Flu Shots? What’s the Data?

by Michael Gerber MD, HMD |

Does statistical analysis of flu vaccinations prove that they are safe and effective?

First of all, flu vaccinations are strains of flu that researchers find in Asia the year before our flu season. Last year, two of the three strains cultured never found their way to North America. The flu strains are cultivated in chick embryos for several weeks and are then deactivated by formaldehyde, embalming fluid and a known carcinogen, and then preserved with Thimerosal, which is 49-percent mercury by weight. According to the CDC (Center for Disease and Control) some contain as much as 25 mcg of mercury per dose, which is 250 times the Environmental Protection Agency’s safety limit for mercury. Fetuses and children are at highest risk of damage from this neurotoxin as their brains are still developing. Yet the CDC still recommends that children over six months of age and pregnant women receive the flu vaccine each year.

In addition to mercury, the vaccines contain other toxic and hazardous ingredients such as aluminum, (a neurotoxin related to Alzheimer’s disease), detergent, carbolic acid, ethylene glycol (antifreeze) disinfectants and spermicides.

Reactions to flu vaccine include life-threatening allergies to various ingredients, Guillain-Barre syndrome (a severe paralytic disease that is fatal in about one out of 20 cases), encephalitis (brain inflammation), neurological disorders and thrombocytopenia (low platelets which can inhibit clotting).

A quote from the package insert of the flu vaccine FLULAVAL for the 2009-2010 season states that it is a flu vaccine for adults 18 years of age and older and that there have been no controlled trials demonstrating a decrease in influenza disease after vaccination with FLULAVAL.

A study published in the October 2008 issue of the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine found that vaccinating young children against the flu had no impact on flu-related hospitalizations or doctor visits during two recent flu seasons.

The researchers concluded that “significant influenza vaccine effectiveness could not be demonstrated for any season, age, or setting” examined.

A 2008 study published in the Lancet found that influenza vaccination was NOT associated with a reduced risk of pneumonia in older people. This supports an earlier study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine.
Research published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine also confirms that there has been no decrease in deaths from influenza and pneumonia in the elderly, despite the fact that vaccination coverage among the elderly has increased from 15 percent in 1980 to 65 percent today.

In 2007, researchers with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious diseases and the National Institutes of Health published this conclusion in the Lancet Infectious Diseases: “We conclude that frailty selection bias and use of non-specific endpoints such as all-cause mortality, have led cohort studies to greatly exaggerate vaccine benefits.”

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.

References:

1. Journal of the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons 2004 summer issue
2. New York Times Saturday October 10th 2009 p A14
3. www.mercola.com

For more info contact Michael Gerber, MD, HMD of the Gerber Medical Clinic at (775) 826-1900.