vaccine safety

Injecting Aluminum: Documentary Questions Vaccine Safety

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Hope Spells Help Our People Exist

Fact One: Aluminum is present in U.S. childhood vaccines that prevent hepatitis A, hepatitis B, diphtheria-tetanuspertussis (DTaP, Tdap), Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), human papillomavirus (HPV) and pneumococcus infection

For someone always skeptical of big money-big business tied to anything in the realm of medicine or science in general, I have lifted myself way beyond hope when it comes to any amount of efficacy in medicine or all the other nodes tied to our modern industrial-postindustrial world.

The vaccination debate is a misnomer in itself, since the debate is really an attack on anyone who dares question the science and chemistry and genetic engineering of the vaccine industry, an industry that plows through so many of our rights as citizens, individuals and patients. We have states and school systems ordering people of all ages to submit to the needle.

A new film airing in May, Injecting Aluminum, looks at a specific aspect of the vaccine “debate” through what easily is the one giant Gordian knot metaphor of the entire vaccine injury and death history – the adjuvant aluminum hydroxide developed in the 1920s as the “best” optimizer of the immune response when injecting the disease.

The subtitle of 90-minute film by director Marie-Ange Poyet, How Toxic are Vaccines?, really takes the air out of the sails of the pro-vaccine-and-never-question-the-vaccinologist zealots. In fact, it’s the Gordian knot we can cut away: disentangling an impossible knot but cutting that damned thing, or finding a loophole through creative and robust outside the box thinking:

Turn him to any cause of policy,
The Gordian Knot of it he will unloose,
Familiar as his garter
— Shakespeare, Henry V, Act 1 Scene 1. 45–47

The director says things about the power of film, or the limits of documentaries, that I too voice:

“I don’t think movies can change things,” Marie-Ange Poyet says: “They bring new information, they contribute to change, but they don’t carry themselves the ability to deeply shake the system in which we are.”

She states that if the film can educate the public and rally around the “real drama” of those lives affected by aluminum salts in vaccines, then Marie-Ange would be satisfied.

The commitment of citizens is the only way things will change. I hope this citizen-driven film can be a step in that direction.

Storytelling Straight in the Eye

Viewing the interviews in this documentary for 90 minutes, I came to the realization that the story of the wounded and chronically ill — because of their bodies’ reaction to the aluminum — is the taproot of this film’s blossoming.

We have some heavy players in medicine and some compelling victims of the vaccines, as well as intrepid journalists. More than 16 powerful voices from a myriad of perspectives give shape to the film. And this is a film of a special order – the voices are captured in straightforward narrative style. No asides or typical documentary bells and whistles. No graphics, no tours of the drug manufacturers research facilities, no laboratory microscopic images, no up close and personal looks at rehabilitation.

Just interviews are captured, as if this is an inquest on the very substance that is at the center of this disease the French medical and research community discovered in the 1990s – Macrophagic Myofascitis, or MMF. It’s a very simple and to the point look at one element that is toxic to the human body, and an element tied to MS and Alzheimer’s and here now, MMF, which has destroyed young people’s ability to lead regular lives.

Anti-Aluminum isn’t Anti-Vaccine: Precaution Over Profits

Some of the heavy-hitters are MDs like Romain Gherardi and Jerome Authier, professor Christopher Exley, member of the European Parlimante Michele Rivasi, Le Monde journalist Stephane Foucart, and President of E3M (Entraide aux Malades of Myofascite to Macrophages) Didier Lambert.

The NGO E3M and victims of MMF support scientific research to buttress their campaign to have aluminum removed from vaccines. Lambert is currently on disability, which is a state of survival 80 percent of the members of the association E3M share.

He is outspoken and on a mission of protecting his country and others by advocating taking aluminum out of vaccines, “without calling into question the very principle of vaccination.”

The simple aim is to reverse the felonious push to keep aluminum in vaccines by going back to the gold standard of the Precautionary Principle. This is a simple oath and operating system science that scientists (and all sectors of civilization) ought to abide by, but also embrace before any chemical, product, service or process is pushed onto us. Where money and profits and vast accumulation of power rides roughshod over our civilization, there rarely is a deep look at the unintended consequences or negative feedback loops.

It is easy to undergird the documentary with a proviso tied to the ideas of “first do no harm,” or, “better safe than sorry,” or, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” In the past 100 years, at least, Western Civilization has been moved by demonic ideas of profit tied to these aphorisms: “Nothing ventured, nothing gained” and, “Let the devil take the hindmost.”

Some of the film’s “stars” are folk like Dr. Exley, bioinorganic chemistry professor at University of Stirling, who has been for more than three decades researching “how the third most abundant element of the Earth’s crust, aluminum, is non-essential and largely inimical to life.”

Ironically, he investigates the most abundant element on Earth’s crust, silicon, and how it is almost devoid of biological function: “One possible function of silicon is to keep (aluminium) aluminum out of biota.”

Here, the Precautionary Principle with the help of Peter Montague :

The release and use of toxic substances, the exploitation of resources, and physical alterations of the environment have had substantial unintended consequences affecting human health and the environment. Some of these concerns are high rates of learning deficiencies, asthma, cancer, birth defects and species extinctions, along with global climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion and worldwide contamination with toxic substances and nuclear materials.

We believe existing environmental regulations and other decisions, particularly those based on risk assessment, have failed to protect adequately human health and the environment the larger system of which humans are but a part.

We believe there is compelling evidence that damage to humans and the worldwide environment is of such magnitude and seriousness that new principles for conducting human activities are necessary.

While we realize that human activities may involve hazards, people must proceed more carefully than has been the case in recent history. Corporations, government entities, organizations, communities, scientists and other individuals must adopt a precautionary approach to all human endeavors.

Therefore, it is necessary to implement the Precautionary Principle: When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically. In this context the proponent of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of proof.

The process of applying the Precautionary Principle must be open, informed and democratic and must include potentially affected parties. It must also involve an examination of the full range of alternatives, including no action.

Mountains of Studies Indicting Aluminum Adjuvants

Compelling for me about the film is the detail both the citizens patients of MMF and the established biology, chemistry, immunology, medical experts lay out for the viewer. Exely is both trustworthy and compassionate, quirky and interesting. He is interviewed in his office with towers of research papers and journal articles behind him like many Leaning Towers of Pisa.

His scientific bent is on deep research, unclouded by some profit margin derived by selling the aluminum to labs and the manufacturing facilities and pharmaceuticals making billions on these vaccines.

He cites the common known fact that adjuvants in vaccines do not require clinical approve. The vaccine preparation does go through trials, so when the aluminum is put in vaccine, it is the vaccine that gets approved, not the aluminum or another adjuvant.

The articulate scientist knows the field of aluminum research. For instance, he states that he can’t say the cause of Alzheimer’s is aluminum, but aluminum does make Alzheimer’s worse, and aluminum does make Alzheimer’s occur at an earlier age. He goes on:

You have this fantasy of, I think it’s the World Health Organization, giving a safe limit for aluminum, and they say, as long as it’s low, one milligram per kilogram body weight per day, you’re safe. I asked them, how do you know that, when I don’t know it? I’ve been working on aluminum for 30 odd years, trying to understand it, you know this. I asked them for the details, how did you work this out, and who did it?

They have people that I call the aluminum ambassadors…Usually, good scientists all around the world, who are paid by the aluminum industry to say that aluminum is not a problem, but these are not individuals who work on aluminum. Most of them have absolutely no background in aluminum whatsoever. They are individuals, who for example, work on Alzheimer’s disease, and then they, whenever someone with the Alzheimer’s society, a major charity, asks for advice, they ask this well-known person in Alzheimer’s disease, what’s the role of aluminum? No, there’s nothing to worry about. They don’t ask me.

“It’s the Calcium Phosphate, Stupid, We Need!”

Fact Two: A small proportion of vaccinated people present with delayed onset of diffuse myalgia, chronic fatigue and cognitive dysfunction, and exhibit very long-term persistence of aluminum-loaded macrophages at site of previous intra-muscular (I.M.) immunization, forming a granulomatous lesion called Macrophagic Myofasciitis (MMF). Clinical symptoms associated with MMF are paradigmatic of the recently delineated “autoimmune/ inflammatory syndrome induced by adjuvants” (ASIA)

Here we have aluminum hydroxide dating back to 1927. The same compound used in vaccines in 2018. Yet, in 1974, the Insitut Pasteur developed calcium-phosphate adjuvant, and the president of the French vaccination committee admitted that the calcium phosphate adjuvant was no less effective than aluminum salts. That adjuvant could be brought back. It takes a political decision. “Then our vaccines would be safe,” says Didier Lambert.

Aluminum salts are identified as neurotoxic by many health authorities and organizations. Count Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Crown’s, Sarcoidosis, development of allergies, cases of chronic fatigue, multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, autism and many more as the unintended side effects of aluminum, according to Professor Exley and many more.

The evidence in the documentary mounts minute by minute, and the interviews are clear but not charged with emotions or with a music track overlay.

Professor Jérôme Authier, a neurologist and coordinator of the Centre of Reference for Neuromuscular Diseases at H. Mondor Hospital, states the aluminum stays at the injection site for months, and migrates to the liver, spleen and brain. He sees unique conditions/factors that slow down or speed up the migration:

• The injection site: faster migration if the injection is administrated by subcutaneously rather than intramuscularly
• Genetics: faster migration on some people more than others
• The dose: a moderate dose of aluminum adjuvant forms small aggregates of particle. It migrates in the brain faster than a significant dose which in turn forms larger aggregates, long stored in the periphery.
• It also accumulates in the lymph nodes and spleen, which are organs related to the immune system.
• Patients with Macrophagic Myofasciitis (MMF)suffer from cognitive disorders such as brain dysfunction, associated with persistence extended aluminum in their body at the injection site.

Even the so-called godfather of autoimmunology, Dr. Yehuda Shoenfeld, was brought forth by Poyet to discuss aluminum adjuvant; and he lists MMF as one of the Autoimmune/inflammatory Syndromes Adjuvants, also known as ASIA. Shoenfeld founded the Centre for Autoimmune Diseases in Israel and has written 25 books about autoimmunity.

The Israeli doctor is clear about this injecting aluminum question: How Toxic Are Our Vaccines?

Aluminum is foreign to our body. It is one of strongest adjuvants. It can cause toxicity to the brain, ovaries and the immune system. We should avoid it from our lives.

Studying Cause and Effect in Vaccine Use, Ingredients and Frequency Makes Us Smart, Not Antivax

It is clear that researchers calling into question the prevailing “norm” or the current baseline, aluminum adjuvants, are called charlatans, and the media (paid for in large measure by Big Pharma) go on the attack. But, again, the godfather, Shoenfeld, submits a counter to that propaganda:

I have to say that, for my experience, both in Israel, as well as in Denmark, for instance, one of the countries where we have a large number of subjects who suffer the severe side effect, especially from the HPV. People see these cases in which, immediately after the vaccine, or very close to the vaccine, healthy girls who were apparently athletic, and suddenly, they find themselves wheel chaired or bed ridden.

The issue of primary ovarian failure, which means young women can’t get pregnant, and the reason is that the aluminum destroyed or affected the maturation of the eggs in the ovaries. Shoenfeld:

It [ovarian failure] has been reported in several cases, it’s still under reported, because many of those girls are on contraceptive pills, and therefore, they delay the diagnosis only after they will stop or discontinue to take these contraceptive pills, but it has been shown that if you inject aluminum into mice, you destroy or you affect the maturation of the eggs in the ovaries.

Exley points out that aluminum is a “silent visitor.” We do not get the sudden sickness from aluminum as we do lead, cyanide, or cadmium. It would take a huge amount of single exposure to cause immediate and profound ailments or even death. “Now, there is a proviso for that, an exception, and I believe the exception to that can be vaccination,” he states.

Oh No, Show Me the Money (again?)

The film exposes many aspects of why this 91-year-old aluminum salt is still in use. In addition, we find out why the French government isn’t doing anything to take aluminum out of vaccines. Think Sanofi, L’Oreal, and Nestle. We know the French multinational, Sanofi, is the world’s largest producer of vaccines. Ironically, the majority shareholder in that Titan of Vaccines is L’Oréal, which is the world’s largest cosmetics company. Now, following the tangled web of multinationals, we see that the principal shareholders of the cosmetics company L’Oreal is the Bettencourt family and Nestlé. Moreover, Nestlé is the world’s largest food-industry corporation.

Didier Lambert is blunt about the entanglement and special interests the corporations have, and the power they wield to control regulators and governments:

These three corporations have a special interest in aluminum. Sanofi uses aluminum in vaccines. L’Oréal uses it in cosmetics, and Nestlé, in food packaging, infant formula, etc. Note that the people who oppose the research by Drs. Gherardi and Authier are mainly financed by either Sanofi or the Bettencourt Foundation. Is that a coincidence?

Bunnies and then the Big Guns of Injecting Aluminum

Ironically, two German scientists in 1891 looked at aluminum, to see how it breaks down and dissolves in food and therefore was deemed toxic. To settle court cases, manufacturers of products aluminum were used as hired scientists on both sides of the argument. In 1908, Theodore Roosevelt appointed a commission to look into the safety of aluminum. The stakes were high, and those researchers incriminating aluminum had little funding, whereas the special interests backing aluminum eventually got the green light from a book two decades later written by a recognized scientist, Ernest Ellsworth Smith, that was biased and in favor of aluminum and omitted findings from other scientists showing aluminum was harmful.

The key study cited as the main reference on how the body absorbs the aluminum adjuvant in a vaccine was done in 1997. It was carried out by an American researcher named Richard Flarend and his co-author Stanley Hem. Their study involved two New Zealand white rabbits being injected with radioactive aluminum hydroxide. We are talking about 28 days of monitoring the elimination rate of radioactive aluminum through urine samples. Their findings? Elimination, 28 days after injection, was 6%. So 94% of the aluminum stayed in the animals’ bodies. Even with this scrawny one study, scientists still claim that it only takes a few weeks to eliminate aluminum injected into humans.

“Aluminum, Vaccines and the Two Rabbits” was the original title of this documentary in France. The director, Marie-Ange, did not go with that moniker:

In a nutshell, aluminum’s pharmacology is founded on a study based on two rabbits only. And their bones have been lost. That study lasted only 28 days. So, all what you hear about aluminum in vaccines is based on that incomplete work. We hear that the illnesses linked to aluminum are not dramatic, and it’s based on this study. It’s unbelievable. Since the vaccine market represents billions of dollars, we can say that the industry makes all this money thanks to these two rabbits. The original title of the film was a funny and dramatic wink to that story.

Those not winking are the big guns of the documentary are Professor Jérôme Authier, a neurologist and coordinator of the Center of Reference of neuromuscular diseases of the Henri Mondor Hospital, and Doctor Romain Gherardi, the Director of the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research. Gherardi has written more than 100 articles in refereed journals including topics tied to the physiopathology and therapeutics of adult neuromuscular diseases, as well as the cellular and molecular mechanisms of postnatal myogenesis and post-lesion regeneration.

Three sources stand out:

a. “Macrophagic myofasciitis lesions assess long-term persistence of vaccine-derived aluminum hydroxide in muscle” (Brain – 2001) by both Authier and Gherardi.
b. “Macrophagic myofasciitis: characterization and pathophysiology” ( Authier and Gherardi) .
c. Gherardi recently wrote a book about his experiences with aluminum and vaccines called, Toxic Story – Two or Three Embarrassing Truths about Vaccines and their Adjuvants.

Here is a compelling example of “throwing caution and verified facts to the wind” by Dr. Romain Gherardi:

“The guiltiest act is that once it has been pointed out that the aluminum persists for much longer than a month, that it remains in the immune system for many years, no watchdog agency sat up and said, ‘Stop. Back to the laboratory, guys.’ That should have been done in the early 2000s. And it was not. So we’re fifteen years late, in terms of the natural reaction elicited by the normal application of intellectual discipline.”

The entire case for aluminum adjuvants being safe is based on a 28-day rabbit study where the animals’ bones were “lost” by researchers. Hmm, bones are one area of the body that stores aluminum. The muscle that was injected was never examined.

This is not science as I have known it starting in 1975 as a marine biology major. We can’t determine whether the injected aluminum stayed at the muscle site. A 28-day study is for bean plant germination in kindergarten, not for vaccines. The aluminum adjuvant stays in the body for years, as the experts interviewed in the film attest. Amazingly, that the entire world of vaccinology takes this two New Zealand rabbit study from 20 years ago as proof of aluminum’s safety? This begs the question why this study has not been done over and over (maybe using some of the pro-aluminum adjuvant hominids as rabbits)?

“Not one of the experts who has studied the material we have compiled on MMF… and I am speaking of experts in their own capacity,” Gherardi states. “I’m not talking about … experts from public agency staff. I really mean independent experts we’ve asked to assess our research and give an opinion. Not one of them is free of strong connections to the vaccine industry. That’s all I can say.”

While the scientists and public policy people make compelling arguments around the toxicity of aluminum and the genetic variations some people possess, disallowing their bodies to “dissolve” mineralized aluminum, it’s also the individuals and married couples in the film that tell a story of life- changing medical issues that have plagued them, causing debilitating chronic pain and illness, necessitating complete life changes.

In the film: Laurent Lehrer and Marie-Christine Lehrer — patient with Macrophagic Myofascitis and wife; Nathalie Etienne and Patrice Nicosia — patient with Macrophagic Myofascitis and her partner; and Didier Lambert — patient with Macrophagic Myofascitis.

Their stories juxtaposed to the science and policy make this film compelling documentary viewing. We learn about all those genetic and cellular variations on a theme, including:

• autophagic xenophagy
• macrophage fusing with an organic killer, lysosome
• lysosome contains highly destructive enzymes and they only operate at acidic pH, so it has an acidic pH and the enzymes kill living organisms like bacteria
• They can also kill proteins or old mitochondria – any cellular waste material, but the pH, or acidity, is capable of corroding or dissolving mineral substances

In simpler terms, though, we know that some children and adults are more predisposed to vaccine injuries and adverse effects; we all are products of our epigenetics, when it comes to cancer, obesity, depression and thousands of other bio-physiological issues.

Again, the words of wisdom from Dr. Gherardi:

We know there are 34 genes which code for this highly complex machinery. So we looked for 109 variants; that is, genetic variations on each of these genes. They are ‘normal.’ That means the mutations do not cause disease in and of themselves. But they do predispose the system to dysfunctions. Of the 109 variants we checked out, we found 7 variants, located on six different genes, which are significantly found more frequently in patients with MMF, as compared to the general public. There are international consensus guidelines indicating normal ranges. It is interesting to note that these genetic mutations are cumulative. That is, our MMF patients present more than one variation. They have three, four, or five, and their effects probably combine. As a result, in a normal situation, when the macrophage just performs standard duties, it works fine.

If the job makes extra demands on the macrophage, most people overcome the difficulty, with a struggle. But a small minority will be totally unable to secrete the enzyme, and the toxin will remain. If 10, 20, or 25 vaccines are administered, regardless of genes, everyone will be overcome by the toxic burden. The cause of the system breakdown will be the toxicity itself.

The researchers and injured patient groups in France, USA and the other 20 countries looking at MMF and the connection to the adjuvant aluminum hydroxide have a universal battle to wage against the industries that make profit off of their mistakes, and who have utilized billions of dollars in marketing, which is another term for “covering up” or “falsifying data” or “burying the maimed or killed” or “denigrating truth-seekers and truth-tellers.”

Why is it that public and civil society proponents and social justice warriors are the ones crushed by the boulder of Sisyphus when it was the king of Corinth who was punished by the gods for “chronic deceitfulness by being compelled to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, repeating this action forever.”

This film explores the truth around that deceit and maleficence and arrogance, and we the viewers have to decide who pays the ferryman, who pushes that boulder back up the hill of Capitalism. I sure as hell do not want to be responsible for the deceit and the outright felonies of the harbingers of capitalism at any cost.

We have too many examples in recent history around the failures of US medicine and the chemical and pharmaceutical industries to believe these people with the slick advertising departments and extra sleazy lobbyists and sales people.

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Do We Need a New Approach to Vaccine Recommendations?

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In a recent article published in the British Medical Journal, Crowcroft et al (2015) suggest we need a new approach to vaccine recommendations. Focusing mainly on the economic and ethical considerations involved in public policy surrounding vaccine programs and vaccine approval the authors write:

“We are on a steep trajectory away from an era of inexpensive vaccines for diseases that are widespread in the absence of immunisation… Technologies such as searching genetic codes for possible antigens and the development of new adjuvants to stimulate immune responses also bring considerable uncertainty about safety and effectiveness.” 

“…some sections of society are less likely to vaccinate themselves or their children. Those who hesitate to vaccinate are often highly educated, well resourced, and demand respect for their perspectives.” 

Though speaking specifically about a ‘novel vaccine’ for serogroup B meningococcal disease, Bexsero (Novartis, Basel), the issues and problems of vaccine safety and approval apply to all vaccines. Arguably, more important than the economic risk to benefit models used by healthcare policy analysts to calculate the health costs for vaccines are the very real questions associated with safety and efficacy. Those concerns neither make it to same cost/benefit calculations, inasmuch as the actual costs associated with mitigating adverse reactions are not included, nor do they appear paramount to policy makers or ethicists. The preference instead is to assume that risks of adverse reactions and ineffective vaccines are minimal compared the risks associated with the diseases vaccines purport to protect against. I would suggest that efficacy and safety are central to any risk/benefit calculation and ensuing policy decision. For without those data, neither the economic costs nor the human costs of said policy decision can be accurately assessed.

Vaccine Safety and Efficacy  

If we look at the historical data, across multiple vaccines, a pattern emerges that is quite distinct from the models proposed by many healthcare agencies and governmental institutions.

Crawcroft and Britto (2002) called whooping cough a continuing problem, which has re-merged in countries with high vaccination coverage [with inexpensive vaccines] and low mortality.  Then they contradicted themselves. “Pertussis has re-emerged…because of low coverage after a vaccine scare in the 1980s (in the United Kingdom) or the use of vaccines with poor efficacy (Canada, Sweden).”

“Germany stopped their vaccination programmes completely and only reinstated vaccination for pertussis after years of recurrent epidemics of whooping cough.” However, according to Miller and Farrington (1988), “In West Germany, unlike the UK, there are no national statistics on pertussis incidence, no national vaccination policy and no figures for vaccine uptake. Local studies have shown that vaccination rates are low and that pertussis is prevalent particularly in 2-4 year age-group, which is typical of a country with low uptake, similarly serotype 2 predominates.”

Whooping cough vaccine was introduced in the UK during the 1960s and national statistics on uptake rates are available from 1961.

“Mortality data show that death from whooping cough declined before ‘the disease was reduced by vaccination’”.

Are there any Diseases Reduced by Vaccination? 

Starting with smallpox vaccines, continuing through typhoid, diphtheria and later on DPT and other vaccines, the highest incidence of targeted diseases occurred in the vaccinated. Famously, the Leicester citizens’ boycott of smallpox vaccine stopped smallpox epidemics in their city. Outbreaks of typhoid in the army occurred right after mass vaccination (Wright 1901). A huge diphtheria outbreak in the vaccinated in the 1940s in Nazi Germany and in the Nazi occupied countries. A documented 300% increase in the incidence of whooping cough starting in the 2-months old DPT recipients in the USA in mid seventies (Hutchins et al 1988).

The US outbreaks of measles in even 100% vaccinated populations started in 1963 with the licensure and mass use (Sencer et al. 1967) of the  measles vaccines. The destruction of transplacentally-transmitted immunity (Mulholland 1995) predicted by vaccine researchers early in the piece, resulted in pertussis and measles occurring in newborn babies in all countries with high vaccination compliance. Outbreaks of provocation paralysis (infantile paralysis) provoked by all vaccinations) (McCloskey 1950) are well-documented.

Natural infectious diseases of childhood (both mortality and morbidity) were on the downward trajectory 50 years before any vaccines were administered in mass proportions. The main reasons were better nutrition (especially better vitamin C status), sanitation, clean water and uncrowded living conditions. Generational immunity acquired by repeated exposure and inherited and acquired natural immunity cannot be overlooked, either.

The largely unvaccinated Amish (claiming religious exemption) had not reported a single case of measles between 1970 and December 1987, for 18 years (Sutter et all 1991), while the well-vaccinated non-Amish communities experienced regular 2-3 year epidemics in even 100% vaccinated populations. Pro-vaccinators claimed success and set a date for measles eradication (1 October 1982). Instead, large measles outbreaks occurred in the vaccinated non-Amish, starting in 1982, and on 5 December 1987 in the Amish.  The situation simply confirmed Hedrich’s (1933) evaluation of measles epidemic cycles (2-3, 11, and even 18 years).

Pertussis followed similar dynamics motivating pro-vaccinators to claim success with early pertussis vaccination. However, it did not take long and pertussis outbreaks in fully vaccinated populations followed mass vaccination drives. Instead of abandoning the obviously ineffective vaccination, the culture of “lies, damn lies and statistics” set in.

Sweden discontinued pertussis vaccine use for 11 years in 1979; whooping cough became a mild disease and stopped occurring in babies and young children below one year of age (Isacson et al. 1993).  Very few doses of pertussis vaccine were administered, however, even those few recipients developed pertussis (one in 3).  372 (61%) of the 377 parents interviewed, reported clinical pertussis in their unvaccinated children (confirming Hedrich’s (1933) concept of herd immunity).

When Sweden resumed pertussis vaccination (with acellular vaccine) in mid 1990s, not only the incidence went up, but the babies under the age of one contracted the disease already during the trials of acellular vaccine straight after the first dose of the vaccine (Olin 1995). The trial was discontinued before the expected termination date. Epidemics in the vaccinated have continued.

Japan moved the DPT & P vaccination age to two years in mid seventies with similar effect as observed in Sweden, including a substantial fall in the overall infant mortality (from 17th to the first, lowest infant mortality rate in the world (Jenny Scott 1990).

The UK experienced similar dynamics, also in mid seventies. After the first media report of brain damage linked to DPT vaccine the UK parent’s compliance fell down to 30% or even 10%), but according to Fine and Clarkson (1982), paradoxically, the inter-epidemic period did not decrease after the 1974 fall in vaccine uptake.

Pertussis incidence and hospital admissions fell markedly and so did the overall infant mortality. Macfarlane (1982) wrote, ”The postneonatal mortality fell markedly in 1976, a year on which a sharp decline in neonatal mortality rate began. Between 1976 and 1979, however, neither the late neonatal nor the post-neonatal mortality rates fell any further.  Indeed, the post-neonatal mortality rate increased slightly among babies born in 1977.  Obviously, when the compliance started climbing, so did the infant mortality rates in England and Wales and Glasgow. Epidemics in the vaccinated followed.

Preston (1994) analyzed the pertussis situation and wrote, ”In the mid-1970s, the general public and many health care professionals in Britain lost faith in the safety of whole-cell pertussis vaccine. This reaction (largely in response to fears about vaccine-induced brain damage) was unjustified, and caused vaccine uptake in infants to plunge from 80% to 30%.” Preston compared this with the situation in Massachusetts and wrote, “An apparent increase in incidence in 1989-91 was largely due to wider surveillance and the introduction of serologic diagnosis for adolescents with not less than 1 week of paroxysmal coughing…” “Stott and Davis suggested that, in the absence of a positive culture, the term “pseudo-whooping cough” is appropriate for paroxysmal cough of less than 3 weeks duration. Although the authors of the Massachusetts report express concern about the diagnosis of pertussis in fully vaccinated children, they do not tell us how many of these children had positive cultures, culture positivity being the only reliable laboratory test.

Cincinnati likewise experienced a resurgence of pertussis in 1993, with 223 culture-positive cases.  Although 82% of diagnosed “cases” between 6 months and 6 years of age had received at least three doses of (Connaught and Lederle) vaccine, the criteria for clinical diagnosis are not stated, nor are we told the number of culture-positive cases in this age group…Both consider panic measures, such as neonatal vaccination, immunisation of pregnant women and boosting with acellular vaccine.” And, we are told “The vaccine cannot be expected to protect against pseudo whooping cough.  Nevertheless, there are several good reasons for genuine failure of pertussis vaccination.”

Early Vaccination and Later Disease

In all countries with national vaccination programs, the distribution of all vaccine-preventable disease experienced deranged age distribution. The present situation is that in all developed countries with high vaccination compliance epidemics of pertussis, measles, mumps, etc. occur with increased frequency and magnitude, and, in the vaccinated.

Medical researchers documented waning vaccine ‘immunity’, changes in the serogroup, polymorphism and mutations of the causative organisms (directly linked to vaccines in a similar fashion as experienced with antibiotics and other antibacterials and antivirals) (Cassiday et al. 2000; Octavia et al. 2011; Mooi et al. 2014).

Medical research provides important scientific evidence against continued use of vaccines, which is an outdated, ineffective and unsafe technology. Moreover, the evidence of the benefits of natural infectious diseases in providing a life-long specific and non-specific immunity has also been mounting.

References

  1. Crawcroft et al. 2015. Do we need a new approach to making vaccine recommendations? BMJ; 30 January: 350; h308:1-6 (Analysis).
  2. Crawcroft and Britto. 2002. Whooping cough – a continuing problem.  BMJ; 325. 29 June : 1537-1538 (editorial).
  3. Miller and Farrington. 1988.  The current epidemiology of pertussis in the developed world: UK and West Germany. Tokai J Exp Clin Med; 13 Suppl): 97-101.
  4. Wright 1901.  On the changes affected by anti-typhoid inoculation in the bactericidal power of the blood; with remarks on the probable significance of these changes.  Lancet; Sep 14: 715-723.
  5. Hutchins et al. 1988. Current epidemiology of pertussis in the United States.  Tokai j Clin Med; 13(Suppl): 103-109.
  6. Sencer et al. 1967.  Epidemiologic basis for eradication of measles in 1967.  Pub Health Reports; 82(3): 253-256.
  7. Mulholland 1995.  Measles and pertussis in developing countries with good vaccine coverage.  Lancet; 345. Febr 4: 305-307.
  8. McCloskey,  1950,  The relation of prophylactic inoculations to the inset of poliomyelitis. Lancer. April 18: 659-663.
  9. Sutter et al. 1991.  Measles among the Amish: a comparative study of measles severity in primary and secondary cases in households.  J Infect Dis; 163: 12-16.
  10. Hedrich 1933.  Monthly estimates of the child population “susceptible” to measles, 1900-1930, Baltimore, MD.  Am J Hygiene: 613-635.
  11. Isacson et al.  1993.  How common is whooping cough in a non vaccinating country?  Ped infec Dis J; 12(4): 284-288.
  12. Olin 1995.  Acellular pertussis vaccines – a question of efficacy. J of Hospital Infections; 30 (Suppl): 503-507.
  13. Jenny Scott  1990.  US slips in infant mortality.  National Commission to prevent infant mortality.
  14. Fine and Clarkson 1982.  The recurrence of whooping cough: possible implications for assessment of vaccine efficacy.  Lancet; March 20: 666-668.
  15. Macfarlane 1982.  Infant deaths after four weeks.  Lancet; October 23: 9290939.
  16. Preston 1994.  Pertussis vaccination: neither panic nor complacency.  Lancet; 344, August 20: 491-492.
  17. Stott and Davis.  1981.  Pertussis vaccination and pseudo-whooping cough.  BMJ; 282,June 6: 1871.
  18. Cassiday et al. 2000.  Polymorphism in Bordetella pertussis pertactin and pertussus toxin virulence factors in the United States, 1935-1999).  J Infect Dis; 182: 1402-1408.
  19. Octavia et al. 2011.  Insight into evolution of Bordetella pertussis from comparative genomic analyses: evidence of vaccine-driven selection.  Mol Biol Evol; Jan 10; 28(1): 707-715.
  20. Mooi et al. 2014.  Pertussis resurgence: waning immunity and pathogen adaptation – two side of the same coin.  Epidemiol Infect. Feb 13; 142(4): 685-694.

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This article was published originally on Hormones Matter on March 19, 2015.

The Vaccine Debate: Where is the Empathy?

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Of Peanut Allergies and Petulance

A few weeks ago, a fellow social media acquaintance posted an article about peanut allergies in children. The article argued that no peanut butter sandwich is as important as a child’s life, so she urged her fellow moms not to bring peanut items to school if a classmate had a known peanut allergy. I read it: it was heartfelt and very sensible. I am of the opinion that my daughter can certainly live without peanut butter sandwiches at school. Her school is nut free, and never once has it inconvenienced me in the slightest. When I found out about the nut-free rule, my first thought was “Wow. I’m so glad that I do not have to worry about my daughter encountering such a dangerous allergy situation all the time–that must be really hard for those parents.” Apparently, that’s not such a common response. Read any of these articles on moms talking about peanut allergies and you will find comments from parents reacting in ways that range from annoyed to down-right cruel. Parents protesting that “Kids should learn to navigate their allergies in the real world” and “My child won’t eat anything else!” This poor mother is sitting there having to worry about one sticky peanut butter finger touching a door knob and her small child dying in a matter of minutes from anaphylaxis after touching that door knob. Think about that for a second: HAVING TO WORRY THAT YOUR CHILD WILL DIE EVERY SINGLE DAY AT SCHOOL FROM PEANUT BUTTER.  Thinking about that is enough to make my heart bust open with torturous sadness for that parent. The lack of empathy in those responses was astounding. In some cases, down right sociopathic.

You may be on board with the peanut butter argument, agreeing that we should have empathy for children with peanut allergies. Those kids didn’t choose their allergies, and their parents have to worry that their children will die from a product that is nearly ubiquitous in our existence. You may be one of the parents that gets that, and that’s great. But the conversation took an even darker turn, and that is what I want to really talk about in this article. One respondent wrote something to the effect of, “Why do we just have to worry about peanut butter sandwiches when there are stupid, irresponsible parents who let their child come to school unvaccinated and put our children at risk of death every day.” If you’ve read this article, you can imagine that struck a nerve with me. Although I feel like my response to that comment was both warranted and respectful, it never does any good but open Pandora’s Box, leaving me tired, discouraged, helpless and hopeless. WHY? Lack of empathy.

Vaccine Vitriol: A Pattern of Predictable Disdain

There’s a group of people in our society that is marginalized beyond belief in the most cruel and unusual ways: vaccine injured children and their families. Now before you stop reading, thinking I am some crazy “anti-vaxxer” about to do some “pro-vaxxer” bashing, please know that is not going to happen here. In fact, I am attempting to do exactly the opposite. The vaccine argument is one of the most contentious and heated debates I’ve ever seen. I’d be willing to go out on a limb and say it is worse than probably any other political issue to date: even more so than gun control or immigration.

In any vaccine discussion, it is common for phrases like “you should have your kids taken away and go to jail” and “you’re an idiot who believes in pseudoscience” to fly around the conversation. To be honest, there’s a lot of self-righteousness and indignation sometimes on both sides of the issue. So what is going on here? Why can’t we have a civil conversation about vaccines, like, EVER?

Well, I’m a psychologist, so all the obvious answers (to me) ran through my head: cognitive dissonance, belief perseverance, etc. Yes, it’s well documented in psychological science that people cling tight to their beliefs even in the face of overwhelming contradictory evidence, but these things don’t really account for why people can be so darn MEAN to each other in the process. Then (as I usually do), I started ruminating on how, at some level, every single thing that human beings do is explained by consciousness. Human beings are a product of their minds, and our minds are set up to run in very predictable ways. Human brains are pattern seekers; they constantly put things into groups or categories. Every piece of stimulus information we encounter (what we see, hear, touch, feel, taste), is organized in the brain in a way that helps us put things into logical order.

Information is stored in our long term memory in something called a semantic network, where similar pieces of information remain connected together in our brains. We create schemas, which are “templates” for objects and situations that become stored in our memory. These things help us predict and anticipate things we will encounter in the future. In other words, these processes help us navigate a world filled with overwhelming amounts of stimulus information. Usually, this works pretty well for getting around this complex world, except that life is not black and white, and dealing with the gray areas require much more effortful processing.

What does this have to do with meanness and lack of empathy? If our minds are naturally inclined to place things into groups, then that’s part of the reason that it’s so easy to cling to dualistic thought: right vs. wrong, bad vs. good, in-group vs. out-group, winner vs. loser. Not only are our brains pattern seekers, but we’re also social animals that seek out similar others. Both of these things help create a large “us” vs. “them” dynamic. Psychological science has also shown that we tend to have more empathy for those who are similar to us than dissimilar. In other words, when “us” encounters “them”, our brains are more inhibited from producing empathetic responses. Moreover, the anger that arises from our values being challenged activates our amygdala (our brain’s alarm system) which competes against our pre-frontal cortex (involved in self-control and rational thought). Combine all of that with the deindividuation (loss of self-awareness in a group) of the social media environment, and you’ve got a recipe for cruelty and indignation.

Beyond Us Versus Them in the Vaccine Debate: Empathy First

How can we unravel these barriers when it comes to the vaccine argument? One word (here it is again): Empathy. No, it’s not the dominant response in this situation, but research has also shown that we can call upon our executive functions like self-control and exert them upon will. It’s tough, and it depletes us when we do it, but it can be done. We need to approach these conversations by first trying to willfully control our immediate anger that results from confronting information that challenges our beliefs. Yes, that challenge is uncomfortable, but by taking a few minutes to let your mid-brain calm down and execute willful self-control, you’ll be better prepared to try to understand the other side of the argument.

One very smart commenter in that social media conversation, who was actually the first person to acknowledge that maybe I wasn’t crazy after all for speaking out against vaccinations, suggested that instead of eliciting anger and defensiveness, attempting to induce empathy with rational thought might be a better strategy. She suggested asking yourself, “Why would someone choose not to vaccinate their child?” or “Why would someone want to force everyone to vaccinate when they know some children have been injured by vaccines?” If you’ve really been able to put your anger aside (at least temporarily) then you’ll realize the answer to both questions is exactly the same: They want healthy children. Suddenly, it’s not “us” versus “them” anymore, it’s just “us”. We all want the same thing, we just have vastly different feelings about how to accomplish it.

This person also made a point that was the driving reason behind writing this article. She said something about how being “right” isn’t a strategy if you want to change the hearts of people that disagree with you.  I’ll admit, that’s all I have ever been trying to do: be right. The need to be right comes from a real and raw place deep down in my heart. I watched my daughter fight a chronic auto-inflammatory disease that was triggered by vaccinations. I held her while she suffered. I fought for her when doctors couldn’t figure it out. I’m the one who read hundreds of scientific articles, pored over her lab results, tracked every symptom, found the patterns, and put the puzzle pieces together. I demanded the referrals, I found her cure, and she’s currently in remission–not because of what her doctors knew but because of what I KNEW.  When you experience something like that, it’s really hard to hold on to the age-old notion that “doctors know best.”

When the vaccine debate emerges and I tell people our story, at best I will get “I’m sorry for what happened to your daughter, but that is rare” and at worst, “I highly doubt your daughter’s condition was triggered by vaccines, vaccines are a scapegoat for the onset of many genetic conditions”.  Neither of those responses is empathetic. I consider myself lucky that my daughter is in remission, but my heart breaks knowing that there are parents out there whose children are severely disabled or have died as a result of vaccines, and those are the responses they get from others.

On the other hand, I need to take a moment and practice what I’m preaching here. I need to show some empathy those folks who so valiantly defend vaccines, and I’m going to ask my vaccine-questioning friends to try and do the same. I understand why people defend vaccines. I really do. I understand the fear of a tiny little baby contracting a horrible disease that could end in their death and being angry thinking that some kid who could have been protected from that disease could be the culprit that led to your child’s death. That is absolutely terrifying and a real phenomenon that has happened in this world. I mean, all you have to do is go to the mall and see that people are coughing and sneezing, EVERYWHERE. The risk is real. I understand because I, too, share that fear. I have been exposed to information that has lessened that fear to some degree, but I still have it.  I understand that the rational and logical thing to do is adopt the mainstream position of highly respected doctors, scientists and health organizations who have had intense training in science and medicine. I can understand how ridiculous it sounds to think that all of these experts are somehow wrong or involved in some kind of grand conspiracy to cover up the idea that vaccines are highly dangerous or ineffective. In fact, I’m willing to say that this position is the logical position. I’m not going to tell anyone that believes this that they are wrong. I’m going to tell them that I understand. I not only understand, but I want to have faith in doctors and research and the CDC, too.

Some Things You Cannot Un-Know: The Corruption Runs High, But Not Necessarily Deep

Now, my vaccine defenders, it’s your turn. There is only one thing that has separated your position from my own: life experience. I cannot have faith in these doctors and organizations because they have failed me and they failed my daughter in very real, life-changing ways. When you or your child has been injured by something that you were told was safe, you can’t just shrug your shoulders and say, “Well I guess everything has risks and my child was one of the rare ones.” Nope. You say “How could this have possibly happened?” You start digging. You quickly find out there are thousands of research articles that contradict the mainstream opinion, even entire textbooks. You find out that there are thousands of doctors and scientists shouting from the rooftops about how the risk of what happened to your child is not uncommon. You find out that there has been so much corruption and cover-up in organizations like the FDA and CDC that congressmen are shouting on the congressional floor for our government to do something about it—but nothing ever gets done. You find out that pharmaceutical companies have all the money and the power and that they own the media and that’s why these dissenting scientists aren’t featured on the news. You find out the pharmaceutical companies also fund the research, pay the editors of the journals, pay doctors money to speak about their products, and even influence the head of the FDA.

Suddenly the once illogical argument that the mainstream is wrong is not so illogical after all. It’s not a grand conspiracy, it’s the influence of money and greed forcing the direction of science and medical opinion at the very top of the chain, and all those underneath that aren’t being funded simply go along with the “respected” opinion of those at the top. For those underneath who have discovered the truth, they have figured out that publicizing dissenting opinions runs the risk of destroying both their careers and reputation. The safe choice is to continue with the status quo. That’s how it happens. That’s how thousands of children and adults can be injured by pharmaceuticals, and the rest of us stand back and let it happen. Once you know this information, you can’t un-know it. It changes you.

Go Beyond the Feedback Loops: Walk in Another’s Shoes

In many ways experiences hand us our reality, but in many ways we also create it. The things we Google appear on our Facebook feed; the things we like on Facebook are tracked and used to send us similar material. It’s easy to see how once we adopt a position it’s constantly being reinforced by more and more exposure to the same information. It’s unlikely that we ever truly expose ourselves to the other side of any argument—but that may be the key in fostering the empathy we need to drive the change we seek in the vaccine debate. Psychological science has demonstrated the social influence of reciprocity, where one concession leads to the concession of the other side. This is a powerful psychological phenomenon. So, I’m conceding. Instead of begging vaccine-defenders to listen to us and focusing on trying to be right, let’s for one second, focus on their position. Put yourself in their shoes. Show them that you understand that they have fears for their children, too. Showing empathy is the only way they will show us that in return. Being right cannot be our strategy, because it’s not their minds we need to change—it’s their hearts.

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The Pharma Funded Promotion of HPV Vaccines

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Promotional campaigns for HPV vaccines have informed women that infections from HPV-16 and -18 are the cause of most cervical cancer. However, in 2006/7 when HPV vaccination programs were implemented globally, the scientific community knew that most women do not develop cervical cancer or warts after any type of HPV infection – including HPV-16/-18. HPV infections from all sub-types are found in high frequency among women with normal cervices and cervical cancer is a rare outcome from these infections. This demonstrates that HPV infection of any sub-type (including HPV-16 and -18) is not predictive of cancer; particularly as ninety percent of HPV infections have no clinical consequences at all. It has been known for decades that environmental and lifestyle co-factors are also necessary for HPV infections to progress to cervical cancer. This is why 83% of cervical cancer occurs in the developing countries.

Does the HPV Vaccine Prevent Cervical Cancer?

The promotional campaigns for HPV vaccines have been designed and funded by the pharmaceutical companies. This vaccine has not been demonstrated to prevent cervical cancer. It was trialled against a surrogate for cervical cancer – pre-cursor lesions (grade 2/3) in 15-26 year old women – and these lesions are not predictive of cancer later in life. More than 95% of high-grade lesions (CIN 3) in young women (15-26 years) regress without treatment. In addition, the phase 3 clinical trials that tested the vaccine against pre-cursor lesions were conducted from 2003 to 2007 and were not complete when the HPV vaccine was licensed by the US Food and Drug Administration in June 2006. The vaccine was fast tracked for approval by the FDA due to industry lobbying and Merck ensured that Gardasil® was not just approved for high-risk groups. The FDA approved the vaccine for universal use in all women even though it was known that many co-factors, that were not prevalent in developed countries (Australia, USA and UK), were essential for HPV infections to progress to cervical cancer. The time frame from application to approval of the HPV vaccine by the FDA was only 6 months and 3 weeks later the CDC recommended the vaccine for use in all women.

Yet the phase 3 clinical trials to determine the safety and efficacy of this vaccine against cervical cancer were not completed until 2007. In the US, the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act removes liability from vaccine manufacturers for all design faults and negligence relating to their vaccines [1]. The US government has a no-fault compensation program that is tax-payer funded. This program removes all liability from the vaccine manufacturers and there is no onus to demonstrate that their products are safe and effective before they are implemented in the population. However, only Americans can seek compensation from the US government program. People who are harmed by HPV vaccines in other countries, such as Australia, receive no compensation from their governments.

Lobbying for HPV Vaccine Approval

Merck & Co is the manufacturer of the Gardasil® vaccine and when the medical director, Dr. Richard Haupt, was questioned about the speed with which the HPV vaccine was brought to the market he replied ‘Our hope and belief is that this is a remarkable vaccine that will have a huge impact on women [2]. ‘Hope’ and ‘belief’ are not the same as scientific evidence.

Politicians were lobbied and invited to receptions urging them to legislate against a ‘global killer’ [2]. Abramson, the chairman of the committee of the CDC that recommended the vaccine for all girls aged 11 or 12, stated ‘there was incredible pressure from industry and politics to approve this vaccine [2]. Diane Harper, a scientist involved in the development of the vaccine, agreed ‘Merck lobbied every opinion leader, women’s group, medical society, politicians and went directly to the people – it created a sense of panic that says you have to have this vaccine now [2]. In the US pharmaceutical companies are allowed to advertise directly to the public and the campaigns for HPV vaccines were very aggressive.

Educating Physicians about the HPV Vaccine

It was important for Merck to promote the vaccine through trusted sources and this was done by securing government reimbursement and mandates to promote the vaccine to all women, not just high-risk populations [3]. This enabled Merck to fund the professional medical associations (PMA’s) to promote the vaccine. The pharmaceutical companies supplied the medical associations with a Speaker Lecture Kit. This included ready-made presentations and letters to promote Gardasil® as a preventative for cervical cancer, even though the data was incomplete. The commercials for Gardasil® stated in small print ‘the duration of protection has not been established’ [2]. Much of the promotional material did not address the complexity of the issues surrounding the vaccine and did not provide balanced advice regarding the risks and benefits of the vaccine [3]. It was also presented in a way that obscured the involvement of pharmaceutical companies.

Doctors and nurses were recruited for an ‘Educate the Educators’ program created by the pharmaceutical companies to train health professionals to promote the vaccine. The PMA’s maintained a registry of educators and participants lectured to thousands of healthcare professionals. Hundreds of doctors were paid $4,500 per 50 minute lecture to present the information supplied by the pharmaceutical companies at Merck sponsored conferences [3]. They were also paid to attend advisory board meetings to discuss the vaccine [2]. In addition, there has also been an increase in cervical cancer awareness for patient groups financed with the help of Merck and GlaxosmithKline: often the financial support is indirect so patients are unaware that ‘expert’ advice has been paid for by the vaccine makers [2].

One of the Speaker Kit medical slides stated ‘Cervical cancer screening is described as secondary prevention identifying a precursor lesion; the HPV vaccine is primary prevention that would eliminate the cause of cervical cancer’ (Speaker Lecture Kit slide 13 in Rothman and Rothman 2009). This information is dishonest because it does not inform women that HPV alone is not sufficient to cause cervical cancer and also that there are 13+ other cancer causing strains of HPV that are not covered by the vaccine. Hence, the vaccine will not eliminate the cause of cervical cancer.

Whilst the slides acknowledged the uneven distribution of cervical cancer rates globally they did not draw attention to the risk factors that make cervical cancer a higher risk for women in developing countries. This knowledge is critical to women in determining the necessity for using this vaccine. The education campaigns emphasized the worldwide incidence of this disease whilst leaving out the risk factors for the disease and precautions about the risks of vaccines. Merck also funded the American College Health Association (ACHA) Vaccine Toolkit for clinicians [3]. This included talking points, sample e-mail messages to students and parents and sample press releases and public service announcements. At no time has the public been informed that the information they received on this vaccine was designed by pharmaceutical companies.

Protecting Population Health

The pharmaceutically funded promotional campaigns for HPV vaccines have maximized the threat of HPV infections and minimised the environmental and lifestyle co-factors that are necessary for the development of cervical cancer. The public places its trust in medical associations to provide non-biased science to health professionals for the promotion of medical products to the community. Clearly this trust has been breached in the case of HPV vaccines. At a minimum the public is entitled to be informed openly about relationships with industry and precise funding arrangements in order that they can weigh up the credibility of the information. This was an intentional deception as the pharmaceutical companies sought to present their information through trusted sources and the PMA’s condoned it.

Population health cannot be protected if there is no accountability for the health information that is supplied to doctors from industry funded research and presented to the community in the mainstream media.

About the author: Judy Wilyman MSc (Population Health), PhD Candidate University of Wollongong. More facts about HPV infections and the development of cervical cancer have been published in the Infectious Agents and Cancer Journal and can be accessed here:  HPV vaccination programs have not been shown to be cost-effective in countries with comprehensive Pap screening and surgery.

References

  1. Habakus LK and Holland M (Ed), 2011, Vaccine Epidemic: how corporate greed, biased science and coercive government threaten our human rights, our health and our children. Center for Personal Rights.
  2. Rosenthal E, 2008, The Evidence Gap: Drug Makers Push Leads to Cancer Rise, The New York Times, August 20, accessed 21.12.09
  3. Rothman SM and Rothman DJ, 2009, Marketing HPV Vaccine: Implications for Adolescent Health and Medical Professionalism, Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol 302, (7) p. 781 – 785.

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Medication Safety and Efficacy Studies: Share Your Experience

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Is this Medication or Vaccine Good for Me?

That is the question on everyone’s mind; is this medication good for me? How does one decide? The mandated medication package inserts tell one story. The online drug reaction and interaction lists are long and complicated. Adverse events data are incomplete and patient stories reflect individual reactions. Where are the reports that put numbers to the side-effects and adverse reactions? Where are the real world data that show risks for patients of different age groups, men versus women, or on multiple medications? Lucine Health Sciences and Hormones Matter are collecting those data and you can help.

Understanding Side Effects

While we cannot make your medication decisions for you, we can collect more complete side-effect data from patients like you, from around the world and we can offer those data reports to patients, physicians and industry. We think everyone deserves to know the frequency, severity, and chronicity of side-effects. We think everyone deserves to know whether a the benefits of a medication or vaccine outweigh the risks. Don’t you?

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Hormones Matter is the health media arm of Lucine Health Sciences. We leverage the broad educational and social media reach of Hormones Matter to crowdsource critical, direct-to-patient research. Lucine is a C-corporation by federal standards, a B-Corp (for benefit corporation) in the state of Nevada. What this means is that any money you contribute, either through the donate or the subscribe buttons, is not tax deductible; for that we would have to be a not-for-profit enterprise.

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Are Safer Vaccines Possible?

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Perhaps, but only if we can admit that some vaccines cause injury and rework the entire vaccine development and monitoring system.

Vaccine Safety

Vaccine safety is a controversial topic, almost as controversial as politics or religion. In polite company, it is best not to bring up the subject, lest an all-out shouting match ensue.  On the one side, we have the pro-vaccine camp, who believes wholeheartedly that every vaccine is necessary and safe – ‘why else would they be on the market?’ is a common refrain. On the other, the anti-vaccine crowd, who for various reasons, are against vaccines. Some among the anti-vaxers are fundamentally against all vaccines as a matter of religious or libertarian principle. In their eyes, vaccination represents the worst of big government subjugation. It is an attack on their very freedom. Others in the anti-vax crowd come to their views experientially, through injury or tragedy.  Somewhere in the middle, the rest of us, parents, scientists, doctors and health advocates who are neither for nor against vaccines in principle, but who just want our kids to be safe and healthy.

Beyond For or Against

Much like the polarization of politics, the polarization of the vaccine safety and efficacy, all but nullifies reasoned concerns. One is either for or against vaccines. There is no grey area. This is fantastic for vaccine manufacturers because every concern, every injury can be written off by simply de-legitimizing the claimant – placing them in the nutty anti-vax camp, while correspondingly and overwhelming flooding the media with pro-vaccine marketing. Money does indeed buy power and power protects profits. With virtually all vaccines licensed manufactured by just five companies and revenues exceeding $25 billion annually and growing, the money and power are highly concentrated.

Stepping back though, away from the money and marketing, why anyone with a brain would believe that any vaccine or medication was universally safe and effective defies logic, not to mention the inherent variability of human physiology. To be entirely and ardently pro-vaccine as many are, one has to choose to ignore that basic fact – that for some people, some vaccines and medications either will not work or worse, will cause great injury. To ignore that fact, especially when there are no direct financial incentives to do so, one has to invalidate the tragedies that are in front of them; to convince oneself that the injured person before them is either lying to gain attention or simply is not credible and therefore not to be taken seriously. Either way, the net result of de-legitimizing injury, is to shutter the possibility of additional research, research that might find a connection. It’s quite a deft bit of cognitive dissonance, more so as the evidence of injury mounts.

De-legitimizing a claim of vaccine injury is easy; attack the person, not the claim, label the mom (because it is almost always moms making these claims) as irrational (hysterical), ignorant, and best of all, as anti-science; as if science is infallible and all-knowing rather than dynamic and changing. Ironically, bolstering the certitude of science, especially that which comes from organizations whose fiduciary or political obligations demand results remain in their favor, does more to reduce the credibility of the scientific endeavor and the public trust than simply admitting that sometimes the science is wrong or not nearly as clear as we once had believed. Polarization is more than just annoying and inconvenient. It is dangerous.

Skewed Development and Evaluation Process

As with the drug industry, especially after the recent Supreme Court decisions, the entire infrastructure of the vaccine industry is skewed in favor of finding vaccines safe and effective. There is very little space or motivation to find a vaccine dangerous. According to a recent report on Conflicts of Interest in  Vaccine Safety Research:

Fixing the Vaccine System – The Long Game

There is no easy or quick fix. The systems and barriers to vaccine, and indeed, drug safety are deeply entrenched in organizational and legal frameworks. The pendulum has swung so far away from consumer safety in favor of corporate protections that efforts to fix these problems must be viewed in terms of a long game; one that recognizes institutional and policy change has to take place over the next 10-20 years. The first step, however, is to recognize there is a problem and that vaccine injuries are likely within a system where there is little transparency and even less accountability for injuries.

The second and more difficult phase includes the major policy and infrastructure changes.
Those are a mess. Many are discussed in the piece Conflicts of Interest in  Vaccine Safety Research.  Many more need to be added. I will be writing a piece on this topic over the coming weeks. If you would like to contribute your thoughts on removing conflicts of interest from the vaccine safety and indeed, the entire drug development and review process, send me a note. In the mean time, we’re doing our part to understand Gardasil and Cervarix, vaccine safety and injury.

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More people than ever are reading Hormones Matter, a testament to the need for independent voices in health and medicine. We are not funded and accept limited advertising. Unlike many health sites, we don’t force you to purchase a subscription. We believe health information should be open to all. If you read Hormones Matter, like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

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On the Radio: Chandler Marrs and Leslie Botha Talk Hormones and Health

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Earlier this week, I had the great pleasure of speaking with Leslie Carol Botha on her radio show, Holy Hormones Honey, the Greatest Story Never Told, KRFC FM Fort Collins. We spent an hour discussing everything from pregnancy – postpartum mental health and the state of hormone research to women in clinical trials and vaccine safety.  We even talked politics, just a bit.

Front and center was the need for more research and data in all areas of women’s health and the Hormone’s MatterTM solution, a series of crowdsourced studies under the Real Women, Real DataTM, program. Currently, we have three studies underway with many more planned.

In the end, we decided, that we needed to found the Hormones MatterTM University or HMU. Seems like a good idea to me, what do you think?

I had a blast talking about women’s health and hormones and look forward to doing it again. If you want to know why I do, what I do or just want to learn a little bit more about me and why hormones matter in health, have a listen.

To listen to the interview: Do Hormones Matter in Women’s Health? Leslie Botha Interviews Dr. Chandler Marrs on Holy Hormones the Greatest Story Never Told.

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