About that flu shot . . .

LITTLE ROCK — Will you be taking the government-prescribed H1N1 flu vaccine? How about your children or grandkids?

It’s a question we’ll be forced to answer as the controversial vaccine arrives in Arkansas.

I believe the issue has become controversial primarily because of the widespread lack of trust in virtually anything the government says or advocates. People today don’t know who or what to believe.

The government says everyone, especially pregnant women and children, should take this “safe” vaccine. It also advises the vaccine for people with diabetes, heart disease and asthma as well as caregivers and health care workers. It’s truly sad that we’ve reached the point that, because of chronic deceptions from the uppermost levels of national leadership, some of us harbor such deep mistrustof whatever we are told.

I haven’t felt for some time now that I can believe anything I am being told by Washington, D.C. That unemployment figure promised not to exceed 8 percent is now almost 10 percent, and I’m still waiting for the first federal bill to be postedonline for public examination, also as promised. And where are those weapons of mass destruction?

Such widespread skepticism is amplified when the issue is intensely personal, like injecting a foreign substance into your body and those of your trusting children.

Fears also have accelerated nationwide because some health professionals have warned that H1N1 vaccine,approved by the government just last month, has yet to be properly tested. Others in the medical field are said to be flatly refusing to be vaccinated under threat of losing their jobs.

There is public concern over possible ingredients in the H1N1 vaccine such as mercury, aluminum and squalene, which many consider incompatible with good human health. I checked these additives on Google. Wow. I’d advise you to do the same before making a final decision for yourself and your children.

I do know this much. Mercury contained in the vaccine’s preservative thimerosal is a toxin associated in some medical studies with autism and neurological disorders.

Ever wondered why the government warns against eating mercury-tainted fish and the mercury dental fillings inside our mouths while also advising us toinject the stuff directly into our bodies and those of our young children, where it remains a lifetime? Another of those trust issues.

The adjuvant, or booster, squalene is included in some H1N1 vaccines, depending on the pharmaceutical company. This stuff is suspected of having a connection with some cases of debilitating diseases. Many people reportedly are allergic to squalene andmay not even realize that the ingredient is in some of the H1N1 vaccines.

Researchers who have studied American Amish communities, where children are not routinely vaccinated, have been surprised to find very few if any instances of autism. From what I’ve learned, doctors and scientists still can’t say whether that phenomenon exists in Amish kids because of genetics or because they are not being vaccinated.

My bet would be on the shots these kids don’t get. I’m even wondering if all those shots that we war babies took as innocent children might be connected to the rapid rise in Alzheimer’s among our aging population group.

There is smoke enough here to give any thinking person pause before leaping blindly to follow the government’s latest dictates.

Yes, it’s hard to know what is best for us and ours. Do we risk a threeday bout in bed with influenza or take this vaccine that may or may not have dire health implications now or in the future?

I realize that I probably haven’t been much help, but I’ll reiterate that you’d be wise to do some research on this vaccine. Get on the computer for a few minutes and learn about that Amish phenomenon and vaccine additives. Google the swine flu epidemic of 1976 and the cases of Guillain-Barré Syndrome that followed some mass inoculations.

Let’s just call it doing your due diligence for yourself and those you love. -

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Mike Masterson is opinion editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s Northwest edition.