Why I Never Get Flu Shots or Snorts
By Chet Day
Updated May 26, 2009
I don't diagnose or prescribe, and what you do with your body remains entirely up to you and your doctor (if you still turn the responsibility for your health over to some man or woman in a white smock), but I'll gladly tell you what I do regarding flu shots and flu snorts...
I avoid them like the plague!
In fact, at age 61, I've never had a flu shot, and it would take a Marine nurse and at least four burly wrestlers the size of Jesse Ventura to hold me down for such an injection.
And you'd have to add Mike Tyson to the above list to get a snort of FluMist™ in me since I think you'd have to be out of your mind to purposely accept delivery of a live virus that close to your brain.
Perhaps you already sense I have negative feelings about flu shots and flu snorts?
You're right, I do.
And these feelings stem from personal opinion, reading, and a little common sense.
You see, I don't think toxic chemicals and virus strains grown on living tissue and/or genetically modified in sterile laboratories belong in the human body, even when they're packaged in glass vials or nasal inhaler mechanisms and "delivered" into your body by a medical doctor, registered nurse, or licensed pharmacist.
Interestingly enough, I'm not alone in this thinking.
You see, in the fall of 2006 the prestigious British Medical Journal published a paper by respected vaccine researcher Dr. Tom Jefferson. Entitled Influenza vaccination: policy versus evidence, the paper supported my long-held personal opinion that flu vaccine programs may be worthless.
Are Flu Vaccines Pointless?
Let's see if Dr. Tom Jefferson, Cochrane Vaccines Field, Rome, Italy, can't help us answer that important question.
In his paper "Influenza vaccination: policy versus evidence" Jefferson concluded that influenza vaccination programs, which cost nations hundreds of millions of dollars every year, could be a waste of time and money.
Jefferson examined all the research previously published in the world on the effects of inactivated vaccines (vaccines with dead viruses).
And what did Dr. Jefferson learn?
Quite simply...
In children under 2 years inactivated vaccines had the same field efficacy as placebo, and in healthy people under 65 vaccination did not affect hospital stay, time off work, or death from influenza and its complications
You can be sure these findings cemented in concrete my annual decision to avoid a flu shot!
I URGE parents whose doctors are telling them their babies or children need a flu shot to consider Jefferson's eye-opening conclusions.
Okay, let's take a look at FluMist™, shall we?
Why I'll Never Snort FluMist™
In the fall of 2003, MedImmune's FluMist™ was supposed to be the next big thing, but, thank God, it flopped like a cow paddy on a dry pasture, and the company ended up giving away millions of doses.
According to a 2003 Washington Times story, "The Gaithersburg-based company has cut the price in half for the vaccine, hoping to eliminate a major barrier to sales from last year, and plans to produce about 1 million doses this year."
Then, in the fall of 2005, MedImmune was still trying to figure out how to get the public to accept FluMist™.
In a move that to me smacked of desperation, I read stories in Google News (search with keyword flumist) in October of 2005 that MedImmune was going to give away enough doses to immunize 53,000 students in the Knox County public schools in Tennessee and more than 100,000 doses to students in Palm Beach County in Florida.
In the fall of 2006, I once again googled keyword flumist and learned that schools in Florida and North Dakota were making this stuff available for free to unsuspecting children in the public schools.
I guess if you can't find a marketing plan that will sell a potentially dangerous vaccine, it's better to give it away than to throw it away, but I sure hate to think about the tens of thousands of children serving as guinea pigs for a pharmaceutical company.
Hopefully parents will have to sign an informed consent letter before the school systems can spray this live virus stew up the nostrils of children, so let's hope enough parents have enough sense to just say no to FluMist™ and that this public school marketing approach of MedImmune's will fail.
Here's the bottomline for me concerning FluMist™...
If a medically-sanctioned drug or vaccine appears to be dangerous for just about everyone except those with the constitution of Genghis Khan, it seems obvious to me to not let a "health care professional" shoot the stuff up my nose.
Okay, okay, so what often seems obvious to me isn't so obvious to others.
If you're one of those people who think I'm exaggerating, you'll find interesting the official answer to the question Who should not get vaccinated with FluMist™ (you'll have to click on the Patient Information link at the bottom of this page to read the PDF file listing all the potential problems).
According to the official FluMist™ Patient Information PDF, you should not receive FluMist™ if you:
- are less than 5 years of age. In one study, an increase in asthmatic events was seen in children under 5.
- are 50 years of age or older.
- have an allergy or history of allergic reaction to chicken eggs or egg products or any component of the vaccine (see Additional Information). Symptoms of a severe allergic reaction may include shortness of breath, wheezing, or difficulty breathing; swelling of the face, lips, tongue, or other parts of the body; skin rash, itching, or hives.
- are a child or adolescent who regularly takes aspirin, or products containing aspirin.
- have a history of Guillain-Barré syndrome.
- have a known or suspected immune deficiency disease or condition such as combined immunodeficiency, agammaglobulinemia, HIV infection, thymic abnormalities, malignancy, leukemia, or lymphoma.
- are immunosuppressed or have altered or compromised immune status due to treatment with systemic corticosteroids, alkylating drugs, antimetabolites, radiation or other immunosuppressive therapies
- have a history of asthma or reactive airways disease
- have underlying medical conditions such as but not limited to chronic disorders of the lungs and heart; or have had regularly scheduled follow-up visits or have been hospitalized in the past year because of chronic metabolic diseases (including diabetes), kidney dysfunction, or a hemoglobinopathy such as sickle cell disease.
- are pregnant.
And if the above doesn't give you pause, we're then told by the manufacturers of FluMist™:
Due to the possible transmission of vaccine virus, FluMist recipients should avoid being in close (for example, within the same household) contact with immunocompromised individuals for 3 weeks following vaccination.
Three weeks? Twenty-one days? Three quarters of a month?
I don't know about you, but I don't want to be within five miles of any "live virus" vaccine that can be transmitted for three weeks.
For the cynics reading this who think I'm a wack case about FluMist™, do yourself a favor and click here to read the FluMist Patient Information PDF file in its entirety.
If, after reading the official FluMist™ Patient Information PDF file you're still thinking about having a "health care professional" deliver FluMist™ up your nose, click here to read an article by Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, who makes what I've written above seem mild.
Anyway, I don't mean to just pick on poor old FluMist™ because personally I don't want any kind of flu remedy cranked out in a sterile lab in my body.
Why I Avoid Flu Shots Too
Do you want any of the following typical vaccine constituents injected into YOUR bloodstream?
- Ethylene glycol (antifreeze)
- Phenol, also known as carbolic acid (this is used as a disinfectant, dye)
- Formaldehyde, a known cancer-causing agent
- Aluminum, which is associated with Alzheimer's disease and seizures and also cancer producing in laboratory mice (it is used as an additive to promote antibody response)
- Thimerosal (used as a mercury disinfectant/preservative) can result in brain injury and autoimmune disease
- Neomycin and Streptomycin (used as antibiotics) have caused allergic reaction in some people.
Some vaccines are also grown and strained through animal or human tissue like monkey kidney tissue, chicken embryo, embryonic guinea pig cells, calf serum, and human diploid cells (the dissected organs of aborted human fetuses as in the case of rubella, hepatitis A, and chickenpox vaccines).
Flu vaccine is prepared from the fluids of chick embryos inoculated with a specific type(s) of influenza virus. The strains of flu virus in the vaccine are inactivated with formaldehyde and often preserved with Thimerosal, which is a mercury derivative.
Well, I refuse to put any or all of the above in my body, and I hope when your doctor starts telling you it's time for your annual flu shot or flu snort that you'll require him to defend the annual injection or nasal delivery. You or your insurance company is probably paying at least eighty bucks for an office visit, so get your money's worth.
Have your doctor read you the insert that comes with the vaccine.
Then have him/her explain why it makes sense to inject toxic chemicals into the human body and how such substances can aid the delicate immune system.
Chances are he/she will fall back on questionable statistical and demographic explanations that the medical establishment has used for decades to justify immunization.
Try to engage your doctor in a non-confrontational discussion because this is an opportunity for him/her to actually give some serious thought to what he/she is injecting or nasally delivering into the bodies of patients day after day after day.
Many traditional doctors who haven't studied diet and life style aren't going to change unless we help to educate them to what drugs and vaccines may really be doing long-term to people.
Okay, I'm a realist so if I were still thinking traditionally, part of me would almost buy into the typical rationale for flu vaccines:
- that so many people are spared the annual flu and
- only a few die or
- have their lives ruined after being injected.
I'd buy into that if I were convinced that injecting or nasally delivering a toxic and/or genetically modified live virus into the body actually made sense.
When one digs into the vaccine history (check out the Swine Flu vaccine and smallpox vaccines if you want two real horror stories) and scientific research (especially in Europe), it quickly becomes apparent that nobody really knows what these toxic stews of chemicals and microorganisms do in the human body.
To look at another disturbing possibility, click here to read an account written by a CFIDS sufferer, a narrative that shows the cause and effect connection between flu vaccines and terrible immune disorders.
Well, readers and a few medical professionals have called me a simple-minded dolt on more than one occasion, but since 1993 I've approached the yearly flu shot hype with the understanding that if I eat and live properly, I won't have to worry much about catching the flu.
The flu vaccine I use -- eating and living as healthfully as I can -- actually works.
Not only that, but it doesn't cost a dime, and nobody's going to have his/her life ruined because of a "bad batch" of vaccine that triggers some mysterious autoimmune disease that lays a person out of commission for years.
But let's say you eat and live conventionally.
Okay, I can understand that, but my next question would be "Which is better? Some rest time with the flu or having toxic chemicals injected into your bloodstream or nasally delivered?"
I mean, seriously, before I got healthy I almost looked forward to a yearly bout with influenza because it meant I could go to bed and get some rest instead of working practically every waking moment of my life.
I might add that I haven't missed more than two consecutive days of work from an illness for over eleven years as I write this update in May of 2009, so a non-vaccine approach does work for me.
This non-drug approach has resulted in a level of health that continually amazes me, especially when I see other men and women my age who are miserable and without energy. Men and women who spend all too much of their time drifting from doctor to doctor in endless pursuit of solutions that don't get to the cause of their problems -- diet and life style.
Still thinking about taking a flu shot or a flu snort?
Do yourself a favor and think twice, and before taking that jab in the arm or nasal delivery, review some natural approaches to building health by clicking here.
Oh yeah, lest anyone accuse me of being one-sided, for the status quo rationale for why the flu shot or snort must be taken every year, courtesy of the Center for Disease Control, click here.
Finally, the decision regarding a flu shot or snort is yours to make, but I urge you to make that decision from a position of strength and knowledge.
So do your homework.
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