The Flu Shot Will Protect Us From Covid? But Where is the Science?
Richard Gale and Gary Null
Progressive Radio Network, September 3, 2020
In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, states are making efforts through their legislatures to mandate the influenza vaccine for everyone. Several days ago, Massachusetts became the first state to mandate the shot for students, and other states such as New Jer...
The Flu Shot Will Protect Us From Covid? But Where is the Science?
Richard Gale and Gary Null
Progressive Radio Network, September 3, 2020
In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, states are making efforts through their legislatures to mandate the influenza vaccine for everyone. Several days ago, Massachusetts became the first state to mandate the shot for students, and other states such as New Jersey, New York and Vermont are in session to consider following suit.
Although there is absolutely no confirmatory evidence to even suggest that the flu vaccine can prevent or protect someone from Covid-19, health officials nevertheless are eager to push forward with this ridiculous strategy. Where is the actual science that is sufficiently rigorous to reach a consensual conclusion for this belief? It doesn’t exist. We might be reminded of historian Daniel Boorstin’s insightful realization in his book The Discoverers: “The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.” This is the dilemma of delusional thinking that pervades the biological, medical and cognitive sciences rather than the hard sciences of physics, chemistry and mathematics. Whenever we are faced with proclamations from the medical establishment, and especially Bill Gates and the World Health Organization, when they advertise propaganda about safety and efficacy of many vaccines on the market, we must learn to take a step back and question their certainty.
Rather than charging forward with bogus assumptions, it would seem wiser to consider several studies that indicate that rather than protecting us from potential Covid-19 infection, the flu vaccine actually increases our susceptibility to other infectious respiratory illnesses, including coronavirus strains.
Sometimes our world has an unusual way of providing warnings that we have an opportunity to either heed or disregard to our benefit or detriment. The great physicist and Nobel laureate Niels Bohr called this synchronicity. On December 31, 2019 in order to usher in the New Year, China reported the first case of an "unusual pneumonia" in its port city of Wuhan. A week later on January 7th, the pathogen was identified as a novel strain of coronavirus. That same month, the prestigious journal Vaccine, published a study conducted by the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Branch at Wright Patterson Air Force Base. Researchers investigated viral interference due to receiving the flu shot; in other words, does the flu vaccine make a recipient more susceptible to other non-influenza respiratory viral infections? The study's conclusions state "Vaccine derived virus interference was significantly associated with coronavirus and human metapneumovirus." However this is not the first time that viral interference from the flu vaccine has been associated with an increase in non-influenza respiratory infections.
To date there is only one gold standard clinical trial with the flu vaccine that compares vaccinated vs. unvaccinated, and it is not good news for considering any possible legitimacy for even recommending a flu shot during this pandemic. This University of Hong Kong double-blind placebo controlled study followed the health conditions of vaccinated and unvaccinated children between the ages of 6-15 years for 272 days. The trial concluded the flu vaccine holds no health benefits. In fact, those vaccinated with the flu virus were observed to have a 550% higher risk of contracting non-flu virus respiratory infections. It was the dramatic number of incidences of non-influenza infections found in the flu-vaccinated group (105 cass, which included rhinovirus, coxsackie, echovirus AND coronavirus, as opposed to those who received a placebo. In other words, the results suggest that receiving the flu shot may increase one's risk of contracting another infectious virus such as Covid-19.
For some odd and strange reason, underlying the efforts to mandate the flu vaccine for all students is a false belief that Covid-19 poses a far greater lethal threat than influenza. So where is the proof? It doesn’t exist. In fact, childhood mortality from seasonal flu infections significantly outnumbers child and teen deaths from Covid-19, and the latter’s infection rate has lasted months longer than even a severe flu season.
As of the CDC’s latest Covid-19 statistics published on August 27, there have been 101 reported deaths among children and teens. Oddly, back in March, Business Insider was reporting that the CDC was confirming 136 pediatric deaths which clearly contradicts the CDC’s own current statistics on its website. This is another indication of systemic incompetence and confusion that has gone viral throughout the federal agency.
So far in the year of corona the CDC has reported 174 childhood flu deaths. For the past 15 years, childhood flu deaths were higher in 9 of those years than Covid-19. During the 2018-2019 season, which was regarded as especially virulent, there were 179 deaths and 110 the year before. The H1N1 swine flu panic in 2009-2010 was the worse in several decades with 282 deaths. Yet there was no lockdown, school closures, or mandatory masks and social distancing in response to the swine flu. Consequently where is the sound scientific evidence to warrant the draconian measures being taken to presumably protect students from cross-infections? It doesn’t exist. We have looked for firm and convincing medical evidence to even suggest that flu vaccines are a viable means to ward off Covid-19, and we can’t find it.
Earlier we reported how the CDC has re-categorizing influenza and pneumonia cases as Covid-19. In the same vein, how many deaths assigned to corornavirus may actually be caused by a flu strain? German public health expert Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg notes that it is "the well known fact that in every 'flu wave' 7-15% of acute respiratory illnesses (ARI) are coming along with coronaviruses." We still do not know COVID-19's pathogenetic role and impact compared to the common seasonal flu.
Instead of blindly mandating flu vaccination, our legislators and media need to be performing their due diligence to validate the CDC’s and Bill Gates’ rhetoric and spin about flu vaccines as a prophylactic to curb the spread of Covid-19. But even more important, they need to look at the volumes of studies indicating the flu vaccine’s lack of inefficacy to protect us from influenza and the vaccine’s terrible safety record and adverse effects.
Sitting on millions of flu shots to be administered and handicapped with a past history of flu vaccines' feeble viral protection, and more Americans realizing the vaccine is either a sham or something not to be bothered with, the CDC and FDA are desperately pulling all of their stops to motivate people and their families to rush to their local WalMart, Costco or pharmacy to get inoculated.
At their best, flu vaccines remain around 50-60% effective according to official health statements. However, the World Health Organization’s predictions for 2014-2015 flu strains were a bust. The match was such a failure that the CDC was forced to warn the American public that the vaccine was only 23% effective. The 2017-2018 seasonal vaccine was another bomb. Although the CDC claimed the vaccine was 40 percent effective, an independent study at Rice University in Houston determined only a 19 percent efficacy, and they estimated a 20 percent efficacy for the prior season. Given the frequent ineffectiveness of seasonal flu vaccines, especially for the 65 years-plus age group, predictive methodologies to determine which flu strains emerge during any given influenza season have more in common with medieval divination than sound science.
Another less discussed finding about dismal flu vaccine efficacy was determined at Kaiser Permanente Northern California last year. Reviewing 45,000 medical records of patients tested positive for influenza, researchers charted a trend that indicates that the "risk of contracting the flu climbs about 16 percent for every 28 days after vaccination. Therefore, if the particular season's vaccine is a dud to begin with, immune protection could potentially wane within a month in some patients.
In a study by Dr. Danuta Skowronski in Canada, individuals with a history of receiving consecutive seasonal flu shots over several years had an increased risk of becoming infected with H1N1 swine flu. Skowronski commented on his findings that “policy makers have not yet had a chance to fully digest them [the study’s conclusions] or understand the implications.” He continued, “Who knows, frankly? The wise man knows he knows nothing when it comes to influenza, so you always have to be cautious in speculating.”
According to Dr. Tom Jefferson formerly at the Cochrane Collaboration, it makes little sense to keep vaccinating against seasonal influenza based on the evidence. Jefferson has also endorsed more cost-effective and scientifically-proven means of minimizing the transmission of flu, including regular hand washing and wearing masks. There is also substantial peer-reviewed literature supporting the supplementation of Vitamin D.
Dr. Sherri Tenpenny reviewed the Cochrane Database reviews on the flu vaccine’s efficacy. In a review of 51 studies involving over 294,000 children, there was “no evidence that injecting children 6-24 months of age with a flu shot was any more effective than a placebo. In children over 2 years of age, flu vaccine effectiveness was 33 percent of the time preventing flu. In children with asthma, inactivated flu vaccine did not prevent influenza related hospitalizations in children. The database shows that children who received the flu vaccine were at a higher risk of hospitalization than children who did not receive the vaccine.[1]
In a separate study involving 400 children with asthma receiving a flu vaccine and 400 who were not immunized, there was no difference in the number of clinic and emergency room visits and hospitalizations between the two groups.[2]
During every annual quarter, the CDC’s Advisory Commission on Childhood Vaccines meets, and the Department of Justice releases its report on settlements made for vaccine injuries and deaths. In recent years, the flu vaccine has topped the charts. It bears noting that the CDC itself admits that only 10% of vaccine adverse effects go reported. However, independent analysis from Harvard University indicates it may be as small as 1-2% at best.
For almost a decade, the CDC has known influenza vaccines are ineffective and life-threatening for the elderly but continues to market them without hesitation. The good news is that Americans are rapidly losing confidence in the CDC. The panic being orchestrated by the CDC’s inept response to Covid-19 should convince everyone that the agency is no longer serving public interests.
Imagine the tens of thousands of children and families who would have been saved from life-long neurological damage and immeasurable suffering if the CDC was not indebted to protecting the toxic products of the pharmaceutical industry and was serving the health and well-being of American children? And we can begin to further dismantle this citadel of despotic medical fascism by simply refusing the flu vaccine and protecting ourselves by adopting a healthier lifestyle during the flu season.
NOTES
[1] 105th International Conference of the American Thoracic Sociey, May 15-20, 2009 (quoted in , Sherri. “The Truth about Flu Shots”. Idaho Observer, June 1, 2009)
