As you would expect, nothing good can happen when two medical disasters of Titanic proportions collide.
On the one hand, we have cholesterol-lowering statin drugs. These drugs — taken by millions of Americans — are probably the single biggest drug scandal of the century (although there is plenty of competition).
On the other hand, we have the faulty influenza vaccine. It’s probably the single biggest vaccine scam of the century (even though, again, there is some serious competition among other vaccines). Last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) basically admitted the flu vaccine really didn’t work. In fact, that vaccine only covered about half of the flu viruses circulating last flu season. And it looks like we may be on track for a repeat failure this year. But even in a good, “well-matched” year, the flu vaccine still isn’t all that effective. This year’s marketing for the flu vaccine seems particularly intense. I can barely go out into public without someone asking me whether I’d like a flu vaccine with my morning coffee.
But according to two new studies, statins and the flu vaccine, together, form a knock-out combination disaster.
Flu vaccine even less effective in people taking statin drugs
In the first study, researchers examined the effect of the flu vaccine in elderly patients. It focused on about 7,000 adults over age 65.
Ironically, the academic-industrial-medical complex pushes older adults to get the flu vaccine every year. But <a href=”https://drmicozzi.com/sometimes-the-best-medicine-is-to-do-nothing-at-all”>as I’ve warned before,</a> and will provide further information later this month, research shows the flu vaccine isn’t even effective in this older “target” population.
Add statins to the mix and the results are even worse!
In fact, three weeks after receiving the flu vaccine, the men and women on statins had significantly fewer antibodies in their blood for flu strains targeted by the vaccine compared to those not on statins.
The vaccine is supposed to increase antibodies to certain flu strains. But statin users had fewer of these antibodies, despite receiving the flu vaccine.
The second study looked at respiratory illness in older people on statins who received the flu vaccine. Respiratory distress is one of the major complications of the flu. It turns out, men and women on statins who got the flu vaccine were more susceptible to respiratory illnesses.
Researchers from both studies agree statin drugs’ effect on the immune system and normal metabolism should be a cause for serious concern. Yet no one actually suggested making any changes in treatment for anybody!
“More research is needed” — but only when it threatens the status quo
In an editorial that accompanied the study, the authors quickly made the ritual request for more research before anybody does anything. The editorial authors said we need to understand the mechanism of action by which statin drugs can interfere with the immune system.
Of course, the medical and mainstream media didn’t need to know about the mechanism of action to broadcast the World Health Organization’s report of a small statistical association between meat consumption and colon cancer last month.
Frankly, nothing surprises me anymore when it comes to statin drugs and their ill-effects on the body. The drugs act as a metabolic poison. They block the formation of hormones. So it doesn’t require a lot of speculation as to why or how they might interfere with the immune system.
I didn’t learn anything new from these studies about statin drugs or flu vaccines. Both are largely useless and dangerous. And both remain so.
But I did realize something new (to me) about all these kinds of researchers.
The more things change, the more they stay the same
You see, I continually report on studies that show the hazards of mainstream treatments. I also report on studies that show the benefits of natural approaches like diet, nutrition, and supplementation. Indeed, I base everything I write on scientific studies.
So how about the researchers in these two studies?
Some would argue they’re courageous to show and publish evidence on the dangers and folly of mainstream treatments. But in their conclusions they show their true colors.
No matter what they find, they never actually recommend changing anything about mainstream medical practice. They just call for more research.
When I worked for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), research scientists (and the science bureaucrats who control them) all had a similar agenda: Don’t ever change anything, no matter what kind of scientific evidence turns up. Simply keep doing more of the same research, which costs the taxpayers more and more money but never really reaches any final conclusions.
Even when a researcher does conclude there is evidence to change medical practice in favor of more natural approaches, as we see here in these two studies, you can be sure to find a snappy editorial published together with the actual evidence to pre-empt it.
So nothing really ever changes in the mainstream.
The researchers keep doing more of the same research for their entire careers. And the doctors keep practicing more high-tech medicine, regardless of the growing piles of research evidence that support the advantages and health benefits of taking a more natural approach.
In 2013, at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Benghazi, Hillary Clinton infamously said, “what difference does it make?”
They could all say the same about factual evidence in the modern medical era — what does it matter?
- “Influenza Vaccination of Patients Receiving Statins: Where Do We Go From Here?” Oxford Journals (www.oxfordjournals.org) 10/29/2015