Tag: Ashley Everly

Getting Advice About Flu Vaccines

As flu season approaches, it seems like everyone wants to give you advice about flu vaccines.

How do you know who to listen to?

Getting Advice About Flu Vaccines

How do you know who’s advice to avoid?

Amanda Bitz wrote a popular post with some good advice.

The best advice about flu vaccines is going to include a recommendation to get vaccinated and protected.
You getting the flu shot, should be a thing.

Another nurse thought she could do a little better…

Exercising and drinking clean water isn't going to help you avoid getting the flu...
A healthy person can’t pass illness to anyone unless they get sick with the flu…

Nurse Sherri wasn’t the only one who felt the need to write a response after reading a post with advice about flu vaccines.

Great advice about flu vaccines!
XOXO – save each other – vaccinate!

Not surprisingly, anti-vax folks have not liked Beth Purkey’s post.

The holistic lioness is probably the worst person to go to for advice about flu vaccines.
XOXO – Save this generation, the next and the ones to follow – DON’T VACCINATE?

What can you see in their responses?

An anti-vaccine toxicologist is not someone you want to go to for advice about flu vaccines.
Herd immunity cannot be achieved by vaccines?

Mostly that they cherry pick a few case reports and studies that they think fit their narrative – that flu vaccines are dangerous, don’t work, and that getting the flu ain’t so bad.

And they top it off with a few conspiracy theories, stuff about shedding, and lots of talk about vaccine inserts.

So who do you want to get advice about flu vaccines from?

Who do you want taking care of you in the hospital if you are sick?

An anti-vaccine nurse is not a good person to go to for advice about flu vaccines.
Lindsey wasn’t trying to scare anyone, she was empowering them with facts so they could make a choice and feel LESS FEARFUL of naturally occurring pathogens that we live amongst all day, every day.

Folks trying to sell you stuff, from essential oils and CBD oil to misinformation about vaccines and the flu, or an “ACTUAL certified medical professional” who knows what they are talking about?

“The single best way to prevent seasonal flu is to get vaccinated each year, but good health habits like covering your cough and washing your hands often can help stop the spread of germs and prevent respiratory illnesses like the flu.”

Healthy Habits to Help Prevent Flu

How serious are you about wanting to avoid getting the flu and keeping your family healthy?

Have you gotten your flu shot yet?

Has your family?

More on Flu Vaccines

Is the CDC Hiding MMR Excipients?

Have you heard the latest conspiracy theory – that the CDC is hiding MMR excipients? Depending on who you are supposed to believe, “they” recently removed either WI-38 or MRC-5 DNA and Cellular Protein from the MMR II excipient list.

I wonder why Ashley Everly and Hillary Simpson didn’t look at the 2012 list of excipients and ingredients…

Is it true?

Is there a conspiracy at CDC to hide vaccine ingredients?

Is the CDC Hiding MMR Excipients?

Of course not!

Where were the WI-38 cells in the 2007 excipient list?

As most folks should know by now, it is hard to change and hide stuff on the Internet, as nearly all pages are archived.

What does that mean?

You can easily look up and see how a page looked yesterday, last week, last month, or last year. Or in the case of the CDC Vaccine Excipient and Media list, over 12 years ago!

And guess what?

MRC-5 cells were never on the MMR list because the MMR vaccine isn’t made with MRC-5 cells!

The MMR vaccine is made with chick embryo fibroblasts and WI-38 human diploid lung fibroblasts, but since neither remain in the final vaccine, they aren’t on the latest excipient list. They can still be found in vaccine’s package insert.

Substances used in the manufacture of a vaccine but not actually listed as contained in the final vaccine can be found in the package insert for the vaccine, but are no longer shown on the excipient table.

This change to the excipient list was made in 2019.

Why the change?

Probably because this more accurately reflects what’s in the vaccine! Remember, many of the things that are used to make a vaccine get filtered out along the way.

Interestingly, while chick embryo fibroblasts were on the original excipient list, in 2007, WI-38 human diploid lung fibroblasts weren’t.

From 2012 to 2019, the excipient list did include substances that were removed from the final vaccine.

They were briefly added, but then both were removed with the change to the excipient list in 2019.

And that’s why anti-vax folks think that there is some conspiracy to hide them.

A conspiracy to hide these excipients that explains that why excipients are not included on the list and not only tells you where to find them, in the vaccine’s package insert, but also includes a link to find them?

The vaccine package insert still lists excipients that might not remain the final vaccine and aren’t on the excipient list.

Have anti-vax folks run out of things to be scared of?

Still think that there is a conspiracy to hide excipients?

Consider that the Vaccine excipient table at the Institute of Vaccine Safety, maintained since 2006, has never listed WI-38 cells…

More on Anti-Vax Conspiracy Theories

Risks and Benefits of Vaccines – Anti-Vax Edition

Anti-vax folks like to say that they are doing their research, even collecting that research into handy binders. And they like to think that they are looking at both the risks and benefits of vaccines when they make their decision to skip or delay their child’s vaccines.

When anti-vax folks look at the risks and benefits of vaccines, they see lots of risks and few benefits.
When anti-vax folks look at the risks and benefits of vaccines, they see lots of risks and few benefits.

Like their research, their method of considering the risks and benefits of vaccines is very flawed…

Risks and Benefits of Vaccines – Anti-Vax Edition

What’s the first thing you notice when you look at Ashley Everly‘s chart?

She doesn’t have a column for when a child Should Be Vaccinated!

Although there are no optional vaccines, there are some situations in which getting vaccinated and protected is truly essential, including:

  • a child bitten by a dog, coyote, or bat with rabies
  • a completely unvaccinated teen who gets a deep puncture wound while playing in a field
  • a baby born to a mother with hepatitis B
  • an unvaccinated older teen living in a dorm on a college campus where there is an ongoing outbreak of meningococcemia
  • a preschooler with a cochlear implant
  • an unvaccinated 1st grader who’s sibling is starting chemotherapy for leukemia
  • unvaccinated kids traveling out of the country to parts of the world where vaccine-preventable diseases are still endemic
  • a child with asplenia

Does she really think that the benefits of the rabies vaccine don’t outweigh the risks? Does she understand what happens if you get rabies, even if your child has access to nutritious food, clean drinking water, and emergency medical care?

Who Should Not Be Vaccinated?

What else is wrong with Ashley Everly‘s risk and benefit chart?

Most of the things on her list of who should not be vaccinated are not true contraindications.

Of course, the one about having a “previous vaccine injury or serious reaction” would likely be a reason to not get that vaccine again, as long as the injury or reaction was really caused by the vaccine.

Are there situations in which the potential benefit of vaccination might not outweigh the vaccines risks?

“Events or conditions listed as precautions should be reviewed carefully. Benefits of and risks for administering a specific vaccine to a person under these circumstances should be considered. If the risk from the vaccine is believed to outweigh the benefit, the vaccine should not be administered. If the benefit of vaccination is believed to outweigh the risk, the vaccine should be administered. Whether and when to administer DTaP to children with proven or suspected underlying neurologic disorders should be decided on a case-by-case basis.”

ACIP Contraindications and Precautions

Those situations are called precautions.

Fortunately, most are temporary, such as having a “moderate or severe acute illness with or without fever.”

These precautions do not include having a family history of cancer or autoimmune disease.

When Vaccination May Be Unnecessary

Are there any situations in which vaccination may be unnecessary?

There are a few, including:

  • when a disease is eradicated
  • when you aren’t at risk to get a disease and there is little risk that there will be an outbreak in your community or a return if folks stop vaccinating – that’s why we don’t routinely vaccinate against yellow fever, cholera, and typhoid fever, etc. in the United States
  • when you get sick and develop natural immunity

Vaccination is still necessary if a child’s mother is breastfeeding (which doesn’t protect against most vaccine-preventable diseases), has natural immunity to wild type infections (passive immunity quickly wears off), and even if the child has access to nutritious food and clean drinking water.

Nearly two months in the ICU vs getting a tetanus shot… How do the risks and benefits stack up now?

And yes, getting vaccinated and protected is even necessary if a child has access to emergency medical care.

What to Know About the Risks and Benefits of Vaccines

While you should certainly consider the risks and benefits of getting vaccinated, understand that vaccines are safe, with few risks, and very necessary.

More on the Risks and Benefits of Vaccines

Is 100% of Injected Aluminum Absorbed?

We know that aluminum is the new focus of folks who try to scare parents away from vaccinating and protecting their kids.

What are they talking about now?

Raw intake vs metallic exposure? Do they just make this stuff up as they go along?
Raw intake vs metallic exposure? Do they just make this stuff up as they go along?

Metabolic exposure, rates of absorption, and injected aluminum.

Metabolic exposure sounds scarier…

Even fellow anti-vaccine folks don’t really understand what he is talking about, but they are ready to eat it up, as it reflects their world view that vaccines are dangerous.

Is 100% of Injected Aluminum Absorbed?

So is all injected aluminum absorbed, as James Lyons-Weiler suggests in his promotional flyer?

Well, it’s going to be initially absorbed somewhere after the vaccine is injected, but not in the way anti-vaccine folks make you think.

It is not all absorbed into our blood right away! Part of the reason that adjuvants work might be because they act as a depot, allowing the vaccine antigens to remain at the injection site for a longer time to stimulate a good immune response.

“We were reassured to find no significant postvaccine rise in serum aluminum level after vaccination of preterm infants with vaccines containing a total of 1200 µg of aluminum.”

Movsas et al on Effect of Routine Vaccination on Aluminum and Essential Element Levels in Preterm Infants

Remember, vaccines are not injected into our bloodstreams and the aluminum in vaccines, in the form of aluminum salts, is not soluble. That means that they don’t dissolve in liquids, but instead need to be metabolized first.

But then 100% gets absorbed?

Amazingly, one of James Lyons-Weiler's own sources says that only 17% of aluminum adjuvants get absorbed...
Amazingly, James Lyons-Weiler’s ignores one of his own sources that says only 17% of aluminum adjuvants get absorbed…

Nope.

It is estimated that only about 17% of the injected aluminum, in the form of aluminum hydroxide, gets absorbed into the bloodstream.

The Inter-Related Processes of Absorption, Distribution, Biotransformation, and Elimination
In addition to our bloodstream, aluminum adjuvants get absorbed into the lymph system before getting eliminated.

Finally, after being initially injected, metabolized, and absorbed, most of the aluminum in vaccines is eliminated.

How is it eliminated?

Most of it is excreted in our urine.

Is there anything scary about all of that?

More on Absorption of Aluminum in Vaccines