Choosing a 2014-2015 flu vaccine

[APV]

At least for me, it used to be that you went to a hospital every fall and got a flu shot.

Well, it turns out there are not only multiple types of flu shots and methods of administration, they don't quite contain the same stuff.

A table with some of the ingredients is below, to get you started on your research.
https://mttmblog.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/flusum2014.pdf
Source: http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/Vaccines/ApprovedProducts/ucm094045.htm

When viral proteins are injected into the body, the immune system learns to recognize them (sensitization) and then on subsequent exposure to the proteins it begins to attack them (elicitation). Unfortunately, any other proteins injected with the vaccine are treated the same way. Once sensitized to the injected protein, future exposure to the protein elicits an attack known as an allergic reaction. References are below:

Smith-Norowitz TA, Wong D, Kusonruksa M, Norowitz KB, Joks R, Durkin HG, Bluth MH. Long Term Persistence of IgE Anti-Influenza Virus Antibodies in Pediatric and Adult Serum Post Vaccination with Influenza Virus Vaccine. Int J Med Sci 2011; 8(3):239-244. doi:10.7150/ijms.8.239. Available from http://www.medsci.org/v08p0239.htm
https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/allergolint/46/4/46_4_249/_pdf
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/830756

More details and references are here:
http://foodallergycauses.wordpress.com/category/food-allergy-causes/

Intranasal: the risk is injecting live viruses on to your olfactory nerve that is millimeters away from your brain.
There may also be adventitious agents in the vaccine. In other words, unintentional contamination of the vaccine by viruses/bacteria/amoeba etc..

Intradermal: the risk is skin cells/proteins are torn by the needle and injected along with the vaccine.
If your body develops an allergy to these skin proteins, you can develop immune system related skin disorders such as eczema.

Intramuscular:the risk is skin and muscle cells/proteins are torn by the needle and injected along with the vaccine.
If your body develops an allergy to these muscle proteins (one of which is tropomyosin), you can develop immune system disorders as the immune system attacks any tissue containing tropomyosin. Tropomyosin is present in the brain and the intestines. So disorders can include autism, ulcerative colitis, irritable bowel syndrome etc.
and of course seafood allergy.
http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/85502-vaccines-allergies-autism-and-autoimmune-disorders/

Polysorbate 80 contains vegetable oils. Depending on the type of vegetable oil used, it can cause the development of allergies to various food items - food allergies.
http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/83698-polysorbate-80-vaccines-and-federal-allergen-regulation/

Ovalbumin in vaccines can cause the development of allergy to egg.

Formaldehyde is a known carcinogen but your body creates a small amount of it too.

Mercury is a well known toxin for which there is no safe amount.

Triton X-100 can damage cells.

HA is the viral protein. The "active ingredient" of a flu vaccine.

Insect proteins when injected into the body can cause the development of allergy to those insect proteins.
Flublok uses cells from the Fall Armyworm, a type of moth larvae. If you develop an allergy to such an insect protein, it may be very difficult to avoid exposure. Avoiding exposure to egg for a patient with egg allergies is difficult enough. How would one avoid exposure to a moth/larvae protein?

Flucelvax contains dog kidney cell proteins. If you develop an allergy to dog kidney cell protein, your immune system might start attacking your own similar kidney cells. An autoimmune kidney disorder will result.
Also the dog kidney cells used to make the vaccine are highly tumorigenic. The cells are supposed to be all killed. But even the tumorigenic DNA residue in the vaccine is considered dangerous and is therefore limited by the FDA to 10 nanogram. Is that low enough?
http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/05/slides/5-4188S1-1draft.PPT

Trivalent vaccines contain three viral strains and quadrivalent contain four viral strains.

If you want to perform some probability calculations, flu vaccines work 60% of the time per the CDC.
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/season/effectivenessqa-2013-14.htm

And about 3000-40,000 people are killed by the flu each year.

In the old days before vaccines, you had no choice but to suffer the flu.
Modern medicine gives you a choice, a choice between the devil and the deep sea ... for a fee.

[SilverLining]

By that logic, if you eat an egg once a year you might develop egg allergy.

If you drink milk, once a year, you might develop milk allergy.

If you eat a fish, once a year, you might develop a fish allergy.

And autism is not caused by the flu shot.

[SilverLining]

http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html

[Macabre]

Our Son Passed Away

[APV]

Silverlining,

I believe you misunderstood. Egg, fish or milk that you consume is denatured by stomach acid. The proteins are broken down and can no longer cause sensitization.
When acidity in the stomach is reduced by acid reducing medications, food proteins are not broken down. They travel to the intestine intact and get absorbed into the blood stream. http://www.immuneweb.com/wenzhai/pdf/010301.pdf  In that case, what you wrote will turn out to be true.
Vaccines inject the protein directly into the body. Nobel Prize winning scientist Charles Richet discovered over a 100 years ago that proteins injected cause allergy development.

Macabre,

I did the research because I wanted to find the safest flu vaccine. I got the intradermal last weekend.
My post includes "And about 3000-40,000 people are killed by the flu each year." It is not news to me.

My post was in the hope that people will pick the safest vaccine and force vaccine makers to make their vaccines safer.
Vote with your wallet.

[guess]

You chose which one?

[SilverLining]

Here's the problem.

Your research lead you to believe that flu shots cause autism.  It does not.  That was flawed data and is the one and only time the Lancet retracted anything.

So your research is flawed. 

I'm sure some of the information you have is correct, and that actually just makes this dangerous. Some people might believe you because one thing is correct and so they assume it all is. But it very obviously is not all correct.

Are you in any way being paid to bring traffic to any of those links you posted?

[Andiamo]

Silverlining,

I believe you misunderstood. Egg, fish or milk that you consume is denatured by stomach acid. The proteins are broken down and can no longer cause sensitization

With all due respect, that is a crock.  All of us who have milk, egg, or fish allergic kids are imagining it then? That anaphylaxis I witnessed in my child was imaginary?  If you are not going to post accurate information, please don`t post.  People come to this board for accurate information.

[APV]

Andiamo, you are mixing two things up.

There is allergy development called sensitization when the body encounters an allergen for the FIRST time.
And then there is the allergic reaction on subsequent exposure called elicitation.

When a healthy non-allergic person gets a vaccine containing egg, he can get sensitized. In other words, he has developed egg allergy.
The first time there will be no reaction.
Now if he tries to eat egg say a few weeks later, he can develop an allergic reaction if the egg protein just contacts even his lips. It could result in anaphylaxis.
My son has food allergies too. That is what led me to perform this research.

I was pointing out that when healthy people consume egg, the egg proteins cannot get into the blood intact. They are denatured by stomach acid.
So healthy people cannot get egg allergy by just eating eggs. That was SilverLining's question. The intact egg protein must come into contact with blood to develop allergy.

[APV]

You chose which one?

Fluzone Intradermal.

[APV]

Here's the problem.

Your research lead you to believe that flu shots cause autism.  It does not.  That was flawed data and is the one and only time the Lancet retracted anything.

So your research is flawed. 

I'm sure some of the information you have is correct, and that actually just makes this dangerous. Some people might believe you because one thing is correct and so they assume it all is. But it very obviously is not all correct.

Are you in any way being paid to bring traffic to any of those links you posted?

I believe the vast majority of autism/vaccine research involved thiomersal. I am suggesting that based on a common theme observed from the days of Charles Richet that when muscle protein gets injected into the body with adjuvants, one can develop an allergy to one's own cells (autoimmunity). Further, tropomysosin is present in muscles, intestine and the brain. So I wrote that the autoimmunity could result in autism. I don't have proof for that. I also don't believe tropomyosin has been investigated as a cause for autism. In other words, the mechanism I am suggesting is quite different from what has been investigated.

My links are either fda/cdc/pubmed/journals,  or my own posts/sites. So I am not getting paid.

[SilverLining]

You are making connections with no evidence. Many people develop food allergies at various times in their lives.  I developed mine in my twenties. I had never had a flu shot.

I truly am sorry that your child has good allergies. They are horrible and no child should have to deal with them.

But, if you are going to post a "cause" that your research has led you to believe caused it, post it with your credentials in a recognized journal. Otherwise, you are putting lives at risk.

And the many kids I know with autism....none had received flu shots prior to showing signs of autism.  Some had never had any shots....because their parents believed it was what caused it in an older sibling.  And, I mean that NONE of them had received flu shots prior to showing signs of autism at 2-3 years old. NONE.

[Macabre]

I do avoid vaxes with thimerosol whenever possible. It's not always possible. It seems counterintuitive to have Mercury injected into my body, even at very low levels. Of course, I used to play with it whenever a thermometer broke, so what's a little inside these days? 

[guess]

You chose which one?

Fluzone Intradermal.

That's an interesting flu shot. The intradermal is a little uncomfortable but I may try it next year.

Do you personally link GMO to food allergy as a cause?

[CMdeux]

That is what led me to perform this research.


With all due respect, reading a few things on the internet is NOT research.  Why not?

Well, because there is no way to refute the hypothesis that one is formulating with all of that reading, and one may quite easily ignore or discredit-- or perhaps simply never FIND-- material that doesn't support our presuppositions.  Genuine research involves being willing to TEST whether or not a hypothesis is plausible by allowing for conditions* in which the hypothesis would be proven incorrect. 

The problem with doing this kind of "research" one's self is that selection and perception biases are huge to begin with unless one has already had the kind of training that generally comes along with a terminal degree in a physical science or in medicine, and made even worse by the fact that we as parents are deeply emotionally invested and come to the process with what we WANT to believe must be so (that there must be a "reason" for "X" to have happened to us/our child). 

* Suppose that I believe that, just for example, lunar eclipses are caused by unseasonable temperatures.  How would my doing a lot of "internet research" allow me to DISprove such a hypothesis?  It probably wouldn't-- because think about how I would go about searching that hypothesis and supporting materials out to begin with-- I'd be LOOKING for evidence that supported my hypothesis.  Also, "unseasonable" is a pretty relative term.  The mechanism is plausibly connected, at least if I didn't know a lot about climate and astronomical observations, so I might not really see any NEED to hunt down material that directly contradicts my personal beliefs in any way. 

This is why scientists don't necessarily have much respect for laypersons doing "research" by the way-- it's not that we think that people are dumb, exactly, so much as that they consistently overestimate their own objectivity and metacognition, and fail to appreciate that a willingness to be catastrophically WRONG-WRONG-WRONG is part of the process.  An essential part of the process.

The injection-adjuvant theory of allergen sensitization went out of fashion in a pretty big way in the 1970's, btw.    Yes, there are particular mechanisms which can be used to sensitize laboratory animals in known ways, but those are NOT typical situations, any more than some other particular lines of laboratory animals (those bred to develop seizure disorders, or tumors) reflect the general human immune system. 

Silver has helpfully already provided a direct counter-example for the "hypothesis" proposed.  That's all that is necessary, unless you can determine some refinement that accounts for the fact that a great many people-- even highly atopic people-- safely receive vaccinations (and have for decades) which contain less and less of the allergens in question, while at the same time, rates of food allergy have RISEN, rather than falling (which should be the case if your hypothesis here were correct).


Also-- tropomyosin is not a thing-- it's a CLASS of things.  One tropomyosin does not necessarily cross-react (at all) with any others.  This is particularly true when considering arachnid/crustacean tropomyosins and those from mammalian sources.  Just so you know.  This is, again, where layperson "research" can get into trouble.  Research articles may fail to note that it's important to note the SOURCE of the tropomyosin in question.  This is not much different than claiming that eating "protein" causes allergic sensitization.  Well, sure it does-- but clearly some proteins are more equal than others there, and it is still not at all clear what causes some atopic people to never sensitize to some highly potent food sensitizers (like nuts or shellfish), while others do so upon their first exposures.

I'm VERY sure that my daughter had no known exposures to peanuts prior to nearly dying from her first taste of peanut butter.  I'm also very sure that I routinely ate all manner of shellfish without ill effect until I was in my 30's.  We have similarly atopic profiles, she and I-- so why did she get unlucky?  Nobody really knows right now.  But what I do know is that it didn't have any correlation with vaccination history.  Period.