Friday, November 4, 2011

Should You Get A Flu Shot?

With drug stores sprouting up on every corner in even the smallest towns, you can't avoid seeing banners that promote getting a flu shot. Cold weather setting in typically signals the start of the flu season. Should you run down to your local pharmacy and get a flu shot?

Flus are not fun. Fever, chills, runny nose, sore throat, cough, muscle aches, fatigue and decreased appetite. With some rest they typically run their course in two to three days, with some symptoms hanging on for a week. The fact is dying from the flu is rare. The vast majority of so-called “flu deaths” are due to bacterial pneumonia—a potential complication of the flu if your immune system is too weak.

Here are the reasons I do not get a flu shot:
  1. The flu shot will likely NOT prevent the flu. A study by the University of Minnesota reported this week that flu shots barely make a difference at all and are least effective on seniors and children.
  2. The flu shot does NOT protect against flu-related deaths.
  3. Flu vaccines contain a best-estimate of flu strains expected to hit the US. If the expected strains don't appear in the US, you've been injected with a list of useless harmful ingredients.
  4. The flu vaccine contains a potpourri of poisons. Vaccines may include formaldehyde, mercury (Thimerosal), MSG and other hazardous ingredients.
  5. The flu shot will likely weaken your immune system. After being injected with all those hazardous ingredients, your body's immune system and liver will be working overtime to process the toxins. That leaves you vulnerable to disease.
  6. You could get seriously ill from the shot. Serious reactions to the flu vaccine can include a life-threatening allergic reaction, Guillain-Barre Syndrome (a severe paralytic disease that is fatal in about 1 in 20 cases) and other serious conditions.
  7. Doctors and health-care workers get flu shots at a rate of 30 to 38%, respectively. That stat says a lot. 
Because the efficacy of the flu shot has been shown to be a failure by any measure, I can only conclude that flu shots are all about the money. This year's flu shot includes inoculation for the H1N1 virus. Just my opinion, but I believe there are stock piles of the H1N1 vaccine due to low turnout to get the vaccination when the threat was active in 2009.

To avoid getting sick with the flu, follow these Five Steps to make you healthy. Take your Vitamin D or better yet get outside and get some sun!

Have you gotten a flu shot and do you plan to get one this year? If you don't get the flu shot, what are your reasons?

2 comments:

  1. NO! Neither I or my immediate family members have had a flu shot in the past few years...for all the reasons you listed.

    We also wonder what negative long-term effects flu vaccines have on our immune system...either directly through the adjuvant ingredients, or indirectly through prevention of exposure-related (natural) immunity.

    While we believe in and are thankful for the role certain vaccines have played in preventing serious/fatal illnesses, it's hard not to think that things have gotten out of hand and that we're messing up our immune systems.

    Our prevention strategy: good nutrition, adequate sleep, fresh air, handwashing, Vit D & C. When we do get ill (which is a lot less frequent than when we WERE getting vaccinated and not eating as well), we hit it naturally and repeat the mantra "building immunity, building immunity, building immunity."

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  2. Hi Nancy,
    Thanks for the real-life validation of your vaccine experience.

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