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The same thing happened with diphtheria and pertussis. Mortality
rates dropped more than 90 percent in the early 20th century before
vaccines for these diseases were introduced. This was due to
better nutrition (with rapid delivery of fresh fruit and vegetables
to cities and refrigeration), cleaner water and improved sanitation
(removing trash from the streets and better sewage systems), not
to vaccines.
The World Health Organization promotes mass vaccination, but knowing
these facts states, "The best vaccine against common infectious
diseases is an adequate diet," fortified, one might add, with
vitamin A.
Since the measles vaccine came into widespread use in this country,
this disease has virtually disappeared, and it has prevented 100
deaths a year. But now, instead, several thousand normally developing
children become autistic after receiving their MMR shot. Termed
"regressive autism," it accounts for about 30 percent
of the 10,000 to 20,000 children who are diagnosed with autism in
this country each year.
To put to rest concerns that MMR vaccination might cause autism
(in a small percentage of children), NEJM, in 2002, published a
population-based study from Denmark, where its authors concluded,
"This study provides strong evidence against the hypothesis
that MMR vaccination causes autism."
The NEJM did not disclose that the "Statens Serum Institut,"
where three of the authors work, is a for-profit vaccine manufacturer,
Denmark's largest, or that four other authors have financial
ties to this company. Only one of the eight authors is not
associated with this institute, and the CDC employs him.
The study compares the prevalence of autism in 440,000 MMR vaccinated
and 97,000 unvaccinated children in Denmark born in the 1990s. A
statistical slight-of-hand in age adjustment makes the study show
no causal effect. But, when unmasked and reformatted, the data actually
shows a statistically significant association between MMR vaccine
and autism (as Carol Stott and her coauthors make clear in "MMR
and Autism in Perspective: The Denmark Story," in the Fall
2004 Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, posted online).
Pediatrics and the Journal of the American Medical Association
also have published studies like this supporting U.S. vaccine policy,
written by authors with similar, undisclosed conflicts of interest.
Looking elsewhere, however, one comes across a number of disquieting
facts about vaccines.
- Investigators have found, for example, live measles virus in
the cerebral spinal fluid in children who become autistic after
MMR vaccinations.
- Antibodies to measles virus are elevated in children with autism
but not in normal kids, suggesting that virus-induced autoimmunity
may play a causal role.
- A study published in Neurology this year implicates hepatitis
B vaccine as a causative factor in multiple sclerosis.
One For All
A communitarian ethic increasingly governs health care in the U.S.
It places a greater value on the health of the community, on society
as a whole, than on the health of particular individuals. Public
health officials have put together a vaccination schedule designed
to eliminate infectious diseases to which the population is prey.
Officials recognize that these vaccines will harm a small percentage
of (genetically susceptible) individuals, but it is for the common
good. The communitarian code posits that it is morally acceptable,
if necessary, to sacrifice a few for the good of the many. Or as
one observer more bluntly puts it, "Individual sheep can be
sheared and slaughtered if it is for the welfare of their flock."
In this framework, health care providers become agents of the state
charged with injecting vaccines into people that the central planners
deem necessary. Physicians who remain true to their Hippocratic
Oath and place the interests of their patient above that of the
herd are considered to be out of step with the times, if not an
anachronism.
Like central planners everywhere, the CDC's Advisory Committee
on Immunization Practices (ACIP) promulgates a self-serving, one-size-fits-all
vaccine policy. Members of this committee have ties to vaccine makers,
such that the CDC must grant them waivers from statutory conflict
of interest rules. Even so, and with little evidence to show that
it is safe to subject young children to the ACIP's crowded
immunization schedule, states nevertheless dutifully make its vaccine
recommendations compulsory.
All 50 states require children to be immunized against measles,
diphtheria, Hemophilus influenzae type b, polio, and rubella in
order to enroll in day care and/or public school. Forty-nine states
also require vaccination against tetanus; 47, against hepatitis
B and mumps; and 43 states now require vaccination against chickenpox.
In order to shield themselves from any liability for making vaccinations
compulsory, all states provide a medical exemption and 47, a religious
exemption. Nineteen states allow a philosophical exemption. Some
require only a letter from a parent and others, from a physician
or church leader. (To see the exemptions allowed in your state,
their wording and requirements, [http://www.909shot.com/state-site/state-exemptions.htm]click
here.) Parents, of course, can refuse vaccinations, but if they
want to enroll their child in public school they will need to obtain
one of these exemptions.
Doctors who conclude that the risks of the government's immunization
schedule outweigh its benefits are placed in a difficult position.
If they counsel parents not to have their children follow it, health
care plans, which track vaccine compliance as a measure of "quality,"
will find them wanting.
Weighing The Risks
And if their patient should contract and develop complications
from the disease the vaccine would have prevented, they may find
themselves confronting a lawsuit. If a child becomes autistic following
a vaccination, however, the doctor is protected from any liability
because the government requires it and the child's parents,
if they had chosen to do so, could have obtained an exemption. (Anti-vaccine
advocates call developing autism, asthma and Type I diabetes after
vaccinations "vaccination roulette.")
Parents should have the freedom to select whatever vaccination
schedule they want their children to follow, especially since health
care providers and the government (except via its Vaccine Injury
Compensation Program) cannot be held accountable for any adverse
outcomes that might occur. But if parents elect to not follow the
CDC's immunization schedule, delaying some vaccinations, refusing
others, or avoiding them altogether, then they must accept the risk
that their child might contract the disease that the vaccine against
it most likely would have prevented.
One consideration, which vaccine proponents do not address, is
this: Could contracting childhood diseases like measles, mumps,
rubella and chickenpox play a constructive role in the maturation
of a person's immune system? Or, to put it another way, does
removing natural infection from human experience have any adverse
consequences?
Our species' immune system -- a one-trillion-cell army that
patrols our (100-trillion-cell) body -- serves two main purposes:
- It destroys foreign invaders -- viruses, bacteria, and other pathogens.
- And it destroys aberrant cells in the body that run amuck and
cause cancer.
Our Natural Defense System
Behind the barricades of skin and mucosa, our innate immune system
(composed of phagocytes, natural killer cells and the 20-protein
complement system), which all animals have, is the body's
first line of defense. It reacts to invaders lightening fast
and indiscriminately, but it is not very good at eliminating viruses
and cancerous cells.
Vertebrates have evolved a second line of defense: The adaptive
immune system. It targets specific viruses and bacteria and
has better artillery for eliminating cancerous cells. This system
matures during childhood, and it has a cellular (Th1) and humoral
(Th2) component (Th = helper T cell).
The viruses that cause measles, mumps and chickenpox have infected
countless generations of humans, akin to a rite of passage for each
member of our species. Contracting these diseases strengthens both
parts of the adaptive immune system (Th1 and Th2). Mothers who have
had measles, mumps and chickenpox transfer antibodies against them
to their babies in utero, which protect them during the first year
of life from contracting these infections.
Vaccinations do not have the same effect on the immune system as
naturally acquired diseases do. They stimulate predominantly the
Th2 part of this system and not Th1. (Over-stimulation of Th2 causes
autoimmune diseases.) The cellular Th1 side thwarts cancer, and
if it does not become fully developed in childhood, a person can
be more prone to have cancer as an adult.
Women who had mumps during childhood, for example, are found to
be less likely to have ovarian cancer than women who did not have
this infection. (This study was published in Cancer.) Could the
fact that cancer has become a leading cause of death in children
be a result of vaccinations? Only a randomized controlled trial
can conclusively answer this question.
With rare exception, a well-nourished child who contracts measles
will recover smoothly from the infection. Fifty years ago, almost
all children in the U.S. had measles. And after contracting this
disease, one has a life-long immunity to it.
The protection provided by vaccination is temporary. Adults who
contract measles (when the protective effects of the vaccine wears
off) are much more likely to have neurological, testicular and ovarian
complications. Likewise, rubella is a benign disease in children,
but if a woman acquires it during pregnancy, fetal malformations
may develop.
One can argue, heretical as such an argument may be, that it would
be better to let children have measles, at an age when the infection
helps the adaptive immune system mature in a balanced Th1/Th2 fashion
and complications from this disease are minimal, rather than vaccinate
them against this disease (especially considering the risks of vaccination).
Pertussis and Diphtheria are a different matter. These diseases
are more virulent. Children who contract whooping cough (pertussis)
can be incapacitated for more than a month. Polio can be devastating
in susceptible individuals. And no one wants to get tetanus (lockjaw).
A user-friendly vaccination schedule would include vaccines against
these diseases.
Whatever vaccination schedule one chooses, mothers should breast-feed
their child for as long as possible -- a year or more. Failing that,
add Omega-3 fatty acids, especially DHA (docosahexanoic acid), to
the child's formula.
In summary, this is a vaccination schedule that I would recommend:
- No vaccinations until a child is two years old.
- No vaccines that contain thimerosal (mercury).
- No live virus vaccines (except for smallpox, should it recur).
- These vaccines should be given one at a time, every six months,
beginning at age 2:
- A) Pertussis (acellular, not whole cell)
- B) Diphtheria
- C) Tetanus
- D) Polio (the Salk vaccine, cultured in human cells)
American children are the most highly vaccinated kids in the world.
This schedule is an alternative to the one that rules our "vaccine
nation" (as the Village Voice terms it). In contrast to the
CDC's immunization schedule, it is user-friendly.
Donald
Miller is a cardiac surgeon and Professor of Surgery at the
University of Washington in Seattle and a member of Doctors
for Disaster Preparedness and writes articles on a variety
of subjects for LewRockwell.com,
including bioterrorism. His Web site is www.donaldmiller.com
and you can contact him at dwm@u.washington.edu.
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Mercury and Vaccine
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