Should I Get a Flu Shot?

No one wants to get sick, and this leads many to ask themselves if they should get a flu shot for themselves or their child. In order to decide whether you should or should not get a flu shot, you must first find answers to these questions:
1. How deadly is influenza?
2. How effective is the flu shot?
3. How safe are the ingredients of the flu shot?
4. What are the safety studies and adverse events reports?

Let’s look at the data for each question.

How deadly is influenza?

Influenza is a respiratory virus. (This is not to be confused with the stomach “flu” which is actually gastroenteritis, and the flu shot does not prevent it.) The CDC used to estimate 36,000 flu deaths each year, but it now gives an estimate of 3,300 to 49,000 flu deaths each year. (1) However, the CDC pulls their statistics from the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, and the MMWR does not distinguish between flu deaths and pneumonia deaths. The National Center for Health Statistics does separate flu and pneumonia deaths. Each year is different, but one example is the year 2001, when the CDC reported 62,034 flu deaths. The NCHS reported that 61,777 of those deaths were pneumonia deaths, leaving only 257 of those deaths to be flu deaths, and only 18 of those were lab-confirmed influenza. (2) When researching influenza deaths, make sure they are distinguished from pneumonia deaths.

How effective is the flu shot?

The Journal of American Physicians looked at years 2000 to 2005 and found that the mean efficacy was 7.2%. The highest efficacy of those years was only 11.5%. (3)

While the CDC recommends a flu shot each year, studies have shown that doing this for consecutive years backfires. CIDRAP reports that receiving one flu shot for two consecutive years decreases efficacy while receiving one flu shot for three consecutive years increases the risk of flu. (4)

The statistics for children: those who were given one dose were 3x more likely to be hospitalized for flu. This statistic was higher for those with asthma. (5) Children were also 4x more likely to develop a flu-like illness, such as RSV or adenovirus. (6)

What do the product package inserts say? For every flu shot for the season of 2024-2025, except for Flublok and FluMist, the PI states in section 12.1 that titer tests have not shown any correlation to efficacy. (7)

FluMist’s package insert simply says in Section 12.1 that the immune mechanisms are not fully understood. (8) Recipients can shed (spread) the virus to others for up to 28 days, according to the chart in section 12.2 because FluMist is live-virus. (8)

Every flu shot contains either live or inactivated virus strains. These strains are replicated in different cultures.

Recombinant – the inactivated virus is grown in a bacterial or yeast culture.
Flublok is the only product for 2024-2025 that is recombinant.

Egg-based means the inactivated or live virus is inserted into fertilized chicken eggs, which are then incubated while the virus replicates.
Fluad, Afluria, Fluarix, Flulaval, and Fluzone are all inactivated egg-based while FluMist is live and egg-based. (9) The Peanut Allergy Epidemic by Heather Fraser is an excellent book for researching the effect of injecting foods into the body.

How safe are the ingredients?

Cell culture-based means the inactivated virus was grown in a cell culture.
Flucelvax is the only product for 2024 that is cell-cultured. It was grown in canine kidney cells.

Some flu vaccines are quadrivalent (4 strains of virus). Some are trivalent (3 strains).

Flu shots can contain antibiotics such as neomycin, polymyxin, and gentamicin. Some flu shots contain polysorbate 80 as a surfactant and emulsifier, but this ingredient is used in other ways to assist pharmaceuticals across the blood-brain barrier. It has not been studied how polysorbate 80 affects the BBB with the combination of ingredients that are included with it. (10) Lastly, formaldehyde is added to some flu shots as an inactivating agent. Although formaldehyde is a preservative, vaccines that contain it can be labeled preservative-free because the formaldehyde was not added for its preserving qualities but rather as an inactivating agent. (11) (7) The WHO and NTP have declared formaldehyde a known carcinogen. (18)

For 2024-2025, multidose vials Afluria, Fluzone, and Flucelvax contain 25mcg mercury. These products are for those ages six months and older. If you want a lower dose of mercury, you will need to ask for a single-dose vial. However, FDA standards allow for trace amounts of thimerosal to be included without being listed in the package insert. (11), (12)

In 1991, a memo from Dr. Maurice Hilleman expressed concern that infants who followed the schedule would receive mercury 87 times higher than the recommended guidelines for the consumption of fish. In 2001, the Institute of Medicine said a causal relationship could not be proven nor disproven between thimerosal and neurological disorders and declared that all vaccines would need to have reduced thimerosal. Thimerosal continued to be given for 2 years in full doses until those products were used up or expired. (11)

One argument exists that ethylmercury is less dangerous than methylmercury. Methylmercury is found in fish. This is why pregnant women are told how often they can eat fish and which types of fish should be completely avoided. The amount of mercury in flu shots is much higher than the amount in fish, but the type of mercury in flu shots is ethylmercury. One study published by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences showed that monkeys who received ethylmercury had a concentration of inorganic mercury in the brain twice as high as monkeys who received methylmercury. Inorganic mercury remains in the brain much longer than organic mercury, with an estimated half-life of more than a year. This means it takes one year for the mercury to lose half its effectiveness. (13) Despite this information, infants and pregnant women are still given mercury in flu shots.

What are the safety studies and adverse reports?

Section 13 of the package inserts from Immunize.org states that carcinogenic and mutagenic potential has not been evaluated. (We know from the ingredients that carcinogens and ingredients that mutate our DNA are contained in the vaccine.) Section 13 also states for most flu vaccines that female fertility impairment has been tested on rabbits, but male fertility impairment has not been tested. No fertility impairment tests have been done for males or females in FluMist and Fluzone. (7)

Every pharmaceutical product goes through clinical trials, but vaccines go through less testing than any other pharmaceutical because there is no double-blind gold standard with vaccines. Some do not even have tests against a true placebo. Some package inserts list a true saline placebo, but others simply say, “placebo.” Specifics are important because some vaccines are actually tested against other vaccines in the clinical trials. This is abominable because if it says, for example, that seizures were as common in the test group as the placebo group, it is because the placebo group was also given a vaccine. This type of testing makes vaccines look safer than they are. (7)

Many of the flu vaccines were not tested for concomitant use, yet they are often given with other vaccines. For example, children as young as six months are given eight other vaccines at the same time. For adults, Tdap, meningitis, shingles, pneumonia, and COVID are often given at the same time as the flu shot. These mixtures have never been tested. (7)

Concerning safety studies, The British Medical Journal found that 70% of studies have found the flu vaccine safe and recommended for use. However, only 18% of those studies’ data lined up with the conclusions. In fact, 56% of the studies were at high risk for bias. The studies that received the most citations were the studies funded by pharmaceutical companies. (15)

Another example is a children’s study from the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) which used no saline-only, vaccine-free placebo. Test subjects were also chosen rather than picked randomly, further weakening the study. Children’s case histories were only included in the study if an HMO doctor had seen them within 14 days of receiving the vaccine. According to the National Vaccine Center, “Dozens of convulsions and other adverse events, including brain injury… were excluded from the study.” Adverse events were also excluded if the child was sick before or after receiving a V, which is often the case as the CDC still recommends giving sick infants and children their doses, and they often get sick afterward. The CDC used this JAMA study to show the flu vaccine was safe for children… and they also funded the study. (16)

These ingredients may increase the risk of Alzheimer’s. For those who get their dose each year for 5 years, the risk of Alzheimer’s is 10x greater than those who get a dose for one, two, or zero years. (14)

Adverse events listed in vaccine package inserts and post-marketing surveillance are numerous. These include reactions such as abdominal pain, swelling of mouth/throat/tongue, joint pain, chest pain, injection site mass/abscess/cellulitis, serum sickness, anaphylactic shock, encephalomyelitis, Guillain-Barré Syndrome, myelitis (inflammation of spinal cord), neuritis (inflammation of nerves), Stevens-Johnson Syndrome, Lymphadenopathy, tachycardia, vertigo, syncope (fainting), facial palsy, and more. For liability reasons, all those side effects have to be listed.

Since August 2022 there have been 203,690 reactions reported to VAERS, the government reporting agency that monitors reactions. Of those reactions, 2,206 were fatal. In just two years, those numbers have increased to 226,194 reactions and 2,533 deaths.

VAERS is often criticized because a doctor does not need to file a report; you can do it yourself. This leads some people to believe those numbers are higher than they should be, despite estimates that between one and ten percent of all injuries are actually reported.

For the sake of argument, let’s put VAERS aside and look at the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, a government program. These numbers show how many injuries were determined in court to be caused by the vaccine, and people were given financial compensation. For flu vaccine adverse reactions, 6,588 cases have been awarded. (17)

To give you an idea of how these numbers are rising, I did a report on the flu vaccine in 2017, just four years ago. Since then, the numbers for VAERS and VICP have doubled.

Conclusion:

Ultimately, the conclusion is up to you. No one should tell you what to decide, but each person should do their research – reading studies, articles, books, and interviewing doctors who hold different opinions.

If you have decided against getting a flu shot but are required to get one from an employer, school, or daycare center, most states allow religious exemptions – and this means any personally held belief. Finding a local health freedom group on social media is your best bet for help getting local resources for an exemption. Some states no longer respect religious freedom (Maine, New York, West Virginia, California, Connecticut). Note that Mississippi ruled taking away religious exemptions unconstitutional and after years of no religious exemptions, they are once again granted as of July 2023. If you are forced to get a flu vaccine, you can ask for a single-dose vial in order to avoid most of the mercury, and you can help your body detox.

Take Back Health

How deadly is influenza?

How effective is the flu shot?

How safe are the ingredients?

What are the safety studies and adverse reports?

Conclusion:

Sources:

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