![Vaccines]()
I recently posted an article featuring a recorded call to a vaccine manufacturer, where the caller asks questions about how well the flu shot actually works. The answer is, perhaps unintentionally, a bit more honest than what you usually hear from the vaccine pushers.
In that same vein, one of my readers contacted the CDC with numerous questions about the safety and efficacy of childhood vaccines. The answers, straight out of the CDC’s own mouth, are equally revealing -- particularly as it relates to their lack of insight into the very real issues of vaccine safety and effectiveness.
Below are some excerpts from the email correspondence between Jennifer Rowse (black) and Duane Kilgus, MPH, RS, Commander, U.S. Public Health Service, National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (blue).
Letter # 1
I have a few questions about vaccines.
I am fine with the original standard vaccination schedule; why are more and more vaccines being added to this schedule?
How many vaccinations are required by school age children compared with children in the 1970s?
We have had a wonderful growth in technology over the years with regards to the development of vaccines. Today children are protected against more than 16 different childhood diseases as a result. In 1970, technology only existed to develop vaccines against 7 diseases.
Remember that CDC is not an enforcement agency and we do not require any vaccinations.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization is made up of representatives from the most reputable national, medical, research, and educational institutions in the country. This committee reviews all of the literature and research to make recommendations related to what vaccines will be recommended to protect Americans against vaccine preventable disease.
The recommendations are made based upon risk, disease burden, and cost effectiveness.
School requirements (laws) are passed and enforced through the State.
There is a great presentation to the IOM that gives a detailed overview of the introduction of vaccines, and the resulting decline in vaccine preventable disease. This dramatic decline is truly one of the greatest accomplishments in our lifetime.
Why are vaccines for Chicken Pox and HPV being introduced with no long term studies? If there are long term studies, could you provide these?
All vaccines go through extensive testing and research before they are licensed by the FDA. They are tested for safety and efficacy.
Varicella vaccine was licensed in 1995. Live attenuated varicella vaccine has been used and studies in Japan since the 1970's. You can find a great deal of the research published in the references of the ACIP recommendations. If you would like more, I am certain you can request the data from the FDA.
HPV vaccine was licensed in 2006. You can find a great deal of the research published in the references of the ACIP recommendations. If you would like more, I am certain you can request the data from the FDA.
Why are children given so many vaccines at once? Why can they not be given out in schedules that put less stress on a child's immune system? If a child is found to have a weakened immune system or other risk factors, like underweight or premature babies, are doctors recommended to change this vaccination schedule for their safety?
Vaccines work most effectively if they are given according to the licensure recommendations that are supported by the extensive research conducted by the manufacturer.
If children delay getting vaccinated, they risk exposure and getting the disease. Vaccine preventable diseases are known to have significant complications associated with them that can be avoided with the protection provided with vaccines.
No credible scientific research has shown that vaccines stress the child’s immune system. Quite the contrary, getting vaccinated strengthens the immune system so that the child can fight off diseases that they could not if they had not been vaccinated.
The current vaccine schedule has been recommended considering the risk benefit of the patient.
Different or altered schedules for underweight or premature babies are not recommended.
I am trying to see the benefits of vaccination as preventing infectious disease and I realize that an unvaccinated society could cause certain diseases to come back. Why then is the CDC recommending a schedule that is risky and unnecessary in the case of Chicken Pox and HPV and Hep B (at one day old)? Do you see that this diminishes the argument for vaccines and there safety? It makes people question injecting their children with unknown substances, where we will not know the effects for years.
The CDC schedule is certainly not risky or unnecessary. We are not injecting children with unknown substances; they are being injected with vaccines that have been extensively tested for safety and efficacy prior to licensure.
Chickenpox vaccine is recommended to children at the age of 12 months. Children are protected by maternal antibodies for their first several months of life.
Prior to the introduction of varicella vaccine we experienced nearly 4 million unnecessary cases of chickenpox in the USA each year, 10,000 to 15,000 unnecessary hospitalizations each year resulting from chickenpox, and more than 100 deaths each year from chickenpox.
I wonder how many deaths would be acceptable to those people that are questioning vaccines for their children. Would their answer be the same if one of those deaths was their child?
HPV vaccine is recommended for girls between age 9 and 26. The early age is critical as the vaccine is found through scientific research to be highly effective if given to girls before they become sexually active. Once girls become sexually active the efficacy of the vaccine declines.
Modeling estimates suggest that >80% of sexually active women will have acquired genital HPV by age 50 years.
Hepatitis B is recommended at birth for the first dose in the series. For a newborn infant whose mother is positive for both HBsAg and HBeAg, the risk for chronic HBV infection is 70-90 percent by age 6 months in the absence of postexposure immunoprophylaxis.
For infants of women who are HBsAg positive but HBeAg negative, the risk for chronic infection is <10 percent in the absence of postexposure immunoprophylaxis. Children who are not infected at birth remain at risk from long-term interpersonal contact with their infected mothers. In one study, 38 percent of infants who were born to HBsAg-positive mothers and who were not infected prenatally became infected by age 4 years.
Why would we risk infection that can be prevented by vaccination?
Now some people are opting to not get their children vaccinated at all. Measles are coming back. Couldn't you all come up with a sensible and safe schedule without unnecessary vaccines? Then We the Parents will consider following it.
Again, we would not be recommending vaccines if they were not necessary. Parents who are not getting their children vaccinated are taking the risk that their children will not come into contact with the infection and that they will not suffer complications from the resulting illness.
I would appreciate a reply, and I would like a website that provides accurate non-biased statistics on disease percentages by population since the beginning they were recorded.
I would also like to know the percentage of physicians, politicians, WHO members and CDC members vaccinating their own children and those that have vaccination exemptions.
I cannot tell you physicians, politicians, WHO members and CDC members who have vaccinated their children or taken vaccination exemptions.
I can tell you that I have 4 children and one on the way. All of them have been vaccinated and will be vaccinated according to the schedule.
I do not think we would be working in this field if we did not believe in what we are doing. Every Public Health Service Commissioned Officer is required to get these vaccines as part of their job.
You can see a table of disease rates in the link provided above related to the introduction of vaccine for specific diseases.
Maybe if we can see your children’s records, we will feel better about vaccinating our own children.
You will just have to take my word for it.
Letter # 2
Thank you for your quick and detailed response to my questions. I asked the questions below so that I could have both sides of an issue that I think is very widely debated at the present moment in history. I know a lot of people who are considering not vaccinating their children. I appreciate your candor in answering the questions and believe that you are 100 percent confident in what you say.
I still am a bit skeptical that a vaccine does not do harm first, to then prevent the disease it is designed to repel.
I believe most children can adequately dispel the toxins from vaccines and be fine. I also realize that the population as a whole has to be inoculated for vaccines to be effective.
I just have heard that in other countries, the vaccine schedule is less vaccines per visit for children and parents can opt out if they choose. Are those countries (Japan and Sweden for instance) finding a greater number of cases of "vaccine preventable" disease per population?
This question would require some research on your part. I know we get measles cases in this country every year imported from Japan and Europe. Other than that, transmission of measles has been stopped in this country.
Even though they are all state laws, and different in each state, almost every state does allow for exemptions for religious or philosophical exemptions.
Why are pharmaceutical companies not liable for vaccine related injuries? Is this for the greater good?
On October 1, 1988, the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 (Public Law 99-660) created the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP). The VICP was established to ensure an adequate supply of vaccines, stabilize vaccine costs, and establish and maintain an accessible and efficient forum for individuals found to be injured by certain vaccines.
The VICP is a no-fault alternative to the traditional tort system for resolving vaccine injury claims that provides compensation to people found to be injured by certain vaccines.
The U.S. Court of Federal Claims decides who will be paid. Three Federal government offices have a role in the VICP:
- The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
- The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ); and
- The U.S. Court of Federal Claims (the Court)
The VICP is located in the HHS, Health Resources and Services Administration, Healthcare Systems Bureau, Division of Vaccine Injury Compensation. Additional information can be found at http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/
As for the HPV vaccine, how many strands of HPV does it protect against, and how many strands of HPV are out there, and if viruses mutate, how can a vaccine prevent it?
The quadrivalent HPV vaccine addresses types 6, 11, 16, and 18.
Clinical trials indicate that the vaccine has high efficacy in preventing persistent HPV infection, cervical cancer precursor lesions, vaginal and vulvar cancer precursor lesions, and genital warts caused by HPV types 6, 11, 16, or 18 among females who have not already been infected with the respective HPV type.
Approximately 100 HPV types have been identified, over 40 of which infect the genital area.
Genital HPV types are categorized according to their epidemiologic association with cervical cancer. Infections with low-risk types (e.g., types 6 and 11) can cause benign or low-grade cervical cell changes, genital warts, and recurrent respiratory papillomatosis.
High-risk HPV types act as carcinogens in the development of cervical cancer and other anogenital cancers. High-risk types, including types 16, 18, 31, 33, 35, 39, 45, 51, 52, 56, 58, 59, 68, 69, 73, and 82, can cause low-grade cervical cell abnormalities, high-grade cervical cell abnormalities that are precursors to cancer, and anogenital cancers. High-risk HPV types are detected in 99% of cervical cancers; approximately 70% of cervical cancers worldwide are caused by types 16 and 18.
Although infection with high-risk types is considered necessary for the development of cervical cancer, it is not sufficient because the majority of women with high-risk HPV infection do not develop cancer.
I do not do in "what if's". Mutations are always possible and are dealt if they occur. Some mutations may change to something completely harmless and require no action.
CDC is not responsible for acts of God.
Regarding the chicken pox vaccine, if 100 children die per year from chicken pox, how many are harmed or die from complications from the vaccine?
Compared to percentages of mortality, I would think 100 to be a fairly low number?
Not all adverse events that occur after vaccination are reported, and many reports describe events that might have been caused by confounding or unrelated factors (e.g., medications and other diseases).
Because varicella disease continues to occur, wild-type virus might account for certain reported events.
For serious adverse events for which background incidence data are known, VAERS reporting rates are lower than expected after natural varicella or than background rates of disease in the community.
Inherent limitations of passive safety surveillance impede comparing adverse event rates after vaccination reported to VAERS with those from complications after natural disease. Nevertheless, the magnitude of these differences suggests that serious adverse events occur at a substantially lower rate after vaccination than after natural disease.
This assumption is corroborated by the substantial decline in the number of severe complications, hospitalizations, and deaths related to varicella that have been reported since implementation of the varicella vaccination program.
In the prevaccine era, among children aged <15 years, acute cerebellar ataxia was estimated to occur at a rate of one in 4,000 varicella cases, and varicella encephalitis without ataxia was estimated to occur at one in 33,000 varicella cases. Remember, just because they did not die does not mean it is not serious.
Another statistic I read reported that doctors do not report vaccine related complications and injuries all the time. So, a lot of injuries due to vaccines go unreported. What are your thoughts on this?
My children have received 100 percent of recommended vaccines. I had a few complications I reported to my pediatrician, including high pitched scream (like Meningitis style scream), fever, after round of vaccinations. Also, my second child developed a measles rash after measles vaccine, fever, lethargy, and lack of appetite, after MMR was distributed. I do not believe my pediatrician reported this.
How can complications be accurately calculated if pediatricians are not reporting it?
I have experienced some of these as well. One child had considerable swelling in his leg after DTaP and three of my children got chickenpox after being vaccinated.
The VAERS system of reporting vaccine adverse effects is designed to identify potential problems. Once identified, full blown studies will be started to determine if a serious problem exists that need to be addressed.
I believe that 90 percent of children are fine and can introduce vaccines to their systems and dispel what is not necessary from the vaccine and take the immunity from it.
I, at this time, have to wonder if some children who do have compromised immune systems, or are underweight, are not able to expel the formaldehyde and amorphous aluminum hydroxyphosphate sulfate adjuvant), 0.78 mg of L-histidine, 50 mcg of polysorbate 80, and 35 mcg of sodium borate, chick embryo, thimerosal, washed sheep RBCs, 2-phenoxyethenol, continuous line of monkey kidney cells ... etc.
I think that the human body is a miraculous entity; however, I don't think that people with compromised immune systems, especially the elderly and infants to 18 months, could expel these toxins. Maybe you can ease my mind here!
Is your belief backed up with any science?
All of our recommendations are made based on in depth scientific studies. All of the products being used have gone through extensive animal studies and human clinical trials before they are ever licensed for use.
If you look at the ingredients for other medical products you use every day you might be surprised what you find.
Adverse events are part of dealing with medicine of any kind.
The question is, do the benefits outweigh the risks?
This website will address many of your safety related questions. http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/
I am happy to answer your questions. It sounds like you may require several days in the library to get all the information you seek. Have a good weekend.