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Good morning, list,

My doctor, not surprisingly, wants me to be vaccinated against penumonia, shingles and tetanus/diptheria/pertussis. Particularly given the increasing number of anti-vaccine parents and consequent rising danger of infection, I figure it's probably a good idea (and I am "of an age").

But.

I've been vaccinated against flu a couple of times—once when I was very young and once about ten years ago. Those two times coincide with the ONLY times I have ever had real flu as opposed to the very bad kind of lingering cold that some people confuse with the flu. I know vaccines are not supposed to cause the illness they are intended to prevent, it's an old wives tale that the vaccine triggers the disease etc. etc. My experience, however, makes me very gun-shy and I am wondering about other peoples'.

There's an interesting piece of evidence suggesting that the vaccination/flu connection might be more than coincidental. I have said for years that I almost always know exactly the moment I contract a cold. How could this be? Isn't there a three-day incubation period? Yes, there is. But according to a story in the NYTimes w/in the last several years about the mechanisms of rhinovirus infection, the body begins producing antibodies almost immediately upon exposure. If you have a hair-trigger immune system, your body produces them right away, and in great profusion. And cold symptoms are, to a great degree, evidence that the body is producing anti-bodies. This makes all kinds of sense; we know that the superficial (and horribly uncomfortable) reactions to gluten denote not intestinal damage per se but are in fact byproducts of antibody production.

My hypothesis is that the reason I got the flu from the vaccine is because the vaccine triggered massive anti-body production, broke down my general robustness and left me more vulnerable to the lurking virus—a little of which is, of course, in the vaccine. In any event, I have managed to remain free of the flu despite exposure and despite no vaccinations.

So: what do you think about those other vaccines? And how does one know if one's spleen is compromised? That's more likely for Celiacs than for others but it is by no means certain.

thanks -

Mary B.
NYC



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