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 More people than ever are reportedly sick this winter,1 including those who got their flu vaccination. But while the push for vaccination reaches a fever pitch, the hard evidence has yet again shown that flu vaccines rarely work, and when they do, they don’t offer much in terms of protection.

 There are many other, far more effective ways to prevent the flu and other flu-like illness, such as dietary interventions, making sure your vitamin D and gut flora are optimized, being more meticulous about washing your hands, getting enough exercise and sleep, and eating foods that support your immune system like oil of oregano and garlic.

Multiple Epidemics Emerging at Once

 According to the
New York Times, the United States is in the middle of not just one, but three emerging flu or flulike epidemics:

     -An early start to the annual flu season with “an unusually aggressive virus”     
     -A surge in a new type of norovirus (“stomach flu”), known as the Sydney 2012 variant, and     
     -“The worst whooping cough (pertussis) outbreak in 60 years”

 Boston has declared a health emergency, as hospitals are filling up. In New York, many are also coming down with laryngitis, characterized by a sore, scratchy throat, and sometimes loss of voice. Other infections also appear to be widespread. One of the researchers on my staff was recently ill with severe flu-like symptoms. She told me:

    
“I just went through this over Christmas/New Years. I was around an Alzheimer’s patient who’d been sick. I was helping him get seated in a chair when he began coughing in my face. Two days later I had a fever of 101.2 and really felt bad. I also was coughing. I went to my doctor, who did a flu test. But it was NOT the flu… a few tests later,

     I found out I had strep with a cough. It lasts about a week, the fever about three days. The doctor said it’s ‘terribly contagious’ and it’s going around ‘all over.’

     Since then I’ve talked to many people locally who said they came down with this ‘flu’ even though they had a flu shot (I never get them myself)… yet I’m the only one I’ve talked with whose doctor bothered to actually do tests to determine whether it was flu or not — everybody else’s doctor just assumed it was flu. Makes me wonder how much of this reported ‘flu’ is flu, and how much is this strep-with-cough thing that I had?”