Infection & nutrition
Infections & poisons
Flu vaccine racket
Vitamin D
Infections and vaccination
Vaccination increasing susceptibility to infections

[Letter BMJ 2006] Can influenza vaccine overcome vitamin D deficiency? If flu shots are effective - and if more older Americans have been getting them - why have more older Americans been dying of the flu?.....Perhaps the elderly, virtually all of whom are vitamin D deficient, would be better off getting an injection of vitamin D in the fall, rather than a flu shot?

Epidemic Influenza And Vitamin D By J. J. Cannell

Epidemic Influenza and Vitamin D, In 1981, R. Edgar Hope-Simpson proposed that a ‘seasonal stimulus’ intimately associated with solar radiation explained the remarkable seasonality of epidemic influenza. Solar radiation triggers robust seasonal vitamin D production in the skin; vitamin D deficiency is common in the winter, and activated vitamin D, 1,25(OH)₂D, a steroid hormone, has profound effects on human immunity. 1,25(OH)₂D acts as an immune system modulator, preventing excessive expression of inflammatory cytokines and increasing the ‘oxidative burst’ potential of macrophages. Perhaps most importantly, it dramatically stimulates the expression of potent anti-microbial peptides, which exist in neutrophils, monocytes, natural killer cells, and in epithelial cells lining the respiratory tract where they play a major role in protecting the lung from infection. Volunteers inoculated with live attenuated influenza virus are more likely to develop fever and serological evidence of an immune response in the winter. Vitamin D deficiency predisposes children to respiratory infections. Ultraviolet radiation (either from artificial sources or from sunlight) reduces the incidence of viral respiratory infections, as does cod liver oil (which contains vitamin D). An interventional study showed that vitamin D reduces the incidence of respiratory infections in children. We conclude that vitamin D, or lack of it, may be Hope-Simpson's ‘seasonal stimulus’. (Accepted August 5 2006)

We proposed that annual fluctuations in vitamin D levels explain the seasonality of influenza........which cause recurrent and predictable wintertime vitamin D deficiency, predispose human populations to influenza epidemics. We raised the possibility that influenza is a symptom of vitamin D deficiency in the same way that an unusual form of pneumonia (pneumocystis carinii) is a symptom of AIDS. That is, we theorized that George Bernard Shaw was right when he said, "the characteristic microbe of a disease might be a symptom instead of a cause."  Epidemic Influenza And Vitamin D By J. J. Cannell