FLU FLU FLU: WHAT AM I TO DO? THE LATEST COCHRANE REVIEWS ON FLU VACCINES
Late last year I wrote about how the medical research community continues chasing after the elusive ‘El Dorado’ of flu shots — the UNIVERSAL FLU VACCINE. Just a couple of weeks ago the Virology Journal (Towards A Universal Influenza Vaccine: Different Approaches for One Goal) put it this way. “There is currently an unmet need to develop an effective “broadly-reactive” or “universal” influenza vaccine capable of conferring protection against both seasonal and newly emerging pre-pandemic strains. A number of novel influenza vaccine approaches are currently under evaluation.”
If you read between the line you can guess that this statement was made in response to the continual poor showing of pharmaceutically-induced methods of flu prevention. Just how bad are modern flu vaccines? Listen to what three researchers from St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital in Memphis wrote in last month’s issue of Viral Immunology (Influenza Virus: Dealing with a Drifting and Shifting Pathogen).
“Numerous modern technological and scientific advances have changed the vaccine industry. However, nearly 70 years of influenza vaccine usage have passed without substantial changes in the underlying principles of the vaccine. The challenge of vaccinating against influenza lies in the constantly changing nature of the virus itself. This has forced frequent updates of vaccine antigens to ensure that the somewhat narrowly focused vaccine-induced immune responses defend against circulating strains.
Few vaccine production systems have been developed that can entertain such constant changes. Although influenza virus infection induces long-lived immunologic memory to the same or similar strains, most people do not encounter the same strain repeatedly in their lifespan, suggesting that enhancement of natural immunity is required to improve influenza vaccines.”
Did you catch that? Because the virus is in a continual state of mutation, the worn out method of “guessing” what three or four strains of flu virus of the thousands circulating should be put into next year’s vaccine, seven or eight months in advance, is a joke. In fact, I’ve previously shown you that a “matched year” happens about once every 11 (what were you doing in 2007?).
But none of this prevents — or even seems to slow down — the onslaught of industry- and media-driven propaganda (HERE), warning us that without the flu shot, apocalypse is nigh. And while there are, unfortunately, people who die from the flu (HERE and HERE), research continues to show that flu vaccines do little to prevent those specific deaths. The problem is so significant that these authors suggest that getting there from here cannot be accomplished without “enhancement of natural immunity“. Just realize that you must be extremely cautious when “BOOSTING” THE IMMUNE SYSTEM.
What I would like to do now is show you the latest updates to the biggest flu studies from the leader in the field, COCHRANE (formerly the Cochrane Review / Cochrane Collaboration). Cochrane is the gold standard of medical review and meta-analysis — renowned for their ability to take large numbers of studies, crunch the data, and come to some sort of logical conclusion or consensus. “For 20 years, Cochrane has produced systematic reviews of primary research in human health care and health policy, and these are internationally recognized as the highest standard in evidence-based health care resources. Let’s see what Cochrane said in several flu studies they published just last week.
- FLU VACCINES FOR THOSE WITH CANCER TAKING IMMUNOSUPPRESSIVE DRUGS: I’ve said it before; IMMUNOSUPPRESSION is America’s number one form of medical treatment, and not just for CANCER. A brand new review from The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (updating their 2013 results — Influenza Vaccines in Immunosuppressed Adults with Cancer) looked at six studies of 2,300 individuals and determined that while the vaccine provided “lower mortality and infection-related outcomes with influenza vaccination,” the effects were not very large and the evidence was described several times as “weak“.
- FLU VACCINES FOR THE ELDERLY: Also an update of an older Cochrane Review (2010), Vaccines for Preventing Influenza in the Elderly looked at eight studies of over 5,000 people over the age of 65, concluding that “Older adults receiving the influenza vaccine may have a lower risk of influenza (from 6% to 2.4%), and probably have a lower risk of influenza-like illness) compared with those who do not receive a vaccination over the course of a single influenza season (from 6% to 3.5%). The evidence for a lower risk of influenza and influenza-like illness with vaccination is limited by biases in the design or conduct of the studies. Lack of detail regarding the methods used to confirm the diagnosis of influenza limits the applicability of this result. The available evidence relating to complications is of poor quality, insufficient, or old and provides no clear guidance for public health regarding the safety, efficacy, or effectiveness of influenza vaccines for people aged 65 years or older. Society should invest in research on a new generation of influenza vaccines for the elderly.” Not exactly a ringing endorsement (more like a “wringing” endorsement). Bottom line, if you are over 65, a flu shot is going to decrease your chance of flu or flu-like symptoms by a whopping threeish percentage points.
- FLU VACCINATIONS IN HEALTHY ADULTS: Are you a “healthy” adult? Then you might want to AVOID THE FLU SHOT. Cochrane updated yet another study, this one from 2014, that came to about the same conclusions as previously (Vaccines for Preventing Influenza in Healthy Adults). The results are almost shocking if you’ve never seen them before. After looking at “52 clinical trials of over 80,000 people assessing the safety and effectiveness of influenza vaccines,” the authors concluded that “Healthy adults who receive inactivated parenteral influenza vaccine [parenteral indicates a shot since the FLU MIST has been 0% effective for five years and counting] rather than no vaccine probably experience less influenza, from just over 2% to just under 1%.” Did you catch that? Pathetic! They go on to make PREGNANT WOMEN question why they would ever get the shot. “Protection against influenza and influenza-like illness in mothers and newborns was smaller than the effects seen in other populations considered in this review.. The protective effect of vaccination in pregnant women and newborns is also very modest.” This is a nice way of saying that the vaccine results on this population were slightly better than negligible. In layman’s terms, they suck. And lest you forget, “Vaccines increase the risk of a number of adverse events…..” This is why the old review said that between 70 and 80 “healthy adults” would need to be vaccinated to prevent a single case of flu or influenza-like illness — a stat that probably increased in this recent review. And to top it all off, almost a third of these studies in this review were done by industry. Knowing what we know about the myth of EVIDENCE-BASED MEDICINE and what happens when THE CORRUPT FDA lets the fox guard the hen house, imagine how much worse it would have been if all the research had come from unbiased third parties?
- HEALTHY CHILDREN AND FLU VACCINES: Once again, this is a Cochrane Review — this one (Vaccines for Preventing Influenza in Healthy Children) updating a review from 2011. Working from Oxford University, four authors (including Dr. Tom Jefferson, who was instrumental in exposing just how crappy and dangerous OSELTAMIVIR / TAMIFLU really is, as well as how it was approved via rank fraud) looked at 41 studies of over 200,000 “healthy children under 16 years old,” concluding that “In children aged between 3 and 16 years, live influenza vaccines probably reduce influenza (moderate-certainty evidence) and may reduce ILI (low-certainty evidence) over a single influenza season. In this population inactivated vaccines also reduce influenza (high-certainty evidence) and may reduce ILI (low-certainty evidence). For both vaccine types, the absolute reduction in influenza and ILI varied considerably. Adverse event data were not well described in the available studies.” The severe adverse events that were described included NARCOLEPSY and cataplexy (“a sudden loss of muscle tone triggered by the experience of an intense emotion“) as well as high fevers. How much did the vaccine, on average, lower children’s chances of developing flu or flu-like illness (note that we are not talking about severe flu such as what we are seeing this year)? Although it’s hard to tell for sure because everything kind of ran together in the abstract thanks to the crazy variation in individual study results, but it appears to be about 15 to 18 percentage points. Note however, that as stated, these results were for a given year (a single influenza season). Just yesterday I showed you how studies continue to prove that flu shots in consecutive seasons diminish their effectiveness the subsequent year(s).
If, LIKE DR. OZ, you decide not to have your family immunized against the flu due to any number of reasons (including the progressive BUILDUP OF NEUROTOXIC ALUMINUM in the brain), there are steps you could be taking to improve your odds of not only not getting the flu, but of surviving the severe / virulent forms of the flu that the flu vaccines are known to provide little protection against (HERE).
Although much of it revolves around eating a healthy diet, unfortunately, this is becoming less and less common here in America, especially in our nation’s HYPER-INFLAMED children. To see a complete “get healthy” protocol that includes addressing Gut issues, just follow THIS LINK. And if you are enjoying our site, be sure to take a look at our FACEBOOK PAGE.