The CDC’s questionable estimates of annual flu hospitalizations and deaths align with its fear marketing strategy to increase demand for flu vaccines.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) claims that its recommendation that everyone aged six months and up should get an annual flu shot is firmly grounded in science. The mainstream media reinforce this characterization by misinforming the public about what the science says.
A New York Times article from earlier this year, for example, in order to persuade readers to follow the CDC’s recommendation, cited literature reviews of the prestigious Cochrane Collaboration to support its characterization of the influenza vaccine as both effective and safe. The Times said the science showed that the vaccine represented “a big payoff in public health” and that harms from the vaccine were “almost nonexistent”.
What the Cochrane researchers actually concluded, however, was that their findings “seem to discourage the utilization of vaccination against influenza in healthy adults as a routine public health measure” (emphasis added). Furthermore, given the known serious harms associated with specific flu vaccines and the CDC’s recommendation that infants as young as six months get a flu shot despite an alarming lack of safety studies for children under two, “large-scale studies assessing important outcomes, and directly comparing vaccine types are urgently required.” The CDC also recommends the vaccine for pregnant women despite the total absence of randomized controlled trials assessing the safety of this practice for both expectant mother and unborn child. (This is all the more concerning given that multi-dose vials of the inactivated influenza vaccine contain contain the preservative Thimerosal, which is half ethylmercury by weight. Ethylmercury is a known neurotoxin that can cross the blood-brain barrier and accumulate in the brain. It can also cross the placental barrier and enter the brain of the developing fetus.)
The Cochrane researchers also found “no evidence” to support the CDC’s assumptions that the vaccine reduces transmission of the virus or the risk of potentially deadly complications—the two primary justifications claimed by the CDC to support its recommendation.
The CDC nevertheless pushes the influenza vaccine by claiming that it prevents large numbers of hospitalizations and deaths from flu. To reinforce its message that everyone should get an annual flu shot, the CDC claims that hundreds of thousands of people are hospitalized and tens of thousands die each year from influenza. These numbers are generally relayed by the mainstream media as though representative of known cases of flu. The aforementioned New York Times article, for example, stated matter-of-factly that, of the 9 million to 36 million people whom the CDC estimates get the flu each year, “Somewhere between 140,000 and 710,000 of them require hospitalization, and 12,000 to 56,000 die each year.”
What is not being communicated to the public is that those numbers do not represent known cases of influenza. They do not come directly from surveillance data, but are rather based on controversial mathematical models that may greatly overestimate the numbers.
Consequently, the public is routinely misinformed about the impact of influenza on society and the ostensible benefits of the vaccine. Evidently, that’s just the way the CDC wants it, since the agency has also outlined a public relations strategy of using fear marketing to increase demand for flu shots.
The CDC’s “Problem” of “Growing Health Literacy”
Before looking at some of the problems with the CDC’s estimates, it’s useful to examine the mindset at the agency with respect to how CDC officials view their role in society. An instructive snapshot of this mindset was provided in a presentation by the CDC’s director of media relations on June 17, 2004, at a workshop for the Institute of Medicine (IOM).
In its presentation, the CDC outlined a “‘Recipe’ for Fostering Public Interest and High Vaccine Demand”. It called for encouraging medical experts and public health authorities to “state concern and alarm” about “and predict dire outcomes” from the flu season. To inspire the necessary fear, the CDC encouraged describing each season as “very severe”, “more severe than last or past years”, and “deadly”.
One problem for the CDC is the accurate view among healthy adults that they are at not at high risk of serious complications from the flu. As the presentation noted, “achieving consensus by ‘fiat’ is difficult”—meaning that just because the CDC makes the recommendation doesn’t mean that people will actually follow it. Therefore it was necessary to create “concern, anxiety, and worry” among young, healthy adults who regard the flu as an inconvenience rather than something to be terribly afraid of.
The larger conundrum for the CDC is the proliferation of information available to the public on the internet. As the CDC bluntly stated it, “Health literacy is a growing problem”.
In other words, the CDC considers it to be a problem that people are increasingly doing their own research and becoming more adept at educating themselves about health-related issues. And, as we have already seen, the CDC has very good reason to be concerned about people doing their own research into what the science actually tells us about vaccines.
One prominent way the CDC inspires the necessary fear, of course, is with its estimates of the numbers of people who are hospitalized or die each year from the flu.
The Problems with the CDC’s Estimates of Annual Flu Deaths
Among the relevant facts that are routinely not relayed to the public by the media when the CDC’s numbers are cited is that only about 7% to 15% of what are called “influenza-like illnesses” are actually caused by influenza viruses. In fact, there are over 200 known viruses that cause influenza-like illnesses, and to determine whether an illness was actually caused by the influenza virus requires laboratory testing—which isn’t usually done. Furthermore, as a the authors of a 2010 Cochrane review stated, “At best, vaccines may only be effective against influenza A and B, which represent about 10% of all circulating viruses” that are known to cause influenza-like symptoms. (That’s the same review, by the way, that the Times mischaracterized as having found the vaccine to be “a big payoff in public health”.)
While the CDC now uses a range of numbers to describe annual deaths attributed to influenza, it used to claim that on average “about 36,000 people per year in the United States die from influenza”. The CDC switched to using a range in response to criticism that the average was misleading because there is great variability from year to year and decade to decade. And while switching to the range did address that criticism, other serious problems remain.
One major problem with “the much publicized figure of 36,000”, as Peter Doshi observed in a 2005 BMJ article, was that it “is not an estimate of yearly flu deaths, as widely reported in both the lay and scientific press, but an estimate—generated by a model—of flu-associated death.”
Of course, as the media routinely remind us when it comes to the subject of vaccines and autism (but seem to forget when it comes to the CDC’s flu numbers), temporal association does not necessarily mean causation. Just because someone dies after an influenza infection does not mean that it was the flu that killed him. And, furthermore, many if not most people diagnosed with “the flu” may not have actually been infected with the influenza virus at all, given the large number of other viruses that cause the same symptoms and the general lack of lab confirmation.
The “36,000” number came from a 2003 CDC study published in JAMA that acknowledged the difficulty of estimating deaths attributable to influenza, given that most cases are not lab-confirmed. Yet, rather than acknowledging the likelihood that a substantial percentage of reported cases actually had nothing to do with the influenza virus, the CDC researchers treated it as though it only meant that flu-related deaths must be significantly higher than the reported numbers.
The study authors pointed out that seasonal influenza is “associated with increased hospitalizations and mortality for many diagnoses”, including pneumonia, and they assumed that many cases attributed to other illnesses were actually caused by influenza. They therefore developed a mathematical model to estimate the number by instead using as their starting point all “respiratory and circulatory” deaths, which include all “pneumonia and influenza” deaths.
Of course, not all respiratory and circulatory deaths are caused by the influenza virus. Yet the CDC treats this number as “an upper bound”—as though it was possible that 100% of all respiratory and circulatory deaths occurring in a given flu season were caused by influenza. The CDC also treats the total number of pneumonia and influenza deaths as “a lower bound for deaths associated with influenza”. The CDC states on its website that reported pneumonia and influenza deaths “represent only a fraction of the total number of deaths from influenza”—as though all pneumonia deaths were caused by influenza!
The CDC certainly knows better. In fact, at the same time, the CDC contradictorily acknowledges that not all pneumonia and influenza deaths are flu-related; it has estimated that in an average year 2.1% of all respiratory and circulatory deaths and 8.5% of all pneumonia and influenza deaths are influenza-associated.
So how can the CDC maintain both (a) that 8.5% of pneumonia and influenza deaths are flu-related, and (b) that the combined total of all pneumonia and influenza deaths represents only a fraction of flu-caused deaths? How can both be true?
The answer is that the CDC simply assumes that influenza-associated deaths are so greatly underreported within the broader category of deaths coded under “respiratory and circulatory” that they dwarf all those coded under “pneumonia and influenza”.
In his aforementioned BMJ article, Peter Doshi reasonably asked, “Are US flu death figures more PR than science?” As he put it, “US data on influenza deaths are a mess.” The CDC “acknowledges a difference between flu death and flu associated death yet uses the terms interchangeably. Additionally, there are significant statistical incompatibilities between official estimates and national vital statistics data. Compounding these problems is a marketing of fear—a CDC communications strategy in which medical experts ‘predict dire outcomes’ during flu seasons.”
Illustrating the problem, Doshi observed that for the year 2001, the total number of reported pneumonia and influenza deaths was 62,034. Yet, of those, less than one half of one percent were attributed to influenza. Furthermore, of the mere 257 cases blamed on the flu, only 7% were laboratory confirmed. That’s only 18 cases of lab confirmed influenza out of 62,034 pneumonia and influenza deaths—or just 0.03%, according to the CDC’s own National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).
Setting aside pneumonia and looking just at influenza-associated deaths from 1979 to 2002, the annual average according to the NCHS data was only 1,348.
The CDC’s mortality estimates would be compatible with the NCHS data, Doshi argued, “if about half of the deaths classed by the NCHS as pneumonia were actually flu initiated secondary pneumonias.” But the NCHS criteria itself strongly indicated otherwise, stating that “Cause-of-death statistics are based solely on the underlying cause of death … defined by WHO as ‘the disease or injury which initiated the train of events leading directly to death.’”
The CDC researchers who authored the 2003 study acknowledged that underlying cause-of-death coding “represents the disease or injury that initiated the chain of morbid events that led directly to the death”—yet they coupled pneumonia deaths with influenza deaths in their model anyway.
At the time Doshi was writing, the CDC was publicly claiming that each year “about 36,000 [Americans] die from flu”, and as just seen with the example from the New York Times, the range of numbers is likewise presented as though representative of known cases of flu-caused deaths. Yet the lead author of that very CDC study, William Thompson of the CDC’s National Immunization Program, acknowledged that the number rather represented “a statistical association” that does not necessarily mean causation. In Thompson’s own words, “Based on modelling, we think it’s associated. I don’t know that we would say that it’s the underlying cause of death.” (Emphasis added.)
As Doshi noted, Thompson’s acknowledgment is “incompatible” with the CDC’s “misrepresentation” of its flu deaths estimates in its public relations messaging. The CDC, Doshi further observed, was “working in manufacturers’ interest by conducting campaigns to increase flu vaccination” based on estimates that are “statistically biased”, including by “arbitrarily linking flu with pneumonia”.
More “Limitations” of the CDC’s Models
While the media present the CDC’s numbers as though uncontroversial, there is in fact “substantial controversy” surrounding flu death estimates, as a 2005 study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology noted. One problem is that the CDC’s models use virus surveillance data that “have not been made available in the public domain”, which means that its results are not reproducible. (As the journal Cell reminds, “the reproducibility of science” is “a lynchpin of credibility”.) And there are otherwise “significant limitations” of the CDC’s models that potentially result in “spurious attribution of deaths to influenza.”
To illustrate, when Peter Doshi requested access to virus circulation data, the CDC refused to allow it unless he granted the CDC co-authorship of the study he was undertaking—which Doshi appropriately refused.
In the New York Review of Books, Helen Epstein has pointed out how the CDC’s dire warnings about the 2009 H1N1 “swine flu” never came to pass, as well as how “some experts maintain that the CDC’s estimates studies overestimate influenza mortality, particularly among children.” While the number of confirmed H1N1-related child deaths was 371, the CDC’s claimed number was 1,271 or more. To arrive at its number, the CDC used a multiplier based on certain assumptions. One assumption is that some cases are missed either because lab confirmation wasn’t sought or because the children weren’t in a hospital when they died and so weren’t tested. Another is that a certain percentage of test results will be false negatives.
However, Epstein pointed out, “according to CDC guidelines at the time”, any child hospitalized with severe influenza symptoms should have been tested for H1N1. Furthermore, “deaths in children from infectious diseases are rare in the US, and even those who didn’t die in hospitals would almost certainly have been autopsied (and tested for H1N1)…. Also, the test is accurate and would have missed few cases. Because it’s unlikely that large numbers of actual cases of US child deaths from H1N1 were missed, the lab-confirmed count (371) is probably much closer to the modeled numbers … which are in any case impossible to verify.”
As already indicated, another assumption the CDC makes is that excess mortality in winter is mostly attributable to influenza. A 2009 Slate article described this as among a number of “potential glitches” that make the CDC’s reported flu deaths the “‘least bad’ estimate”. Referring to earlier methods that associated flu deaths with wintertime deaths from all causes, the article observed that this risked blaming influenza for deaths from car accidents caused by icy roads. And while the updated method presented in the 2003 CDC study excluded such causes of death implausibly linked to flu, related problems remain.
As the aforementioned American Journal of Epidemiology study noted, the updated method “reduces, but does not eliminate, the potential for spurious correlation and spurious attribution of deaths to influenza.” Furthermore, “Methods based on seasonal pattern begin from the assumption that influenza is the major source of excess winter death.” The CDC’s models therefore still “are in danger of being confounded by other seasonal factors.” The authors also stated that they could not conclude from their own study “that influenza is a more important cause of winter mortality on an annual timescale than is cold weather.”
As a 2002 BMJ study stated, “Cold weather alone causes striking short term increases in mortality, mainly from thrombotic and respiratory disease. Non-thermal seasonal factors such as diet may also affect mortality.” (Emphasis added.) The study estimated that of annual excess winter deaths, only “2.4% were due to influenza either directly or indirectly.” It concluded that, “With influenza causing such a small proportion of excess winter deaths, measures to reduce cold stress offer the greatest opportunities to reduce current levels of winter mortality.”
CDC researchers themselves acknowledge that their models are “subject to some limitations.” In a 2009 study published in the American Journal of Public Health, CDC researchers admitted that “simply counting deaths for which influenza has been coded as the underlying cause on death certificates can lead to both over- and underestimates of the magnitude of influenza-associated mortality.” (Emphasis added.) Yet they offered no comment on how, then, their models account for the likelihood that many reported cases of “flu” had nothing whatsoever to do with the influenza virus. Evidently, this is because they don’t, as indicated by the CDC’s treatment of all influenza deaths plus pneumonia deaths as a “lower bound”.
For another illustration, since it takes two or three years before the data is available to be able to estimate flu hospitalizations and deaths by the usual means, the CDC has also developed a method to make preliminary estimates for a given year by “adjusting” the numbers of reported lab-confirmed cases from selected surveillance areas around the country. It does this by multiplying the number of lab-confirmed cases by a certain amount, ostensibly “to correct for underreporting”. To determine the multiplier, the CDC makes a number of assumptions to estimate (a) the likelihood that a person hospitalized for any respiratory illness would be tested for influenza and (b) the likelihood that a person with influenza would test positive.
Once the CDC has its estimated hospitalization rate, it then multiplies that number by the ratio of deaths to hospitalizations to arrive at its estimated mortality rate. Thus, any overestimation of the hospitalization rate is also built into its estimated death rate.
One obvious problem with this is the underlying assumption that the percentage of people who (a) are hospitalized for respiratory illness and have the flu is the same as (b) the percentage of those who are hospitalized for respiratory illness, are actually tested, and test positive. This implies that doctors are not more likely to seek lab confirmation for people who actually have influenza than they are for people whose respiratory symptoms are due to some other cause.
Assuming that doctors can do better than a pair of rolled dice at picking out patients with influenza, it further implies that doctors are no more likely to order a lab test for patients whom they suspect of having the flu than they are to order a lab test for patients whose respiratory symptoms they think are caused by something else.
The CDC’s assumption thus introduces a selection bias into its model that further calls into question the plausibility of its conclusions, as it is bound to result in overestimation. In a 2015 study published in PLoS One that detailed this method, CDC researchers acknowledged that, “If physicians were more likely to recognize influenza patients clinically and select those patients for testing, we may have over-estimated the magnitude of under-detection.” And that, of course, would result in an overestimation of both hospitalizations and deaths associated with influenza.
Caveats such as that, however, are not communicated to the general public by the CDC in its press releases or by the mainstream media so that people can make a truly informed choice about whether it’s worth the risk to get a flu shot.
Conclusion
In summary, to avoid underestimating influenza-associated hospitalizations and deaths, the CDC relies on models that instead appear to greatly overestimate the numbers due to the fallacious assumptions built into them. These numbers are then mispresented to the public by both public health officials and the mainstream media as though uncontroversial and representative of known cases of influenza-caused illnesses and deaths from surveillance data. Consequently, the public is grossly misinformed about the societal disease burden from influenza and the ostensible benefit of the vaccine.
It is clear that the CDC does not see its mission as being to educate the public in order to be able to make an informed choice about vaccination. After all, that would be incompatible with its view that growing health literacy is a threat to its mission and an obstacle to be overcome. On the other hand, a misinformed populace aligns perfectly with the CDC’s stated goal of using fear marketing to generate more demand for the pharmaceutical industry’s influenza vaccine products.
This article is an adapted and expanded excerpt from part two of the author’s multi-part exposé on the influenza vaccine. Sign up for Jeremy’s newsletter to stay updated with his work on vaccines and receive his free downloadable report, “5 Horrifying Facts about the FDA Vaccine Approval Process”.
How cute. The anti-vaxxer who makes his living and reputation lying to the gullible is telling you the flu vaccine isn’t worth it.
There are 174 grieving families who lost children to the flu this year. The vast majority of those never got the vaccine.
and who are those, what were their exact circumstances?
Their children got the flu and died. The vast majority never had the vaccine, and most died within a week of getting the flu. Half had no other underlying health issues.
This is all public knowledge.
Where is your evidence, in transit from Uranus?
whose children, when,where, what was their health status , how were they treated?
Reading comprehension fail? I just told you.
-174 children died of the flu (thus far)
-2017-18 flu season.
-Children in the USA (where the CDC is located).
-Most were not vaccinated.
Vaccines wouldn’t have saved all of them, but basic math tells us that had they all been vaccinated, about 100 of them wouldn’t have died.
SM, do promote the preventable deaths of 100 children?
you’re actually wasting your own time along with ours.
It’s a simple question.
Is saving the lives of children a waste of time in your mind?
of course not, why would i posting here if i thought that. after all, you’re not saving any.
Do you acknowledge that the flu vaccine prevents flu deaths in children?
It’s another very simple question.
of course not,silly.
Then you have admitted you do not care about the preventable deaths of children, again.
you’re making no sense anymore, at all.
174 children died from the flu this season. About 100 would have survived if they had all been vaccinated.
You deny the life-saving ability of the vaccine, so you support the unnecessary death and suffering of children.
not just reading comp but maths a problem.
My math ability is just fine. Let’s test yours.
174 children died from the flu.
20% were vaccinated.
50% of children in the general population were vaccinated.
What is the efficacy of the vaccine in preventing pediatric deaths? How many would have died if all were vaccinated?
If you need a math hint, you can ask nicely.
you forgot the bit where the vaccine barely works.
“174 children died from the flu this season. About 100 would have survived if they had all been vaccinated. You deny the life-saving ability of the vaccine, so you support the unnecessary death and suffering of children.” — Brian
Note how the troll Brian employs the fallacy of begging the question, assuming in his proposition the conclusion to be proven (i.e., that the vaccine is perfectly safe and highly effective), which simply ignores everything in the article, i.e., ignores what science actually has to say.
I have a feeling you might already be on the ball — below is a link that should peak your interests
Top Doctor Loses License For Refusing To Force Parents To Vaccinate Sick Child
Provide some EVIDENCE!!!!
So some vaccinated children died. Wow I feel much safer now…
And your evidence? In transit from Uranus as usual?
Actually, given my opportunity cost, writing and publishing this article put me at a financial loss. And please quote one statement I made in the article you are alleging is a lie.
More nonsense.
Right now this blog is recommending I buy your books, which contain the same lies you’ve built your reputation upon, and your blog is asking readers “making a financial contribution to the effort” of dismissing the influenza vaccine. If you bothered to correct any of that false information, that gullible band that purchased your books or gave you money may come asking for a refund.
Of course, you simply ban anyone that proves you wrong.
Oh, so now you’re claiming I’m reaping profits from an “anti-vaccine” book by promoting it via this article, even though I have never even published a book about this topic?
And you’re repeating that I’ve written “false information” in the above article, even though I’ve repeatedly challenged you to identify even a single factual or logical error, and you’ve failed to identify even one?
Begone troll!
There is SO much wrong with this article, including dangerous lies. It should not be allowed to be published under the guise of “information” at all. This is basically reckless endangerment of public safety.
and what, pray, IS wrong?
oh brian, always lyin’!
lyin brian
Please quote one statement I made that you are alleging is a lie.
I have seen the fear-mongering driven by the CDC and medical “professionals” first hand regarding vaccines and agree wholeheartedly with your assessment of your research.
If you believe what dishonest conspiracy theorists like Jeremy Hammond tell you, then you will remain misinformed. His articles are full of false information. If you want examples, feel free to ask.
wow, brian, where’s your reading comp? got ANY?
Again, do you want examples? I’m happy to provide information with evidence that is far more reliable than any of Hammond’s conspiracies.
One one hand, you’ll become more informed with accurate information, but on the other hand, you may have to change your beliefs, and thus far it seems you wish to remain ignorant.
read what you replied to again and explain your answer.
NotEinstein said he “agreed wholeheartedly” with Hammond’s article, even though a tiny bit of fact checking shows it to be nonsense. Want examples?
omg!
“NotEinstein said he “agreed wholeheartedly” with Hammond’s article, even though a tiny bit of fact checking shows it to be nonsense. Want examples?” — Brian
For anyone wishing to know, here is what happened when I asked the troll Brian for examples. Here is the best he could do:
https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2018/06/19/how-the-cdc-uses-fear-marketing-to-increase-demand-for-flu-vaccines/#comment-3956225349
“I’m happy to provide information with evidence that is far more reliable than any of Hammond’s conspiracies.” — Brian
Evidently, Brian thinks the CDC and the Cochrane Collaboration are not good sources of information about the influenza vaccine.
Brian may think, but he’s simply not good at it.
You have ZERO credibility pharma boy.
Please quote one statement I made that you are alleging is false.
edited to add: It’s rather revealing that Jeremy Hammond will ban anyone who points out his dishonesty. His response below is another example.
Just one statement?
Ok. Let’s start at the top.
Yup. That’s what the news article said. It referenced many studies and reviews, not just from Cochrane.
Really? Where did that come from? That exact same line is plastered on a hundred conspiracy blogs that reference each other but never the primary source.
Oh wait, I found it. It’s a cherry-picked line from an old version of the Cochrane report. That’s pretty misleading, considering that same report has been updated multiple times since that statement was included.
Want another example?
I see you have failed to identify even a single factual or logical error in the above article.
To your lame attempted refutations:
1) The source the Times specifically cited for this particular claim was the 2010 Cochrane review, which, as I pointed out, actually came to precisely the opposite conclusion as that claimed by the Times (re: public health benefit).
2) You can hardly accuse me of “cherry-picking” the actual conclusion from the Times’ own source, given how the Times reported the exact opposite of the actual conclusion.
I’ve no time for mindless trolls.
Troll alert. Escapee from skepticalratturd
Projection 101 from Briandead
If you thought the massive push to get a flu shot was annoying, just wait.
GlaxoSmithKline’s Shingrix Launch Gets a Jump-start with CVS Move to Stock Thousands of Pharmacies
GlaxoSmithKline has a lot riding on Shingrix, its new shingles vaccine. It’s one of the key products CEO Emma Walmsley cited as growth drivers for the languishing company. And that launch just got a major boost from CVS.
The pharmacy chain said Monday that nearly 10,000 of its pharmacies in the U.S. now have the shingles immunization on store shelves and available for patients.
“The vaccine is recommended for adults 50 and older in two doses spaced two to six months apart.”
https://www.fiercepharma.com/vaccines/cvs-stocks-glaxosmithkline-s-shingrix-thousands-pharmacies
Why is everyone surprised that people are dying after receiving the flu shot—especially the elderly? It works just like it did during the research trials…
http://althealthworks.com/9054/105-seniors-died-after-getting-this-high-dose-flu-shot-yet-it-is-still-on-the-marketyelena/
REMEMBER WHEN THE SWISS FLU SHOT WAS MARKETED AS SAFE AND EFFECTIVE?
“We found that the intranasal influenza vaccine used in Switzerland during the 2000–2001 influenza season greatly increased the risk of Bell’s palsy among vaccinees.
The association was strong, temporal, and specific…In the prelicensure trials of the intranasal influenza vaccine, no cases of Bell’s palsy were reported among 1218 recipients (Spyr C, Berna Biotech: personal communication). However, 46 cases of Bell’s palsy were reported shortly after licensure. The Swiss intranasal vaccine is now no longer in clinical use.”
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa030595#t=article
Vitamin D Is More Effective Than Flu Vaccine
“The findings of our study support an important role for vitamin D in prevention of common respiratory infections, such as colds and the flu.
Individuals with common lung diseases, such as asthma or emphysema, may be particularly susceptible to respiratory infections from vitamin D deficiency.
For people with the most significant vitamin D deficiencies (blood levels below 10 [ng/mL]), taking a supplement cut their risk of respiratory infection in half.
Other recent studies have shown that with each successive annual flu vaccination, the protection afforded by the vaccine appears to diminish.
The flu vaccine may also increase your risk of contracting other, more serious influenza infections.”
http://healthimpactnews.com/2017/study-vitamin-d-is-more-effective-than-flu-vaccine/
Flu Shot Hoax Admitted: “No Controlled Trials Demonstrating a Decrease in Influenza”
The flu shot is a fraud. But it’s a fraud that’s so deeply embedded in the delusional pro-vaccine culture of the pharma-controlled medical industry that even well-meaning doctors and pharmacists (who are otherwise very intelligent) fail to realize flu shots don’t work. In fact, flu shot vaccine inserts openly admit there is no scientific evidence demonstrating flu shots work. See the vaccine insert photo for proof.
http://wakingtimesmedia.com/flu-shot-hoax-admitted-no-controlled-trials-demonstrating-decrease-influenza/
Johns Hopkins Researcher Releases Shocking Report On Flu Vaccines
“A study released in February this year showed that flu vaccines have a 9% efficiency in protecting the elderly against the 12-13 bug, and even worse, it offers children no protection at all. The government says that all babies should be vaccinated—even though they’re fully aware of the mercury in vaccines which is toxic for the brain, The mercury will also suppress the immunity of a baby for up to 3 weeks and make them more susceptible to the flu.
Mercury can overstimulate the brain for years afterward, and has been related to neurological problems.”
https://goodthingstoknow.co/flu-vaccines/
PREGNANCY & THE FLU SHOT
Do Not Get Any Vaccines While Pregnant!
Doctors are pressuring unsuspecting pregnant women to get the flu shot, however…
From the manufacturer’s own package insert—
“Safety and efficacy have not been established in pregnant women.”
If you do get the flu shot while pregnant, you are put into a “registry” to track your pregnancy after the flu shot. You are participating in an experiment—a vaccine trial—without your knowledge or consent!
Again, directly from the GSK Flulaval product package insert—
“Register women who receive FLULAVAL while pregnant in the ‘Pregnancy Registry’ by calling 1-888-452-9622.” (Call the number.)
ASK YOUR DOCTOR FOR THE VACCINE PACKAGE INSERT. YOU’LL BE SHOCKED AT WHAT YOU FIND.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/573e497a84cb5897c8bdf67e99c2eb7c778347fff3b4b8b6af267d4c05447a77.jpg
ask you doctor to READ the insert as well, apparently they don’t.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/66e91b1ba12f962b7c9b863e1b423cdd6ac1f699e1c8d8f0a9df69fdae3c0acd.jpg
I haven’t had the flu for many years the last time was back in 2012 when I was so unfortunate to meet up with an old friend who did not bother to warn me beforehand that they had a very bad case of the flue and insisted on the typical kiss and embrace that is so common in Europe.
I know of someone else who is quite old and when they decided to travel to Europe for a long holiday – they had taken some flu shots – the entire time they were there, they suffered the worst flue they ever had to endure.
Flue shots? No thanks.
What will we do when or if they become compulsory?
I got fibromyalgia after my first and only flu shot way back in 1991, when I was doing temp work and they wanted us all to get one. They were also still using live vaccine back then. Now I just take Vitamins C and D3 all winter, plus lysine and the occasional zinc lozenge if I feel like I might be getting sick, and also gargle with salt water if my throat starts feeling sore.
I very rarely get colds, but I’ve had fibromyalgia ever since that shot. I’d rather have gotten the flu that year.
BTW, so glad you’re hanging in there. :-)
I looked up the fibromyalgia – sounds terrible.
The retirement age has been raised right around the world so I’ll have to continue working [which I’d prefer] it still requires having to go through those annoying full on medicals, as we get older we tend to fail those medicals more frequently, I had one of those serious medicals late last year where they informed me that I was a walking dead man – why they did was beyond me, I feel fine – and blame it on over diagnosis just to cover their own arse.
Why?
The problem appears to be related to occupation which is a high risk one at that – Even though I get to sit in a comfy chair and operate modern lifting equipment with the flick of a switch – in the end they’re looking for people able to run a marathon and are 100% fit as opposed to someone older and no longer in the best state of health.
I’ve been earning and saving and am seriously considering moving back to the hills, while I can, only trouble then will be the lack of internet reception.
There is a lot of “covering their own arse” in the medical profession.
They just don’t know enough about how the body really works yet, and they’ve made a range of “average” to be equivalent to “normal,” even though everyone is unique and different.
High risk occupation… that means very stressful. No wonder you want to move into the hills & be around nature. Hope you at least have some time to do that once in awhile between jobs– and that you can find some other ways to relieve your stress in the meantime.
Yeah the fibro’s a b:+ch, but I’ve found my own ways of dealing with it — especially because when I first got it, it still wasn’t medically accepted, so I experimented on myself. Foods in the onion family exacerbate my symptoms, as does lack of sleep.
Take care of yourself… best wishes.
So to hear about your fibromyalgia. Indeed, influenza is by and large essentially just a disease of vitamin D deficiency, which is why it comes around in waves during winter months. How much more effective would it be if the government, instead of wastefully directing so many resources toward boosting Big Pharma profits, just educated people to ensure they maintain sufficiency of vitamin D, vitamin C, eat a healthful diet, exercise, etc.? Instead, they lie that the vaccine is “the best way” to prevent the flu. Well, show me that study! It doesn’t exist, of course.
Yes — I wish a doctor had told me about Vitamin D deficiency when I first moved to the Northwest of the US. At this latitude, there is no way to get enough Vitamin D3 in the wintertime without supplements, so people get depressed and their immune systems are more vulnerable.
That is precisely why I wrote this article and have increasingly focused my work on the vaccine issue: because of the very serious threat public vaccine policy poses to both our health and our liberty.
The public needs to be awoken about the reality that what the government and media say science says about vaccines and what science actually tells us are two completely different and mutually incompatible things.
Your style of investigative journalism is appreciated – The articles that you publish are most informative and can serve as an example to aspiring writers.
After having made a remark about vaccinations becoming mandatory it appears that I’m too late, in Australia this has already been the case where people on welfare had their support reduced when they opposed vaccinations for their children
Australia Set To Make Vaccinations Mandatory For Children With New Law
Me I have more than a little trouble accepting the narrative provided by a government whom has proven unable to distinguise between fact and fiction, as such is nothing more than Washingtons vassal state.
Tasha David [president of the AU anti vaccination network] explains why mandatory vaccinations are wrong – parents should be free to make their own decisions!!!
– “My Family Was Devastated By Vaccines” Tasha Dāvid, AVN President
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaxWQxD4FBs
In the end it always comes down to the same question, who benefits?
In the end It’s easy to see that the mandatory vaccinations are related to the for profit motive of the big pharmaceutical companies.
Incidentally, I have a writing coaching program:
https://www.jeremyrhammond.com/coaching/
Ouch! I was aware of the writing program from the newsletter, however, blissfully aware that I might require one (^^,)
Time is not on my side at the moment but who knows in the near future.
Are there any costs involved?
Edit – Starting at $375 per month blows the lid of my budget.
Understood. I was sharing that information for anyone who might be following the thread, not you specifically. I didn’t mean to suggest you’re a bad writer or anything, if that’s how you took it. I appreciate your comment on the article.
It’s all good, I know I’m not perfect and added a smiley to suggest humor.
I’ll definitely keep reading some of the articles I’m mostly interested in the Geopolitical aspect of things – US/Western exceptionalism and all that.
We’re in the final phase of globalization it’s high time that something happens for the benefit of the people on this planet as opposed to the multinational corporations.
—
John Pilger put it so very succinctly when he wrote Palestine Remains ‘the Greatest Moral Issue of Our Time’ [Truthdig]
For real! Children these day get so many vaccines that these “flu deaths” could very well be associated with the earlier vaccines. What infant or non drug using pregnant woman needs a hep b vax? Look at the vax schedule today. It’s awful!!!!