Association not causation?

There are too many to count anecdotal/personal reports linking vaccination with various particular bad/undesired outcomes ... the link below is one parents story (#1).

While association is not the same as causation, bunches/clusters of anecdotal reports begs the question - is there something here that we need to look at?

Because we have hardly scratched the surface of what we know, this procedure (vaccination) should be free of compulsion.

The history of medicine is replete with documentation of harm - done either deliberately (like the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment) or inadvertently due to bad science (discovered after the fact);

#1)
http://www.fhfn.org/how-vaccines-can-cause-type-1-diabetes/


There is good reason to question the veracity of many studies used to justify many
medications:

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/10/16/drug-commercials-misleading.aspx

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/12/the-truth-about-tamiflu/307801/

Here's a link to the Cochrane Review about Tamiflu (embedded in The Atlantic aricle):
http://www.bmj.com/content/339/bmj.b5106

There is a need for FAR greater transparency on the part of companies making vaccines (well, for most other drugs as well ... see Tamiflu link above). They need to make their data and clinical trials available to independent scientists for review and vetting with less risk of bias.

There is a need for more, and better, studies comparing vaccinated and unvaccinated populations.

There is a need for more, and better, safety studies (and in particular, long term safety studies) for all vaccines ... and any placebos need to be true placebos (ie: like normal saline), rather than comparing a vaccine to a vaccine, or using the diluent or excipient minus the antigen as a placebo. The diluents/excipients are not normal saline ... they also contain adjuvents and other chemicals that are biologically active as well - they are not even a little bit inert!

There is a need to study the safety of the adjuvants and preservatives as well.

It's not just about mercury ...

While much concern has been raised about mercury (and rightfully so), mercury is just one of many ingredients in vaccines that may be problematic. We have hardly scratched the surface in our understanding of the immune system and how it works, and more importantly, how these products (vaccines and their various ingredients) interact with the immune system. One problem with the post/article is that it is not dated (though the date it was published is embedded in the hyperlink/address bar - it's just not clear to me if this is an original article or if it's re-published ... though there are links to refs at the end).

http://vactruth.com/2014/01/28/toxic-levels-of-aluminum/?utm_source=The+Vaccine+Truth+Newsletter&utm_campaign=d57191d115-01_28_2014_aluminum&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_ce7860ee83-d57191d115-406334639


The next two links go to a pages with many other links and information ... quotes from individuals tasked with discerning if there is a link between thimerasol and autism - primarily from the Simpsonwood meeting where the quotes support concern about a link between mercury/thimerasol exposure and autism while the official party line has always been "move along, nothing to see here ... "; While exposure to mercury as a child may have more obvious detrimental effects (and they may show up faster), it begs the question that this is not safe at any age - it leads me to wonder if the adverse effects also show up in adults who are exposed via vaccines, but it may take longer or be more subtle than in children.

http://www.autismhelpforyou.com/Simpsonwood_And_Puerto%20%20Rico.htm

http://www.aapsonline.org/vaccines/cdcfdaexperts.htm

Third link goes to a blog reviewing various quotes/court cases/data about the link between
the MMR vaccine and autism ... basically asserting that the link between autism and MMR vaccine has been acknowledged/implied but no one is accepting responsibility for this.

http://childhealthsafety.wordpress.com/2013/08/16/all-studies-claiming-no-mmr-vaccine-autism-link-invalid-according-to-mercks-vaccine-director-former-us-cdc-director-the-us-hrsa/


Final link goes to a page with a list of studies refuting the claim that there is no connection between vaccination and autism ...

http://adventuresinautism.blogspot.com/2007/06/no-evidence-of-any-link.html

Contaminants continued ...

In response to my comment of a previous post on FB (see previous blog post), someone else posted several other links related to contaminants in vaccines:

http://www.fda.gov/biologicsbloodvaccines/scienceresearch/biologicsresearchareas/ucm127327.htm

The urgent demand for vaccines against emerging diseases has necessitated the use of novel cell substrates.

What urgent demand? Since the market for vaccines (ie: the "demand" for the product) is tightly controlled by the federal government there is no way to know how much demand there actually might be - the way to do that is to end all mandates and end the liability shield for those who provided/administer vaccines and their manufacturers ... and see how many people purchase the product on the free/open market. THAT's how you determine demand for a product!

But the presence of undesired extra's in vaccines is openly acknowledged, along with the fact that this is a safety concern (remember, vaccines are "safe and effective")!

Xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV) is a recently discovered human retrovirus that has been found in both chronic fatigue syndrome and prostate cancer patients. Although these findings need further confirmation, there is a potential safety concern regarding XMRV in cell substrates used in vaccines and in transmission by blood transfusion and blood products. We are developing sensitive detection assays for XMRV to evaluate cell substrates and investigate virus transmission by blood transfusion in a monkey model.

We don't know what we don't know ... the fact that XMRV has been found in those with CFS and prostate cancer is an interesting association, but not necessarily causation - far more concerning is the possibility of horizontal transfusion (ie: via blood transfusion, or via sex, or perhaps even by more casual methods, who knows?) - but it's the unvaccinated (however few of them there are) who are clobbered as being the problem. Go figure.

Let people decide risk/benefit ratio for themselves (with their chosen healthcare provider).
When will we know just how much damage has been done all in the name of "the greater good"? (Happens to be a catchy name for a movie, too!)

SV40/contaminants

Lowell Hubbs (vacfacts.info) posted this link to Facebook today:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11205211

Just to make it easy ... here's the abstract:

  To date, the scientific literature and research examining SV40 and cancer-related diseases has been based upon an assumption that SV40 was not present in any poliovirus vaccine administered in the United States and was removed from the killed polio vaccine by 1963. The basis for this presumption has been that the regulations for live oral polio vaccine required that SV40 be removed from the seeds and monovalent pools ultimately produced in the manufacturing process. The Division of Biologic Standards permitted an additional two tissue culture passages--from three to five--in order to allow manufacturers the ability to remove this contaminant from the oral poliovirus vaccines then awaiting licensure. The confirmation of the removal by one drug manufacturer, Lederle, has been made public at an international symposium in January 1997, where its representatives stated that all of Lederle's seeds had been tested and screened to assure that it was free from SV40 virus. However, in litigation involving the Lederle oral polio vaccine, the manufacturer's internal documents failed to reveal such removal in all of the seeds. The absence of confirmatory testing of the seeds, as well as testimony of a Lederle manager, indicate that this claim of removal of SV40 and the testing for SV40 in all the seeds cannot be fully substantiated. These legal documents and testimony indicate that the scientific community should not be content with prior assumptions that SV40 could not have been in the oral polio vaccine. Only further investigation by outside scientific and independent researchers who can review the test results claimed in the January 1997 meeting and who can conduct their own independent evaluations by testing all the seeds and individual mono-valent pools will assure that SV40 has not been present in commercially sold oral poliovirus vaccine manufactured by Lederle.

Here's my comment:
So even if they've cleaned up polio vaccine of SV40 (IF), there's still reason for concern about many other vaccines grown/manufactured on various other tissue cultures, either animal or human ... if polio vaccine doesn't contain SV40 (IF), other vaccines may well contain other animal viruses, or animal dna or human dna - with no way to know just exactly how our bodies will interact with these foreign proteins/viruses/dna;

Then of course, there's this (also posted by Lowell Hubbs):
http://books.google.com/books?id=PfO7D8ZoSMkC&pg=PA84&lpg=PA84&dq=sv40+is+contagious&source=bl&ots=AlaWsAkp95&sig=RnycQFX2ucD-3zybHQ07FAIeJYk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=kZLfT5_mA4qc2QXKz6jtCA&ved=0CFoQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=sv40%20is%20contagious&f=false

If SV40 can be spread horizontally (from person to person in some fashion), then what else might be transferred? SV40 is a monkey virus, but flu vaccine is still (generally) produced using chicken eggs - are there avian viruses in flu vaccine? Is anyone checking for this? There is an ever expanding mosaic of novel substrates being used to make vaccines (like insect tissue), in part to make vaccines available to those who have allergies to eggs or other substrates (in other words, they react dangerously to the foreign protein that is not able to be removed from the vaccine during production and "purification") - but it begs the question, what other foreign proteins will be included, even inadvertently, in these vaccines as well? What dna? What bacteria and/or viruses?

This is precisely why my position is that vaccines should be an individual decision, never mandated ... if you are willing to accept this risk because you believe there is a benefit greater than the risk you should get a vaccine. But if you do not think the benefit is greater than the risk you should be free not to get a vaccine.

Variety of topics, your choice

Part of my reason for starting this blog was to get information to new people, increase exposure of the issue of vaccine choice (well, or lack thereof) and why it is reasonable for people/parents to have a choice - because there is reason to question both safety and efficacy of vaccines, therefore, people should be able to decide what risk/how much risk they are willing to accept in exchange for whatever level of benefit they believe they'll derive from this particular medical procedure.

So today I'm posting links to various articles. I'm including them even if they are repeating/re-posting/re-publishing of older stories (check the dates, and/or follow the links) as the information/concepts will hopefully, be new to some of you ...

#1) http://www.safeminds.org/blog/2014/01/23/new-disclosures-vaccine-safety-datalink-vsd/
Comment: It's too bad this is not getting much press beyond those who are into vaccine
choice/safety issues, as it speaks to why we are questioning vaccine safety in the first place - and the government agency that promotes vaccines as safe and effective has once again, demonstrated that they are not worthy of our trust ... what else are they hiding?

#2) http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1311738?query=featured_home#t=abstract
Comment: why did they look for intussusception for only 7 days following vaccination? How often does this happen in infants/children who do not receive the vaccine and at what ages?
Is this a vaccine looking for a problem ... and are the more simple, less risk, and less costly solutions (like breastfeeding)?

#3) http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/lawrence-solomon/canada-vaccinations_b_4593168.html?utm_hp_ref=tw
Comment: the last line of this one is so very relevant - do not breathe a sigh of relief that you don't work in healthcare! I've long maintained that mandatory flu vaccination of HCW's was simply a test case - it didn't matter if/whether it worked (it's really about $$), but since this is working, it will be expanded to ever increasing groups of people - regardless of whether they want it or not, regardless of efficacy, regardless of safety - the vaccine industrial complex must be supported, to many people are "benefiting" from it ... crony capitalism at it's best ... not to be confused with the free market!!
Here's a short list of who benefits from the VIC:
Congressmen (both representatives and senators) - $$ from pharmaceutical lobbyists
Physicians selling vaccines
Members of the CDC's ACIP (Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices)
Pharmaceutical companies
Bill Gates (well, okay, I don't know for sure if he is invested in companies that make and
   market vaccines that his charity pushes ... but I would not be shocked if he did)

#4) http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/01/14/flu-shot-pregnancy.aspx?e_cid=20140114Z1_DNL_art_1&utm_source=dnl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=art1&utm_campaign=20140114Z1&et_cid=DM37733&et_rid=398531178
Comment: The long-term safety of vaccination is poorly delineated/understood (in my opinion), and it makes little sense to give vaccines to pregnant women until we have a much better understanding of the short and long term consequences of injecting the various ingredients in vaccines into our bodies, let along into someone who is pregnant - exposing still developing human beings to these substances as well.

#5) http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/818124?nlid=45607_905&src=wnl_edit_medp_obgy&uac=63843DX&spon=16
Comment: The assertions of this article really take some chuztpah - there is no way to know if these assertions are correct, and there is plenty of reason to doubt them - if this were true the CDC's "estimates" of those who die from flu should be far lower as there has been increasing rates of vaccination against flu - and yet year after year (regardless of how many people are vaccinate, or what age groups), the number of people who succumb to the flu shows little variation, and does not go down. They "modeled" to get the numbers, they "extrapolated" to get the numbers, and then finally they "estimated" ... and then they estimated based on their estimates! In other words, massaged and tortured whatever data they used until it gave them the desired result.
This is outrageous, especially when the Cochrane Database has estimated that you may need to vaccinate anywhere from 33 to 100 people in order to prevent even 1 case of the flu (Jefferson T, Di Pietrantonj C, Rivetti A, Bawazeer GA, Al-Ansary LA, Ferroni E. Vaccines for preventing influenza in healthy adults. Cochrane Database Syst Rev
2010;(7):CD001269);

Meningitis/Bexero, back in the news

Meningitis an meningococcal disease in college age students made a splash last year, previously discussed in this blog
http://vaccinedepot.blogspot.com/2013/11/princetonmeningitis.html and
http://vaccinedepot.blogspot.com/2013/11/follow-up-on-princetonmeningitis.html

It's back in the news with 4 cases reported at UC Santa Barbara, and tragically, one of the students suffered a complication associated with meningoccocal disease and had to have partial amputation of two legs as a result (#1); The tone of the CNN article is replete with assumptions about the need for, and efficacy of, vaccines. It's understandable that his parents would react in this way as it is received wisdom that vaccines are safe and effective - it's a mantra that is repeated ad nauseum.

And yet Bexero, framed as a drug that will rescue campus denizen's from any risk of meningitis has yet to demonstrate clinical efficacy (#2, page 4);

Apparently >5,000 people have been vaccinated at Princeton, in response to 8 cases over >6 months - who paid for this, and is this rational? Students at UCSB were given antibiotics prophylactically - is a vaccine even necessary?

How many of those vaccinated at Princeton were aware that Bexero's approval by the FDA was provisional, and that it's use at Princeton will be a goldmine of post-marketing surveillance for Novartis? Were they told they could report any adverse reactions to VAERS? Were they told that this vaccine has never demonstrated clinical efficacy and that any antibody produced does not last long, that the presence of an antibody does not automatically mean "protection" against infection? Were they advised that if they have an adverse reaction to the vaccine that the manufacturer and those provided the vaccine are legally immune (vaccinated!) against being held responsible?

The following is quoted from a post by Dr. Sherri Tenpenny (#3), and is good general advice:

Here are a list of the most important things you can encourage your college teen to do:

• Get more sleep, eat better food, get fresh air – hard to do in college, but a good habit to adopt as a life-time skill.
• Don’t share food, glasses, water bottles, or eating utensils.
• Don’t share tissues or towels.
• Don’t share lip-gloss or lipstick.
• Wash hands often with soap and water.
• If you have had close contact with a person who has had a fever and meningitis is suspected, a 7-day course of prophylactic antibiotics — given with a good quality probiotic — may be prudent.

The bacteria that cause meningococcal meningitis live in the back of the nose and throat and are carried by 10% to 25% of the population. Gargling or washing out the nasal passages with colloidal silver or with a Lugol’s solution and a netty pot is a good idea. Taking Vitamin C ascorbates 3000-6000mg/day and keeping your Vitamin D level around 80 IU/ml can both be very supportive to the immune system.

All of these suggestions are better than acquiescing to an unproven vaccine with possibly serious, long term autoimmune consequences. Think Before You Vaccinate — Health Does Not Come Through a Needle.

I absolutely agree with Dr. Tenpenny - we should "think before we vaccinate, and health does not come through a needle." You can always chose to vaccinate, but you can never un-vaccinate. Even if vaccination is partially effective, you cannot eliminate all risk of disease, and I am not convinced that any benefit derived from vaccines is greater than the risk - especially since I am convinced we do not know the long-term risks of vaccination.

BTW ... if you're going to use a netty pot, be sure that you use distilled water, NOT tap water, as it is not sterile and can contain bacteria or protozoa/amoeba's that may not be a problem in your gut (unless you are immuno-compromised), but can most definitely cause problems when flushed through the mucous membranes of your nose (#4);

The free market works, when it is free ... those who want a vaccine should get it, but vaccination should not be mandatory.

1)
http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/19/health/meningitis-vaccine-delay/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/13/health/california-student-meningitis/
http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/03/health/santa-barbara-illness/index.html?iref=allsearch

2)
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/224896/JCVI_interim_statement_on_meningococcal_B_vaccination_for_web.pdf

#3)
http://tenpennyimc.com/2013/11/17/meningitis-at-princeton-7-things-you-need-to-know/

#4)
http://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2012/08/27/how-not-to-die-using-a-neti-pot/

Tip of the Iceberg, indeed

This post is inspired by, and in response to, the article referenced below by Age of Autism (#1); The article discusses the number of applicants to the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/index.html) and the frustration that knowledge of the existence of this program is not being advertised/promoted in compliance with the law. The writer of the AoA piece also ponders what the response might be if applicants to the NVICP paralleled what is believed to be the under-reporting of adverse vaccine events to the VAERS database.

They focus on children, as they are still currently the primary recipients of vaccines. But adults are increasingly targeted as well - link #2 takes you to a .pdf of the current recommended vaccine schedule for adults.

But wait - there's more! Link #3 takes you to a .pdf with a list of vaccines in development ...

What concerns this writer, like the writer of the AoA article, is what's unseen, and unknown.
We have more chronic disease than ever before - inflammation is emerging as an important theory in disease, and vaccination (through various ingredients) promotes inflammation (#4, just as an example). Barbara Loe Fisher of the NVIC has written a book about this (#5);

I wonder if autism (brain inflammation or encephalitis) is only a marker of **apparent** vaccine injury that has been associated with vaccination (as so many have bent themselves in pretzels to say vaccines have never been *proved* to cause autism). I wonder if there are other medical problems that are co-incident to receipt of vaccination but have not yet been identified as such?

Children with autism are the canaries in cages ... but there is a huge reservoir of people coming down with flaming cases of black lung disease as well - there are actually far more of them, but because this takes longer to develop it is not acknowledged, and the connection to the cause is easier to deny, even harder to directly link.

We don't know what we don't know - that is what concerns this writer about vaccines. We do not know the consequences to our bodies of exposure to various aspects of vaccines, in particular, ingredients that are unintended (ie: dna from substrates used as growth mediums, or other viruses also associated with growth mediums), or from intentional ingredients, like adjuvants (ie: squalene or aluminum), let alone preservatives that are already implicated in various problems (ie: thimerasol);

The scandal of polio vaccine contaminated with SV40 is well documented - what's next?

People should be free to choose the risk they are willing to take - some would be willing to accept the risk of infectious disease, but unwilling to take the risk of vaccines. Others would rather take a vaccine now for short-term risk reduction of having an infection and accept the possibility of unknown longer term risk of vaccination. People should decide this for themselves.

If only the pharmaceutical companies were required to accept risk as well - what irony that they are shielded from the consequence of any adverse response to vaccination. It begs the question, why do they need that legal shield if vaccines are as safe and effective as they are said to be?

If adverse events to vaccination is under-reported now, when vaccines are primarily promoted to and for children, how large might the unseen part of the iceberg really be if adult vaccines are increased?



#1)
http://www.ageofautism.com/2014/01/tip-of-the-iceberg.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ageofautism+%28AGE+OF+AUTISM%29

#2)
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/downloads/adult/adult-schedule-easy-read.pdf

#3)
http://www.phrma.org/sites/default/files/pdf/vaccines2012.pdf

#4)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15976761

#5)
http://www.nvic.org/resource-center/books.aspx