FLU FACTS OR FICTION?: Hollywood Meets Big Pharma © Paula Rothstein

Once again, the hype surrounding the fu shot has taken hold of the U.S. However, it would seem that with each passing year the annual marketing frenzy - perpetrated by the pharmaceutical drug companies (“Big Pharma”) - stirs the public into an even more determined mass of insistent citizenry, looking for a quick fix against the flu. Frankly, I am tired of the numerous commercials, PR stunts by celebrities, handouts at the grocery store, etc. pushing the thimerosal packed flu shot on an uninformed public. “Flu Facts” are words meant to inspire confidence in an industry that has only proven how little it cares for our health and well-being. There is a terrible void where information should exist with regards to testing and safety of vaccines capable of causing damage to the central nervous system. One powerful example is the use of a mercury based derivative (known as thimerosal) as a preservative in the flu shot that has been removed from children’s vaccines because of its link to autism, ADDHD and other neurological disorders. But for some reason this dangerous preservative persists in the flu shot!

For a long time I have been disgusted with Big Pharma’s manipulation of fact but when I recently attended the movie Happy Feet with my three year old son and was forced to watch a larger than life advertisement urging me to get to the doctor at the first sign of the flu and request antiviral medication, my disgust reached a new level – enough to want to walk out of the theater and demand my money back. (Something I would have done had my little boy not been excited to watch the tap dancing penguin!) I looked around at the other parents in the theater half expecting to see dropped jaws, sighs, groans (something!) but no one appeared to be disturbed. The snow job of flu facts has firmly taken hold and not many think to question the influence of Big Pharma over our health and lives.

A little post-movie research quickly revealed a partnering of the producers of Happy Feet with the drug company, Roche Holding AG, to push its antiviral drug, Tamiflu. This marketing approach is certainly a new Hollywood-hype low. Happy Feet is where paranoia meets pill‑popping methods of immune support, with a very real ending of great profit for Big Pharma.

FDA ISSUES NEW WARNING:

Before you take your child to the doctor and request he or she be placed on an antiviral medication, as Happy Feet producers encourage, you should know that Tamiflu carries a fresh new warning label from the FDA, one that requires patients who take Tamiflu be closely monitored for signs of abnormal behavior. This added precaution comes after reports of more than 100 new cases of delirium, hallucinations and other unusual psychiatric behavior in children treated with the drug.

Like all things, with enough marketing we begin to assume a reality exists behind the façade – in this case, one which belies effectiveness where possibly very little or none exists. I would argue that not only is the flu shot and antiviral medications ineffective but there is reason for concern of potential harm.

The following are seven suggestions to improve your odds against the flu. These suggestions will cost you little or no money but will require some effort on your part.

1. Eat healthy and avoid sugar
2. Get enough rest
3. Eat fresh garlic regularly
4. Exercise
5. Wash your hands regularly
6. Increase your intake of Omega 3 to helps provide greater resistance to the flu
7. Sunshine will increase your production of Vitamin D which provides powerful immune support

These seven steps have proven themselves to be far more effective than any flu shot or antiviral medication which in the long run weaken the immune system. Big Pharma would prefer you not make the effort so they can continue to make billions and billions of dollars off an uninformed public. It is my mission to make sure these gluttonous companies do not profit from my family’s ill-health and not even a hundred tap dancing penguins will distract me from the reality of what drugs are doing to the health of this nation.