One of the largest vaccine trials ever has been announced by St. Louis University. That trial will enroll 167 people.
You read that right. One of the largest vaccine trials ever will involve fewer than 170 people. If you thought that vaccines were tested over the long term and on lots of people, thing again.
Not only that, the trial appears to me as if it is an attempt to find a use for out of date, or useless old flu vaccines.
Flu vaccines are pretty much useless anyway, from where I sit, but they are valuable, at least from the point of their makers and the people who have purchased them so any use they can be put to would be welcome to those who own them.
In an article dated September 8, 2008, St. Louis University announced that it would be trying a novel approach to Pandemic Flu prevention: using an old flu vaccine approved in 2004 to prime [in other words, to irritate it-REL] in order to develop “protection” against another version of the Avian Flu when a shot for that (or a different) strain of the virus that causes Avain Flu is given.
If I did not know better, I would say that someone with a lot of money invested in ineffective, dangerous and outmoded vaccines was looking for a new use for them. You see, each year, the World Health Organization, the CDC and other organizations get together in the Spring of the year and literally guess, yes that is correct – GUESS – which strain of the so called “seasonal flu” is going to come around next fall and cause the disease we know as “the flu”.
How good are their guesses? Pretty bad. “Statisticians at CDC say that influenza is inherently unpredictable, that it’s such a random event that there’s no way that you can predict future outcomes,†said Forrest Nelson, professor of economics at the University of Iowa, says. http://scienceline.org/2007/05/23/hsu_health_flu-prediction/
Science Daily, reporting on a study published in Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, noted “Each year’s flu vaccine needs to be designed in advance, based on which strains of virus are anticipated to be prevalent in the coming year. Because the accuracy of that prediction varies, the effectiveness of the flu vaccine also varies from year to year.” http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070904072851.htm. This suggests, but does not document the CDC’s dismal record of prediction accuracy.
That record is so dismal, in fact, that a recent study which examined whether Seniors who were “properly” vaccinated were protected by the flu shot noted, ” Researchers say that older people suffering chronic conditions, such as lung disease, heart disease, diabetes, have even higher flu risk despite vaccination. Scientists thought that flu vaccine provides with 20-30% protection against pneumonia, but this research suggests that the protection level is only from 5% to 10%….Effectiveness of flu vaccine is different each year, it depends on how successful virus strain predictions for a current year will be. Flu vaccine cuts infection rates from 40% to 60% in the best cases.” http://www.emaxhealth.com/90/23622.html
But whether they are effective or not, flu vaccines are costly to make. True, they are wildly profitable if used but, when the populace figures out that they are both unsafe, unnecessary and do not provide protection, they do not use the stocks up, creating an economic blow for the highly economically motivated pharmaceutical companies.
On August 18, 2008, the St. Louis Business Journal wrote about the “quiet crisis” created by lack of increases in NIH funding. “St. Louis Business Journal — Five straight years of flat funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have Washington University and Saint Louis University scrambling to fill financial gaps with other funding sources to keep biomedical research projects going.
Officials at both universities said they increasingly are using internal funds and applying for grants from private foundations and pharmaceutical companies to make up for less NIH money….Besides nonprofits, another source to which researchers have turned is pharmaceutical companies, but that’s not ideal either
“Our work doesn’t really mesh with them,” said Dr. Randy Sprague, a professor of pharmacology and physiological science at Saint Louis University. ” http://www.biospace.com/news_story.aspx?NewsEntityId=107184
Apparently, however, their work meshes well enough to try to use old flu vaccines to pump up the effect of new ones (which may or may not be made from viral strains which may or may not be causing disease in a body near you.
But you never know. It might work. Or, then again, it might not.
Of course, the impact of experimental vaccines, or extra vaccinations (94% of all available flu vaccines still contain mercury and all of them contain several (or all of the following): bits of fetal and animal tissue, “stealth viruses” which can cause cancer and other potentially lethal diseases, aluminum hydroxide (associated with Alzheimer’s Disease and especially toxic in the presence of fluoride), alumino-fluoride complexes, Polysorbate 80 (known to cause sterility), MSG (a brain irritant), mercury, formaldehyde, mixtures of viruses and bacteria, sometimes dead or inactivated. None of the vaccines have been subjected to any long-term safety trials (longer than a few weeks). Most were only studied for a few days and then approved if nothing untoward was detected by the Medical Advisory Committees, many of whom had large share-holdings or other vested interests in the vaccine companies, as recently revealed in US Congressional hearings.” according to Mike Godfrey MBBS, FACAM, FACNEM. http://www.healthy.co.nz/healthy-developments-news-item-138.html
The race to vaccinate against everything anyone, adult or child, could possibly experience began when vaccine manufacturers decided to use the US Congress to build a bulwark against the tremendous losses they were incurring by having to compensate parents for the damages their vaccines were doing to children. “By the 1970s, the manufacturers were losing very costly court actions for vaccine-damaged infants. They successfully lobbied the US Congress by threatening to stop manufacture, and in 1986, Congress gave them immunity from prosecution. This unique legislation allowed a commercial organization total freedom to start developing vaccines for all childhood illnesses. It also resulted in a massive commercial drive to mandate vaccination for every child before entering school.” http://www.healthy.co.nz/healthy-developments-news-item-138.html
And, of course, once the child hood vaccination market had been secured, adults, especially healthy adults, were the next market.
Whether for use in children or adults, however, vaccines and their toxic components, have never, repeat, never, been tested for safety in combination. That means that their dangers are less than unknown. Since vaccine manufacturers are totally protected from product liability, at least in the US, there is no reason for a manufacturer to spend money making the vaccines safe or testing them to make sure that they are, at the very least, not harmful.
So it is not outside the realm of possibility that this “largest vaccine trial ever” is just another ploy to make more money from vaccine stocks. Whether or not that is the motivation behind this “largest vaccine trial ever”, there are so many distressing aspects to the trial it is hard to know where to begin. A good place might be not to take flu vaccines!
Yours in health and freedom,
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org
www.Organics4U.org
www.NaturalSolutionsMedia.tv
www.NaturalSolutionsMarketPlace.org
Pandemic Preparation: SLU Launches Avian Flu Study
NIH-Funded Study Examines Combining Stockpiled and New Vaccines
Nancy Solomon
314.977.8017
solomonn@slu.edu
September 08, 2008
Pandemic Preparation: SLU Launches Avian Flu Study
NIH-Funded Study Examines Combining Stockpiled and New Vaccines
ST. LOUIS — Saint Louis University School of Medicine seeks volunteers for one of the largest avian flu clinical trials in the United States to test a new vaccine approach to prevent the disease.
The study will test whether an injection of an FDA-approved avian flu vaccine created in 2004 can “prime” the body’s immune system so a second shot of a different avian flu vaccine can protect against avian flu infection. The second vaccine is an investigational vaccine, which has not yet been given to people.
“This study will answer several scientific questions, but the most important one is whether you can prime with one strain of influenza vaccine and boost the body’s immune system with another,” said Robert Belshe, M.D., director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Saint Louis University School of Medicine.
Vaccines protect against influenza by triggering the body to produce antibodies against infection. The study will examine the vigor of the body’s antibody response and the safety of the vaccines.
Creating an effective vaccine for the avian flu is challenging. Like any other influenza bug, the avian flu virus — known as H5 — is constantly evolving. In addition, two doses of vaccine are likely to be needed to prevent avian flu infection, said Belshe, who is the study’s principal investigator.
Avian flu occurs in birds, and in rare instances has crossed the species barrier to infect people. As of June 2008, the World Health Organization reported 385 human cases of avian flu and 243 deaths in Asia, Europe and Africa. The virus has not yet changed so it can be spread easily between people.
Public health experts are concerned that the avian flu could become the next influenza pandemic — or outbreak of disease that sweeps around the globe, causing millions of deaths worldwide — because previous outbreaks have been started by bird viruses. Consequently researchers are focused on finding a vaccine to protect against avian flu.
“Although many years have passed since the last major pandemic, the serious threat of pandemic influenza remains,” Belshe said.
“So far there has been no substantial leap between the bird species and humans. However other pandemics have started when the organism jumps between species and we’re worried it will happen again. A few genetic changes can occur in the virus and it would become highly infectious to humans. We’re trying to prepare.”
Saint Louis University is the lead site of the research, which is sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health and will include up to five study sites. Of the 500 volunteers who are being recruited nationally, up to 167 people will be enrolled at SLU’s NIAID-funded Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Unit (VTEU).
The study involves four to nine visits to the VTEU and overall the study lasts six to 12 months, depending upon the group to which a participant is randomly assigned.
Potential study volunteers must be healthy, between 18 and 49 years of age, not pregnant and not allergic to eggs.
Participants will receive two vaccines — one or two doses of the 2004 avian flu vaccine that currently is stockpiled; one or two doses of the investigational vaccine that matches a different strain of the avian flu; or both vaccines.
For more information about enrolling in the study, please call the Saint Louis University VTEU at (314) 977-6333 or email vaccine@slu.edu.
Established in 1836, Saint Louis University School of Medicine has the distinction of awarding the first M.D. degree west of the Mississippi River. Saint Louis University School of Medicine is a pioneer in geriatric medicine, organ transplantation, chronic disease prevention, cardiovascular disease, neurosciences and vaccine research, among others. The School of Medicine trains physicians and biomedical scientists, conducts medical research, and provides health services on a local, national and international level.
The heat is on: against a growing background beat of “Pandemic’s nearly here, pandemic’s nearly here!” the repeated refrain of “Vet more vaccinations, get more shots!” is getting louder, too.
This time, we have a speculative paper that strikes me as absurd in which children are placed at high risk for getting vaccinated with yet more untested, potentially dangerous and very, very profitable vaccinations. In this case, the call is for saving the lives of children by vaccinating them with vaccines which contain deadly poisons like mercury, formaldehyde, fetal DNA, steal viruses, fluoride, chrolides, aluminum, etc., for a disease whose impact is vastly overstated (see “Flu Shot Does Not Reduce Risk of Death” following and not particularly the analysis of statistical conclusions about the death rate from flu. The highly absurd figure of 36,000 deaths per year from flu is used to sell flu vaccines and fear. But all, that’s right, all, deaths from pneumonia or any other possibly flu-related cause, whether it is or is not actually related to flu, is counted as a flu death in the grim sales pitch: get vaccinated or die.
As this second article cited shows, the reality, when examined closely, is nowhere near the puffery.
Well, what would you expect from a propaganda campaign?
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org
www.Organics4U.org
www.NaturalSolutionsMedia.tv
www.NaturalSolutionsMarketPlace.org
Vaccinating Younger Population Minimizes Life-Years Lost to Influenza
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) Sept 05 – Shifting the current vaccination strategy to target younger populations would reduce the number of years of life lost (YLL) to influenza, according to a report in the August 1st issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases.
Vaccination allocation policy has been the subject of debate in light of several issues, among them the criticism by bioethicists of the inherent axiom that any life lost has the same value, regardless of the age of the deceased, the authors explain.
Dr. Mark A. Miller from the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, and colleagues sought to provide an alternative quantitative tool to help guide pandemic vaccine priority setting and achieve the greatest possible population impact, by preventing the loss of as many years of life as possible.
For a 1918-like pandemic scenario, in which most YLL occur for the younger age groups, the optimal vaccination group comprises people younger than 45 years, according to the models employed.
For a 1957-like epidemic, in which YLL were similar for older and middle age groups, it is unclear whether vaccinating the middle-age group would be better than vaccinating seniors, leading the investigators to conclude “that these age groups would be equally good choices.”
For a mild 1968-like influenza epidemic, the researchers note, vaccinating people 45 to 64 years old represents the optimal strategy for minimizing YLL.
“Our estimation is not an endorsement of any particular policy but highlights how the choice of health outcome metrics such as YLL can influence the prioritization of age groups to vaccinate in pandemic settings,” the authors explain. “It also shows that the vaccine priority scheme for seasonal influenza is not optimized to mitigate the impact of pandemic influenza.”
“These results suggest the need for pandemic plans to have an element of flexibility that allows the prioritization of age groups for immunization at the start of a pandemic to be modified as age-specific epidemiological data on the novel virus become available in real time,” the researchers conclude.
“Equally important, the question of who should be vaccinated first needs to be debated and reasoned through now, before the onset of a public health emergency, while we have the time to reflect on which decision-making metric is the most appropriate,” they add.
J Infect Dis 2008;198:305-311.
Flu Shot Does Not Reduce Risk Of Death, Research Shows
ScienceDaily (Aug. 31, 2008)  The widely-held perception that the influenza vaccination reduces overall mortality risk in the elderly does not withstand careful scrutiny, according to researchers in Alberta. The vaccine does confer protection against specific strains of influenza, but its overall benefit appears to have been exaggerated by a number of observational studies that found a very large reduction in all-cause mortality among elderly patients who had been vaccinated.
The study included more than 700 matched elderly subjects, half of whom had taken the vaccine and half of whom had not. After controlling for a wealth of variables that were largely not considered or simply not available in previous studies that reported the mortality benefit, the researchers concluded that any such benefit “if present at all, was very small and statistically non-significant and may simply be a healthy-user artifact that they were unable to identify.”
“While such a reduction in all-cause mortality would have been impressive, these mortality benefits are likely implausible. Previous studies were likely measuring a benefit not directly attributable to the vaccine itself, but something specific to the individuals who were vaccinatedâ€â€a healthy-user benefit or frailty bias,” said Dean T. Eurich,Ph.D. clinical epidemiologist and assistant professor at the School of Public Health at the University of Alberta. “Over the last two decades in the United Sates, even while vaccination rates among the elderly have increased from 15 to 65 percent, there has been no commensurate decrease in hospital admissions or all-cause mortality. Further, only about 10 percent of winter-time deaths in the United States are attributable to influenza, thus to suggest that the vaccine can reduce 50 percent of deaths from all causes is implausible in our opinion.”
Dr. Eurich and colleagues hypothesized that if the healthy-user effect was responsible for the mortality benefit associated with influenza vaccination seen in observational studies, there should also be a significant mortality benefit present during the “off-season”.
To determine whether the observed mortality benefits were actually an effect of the flu vaccine, therefore, they analyzed clinical data from records of all six hospitals in the Capital Health region in Alberta. In total, they analyzed data from 704 patients 65 years of age and older who were admitted to the hospital for community-acquired pneumonia during non-flu season, half of whom had been vaccinated, and half of whom had not. Each vaccinated patient was matched to a non-vaccinated patient with similar demographics, medical conditions, functional status, smoking status and current prescription medications.
In examining in-hospital mortality, they found that 12 percent of the patients died overall, with a median length of stay of approximately eight days. While analysis with a model similar to that employed by past observational studies indeed showed that patients who were vaccinated were about half as likely to die as unvaccinated patients, a finding consistent with other studies, they found a striking difference after adjusting for detailed clinical information, such as the need for an advanced directive, pneumococcal immunizations, socioeconomic status, as well as sex, smoking, functional status and severity of disease. Controlling for those variables reduced the relative risk of death to a statistically non-significant 19 percent.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080829091323.htm
Big Pharma is all heart. Here is a striking example of its deep concern for our collective and individual well being: In New Delhi, 49 babies died in clinical trials in just 30 months. That’s one baby every 0.61 months, a little over half.
Did no one notice? Did no one want to give up the payments they were getting? How much as the premier All India Institute of Medicine getting per baby? Who was getting it?
How many of the responsible people will go to jail?
What do you learn in this type of trial from a baby? Or are they simply the most vulnerable and helpless group so they make great experimental subjects.
I have a lot more questions, and I bet you do, too.
But the answers that are clear are pretty grim. I am reminded of the Polish vagrants, more than 300 of them, who for $1 or $2 were injected with the Sanofi-Pasteur vaccine. That dollar cost many of them their lives and the doctors and nurses involved are on trial for murder (as is a sister company, Sanofi Aventis, for homicide because of the contaminated Hepatitis B Vaccine they were given.
The stories go on and on and on of Big Pharma and the Illness Care industry using us as their guinea pigs wth no regard for us and our well-being.
Be warned. The next time you hear that a vaccine or a pharmaceutical is good for you, ask if the pronoun is correct or if what you are really being told is “the Vaccine or pharmaceutical is good for ME, the doctor or the hospital or the Drug company.”
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org
www.Organics4U.org
www.NaturalSolutionsMedia.tv
www.NaturalSolutionsMarketPlace.org
49 babies died during clinical trials at AIIMS
Sunday, August 17, 2008
New Delhi: As many as 49 babies have died during clinical trials at the premier All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) during the last two-and-a-half years, the reply to a Right to Information (RTI) query has revealed.
The AIIMS paediatrics department conducted 42 sets of trials on 4,142 babies – 2,728 of them below the age of one – since Jan 1, 2006.
Forty-nine babies died during the trials. AIIMS says the deaths amounted to a 1.18 percent mortality rate, according to its reply to the RTI query.
“A total of 49 deaths corresponding to 1.18 percent mortality among the enrolled patients were recorded in the studies. These include deaths both in the control and intervention groups, as per the designs of individual studies,” the reply says.
The reasons for the babies’ deaths, their ages or their gender are not contained in the reply – since these were not specifically asked by the applicant, Rahul Verma, founder of NGO Uday Foundation for Congenital Defects and Rare Blood Groups.
Verma, in fact, had filed separate queries with the same set of questions with the paediatrics department and the paediatrics surgery department. He says he received an unsatisfactory reply from the latter and is going to file an appeal in the case.
Clinical trials are research studies that test how well new medical formulations work on people. Each study attempts to find better ways to prevent, screen for, diagnose, and treat a disease.
If carefully conducted, clinical trials are the safest and fastest way of finding treatments that work.
In reply to a query on who the five top funding agencies for the trials were, AIIMS named the institute itself, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the US.
Five foreign-manufactured medicines were tested during the trials. They were:
* Zinc tablets for treating Zinc deficiency and serving as a nutritional supplement,
* Olmesartan and Valsartan for treating blood pressure related problems,
* Rituximab for treating chronic focal encephalitis, a condition affecting the brain, and
* Gene-activated human glucocerebrosidase – for treating Gaucher disease that affects the liver.
In reply to another query, AIIMS said that before conducting the trials, it had taken clearance from its own Ethics Committee, the Health Ministry Steering Committee (HMSC) on ethics and the National Ethics Committees of ICMR and DBT.
Verma, however, maintained that there were legal and ethical lacunae in the system as permissions had to be sought from different agencies depending on the nature of the trials.
http://news.indiainfo.com/2008/08/17/0808171932_49_babies_died_during_clinical_trials_at_aiims_in_last_30_months.html
Mass graves, a 17 week delay between death and burial, schools closed for 10 weeks while hundreds of thousands or even millions of people die in a 15 week nightmare in the UK.
Yes, a successful weaponised Avian Flu certainly can ruin your day unless you happen to be a One World Government Globalist with depopulation tendencies, of course.
Look at what the British Government is planning for and recall that there is not a single human case of Avian Flu, let alone a death, anywhere in Europe and then tell me that this makes sense. Because to me this sounds exactly like more Psy Ops – “Soften ’em up, get them used to the idea and make ’em really afraid. Then you can do whatever you want with them”
Well, not me and not you.
The more that we disseminate our skepticism and our accurate information, the harder the job of the fear mongers becomes.
Gullibility is their tool and their friend.
Knowledge is ours.
Please make sure that everyone you know signs up for the informative and important free and secure Health Freedom eAlert, http://drrimatruthreports.com/index.php?page_id=187. It’s free and its filled with information that we need to disseminate widely.
Speaking truth to power is our protection. We are the Power, after all.
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org
www.Organics4U.org
www.NaturalSolutionsMedia.tv
www.NaturalSolutionsMarketPlace.org
London – Britain is considering mass human burials should a bird flu pandemic break out, The Sunday Times newspaper said.
A “prudent” worst-case assessment suggested 320 000 people could die in Britain if the H5N1 virus mutated into a form contagious to humans, according to a confidential Home Office report seen by the weekly.
Titled Managing Excess Deaths in an Influenza Pandemic and dated March 22, [2008] the document reportedly says that such a large number of deaths could lead to delays of up to 17 weeks in burying or cremating victims.
It warned that “common burial” would stir up images of the mass burial pits used during the Great Plague of 1665.
But in fact it “might involve a large number of coffins buried in the same place at the same time, in such a way that allowed for individual graves to be marked”.
The Sunday Times weekly said the report had been discussed last week in a cabinet subcommittee chaired by Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt.
Avian influenza is lethal to poultry and dangerous for humans in close proximity to infected fowl. It has claimed more than 100 lives, according to a World Health Organisation toll.
But, apart from a few anecdotal cases, the mortality has occurred exclusively by direct transmission from birds to humans and not among humans themselves. To acquire that contagiousness would open the way to a pandemic.
The report suggests that local authorities could cope with a “base case” of 48 000 deaths in England and Wales in a 15-week pandemic.
But it warned: “Even with ramping local management capacity by 100 percent, the prudent worst case of 320 000 excess deaths is projected to lead to a delay of some 17 weeks from death to burial or cremation.”
Should the outbreak kill 2.5% of those who contract the flu, it added, “no matter what emergency arrangements are put in place there are likely to be substantially more deaths than can be managed within current timescales”.
It said vaccines would not be available in the first wave of a pandemic, and possibly longer, and should not be seen as a “silver bullet”.
The report suggests schools would have to close for up to 10 weeks because children would be “super-spreaders” of bird flu.
The Home Office said it did not comment on leaked documents.
A spokesperson added: “The government is taking seriously the possible threat of an influenza pandemic in the light of the global situation and the possibility that a novel strain of the influenza virus could emerge.
“Prudent precautionary planning is under way across all elements of the response, including the health service, other essential services and local authorities.”
The H5N1 virus has been detected in nearby France.
Flu shots are a huge business and a huge threat. 94% of all flu shots avaialble for both children and adults contain mercury. The rest contain “trace amounts” of mercury which are still large enough to be toxic. All the rest of the components are toxic as well, although some are uncharacterized (for example, random bits of stray embryonic tissues, FDA acknowledged “steal viruses”, leukemia or other cancer-causing particles and viruses, etc.)
Despite the increasing number of situations and States in which flu vaccines are mandated (for all children 6 months and older in New Jersey, for example, each and every year after two vaccinations in the child’s first year of life), there is no convincing evidence to show that these shots are safe or effective.
In fact, the CDC and WHO (World Health Organization) literally guess sometime in the Spring what viruses will be circulating to cause a flu epidemic the next fall and winter. They guess wrong a great many times. Vaccines, even if they were effective, would provide no coverage or protection against a virus other than the one that they are made to deal with.
Live virus vaccines may well be dangerous to those who are vaccinated AND to those with whom they come in contact who are immunocompromised through medications like chemotherapy or steroids, are nursing mothers and babies, have a wide variety of diseases or develop the disease for which they have been vaccinated (a not uncommon occurance).
Despite the fact that flu deaths are wildly inflated in the US (since all pneumonia deaths are “counted” as flu deaths, whether they are or not), most cases of flu are similar to most cases of flu vaccination response – self limited fevers, muscle aches, headaches, malaise and weakness. In addition, getting the flu builds immunity to that species of virus without exposure to some of the most toxic chemicals and materials known once they are injected.
The article below calls into question the practice of vaccinating the elderly to protect them against flu. The same serious questions should be asked about vaccinating anyone else for flu.
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org
www.Organics4U.org
www.NaturalSolutionsMedia.tv
www.NaturalSolutionsMarketPlace.org
Flu Shot Does Not Lower Mortality
By Marsha Quinn
(Best Syndication News) Canadian researchers say that the mortality rate among the elderly patients who receive the flu shot is no different than the rate of those who do not. Previous research suggested a benefit to receiving the influenza vaccine, but this new study suggests otherwise. They speculate that the previous research was skewed because of a “health user benefit” or a “frailty bias”.
The study involved about 700 matched elderly participants, of which about half received the vaccine and the other half did not. They accounted for many variables that were not considered in previous studies. “If present at all, (the benefit) was very small and statistically non-significant and may simply be a healthy-user artifact that they were unable to identify,” they reported.
Why Don’t Flu Shots Work?
It is possible that those who received the vaccine in previous studies were more concerned about their health. This means those individuals ate healthy and exercised regularly.
They believe that the “healthy-user effect” was responsible for the mortality benefit associated with influenza vaccination seen in observational studies. There should also be a significant mortality benefit present during the “off-season”, according to Dr. Dean T. Eurich,Ph.D. clinical epidemiologist and assistant professor at the School of Public Health at the University of Alberta.
“While such a reduction in all-cause mortality would have been impressive, these mortality benefits are likely implausible. Previous studies were likely measuring a benefit not directly attributable to the vaccine itself, but something specific to the individuals who were vaccinated-a healthy-user benefit or frailty bias,” said Eurich.
What is the Influenza Vaccine Made Of?
Flu shots are composed of dead viruses. [They may be so-called attenuated live viruses like “Flu Mist” – REL] They are not approved for children less than 6 years of age. They are approved from people with chronic medical conditions, according to the CDC. The flu vaccines prompt the formation of antibodies that protect the patient from the virus.
New Nasal Spray Vaccine
The new nasal-spray flu vaccine (LAIV for “live attenuated influenza vaccine” or FluMist® LAIV (FluMist®) is made up of live but weakened viruses. They do not cause the flu, according to the CDC, and are approved for “healthy” people from 2-49 years of age who are not pregnant.
The Study Results
They analyzed the records of 704 patients 65 years of age and older who were admitted to the hospital for community-acquired pneumonia during non-flu season. Of those patients, 12 percent died with a medium length of stay of 8 days. They matched the vaccinated patients with the non-vaccinated ones with similar demographics, medical conditions, functional status, smoking status and current prescription medications.
Consistent with previous studies, patients who were vaccinated were about half as likely to die as unvaccinated patients. “Controlling for those variables reduced the relative risk of death to a statistically non-significant 19 percent.”
“Over the last two decades in the United Sates, even while vaccination rates among the elderly have increased from 15 to 65 percent, there has been no commensurate decrease in hospital admissions or all-cause mortality,” Eurich said. “Further, only about 10 percent of winter-time deaths in the United States are attributable to influenza, thus to suggest that the vaccine can reduce 50 percent of deaths from all causes is implausible in our opinion.”
These results appeared in the September issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, a publication of the American Thoracic Society.
http://www.bestsyndication.com/?q=200808298_flu_vaccine_not_effective.htm