Why is the media attacking the flu vaccine?

We all know by now that our “free press” has deeply embedded editors and producers who take their marching orders directly from pharmaceutical companies and the CDC. Their job is to postpone, water down, spin, or kill stories that hurt public health profits.

Whenever you see a vaccine article that strikes you as negative– or hell, even fair and balanced– it’s a red flag that big wheels are in motion behind the scenes; you just don’t know what the outcome is going to be yet.

I’ve seen it twice in three weeks with the meningitis b vaccine.  On August 18th NBC ran an article about two girls, both of whom had been vaccinated for men b, both of whom were in perfect health, and both of whom were killed by men b anyway. The article points out that the CDC’s recommendation for the vaccine is permissive, and that getting the infection is akin to being struck by lightning.

I saw the article and thought, what’s up? Why are NBC’s pimps allowing reporters to write about these girls?

Then on September 7th the New York Times, of all newspapers, wrote about men b outbreaks, describing them as “small” and “extremely rare,” and said men b vaccines are “lucrative” and “pricey” and “playing to parents’ fears.” They pointed out that making vaccines for less rare diseases has the potential to make the vaccine industry into a “cash cow” and they didn’t mean it in a good way. Mmmm-hmmm. I mean duh, but still. Not what you’d expect them to say.

The Times even included a quote from a professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The risk, he said, “is not a large enough problem to warrant routine vaccination.”

So why are Pfizer’s and GSK’s men b vaccines on the media chopping block? I don’t know, but we’re not reading investigative vaccine journalism on NBC and in the Times. Keep your eyes peeled for the Godsent explanation the overlords will provide us with. They don’t usually announce the problem more than 30 days before announcing the solution, so it should be any day now.

But on to the flu vaccine. You may remember in July 2016 when the inhaled flu vaccine went from a championed 90% efficacy to only 3% efficacy. Is it likely that actually happened? Hell no, unless they threw the game on purpose. But numbers can be twisted to say whatever they want them to say, and, for whatever reason, FluMist makers– or the flu vaccine industry as a whole– wanted to scrap that vaccine. So overnight the needle-free FluMist was taboo and it was injected mercury for almost everyone.

Maybe FluMist makers got a buyout like GSK did from Merck for leaving the US HPV vaccine market.

So these past couple of weeks have been nuts for flu vaccine news.

In the last few days of August I began seeing mainstream articles pointing out how ineffective the flu vaccine is for the elderly.

I see their ineffectiveness and raise them up to murder, but that’s not where I’m going with this.

Within one week of each other, The Daily Mail ALL-CAPS screamed about the flu shot’s ineffectiveness, the BBC finally had an honest vaccine headline, and Chemist and Druggist halfheartedly shrugged that vaccinating the elderly was better than nothing.

This made me side-eye the news.

Then! On September 13th the Washington Post wrote about a new study that linked the flu vaccine to a 7.7x increased chance or a 670% increase in miscarriages. I know that one of my favorite bloggers has written an incredibly researched piece about WaPo’s bullshit spin of 7.7x being just a “hint” of increased fetal death, but I’m seeing this a little differently.

If protecting the flu vaccine was WaPo’s goal, I don’t think the press would even bother with the spin when they could just ignore the study completely, a la William Thompson. So the fact that this finding– in a study I can’t believe was conducted by the CDC’s Frank Mothereffing DeStefano and published in the journal Vaccine— is getting mainstream coverage is spelling death for the annual flu vaccine as we currently know it.

The Daily Beast jumped on the dog pile, as did NBC, Science, Fortune, and the New York Post. All of them make the same milquetoast arguments that maybe the finding isn’t real and pregnant women should continue to get the shots. And Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research who is famous for his “We have over-promoted and overhyped this vaccine. It does not protect as promoted. It’s all a sales job: it’s all public relations” quote, wrote up the miscarriage study in Stat with the spin that “science prioritizes safety.” Thanks for looking out, science!

Just kidding. We all know that today’s science doesn’t prioritize anything but profits. So why is the CDC’s father of thimerosal-induced autism denial acting as a hitman for the annual flu vaccine?

I might have the answer: the universal flu vaccine is about to arrive.

The universal flu vaccine is supposed to offer long lasting broad protection against the constantly-mutating flu. You know, since most of America doesn’t want the good-for-nothing annual vaccine anyway, it doesn’t work in the elderly, and it’s killing the babies of women who get it while pregnant.

Four years ago an FDA scientist was in a Congressional committee hearing and he testified that a “universal flu vaccine was 5 to 10 years away.” I think that day is here.

A quick scan of Google News tells me that BiondVax, an Israeli company working on a universal flu vaccine, just voluntarily de-listed from the Tel Aviv stock exchange two weeks ago. The reason given is that the universal flu vaccine needs an international presence, so forget about little ol’ Tel Aviv; they’re sticking with the big boys at NASDAQ. Just three months ago BiondVax got an exciting $23.8 million investment as they enter phase 3 trials for their universal flu vaccine, so things are heating up.

But get this! The new universal flu vaccine isn’t just a replacement for the annual shot. They’re also seeking approval as a flu shot “primer.” This shit is endless! So depending on what they get approval for, your elderly parents might get a primer universal vaccine and then get the season’s regular flu vaccine, but women of child bearing age will be told to get the stand-alone universal flu shot before they get pregnant. But that’s just my guess.

Lest you ever think the media– or science– is looking out for you, I’m here to rain all over your parade. You’re welcome.