Every time I hear an expert urging as many people as possible to get the flu vaccine injected into their body the subject of safety is always “glossed” over. Their position is always that the flu vaccine has been shown to be safe over decades of use. Before I continue on with this article I want you to click on the following link and view this story that was featured on Fox News.

Bad Flu Shot Reaction Story

How horrible is this story? Could you imagine this happening to you or one of your children? The thought actually nauseates me and the reason why is not only because of the life destroying side-effects that this healthy young lady experienced after taking the flu vaccine. The reason has to do with the fact that there was absolutely NO REASON for this young lady to take the flu shot in the first place. She took a basically worthless shot and her life has been tragically changed.

O.K., I know my characterization of the flu vaccine as “worthless” is a highly debatable one. If you immediately came to the conclusion that my position is one of unsupported raw emotion, you are reading one of my articles for the first time.  Long-time readers of Health Zingers will attest to the fact that I pride myself on explaining the logic that governs my decisions. You may very well disagree with my logic and some certainly do. When the majority of people reading your opinion consistently disagree with your logic you are rightfully in danger of being labeled as a whack-job. Considering the feedback I get from my articles I feel comfortable that I am not there yet! If you disagree with me, please do not hesitate to let me know.

So, let’s look at the differing sides of this argument and you can determine whether you are on my side or not.

Pro-vaccine view: You should absolutely get the flu shot because over 30,000 people die from the flu every year. You need to protect yourself from becoming a part of this statistic.

My view: This is what I call the “Scare Tactic” and it works very well. In fact, it is exactly what I used at the beginning of this article. For this tactic to work you have to first convince someone that something horrible could happen to them or a loved one if they fail to follow some prescribed action. But, this is not enough. You have to then make them believe there is a high probability that this horrible event is going to afflict them or a loved one. Finally, you have to convince them that whatever action you want them to take will “safely” remedy the situation. Without the successful use of this tactic very few people would choose to vaccinate themselves or their children after thoroughly studying the facts.   

Vaccine advocates put the Scare Tactic into play by stating some number of people who die each year from the flu with the implication that these were people just like you and me who contracted the flu and then suddenly died! They are absolutely aware of the fact that almost all of these deaths did not involve relatively healthy individuals but those who had other health complications. They know full well if they told you the truth that very few healthy people die each year from the flu they would fail to successful implement the “scare” aspect of the Scare Tactic. 

I can tell you that I know a lot of people and I do not know of any healthy children or young adults who died from the general flu. Not one! And, I am willing to bet that you do not have a friend or family member who was completely healthy one day and then died because of the flu. I realize there are reports of this occurring and I am sure a seemingly healthy person somewhere actually did die from the flu. But, what you typically find is these people had underlying problems that contributed to their death. My point is simply that the chances of a healthy person dying of the flu are minuscule.

I do, however, know of many people who had a bad reaction to the flu vaccination. A few even needed to be hospitalized for a while. Now, I understand that this aspect of my argument is purely a real-life observation on my part. It is not scientifically based. Unfortunately, observation is really the only way to evaluate the question of flu shot safety. There has never been a study done that compares how many people suffer from bad reactions to the flu vaccine verses healthy people having bad reactions to the flu. Do more healthy people get bad reactions from the vaccine or from the flu? All I know is that I have no family, friends or patients who were healthy one moment and then dead the next thanks to the flu. Our every day observations suggest the flu shot causes more serious problems than does the flu itself.

Pro-vaccine view: The flu shot is effective at stopping the spread of the flu. Thus, when you get the flu shot you help others in the community by curbing the spread of the flu.

My view: If you listen to the flu advertising campaign or to your doctor you would think the flu vaccine is close to 100% effective. Recently, on the Today Show, a doctor “expert” was asked the chance that the person who just got the nasal form of the H1N1 vaccine would get the swine flu. She answered that they had a zero chance of getting the flu now that they had been vaccinated. A flat out lie! Interestingly enough, when you go to pro-flu shot web sites, they freely admit that the shot is not 100% effective. However, they never tell you just how much less than 100% effective they are. The intentionally false perception forwarded by these sites is if you get the flu shot you will gain significant protection from contracting the flu.

Let’s look at some facts so you can begin to form your educated opinion. The CDC (Centers for Disease Control) estimates that only up to 20% of the population can catch the flu in any given season. Some years it can be much lower. Thus, at most, only 2 out of 10 people will get the flu in a bad year. So, how effective is the flu shot at lowering this risk? The answer is no one can tell you because it depends upon what strain of the flu hits your area. The potential benefit depends upon how lucky they get in matching the vaccine’s strain with the strain affecting the population. The CDC states that in years when vaccine strains are well matched to the flu virus circulating in the population, “vaccine effectiveness typically exceeds 50% and can be as high as 70-90%.” For the 2007-08 flu season the vaccine effectiveness was guessed to be at only 44%.

What you have to understand is these estimates from the CDC are exactly that…they are guesses. No studies ever show that a vaccine actually works or whether any vaccine had a real effect upon reducing cases of the flu. It is simply impossible to study whether a flu vaccine actually affects the contraction of the flu. How would you complete that study? You would have to double-blind vaccinate a large number of people (giving some of them the real vaccine and some of them a sham vaccine) and then purposely infect ALL OF THEM with the flu virus. Then you could see if the vaccine actually worked. Since this study cannot be done they only rely upon whether or not the vaccine created an immune response in the test subjects. The problem with this approach is it does not tell us if that immune response will in fact protect the person from contracting the actual flu. They just assume it will. Maybe it will…maybe it will not. Stating with confidence that it will is disingenuous, at best.

So, let’s try to answer the question of how well the flu shot reduces the flu with the available science.  If the flu vaccine actually worked you would expect to see a significant reduction in the number of deaths each year thanks to the vaccine. This makes sense since if the flu vaccine worked a much smaller number of people would be infected and thus much fewer people would die. Unfortunately for those who are pro-vaccine, the science does not support their position and tells us that flu vaccines have had no positive effect upon saving lives!

A recent study published in the Lancet Infectious Disease journal (Lancet Infect Dis. 2008 Aug;8(8): 460-1) had this to say about flu vaccinations:

“Recent excess mortality studies were unable to confirm a decline in influenza-related mortality since 1980, even as vaccination coverage increased from 15% to 65%.”
“New studies, however, have shown substantial unadjusted selection bias in previous cohort studies…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…The remaining evidence base is currently insufficient to indicate the magnitude of the mortality benefit, if any, that elderly people derive from the vaccination program.”

In other words, the flu vaccine has not been shown to cause a decline in flu-related deaths! Notice in the very last sentence that this study looked at the effect of the flu vaccination program on the “elderly”. This is the group most likely to die because of complications of the flu and even in this group there was NO benefit found from the use of flu vaccination. It does not take a rocket scientist to realize that if the flu shot does not help the high risk elderly it will most certainly not exert a positive benefit upon the death rate of healthy young people.

It disturbs me, as well as it should you, that the medical community uses the Scare Tactic in promoting the flu vaccine. They know full well there is no real evidence that the flu vaccination reduces mortality in any significant manner. This is especially true for the healthy.

The bottom line for this one is important:  NO ONE can tell you with any degree of certainty that a flu vaccination will give you any benefit at reducing the risk of you getting the flu. One thing we know for sure…if 8 out of 10 people were not going to get the flu in the first place the flu vaccine gave them absolutely zero benefit at all and only potential negatives.

Pro-vaccine view: Flu shots are safe!

My view: My question is safe compared to what? If you want to read a more in-depth article regarding the safety of the flu vaccine I suggest you read my article: Flu Shots:  Trick or Treat?

Tell Desiree Jennings, the girl from the Fox News video that the flu shot is safe! Tell that to the over 2,000 parents who went to the ER with their child after getting a flu shot or the close to 100 parents whose child died or sustained a permanent disability from getting the flu shot over the past decade. I can only imagine how enraged these parents must get when they hear “experts” tell the population that the flu shot is safe!

Unfortunately, the direct risk of getting sick from the flu shot is not the only risk. There are a number of toxic ingredients found in a flu vaccine. The negative impact upon you and your child’s health from these ingredients are impossible to determine. The influenza virus is grown in egg protein and is deactivated with formaldehyde. Other ingredients include MSG (MonoSodium Glutamate), polyethylene glycol p-isooctyl-pheyl ether, polyoxyethylene 9-10 nonyl phenol and thimerosol (mercury). Mercury is found in adult vaccines. Most children’s vaccines only contain a trace of mercury. But, many clinics give children and adults the same vaccine. I guess I would advise you to ask yourself how much formaldehyde and other chemicals you are comfortable having injected into your child. My answer would be none, unless the benefits greatly outweigh the negatives.

The Bottom Line:

I urge you to ask yourself what is the worth of a healthy person taking a flu vaccination? Less than 2 out of 10 people will contract the flu in any given season, it is unheard of for a healthy child or young adult to die from the flu, no doctor or scientist can tell you with any degree of certainty whether the flu vaccine will be effective and there is indeed documented evidence that a healthy person who takes the flu shot can have their life destroyed! So, is it worthless for a healthy person to take the flu shot or am I a whack-job? Let me know your verdict.