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Everyone knows about the flu and the flu vaccine. What people do not know is that flu vaccines are nearly useless in preventing flu, they will cause the flu, and they often result in nervous system damage that can take years for the body to repair. Other nations chuckle at Americans’ infatuation with the flu vaccine. The joke would indeed be funny, if it weren’t for the damaging effects caused by the vaccine.

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   The history of the flu vaccine reads like one stumbling fiasco after another. Take an example. Ever wonder how the particular viruses are chosen for next year’s vaccine? The answer could be drawn from a 1930s film noir of Shanghai villainy. Scientists kill migrating ducks in Asia, culture the viruses and put those in next year’s vaccine, because they have seen an association between bird and pig viruses and the following year’s human flu epidemics. Perhaps this desperate guesswork is responsible for so many years when the flu vaccine’s viruses had nothing in common with circulating viruses. According to a CDC report of the 1994-1995 flu season, 87 percent of type A influenza virus samples were not similar to the year’s vaccine, and 76 percent of type B virus were not similar to the virus in that year’s vaccine. During the 1992-1993 season, 84 percent of samples for the predominant type A virus were not similar to the virus in the vaccine.

Here is a list of the most common side effects of the flu vaccine as stated by the CDC – fever, fatigue, muscle aches, and headache. Sound familiar?

The primary targeted population for flu vaccine is the elderly, yet the vaccine is notoriously ineffective in preventing disease in that population. According to the CDC, the effectiveness of flu vaccine in preventing illness among elderly persons residing in nursing homes is 30-40 percent (CDC, 2001b). Other studies have shown an even lower efficacy of 0-36 percent (averaging 21 percent). The CDC proudly notes that for those elderly persons living outside of nursing homes, flu vaccine is 30-70 percent effective in preventing hospitalization for pneumonia and influenza. Yet the Department of Human and Health Services found that, with or without a flu shot, pneumonia and influenza hospitalization rates for the elderly are less than one percent during the influenza season. Regardless of vaccination status, 99 percent of the elderly recover from the flu without being hospitalized. The ineffectiveness of flu shots in the elderly led the CDC in 2000 to begin recommending the shots for all persons age 50 years and older. The rationale being that one third of Americans have a risk factor or chronic disease that puts them at risk of increased morbidity from the flu.

Annual flu vaccination is recommended for those individuals with asthma and other chronic respiratory and cardiovascular disorders. However, those people with impaired immune systems are the most likely to suffer adverse autoimmune reactions.

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    Children are the next frontier for the lucrative flu vaccine campaign. Vaccination is currently recommended for children over six months of age with high-risk medical conditions, but is not recommended for healthy children. Experts in the field suggest that parents of children age six months to two years “be informed that their children are at risk for serious complications of influenza, and allowed to make individual informed decisions regarding influenza immunization for their children” (Neuzil et al., 2001). This statement was made by Marie Griffin (and others), the same author who was implicated in the flawed study that supposedly exonerated the pertussis vaccine of nervous system damage. She is also a paid consultant to one of the world’s largest vaccine manufacturers, Burroughs Wellcome. The children’s market is the next big hope for vaccine campaigners. A 1998 working group began investigations to not only support, but also to “recommend” flu vaccine for young children. Research in the Journal of Virology found that the seasonal flu vaccine may weaken children’s immune systems and increase their chances of getting sick from influenza viruses not included in the vaccine.

Research in the Journal of Virology found that the seasonal flu vaccine may weaken children’s immune systems and increase their chances of getting sick from influenza viruses not included in the vaccine.

  The next big change in flu vaccines is the introduction of a live intranasal flu vaccine, a dose that is actually sprayed into the nose. This vaccine has already been tested on young children. Live intranasal vaccine was found 93 percent effective in preventing influenza in children age one to six years old (Belshe et al., 1998). Unanswered questions about the live vaccine include the possibility of transmitting other, more dangerous viruses through the vaccine, the possibility of enhanced replication of the attenuated virus in individuals with compromised immune systems, and the possibility of bacterial superinfection if the replicating live virus disrupts nasal membranes (Subbarao, 2000). This vaccine waits in the wings for its chance as the next big gun in the vaccine arsenal aimed at our children.

Guillain-Barré Syndrome

In 1976 the flu vaccine was dealt a near fatal blow when reports appeared that the vaccine caused Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), an autoimmune nervous system reaction characterized by unstable gait, loss of sensation, and loss of muscle control. A mass vaccination program was mounted that year by the US Government, and 45 million Americans received the swine flu vaccine. Statistical studies have confirmed a causal relationship between the vaccine and GBS. During that year the rate of GBS in Ohio was 13.3 per 1,000,000 in vaccine recipients compared to 2.6 per 1,000,000 in nonrecipients (Marks & Halpin, 1980). A follow-up study also showed a significantly increased incidence of GBS during the first 6 weeks following receipt of the vaccine in patients residing in two other states. The rate of GBS was 8.6 per million vaccinees in Michigan and 9.7 per million vaccinees in Minnesota (Safranek et al., 1991). This episode, which became known as the swine flu catastrophe, left doctors extremely reluctant to administer flu vaccine, and shattered the public trust in the flu vaccine campaign.

   The association between GBS and flu shots was not unique to the swine flu. Earlier reports had also summarized cases of nervous system disorders occurring soon after the flu vaccine (Flewett & Hoult, 1958; Horner, 1958). More recently, an increased risk for GBS occurring in patients during the six weeks following the flu vaccine was revealed in the 1992-1993 and the 1993-1994 flu seasons (Lasky et al., 1998).

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Pregnancy

One of the most bizarre twists on the flu vaccine saga is the CDC recommendation of 2001 that all pregnant women receive the vaccine in their second or third trimester. This recommendation even has doctors confused, since the vaccine remains a category C drug (unknown risk for pregnancy). No adequate studies have been conducted to monitor safety of the vaccine for mother and fetus. The only studies of adverse effects in pregnancy were conducted in the 1970s (Heinonen et al., 1973; Sumaya & Gibbs, 1979). Some flu vaccines still contain mercury as a preservative, despite a 1998 FDA instruction to remove mercury from all drugs. According to the CDC, two groups are most vulnerable to methylmercury¾the fetus and children ages 14 and younger. An article published in the American Journal of Epidemiology in 1999 stated, “the greatest susceptibility to methylmercury neurotoxicity occurs during late gestation” (Grandjean et al., 1999). How did CDC committee members determine that flu vaccines were safe for pregnant women? They did not. The committee, despite its own recommendation, states, “additional data are needed to confirm the safety of vaccination during pregnancy” (CDC, 2001b).

ACCORDING TO HUGH FUDENBURG, MD – the world’s leading immunogenetisit and 13th most quoted biologist of our time (nearly 850 papers in peer review journals) – If an individual has had 5 consecutive flu shots between 1970 – 1980 (the years of the study)  his/her chance of developing Alzheimer’s Disease is 10 times greater than if they had 1, two or no shots. When asked why, Dr. Fudenberg stated that it is due to the mercury and aluminum buildup that is in EVERY flu shot (and in almost all childhood shots). The gradual mercury and aluminum buildup in the brain causes cognitive dysfunction. ALZHEIMERS is now expected to QUADRUPLE.

Dr. Fudenberg’s comments are from his speech at the NVIC International Vaccine Conference, Arlington VA September, 1997. Alzheimers to quadruple statement is from the John’s Hopkins Newsletter of November 1998.

BMJ News

Belief not science is behind flu jab promotion, new report says

BMJ 2012; 345 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.e7856 (Published 19 November 2012)

Cite this as: BMJ 2012;345:e7856

Jeanne Lenzer Author Affiliations 1 New York

 An independent meta-analysis of vaccines against influenza has found that claims of benefit have been significantly exaggerated.

The report, released last month by the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, was based on a comprehensive review of data published from 1967 to 2012.1

Evidence for “consistent high-level protection is elusive,” the researchers concluded. Although vaccination was found to provide modest protection from infection in young healthy adults who rarely have complications of flu, the authors found that “evidence for protection in adults 65 years of age and older [who represent over 90% of deaths from flu] . . . is lacking.”

The authors also analyzed recommendations issued by the federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which provides expert advice to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and which are “often considered the standard of practice . . . around the globe.” The report cited 30 instances in which its advisory statements “did not apply current standards of scientific rigor . . . and did not cite relevant work.”

The report’s lead author, Michael Osterholm, a former CDC consultant and an

internationally recognized expert on flu, told the BMJ that a Dutch study cited by the CDC as evidence of vaccine efficacy was seriously flawed and constituted a “sales job.”

Nevertheless, Osterholm said, the current jab does offer some protection and should be used until a more effective vaccine can be developed.

Joseph Bresee, chief of the epidemiology and prevention branch in CDC’s Influenza Division, told the BMJ, “I do not agree that CDC has inflated the benefits of influenza vaccine.” He added that he agreed with Osterholm that until better vaccines were available the current ones should be recommended.

That recommendation, however, has come under fire from the authors of a Cochrane analysis that also found little to no benefit from flu vaccination.2 Tom Jefferson, lead author of several Cochrane reviews, told the BMJ, “Based on more than a decade of Cochrane reviews in adults, children, [the] elderly, and healthcare workers, there is no credible evidence that the inactivated vaccines have any effect other than saving on average half a working day in healthy adults and avoiding symptoms in those who least

need it: healthy adults and adolescents. Depending on the season, you need to immunize 33 to 99 adults to avoid one set of symptoms.”

Osterholm criticized the methods of the Cochrane analysis, saying that the reviewers’ inclusion of studies that used serology titers rather than reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction or cultures to diagnose flu meant that its results were highly inaccurate.

However, he acknowledged that the direction of bias caused by use of serology titers would be to make a vaccine seem far more effective than it was, a surprising bias for a meta-analysis that found no benefit for flu vaccines. The Cochrane reviewers also stated in their meta-analysis that the studies reviewed were “at high risk of bias.”

A growing number of healthcare facilities and states now require healthcare workers to be vaccinated against flu or face being fired or forced to wear masks and identification tags stating that they may be infectious.

A recent editorial in the journal of the Canadian Medical Association, CMAJ,

recommending mandatory flu jabs for healthcare staff triggered strong criticism, including a letter to the editor from Peter Doshi, a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University, and several Cochrane reviewers, who said that the recommendation was based on a misrepresentation of Cochrane data.3 4

Doshi opposes compulsory vaccination. He told the BMJ that health officials “risk losing credibility by continuing to promote the fiction that mandatory influenza vaccination policies are based on solid evidence. They are not, and it is time for healthcare institutions to do their own rigorous assessment of the evidence rather than continuing this dangerous game of follow the leader.”

Osterholm agreed that scientific evidence, not professional opinions, should guide policy. He told the BMJ, “I don’t think the data warrant mandated vaccine. If it was up to me, there are a hundred other things I’d mandate first, like mandating that sick healthcare workers don’t come to work. That is far more likely to be effective.”

Notes

Cite this as: BMJ 2012;345:e7856

Footnotes

bmj.com News: Bias alone could account for benefit attributed to flu vaccine, study

finds (2008;337:a1550, doi:10.1136/bmj.a1550); Observations: A jab in the dark

(2012;345:e5313, doi:10.1136/bmj.e5313)

References

1. ↵

Osterholm MT, Kelly NS, Manske JM, Ballering KS, Leighton TR, Moore KA. The

compelling need for game-changing influenza vaccines: an analysis of the influenza

vaccine enterprise and recommendations for the future. University of Minnesota Center

for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, Oct 2012.