Doctor Recommends Avoiding Flu Shot, Taking Vitamin D Instead
A cardiac surgeon and Professor of Surgery at the University of Washington recommends avoiding the flu shot and taking vitamin D instead. Donald Miller, MD, says “Seventy percent of doctors do not get a flu shot.”
Health officials say that every winter 5–20 percent of the population catches the flu, 200,000 people are hospitalized, and 36,000 people will die from it. The National Vital Statistics Reports compiled by the CDC show that only 1,138 deaths a year occur due to influenza alone, and more than 34,000 of the “36,000″ flu deaths are what officials estimate are “influenza-associated” pneumonic and cardiovascular deaths.
There is also a lack of evidence that young children benefit from flu shots. A systematic review of 51 studies involving 260,000 children age 6 to 23 months found no evidence that the flu vaccine is any more effective than a placebo (Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2006;1:CD004879).
A randomized trial found that the incidence of influenza in infants whose mothers had a flu shot during their pregnancy was 4%. The incidence of flu in infants whose mothers did not have a flu shot was 10%. (NEJM 2008;359:) In the study, flu shots reduced the relative risk of influenza illness in infants by a seemingly impressive 63%, yet only 6 out of 100 infants actually benefited from the shot. The other 94 received no benefit – 4 got influenza anyway – and all are at risk from being harmed by the vaccine, particularly from the mercury, aluminum, and formaldehyde in it. - Donald Miller, MD
Flu shots contain a number of substances which may have adverse effects on health, especially for children:
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- Mercury: Two-thirds of the vaccines made for the 2008–09 flu season contain full-dose thimerosal, an organomercury compound, 49% mercury by weight. It is used to disinfect the vaccine. Each of these flu shots contain 25 micrograms of mercury, a mercury content of 50,000 part per billion, 250 times more than the Environmental Protection Agency’s safety limit. Mercury is a neurotoxin, with a toxicity level 1,000 times that of lead.
- Formaldehyde, a known cancer-causing agent is used to inactivate the virus.
- Aluminum, added to promote an antibody response,is a neurotoxin that may play a role in Alzheimer’s disease.
- Other additives in the flu vaccine include:
- Triton X-100 (a detergent)
- Polysorbate 80
- carbolic acid
- ethylene glycol (antifreeze)
- gelatin
- various antibiotics such as neomycin, streptomycin, and gentamicin that can cause allergic reactions
So why does the CDC push the flu shot every year?
The CDC’s 15-member Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) makes recommendations each year on who should be vaccinated. Almost all the ACIP members who make these recommendations have financial ties to the vaccine industry.
Hmmm… Big money influencing public health policy.
The CDC put out a 7 part Recipe to increase demand for the flu vaccine:
- Influenza’s arrival coincides with immunization “season” (i.e., when people can take action)
- Dominant strain and/or initial cases of disease are:
– Associated with severe illness and/or outcomes
– Occur among people for whom influenza is not generally
perceived to cause serious complications (e.g., children,
healthy adults, healthy seniors)
– In cities and communities with significant media outlets - Medical experts and public health authorities publicly (e.g., via media) state concern and alarm (and predict dire outcomes)–and urge influenza vaccination.
- The combination of ‘2’ and ‘3’ result in: Significant media interest and attention, Framing of the flu season in terms that motivate behavior (e.g., as “very severe,” “more severe than last or past years,” “deadly”)
- Continued reports (e.g., from health officials and media) that influenza is causing severe illness and/or affecting lots of people – helping foster the perception that many people are susceptible to a bad case of influenza.
- Visible/tangible examples of the seriousness of the illness (e.g., pictures of children, families of those affected coming forward) andpeople getting vaccinated (the first to motivate, the latter to reinforce)
- References to, and discussions, of pandemic influenza
Vaccination demand, particularly among people who don’t routinely receive an annual influenza vaccination, is related to heightened concern, anxiety, and worry. For example:
- A perception or sense that many people are falling ill
- A perception or sense that many people are experiencing bad illness
- A perception or sense of vulnerability to contracting and experiencing bad illness.
- Some component of success stems from media stories and information that create motivating (i.e., high) levels of concern and anxiety about influenza.
Great… more fear selling more vaccines.
Dr. Miller’s stance on Vitamin D and health:
The U.S. government and its citizens currently spend $2,000 billion dollars ($2 trillion) on “health care,” i.e., sickness care, each year. The cost of taking a 5,000 IU supplement of vitamin D every day for a year is $22.00. The cost for 300 million Americans taking this supplement would be $6.6 billion dollars. The number and variety of diseases that vitamin D at this dose could prevent, starting with a 50 percent reduction in cancer, is mind-boggling. If everyone took 5,000 IU/day of vitamin D, the U.S. “health care” industry would shrink. It would no longer account for 16 percent of the gross domestic product.
The increased number of deaths that occur in winter, largely from pneumonia and cardiovascular diseases, are much more likely due to vitamin D deficiency than to an increased prevalence of serologically-positive influenza virus (which also results from vitamin D deficiency).
Read the full flu vaccine article at LewRockwell.com
And another doctor is against everyone getting the flu vaccine:
P.S. Due to the large number of comments accusing me of being irresponsible, I am adding this caveat: Ask your health provider (MD, Naturopath, or other professional) about flu shots, and make your decision based on that. This blog does not dispense medical advice. The point of the article is to show that there are conflicting opinions about vaccines, flu shots, and other medical treatments.
Image: NathanF at Flickr under Creative Commons License
I am a pediatrician in Oklahoma and I am a mother. This website gives a false impression of the statistics. The “secondary causes of death” with influenza are just that, secondary. If a person does not get sick with influenza, they cannot have a secondary pneumonia or infection. You may not agree with vaccinations, but to publish information that scares parents is irresponsible. You might consider taking a public health class or attending medical school if you want to gain more understanding of the affect vaccinations have made on society. Yes, a few number of people have allegic reactions to immunization components, but you do not address the number of children and adults that are spared the life-time morbidities and some fatalities from the illnesses prevented by vaccinations. Should you do better, more informed research, you might spare a few people from dying of preventable illnesses our vaccines can prevent. Please, reconsider the comments you make that influence parents. Thank you.
There was a statement that this is merely a blog and not a place that does research…the readers are asked to do more research and then make their own decision. It is a shame that a place like this “green parenting for Non toxic, healthy home” is deceitful in it’s messages. Concerned mothers are looking for resources to help in decision making. Why should a place like this exist if not to do the work of summarizing legitimate information? How is this place any different than a gossip website that is used for brainwashing through media? Maybe this entire article should have been prefaced by the actual viewpoint of the author stating an obvious bias. Thank you to the commentor, Jeremy, who took the time to inform readers of the authors standing on some very serious topics. Shame on anyone that gives equal “scientific merit and voice” to any old idea. Should we post creationst theories and flat earth articles too. Let’s keep it to that research which follows the procedure of the scientific method. Mom’s have enough to do.
Thank you, I’ve avoided the flu vaccine every year and my extended family seems to get it every year (they take the vaccine) and I don’t. Interesting, it’s about time a Doctor stood up to the hype.
I’d be interested in hearing from others who’ve regularly had annual flu shots, then decided for whatever reason to not have one and then gotten a real bad flu. Well that’s me. After years of getting annual flu shots, I made a decision this year after reading all the cons against it to not get one. Now I’m into my 8th day of having the worst flu I’ve every had, and by the way, I take vitamin D (1000 units/day) regularly. I have a keen interest in natural medicine, but this flu shot thing has really got me thinking about maybe I’ve made the wrong decision. I pretty sure I’m going to get one next year.
Check out this link for more information on flu shots. Mary Tocco has researched flu shots for many, many years and has great video clips on YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=dr+mary+tocco&aq=f
If the link doesn’t work, then go to http://www.youtube.com and search “Mary Tocco”.
Our family chooses not to get the flu shots, and we never get the flu. I have friends that get the flu shot and almost always get the flu. It’s almost humerous to watch them make that decision year after year. I choose to watch what I eat, and keep my immune system strong that way
Jeremy it is easy to make worthless comments (in November 2008) and with the wave of your hand think your ridicule is doing away with valuable information. Derek Markham in reporting on the article by Dr Donald Miller is not posting the illogical and non-scientific hypothisis of anybody. Dr Donald Miller is a cardiac surgeon and professor of surgery at the University of Washington School of Medicine and Seattle VA Medical Center. Dr Miller also is not an individual prone to erratic thoughts without any basis in fact. Dr Miller’s views are based in scientific facts about vitamin D. Dr Miller’s article is as much an article about vitamin D as it is an article about flu vaccinations. It just happens that a very direct link between flu and vitamin D has been discovered so Dr Miller entitled his article “Avoid Flu Shots, Take Vitamin D Instead.”
Just a few minutes of real research into vitamin D would reveal that a wealth of information is now coming out about the value of vitamin D. I have been researching about vitamin D for quite a while now and have read some fourty scientific studies on many aspects of health impacted by vitamin D. Many of these studies have been written just within the past year to two years so Dr Miller’s views are at the cutting edge of current research.
Rather than give you links to fourty studies on vitamin D I will give you the link to an article about vitamin D and its relationship to the flu. Anyone who has had the flu or has received a flu shot will be very interested in the article.
http://www.whale.to/a/cannell.html
The article linked above is entitled “Epidemic Influenza and Vitamin D” by Dr John J. Cannell, MD. This is the kind of information that prompted Dr Miller’s article. Since this article was published Sep 15, 2006 Dr Cannell and many other researchers have further validated the theory Dr Cannell is introducing with this article.
“On the Epidemiology of Influenza,” a more in depth article about Dr Cannell’s research about vitamin D and its relationship to the flu was published in the Virology Journal, February 5, 2008. Here is a link to that article published in Virology Journal 2008, 5:29.
http://www.virologyj.com/content/5/1/29
I could give you many links to many articles and research studies but instead I am going to give you a link to the Vitamin D Council web site.
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/
Anyone who is really interested can go to this web site and find a wealth of articles, studies, and research about vitamain D, the flu, flu vaccines and many other areas of interest. If you have a child with Autism, Asthma, or Diabetes you will be especially interested to read what Dr Cannell and other researchers have discovered about vitamin D, wintertime exposure to the sun, and the exploding incidence of these three serious health conditions.
There is a wealth of information available about Vitamin D and it’s ability to keep a person safe from the flu virus, and even the common cold. You will find an overwhelming amount of info regarding the benefits of flu shots, as well. Most of that information comes from the companies which produce the drugs. For instance, a South Korean Veterinarian has developed a shot for the current H1N1 virus but it has recieved no media attention. Why not? I believe there is too much money to be made by other companies. He offered it up for free. Why the inattention?
I guess there is no corruption. There is no deception. Everyone can be trusted. Two planes knocked down three buildings in NYC in one day.
Conspiracy theorists, of which I am one, at least ask questions. Those who trust and do as they are told, and believe what they told, have a name as well. Sheeple.
Sleep tight.
Epidemic Influenza And Vitamin D
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/51913.php
snip>
All of the patients on my ward had been taking 2,000 units of vitamin
D every day for several months or longer. Could that be the reason
none of my patients caught the flu? I then contacted Professors
Reinhold Vieth and Ed Giovannucci and told them of my observations.
They immediately advised me to collect data from all the patients in
the hospital on 2,000 units of vitamin D, not just the ones on my
ward, to see if the results were statistically significant. It turns
out that the observations on my ward alone were of borderline
statistical significance and could have been due to chance alone.
Administrators at our hospital agreed, and are still attempting to
collect data from all the patients in the hospital on 2,000 or more
units of vitamin D at the time of the epidemic.
Four years ago, I became convinced that vitamin D was unique in the
vitamin world by virtue of three facts. First, it’s the only known
precursor of a potent steroid hormone, calcitriol, or activated
vitamin D. Most other vitamins are antioxidants or co-factors in
enzyme reactions. Activated vitamin D - like all steroid hormones -
damasks the genome, turning protein production on and off, as your
body requires. That is, vitamin D regulates genetic expression in
hundreds of tissues throughout your body. This means it has as many
potential mechanisms of action as genes it damasks.
Second, vitamin D does not exist in appreciable quantities in normal
human diets. True, you can get several thousand units in a day if you
feast on sardines for breakfast, herring for lunch and salmon for
dinner. The only people who ever regularly consumed that much fish are
peoples, like the Inuit, who live at the extremes of latitude. The
milk Americans depend on for their vitamin D contains no naturally
occurring vitamin D; instead, the U.S. government requires fortified
milk to be supplemented with vitamin D, but only with what we now know
to be a paltry 100 units per eight-ounce glass.
The vitamin D steroid hormone system has always had its origins in the
skin, not in the mouth. Until quite recently, when dermatologists and
governments began warning us about the dangers of sunlight, humans
made enormous quantities of vitamin D where humans have always made
it, where naked skin meets the ultraviolet B radiation of sunlight. We
just cannot get adequate amounts of vitamin D from our diet. If we
don’t expose ourselves to ultraviolet light, we must get vitamin D
from dietary supplements.
The third way vitamin D is different from other vitamins is the
dramatic difference between natural vitamin D nutrition and the modern
one. Today, most humans only make about a thousand units of vitamin D
a day from sun exposure; many people, such as the elderly or African
Americans, make much less than that. How much did humans normally
make? A single, twenty-minute, full body exposure to summer sun will
trigger the delivery of 20,000 units of vitamin D into the circulation
of most people within 48 hours. Twenty thousand units, that’s the
single most important fact about vitamin D. Compare that to the 100
units you get from a glass of milk, or the several hundred daily units
the U.S. government recommend as “Adequate Intake.” It’s what we call
an “order of magnitude” difference.>end snip
[...] from the required vaccines on the Childhood Immunization Schedule because that preservative is 50% mercury. Mercury is a known neurotoxin. Now, since the mercury isn’t causing the brain to make a [...]
I don’t know how effective vitamin D would be in preventing flu, but it does help maintain your body’s circadian rhythms and boosts one’s immune system.