Trillions for Tribute, But Not One Cent for Defense
The US declared, when faced with the demands of the Barbary Pirates who controlled the shipping routes of the Mediterranean around North Africa, Representative Robert Goodloe Harper, declared “Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute.” The concept is deeply enshrined in the consciousness of the US and is the meaning of the reference “To the shores of Tripoli” in the Marine’s Hymn, learned by every child in America.
Like so much else in the US, for example, the protections and provisions of the US Constitution, that deep understanding has been violated by the grim and terrible grasp of the Pharma Pirates on our lives. We do, in fact, pay trillions of dollars, and billions of person years of suffering and death, as tribute to the pirates who control our national and personal decisions with lies and more lies – Big Pharma. When the people of America learn to “Say No to Drugs”, we will have moved a long way toward freeing ourselves from the tribute and tyranny of the Phama Pirates.Pandemic Flu is thought to kill people because the immune system recognizes that it has encountered a pathogen (disease – causing agent, in this case a virus) and sends out signaling molecules called cytokines, (Greek cyto-, cell; and -kinos, movement). They can be proteins, peptides, or glycoproteins. Once those signals are received, the immune system springs into action and mounts a defense. In the case of the weaponized pandemic viruses, the defense can be so strong that it literally overwhelms the person who has been infected and causes death because the immune system itself has overwhelmed the lungs, leading to so much inflammation that they cannot carry out their essential function of exchanging gases.
Cytokine Storms and the Pharma Pirates
Cytokines are powerful signaling molecules which cells sends out in order to get a response. The word itself comes from the Greek for cell (cyto) and movement (kinos).
Pandemic, bioengineered virus are believe to kill by evoking a massive cytokine response, called a “cytokine storm” which is so powerful that the immune system itself overwhelms the lung capacity of the infected person and the number of immune cells, along with the massive inflammation (which is an immune technique to isolate an infective agent) fills up the lungs so they cannot carry out their job of exchanging gases and the patient dies.
But like any storm, it will abate and normal conditions can prevail again. If the cytokine storm provoked as an initial response to the virus can be managed for approximately 3 days, the body’s immune response is normalized, becomes more efficient, and it then kills out the virus in the ordinary way that it usually does. The result is called “surviving the pandemic flu”. H1N1 appears to be pretty poor at evoking a lethal cytokine storm.
I would call it another in the growing list of failed pandemics: SARS, Avian Flu, Swine Flu….
The WHO and CDC, however, have assured us that we can expect a lethal global pandemic from this same virus in the fall of 2009, just exactly, we are told, when the vaccine “against” this newly lethal killer virus is ready. We are astonished and awed by the ability of these organizations to predict the future and prepare for it so profitably. The billions spent on the absurd Avian Flu (H5N1) vaccines and the useless failed Rumsfeld antiviral, Tamiflu, of course, are now simply black lines on the spreadsheets of Big Pharma, another example of the monumental depravity of that industry and its governmental (and intergovernmental) servants, including the Oval Office.
In the document called “Concept of Operations of the UN In a Global Influenza Pandemic”, the final footnote (p.10) reads:
The procedures contained in this CONOPS framework will need to be tested at global, regional and country level to ensure their utility and allow for revisions where necessary. Several UN country teams have already conducted simulations to test coordination structures and other procedures outlines in their pandemic plans. Further simulation exercises at regional and global level are needed to test coordination structures and operating procedures. Such large scale simulations will require the commitment of different UN entities. It is anticipated that this CONOPS will continue to be tested through simulation exercises at global, regional and country levels during 2009. [Emphasis added – REL]
http://ochaonline.un.org/OchaLinkClick.aspx?link=ocha&docId=1095473 See also www.spp-psp.gc.ca/eic/site/spp-psp.nsf/vwapj/pandemic-influenza.pdf/$FILE/pandemic-influenza.pdf
That looks very much to me like the reason that the failed pandemic of 2009 is being pursued as if it were a threat to anyone. Right now it is a real threat, but it is a threat to our liberty, our nations, our freedoms. Later this fall, if the plans hold, it would appear that the bad boy version will be ready and released – probably through the vaccines which we will be expected to line up for willingly. Remember, if you do not line up for them willingly, you will be subject to the federal powers which our spineless Congress has authorized and to the same powers of the States under their Emergency Medical Powers Acts. Those powers define you as a felon if you refuse vaccination once a Pandemic has been declared at the State level and a health hazard at the federal level. Once so identified, you are subject to immediate long-term incarceration and quarantine. At the state level, as a felon, you could be sent to prison. At the federal level you could be held indefinitely at one of the many FEMA camps which have been established all over the US (and Canada?).
So the storm is political, global and physical, all at once.
Before I discuss how to safely quell a cytokine storm, let me ask you a question or two:
Did you vote for the dissolution of your country in this last election?
Are you eager to have the UN run a global government?
Do you think that the UN would ever hand back control to the nation states after the pandemic is over, if it ever IS over?
Do you agree with the globalist position that the solution to global warming and overpopulation is population culling so that 80-90% of the world’s population no longer exists? If so, are you willing to step up and volunteer yourself and your family for the culling?
For most of us, the answer to all of those questions is “Not only NO, but HELL NO!” So what are you doing about it? One important thing to do is to forward this information and ask everyone, and I do mean everyone, you know to
1. Join the Natural Solutions Foundation’s Health Freedom Action eAlert list at http://drrimatruthreports.com/?page_id=187 so they can become part of the solution through sustained net-roots push back and information dissemination
2. Forward this information and ask their contacts to take these steps
3. Make a recurring tax deductible donation, large or small, to the Natural Solutions Foundation. Our support comes from our supporters, not from corporations or governments. Visit http://drrimatruthreports.com/?page_id=189 now. Even 4 dollars a month, just a dollar a week, from each of our supporters, will make the difference so that we can continue to bring you truth you need and speak truth to power together.
Quelling the Storm
So how do you control a cytokine storm without subjecting yourself to even more dangerous drugs? Simple. There are many well known natural means of doing so.
First and foremost is Vitamin C. Good ole’, familiar Vitamin C. When your body needs vitamin C, which we have somehow misplaced the gene which allows us to make during the course of our development, it tolerates more. So you need to give it more. How much more? Well, as much as you can cram in during a cytokine storm (and in the face of a full blown infection with a pandemic, bioengineered virus) – I prefer intravenous delivery systems so that up to 300 G per day can be delivered for 3 days. Since part of the impact of these viruses seems to be a cataclysmic depletion of the body’s Vitamin C stores, this is very important.
By the way, when I first published this information, I was roundly castigated by a variety of people who should have known better. Shortly thereafter, they began publishing this information as if it were their own. Ah, well! The real point is to get it out there where it can help people, but an accurate attribution would be nice!
If IV administration is not possible (and it would not be available for most people), then ingesting LARGE amounts of oral Vitamin C would be the way to go. The body will tell you when it has had enough Vitamin C: bowel tolerance is the signal that its needs have been met. That means diarrhea or softening of stools. However, the novel H1N1 virus produces diarrhea as a part of its infection process so I would say ignore that sign and just put lots and lots of Vitamin C into the patient. There is no known level of toxicity for Vitamin C and it is a powerful immune support – which is why Big Pharma, through Codex, would love to restrict it to the point that there is no useful dose available.
Should you stock pile Vitamin C? I believe you should. Should you use Vitamin C from GMO sources? Of course not. That means that it must be organic. You can visit www.Organics4U.org to find organic Vitamin C sources. Non GMO sourcing is a vitally important consideration, by the way.
Next, Nano silver. As you know, Nano silver is different from colloidal or other silver types. Because of its very small size, it cannot be retained in the body so the mythical dangers of turning blue are even less significant than they are with other types of silver (to the whole notion of argyria, my response is “Fiddle Faddle! It is literally a myth and not a real concern.”)
The Nano silver that we recommend has two properties which we believe render it superior to other products: first, it has the capacity to kill pathogenic organisms, like these bioengineered plagues and second, it has been infused with energetic information (if this is not familiar to you, you need to check out the emerging science of the use of frequency to impact living systems – the dangerous part of it is euphemistically called “non lethal weapons” while the beneficial part is often referred to as “energy medicine” or “frequency medicine” and is related to homeopathy. I have used it in my practice for years and it is rapidly gaining acceptance in countries other than the US, and even slowly there where, for example, the use of light to treat cancer has gained acceptance.)
The highly effective Nano silver available through www.Nutronix.com/naturalsolutions has been infused with frequency in a process developed by the brilliant and world-renowned materials scientist, Rustum Roy, PhD, Professor Emeritus, University of Pennsylvania, University of Arizona. I do not have space here to discuss this remarkable innovation, but I am convinced that it creates a stable, effective and safe product which will dispatch the virus rapidly, preventing the development of the cytokine storm.
In our previous Health Freedom Blog, “Health Freedom Action eAlert: Pandemic… Be ProActive and Take Some Steps to Feel Less Helpless“, http://drrimatruthreports.com/?p=2581, I listed several natural options which have the effect of dampening cytokine storms to let the immune system get to work in a balanced and effective way. Please check this list out and make sure that you have the items on hand. But remember, you want organic sourced items since they are free of GMO contamination AND free of pesticides, irradiation, and other health hazards.
You can find many of them at either www.Organics4U.org or www.NaturalSolutionsMarketPlace.org. But wherever you buy them, make sure you have enough on hand for your family when, not if, the next round of political pandemic comes at you.
By the way, for those of you who are interested in growing your own food to support your immune system, lower your cost and take your fate out of the hands of the biotech and agribiz industry, our new publication to help you with that process, FOOD – the Journal of Sustainability, is being prepared. Cindy Blackshear, a master gardener and a wonderful friend of both health and health freedom, has agreed to be the Editor. FOOD, by the way, is an acronym for “Food On Our Doorsteps”!
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.NaturalSolutionsMarketPlace.org
www.Organics4U.org
www.HealthFreedomRadio.com
Note that there is some suggestion that the old anti-malaria drug chloroquine will quell the cytokine storm as would AcetylCholinEsterase inhibitors (ACE inhibitors). These drugs have toxicity profiles and I would not recommend them for ongoing use as the internet authors who are suggesting their use are doing. REL
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