Give Your Children a Dose of DTP Vaccine and You Could Double Their Mortality Rate

Age of Autism brings forth some very interesting research that has been mostly ignored by conventional media, namely the difference in mortality rates between vaccinated versus unvaccinated children.

Most countries have neglected to do this type of important research—perhaps in fear of what the results might reveal—but a couple of studies have been done in Guinea-Bissau, Africa.

The results were disturbing.

Single Dose of DTP Vaccine Doubled Mortality Rate in African Infants

The first study, published in 2004, found that the mortality rate among infants vaccinated with a single dose of DTP (diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), tetanus) vaccine doubled over the six months following vaccination, and the mortality rate more than quadrupled after the second and third dose.

The research team, led by Dr. Aaby, concluded that:

"In low-income countries with high mortality, DTP as the last vaccine received may be associated with slightly increased mortality… The role of DTP in high mortality areas needs to be clarified."

Scientific Bias Explains Divergent Results on Survival Outcomes Post-DTP Vaccination

Three years later, Dr. Aaby published a review of the available research in the journal Tropical Medicine and International Health, stating:

"Observational studies of diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP) vaccine from longitudinal study sites have reported divergent effects on child survival, ranging from 10-fold reduction to three-fold increased mortality.

None of these studies had complete information on DTP vaccinations from both survivors and children who died. We reviewed the data analysis methodology to assess whether methodological differences could explain the divergent results.

… Seven studies using a case-control design or a landmark approach found a negative effect of DTP on child survival. Eight of nine survival analyses with retrospective updating of vaccination status reported a beneficial effect.

This beneficial effect of DTP increased with the length of the interval between data collection visits. Studies with long interval between visits had very high mortality rates among unvaccinated children, low mortality rate ratios for vaccinated compared with unvaccinated children, and strongly beneficial estimates of DTP."

They concluded that these divergent results were at least in part due to methodological differences.

"To assess the impact on mortality of routine vaccinations, observational study designs which minimize the effect of bias are warranted," the authors said, adding that "randomized trials should be considered."

Bias skewing medical research is nothing new, although it is rarely discussed. Last year I interviewed Dana Ullman, MPH about this troublesome fact.

How Scientific is "the Scientific Method" Really?

Personally, I'm a big believer in the scientific method, provided it's applied appropriately and not biased by conflict of interest. And that's the key issue. Much of the scientific research that ends up being published is biased, prejudiced and littered with conflicts of interest. So it's no major surprise to find that differences in methodology would produce such conflicting results when looking at the mortality of vaccinated versus unvaccinated children.

Dr. Marcia Angell, the former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) has spoken out about the pervasiveness of scientific bias—and worse. In her book The Truth about Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It, she exposes many examples of why medical studies often cannot be trusted, stating that:

"Trials can be rigged in a dozen ways, and it happens all the time."

Likewise, in an essay published in PLoS Medicine in 2005, Dr. John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist at Ioannina School of Medicine, Greece, claims there is less than a 50 percent chance that the results of any randomly chosen scientific paper will be true.

Three years later, Dr. Ioannidis again showed that much of scientific research being published is highly questionable. According to his study:

"Simulations show that for most study designs and settings, it is more likely for a research claim to be false than true."

He noted problems with experimental and statistical methods as the main culprits, including factors such as small sample sizes, poor study design, researcher bias and selective reporting.

Dr. Aaby's review of studies on mortality post-vaccination does not mention whether the source of funding had any impact on the results, but that's a very important consideration as well. Typically, independently funded studies are more prone to discover potential problems with the drug, while studies funded by the pharmaceutical industry tend to have favorable findings.

"Explosive Findings" Ignored

BBC 4 radio first aired a program titled The Vaccine Detectives, featuring Dr. Aaby's research into vaccinated versus unvaccinated children in Guinea Bissau in October 2010. The program was rebroadcast in January 2011

Interestingly, the second time, it aired the same week Dr. Wakefield was again being viciously attacked for his 1998 MMR study and the media feverishly tried to convince everyone that vaccines are perfectly safe and essential for public health. Needless to say, no other major media outlets picked up on this BBC report and so there has been virtually no awareness in America.

The accompanying article The Vaccine Casebook, introduced Dr. Aaby and his research team and summarized the program as follows:

"... [A] team of Danish and African medical sleuths have pieced together evidence that could change public health care forever. They have discovered that vaccines and vitamin supplements have unexpected effects - good and bad - on the immune systems of children.

It's the first time a British journalist has visited the Bandim health surveillance unit, where Dr Peter Aaby and his team has toiled for more than 30 years - through wars, natural disasters and epidemics... Their health detective work has generated more than 600 scholarly articles in the world's leading medical journals, and been responsible for the withdrawal of a potentially deadly measles vaccine by the World Health Organisation.

But the WHO has not acted on the most explosive findings yet coming from Guinea Bissau.

They show that the world's most commonly used vaccines can strengthen - or weaken - a child's immune system in the long term, and affect their ability to fight off disease. The results directly challenge the WHO's global health advice, followed by most countries in the developing world, and could mean that thousands of young lives, in Africa and beyond, are needlessly at risk.

We'll hear from some of world's most respected public health scientists who back Aaby's findings. The documentary also asks why the WHO has not yet acted on the evidence generated so far. And whether safety tests for new vaccines and vitamin supplements, heavily promoted by donor agencies and pharmaceutical companies alike, are sufficiently far-reaching."

Vaccine Studies are Too Short to Evaluate Health Outcomes

In that radio program, Dr. Aaby also discussed another interesting finding. One of his health projects had been selected by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a test site in the 1980's for a new high titer measles vaccine that could be given to infants younger than 12 months. After a typically short trial run, the high titer measles vaccine, which was given in infants in addition to DPT vaccine, appeared to be a success. But Dr. Aaby decided to continue evaluating the children over a longer term.

What did he find?

While the new measles vaccine appeared effective in the short term, over time the girl children who had been vaccinated were dying at a much higher rate than those who did not receive it.

Fortunately, the WHO accepted his findings and withdrew the high titer measles vaccine from use, reverting back to using the older measles vaccine that was given along with DPT.

That clearly raises the question of whether vaccine studies are conducted long enough to evaluate the true risks and benefits, especially when used in combination with other vaccines.  In most cases the answer would undeniably be no, as the long-term effects are very rarely studied.

Three Vaccines Recently Connected with Infant Deaths

In related news, a Japanese safety panel is now investigating the connection between Pfizer's Prevnar and Sanofi Pasteur's ActHIB vaccines and the deaths of five young children. Japan's health ministry has ordered doctors to stop immunizing infants with the vaccines until the investigation is completed.

Prevnar, which is used against pneumonia and meningitis, is commonly used in more than 100 countries around the world, and is part of the routine childhood immunization schedule in more than 50 countries. ActHIB prevents infection with the Haemophilius influenza.

According to CNN:

"The U.S. Food and Drug administration said it was aware of the suspensions in Japan, but "physicians assessing vaccine safety at the FDA and CDC have not detected new safety concerns" related to the vaccines."

This is not the first time Prevnar has come under scrutiny. I began reporting the potential dangers of this vaccine some 10 years ago, when the vaccine was first approved. Back in 2000, Dr. Erdem Cantekin, Ph.D. Professor of Otolaryngology at the University of Pittsburgh stated that the alleged benefits of Prevnar are "greatly exaggerated, and the risks are significant."

Prevnar is in fact a perfect example of a vaccine that was not appropriately studied before being released to the public.

For example, the HMO trial in which Prevnar was approved had NO placebo group. Instead, the control group received another experimental vaccine for mennigococcus, and this was the ONLY trial done to establish the safety and efficacy of this vaccine for every newborn in the US!

In addition to the Japanese deaths, five infants died after being vaccinated for measles at Gandhidhams Rambaugh Hospital in India earlier this month. Three additional infants are said to be in serious condition.

The Times of India reported that:

'The entire stock of this vaccine in the state has been withdrawn pending lab tests and measles vaccination in the district has been stopped till further notice.

Following the deaths at 10 am, people went berserk breaking furniture and fixtures and beating up Dr Abhishek Makwana, who was on duty. Four infants died within minutes of being vaccinated by two female health workers while one infant died after an hour

Not surprisingly however, on March 8, Market Watch reported that the panel had concluded the vaccines did not cause any of the infant deaths. They did however "request data on the safety of giving multiple vaccines simultaneously and more analysis of the cases," according to a Bloomberg report.

The Bottom Line

A number of things are clear:

1. There are risks inherent with all vaccines
2. Long-term health outcomes post-vaccination are typically not studied
3. When you or your child is injured by a vaccine, the risks are 100 percent, and you will have to deal with the consequences on your own, because those who make and give vaccines are protected from liability in civil court, and federal vaccine injury compensation is very difficult to get.

What's worse, a U.S. Supreme Court recently decided to give drug companies total liability protection for injuries and deaths caused by government mandated vaccines.

It's important to realize that there's no guarantee that a vaccine will, in fact, protect against an infectious disease. Nor is it a given that exposure to an infectious disease will cause a complication, injury or death.

In the end, good health is about so much more than vaccination and preventing experience with infectious disease—it's about having a robust, well-functioning immune system, as that is your first line of defense.

Know Your Rights—Exercise Free Choice

The right to informed consent to medical risk-taking is a human right, and empowering yourself with information and taking responsible action to protect the right to exercise voluntary, informed consent to vaccination in America is one of the most important actions you can take as a citizen to protect health freedom.

Don't let anyone force you or your child to take a vaccine without your voluntary, informed consent. If a doctor denies you or your child medical care because of your vaccine choices, find another doctor. If a doctor threatens you, or if a government official denies a medical or religious exemption that you have legally filed, find an attorney to help you. If you don't like the vaccine laws in your state, contact your elected officials and work to change them.

Together, we can educate the public and reform vaccine laws in America to protect the right to make informed, voluntary vaccination decisions for ourselves and our children.

To help accomplish this, I urge you to please join the non-profit National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC). It's the largest, oldest and most experienced vaccine safety and informed consent watchdog in America.

By signing up for the NVIC's free Advocacy Portal at www.NVICAdvocacy.org, you can learn how to effectively participate in the democratic legislative process and defend vaccine exemptions in your state laws.