Scientists: Flu Vaccine Is Overhyped & Governments Lie About It

It looks like a plan to stop the flu vaccine fraud, but a closer look shows that they’re pushing for ever more money to be tossed down the Big Pharma rat hole to develop yet more vaccines. Claim of no conflict of interest is blatantly false.

by Heidi Stevenson

Every year now, we’re bombarded with messages in pharmacies, drug stores, doctors’ offices, even supermarkets to get a flu vaccination. In some places, the pressure is overwhelming, with people forced to choose between their job or vaccination and others being told by the doctors that they must be vaccinated or get fired by the doctor. Those of us in the alternative medicine world have been warning people that there’s little value in these injections, but we’re called quacks.

Now, though, a group of scientists seem to be echoing us. They’re saying that the flu vaccine is “overpromoted” and “wasting taxpayers’ money”. In “The Compelling Need for Game-Changing Influenza Vaccines”^1,2, produced by the Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy (CIDRAP) of the University of Minnesota, these scientists who support vaccination in general worry that not telling the truth about influenza vaccines is undermining the public’s trust in mass immunizations.

In one anomaly, the Director of CIDRAP, Michael Osterholm, who wrote the report’s introduction, says, “I still recommend its use as the best we have.” He agrees with the report. His logic is that, though the flu vaccines are not effective, since they’re the best we have, we should all go ahead and have a vaccination that doesn’t really work because … well, there’s nothing better out there.

And that logic should give you a clue as to what the CIDRAP report is really about.

The CIDRAP Report

In the CIDRAP introduction, Osterholm states, “I have never been part of any project this exhaustive.” They “reviewed, in detail more than 12,000 articles, documents, transcripts, and notes dating back to 1936″. He ended his introduction with the following two quotes, which he said, “capture the essences of this report”:

The greatest obstacle to discovering the shape of the earth, the continents, and the oceans was not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge. — Daniel Boorstin

For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled. — Richard Feynman

Nature cannot be fooled, but apparently governments can, as the report documents. Apparently, the authors hope to continue that trend.

Governments, not just the US’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), have been expanding the flu vaccine programs without any valid information on which to base their decisions. They pointed out that, though efficacy rates of 70-90% are often cited,

… the preponderance of the available influenza vaccine efficacy and effectiveness data is
derived from studies with suboptimal methodology, poorly defined end points, or end points not proven to be associated with influenza infection. Studies using optimal methodology have not found the level of protection often attributed to the current vaccines.

Governmental agencies tasked with setting vaccine programs appear to have little or no ability to determine study quality. The CIDRAP report points out that there’s a great deal of concern about increasing production capacity for these inadequate vaccines, rather than the vaccines’ lack of efficacy.

The report’s self-serving focus becomes quite clear in reading it. They accept the concept of mass vaccination for influenza. Their only concern is that, because the vaccines now in existence simply aren’t any good, governmental hyping is likely to result in two things: the public’s loss of trust and a lack of will to create vaccines that are effective.

What They Really Want

The CIDRAP report is pushing for more money to develop new influenza vaccines. They also want them to be available in large quantities, so that everyone would be vaccinated. Here’s what they state they want:

First, development of novel-antigen game-changing influenza vaccines must be declared  a national priority by the US government. With that declaration must come the commitment to provide the resources and project management processes required to make novel-antigen game-changing vaccines a reality.

Second, a financially sound pathway must be implemented to overcome the current financial disincentives that impede the advancement of new influenza vaccines to market. A substantial investment by the US government in research and development and regulatory science, with new private-sector investment incentives, will be imperative in accomplishing this objective.

Third, a new organizational and leadership structure for the influenza vaccine enterprise must be established to provide strong science and business leadership and exemplary project management processes so that barriers are identified and overcome to maximize
available resources.

This is not a push to look at vaccines more realistically. This is nothing more than a push for yet more money to be tossed down the rat hole of influenza vaccine development! They want development of flu vaccines to be a national priority. They want ever more money handed over to Big Pharma to toss into that rat hole. They want evermore public resources poured down that Big Pharma hole. They are pushing for more and more public financing of Big Pharma corporations.

This isn’t a ploy to get realistic about vaccines. This is a ploy to press governments into transferring even more of the public’s money—and trust—into Big Pharma.

The Fraud Being Committed

Osterholm states in the introduction:

We have no potential conflicts of interest to report.

Really? Let’s take a look:

• Gail Cassell is currently Vice President, Scientific Affairs and Distinguished Lilly Research Scholar for Infectious Diseases, Eli Lilly and Company.
• Ret. Major General Philip Russell is on the Board of Trustees, Sabin Vaccine Institute.
• James Robinson is Vice President, Vaccine Product and Technology Operations, Merck & Co
• William M. Egan is Vice President of PharmaNet, Inc

No conflict of interest?!! Four of the thirteen are directly employed at high levels by the pharmaceutical industry! The rest are people who’ve made their careers in association with Big Pharma, mostly through universities, which are largely beholden to them.

Please, don’t take this report at face value. Though on the surface it looks like support to stop the push for influenza vaccination, its real purpose is to convince governments to put ever more of the public’s resources into Big Pharma’s pockets. Also, note that, though this report is aimed at the US government, it’s having a knock-on effect in the UK^3,4,5.

We don’t need to give public money to Big Pharma so that they can create yet more dangerous vaccines on which to profit by having them forced on us.

Sources:

1. The Compelling Need for Game-Changing Influenza Vaccines
2. The Compelling Need for Game-Changing Influenza Vaccines
3. Scientists urge ministers: tell truth on ‘over-hyped’ flu vaccine
4. Flu vaccine effectiveness exaggerated, scientists claim
5. Flu jabs are a ‘waste of taxpayer’s money’, claim scientists who say the benefits have been over-hyped

Tagged big pharma, Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy, CIDRAP, flu vaccine fraud, flu vaccine ineffective, influenza vaccine fraud, The Compelling Need for Game-Changing Influenza Vaccines, vaccine, vaccines