Educating Yourself About the Swine Flu and Shot Part II

Should you be worried?

According to Dr. Joseph Mercola, M.D., studies have shown that the H1N1 virus does not infect other tissues or the brain nor spread to others well. (3) The biggest confusion seems to surround the risk of hospitalization for pregnant women and children. Media have reported that pregnant women are six times more likely to end up in the hospital than the general population. Yet an article for emedicine medscape.com (WebMD) says that the risk of a pregnant woman’s being hospitalized with H1N1 infection is one in 300,000.

However, a report published Nov. 4, 2009, in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) says that "In contrast with the common perception that pandemic 2009 influenza A(H1N1) infection causes only mild disease, hospitalization and death occurred at all ages, and up to 30 percent of hospitalized cases were severely ill." The article refutes the notion that older Americans have high rates of immunity from previous swine flus. Although one-third of those hospitalized were ages 18 or younger, the authors write that people age 50 or older have the highest rate of death once hospitalized.

How the body’s immune system protects you

The body’s self-protection system is its immune system. Even if you pick up the H1N1 virus, that doesn’t necessarily mean you will get sick. Whether you become sick — and how sick — depends on how strong and healthy your immune system is. Most disease-causing organisms that invade the body naturally do so through the mucus membranes in the nose, mouth, pulmonary system and digestive tract. These membranes have their own natural immune defense system.

The flu shot is designed to prepare the immune system to fight off the virus. However, a vaccine bypasses these first lines of defense and tricks the body into a fight-or-flight immune response. a man-made illness. Artificial immunity creates a different response in the body than would otherwise happen in a natural immune response, which lasts a lifetime. Thus, if we understand human physiology — that the body has an innate intelligence for coping with invading organisms — then we should be able to help it do what it does naturally, as opposed to interfering with its healing processes by making up artificial mechanisms that it was never designed to deal with.

The medical solution

Medically, Tamiflu seems to be the drug of choice for helping relieve flu symptoms. However, it has side effects that are potentially harmful, especially for children. (10) Some 1,800 adverse reactions were reported related to the drug in 2007, when Japan barred it for children. (1) What’s more, it provides only 36 hours of symptom relief at best. (The Financial Times reported that governments around the world have stockpiled 220 million doses at a cost of $7 billion for a pandemic that has not happened.)

The medical idea for prevention is to create a vaccine to protect people from getting sick. The Health Sciences Institute (www.HSIBaltimore.com) explains that each year the flu vaccine is newly redesigned, using several strains from different types of flu that occurred the year before So in theory this year’s shot protects you from last year’s flu. Scientists who develop these vaccines bank on this year’s strain not mutating much from last year’s flu.

The CDC says, “It is not possible in advance of the influenza season to predict how well the vaccine and circulating strains will be matched, and how that may affect vaccine effectiveness.” (4) What’s more, this year’s vaccine didn’t go through extensive clinical trials to determine its safety and effectiveness. (1) Thus there may be a potential for repeat of the last dangerous swine flu fiasco in 1976. (12)

What’s in a vaccine?

More than just the flu strains. The vaccine contains the weakened form of the virus that was grown most typically in chicken embryos. Then several other ingredients are added to give the vaccine a shelf life and to help keep it sterile. When extra ingredients are added, the body has to also deal with what it considers chemical toxins — especially immune adjuvants, or enhancements, like aluminum and squalene. (8)

Although NaturalNews reports that this year’s H1N1 vaccine does not include adjuvants to help make it more effective, many vaccines contain:
· thimerosal (a toxic, mercury-derived preservative used to kill bacteria)
· formaldehyde to kill viruses; a known carcinogen
· aluminum to promote antibody response
· ethylene glycol (antifreeze)
· phenol (a disinfectant)
· polysorbate 80, which can cause severe allergic reactions
· Triton X100, a strong detergent
· Gentamycin, an antibiotic (5)
· Squalene (found in olive oil; when ingested properly carries many good antioxidants, but when injected into the blood stream causes chronic immune-mediated inflammation)

Thimerosal has been eliminated from some vaccines in the United States, and the compound may be linked to autism. But it will be added to the bulk of swine-flu vaccines. (9)

These ingredients are all toxic to the human body and can affect it in different ways. It is suspected that some of these ingredients may even be stored in the body and affect it at a later date. (11) There are so many stories about vaccine injury and the rapid increasing numbers of autoimmune diseases in a relatively short period of time, that it is hard to ignore the possibility of the effects these toxins may have on the body. (13)

The other thing to look at here is the list of side effects that each vaccine carries. Some are worse than getting the particular disease that the vaccine is manufactured to protect us from. (11) These are things we need to be aware of when making the right choice for our individual needs.

(Part II of III of article written for the Brentwood Press)