Vaccination? No thanks!
Wednesday 21st October 2009, 3:00PM BST.
From Christopher Davey.
RECENT utterance by the Jersey Medical Officer of Health: ‘It would be unwise to under-estimate this new flu virus, as there have been 91 deaths to date in the UK.’
She does not tell us how many thousands have died from routine flu – ‘All those in Jersey who have caught the disease have either recovered or are recovering at home.’
Am I to be the first to stand up, put my head over the parapet and suggest that this Swine Flu malarkey really has gone on quite long enough? It really has become like the Emperor’s New Clothes, and someone needs to assert: ‘He’s got nothing on; there’s nothing there.’ So, can someone please tell me, in all honesty, what on earth this is all about?
The 1919 World Flu pandemic killed some 40 million, many more than died in the First World War. When Asian Flu struck back in 1957-58, it killed some 30,000 unfortunates in the UK alone; at my school we were firmly told by our house master that, if we were succumbing, we were to retire to bed with an improving text – with the implication that we were pretty feeble.
I myself was rowing in an VIII at the time, and, following one outing, found myself staggering back to my house in a serious embarrassment of sweats, was obliged to miss the next five outings, and nearly lost my seat in the crew. Matron dosed us with aspirin, ensured we drank copious quantities of water, and booted us back downstairs the moment she felt we had recovered enough.
Obviously we cannot criticise our own MOH. She, like her peers world wide, is obliged to treat Swine Flu as if it had the makings of Apocalypse Now – despite every appearance to the contrary.
We are warned of catastrophe this winter, when there has already been absolutely no sign of such in the southern hemisphere. I myself am seriously alarmed that she is planning to buy in enough stock to vaccinate the whole Island. In my case it is: ‘Thank you, but no thank you! In positively no circumstances shall I be taking up your kind offer. Please save the taxpayers’ money.’
This whole politically correct nonsense seems to fall into the same category of wild profligacy as the upcoming replacement of the remainder of the perfectly good lamp-standards on Victoria Avenue. Will we ever break our addiction to wasting money?
For all that, she is not alone; the UN, the WHO, they are all at it, worldwide. One is bound to pose the question: Are there too many highly paid specialists with too much time on their hands? Have they been duped by the hand-rubbing manufacturers of vaccine, disinfectant and rubber-gloves? Have they forgotten that the Third World is suffering many more appalling diseases that do merit such attention and resources?
In the final analysis, do we not need to ask ourselves whether we should really seek to deny Nature’s way? As Sir David Attenborough recently pointed out, the sustainable world population is 3 billion; yet we have already exceeded 6 billion, and are pushing for 9 billion by 2050 – an unwelcome policy that even our Chief Minister seems keen to inflict upon our Island.
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It does make you wonder how much power the medical companies have over Governments…
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What Christopher Davey has so studiously avoided mentioning is that we all have two inviolable tools at our disposal:
* The power of logical analysis of thought, and
* The freedom of choice.
No one, least of all Dr Rosemary Geller, is forcing Mr Davey, or anyone else, to undergo vaccination.
It’s up to each and every one of us to decide for ourselves.
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Mercury? No thanks.
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I had an “invitation” to have the jab as my doctor states i,m at risk,but i won,t be taking it.
As far as i know i am only being treated for poly-myalga-rheumatica an auto immune desease which i have had for 20 odd years and is treated with steroids apart from that i,m quite healthy.
I always look on the money side of things they keep on pushing at us.
Cynical maybe but logical
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Well I won’t be having this injection either, and I’m classed as a high-risk, my reasons are more about the necessity of this vaccination, and I would suggest flu vaccines are a scientific hoax lacking any honest evidence that they actually work. In fact, all the evidence points to the reality that they don’t work.
Maybe Dr Geller can answer this question……has there ever been a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial on the efficacy of the flu shot? No, I didn’t think so, so NO THANKS !
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#Linda,i agree.
I think a lot of these so called medication does more harm than good.
take statins for instance pushed by all the medical and pharmas that high cholestral is bad and we should all take this medication,that can do more harm than good.
they keep lowering the the level when a reading of 7 or 8 was normal now it is 4 or 5.
The doctor insists you have a blood test every 3 months if you are on statins to ensure no damage has been done to your organs.
What is this telling you?
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#5 Linda: ‘I would suggest flu vaccines are a scientific hoax lacking any honest evidence that they actually work. In fact, all the evidence points to the reality that they don’t work.’
Really? I’d be grateful if you could tell me where I can find this evidence.
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At last – someone with some sense ! Thank goodness there are others who think like us ! Well done Christopher and like. We wont be touching their flu jabs either.
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#7 Michael,
I guess these couple of articles helped towards that opinion…….
http://clinicalevidence.bmj.com/ceweb/resources/editors-letter-full.jsp?src=editorsletter_intro#REF3
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200911/brownlee-h1n1
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The best persuasion to take the vaccine would be via simple statistics :
a) The evidenced Swine Flu UK death rate per 100,000 in categories such as: children, young and old adults, pregnant women, those with health conditions
b) The number of vaccine related complications (and severity) per 100,000
If we had those figures we could assess the risks either way. Perhaps our health department and the JEP could help our decision making by publishing figures like these? Surely they must realise how only a fool would volunteer for the jab without knowing the relative risks?
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#9 Linda
A very interesting article. I read the original editorial in Clinical Evidence since this has been peer reviewed. Unfortunately, it seems to me not to have been thought through properly.
The author seems to be making two points. Firstly, that somehow stripping out lots of data to arrive at a sample of people who have been shown to have died from the influenza virus introduces confounding. I’m not sure whether it does or not because he doesn’t explain how; however, it certainly introduces selection bias because people who die from things other the influenza are going to be the ill and the elderly, precisely the group of people most at risk of dying from influenza. By (correctly) stripping out this data from the sample, you are if anything underestimating the incidence of influenza and the effectiveness of the vaccine because you’re excluding people who may have gone on to die from the virus or may have been protected from dying by the vaccine.
Secondly, the author suggests that the lack of positive identification of the influenza virus affects the result. While he is right, this would once again result in an underestimate of the influenza virus and the same problems described above.
My understanding is that the balance of evidence shows that vaccination is beneficial (unlike post-infection treatment with antivirals). Or maybe I’ve missed the point!
#6 bella
Without knowing your individual circumstances, it is hard to know what’s going on. However, there are a number of reasons why the target cholesterol may have moved.
Cholesterol is known to increase your risk of atheroschlerosis (‘hardening of the arteries’), which in turn causes amongst other things heart attacks and strokes. However, the problem is that even people with normal cholesterol levels sometimes have these problems. Therefore, by reducing your cholesterol, you are simply reducing your risk of heart attack and stroke, not eliminating that risk completely.
Since you’re reducing rather than removing the risk, your cholesterol target is therefore a reflection of the level of risk you’re prepared to accept, eg a cholesterol level of 7 might mean you have a 10 per cent risk of stroke in the next five years while a cholesterol of 4 might mean this risk is 3 per cent. Guidelines are periodically revised as expectations increase and what is an ‘acceptable’ risk changes.
Further, there are other factors that also contribute to atheroschlerosis. So, if you are diabetic, your target cholesterol will be lower than if you are not because diabetes makes you more prone to heart attack and stroke. A diabetic may therefore need a cholesterol level of 4 in order to achieve the 10 per cent ‘acceptable’ risk described above.
Re statins, in less than 1 in 1000 cases statins can cause liver damage. You are therefore being monitored for this reason and, since you are still taking your statin, it is doing you no damage. Blood tests every three months for statins alone does seem excessive but as I say I don’t know your individual circumstances.
There is no conspiracy here. Just good medicine.
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