Flu Vaccines
by author Patty Smith, FHCH, DVHH, BSEd

“I had a flu shot last year and I’ve never been sicker in my life,” my Aunt Margaret told me recently. Conversation at our family reunion had taken a medical turn, as it often does, and Aunt Margaret wanted to tell me about her flu shot experience.

“I heard the ads offering free shots. I heard the warnings,” Auntie Marg explained. “I was worried. I mean, I’m 78 now, and part of the elderly population advised to get this shot. They tell us how horrible the flu can be. To be honest, I didn’t know what to do, and my doctor recommended it. My doctor told me that if I were to get the flu it was a risk for those around me. I knew the stress of worrying would weaken my immune system, so I took the shot.”

My cousin Carolyn said she was concerned, too. “Mom didn’t want to risk infecting young Nicholas and, with all the hype about giving the flu shot to children, I wasn’t sure what to do either. Now they’re recommending it for women in their second and third trimesters of pregnancy.”

The confusion and questions from my family spurred me to action. Why did Aunt Margaret get sick after her flu shot? Were they really recommending flu vaccination for children and pregnant women? I wish I could say that the answers I found were definitive or satisfying, but they weren’t.

Serious Consequences

Health Canada advises the flu vaccine may cause fever, fatigue, muscle aches, and respiratory problems such as coughs, wheezing, chest tightness, difficulty breathing, or sore throats.

One possible but rare side effect is Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), which results in weakness and abnormal sensations in the arms and legs, and sometimes paralysis. During a two-year study in Spain reported in the June 2004 issue of Neurological Sciences, 98 GBS cases were reported in patients age 20 years and over, yielding an overall age-adjusted incidence of 1.26 per 100,000 population. Similarly, a study published in March 2004 in the Journal of Child Neurology estimated the incidence of GBS ranges from 0.5 to 1.5 in 100,000 in children under 18 years of age.

Poor Efficacy Rate

The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommends the flu shot only for people who are at high risk from complications from the flu, and family members in close contact with them. They explain that if the flu shot is a close match to the circulating strain of flu virus, it can prevent the flu in 70 to 90 percent of healthy people under age 65, and among the elderly it is 30- to 70-percent effective in preventing hospitalization for pneumonia and the flu, unless the elderly person is in a nursing home, where the efficacy drops to 50 to 60 percent.

Yet, in any given year, only about 20 percent of the population will get sick with the flu. “I wonder how many people who are immunized wouldn’t have gotten the flu anyway,” Aunt Margaret pondered. “How can Health Canada be sure which strain is the one to immunize against? What happens if they’re wrong?”

Dr. Kris Severyn, as quoted in the Vaccine Risk Awareness Network newsletter (vran.org), explains that the CDC collect viruses overseas, particularly in China, in an attempt to predict the viruses that will infect people in North America the following year. They then try to determine the potential flu strain by February, so the vaccine can be manufactured and distributed by the fall.

Patty Smith, FHCH, DVHH, BSEd, a doctor of homeopathic medicine and medical Heilkunst, practises through the Hahnemann Clinic for Heilkunst in Ottawa. heilkunst.com.

Source: alive #264, October 2004