Before being sold on this shot, read its reviews

Dear Reader,

When GlaxoSmithKline’s new shot for shingles was launched at the end of last year, it certainly got the red-carpet treatment!

The mainstream media, along with the CDC, immediately started praising it as the greatest thing since sliced bread, saying that everyone 50 and older needs to run down to their nearest pharmacy and roll up their sleeve for a jab of Shingrix.

And as we told you at that time: Not so fast. Eight months later, that advice still stands.

The reviews are in… and to say the least, it’s not looking good.

If you’ve been scared silly about the possibility that you might come down with a painful shingles attack… and you’re wondering whether to get this vaccine… you need to know what people who have gotten the shot are saying about it.

It’s been so bad after the first injection that doctors are worried that folks will “hesitate to return” for the second (which is given several months later).

But what those docs won’t tell you is that there’s an easy way you can dodge a shingles outbreak in the first place — no jab needed!

Scarier than shingles

You know those online reviews that you pore over before buying a washer, television, or refrigerator? Now that Shingrix has been on the market for a few months, here’s what a sampling of those who took this “shot in the dark” are saying.

After the first of her two-shot Shingrix Rx, Mary wrote on a drug information website that she was on her seventh day of “exhaustion, body aches, headache, and no appetite” after the injection and “won’t be getting a second dose.”

Marie experienced the same side effects, only hers were so bad that she couldn’t even get out of bed for days after receiving the Shingrix vaccine.

Franc had stomach pain, vomiting, and fever… headache, chills, and sore joints… AND an arm that was hot, swollen, and extremely red at the injection site.

Pat suffered chills, nausea, fever, headache, and lethargy after the vaccine, while Dave still couldn’t lift his arm five full days afterwards. Carolina said that the shot reactivated her fibro and IBS-D.

I could go on and on.

Actually, that concern is so widespread that doctors heard similar reports at a recent medical convention – and with side effects such as those, patients will “hesitate to return,” they said.

Needless to say, not returning for the second shot would be a very good thing!

Even better, however, would be to hesitate a long, long time before you get the first.

Because I’ve done some digging into Shingrix, and what I found out is even scarier than the prospect of shingles itself.

The shot contains an ingredient called an adjuvant, which is simply a chemical added to a vaccine so it works better. The one in Shingrix is called QS-21 Stimulon, which its manufacturer explains is “extracted” from the bark of an evergreen tree.

So far, not so good, because Stimulon has been in the scientific loop for decades as researchers tried every which way to find a way to safely use it.

Only two years ago, even scientists from the National Institutes of Health reported that while it’s an extremely “potent” adjuvant, it’s just too toxic to use in people. When they did experiments with it on sheep, QS-21 caused their red blood cells to self-destruct – and that was at a dose only one-tenth of what’s used in Shingrix!

So, what’s been done since that time to make QS-21 safe enough to shoot into hundreds of thousands of seniors? Obviously, we just don’t know. What we do know, however, is that seven members of the CDC advisory panel voted against the vaccine’s approval, with one saying that it could conceivably start causing a slew of “unanticipated side effects.”

Obviously, no one wants to suffer an attack of shingles or the pain, blisters, and intense itching and burning that come along with it.

But you also shouldn’t be asked to become a guinea pig so that pharma can see if it cracked the nut of how to use QS-21 safely!

Instead, why not take the advice of HSI advisory panel member Dr. Allan Spreen? Take a daily dose of 500 mcg of vitamin B12 to protect your nervous system.

And if shingles should strike, that’s when you do, in fact, want a shot – a shot of the same vitamin B12, which has been shown to significantly shorten the duration of a shingles attack.

“Doctors worry Shingrix side effects will put patients off their second dose” Eric Sagonowsky, FiercePharma, fiercepharma.com