It is that time of year again when the government and all the local drug marts are out in force trying to get everyone to take a flu shot ("jab" as they like to call it in the UK).
I was visiting the CDC's website yesterday to see if their knowledge and recommendations concerning flu and the immune system have caught up to the current research. I wasn't surprised to see that they haven't.
The governement/CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) make recommendations for the population of the United States based on the "best evidence" they have. This is scary as you'll see below, but not scary enough to get me to take the jab.
They use figures like 36,000 deaths annually to scare people into getting the flu shot without clarifying that the vast majority of these deaths are actually due to pneumonia in the elderly. But somehow this number is thrown around to scare parents into vaccinating their children (and still no recommendations for keeping the immune system strong naturally).
Let's take a look at the governments recommendations for prevention:
Step #1 - Get a flu shot. For anyone 6 months and older. The CDC calls this the "most important" step for preventing flu (I can think of at LEAST 5 things that are MORE important than this unproven step.)
The major criticism I have is they recommend a stab in the arm to inject a foreign substance, yet they make no recommendation for increasing the body's natural ability to defend itself against ALL invaders (but especially flu) by reducing stress, eating proper foods for your body, and maintaining proper movement! It is clear that sugar decreases your body's ability to defend itself against invaders as does emotional stress. Not exercising and subluxation also has been shown to increase stress hormone production and weaken the immune system. Sugar is a major immune system killer and I find it laughable that it's not mentioned as the #1 preventive measure by the Centers of Disease Control and "Prevention".
Is it just me or does this just seem silly?
Next week, we'll take a look at the #2 "Preventive" measure from the trusted government agency, who knows, maybe by next week, they'll get smart and put sugar on the list of things to avoid...not holding my breath.
Yours in Health, Love, and Freedom by boosting immune function naturally
Steve Perry
Thought you'd like this Cochrane review of the research on flu shots for healthy adults:
ReplyDeletehttp://www2.cochrane.org/reviews/en/ab001269.html (that doesn't give the whole article, just the abstract basically).
I appreciate that they point out that almost half the research was funded by vaccine companies and that those articles tended to have the best outcomes. Also that even with that the review didn't find a big different in *serious* complications, though there was a difference in work days lost and mild complications. Very interesting to see. (Granted, this focused on healthy adults, not the elderly or children.)
Cassia, as always a wealth of information, perspective, and insight, thank you.
ReplyDeleteI do appreciate the perspective of the author for this specific Cochrane Review. I agree that seeing a review on children and elderly and flu vaccinations would be worth reading. Granted, I don't always agree with the conclusions offered by the Cochrane Review (don't bother reading the review on chiropractic, the perspective is lacking) which brings me to the point that science can be and very often is extremely subjective.
As much as many people would like to believe that science can offer some sort of definitive conclusion about reality (what is), science is in fact subjective. Science is limited to the current perspectives of those conducting the research. Science supports or doesn't current ideas, it doesn't recognize questions that have not been asked which more often than not are more relevant than the ones that are being asked (i.e. drug research)... Science is at the mercy of the limitations of the current belief systems (and funding) of the researchers. I put less and less stock in research anymore because it's so fickle, changing with every researcher.
...and don't get me started on what "healthy" means in peer-reviewed, published literature, it'd be a week's worth of posts on that topic alone.
I appreciate your focus on whole body health, something that is so important. I am concerned though by the impression this post gives that the flu shot is something to be avoided. I immediately thought of a young mother who passed away from complications from the swine flu in our icu during the swine flu epidemic. Although a healthy diet and lifestyle would have been important to her as well, a flu shot could have saved her life.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely feel for such a tragic situation as you described. But that's exactly my point--if we continue to focus on "saving lives" through extreme measures rather than on improving the overall well-being of the individuals in our society, we've lost. We've lost! Overlooking the most important parts of health and wellness in favor of such measures will lead us to continuing to having to come up with more and more "life saving" measures.
ReplyDeleteI am interested in a solution which will only come if people understand the reality that health maintenance is REQUIRED for survival and that we can avoid many of the human tragedies and suffering and the expensive and invasive procedures we are famous for in this country.
As an aside, there is no guarantee that a flu shot WOULD have saved her life, only that it COULD have, and I agree--there is a small chance. However, if she had been given the flu shot and it was not effective, the report would have read, "We did all we could and she died anyway." Evidence of effectiveness of the flu shot in the peer-reviewed literature is lacking and yet it remains the primary means of "prevention". We can do better.