It’s getting colder outside, and with winter on the way, I’m sure you’ve probably already seen this phrase or something like it: “It’s flu season, so make sure you get your flu shot!”
How many times have we seen and heard these words? We see it on TV commercials, hear it on the radio, notice it in magazines, on social media, in the newspaper. Billboards along the highway display this message as you drive to work. Signs line the borders of your local Walgreen’s reminding you to “get yours today” and of course, we see it at the doctor’s office and at our children’s well-child check ups.
It’s a little much, isn’t it? It’s almost as if the pharmaceutical industry has a monopoly on advertising in every news and media outlet possible! But oddly enough, we only hear about the benefits of the flu vaccine. We hear about how it minimizes the incidence of flu, reduces flu-related hospitalizations, and of course, we hear how the flu vaccine saves lives. Sounds pretty effective, but surely no pharmaceutical product comes without risk, right? So, what is the pharmaceutical industry NOT telling us about their products in these oh so well placed advertisements? Well, that’s what I’m here for people!
I often hear that mass vaccination, also called “herd immunity” is imperative to protect the most vulnerable among us. I’m not going to get into the topics of mandatory vaccination and herd immunity today, but I’d like to address this idea of vaccinating to protect the most vulnerable among us, or rather, vaccinating the most vulnerable among us. No, you read that correctly, I said vaccinating the most vulnerable among us, because that’s exactly what’s happening with the flu vaccine. So, let’s look at three groups of vulnerable people – children, pregnant women and the elderly – and evaluate why the flu shot is pushed especially hard on them.
In this study 1 scientists looked at 4,727 children who came to the hospital with flu-like illnesses to evaluate the flu vaccine’s effectiveness. Each patient was given an Influenza Rapid Diagnostic Test upon arrival, and these were the results of their study:
– Nearly half (48.2%) of children who came in with flu like symptoms in this study actually had the flu.
– “Influenza vaccine was not effective against either influenza A or influenza B in infants 6 to 11 months of age.”
– “A meta-analysis of [Vaccine Effectiveness] in children showed no convincing evidence that influenza vaccine can reduce mortality, hospitalizations, or serious complications.”
By the way, all the children in this study had been vaccinated against the flu. Almost half of them got the flu, but even the ones who didn’t still had flu-like symptoms.
This study 2 evaluated how many children needed to be vaccinated to prevent one case of the flu. These were their findings:
– “six children under the age of six need to be vaccinated with live attenuated vaccine to prevent one case of influenza.”
– “Twenty-eight children over the age of six need to be vaccinated to prevent one case of influenza.”
– “We could find no usable data for those aged two years or younger.”
To summarize the flu vaccine for children:
a) It is not effective at all for children less than a year old.
b) There is not sufficient data for this vaccine in children 2 and under.
c) Up to 28 children would need to be vaccinated to prevent ONE case of the flu.
d) Half of the children who got vaccinated ended up WITH the flu.
When looking at all of these things, should the flu vaccine really be recommended for children 6 months and up?
Flu vaccine and pregnant women 3, 4
Since 2004, the flu vaccine has been recommended in all trimesters of pregnancy. Women who were pregnant in the 2009/2010 “flu season” were recommended to get both the Trivalent Inactivated Influenza Vaccine AND the pandemic H1N1 vaccine. These two vaccines were found to have a synergistic toxic effect which resulted in a nearly 8 times fetal loss (miscarriage) compared to previous years. Despite the H1N1 flu vaccine insert cautioning pregnant women about this vaccine, “It is also not known whether these vaccines can cause fetal harm when administered to pregnant women or can affect reproduction capacity” it was still recommended by providers and resulted in the death of many babies.
Even then, the researchers in this study 3 believe that those numbers were low. “it is likely that the ascertainment-corrected rate of 535 fetal losses per million pregnant women vaccinated represents a significant underestimate during the two-vaccine 2009/2010 influenza season since health care professionals explained to patients ‘the benefits of influenza vaccination outweighed the risks.’”
Fetal demise “was rarely contemplated or was considered highly unlikely and thus, more often than not, not reported.”
While I did read this entire article, 4 (and I highly suggest you do too) which reviewed the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practice’s (ACIP) recommendation that all pregnant women receive the flu vaccine, the abstract summarized it pretty well:
“The ACIP’s citations and the current literature indicate that influenza infection is rarely a threat to a normal pregnancy. There is no convincing evidence of the effectiveness of influenza vaccination during this critical period. No studies have adequately assessed the risk of influenza vaccination during pregnancy, and animal safety testing is lacking. Thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative present in most inactivated formulations of the vaccine, has been implicated in human neurodevelopment disorders, including autism, and a broad range of animal and experimental reproductive toxicities including teratogenicity, mutagenicity, and fetal death. Thimerosal is classified as a human teratogen. The ACIP policy recommendation of routinely administering influenza vaccine during pregnancy is ill-advised and unsupported by current scientific literature, and it should be withdrawn. Use of thimerosal during pregnancy should be contraindicated.”
WOW! That’s pretty convincing stuff! But if that’s not enough to persuade you to not get this vaccine while pregnant, just know that “the authors found four times as many [Influenza Like Illness]-related hospitalizations in vaccinated women.”
Side note: If your doctor or midwife is pushing you to receive the flu vaccine while pregnant, please show all of these articles cited below to him/her. Also, your doctor works for you, not the other way around. If you don’t want this vaccine and they won’t respect your wishes, fire them and find a new doctor!
So, to recap what we’ve learned about the flu vaccine for pregnant women:
a) The flu vaccine is recommended to all pregnant women in all trimesters of pregnancy.
b) Women who received two flu vaccines in one year had miscarriages at 8 times the rate of previous years.
c) Fetal loss from vaccination is rarely reported.
d) Getting the flu while pregnant is rarely cause for concern.
e) There is no evidence that the flu vaccine is effective in pregnant women.
f) There are no adequate safety studies to determine the risk for pregnant women and their unborn children who receive the flu vaccine.
g) The current recommendation that all pregnant women should receive the flu vaccine is not scientifically supported and is unsound advice.
h) Pregnant women should not get mercury-based vaccines.
i) You’re four times as likely to end up in the hospital with a flu-like illness if you’ve been vaccinated.
j) I could go on, but I should probably stop before I run out of letters.
Flu vaccine and the elderly 5, 6
The flu vaccine is pushed particularly hard on people 65 years and older because they are the most vulnerable people group to have complications and die from the flu. And by the way, influenza is normally NOT a deadly illness. I can be quite certain that nearly everyone reading this article has had the flu at some point in their lives and are, in fact, still alive. Due to lowered immunity among other factors, seniors are more vulnerable to complications and death from the flu. But does that mean the flu vaccine helps them? It has often been stated that annual flu vaccination has decreased mortality in elderly people by 50%. Is this true though? Well, as always, let’s look at the science and find out, shall we?
Influenza vaccination quadrupled in the elderly from 1980 to 2001, and in that same time frame, flu deaths in seniors increased.
It has been observed that immune senescence, which is the decline in immune response with increasing age, seems to be why the elderly are not getting much protection from the flu vaccine, if any at all. In fact, “there are only a few well-controlled (and likely bias-free) observational studies at this point; these studies suggest low vaccine benefits for seniors, with point estimates ranging from 0% to 29% Vaccine Effectiveness.”
The authors of this study 5 concluded that they “could not correlate increasing vaccination coverage after 1980 with declining mortality rates in any age group.” and that “observational studies substantially overestimate vaccination benefit.”
As far as flu vaccines decreasing mortality in those aged 65 and up by 50%, well, that’s quite the claim considering flu deaths only account for about 5% of all winter deaths. Here’s what the authors of these articles 5, 6 had to say about that:
“We conclude, therefore, that there are not enough influenza-related deaths to support the conclusion that vaccination can reduce total winter mortality among the US elderly population by as much as half.”
“the idea that influenza vaccine can prevent up to 50% of ALL winter deaths is preposterous.”
Okay, now that we’ve discussed how ineffective the flu vaccine is, let’s talk about the dangers of the flu versus the dangers of the flu vaccine.
Yes, people die from the flu, but it’s not the often-quoted 36,000 to 80,000 figure the CDC likes to throw out there. Influenza deaths are combined with other flu-like illnesses to create this hyperbolic number. “influenza mortalities are combined with the far more frequent pneumonia deaths, yielding an exaggerated representation of “influenza” deaths. Pneumonia related mortality due to immunosuppression, AIDS, malnutrition, and a variety of other predisposing medical conditions is therefore combined with seasonal influenza deaths.” 4 In fact, in the years 1997-2002, there were less than 100 influenza-confirmed deaths per year, and flu deaths in pregnant women were exceedingly rare at approximately one per year.
Plus, most “flu-like illnesses” aren’t even the flu! Most symptoms of the flu aren’t caused by influenza, but by other viruses, bacteria, and other infectious and noninfectious conditions. “According to the CDC, only about 20% of the cases of [Influenza Like Illnesses] are actually caused by the influenza virus.” 4 Basically, the flu vaccine at it’s BEST could only prevent about 20% of flu-like illnesses (although, we know that number is way too high because I’ve just shown how ineffective it is). Natural influenza deaths are very rare, so next time you see a scary “flu death” number from the CDC, just know that number is very inflated, unrealistic, and doesn’t take into account how many of those people had been vaccinated.
So, now let’s talk about the safety of the flu vaccine. To do that, we need to look at the 3 different kinds of flu vaccines available, specifically the ingredients. 1. The live virus flu vaccine, 2. Egg-based flu vaccines 3. Thimerosal-based flu vaccines.
The live virus flu vaccine, also known as FluMist, is a nasal spray instead of an injection. But just because it’s not attached to a needle doesn’t mean it’s safer. Because it is a live vaccine, it has the ability to “shed” or transmit the live virus onto another person and infect them with the flu. That doesn’t really seem like a good “herd immunity” plan to me. Because of this, the live-virus flu vaccine is contraindicated for pregnant women.
“Clinicians should take care not to administer it inadvertently to a pregnant woman and also note that transmission of vaccine viruses to close contacts has occurred in clinical trials.” 4
Viral shedding of the flu from this vaccine is even discussed on the FluMist vaccine insert stating “the probability of acquiring a transmitted vaccine virus was estimated to be 2.4%.” 7 It was also found that people who had received the FluMist were capable of shedding the virus to others for up to 21 days after administration of the vaccine.
The FluMist is not recommended for children under two, because “In clinical trials, in children 6 through 23 months of age, FluMist was associated with an increased risk of hospitalization and wheezing.” 7
All flu vaccines, with the exception of Flucelvax, contain egg in one form or another, so if you’re allergic to eggs, you definitely should not be receiving a flu vaccine. And if you think the Flucelvax is better, just know it contains Madin Darby Canine Kidney cells, so yeah, a dog had to die to make that vaccine. Besides that, some of the other ingredients in the flu vaccine are formaldehyde, antibiotics, polysorbate 80, and a slew of other questionable additives. To learn more about Vaccine Ingredients, click here.
Lastly, all multi-dose flu vaccines contain thimerosal as a preservative, which is 50% ethyl-mercury by weight. This means the flu vaccine has 25 micrograms of mercury in it. While I’m saving the topic of Thimerosal/ethylmercury for another day, I’d like to share a few of the basics about this ingredient. 3, 4
-Thimerosal has been linked to causing a wide range of neurological disorders such as autism.
-Thimerosal has been linked to causing genetic mutations.
-Thimerosal has been linked to causing birth defects.
-Thimerosal has been linked to causing reproductive toxicities.
-Thimerosal via injection is easily transmitted to organs, but not easily excreted from the body.
-Thimerosal has been found to be toxic even at very low levels.
-Thimerosal causes cell death.
-Thimerosal has been found to preferentially bioaccumulate in fetal tissue at a degree of 4:1 compared to adults.
Besides the dangers of thimerosal, this article 8 stated that “a number of studies have reported an association between influenza vaccine administration and adverse reactions such as Guillain-Barre syndrome, Bell’s palsy, and systemic vasculitis.”
There is also great concern over being injected with a vaccine every single year for the rest of your life, which would amount to approximately 100 vaccines in a lifetime if you combine flu vaccines with the current recommended CDC schedule of childhood vaccines. Authors reported “No data exist on the safety of receiving a large number of doses of vaccine… The potential risks of receiving so many similar vaccinations include but are not limited to allergic, anaphylactic, hyperimmune, and dysimmune reactions.” 8
And, if for some reason all of this information is not enough to convince you that the flu vaccine is dangerous, please take the time to read any of the flu vaccine inserts, especially the parts that discuss adverse reactions. If nothing else, you’ll see many people reported symptoms mimicking the flu – vomiting, fever, muscle aches, etc. – (what exactly is the point of the flu shot again?) but many adverse reactions reported are much worse, and in some cases, even life threatening.
The flu vaccine is extremely ineffective, with one study stating its’ effectiveness “is only a dismal 7.2%.” 4 So why are they pushing it so hard? Maybe it has something to do with the fact that when millions of doses of a product are being sold every year, billions of dollars are made from said products. $1.6 billion in revenue, actually, just from this one vaccine.
But not only is it ineffective, it’s extremely unsafe. The studies are clear. Flu shots don’t save lives, they don’t reduce hospitalizations or even flu-like illnesses. They don’t protect the most vulnerable among us and they have the potential to kill and maim. But hey, at least you CAN’T sue them if you or your loved one becomes injured! Again, that’s a topic for another day.
Boost your immune system naturally. Spend time outside, exercise, eat nutritious foods, take supplements if you want, and definitely wash your hands, but please think about all of this information before getting a flu shot. Read through all of the articles cited below. Take your health into your own hands and please do your research.
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4552891/
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22895945/
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3888271/
- https://www.jpands.org/vol11no2/ayoub.pdf
- https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/486407
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X09010056
- https://www.fda.gov/media/83072/download
- https://www.jpands.org/vol11no3/geier.pdf
knowbetterdobetter.blog 
I am very anti vaccination. If I didn’t watch them make it I don’t want it. I always say just follow the money!
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