Dangerous Flu Shots – they weren’t just in WA
As many of you would have heard, the government has decided in its ‘wisdom’ that the CSL influenza vaccine should again be used for this year’s flu season. They say it is safe even though it has caused hundreds of children to have seizures and at least one to die and one to be permanently brain damaged. This isn't considered to be a problem however because this shot will only be used in children over the age of 10 and adults. Of course, there is the issue that it's known to cause 4.4 times the number of serious reactions in adults as any other licensed flu vaccine, but we're still being told it's safe enough. Safe enough for whom?
This vaccine wasn't approved because it's better or cheaper or longer lasting. No, the only reason why the Australian government has awarded a $117 million 4-year contract to CSL, the company that produces these shots, is because they will be able to deliver the quantity of vaccine needed on time. Give the government the shots and they will be willing to turn a blind eye and say – no problem – it’s all just fine. Fine, that is, unless you are one of the people who will end up being harmed by this vaccine.
Pay no attention to the men behind the curtain.
How can it happen that dangerous vaccines continue to be used? Why would the government allow this to occur?
Well, it starts with the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) which is supposed to make sure all medical products and procedures have been tested and shown to be safe. But they get no money to do that. All their money comes from licensing medical products and procedures. They do no testing of their own and simply rely on what their 'paymasters', the drug companies, tell them.
Then it goes to ATAGI, the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation. ATAGI is the group that advises the government on what vaccines to use and how to use them. They are composed of ‘stakeholders’ who are representatives of the medical community, the pharmaceutical industry and academics who, in many cases, are closely linked with drug companies.
In the case of this particular flu vaccine, both the Chair and Deputy Chair of ATAGI were involved in testing this shot several years ago on behalf of CSL – the manufacturer. Did they excuse themselves from the discussion of the flu shot, however? No, why should they? ATAGI says that there are policies in place to manage these conflicts. What those policies are were not revealed, but I’m sure we can trust them, can’t we?
In addition, we are told that experts who have been paid by drug companies must be used because there aren't enough experts who have no links with Big Pharma. Well, that's a worry, isn't it?
WA an isolated incident?
In 2010 when hundreds of children in WA were being hospitalised with flu vaccine induced seizures, we were told that this was just an isolated incident and was confined to WA. This is despite the death of a 2 year old girl in Brisbane less than 12 hours after receiving her flu shot and the (unreported to authorities) death of a young athlete in NSW within 3 days of his shot.
We knew there must have been more reactions however and today, a naturopath that I have known for many years contacted me regarding the cases of serious adverse reactions to the flu shot from that period he just learned of.
Today, the mother of a new patient of his related what had happened to her child when he was just 6-months old. This baby received Infanrix Hexa (a 6-in-one vaccine containing diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, injected polio, Hepatitis B and Haemophilus Influenza type b), the Prevenar pneumococcal vaccine and swine flu vaccine all on the same day. Six hours later, he had a grand mal seizure that lasted for 34 minutes.
He was airlifted to a children’s hospital in a capital city and his father flew with him. At the same time, another helicopter was called to pick up another boy who was also having seizures post flu vaccine.
The mother told the naturopath that when they got to hospital, there was a young girl already in the ICU (Intensive Care Unit) who had developed seizures after receiving the flu vaccine. Her own son was in the bed next to the slightly older boy who had been airlifted at the same time. So 3 children in the one hospital - all having seizures after receiving flu vaccines and yet, nothing was said about this in the media nor were alarm bells ringing within the medical community.
Continuing health problems
Three weeks after his first hospitalisation, this child had a seizure that lasted for 19 minutes. Since then, his seizure activity has been ongoing though the fits are gradually reducing from an average of 10-15 minutes long to 2-3 minutes long at the present time. They are still frequent and very severe grand mal tonic-clonic seizures with rigidity and shaking.
The mother told the naturopath that the doctors involved in this frightening and dangerous event said to the family, “This has nothing to do with the vaccines.” The family are angry and now, they have a boy who has seizures daily.
Today, whilst in this naturopath’s office for their initial visit, the boy, who is now 2 years of age, had another seizure – the 6th grand mal for the day. Later, his mother called in to ask a question and said he had just suffered a seventh seizure.
None of this was reported in the media and to the best of my knowledge, none of the doctors had reported these seizures as vaccine reactions despite the fact that the NHMRC says that they should be reported.
So when the government tells us not to worry about using this vaccine again and says that their own ‘experts’ – people who are linked with the drug companies without any independent or consumer oversight – have cleared them as being safe, who do we believe? The ones who brought us the disaster of 2 years ago or our own research which shows that flu vaccines are not only dangerous but incredibly ineffective too – no matter what your age.