by Peter Holleran, DC


   Note: when I first wrote this essay the CDC warned of a major flu epidemic coming and said that there was a shortage of flu vaccine. The epidemic didn't happen and then we heard that there was a surplus of vaccine. If that didn't make your mind spin, read on!

   There seem to be two types of people. One believes that the government, the FDA, and major drug companies have only noble motives and are here to help, while the other is highly sceptical and believes, at best, that they are in collusion promoting a false model of health and healthcare.

   This is nowhere more evident than in the ongoing flu (and now avian flu) vaccine scare campaign. Walking through a major drugstore the other day (I buy my cat food there, not drugs) I felt compassion and despair seeing the trusting people get their flu shots, believing they are doing something good for their health. Yet there is not now, nor has there EVER been, any proof that flu vaccines work effectively. In 1997, Dr. J. Anthony Morris, virologist and FDA Chief Vaccine Control Officer, said: "There is no evidence that any influenza vaccine thus far developed is effective in preventing or mitigating any attack of influenza. The producers of these vaccines know that they are worthless, but they go on selling them anyway." He was fired from his job soon afterwards. No convincing statistical studies, no double blind scientific testing, and instead a fair amount of evidence that they may cause and have caused (as far back as 1918) more flu than it prevents. The situation is similar with other vaccines, but the public has been well-conditioned through a heavily financed campaign of fear and guilt to rush to have the poisons thimerosol (mercury), aluminum, dead and live virus, formaldehyde, toxic chemicals, etc. injected into their veins.

   And why not? The average child these days has 40 or more vaccines put into a pristine body-designed-by-God bloodstream by the time they are 5 years old, with more being invented and marketed and enforced by law as mandatory every year, so what is the problem with just one more? Polluting the bloodstream and possible side effects and insult to the immune system might be acceptable if the vaccines actually worked, but there is no convincing evidence of this. I repeat: there is no such evidence. This is nowhere more apparent than in the recent post 9-11 terrorism-related push for smallpox and anthrax vaccinations. No rigorous testing was done, and the strains of virus the vaccines were supposed to protect one from were unknown and likely man-made. Furthermore, it has not been proven that they ever worked BEFORE. In addition, TOP government officials behind the urgent promotion of these vaccines had major financial interests in the companies that manufactured them. Official investigation of the anthrax scare found a trail leading back to government labs before it was quickly abandoned. This may seem too much to believe, but I challenge anyone to study the issue and then refute the contention that the entire thing is an Emperor's New Clothes scam: a misguided campaign at best, and a diabolical scheme at worst.

   During the influenza epidemic of 1918, statistics revealed that patients of MD's died at a rate hundreds of times greater than patients treated by chiropractors. The chief reasons for this, no doubt, were the immune system boost granted by the chiropractic adjustments, the avoidance of useless drug therapy, and the employment of natural means of diet and hygiene, which the medical doctors could have done but generally didn't. Even now the choice is theirs, which many more are deciding to make every day, but usually finances and the need to make a living among a public brainwashed to surrender responsibility and demand an instant "cure" gets in the way. The authorities could just as easily say, "use proper diet, exercise, and strengthen your immune system." but instead they say "you need this shot." (By the way, the figure of 36,000 flu deaths was inflated by statistically combining pneumonia deaths with those caused by flu, with the vast majority (over 35,000) being due to pneumonia!).

   There have been numerous studies from different areas revealing that when drugs were not available, doctors were on strike, or meat was severely rationed (as in Denmark during WWII), the death rate went way down! Even now, not only the incorrect use, but the so-called CORRECT use of pharmaceuticals is among the highest causes of death in this country.

   Because of this I feel that the proclaimed shortage of flu vaccine is a blessing. The inability of importing cheaper drugs from Canada, a current political hot issue, could also be a blessing. It would force people to learn more and to take responsibility for their health. "Without knowledge my people will perish." Perhaps senators and congressman would also wake up and then push for true healthcare reform, not just for more and cheaper magic pills that treat symptoms instead of the causes of illness. The few drugs that are truly valuable would then be more affordable.

   For more on the flu vaccine, please read this excellent article from Dr. Mercola, including the links and articles he lists at the end. Among other things you will learn that the CDC reported 135 flu-related deaths for children in the 2003-2004 season, 59 who had received the flu vaccine. Not very reassuring for the vaccine's effectiveness, is it? Then, if you really want to be scared, you might look at this.

   What is true, is true, because it is true, and not because an authority says it is so. What is true will still be true if one exhaustingly studies all possible views. Therefore, such a study is highly recommended. "Condemnation before investigation can not fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance." (Herbert Spencer). Let us lay it all on the table before accepting or rejecting anything; then an honest investigation, as well as free choice, becomes possible. The government, FDA, and drug companies, unfortunately, don't make a priority of such things, but just say "trust us, we know best and are here to help you." And most often the sheeple, looking for a great parent-authority to take care of them, faithfully comply.

   The book, The Sanctity of Human Blood: Vaccination Is Not Immunization, by Dr. Tim O'Shea, is a real eye-opener. The facts are we have been subject to a mass marketing and psychological programming campaign for years, with little science behind it. For instance: The major historical figures in the development of vaccines, Jenner, Koch, Pasteur, Salk, and Sabin, have all repudiated their views. Jenner, who bought his degree for 15 pounds Sterling from St. Andrews College in Scotland, which he never attended, simply declared that his cowpox (not smallpox) vaccine gave one lifetime immunity from smallpox, but there was no study done to prove it, and much outcry among the medical profession. [Fact: ALL of the diseases for which the common vaccines were introduced to cure had already declined 90% or more when the vaccines began to be used, due to improvement in sanitation, hygiene, etc.] In the case of smallpox, after the mandatory introduction of the vaccine in England, a very lucrative venture for both government and manufacturers, the disease rate went from 2000 a year to 20,000, then 40,000 a year! All major epidemics of smallpox have occured among vaccinated populations. That is why all major countries stopped using it by the early 1900's, with the U.S. all alone in holding out until 1972.

   The apparent decrease in polio cases after the vaccine was introduced was due to the statistical manipulation of the way polio cases were reported. Before the vaccine, most polio cases were not polio, but actually meningitis and other things. Then Salk's vacine was introduced, and they changed the way the cases were reported, deleting all cases that were not polio, thus giving the impression that polio had decreased. Many researchers claim that AIDS and other cancers may have been caused by the use of contaminated monkey tissue in the polio vaccine. There were so many deaths and polio cases attributed to the Salk vaccine which used live virus that they introduced the oral Sabin vaccine containing killed virus. Yet here is what Sabin had to say thirty years later, "Official data has shown that the large scale vaccinations undertaken in the US have failed to obtain any significant improvement of the diseases for which they were supposed to provide immunization. In essence it was and is a failure." The CDC itself admits that all cases of polio since 1979 have occurred only to those who have been vaccinated, yet they continue advocating vaccination, four doses no less! The original polio epidemic used to justify mass use of the polio vaccine was itself due to use of the DPT and polio vaccines, according to accredited researchers. [one other note: the famous poster child for the March of Dimes did not have polio, and was cured by a chiropractor].

   Pasteur's anthrax vaccine was a failure, and at the end of his life he said of his rival, "Bechamp, was right - the germ was nothing, the (cellular) environment (and immune system) everything." Germs are always there and in fact within us all the time. B.J. Palmer, the developer of chiropractic, long ago stated, "If the germ theory were correct, and germs were responsible for causing disease, there would be no one left to believe that theory." It is the failed immune system that is responsible. In the case of anthrax, moreover, no studies were ever done to prove that a vaccine that was only claimed to work on animals (for a disease that only naturally occured in animals) would work on humans. U.S. soldiers in the Gulf War received an anthrax vaccine that had never been tested on people to protect them from possible exposure to an unknown weapons-grade strain of anthrax. The end results, in the opinion of many, were thousands of cases of "Gulf War Syndrome".

   No placebo-controlled trial was ever done to prove that the chickenpox vaccine has any effectiveness, according to the 2000 PDR (Physician's Desk Reference). A natural self-contained disease that conferred lifetime immunity is now being innoculated against with a vaccine that no one can say is effective or for how long. The manufacturer says it gives 5 years effectiveness (again, no proof) , but then illogically says to give it at one year and eleven years! And there are many side effects. Alzheimer's and autism rates have skyrocketed since vaccine use has increased, very likely to the aluminum and mercury (and even formaldehyde) contained in the vaccines. The flu vaccines historically have been disasterous. From the 1918 epidemic, to the swine flu epidemic in 1976 that infected almost 600 people with Guillain Barre disease, to now, there has been no proof that there is any effectiveness to flu vaccine at all. For starters, someone has to guess what strain of flu will be around THIS year (and at last count there were over 860 strains), but even if they were correct, the virus mutates so fast that by the time a product comes to market it may have no relation to the current virus, to which everyone reacts differently anyway. Even government sources state that in the (unlikely) event that the virus used is a correct match the vaccine may be 30% effective at best. Here instead are some natural things you can do to protect yourself.

   Unbelievably, vaccines do NOT have to be proven safe or effective in order to be added to the list of mandated shots for American children. The mercury in vaccines, for instance, is dozens of times in excess of EPA safe levels. Bills have been passed making pharmaceutical companies immune from liability lawsuits arising from vaccine-related illnesses and deaths. Another such bill is now pending.

   In short, as Charleton Heston said years ago in the Planet of the Apes: "It's a madhouse - a madhouse!"