Scaremongering at its worst: “You might die of flu. You’d better get a shot.”
Truth: most ’Flu isn’t ’Flu and ’Flu vaccine is next to worthless, sold by hype and fear, without any real science backing (just sounds nice and scientific).
Bear in mind however: real ’Flu is dangerous.
As I revealed in a book I wrote in 1988 (published by Thorson’s, an imprint of Harper Collins), ’Flu is appallingly damaging to organs. I quoted an Italian study on guinea pigs made to inhale the virus and then killed. It showed hemorrhagic necrosis of the adrenals, as well as widespread damage to the heart, lungs, kidneys, thyroid and liver.
In the intervening quarter of a century, my writings of 1988 have been shown, over and over, to be correct and applies equally to humans. For a somewhat more up-to-date study, consider this paper published in JAMA.
It demonstrated clearly the link between acute respiratory distress syndrome (severe flu) and a condition called multiple organ dysfunction syndrome. It commonly affects hepatic, renal, central nervous, gastrointestinal, hematologic, and cardiac systems.1
In any case, if you need convincing to take the threat of ’Flu seriously, consider the 1918 pandemic, which wiped out untold millions of people. The exact figure is unknown but I have seen estimates between 20 and 50 million. Certainly this terrifying pandemic killed more individuals than the Great War.
But that doesn’t mean vaccinations are the way to go. In fact, vaccinations for ’Flu don’t work well. There are two reasons:
- The virus morphs (changes immunologic status) so fast, that by the time vaccines arrive on the market, the beast in the wild is different to the one being immunized against.
- There is a very real risk that ’Flu vaccine will INCREASE your risk of the disease. It’s been shown to happen and that’s the very OPPOSITE of what vaccination purports to do!
I could throw in a 3rd reason here, straight from a recent publication: Peter Doshi, PhD, in an article in the online BMJ (British Medical Journal) provocatively entitled: ” Influenza: marketing vaccines by marketing disease”, reveals that most “flu” is not the flu!2
Every year, hundreds of thousands of respiratory samples are taken from ’Flu patients in the US and tested in labs; yet only a small percentage of these samples show the presence of a ’Flu virus. In other words, most “flu” isn’t ’Flu at all. The vaccine couldn’t possibly work.
In Doshi’s words: “…Every year, hundreds of thousands of respiratory specimens are tested across the US. Of those tested, on average 16% are found to be influenza positive… It’s no wonder so many people feel that ‘flu shots’ don’t work: for most flus, they can’t.”
Picture the scenario: a patient walks into a doctor’s office. He’s sick. He’s coughing. He has a fever. His muscles ache. The doctor says, “You have the flu. Did you get your ’Flu shot this year?” 
“No,” the patient says.
The doctor gives him a stern look. “Well, you should have. See? You’re sick now. The vaccine would have prevented that.”
Wrong.
Flu Season Vaccine Can Increase Your Risk
In 2012 the Canadian press broke the story that new research confirms initial findings that people trying to prepare for flu season and who got the ’Flu vaccine appeared to actually increase people’s risk of getting sick with flu.
According to researchers, led by Vancouver’s Dr. Danuta Skowronski, an influenza expert at the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, the people who got a ’Flu shot for the 2008-09 winter seemed to be more likely to get infected with the pandemic virus than people who hadn’t received a ’Flu shot. 3
An Australian expert, Professor Collignon from the Australian National University, commented on the findings and pointed out that people who had been vaccinated in 2008 with the seasonal or ordinary vaccine seemed to have twice the risk of getting swine ’Flu compared to the people who hadn’t received that vaccine.
Collignon had more to say: “Some interesting data has become available which suggests that if you get immunized with the seasonal vaccine, you get less broad protection than if you get a natural infection.”
It is particularly relevant for children because it means if you get infected with a natural virus, that gives you not only protection against that virus but similar viruses or even in fact quite different ’Flu viruses in the next year.
In other words, getting the’ Flu (if you don’t die, of course) is way better than the vaccine; it gives more cover and for longer.
According to research published in the Journal of Virology (Nov 2011), seasonal ’Flu vaccine may actually weaken children’s immune systems and increase their chances of getting sick from influenza viruses not included in the vaccine.
Further, when blood samples from 27 healthy, un-vaccinated children and 14 children who had received an annual ’Flu shot were compared, the former un-vaccinated group naturally built up more antibodies across a wider variety of influenza strains compared to the latter vaccinated group.4
You Eat Flu, Says Dr. Coca
But that’s not all. The story gets crazier! I can tell you from nearly 40 years of clinical experience that most “flu” is a food allergy reaction! Arthur F. Coca MD first wrote about this in his famous 1956 book The Pulse Test.
The patient eats a bandit food, gets a runny nose and maybe sneezes (allergy, right?), aches and pains, feels lousy and is promptly diagnosed as ‘Flu.
The secret here is that there is rarely a fever with an allergic reaction, though it’s not unknown.
Also, the reaction clears up in 2 – 3 days. That’s too quick for recovery from a viral illness.
Moreover, it keeps happening. Repeat bouts of the ‘Flu are, fortunately, few and far between. If you get rhinitis every week or several times a month, you are almost certainly looking at an allergy reaction. I’d bet my last $100 on a food! 
What doctors and the general public don’t realize is that food allergy can cause severe rhinitis; it isn’t just dust, molds and inhalants that attack the nose. In fact in my “Diet Wise Academy” (and the book Diet Wise), I quote a strange case of a man who had such severe rhinitis he could not breathe through his nose for over 20 years…Until I discovered that potato was the culprit.
Within a couple of days off the fries, he drew his first sniff and never looked back.
Real ‘Flu
Of course, there is real ‘Flu. I had a severe bout of it in 1976 and have never had it since. I couldn’t walk (yes, yes, should have been in bed, I know). You’ll recognize the real ‘Flu without much difficulty, if it comes a calling!
Uncomplicated influenza is characterized by an acute onset of symptoms within one to two days of infection with influenza virus. Systemic symptoms, including fever and chills, headache, myalgia, lethargy, and anorexia, develop early in the course of illness. Fever generally ranges from 100 °F to 104 °F (38 °C to 40 °C), but may be as high as 106 °F (41 °C), with peak temperatures on the first day of symptoms and decreasing over three to eight days thereafter.
While respiratory symptoms, including dry cough, pharyngeal pain, and nasal congestion and discharge, are also found, it is the presence of systemic symptoms that clinically differentiates influenza from other viral upper respiratory tract infections. Cough and sore throat may persist for several days after systemic symptoms abate. 5
Later Complications
Finally, I can’t resist telling the story of Ed Butler, one of the Platters singing group.
I was living in Spain at the time and was called to see him because he had just had a massive right-sided stroke, a few days after completing his last recording session. He was now severely incapacitated and sitting disconsolately in a wheelchair.
Using a version of electro-acupuncture, a screening device showed a major drop on the nervous channel, which was hardly surprising. A search for pathogens revealed a loud and unmistakable signal for 1975 ’flu. I checked with Ed who, even though it was 23 years previously, remembered clearly having a bad attack and being confined to bed for two weeks.
‘That was the start of your stroke,’ I told him.
I won’t go into the treatment details here (I told a fuller story in my book Virtual Medicine (only a few left in print). It included directly addressing the earlier ‘Flu episode.
The very next day I had a call that he could move his thumb! Only six weeks into a massive cerebro-vascular accident this was indeed startling.
Over the next few weeks he improved steadily but then pegged. At this point I recognized the main remedy was exhausted due to the heat of our
Spanish summer, because it had begun to happen with several other patients. I refreshed his remedy, taking the chance to add a couple of items.
Once again, the next day, I had a call that he was now able to stand on his legs, provided he kept his weight off the weak side. He soon learned to walk and within six months he was back singing in public; an altogether remarkable recovery from a potentially disastrous episode.
This is not a story of how great I am; it’s a story of how deeply hidden and insidious ‘Flu damage can be, spanning many decades.
Take Care,
Prof. Keith Scott-Mumby