by Jennifer Dempsey
When Moffat High School offered a swine flu shot clinic this fall, Jerry Bergstrom decided not to have her two children get the vaccination.
Bergstrom said she isn’t entirely against the vaccine, but that she’s “been told positive and negative things about it. I feel that the shot hasn’t been tested enough,” she said. “In the past, everyone I knew personally who had gotten the flu shot got really sick afterwards and also got the flu. That’s the main reason I didn’t want my kids to get the shot.”
When Westcliffe Consolidated School offered a flu shot clinic, Lori Batson, a registered nurse in Florence, had her 10-year-old son vaccinated.
“I’ve never been a big believer in vaccinations,” she said. “I think you should let your own body fight it off, but this stuff is scary. Lots of kids have gotten sick. One girl died and they said it was from a massive Strep A infection, although they reported she had flu-like symptoms the week before. I know some people think the vaccination isn’t safe, that it hasn’t been out long enough, but if your kid got really sick you’d kick yourself for not getting it.”
The World Health Organization has declared the swine flu pandemic a public health emergency, determining the threat to be at Phase Six, the equivalent of Homeland Security’s “code red” for a terrorist attack. According to the Centers for Disease Control, an average of 36,000 people die from flu-related complications in the United States each year and 200,000 end up hospitalized. While the CDC encourages the H1N1 (swine flu) vaccine, debate is heated over whether the vaccination is safe or the best route to staying healthy.
“I really can’t recall a single person who has truly investigated vaccine science and examined what is in vaccines and then has chosen to continue to vaccinate,” said Dr. Sherri TenPenny from the Vaccine Resource Center and founder of the Osteomed II Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio. “We have been programmed by the medical community and the media to believe that everyone, children and adults, will become sick, and likely die, unless they are vaccinated. This explains why not vaccinating can be unfathomable to new parents who are terrified of what were considered normal childhood illnesses only a few decades ago.”
“Get vaccinated,” declares the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services through the website www.flu.gov. “Vaccination is the best protection against contracting the flu. You need two vaccines to be fully protected this year. The seasonal flu vaccine is different from the H1N1 flu vaccine. Get both vaccinations as soon as possible.”
Dr Patricia A. Doyle disagrees. On the website www.globalresearch.ca she writes, “Do not take the seasonal flu vaccine if you are told that it could help prevent this brand new swine flu variant. It won’t do a thing to prevent this flu. What it will do is serve up new genetic material to the Spanish Flu 2, the sequel. Personally, I feel the vaccine weakens our immune system and sickens us due to contaminants in the vaccine.”
According to an article published in a recent issue of the British Medical Journal, more than half of doctors and nurses in public hospitals would refuse the H1N1 vaccine over concerns about side effects and doubting its efficacy.
“The vaccine can cause worse side effects than the actual swine flu virus,” states Johannes Lower, president of the Paul Ehrlich Institute in Germany.
The Irish Independent recently reported that in areas of Canada seasonal flu shots for anyone under 65 have been suspended due to a study that suggests people vaccinated against seasonal flu are twice as likely to catch the swine flu.
But Elizabeth Ritchie from the Chaffee People’s Clinic said, “I’m a big proponent of the flu vaccine. I’ve never seen a vaccination go wrong.”
A nurse for thirty years, Ritchie said, “I educate each and every patient who comes in here about the flu vaccine. I hand out forms from the CDC and the State of Colorado. But the art and science of medicine is as variable as the protoplasm of the person you’re dealing with.”
To contend with the swine flu outbreak, the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) and the World Health Organization have awarded H1N1 vaccination contracts to the pharamceutical companies CSL, Novartis, Sanofi Pasteur and MedImmune for use in the US. According to the Vaccine Resource Center, the companies stand to make billions of dollars in profits from the vaccine.
“This (vaccine) is a very emotionally charged issue, one driven by politics and economics,” said Kathy Ringler, owner of Neighborhood Natural Goods in Salida. “I think it may have originally been well-intentioned but it has now become a money-maker for pharmaceutical companies. All I will say is the information is out there and it’s up to each individual to do his or her own research.”
Websites of interest:
www.cdc.gov
www.nvic.org
www.pandemicflu.gov
www.mercola.com
www.ResponsibilityProject.com
www.drt.enpenny.com
www.naturalhealthresearch.org
