Originally published September 16 2010
Vitamin D proven far better than vaccines at preventing influenza infections
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
(NaturalNews) If scientists discovered something that worked better than vaccines at preventing influenza, you'd think they would jump all over it, right? After all, isn't the point to protect children and adults from influenza?
A clinical trial led by Mitsuyoshi Urashima and conducted by the Division of Molecular Epidemiology in the the Department of Pediatrics at the Jikei University School of Medicine Minato-ku in Tokyo found that vitamin D was extremely effective at halting influenza infections in children. The trial appears in the March, 2010 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (Am J Clin Nutr (March 10, 2010). doi:10.3945/ajcn.2009.29094)
The results are from a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study involving 334 children, half of which were given 1200 IUs per day of vitamin D3. In other words, this was a "rigorous" scientific study meeting the gold standard of scientific evidence.
In the study, while 31 of 167 children in the placebo group contracted influenza over the four month duration of the study, only 18 of 168 children in the vitamin D group did. This means vitamin D was responsible for an absolute reduction of nearly 8 percent.
Flu vaccines, according to the latest scientific evidence, achieve a 1 percent reduction in influenza symptoms (http://www.naturalnews.com/029641_vaccines_j...).
This means vitamin D appears to be 800% more effective than vaccines at preventing influenza infections in children.
To further support this, what really needs to be done is a clinical trial directly comparing vitamin D supplements to influenza vaccines with four total groups:
Group #1 receives a vitamin D placebo
Group #2 receives real vitamin D (2,000 IUs per day)
Group #3 receives an influenza vaccine injection
Group #4 receives an inert injection
Groups 1 and 2 should be randomized and double blind while groups 3 and 4 should also be randomized and double blind. The results would reveal the comparative effectiveness of vitamin D versus influenza vaccines.
Unfortunately, such a trial will never be conducted because vaccine pushers already know this trial would show their vaccines to be all but useless. So they won't subject vaccines to any real science that compares it to vitamin D.
Vitamin D also significantly reduced asthma in children
Getting back to the study, another fascinating result from the trial is that if you remove those children from the study who were already being given vitamin D by their parents, so that you are only looking at children who started out with no vitamin D supplementation before the trial began, the results look even better as vitamin D reduced relative infection risk by nearly two-thirds.
More than six out of ten children who would have normally been infected with influenza, in other words, were protected by vitamin D supplementation.
Also revealed in the study: vitamin D strongly suppressed symptoms of asthma. In children with a previous asthma diagnosis, 12 of those receiving no vitamin D experienced asthma attacks. But in the vitamin D group, only 2 children did.
While this subset sample size is small, it does offer yet more evidence that vitamin D prevents asthma attacks in children, and this entirely consistent with the previous evidence on vitamin D which shows it to be a powerful nutrient for preventing asthma.
Vaccine pushers aren't followers of real science
Now, given that vitamin D3 shows such a powerful effect in preventing influenza -- with 800% increased efficacy over vaccines -- shouldn't CDC officials, doctors and health authorities be rushing to recommend vitamin D before flu season arrives?
Of course they should. But they won't. Because for them, it's not about actually preventing influenza and it never has been. The vaccine pushing camp is primarily interested in using influenza as an excuse to vaccinate more people regardless of whether such vaccines are useful (or safe).
Even if vitamin D offered 100% protection against all influenza infections, they still wouldn't recommend it.
Why? Because they flatly don't believe in nutrition! It runs counter to their med school programming which says that nutrients are useless and only drugs, vaccines and surgery count as real medicine.
The vaccine pushers, you see, aren't followers of real science. You could publish a hundred studies proving how vitamin D is many times more effective than vaccines and they still would never recommend it.
They are promoters of medical dogma rather than real solutions for patients. They promote vaccines because... well... that's what they've always promoted, and that's what their colleagues promote. And how could so many smart people be wrong, anyway?
But that's the history of science: A whole bunch of really smart people turn out to be wrong on a regular basis. That's usually how science advances, by the way: A new idea challenges an old assumption, and after all the defenders of the old (wrong) idea die off, science manages to inch its way forward against the hoots and heckles of a determined dogmatic resistance.
This attitude is blatantly reflected in a quote from Dr John Oxford, a professor of virology at Queen Mary School of Medicine in London, whose reaction to this study was: "This is a timely study. It will be noticed by scientists. It fits in with the seasonal pattern of flu. There is an increasing background of solid science that makes the vitamin D story credible. But this study needs to be replicated. If it is confirmed we might think of giving vitamin D at the same time as we vaccinate." (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/sco...)
Did you notice his concluding remark? He wasn't even considering the idea that vitamin D might replace vaccines. Rather, he's assuming vitamin D only has value if given together with vaccines!
You see this in the cancer industry, too, with anti-cancer herbs and nutrients. Any time an anti-cancer nutrient gains some press (which isn't very often), the cancer doctor will say things like, "Well, this might be useful to give to a patient after chemotherapy..." but never as a replacement for chemo, you see.
Many mainstream doctors and medical scientists are simply incapable of thinking outside the very limiting boxes into which their brains have been shoved through years of de-education in medical schools. When they see evidence contrary to what they've been taught, they foolishly dismiss it.
"The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible." - Bertrand Russell
Medical journals as guardians of ignorance
Medical journals largely function not as beacons of scientific truth but as defenders of pseudoscientific dogma. To have your paper published in most journals, your paper must meet the expectations and beliefs of that journal's editor. Thus, the advancement of scientific knowledge reflected in each journal is limited to the current beliefs of just one person -- the editor of that journal.
Truly pioneering research that challenges the status quo is almost always rejected. Only papers that confirm the presently-held beliefs of the journal's editorial staff are accepted for publication. This is one reason why medical science, in particular, advances so slowly.
Studies that show vitamin D to be more effective than vaccines will rarely see the light of day in the scientific community. It is to the great credit of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, in fact, that it accepted the publication of this paper by Mitsuyoshi Urashima. Most medical journals wouldn't dare touch it because it questions status quo beliefs about vaccines and influenza.
Medical journals, you see, are largely funded by the pharmaceutical industry. And Big Pharma doesn't want to see any studies lending credibility to vitamins, regardless of their scientific merit. Even if vitamin D could save America billions of dollars in reduced health care costs (which it can, actually), they don't want vitamin D to receive any scientific backing whatsoever because drug companies can't patent vitamin D. It's readily available to everyone for mere pennies a day.
In time, it will be recognized as superior to vaccines for seasonal flu, but for now, we must all suffer under the foolish propaganda of an industry that has abandoned science and now worships a needle.
Sources for this story include:
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/ajc...
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