Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 In other words, by getting an annual flu shot, you are making yourself more susceptible to the flu in subsequent years. This may or may not be a factor in a bird flu pandemic, but it's worth noting.
Flu shots create dependence
This is why, to put it bluntly, flu shots create a cascading pattern of dependence. Once you start taking them, you need more and more flu shots for the rest of your life as your immune system gets weaker and weaker.
Phyllis A. Balch, one of the best-known authors on herbs and health, says, "We do not recommend flu shots in general. |
Bottom Line Health
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| For that reason, if you have risk factors for developing complications from the flu (see below) and aren't eligible to use FluMist, I recommend that you consider getting a preservative-free flu shot in October or November. If a preservative-free vaccine is not available to you, you should still get a flu shot if you fall into any of the following groups...
•Anyone age 65 and older.
•Residents of nursing homes or other long-term-care facilities that house people of any age who have chronic medical conditions.
•Anyone who has chronic disorders of the pulmonary or cardiovascular system. |
The Editors of FC&A
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| Get a flu shot. Unless you are allergic to eggs, you should get a flu shot if you are over 50 or have a chronic condition. Because viruses are constantly changing, you must get a flu shot every year. For best results, be well-rested and relaxed. If you're under stress, your body won't respond properly to the vaccine.
Wash your hands religiously. Navy recruits lathered up five times a day and watched their rate of respiratory illness drop by 45 percent. Wash vigorously with regular soap and water for 15 to 20 seconds, long enough to sing the famous "Happy Birthday" song, then rinse. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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| With all of this hype and propaganda surrounding flu shots, and the evening news telling people to rush out and get a flu shot, and doctors urging people to get shots to save themselves from the flu, it turns out that when it's all held up to some good hard science, flu shots only give you a one percent lower chance of getting the flu after all.
Is all of that trouble and worry really worth a one percent reduction in the risk of getting the flu, especially if it makes you weaker the following year? |
Earl L. Mindell, RPh, PhD with Virginia Hopkins, MA
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| A study from the Netherlands showed that among two groups of elderly people, one that received flu shots and one that received a placebo, the group receiving the flu shot had only a 1 percent lower incidence of flu than the placebo group!
One supplement that has been found to help older people marshal a better immune response to flu shots is the steroid hormone DHEA. In one study, when a group of elderly people took small doses of this hormone before receiving the flu vaccine, their immune response was significantly improved. |
J. Douglas Bremner
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 There are no controlled trials that show that a flu shot prevents deaths in children or the elderly. The only positive studies are of patients with COPD, probably because COPD patients have marginal lung function and preventing any flu infections will have a greater impact.
Dr. Tom Jefferson, an epidemiologist working for the Cochrane Collaboration in Rome, Italy, a nonprofit organization that conducts analyses of published clinical trials, led a group that performed a comprehensive review of the published data on flu vaccines. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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| A study from the Netherlands showed that among two groups of elderly people – one that received flu shots and one that received a placebo – the group receiving the flu shot had only a one percent lower incidence of the flu than the placebo group."
Interesting, isn't it? |
The Editors of FC&A
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| Unless you are allergic to eggs, you should get a flu shot if you are over 50 or have a chronic condition. Because viruses are constantly changing, you must get a flu shot every year. For best results, be well-rested and relaxed. If you're under stress, your body won't respond properly to the vaccine.
Wash your hands religiously. Navy recruits lathered up five times a day and watched their rate of respiratory illness drop by 45 percent. Wash vigorously with regular soap and water for 15 to 20 seconds, long enough to sing the famous "Happy Birthday" song, then rinse.
Work out wisely. |
Gary Null and Amy McDonald
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 Using the numbers determined from a variety of sources—including medical journals and government documents, it can reasonably be assumed that the flu shot may cause 40 cases of GBS per year.
The Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) database reveals that the average hospital charge per person for GBS is nearly $70,000. Add another $40,000 per person for rehabilitation costs after months of paralysis. Therefore the cost to healthcare for this "rare" complication can be approximated to be at least $4.4 million. |
Earl L. Mindell, R.Ph., Ph.D.
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 The ritual goes like this: You go to your physician, he or she tells you that the flu can be deadly and that a flu shot will prevent it. You get the shot, feel terrible for a week, and a couple of months later, you get the flu along with everyone else. The next year rolls around and you ask yourself, should I or shouldn't I get a flu shot? That's a decision only you can make, but I'd like to give you a few facts about flu shots that you're not likely to hear from your physician.
Deaths from flu are increasing in spite of flu shots. The flu can be deadly. |
Ron Garner
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 When asked why this was so, Fudenberg said it was due to the mercury and aluminum that is in every flu shot (and most childhood shots). The gradual mercury and aluminum buildup in the brain causes cognitive dysfunction. Is this why the number of those suffering from Alzheimer's is expected to quadruple?21
The evidence against vaccinations is clear, yet there is a continuing effort to make vaccine administration compulsory worldwide. Woodruff claims that this "will be a license to print money for the vaccine producers and an iatrogenic health disaster of the first magnitude. |
Earl L. Mindell, RPh, PhD with Virginia Hopkins, MA
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| If you feel strongly that a flu shot is a good idea for you, turn to page 412 for guidelines on how to supplement safely with DHEA. Don't use DHEA if you are under 40 years old.
Flu shots are not without side effects. Studies have shown that as many as one in 10 people who get a flu shot experience flu symptoms within a week. Meanwhile, a study in Newfoundland found that older people who take a multivitamin every day for a year have a much stronger immune system and fewer days of illness due to infections than those who don't take multivitamins. |
Gary Null and Amy McDonald
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| One recognized complication of the flu shot is a condition called Gullian-Barre Syndrome (GBS). Guillian-Barre is disorder characterized by progressive paralysis, beginning in the feet and advancing up the body, often causing paralysis of the diaphragm and breathing muscles within a matter of hours or days.
Nearly all patients with GBS are hospitalized because of paralysis. The prognosis of GBS varies. Up to 13 percent die and 20 percent more are left significantly disabled, defined, for these purposes, as unable to work for at least a year. |
Dr. Edward F. Group III, DC, ND, DACBN
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| Please save yourself and your children from the harmful effects of vaccinations such as the heavily marketed flu shot. Vaccines are extremely toxic, contaminated with a variety of known poisons (by design), and largely unnecessary. Why would anyone still need to receive vaccines for diseases that haven't been common for decades?
• See "Cookware", "Heat Therapy", "Heavy Metals", and "Ion Foot Baths" in the Resources section.
Eliminating Intestinal Toxins from Radiation
Is radiation harmful to humans? |
Bottom Line Health
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| One of my biggest problems with the flu shot is that it contains thimerosal, a preservative that contains mercury.
Mercury is a known immune-system suppressant and is toxic to the nervous system. In my opinion, it can be particularly harmful to pregnant women because it exposes the fetus to mercury. Infants are not able to detoxify mercury effectively, and it can cause nerve and brain damage in children. |
Andreas Moritz
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 With each new flu shot, on the other hand, your immune system becomes more depleted and the side effects become more pronounced and severe. And, you may still get the flu anyway. |
| The bottom line is that there is no real advantage in having a flu shot. And certainly, given the frailty of so many of the oldest members of society, there is absolutely no reliable way of telling whether the flu or something else may have led to their death. The death rate in and out of the flu season is actually about the same. But then, as we have seen with AIDS, statistics can be manipulated in ways that support theories which have only one objective, to keep the medical business going. |
| Although flu vaccines can never be accurate, employers encourage millions of their employees submit to a flu shot each year, trying to avoid the loss of working days.
Influenza always starts in the Far East, and then spreads to the West in early winter, reaching its peak during February and March. It may come in either of three types, A, B, or C. During the last several years, type A has been the dominant version. What makes vaccination against the flu so unsuccessful is that the strains of the flu virus are different every year and the so-called protection lasts for only six months. |
Bottom Line Health
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| The flu shot contains inactive (killed) virus. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that it can be given to anyone older than six months of age, including healthy people, pregnant and nursing women and those who have chronic medical conditions.
The other form is a nasal-spray vaccine called FluMist. It contains attenuated (weakened) live viruses and should be used only by healthy people. |
| Being offered a regular flu shot doesn't seem to reassure my patients. Bird flu is what worries them. Bird flu is indeed a threat—it has shown itself to be a ruthless killer of birds, and it has prompted humans to slaughter millions of birds that could be infected. But for people, the risk so far is close to zero for anyone except bird handlers in Southeast Asia. The virus has not killed many people worldwide, and it will not spread widely among humans unless there are several more mutations of its genetic material.
Most of my patients understand all this. |
| If a preservative-free vaccine is not available to you, you should still get a flu shot if you fall into any of the following groups...
•Anyone age 65 and older.
•Residents of nursing homes or other long-term-care facilities that house people of any age who have chronic medical conditions.
•Anyone who has chronic disorders of the pulmonary or cardiovascular system. |
Earl L. Mindell, RPh, PhD with Virginia Hopkins, MA
See book keywords and concepts |
| Studies have shown that as many as one in 10 people who get a flu shot experience flu symptoms within a week. Meanwhile, a study in Newfoundland found that older people who take a multivitamin every day for a year have a much stronger immune system and fewer days of illness due to infections than those who don't take multivitamins.
If you feel it's important to follow your physician's orders and get a flu shot, by all means do it, but please don't fool yourself into thinking that a flu shot is highly protective and that you don't need to take care of yourself to prevent the flu. |
The Editors of FC&A
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| Get a flu shot. It may cut your risk for stroke in half.
CHAPTER 34 Wipe out the threat of
Syndrome X
What is Syndrome X? It's a potentially dangerous cluster of conditions centered around insulin resistance, an abnormality in the way your body's insulin metabolizes sugar. Also called insulin resistance syndrome, it can lead to heart disease and diabetes.
Who gets it? Experts estimate that one out of three Americans has it. Certain groups, like blacks, Latinos, Indians, and Asians, are more at risk. |
Earl L. Mindell, RPh, PhD with Virginia Hopkins, MA
See book keywords and concepts |
| If you feel it's important to follow your physician's orders and get a flu shot, by all means do it, but please don't fool yourself into thinking that a flu shot is highly protective and that you don't need to take care of yourself to prevent the flu.
You can keep preventive medicine in your desk drawers at work so that if you feel a cold or flu coming on you don't have to wait until you get home to treat it. When you travel, always plan ahead by bringing natural remedies for colds and flus, indigestion, insomnia, and tension or stress. |
The Editors of FC&A
See book keywords and concepts |
| Because viruses are constantly changing, you must get a flu shot every year. For best results, be well-rested and relaxed. If you're under stress, your body won't respond properly to the vaccine.
Wash your hands religiously. Navy recruits lathered up five times a day and watched their rate of respiratory illness drop by 45 percent. Wash vigorously with regular soap and water for 15 to 20 seconds, long enough to sing the famous "Happy Birthday" song, then rinse.
Work out wisely. Regular exercise can help keep your immune system strong. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
See article keywords and concepts |
| Educate yourself now, and stock up on the real anti-viral medicines that are far more effective than any flu shot. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 He doesn’t fall for all the hype being distributed by the drug companies who, after all, look at flu shot season in the same way that retailers look at the Christmas shopping season: BIG MONEY. And a bird flu pandemic could be nothing short of a financial windfall for these companies.
Antibiotics don't work, either
What about antibiotics? As any doctor will tell you, antibiotics only work on bacteria, molds and fungi, not viruses. |
Earl L. Mindell, R.Ph., Ph.D.
See book keywords and concepts |
| Studies have shown that as many as one in 10 people who get a flu shot experience flu symptoms within a week. Meanwhile, a study in Newfoundland found that older people who take a multivitamin every day for a year have a much stronger immune system and fewer days of illness due to infections than those who don't take multivitamins.
If you feel it's important to follow your physician's orders and get a flu shot, by all means do it, but please don't fool yourself into thinking that a flu shot is highly protective and that you don't need to take care of yourself to prevent the flu. |
| There are two that work
SHOULD YOU GET A flu shot?
Every fall Americans are put through the annual flu season vaccination ritual. The ritual goes like this: You go to your physician, he or she tells you that the flu can be deadly and that a flu shot will prevent it. You get the shot, feel terrible for a week, and a couple of months later, you get the flu along with everyone else. The next year rolls around and you ask yourself, should I or shouldn't I get a flu shot? |
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