Recently, a new meningitis B vaccine, Trumenba (manufactured by Pfizer), was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The US is the first country to have approved Trumenba, which means that the US Centres for Disease Control will soon start to make recommendations about how this vaccine should be used… and on who.

Similar plans are on their way in the UK, with Novartis’s vaccine Bexsero.

But whatever you do, don’t bite the bait about the ‘need’ to get this vaccine.

Yet another hysteric epidemic

Earlier this year, a small group of university students in the US came down with meningitis B. As expected, medical authorities became hysterical, the media jumped on the bandwagon and before our American friends knew it, the CDC announced that a meningitis B “epidemic” was looming.

To stop this “epidemic” in its tracks the CDC allowed the unapproved vaccine Bexsero to get emergency use status. Without a second thought, students were told to roll up their sleeves for a shot of Bexsero… to help contain and prevent this big, scary, “emergency”.

The first thought that springs to mind about this so-called “epidemic”, is that it was yet another creation of Big Pharma because, in reality, there were only seven cases of meningitis B over a nine month period of time.

The truth is, meningitis B is extremely rare. Yes, it can be life-threatening (especially for babies and small children) but it is estimated that only about 1,200 people get meningitis B each year, in the UK. In 2012, the FDA said there were only 160 cases throughout the US.

Those are hardly “epidemic” numbers if you ask me…

Currently in the UK, the National Health Service (NHS) is working towards introducing Novartis’s Bexsero vaccine as part of the child immunisation programme. However, until it has been approved it is only available privately at a cost of £75 a shot.

Here’s what the NHS says on its website about Bexsero:

“Bexsero, seems to provide good protection against meningitis B infection, although we can’t know exactly how effective it is until it’s used routinely in a large population.

There are hundreds of different meningitis B strains around the world and some tests predict that the new vaccine will protect against almost 90 per cent of meningitis B strains circulating in the UK. But it’s not clear how this will relate to lives saved or cases prevented.“

Seems like a lot of uncertainty to me…

But the plot thickens… While all the “epidemic” hysteria was going on in the US, another drug company moved fast to cash in on the scare.

Pfizer had been tinkering with its own meningitis B vaccine. So when the “epidemic” alarm was sounded, it rushed its vaccine Trumenba to the FDA for fast-tracked approval under the “breakthrough therapy” label.

Pfizer’s plan worked. (Kerrrrrching!!!)

However, just like Bexsero there is absolutely no way of telling whether Trumenba will work or not. In fact, Trumenba was approved on a roll of the dice. Maybe it will work, maybe it won’t, no one really knows for sure. Even if Trumenba ends up giving some protection to a degree, the length of time the protection will last poses another big question. No one knows.

Then there’s the issue about the level of protection. While Bexsero may protect against 90 per cent of meningitis B strains (remember the NHS cannot say for sure), Trumenba, according to the FDA, only works against 4 meningitis B strains.

Here’s the real kicker, according to the CDC, at any given time, up to 10 per cent of us already have the bacteria in our nose or throat but will never develop symptoms. In other words, people who carry the bacteria have already developed immunity against the disease.

Another thing the CDC admits about the bacteria that causes meningitis, the B strain included, is that it’s pretty hard to spread. The bacteria don’t live very long outside of the human body, and can only be spread by close contact. You can’t catch it by being in the same room with someone who has it, or picking up things they’ve touched.

Meningitis is also not spread through the air and is very unlikely to spread rapidly in places like schools or in offices.

If you feel that you want to give yourself extra protection against infections, there are many other tried and tested ways like getting more sleep, eating a healthy and balanced diet, and taking some immune-building supplements including vitamins C, D and E, olive leaf extract and zinc.

All of which are certainly better than allowing yourself or your children or grandchildren to get vaccines that are not properly tested and that have a huge cloud of uncertainty hanging over them.

In fact, US Researchers from Winthrop University Hospital in Mineola, concluded that vitamin D stimulated natural immunity to viruses and bacteria… The researchers also confirmed
that the decline in vitamin D levels in the population between November and March is the reason for the peak in flu-related infections during these winter months.

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Bear in mind all the material in this email alert is provided for information purposes only. We are not addressing anyone’s personal situation. Please consult with your own physician before acting on any recommendations contained herein.

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Sources:

“F.D.A. approves Pfizer’s Trumenba, a vaccine for a rare meningitis” Katie Thomas, October 29, 2014, The New York Times, nytimes.com

CDC telebriefing: Status of serogroup B meningitis cases in the United States, cdc.gov

Meningitis B Vaccine, published online, nhs.uk/Conditions/vaccinations/Pages/meningitis-B-vaccine.aspx