Faith vs. Evidence of Flu Shot (In)-Effectiveness
Every flu season, public health officials, the media, and doctors urge us all to get the flu shot.
But is this really a good idea?
In one double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study published in Clinical Infectious Disease, there was "no statistically significant difference in the risk of confirmed seasonal influenza" between those who received the flu shot and the placebo group.
On the other hand, those who got the flu shot had a higher risk of acute respiratory illness associated with non-influenza viruses.
The study authors note that this "could be explained by temporary nonspecific immunity after influenza virus infection, through the cell-mediated response or, more likely, the innate immune response to infection."
Another way to put it is that, whereas natural infection confers a robust immunity not only to the infecting strain of influenza, but other strains and even non-influenza, the vaccine by comparison weakens the immune system by robbing it of the opportunity to develop this robust immunity, making the host even more susceptible to disease, not less.
Note also how the authors still refer to "the protection against influenza virus infection conferred by" the vaccine, even though their results showed no such protection. Their basis for assuming this protection exists is that the vaccine recipients had anti-body levels public health officials consider "protective".
To briefly explain, to gain licensure, vaccine manufacturers must show vaccine "efficacy", but rather than directly measuring effectiveness, they use a proxy measure, which is antibody levels. They simply assume that a high antibody level confers protection against the disease.
Given that context, note that the study authors acknowledge that their contradictory findings (high antibody levels in vaccinated individuals, yet no observed protection) show that "One must be cautious in interpreting serology [i.e., antibody levels in the blood] in children who have received" the trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine. Yet they still attribute to the vaccine a protective capability despite their own results failing to demonstrate this!
This is indicative of the cognitive dissonance that permeates the scientific community when it comes to the subject of vaccines. It's indicative of how belief in vaccine safety and efficacy is grounded in faith, not science; it is simply dogma, and one must not commit heresy against the vaccine religion by drawing wrong conclusions.
The public is just not being properly informed about the benefits and risks of vaccines. On the contrary, we are constantly being lied to with the mindless blanket statement that "vaccines are safe and effective" -- as though it doesn't even make any difference which vaccine we are talking about!
Fortunately, there are remedies to the mainstream media's failure to educate the public. You've found one of them in following my work on the subject, but if you haven't yet seen the 7-part documentary series The Truth About Vaccines, I strongly encourage you to take advantage of the opportunity to watch it online for free.
The filmmakers are making it available to everyone for a very limited time. The free viewing will run from Thursday, January 25, through Wednesday, January 31.
If you have already seen it, this is a great chance to watch it again to get even more out of it.
