Vaccine programmes must consider their effect on general resistance
BMJ 2012; 344 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.e3769 (Published 14 June 2012) Cite this as: BMJ 2012;344:e3769
All rapid responses
The statement that "The lack of data on mortality is not considered a problem. If a vaccine is shown to produce immunity against a specific disease, the effect on survival is estimated using the burden of disease, and the efficacy and the coverage of the specific vaccine..." is indicative of a fundamental flaw in argument for vaccination as health promoting - no wonder vaccine corporations demand "vaccinations" (immunity) against legal sanction sought by those damaged by their products from governments who buy their wares.
The recent study by the US NIH showing that adaptive immunity, the creation of antibodies - virtually the foundation of the theoretical base (it has never been proven but is assumed) for vaccination - is not necessary for an effective immune response to disease should ripple through the commercial medical world like a giant tsunami.
Studies in Africa that Peter Aaby is very familiar with demonstrated that higher titre measles vaccines (expected to convey higher antibody states) coincided with higher mortality and morbidity; studies of the manifestation of HIV antibodies as predictors for developing AIDS demonstrate that the creation of antibody states is often a predictor of disease development and not immunity to a particular disease.
Singh et al found antibodies to measles virus, thence measles vaccine virus, in the brains of autistic subjects and not controls; suggesting that antibodies to wild and vaccine viruses are potential predictors of, not immunity to, a disease process (demyelination and other autoimmunity-driven malfunction in those cases).
The globe is ravaged by autoimmune disorders from cancers to MS, ASDs to RA and LSE - with concomitant claims from vaccinated subjects of robust health prior to vaccination - the NIH study and words of Aaby et al (atop demands for immunity from prosecution from vaccinators) should be a wakeup call to those genuinely concerned about the probable damage wrought on humanity thro' ill-conceived theories that have supported current vaccination practices for well over a century.
Competing interests: No competing interests
The research by Peter Aaby and his colleagues, studying non-specific vaccine effects over the years is remarkable, particularly in respect to overbearing political pressures. http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e3769
Andrew Parker writes in an editorial that "one of the main obstacles to open discussion of these non-specific vaccine effects, and independent investigation of the issue, is that an adequate account of the positive impact of vaccines has not been included and, as a result, the phenomenon is perceived as a threat to the life-saving global immunisation vision and strategy with the result that the topic has been largely avoided by funders and investigators." http://adc.bmj.com/content/early/2012/06/28/archdischild-2012-301873.full
But the possible result of actively neglecting non-specific vaccine effects, is that through vaccinations and the avoidance of acute communicable diseases, this has contributed to a serious increase in chronic non-communicable diseases.
Peter Aaby's type of work should be standard when new vaccines are introduced. But due to willful ignorance of long term non-specific effects, a comparison can be made with the financial sector where numbers and targets are chased and no interest is taken in the lasting effects. However, precisely the lasting effects of vaccines should be the focus of the WHO and Public Health.
Research is desperately needed and not only into immunostimulation that could affect the response to other infections.
The "allergic march" is obvious: food allergies, asthma, eczema and hayfever have increased to endemic levels. The ISAAC studies have established this for the countries with the greatest number of immunisations. However, there is little to no discussion of the possible effects of vaccinations in ISAAC papers and the focus is skewed to the hygiene hypothesis.
The burden of chronic (non-communicable) diseases has increased significantly, for example, prescriptions in US children increased for asthma by14% over the period 2002 - 2010 http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2012/06/13/peds.2011...
The rate of severe reactions in young children with food allergies is higher than thought. http://www.niaid.nih.gov/news/newsreleases/2012/Pages/CoFAR2.aspx
Allergy related chronic diseases can biologically be explained through a priming of the immune system in infancy to react in a Th2 fashion (producing antibodies) to the exclusion of Th1 (cellular immunity). In natural infections both Th1 and Th2 are stimulated and the Th1 reaction produces the rash to show for that.
I am not aware that the effect of vaccination on priming the immune system in the infant is consistently being investigated. But does the burden of chronic non-communicable diseases seems ultimately bigger because of vaccinations that prevent acute communicable (infectious) diseases? Could it be better to postpone vaccination until the immune system is more mature rather than to vaccinate in the first 6 months of life?http://www.bmj.com/rapid-response/2011/10/30/vaccination-load-infancy-si...
The human microbiome is an important factor in health and disease. But I am not aware of consistent research as to how vaccines affect the commensal flora by comparing commensal flora pre and post vaccination, although diet, environment, host genetics and early microbial exposure have all been implicated. The diversity of microbes of distinct types of organisms has been linked to several human diseases and variation might well be critical for understanding microbiome-based disorders. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v486/n7402/full/nature11234.html
The following article in Cell; "The impact of the gut microbiota on human health: an integrated view" http://download.cell.com/pdf/PIIS0092867412001043.pdf gives a fascinating review of the impact of the micro-organisms that we carry in our gut on our health. It even carries a paragraph 'effects of antibiotics on the microbiota' however not a single mentioning of the effects of immunisations.
Moving on from physical illnesses, could vaccines have an effect on the development of personality? Inflammatory processes are associated with mental illness. For example depression is associated with a sensitization of immuno-inflammatory pathways. http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1741-7015-10-66.pdf And for example in the US prescriptions for children increased 46% for ADHD from 2002 through 2010. http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2012/06/13/peds.2011...
Microbes have an effect on the brain http://www.nature.com/scientificamericanmind/journal/v23/n3/full/scienti...
Frank Ryan has given a description in his book "Virolution" how human development is intimately related to viruses. Could it be that interfering with that relationship cause (pervasive) developmental delays?
In his book "Metamorphosis" he also suggests that the human pubertal phase can be seen as a metamorphosing process. It would be depressing to think that due to blocking natural infections, the maturation of the personality is interfered with.
And, for example, in the adult, through narratives it has been documented that going through an infectious illness, can bring positive life changes. For example it is fascinating to read how Arthur Conan Doyle had a life changing insight when going through a flu like illness. http://www.bmj.com/content/340/bmj.c416
Therefore research is not only needed with reference to physical health but also with reference to mental health. Most of all what has been missing is research into the long term ('chronic') beneficial effects of infectious diseases on both physical and mental health.
Andrew Parker's remark is an admission of willful neglect by the WHO and national public health departments. Putting it in perspective: it makes misconduct by pharmaceutical industry insignificant in comparison because the organised misconduct of systematically avoiding research and discussion of non-specific side effects of vaccines affects humanity as a whole. Editors of journals will hopefully stop colluding and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will hopefully incorporate proper research into possible lifelong physical and mental health effects of vaccination.
Over the past decade I have suggested research in the following areas:
2001 http://www.bmj.com/rapid-response/2011/10/28/concerns-about-non-specific...
2001 http://www.bmj.com/rapid-response/2011/10/28/vaccination-not-10-minute-i...
2002 http://www.bmj.com/rapid-response/2011/10/29/early-childhood-vaccination...
2004 http://www.bmj.com/rapid-response/2011/10/30/vaccination-load-infancy-si...
2005 http://www.bmj.com/rapid-response/2011/10/31/iatrogenic-asthma
2005 http://www.bmj.com/rapid-response/2011/10/30/early-childhood-vaccines-ar...
2006 http://www.bmj.com/rapid-response/2011/10/31/who-can-be-confident-about-...
2011 http://www.bmj.com/rapid-response/2011/11/03/what-about-flu-vaccine-publ...
Competing interests: No competing interests
The authors wrote:
'...A notable exception is the high titre measles vaccine, which was withdrawn because an interaction with diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP) vaccine resulted in a 33% (95% confidence interval 2% to 73%) increase in mortality among children aged 4-60 months in several west African randomised trials.3. ...'
Where the parents of these children informed of this? Where the officials held accountable for introducing a product that led to the deaths of these children? I think not.
The cavalier approach to adverse reactions permeates throughout the global public health system. Note how health officials report on an outbreak of meningitis following MMR vaccines:
'...This study raises new practical questions regarding public health. The issue is not simply whether a specific vaccine is associated with an adverse event, but the extent to which a specific vaccination strategy influences the visibility of the adverse event despite its confirmed relative rarity, and hence affects public confidence....' (1)
It appears the medical authorities are more concerned about adverse events becoming visible rather than how they have adversely affected children and their families and in this specific case used MMR vaccines known to have caused the same severe reactions in other countries leading to the withdrawal of the product.
Another example of a careless (and potentially dangerous) management of a reported severe reaction to an MMR vaccine this time from the UK's NHS website:
Q:My son had a sever [sic] reaction to the first MMR jab. Does this mean that he is well protected from these diseases, or is a second dose still necessary?
A: If a child has responded to all the components of the vaccine the first time, he will not have a problem being exposed to the viruses again. It’s like any one of us who is already immune meeting someone with the disease – the infection can’t get established. If he hasn’t made protection to all three diseases after the first time, then he would still be susceptible to those natural infections, and still needs the 2nd dose. Reactions after the 2nd dose are essentially the same as after the 1st dose, but if they do occur they are even rarer. There are no new side effects after the 2nd dose that do not occur after the 1st dose. The advice is therefore that it is safe for your child to have the 2nd dose in order that he is properly protected. (2)
At no point did the adviser mention anything regarding the nature of the severe reaction nor urge the person to contact the child's GP to seek personal medical advice. Again, total disregard for the potential outcome.
It gets worse: the Department of Health's MMR The Facts Leaflet from 2004 makes the outrageous claim:
'...A baby could respond safely and effectively to around 10,000 vaccines at any one time. So the baby's immune system can and does easily cope with the MMR vaccine....' (3)
The UK's Department of Works and Pensions is responsible for the Vaccine Damage Payment Unit. Over the years the Unit has made many awards including to the families of children severely neurologically damaged following MMR and to families where the child has died. These babies' immune systems did not cope easily with the MMR.
And Dr David Salisbury, Head of Immunisations, has been reported to have said in a Newsnight programme in 2004 (4):
"The immune system of a baby has got huge spare capacity to deal with
challenge. If we didn't, the human race wouldn't survive. But let's look
specifically at vaccine. This has been studied carefully. A baby's immune
system could actually tolerate perfectly well 1,000 vaccines".
This has to stop. Vaccines have been designed for good reasons but are invasive and the manufacturers' acknowledge that they are not risk free in the product information leaflets. Extraordinary claims by Dr David Salisbury and Dr. Paul Offit have to be substantiated or withdrawn. We currently do not have 1,000 or 10,000 vaccines and therefore this amount has never been trialled on infants for safety or efficacy. These untested endorsements of vaccine safety is at best speculation and at worse downright dangerous.
(1) American Journal of Epidemiology Vol 151 No 5 2000
Outbreak of Aseptic Meningitis associated with Mass Vaccination with a Urabe-containing Measles-Mumps-Rubella Vaccine
Implications for Immunization Programs Dourado et al
(2) http://immunisation.dh.gov.uk/
(3) http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/documents/di...
(4) http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e3502/rr/588414
Preventing overdiagnosis: how to stop harming the healthy
Competing interests: Mother of MMR damaged son
I must agree with Mr. Stone (BMJ RR July 6, 2012). It does seem strange that after 3 weeks, no vaccine expert supporting or formulating vaccine recommendations in the UK or the USA bothered to comment on the complex publication by Aaby et al (BMJ June 14, 2012.)
I also anxiously await reading Professor Aaby's response to Dr. Scheibner's comments (BMJ RR June 28, 2012)and any remarks he would have about better hygiene, improved nutrition and vitamin A supplementation in West Africa in the last 20 to 40 yeara.
Competing interests: Grandfather of a young man with likely MMR vaccine-related Regressive Autism
I just wanted to make the point that my original response to this article was deliberately very simple. This was that on its own it falsified the ideology which under-pinned the vaccine programmes of the developed world as well as the undeveloped. I have not so far seen Paul Offit, David Salisbury, the authors of the article or anyone else come back to contradict me. In which circumstance you certainly have to worry about the advice given to politicians.
Competing interests: Autistic son
Response to Professors Aaby, Whittle and centre leader Benn (BMJ; 14 June 2012) and John Stone (BMJ.com 15 June 2012)
Re: vaccine programmes must consider their effect on general resistance.
Professor Abby and his colleagues wrote that recent randomised trials have shown that live vaccines such as measles and BCG enhance general resistance, preventing other infections as well as the target infection.
There are many reasons to consider such optimistic statements with caution. The effect of all and any vaccines is sensitisation (increased susceptibility to the targeted diseases and to related and unrelated bacterial and viral infections), anaphylaxis, i.e. harmful immune response opposite to prophylaxis. Hence outbreaks and epidemics in fully vaccinated children.
The most researched and published examples of such vaccine-related outbreaks are polio, pertussis and measles. Mass vaccination drives have resulted in major outbreaks of the targeted diseases.
Measles vaccine was introduced in the US in 1963 at the time when measles incidence was falling naturally. Sutter et al. (1991. J Infect Dis; 163: 12-16) wrote “No measles cases among the Amish and non-Amish residents of Lebanon County had been reported to the state health department since 1970.” The well-vaccinated non-Amish communities still reported 2-3 year measles outbreaks, vaccination evidently keeping measles alive. Eighteen years later, “The measles outbreak [in the Amish] in Pennsylvania began on 5 December 1987…the source of these infections is unknown.” [Hedrich (1933; Am J Hyg; 17: 613-635)] mentioned 18-year measles cycles.
Other deleterious effects of measles vaccination are atypical measles, an especially severe form of measles with high mortality, representing altered reactivity to measles virus in previously vaccinated children, after both killed and live inactivated measles vaccines (Rauh and Schmidt 1965. Am J Dis Child; 109: 232; Fulginiti 1967. JAMA; 202: 1075-1080; Nichols 1979. Am J Pub Health; 69 (2): 180-182).
Viikari et al. (1979, Lancet (1979; 10 February: 326) documented that measles vaccination increases serum-cholesterol, and quoted Drs Mathews and Feery that immunisation with viral antigens induces [not so beneficial] changes in serum lipid levels.
Another well-known negative effect of measles vaccination is a disadvantageous age distribution of measles in the vaccinated: a very high incidence below one year (due to the lack of transplacentally-transmitted immunity in babies born to mothers vaccinated in childhood), the lowest incidence between two and 9 years (when it normally should be at the highest) and high incidence in teenagers when measles is undesirable (MMWR 1997; 46 (49): 1159-1163; their figure 2).
Garenne et al. (1991. Lancet; 338: 903-907) documented consistently increased mortality rates not only in the Senegalese children (their Figure 1) vaccinated with high-titre Edmonston-Zagreb and Schwartz vaccines, but also with the standard measles vaccine. Importantly, they demonstrated that there was no significant difference in the mortality between sexes, [as later claimed by others].
Halsey (1993) wrote that high titre measles vaccines were touted as an important breakthrough in the struggle to control measles in developing countries. “However, investigations in three countries have found increased mortality in children who received high titre measles vaccines compared to recipients of lower titre vaccines.” Moreover, “The available epidemiologic data suggest a possible nonspecific [deleterious] effect on the immune system. Most deaths in both high and lower titre recipients were attributed to diarrhoea, malaria or malnutrition… in a populations where infectious diseases and malnutrition play an important role in childhood mortality”.
As with many other vaccines (pertussis), immunosuppression results in increased susceptibility to bacterial and viral infections. Daum et al. (1989), documented a “Decline in serum antibody to the capsule of H. influenzae type b in the immediate postimmunization period” when the vaccinated may contract invasive Hib diseases.
A government-sponsored study of two measles vaccine (including the high-titre one) on nearly 1500 minority infants in Los Angeles was conducted in 1989 without their parents being told that one of the vaccines was experimental. “One death occurred among the Los Angeles children, but it is believed to be unrelated to the vaccine”.
The WHO obviously had a good reason to discontinue the use of the high titre measles vaccines.
Outbreaks in fully vaccinated populations have been occurring ever since the measles vaccines were introduced after 1963, magnified by the lack of TTI in vaccinated mothers; Drs Ferson (Eastern Area Health Service), Whybin and Roberts (the Prince of Wales hospital) (“Measles risk among infants” Medical Observer; 8.8. 1996) wrote, ”Although it is generally believed that infants until one year of age are protected by maternal antibodies to measles…a recent pilot study of 20 infants in Sydney has strongly suggested that women who were vaccinated against measles in childhood may no longer be carrying antibodies and are therefore unable to pass on their immunity.”
Having natural measles results not only in a life-long specific immunity to measles disease, but also in a life-long non-specific immunity to a number of conditions looked into by Ronne (1985: Lancet 5 Jan: 1-5). The risk of acquiring non-measles associated disease was increased 20% among individuals with negative history of measles, with diagnoses of arthritis, iridocyclitis, lupus erythematosus, constrictive pericarditis, thyroiditis, connective tissue disease, arthralgia, pulmonary and possibly cardiac involvement, sarcoidosis plus Crohn’s disease, lung disease with breathlessness, hilar node and radiographic pulmonary mottling, sebaceous skin disease, benign tumours, degenerative bone and cartilage diseases and patellar chondromalacia, peroneal nerve paralysis, orchitis, epididymitis, mixed parotid tumours, nephrolithiasis, splenomegaly, multiple sclerosis and rheumatic fever.
Product insert for Priorix (MMR) contains a long list of deleterious effects on all organs, including colitis and Kawasaki disease.
West (Cancer; July: 1001-1007) demonstrated already in 1966 that having mumps prevents ovarian cancer.
The beneficial effects of natural measles are evident even in developing countries. Shaheen et al. (1996. Lancet; 347:1792-1796) wrote, “measles infection was associated with large reduction in the risk of skin-prick positivity to household mite…Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus.”Rephrased, having measles protected against allergies.
Schmitz et al. (2011. Deutsches Artzteblatt International; 108 (7): 99-104) showed that vaccinated children have 2 to 5 times more diseases and disorders than unvaccinated.
Natural measles is beneficial if not mismanaged by antibiotics and antipyretics.
Nature knows best.
Competing interests: No competing interests
I recently drew attention in these columns to the fact that the UK vaccine programme comprised 25 vaccines by 13 months and rising, with Hep B and Rotavirus vaccines about to be added to the schedule [1].
Might I suggest, therefore, that while in the developed world we may not be able to read for the most part the benefits and risks of this in terms of crude mortality that the situation is nevertheless likely to be just as complex as in this article by Aaby et al. It is high time, therefore, to call into question an ever expanding vaccine schedule, supported by the doctrine of spare capacity proposed by Paul Offitt and David Salisbury [2].
[1] John Stone, 'Re: Preventing overdiagnosis: how to stop harming the healthy', BMJ Rapid Responses 4 June 2012 http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e3502/rr/587969
[2] John Stone, 'Re: Preventing overdiagnosis: how to stop harming the healthy', BMJ Rapid Responses 7 June 2012 http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e3502/rr/588414
Competing interests: Autistic son
Re: Vaccine programmes must consider their effect on general resistance
Dear Editors,
In any disease such as measles the immunity goes down (because of malnutrition or disease per se) and patients become susceptible to other secondary infections like acute diarrhoeal diseases, acute respiratory infections, etc. No wonder the mass vaccination against measles will not only increase the herd immunity against measles but also prevent other infections and consequently deaths. On the contrary, inactivated vaccines like DPT reduce general resistance. We sincerely think that instead of drawing conclusions from prevalence studies of mortality and morbidity the immuno-modulation effect of vaccines should be tested in pre-clinical and clinical phases of trials.
Competing interests: No competing interests