When I walked into my veterinarian’s waiting room and saw the sign on the wall announcing that dogs boarding there are now required to get a canine flu shot I laughed out loud, really loud.
“Are you serious?” I asked the receptionist standing in front of me. I don’t board my dogs there. But I just thought it was the stupidest thing I had ever heard of. But apparently, according to the vet, most boarders are now requiring dogs get a flu shot. There have been no confirmed cases in my town yet of a dog getting the flu, but there have been in other cities within the state of Tennessee. And my vet says, “Its coming. And dogs have no immunity to it so they really need the shot.”
I personally believe everyone goes a little wacky headed about getting a flu shot this time of year, standing in line, marking their calendars, creating events, administering them in schools and writing news stories about when and where to get your flu shot.
For the record, my girls and I will not be getting flu shots. And neither will my two dogs, nor my two cats for that matter. If they even make them for cats that is. But I’m sure if some company figures out a way to do it and make money off of it, I’ll soon see a sign making flu shots mandatory for cats boarding with my vet too.
I want to be clear that I really, really like my vet’s office and the staff that works there. Lately they have been wonderful at helping us, and our old dog, cope through his painful final days. I’m just not buying into the flu shot for dogs, or for people either.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends the flu shot for “everyone 6 months and older.” That would include all five members of my family. But we won’t be doing that!
Here are the reasons I say no thanks to the flu shot.
1. Getting the flu shot does not guarantee you will not get the flu. According to a study released Oct. 26 in an online journal by The Lancet Infectious Diseases, the flu shot is only 59 percent effective for adults ages 18-65 years old. No studies were available for children. Plainly put, the vaccine is just not good enough for me to justify injecting it into my body, or my children. I like how this USA Today article explains this, comparing it’s effectiveness to the polio vaccination which has nearly eradicated the disease.
2. Every year the flu shot gets changed and the recipe gets rewritten, without long-term findings on what the affects are of ingesting yourself with that particular shot. Here are the three strains the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention chose to put into the vaccine this year. If you catch a different strain, your effectiveness of getting a flu shot is zero.
3. I don’t want the ingredients of the flu shot in my body or my daughters’ bodies. Aside from the formaldehyde, aluminum and chicken egg protein (because the vaccine is cultivated inside of a chicken egg) going into the vaccinations which the CDC details on their website, there could still be thimerosal (also known as mercury) in them too. Out of the 163-173 million doses of influenza vaccine available this season, according to the CDC, only 79 million of those are thimerosal-free. So, I say no thanks to mercury too. And if you do take your kids to get vaccinated, REALLY insist on getting a thimerosal-free shot even if it means the hassle of going somewhere else. Even though thimerosal exposure has been debunked as a cause of autism, by the CDC, I still say mercury can’t be good in my kid’s bloodstream. This Live Strong site is a good one to read more about the ingredients of the flu shot, and the flu in general.
4. With that said, I’d rather take my chances of getting the flu than the vaccine that has a 59 percent chance of being effective for me, and maybe even less for my children. Yes being sick is no fun and sometimes miserable with children. But I’d much rather take my chance with getting the flu rather than the unknown, untested long-term affects of a vaccine that is still relatively new to the market, and changed year after year.
5. The numbers that commonly get reported by the CDC saying influenza causes more than 200,000 people in the U.S. to be hospitalized every year. And about 36,000 die from flu-related causes – are bloated and misrepresented. Even the CDC says this area is fuzzy, explaining the complicated method used to document cause of deaths reports pertaining to influenza, which are hard to differentiate between influenza and the respiratory deceases such as bacterial pneumonia that influenza can lead to. In one CDC study, Estimating Seasonal Influenza-Associated Deaths in the United States: CDC Study Confirms Variability of Flu, they even say, “CDC believes that the range of deaths over the past 31 years (~3,000 to ~49,000) is a more accurate representation of the unpredictability and variability of flu-associated deaths.”
So with all that said, its pretty simple for me to say no thanks to the flu shot. I’ll take my chances at getting the flu. And if we do get it, we’ll snuggle our way through it with extra books, movies, shared nap times and more soups.
I will disclose that my husband, however, did get a flu shot at this office this year. He sees this as his small way to “take one for the team,” if he can help prevent from bringing the virus into our house. We don’t always see eye-to-eye on immunizations. But I try and understand where he’s coming from and he does the same for me. This helps me see both sides of the story as well.
But for today, I think the pro-vaccine story is so prevalent with media bombarding everyone with lists of every pharmacy, office and school building offering a flu shot, I’m not here to tell you why people should get the flu shot – there is plenty of that going around. I’m here to tell you, people have a reason to say no thanks to the flu shot. It’s that simple.
For more resources about the flu shot and vaccine’s in general, from an opposing viewpoint, I encourage you to browse the following sites:
Vaccination Risk Awareness Network
Think Twice Global Vaccine Institute
For books on vaccinations and children, these are a good place to start:
Vaccinations: A Thoughtful Parent’s Guide: How to Make Safe, Sensible, Decisions about the Risks, Benefits and Alternatives by Aviva Jill Romm
What your Doctor May Not Tell you about Children’s Vaccinations by Stephanie Cave
The Vaccine Book by Robert W. Sears
Make an Informed Vaccine Decision for the Health of your Child by Mayer Eisenstein
Vaccine Epidemic: How Corporate Greed, Biased Science, and Coercive Government Threaten Our Human Rights, Our Health, and Our Children by Louise Habakus and Mary Holland
