OT - Flu Vaccine Exposed

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http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/09/26/Flu-Vaccine-Expose\

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quote from the article:

" In fact, one shocking statistic brought to light in this video is that BEFORE

the CDC advocated vaccinating children under the age

of five, the number of children dying from the flu was very low, and on the

decline.

Then, in 2003, just after children aged five and under started getting

vaccinated, the number of flu deaths SKYROCKETED. The death

toll was enormous compared to the previous year, when the flu vaccine was not

administered en masse to that age group!

How anyone can consider a strategy that yields a higher death toll to be a

" success " is a mystery to me. "

Flu Vaccine Exposed

Posted by: Dr. Mercola

September 26 2009

Studies show that flu vaccines are unsafe and ineffective. This presentation by

the Thinktwice Global Vaccine Institute includes a

visual depiction of flu vaccine production -- how the flu vaccine is made and

what it contains.

Dr. Mercola's Comments:

The video by Thinktwice Global Vaccine Institute offers a good summary of what

every person should know about the seasonal flu

vaccine; how it's made, and its effectiveness.

Signs and Symptoms of Influenza

As most of you probably know, influenza is a contagious viral respiratory

infection. Symptoms include:

.. Fever

.. Chills

.. Runny nose

.. Sore throat

.. Cough

.. Muscle aches

.. Fatigue

.. Decreased appetite

Typically, the condition will improve after two to three days of bed rest,

although some symptoms may persist for about a week.

What many people do NOT know, however, is that death caused directly by the flu

virus is very rare. The vast majority of so-called

" flu deaths " are in fact due to bacterial pneumonia - a potential complication

of the flu if your immune system is too weak.

Other complications can include ear- or sinus infections, dehydration, and

worsening of chronic health conditions.

The elderly and people with other pre existing medical conditions such as

asthma, diabetes, or heart disease, are at higher risk of

developing pneumonia after a bout of the flu.

The Flu Vaccine Does Not Prevent the Flu, nor Protect Against the Vast Majority

of Flu-Related Deaths

The conventional treatment for bacterial pneumonia is an antibiotic, not a viral

flu drug, so to think that taking a flu vaccine

will prevent death from pneumonia doesn't really make sense.

" But the vaccine will prevent the flu, which will prevent the possibility of

developing pneumonia, " some might say.

That sounds good in theory, but the statistics simply do not support this

assertion.

Because study after study, and master studies that compile the results from

several studies to get a more objective result, keep

coming to the same conclusion: Flu vaccines DO NOT WORK, and in many cases do

more harm than good.

In fact, one shocking statistic brought to light in this video is that BEFORE

the CDC advocated vaccinating children under the age

of five, the number of children dying from the flu was very low, and on the

decline.

Then, in 2003, just after children aged five and under started getting

vaccinated, the number of flu deaths SKYROCKETED. The death

toll was enormous compared to the previous year, when the flu vaccine was not

administered en masse to that age group!

How anyone can consider a strategy that yields a higher death toll to be a

" success " is a mystery to me.

The Problem with Flu Death Statistics

However, as frightening as much of this may sound, it's important to keep things

in perspective. According to the statistics shown

in the video above, more Americans die from asthma, and even malnutrition each

year, than the flu.

Unfortunately, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) grossly

distort the facts about flu deaths, making the flu virus

seem far more dangerous than is warranted. On the CDC's main flu page, they

state that about 36,000 people die from the flu in the

United States each year.

But if you search a little harder, you can find the actual number of people who

died from the flu in 2005 (this is the most recent

data that's available) was 1,806. The remainder was caused by pneumonia. In

2004, there were just 1,100 actual flu deaths.

The statistics the CDC gives are skewed partly because they classify those dying

from pneumonia as dying from the flu, which is

inaccurate.

How is the Flu Vaccine Made?

This is another area that many people do not understand or take into

consideration before getting a seasonal flu shot.

In January or February of each year, health authorities travel to Asia to

determine which strains of the flu are currently active.

Based on their findings in Asia, they assume that the same strains of viruses

will spread to the U.S. by fall.

At this point, U.S. vaccine manufacturers start making that season's flu

vaccine, which will contain the strains found in Asia.

However, if the viral strains circulating in the U.S. that season are not

identical to those in Asia, the vaccine you receive is a

complete dud.

And to add insult to injury, you've just been injected with a laundry list of

harmful ingredients.

What's in the Seasonal Flu Vaccine?

The flu strains selected are cultivated in chick embryos for several weeks

before being inactivated with formaldehyde, which is a

known cancer-causing agent. Then they're preserved with thimerosal, which is 49

percent mercury by weight.

Even many health care professionals are confused about this and are not aware

that the preservative thimerosal is mercury. As a

quick side note, one of my chief writers told me that, " the doctor's office told

me the vaccine does not contain mercury, just

something called thimerosal. "

Please, don't be fooled by this incredible ignorance. If you have carefully

studied this issue there is a great possibility you may

know more than your physician about this topic. Don't back down if they tell you

something you otherwise know to be true.

According to the CDC, the majority of flu vaccines contain thimerosal. Some

contain as much as 25 mcg of mercury per dose. This

means that it may contain more than 250 times the Environmental Protection

Agency's safety limit for mercury.

By now, most people are well aware that children and fetuses are most at risk of

damage from this neurotoxin, as their brains are

still developing. Yet the CDC still recommends that children over 6 months, and

pregnant women, receive the flu vaccine each year.

In addition to mercury, flu vaccines also contain other toxic or hazardous

ingredients like:

.. Aluminum -- a neurotoxin that has been linked to Alzheimer's disease

.. Triton X-100 -- a detergent

.. Phenol (carbolic acid)

.. Ethylene glycol (antifreeze)

.. Betapropiolactone - a disinfectant

.. Nonoxynol - used to kill or stop growth of STDs

.. Octoxinol 9 - a vaginal spermicide

.. Sodium phosphate

How Safe is the Flu Vaccine?

Serious reactions to the flu vaccine include, but are not limited to:

.. Life-threatening allergies to various ingredients

.. Guillain-Barre Syndrome (a severe paralytic disease that is fatal in

about 1 in 20 cases)

.. Encephalitis (brain inflammation)

.. Neurological disorders

.. Thrombocytopenia (a serious blood disorder)

How Effective is the Flu Vaccine?

Remember that the potential effectiveness of a flu vaccine is dependent on the

ASSUMPTION, made nearly a year in advance, that

Asia's viral strains will be the ones hitting the U.S. When they guess wrong,

the vaccine is worthless from the very start.

But does that mean they withdraw the flu vaccine when they discover it contains

the wrong strains? NO! They just keep giving it out

anyway.

But even if they were to overcome that hurdle and actually select the correct

strains, there's still no evidence that it does anyone

any good to get a flu vaccine.

Study after study comes back showing the same dismal results: the flu vaccines

are not an effective method of prevention of the flu,

and they do not save lives. As mentioned earlier, they may even be responsible

for an increased death rate in some groups.

Sometimes determining efficacy is as easy as reading the information coming

straight from the vaccine manufacturer.

How about this quote taken directly from the flu vaccine FLULAVAL's package

insert (which you likely never see when getting the flu

shot) for the 2009-2010 formula:

" FLULAVAL is an influenza virus vaccine indicated for active immunization of

adults 18 years of age and older against influenza

disease caused by influenza virus subtypes A and type B contained in the

vaccine. This indication is based on immune response

elicited by FLULAVAL, and there have been no controlled trials demonstrating a

decrease in influenza disease after vaccination with

FLULAVAL. "

That's right, NO controlled trials demonstrating ANY decrease in your risk of

contracting the flu at all after vaccination! (It also

states that each dose contains a total of 25 mcg of mercury.)

For those of you who are still unconvinced, know that there's plenty of

scientific evidence available to back up the recommendation

to avoid flu vaccines. In addition to studies mentioned in the video, here are

several other examples showing that flu vaccines do

not work for any age group:

.. 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 now.

.. 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.

Last but not least, I think it says a lot that 70 percent of doctors and nurses,

and 62 percent of other health care workers do NOT

get the yearly flu shot.

The reasons why they opted to not get vaccinated were:

.. They didn't believe the vaccine would work

.. They believed their immune systems were strong enough to withstand

exposure to the flu

.. They were concerned about side effects

Might Influenza be Little More Than a Symptom of Vitamin D Deficiency?

Vitamin D, " the sunshine vitamin, " may very well be one of the most beneficial

vitamins there is for disease prevention.

Unfortunately it's also one of the vitamins that a vast majority of people

across the world are deficient in due to lack of regular

exposure to sunshine.

Published in the journal Epidemiology and Infection in 2006, the hypothesis

presented by Dr. Cannell and colleagues in the

paper Epidemic Influenza and Vitamin D raises the possibility that influenza is

a symptom of vitamin D deficiency.

The vitamin D formed when your skin is exposed to sunlight regulates the

expression of more than 2,000 genes throughout your body,

including ones that influence your immune system to attack and destroy bacteria

and viruses. Hence, being overwhelmed by the " flu

bug " could signal that your vitamin D levels are too low, allowing the flu virus

to overtake your immune system.

At least five studies show an inverse association between lower respiratory

tract infections and 25(OH)D levels. That is, the higher

your vitamin D level, the lower your risk of contracting colds, flu, and other

respiratory tract infections:

1. A 2007 study suggests higher vitamin D status enhances your immunity

to microbial infections. They found that subjects

with vitamin D deficiency had significantly more days of absence from work due

to respiratory infection than did control subjects.

2. A 2009 study on vitamin D deficiency in newborns with acute lower

respiratory infection (ALRI) confirmed a strong,

positive correlation between newborns' and mother's vitamin D levels. Over 87

percent of all newborns and over 67 percent of all

mothers had vitamin D levels lower than 20 ng/ml, which is a severe deficiency

state.

Newborns with vitamin D deficiency appear to have an increased risk of

developing ALRI, and since the child's vitamin D level

strongly correlates with its mother's, the researchers recommend that all

mothers' optimize their vitamin D levels during pregnancy,

especially in the winter months, to safeguard their baby's health.

3. A similar Indian study published in 2004 also reported that vitamin D

deficiency in infants significantly raised their

odds ratio for having severe ALRI.

4. A 2009 analysis of the Third National Health andNutrition Examination

Survey examined the association between vitamin D

levelsand recent upper respiratory tract infection (URTI) in nearly 19,000

subjects over the age of 12.

Recent URTI was reported by:

o 17 percent of participants with vitamin D levels of 30ng/ml or higher

o 20 percent of participants with vitamin D levels between 10-30 ng/ml.

o 24 percent of participants with vitamin D levels below 10ng/ml

The positive correlation between lower vitamin D levels and increased risk of

URTI was even stronger in individuals with asthma and

chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

5. Another 2009 report in the journal Pediatric Research stated that

infants and children appear more susceptible to viral

rather than bacterial infections when deficient in vitamin D. And that, based on

the available evidence showing a strong connection

between vitamin D, infections, and immune function in children, vitamin D

supplementation may be a valuable therapy in pediatric

medicine.

How to Prevent the Flu without Getting a Flu Shot

For most people the flu shot does not make you healthy; it does just the

opposite and weakens your immune system.

If you follow a healthy lifestyle, you will not have to worry about getting the

flu. Take it from me -- I've never received a flu

shot, and I haven't missed a day of work due to illness in over 20 years. The

key steps that I follow to stay flu-free, which I

suggest you follow too, include:

.. Get plenty of sunshine, safe tanning bed exposure or supplemental

vitamin D3

.. Eat right for your nutritional type, including avoiding sugar

.. Exercise

.. Get adequate sleep

.. Address emotional stress

.. Wash your hands regularly

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