How Effective The "FLU" Vaccine Is!!

Sudden onset of fever, cough, headache, muscle and joint pain, sore throat and a runny nose are the common problems during winter season. All these are the common symptom of Seasonal influenza or “flu”. Flu is most often caused by type A or B influenza viruses.

Many suggested that the best way to avoid getting the flu is to get the flu vaccine every year, before influenza season begins. This despite the fact that mounting research suggests this approach to flu prevention may be ill advised for long-term health, and doesn't actually work in the first place. In January 2015, U.S. government officials admitted that, in most years, flu shots are, at best, 50 to 60 percent effective. Then, in December 2015, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) analysis of flu vaccine effectiveness revealed that, between 2005 and 2015, the influenza vaccine was less than 50 percent effective more than half of the time. These recent rates are way better than the previous years. In the 2004/2005 season, the flu vaccine was 10 percent effective. The 2014/2015 flu vaccine flopped with a mere 18 percent effectiveness rate; 15 percent among children aged 2 to 8.
It seems no matter how poor influenza vaccine effectiveness is, the call to vaccinate remains. But is getting an annual flu shot really "the best way" to protect yourself against influenza? Research frequently tells a very different story. For example, recent studies have shown that:

During the 2009 swine flu pandemic, scientists in the Netherlands asked a big question: Do annual flu shots preventing natural influenza A infections in infants and young people increase their risk of illness and death when a highly pathogenic pandemic influenza strain develops and circulates? 10 The answer to that big question was “Yes” .

In 2010, Canadian health officials confirmed that school aged children and healthy young adults, who had gotten a flu shot the previous season, were at twice the risk of coming down with pandemic A swine flu in 2009 that was severe enough to require a trip to the doctor’s office.

Between 2011 and 2014, researchers in Europe published a number of studies providing evidence that immune responses to natural influenza infections and vaccinations are quite different, and very much affect the quality and length of immunity.

Despite all these controversy, doctors insist that just because we get sick with a fever, headache, body aches and a terrible cough that hangs on for weeks after getting vaccinated, it doesn’t mean the vaccine made us sick. They say it was just a “coincidence” because correlation does not equal causation.

According to CDC, how well the flu vaccine works can range widely from season to season. The vaccine’s effectiveness also can vary depending on who is being vaccinated. At least two factors play an important role in determining the likelihood that flu vaccine will protect a person from flu illness:
1) characteristics of the person being vaccinated (such as their age and health), and
2) the similarity or "match" between the flu viruses the flu vaccine is designed to protect against and the flu viruses spreading in the community.

Each season researchers try to determine how well flu vaccines work to regularly assess and confirm the value of flu vaccination as a public health intervention. Study results about how well a flu vaccine works can vary based on study design, outcome(s) measured, population studied and the season in which the flu vaccine was studied. These differences can make it difficult to compare one study’s results with another’s.

According to the researcher, Influenza viruses evolve constantly. Twice a year WHO (World Health Organisation) makes recommendations to update the vaccine compositions in an effort to match the most common virus types circulating in humans at that time.

What are the benefits of flu vaccination?
While how well the flu vaccine works can vary, there are a lot of reasons to get a flu vaccine each year.
- Flu vaccination can keep you from getting sick with flu.
- Flu vaccination can reduce the risk of flu-associated hospitalization, including among children and older adults.
- Flu vaccination is an important preventive tool for people with chronic health conditions.
- Vaccination helps protect women during and after pregnancy. Getting vaccinated can also protect a baby after birth from flu. (Mom passes antibodies onto the developing baby during her pregnancy.)
- Flu vaccination also may make your illness milder if you do get sick.
- Getting vaccinated yourself also protects people around you, including those who are more vulnerable to serious flu illness, like babies and young children, older people, and people with certain chronic health conditions.

Who Should Get Flu Vaccine:
Getting the flu shot is especially important for those most at risk: pregnant women, children younger than 5 years, people older than 65 years, people with chronic medical conditions, such as HIV/AIDS, asthma, heart and lung diseases and diabetes, and people with increased risk of exposure to influenza, which includes health care workers.

With all these reported low effective rate people are being more concerned about how to protect against the Flu without vaccination.

Although health officials now recommend every person over the age of 6 months get an annual flu shot, whether the person is healthy or not, low risk or high. There are proactive steps you can take to avoid getting sick during the flu season.

- Optimize your vitamin D levels. Research suggests vitamin D deficiency may actually be the true culprit behind the seasonality of the flu — not the flu virus itself. Raising your vitamin D to a therapeutic level of 40 to 60 nanograms per milliliter (ng/ml) is probably the single most important and least expensive action you can take to avoid the flu.

- Avoid sugar and processed foods. Sugar impairs the function of your immune system almost immediately, and a healthy immune system is one of the most important keys to fighting off viruses and other pathogenic invaders.

- Get plenty of rest. Just like it becomes harder for you to get your daily tasks done if you're tired, if your body is overly fatigued, it will be harder for it to fight the flu.

- Address your stress. When stress becomes overwhelming, your body will be less able to fight off the flu and other illness. If you feel stress is taking a toll on your health, consider using an energy psychology tool such as the Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), which is remarkably effective in relieving stress associated with all kinds of events, from work to family to trauma.

- Exercise. When you exercise, you increase your circulation and your blood flow throughout your body. The components of your immune system are also better circulated, which means your immune system has a better chance of finding an illness before it spreads.

- Take an animal-based omega-3. Increase your intake of healthy and essential fats like the omega-3 found in krill oil, which is crucial for maintaining health.

- Wash your hands. Washing your hands will decrease your likelihood of spreading a virus to your nose, mouth or other people.

- Use natural immune boosters. Examples include colloidal silver, oil of oregano and garlic. These have potent antibiotic activity, boosting your body's ability to fend off harmful bacteria, viruses and protozoa.

- Avoid hospitals.