In early to mid-February, three young girls died of the flu in King County. Two of them were previously healthy, with no known underlying medical condition. Public health officials responded by calling for increased flu vaccination. But when the Seattle Times reporter Brian Alexander asked public health spokesperson James Apa whether the girls had been vaccinated or not, Apa wouldn't say, citing a policy not to talk about children's specific health issues. Apa furthermore asserted, "children that die of complications of the flu are generally not vaccinated," but gave no evidence for that.

Apa's assertion seems very unlikely, foremost because flu vaccines are fairly ineffective at protecting anyone from the flu. In fact, in an average year, the flu vaccine only protects against about 20% of flu strains. Combine that with the fact that only about 20% of cases of so-called "flu" are actually due to the flu virus. The other 80% are due to other viruses that are not even in the scope of the vaccine, viruses which cause "flu-like illness". By simple math, 20% times 20% equals about 4%, which is the rather slim approximate chance that the flu vaccine will do anything to help you against flu or flu-like illnesses in a given year. In some years, when none of the three strains selected for the vaccine become prevalent, the chance is almost zero.

And here's a clencher: the most common side-effect of the flu vaccine is--you might guess--"flu-like-illness." (See the Vaccine Guide by Neustaedter for detailed information on the flu vaccine.)

Moreover, we have not even heard from public health officials what specific strains of the flu these girls succumbed to, and if these strains are even included in this year's flu vaccine. Because the large majority of King County schoolkids are vaccinated, it's quite likely that the girls who died were also vaccinated. But officials won't tell us.

It's also baffling that public health officials immediately used these tragic deaths to call for more flu vaccination, despite the fact that, according to a February 17 press release from Public Health Seattle & King County, "we have not observed an increase in influenza-related severe hospitalizations, which appear similar to or lower than that seen in recent influenza seasons based on reports from area health care facilities and our syndromic surveillance monitoring."

Nationally as well, pediatric flu deaths are lower this season than in the prior two years.

The strangeness of this cluster of flu deaths is that it included all children of around the same age, and all girls. The age of the victims, all of whom were 7 and 8, is also strange because flu is more likely to be severe in infants and the elderly. Furthermore, the last previous confirmed flu death in King County occurred in 1999, years ago. To suddenly see three deaths of such similar, unlikely people is alarming.

Instead of pushing flu vaccine, public health officials hopefully should be puzzling about environmental factors that might affect younger shool-aged kids, especially girls.

Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, in her recent book, Fowl! Bird Flu: It's Not What You Think, makes a good case that lethal flu outbreaks are not at all related to bird migratory routes, but are centered on an unhealthy combination of factory farming of poultry and toxic exposures in the birds and humans that succumb. One culprit, according to Tenpenny, is the Agent Orange used in Vietnam.

It seems plausible that toxic body-burdens could lead to a greater susceptibility to diseases. And because of the strange demographic cluster of the King County deaths, officials should consider all possible environmental factors, including toxicities present in vaccinations themselves. After all, school-aged children in recent years have been getting twice the doses of vaccines as their counterparts a couple decades ago.

A correlation of flu deaths and vaccines seems possible. School kids now in the age range of 7 and 8 were born in the years 1998-2000, when the mercury preservative Thimerosal was still used in early-childhood vaccines. Thimerosal was phased out of most early childhood vaccines--except for the flu vaccine--during the year 2000, possibly later in some instances. The same school kids who get the flu vaccine now will get additional doses of Thimerosal each time they get the flu shot, because Thimerosal is still in flu vaccines given to kids and adults aged 3 and up. (Last year, Washington State did pass a law banning all but trace Thimerosal in flu shots for pregnant women and kids under 3 years old.)

The above would jibe with the fact that the recent flu deaths--or even severe flu--did not affect the elderly or infants, neither of which have recently received body-burdens of Thimerosal as large as have elementary-school-aged kids who have observantly followed the state and federal vaccine recommendations.