Tom Nolan on historic flu remedies
20 Aug, 09 | by BMJ Group
Last week we learnt who will be offered the vaccine against swine flu first. Priority groups include people in high risk groups age between 6 months and 65 years, pregnant women, household contacts of immune-compromised people, and clinical staff. But how many people will actually go and have the vaccine? If a recent poll of nurses in Nursing Times is anything to go by, uptake will be low, as the Daily Mail reports:
“Of 1,500 Nursing Times readers, 30 per cent would not say yes to the vaccine, while 33 per cent said maybe. Just 37 per cent said they would definitely have the jab. Of those who said they would refuse the jab, 60 per cent said their main reason was concern about the safety of the vaccine. A further 31 per cent said they did not consider the risks to their health from swine flu to be great enough, while 9 per cent thought they would not be able to take time off work to get immunised.”
It seems some of the respondents are still not convinced that swine flu is real. One told the Nursing Times: “I have yet to be convinced there is a genuine health risk and it’s not just government propaganda.”
But should nursing and other clinical staff put their worries about their own health to one side for the greater good? Professor David Salisbury, the Department of Health’s director of immunisation, certainly thinks so:
“They have a duty to their patients and they have a duty to their families. I think you solve those responsibilities by being vaccinated.”
Are you worried about having the vaccine? Are you satisfied with its safety? Leave a comment below.
Advertising swineThe Times has been through its archives and found over a dozen adverts for cold and flu cures. One advert, in 1911 for Wincarnis, sounds like it was written only a few weeks ago for one of the tabloids:
“From various parts of the country come reports that influenza is actually raging at the present time and is spreading with alarming rapidity from one person to another.
The only solution is to take Wincarnis, of course:
But – the influenza germ cannot obtain a hold upon you if your system is fortified by Wincarnis. Because Wincarnis creates a plentiful supply of new, rich, re-vitalised blood which, by natures law is so constituted that it is easily able to repel all disease germs.
Another remedy, Milton, seems to have slipped through the net since 1919 after apparently showing great promise:
“In several Lancashire cotton mills they started using Milton during the epidemic last winter, mixing it with the water that is usually sprayed by humidifiers through the workrooms to keep the air damp enough for spinning. The results startled the managements. Influenza disappeared from every mill where Milton was used. The byword was ‘where Milton is, Influenza isn’t.’
If anyone has any Milton lying around please let me know. It might come in handy over the next few months.
Tom Nolan is a GP trainee.
Some info about Swine flu (see all the links at the foot of the page)
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14845
You might also want to research Colloidal silver (in particular a product called Bionaid) kills all viruses
Also another product MMS (chlorine dioxide) invented by Jim Humble does the same and has been shown to cure Malaria
Both of these products are very inexpensive and offer cures. Then where would be if we didn’t get sick? I dare say many of the big Pharma corps would not be very happy
Andy
August 20th, 2009 at 10:24 am
What are the side affects of the vaccine? I know people have really suffered from taking tamiflu
Jenny Ridge
August 20th, 2009 at 11:03 am
Vitamin D3 This is why there will be a wave in September because there will be less sun and therefore less Vitamin D production.
Cod liver oil or Vit D3 supplement will keep you free of Flu and should you catch it just give yourself 2000 iu of D3 a day and you will recover in no time. Tamiflu not required.
If you want to lower your lipids ( take Niacin) its in the BNF.
Dr Rohen Kapur
August 20th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Milton? A mild solution of Bleach?
Dr Rohen Kapur
August 20th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
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August 20th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
Has there been any data (either pre and clinical) released to show that the vaccine has no teratogenic effects?
Side effects in the patient are easier to moniter as they present in a (reasonably) short timeframe.
Unless there is reasonable proof that there are no short or long term effects on the foetus, to run mass vaccination campaigns of pregnant women seems a tad reckless.
Leigh Whittle
August 21st, 2009 at 5:24 am
For anybody concerned about the alleged risks of the vaccine, I can recommend this article:
1. Stowe J, Andrews N, Wise L, Miller E. Investigation of the temporal association of Guillain-Barre syndrome with influenza vaccine and influenzalike illness using the United Kingdom General Practice Research Database. Am J Epidemiol 2009;169(3):382-388 PMID: 19033158. (http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/169/3/382).
Peter English
August 21st, 2009 at 9:56 am
It is quite apparent that there is a considerably higher risk of suffering a complication like Guillain-Barre syndrome if one gets influenza than if one receives the vaccine.
Perhaps we should be proactively recomending vaccination as a way of preventing this “killer nerve disease” (as the Daily Mail likes to call it).
Peter Flegg
August 23rd, 2009 at 11:28 am
Pepper. Pepper from india has good antiviral properties
Nambiar J Dr
August 24th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
The black elderberry seems to have earned its scientific spurs in the fight against the influenza virus …
http://www.blackelderberry.info/index.cfm?id=374#2
… and I would contend that ‘Sambucus Nigra’ has rather weightier scientific credentials than the likes of Tamiflu or Relenza.
And it is alleged that Hippocrates, the ‘father of medicine’, kept the plant in his medicine chest.
http://www.blackelderberry.info/index.cfm?id=362
Dr Mark Struthers
August 28th, 2009 at 10:13 am