As we barrel headlong into the teeth of another killer flu season, public health officials have assumed their usual role of fear-mongering vaccine salesmen and women.
And, as usual, their exhortations to line up for their life-saving potions are falling on largely disinterested ears.
My home-town paper, The Daily News, reports
More than half of adults most at risk of complications or death from the flu don't plan to get vaccinated
In response to this terrifying news, city health officials are, the paper states, “aggressively” pushing the vaccine
Perhaps New York is an anomaly; surely those living in other parts of the country are not so callous with their health.
Let’s look to the heartland and the common-sense values of Middle America for a more accurate picture of demand. According to St. Louis Public Radio, free vaccination clinics are, due to low interest, being cancelled left and right while the Visiting Nurse Association said that it's given far fewer vaccinations than expected.
Oh no! More disinterest. It must be due to the average man (and woman) on the street not being sophisticated enough to realize the danger they’re placing themselves in by forgoing these medical miracles. Health-care workers though, being around death and disease on a daily basis, they surely must have a more realistic picture of ravages brought about by the flu. The vaccination rates among these men and women must be astronomical
No so much. WebMD found that only 40% of people in health-care-associated jobs get flu shots.
It’s an American thing. Yeah, that’s it. The reckless cowboy mentality. Surely across the pond (where shots are jabs) the situation is radically different; yet the UK’s Daily Telegraph finds much the same thing, its headlines declaring: People shunning influenza vaccine
And what would this tepid “demand” be like without the constant hype and harassment emanating from the government and its public health apparatus? After all the CDC – itself part of the vaccine industry – spends millions of tax dollars marketing these vaccines through “Influenza Vaccine Week,” the website flu.gov, and videos and quizzes exposing so-called vaccine “misconceptions”
One misconception preventing us from rending each other limb from limb in order to secure their live-preserving elixirs is that the flu shot causes the flu. Nothing could be further from the truth claim the experts.
It cannot be said enough: The flu shot does not cause the flu. The viruses used in the making of the vaccine are killed in the process. Randomized, blinded studies confirmed that the only symptom those who received the flu shot rather than salt water were more likely to develop was increased soreness in the arm and redness at the injection site.
Soreness the only symptom? Not according to vaccine package inserts. For example Fluvirin, produced by Novartis states:
The most frequently reported adverse reactions are … influenza-like symptoms.
While 14-18% of those vaccinated with Sanofi’s Fluzone were similarly rewarded with flu-like symptoms such as head and muscle aches and malaise.
Perhaps what our friends in public health are missing is the fact that having a product that gives you the symptoms of the illness it attempts to prevent is not all that desirable.
The flu shot: bypass the flu and just get the symptoms. Brilliant!
