Nature vs Pharma in Fighting Pandemics

“Great progress is being made in vaccine development,” says Michael Pantella, associate director of the State Hygienic Lab at the University of Iowa and head of the Disease Control Division, in an article published in The Gazette on January 28^th, 2013. It is also a well-studied and clinically documented fact, with much empirical evidence to match (just ask any of those 30% of people who got the flu after getting the flu shot) that “existing vaccines miss significant quantities of the (flu) virus circulating in any given year” – this according to an article posted on WRALtechwire on January 21^st.

The Pharma Route of Fighting Pandemics

Chris Ambrose, vice president of medical and scientific affairs for AstraZeneca’s MedImmume division, goes on to note that “the unpredictability of influenza means it’s best to have the broadest coverage possible.” Because viruses change and adapt over time, different strains of influenza become dominant year to year. Flu vaccine manufacturers (who generate $2.4 billion in sales each year and expect the market to reach $3 billion in the next ten years) hold firm that the answer is to create ever-stronger vaccines that cover more strains. But is this really the best solution? With millions getting sick, even after vaccination and an ever-increasing variety of more and more virulent strains of flu emerging, this question of are vaccines really our best option must be posed as it relates to both the individual and our society at large.

In a recent article titled: Confirmed! Flu Vaccine INCREASES Risk of Serious Pandemic Flu Illness, Dr. Mercola points to a Vancouver Sun article which states:

Researchers, led by Vancouver’s Dr. Danuta Skowronski, an influenza expert at the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, noticed in the early weeks of the [2009 H1N1] pandemic that people who got a flu shot for the 2008-09 winter seemed to be more likely to get infected with the pandemic virus than people who hadn’t received a flu shot. Five studies done in several provinces showed the same unsettling results.”

To further this point, an ABC News report from March of last year goes on to divulge, “There is renewed controversy surrounding influenza vaccines, with some studies showing people immunized against the seasonal flu might have been at greater risk during the swine flu outbreak…”

So it appears we’ve created a classic vicious cycle: in our attempt to rid society of the flu by thinking we could outsmart nature, we’ve weakened our natural defenses and given rise to more virulent viruses in the process – which we are less equipped to handle than ever before.

Other Medical Options

Fortunately, there is an alternative to entering this destructive negative feedback loop…

Consider nature as a system that has been designed for health – shaped over millennia with flawless execution; the beings it produced – encoded with healthy information; the plants that evolved – encrypted with health-giving codes. Now what if we could unlock this information and harness this healing power through the proper cultivation and special preparation of these plants? In short – we would have the ultimate medicine for the 21^st century.

At Innovative Medicine, we view health as the natural state that will occur, not when there is nothing left to give a patient, but when there is nothing more to take away. And it is our belief that the aim of a medicine should not be to give a missing element that leads to continuous patient management, but rather, to increase a person’s innate “healability” and restore their own ability to self-manage.

The Bottom Line

Rather than trying to outsmart nature and relying on harsh pharmaceuticals to fight our battles, we must reclaim the keys to health if we are to avoid our own demise. We must return to living in accordance with nature’s design for health. Through the use of natural quality medicines that coincide with nature, as opposed to fight against it, we have the ability to offer our patients, and society, a natural and simple means of avoiding catastrophe and achieving optimal health.

The time is right now for us to use what nature has made available, focus not on combating viruses but, instead, on increasing our innate ability to heal… and call that progress!