Vaccination-An Analysis of the Health Risks Pt3-Townsend

78 Vaccination: An Analysis of the Health Risks -Part III by Gary Null, PhD, and Martin Feldman, MD In Parts 1 and 2 of this series, we examined factors countering our beliefs that vaccines are safe and effective. We also discussed the effects of specific vaccines, including those for diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus, polio, chickenpox, hepatitis B, and measles, mumps and rubella. In this final installment, we look at the smallpox vaccine, the withdrawn rotavirus vaccine, and the provocation diseases associated with vaccines. Finally, we discuss the economic, political and legal issues of vaccination, the right to refuse vaccination, and the need to achieve freedom of choice. The Smallpox Vaccine It was Jenner who first popularized the vaccine program with his smallpox vaccine. A close look at history reveals that the procedure never worked, however. In England, compulsory vaccination against smallpox was first introduced in 1852. Yet, from 1857 to 1859, the smallpox epidemic killed 14,244 people. From 1863 to 1865, a second outbreak claimed 20,059 lives. A more stringent compulsory vaccination law was passed in 1867, and those who evaded inoculation were prosecuted. An intensive four-year effort to vaccinate all people between the ages of 2 and 50 resulted in 97.5% of the population being vaccinated. The following year, though, England experienced its worst-ever smallpox epidemic; 44,840 lives were lost. Overall, from 1871 to 1880, during this period of compulsory vaccination, the death rate from smallpox leapt from 28 to 46 per 100,000. Neil Miller, a medical research journalist, natural health advocate and author of Immunization Theory Vs. Reality: Expose on Vaccinations, 1 recounts a different history of the smallpox vaccine than is taught in school. “In 1796, Jenner came on the scene saying that when dairy maids caught cowpox they could no longer catch smallpox. His medical colleagues disputed his claims, as the research of the times indicated numerous cases of dairy maids and other individuals catching cowpox and coming down with smallpox. Yet Jenner persisted, and he published a treatise on this idea in 1798. He called his treatise Inquiry, and became famous for it.” Rotavirus Vaccine Rotavirus is a common virus that usually causes mild and self-limiting diarrhea in children. In 1998 Wyeth Laboratories, Inc., of American Home Products, released RotaShield, a new vaccine against the infection. Since four major types of rota virus cause disease in humans, the vaccine was tetravalent, consisting of genes from four viral strains. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) recommended universal use ofRotaShield for healthy infants at 2, 4, and 6 months of age. (Although the AAFP had been in favor of voluntary vaccination or vaccination of high-risk infants only, the ACIP had wanted the universal recommendation.) A year later, though, the vaccine was removed from the market after 99 cases of bowel intussusception – a bowel obstruction in which one segment ofthe intestine telescopes inwardly into another-and two deaths were reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. Bowel intussusception is a severe condition that often requires surgical intervention and can lead to death in the absence of prompt treatment. For example, of the first 15 reported infants who developed bowel intussusception, eight had to have surgical reduction, including one infant who had 7 inches of intestine removed.’ These 15 cases, it should be noted, constituted but a small fraction of the actual number of intussusception cases caused by RRV-TV, as the new vaccine was called. According to the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report of July 16, 1999, “because r eporting to VAERS of adverse events following vaccination is incomplete, the actual number of intussusception cases among RRV-TV recipients may be substantially greater than that reported.”2·3 And so it was. As soon as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) began warning doctors about the possibility of this complication, cases of bowel intussusception started being reported around the country. This is yet another important example of how vaccine complications, unless s pecifically looked for, go unnoticed by the medical community and thus by society at large. After it was approved, an estimated 1 million US infants were vaccinated with RotaShield. What is even worse about the history of the rotavirus vaccine is not only the fact that it caused the hospitalization and deaths of several children, but the fact that prelicensure trials had already demonstrated that it caused bowel intussusception at rates 30 times higher than those expected. This is what emerged from analysis of prelicensure trial data by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS).4 Is the Approval Process Tainted? So here is the question: If the fact that the vaccine could cause a potentially lethal complication was already known, why did the FDA approve it? Why had nobody warned doctors to watch for this complication? Indeed, these and more questions prompted the AAPS to request a Congressional investigation of the vaccine approval process. As Dr. Jane Orient, executive director of the AAPS, writes in a letter to Representative Dan Burton, “The situation with the rotavirus vaccine may be a clue to a far more serious problem with the vaccine approval process.” Dr. Orient makes the important point that “Decisions about vaccines given to children should be made by parents in consultation with the child’s attending physician, not mandated by a small group of’experts’ with minimal accounta hili ty. “5 Lessons of History As we’ve seen again and again, there has been a direct relationship between vaccinations and an increased incidence of the diseases they supposedly prevent. This contradiction has prompted several researcher s to conclude that vaccines are neither safe nor effective. TOWNSEND LETTER for DOCTORS & PATIENTS-DECEMBER 2003 In a 1926 British Medical Journal article, a Dr. Parry asks why vaccine statistics reveal a higher death rate among the vaccinated: “How is it that smallpox is five times as likely to be fatal in the vaccinated as in the unvaccinated? How is it that in some of our best vaccinated towns, for example, Bombay and Calcutta, smallpox is rife, while in some of our worst vaccinated towns, such as Leicester, it is almost unknown? How is it that something like 80% of the cases admitted into the smallpox hospitals have been vaccinated, while only 20% have not been vaccinated? How is it that in Germany, the best vaccinated country in the world, there are more deaths in proportion to the population than in England? For example, 28 deaths in England in 1919 per 100,000, and 707 in Germany? What is the explanation?”6 In addition, those who take issue with universal immunization programs point out that the programs don’t discriminate between children who may benefit from a certain vaccine and those who might be hurt by it. Babies are given blanket immunization regardless of their previous or current state of health and regardless of their varying susceptibilities to side effects. Ideally, there should be a much more selective vaccination system, with parents given complete information so they can make up their own minds as to whether the risks associated with a particular procedure outweigh its potential benefits. Just as different races are known to suffer disproportionately from various allergies and food sensitivities, studies also indicate that they may experience different reactions to vaccines. Provocation D.sease One of the most hazardous and insidious effects of vaccination lies in its potential to induce other forms of disease, a phenomenon known as provocation disease. 7’12 The mechanisms that cause this to happen are unclear, although many scientists believe that latent viruses -those already existing within a person-may be stimulated by vaccinations, and that this may be enough to activate a particular illness. Vaccination, therefore, may not be the sole cause but rather the final trigger for an illness. In his book Vaccination and Immunization: Dangers, Delusions & Alternatives, 13Leon Chaitow states that Vaccination · ~ · ‘~ 1, L——–~-J.hJt·oAUnM~,.~ there is no way of knowing when such ~ .4 () ~·r·· :;,S;::Pi.f •. latent or incubating situations may be ~.:.-_o~··” “I I =t~l w.·. o• operating, and therefore no way of .r-K~ knowing when a vaccination may h • a ,., • t a t produce this sort of provocation.14 He · “’11’ Y-ffi.~ . goes on to warn that provocation of a .:..,;r—r \} latent virus is a potentially dangerous b ff ? b possibility with every vaccination Music u s. May e. procedure. Detox experts? Oh, Yes! Many diseases thought to be caused at least partially by vaccinations do not surface until years later, by which time it is difficult to prove a connection. Some of the relationships between vaccines and the specific conditions they provoke are discussed below. Allergies. According to Dr. Harris Coulter, co-author of A Shot in the Dark15 and author of Vaccinations, Social Vwlence, and Criminality, among other experts, 16 vaccines and allergies are clearly connected. “What does allergy mean? It means that your body is ready to react very, very quickly when exposed a second time to a substance to which it is allergic. If you are allergic to ragweed, [a small amount] of ragweed will start you sneezing. Now, if you vaccinate a person against pertussis or some other bacillus, you are making that person allergic to that bacillus. That’s what being vaccinated actually means. It means you are allergic to that bacillus, in the sense that your body will react very, very rapidly if exposed to that bacillus a second time.” Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Sadly, many studies have shown vaccination to be a cause of sudden infant death syndrome. Reports Alan Phillips, founding director of Citizens for Healthcare Freedom, Durham, North Carolina: “One study found the peak incidence of SIDS occurred at the ages of 2 and 4 months in the US, precisely when the first two routine immunizations are given, while another found a clear pattern of correlation extending three weeks after immunization. Another study found that 3,000 children die within four days of vaccination each year in the US (amazingly, the authors reported no SIDS/vaccine relationship), while yet another researcher’s studies led to the conclusion that half of SIDS cases-that would be 2,500 to 5,000 infant deaths in the US each year-are caused by vaccines.”17’20 ~ BioRay conducts clinical research and manufactures NDF and NDF Plus used by leading health practitioners for the removal of systemic heavy metals. 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