New hype over flu shots doesn't match reality

Dr. Douglass has got to be kidding. Or maybe not. Check it out for yourself. From this morning's Daily Dose:

It's that time of year again... and no, I'm not talking about the approaching holidays.

It's the time of year when they'll say just about anything, no matter how absurd, to get more patients to roll up their sleeves for a flu shot -- like the claim from a new study that supposedly finds the vaccine is "60 percent effective" at preventing the flu.

Makes it sound like 60 percent of the people who get the shot are protected from the flu, right?

That sounded a little on the high side to me -- like around 60 percent too high -- so I dug a little deeper. Sure enough, the study actually proves what I've been saying all along: Statistically speaking, the shot protects practically no one.

In fact, the data from 31 studies published over the past 44 years finds that pretty much no one even gets the flu in the first place.

An exaggeration? Maybe -- but not by much, because despite the media's annual flu-shot frenzy, the study finds that it's simply a non-event: Just 2.7 percent of the unvaccinated and 1.2 percent of those who do get the shot come down with the disease in any given year.

On paper, that's a difference of 60 percent, but the ABSOLUTE reduction in risk isn't even close to 60 percent -- it's a measly 1.5 percent.

Whoop-de-doo... and believe it or not, even that number is a little on the high side, because other studies haven't been nearly as generous.

One analysis released earlier this year found no evidence the shot reduced the rate of hospitalization or slowed the spread of the disease. That study even found that the little evidence FOR flu shots came from studies that were rigged by vaccine makers.

But while the benefits may be nonexistent, the potential risks are all too real: Flu shots have been linked to fatigue, pain, nerve damage, seizures, paralysis and even death.

The bottom line here is you can do everything wrong and still not get the flu -- but if you want to slash your odds even further, don't waste your time with a vaccine.

Work on good hygiene and a strong immune system instead.

Dr. Douglass offers no references for his claims. Let me give you links via Dr. Joseph Mercola and others:

• Regular Flu Vaccine Actually INCREASES Risk of Swine Flu
   
• "Everyone knows vaccines are based on solid science"--or might there be some conflicts of interest? (Ummmm. Yes!)
   
• Australia actually BANS the flu vaccine for children under five. Why?
   
• Flu Vaccine Likely Does Not Prevent the Flu, nor Protect Against the Vast Majority of Flu-Related Deaths
   
• Is Vitamin D deficiency the real cause of flue?
   
• And a more nuanced view?

Rick Perry's Gardasil problem

I've noticed that "conservative" news sources seem to be touting Rick Perry for president. What's strange: Just a couple of days before, I ran across a story about his ties to the drug company Merck . . . and how, it appears, he abused his power as governor of Texas to attempt to grant Merck a tremendous boon, in terms of sales, at the awful expense of the people of Texas, whose interests you would hope he would have held of highest importance.

Considering that background story, and considering how it appears the U.S. government is already controlled, to too great an extent, by Big Pharma and Corporate Agriculture interests--both of which might reasonably be shown to be contributing to the destruction of Americans' and, in fact, almost all humans' health--I wonder: do we really want a Rick Perry kind of person representing us as president?

I first ran across this story in a poorly-researched--or, at least, horribly worded!--article by Christina Luisa in NaturalNews.com.

In February of 2007, [Rick Perry,] the governor of Texas[,] issued an executive order that bypassed the will of the Texas people and the entire legislature, mandating the vaccination of young girls -- in Grade 6 in Texas -- with the HPV vaccine Gardasil.

Merck, the pharmaceutical company in charge of the . . . venture and the chief distributor of the vaccine, was the same drug company that was reported to have given thousands of dollars to Perry's campaign efforts.

The vaccine was given FDA approval in June 2006 then rushed to the market without proper testing through clinical trials. . . . Only 8 months later Gov. Perry signed the executive order mandating this vaccine to all young girls (and later young boys). . . .

Although there are over 25 million people in the state of Texas, as a justification for his actions, Perry reported that there were . . . 391 deaths of women by cervical cancer -- [none of which deaths had] been proven to be caused by the HPV virus to begin with. . . .

[O]nly four months after Perry signed his order for mandated Gardasil vaccines, there were 13 cases of adverse vaccine reactions reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System [VAERS] database. There were thousands more negative reactions reported that were never touched by the mainstream media. By this alone, Rick Perry should have dismantled his executive order - but did he? Certainly not. . . .

I think Ms Luisa's heart is in the right place, but as numerous other sources have noted,

Just six weeks after Perry put pen to paper, the Texas House rebuked him on March 14, 2007, passing HB 1098, overturning his executive order by a vote of 119-21. The Senate followed suit the following month by a vote of 30-1.

Realizing both chambers had large enough majorities to override a veto, Perry opted to let the bill [overturning his order] become law without his signature. On May 8, the day the law went into effect, Perry held a press conference surrounded by women touched by cervical cancer. He bemoaned the tenor of a debate that he asserted had been "hijacked by politics and posturing," and blamed future cervical cancer deaths on those who opposed his mandate -- many of whom were fellow Republicans.

So I'm not sure why Luisa talks about Perry failing to dismantle his executive order.

But, nonetheless, there is a serious story here. And I'm led to wonder: Do we want a man to serve as president who is so willing to permit special interest groups like Merck to bully hundreds of thousands of people to use their children as guinea pigs for expensive medical experiments (Gardasil required/requires a series of three shots, each costing approximately $120!) . . . and then attempt to turn the tables on those who call him for his bad judgment by suggesting that they lack compassion for women and girls:

On May 8, the day the law went into effect, Perry held a press conference surrounded by women touched by cervical cancer. He bemoaned the tenor of a debate that he asserted had been "hijacked by politics and posturing," and blamed future cervical cancer deaths on those who opposed his mandate -- many of whom were fellow Republicans.

In a grand flourish, Perry thanked the small minority of legislators who sided with him: "They will never have to think twice about whether they did the right thing. No lost lives will occupy the confines of their conscience, sacrificed on the altar of political expediency."

In response, the sponsor of HB 1098, Republican state Rep. Dennis Bonnen, [said,] "Just because you don't want to offer up 165,000 11-year-old girls to be Merck's study group doesn't mean you don't care about women's health, doesn't mean you don't care about young girls." . . .

And, in fact, two years later the National Vaccine Information Center issued a report raising serious questions over the harmful side effects of the drug. A few months after that, an editorial on Gardasil in the Journal of the American Medical Association declared that "serious questions regarding the overall effectiveness of the vaccine" needed to be answered and that more long-term studies were called for.

But perhaps we should ignore these concerns. Perry had it on good authority that the vaccine was wonderful. After all,

his former chief of staff was a lobbyist for Merck and . . . his chief of staff's mother-in-law, Rep. Dianne White Delisi, was the state director of an advocacy group bankrolled by Merck to push legislatures across the country to put forward bills mandating the Gardasil vaccine for preteen girls.

Shouldn't he be able to trust such people to give him the real scoop on the efficacy of Merck's drugs?

Vaccines--why one mom is saying "no"

I have signed up for Google Alerts for my own name, "sonlight curriculum", and a couple of other terms.

Tuesday I received an alert for an overwhelmingly kind blog post about Sonlight Curriculum by a Sonlight customer from South Africa. To the right of the post, I noticed a whole series of comments about another post the blogger had written titled Why We Don’t Vaccinate.

Oh. my. goodness. She has done her homework, I think. And she has put together a well-stated summary case against a lot (most? all?) of the childhood vaccines currently being touted by mainline medical providers.

I've heard most of the arguments before in bits and pieces. But Taryn Hayes has done her homework and she provides all the references. The two graphs at the bottom of her post, "a comparison in decline between scarlet fever (unvaccinated disease) and measles (vaccinated disease) in Australia," are, perhaps, more striking than anything else on the page.

But check it out for yourself. It is worth being informed, I think!

And while you're there, you may want to read the counter-arguments of "Lloyd," someone Taryn identifies, in her response, as some kind of [medical] doctor. In essence, he asks, "If vaccines are so useless, then how and why was smallpox wiped out by vaccination? And what of polio? . . . Not to mention German measles/rubella, 'regular' measles, haemophilus and pneumococcal diseases. . . ."

Taryn asks Lloyd if he might be willing to review some of the articles that have her concerned. And following one of the links she provides, I eventually found myself at a copy of an article by Dr. Joseph Mercola where he notes,

A 1992 study published in The American Journal of Epidemiology shows that children die at a rate 8 times greater than normal within three days after getting a DPT vaccination.

A preliminary study by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) found children who received the HiB vaccine . . . were found to be 5 times more likely to contract the disease than children who had not received the vaccine.

In the New England Journal of Medicine July 1994 issue a study found that over 80% of children under 5 years of age who had contracted whooping cough had been fully vaccinated.

In 1977 Dr Jonas Salk (inventor of the Salk polio vaccine) testified with other scientists that 87% of the polio cases which occurred in the US since 1970 were the by-product of the polio vaccine.

The Sabin oral polio vaccine (OPV) is the only known cause of polio in the us today.

The February 1981 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association found that 90% of obstetricians and 66% of pediatricians refused to take the rubella vaccine.

Hmmmm . . .

And then there are papers like this, by Roman Bystrianyk of HealthSentinel.com, that demonstrates that the lartest decline in death rates from virtually all communicable diseases for which vaccines are generally credited really came about long before--and to a much greater degree than could ever be ascribed to--the advent of their respective vaccines.

Consider, too, Dr. Raymond Obamsawin's Vaccination Tables, especially beginning at page 24, Immunization Dangers.

Gardasil--the failed drug for girls--now being promoted for boys (??!!??)

I referenced a couple of articles yesterday that discussed the track record of Gardasil for girls--y'know, how it is killing approximately one young woman a month, not to mention the hundreds of young women who have been permanently disabled by the vaccine . . . all to achieve a minor, potential, low-single-digits percentage relief from two possible sources of cervical cancer.

Well, with that kind of track record, what can you expect from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention but a plan to ensure boys, also, are injected with the drug! (???)

What?!? Why?

In Douglass' inimitable style:

Since boys obviously can’t get cervical cancer, the vaccine peddlers have had to scheme up other reasons to push this on them.

And some of them are real beauts.

Ever hear of a life-threatening case of genital warts? Of course you haven’t — but the feds think your boy should be inoculated… just in case.

Not good enough for you? Don’t worry — they’ve cooked up some more “benefits” for you and your boy: If he grows up to prefer men over women, the vaccine might protect him from anal cancer.

I don’t know anyone outside of California who makes health decisions for a child based on the assumption that he might turn out to be gay someday — but even if he did, bear in mind that the CDC says the anal cancer rate among gays is “as high as” 37 for every 100,000.

That’s 0.037 percent, folks. And the “as high as” means it’s probably much lower than that.

But the writing’s on the wall — Gardasil will make the list for boys sooner or later. All you can do is arm yourself now — with information — so when they come a-knocking for your son, you’ll have the power to tell them where they can shove that needle.

Once more I ask: Is our government truly interested in preserving our lives, liberties, and our ability to pursue our own happiness? Or is it in the back pocket of certain large industrial interests to help them maximize their profits?