposite--it weakens your immune system and makes you more predisposed to the illness.

67% of all Doctors fail to answer the most basic government facts regarding shot regiments and their safety record.

----- snip ----------

This is compiled from news articles.

Flu Vaccine Recalls & Deaths

"The pharmaceutical company Novartis is recalling 500,000 doses of its flu vaccine after two shipments bound for use in a childhood immunization program in New York were found frozen. Freezing can inactivate influenza vaccine, making it ineffective… The vaccine is sold under the Chiron name even though it is now a Novartis product. Chiron was the object of a major vaccine debacle two years ago when all of its flu vaccine -- about 45 million doses -- was impounded and kept off the market because of problems with contamination.” David Brown, The Washington Post

"Four Israelis died shortly after receiving their flu vaccine, all members of the Leumit HMO. Health officials are taking the cautious route, ordering a halt to flu vaccines nationwide." - Yechiel Spira, Israel National News

"Dundee woman Sylvia Thomson suffered a fatal reaction to the [influenza] injection in November last year and died a few weeks later, on December 2. The former PE teacher, who’d been bothered by an intermittent chest infection, asked her GP for the jab as a precaution. A week later, she was taken into hospital suffering from encephalitis — swelling in her brain. Hospital officials have since admitted that other people may be predisposed to a similar reaction." - Evening Telegraph, UK

Studies Fail to Demonstrate Safety or Effectiveness of Influenza Vaccine in Children and Adults

National Vaccine Information Center Calls for Influenza Vaccine Policy Change

WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 /PRNewswire/ -- An independent analysis by the internationally renowned Cochrane Collaboration of worldwide influenza vaccine studies, published in the British Medical Journal on Oct. 28, concluded there is little scientific proof that inactivated influenza vaccine is safe and effective for children and adults. Citing the Cochrane Collaboration finding as well as methodological flaws in a child influenza vaccine study published Oct. 25 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the National Vaccine Information Center is calling on the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to stop recommending annual flu shots for all infants and children until methodologically sound studies are conducted.

"There is a big gap between policies promoting annual influenza vaccinations for most children and adults and supporting scientific evidence," said epidemiologist Tom Jefferson, Cochrane Vaccines Field, Rome, Italy, who coordinated the comprehensive analysis for the prestigious Cochrane Collaboration. "Given the significant resources involved in annual mass influenza campaigns, there is urgent need for re- evaluation of these strategies."

The Cochrane Collaboration analysis found that the majority of published influenza vaccine studies were methodologically flawed with selection biases, confounders and heavy reliance on non-randomized studies. The report points out that potential confusion between respiratory infections caused by influenza viruses and those caused by non-influenza viruses can result in misdiagnosis and gross overestimation of the true impact of influenza on death and illness in a given influenza season. The report concluded that too few clinical trials have been conducted to prove vaccine safety and current evidence indicates that use of inactivated influenza vaccine has only a modest or no effect on preventing influenza in the children and the elderly.

"The CDC has pushed mass use of influenza vaccine in all children without scientific evidence the policy is either necessary or safe," said NVIC President Barbara Loe Fisher. "Where is the good science to back up the policy? If the recently published CDC-funded influenza vaccine study in JAMA is the kind of flawed science public health officials are using to convince the public the vaccine is safe, it is no wonder that many parents don't trust what public health officials say about vaccination. The CDC should stop recommending annual influenza vaccination of all young children when there is insufficient scientific justification for it."

The JAMA study, which was conducted by Kaiser Permanente doctors with CDC funding, was a non-randomized retrospective analysis of the medical records of children 6 to 23 months old who were given influenza vaccine as well as other vaccines between 1991 and 2003. Vaccines were not randomly administered and unvaccinated controls were not used. Children's case histories were included in the study only if an HMO doctor had seen them within 14 days of influenza vaccination. Dozens of convulsions and other adverse events, including brain injury experienced by children after vaccination, were excluded from the study if the children had not been seen by a doctor within 14 days of the adverse event or were sick in the weeks before and after vaccination.

Because of arbitrarily chosen cut-off periods, adverse events which occurred before and after different observation times cancelled each other out and were not classified as vaccine-related. In some cases, convulsions and cases of Guillain Barre Syndrome were dismissed as "coincidental" or caused by other vaccines the children received by the 19 Kaiser Permanente and CDC authors -- nine of whom reported financial ties to flu vaccine manufacturers and all of whom received CDC funding.

"Vaccine studies are using increasingly complex statistical techniques rather than time-tested research designs," said NVIC Health Policy Analyst Vicky Debold, R.N., Ph.D. "The JAMA study is exactly the type of study criticized by the Cochrane Collaboration. There were so many limitations and exclusions in the study design that it is nearly impossible to interpret or replicate the findings. The true effect of the influenza vaccine on health outcomes cannot be identified in this single, flawed study, which should not be used as evidence that influenza vaccine is safe for infants and toddlers or to justify national vaccine policies."

The Cochrane Collaboration (http://www.cochrane.org), which maintains the Cochrane Library and is the world's leading producer of systematic reviews of scientific information about health care, is a UK registered international charity. Cochrane reviews are considered the gold standard for determining the effectiveness of health care interventions.

The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) is a non-profit, educational organization (http://www.nvic.org ) founded in 1982 and is dedicated to preventing vaccine injuries and deaths through public education and defending the informed consent ethic.

THEY ARE CLUELESS!

November 2006

"Officials at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration don't know if the more than 100 new cases of strange behavior, including three deaths from falls, are tied to the drug, to the flu itself, or a combination of both, the Associated Press reported. The FDA is mulling changes to the Tamiflu label that may recommend that all patients, especially children, be closely monitored while on the drug.........In related news, a study in the Nov. 13 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine finds that the flu vaccine slightly increases the risk of Guillain-Barre syndrome, which occurs when the body's immune system attacks part of the nervous system, resulting in tingling or weakness and possible paralysis." - Steven Reinberg, HealthDay

"I'd like the flu shot to actually work and be safe. This is where things start to fall apart. Surprisingly, even though the flu vaccine is one of the few immunizations recommended for most of the population, we're still not certain about its efficacy, and only a few large-scale studies have been done on its safety in small children. Scientists have even raised questions about whether U.S. death figures from the flu are accurate because of the confusion between flu and flulike illnesses." - Julie Deardorf, Baltimore Sun

Tamiflu and flu vaccine apparently have one thing in common: they both can cause brain dysfunction and consumers should become fully informed before taking the risk. Influenza and flu-like illnesses have been part of the human condition for centuries. Only 20 percent of all flu-like illness is actually caused by influenza viruses.

Exposure to and recovery from type A and type B influenza results in immunity which is qualitatively superior to vaccine-induced temporary immunity. Most published studies examining influenza vaccine effectiveness are methodologically flawed and very few have demonstrated that influenza vaccine is effective in preventing influenza in children and adults. - Barbara Loe Fisher

[Lainie]

The 1918 “Spanish” flu pandemic is estimated to have infected up to one billion people. The virus killed more people than any other single outbreak of disease.

Dr. Elanor McBean, who lived through the 1918 Influenza epidemic, testified, “AS far as I could find out, the flu hit only the vaccinated. Those who had refused the shots escaped the flu.

Refused what shots? It's news to me that flu shots were available in 1918. Or are they suggesting that vaccinations for other diseases weakend resistance to the flu? How common were vaccinations for any disease in 1918?

[rhiandmoi]

This seems to be the source

ETA: Hmm now that I am clicking around I can't seem to find the exact article from the OP. But it is very similar to Dr. Mercola's ramblings

[AnglRdr]

I do not get vaccinated against the flu, but not because I am afraid it is going to kill me. I have, invariably, gotten flu-like symptoms each year I have taken the vaccine. I am in a "high-risk" group now, so my doctor told me I needed to get it this year. I have not yet. And I will not. Thus far, I am flu-free.

[Nana M]

Originally Posted by Lainie

Refused what shots? It's news to me that flu shots were available in 1918. Or are they suggesting that vaccinations for other diseases weakend resistance to the flu? How common were vaccinations for any disease in 1918?

Not very common, it seems. Rabies and smallpox vaccines were around, as was the BCG for tuberculosis, but influenza vaccine don't seem to have been around until the 1990's

http://www.stanford.edu/group/virus/...at/History.htm

[KathyB]

"Elanor McBean" is no doubt Eleanor McBean. She has some interesting theories about vaccines. "Many vaccines also cause other diseases besides the one for which they are given. For instance, smallpox vaccine often causes syphilis, paralysis, leprosy, and cancer." Other vaccines can cause defective teeth & eyesight. She also believes that typhoid is not a contagious disease, but rather is, (as she quotes another "expert"): "nothing more nor less than a cleansing process — a struggle of the vital powers to relieve the system of its accumulated impurities." She also beleives that typhoid vaccine causes paratyphoid. Most other medical types believe they are two separate diseases caused by two separate bacteria.

She beleives that the 1918 epidemic was caused by vaccines, not the flu vaccine, but typhoid, yellow fever, and the other "14 to 25 shots given the soldiers."

Although self-decribed as an "on the spot observer" of the 1918 epidemic, she appears to have only been a child then. She notes that her family didn't get vaccinated and no one got the flu. QED. [Or, conversely, see my sig.]

Her THE SPANISH INFLUENZA EPIDEMIC OF 1918 WAS CAUSED BY VACCINATIONS tells you more than you want to know. Get out the tin foil before reading.

[marrya]

May we morph this inot a general vaccinations flame fest... I mean, rational discusssion?!

Last year, here in NZ, the gub'mint undertook a nationwide vaccination programme against meningitis [B strain only] consisting of three injections spaced over something like 3 months. The program was 100% funded [no cost] and highly pormoted [in yer face, pictures of dead children on posters in supermarkets - I kid you not!]

We decided not to vaccinate our child, since this is a new vaccine, unproven in efficacy [by generic snopester standards, at least!] and, if it DID happen to work, still doesn't cover the A or D strains of meningococal disease, thus not 'eradicating' it anyways.

There are people at my child's school who STILL won't speak to me over it.

For the record, I believe in the immunised community enough that I will and have vaccinated for all of the other common childhood ailments [excluding chickenpox, but that's not on the public health schedule]. But not this one.

Wait up, I'm going out for cites...

[rhiandmoi]

I am not sure which strains are in the vaccine, but a mennigitis shot is highly reccomended for college freshman living in the dorms because we have several deaths a year on the various campuses in the state. I think there is some evidence that the close quarters makes spreading the bacteria easier and more people get sick.

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/meningitis_vaccine.htm

According to that the vaccine that we use here protects against 4 types of the bacteria.

I did some googling around and it seems that there is/was? a Meningococcal B epidemic in New Zealand, so that is why they did such a wide spread vaccination program of just that strain. They probably could have done the 4 type one that we have here in the states, but as I understand it that one is $80 each shot so it was probably cheaper for the government to just pay for the B only shots.

[Astra]

At my college, students were encouraged to get the meningitis vaccines starting last year. I had one three years ago or so, when they became available in the area. There had been a couple of outbreaks in college dorms, some leading to death. Dorms suck when it comes to spreading illnesses as it is, and I wasn't going to take a chance with it - especially here, where freaking communal bathrooms are still widespread.

I do admit that I don't get flu shots, but I'm in a low-risk group and have a highly annoying reaction to needles. I've had the flu once in five years, so my reasoning is that I'd rather run the small risk of picking it up again than taking up a vaccine that may or may not prevent it, will definitely make me sick at least for a short time, and would probably be better off being given to someone in a high-risk group (seems like every year there's a shortage here).

[marrya]

Originally Posted by marrya

highly promoted [in yer face, pictures of dead children on posters in supermarkets - I kid you not!]
Wait up, I'm going out for cites...

Missed my edit cut off

This poster is one of the series which I mentioned above - I can't find the exact one I'm thinking of, but it was this style of glossy A1 sized print and showed a full sized photo of a baby who had died of menzb [face obscured] with an inset of the family quoted as saying something like "we wish we'd vaccinated her"

I can see the point ofthe vaccine, but the way it was promoted, and the religious frenzy attatched to the whole process really bugged me.
Add to that the kind of misinformation that was flying around and it was ug-ly!

There have been a number of MeNZB deaths in fully immunised individuals since then, which all adds fuel to the debate. [I'm outa time, but I will come back with cites to add to my plural anecdotage!]

[Sara@home]

My grandmother and aunt had the 1918 flu. My grandmother probably had a small pox vaccination, my aunt probably didn't have any vaccinations because she was less than two years old. [ETA] For those who don't remember, the small pox vaccine wasn't normally given until the year or so before a child started school.[/ETA] My father, who was a newborn and nursing, was not ill. Apparently my grandfather and my greatgrandmother stayed healthy. The doctor came to the house in those days.

From the description of the flu epidemic posted by Kathy, McBean says

None of our family had the flu — not even a sniffle— and it was in the winter with deep snow on the ground.

What does snow on the ground have to do with the flu?

[Lainie]

In the spirit of McBean's anecdotal evidence, my step-grandfather's first wife and their young child died during the 1918 epidemic. My step-grandfather either didn't get it or survived it. AFAIK, their vaccination status would have been the same; I know that neither of them was in the military.

[Pseudo_Croat]

The first quote in the OP is full of it. The only way "horrendous dietary habits" can weaken the immune system is if one is severely malnourished - starving, even. You don't see this that often in this country.

Also, the thing about "toxic burdens" is a load of carp. Unless the liver and kidneys are badly damaged, the body can handle everyday doses of most toxins it comes by. The same thing goes with most people having "severely compromised immune systems". A person who was that immunocompromised would be quite ill, possibly even dying - definitely not fit for work.

Given these facts, would you trust the rest of the OP?

- Pseudo "sick sick sick" Croat

[Lady Neeva]

Take it for what it's worth (not much I admit), but I took a college level health course two years ago. The instructor (who, IMO, spent too much time on her very obvious agenda and not enough time actually *teaching* anything) claimed that most of the time what people in the US refer to as "the flu" isn't actually getting the influenza virus. It's usually mild food poisoning according to her.

According to the text book she used, influenza in and of itself isn't particularly dangerous -- it's the secondary infections that accompany it that kill people. Now, *if* that is true (and I'm no doctor, nor do I play one on TV) I would think one would have to look at how likely it is that the person would have gotten the secondary infection that killed them if they hadn't been weakened by the initial influenza infection. If it is unlikely that they would have gotten it, I would say that one could claim that the initial influenza infection was the cause of death.

Of course, this same teacher and text book claimed the same thing about AIDS -- that it's not the AIDS virus itself that kills you, but the fact that it so severely weakens/destroys the immune system that you will catch every single thing you come in contact with, and since you never fight it off it will increase in severity to the point it kills you.

I don't know, but I suspect she was in the same school of thought as the person in the OP, and her "teaching" was more propaganda than information. I seem to recall she was also claiming that the US vaccination programs cause autism... honestly, once she started going that far into tinfoil hat territory I stopped paying much attention to her -- just took enough notes to pass tests and let it go at that.

[Hastings]

I apologise in advance. I know I'm going to sound terribly ignorant (and off topic)...

There's a flu shot one gets if one lives in America?

I know there are adverts on British TV encouraging people over the age of (I believe) 60 to get free flu shots, but that's all I've seen.

[Page Three]

Originally Posted by Lady Neeva

Of course, this same teacher and text book claimed the same thing about AIDS -- that it's not the AIDS virus itself that kills you, but the fact that it so severely weakens/destroys the immune system that you will catch every single thing you come in contact with, and since you never fight it off it will increase in severity to the point it kills you.

And she's right. So is the textbook. That's why the illness is called Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Your immune system is so shot to pieces that it can't fight things a healthy immune system will simply brush off and that you wouldn't even notice in some cases.

As for flu, the statement isn't completely wrong either. The virus itself doesn't necessarily start any deadly processes, it's the superinfection made possible by the influenza infection that causes a lot more harm.

I personally wouldn't trust a medical doctor who denies those statements. The tinfoil hattery begins, though, when someone tries to remove the viral infection from the complete course of the illness. As much as I dislike the "guns don't kill people" line, it's pretty much the same connection. Viruses don't kill people, bacteria taking advantage of viruses kill people. Insert an "always" into that first part, because obviously there are lethal viruses.

The OP, though, makes it sound like the best solution would be to eliminate all possible toxins so that even when infected with a virus, the patient won't take any damage. Which is absolutely ludicrous considering how many things are toxic with which a healthy body deals with on a daily basis. Apparently toxins are some form of cooties, not simply a chemical your body can't deal with.

And lastly... how is it possible to complain when a defective product is recalled? Do they want to wait until everything is 100% safe, no matter how many people might be saved because the vaccine does work for them?

[AnglRdr]

Originally Posted by Lady Neeva

Take it for what it's worth (not much I admit), but I took a college level health course two years ago. The instructor (who, IMO, spent too much time on her very obvious agenda and not enough time actually *teaching* anything) claimed that most of the time what people in the US refer to as "the flu" isn't actually getting the influenza virus. It's usually mild food poisoning according to her.

According to the text book she used, influenza in and of itself isn't particularly dangerous -- it's the secondary infections that accompany it that kill people. Now, *if* that is true (and I'm no doctor, nor do I play one on TV) I would think one would have to look at how likely it is that the person would have gotten the secondary infection that killed them if they hadn't been weakened by the initial influenza infection. If it is unlikely that they would have gotten it, I would say that one could claim that the initial influenza infection was the cause of death.

Of course, this same teacher and text book claimed the same thing about AIDS -- that it's not the AIDS virus itself that kills you, but the fact that it so severely weakens/destroys the immune system that you will catch every single thing you come in contact with, and since you never fight it off it will increase in severity to the point it kills you.

I don't know, but I suspect she was in the same school of thought as the person in the OP, and her "teaching" was more propaganda than information. I seem to recall she was also claiming that the US vaccination programs cause autism... honestly, once she started going that far into tinfoil hat territory I stopped paying much attention to her -- just took enough notes to pass tests and let it go at that.

"Opportunistic infections" are what they're called; while diarrhea, for example, can be very annoying to someone with a healthy immune system, it can kill someone whose immune system is severely compromised.

[lynnejanet]

Hastings: I don't know how it works in the US, but I can comment on Ontario. Flu vaccines began to be offered free here to anyone "high-risk" about 5 or 6 years ago. That included the elderly, any one immuocompromised and frontline healthcare workers. Any other person could get the vaccine, after a certain date, for a small fee (to ensure that at-risk people got theirs first). For the last 3 years or so, the shot is available free to anyone, at either a special 'flu clinic, or at your doctor's office.

[snapdragonfly]

Originally Posted by Page Three

And she's right. So is the textbook. That's why the illness is called Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Your immune system is so shot to pieces that it can't fight things a healthy immune system will simply brush off and that you wouldn't even notice in some cases.

As for flu, the statement isn't completely wrong either. The virus itself doesn't necessarily start any deadly processes, it's the superinfection made possible by the influenza infection that causes a lot more harm.

Yes. In fact I was just a few moments ago reading an article somewhere very mainstream and not at all weird (probably MSN) that basically said the same thing about flu - actually it was an article about why the flu is so deadly to older people in particular, but it did say that the flu weakens the immune system and if there are other problems they can get out of hand.

And yes, you are not killed by AIDS itself but by the opportunitistic infections that you can't fight off anymore.

As for this part ~"The instructor (who, IMO, spent too much time on her very obvious agenda and not enough time actually *teaching* anything) claimed that most of the time what people in the US refer to as "the flu" isn't actually getting the influenza virus. It's usually mild food poisoning according to her."
~I have heard that too, sort of - what I heard was that what people often think of as STOMACH flu (not sneezing coughing type flu) is often food poisoning. Now that I can believe, it sounds pretty reasonable to me, because there are so many types of food poisoning and some of them actually can take several days or even weeks to show symptoms, and the likelihood that we get ahold of food prepared by someone who has not washed their hands or other VERY common means of cross contamination is very high indeed - so this doesn't sound like a tinfoil theory at all.

[Johnny Slick]

Originally Posted by KathyB

"For instance, smallpox vaccine often causes syphilis

It's interesting to note that in some parts of the world, instead of being applied via hypodermic needle, the smallpox vaccine is administered via Saigon whore.