The Audacity of the "Anti-Vaxxer"
40 years ago, vaccine reactions were almost never discussed. Vaccines were overwhelmingly believed to have saved humanity from a variety of diseases that had plagued mankind for generations. Although mistakes had been made, for the most part, “the benefits far outweigh the negative effects.”
Today, the accepted “wisdom” holds that although severe reactions to vaccines have been documented, including brain damage and death, they are rare enough that the success of the vaccine “program” is more important. According to Russell Blaylock, MD:
I reported a conversation coming from the Simpsonwood conference held in Norcross, Georgia, attended by 53 specialists in vaccine effects—including members of the World Health Organization and major vaccine manufacturers—concerning data indicating that vaccines were causing a statistically significant increase in childhood neurodevelopmental problems.
One of the attended stated that his main goal is to see that every child in this country receives his vaccines, today, tomorrow and forever. In other words, he could care less that the vaccines are significantly damaging children's brains and altering their brain development.
Russell Blaylock, although a somewhat controversial figure, is known for his work in pioneering treatments for certain brain tumors, “as well as improving certain operations treating water on the brain.”
Some of Dr. Blaylock's controversial views include his claim that aspartame may be unsafe even in small doses and that the H1N1 (swine flu) vaccine may carry more risks than the flu itself.
Blaylock claims that physicians are more regimented than any time in history and that “today they do what they are told without question.”
Because of this regimentation—this death of creativity—most doctors are completely unprepared when confronted with potentially vaccine-damaged children and their parents.
Although a popular field in neuroscience, many physicians know very little about excitotoxicity, the major mechanism in virtually all brain disorders. Blaylock, who wrote a book on the subject, continues:
Some of the most devastating side effects of vaccines involve neurological damage, including encephalitis, transverse myelitis, peripheral nerve damage, seizures, mental retardation, language delays, multiple sclerosis, behavioral problems, and SSPE.
Most physicians, especially pediatricians, think these events are “rare” and must be accepted to gain the benefit of vaccines. In fact, these adverse vaccine reactions are not as rare as many believe...medical authorities are using clever ploys to hide and alter the data on vaccine injuries.
They reclassify problems, deny a connection to the vaccines and more often than not, just brush such reactions off as “normal.” For example, one deception is to classify cases of polio as “aseptic meningitis.” By doing so, vaccine proponents can give the illusion that the polio vaccine policy was more successful than it actually was.
An example of this reclassification ploy is the label of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). In a 1982 study, 70% of SIDS cases were shown to follow the DPT vaccination within three weeks.
In order to avoid admitting that the sudden stoppage of breathing by a baby within hours to weeks of these vaccines was due to the vaccines, the vaccine defenders merely created a new disease and gave it the incredible name of sudden infant death syndrome, which is like naming it the “Baby Mysteriously Dies of Anything but a Vaccine Injury Syndrome.”
As is detailed in David Oshinsky's Polio: An American Story, the early creators of the polio vaccine knew the product was contaminated with an unknown number of viruses, and that at least 100 million people have been exposed to these viruses.
They also knew that Dr. Bernice Eddy, a microbiologist at the National Institutes of Health, had proven that the SV40 virus, present in both the killed and live vaccines, caused cancer in experimental animals. The public was not informed of this contamination until decades later. Worse, they continued to give the tainted vaccine to children assuming that it would not cause cancer. Modern science has proven them wrong.
Dr. Blaylock continues by observing that most physicians, even pediatricians, know little about the brains of young children:
There is evidence that the great number of vaccines given to our children, and adults, is causing injury to their nervous systems and that it reduces the ability of people to think, learn, behave and function as normal adults.
It is well known and accepted that when you vaccinate someone, lets say by a shot in the arm, the body's immune system is thrown into high gear. What is less well known by doctors in practice, especially by pediatricians, is that it also activates the brain's special immune system.
The central immune cells in the brain are called microglia (they also involve astrocytes). These normally sleeping immune cells become highly activated when a vaccination is given. Until activated they remain immobile, but after activation they can move around the brain like an amoeba, secreting very toxic amounts of inflammatory chemicals (called cytokines) and two forms of excitotoxins (glutamate and quinolinic acid). This puts the brain in a chronically inflamed state.
There can also be the risk of vaccine-induced seizures:
Multiple vaccines during a single visit, or combination vaccines, raise the risk even higher. Seizures following a vaccination are due to two things happening in the brain. One is that many vaccines can cause a high fever, and this can trigger a seizure in seizure-prone babies, children and some adults.
It is also known that overstimulation of the immune system, which can occur with certain types of vaccines and especially when multiple vaccines are given during one office visit, can cause seizures. The excess activation of the body's immune system leads to overactivation of the brain's microglia, and the subsequent release of the excitotoxins leads to the seizure. This mechanism has been carefully worked out in the laboratory—it is not a theory.
Blaylock believes that vaccines can cause seizures even days later and that multiple seizures indicate a severely inflamed brain and the need for immediate medical attention. These “seizures” can also be “silent” in that they can be expressed behaviorally, such as periods of confusion or irritability.
The human brain develops much differently than most animals in that long after birth the brain still undergoes dramatic formation of its pathways. Much of this formation happens within the first two years, although it continues until age 25-27.
Excess vaccination disrupts this critical process and can result in a malformed brain, which manifests as either subtle impairment in thinking, concentration, attention, behavior or language, or serious problems with these processes.
It has also been shown that excess immune stimulation by vaccination can trigger an interaction between excitotoxicity and brain inflammatory cytokines that greatly magnifies the damage, and can do so for decades.
“Adjuvants” are added to many vaccines as well. These are meant to powerfully stimulate the body's immune system and include toxic metals like aluminum and mercury, animal proteins, and “special lipids.”
Adjuvants can cause powerful stimulation of the immune system for as long as two years, which means the brain's immune system also remains overactive.
A growing body of research indicates that overactivity of the brain's immune cells (microglia) can lead to a gradual loss of brain connections (synapses and dendrites) and can even cause the brain to be miswired (abnormal pathways development).
Many pediatricians may know very little about the immune system and possible negative effects from vaccines or combination of vaccines. Dr. Blaylock continues with this damning pronouncement:
Anyone with even a basic understanding of immunology or having read the available research on the effects of excessive vaccination on the developing brain, would know that the present crowded vaccine schedule is extremely destructive to the child's brain. Likewise, there seems to be little concern as to the effects of multiple immunizations on the developing child's immune system.
Pediatricians and public health authorities are of the opinion that they can give an unlimited number of vaccines to babies and small children without risk. Our neuroscience proves this is insane. Almost every year, these vaccine enthusiasts add another set of vaccines to the schedule, despite the growing list of neurological and other health disasters occurring in our children.
“Priming” the microglia can increase the damage caused by vaccinations or even natural infections.
Let's say a newborn is given the hepatitis B vaccine before leaving the hospital. The vaccine activates the baby's brain microglia (called priming). Then, let's say the child develops an ear infection. The ear infection once again activates the baby's immune microglia, but this time the activation is greatly aggravated because of the previous vaccine-induced priming, resulting in a seizure or even sudden death. The pediatrician will blame it on the ear infection, not the previous vaccine.
There can be many factors that contribute to tragedies such as SIDS...and it may be premature to dismiss vaccine reactions as a possible cause.
Another scenario would be a baby who receives a hepatitis B vaccine at birth and then gets his or her DtaP vaccine within months of birth. Two weeks later, mom finds the baby dead in its crib. The doctor blames it on SIDS and never reports it to the CDC as a vaccine reaction.
In this case the triple antigen exposure (diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis) triggers the baby's already primed microglia—this time in the brainstem, where the respiratory control neurons reside. When the baby is placed on its stomach, it cannot muster enough force to fill its lungs. Any fumes from the mattress only aggravate the problem.
For the pediatrician, it is easier and safer to blame it on a mysterious disorder called SIDS, than to admit it was a sequential vaccine reaction.
Another thing that can prime microglia is vaccine adjuvants such as aluminum, mercury and protein additives. These products easily enter the brain, are stored for decades and can powerfully activate the brain's microglia, and do so for prolonged periods.
Aluminum is a very powerful inducer of brain microglia, and since aluminum has an immune-enhancing effect, many manufacturers add aluminum to vaccines. It wasn't until recently that vaccine authorities started officially acknowledging the danger of the possible toxicity of aluminum in vaccines.
In addition, injected aluminum can complex with fluoride within the body to produce a compound, fluoroaluminum, that has a number of harmful effects, including brain injury. There is some evidence that fluoride can trigger microglia activation and excitotoxicity, which in combination is particularly injurious to the brain.
In 2001, a new condition was described by Dr. R.K. Gherardi and co-workers that linked muscle pains and neurological problems with retained aluminum resulting form aluminum hydroxide vaccine adjuvants. The problem was linked to hepatitis B, hepatitis A or tetanus toxoid vaccines.
A subsequent report found a number of patients with a multiple sclerosis-like illness. In 2004, a study reported in the journal Neurology found that people exposed to the complete series of hepatitis B vaccines experienced a 300% higher risk of developing multiple sclerosis than the unvaccinated public.
The study concludes: “These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that immunization with the recombinant hepatitis B vaccine is associated with an increased risk of MS, and challenge the idea that the relation between hepatitis B vaccination and risk of MS is well understood.”
Vaccines can be, and have been, contaminated by bacteria, viruses, viral fragments and mycoplasma. Once injected, they can enter the brain and continue to prime the brain's microglia for a lifetime.
Another consideration is the ability of attenuated viruses to undergo mutation over time, eventually resulting in organisms that can cause new disease. When live viruses are used to make vaccines, a process of repeated passage of the virus through growth media reduces its virulence, or the ability of the virus to cause disease.
However, as occurs with measles, rubella and many other viruses used in vaccines, once in the body the attenuated viruses can be converted to quite virulent viruses. This is thought to explain the high incidence of Crohn's disease in people who were vaccinated as children with live measles viruses.
This 2001 study actually found that the mutated measles viruses were different in each tissue, meaning that a variety of disorders are possible.
The risk of persistent viruses following vaccination with live viruses appears to be growing and may be secondary to a number of factors, which include the nutritional status of the person and preexistence of immune suppression. Immunologists have voiced concern that the growing number of vaccines being given early in life may impair immune function for life.
Another concern is with organisms that contain dozens or more subtypes. Many vaccines will target only a handful of these subtypes, creating the potential for new subtypes to emerge and become even more carcinogenic.
For example, HPV (human papilloma virus) has over 100 subtypes, yet the vaccine protects against only four. The other subtypes that in the past rarely produced disease might be given a fresh opportunity.
A major issue with the vaccine program is the lack of long-term protection that occurs after you are naturally infected with a disease. Today, most younger people don't have natural immunization. In the past, the majority of the population had life-long protection from diseases like measles, rubella, chickenpox, etc., and this protected mothers and their newborn children as well. Vaccinated mothers do not offer this protection.
Of great concern is the recent finding that immune activation in pregnant women can have dire consequences for the developing baby. At one time it was thought that viral infections in the mother endangered the baby because the virus was passed through the placenta into the baby's body.
New research demonstrates that it is the mother's immune cytokines that are causing the damage, once they enter the baby's body, and is not caused by the virus itself.
Researchers found that the eventual effect of maternal immune stimulation depended on the timing of the immune activation. Activations at mid-term could result in autism; stimulation late in the pregnancy could result in schizophrenia as the child grows into adulthood.
What this means is that vaccinating a pregnant woman is associated with a high risk of autism, psychosis and other neurological problems as the baby reaches adolescence or adulthood. This is being completely ignored by those designing vaccines and making recommendations. At present, flu, chickenpox, hep B and rubella vaccines are recommended for pregnant women.
HPV vaccination used to be recommended for pregnant women as well, but it caused enough birth defects and death that this practice ceased.
The Herd Immunity Illusion and Other Scary Scenarios
Perhaps the most oft-cited truism among those who unequivocally defend the current vaccine program is the notion of “herd immunity.” The idea is that if a large enough percentage of the population is immunized against a certain disease, then epidemics can be prevented.
Originally, it was suggested that 60-70% of the population needed to be immunized to reach those goals...today some claim that 95-100% immunization is needed.
There is a very strong, and rarely mentioned, case against the perceived state of “herd immunity” in the population today. The mistake lies in the assumption that high percentages of the population are still immune to diphtheria, smallpox, pertussis, etc.
The problem with this is that most of the protection afforded by these childhood vaccines waned many decades ago, so that most baby boomers, the largest percentage of the population, have no protection. In fact, vaccines for most Americans declined to non-protective levels within 5 to 10 years of the vaccines.
This means that for a majority of Americans, as well as others in the developed world, herd immunity doesn't exist and hasn't for over 60 years.
The media and vaccine enthusiasts would have us believe otherwise, like claiming that as many as 40,000 people die from the “flu” every year, despite this claim being completely unsupported by the data.
In fact, Peter Doshi, Ph.D., a Johns Hopkins scientist, recently issued a blistering report, claiming that only a small portion of those diagnosed with the “flu” actually have the influenza virus present.
Promoting influenza vaccines is one of the most visible and aggressive public health policies in the United States, says Doshi of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Drug companies and public officials press for widespread vaccination each fall, offering vaccinations in drugstores and supermarkets.
The results have been phenomenal. Only 20 years ago, 32 million doses of influenza vaccine were available in the United States on an annual basis. Today, the total has skyrocketed to 135 million doses. Mandatory vaccination polices have been enacted, often in healthcare facilities, forcing some people to take the vaccine under threat of losing their jobs.
According to Doshi, “The vaccine may be less beneficial and less safe than has been claimed, and the threat of influenza seems to be overstated. For most people, and possibly most doctors, officials need only claim that vaccines save lives, and it is assumed there must be solid research behind it.” That's not the case, he says.
Although the CDC implies that flu vaccines are safe and there's no need to weigh benefits against risk, Doshi disagrees. He points to an Australian study that found 1 in every 110 children under the age of 5 had convulsions following vaccinations in 2009 for H1N1 influenza. Additional investigations found that the H1N1 vaccine was also associated with a spike in cases of narcolepsy among adolescents.
Hopefully, the latest Tamiflu debacle will help reignite this crucial conversation.
Another method of the pro-vaccine scare campaign is to evoke mortality rates in the thousands or millions from previous eras or Third World nations.
If they send out warnings through the media that tens of thousands of infants may die of measles if children (and adults) are not vaccinated each year, it has a major impact on parental decisions to vaccinate.
One of the most common themes among proponents of the flu vaccine is that everything must be done to prevent the 1917-1918 flu epidemic that killed millions.
However, recent research raises serious doubts about blaming a “wild” strain of the influenza virus for the extraordinary number of deaths. Evidence suggests it was none other than Bayer's indefatigable promotion of aspirin that may have been largely responsible.
The hypothesis...is that aspirin contributed to the incidence and severity of viral pathology, bacterial infection, and death, because physicians of the day were unaware that the regimens (8.0–31.2 g per day) produce levels associated with hyperventilation and pulmonary edema in 33% and 3% of recipients, respectively.
Before the mortality rate spiked, Bayer embarked on an aggressive ad campaign to promote their new product. Furthermore, autopsy reports from 1918 are consistent with what we know today about the dangers of aspirin toxicity.
The motivation behind the improper use of aspirin is a cautionary tale, said author Karen Starko, MD. In 1918, physicians did not fully understand either the dosing or pharmacology of aspirin, yet they were willing to recommend it. Its use was promoted by the drug industry, endorsed by doctors wanting to “do something,” and accepted by families and institutions desperate for hope.
Another terrifying epidemic in American history was the 1916 polio outbreak that killed at least 5,000 people. As can be seen by this graph, the 1916 death rate from polio was extremely anomalous, and was one of the many events that inspired the push to develop a polio vaccine when rates began rising again in the 1940s and 50s.
Although originally blamed on “Italian immigrants,” this explanation is beginning to be seriously called into question. A study was published by H.V. Wyatt in 2011 that suggests a much more sinister explanation for the outbreak:
Previous accounts of the 1916 devastating epidemic have been faulty. The unique features of the epidemic and its sudden appearance have never been explained.
Three miles from the epicenter of the outbreak, Simon Flexner and his associates at the Rockefeller Institute at 63rd Street and York Avenue, near Queensborough Bridge on Manhattan Island, had been passaging spinal cord tissue containing poliovirus, from one Rhesus monkey spinal cord to another.
I propose that highly virulent virus escaped and caused the epidemic. Scientists, technical and animal house staff were unaware that they could be infected by poliovirus which could then infect others.
It seems it would be premature to completely dismiss this hypothesis, especially since an extremely virulent multi-virus (MV) strain of polio was being experimented on within walking distance of the worst polio outbreak in half a century. Mortality rates reached 25% among those afflicted, compared to the usual mortality rate of less than 1%.
These past events and their “official” explanations are extremely important to reanalyze, because they could potentially be used to mislead the public.