CAUTION: Flu Shots May Double Your Chance Of Getting Sick
Should I get my 9-month old son a flu shot or not? Seems to be a little bit of debate on this one…
~ Andrew
Great question, Andrew! I am not qualified to give medical advice so I cannot say what you should do, but personally there are several reasons I do not vaccinate my children against the flu or anything else.
#1 – Healthy People Need To Get Sick Once In Awhile
We need to stop thinking of germs as predators from the outside and start thinking of them as scavengers within. They are not attacking us, they are opportunists that live off the messes we leave in our own bodies. Gross, I know, but true.
Most of the time we live in relative peace with a host of pathogenic germs, but too much stress, or sugar, or whatever knocks our body off balance biochemically, leaving a glut of food that one germ or another prefers. When this happens germs take us up on our generous offer and have a nice old sit down dinner. Does this make us sick? Yes and no.
Germs are notorious for excreting all kinds of toxic waste after they eat, and this can make us feel tired. For the most part, though, the peak of infection is usually marked by no symptoms at all. It is only when our body begins to fight back that we get “sick,” because the fact of the matter is that fever, diarrhea and other unpleasant things are not what microbes do to us, it’s what we do to THEM. Our bodies are creating inflammation, which is the cure, not the disease.
Inflammation, as the word implies, is like a fire in the body which burns up the waste and debris, along with the germs which feed on waste and debris, and cleanses the body. Thus it is our immune system which causes us to become sick, by creating inflammation to drive out infection and renew us.”
Here’s the kicker: The stronger our immune system, the stronger the illness. Bouts of intense illness – or “healing crisis” as they are sometimes called – indicate the presence of a thorough housekeeper [aka immune system]. Chronic symptoms of “feeling bad” and fatigue without periods of acute illness, on the other hand, are signs of low-grade toxicity in the body – the result of our housekeeper being too weak to do her job”
Vaccines: Questions All Parents Should Ask. Ted Koren p. 107
Don’t just take my word for it, though, even this doctor says fevers are a child’s friend and may actually help them recover faster! I disagree with her on pain relievers, though. See this post to find out why.
So what does this have to do with vaccines in 5 words or less? Vaccines cripple our inflammatory response.
Okay, I’m obviously going to need more than 5 words.
#2 – How Vaccines Work Explains Why They Don’t (Really) Work
Our immune systems are actually comprised of two sub-systems. The humoral system mainly recognizes pathogens and produces antibodies which prevent them from entering cells – this is the TH1 system. (source)
The cell-mediated system “primarily destroys, digests and expels foreign antigens out of the body through the activity of its cells found in the thymus, tonsils, adenoids, spleen, lymph nodes and lymph system throughout the body” – this is the TH2 system. (source) The TH2 system is what turns up the thermostat in our bodies to clean up when things get ugly inside.
The Th1 system is most effective against viral, gram-negative bacterial and fungal infections, and tuberculosis. It is also the system which digests cancer cells within our bodies. Th2 function mainly deals with gram-positive bacterial and parasitic infections. Both are needed, but they must function together in harmony.
So what does this look like usually? In a healthy person, TH1 function is dominant. Pathogens are hunted by stealth ninja T cells, digested and escorted to the exits constantly. Vaccination turns this balance on it’s head, making the TH2 system dominant. That’s a HUGE problem, and here’s why:
A Th2 response to a specific virus infection will specifically suppress Th1 cells from becoming activated against the same virus. With the resulting failure to generate a Th1 response, cells infected with virus cannot be destroyed.” (source, emphasis mine)
So basically, vaccines actually cripple our ability to expel viruses. Sure, they can “help” (and I use this term loosely) us produce antibodies that allow fewer cells to be infected, but the cells that do become infected are literally paralyzed from doing anything about it. In that sense, vaccines do “work.” They keep us from experiencing the sensations we associate with illness, but there is a cost.
Infected cells cannot fight well when the TH2 system is dominant, so they just try to manage until they get really sick and tired of being sick and tired. Then they start trying to game the system for some relief.
Chronically infected cells, like nerve cells, can occasionally trick the immune system into reacting to and attacking similar nerve cells resulting in autoimmune disease such as multiple sclerosis, Guillain Barré, etc. Cells chronically infected with live vaccine viruses also risk having the viruses mutate, trade genes with each other, as well as interact with the host cell DNA.¹”
In other words, vaccines may work in the short term to block the infection of some cells and reduce the incidence of acute illness, but in doing so they may very well trigger autoimmune reactions, prevent our TH1 systems from dealing effectively with the rogue cancer cells we all have, and modify the immune system in ways we can’t predict. They also negatively affect herd immunity, but that’s another post!
Vaccine makers know this and have made attempts to stimulate TH1 responses instead of TH2. So far they have all failed, so they keep selling us the same old line about how vaccines are safe and effective. (source)
Riiiiight.
This brings me to my next point, which is that . . .
#3 The Flu Shot May Be More Dangerous Than The Flu
This year’s vaccine has been formulated with three strains: Influenza A (H3N2), Influenza B and Influenza A (H1N1). In 2009, the H1N1 vaccine was linked with a 700% increase in miscarriages.
According to this article, “Dr. Hugh Fudenberg, a world-leading immunogeneticist, has extensively studied the effects of the flu vaccine on neurological health. The results of his research indicate that an individual has a 10-time greater chance of getting Alzheimer’s disease after receiving five flu shots in the course of their life compared to individuals who have had zero to one shot in their lifetime.
Dr. Fudenberg and other researchers believe the increased risk of Alzheimer’s is a result of the combination of mercury and aluminum within the flu vaccine.” (emphasis mine)
Others have drawn the same conclusion, including Dr. Bernard Windham, who has testified before the FDA regarding his findings. According to Windham, mercury toxicity blocks sulfate oxidation which allows cysteine levels to build up in the brain and CNS to neurotoxic levels. He cites numerous studies which have found elevated cysteine levels – about 500% higher than controls – in patients with Alzheimer’s, ALS, Parkinson’s, Lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and autism. (source)
Mercury exposure can also cause memory loss, depression, ADD, oral health problems, digestive imbalances, respiratory problems, cardiovascular diseases and many more serious health problems. (source) Note: Single use flu vaccine vials may not contain mercury. The inhaled vaccine never does. (source) Single use vials with a pink syringe plunger rod in the pre-filled syringe contain only “trace” amounts of mercury – these are the made for children from 6-36 month old. They are made in limited quantities so children often receive the mercury-containing vaccines.
So, it contains mercury AND it’s risky for pregnant women and the elderly, despite the fact that these are the “vulnerable” populations targeted for vaccination? Pass.
#4 – Oh, And It May Double Your Risk Of Getting The Flu!
What happens when an individual compromises their TH1 immune function to be “protected” from the 3 strains of flu that came in this year’s vaccine? They’re vulnerable to the other 297 strains that will circulate this year, of course!
Back in the spring of 2009, just when the swine flu hysteria was building, a Canadian study revealed that people, who had received a regular, seasonal flu shot, were twice as likely to catch swine flu. This was initially passed off as unproven but, lo and behold, in 2010 the results of several epidemiologic investigations revealed that seasonal flu shot DID increase the risk of catching swine flu.
The four studies, which were conducted by public health agencies in Canada, involved about 2,700 people in all, and each one had the same result: if you got the seasonal flu shot, you were more likely to get the swine flu. The researchers wrote in PLoS Medicine:
” … Estimates from all four studies (which included about 1,200 laboratory-confirmed pH1N1 cases and 1,500 controls) showed that prior recipients of the 2008–09 TIV [seasonal flu shot] had approximately 1.4–2.5 times increased chances of developing pH1N1 illness that needed medical attention during the spring–summer of 2009 compared to people who had not received the TIV.”
Does The Flu Shot Increase Your Risk Of Getting The Flu?
#5 – There Is Evidence Of Widespread Manipulation Of Flu Vaccine Data
In an analysis of 50 published studies conducted by the well-respected, independent Cochrane Review, researchers found that only studies funded by pharmaceutical companies found a benefit. Their analysis revealed a far different conclusion:
- “reliable evidence on influenza vaccines is thin”
- “there is evidence of widespread manipulation of conclusions”
- there is no evidence that vaccination prevents viral transmission in adults (so much for getting the vaccine to protect herd immunity!)
#6 – There Are Safer Ways To Boost Immune Function
According to this article, supplementing Vitamin D is actually MORE effective at preventing the flu than the vaccine. You can find more tips for preventing colds and flu’s naturally here and here. I recommend using the acerola powder mentioned in the second article over a traditional Vitamin C, supplement, which is likely to be synthetic.
Oh, And Did I Mention They Don’t Work?
A “large-scale, systematic review of 51 studies, published in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews in 2006, found no evidence that the flu vaccine is any more effective than a placebo in preventing influenza in children under two. The studies involved 260,000 children, age 6 to 23 months.” (source)
Do you vaccinate for the flu? Why or why not?
¹ Urnovitz H., Archiving of Live Viral Vaccines. From Proceedings of the First International Public Conference on Vaccination. September 13-15, 1997.Disclaimer and Photo Credit1, Photo Credit 2
Elena
Wonderfully written–thank you for taking the time to do this. I often feel like a lone voice trying to share this message with a society that just blindly accepts flu vaccinations, and all other vaccinations! My brother was severely damaged by his childhood vaccines, and my mom was one of the parents who helped push Iowa bill through, banning mercury in childhood vaccines. Iowa is now one of the states initially showing a reduced rate of autism in the younger children!!
So thankful for you for sharing this message.
Jess
I haven’t done any vaccines on my kids. However: my twins came down with whooping cough a couple of weeks ago. In the middle of the night when they were coughing and gasping for breath, doubled over throwing up with the cough and couldn’t even hold themselves up, I doubted every decision I’ve made. They are only 1 year old and to go through this was so difficult! I can’t even express how sad it has been to watch. I can definitely see how a small infant can die of whooping cough. Since then I’ve gone back and read some of the reasons why I initially made the decision and have told myself I did what I thought was best at the time. I’m hoping someone else can reassure me…I’m not sure what I think anymore.
Theresa
I went through pertussis with 2 of my children as well. It was horrific, as you describe. They were my 2 year old and 5 year old. BUT, we believe they contracted it from my 11 year old, who was immunized and got it from a girl on her soccer team who was immunized, and my 8 year old, who was not immunized did not get it. I really don’t think the vax had anything to do with it! Don’t beat yourself up. Yes, it’s a horrible illness, and yes, I agree, it’s easy to see how infants can die from it. But I don’t think the shot is the preventative.
Nicole
I contracted whooping cough during the last week of my pregnancy. Our son became sick at 2 weeks old. I haven’t vaccinated our 2 older children since our first had some complications with her 4 month vaccinations. I can relate to your comment. Our son’s illness was so incredibly scary, especially as I knew how he was feeling. I am an adult and was still coughing until I became sick! Several times I wondered if I’d pass out as my airway was so blocked. Awful stuff.
Jim
http://www.naturalnews.com/038554_mumps_outbreaks_vaccinations_children.html
You did the right thing. My family went through a year of hell after my son had the flu-mist. Had your child been vaccine injured, you would have really beat yourself up. Especially since the mumps vaccine is as ineffective as the flu vaccine.
kristi
My fully vaxed kid started pertussis in my house. She passed it to my other fully vaxed and my non vaxed kids. She also passed it to my fully vaxed neighbor. The fully vaxed kids had a way worse case of it than the non vaxed kids. When cdc called me the confirmed that “unfortunately we are seeing a lot of fully vaxed people coming down with pertussis.”
lauren
There was a recent outbreak on the west coast this past summer of whooping cough and 70% of the kids who got it were actually vaccinated. So if it reassures you at all- the vaccine does not actually protect against the disease- there are 2 strains and from what I understand the one that is around is not the one kids are vaccinated for.
Elizabeth
Ironic this got posted today, Because a friend of mine is in the icu fighting for his life against influenza a. And, he GOT the flu shot this year!! His kidneys are failing, he cant breathe, and he’s intubated and on a Ecmo machine. It’s very very serious. I know he is an outlier, and he didn’t lead the healthiest lifestyle in the world, but he was (is) not immuno compromised with anything and not young or old. Just a normal thirty something.
I guess what I’m saying is that it is often framed as you having nothing to lose by getting he shot… But that it could prevent it. But, if that’s not the case, then it truly is a travesty to not at least truly inform people and let them make an informed choice. Not that it’s a big surprise to most of us who read blogs like this, but it’s just such a shame that there’s not more transparency and honesty in he medical establishment.
Heather
Elizabeth, I hope your friend makes a full recovery! Praying for him and his family.
Maggie Johnston
It appears that a paragraph or end of sentence is missing in section 3#. I would appreciate seeing this section updated.
“In other words, mercury toxicity blocks sulfate oxidation, which…”
Great article and summary!
Heather
Thank you for pointing that out, Maggie! The information I intended to reference there is actually found in the paragraph above:
“According to Windham, mercury toxicity blocks sulfate oxidation which allow cysteine levels to build up in the brain and CNS to neurotoxic levels. He cites numerous studies which have found elevated cysteine levels – about 500% higher than controls – in patients with Alzheimer’s, ALS, Parkinson’s, Lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and autism.”
Looks like I lost my place while thinking and typed the same thing twice
Gabriel
Thank you so much for sharing this! But just thought you should know that point #4′s heading has a typo. “Msy” double your risk
Gabriel´s last [type] ..Necklace – Crystal Necklace – Elemental Necklace – Earth Necklace – Vitrail Necklace – Swarovski Crystal – Drop by storygirlcreations
Heather
Thank you, Gabriel! I damaged my hand a couple months ago and can only type with 9 fingers right now. I’m now embarrassingly prone to typos and always appreciate the opportunity to correct them!
Kelly Morris
Do you have any information on tamiflu? We didn’t get the flu shot and now have influenza a. My 16 month old caught it first and we aren’t using tamiflu for him. My 7 year ok’d seems to be coming down with it and we are considering tamiflu because she is older and I’m not as worried about side effects. Perhaps I should just let her housekeeper do her thing though. So hard to see your children hurt though.
Heather
Hi Kelly! According to this article, in 2008 the FDA reviewed “reports of abnormal behavior and other brain effects in more than 1,800 children who had taken the flu medicine Tamiflu.
The symptoms have included convulsions, delirium or delusions, and in Japan, five deaths have been reported in children under 16 as a result of neurological or psychiatric problems. Four were fatal falls, and one was a brain infection in a patient with leukemia.
There have also been nine deaths among older teens and adults, attributed to neuropsychiatric problems or brain infections.
Sunny Espanet
Thanks for this! I’ve been following the controversy for a time, and always like a refresh on the facts. I have one concern I would like to find someone address: what about the diseases that leave very lasting long-term effects, like meningitis? The rest I “get”….it is better to suffer the immediate consequences (illness) for a bigger payoff in the end (a stronger immune system and reduced risk of autoimmune problems.) But with meningitis, the immediate consequences can be so severe that there is no long term benefit, health-wise.
Heather
I can’t say what is right for any other family, but for me it doesn’t ever make sense to knowingly lower TH1 response unless I’ve done lab work to determine it is overactive. All vaccines target strains of a disease, which many believe offers no protection of the strain encountered is different or mutated. Based on several articles I’ve read they also tend to encourage mutation, which may exacerbate the problem. Furthermore, I highly doubt the effectiveness of vaccines even against the strains they are designed for. As I wrote about in this post, antibodies do not necessarily convey immunity.
My strategy with my own family is to protect and nurture TH1 function by declining vaccines and not over-sanitizing things so that my children have normal exposure to a host of microbes.
Sunny
Thanks.
Pondering.
Leah G
I am so grumpy right now…ugh… We dont vaccinate. Never have. I try to get my family to feed themselves better in hopes they will be healthier. No luck yet. In the meantime I increased our FCLO, ferments, and elderberry and despite a very clean diet we finally succumbed to their bugs after repeatedly hanging out with them sick. My 3 yo has been sick for 3 wks with either a runny nose or cough. the 15 month old has had bouts of runny nose….and now Mommy and Daddy finally got it for Christmas. I wish the sick people would at least stay home…ok I think I’m through venting.
Karen
Can you recommend a book or a resource to learn more about vaccinations? Thank you! This is so informative.
Tim
How about you actually read the papers you site and not missrepresent them. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/16437500/
mark
The seasonal flu shot has been given safely to millions of pregnant women over many years. Flu shots have not been shown to cause harm to pregnant women or their babies.
Judy
Neither for or against the flu vaccine … Just a point to remember that not all flu shots carry mercury anymore. Single dose ones are w/o mercury, as well as the nasal sprays.
vio
This is so helpful Mommypotamous (love that!) – thank you. Can I ask whether your kids have had any of the “normal” vaccinations that babies/young children (are practically forced to) have? I don’t want mine to have any kind of vaccinations – and they won’t – but I would like to do other things to support their general health and immune systems to ensure that if/when they catch the typical childhood diseases, they get through them as easily as possible and are detoxified and strengthened from the experience. Do you have any ideas/tips/posts on this? Thanks so much!
Kris
Please read complete studies on “typical childhood diseases”. Measles is incredibly dangerous and can kill children (not a few of the kids who get measles… a lot more than would make most parents comfortable). While I find anecdotes quite annoying in the face of science, I admit to a special dislike for the “typical” argument, since my stepdad lost 80% of his hearing when he contracted rubella at five (there was no vaccination for that at the time). However, that is not statistically relevant. Please read studies … peer-reviewed studies… before you decide not to vaccinate your children against serious diseases.
Alyssa
This is the first year that I did not get the flu shot for several reasons. My mom is a nurse and I had asthma growing up so since I was in the “high risk” population she has me get the flu shot every year come flu season. The last 2 years I have had to get the vaccine because I was doing clinical rotations for school and it was required. Well this year I’m done with school and out of my parents house so no flu shot for me. Honestly, this is the healthiest I have ever been in the winter months. About a year ago I started trying to eat a more traditional foods diet, recently started taking a probiotic which was recommended to me by my homeopathic physician, and stopped eating dairy. My husband even ended up getting mono and I have had no problems at all. After all of that I’m convinced that the flu shot did not help me whatsoever, not to mention that the first year H1N1 was big I ended up with both H1N1 and the normal flu!
Jim
A million thanks Heather, I hope you open peoples eyes to the fraud of the vaccine business.
Amber
Please just remember that vaccines are created for population health. The purpose of a vaccine is not to protect an individual; it is to prevent epidemics. And trust me, the more and more people refuse vaccines the more epidemics we will begin to see. I’ve already seen in it my hospital with a resurgence in chicken-pox from elderly people with shingles. Because younger people that may have not been exposed and have not gotten a vaccine, they are getting chicken pox and then putting older people at risk for a shingles outbreak. Please continue to consider the long-term consequences of declining vaccinations.
Emma
Ironically the chicken pox vaccine is the only one I’m really against. We didn’t have it when I was a kid and it doesn’t protect against contracting the virus as much as having had the actual virus does. I think I would get it for my child if he/she reached their teen years and still hadn’t contracted it and had no antibodies. Sadly chicken pox doesn’t work as an example of people getting ill because of the decline in vaccine usage since the vaccine has only been available in the US since 1995. Additionally Shingles isn’t caused by older people catching chicken pox, it stays dormant in your body after the first infection and can resurface when you are older as Shingles.
I’d like to add, in defense of vaccines, no they do not always work, they are not always for the correct strain and your body does not always produce enough of an immune response to protect you from catching the virus, but I can confidently say as someone who has had chicken pox twice, the disease does not always produce enough of an immune response to protect you from getting it either. Amber is correct in that vaccines are all about herd immunity, about impeding the spread of a virus by having enough people in a population immune to a disease that its spread is slowed, that it can die out. Vaccines for diseases like Polio have been very effective at eradicating illnesses to the point where you have the luxury of not getting the vaccine and yet running little risk of contracting the illness.
Alisha
I love how thorough this is! Thank you! I just used some of this info. to write in to the Diane Rehm show on NPR b/c they are discussing vaccinations right now!
Dave
This is all incredibly misleading, beginning with the fake picture. Babies never get shots that size. This is so over-the-top propaganda. Don’t you realize the difference between temporal relationships and causal relationships?? Just because someone gets sick after getting a vaccine doesn’t mean the vaccine caused the illness! They are most likely unrelated. Instead of quoting naturalnews.com, maybe you should look up actual studies… which is why schools require immunizations. “Healthy people need to get sick once in a while.” REALLY? Tell that to the parents whose children died of whooping cough.
http://kidshealth.org/parent/system/medicine/fact_myth_immunizations.html?tracking=P_RelatedArticle
http://www.forbes.com/sites/sciencebiz/2010/10/11/whooping-cough-epidemic-blame-the-anti-vaccination-movement/
Heather
Dave, the photo is a stock image. There are not many available that depict anything other than grinning babies with a needle. In my opinion that is a more misleading image. Also, I cited several studies within this article along with an analysis of the very well-respected Cochrane review.
Regarding whooping cough, “a recent study at UCLA indicated that approximately 1,000 babies die as a direct result of DTaP vaccination each year in the U.S. – far more than the 18 deaths last year from pertussis itself.” Source: http://www.holisticsquid.com/was-the-whooping-cough-epidemics-caused-by-unvaccinated-kids/
Dave
Again, the numbers from the “UCLA study” has no citation in the article you sent me. I googled for the UCLA study and found nothing. Except this: http://today.ucla.edu/portal/ut/whooping-cough-164030.aspx
And by the way, this is a .edu website from UCLA. Not another blog.
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Jeanie
Thanks for a well written comprehensive post on flu shots. I hope you don’t mind that I put this link in my post on the flu shot. I hope more people will start to pay attention to what they are getting into!
Alex
Sorry but nobody, EVER should get the flu vaccine. Avoid like the plague! Only one country tested them and discovered them to be full of live viruses as well as numerable toxins. Enjoy playing russian roulette with your life then get a vaccine. These is a an agenda at work here, and it’s not in our favour unfortunately. I discovered all this after researching after my friend lost her baby at 8 months
http://fromthetrenchesworldreport.com/fetal-deaths-up-4000-after-pregnant-mothers-took-flu-vaccine/26685/
http://www.naturalnews.com/037653_vaccine_additives_thimerosal_formaldehyde.html
Jeanmarie
Great job, Heather!
Erin
I have never received the flu vaccination and neither have my two daughters. My husband is required to get it because he is military. This year my step son (6 years old) brought the flu home from school. Between him, my two young daughters (age 4 and 2) and myself – none who were vaccinated, my husband had the worst case of thr flu. I will never vaccinate against flu. My maternal grandmother never has a flu shot and she is relatively healthy. My maternal grandfather got a flu shot every year and had Alzheimer’s, several strokes, heart attacks and died earlier this year after he fell and couldn’t recover. Thank you for posting this!
Peter
Whether to immunise comes down to game theory. If everyone else is immunising their children you can “cheat” as per game theory and not immunise your child hacing the benefit of hers immunity. If more than a small percentage are not immunising their children then to “cheat” would expose your child to a very big danger. If I wanted to “cheat” I would not encourage everyone else to also cheat.
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[...] -Doing some intense research on the flu shot/natural flu remedies (like this “no flu” tea) and confirming my decision to not get a flu shot. [...]
Emily
I respect people’s decision not to vaccinate. But those of you who say they don’t work are not entirely correct. For example, rotavirus used to run rampant in daycares. It doesn’t anymore because of the vaccine. I don’t know about any of you but I would rather not subject my toddler to a month long violent bout of vomiting and diarrhea. Ad it it no coincidence that the incidence of whooping cough is on the rise, as more ad more people do not vaccinate. There is literally almost nothing a doctor can do for a child with whooping cough and it is a wretched illness. Or how about meningitis? I would rather vaccinate my baby than have her permanently brain damaged due to a totally preventable disease. I do not believe in all vaccine, like the flu or checked pox, but these life threatening diseases are another story. France has one of the lowest rates of vaccination and a huge resurgence of measles infections at the present time. That dies mean something.
Philip Townsend
I’d like to see the research.
SVITLANA
Good information Heather! I stopped vaccinating my daughter when she was 4 months after educating myself!
Lee Sledd
I take issue with this article in that it lumps all vaccines together and attempts to say that they don’t work. Vaccines don’t work? How many people do you know with polio? Odds are, zero; because we eliminated it with vaccines. This blanket doubting of science is truly dangerous because not all illness or vaccines are alike. Not vaccinating against seasonal flu is one thing. Not vaccinating against pertussis or measles is quite another.
What any intelligent parent needs to do is some math; namely, how many deaths occur from the vaccine vs. the illness? Pertussis is fatal in an estimated 1.6% of hospitalized infants who are under one year of age. Where are there any confirmed deaths attributable to DTaP?
sources: CDC, WHO, wikipedia & http://www.immunizationinfo.org/vaccines/diphtheria
Now, if you live on an isolated farm or commune where nobody ever travels, you may never be exposed to these contagions- that is an unknown variable in the equation. And your genetics and diet and state of health when exposed may, sometimes, to some extent, protect you. MAY. (I doubt anyone taking any of these vitamin D & elderberry regimens is rushing out to have unprotected sex with the HIV positive, right?) So, to keep your math simple, assume exposure, and assume you are not always in peak health. Recall always that people, especially infants too young to get vaccines or the immuno-compromised, die from many of these diseases, and in far greater numbers than suffer any adverse effects from vaccines.
So go ahead, don’t get any vaccines. You can roll those dice. Sadly, you risk killing your neighbors as well as your own family. Because, back in the ‘good old days’ before vaccines, thousands of people died, as naturally as they lived, from preventable disease. Look: there is no conspiracy to sell vaccines. The real money in drugs is in erectile dysfunction, hair loss, weight loss, and chronic conditions like diabetes. Flu vaccine production is laborious- the eggs- and has to be subsidized to tickle companies into bothering. We all want to live ‘natural’ in this chemical swamp of modernity, but we also enjoy the longest life expectancy in history due to modern science. Don’t be swayed by scary stories; always seek data. This site has done a good job of cherry picking that data to support a fear-based view derived from powerful personal experience- but mom is not an epidemiologist, and has not proven that her unspecified health issues were caused by vaccines. I will stick with the experts who devote their lives to studying the immune system over some website, however persuasive or riddled with links. Doctors and science are not infallible, but more often than not they are the best thing we have going. They saved my son’s life (meconium aspiration)- and saving lives is the same motive behind public health campaigns to vaccinate. Educate yourself and the decisions you make will be with the greatest confidence. http://www.chop.edu/service/vaccine-education-center/home.html
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