Green Options

A Mayo Clinic study shows that kids who got the flu shot–especially those with asthma– are 3 times as likely to require hospitalization as those who did not receive the shot.

All kids in the study had lab-confirmed influenza, but the ones who got the shot ended up at the hospital more. And not because they had better health insurance, either.

As you may know, the CDC now recommends that all children, up to age 18, receive the flu vaccine. Because, as a Harvard study showed last year, kids carry germs. Adults who live in a population more concentrated with kids are more likely to get sick.

Get the flu shot; don’t mind the mercury.

While everyone is waiting impatiently (or quite patiently, in my case) for the swine flu vaccine, there is something y’all should know: the seasonal flu vaccine isn’t all that effective. And for kids, it just might increase the chances that you get a bonus trip to the hospital.

A cardiac surgeon and Professor of Surgery at the University of Washington recommends avoiding the flu shot and taking vitamin D instead. Donald Miller, MD, says “Seventy percent of doctors do not get a flu shot.”

Health officials say that every winter 5–20 percent of the population catches the flu, 200,000 people are hospitalized, and 36,000 people will die from it. The National Vital Statistics Reports compiled by the CDC show that only 1,138 deaths a year occur due to influenza alone, and more than 34,000 of the “36,000″ flu deaths are what officials estimate are “influenza-associated” pneumonic and cardiovascular deaths.

There is also a lack of evidence that young children benefit from flu shots. A systematic review of 51 studies involving 260,000 children age 6 to 23 months found no evidence that the flu vaccine is any more effective than a placebo (Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2006;1:CD004879).

A randomized trial found that the incidence of influenza in infants whose mothers had a flu shot during their pregnancy was 4%. The incidence of flu in infants whose mothers did not have a flu shot was 10%. (NEJM 2008;359:) In the study, flu shots reduced the relative risk of influenza illness in infants by a seemingly impressive 63%, yet only 6 out of 100 infants actually benefited from the shot. The other 94 received no benefit – 4 got influenza anyway – and all are at risk from being harmed by the vaccine, particularly from the mercury, aluminum, and formaldehyde in it. - Donald Miller, MD

Flu shots contain a number of substances which may have adverse effects on health, especially for children: