The Controversy Around Homeopathic Vaccine for Preventing Flu

The Art of Relaxation (Dr. Noorali Bharwani)
The Art of Relaxation (Dr. Noorali Bharwani)

“Homeopathic vaccines hurt people and hurt our society. Warning labels will help but nosodes should be banned,” says Canadian Medical Association (CMA) president-elect Dr. Chris Simpson. He was expressing his thoughts on Twitter on the subject of homeopathic remedies.

According to Wikipedia, homeopathy is a system of alternative medicine created in 1796 by Samuel Hahnemann, based on his doctrine of “like cures like”, according to which a substance that causes the symptoms of a disease in healthy people will cure similar symptoms in sick people. Homeopathic remedies are found to be no more than a placebo, and homeopathy is widely considered a pseudoscience.

Those who believe in homeopathic therapy will not agree with what CMA or Wikipedia has to say. But I would like to summarize what their opinion is and let the readers decide what is good for them. Unfortunately, doctors cannot cure everything and people tend to go for alternative therapies. It comes down to personal choice.

According to CMA article, nosodes is advertised and sold in Canada to prevent flu and other illnesses but carry the potential for harm. Nosodes are ultra diluted forms of diseased tissue, pus, blood, or excretions of a sick person or animal that some homeopaths and naturopaths sell.

Health Canada has new guidelines for nosodes licensing. The guidelines require the packages to be labeled with a warning: “This product is not intended to be an alternative to vaccination.”

Members of the BC Medical Association and CMA have written letters to the federal government asking for stricter standards to be applied to natural health products to ensure what goes on the shelf is safe and effective, says a media report.

Health Canada says nosodes are not vaccines. It goes on to say, “Health Canada has not licensed any homeopathic medicines for the purpose of providing immunity to a communicable disease. Vaccinating yourself and your children continues to be the most effective way to prevent and control vaccine-preventable diseases.”

Get ready for the flu season. Do not forget to protect yourselves with vaccinations, healthy diet and regular exercise. Remember what Thomas La Mance said, “Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans.” I know about that quite well. Cheers. Talk to you again soon. Stay healthy.

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Shingles Vaccine may be Viewed as a Quality of Life Vaccine

An example of shingles. (iStockphoto/Thinkstock)
An example of shingles. (iStockphoto/Thinkstock)


A man with shingles of the face.

Shingles is caused by chickenpox virus called varicella zoster virus. The first indications that chickenpox and shingles were caused by the same virus were noticed at the beginning of the 20th century.

The incidence of shingles is mainly in adults. There are approximately four cases per 1000 population per year and a lifetime risk of 20 to 30 per cent.

Chickenpox generally occurs in children. Once the child gets over the illness the virus does not disappear from the body. Virus can settle down in one of the nerve cell bodies and lay dormant for many years.

When your resistance is low and this can be due to any reason, the virus may break out of the nerve cell and travel down the nerve causing viral infection of the skin in the area supplied by that nerve. This can happen decades after the chickenpox infection. Exactly how the virus remains latent in the body, and subsequently re-activates is not understood.

Shingles starts with burning pain, itching and tingling followed by painful rash and blisters in the area supplied by the affected nerve. The pain and rash most commonly occurs on the torso, but can appear on the face, eyes or other parts of the body. If the nerve to the eye is involved then a person may suffer loss of vision. It usually affects one nerve on one side of the body.

The rash and blisters heal within two to four weeks but some sufferers experience residual nerve pain for months or years. This condition is known as postherpetic neuralgia. About 20 per cent of patients with shingles suffer from this.

If the diagnosis of shingles is made early then it helps to start antiviral medications within 72 hours of the appearance of the rash. This reduces the severity and duration of the illness. The antiviral medications should be used for seven to ten days. The blisters crust over within seven to ten days, and usually the crusts fall off and the skin heals. But sometimes after severe blistering, scarring and discolored skin remains.

Until the rash has developed crusts, a person is extremely contagious. During the blister phase, direct contact with the rash can spread the virus to a person who has no immunity to the virus. This newly infected individual may then develop chickenpox, but will not immediately develop shingles.

Since 2008-2009, a vaccine for shingles is available for adults age 60 and over. The vaccine is used to boost the waning immunity to the virus that occurs with aging. The effectiveness of the vaccine is about 60 per cent. It is kind of a “quality of life” vaccine. It does not prevent death from shingles (an extremely rare event) but does help with postherpetic neuralgia (pain).

Booster doses of the vaccine are not recommended for healthy individuals. The efficacy of protection has not been assessed beyond four years and it is not known whether booster doses of vaccine are beneficial. This recommendation may need to be revisited as further information becomes available.

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Ten Reasons Why I Had H1N1 Vaccination

H1N1 influenza virus treatment collage. (iStockphoto/Thinkstock)
H1N1 influenza virus treatment collage. (iStockphoto/Thinkstock)

Recently, President Barack Obama declared swine flu a U.S. national emergency. His daughters, Malia (age 10) with Sasha (age 8) received their H1N1 vaccinations last week. The President and the First Lady will wait their turn as they do not meet the priority criteria. That did surprise me. I thought the world’s most powerful man would be protected first. But that is another story.

In Canada, our Prime Minister, first sounded hesitant, then changed his mind and said he plans to get the vaccine. About half of the Canadians are not sure if they would get the vaccine to prevent H1N1. What are they afraid of, side effects from the vaccine?

Except for taxes and death, there are no guarantees in life. If you are afraid of complications or dying from receiving the vaccine then look at the daily risks you take when you cross a street, drive a vehicle, fly in a plane, smoke like a chimney, drink alcohol, take any kind of medications (they all have some side effects), undergo surgery and I can go on and on.

So, here are 10 reasons why my family, my office staff and I had H1N1 vaccination (information provided here has been gathered from various very reliable sources):

1.To start with, the vaccine costs about $8 a dose. We, the tax payers, through the Federal and Provincial governments, are spending more than $400-million for the product plus the costs of administration.

2.Without vaccine and antiviral medication, between 25 and 35 per cent of the Canadian population could become ill over a period of a few months. Of the people who get the H1N1 virus, about one in 1,000 will become gravely ill and have to be hospitalized. Out of those, one in five will die.

3.H1N1 is more serious disease than common cold or seasonal flu. It is unusual for common cold or seasonal flu to infect the lungs. It is usually confined to the nose and throat and may be the upper airway. H1N1 virus also infects the airway, but in some individuals, it continues to move down and infect the lungs. The H1N1 virus causes lung infection much more often and more completely, that is why some people have ended up in intensive care units or even died from complications of the virus.

4.I believe Health Canada when it says the vaccine is safe. There are no credible reports to the contrary. Health Canada says there have been no shortcuts taken in the approval process. We have been giving flu shots for decades and this is just another flu shot. Data from Europe says that this vaccine is safe and effective.

5.Adjuvant vs. non-adjuvant. The adjuvant vaccine is made up of two natural fats: vitamin E and squalene which is a molecule your body makes (the squalene in the vaccine comes from fish oil). The adjuvanted vaccine gives a better and faster immune response than the non-adjuvanted vaccine.

6.Is squalene a problem? Reports I have read says that our liver makes squalene all the time. It is a natural compound. It has never been scientifically linked to Gulf War syndrome, an illness reported by combat veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf War – fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, eczema, and dyspepsia.

7.The preservative in the vaccine is thimerosol. Thimerosol has never been credibly linked to any health problems, including autism.

8.Nobody has died because of the vaccine. It takes about 10-14 days to develop immunity post vaccine. Influenza vaccines are not 100 per cent effective. It is possible to get H1N1 after the vaccination. However, chances are the symptoms will be milder. Getting the H1N1 vaccine does not mean you will not get sick this winter; there are other strains of flu and numerous other viruses and bacteria that circulate.

9.Pregnant women, whose immune systems are suppressed, are at high risk of complications from the flu. The World Health Organization says pregnant women should get non-adjuvanted vaccine where possible, but that an adjuvanted vaccine could be used if necessary. There are no studies to suggest that adjuvanted vaccine is harmful to pregnant women.

10.Benefits outweigh the risks of vaccination. So I did this to protect myself and the people around me.

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Vaccination for Adults

When you are a child, quite often you don’t have a choice. You have to get immunized against various disabling and life threatening illnesses. When you become an adult, you are too busy making a living and raising a family. You don’t think about immunization unless somebody reminds you or if you have to travel outside the country.

A website on immunization says, “Getting immunized is a lifelong, life-protecting job. You’re never too old to get immunized.”

There is a long list of adult immunization vaccines. Here is the list – influenza, Pneumococcal, tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis (Td, Tdap), hepatitis B (HepB), hepatitis A (HepA), human papillomavirus (HPV), measles, mumps, rubella (MMR), varicella (Chickenpox), meningococcal and zoster (shingles). For more information you should talk to somebody in the health unit or visit www.vaccineinformation.org

If you are planning to travel outside Canada, then your need for vaccination will depend on your destination and environmental conditions prevalent in that part of the world. The standard of hygiene, the quality of food and water will determine what kind of illness is prevalent in that country. At home or in foreign countries careful selection and handling of food and water will prevent many illnesses.

You should consult your local health unit three months before your date of travel to get all the information about your vaccination needs. This will give you enough time to complete the immunization schedule. A listing of travel clinics across Canada can be found at the Public Health Agency of Canada’s Travel Medicine Program at www.travelhealth.gc.ca.

It is estimated that two million Canadians will travel this year to developing countries. Many of these Canadians will be returning to their land of origin to meet friends and families. Many Canadians go overseas as volunteers to the world’s poorest people to help build houses or work in their hospitals or orphanages.

Studies have shown that 75 per cent of people who go abroad develop some kind of travel-related illnesses affecting their stomach or bowel, dengue fever, malaria and typhoid fever. These are just a few examples. It is also unfortunate that only 15 per cent of international travelers visit travel health clinics before they go abroad. Why?

Cost of vaccinations is one of the main reasons why many people avoid immunization. An article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) says that a family of four going to a yellow fever zone in West Africa for one month would need to spend at least $1900 on vaccines alone. So what happens? Eighty five per cent of travelers avoid spending that kind of money. Hence they return to Canada with travel-related illnesses. The cost of treating these patients in our health care institutions costs millions of dollars. Would it be cheaper for provincial governments to provide vaccinations free? That is a question that needs to be considered by the provincial governments. In the mean time if you are planning to go abroad, make sure you budget for travel related vaccinations.

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