In the past decade, prescriptions for Ritalin, a stimulant medication commonly used for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), increased five-fold, with 90 percent of all prescriptions worldwide consumed in the United States. As many parents grow leery of the traditional medical approach to ADHD, doctors of chiropractic are offering promising results with non-drug treatments that focus on postural muscles, nutrition and lifestyle changes that affect brain activity. (Read the entire article here.)

While the flu vaccine is touted as the "best" way to avoid catching the seasonal flu, what many fail to realize is that the science available actually does NOT support this conclusion. In essence, it's wishful thinking that is unsupported by scientific evidence.

Take the Cochrane Database Review for example—which is the gold standard for assessing the effectiveness of common medical interventions—as discussed here in a recent article on GreenMedInfo.com. Here are five Cochrane Database Reviews, published between 2006 and 2010, completely decimating the claim that flu vaccinations are the best course of action to prevent the flu.

1. A large-scale, systematic review of 51 studies, published in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews in 2006, found no evidence that the flu vaccine is any more effective than a placebo in children under two. The studies involved 260,000 children, age 6 to 23 months.

2. Two years, later, in 2008, another Cochrane review again concluded that "little evidence is available" that the flu vaccine is effective for children under the age of two.

Even more disturbingly, the authors stated that: "It was surprising to find only one study of inactivated vaccine in children under two years, given current recommendations to vaccinate healthy children from six months old in the USA and Canada. If immunization in children is to be recommended as a public health policy, large-scale studies assessing important outcomes and directly comparing vaccine types are urgently required."

3. Then, last year, Cochrane published the following bombshell conclusion:

"Influenza vaccines have a modest effect in reducing influenza symptoms and working days lost. There is no evidence that they affect complications, such as pneumonia, or transmission.

WARNING: This review includes 15 out of 36 trials funded by industry (four had no funding declaration). An earlier systematic review of 274 influenza vaccine studies published up to 2007 found industry funded studies were published in more prestigious journals and cited more than other studies independently from methodological quality and size. Studies funded from public sources were significantly less likely to report conclusions favorable to the vaccines.

The review showed that reliable evidence on influenza vaccines is thin but there is evidence of widespread manipulation of conclusions and spurious notoriety of the studies. The content and conclusions of this review should be interpreted in light of this finding." [Emphasis mine.]

4. Last year, Cochrane also reviewed the available evidence with regards to protecting the elderly, and the results were equally abysmal. The authors concluded that: "The available evidence is of poor quality and provides no guidance regarding the safety, efficacy or effectiveness of influenza vaccines for people aged 65 years or older."

5. They also reviewed whether or not vaccinating health care workers can help protect the elderly patients with whom they work. In conclusion, the authors state that: "[T]here is no evidence that vaccinating health care workers prevents influenza in elderly residents in long-term care facilities.

Dr. Timothy Farrell
Farrell Chiropractic Center
802-899-9991
Email Farrell Chiropractic Center

213-E Vermont Route 15
Jericho, VT 05465