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Doctors Give Flu Shots to Pregnant Women Despite Evidence of Harm to Fetus

fetus in mother's belly
“Safety and effectiveness of FLULAVAL QUADRIVALENT have not been established in pregnant women or nursing mothers.” — Sanofi Pasteur

Every year, during flu season, pregnant women in the United States are encouraged to get a flu shot. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), “Flu shots are a safe way to protect the mother and her unborn child from serious illness and complications of flu.”1 The CDC reassures that the flu vaccine is safe. It says:

The flu shot has been given to millions of pregnant women over many years. Flu shots have not been shown to cause harm to pregnant women or their babies.1

If that’s not a strong enough assurance, the CDC goes on to state in no uncertain terms, “The flu shot is safe for pregnant and breastfeeding women and their infants.”2 The CDC explains specifically how the flu vaccine helps the baby in utero:

When you get your flu shot, your body starts to make antibodies that help protect you against the flu. Antibodies can be passed on to your unborn baby, and help protect the baby for up to 6 months after he or she is born.2

However, the package insert for the flu vaccine—Flulaval Quadrivalent—reads: “Safety and effectiveness of FLULAVAL QUADRIVALENT have not been established in pregnant women or nursing mothers.”3

So is the flu vaccine safe for pregnant mothers and their unborn babies, or not?

The CDC believes it is, and it is joined by a wide range of professional medical and healthcare associations and organizations, including the American Academy of Family Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Nurse-Midwives, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American Medical Association, American Nurses Association, American Pharmacists Association, Associations of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses, March of Dimes, and National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, National Influenza Vaccine Summit.

In a letter written to healthcare providers on December 5, 2011, these groups asked physicians and nurses to urge their “pregnant and postpartum patients to get vaccinated against seasonal influenza.”4 5

The letter states: “Influenza vaccine is safe,” and it repeats the CDC’s reassurance:

Influenza vaccines have been given to millions of pregnant women over the last decade and have not been shown to cause harm to women or their infants.5

So there is a discrepancy between what the U.S. government and the medical profession are telling the American public and what is clearly written on the Flulaval Quadrivalent package insert. Are there any doctors who would contradict the CDC and all those professional associations and organizations?

Apparently, there are. One of the most outspoken of these is former neurosurgeon Russell Blaylock, MD. In a lecture presentation he gave at Belhaven College in Jackson, MS in October 2008, Dr. Blaylock acknowledged that the notion that all pregnant women should get the flu vaccine is being widely promoted, including on television. His response to this was about a blunt as anyone could be. “I cannot think of anything more insane than vaccinating pregnant women.”

Dr. Blaylock explained one of the reasons that may have prompted this campaign. He said…

Right now, there’s a lot of concern in the field of neurology and neuroscience of the observation that women who develop the flu during the second trimester in their pregnancy, there’s a very high incidence of their child growing up to develop schizophrenia or autism. And so that led to this idea, well, we should vaccinate all pregnant women against the flu.6

However, the problem, according to Dr. Blaylock, is that the flu virus does not actually transfer from the mother into the baby. It’s not the virus that can cause damage to the baby’s brain and has the potential to result in schizophrenia or autism. He notes the following rather startling physiological dynamic:

What it is is when the mother’s immune system reacts to the virus, the immune chemicals called cytokines transfer through her placenta into the baby, and it’s the cytokines—the immune reaction of her body—that causes the destruction in the baby’s brain and the altered development of the baby’s brain.6

Dr. Blaylock continued…

So, in essence, the way they tested this, they took things that stimulated immunity in the pregnant animal, with no virus whatsoever, no infectious organism, just the immune stimulant, and found it did the same thing. So now you’re taking in the human population, you’re saying, okay well, a small percentage of women are going to get the flu during the flu season during that second trimester of pregnancy, but what we’re going to do, we’re going to stimulate the immunity of every pregnant woman. So what we’re probably going to see in 20 years from now is a tremendous increase in schizophrenia and in autism.6

So the obvious question is, “Don’t doctors know this?” Here’s what Dr. Blaylock had to say:

Well, a lot do. But most of the practicing physicians out there—pediatricians, they don’t know. Most of the OBGYN doctors that are recommending this vaccine to their patients, they don’t know what I know. They’re listening to the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Family Practice, who are telling their members, this is something you should do for the health of your patients. And they don’t understand what I’m telling you right now because they don’t research the literature, they just take the word of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and they are receiving money from the vaccine pharmaceutical companies to promote these vaccines, and that’s been proven.6

One example of the literature to which Dr. Blaylock is referring is a paper published in The Journal of Neuroscience in 2006 titled “Maternal Infection and the Offspring Brain.” The paper’s author, Amaicha Mara Depino, writes:

Cytokines released by the maternal immune system can cross the placenta and enter the fetal circulation. It is well known that cytokines can modulate neuronal proliferation, survival, differentiation, and function. Thus, cytokines released by the maternal immune system (and/or the placental or fetal immune system) in response to infection may be responsible for the interaction between maternal infection during pregnancy, altered neuronal development, and mental diseases.7

The implication, therefore, is that the misinformation that is being put out by the CDC and the vast segment of the medical profession in the U.S. is being done out of plain ignorance and willful negligence. After all, it’s not as if the maker of the flu vaccine—Sanofi Pasteur—went to any great lengths to deceive anyone. In fact, the opposite. It clearly stated: “Safety and effectiveness of FLULAVAL QUADRIVALENT have not been established in pregnant women or nursing mothers.”3 

This may be a classic case of “groupthink,” defined by Wikipedia as, “a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people, in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome.”8 


References:

1 Centers for Disease Control. Pregnant Women & Influenza (Flu). CDC N.d.
2 Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Pregnant Women Need a Flu Shot. CDC N.d.
3 Federal Drug Administration. Sanofi Pasteur 450/477 Fluzone® Quadrivalent. FDA Aug. 15, 2014.
4 American Academy of Pediatrics. Immunization. AAP N.d.
5 Department of Health & Human Services. Influenza Pregnancy Letter. Dec. 5, 2011.
6 Blaylock R. Vaccinations and Brain Development. October 2008.
7 Depino AM. Maternal Infection and the Offspring Brain. The Journal of Neuroscience July 26, 2006.
8 Groupthink. Wikipedia N.d.

12 Responses

  1. As a mother and grandmother, the mantra of the day for pregnant women was no alcohol, no cigarettes, no drugs, and certainly no vaccines. Nutrition, exercise, sleep – I ask – are they trying to kill us? The number of vaccines now “recommended” by the CDC and pushed by pHARMa (PHrma) the trade associations and “professional” associations is mind boggling – I’ve read the 2010 Health and Human Services report on their success with the Plan for more vaccines. Paul Offit’s rotavirus is one that is on the recommended table and where are the stories about the children in the Mexican town where 75% of the children were hospitalized and 3 babies died after the “health workers” vaccinated the kids. The mainstream AND even NPR is totally one sided on these issues. NO wonder – Bill and Melinda Gates are now “supporting” NPR. – So along with the Rockefeller and Carnegie groups – it is a done deal as to what you will learn on NPR about the danger of vaccines and the harm the media is doing with pushing their agenda.

  2. “The flu shot has been given to millions of pregnant women over many years. Flu shots have not been shown to cause harm to pregnant women or their babies.”

    This is a lie! It’s only been recently that doctors have willingly done this knowing the ramifications from the past, that this sort of thing can damage the unborn. It’s heinous and evil!

  3. I was talked into a flu vaccine when I was pregnant in 1996. My daughter from that pregnancy now has autism. Not sure where they get their information that it doesn’t harm the developing fetus.

  4. I am against the Flu shot for pregnant woman at all there is not enough studies that i can see that says it is not going to harm the unborn child!!! My daughter in law was pregnant this past year for twin girls the nurse practically forced her to get the shot (1st Pregnancy) she didn’t know anything the nurse made her feel like she was a bad person if she didn’t get the shot!!! She got very ill and 2 weeks later lost one of the twins!!! The doctors did every blood test they could to see what it could have been and found nothing! Her pregnancy was normal until that she was 24 weeks she had ultrasounds every other week! before this. Now one year later another family member who happened to be 4 months pregnant and was acutely forced a work to get the flu shot lost her baby!!! What are the odds of that/

  5. If you watch Trace Amounts, it has a heartbreaking story about a doctor who gave a flu shot to a pregnant mom, and watched in horror as one of her twins died in the womb and the other was born with serious disabilities. He doesn’t give them any more.

    There are lots and lots of stories of miscarriages following vaccinations while pregnant.

    It is all very sad…

  6. 31 March 2016
    Influenza vaccination during pregnancy may reduce stillbirth risk
    WA Health researchers, in collaboration with the Telethon Kids Institute, have discovered that pregnant women who receive the seasonal influenza vaccination are less likely to experience a stillbirth than unvaccinated mothers.
    The retrospective study used records to examine nearly 60,000 Western Australian births that occurred during the 2012 and 2013 seasonal influenza epidemics. The cohort included 52,932 mothers who had not received the vaccine and 5076 mothers who had been vaccinated.
    The risk of stillbirth among vaccinated mothers was 51 per cent lower than the risk among women who had not been vaccinated.
    WA Health Communicable Disease Control Directorate Project Officer and study author Annette Regan said that the results were particularly exciting as it showed vaccination could help reduce the stillbirth rates for mothers-to-be.
    “It is widely accepted that pregnancy puts women at an increased risk of developing serious complications related to influenza, including acute respiratory distress syndrome and pneumonia. This study also suggests that foetal mortality is linked to influenza infection during pregnancy,” she said.
    “In the past 12 months there has been a significant uptake in the number of pregnant women receiving the antenatal pertussis vaccination, yet the number of women receiving the antenatal influenza vaccination is still low.
    “Approximately 40 per cent of pregnant women in Western Australia do not receive the influenza vaccine, which means both they and their unborn baby are missing out on protection. This lower uptake rate may be due to concerns about the safety of influenza vaccination during pregnancy.
    “As a direct result of this research WA Health will be broadening its 2016 seasonal influenza vaccination promotions to better educate consumers and health professionals on the health benefits of the influenza vaccination during pregnancy.”
    The research published today in the Clinical Infectious Diseases Journal (external site) by theInfectious Disease Society of America (IDSA) (external site), also showed that stillbirth rates increased after influenza virus circulation periods and decreased prior to the influenza season.
    Although these seasonal differences were not statistically significant, they were consistent with results from a study in Switzerland in 2000 which showed the incidence of stillbirth increased in relation to the northern hemisphere’s influenza season, as well as with similar research conducted during the influenza A/H1N1 pandemic.
    “The findings support the safety of influenza vaccination during pregnancy, and also suggest that vaccination protects against stillbirth,” Ms Regan said.
    “With more than three million stillbirths occurring worldwide each year, establishing a connection between influenza season, vaccination and stillbirth could have global implications for infant mortality.
    “While further research is needed to confirm these links, the findings of this study should encourage expectant mothers and health care providers to discuss the safety and benefits of receiving the influenza vaccine during pregnancy.”
    Media contact: 9222 4333
    Follow us on Twitter: @WAHealth
    NOTE “”The risk of stillbirth among vaccinated mothers was 51 per cent lower than the risk among women who had not been vaccinated.”””””””””””””””””””please explain ms regan, who elsewhere in the daily news UK, is presented as a researcher with the Univeristy of Western Australia?

    1. Are you serious?! Did you look at the two groupsl sizes?!52,932 compared to 5076! You need to go back to college to understand probability and statistics! They had to get a group over 10x the size of their vacinated group so they could say that 51% was lower. In the words of my politics professor, “figures don’t lie, but a liar can figure”

      * So just to make it clear if you took only half of the unvaccinated 26,466 compared to the vaccinated 5076 they can’t claim 51% lower and if anything those numbers don’t look so great!

  7. OH, Annette Regan, a young un, who studied some obscure thing in USA, and worked for CDC, suddenly arrives in Western Australia, is doing her phD at University of Western Australia, actually works in the Health Department, and claims she is a renowned expert in studies at the prestigious University of Western Australia??????????????? cough, cough cough…. FRAUD< FRAUD< backed up by a Health Minister, who is in disgrace, as his u beaut new hospital Fional Stanley Hospital, has outsourced everything, yes, the trays for the operations, are full of scalpel blades, and other equipment, covered in blood from previous operations? How disgusting.

  8. The above report, is a public health release, last Thursday/Friday from Western Australian Public Health Department, I copied it, because damn, I bet it is withdrawn now. If not Kim Hames and his Ms Regan, are stupider than I could imagine!

  9. I’ve read the whole study from Australia and there are some major problems. It seems to me that the numbers were worked with until they found some kind of statistical advantage. The unvaccinated vs vaccinated and stillbirth numbers were not reported ANYWHERE in the study. Instead, that very simple data is broken down into “pregnancy days”, and reported as risk PER 1,000 pregnancy days! Considering that women are only counted as having a stillbirth after 20 weeks, this means that each woman can only really have about 140-150 “pregnancy days”. So who care what her risk is PER 1,000 pregnancy days?! I looked up “risk per pregnancy days” and this is the only study that came up. It’s not a normal measurement of risk and it means nothing. The study includes every risk factor for stillbirth including smoking, drug usage, and many other health factors, but fails to include the info for the stillbirths in the vaccinated vs unvaccinated groups, which was THE ENTIRE POINT OF THE STUDY.

    I smell a rat.

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