Catherine J. Frompovich, Contributor

Activist Post

How effective are flu vaccines? Well, long story short—not very! What? you probably are lamenting, in view of the present push to vaccinate everyone six months and older against the present seasonal influenza outbreak in the USA. That is the consensus of a report published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) November 19, 2012 [1] wherein flu vaccine efficacy claims have been exaggerated significantly.

Those conclusions came out of a report generated by the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy analyzing data from 1967 to 2012 that was based upon the review of the prestigious Cochrane Library studies.

In 2011 this author co-edited the monograph Vaccines & Vaccinations: The Need for Congressional Investigation wherein we cited the Cochrane Library’s work regarding influenza vaccines effectiveness in children, adults, and the elderly.

The Cochrane Library published the article “Vaccines for preventing influenza in healthy children” January 25, 2006 wherein the authors’ conclusion in the Abstract stated:

Influenza vaccines are efficacious in children older than two but little evidence is available for children under two. There was a marked difference between vaccine efficacy and effectiveness. No safety comparisons could be carried out, emphasizing the need for standardization of methods and presentation of vaccine safety data in future studies. …If immunisation [sic] in children is to be recommended as a public health policy, large-scale studies assessing important outcomes and directly comparing vaccine types are urgently required. [2]

In Issue 7 (2010) of the Cochrane Library, the article “Vaccines for preventing influenza in healthy adults” concluded that:

And in the elderly, Cochrane published in Issue 2 (2010) the article “Vaccines for preventing influenza in the elderly” with the following conclusion:

This review includes 15 out of 36 trials funded by industry (four had no funding declaration). An earlier systematic review of 274 influenza vaccine studies published up to 2007 found industry funded studies were published in more prestigious journals and cited more than other studies independently from methodological quality and size. Studies funded from public sources were significantly less likely to report conclusions favorable to vaccines. The review showed that reliable evidence on influenza vaccines is thin but there is evidence of widespread manipulation of conclusions and spurious notoriety of the studies. The content and conclusions of this review should be interpreted in light of this finding. [3]

Influenza vaccines have a modest effect in reducing influenza symptoms and working days lost. There is no evidence that they affect complications, such as pneumonia, or transmission.

The available evidence is of poor quality and provides no guidance regarding the safety, efficacy or effectiveness of influenza vaccines for people aged 65 years or older. To resolve the uncertainty, an adequately powered publicly-funded randomised [sic], placebo-controlled trial run over several seasons should be undertaken.

A plain language summary of the above, Vaccines for preventing seasonal influenza and its complications in people aged 65 or older is:

Influenza vaccination of elderly individuals is recommended worldwide as people aged 65 and older are at a higher risk of complications, hospitalizations and deaths from influenza. This review looked at evidence from experimental and non-experimental studies carried out over 40 years of influenza vaccination. We included 75 studies. These were grouped first according to study design and then the setting (community or long-term care facilities). The results are mostly based on non-experimental (observational) studies, which are at greater risk of bias, as not many good quality trials were available. Trivalent inactivated vaccines are the most commonly used influenza vaccines. Due to the poor quality of the available evidence, any conclusions regarding the effects of influenza vaccines for people aged 65 years or older cannot be drawn. The public health safety profile of the vaccines appears to be acceptable. [4]

It seems according to the BMJ article that, “consistent high-level protection is elusive,” including that there is “evidence for protection in adults 65 years of age or older [who represent over 90% of deaths from flu]…is lacking.” Which reminds this author of an email she received recently from a person in Ohio saying that, that person’s friend worked in a ‘rest home’ where the elderly were given flu shots, which often led to their getting very sick and dying. My question is this: What role did the flu shot play in either their contracting the flu or in their deaths?

Personally, this author can attest that the only time she ever contracted the flu was in 1957 after she was taken by folks where she worked, who paid for the shot. I contracted the flu not once, but twice; almost died; the doctor came to the house every day; my mother slept with me at night; and I missed almost a month at work!

The MD told me never to get another flu shot, as it probably would do me in. I have listened to his advice, and to this day, have had no annual flu vaccinations and never had a bout of influenza. Go figure! However, I have maintained an extremely healthful lifestyle (Mediterranean diet with no: junk food, smoking, alcohol, or sodas) and took vitamin A religiously, which promotes the anti-viral messenger, Interferon, produced by macrophages of the innate immune system.

Furthermore, when I was in practice as a natural nutritionist, my clients always would call at the first sign of the sniffles and ask what to do. My nutritional advice was to take three (3) 10,000 IUs of vitamin A (retinol/retinal) with the juice of half a lemon in 4 ounces of water, each day for three days in a row. Always, and without fail, clients would ask, “What kind of magic is that?” It’s really not magic; it’s knowing how human immunology works and supplementing it as Nature likes and cooperates with.

Vaccines and vaccinations play around with—and apparently interfere with—Nature’s intended immunology playbook called innate immunity. Vaccines reprogram human biology to produce antigen-specific responses, which ‘last’ for only a short while, if at all, therefore the need for all the mandated booster shots with neurotoxins and other hazardous chemicals. That probably is the apparent reason why infectious diseases today are being contracted by those (children, in particular) who have been fully vaccinated.

They have not acquired life-long immunity either from their mothers at birth and during lactation, since young mothers may not be able to convey innate immunity themselves because theirs was interrupted by vaccine mandates as kids.

The other way to get life-long immunity is by contracting the disease, which generations have done over the ages without Big Pharma’s money-making vaccines being around, while humans still lived and reproduced. However, U.S. children apparently are sicker [5] than ever with chronic diseases at even earlier ages than ever, or experience adverse events to vaccines as verified by CDC/FDA’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) [6] or on an international basis, vaccine damage that recently happened in the African country of Chad http://vactruth.com/2013/01/13/children-paralyzed-by-vaccine/ , which apparently is being kept out of U.S. news reports. Go figure!

References:

[1] BMJ 2012;345:e7856

http://library.constantcontact.com/download/get/file/1101240076659-1283/Flu+Jab.pdf

[2] Frompovich, Catherine J & Laraine C Abbey-Katzev. 2011 Monograph: Vaccines & Vaccinations: The Need for Congressional Investigation, p. 31. http://www2.cochrane.org/reviews/en/ab004879.html

[3] Ibid, p.31. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/o/cochrane/clsysrev/articles/CD001269/frame.html

[4] Ibid, pp.31-32. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/o/cochrane/clsysrev/articles/CD004876/frame.html

[5] http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_10/sr10_254.pdf, Summary Health Statistics for U.S. Children: National Health Interview Survey, 2011, pp. 25-34.

[6] VAERS https://vaers.hhs.gov/data/index

Catherine J Frompovich (website) is a retired natural nutritionist who earned advanced degrees in Nutrition and Holistic Health Sciences, Certification in Orthomolecular Theory and Practice plus Paralegal Studies.

Her work has been published in national and airline magazines since the early 1980s. Catherine authored numerous books on health issues along with co-authoring papers and monographs with physicians, nurses, and holistic healthcare professionals. She has been a consumer healthcare researcher 35 years and counting.

Catherine’s latest book, A Cancer Answer, Holistic BREAST Cancer Management, A Guide to Effective & Non-Toxic Treatments, is available on Amazon.com and as a Kindle eBook.

Two of Catherine’s more recent books on Amazon.com are Our Chemical Lives And The Hijacking Of Our DNA, A Probe Into What’s Probably Making Us Sick (2009) and Lord, How Can I Make It Through Grieving My Loss, An Inspirational Guide Through the Grieving Process (2008).