They're almost impossible to ignore. From storefronts to highways, you've probably seen the imposing signs and billboards proclaiming “Flu Shots Now Availalbe.” But in reality, there’s nothing new about these vaccines, because this year’s flu shot happens to be identical to the one formulated for last year’s flu season.
Still, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warn that even those who were vaccinated last year need to get another flu shot this year. Quoting Dr. Lisa Grohskopf from the CDC,
“If we are looking on an individual basis, we can't tell how quickly antibodies will decay after the vaccine, but we do know that immune response will drop over the course of a year. You can't count on that vaccine protecting you for a second
season.” 1
This is quite a surprising acknowledgement, since it implies that flu shots don’t really provide protection past one year! Yet a normal immune response lasts a lifetime. So what gives?
Once you get a glimpse of how our immune system works, you’ll easily understand.
A Two-Layered Line of Defense
When an invader (a virus or a germ, for example) attacks us, our innate immune system is the first to react. This is a mechanism that wards off unwanted intruders, designed to be our first line of defense.
You are probably familiar with leukocytes; they are but one of the many cells that are active during an innate immune response. You may have also heard of other innate immune cells, such as phagocytes, macrophages, and dendritic cells – to name a few.
And perhaps you recently caught news about Dr. Ralph Steinman, a Canadian scientist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine three days after his death. Dr. Steinman was honored for his discovery of dendritic cells and their role in adaptive immunity. His discovery may play a key role in explaining why vaccines don’t offer long-lasting immunity.
The adaptive immune system – composed mainly of lymphocytes – kicks in after the innate immune response has failed, meaning that the invader managed to enter the body. Dr. Steinman realized and confirmed that dendritic cells – which are found mainly on the skin and in areas in contact with the external environment, as the mucosal lining of the nose – are critical for adaptive immune mechanisms. 2 In essence, dendritic cells act as messengers between the innate and the adaptive immune system.
Normal Immunity Lasts a Lifetime
It’s amazing: our immune system has memory. Once we are exposed to a pathogen, the antibodies formed to fight off the first ‘attack’ will always remember it, and can therefore annihilate it. But vaccines are made from either weakened or killed pathogens – plus a whole lot of other ingredients.
Common sense would then lead us to conclude that the flu shot doesn’t produce the quality and potency of antibodies the body would naturally produce as a reaction to a pathogen. And worse, that the immune system fails to ‘memorize’ the infective agent, unlike what happens without vaccination.
The Flu Shot: A Sneaky Intruder
Since vaccines are injected directly into the body, they basically circumvent the innate immune system. This also means that the dendritic cells cannot alert the cells of the adaptive immune system. In other words, it’s as if you’d invite an intruder into your home.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that this ominous ‘shortcut’ can wreak havoc in our immune system, perhaps even weakening it instead of strengthening it. Without an injection, no virus or bacteria is ever offered open access to the inside of the body. They have to first battle the innate immune system, and if the intruder wins, the adaptive immune system has been alerted so as to formulate its own plan of defense.
Upgrade Your Natural Alarm System
Instead of disarming your guards, I suggest you upgrade your immunity with proper nutrition and sensible lifestyle changes during the coldest months of the year.
If you haven’t yet (or if you need a refresher), read my previous blog post titled ‘The Flu Shot: Everything You Need to Know'. You’ll find my common-sense suggestions to naturally arm yourself against the flu and stay in top shape.
To your immune system!
References
1 https://yourlife.usatoday.com/health/story/2011/08/CDC-Dont-skip-this-years-flu-shot/50056926/1
2 Steinman RM, Hemmi H. “Dendritic cells: translating innate to adaptive immunity.” Current Topics in Microbiology and Immunology. 311:17-58. 2006.
There are hundreds more reasons not to take the flu shot than to get one. I am an RN and before I knew better I received multiple Vaccines that were required as an employee of most hospitals and, as a result, had many health issues such as Autoimmune disease that I am now convinced were triggered by these Vaccines. What they do is artificially stimulate your immune system, causing it to overreact in susceptible individuals. Autoimmune disease is epidemic now and correlates with the increased use of vaccines. I highly recommend watching The Truth About Vaccines by Ty Bollinger to get a very thorough understanding of the science (or lack thereof) and the politics of the whole vaccine industry. Big pharma and conventional medicine have pulled off a huge deception. Follow the money and wake up and smell the coffee everyone. Have you noticed that each year they get more and more aggressive in pushing these Vaccines, earlier and earlier.
I am extremely disappointed in your article on the flu shot. I think that you are distorting the truth about the benefits of receiving the vaccine. They never were totted to last more than a year at a time — and they have literally saved millions of peoples lives.
I am getting close to my 77the birthday and I have lived through the years when we had no vaccinations for anything — and I can testify how terrifying those years were here in the U.S. Perhaps you are all too young, too ignorant and ungrateful for what modern medicine has done for us. I, too, believe in taking responsibility for my own health and educating myself in alternative methods and just plain using the common sense that God has gifted me. Discouraging people from getting the flu shot is, to me, is very irresponsible. I have been reading “save our bones” for several years now and have passed on this website to many women; just last week to my sister-in-law. Now I wonder !!!
What are you gaining by disparaging the good that comes from another source of information ?? Where is the ethics in this endeavor?
With all due respect, I am an RN and after doing a lot of research I have concluded that the risks of getting a flu shot far outweigh the benefits. I highly recommend that you watch the series The Truth About Vaccines by Ty Bollinger. Once you learn how dangerous and mostly ineffective Vaccines are, you will never look at this the same way. There’s a lot of propaganda from Big Pharma and the medical establishment out there. Don’t fall for the deception. Follow the money!! Wake up and be healthier.
One of the main purposes of the flu vaccine is to immunize the herd. We are the herd. The more people who are effectively immunized, the less the virus is spread, and the less people will die. Most people will recover from the flu, but there are many who will not, and there are many who aren’t medically able to get immunized. The susceptible people who may die from the flu are the ones we are protecting. It’s unfortunate that we are living in a selfish world where one exaggerates the individual risks and ignores the real risk to others. It’s irresponsible in a public forum to recommend that the people should not get a flu vaccine.
Hi,
Who remembers Polio? Diphtheria? Measles? Mumps? German Measles? Chicken Pox? SMALLPOX? Vaccines prevent all of these. Influenza is the same; people die from the flu, especially seniors and babies. Get your flu shot. It may save your life.
In reference to your statement on Flu Shots / vaccines… I agree with your take on them, but… it’s also important to understand what’s IN them, that we should cause us to notice.
Vaccine manufacturers are quick to embrace their products for perceived protection against ear-marked illnesses and using ‘fear’ to ‘encourage’ men, women and children to stand in lines, and GET THEIRS, asap before a Bird Flu or Swine flu gets them, as well as, the usual suspects ‘ every’ given year..during their season to offer vaccinations to an unsuspecting public.
Recently, Baxter and others have been caught with their syringes in the cookie jar and thats just for openers. Its BIG business and trying to FORCE children to get vaccinated using ‘mandatory’, treatening language, regarding certain vaccines, prior to being accepted in school, is just plain ludicrous, and a lie, in most cases and states. ie. the Tdap vaccine. Nonetheless, people should be aware of what’s IN the vaccines and the potential dangers and the past track record of vaccines, let alone what’s been found in them recently. It appears that 80% of cancer victims and 90% of North American population now have MYCOPLASMAS in their systems, as per very reliable sources and top researchers in the field.
So, the question is..where and how did the Mycoplasmas get into our population ? The reply was.. via the vaccine manufacturers. It appears that the tiny, lipid, fluidic mycoplasma slipped through the vaccine labs filters and was introduced into our population, in this manner. But, my question is… How did such a volume of mycoplasmas, suddenly find their way into a supposedly sterile vaccine lab and ‘ slip’ into the filtration process and find themselves in varied vaccines?
20years ago.. Dr. Garth Nicoloson, found these mycoplasmas in our vets, returning from the Gulf War. Our vets were given a host of vaccinations prior to deployment. Mycoplasma Incognitus, Fermentans, Brucella species were identified. But, the whole scenario was worsened by the fact, that these mycoplasmas were laced with 40# of the HIV envelope gene. Yes, and many of our returning vets had it in their systems and it was airborne and could pass the species barrier. The gov’t. discharged some 400,000 soldiers back into the population after Desert Storm. I don’t have to tell you what occurred after that. Dr Nicolson was one of the top 100 Nuclear microbiologists in the world, and his wife who was a noted microbiologist, as well. For exposing this to the public, Garth lost his position and world class labs at MD Anderson, Texas. Since that time, 20years ago, Dr Nicolson and key Mycoplasma researchers from Armed Forces Institute and noted by the famed San Diego Clinic and others, have determined these mycoplasmas, that were once thought to be a benign organism, is now a causal component of many chronic degenerative disease, we are now experiencing today.
I could go on but, the point is… Vaccines have ingredients in them, that are potentially dangerous to human health. ie. Squalene, a blood adjuvant that was never approved for human use and was used on our vets, as well as, PB pills, Pyridostigmene Bromide. There’s the Thermisol controversy, as well, and more. So, as you can see, there’s a whole other side to this, that needs to be brought forward to the public. In many respects, we’ve become Big Pharma’s Guinea pigs, and like sheep, we march to the constant beating of their disinfo and misinfo and the end result is what we’re seeing today, I’m so sorry to say.
There are plenty of ways to protect ourselves from many viruses, bacteria, parasites, and other ‘sudden appearances’ of pathogens ie. the so-called West Nile virus, Staph, Bird Flu, Swine Flu, Pertussis, W.H.O.Flu etc.
Anyway, thought I’d mention it.
Best of Regards, Semper Paratus
Hey, I’m just wondering – if the flu vaccine is so risky as not to be balanced by an acceptable benefit, how is it that the smallpox and polio vaccines seemed to have had a better history?? Vivian, maybe you or some of your readers could put a clear perspective on this question?
Oh, maybe I’ve at least partially answered my own question! I googled up and found this article: https://www.vaclib.org/intro/present/index3.htm#3. It gives an indepth historical account of the very strong controversies surrounding both the polio and smallpox vaccines. For example, it was shown that in England, that even after mandatory smallpox immunizations, occasional epidemic outbreaks occurred. And one small city (I think, Leichester) experienced phenomenal success by cutting their vaccinations to only 5% of their usual amount of coverage, and concentrating on sanitation and isolation practices. For similar accounts about the polio vaccine, click on the tab, “polio,” at the top or bottom of that website (see above).
By the time vaccines are typiclly introduced the disease in question has already began to significantly phase out of the population. They would have you believe that the vaccine was introduced before the sharp decline in number affected by disease, however this is the opposite of what happens.
Hi Vivian – thanks for the valuable information.I do not like the idea of getting the flu shot,and I have never had one.Thanks also for your e-mails.They are very helpful.
I understand your finding on the Flu Shot, If I
do not get a flu shot each year,I will come down with the flu virus. The flu serum is not
a live. Some people need a little more help with their immune system. Some people have less
antibodies than others. Last year, My husband
side of the family his cousins boyfriends niece
3yrs old passed away from the HINI. She had a
little cold. The parents waited to long to take
her to the doctor. She did not have any shots.
Some people can fight the bacteria and some can’t. I believe in the Flu Shots. LC
One of my favorite natural flu shots each fall is the use of elderberry, either as a drink (from a syrup) or available as a tea.
It has been used for generations in Europe and it has been of great benefit for me and my family over the years.
Thank you for the update information, Vivian,
Which food can increase the immune system? my
skin and hearing are a little degenerative.
It would seem that the argument against flu shots would apply to all vaccinations. Don’t they all operate similarly?
They call them booster shots.