Take The Thanksgiving Challenge

by guest blogger Jody Perrecone

Remember when we sat down at the table as a family for dinner? When we bought local food?  When we knew the shop keepers?  When food was prepared by a person and didn’t come out of a box?  

Maybe not all of us remember these times from not so long ago.  Somehow we have gotten away from our relationship with our food.  We have almost become alienated with our food and food sources. Often times we don’t know where our food came from or who (or what) made it.  

The Shocking Cure For Crohn's Disease, Asthma, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, & Every Other Chronic Disease

Let me start this post by giving you fair warning... if you don't like sarcasm stop reading now. You probably won't like this post and will get easily offended by it's simplistic nature and the rather harsh approach I take in delivering it's message. Just in case you were wondering... My goal here is not to be liked. My goal here is to tell people what they need to hear in order for them to get better.

Now I'm going to share a story with you. A story about how to cure Crohn's disease, asthma, chronic fatigue syndrome, and basically any other type of chronic disease you and/or the rest of the world may be suffering from. You want to know the secret? Get ready. Wait for it... wait for it... wait for it...

Should I Get A Flu Shot?

It's that time of year again. Everyone seems to be advertising the flu vaccine. Your doctor, your local hospital, walk-in clinics, and even the local pharmacy all have the flu vaccine ready and waiting for you to get vaccinated. But, should you get it? I'm not going to tell you either way. What I will do is supply you with the evidence from a number of comprehensive reviews on the scientific and medical literature done on the flu vaccine. This way you can make an informed decision on your own on whether or not to get the flu shot.

As a clinical pharmacist, I'm just as interested as you are on whether or not the flu shot is worth getting. For this reason, I did what any respective healthcare professional would do. I turned to the Cochrane Collaboration for answers.

The Cochrane Collaboration is a non-profit, international network of over 28,000 individuals from over 100 countries. These individuals work to provide unbiased, evidence-based reviews from available scientific and medical research studies to help healthcare providers, policy-makers, patients and their advocates make informed decisions regarding their health care. These reviews are called the Cochrane Reviews. These reviews are highly trusted and credible because they are free of commercial bias. The Cochrane Collaboration doesn't allow big money or special interest groups to taint their organization or their highly respected work. This is made evident in their commercial sponsorship policy:

"The Cochrane Collaboration has gained an international reputation for producing evidence of the highest standard to inform healthcare decision-making. To maintain this reputation, we are committed to ensuring that the results of Cochrane Reviews are not influenced by personal or commercial interests, particularly from the pharmaceutical industry and medical device manufacturers. Sponsorship of Cochrane Reviews, their derivative products, author teams and the Cochrane 'entities' who produce them, by any commercial source, is strictly prohibited."