Why This Doctor Questions Flu Vaccination
⚠️ Important Medical Disclaimer
This article presents one doctor's opinion from 2009. Medical recommendations and research have evolved significantly since then. Always consult with qualified healthcare professionals for current medical advice and vaccination decisions.
📅 Historical Context
Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, November 1, 2009 - This perspective was written during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic and reflects concerns specific to that time period.
The Good Doctor's Guide to Colds and Flu
2009 may be the year of the vaccine show-down, the moment when enough of us start questioning all we're being told about vaccines.
📊 Healthcare Worker Survey
A survey published in the BMJ in August reported that less than half of the healthcare workers in Hong Kong were willing to accept "pre-pandemic" flu vaccination.
Yet both in the USA and the UK, this year's swine flu vaccine will be rolled out without adequate safety testing. What's going on? Two things: profits and power.
💰 Profits
Pharmaceutical companies love pandemics; they are a great way to sell practically-useless drugs such as Tamiflu.
🔬 Research Findings
A thorough review by the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination at York University found that these drugs reduced the duration of flu symptoms by less than a day, and recommended that giving them to healthy adults "is unlikely to be the most appropriate course of action."
💵 Financial Scale
- • Manufacturers stand to make around $50 billion per year from influenza vaccines alone
- • Global vaccine sales were worth $24 billion in 2008, up 30% from the previous year
- • Sales greatly exceeded predictions from only 2 years before
📈 Effectiveness Questions
A 2005 study was unable to "correlate increasing vaccination coverage after 1980 with declining mortality rates in any age group." Instead, they attributed the reduction in deaths to acquired "herd" immunity - nothing to do with vaccines.
⚖️ Power
Governments love pandemics. They support a system in which compulsory vaccination is imposed against our will, and where nutrients, which can provide cheap, safe and effective treatments for many problems are being outlawed on the basis of manipulated and flawed evidence.
🧠 Biopower Concept
The term "biopower" was first coined by French philosopher Michel Foucault to describe the use by governments of technologies to control populations, that is, to control our bodies.
🧩 Author's Risk Analysis Claims
The author presents statistics about autism rates and suggests connections to vaccination, claiming 1 in 64 children in the five-to-nine year age group have autism according to Professor Baron-Cohen.
Note: These claims about autism and vaccines reflect older perspectives and should be evaluated against current scientific consensus.
🌿 The Real Solution (Author's Recommendation)
But the real solution, the one they aren't telling you about, is nutritional. There is plenty of evidence for nutritional intake making a difference - to your risk of developing flu symptoms, to your risk of complications, and to your time for recovery.
💊 Recommended Supplements
☀️ Vitamin D
4,000 International Units (IU) daily
🥕 Vitamin A
25,000 IU daily
(unless pregnant or likely to become so)
🍊 Vitamin C
1000 mg several times daily (at least)
⚡ Zinc
25 mg daily
Author's Note: "This is what I am doing, and what I advise my patients."
👨⚕️ Doctor's Final Recommendation
See your doctor and talk this over. Read the small print of course, and take other supplements if your body tells you it needs them. As for vaccination? That is, or at least should be, your decision.
👨⚕️ About Dr. Damien Downing
Dr. Damien Downing was qualified at Guy's Hospital, London in 1972, and worked in hospitals and general practice in London, Leeds and York. He spent three years in the Solomon Islands as Medical Officer of Health for the capital, with responsibility for Mental Health Services and the Village Aid Project.
On return to the UK in 1980 he established a private practice, focusing on nutritional and alternative therapies. He is president of the British Society for Allergy Environmental and Nutritional Medicine and editor of the Journal of Nutritional and Environmental Medicine.
📚 References
(1) Simonsen L, Reichert TA et al. Impact of influenza vaccination on seasonal mortality in the US elderly population. Arch Intern Med. 2005; 165:265-272.
🔬 About Orthomolecular Medicine
Orthomolecular medicine uses safe, effective nutritional therapy to fight illness. The peer-reviewed Orthomolecular Medicine News Service is a non-profit and non-commercial informational resource.
Editorial Review Board (2009)
- • Carolyn Dean, M.D., N.D.
- • Damien Downing, M.D.
- • Michael Gonzalez, D.Sc., Ph.D.
- • Steve Hickey, Ph.D.
- • James A. Jackson, PhD
- • Bo H. Jonsson, MD, Ph.D
- • Thomas Levy, M.D., J.D.
- • Jorge R. Miranda-Massari, Pharm.D.
- • Erik Paterson, M.D.
- • Gert E. Shuitemaker, Ph.D.