Equine Flu. An outbreak leads to all horse racing being cancelled. Mandatory vaccination, so all horses had all been vaccinated.So much for 'herd immunity'!

A bout of equine flu has led to the cancellation of all horse racing in Britain for the next 6-7 days by the British Horseracing Authority. Three horses from a Cheshire stable were tested positive for the disease, and (remarkably) it has been admitted that each one of them had been vaccinated. The result is that several racing events have been cancelled, and various people in the industry have said that it will have a huge impact on the sport, commercially.

Two aspects of this situation have implications for the health debate, and certainly not for horses alone.

1. Mandatory Vaccination. I understand that all horses engaged in horse racing have to be vaccinated. There is, in other words, mandatory vaccination within the industry, something that many people in the conventional medical establishment would like to see happen with human vaccines.
2. Herd Immunity. Conventional medicine, for many years, has promulgated this rather strange theory - that a very large percentage of the at-risk population for a disease have to be vaccinated before vaccines are fully protective!

So, with mandatory vaccination, and 100% coverage, these three horse have still contracted equine flu. Only two conclusions need to be drawn.

1. The equine flu vaccine does not work.
2. The theory of 'Herd Immunity' is utter nonsense.

The same conclusions can be drawn about the effectiveness of human vaccines. 

• Doctors vaccinate for whooping cough (pertussin) but children still get it (although it is now called to the 48 day cough).
• Doctors vaccinate against measles, mumps and rubella, but children continue to get the three diseases.
• People of all ages are encouraged to vaccinate against the flu every year, but flu continues to affects large numbers year by year.

Often, when there are outbreaks of these and other diseases, they are blamed (loudly, publicly) on people who have NOT been vaccinated, only for it later to be found (surreptitiously) that both the vaccinated and unvaccinated were equally involved!

This is when the herd immunity is theory is put forward. It's not the vaccine, we are told, it's the people who refuse the vaccine! How can we expect the vaccine to work unless a certain percentage of the at risk population is vaccinated? In other words, vaccinated people aren't protected, they can still get the disease despite having had the vaccine!

Does this not sound like a rather weak excuse?

This bout of equine flu blows both these arguments away. This is a relatively small 'at risk' population, all of whom have had the vaccine - surely a perfect situation to study the effectiveness of this vaccine. The conclusion seems clear. The vaccine does not work!

Nor do human vaccines. For the past several years there have been admissions, quietly made, that the flu vaccine does not work. I noted in this January 2018 blog that the doctors e-magazine, Pulse, reported Public Health England's announcement that the flu vaccine (used in winter 2017) was not ‘significantly effective’ in older patients." One doctor was quoted as follows:

               "We know from the PHE publications that last year, the effectiveness of the conventional influenza vaccines in the over-65s was not apparent. Over-75s fared particularly badly to the point that the JCVI called the effectiveness of the conventional vaccine in the elderly 'disappointing'." (My emphasis)

So are we being taken for ride? Have these horses been taken for a ride? We are all pressured by doctors to vaccinate our children, and ourselves, against an ever-increasing number of diseases. They tell us that this is the best way to avoid contracting them. Certainly they give no indication that the vaccines are anything but effective.

And then, of course, there is the question of vaccine safety.............. but that is quite another issue!

POSTSCRIPT
This morning 11th February 2019 there is more news that more VACCINATED horses have contracted influenza. The messages above are confirmed.

* Flu vaccines don't work
* They have serious side effects without any benefit
* Herd immunity is nonsense concept
* They are a vehicle for pharmaceutical industry to make money