What You Should Know About the Flu: FDA-Approved Prevention and Treatment of Influenza

The swine flu scare seems to have died down, but public health experts expect that it may become serious during the normal influenza season. As I explained in an earlier article "Disease 4 Survival", public health and pharmaceuticals rely on disease and therefore seek primarily to treat the symptoms and not the cause. In that article, which was removed from AC and then cross-posted on my blog, I explained the primary cause of the mutating, animal flu viruses that is virtually ignored by the experts and media alike.

To treat the cause of the nearly constant epidemic cycle would require ideological change, and that looks politically unfeasible considering the hold that free trade gurus and agribusiness have on American politics and media. However, there are still ways to prevent and treat the flu, no matter the type. Here, we'll consider the FDA-approved version of doing so, including the unwanted effects of their medicine that patients are rarely told about. In another article soon to come I'll discuss alternative methods of preventing and treating the flu from the traditions of Chinese medicine, Taoist healing, and Western herbalism.

Flu of any kind, be it avian, swine, or the more common strains, is a lung infection. Fever and coughing are the most common, followed with "headache, loss of appetite, muscle aches, fatigue, chills and throat irritation. Patients could also have nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, if it's a severe case." (1) It can also lead to pneumonia.

Some reports have suggested that swine flu can cause more incidence of nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. Sudden spells of dizziness have also been reported by doctors treating swine flu patients.(2) The experts tend to agree that there's no way to tell what form of flu you have, or even if it is the flu, without submitting to tests.

The general treatment, if you take your flu case to a doctor and he warrants it severe enough, is an antiviral like Oseltamivir (aka Tamiflu). This is across the board, no matter what type of flu you may have. Virus testing then is purely to satisfy public health organizations need to compile epidemiological data. Anti-virals are effective if taken 12-48 hours after the onset of symptoms.

Tamiflu, being the #1 doctor-prescribed treatment for the flu, deserves a closer look. Specifically, what are the possible unintended effects? First, let's read the label.(3) Tamiflu has not been evaluated for pregnant or nursing women, the unborn or infants, so don't risk it. Those taking kidney medications could experience the drug interaction side effects of dizziness and drowsiness. You may have an allergic reaction to the ingredients (i.e. hives, swelling), and you may get dementia. There's a decent chance you will throw up and experience nausea.

Elsewhere we get a more comprehensive list of side effects.(4) Tamiflu can cause diarrhea, abdominal cramps, fatigue, cough, other respiratory symptoms. As with many pharmaceuticals, this one can actually cause many of the symptoms it's designed to get rid of.

The over-the-counter medicines, which your doctor may offer prescription versions of, include fever reducers, cough suppressants, decongestants, and antihistamines. While these can be really helpful in making you less miserable, they all come with documented effects that are not so helpful. Read the labels.

Also, a word of caution concerning fever reducers. Fever reducers are unnecessary and a bad idea. Fever is your body's way of fighting infection by denaturing the invading bacteria and/or virus. I had the most horrible time explaining to my baby's concerned grandma that the baby's teething fever was just her body making itself uninhabitable in case of infection. Don't short-circuit your natural defense mechanisms.

You have probably heard stories of brain damage and other injuries cause by high fevers. These are myths that have been spread by the pharmaceutical corporations to sell their medicines. Fevers can cause short-lived convulsions in children, but this should not be taken as a sign to lower the fever. Respond to it as you would knowing your child had some kinds of infection, or is possibly going to get an infection, as in the case of teething. Please read the below source, find more sources, and spread the word.(5)

I won't get into the specifics of a swine flu vaccine, since it hasn't been created yet. However, when it first hits the market, be warned that vaccine-makers never do long term studies on their products, and they perform short-term studies for FDA approval internally, which is a huge conflict of interest. The Vaccine Injury Compensation Board was established in 1998. For more info and understanding of the potential dangers of any vaccines read this NVIC testimony to the Commission on Childhood Vaccines.(6)

From that: From 1998 to 2008 "about $1.8B has been awarded to more than 2,200 plaintiffs out of some 12,000 who have applied. And they learn that nearly 5,000 of the vaccine injury claims are sitting in limbo because they represent children who suffered brain and immune system dysfunction after vaccination but have been diagnosed with regressive autism, which is not listed on the Table of Compensable Events."

As for the common flu vaccine, safety and effectiveness are a lot more controversial than the public health experts and pharmaceutical corporations would have us believe. Established and peer-reviewed research on vaccinating children for the flu shows "no convincing evidence that vaccines can reduce mortality, [hospital] admissions, serious complications, and community transmission of influenza." Further research on flu vaccines and the elderly show a disturbing trend. Although more and more seniors are taking the flu shot every year, the incidence of flu in the elderly is climbing as well. "The increasing flu vaccine coverage after 1980 did not correlate with a decline in flu-related deaths."(7)

In the 2003-2004 flu season, one doctor estimated approximately 350 influenza deaths.(8) This does not match the media reports of an average 36,000 flu deaths a year, but read the fine print. "About 36,000 people die from flu-related causes," according to the CDC.(9) Further, most cases of the flu are diagnosed but not tested. Of those that are tested, which is done by shipping off blood-work to a specialized lab primarily for epidemiological data, only a small percentage of diagnosed flu cases are actually caused by the influenza virus. Many cases of the flu are actually other infections with the same symptoms.

The vaccine safety controversy is regularly played as a bunch of kooks by the media and "experts," but it rests upon a couple of simple and verifiable assertions. Vaccines use a variety of ingredients to sensitize the body and preserve the virus for a long-shelf life. Some of those are mercury (thimerasol), formaldehyde, aluminum phosphate, carbolic acid (phenol), antifreeze (ethylene glycol), antibiotics, acetone, and others. Ask for a list of ingredients, or try to find one online, as this AC writer did. Just make sure it's the brand you'll be using.

The unintended ingredients won't be on the list. Making a vaccine requires a substrate, something to grow the virus on. These include blood from infected animals, monkey livers, chicken eggs (often used for flu vaccines), and aborted fetuses (as in the MMR vaccine).(10) Vaccine-makers would love to be able to filter all this stuff out, and they can to a degree, but...The filters work on molecular size, meaning anything the same size as or smaller than the virus stays in. If all this sounds gross to you, as it does to me, then have no fear! I shall issue a report on alternative methods of treatment and prevention really soon.

Sources:
(1) http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1688894/swine_flu_symptoms_.html?cat=8
(2) http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2009/04/29/how-are-symptoms-different-from-a-common-flu/
(3) http://www.tamiflu.com/sideeffects.aspx
(4) http://ezinearticles.com/?Tamiflu-Side-Effects&id=197810
(5) http://www.health-bytes.com/fever.htm
(6) http://www.nvic.org/Vaccine-Awakening/December-2008/Vaccine-Injury-Compensation-A-Failed-Experiment-i.aspx
(7) http://www.medicalconsumers.org/pages/FluVaccinesDoNotWorkforKidsortheElderly.html
(8) http://drtenpenny.com/annual_flu_deaths.aspx
(9) http://www.cdc.gov/flu/keyfacts.htm
(10) http://www.advancedhealthplan.com/bhvaccineingredients.html