Flu “Epidemic”: The Numbers Just Don’t Add Up
But that 62% figure is misleading. There are currently three
different “epidemics” hitting the US: “true” influenza (type A, type B,
or seasonal H1N1 influenza), norovirus (“stomach flu”), and whooping
cough.
According to a meta-analysis published in the weekly peer-reviewed
medical journal The Lancet, the flu vaccine is only 62% effective in
preventing type A or B influenza or seasonal influenza A (H1N1). It
doesn’t protect at all against norovirus and whooping cough. In other
words,
only 2.7% of all adults get type A or B or H1N1 influenza, and of
them, the vaccine will fail 38% of the time, which means it really
benefits only about 1.8% of the population. Moreover, even preventing traditional influenza depends on the
government guessing correctly well in advance about which strains will
be a problem in the coming season. This year they got two influenza
strains right but missed one. In addition, there is no evidence that flu vaccine provides any
protection whatsoever for adults 65 and over—even though the elderly are
one of the flu vaccine campaign’s target populations. And to top it all
off,
the effectiveness of the whooping cough vaccine drops as time passes:
a study found that the effectiveness fell from 98.1% within a year of
completion of the vaccine regimen to 71.2% five or more years later. And
even that figure is doubted by some scientists.
As we noted two years ago, the CDC’s figures are fabricated or
false. It’s as if they’re saying, “Well, we really have no idea what the
truth is, so we just make stuff up.” Could it have something to do with
the cozy relationship between pharmaceutical companies, regulators, and
the media? Last October
we
told you about the flu shot being forced on healthcare workers. But
it’s gotten even worse. Hospitals are incentivized to vaccinate their
staff in order to receive favorable treatment under Medicare
reimbursements. The Affordable Care Act established
Hospital Value-Based Purchasing, which offers payment reductions if
the hospital meets certain government-determined performance
standards—and this often includes flu vaccination for its healthcare
workers. But if the vast majority of healthcare workers who do receive the
mandatory flu vaccine will get the flu anyway, how does that really help
the overall health of the staff? In light of this, it becomes obvious
that
mandatory flu vaccination policies are financially driven, and not
patient-safety driven. The problem is that some of the best healthcare workers choose not to
vaccinate because they recognize the shot’s ineffectiveness—not to
mention its risks—even at the threat of being fired. How absurd is it
that the government is continuing to push the flu vaccine, when the shot
is proving ineffective against
the majority of current flu cases, and when there is a
shortage of the vaccine
anyway? Of course, as both
Dr. Jonathan Wright and
Dr. David Brownstein strongly recommend, the best advice is to skip
the flu shot, build up your immunity instead with vitamin C and vitamin
D, and if you become infected, take vitamin A (real A, not beta
carotene). Or use other
tried-and-true natural remedies.
The Alliance for Natural Health USA |