The FDA recently approved the expansion of the Prevnar pneumonia vaccine to adults 50 and older. Prevnar was originally created to fight pneumonia, meningitis, and other diseases caused by pneumococcus bacteria in children aged 6 weeks to 5 years. Previously, the only other pneumoncoccal vaccine approved for the over-50 crowd was Pneumovax. Advocates say the vaccines will lower the risk of developing pneumonia as well as hospitalizations and deaths from the disease. No so, says world-renowned neurologist Dr. Russell Blaylock.
"Not only is the vaccine not very efficient, there are 90 species of the pneumoncoccal organism that cause pneumonia and meningitis, and the best vaccine available only covers 13 of those 90," Dr. Blaylock tells Newsmax Health.
"And studies have shown that when you start immunizing against those few different strains, those other strains become the primary cause of disease," he says. "When Prevnar was first licensed in 2000, 65 percent of all pneumonia was caused by a strain that was in the vaccine. But by 2004, only 27 percent was caused by that strain, and 73 percent of all cases of disease were caused by strains that weren't included in the vaccine.
"So, the vaccine shifted the cause of pneumonia and meningitis to a strain that's not covered by the vaccine," he says. "Chances are great that the vaccine will give you no protection at all.
"A large carefully done study showed that the vaccine has no effect on any of the major reasons that are used to scare old people into getting this vaccine," says Dr. Blaylock.
"In addition to getting little or no protection, the vaccine will lower their immunity," he says. "If they get this vaccine and are also on statins — which also lower immunity — you're really interfering with their immune function."
This is much more worrisome than the chances of getting pneumonia or meningitis, says Dr. Blaylock. "We know that most people over 65 don't get deadly reactions to flu or deadly reactions to meningitis or a lot of pneumonia," he says. "And we also know that most of the people who get these diseases already have a disease that suppresses their immune system, such as chronic heart failure or diabetes. They are already at high risk.
"If you give the vaccine to someone whose immune system is already depressed, the vaccine isn't going to work," Dr. Blaylock says.
"It's well-known that people who have immune disorders don't have enough reaction to vaccines to give them any protection," he says. "So, you're trying to vaccinate people who can't respond to the vaccine at all, or very little, and they're not going to be protected. The vaccine will, however, make them weaker and damage their immune system even more."
What can people do to protect themselves from pneumonia and meningitis? Nutrition is the key, says Dr. Blaylock, but don't expect your doctor to clue you in. "Doctors don't know that age-related immune suppression is primarily due to nutritional problems," he says.
"Large studies from all over the world found that after the age of 50, vitamin D3 levels are dramatically low in most people, and this tremendously increases your risk of infection, serious complications and death from complications.
"If you supplement with vitamin D3, the death rate from common infections falls dramatically. If you use other nutritional methods such as multivitamins, magnesium, carotenoids, and zinc to improve a person's nutritional status, almost no older people get pneumonia and complications.
"If doctors were really interested in preventing deaths, they would supplement their patients nutritionally."
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