Stress Management Technique

What Is Stress?

Stress is the “wear and tear” of our bodies experience as we adjust to our continually changing environment. It has physical and emotional effects on us and can create positive or negative feelings. As a positive influence, stress can help compel us to action. It can result in a new awareness and an exciting new perspective.

It can dominant over with the death of a loved one, the birth of a child, a job promotion, or a new relationship, we experience stress as we readjust our lives. In so adjusting to different circumstances, stress will help or hinder us depending on how we react to it.

Strategies for Stress Management  

The new enforcement profession is laden with job-related stressors such as shift work, staff shortages, job overload, multitasking, and high visibility in the public’s eye. These are just a few stressors that contribute to the pressure and strain on any personnel. Stress may produce adverse effects on any individual. The main types of adverse effects are

1.    Impaired job performance

2.    Psychological problems

3.    Physical health problems

This includes difficulties in carrying out duties effectively and efficiently as well as absenteeism and premature retirement. Law enforcement personnel have an image to uphold: the image of one who “protects and serves” no matter the circumstances or dangers encountered. In this line of work, it is indispensable for one to become psychologically hardened in many situations.

While performing one’s duty, there is no time for human emotions such as fear, anger or sadness. As a result, shedding this image off duty becomes difficult and can create a great deal of stress. The effects of stress can impact not only the individual but the individual’s family, the organization and the people served by the department.

Hence, it is very important to realize the strategies for stress management. Because a person must assume self-responsibility in one’s level of health and sickness. To a certain degree, each person is responsible for the quality of life one lives. There are no shortcuts to stress management techniques. It takes a personal commitment, complete involvement, and an understanding of stress, its symptoms, and causes.

Stress appears in many forms. Listed below are some are main points, but not all, symptoms a person may develop due to stress.

Physical Symptoms:

·         Stomach ulcers

·         High blood pressure

·         Diabetes

·         Fatigue increased susceptibility to illness (weakening of immune system)

·         Chest pains migraine

·         Sleep problems

·         Rapid or shallow breathing

·         Disturb mind due to overthinking

·         Alzheimer

Do not overlook these warning symptoms. Heart attacks and strokes are the number one cause of death for America’s criminal justice worker.

Emotional Symptoms:

·         Poor appetite (either overeating or not eating enough)

·         General irritability and chronic anger

·         Emotional instability, moodiness

·         Difficulty concentrating (leads to accident proneness)

·         Cynicism

·         Depression

·         Poor memory

·         Displacement (blaming others)

·         Depersonalization

If any of the stress symptoms mentioned above are persistent or have become a chronic pattern in your life, seek help. Talk to someone you trust. Do not deny or disregard these symptoms or warning signs.

There are steps to reduce the hazardous effects of job demands, unhealthy lifestyle, stress and trauma. Here are some strategies for stress management to help in reducing the stress in your life.

1.    Accept the fact you are human

Some things are out of your control and the outcome does not lie in your possession. Accept you do not have all the answers and you may not always be right. Also accept, despite your best efforts and motives, situations may not turn out in the best possible way. Accepting you are human is accepting your feelings and faults; your strengths and weaknesses; and your limitations.

2.    Daily Exercise

Physical activity is one of the most effective ways to reduce stress. A twenty-minute work-out for a couple of times in a week relieves stress and allows for the release of pent up tension and anxiety.

3.    Develop positive anti-stress habits

•     Find ways to cut back on your activities and commitments. Learn to say “No”. Self-induced stress may be the result of over-extending yourself.

•     Plan ahead whenever possible in order to avoid the last-minute rush.

•     Be aware of your daily rhythms. Plan activities during the time of day when you have the most energy.

•     Evaluate how you spend your time – and learn time management. Prioritize the things in your life and let go of the less important tasks which do not necessarily HAVE to be done.

•     When possible, do not tackle too many changes/decisions at once.

•     Ask for help or assistance.

4.    Practice good nutrition

Eat the right kinds of food; cut back on your fats and cholesterol. Your diet should include foods rich in fiber and complex carbohydrates, along with fruits and vegetables. A healthy body leads to a healthy mind, a mind better able to handle stress and prevent the weakening of one’s immune system.

5.    Get enough sleep and rest

It is essential to get enough rest; sleep is a restorative process for the body as well as the mind. At least six hours of sleep per night is necessary to function at an optimum level. Deprivation of sleep over a long period of time is not healthy.

6.    Develop your family and friends as support groups

Talk out your worries. Share your thoughts, feelings, and reactions with those close to you. They may have the same concerns. Keep the lines of communication open.

7.    Learn relaxation techniques

Develop a program for yourself in which you block out outside interference. Focus on relaxing your body. This does not mean relax to the point of sleep, rather it takes ten or fifteen minutes to re-group and focus. If time does not allow for this, take ten deep breaths and face the problem slightly more relaxed than before. Limit the noise in your home. Turn the TV off or the radio down.

8.    Limit your intake of caffeine and alcohol

Caffeine is a stimulant and can have the same effect as too much stress. Alcohol is a depressant and can aggravate stress. Avoid stress seesaw by restricting your use of both caffeine and alcohol. Develop other ways of relaxing.

Don’ts

Think you are “crazy” - stress reactions to abnormal situations are normal. Withdraw from family, friends, and co-workers. Automatically stay away from work. Drink alcohol excessively. Moreover, use legal or illegal substances to numb post-trauma consequences.

“DO”

Learn to take one thing at a time. Learn to accept things you cannot change or Maintain a good diet and exercise. Take time for leisure activities. Remind yourself that stress from certain incidents is normal.

Spend more time with family, friends, and co-workers. Talk to others who are good listeners when an incident bothers you. Also, assess your attitude towards life and your job. Get extra help, if necessary.

Strategies for Stress Management requires an understanding of stress symptoms and causes. It also requires personal commitment. This should be a commitment all personnel is willing to make for themselves, their family and the public they serve.

When is Asbestos Dangerous?

The most common way for asbestos fibers to enter the body is through breathing. In fact, asbestos containing material is not generally considered to be harmful unless it is releasing dust or fibers into the air where they can be inhaled or ingested. Many of the fibers will become trapped in the mucous membranes of the nose and throat where they can then be removed, but some may pass deep into the lungs, or, if swallowed, into the digestive tract. 

Once they are trapped in the body, the fibers can cause health problems.Asbestos is most hazardous when it is friable. The term "friable" means that the asbestos is easily crumbled by hand, releasing fibers into the air. 

Asbestos-containing ceiling tiles, floor tiles, undamaged laboratory cabinet tops, shingles, fire doors, siding shingles, etc. are not highly friable and will not typically release asbestos fiber sunless they are disturbed or damaged in some way. 

Health Effects  Since it is difficult to destroy asbestos fibers, the body cannot break them down or remove them once they are lodged in lung or body tissues. There are three primary diseases associated with asbestos exposure: 

Asbestosis

Asbestosis is a serious, chronic, non-cancerous respiratory disease. Inhaled asbestos fibers aggravate lung tissues, which cause them to scar. The risk of asbestosis is minimal for those who do not work with asbestos; the disease is rarely caused by neighborhood or family exposure. Those who renovate or demolish buildings that contain asbestos may be at significant risk, depending on the nature of the exposure and precautions taken.

Lung Cancer

Lung cancer causes the largest number of deaths related to asbestos exposure. The incidence of lung cancer in people who are directly involved in the mining, milling, manufacturing and use of asbestos and its products is much higher than in the general population. 

People who have been exposed to asbestos and are also exposed to some other carcinogen such as cigarette smoke have a significantly greater risk of developing lung cancer than people who have only been exposed to asbestos. One study found that asbestos workers who smoke are about 90 times more likely to develop lung cancer than people who neither smoke nor have been exposed to asbestos.

Mesothelioma

Mesothelioma is a rare form of cancer that most often occurs in the thin membrane lining of the lungs, chest, abdomen, and (rarely) heart. People who work in asbestos mines, asbestos mills and factories, and shipyards that use asbestos, as well as people who manufacture and install asbestos insulation, have an increased risk of mesothelioma. 

So do people who live with asbestos workers, near asbestos mining areas, near asbestos product factories or near shipyards where use of asbestos has produced large quantities of airborne asbestos fibers.

Other Cancers

Evidence suggests that cancers in the esophagus, larynx, oral cavity, stomach, colon and kidney may be caused by ingesting asbestos. 

Digestion in the Stomach

Digestion in the Stomach. When food is swallowed it goes to the stomach. The stomach is a thin bag. In a man, it holds about three pints. Like the mouth, it does three things to the food.

1. First, the stomach gently stirs and mixes the food.
2. Second, it pours a fluid over the food. This fluid is called gastric juice. The astric juice is sour and bitter.
3. Third, the gastric juice changes some of the albumins of food to a liquid form.

If the mouth has done its work well, the stomach does its work easily and we do not know it. But if the mouth has eaten food too fast and has not chewed it well, then the stomach must do the work of the mouth too. In that case, it gets tired and aches.

The intestine. The food stays in the stomach only a little while. All the time a little keeps trickling into a long coil of the tube. This tube is called the intestine or the bowels. Hence three or four hours after a hearty meal the stomach is empty. Some of the food has been changed to a liquid, but most of it has only been ground to smaller pieces and mixed with a great deal of water. Now it all must be changed to a liquid.

What the intestine does. Like the mouth and stomach, the intestine does three things.

• First, it mixes the food and makes it pass down the tube.
• Second, two sets of cells behind the stomach make two liquids and pour them into the intestine. One set of cells is the sweetbread or pancreas, and its liquid is the pancreatic juice. The other is the liver and its fluid is the bile.
• Third, the pancreatic juice makes three changes in food. First, like the mouth, it changes starch to sugar. Second, like the stomach, it makes albumin a liquid. It divides fat into fine drops. These drops then mix with water and do not float on its top.

Bile. The bile is yellow and bitter. It helps the pancreatic juice do its work. It also helps to keep the inside of the intestine clean.

Digestion of water and minerals. Water and the mineral parts of food do not need to be changed at all but can become part of the blood just as they are. So, seeds, husks and tough strings of flesh all pass the length of the intestine and are not changed.

How food gets into the blood. By the time food is halfway down the Intestine it is mostly liquid and ready to become part of the blood. Moreover, that liquid soaks through the sides of the intestine and into the blood tubes. At last, the food reaches the end of the intestine. Most of its liquid has then soaked into the blood tubes and only some solid waste is left.

Work of the Liver. Well, you know the food is now in the blood but didn’t become a part of it. It is carried to the liver. There the liver changes the food to good blood, and then the blood hurries on and feeds the cells of the body. Because spoiled food may be swallowed and taken into the blood with good quality food. The liver takes out the poisons and sends them back again with the bile. The liver keeps us from getting poisoned.

Bad Food. Sometimes the stomach and intestine cannot digest the food. They cannot digest green apples, but they try hard to do so. They stir the apples faster and faster until there is great pain. Sometimes the stomach throws up the food and then the pain and sickness stopped. Spoiled food makes us sick in the same way.

Don’t Eat Fast. When the food stays too long in the stomach or intestine it sours or decays, just as it does outside of the body. This makes us very sick. When we eat too much or when we do not chew the food to small pieces. The stomach may be a long time in digesting the food. Then it may become sour and make us sick.

Biliousness. When the food is poor or becomes sour, it is poorly digested. Then the liver has more work to do and does not change the food to blood as it should. It also lets some of the sour poisons pass by it. These poisons the whole body and make the headache. We call this biliousness. The tongue is then covered with a white or yellow coat and the mouth tastes bad. These are signs of sickness. The stomach and liver are out of order.

Rules of Eating in Digestion in the Stomach. If we eat as we should, our stomach will digest its food. We must follow three rules.

• First, we must chew the food in the mouth until all the lumps are fine. Then the food will be ready for the stomach.
• Second, we must eat bit by bit. If we eat fast we cannot chew the food well. The stomach cannot take care of food if it comes too quick. Hence, you must swallow all of one mouthful before we put another into the mouth.
• Third, we must eat only at meal times. The stomach needs a rest. Even a little candy, or apples, or nuts will keep the stomach at work and tire it out.

A child needs to eat more often than his father. So, besides his meals, he should have something to eat in the middle of the morning and some more in the afternoon. But he should not be eating at all hours. He ought not to eat little bits just before dinner, for that spoils his meal.

What to Learn from Digestion in the Stomach?

1. The stomach and intestine stir and rub the food, and mix it with juices.
2. The juices change albumin to a liquid, and starch to sugar. They also change fat to the form of tiny drops.
3. The digested food soaks through the sides of the intestine into the blood tubes.
4. The blood carries the food to the liver.
5. The liver changes food to blood.
6. Blood goes to all parts of the body and feeds the cells.
7. The the liver keeps poisons from getting into the blood.
8. Water and minerals become a part of the blood without being digested.
9. When food is not well digested, the liver cannot make it into good blood.
10. This makes us bilious. If food is not soon digested it sours and decays. This makes us sick.
11. We can make food digest quickly by chewing it well and eating slowly. Read More – Why You Need Protection Against The Flu

Learn How to lose weight Fast

Three Unhealthy Foods List to Avoid

Latest news about contaminated food, from peanut butter and Turkey salad and eggs, are sufficient to make even the most intrepid eater a bit ‘paranoid. But before turning to life, vitamins, and ice cream astronaut, comforted by the fact that it is expected that you are OK to eat as you always did: We have a very secure food, says by Shelley Feist, director of the Partnership for ‘Food Safety Education. There are only three foods so unsafe, that you should avoid altogether. Here is a list of the red-light district:

Raw Milk

Fans of raw milk and milk meaning has not been pasteurized or homogenized credit that is more helpful bacteria and enzymes that deal with his counterpart, but science has not experienced any of these allegations. And raw milk can be contaminated in more than a few ways: through contact with feces from cows or bacteria that live on the skin of cows, infection of the udder of the cow, or unclean equipment, among others.

We feel an exceptional heating process pasteurization is the only valuable way to kill most, if not all, damaging bacteria, which may hold Listeria, Salmonella and Escherichia coli. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), 86 have been reported in outbreaks of food poisoning from raw milk between 1998 and 2008, when the 1676 illnesses, 191 hospitalizations, and two deaths. Raw milk was equivalent to almost three times more hospital care of other food-borne outbreaks, said by Hannah Gould, Ph.D., epidemiology elderly with chronic intestinal Epidemiology Branch of the CDC.

It is not astonishing that selling raw milk to consumers is illegal in about half of U.S. states. We have two people in California and Pennsylvania, who developed Guillain-Barre which can affect respiratory failure and paralysis after contracting a bacterial infection called campylobacteriosis from drinking raw milk, says by John Sheehan, director the safety of dairy products to food US and Drug Administration (FDA). He was healthy, lively people who came with a debilitating, life-long disease.

Raw Sprouts

When the sprouts have been convicted of an outbreak of food poisoning at least 50 people died in Europe last summer, almost certainly wondered: What could be so awful for the innocent, Vegan-friendly buds? But food safety experts are not amazed. According to the CDC has been at least 30 occur in a foodborne disease in the U.S., raw or lightly cooked sprouts since 1996. All kind of sprouts is alfalfas you get a sandwich, and mung bean sprouts in Thailand, garnishing your food and can be dangerous if not accurately cooked. 

This is due to the way in which to grow, said by Michelle Smith, a Ph.D., a senior policy analyst at the FDA: a warm, moist need to grow sprouts provides perfect conditions for bacteria like salmonella or E. coli replication. Ask for a meal at the restaurant and takeaway sprout-free, because you cannot know how healthy they were cooked. And if you cannot live without rash, try to get used to them a hot bath before eating: Research has shown that you can kill the bacteria contaminated by immersion in boiling water for five seconds.

Raw oysters from the Gulf of Mexico

Everyone knows that eating raw seafood can be a danger and in fact, the CDC recommends totally, but the mussels from the Gulf of Mexico takes a whole new level. Bay waters are warmer than the north-west Pacific and other well-known places in oystering, allowing the bacterium called Vibrio vulnificus thrives. Oysters are filter feeders, which means that focal point on contaminants in the water, said by William E. Keene, Ph.D., senior epidemiology at the Oregon Public Health Division. A number of toxins can get the oysters, but none are nearly as bad as Vibrio vulnificus. “

Healthy people who eat a V. vulnificus mounted oysters could have vomiting, and abdominal pain and diarrhea, but for anyone with a compromised immune system, the insect can enter the bloodstream, causing serious and potentially fatal sepsis call, which is fatal in one-third of cases. And while a pre-existing medical condition that threatens particular, anyone can get terribly sick, said by Keene.

The good news is that many buyers of major seafood, such as Legal Sea Foods and Costco, need that Gulf oysters to be pasteurized before being served, and the State of California so in these places, the menace is much lower. Pasteurized or not, the simplest method here is to avoid raw oysters in the Gulf completely, said by Sarah Klein, the personal lawyer of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. It can go a long way towards keeping you a safe and healthy life. Read More - Why You Need Protection Against The Flu

Protection against the Flu

First, you need to protect yourself against the Flu Vaccine! Most of the vaccine industry insists that their vaccines against the flu help as the key to a healthy winter. Though there has not been a serious flu epidemic for 38 years. But their vaccines are prescribed to millions of people each year. You may wonder why perfectly healthy people are injected with a normally harmless bug whose strains mutate from year to year? Though flu vaccines can never be accurate, encouraged by their employers, millions of employees submit to a flu jab each year, trying to avoid the loss of working days.

Influenza always starts in the Far East, and then spreads to the West in early winter. Then it is reaching its peak during February and March. It may come in either of three types, A, B, or C. During the last several years, type A has been the dominant version. What makes vaccination against the flu so unsuccessful is that the strains of the flu virus are different every year and the so-called protection lasts for only six months. So, each autumn you require a new vaccination for a different virus. The trouble is, drug companies have no way of knowing in summer. Which new strain of the flu virus is going to hit the Western Hemisphere during the winter months.

The vaccine producers grow the vaccines, consisting of live viruses, in hen’s eggs, which when injected into the body can cause side effects such as redness and soreness at the injection site and a mild form of flu. Hence, very serious complications arise in people who are taking immune-suppressing drugs or who have a heart condition. If you are allergic to eggs, having a flu-shot may also endanger your health.

For the average healthy person, coming down with the flu is not serious at all. On the contrary, it can build up natural immunity even against future encounters with new strains of the flu virus. The very reason why nature creates these new forms of virus every year and spreads them with accurate timing is to ensure continued ecological balance and strong immunity in plants, animals, and humans alike.

Anyone prone to repeated infections is to be expected to have a toxic liver with many hundreds of stones accumulated in the liver and gallbladder. Gallstones, which harbor numerous types of infectious bacteria and viruses, are a continuous source of immune suppression. It is cleansing the liver of all gallstones is about the best prevention against any type of infection. Moreover, the people who have cleansed their liver in this way have reported that they never catch a cold or the flu anymore.

Flu virus vaccines used until 2002 contained live viruses and produced so many serious, adverse reactions that new vaccines had to be concocted. The new formula for flu vaccines is called the subvirion, which is basically a mutilated virus “blended, spliced and macerated” until just bits and pieces of the original virus are left. This in no way makes the virus less dangerous. In fact, the antigens or foreign proteins in the vaccine, for which the body is forced to produce antibodies against, are still as poisonous and harmful as live virus.

Besides the subvirion, there are plenty of other substances added to the flu vaccine, most of which you would never want to consciously ingest. These include:

• ·         Hemagglutinin antigens that cause clumping of the red blood cells, leading to cardiovascular disease.
• ·         The enzyme neuraminidase, which cuts out neuraminic acid from the cell membrane, weakening all the trillions of cell membranes in the body.
• ·         White crystalline substance called allantoin, a toxic animal waste product. Due to its high nitrogen content, allantoin is used as fertilizer; leads to kidneys and bladder stones.
• ·         Gentamicin, a broad-spectrum antibiotic, is added to each embryonated chicken egg to inhibit the growth of bacteria (vaccine is grown in chicken eggs).
• ·         Formaldehyde (carcinogenic), used as a preservative and to inactivate the virus.
• ·         The toxic chemicals, tri butylphosphate and Polysorbate 80, USP.
• ·         Resin, to eliminate “substantial portions” of tri butylphosphate and Polysorbate 80
• ·         Thimerosal, a mercury derivative, to preserve the vaccine cocktail.
• ·         Polyethylene glycol, a relative of ethylene glycol (antifreeze); often used to poison dogs and other predators of sheep.
• ·         Isocctylphenyl ether, a compound of ether; has anesthetic properties; a teratogen, causing abnormal prenatal development. It also induces testicular atrophy in animals.

The vaccine producers are unable to guarantee that the vaccine will shelter you against the flu. So, they carefully tell you that the vaccine “reduces the likelihood of infection; or if you do develop the disease it will be a milder case.” Some express the same uncertainly about their product in this way:

It is known certainly that influenza virus vaccine, as now constituted, is not effective against all possible strains of influenza virus. Why would you want to entrust your health to a cocktail of poisonous chemicals? When even a somewhat weakened immune system stands a far better chance to protect you against harm from a bout of influenza.

Our body’s sophisticated immune system, which has evolved over millions of years. It can certainly do a better job of protecting you against the flu than anything made-made. All it needs is some basic care taking on your part. With each new flu shot, on the other hand, your immune system becomes more exhausted and side-effects become more pronounced and severe. And, you may still get the flu anyway. The following list includes the possible consequences you can expect if you go down the road of vaccination:

The most frequent side effects of vaccination:

• ·         Soreness at the site of the vaccination
• ·         Pain or tenderness
• ·         Skin discoloration
• ·         Asthenia
• ·         Angiopathy
• ·         Erythema
• ·         Induration
• ·         A mass or lump
• ·         Hypersensitivity reactions including
• ·         puritus and urticaria
• ·         Malaise
• ·         Myalgia
• ·         Arthralgia
• ·         Headache
• ·         Lymphadenopathy
• ·         Rash
• ·         Vomiting
• ·         Diarrhea
• ·         Pharyngitis
• ·         Nausea
• ·         Chills
• ·         Fever
• ·         Inflammation
• ·         Dizziness
• ·         Vasculiltis
• ·         Anaphylaxis in asthmatics, with
• ·         possible death
• ·         Anaphylactic shock, with possible death

Vaccination are certainly does not create immunity. You cannot become immune by ingesting poisons that destroy the immune system. Studies by a group of Italian scientists showed that the flu vaccine reduced the occurrence of clinical episodes of influenza by only 6 percent in adults, and effectiveness tended to decrease with age. They concluded that universal immunization wasn't warranted. Stated simply, handwashing and other hygienic and nutritional measures are far superior to the flu vaccine in effectiveness.

When you cared for hygienically, and by eating nutritious foods and keeping one’s intestines and liver clean, influenza never becomes a deadly disease. Getting vaccinated against the flu, on the other hand, is an unquestionable way to sow the seeds for new illnesses in the body. All vaccines are poisonous, and as such act like time bombs that will explode in due time.

Why People Get the Flu

Flu jabs lower natural immunity by injecting alien and toxic substances directly into the blood stream. No other animal in the world takes recourse to such unnatural, superficial and crude means to defend itself against invading viruses. The normal route of contact with a viral particle is via the lungs. Most of the population has a normal, healthy immune system and is perfectly capable of dealing with the invaders without getting sick. But if the body’s infection fighters have temporarily gone “on strike” for reasons other than the lack of a vaccine, the flu virus can gain unrestricted access into the body and cause an infection. Regular vaccination (of any kind) is one of the major causes of depleted immunity.

The yearly administered flu jabs burden the immune system and cells of the body with foreign toxic material without giving them a chance to remove them again. The toxic viral particles can remain latent in the cells and gallstones for as long as 20 years; when they emerge, they can cause serious cell damage. With each new vaccination the immune system becomes more and more restricted in its effort to neutralize the live virus that suddenly appears in the blood. It may produce antibodies for the virus (although in many cases the immune system fails to do even that), which is finally subdued, but this encounter leaves the host’s immune system unnecessarily tired and weak.

Besides immune damage, vaccines of all kinds produce alterations in genetic material and thereby cause a whole range of malfunctions in the body. Vaccines may even be the cause of the increasing incidence of malignant diseases in children. Mass immunization programs have created such weak immune systems that they are even susceptible to such harmless viruses as the one causing the flu. We may have gone as far as to replace mumps and measles with cancer, leukemia, and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

Flu vaccinations are mainly targeted at the older generation and young children. In the United Kingdom, about 10,000 people, most of them are of very advanced age, (supposedly) die from flu-related illnesses. It may, therefore, sound reasonable to vaccinate the older people to protect them against the flu virus. But there is no total protection even among those vaccinated. Around 20 percent or more of the elderly people who get the vaccine still get a more virulent strain of flu, and many others get a lighter form of the flu.

The same is true for the people in the same age group who haven’t been immunized. The weak and elderly people are more likely among those who die from the flu, regardless whether they have been immunized or not. The bottom line is that there is no real advantage in having a flu jab. And certainly, given the frailty of so many of the oldest members of society, there is no reliable way of telling whether the flu or something else may have led to their death.

The death rate in and out of the flu season is about the same. But then, as we have seen with AIDS, statistics can be manipulated in ways that support theories which have only one objective, to keep the medical business going. When a person who is about to die anyway also catches the flu, he will be listed as a flu victim.

Instead of giving the elderly population vaccines, in the misguided belief that this would take care of them, we could help them much more by improving their general resistance to disease through good diet, social engagements and exercise programs. Many old people don’t have adequate nutrition and suffer from depression; both these factors work as powerful immune suppressants. Others don’t have a warm home or they live alone. Research has shown that these are the major risk factors for illness and death in the older generation. A series of liver cleanses alone can strengthen natural immunity, improve digestion, retard the aging process, restore health, and foremost of all, enhance mental functions. In developing countries, where the elderly play an important role in society, general illness is low, provided there is enough food available. In these countries, it is more likely that old people die from malnutrition than from a strain of virus.

There are a growing number of reports that designate a worsening of high blood pressure, diabetes, gout, and Parkinson’s disease as well as an increase in all kinds of allergic complaints in adults who regularly receive flu jabs. In 1976 an extensive flu vaccination program in America led to a massive outbreak of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a disease affecting the nervous system. The outbreak, known as the “Great Swine Flu Fiasco,” paralyzed 656 people and 30 elderly persons were found dead within hours after they were vaccinated. Compensation claims were enormous, which helped slowing down the program, but only for a while.

What about the other high-risk group, young children? Japanese researchers have shown that infants under one year of age fail to even generate a good antibody response following the vaccine. There are no point pumping children full of vaccine poisons, except enriching the pharmaceutical companies.

Seniors, of course, are one of the core target groups for the flu vaccine program. So, every year we're told how older people are particularly vulnerable to the flu. We're also told that government officials are holding their breath over their fear of a devastating flu pandemic. We're even told that about 36,000 people die of flu-related complications in the United States each year, and most of those deaths are elderly people. The reality of the matter is quite different, though.

How many people do you think died of the flu last year? Less than 175, according to Sherri J. Tenpenny, D.O., an internationally known leader in vaccine research! And yet, the official line propagated by media campaigns is to be prepared for another wave of deadly flu epidemic, killing thousands of people each new season.

In the Name of Prevention

The pharmaceutical companies producing the vaccines seem to have a more powerful effect on the population than the scientists have who invented them. As early as 1980, Dr. Albert Sabin, one of the world’s leading virologists and pioneer of the polio vaccine, spoke vehemently against the use of the flu vaccine, claiming that it was unnecessary for over 90 percent of the population. This, however, has not discouraged the vaccination industry to endorse vaccination for all in the name of health and protection against disease.

What makes matters worse is that there has never been a properly controlled clinical trial with the flu vaccine. Because we don’t know anything about it. Its long-term effects, we may be unknowingly producing generations of people with debilitated immune systems and chronic diseases. Flu vaccination is an unproven and unscientific practice and there is nothing in the scientific literature that can certify or guarantee its safety. The most effective way to fight infections, including the flu, is to prevent it. 

There is no substitute for a health-increasing regimen. Vaccination, on the other hand, offers no real protection. Injecting the body with foreign and poisonous viral material is counterproductive to improving our well-being. Dr. John Seal from the American National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases warned that we must assume that every flu vaccination can cause Guillain-Barre Syndrome. In this sense, prevention is not better than cure.

Help from Mother Nature

For those who are concerned about the flu and its possible effects, there is a remarkable herbal extract (andrographis paniculata) that has been used for centuries in Ayurvedic (traditional Indian) therapies and traditional Chinese Medicine. It is used to treat everything from isolated cases of the sniffles to full-blown outbreaks of influenza. Apparently, Andrographis is believed to have halted the spread of the 1919 Indian flu pandemic.

There is scientific evidence to support that theory. Researchers at the Universities of Exeter and Plymouth in the UK conducted a survey of medical databases, herbal manufacturer information and the World Health Organization reports selecting seven studies that met the criteria for double-blind, controlled trials.

The combined studies tested the use of andrographis as a treatment for respiratory tract infection in nearly. In all seven of these studies, subjects who took andrographis after the onset of cold symptoms reported faster recovery, compared to subjects who took placeboes or medication.

Researchers concluded that andrographis may be effective in treating "uncomplicated" infection in the upper respiratory tract (throat, sinuses and ears). According to previous laboratory trials andrographis extract doesn't kill the organisms that make you sick – at least not directly. Instead, the herbal compound boosts your immune system and stimulates natural antibodies.

Animal research also showed that andrographis may help prevent myocardial ischemia (inadequate blood circulation in the heart caused by coronary artery disease), inhibit the formation of blood clots, lower blood sugar levels in diabetics, lowered systolic blood pressure, and protect the liver against damage.

Kan Jang is a brand of standardized extract of andrographis that has consistently outsold all other cold medications in Scandinavia for 13 years running. The Swedish Herbal Institute, the formulator of Kan Jang, recommends that you take one tablet four times daily to fight colds or the flu. Kan Jang can be purchased at dietary supplement stores and through Internet sites. Also Read: Ingrown Hairs