On 9 January 2016, the Swiss newspaper “Neue Zürcher Zeitung” published some noteworthy thoughts on the flu vaccine written by Dr Johannes G. Schmidt, general practitioner from Einsiedeln (CH). Dr Schmidt who during his Medical Studies also gained schooling in clinical epidemiology and ancient Chinese medicine, showed the decade-long dilemma about the propagandised successes of large-scale vaccination campaigns. The chasm between the vaccine-critical and the pro-vaccine position also runs right between the medical fraternity. The vaccination topic clearly proves how much the Medical Sciences are wrestling with themselves in this area.
Schmidt writes: “Vaccination experts believe in immunisation protection if antibody production of the appropriate vaccination antigen could be reached. You could consider the artificially achievable antibody production through vaccinations a great accomplishment of medicine. However, it needs verifying whether this theoretical immunisation protection really is of use in practice.
Systematic analysis show a lack of benefit from the flu vaccination. The theory that immunisation protection is also an effective protection in practice, which so far has been upheld by insufficient and selective laboratory studies, is probably wrong. Epidemiologically decisive is the question about the body’s overall defences. True immunity is not necessarily determined by immunisation protection but by unspecific defence forces which medicine has no knowledge of. A flu may indeed be dangerous in case of insufficient power of resistance, yet this seems to be equally the case with or without vaccination. [….] With the flu vaccination verification is required about how the theoretical idea of immunisation protection impacts in practice.”
Other scientists and doctors also doubt the scientific reliability of the common vaccination recommendations and consider the vicinity to the pharmaceutical industry a hindrance for objective statements. Like Schmidt they refer to studies like those of Dr Thomas Jefferson, researcher with the eminently respectable and independent Cochrane Collaboration, who for many years has been collecting and evaluating studies about flu vaccinations.
In 2006 he made a crushing judgement on studies about flu vaccination: The research, financed almost exclusively by pharmaceutical manufacturers, met no scientific standard and could not prove the use of flu vaccinations: “The optimistic and self-confident tone in predicting virus circulation and the effect of inactivated vaccines which do not correspond to the actual evidence, is remarkable. The reasons are probably complex and can possibly be attributed to a chaotic mixture of conflicts with the truth and conflicts of interests.”
In 2009 he commented: “There is no evidence of any kind whatsoever that vaccines against the seasonal flu have any effect at all, especially with the elderly and children; no evidence for reduced cases (of illness), deaths or complications.”
Pediatrician Martin Hirte from Munich reconfirms: “Shouldn’t it be possible to execute a placebo-controlled long-term course outcome study with maybe 10,000 participants that will not be financed by the industry?” Then the vaccination recommendations would either stand on solid, evidence-based ground or they would have to be dropped.
According to Dr Johannes Schmidt only 10 percent of vaccination studies show a high enough methodical quality. Apprehension theory, scare tactics and theoretical extrapolations of the hoped-for medical blessings instead of restraint dictate today’s awareness. The obvious conclusion that real immune protection results almost exclusively through unspecific bodily defences, which cannot be measured in the laboratory like antibodies, today still overtaxes the instruments of a rather laboratory-devout medicine.
To this effect it remains the hope that more and more people will recognise that they themselves must take responsibility for their health and therefore should inform themselves discretely and independently.
