Swine Flu: What should you do?
On the last day of my recent mission trip to Latin America, I woke up only to immediately pass out and hit my head so hard the doctor said I sustained a mild concussion.
I’d been hit by the flu and ended up burning with fever, shivering with chills and generally miserable for more than two weeks. It was just about as sick as I’ve ever been. Was it the H1N1? My doctor said probably so. So why did I get? Because I did everything wrong!
I spent long days among large crowds of people, usually indoors, shaking hands with multitudes of people. I ate very little and slept even less. I didn’t drink enough fluids and broke my own #1 rule of international travel: never eat the local fruits and veggies. I was also under emotional stress, being separated from my formerly homeschooled daughter who was starting public junior high school during my absence. (Talk about bad planning on mom’s part –but who knew kids go to school before Labor Day in Arizona? I sure didn’t!)
But you can stay healthy this cold and flu season. One option is with a flu shot but there are other ways, too. Let’s start by examining the flu vaccine controversy, but first, it’s important to understand this:
There are only 2 ways to contract the flu: thru your mouth or nose. That’s it. So if you can protect your mouth and nose you are good to go! Okay, let’s talk pros and cons of the vaccine.
Pros & Cons of vaccine
I have spent countless hours researching this whole flu vaccine debate. As always, we need to be well-balanced. (You can listen to the FREE 1-hour Teleseminar I taught “To Immunize or Not, That is the Question.”) The extremes are just nutty. On the one hand are those who say, “EVERYONE must get the flu shot right now or we’ll all face Armageddon. Quick, run to the doctor before they run out of vaccine!!!!” and “The government said so and that’s good enough for me.” To the other extreme, I read articles that suggested the vaccine was a plot by a secret society to insert mind-controlling microchips in order to deliberately create violent sociopaths who would usher in totalitarian rule. Still others believe it’s a plot to kill Asians, Native Americans and other people of color. A popular belief is that vaccines are part of a vast conspiracy by the pharamaceutical and banking industries.
The truth and the solution lies somewhere in between. So here we go:
Pros:
1. We can trust our family doctor. The vast, vast majority of family doctors in America are sincere, well-educated, incredibly brilliant, hard-working men and women. The very idea that your family doctor—with at least 21 years of education from Kindergarten thru Medical School- is so stupid s/he has been duped into a genocidal conspiracy is, itself, just plain silly. If your family physician, who knows you well, personally recommends the flu shot, you might want to think long and hard about ignoring that advice.
2. Vaccines DO work. That is a scientific and historic fact that no one can dispute. Clearly, vaccines have been effective against polio, measles, mumps and other diseases that used to kill Americans in huge numbers. There is a valuable place in the medical profession for immunization.
3. Getting a flu vaccine dramatically reduces your chance of getting the full-blown flu.
4. Reactions to the flu shot and nasal spray have been reportedly very mild and only last 2 days
5. Offering a nasal vaccine, which contains no mercury and a weakened flu strain will, theoretically at least, have less risk of side effects than traditional injections which almost all contain mercury.
6. The Swine Flu is spreading rapidly. 4,100 deaths worldwide. In the US, 16,000 people have been hospitalized and nearly 1,400 have died from H1N1 or seasonal flu. During the week of October 4-10, 2009, a review of the key indictors found that influenza activity continued to increase in the United States from the previous week and has now been reported in 41 states.
7. The World Health Organization reports that 39,000 flu shots have been administered with very few side effects reported. It appears to be safe.
Cons:
1. We’ve been around this mountain before. Back in 1976, a “scare-mare” frenzy of immunization was undertaken. There was no real epidemic and the “prevention” was worse than the flu. People died; others were afflicted with Guillain-Barré syndrome, a paralytic autoimmune disease. It was the worst case scenario on steroids, if you will.
2. There is NO PROOF that the flu vaccine works. A recent study published in the October issue of the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine found that vaccinating young children against the flu appeared to have no impact on flu-related hospitalizations or doctor visits during two recent flu seasons. After examining all data, researchers concluded that “significant influenza vaccine effectiveness could not be demonstrated for any season, age, or setting.”
Additionally, a Group Health study published in Lancet, a well-respected medical publication, found that flu shots do not protect elderly people against developing This supports a study done five years ago, published in The New England Journal of Medicine.
Research published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine reported no decrease in deaths from influenza and pneumonia, despite the fact that vaccination coverage among the elderly has increased from 15 percent in 1980 to 65 percent now.
Last year, researchers with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and the National Institutes of Health published this conclusion in the Lancet Infectious “the benefits of vaccines has been greatly exaggerated.”
A large-scale, systematic review of 51 studies, published in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews in 2006, found no evidence that the flu vaccine is any more effective than a placebo in children. The studies involved 260,000 children, age 6 to 23 months.
3. Flu shots contain dangerous ingredients. The majority of flu shots contain 25 micrograms of mercury; an amount considered unsafe for anyone weighing less than 550 pounds! There is some evidence that flu shots cause Alzheimer’s disease, most likely as a result of combining mercury with aluminum and formaldehyde. Mercury in vaccines has also been implicated as a cause of autism. (Please note: it is my understanding that the nasal vaccine does NOT contain mercury but the injection does.)
Other common vaccine ingredients include:
* Formaldehyde — a known cancer-causing agent
* Aluminum — a neurotoxin that has been linked to Alzheimer’s disease
* Phenol (carbolic acid)
* Ethylene glycol (antifreeze)
* Various antibiotics: neomycin, streptomycin, gentamicin – which can cause allergic reactions in some people
4. Vaccines, by their very nature, introduce into your body the very disease you are trying to avoid having in your body. Sometimes the trade-off is worth it (as with the polio vaccine), but in the case of the flu, is it worth subjecting your body to a virtual “witches brew” of contaminants just to avoid being miserably sick for a week or two? Only a fraction of 1% of people who contract the Swine Flu will die of it. Is it worth risking the potential long-term side effects of a vaccination to avoid that? Only you can decide.
| 5. Profit-motive probably plays some role. Although I think the conspiracy theorists are way out there, obviously there is big money to be made through wide-spread immunization and it would be naïve to think money is not at least one factor among many that is driving the push for broader use of these vaccines.Most consider Dr. Mercola a well-respected expert in the health industry, and here’s what he said about the The Federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP): “It should come as no surprise to find out that a majority of the ACIP members who came up with these guidelines have financial ties to the vaccine industry, and stand to gain personally for every additional person getting a yearly injection.”
So there you have a wrap-up of the pros and cons. Now let’s look at the symptoms:
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Well done, balanced writing with appropriate citations to cite facts! Readers should be concerned with ingredients and also how those vaccines are manufactured. In the U.K. they are licensed to be cultured in mammalian cell lines– Green African Monkeys. Novartis is testing growing cells in canine (dog) kidneys in the U.S. Most use chicken embryo or He-la cells which may be tainted with cancer. Other vaccines like the chicken pox are cultured in human diploid cells (aborted fetus). My take on it all is at http://www.ahrcanum.com Glad you are better!
