Coming soon to your doctor’s office: yet another risky shot
Now more than ever, you’re going to want to keep your sleeves rolled… all the way down!
A group of experts who advise the CDC on how to write its vaccine recommendations for doctors has just wrapped up its big meeting — and guess what? It’s calling for even more vaccines for you, your kids, and your grandkids!
That CDC vaccine panel has practically gift-wrapped a brand-new shot that I warned you about only last week.
It’s potentially so risky that even those vaccine-happy experts couldn’t all agree that this latest shingles jab was safe enough to recommend for everyone.
A shot in the dark
Christmas has come early this year for drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline.
First came a speedy approval by the FDA for its shingles shot Shingrix. Then, a mere two days later, the CDC advisory committee issued a recommendation that this new shot be used instead of the old standby, Zostavax (previously the only one available).
On top of that preferred status, the panel also advised that even if you’ve received a Zostavax shot, you should still rush out for two jabs of this new one — and that’s starting at age 50.
That’s sure a shot in the arm, all right — for GSK’s bank account!
But getting a Shingrix jab isn’t nearly as cut and dried as the talking heads on TV are making it out to be.
It contains an ingredient called an “adjuvant,” a chemical added to a vaccine to make it work better. Adjuvants can be risky business — and the one in Shingrix, “QS-21,” has been known to produce some nasty side effects in laboratory studies.
And that little detail didn’t go unnoticed by everyone on the CDC panel.
First, seven of its members voted against that across-the-board recommendation on Shingrix.
Some were worried that when the shot goes into widespread use, that adjuvant I told you about could start causing “unanticipated” side effects.
Dr. Kathleen Dooling, a medical officer at the CDC, commented that patients and doctors “should be aware” that Shingrix “causes more reactions” than “other adult vaccines.”
Dr. Dooling also said that “all indications” appear to show that these “reactions” aren’t dangerous to your health, but they can “interfere with your daily activities for a few days.”
Wow, talk about fuzzy math! I would hope that before a vaccine is unleashed on millions, health officials would know a little more about it than that!
But the vaccine panel didn’t just mull over shingles during its two-day shindig. It also had a lot to talk about where mumps is concerned — specifically, why there are so many mumps outbreaks happening across the U.S. in people who are fully immunized against the virus?
Hmm… could it be that the Merck mumps shot isn’t that effective? Could that be because of reportedly fraudulent testing methods done by the drugmaker that made the shot look better than it really is?
But that would be a crime, right?
You bet. And it’s all part of “The United States of America v. Merck & Co.,” an ongoing lawsuit called filed by two former Merck employees who say that they were witnesses to this con.
Since Merck holds an exclusive license to make the mumps vaccine… and the CDC is its biggest customer for the MMR shot (mumps is bundled together with measles and rubella)… that fraud, the lawsuit says, cheated the U.S. government.
So, what did the panel do? It recommended that during an outbreak (which appears to be going on all the time), we should run out and get a third shot!
Obviously, there’s a lot more going on behind the scenes here than Big Pharma wants you to know.
The next time your doctor asks you to roll up your sleeve for a shot, remember that what you’ve been hearing about vaccines — from both him and the mainstream media — is far from the whole story.
“C.D.C. panel recommends a new shingles vaccine” Sheila Kaplan, October 25, 2017, The New York Times, nytimes.com
