Hey doc, can I get a shot so that I don’t come down with the flu?
The CDC recommends it: “The best way to prevent flu is by getting a flu vaccine each year.”
A Washington Post article likens not getting the flu shot to people who choose not to wear their seat belt while driving.
Who wants to get sick and be miserable, anyway? Or even die? Gimme the shot!
All the medical research and development must show it is effective, because the CDC says it is effective and harm is rare.
What’s the evidence?
There is someone who dares to disagree with what the CDC promotes. He is no anti-vaxx hippy. He is a journalist and has been digging into scientific research. Independent journalist Jeremy R. Hammond asserts:
there is absolutely no scientific basis for the CDC’s assertion that the influenza vaccine is the most effective way to prevent the flu
In fact, he has posted a series of articles going into detail with the science and politics showing this discrepancy.
He is not alone. The Cochrain group, an international group based in Britain, collates medical research findings in order to facilitate evidence-based choices about health interventions.
They are rigorous and they are thorough. In 2018, they found that research on influenza vaccines continued to affirm that:
When actual death certificates are tallied, influenza deaths on average are little more than 1,000 yearly. So, the actual threat is unknown (but likely to be small) and so is the estimation of the impact of vaccination.
We await to see whether anyone has the interest or the courage to develop effective ways to control upper respiratory viral syndromes. Meanwhile our reviews will remain as a testimonial to the scientific failure of industry and governments to address the most important clinical outcomes for patients.
Ouch! Vaccines fail to address the most important clinical outcomes for patients! That hurts proponents of vaccination, if they are even listening to what the research actually says without spinning it to fit an agenda.
What really happens when you get a flu shot
Beyond politics, vested interest, and money-making, let’s look at what is really going on. Specifically, we need to look at what happens inside your body with your immune system and how it responds to both a flu virus and a flu vaccination. There is a difference in the short and long-term effects on your health.
That is because our immune system has two different methods of developing immunity. Exposure to a flu virus activates one immune method with immune system consequences different to being injected by a inactive flu virus. Curious as to how that happens? I will explain as simply as I can.
When a pathogen such as a virus comes along, the “cell-mediated” branch of our immune system is activated mostly through T-lymphocytes. This specializes in recognizing white blood cells which have eaten up the viruses in order to destroy them. In addition, T helper cells can be stimulated to influence the creation of antibodies and recruit other cells which both destroy the virus. In this process, the immune system goes through its paces, gaining experience in fighting the virus.
The advantage of this activation of the cell-mediated immunity by a viral infection is that the system becomes more responsive to similar pathogens, such as other viruses. It has learned how to respond, therefore, it will cross-react when another different virus comes along. In effect, the immune system has become stronger because it has successfully dealt with the viral infection.
On the other hand, when a weakened or dead virus is introduced into the body in a vaccination, a different branch, the “humoral” immune system is activated. Through a series of steps, involving B-lymphocytes and plasma cells, antibodies are released into the bloodstream (the body “humor”) which are specific to that particular virus. They, in effect, have hand-to-hand combat with the virus to destroy it. The immune system becomes very adept at fighting this particular virus because it knows how to make an antibody to fit it. Nevertheless, it will not recognize any virus that does not fit that antibody. And viruses mutate quickly.
After vaccination, high levels of antigens can be detected in the blood. This is the basis of vaccine manufacturers’ claims that they are effective. The immune system has been alerted to one and only one virus, and can be effective in doing that. However, it has not learned to respond in a broad way as with the “cell-mediated” immune activation.
What’s the research?
There is research that shows that flexibility of the immune system increases after having fought a viral infection. It also shows the the immune system is less able to deal with a new viral infection after vaccination.
Evidence includes an April 2010 study published in the journal PLoS Medicine reporting four epidemiologic studies in Canada. This article showed that the influenza vaccine for the 2008 – 2009 season was apparently effective in reducing the risk of illness due to the seasonal flu. However, it was associated with an increased risk of illness due to the outbreak of the “swine flu” virus during the spring and summer of 2009.
They suggested that, if real, this finding could be due to the difference in the way the vaccine affects the immune system compared with natural infection. Under this hypothesis, repeated vaccination “effectively blocks the more robust, complex, and cross-protective immunity afforded by prior infection.”
A Journal of Virology article backs this up. Yearly flu shots “may render young children who have not previously been infected with an influenza virus more susceptible to infection with a pandemic influenza virus of a novel subtype.”
Again, a study in March 2012 in Clinical Infectious Diseases found no significant difference in the risk of acute respiratory illness with or without fever between vaccinated and unvaccinated children.
Sure, the children who received the vaccines had high levels of antibodies in their blood. However, there was “no statistically significant difference in the risk of confirmed seasonal influenza infection”. They may have felt protected, but in fact, they had an “increased risk of other respiratory virus infection.” With no actual benefit from the vaccine, what is it worth?
Vaccinated people spread more flu?
In this 2018 study of how the flu is transmitted from person to person, they found that sneezing and coughing were not needed for the virus to be spread through the air. They looked at many associations to viral shedding which could lead to spread of the virus through the air.
The surprising factor for more viral shedding was having been vaccinated – and six-fold more virus at that! That’s right, those who had the flu vaccine shed six times more of he virus than those who did not get a flu shot.
Our observation of an association between repeated vaccination and increased viral aerosol generation demonstrated the power of our method, but needs confirmation.
Self-reported vaccination for the current season was associated with a trend (P < 0.10) toward higher viral shedding in fine-aerosol samples; vaccination with both the current and previous year’s seasonal vaccines, however, was significantly associated with greater fine-aerosol shedding in unadjusted and adjusted models (P < 0.01). In adjusted models, we observed 6.3 (95% CI 1.9–21.5) times more aerosol shedding among cases with vaccination in the current and previous season compared with having no vaccination in those two seasons.
If you want to be more contagious, get the flu shot!
Side effects of vaccination
Because vaccines are made by growing the virus on a medium, usually eggs, there is a possibility of the production of proteins which could adversely activate the immune system when injected. These proteins can trigger the production of antibodies which damage, most often, the nervous system. Neurological diseases such as Guillion-Barre which results in paralysis, and narcolepsy which makes people fall asleep, have been documented.
One of those happened in 1976 with the swine flu vaccine. A progressive paralysis called Guillion-Barre Syndrome was found to be a side effect of the vaccine in a significant number of people who were injected with a vaccine. Because of that, the campaign to vaccinate was halted.
Later, a meta-analysis showed a significant association of Guillon-Barre with flu vaccines. Guillain-Barré syndrome remains the most frequent neurological condition reported after influenza vaccination to the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) since it was formed in 1990.
The vaccine Pandemrix flu triggered an autoimmune reaction leading to narcolepsy in the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic. Science magazine reported in July 2015 that
More than 1,300 people who received a vaccine to prevent the flu developed narcolepsy, an incurable, debilitating condition that causes overpowering daytime sleepiness, sometimes accompanied by a sudden muscle weakness in response to strong emotions such as laughter or anger.”
According to the British Medical Journal, the risk of the vaccine causing narcolepsy was estimated at between 1 in 57,500 and 1 in 52,000.
Do you want to take your chances with either of these debilitating neurological conditions?
Neither safe nor effective?
The Cochrain report focuses in on safety as reported above:
The underlying assumption that influenza vaccination does not affect the risk of non-influenza is contradicted by a recent report from the follow up of a trial by Cowling.
Yes, vaccination makes you more at risk from infection from other viruses.
Then they weigh in on vaccination effectiveness:
Current yearly registration of candidate influenza vaccines is based on their ability to trigger a good antibody response. But antibody responses are poor predictors of field protection.
effects on clinically important outcomes remain unmeasured or unproven from randomised trials: complications and death by influenza.
Effectiveness is unproven because it is not evident in actual people studied.
I could have told you so
Homeopaths have been objecting to vaccinations ever since they were invented.
The biggest objection is that the flu virus is spread through the air and from our hands, and enters through our nose and mouth. Mucous membranes in the nose and mouth have specially adapted immune defenses because they are the first line. In a lot of cases, we can defend ourselves from infection because of this immune activation right there on the outer barriers.
If the flu virus does succeed in infecting us, that cell-mediated immunity kicks in, as previously explained.
In addition, the infection exercises our immune system so that the next time a virus comes along, it is that much more effective in dealing with it as long as the rest of the body is healthy so that the immune system can activate.
When a weakened or dead virus in injected into the body it bypasses this natural defense system. Therefore, in order to have any immune response, the body has to actually be infected by the flu virus in order for the antibodies to be activated. You can imagine the infection is quite more widespread before the immune system is able to recognize and deal with it.
This is not to mention the fact that vaccinations inject foreign proteins into the body, giving the possibility of adverse reactions as mentioned previously.
What will you do?
I believe in informed health decision-making. Of course, you may believe that I have bias because I am a Naturopathic Physician. Or for whatever reason, I am biased. So be it.
In doing research for this, it became apparent to me that the media and even Google wants to put in front of us that we need to get the flu shot. “Two bad reasons not to get the flu shot.” “Misconceptions about the Flu Vaccine.” “10 Dangerous Flu Shot Myths”
Certainly most people believe and trust the Centers for Disease Control, right? They’re the government, so they have our best interest in mind, right?
The tagline for the Cochran Group is: Trusted Evidence. Informed Decisions. Better Health. They widely collect evidence and put it together.
Who do you believe?
Do more research on your own if you need it. Make your health decisions from a place which is informed with as little bias a possible.
Please comment below as to what is compelling evidence to either get or not get a flu vaccination.
