Is “Flu Season” a Shot in the Dark?
By Ginny Chandoha, September 28, 2015
With the arrival of the autumnal equinox the CDC will be announcing the onset of “Flu Season” and the need for people to get vaccinated.
What I always find amusing about this “season” is that the influenza virus knows no bounds when it comes to spreading and infecting. It knows nothing of country boundaries or that it can’t strike at any other time except when the CDC announces that it’s “flu season.”
This annual absurdity makes me imagine the influenza virus circling over the United States saying, “OMG! Look at all those people I can infect! But, oh darn! I can’t because the CDC hasn’t announced it’s flu season yet! Darn!”
Are we really so gullible to believe that the influenza virus only strikes when the CDC says it should? And unless one is tested and confirmed for influenza virus, there are many other viruses, fungi, and bacteria that can cause flu-like symptoms, especially when people are in enclosed areas. One of my personal observations was that employees in a particular building would develop flu-like symptoms when the heating systems were turned on in fall, circulating mold and bacteria that had collected during the humid warmer months. According to government reports, usually the majority of people reporting flu-like symptoms do not test positive for the influenza virus.
Many people with LS and other autoimmune diseases wonder if a flu vaccination would be good for them. Even if one is not immunosuppressed, it would be wise to thoroughly investigate before considering getting any vaccine.
The human body’s immune system reacts to all pathogens by forming antibodies. Each pathogen contains a specific shape, and our antibodies shape themselves to match each specific pathogen. Each time a match for a specific pathogen is detected, the antibodies and killer blood cells (NK cells) overcome the pathogen, and new antibodies are made. This scenario transpires for every pathogen our body comes into contact with, whether we get sick and recover, or never suffer any symptoms at all, and it is how we develop natural lifetime immunity.
In flu season 2012-2013 the CDC admitted their flu vaccine wasn’t a match, and people who had gotten a flu shot still got the flu. What was interesting was the CDC’s explanation of why the older population was remarkably flu-free, while younger individuals were stricken. The CDC’s conclusion was that the season’s flu strain was similar to the swine flu that had circulated several years prior, and that the older population didn’t suffer from the 2012-2013 season’s flu because “they had been exposed to it previously.” Not vaccinated against it, exposed to it. Obviously those that had been previously exposed had naturally formed immunity.
It is also obvious that flu vaccines do not initiate natural immunity. If they did, we would not need an annual flu shot against a strain or similar strain our bodies had previously come into contact with.
Flu vaccines are typically manufactured a year in advance using strains of previous viruses that the CDC believes will most closely match the strains of the upcoming flu season. But viruses are living organisms that change and mutate constantly, so no vaccine made a year in advance will precisely match a current strain. However, our bodies do not take a year to come up with a plan of attack and can adapt immediately.
While many people avoid genetically modified food, they may very well be getting a genetically modified vaccine. Flublok, one of several flu vaccines, contains recombinant insect DNA (the caterpillar stage of the fall army worm) and an insect virus (baculovirus) that is supposed to facilitate increased production of vaccines. Recombinant DNA are recombined DNA molecules that have been formed in a laboratory by combining genetic material from multiple sources and creating genetic sequencing that would never form in nature and would not otherwise be found in a genome. Aw, come on! Hasn’t anyone seen The Fly movie? Having insect DNA injected into us can’t possibly be a good thing!
While the Flublok vaccine insert claims it contains no preservatives or adjuvants, it does contain monobasic sodium phosphate, dibasic sodium phosphate, and polysorbate 20, along with a laboratory created combination of DNA that would never appear in nature, plus residual amounts of the insect virus and the insect’s cellular DNA. These salt phosphates are not organic, meaning they are laboratory-created chemicals linked to dehydration, and adverse effects to the heart and kidneys resulting in death. Polysorbate 20 is a chemical surfactant that creates stability.
Additionally, the efficacy of the vaccine wasn’t even 50%. Efficacy has absolutely nothing to do with effectiveness in preventing someone from getting the flu. It is only a standard by which immune response is measured. In this case, immune response was a mere 40% and that is more likely immune reaction due to being injected with chemicals, surfactants, and laboratory concocted foreign DNA. In other words, you stand a better chance recovering from, or not even contracting the flu, than you would by getting a flu vaccine. And by allowing your own body’s defense mechanisms to do their much more effective job, you would also be getting lifelong immunity to that specific pathogen.
Side effects associated with the Flublok vaccine include Guillain-Barre Syndrome, allergic reactions, respiratory infections, headaches, fatigue, altered immunocompetence, rhinorrhea, myalgia, and the ultimate side effect, death.
According to the CDC, a vaccine’s effectiveness is calculated by combining all age groups. But when those groups are separated, the effectiveness drops sharply. From the CDC’s own web page it states “Lesser effects of flu vaccine were often found in children younger than 2 years of age and older adults.” 
Flulaval is another flu vaccine with little to no effectiveness. According to the vaccine package insert, “There have been no controlled trials adequately demonstrating a decrease in influenza disease after vaccination with FLULAVAL.”
Flublok and Flulaval are only two of several ineffective flu vaccines being marketed because they are such great money makers. Anyone who administers a flu vaccine will earn money. Drugstores earn millions on vaccine administration. Not just on the vaccine alone, but the extra purchases made by customers. Physicians earn the majority of their income during flu season when they can also schedule “wellness” visits coupled with vaccine administration.
So why does the USFDA approve flu vaccines if they are ineffective and don’t even offer immunity for a year? The answer is very simple. Follow the money. A pharmaceutical company pays the USFDA millions of dollars to rubberstamp approval of their drug. The USFDA does not conduct any testing whatsoever and completely relies upon the pharmaceutical company funded “scientific” findings, which, of course, contains only positive statistics. As an example, during a controlled vaccine study, several subjects died. Because those deaths would have negatively impacted the results, those participant outcomes were eliminated from the study. And the government utilizes the federal excise tax that is placed on every vaccine sold. For the government and the pharmaceutical industry, it’s a financial win/win.
During the 2013 flu season when the vaccine was not a match, a CDC spokesperson advised people to get the flu shot anyway because it would “reduce symptoms.” Flu vaccines are supposed to prevent contraction of the flu virus and have never been marketed before or since as a tool for treating or reducing flu symptoms! This illogical reasoning was nothing more than the pharmaceutical industry preying upon the public’s fear of suffering flu symptoms to sell their worthless drug.
It is imperative to keep our immune system healthy by avoiding products containing chemicals (food, personal care, home maintenance, medications, etc.) because these products lower our immune system’s ability to function optimally. Medications in particular usurp the body’s own defenses.
I’ve never gotten a flu shot and I’ve never gotten the flu, not even when I had LS and other autoimmune issues. My advice, whether someone has a compromised immune system or is healthy, is to bolster natural immunity by eating a diet rich in raw whole organic foods and eliminate processed foods because they are nutritionally deprived and typically genetically modified. Vitamin D is our number one health molecule and the best source is direct sunlight. If you live in a northern climate where winter exposure of bare skin is not realistic, then whole food Vitamin D supplementation is recommended. Exercise and rest both boost immune response by making our body a hostile environment for pathogens. Olive leaf supplementation will bolster and modulate immunity, while L-lysine (1200 mg for adults) will starve viruses and impede them from replicating. Raw organic honey has anti-microbial effects. There are many popular herbs such as Echinacea that have infection fighting qualities.
Despite any CDC proclamation that this year’s vaccine might be a “good match” for the current influenza virus, it is no match against our own immune defenses.
More in depth discussion on vaccines, whole food vitamins versus synthetic isolate vitamins, diet, and exercise can be found in Lichen Sclerosis Beating the Disease.