VACCINE SCIENCE REVISITED:
Are Childhood Immunizations As Safe As Claimed?
THE UNDERGROUND KNOWLEDGE SERIES
James & Lance
MORCAN
VACCINE SCIENCE REVISITED: Are Childhood Immunizations As Safe As Claimed?
Published by:
Sterling Gate Books
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Copyright © James Morcan & Lance Morcan 2019
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Medical disclaimer: The information contained herein reflects only the opinion of the authors. It is not to be construed as medical care or medical advice and is not a replacement for medical care given by physicians or trained medical personnel. Specific medical advice should be obtained from a licensed health care practitioner.
National Library of New Zealand publication data:
Morcan, James 1978-
Morcan, Lance 1948-
Title: VACCINE SCIENCE REVISITED: Are Childhood Immunizations As Safe As Claimed?
Edition: First ed.
Format: Ebook
Publisher: Sterling Gate Books
ISBN: 978-0-473-46775-3
CONTENTS
Chapter 2 - From magic to medicine
Chapter 4 - Beginning of vaccine era
Chapter 5 - Live/attenuated vaccines
Chapter 7 - Our own army of superheroes
Chapter 9 - Aluminum, it’s getting on my cells
Chapter 10 - Aluminum controversy
Chapter 11 - Definitely maybe science
Chapter 12 - Formaldehyde – The demolition crew
Chapter 14 - Polysorbate 80, the ambusher
Chapter 15 - Toxins – Accumulative harmful effects
Chapter 16 - Mercury, the swift traveler
Chapter 17 - Mercury, the ungodly element
Chapter 18 - Mercury, it’s everywhere
Chapter 19 - Monosodium glutamate – Fire away!
Chapter 20 - Glyphosate – It’s everywhere
Chapter 21 - Glyphosate – Golden slumber
Chapter 22 - Prions & nanobacterium – Do you see me now?
Chapter 23 - Mycoplasma – It’s a sticky situation
Chapter 24 - Wrapping up Part One
Chapter 25 - Diphtheria, tetanus & pertussis – Sudden death
Chapter 26 - Diphtheria, tetanus & pertussis - Controversy
Chapter 28 - Polio – Or is it?
Chapter 29 - Polio – Syndromes
Chapter 31 - Polio – The controversy continues
Chapter 33 - Hepatitis B virus – Do babies need the vaccine?
Chapter 34 - Hepatitis B virus vaccine – Syndromes
Chapter 35 - Hepatitis A virus vaccine – How badly do we need it?
Chapter 36 - H. influenzae type b vaccine – No, it’s not the flu
Chapter 37 - Meningococcal vaccine – The many shades
Chapter 38 - Pneumococcal vaccine – The many shades of Prevnar
Chapter 39 - MMR, the viral riot
Chapter 40 - MMR – Autism and a ravaged immune system
Chapter 41 - Varicella – The chicken itch
Chapter 42 - Rotavirus – The runs
Chapter 43 - Rotavirus and the porcine invaders
Chapter 44 - The gut and the brain
Chapter 45 - Alzheimer’s and aluminum
Chapter 46 - Our final word on vaccines
“I think of the need for more wisdom in the world, to deal with the knowledge that we have. At one time we had wisdom, but little knowledge. Now we have a great deal of knowledge, but do we have enough wisdom to deal with that knowledge?”
Jonas Salk
Acknowledgements
Elísabet (Lisa) Norris, Medical Laboratory Scientist: For carefully reading this manuscript at various stages over the years and seeing potential in our early, raw drafts. For patiently advising us on how to improve it again and again. And also for sharing insider tales of what goes on in medical labs and public healthcare facilities. We cannot thank you enough, Lisa!
Dr. Stephen Martino, M.D.: For sharing details about the field of neurology and also offering personal insights as a father who oversaw and observed vaccination of his own children.
Denis Toovey, Clinical Pharmacist and author of Better Health for You : For collaborating with us on our previous medical non-fiction book, which helped prepare us to put together the pieces of this healthcare jigsaw.
Dr. Kevin Coleman: For alerting us to anomalies in vaccine research and answering numerous scientific questions over the years. Also for sharing personal experiences of administering vaccines on various continents during his professional medical career.
Sigríður Ó. Einarsdóttir, Registered Nurse: For reading the manuscript and giving honest feedback.
Leticia Martinez: For encouragement and being a positive force.
Tammi Stefano: For setting an example of how to be courageous and stand up for the truth.
Lastly, we’d like to thank the more than 10,000 members of Underground Knowledge , the global discussion group we founded on Goodreads. Especially the doctors, scientists, nurses and parents who bravely shared their opinions about vaccines in a public forum.
Foreword
B ack when I was a student in the laboratory science program at Weber State University, Utah, I developed a fascination for microbial life. Vaccine science was a part of the curriculum, but the emphasis, ahead of all else, was on the greatness of the invention of vaccines and their revolutionary ability to ward off sickness. Vaccines were then, and still are, considered a lifesaving technology. Said to be so crucial to our health that every child should receive the official immunization schedule, which in some countries is now mandatory by law.
During my student days, there was never any opportunity for discussion relating to potential downsides to the vaccination process and we were even encouraged, albeit subtly, to debunk anyone who dared question the safety of the many vaccines in circulation.
What we didn’t learn as students, and something you don’t commonly hear about when being vaccinated, is what a vaccine’s ingredients or contaminants are (not to mention their potential side effects).
The microbial, or bacteriological, realm inside us always continued to intrigue me. Even after completing my formal studies at university and commencing work as a medical laboratory scientist, I conducted personal research into this unique world in my downtime. It wasn’t until more recent years however, that I came across research papers and articles on vaccines that led me to develop some reservations in regards to their manufacture. This was literally the first time, after many years of studying medicine and working in the healthcare sector, that vaccines became a concern to me.
Having two teenage kids who are both fully vaccinated, healthy and without allergies or disabilities of any kind, I can’t say my concern over vaccines and their side effects related to me personally. Yet having worked at a medical clinic for many years it was not lost on me how often children were falling ill and being diagnosed with some type of disease. As I started to research further, I began to wonder whether there could be a valid correlation between vaccines and at least some of these diagnosed childhood diseases.
Trying to find such a correlation turned out to be more difficult than expected. Vaccine research is often convoluted or else too narrowly focused. I also came to realize how difficult it is to distinguish between legitimate research and biased research. It became clear to me that many of the research papers I was studying were misrepresenting true observations.
I have great respect for researchers and the passion they put into their work. The papers they publish are often ground-breaking and fascinating. Unfortunately though, science has its own version of fake news .
This was highlighted in shocking fashion in October of 2018 when the world’s news media reported that three academics – Dr. Peter Boghossian, Helen Pluckrose and Dr. James Lindsay – had cleverly exposed the weaknesses of scientific journals. In order to prove a point about shoddy research standards, they made up research and created their own data to fit a pre-conceived conclusion and sent these papers off to peer-reviewed journals. Some of these papers made it through peer review and were actually published.
That and other examples of serious flaws in the field of scientific research have forced me to view other scientists’ work with a more critical eye.
In the first part of this book, authors James and Lance Morcan put vaccine ingredients under the microscope one at a time and explain their effects on cells within the human body. This is a journey like no other. The reader is given an insight into how the vaccine ingredients themselves impact our cells and what happens to us when our cells are exposed to them.
The second part of this book inspects the various illnesses associated with the ingredients found in childhood vaccines. At times the dangers seem so obvious you start wondering why it isn’t clear to everyone.
Vaccine Science Revisited opens your eyes to so much more than just vaccines. It makes the reader realize how affected we are by our environment in general. And all of a sudden, all the various disorders humankind puts up with start making more sense. We are shown how multitudes of factors play their part and how these make it so difficult for medical professionals to determine a specific cause for an illness. Because most likely, there isn’t a specific cause, but an accumulation of multiple causes.
James and Lance have done an extraordinary job digging through paper after paper in order to find the most authentic and reliable studies to include in this book. It’s extremely rare to find a book that covers vaccines in such a scientifically pure manner. In other words, the data is presented in its raw state so nothing should cloud the reader’s judgement or taint the research.
Again though, it’s also nearly impossible to distinguish between fake data and true data. So in the end, it’s difficult to know which scientific authors or papers to trust when researching immunization studies. To combat this, James and Lance have searched for consistency using papers from multiple authors in order to uncover true or accurate data.
Although the human body can’t be dissected into fragments and problems cannot usually be pinpointed to specific locations, this book also does a great job at explaining how various vaccine ingredients can impact our cells.
Focusing on our cellular levels is so important in this field of research because cells cover our entire body. So rather than narrowing our perspective solely to damage within one location of the body, we obtain a broader, more holistic view by studying the influence of vaccine ingredients on cells. It becomes clear when reading this book that what happens in one part of the body has consequences on other parts of the body as well.
Cells that comprise the human body are extremely intricate, yet observable. Using the information of some of the cellular functions mentioned in this book, you can clearly imagine certain mechanisms within a cell and how each and every part (of a cell) has a job to do.
One of my favorite revelations in this book is the importance of the cell membrane and how it regulates exactly what enters and leaves the cell. The authors opened my mind to possibilities I hadn’t ever fully considered. One good example being that the cell membrane doesn’t just regulate the entrance to the cell, it also controls what happens within the cell.
Substances contained in vaccines are able to alter or destroy membranes, which influences the mechanisms and duties they perform within the cell. What’s most fascinating about this, if you take a deeper look at cellular function and consider everything within the cell as merely a factory with workers, is each cell needs commands in order to know what to do. Everything is on standby until a command is given.
If you asked yourself where these commands are coming from, the answer surely must be: from outside the cell. If that’s the case, then ask yourself: what’s the most important aspect of this whole process?
Could it possibly be the membrane? The membrane decides what messages to allow in and which ones to block. Those it allows in carry the commands for the cellular components to perform. Those (messages) it blocks are commands the cellular components won’t perform. When the membrane malfunctions, the components can’t perform properly. This goes for the production of DNA as well because DNA production is also a cellular function.
Keeping all that in mind, this book illustrates the magic of our body’s ability to regulate itself and how outside influences can affect us. We are reminded we must take good care of these cellular mechanisms and keep our cellular membranes intact. We need them in order to maintain and control proper cellular functions, which in turn is what keeps us healthy.
Therefore, to fully understand the impact vaccines have on our bodies requires a much broader investigation than even most of my scientific colleagues would assume necessary.
Although this book is essentially about vaccine ingredients and their effects, what’s great is all the information shared also provides an insight into how our environment in general can alter us. It’s skilfully constructed to cater equally for those who are strong believers in mainstream science and those who are focused more on rogue scientists . Since the facts are presented in their purest form, people of all beliefs can use the material in this book to further their understanding of this contentious medical subject.
In my opinion, James and Lance Morcan have pulled off an almost impossible task. To wrangle with the vast amounts of medical data and not only make sense of it, but satisfactorily explain it all to the layman while providing sufficient sources and references to satisfy readers with medical degrees, is a major intellectual achievement.
I strongly urge anybody, regardless of academic standing or lack thereof, to read this book and familiarize themselves with the concepts presented in it. Vaccine Science Revisited: Are Childhood Immunizations As Safe As Claimed? will be with me as a constant reference guide and a reminder that I, too, have control over what happens to my cells.
Elísabet Norris (Medical Laboratory Scientist, B.S.)
Introduction
R emember those infamous pox parties where parents deliberately exposed children to diseases such as the flu virus, measles and chickenpox? They were especially popular in the United States and in Britain at one stage – the idea being that children build immunity after being exposed to an infectious disease like chickenpox, which is more dangerous to adults than children. That was back in the day, before vaccinations were available, although it seems such activities persist to the present day in some quarters if mainstream media reports are accurate.
We certainly aren’t advocating parents arrange pox parties to immunize their children. However, we mention those parties as they represent a schism that still exists to a degree in regards to approaches to guard against the wrath of infectious diseases.
Paradoxical as it may sound, it has traditionally been considered a good thing when a child gets sick with certain infectious diseases like chicken pox early in life. The idea being that children develop a long-term immunity from exposure to such diseases.
Of course, isolated experiences of children growing up to become healthy adults after early exposure like this does not take away the very real threats diseases pose to children, especially those in poverty-stricken areas of our fragile planet. There’s a multitude of frightening accounts of deformities, suffering and death resulting from some of these diseases. It is therefore highly commendable that scientists and others strive to develop ways to prevent children from succumbing to disease and falling ill.
Vaccine Science Revisited , or at least the research process that led to its creation, has been about half a century in the making. As the following shows, our investigation into vaccines, child vaccines in particular, began by mere happenstance.
The older one of us (Lance) started actively researching child vaccines as a young newspaper and broadcasting journalist in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This entailed visiting hospitals and medical clinics in New Zealand and Australia, and interviewing doctors and nurses as well as parents.
Scientific research into vaccines was fairly new back then and much has changed since those early times . What’s interesting is the immunization schedule of recommended vaccines was considerably less then than the amount of vaccines that are recommended, or in some cases are mandatory , today.
Over the decades, we have monitored from afar the sciences that relate to vaccines. A sometimes overwhelming task that included reading various books by scientists, following news stories written by other investigative journalists on vaccines, and talking to laboratory technicians, doctors and nurses about the immunization process.
In more recent years we made several attempts to begin writing this book. However, we always found the research required was simply too exhaustive and kept putting it aside to work on other (less intellectually demanding) book and film projects.
In 2015, we published a book called Medical Industrial Complex , which aimed to expose the financial corruption and conflicts of interest that exist in modern medicine. Doing research for that particular book saw us not only interviewing doctors, nurses and other medical professionals once more, but also collaborating with a veteran pharmacist. It opened our eyes to some alarming practices within modern medicine that we hadn’t previously considered. Cozy relationships between supposedly independent and unbiased divisions of the healthcare sector being one of those, and the shutting down of potentially worthy medical debates because of financial interests, academic rigidity or even political correctness being another.
Although we briefly touched on vaccines in that book, it was admittedly more of a cursory overview. We still did not feel sufficiently knowledgeable or well-researched to accurately assess the science behind the modern immunization process. Nor had we, at that stage, a clear picture of the dramatic and often torturous early history of vaccinations. A history which makes for compelling reading and which we address in the first few chapters of this book.
Around the same time we started a global discussion group called Underground Knowledge on Goodreads – the popular, Amazon-owned, social media site for book readers. It soon became (and continues to be) an excellent forum for public debate on vaccinations and medicine in general, attracting concerned parents and social activists as well as doctors, scientists and other medical professionals with firsthand experience in either administering vaccines or working with them in laboratories.
We ran a group poll asking members, Do you believe child immunizations/vaccines are for the most part extremely safe as per official statements from mainstream medicine and Big Pharma ? The poll received 501 total votes of which 281 (56.1%) voted Yes . However, 220 voted either No or Unsure . The numbers of poll respondents in doubt, combined with certain comments made by medical practitioners, finally inspired us enough to attempt to drill down to deeper levels of medical research papers, do the hard yards and write the book you are reading now.
At first, we felt more like fence-sitters as we were simply observing all sides and listening to the various arguments. We also knew we wouldn’t be able to make up our own minds simply by reading other people’s statements. We had to attain a stronger comprehension of the medical sciences at hand to gain an educated and informed understanding of vaccines.
A lifetime’s interest in health combined with our previous investigations into the medical sector, or sectors, had taught us that nature often finds ways to take care of itself, the human body included. We realized early on in our research there was a real concern about introducing the body to toxins it has never had to deal with before. Toxins that enter the body unnaturally and bypass our natural defense system.
It became apparent to us the body reacts differently to these toxins depending on the route of entry. This adds a further complexity to the whole vaccination issue. A complexity that would present challenges for us when sifting through study designs while gathering appropriate information on vaccine ingredients.
Since these vaccines are approved and deemed safe, we had to consider that perhaps the amount of toxins (in vaccines) are small enough that our body can accommodate and process them without a problem. After all, it is a part of our body armor’s design to filter out and eliminate toxins. This works well for healthy individuals, but we soon realized that, unfortunately, in today’s society there are countless children with weakened immune systems whose protective armor is not as strong.
Although these children are in minority, we feel strongly they should not be tossed to the wayside and ignored.
If vaccines really are unsafe for children with permanently weakened immune systems, they could also be unsafe or risky for the majority of children whenever their usually healthy immune systems are temporarily in a weakened condition for whatever reason.
On that note, after we started reading the package inserts for each vaccine, we realized that all the inserts come with warnings on who should not be given vaccines. Check these package inserts out. They make for very interesting reading.
After talking to many parents who have taken their children in for immunizations, it appears the information given to them about the shots is limited to which diseases the shots are for. Other than that, the parents are essentially left in the dark.
When we approached doctors and nurses about this issue, many said they don’t have time to read all the package inserts, relying instead on what they are being told by “the experts” supplying the product. This motivated us to include them (medical professionals) in our long list of people this book is written for as we realized they often have little background knowledge on vaccine science. Which meant we had to make it sciencey enough to be taken seriously by them.
We were under no illusions doctors, nurses, surgeons and other medical professionals would require much convincing because many we approached indicated they, and they alone, had science on their side. We reached this inescapable conclusion because they told us to “believe in the science” or “just read the medical journals.” In fact, we lost count how many of these professionals recited those phrases, oftentimes verbatim!
Unfortunately, such comments usually came without any further explanation. It was as if these medical professionals thought those comments spoke for themselves as proof that vaccines are always completely safe and beneficial – and should never be questioned, apparently.
It’s an unfortunate truth that modern science, like mainstream medicine, has been shown to be corrupt at times, or unconsciously biased at other times, and is often fallible. Make no mistake, we greatly respect scientific and mainstream medical journals as evidenced by the fact that about 90% of this book is simply references to, or reports and reviews of, official medical papers prepared by scientists. However , our caveat is that the facts and observations presented in such documents must be unbiased and untainted by academic dogma, pursuit of fame and profit, or any of the other failings that jeopardize medical research.
We are aware some of our findings will upset those who are for vaccines, and some definitely won’t be popular with those against them. It wasn’t our goal to prove either side right or wrong, but to clarify where their arguments originate from and to revisit those origins, leaving the science to do the talking. We honestly had no idea where our research and reviews of medical papers would take us, and we were ready to accept the facts as long as they were appropriately presented.
Little did we know how difficult it would be to source scientific and medical research that could be trusted as containing untainted or unbiased data. We soon found ourselves buried in research and began questioning our ability to tackle this monster of a subject. Conservatively, we would have read or at least skimmed more than a thousand research documents and papers. It was so overwhelming we were forced to rethink our strategy.
We realized we needed to be pickier about the papers we chose to investigate, and so we did exactly that. We also brought together a team of medical advisors, including a doctor, lab scientists and other healthcare practitioners, who, between them, helped us develop the right approach to researching this complex field.
This turned out to the best decision we made with this book. Our search through the research paper pile no longer seemed impossible as we finally had clear guidelines to work to. And so we started focusing on such things as who the authors of the studies were, where the studies were performed, how large the population sample was, who was included in the study, and the design of each study. It took us a while, but we were able to discard most studies after developing a list of qualifying criteria studies needed to pass if they were to be considered.
Being able to work with a team of people who know how to read research papers, and bounce questions off them, was like a breath of fresh air.
One good piece of advice we received from our medical advisory team was that after we found any research papers that met the qualifying criteria, we couldn’t just read the abstract or the conclusion. This, our experts informed us, was the problem for many health professionals. They simply don’t have the time to read the research, so they make do with the abstract or sometimes just the study’s conclusion. This forced us to read through entire research papers.
Throughout our epic dive into the world of research papers, we realized that when it came to researching vaccines and their ingredients, many of them do not have adequate research data available. In order to find out the impact these ingredients or contaminants have, we found ourselves frequently forced to lean on research unrelated to vaccines or lean on research with a bias to fit either the hypothesis or the funding entity’s interest.
It was at times very difficult, sometimes even impossible, to find articles by independent researchers accepted by the mainstream scientific community. Our feelings were supported by others in the scientific field as well.
An article from granbydrummer.com states:
“One reason this topic is so controversial is because long-term studies by independent organizations have not been allowed in the United States. Only limited independent information is available to the public and politicians. This contradicts scientific research methods in the U.S.A.” [ 1]
Another important point regarding research papers is the fact that it is very difficult for people in general, but especially those outside the scientific community, to know which sets of data are reliable.
In an article by Richard Horton ( FMedSci ), Editor-in-Chief of The Lancet , he states:
“The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness. As one participant put it, ‘poor methods get results’.” [ 2]
It is very concerning for us to read such an article in a prestigious, peer-reviewed, medical journal like The Lancet . Horton’s concern doesn’t stop there.
Regarding researchers he says that in their:
“…quest for telling a compelling story, scientists too often sculpt data to fit their preferred theory of the world. Or they retrofit hypotheses to fit their data.” [ 3]
His concern isn’t just aimed at the researchers, either. He feels journal editors can be just as shady in their actions, and there is an “unhealthy competition” taking place in trying to get papers published in the more prominent journals.
Horton says that their:
“…love of ‘significance’ pollutes the literature with many a statistical fairy-tale. We reject important confirmations.” [ 4]
It seems it isn’t just the researchers and journal editors who are desperate for favorable research. Universities are also seeking “money and talent”.
Sadly, and somewhat surprisingly, in his conclusion of the aforementioned article where Horton summarizes his attendance at a symposium on the reproducibility and reliability of biomedical research, he says they could not think of a solution to this problem:
“The bad news is that nobody is ready to take the first step to clean up the system.” [ 5]
In writing this book, we tried to be as diverse in our research as possible so as not to bias the reader. That said, we do of course have our own thoughts on vaccines, which are occasionally reflected in (fairly brief) commentaries scattered throughout the book. These are not meant to bias the facts presented, merely to share with you our thoughts.
Please note the word Revisited in this book’s main title Vaccine Science Revisited . It refers to a new inspection of what the science actually says about vaccines and vaccinations.
We are aware many members of the general public and, especially, the scientific community believe any debate over vaccine effectiveness, or how safe vaccines are, should have ended long ago, and that “science has already conclusively spoken.” We beg to differ, and we believe you will, too, once you read this book and consider the almost infinite number of murky, gray areas exposed by the vast amount of research out there. Too much has been assumed and misunderstood – on all sides.
It’s definitely time for society to revisit the subject of vaccines and vaccine safety, especially where our children are concerned, and open up the scientific debate once more.
Keep in mind, however, the debate we are primarily focused on is not whether or not we should vaccinate/immunize our children. Rather, as this book’s subtitle suggests, we are focused on whether childhood vaccines are as safe as claimed. For it is, after all, possible to be extremely pro-vaccines yet still wonder if they can and should be made safer. Likewise, it is also possible to be very pro science and anti-pseudoscience yet still question vaccine safety claims or else demand more effective safety protocols.
So, the aforementioned doctors and other medical professionals who dismissively replied to all our questions with “Believe in the science” or “Just read the medical journals” will be pleased to know we have done exactly that – and only that. We trust you’ll appreciate how this book avoids all rumor, conjecture, conspiracy theories and anecdotal evidence, and steadfastly focuses on what the latest medical and scientific research actually says about vaccines.
Even if you are anti-vaccines, or else highly-skeptical of their safety, remember that if any of the most controversial theories are true then it must be possible for science to prove it. Eventually, any harmful vaccine ingredients will be proven to be just that. That’s why we have excluded all theories and focused on facts contained in the best research data available.
Beyond all the controversy, naivety, paranoia, academic rigidity and Pollyannaish trust in governments and multinational pharmaceutical corporations, what does the most reliable and unbiased science actually reveal about vaccines?
Read on to find out. And no matter your level of education or experience – whether you are a doctor, layman, scientist, nurse, med student or new parent – be prepared to be surprised by much of the medical research findings.
James & Lance Morcan
Part One
Vaccine ingredients up close
1
Force of nature
“All living things contain a measure of madness that moves them in strange, sometimes inexplicable ways. This madness can be saving; it is part and parcel of the ability to adapt. Without it, no species would survive.”
Yann Martel ( Life of Pi )
O n June 27 th , 1833, a 21-year-old man suffered from severe head and back pain. One day later, he was still in great pain and red spots covered his body and face. Smallpox.
By morning, Surgeon Henry George [6] had come to see him. The surgeon wrote in his notebook:
“His mind was wandering; his limbs and voice tremulous; his tongue dry, and covered with a brownish-red crust [. . .].” [7]
The man’s face was completely swollen from pustules. Surgeon George fed him beef-tea and arrow-root and gave him medication. This helped the young man sleep for a few hours during the night.
The morning after, the swelling was worse and the pustules had merged together and blanketed his face. By July 1 st , five days after the illness started, his entire body had turned a bluish-gray color. The pustules covering his body were completely confluent. Calamine, which was often used to reduce smallpox scarring, was applied to his body.
His seizures were so intense that it took five people to hold him down. The seizures continued throughout his illness. By July 9 th , nearly two weeks since he became sick, Surgeon George described the young man as:
“[…] the most horrid spectacle that can be imagined; lies, and while lying, trembles from head to foot; his countenance suspiciously wild, and expressive of the darkest intentions; [...].” [8]
From other accounts of what smallpox does to a person, we can assume the pain was unbearable. Infected skin cells shedding as the virus struggled for survival. With the skin peeling off, the virus escaped to re-enter the body via such means as saliva. Once in the saliva, the germ infected the digestive system, giving it access to all organs.
The pustules grew to the size of boils, and any physical touch excruciating. The slightest movement would have felt like the skin being torn off. Still, through all this, the young man stayed fully alert.
Surgeon George continued to explain how a couple of days later, the outer layer of skin had completely detached itself from the rest of his face. Although the surgeon did not describe his patient being any pain, we cannot help but wonder how painful the separation of skin from his face must have been. The nerves would have been exposed without a layer of protection.
Surgeon George described infections under both big toes and in one of the heels. The infections oozed a rancid bloody discharge. The smell, he described as “dreadful”.
Three weeks later, on August 30 th , the surgeon notes that his patient had:
“[…] violent flushing of the face; he is now pale, cold, a degree of stupor hanging over him; very dilated pupil; cannot tell the hour, and seems unconscious of your presence [. . .] he does not now walk erect; in moving, his motions are very hurried, and his body considerably bent.” [9]
The surgeon continues to treat him with medication and wine. His last notes end on September 2 nd with the patient more pleasant and reading the newspaper. The illness had consumed two full months of his life. He had survived the smallpox attack. He would live the rest of his life with major scarring to his face and body.
Stories of severe illnesses are not uncommon throughout our human history. Neither are the stories of humans’ innate desire for survival. We fight to prevent diseases and we fight to heal in the aftermath.
Desperate measures have been the groundwork for development of various techniques to ward off and to treat diseases. Even before our understanding of pathogens, or disease-causing germs, we were hard at work battling them. Often alchemy and superstitious practices became the main focus.
One such technique was described by a Chinese talisman, referred to in the book Chu yu shih-san kho [10] , on how to exorcize the smallpox out of a child:
“[…] write the magic character on paper with red cinnabar ink, burn it to ashes, and have the child take them in liquid.” [11]
Later on, these practices became more medicine-oriented. An example of such a source that explains various variolation, or inoculation techniques is I tsung chin chien ( The Golden Mirror of Medicine ). This is a collection of all available treatises, gathered together in 1739 by the Imperial College of Physicians in Peking. This collection contained four ways to prevent smallpox – as listed here:
“Aqueous inoculum method (shui miao fa). Allow a moistened plug of cotton-wool to imbibe an aqueous extract of a number of pulverised scabs (chia), and insert it into a nostril of the child to be inoculated.
“Dry inoculum method (han miao fa). Use slowly dried scabs, grind them into a fine powder, and blow it into the child’s nostrils by a suitable tube of silver.
“Smallpox-garment method (tou i fa). Wrap the child or the patient in a garment which has been worn by a smallpox sufferer during the illness.
“Smallpox lymph method (tou chiang fa). Impregnate a plug of cotton-wool with lymph from the perfectly matured pustules of a smallpox patient, and insert this into the nostril of the child to be inoculated.” [12]
The Chinese knew how virulent the virus being used for the inoculum was. This was very important as it dictated its safety and efficacy. A man by the name of Yü Thien-chhih [13] explained how inoculates were only collected from patients with mild symptoms. They collected only from patients who had a mild strain of the virus. Any other more virulent or epidemic-type strains were considered too dangerous to use and would kill people, rather than immunize them.
In addition to the potency factor of various strains, Yü Thien-chhih mentions a monetary benefit to inoculation in a collection called Sha tou chi chieh from 1727:
“[. . .] you have to pay two or three pieces of gold for enough to inoculate one person. Physicians who want to make some profit pass it through the children of their own relatives. [. . .] Others eager for money steal away the scabs from [severe] smallpox cases and use the material directly. It is called pai miao (ruined inoculum). In such cases there will be 15 deaths in 100 patients.” [14]
Tibetans have been performing inoculations since ancient times as well. Their method was to dip multiple needles into a solution containing the virus and dried crusts. Using the dipped needles, they would prick the arm of the individual being immunized.
Needle-pricks around the world
Inoculations seemed to be happening across borders worldwide. Turkey was known for its success with inoculations. While staying in Turkey’s (then) capital Constantinople, in December, 1713, the renowned Fellow of London’s Royal Society, Mr. Emanuel Timonius, wrote a letter about this practice and how smallpox inoculations have already been in use for 40 years in Turkey.
During these inoculations, not a single person had died. In his letter, Mr. Timonius describes the procedure:
“[…] Needle prick the Tubercles […] press out the Matter coming from them into some convenient vessel of Glass [. . .] wash and clean the Vessel first with warm Water: A convenient quantity of this Matter being thus collected, is to be Stop’d close, and kept warm in the Bosom of the Person that carries it, and, as Soon as may be, brought to the place of expecting future Patient.” [15]
He continued explaining that after the patient received the inoculant:
“[…] the Operator is to make several little Wounds with a Needle, in one, two or more places of the Skin, till some drops of Blood follow, and immediately drop out some drops of the Matter in the Glass, and mix it well with the Blood issuing out [. . .].” [16]
In 1717, while residing in Turkey, Lady Mary Wortley, an English aristocrat, writer and wife of the British ambassador in Turkey, wrote letters encouraging the methods to be used in England. She had herself been sick with smallpox, and it left her face quite scarred. She didn’t want that for her five-year-old son, and requested Charles Maitland, the embassy surgeon at the time, to inoculate him.
When they returned to England, Maitland received a royal license to conduct an experiment on death row prisoners [17] . So, in 1721, Charles Maitland, Dr. Richard Mead, Sir Hans Sloane and Dr. John George Steigerthal performed an experiment at Newgate Prison [18] in London [19] .
After the prisoners were inoculated, they were sent to Hertford. There was a smallpox epidemic there at the time [ 20] . None of the prisoners got sick with smallpox. All the prisoners in the experiment survived and were excused of their crimes in return for participating in the experiment.
Princess Caroline of Great Britain was not quite ready to inoculate her own children, even after the successful experimentation on the prisoners. In order to confirm its success, she had six orphans inoculated. None of the orphans became sick with smallpox when exposed. The princess now felt comfortable enough to inoculate her own children.
2
From magic to medicine
“Medicine is not only a science; it is also an art. It does not consist of compounding pills and plasters; it deals with the very processes of life, which must be understood before they may be guided.”
Paracelcus (alchemist and physician)
I n Britain, The Royal Society of Medicine was interested in the various inoculation techniques used around the world. With a desire to educate themselves and put into practice efficient and safe inoculation methods, its members studied the methods used by other cultures. The society recorded their observations in an article:
“In India, before variolation, the subject to be inoculated had to undergo a strict dietetic régime and after the operation, which was performed upon the upper arm by placing wool dipped in smallpox secretion on a scratched surface, the patient had to live in the open, away from people, and on a light diet.” [21]
The Royal Society’s members continued describing what they had learned about the methods the Chinese used and also the then-Siamese:
“In China, we are told, the inoculum consisted of smallpox crusts mixed with musk and rolled into a pledget of wool which was inserted into the nose, while in Siam the dried infective material was simply insufflated.” [22]
Insufflate , incidentally, means to breathe or blow vapor, air or a powdered medicine through or into a body cavity.
The genuine interest the scientific community of the day had in people’s health is no better demonstrated than in the Royal Society of Medicine’s obvious desire to discover the different inoculation methods already in use around the world. Its members pointed out that in India, the post dietary plan was used “to reduce the intensity of the smallpox reaction” [23] . This coincided with scientific data the society had which confirmed a correlation between diet and viral concentration.
As for the Chinese method, the guess was that the “musk containing essential oil” [24] was used to inhibit viral growth.
Russia, which had suffered greatly by the hands of smallpox, also seemed eager to learn from other cultures. In 1689, they sent students to China to learn about smallpox inoculation. Interestingly, though, when the Russian imperial family wanted to be inoculated, they did not turn to the Chinese. They asked Dr. Thomas Dimsdale, a Western doctor, to do it [ 25] .
As a further example of their keen interest in various methods the Royal Society of London published papers on the Chinese method in 1700, and in 1714 and 1716 on the Turkish method [ 26] .
Unfortunately, even though smallpox was rampaging, Britain’s physicians held on to traditions and were slow to act on these alternative methods. The French were not on board with this inoculation process, either. They didn’t practice it until it was pointed out to them that it could have saved them almost one million lives already.
Epidemics
Epidemics were frequent and people all over the world were frightened by them. In the 1545 smallpox epidemic in Goa, India, almost 8,000 children died. Entire villages were wiped out in the 1625 smallpox epidemic in North America. Another historical epidemic was the Massachusetts Colonial epidemic in 1633 where Governor William Bradford stated that an indian village by the Connecticut River with 1,000 inhabitants became devoured with the smallpox virus, in so much that 950 of them died.
In 1634, the governor of Massachusetts, John Wintrop, wrote to Sir Nathaniel Rich:
“For the natives, they are neere all dead of the small Poxe, so as the Lord hathe cleared our title to what we possess” [27]
As tragic as this was, it was not considered a tragedy by all. One of those individuals was Reverend Increase Mather [28] , who in 1632 saw the smallpox as a great blessing:
“About the same Time the Indians began to be quarrelsome touching the Bounds of the Land which they had sold to the English; but God ended the Controversy by sending the Small-pox amongst the Indians at Saugust, who were before that Time exceeding numerous. Whole Towns of them were swept away, in some of them not so much as one Soul escaping the Destruction.” [29]
Another smallpox plague in 1679 called the Indian Plague , took countless souls. In the words of Count de Frontenac Louis de Buade:
“The Small Pox desolates them to such a degree that they think no longer of Meeting nor of Wars, but only of bewailing the dead, of whom there is already an immense number.” [30]
The Western way
With smallpox ravaging the world, the desperation for a cure was understandable. By the early 18 th Century, variolation was the most logical choice for prevention. It had become a common practice in the Western Hemisphere by 1721, but not without opposition.
Boston physician, Dr. Zabdiel Boylston, was a believer in the practice and performed experiments which in some instances ended in death. This caused uproar and people actively opposed the practice of variolation. Multiple pamphlets were written by both those for and against it.
In July, 1721, physicians and surgeons gathered together for a meeting. Together with His Majesty’s Justices of the Peace and Select-Men, they decided against inoculation. Dr. Boylston was not pleased with their decision.
Their reasoning for taking a stand against inoculation, was as follows:
“IT appears by numerous Instances, That it has prov'd the Death of many Persons soon after the Operation, and brought Distempers upon many others which have in the End prov’d deadly to 'em.
“That the natural tendency of infusing such malignant Filth in the Mass of Blood, is to corrupt and putrify it, & if there be not a sufficient Discharge of that Malignity by the Place of Incision, or elsewhere, it lays a Foundation for many dangerous Diseases.
“That the Operation tends to spread and continue the Infection in a Place longer than it might otherwise be.
“That the continuing the Operation among us is likely to prove of most dangerous Consequence.” [31]
The inoculation process was considered so dangerous that it wasn’t legalized until after the aforementioned experiment on prisoners at Newgate in August 1721.
After this, when the inoculation process didn’t go as planned, the inoculators would often push the blame away from themselves. Instead, they blamed the deaths on causes unrelated to the inoculation. This didn’t sit well with those who opposed inoculations. Many doctors and clergy men ended up opposing the practice, and “[i]n 1722, an anonymous pamphlet appeared, which described inoculation as the outcome of atheism, quackery, and avarice.” [32]
Dr. Wagstaffe, who worked as a doctor at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital expressed his concerns regarding inoculations. These concerns are reminiscent of today’s concerns regarding population control:
“Thus, the Operator has it in his power to convey the Small Pox to distant Places and Persons, who neither avow his practice or desire his experiment: And if ‘tis possible that ingrafted Pox can be so poysonous as to communicate certain death to all around by this method, they may ingraft as violent a Plague as has been known among us. How far the Legislature may think fit to interpose, in order to prevent such an artificial way of depopulating a Country, is not my Province to determine.” [ 33]
The Boston inoculation party
Around the same time, a ship from the West Indies sailed into Boston harbor. Unbeknown to the passengers and Boston residents, she carried with her the smallpox virus. In Boston at this time, Reverend Cotton Mather (son of Rev. Increase Mather) was considered to have played an important role in the eradication of smallpox.
Rev. Mather had urged all of the physicians in the area to help inoculate the Bostonians. A physician answering his call was a Dr. Boylston. Together, they started inoculating the willing Bostoners.
The medical community in Boston was not pleased. It felt the inoculation would only spread the disease and not limit it. These inoculation-opposing physicians argued that Man shouldn’t mingle in the Lord’s affairs. This practice was so upsetting to the physicians, that they fought a legal battle against Dr. Boylston for “intentionally exposing citizens to a potentially fatal disease” [ 34] . (Ironically, later on, many of these physicians published papers in favor of inoculation. The only thing that seemed to have changed, was that this time they had a financial gain in doing so).
A closer look at Rev. Mather reveals his earlier opinions were perhaps not far off from his medical opponents’. In fact, in his diary, we find passages about sins being the cause of illnesses:
“There are it may be Two Thousand Sicknesses: and indeed, any one of them able to crush us! But what is the Cause of all? Bear in Mind, That Sin was that which first brought Sickness upon a Sinful World, and which yett continues to sicken the World, with a World of Diseases.” [35]
Rev. Mather continues to preach about sickness being the result of the Original Sin when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit. In other words, when we become sick, it is only a product of our sins.
He continues:
“Fools, because of their Transgression, and because of their Iniquities, are afflicted, with Sickness. Indeed Sin sometimes is Naturally the Cause of Sickness. A Sickness in the Spirit will naturally cause a Sickness in the Body.” [36]
When the news of smallpox outbreaks reached Rev. Mather, he saw it as a new disease brought upon us by God:
“It is one of those new Scourges whereof there are several, which the Holy and Righteous God has inflicted on a sinful World.” [37]
The authors of a study into Rev. Mather’s diary entries, one of which is called The Angel , has a passage regarding childbirth. The authors share their interpretation of his words in dismay:
“Those in pain should remember that they are suffering for their sins, just as Christ suffered on the cross for the sins of all mankind. (In the chapter on childbirth, seventeen out of twenty-one pages are devoted to moralizing of this sort.) And the proper thoughts for smallpox victims are those of self-abhorrence and self-abasement: such creatures are to be viewed as loathsome.” [38]
Could Rev. Mather’s change from persecuting the sick as sinners to saving people from sickness have something to do with the fact that, in 1713, three of Mather’s children, his wife and maid were killed by measles [39] ?
3
The medicine man
“To study the phenomena of disease without books is to sail an uncharted sea, while to study books without patients is not to go to sea at all.”
William Osler (Canadian physician)
I n 1772, Englishman Edward Jenner had served as an apprentice to two surgeons for nine years. After his apprenticeships he “established himself as the local practitioner and surgeon.” [40]
His credentials would be harshly criticized by his future opponents. One such opponent was the renowned Dr. Walter Hadwen. He may have been known for his anti-vaccine views, but he also had a degree in Surgery and Midwifery. He had also received multiple trophies such as:
“First Prizeman in Physiology, Operative Surgery, Pathology and Forensic Medicine, and also that of Suple Prizeman and double Gold Medallist in Surgery and Medicine.” [41]
In an 1896 address, during a smallpox epidemic in Gloucester, Dr. Hadwen demeaned Jenner’s qualifications by saying:
“Jenner looked upon the whole thing as a superfluity, and he hung up ‘Surgeon, apothecary,’ over his door without any of the qualifications that warranted the assumption.” [42]
Dr. Hawden explained how Jenner received his degree of Doctor of Medicine from the Scotch University simply by paying them £15.
He then further attacks Jenner’s character by stating that Dr. Norman Moore, who was Jenner’s biographer, admitted that:
“[…] it was obtained by little less than a fraud. It was obtained by writing a most extraordinary paper about a fabulous cuckoo [43] , for the most part composed of arrant absurdities and imaginative freaks such as no ornithologist of the present day would pay the slightest heed to.” [44]
As if this wasn’t enough, he continued on about Jenner’s relentless attempts to acquire further degrees without any education:
“Jenner communicated with the University of Oxford and asked them to grant him their honorary degree of M.D., and after a good many fruitless attempts he got it. Then he sent to the Royal College of Physicians in London to get their diploma, [. . .]. [. . .] they considered he had quite enough on the cheap already, and told him distinctly that until he passed the usual examinations they were not going to give him any more.” [45]
Edward Jenner never took any examinations and therefore never achieved a diploma as a physician.
Jenner is mostly recognized for his work on developing a smallpox vaccine. The story began in 1774 when rumors from rural people about cowpox preventing smallpox could be heard. This hypothesis had no scientific basis, it was merely a word of mouth storytelling. Jenner decided to test this theory by making a cut in the arm of a neighbor’s eight-year-old son James Phipps. He then rubbed cowpox matter from a milkmaid’s hand into it.
After two months, he made more incisions in both of James’ arms and covered the cuts with smallpox pus from an infected person. The records say the boy did not contract smallpox. What we don’t know, because it has never been noted in any reports, is whether the boy had previous exposure to smallpox [ 46] .
After 23 experiments, Jenner concluded that the cowpox matter gave humans immunity against the smallpox virus. He sent his discovery to the Royal Society, but they rejected his paper. He took it upon himself to publish the information in a brochure titled An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae [47] , a Disease discovered in some of the Western Counties of England, particularly Gloucestershire, and known by the name of Cow Pox. [48]
This was the first time cowpox was referred to as Variolae Vaccinae , a term that Jenner conjured up. This new name was not mentioned anywhere else in the brochure.
Often when scholars or other medical professionals read scientific brochures, pamphlets or papers, they will only read the heading and the abstract. It’s therefore not surprising that the phrase stuck. Many of them would have assumed this was the proper scientific name for cowpox.
In 1798, as Jenner continued his experimentations, he took samples from the sore of a stableman. He had become infected when cleaning grease [49] from the hooves of a horse. Jenner used a sample from the stableman’s infection to inoculate the five-year-old John Baker.
Unfortunately, Jenner was not known for his detailed note-taking and only briefly described his observation of his experiment with John Baker, without any explanations, leaving the reviewers no knowledge of the experimental process.
All he wrote was:
“He became ill on the 6th day with symptoms similar to those excited by Cow-Pox matter. On the 8th day he was free from indisposition […] the boy was rendered unfit for inoculation from having felt the effects of a contagious fever in a work-house, soon after this experiment was made.” [50]
It appears suspicious that Jenner makes the conclusion, without explanation, that the boy’s illness was due to the fever that was going around in the workhouse. The account is very poorly detailed, but from what Jenner states, six days after the inoculation, the boy became sick from something that looked like cowpox.
Two days after that, he was no longer fit for inoculation (as we later find out, it was because the boy died). There is nothing that indicates the boy was already at the workhouse when inoculated, so we can only assume that he was sent to the workhouse after he fell sick and died there two days later. Especially when looking at the picture attached to his case. It has no date, but it tells a more serious story than Jenner’s account, leaving experts in the field to believe the infection was more serious than he made it sound.
As we mentioned, Jenner didn’t explain properly why the boy was unfit to continue the experiment until a year later, in the second edition of his pamphlet. This account can only be seen in a footnote. Misleadingly, this is found 60 pages past the actual case study. It doesn’t mention the boy’s name, merely refers to him as “Case xviii” and explains that:
“The boy unfortunately died of a fever at a parish workhouse before I had an opportunity of observing what effects would have been produced by the matter of Small Pox.” [51]
Jenner’s vaccine was eventually accepted. The risk of transferring disease was considered to be less likely with vaccination compared to variolation, which eventually tapered out and became illegal in Britain in 1840.
Edward Jenner received much opposition from people, including other doctors who felt his conclusion on cowpox building immunity towards smallpox was false. They had also seen people exposed to cowpox and afterwards become sick with smallpox all the same.
An example of this is the summary of a Gloucestershire Medical Society meeting in 1790. A society of which Jenner was one of the five founders:
“Baron says that at the meetings of this Society Jenner was wont to hold forth on the cow-pox question with such insistence that he was voted a bore by his fellow members, and finally threatened with expulsion if ‘he continued to harass them with so unprofitable a subject.’ Truly, there are some that having ears, yet hear not!” [52]
Such attacks must have frustrated Jenner quite a bit, because in 1798, he wrote in a letter to his friend, Mr. Edward Gardner:
“My friends must not desert me now. Brickbats and hostile weapons of every sort are flying thick around me; but with a very little aid, a few friendly opiates seasonably administered, they will do me no injury.” [53]
Jenner didn’t like his methods criticized. When smallpox broke out in Edinburgh 1818-19 and in Norwich in 1819, many of those who received Jenner’s vaccine died. People started doubting the vaccine actually worked. Jenner’s reaction was to steer the blame away from himself and the vaccines. Instead he pointed out that the vaccine must have been administered incorrectly.
Edgar Crookshank, an English physician and microbiologist [54] who favored the practice of variolation over vaccination, made a good point when he explained that even though variolation was “a dangerous practice”, it was at least a scientific one because it entailed “the prevention or modification of a disease by artificially inducing a mild attack of that disease.” [55]
But he said what Jenner was doing was artificially injecting people with a completely different disease, an idea that has never been scientifically supported [ 56] . At the end of his book, Crookshank makes a compelling statement:
“Unfortunately, a belief in the efficacy of vaccination has been so enforced in the education of the medical practitioner, that it is hardly probable that the futility of the practice will be generally acknowledged in our generation […] It is more probable that when, by means of notification and isolation, Small Pox is kept under control, vaccination will disappear from practice, and will retain only an historical interest.” [57]
We find it very interesting that a man of his caliber and having been engrossed in the field of infectious diseases, would doubt vaccination efficacy so deeply as to make an official statement saying he does not believe the medical establishment would continue the practice in future.
4
Beginning of vaccine era
“We should not be afraid to go into a new era, to leave the old beyond.”
Zach Wamp (American politician)
D espite the anti-vaccers ’ efforts, the pro-vaccination campaign prevailed. European countries started traveling to other parts of the world with their new smallpox vaccine in hope of immunizing other cultures.
In this section we share with you an article we read in a paper [58] written on the historical account of a smallpox mission. This article shares the accounts from a journey sparked by an incident in 1798 when smallpox hit many members of the Spanish Bourbon royal family. King Charles IV reacted by making variolation a mandatory process in all of Spain.
Only two years after this announcement, the king heard that smallpox was ravaging the Spanish colonies. He prepared a warship stocked with the vaccine. There was only one problem: there was no way the vaccine would stay virulent during the trip since there were no refrigeration amenities or any other means to keep it sterile aboard ship.
This problem was solved by bringing along 22 orphaned children. Four nurses were hired to attend to them on board. These children had never had smallpox or been vaccinated for it.
The head nurse brought her own son to serve the same purpose as the orphans, which was to be human incubators.
The virus was transported in the children’s fluid-filled blisters. When blisters started leaking fluid, the fluid would be passed on to the next child via skin contact. The fluid was then stored on “glass slides sealed with paraffin and subsequently stored using a vacuum technique that used pneumatic machines.” [59]
At each port of call, they instituted a vaccination board and explained why it’s important to vaccinate and set up local cowpox lymph production. They also vaccinated those willing and documented their work. They even designed an observation technique for any side-effects [ 60] .
Sounds like already back then, scientists were aware of issues with people reacting adversely to vaccines.
King Charles’ smallpox vaccine champions were not popular in every port. When they reached Lima, Peru, they found vaccinations were already well established. The vaccination business paid local doctors quite well and they were not pleased to have newly-arrived visitors not charge for vaccinations.
The robbing of the lucrative mass vaccination business made the Spaniards unpopular among the Peruvian doctors. Fortunately for the Spaniards, it so happened Lima had just received a new viceroy who advocated on the Spaniards’ behalf. They ended up vaccinating 197,000 people.
During their mission to vaccinate, the Spanish visitors encountered all kinds of problems – some political, others financial – and the resulting run-ins weren’t always peaceful.
When the Spaniards arrived in Mexico, the opposition was so intense that a Mexican nurse advocating on behalf of vaccines was killed in the process [ 61] .
Meanwhile, back in the West
At this stage in history, all countries harbored the fear of diseases entering their cities. In 1799, Philadelphia’s Board of Health built the Philadelphia Lazaretto Quarantine Station on Tinicum Island. Before entering Philadelphia, all travelers stricken with disease were quarantined at the station, which also served as a security/inspection station for all passengers and cargos headed for Philadelphia [62] .
The first person to vaccinate in the US was Benjamin Waterhouse who vaccinated his own children in 1800. He was a verbal advocate for vaccinations and wrote his previous university roommate, Founding Father and President John Adams, to support him in informing people about the cowpox vaccine.
Waterhouse was concerned Adams wouldn’t respond to him, so he sent Vice President Thomas Jefferson a pamphlet he had written called, A prospect of exterminating the smallpox . Jefferson replied on December 25, 1800 expressing great interest and praise. At one point he says, “Every friend of humanity must look with pleasure on this discovery […]” and continues relating diseases to evil and vaccinations as helping get rid of evils [ 63] .
In 1802, Waterhouse tried to limit the distribution of vaccinations to himself, and only himself, so he could profit from other doctors by making the vaccine only available through him.
Instead of approaching Waterhouse for vaccines, the doctors found other ways to retrieve the ingredients. They would, for instance, collect pus from pustules of a vaccinated patient. This led to disaster when pus was collected from an unvaccinated British sailor and killed 68 people.
As the doctors kept finding their own sources, Waterhouse eventually started sharing his supply of vaccines [ 64] .
As mentioned, Thomas Jefferson was also a big vaccine advocate. After reading Jenner’s paper, which he received from Rev. Dr. G.C. Jenner, Jefferson replied by thanking him on behalf of the “whole human family” and praised him in the highest regards for his discovery of something that “[m]edicine has never before produced any single improvement of such utility” [ 65] .
The race
Since then, many scientists around the world started experimenting with vaccines for various illnesses. They were eager to find a way to improve the vaccine quality and prevent people from falling ill.
The race was on. Many competed to become the next big name in vaccine science.
For many scientists their names and reputations were at stake and the cost of losing detrimental. This didn’t help in keeping them honest. Nor did it do anything to promote the reliability of their data.
To this day, after dozens of new vaccines have been introduced, pathogens, or microorganisms that can cause disease, still continue to spread and haunt us. Many of the struggles encountered in containing these germs are a by-product of our ever-evolving tighter living spaces. The more congested our cities and towns become, the easier it is for germs to survive. We spread these germs to those we come in contact with. This is achieved via a variety of means, including rapid population growth, trading and traveling, hygiene and sanitation or lack of, or depending on where you might live, wars, invasions and (modern-day) slavery. As our way of living evolves, our bodies strive to evolve with it.
Perhaps it is safe to assume that with better germ-growing conditions and with more toxins being introduced into the environment, our body will respond by adapting to these conditions. In the meantime, while our bodies are adapting, are the vaccines a good and safe way to stay healthy?
5
Live/attenuated vaccines
“It's a pretty amazing to wake up every morning, knowing that every decision I make is to cause as little harm as possible. It's a pretty fantastic way to live.”
Colleen Patrick-Goudreau (American author)
I n a valiant attempt to protect us from harmful germs, scientists set out to invent new and improved vaccines. Some do it simply for the love of healing or scientific discovery, or both perhaps, while others are fired up by the pursuit of fame and recognition. We will leave their individual stories to other authors to cover, while we focus on scientists’ acknowledged and patented childhood vaccines.
To cover as many of these (childhood vaccines) as possible, we have decided to use the vaccines on the US childhood schedule of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) . This schedule, as far as we can tell, includes more vaccines than any other country in the world. If the vaccine is on the schedule, it will blanket other childhood vaccines used across the world. The main difference will be the manufacturer of the vaccines.
After looking at the various vaccines, we noticed they are not all the same. Some contain dead germs, some contain living germs while others have no germs at all. We figured there had to be a good reason for the different types of vaccines so we decided to make that a part of our research, thinking it would be an essential component in the bigger picture.
The vaccine types can be organized into four categories: live/attenuated (weakened) vaccines, inactivated/killed vaccines, toxoid vaccines and subunit/conjugate vaccines [ 66] .
Germ in a vaccine
Some vaccines are manufactured by using the entire germ. Those are the live, attenuated vaccines. Attenuated because even though the virus is alive, it has been weakened in the lab so it won’t replicate very well inside our body and make us sick.
Scientists are able to find a living germ to put into the vaccine by collecting it (the germ) from an individual infected by the wild version of it. A wild germ is a germ found out in nature. If it isn’t wild, then it has been altered in the laboratory or is a descendant of a laboratory-altered germ.
Since it’s a weakened form of the wild germ, it is considered to mimic the natural disease the most out of all the vaccines. This is also why it’s considered to have the longest and the strongest immune response of them all.
The problem is, since it’s a weakened, living germ, in order for it to work, it has to be able to replicate inside our body [6 7] . At the same time, we don’t want it to replicate too fast because our immune system needs to be able to handle the attack.
Vaccine trials are done on healthy individuals. Let’s say they measure the safe rate of replication for a healthy child and then use that same vaccine on a child with a compromised immune system. What appears to happen at times, is that some children have such a severely compromised immune systems that it causes the virus to replicate out of control [ 68] .
Vaccines that are manufactured this way are the rotavirus, measles-mumps-rubella (MMR), smallpox and chickenpox vaccines.
Technically, a virus is not a living thing, yet we consider them (viruses) living in terms of vaccines. Because virus is not alive, it can’t replicate on its own. So, in order to produce live viral vaccines, living cells are needed in order to do the replication for it.
Bacteria, on the other hand, are living organisms. They don’t need other living cells to grow as they can do that on their own. But what they do need are nutrients. Without proper nutrients or a suitable environment, they won’t be able to multiply and, instead, they die.
Since viruses need living cells in order to replicate, when viral vaccines are made in the laboratory, they are grown in cultures which contain either human or animal cells.
Self-sufficient bacteria multiply and grow under the right conditions. In the laboratory, this means they are grown in cultures containing bacterial nutrition like sugar, protein or other important factors to control their pH level. The culture ingredients depend on the type of bacteria being grown.
As easy as this may sound, scientists sometimes have difficulty finding the perfect environment to culture and replicate their germs. There are some viruses that don’t grow well on animal cells, but thrive on human cells. These are viruses that cause illnesses specific to humans, but don’t infect other species when they are exposed. The smallpox virus would be an example of this.
Cell lines and cell strains
As mentioned, the viruses need living cells in order to replicate. Scientists often prefer human cells because the virus thrives better. Today, the two most commonly used human cell strains are WI-38 and MRC-5. By the way, cell strains and cell lines are two different things. Cell strains are produced using healthy cells while cell lines are produced using cancer cells.
WI-38 (Wistar Institute 38) are cells from the lung tissue of an aborted girl at three months gestation. It’s used, for instance, in the manufacturing of MMR II, Varivax (chickenpox) and ProQuad (chicken pox & MMR).
MRC-5 cell strain (Medical Research Council cell strain 5) was developed in 1966 for the Medical Research Council (MRC) in England. This cell strain was cultured from lung tissue of an aborted baby boy at 14 weeks gestation. It is used in the manufacturing of such vaccines as Varivax (chicken pox), ProQuad (chicken pox & MMR), Havrix (Hep-A), Vaqta (Hep-A), DTaP, Hib and Polio (Pentacel).
These two strains, WI-38 and MRC-5, are human diploid cells. This means they have normal number of chromosomes and follow the Hayflick [69] Limit [70] . They can only replicate about 50 times before they die, as opposed to cancer cells which replicate endlessly.
An animal cell line used in vaccine making is the Vero cell line. Vero cells are kidney cells from the African green monkey and are grown in fetal bovine serum (FBS), which are cells from cows. This means that when the manufacturer uses Vero cells in making a vaccine, they are not only using monkey kidney cells, but also bovine cells. The rotavirus vaccine is grown in Vero cells. Vero is the splicing together of the words Verda Reno , which means green kidney in Esperanto (the international auxiliary language) [71] [72] .
Inside the blender
An example of how cells are used in vaccines is the polio vaccine from 1951. The book Polio: an American story describes the process using monkey kidneys. After the kidneys were removed:
“The cortex (outer layer) was then separated, chopped into tiny fragments, and ‘rinsed several times with salt solution to remove blood and debris.’[…]” [73]
After it had been chopped into tiny pieces, it was further isolated into single cells. They used a tissue culture called Medium 199 which was made up of 60 different ingredients and was supposed to be the perfect nutrient for the monkey kidney cells. This may seem like a lot of ingredients, but the author asserts it was a better medium than what was used previously.
He explains:
“Ever better, it did not contain the animal serums used in previous nutrient solutions, making it much safer for human use.” [ 74]
It sounds to us like he is saying it is better to use 60 ingredients than to grow the cells in fetal bovine serum. The live poliovirus was then inserted into the kidney cell culture medium.
After a few days:
“[…] the mixture was harvested, placed in large glass bottles, and passed through a series of sensitive filters to screen out impurities. What emerged, in the end, were impressive quantities of pure, undiluted virus.” [75]
Now when the virus had been purified, it was time to pick the right strains. This was not an easy task:
“Some strains were potent but dangerous, others tired but safe. ‘Essentially what is being searched for […] is a (strain) powerful enough to cause immunity and yet docile enough to do no harm.’” [76]
Jonas Salk explained the process of choosing strains:
“‘We just put them in a race […] Three of them gave brilliant, startling results, destroying monkey and human tissue right before our eyes. It was thrilling.’” [77]
Salk was so sure of his ways that he picked the most destructive strains. These strains were then inactivated by using formaldehyde (FA). In order to test the strains to see if they had used too much or too little formaldehyde, they injected the monkeys with the formaldehyde-treated virus:
“[…] and watched for signs of polio. If even one took sick, the entire batch was destroyed. If all went well, the monkeys were sacrificed a month later and microscopically examined for any invasion of poliovirus.” [78]
Vaccines may not be made exactly like this today, but the idea regarding how to use the cells in a culture follows similar logic.
Uninvited guests
Many people think it’s unethical to use human fetal cells in vaccine manufacturing. But there’s a problem with using animal cells as well. Animals carry a wide selection of viruses that are foreign to we humans. We may not even know of all viruses that exist.
Mark Lipsitch [79] , a Harvard Professor of Epidemiology said:
"‘we can't predict what a virus we've never seen will do’". [80]
Since we’re not really aware these viruses exist, we don’t know how they will affect the human body when injected, nor do we know how to test for them. These unintended viruses are often called passenger viruses .
The Rubella strain (RA 27/3) used in the MMR vaccines is grown in WI-38. If you look it up on the Internet, there are countless articles expressing outrage over using these aborted human fetal cells to make the rubella vaccine.
The dilemma is that a virus has to be grown in living cells. We also learned animal cells carry viruses that can cause damage to our health. In order to make a vaccine as safe as possible for us, the scientists opted for human cells.
Dr. Stanley A. Plotkin [81] , a renowned scientist, known for, among other things, the development of the rubella vaccine [ 82] , wrote in one of his papers:
“In order to avoid the problem of passenger viruses, the RA 27/3 strain was isolated directly from naturally infected material in WI-38 human diploid fibroblasts.” [83]
The concern scientists had regarding passenger viruses was not unfounded. You may recall the disastrous SV40 monkey virus which contaminated the polio vaccines. There are scientists who claim this virus is the cause of multiple human cancers.
On CDC’s website a page on vaccine safety , which was suddenly removed (archived copies exist), states that:
“SV40 virus has been found in certain types of cancer in humans, but it has not been determined that SV40 causes these cancers.” [84]
Multiply and replenish
The live virus goes through a couple of hundred cycles or replications when in human or animal cell cultures. For each cycle, the virus weakens slightly. The goal is to get the virus strong enough to cause immunity, but too weak to cause disease. So, the number of cycles may differ for each vaccine. After the virus has gone through all these cycles, and changed a little bit each time, it has changed or evolved enough to adjust to its new environment in the laboratory. The virus is no longer a wild strain, but rather a vaccine strain.
During this long evolutionary process, the virus is not exposed to the human body and is therefore not considered to be of any harm to us. Not only will it no longer cause disease, but it replicates very poorly in our body. This makes it easier for our immune system to be in control.
When dealing with a living germ, we should also be aware that it can mutate. This is known to happen with live virus vaccines. The viruses have the ability to revert back to being harmful to us. It’s difficult to know what the virus is capable of when it finds the opportunity to replicate within our body. This isn’t supposed to happen, because the virus is very poor at replicating at this point. The problem arises when the virus actually does wake up, and history tells us it can happen.
6
Altered germs
“Without laboratories men of science are soldiers without arms.”
Louis Pasteur (French biologist)
S ome inactivated vaccines use the entire germ, while others use disease-causing portions of the germ. In vaccines containing the whole germ, scientists will inactivate or kill the germ in order to prevent viral replication. They do this by using chemicals. A chemical that’s very good at this job is formaldehyde (FA) or formalin (liquid form of FA).
Even though the germ is killed and can no longer replicate, it’s still whole, so our immune system is able to recognize it and attack it.
Unfortunately, the killed germ doesn’t keep our body immune as long as a living germ will, so we need to get booster shots every so often to keep the immune response up. Examples of vaccines using killed germs are Hepatitis A and polio (shot).
Inactivated toxins (toxoids) vaccine
When the disease is caused by bacteria, it’s often not the actual bacteria itself causing the sickness, but rather a toxic component of the bacteria. The goal of this vaccine is to inactivate the toxic component (toxoid), so it can be injected into our body without harming it. Toxoids are not quite the same as toxins. Toxins are the pure product of the bacteria and toxoids are the toxins after they have been chemically altered or inactivated in the lab. Examples of toxoid vaccines are diphtheria and tetanus.
Subunit/conjugate/recombinant vaccine
The differences between these types of vaccines (subunit/conjugate/recombinant) doesn’t seem to be clearly understood by many we’ve come across in the medical field.
Subunit vaccines use only portions of the germ or as the NIH website explains it, they “include only the antigens that best stimulate the immune system.” [85]
The conjugate vaccines, on the other hand, use only the bacterial sugar coat in order to “disguise a bacterium’s antigens so that the immature immune systems of infants and younger children can’t recognize or respond to them.” [86] The coating also contains the information that makes us sick.
But this is not an actual germ, so if it is just injected into the body by itself, we won’t recognize how dangerous the coating is. To solve this problem, the scientists attach it to a toxic molecule that will stir up our immune system. In order to attach the coating to the toxin, they need other chemicals to finish the job. By using a chemical, the coating material attaches to a carrier protein. Examples of these types of vaccines are the Hib, HPV, pneumococcal and meningococcal vaccines.
The recombinant vaccines, use carriers or vectors “to introduce microbial DNA to cells of the body.” [87] These carriers/vectors are weakened viruses or bacteria, meaning they mix and match DNA from different sources into one germ or cell.
There are different ways to produce these vaccines. One way is to isolate a specific piece from a germ and use it in the vaccine. Another way is via genetic engineering. Here the germ is inserted into plasmid that has been manipulated by scientists. This type of plasmid is circular segments of DNA extracted from bacteria to serve as a vector. Scientists can add multiple genes and whatever genes they want into this plasmid. In case of vaccines, this includes a genetic piece of the vaccine germ and normally a gene for antibiotic resistance.
This means that when the toxic gene is cultured inside the yeast, it has been designed with a new genetic code that makes it resistant to the antibiotic it’s coded for.
The gene-plasmid combo is inserted into a yeast cell to be replicated. When the yeast replicates, the DNA from the plasmid is reproduced as a part of the yeast DNA. Once enough cells have been replicated, the genetic material in the new and improved yeast cell is extracted and put into the vaccine. Examples of this vaccine are the acellular pertussis and hepatitis B vaccines.
One thing that doesn’t seem to concern scientists is the fact that the manmade genetic combination becomes the vaccine component. This mixture of intended and unintended genetic information may cause our immune system to overreact. This can be especially complicated for a child with compromised immune system.
Another concern is that this new genetic code can become integrated with our own genetic material. Yeast, for instance, is very much like human DNA. It shares about one third of our proteins.
What have they done?
Here you have substances that are designed to aggravate the immune system towards an attack. So, that’s what it does. Our immune system launches an attack on the invader. Sometimes the invader, like yeast, has many of the same protein codes as us. Our immune system downloads these protein codes and labels them as enemies. It signals a full-on attack on everything with that code in our body. Unfortunately, when the codes are similar, we don’t always know how to distinguish between vaccine proteins and our own proteins.
Trace elements
Trace components that end up in the final product and become a part of the vaccine are usually left-over elements from the manufacturing process. These components were added during production in order to either keep cells alive or kill them or keep them free from contamination or to alter genetic materials during production. Other components are added to stir up our immune system to respond to the vaccine. As you perhaps can see, the materials scientists purposely add to the vaccine-making process serve the purpose of keeping us as safe as possible.
The concern arises when these materials become a danger to our body, which becomes overwhelmed from being bombarded with toxins and protein particles. This attack is, for some children, too much to handle, and they suffer permanent ill health or lose the fight to live.
What is it exactly that ends up in the vaccines our children are given, and what happens when these vaccines enter their bodies? We attempt to answer these questions in the next chapter.
7
Our own army of superheroes
“ Birds born in cages think that flying is a disease.”
Alejandro Jodorowsky (Chilean-French filmmaker)
T he vaccines entering the body come fully loaded with heavy artillery . Not all vaccine ingredients are well behaved, but rather are prone to vandalism once inside the body. In their defense, these ingredients are put in the vaccines because of their ability to ravage.
Whether the scientists intended it to or not, the vaccines are quite effective in causing the body to react in a way nature did not prepare it for. Most of the vaccine ingredients and trace elements are added in order to provide safety and efficacy. Each vaccine is different and comes with its own recipe and ingredients. So far, regardless of which vaccine it is or which recipe is used, our immune system reacts accordingly.
The body is extremely methodological in its defense/attack strategies. As authors, we felt it was very important to understand how some of these strategies work. The immune system is an extremely intelligent and intricate mechanism and we cannot possibly do it justice in only a few pages. In this chapter we share a fraction of its intricate puzzle, but hopefully it’s enough to make sense of how our bodies are designed to react when presented with foreign substances.
Concepts such as the immune system adjusting to a growing fetus bring to mind other instances that may have had similar outcomes. The body adjusts to the germs in the environment and is able to protect itself from these germs and even draw benefits from them.
Sometimes the germs are so clever at surviving and upholding their genetic makeup they become a part of our human DNA.
A recent article at Livescience.com [88] mentions some research papers on how ancient viruses could be the reason humans have conscious thoughts, a functioning immune system and are able to develop embryo.
Another interesting finding the article points out is that we have a viral gene called the Arc gene [89] . This gene plays an important role in writing genetic information and getting it across to other neurons. It’s so important, in fact, that without it, synapses will fade away. (A synapse is the area where the nerve signalling takes place: From the axon terminal, across the synaptic cleft and over to the dendrite). People who have been diagnosed with autism or other atypical neural diseases have been shown to have a dysfunctioning Arc gene.
Having read some of the massive amount of information on vaccines and related topics, we do wonder if our bodies would have evolved in such a way to withstand the diseases that concern us today without help of drugs or vaccines.
We understand that even before vaccinations, diseases killed huge numbers of people all over the world. As we mentioned at the end of the first chapter, when populations grew and people started living closer together, germs had more opportunities to spread amongst humans, especially where sanitation was a major problem. So, it makes us wonder if with improved living conditions would these diseases have been such a big issue? Did scientists become too focused on being a part of the medical revolution to see that perhaps the real solution lies in improving our environment?
The story of surgeon Ignas Semmelweis, who claimed washing hands would make childbirth much safer, is one example of improving the environment. He is now known for the recognize-explain-act approach, which is still used today as an epidemiological model for preventing infections [ 90] .
8
The helper cell
“The best advisers, helpers and friends, always are not those who tell us how to act in special cases, but who give us, out of themselves, the ardent spirit and desire to act right, and leave us then, even through many blunders, to find out what our own form of right action is.”
Phillips Brooks (American clergyman and preacher)
W hen a woman is pregnant, she carries a fetus which has its own sets of cells, its own DNA. It is its own individual being, which presents a problem for the immune system as it is designed to attack whatever is foreign in the body. This is an issue humans have dealt with since the beginning of time.
Nature has forced the female body to adapt and accept new life growing within. The body has had a long time to evolve and improve. Long enough that it now has the mechanisms in place to deal with the conundrum of new life smoothly. Nature itself has prepared the female body to allow a foreign entity to grow inside it.
In order to protect itself, the body uses many types of immune cells. One type is something called T-helper (Th or helper) cells. We have many different kinds of helper cells and their functions are distinguished by adding numbers to their names.
The most significant Th cells in relation to this book are the Th1 and Th2 cells. The main function of a Th1 cell is to help destroy our cells already infected by germs. The Th2 cells balance this out by helping destroy the germs outside the cells before they get the chance to attack them. This creates a Th1/Th2 cell balance. In other words, Th1 cells recognize your infected cells and help kill them before they produce other corrupted cells. The Th2 cells recognize the free-floating germs and help create antibodies against them.
In the case of the fetus, the Th1 cells are the problem. These cells believe the fetal cells are corrupt, so they signal an attack to destroy them. Since life has continued on this planet for who knows how long, it’s apparent that nature has taught the body to bypass this fetal destruction. The body’s immune system restructures its purpose in order to protect the fetus. It does this by suppressing the production of Th1 cells until after birth [91] . This way, the body doesn’t have enough Th1 cells to attack what it believes to be corrupted cells.
This means the Th1/Th2 balance is interrupted and the future mother now has tipped the scales towards Th2 cells. This also means the mother has mostly Th2 cells and very little Th1 cells available to share with the fetus. Therefore, the placenta transfers almost entirely Th2 cells to the fetus.
It should come as no surprise that when we are born our immune system consists almost completely of Th2 cells. It’s not until the baby is exposed to the outside environment that Th1 cells become stimulated and start multiplying until they become a balanced part of the immune system again.
We rely almost entirely on our mother’s antibodies until we are about six months old, which is when we slowly start developing a more complex immune system. As a baby starts building its own immunity, the mother’s antibodies disappear from the baby’s body.
Something we weren’t quite able to figure out was why babies receive so many vaccines before they start creating their own antibodies. A vaccine is meant to encourage the body to create antibodies against it. We can see how vaccinating an infant that’s not good at creating its own antibodies yet, would only have limited protective effects. We also wondered whether the vaccine would therefore have a different effect on the infant than it would on a child with a fully developed immune system. Although we came up short on some of these concerns, we were able to get some answers we’ll share with you in this book.
Hunt, eat and destroy
The first line of defense is the surface of our skin. The average skin pH is 4.7, which is acidic and ideal for our normal skin flora [92] . Another acidic location is our gut. Those of you who are gardeners will likely know how difficult it can be to grow plants in an acidic environment. It’s the same with germs. Many germs don’t survive being in contact with such acidic environment.
If the skin is compromised in any way, an open cut for instance, it will allow germs to make their way inside. This is where the germs meet our macrophages (i.e. phagocytes). They are called phagocytes because they eat everything foreign (phago = eat, cyte = cell). They are the first ones to the scene and will grab hold of the invaders then devour and destroy them. They don’t distinguish between the foreign particles. They don’t care what it is, as long as it’s foreign. The macrophages then gather genetic information about the invader and bring it to the lymph nodes where the T cells and B cells hang out.
A quick recap: The T cells in question are the Th1 and Th2 cells. Th1 cells help destroy the infected cells and the Th2 cells help B cells make antibodies to inactivate the germs floating around outside our cells.
We never forget
As we just mentioned, B cells and Th2 cells work together in antibody production. Some B cells go by the name of memory cells because they remember information about the invader for the rest of our lives (or close thereto). This means that when the same invader attacks again, the memory B cells are alerted much quicker. The B cells carrying the information begin cloning themselves and start spitting out antibodies at a much faster rate.
It will not pass
In nature, a germ is introduced to the body via the mucosal route such as the eye, nose or throat. When antigens (foreign invaders) enter the body naturally, the first defenders, which are a part of the innate immune system, respond instantaneously.
Vaccines are designed to skip the first responders (innate immunity) and go straight for the antibody producing responders (acquired immunity).
What’s worth noting is if a vaccine manufacturer states that its vaccine elicits T cell response, it doesn’t necessarily mean the vaccine elicits response from all types of T cells. This is because there are different types of T cells.
We have explained that Th1 and Th2 are promoting an action and not actually performing the task itself. Hence the name helper cell . Like the Th1 cells. When we look at their function a little closer, their job is to relay instructions that tell Killer-T cells what to do. The Killer-T cells receive the instructions, multiply themselves until they are an army carrying the same instructions and then they go kill the corrupted cells they were instructed to kill.
Once the Killer-T cells have destroyed corrupted cells, the macrophages come over to clean up the mess. The same goes for the Th2 cells. They carry instructions for the B-cells. After receiving instructions, the B cells will multiply until they are an army of cells carrying the same instructions.
What good is a titer?
The way physicians check to make sure your body has become properly immunized against a specific disease is to send you to the lab for a blood draw. Then your blood will be tested for the presence of the antibodies against specific antigens. A quick reminder, B cells produce antibodies.
When checking for vaccine immunity, the antibodies are often measured in titers . When we learned how vaccine immunity is measured in titers, we knew it was measuring the activity of Th2 cells and the B cells. What was completely missing was the activity performed by the Th1 cells and the Killer-T cells.
Given the way vaccinations are presented to our system, it seems to us there may be other factors than antibody concentration to consider. We found an interesting older study in The Lancet that tested individuals who were unable to produce their own antibodies [93] . When these individuals came down with measles, they showed all the natural signs and symptoms of natural disease. After the course of the illness, they became immune to measles.
The scientists conducting this study had blood drawn from these patients and tested it for antibody levels. There were no antibodies for measles in the blood (serum) samples. This goes to show that the immune system can create immunity against a disease without producing antibodies. And this means the immunity had nothing to do with Th2 cells or B cells, which are a part of the acquired (adaptive) immunity.
This study could be an example of the great importance of our first responders, the innate immune response, which reacts to the initial exposure of a disease. Our innate immune system is nonspecific, it attacks anything foreign. Our acquired immunity, the one that produces antibodies, the one lacking in the individuals in above study, consists of cells which only attack what they’re instructed to attack.
The adjuvant rejuvenant
Most vaccines contain either inactivated germs or portions germs – an antigen nonetheless. If it were to be injected into the body all by itself, nothing would happen. It would just float uselessly around and the body wouldn’t view it a threat.
The immune system needs to be artificially triggered and tricked into attacking these useless invaders. As a solution to this problem, scientists came up with the idea of attaching a substance to the vaccine antigen that would trigger B cells to produce antibodies. This substance is called an adjuvant.
Up until the early 2000s, mercury was often used as an adjuvant. As a result of some severe consequences and pressure from concerned citizens, mercury was eliminated from most vaccines.
The scientists knew the vaccine still needed an adjuvant if it was going to elicit an immune response. So, they added aluminum (Al) instead to do the job.
An adjuvant is designed to shock the B cells (and Th2 cells) into antibody production. Each vaccine antigen is coated with an adjuvant.
This raised two important questions for us: How many antigens are there in a vaccine; and when injecting multiple vaccines simultaneously, could this accumulation of adjuvants be more harmful – especially for infants?
Unfortunately, there are far too many antigens in a vaccine to be counted.
When adjuvants trigger antibody production for multiple antigens, the B cells are instructed to produce a wide variety and magnitude of antibodies. Keep in mind, it isn’t natural for the body to be exposed to a variety of diseases all at the same time, especially all bypassing the innate immune system (first responders). And yet how many times have you heard of children being naturally sick with multiple childhood diseases all at the same time?
The CDC’s recommended childhood vaccine schedule [94] [95] recommends 69 shots up until age 18. This is not 69 different diseases. As you may recall, some vaccines require booster shots, so this count includes each booster as well. Some of these will be combined in the same vaccine. For example, measles, mumps & rubella (MMR) would be considered three shots as would diphtheria, tetanus & acellular pertussis (DTaP).
If the foreign antigens are too numerous and overpower the immune system, they will have the opportunity to run wild, and multiply within the body and vandalize it. Whatever the body is unable to eliminate stays there.
Once the vaccine ingredients are inside the body, is the body able to take care of them? Are they being excreted or are they accumulating? If they are accumulating, where are they, where are they going and are they causing damage? We hope to satisfactorily answer these questions and more in the coming chapters.
9
Aluminum, it’s getting on my cells
“...Designers are generally unaware of the effects that their inventions have on the brain, and therefore take no responsibility of this role is deeply worrying. The world of design is like a highway, where each and every driver is asleep at the wheel.”
Jan Golembiewski ( Magic )
E ach manufacturer (of vaccines) has his or her own recipe for a particular vaccine. But certain ingredients appear to be as popular as flour is to baking. One of those popular, across-the-board-ingredients, as long as it is not a live/attenuated vaccine, is the aluminum (Al) adjuvant.
Aluminum is a neurotoxin and the most commonly used adjuvant today. It comes in the form of salts or gels. It irritates our immune system, causing it to attack the invading germ or antigen it’s attached to.
We have phosphate on our DNA. Aluminum attaches itself to it and messes up our genetic coding process. While the aluminum is inside a cell, some of its particles attach to adenosine triphosphate (ATP). The ATP is in charge of our cell’s energy production. So, in this manner the aluminum can affect our energy level.
We have enzymes (proteins) within our cells that depend on attaching themselves to calcium (Ca) or magnesium (Mg) to function properly. Once our enzymes have attached to the Ca and Mg, they can carry on with their functions.
Because the aluminum has such a strong positive charge, it’s able to break the bond between our enzymes and Ca or Mg. These enzymes are now no longer attached to Ca or Mg. They have become neutralized and are unable to carry out their responsibilities. We need these enzymes for efficient metabolism, but now the aluminum is attached to the enzymes instead.
The protein molecules all look a little different because their shape reflects what they are designed to do. Aluminum disturbs their individual tasks and clumps them together so they are now misshapen and no longer functioning.
Aluminum also messes with the cell surface (the membrane) which is the outer layer of the cell. With a dysfunctional cell membrane, everything inside the cell becomes compromised and it is no longer able to properly communicate with the environment surrounding the cell about what needs to be done [ 96] .
It’s all up in my brain
According to our research, one of the most knowledgeable scientists on the element aluminum would be Professor Chris Exley [97] . According to his profile on Keele University’s website, since 1984 his research has been focused on the question “‘how come the third most abundant element of the Earth’s crust (aluminium) is non-essential and largely inimcal to life.’” [98]
Professor Exley has written multiple book-chapters and articles on aluminum and silicon. He has listed 98 published articles in peer-reviewed journals [99] on this subject. In November 2017, he wrote a blog post in The Hippocratic Post , which is “[t]he world’s first global blogging site specializing in medical issues” [100] , headed Aluminum and autism [101] .
In that article he mentions a paper later published in 2018:
“The aluminum content of brain tissue in autism was consistently high. […] These are some of the highest values for aluminium in human brain tissue yet recorded.” [102]
Inflammation is a big part of how our immune cells respond to attacks by foreign invaders. You may also recall how phagocytes clean up and help eliminate invaders. A type of phagocyte in the body is the monocyte.
Regarding aluminum, monocytes, autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and vaccines, Professor Exley concludes in his blog post:
“Perhaps there is something within the genetic make-up of specific individuals which predisposes them to accumulate and retain aluminium in their brain, as is similarly suggested for individuals with familial Alzheimer’s disease. The new evidence strongly suggests that aluminium is entering the brain in ASD via pro-inflammatory cells which have become loaded up with aluminium in the blood and/or lymph, much as has been demonstrated for monocytes at injection sites for vaccines including aluminium adjuvants. Perhaps we now have the putative link between vaccination and ASD, the link being the inclusion of an aluminium adjuvant in the vaccine.” [103]
The attack on aluminum
We have established that aluminum can destroy the surface of a cell. The cell’s components can now leak out. Once they are out of the cell, some of our immune cells, such as the phagocytes, will come to the scene and pick up the aluminum together with other debris that leaked out of the cells. As they gobble everything up, the phagocytes become filled with aluminum.
Using the information brought to them by the phagocytes, the T cells will delegate work to other members of the immune system. Some of those cells are called Th17 cells. These are cells responsible for inducing inflammation and bringing macrophages to the site. Remember, these macrophages may already have ingested aluminum.
Aluminum (Al) really aggravates this immune process, which is why it’s used as an adjuvant in vaccines. The aluminum continues agitating the immune process repeatedly until it overloads our system. With the Th17 cells causing inflammation and the aluminum being where the inflammation is, it (the Al) just keeps triggering the Th17 cells to flare up the inflammation [ 104] .
Some of the material inside the cell is acidic and inflammatory. This is a great defense mechanism within the cell against pathogens. It’s not so great when the cells leak, adding to the constant inflammation that’s occurring. When this happens, our immune system is back on duty working hard to clean up the fragmented spill, which includes more aluminum.
Purely toxic
It’s very important the person being vaccinated has healthy kidneys as they are a vital part of eliminating aluminum (Al) from the blood.
We wonder if many doctors test infants and children for healthy kidneys before vaccinating them. A good test for this would be to check the Glomerular Filtration Rate (GFR) [105] . This tells us how well the kidneys (glomerulus) are filtering the blood. To know how much aluminum the kidneys can handle, we must know their GFR.
One of the research papers we found on aluminum states in the first paragraph:
“[…] Al is invariably toxic to living systems and has no known beneficial role in any biological systems.” [106]
Later in the same paragraph it continues to warn:
“It injures cells, circuits, and subsystems and can cause catastrophic failures ending in death. Al forms toxic complexes with other element, such as fluorine, and interacts negatively with mercury, lead, and glyphosate. Al negatively impacts the central nervous system in all species that have been studied, including humans.” [107]
Aluminum placebo
The same research paper also mentions that in vaccine trials, the placebo for the control group is often an aluminum-containing vaccine. That fact alone could account for why so many mainstream-approved research studies have inconclusive and perhaps even contradictory outcomes.
How can you study the effect of a vaccine when its placebo (control) is an aluminum-based vaccine and not a pure saline solution as a true placebo is supposed to be? The paper uses an analogy to explain that using aluminum (Al) in a control group is like “comparing fire A against fire B, to make the argument that since A is no hotter than B, A is therefore not a fire.” [108]
A 2011 paper, published in PubMed , by two of the authors of the above-mentioned paper, also states concerns about aluminum being used as an adjuvant in vaccines:
“Experimental research, however, clearly shows that aluminum adjuvants have a potential to induce serious immunological disorders in humans. In particular, aluminum in adjuvant form carries a risk for autoimmunity, long-term brain inflammation and associated neurological complications […].” [109]
We noticed when researching narrow subjects, it’s often the same authors involved in much of the research. This is unfortunate, as it would be great to have reliable data from various authors.
Another study on aluminum, by the same authors as above, from 2013 states:
“The literature demonstrates clearly negative impacts of aluminum on the nervous system across the age span.” [110]
The authors of the study observed a potential link between aluminum and autism:
“In young children, a highly significant correlation exists between the number of pediatric aluminum-adjuvanted vaccines administered and the rate of autism spectrum disorders.” [111]
In 2011, Shoenfeld and Agmon-Levin published a paper suggesting that certain autoimmune or autoinflammatory symptoms were so similar in both conditions – and they also appeared to result from the adjuvant in the vaccine – they suggested use of the umbrella term: Autoimmune/inflammatory Syndrome Induced by Adjuvants (ASIA) [ 112] . In 2016 they wrote a paper continuing the subject by adding to their research into how thyroid or “endocrine autoimmune diseases can be triggered by adjuvants, configuring cases of ASIA syndrome.” [113]
Doctors and other health professionals are starting to acknowledge this new umbrella term and its relationship to vaccine injuries.
Another research paper [114] talks about a condition called Macrophagic myofasciitis (MMF or MF), a disorder that seems to be rapidly increasing. It falls under the umbrella of ASIA, along with illnesses such as the Gulf War Syndrome (GWS) and siliconosis.
On the World Health Organization’s (WHO) website is an article stating that research has shown aluminum-containing vaccines could be the cause of MMF [115] .
Other aluminum-associated disorders include lupus, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease (AD), arthritis, Hashimoto’s, Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) and many others. We investigate some of them in more depth in future chapters.
10
Aluminum controversy
“I have discovered with advancing years that few things are entirely black or white, but more often different shades of grey.”
Jeffrey Archer ( A Prisoner of Birth)
T he Aluminum (Al) conundrum is an entire rabbit hole on its own and it’s beyond us why this neurotoxic adjuvant is still being used in vaccines.
It’s very difficult to pinpoint concerns to specific vaccines when an ingredient used in multiple vaccines may be the culprit. Not only that, it could be that the ingredient is the straw that breaks the camel’s back, so to speak, after a child’s body is or has been fighting many other chemicals in their food and environment.
Dr. Paul Offit, with the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia [116] , a leading advocate for childhood vaccines and co-developer of the rotavirus vaccine in America, doesn’t feel there is cause for concern. He states:
“No, aluminum shouldn’t be concerning to parents because the quantities of aluminum that are in vaccines, again, are trivial.” [117]
The quote was taken from a phone interview transcript with Sound Advice run by American Academy of Pediatrics [118] .
Dr. Offit continues:
“Aluminum salts are used in vaccines and frankly, have been used in vaccines since the 1940s as something called an adjuvant, and what an adjuvant means is it actually enhances the immune response.” [119]
There have been countless studies since the 1940s showing an obvious link between neurological damage and aluminum, and we have already named a few. Surely, they can’t all be wrong?
Dr. Offit adds:
“Aluminum at very high levels can be toxic, but when it is toxic, it’s toxic really only in two circumstances. [. . .] One is a child whose kidneys don’t work who is also receiving high quantities of aluminum in the intravenous fluids that they’re receiving or in antacids. […] aluminum is toxic only in those settings.” [120]
So, unless you are a child in kidney failure, receiving aluminum IV or eating antacids, you are good to go. Or maybe not? We suspect not.
One more question. How much aluminum is there in a vaccine?
Dr. Offit continues:
“People tend to generally ingest between five to 10 milligrams of aluminum a day, [. . .] and the quantity that’s in vaccines is measured in the microgram level, [. . .] So again, just in terms of scale, the quantity of aluminum that you’re exposed to in vaccines is much, much less than you would be exposed to if you, for example, ate a pancake.” [121]
Are the trace amounts of aluminum really nothing to worry about? As Dr. Offit said, we are ingesting so much more in our daily food than we get from a vaccine. We find this a little confusing.
There is enough aluminum in the vaccine to aggravate our immune system to the point it tricks our cells into thinking we have a living germ invading our body. In fact, the body starts attacking the dead or dissected germ. Yet, somehow, the aluminum is not strong enough to damage our cells?
Digest, inject & eject
Any aluminum we (unknowingly?) digest when eating is not absorbed very well. According to Dr. Exley, “[t]he body burden of aluminum is a dynamic entity” and depends on its individual, so measuring how much aluminum is excreted is difficult to calculate. In his paper published on the Royal Society of Chemistry website, he adds a very clear image of aluminum route of entry and exit in relation to the human body. He explains that aluminum is excreted “by a number of routes including via the faeces, urine, sweat, skin, hair, nails, sebum and semen.” It is therefore impossible to measure a standard amount of aluminum excreted for all individuals. Dr. Exley gives an example by sharing a study done in the 80s where fecal excretion of aluminum ranged “between 74 and 96% of the ingested amount” [122] .
Regardless of how little is left in the body, even if less than a percentage, is what the remaining aluminum circulating in the blood stream does to our body. This, of course, is dependent on our health and on what other medications or products are also in the body. It’s also important to note that the bloodstream leads straight to our organs, including the brain.
Luckily for us, the bloodstream takes the aluminum to our kidneys. If they are healthy, they’re great at eliminating toxins. So, most of the remaining aluminum passes through the kidneys. It’s obviously difficult to assess the overall damage incurred in this process because as you can see, much depends on the health of the individual.
Blood-brain barrier
Protecting our brain from foreign substances is the blood-brain barrier (BBB). This barrier protects our brain and spinal cord. Apart from problems resulting from an immature, aged or diseased blood-brain barrier, there are many toxins that can damage it – aluminum and mercury included.
One way aluminum (Al) can penetrate the blood brain barrier is by hiding in Trojan horse-like fashion inside a macrophage (Mφ). As discussed earlier, the macrophages (phagocytes) eat the invading particles that are covered with aluminum. The macrophages then travel up the bloodstream to the lymph nodes where our T cells and B cells are hanging out. This is also the same route as to all the organs, including the brain. It just so happens the macrophages are capable of crossing the blood-brain barrier delivering aluminum to the brain.
Dosage
A paper on Alzheimer’s disease (AD) from 2010, mentioned earlier in the chapter, says:
“According to the latest vaccination schedule, every child in the USA will receive a total of 5-6 mg of Al by the age of 2 years, or up to 1.475 mg of Al during a single visit to the pediatrician.” [123]
We wondered what the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) feels about this. Title 21 of the Code of Federal Regulations says:
“An adjuvant shall not be introduced into a product unless there is satisfactory evidence that it does not affect adversely the safety or potency of the product. The amount of aluminum in the recommended individual dose of a biological product shall not exceed:
“(1) 0.85 milligrams if determined by assay;
“(2) 1.14 milligrams if determined by calculation on the basis of the amount of aluminum compound added; or
“(3) 1.25 milligrams determined by assay provided that data demonstrating that the amount of aluminum used is safe and necessary to produce the intended effect […].” [124]
What the FDA fails to include is whether it’s okay to inject multiple vaccines simultaneously. Nonetheless, the amounts of aluminum a child receives in a doctor’s visit, as mentioned above, is still higher than the limits stated in the FDA’s Title 21.
Site of injection
The vaccine needle-stick can also cause a slight trauma at the stick location. Toxins that are at the site and not transported away from it can cause the area to become inflamed. The body’s immune cells are fighting hard against these aluminum-coated antigens.
There’s a possibility these adjuvant-coated antigens attach themselves to our own cells. Among others, these include nerve cells, muscle cells or platelets even.
As you now know, some immune cells are tasked with gathering and delivering information about the invader. When, for instance, B cells receive this information, they start pumping out a vast amount of antibodies. And when antibodies find foreign objects that match the information they were programmed with, they latch on to these objects.
When these foreign objects are attached to our own cells, antibodies may not be able to recognize they are actually our own cells and latch on to them as if they were foreign. In other words, this tricks B cells into creating antibodies against the body’s own cells and thereby cause an autoimmune response.
11
Definitely maybe science
“The signature of mediocrity is not an unwillingness to change. The signature of mediocrity is inconsistency.”
James C. Collins (American author and lecturer)
W hen reviewing multiple papers on the same topic, we have noticed it’s quite common to find inconsistencies in the observations recorded. Research that should be reproducible and therefore consistent regardless of which scientists are performing it, appears to diminish the closer we look.
A research paper on the effects of aluminum in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) from 2011 states:
“Whilst being environmentally abundant, aluminum is not essential for life. On the contrary, aluminum is widely recognized neurotoxin that inhibits more than 200 biologically important functions and causes various adverse effects in plants, animals and humans.” [ 125]
A Dr. Thomas Jefferson [126] was “funded to investigate vaccine safety by the European Commission,” [127] and was at the time “the head of the vaccine division of the Cochrane Collaboration” [128] .
This collaboration has as of December 7 th , 2018:
“13,000 members and over 50,000 supporters come from more than 130 countries, worldwide. Our volunteers and contributors are researchers, health professionals, patients, carers, and people passionate about improving health outcomes for everyone, everywhere. Our global independent network gathers and summarizes the best evidence from research to help you make informed choices about treatment […].
“We do not accept commercial or conflicted funding. This is vital for us to generate authoritative and reliable information, working freely, unconstrained by commercial and financial interests.” [129]
In a research paper on aluminum in diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (DTP) vaccines from 2004, Dr. Jefferson states that:
“We found no evidence that aluminium salts in vaccines cause any serious or long-lasting adverse events. Despite a lack of good-quality evidence we do not recommend that any further research on this topic is undertaken.” [ 130]
Confused? We were a little perplexed, so we looked for any commentary regarding this paper. We found a petition from 2014 requesting the retraction of this paper [131] [132] . To the best of our knowledge, the paper still has not been retracted as of publication of this book.
Elizabeth Hart [133] , the petitioner, continues using the authors own words where they state “[o]verall, the methodological quality of included studies was low.” [134] She continues by using Dr. Jefferson’s own conclusion in his paper:
“Data has enabled us to reach firm conclusions on the limited amount of comparative data available. […] The results of our review should be interpreted within the limited quantity and quality of available evidence.” [135]
To help validate her argument, she continues to use Dr. Jefferson’s own words, this time from 2002 where he states that:
“Most safety studies on childhood vaccines have not been conducted thoroughly enough to tell whether the jabs cause side effects. […] There is some good research, but it is overwhelmed by the bad. The public has been let down because the proper studies have not been done.” [136]
We understand her argument and feel our notion on the studies’ lack of weight has been validated. The authors are suggesting we can actually make scientifically firm conclusions on limited data ?
There are firm conclusions on limited quantity and quality data that should be interpreted within those limits.
Let’s recap: A study with limited and low-quality data was able to arrive at such definitive conclusions that there’s no need to do any more research into this topic.
Hart wasn’t the only one putting this research review under scrutiny. Another review was performed by the University of York which is:
“a dynamic, research-intensive university committed to the development of life-saving discoveries and new technologies to tackle some of the most pressing global challenges.” [137]
The University of York’s Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (CRD) finds the data and methods used for Jefferson’s study were appropriately collected and that:
“The quality of studies was assessed and the findings of the review were discussed in the context of the poor quality evidence available. The analysis seemed appropriate, albeit restricted by the small numbers of studies included.
“The authors’ conclusions seem reasonable, but the limited quantity and poor quality of the evidence on which they are based should be kept in mind.” [138]
We were curious to see whether Dr. Jefferson was still the head of the Cochrane Collaboration’s vaccine division, so we visited Cochrane’s webpage and were able to confirm he was, or is, still with the collaboration.
However, an announcement on the site caught our eye. Headlined Closure of the Vaccine Field , and reads as follows:
“The Cochrane Vaccine Field has ceased operation effective 1 November 2015. An ongoing lack of resource capacity meant that the team were unable to continue to provide a coordinating base and we thank them for all of their hard work.” [139]
From the above research, we know the Cochrane Collaboration has been studying effects of vaccines at least since 2004. More than a decade later, in 2015, they felt they didn’t have enough information to continue reviewing the safety of vaccines. It’s difficult to comprehend that due to inefficient data and lack of resources, they were forced to end their research into vaccine safety.
Dr. Jefferson explains why the aluminum adjuvant is not being withdrawn and replaced:
"Assessment of the safety of aluminum in vaccines is important because replacement of aluminum compounds in currently licensed vaccines would necessitate the introduction of a completely new compound that would have to be investigated before licensing. No obvious candidates to replace aluminum are available, so withdrawal for safety reasons would severely affect the immunogenicity and protective effects of some currently licensed vaccines and threaten immunization programs worldwide." [140]
When a group like the Cochrane Collaboration is unable to find enough studies with reliable data being conducted worldwide on vaccines, it must be said we have a serious problem in the scientific vaccine research community.
We can’t help but ask the question: why? Why is there not enough reliable data? And since there isn’t enough reliable data, why did Cochrane’s vaccine division shut down? Is that not a concern?
It appears the more questions we ask ourselves, the more confused we become about the ambiguity in the vaccine field.
Aluminum didn’t have to go through any rigorous testing because it was implemented before the current adjuvant regulations took effect.
So far other adjuvants, which are being studied after the adjuvant regulation took effect, have failed to be as effective as aluminum, and therefore scientists haven’t been able to find a replacement adjuvant. However, we must wonder, if aluminum were to be compared, using the same standards as we have today, would it still do better than its potential competing adjuvants?
If, let’s say a different adjuvant had been used first, before the current regulations were introduced, and aluminum was being researched under the regulations implemented today, would it be approved?
It’s in your head
There was a very interesting study done in the 1990s that we feel hasn’t gotten the recognition it deserves. It was released in PubMed in 2010 [141] some 10 years after it was conducted. Now two decades since the study was done, as far as we can tell, discussions about this study and its results are almost non-existent.
The study we refer to randomly selected 16 infant rhesus monkeys and divided them into two groups. One group of 12 infant monkeys received the 1990’s CDC’s recommended childhood vaccine schedule at the same rate children in the US would. The remaining four infant monkeys, which comprised the control group, received placebo (saline) vaccines according to the same schedule. (It would be interesting if they added a second control group using the placebos used in vaccine safety studies today. We are very curious to know how it would compare).
This was a longitudinal study lasting from 1994 to 1999 to follow the vaccine schedule in a proper timeline. The study found the vaccinated monkeys had a much “greater total brain volume” than the average healthy brain. They also observed that the amygdala in the vaccinated monkeys didn’t mature with time as it was supposed to. The amygdala, incidentally, plays an important role in social interactions.
Maybe it’s not so surprising they also observed that in the vaccinated monkeys the opioid antagonist diprenorphine (DPN) levels never lowered throughout the study. In the placebo group, the DPN levels decreased noticeably. One function of DPN is to block social interaction. What this means is the research showed that the social behavior of those monkeys that received the actual vaccines, where the DPN levels did not decrease, turned anti-social.
We found there was at least one more study undertaken to verify the association between DPN and social behavior. Performed in 1981 [142] . The authors of that study believe the release of opioids in the brain encourages social interactions. So, when the body fails to decrease the amount of the antagonist DPN, it not only blocks the opioids that encourage social interactions, but it blocks the desire to socially interact.
We were unable to find published studies that show a link between DPN and autism. However , we did look a little closer into DPN. Apparently, there are three different variations of opioid receptors: mu, µ; delta, δ; and kappa, κ. [143] We are only interested in the kappa (κ1 and κ2) receptors. There are more kappa receptors in the brain than any other opioid receptor. Not surprisingly, you’ll find these receptors in the amygdala [ 144] .
The author of the paper states:
“The κ opioid receptors have been implicated in several clinical brain disorders, including drug abuse, epilepsy, Tourette’s syndrome, and Alzheimer’s disease.” [145]
What DPN does is bind to the kappa receptors and that’s how it accumulates in the amygdala. So, it makes sense how DPN could cause problems when it doesn’t go away with time.
We came across another study that found a correlation between an abnormal amygdala and neurological dysfunctions. If you recall, the amygdala in the monkeys receiving the true vaccines failed to mature. The study supports the view that the amygdala plays an important role in social interactions and has “been implicated in numerous neuropsychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders.” [146]
As explained in a study from 2018, the amygdala plays “a critical role in fear, emotion, and social behavior.” [147] This research study evaluated brains of “24 neurotypical and 28 autism spectrum disorder (ASD)” individuals between the ages two and 48. Regarding ASD and the size of the amygdala, the authors state:
“Alterations in amygdala growth can be detected as early as 2 y of age and persist into late childhood. The severity of the individual’s social and communicative symptoms positively correlates with amygdala enlargement, suggesting a potential structure–function relationship.” [148]
What the authors also found is that in a neurotypical brain, the number of mature nerve cells increased with time, while in the brain of ASD individuals, the “number of mature neurons” appeared to decrease with time.
Another study posted on Stanford University School of Medicine’s website shows that the size of the amygdala correlates with a child’s anxiety level. The bigger the amygdala, the higher the anxiety level [ 149] .
In yet another study into the amygdala in children, it was shown that children with autism had an enlarged amygdala compared to children without autism [150] .
Also, a study into Alzheimer’s disease (AD) from 2010, mentions accumulation of the adjuvant aluminum (Al) in, among other places, the amygdala [ 151] .
This got us thinking, since autistic individuals have been shown to have abnormal amygdalae, perhaps there is also aluminum on the amygdala in children with autism.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t find studies that tested the presence of aluminum in the amygdala of children with autism or enlarged amygdala.
Scientists may not know exactly which parts of the vaccines our body decides to react to. Each person reacts so differently. But it seems likely there is validity in questioning vaccine safety when a concoction of substances is used to provoke our immune system.
Because each immune system is different, scientists can’t predict its reaction when presented with something foreign. Especially when the vaccine contains scientifically proven neurotoxins, such as aluminum.
12
Formaldehyde – The demolition crew
“To alcohol! The cause of... and solution to... all of life's problems”
Matt Groening (American cartoonist)
W hen scientists use the entire germ in the vaccine, they have to kill it or weaken it substantially before putting it into the vaccine. In order to do this, they use a chemical. The most common chemical for this process is Formaldehyde (FA) or Formalin (liquid form of formaldehyde).
Many scientists have expressed concern about injecting embalming fluid into the bodies of little infants. We thought therefore we should take a closer look at the validity of this concern. In order to do this, we need to know which part of our body it affects and what formaldehyde does when directly exposed to our cells.
When formaldehyde comes in direct contact with our cells, it compromises the integrity of the tau proteins inside the cells. Nerve cells have the most tau proteins out of all the cells, so they are the most vulnerable.
Just like humans, each cell has a skeleton called cytoskeleton (which literally means cell-skeleton). The main component of a cytoskeleton is the microtubules. These tubules are made up of thousands of paired-up proteins. A protein-pair has one alpha and one beta tubulin. They always go together, two and two, as alpha and beta. When assembled, they form a spiral called microtubules. It looks a lot like a pearl necklace wrapped around a tube.
This structure can’t be built without help. The alpha and beta tubulins need to be tied together in order to stabilize. Our cells use tau proteins to do this. Because these microtubular structures are made up of thousands of tiny tubulins, they are quite flexible.
The way the tau proteins bind the alpha and beta subunits together allows the microtubules to assemble, disassemble and reassemble, grow and shrink as needed at any given time.
When they disassemble, the tau proteins let go of each alpha and beta subunit. The tubulins will disburse inside the cell and float around until called to duty. When signaled, tau proteins will reassemble them as commanded. This means the body is constantly building microtubular structures then tearing them down and rebuilding them. This constant construction is happening inside all our cells at any given moment in time. Without it, the cell would not function.
You may be wondering why there’s a need to worry so much about formaldehyde messing with the tau proteins when it’s a structural thing. It’s not like it’s destroying the function of the cell, right? Let’s take a closer look.
It's a jungle in here
Many would probably define the human skeleton as something like supportive columns and compare it to steel beams on a skyscraper or poles in a tent. However, our cells are more complex than that and need the skeleton to serve multiple purposes.
Before we continue, we’d like to remind you that we have different cells in our bodies, so our explanation here relates to that of a general cell. The same occurrence within a nerve cell would be described a little differently, but the concept is the same.
Let’s say you live in a hut near the center of a vast jungle. Inside our cellular jungle , we call this hut the Centrosome, which sits next to the nucleus inside the cell. The cellular jungle contains a lot of inhabitants who need a ride to get from place to place. These inhabitants are generally referred to as cargo [ 152] .
In order to transport this cellular cargo, there’s a vast network of microtubules in place. To continue using our jungle analogy, this would be like a vast network of ziplines. The ziplines being the microtubules. These ziplines are used for transportation of cargo both near and far, inside the cell. The microtubules are charged, with the minus end towards the inner part of the cell and the plus end towards the outer part of cell.
In order for transportation to take place, there needs to be a way to attach the cargo on to the zipline or microtubules. This is done by using a motor protein which serves as a buckle of some sort. When the cargo is being transported in the plus direction (towards outer part of the cell), this motor protein is called kinesin. When the transport is going in the minus direction (towards the inner part of cell), it uses a protein called dynein. (A third motor protein used in muscle contraction is called myosin). In a nerve cell the microtubules would be travelling along the axon. Considering the fact that kinesin travels outward, on a nerve cell that means it travels away from nucleus and down the axon. The dynein would be traveling towards the dendrites [1 53] .
The cell also uses the ziplines to get information out to the surface of the cell in order to communicate with other cells and the outside world . Unfortunately, it’s not just our own cellular components that take advantage of this fantastic communication and transportation network. Some viruses also take advantage and utilize the microtubules for their own purposes [ 154] . We won’t go into more detail on that, just something to keep in mind.
When the microtubules perform their various important functions, the tau proteins (the support ties) can change the way your genes are being expressed [ 155] . They help protect your DNA and possibly help repair it as well [ 156] .
So far, we have established that microtubules serve as support columns to provide structure/support and as a vast network of ziplines for transportation/communication inside the cell. Another cool microtubule feature is, as the name implies, it’s also hollow on the inside.
Inside our cells we have an immense amount of proteins. Some of these proteins have specific tasks or messages they need to transport to other locations in the cell. So, the proteins will latch on to the kinesin or dynein (buckle) on the zipline to catch a ride. As mentioned, the cable is hollow, which means there’s something going on in the tunnels or inside the microtubules. Yes, our cells have their very own underground network [157] .
Another important task the microtubules are a part of, is separating the chromosomes during cell division. This is where the motor proteins myosin are used. They anchor the chromosomes down then flex to become shorter, meaning the tau proteins remove some of the alpha and beta subunits in order to shorten. This pulls the chromosomes apart. And voila! There you have it. Cell division!
Movin’ to the groovin’
As we explained, the microtubules are extremely important in dividing cells and moving things around inside cells. But this isn’t all they do. The microtubules also move the entire cell around.
Cilia, which are hair-like structures on the surface of the cell, are actually microtubules. The cell uses the cilia to move around by either moving itself or the fluid around it. Then there are some cells that have flagella. These can look like long tails on the cell, but are actually just a bunch of microtubules. They work more like a motor, propelling the cell around.
Many parts of our bodies have cilia. Some cilia move around while others don’t, being more for sensory purposes. These sensory cilia are located in places such as the kidneys and eyes. In the eyes, the cilia move the signals from one cell to another.
The cilia that moves around, is found, for instance, in the respiratory tract where it’s used to transfer mucus and other particles away from the lungs and out of the body. This is also how the Fallopian tubes move the egg. When it comes to the flagella, an example would be how it steers the sperm toward the egg.
In the brain we have nerve cells or neurons. The microtubules in these cells are also extremely important in communication between nerve cells in the brain.
As you can see, the tau proteins are quite busy making life possible (for us). When something goes wrong with the tau proteins, where their ability to tie the alpha and beta subunits together has failed, the microtubules will fall apart. When this happens, the cells are unable to move things around. Instead, the microtubules become tangled up inside the cell. This destroys the cell. Formaldehyde (FA) can cause this to happen in as little as 0.01-0.1% FA solution [ 158] .
How does this amount of formaldehyde compare to that in vaccines?
13
The right amount
“I was not allowed to take spherical trigonometry because I'd sprained my ankle. Because I'd sprained my ankle, I had an incomplete in gym, phys ed. And the rule was that if you had an incomplete in anything, you were not allowed to take an overload.”
William Shockley (American physicist)
I n certain vaccines, formaldehyde (FA) is used to “inactivate viruses and to detoxify bacterial toxins.” [159] In the making of a vaccine almost all the toxins are eliminated. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to extract all the toxins. There will always be some residual toxins left in the vaccine. When it comes to formaldehyde, this can be 0.02% FA or less.
As with other chemicals, the various forms should not be confused. We mentioned in the previous chapter that formaldehyde becomes formalin when in liquid. To be more specific, when methyl alcohol is added to formaldehyde, it becomes formalin. A solution that’s 10% formalin, is actually 3.7-4% formaldehyde [ 160] .
In the above-referenced study the authors compared “formaldehyde-containing vaccines at a single medical visit” to the natural occurring formaldehyde levels “in a model 2-month-old infant.”
The results were:
“[…] a single dose of 200 µg, formaldehyde is essentially completely removed from the site of injection within 30 min.” [ 161]
This study concludes that the injected “formaldehyde continues to be safe.” [ 162] Another study, using the same low formaldehyde (FA) solution states that “the presence of formaldehyde” causes tau proteins to aggregate and “become inactive in tubulin assembly.” [ 163] So, even at low levels formaldehyde changes tau’s integrity.
Another study shows that a very small amount of formaldehyde solution is needed to cause accumulation of amyloid-beta proteins [ 164] . When these proteins accumulate in the hippocampus, they become larger and toxic to neurons. Hippocampus deals for the most part with short-term, long-term and spatial memory. When cells die, the brain loses various functions and memory loss is inevitable [ 165] .
During our research digging we found it difficult to understand how so many scientific studies out there can be studying the exact same thing, yet their conclusions completely contradict each other. Formaldehyde studies are no exception. If each study can be replicated by a third party in the laboratory, how can the results vary so greatly?
Our body produces formaldehyde naturally. This makes it difficult to determine how safe formaldehyde in vaccines really is. Formaldehyde can damage our cells, but at the same time it can defend the cells against damage. In the latter case, our body breaks the formaldehyde down into smaller pieces. These smaller pieces are no longer formaldehyde, but are now formate [ 166] . The cell uses formate to create more DNA.
Normally our cells are destroyed by being broken apart. Formaldehyde doesn’t do that. As you may know, each cell has multiple proteins on its surface. These surface proteins serve as communicators between cells and between the cell and its surrounding environment. Formaldehyde crosslinks these surface proteins together, so the cells can’t communicate properly with each other or their environment.
This is exactly why formaldehyde is used in vaccines, to kill or inactivate the vaccine germs and contaminants during production phase: by crosslinking the proteins on the cell surface [167] [168] .
Some health professionals are concerned about formaldehyde accumulating in the body. For example, Sherri Tenpenny, Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO), who has great insight into the field of natural health, argues that by the time a child is five, they have received 1.795 mg Formaldehyde.
Dr. Tenpenny says:
“Through sloppy and negligent math, lawmakers and manufacturers fail to throw up a red flag regarding the large amount of formaldehyde injected into young bodies with developing brains, neurological systems and organs.” [169]
So why is it that so many health professionals show no concern for formaldehyde safety in vaccines? Could it be that it’s because it has a short lifespan and the body’s natural ability to take care of it is already in place?
The normal levels of formaldehyde in our blood is about 2.5 mg/l. Formaldehyde is only active for about 1.5 minutes in the body. Using this to calculate, the conclusion will be that “an adult human liver will metabolize 22 mg formaldehyde per minute”. This metabolized formaldehyde then becomes carbon dioxide and pushed out of the body [ 170] .
A research paper from The University of Queensland Brain Institute in Australia did studies on formaldehyde damage on the cell. They used three different concentrations of formaldehyde: 0.1 mmol/l, 0.2 mmol/l and 0.3 mmol/l. So as not to confuse units together, we converted them to mg/l units [ 171] . When they tested the mice with 3.0 mg/l (0.1 mmol/l) and 6.0 mg/l (0.2 mmol/l), they noticed the damage blocked cell division, while a concentration of 9.0 mg/l (0.3 mmol/l) completely destroyed the cell [ 172] .
If we assume an adult body has five liters of blood and a child’s body half that [173] , using Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s (CHOP) example, a two-month-old infant, weighing 5 kg has 1.1 mg circulating in the blood at any given time [ 174] .
Using their list of vaccines containing formaldehyde and calculating the combined formaldehyde content in the vaccine schedule for a two-month-old infant, which is DTaP, Polio and Hepatitis B, assuming max amounts, we get about 0.2 mg formaldehyde [ 175] .
There you have it. Nothing to be concerned about, right?
The amount of formaldehyde in these vaccines is not much in comparison to what is naturally occurring within the body. So, in short, formaldehyde is naturally inside our cells and in our fluids. When in such a small amount, our body eliminates it easily and therefore prevents formaldehyde from accumulating and becoming toxic.
Seems like formaldehyde was a good choice to use over so many other toxins out there. With a half-life of 1.5 minutes, formaldehyde doesn’t even have the chance to accumulate in the body. So, adding up the formaldehyde in multiple vaccines given over time isn’t really an appropriate argument for toxicity. But what if individuals prone to vaccine injuries retain or accumulate formaldehyde?
When the pile gets bigger
We found a study that measured accumulated formaldehyde in the brain. Yes, apparently accumulated formaldehyde does exist. The study showed that the more it accumulates, the less there will be “cognitive abilities during human aging” [176] . The more severe the dementia in Alzheimer’s disease patients, the higher the formaldehyde accumulation [ 177] .
Something else the authors of that study observed was when we age, the “accumulation of formaldehyde” prevents “new formation of spatial memory (i.e., learning difficulty)” [1 78] .
Another observation was that in late stage Alzheimer’s disease there’s “chronic accumulation of hippocampal formaldehyde” which “induces loss of remote memory.” What caught our attention was the paper listed a correlation between the presence of both mercury and formaldehyde (as an environmental factor) [ 179] .
This study was not done on children, but on adults with Alzheimer’s disease.
We wonder if there’s any type of defect in our ability to clear formaldehyde out of the body and that somehow renders the aforementioned short half-life to be irrelevant? Can this formaldehyde accumulation start as early as with the administration of childhood vaccines? Does the combination of formaldehyde and mercury make a difference in children?
Earlier in the chapter, we established that formaldehyde was used to inactivate or kill pathogens and to cross-link cell surface-proteins together. If using our earlier understanding of immune response, is it not possible that our body could create an immune response to formaldehyde?
As a matter of fact, we found a paper describing how alcohol metabolites, which include formaldehyde, have the ability to induce immune response even when an adjuvant (like aluminum) is not used [ 180] .
As we continued our research, it seemed as if no scientists were sufficiently concerned about formaldehyde in vaccines to study it any further. Unfortunately, most studies have focused on routes other than injections from vaccines. Probably because, compared to their data on non-injected formaldehyde, the minute amounts in vaccines are not considered harmful.
When we looked on websites for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), none of them listed injections as a means for formaldehyde exposure [181] [182] [183] [184] .
Seems like the vaccine ingredient motto has become: “It’s not a big deal, don’t worry about it!”
At the vaccine injection site, even though the formaldehyde is in low concentration, the first thing it will do is latch on to the first available proteins it can get hold of. There should be plenty of proteins right there by the injection site for the formaldehyde molecules to find.
Our immune system is always hard at work. Since the site of entry is a break in the skin, our immune cells (innate immunity) will flock to the site. When our proteins have been altered by formaldehyde, the macrophages don’t recognize them as a part of the body anymore. They will attack and gulp them down. From there, the macrophage escorts the formaldehyde to other locations in the body such as our organs, lymph nodes (T cells and B cell hangouts) and the brain.
When formaldehyde enters a cell, it attaches itself to the DNA strand. This can be concerning because it can cause certain genes to be turned off when we need them turned on. Once this happens it’s very difficult to reverse or turn back on [ 185] .
Formaldehyde has been studied and used for a very long time. Even as far back as 1945 we humans were using it in vaccines.
Researcher Dexter French [186] , wrote a research paper on using formaldehyde in vaccines.
He expressed concern about its stability:
“Formaldehyde, however, owing to the very compact structure of the molecule and its high reactivity, is a particularly versatile reagent with a vast range of possible reactions.” [187]
On the National Institute of Health’s (NIH) Open Chemistry Database , it says that liquid form of FA (formalin) “is considered a hazardous compound, and its vapor toxic.” [188]
It also says:
“Formaldehyde is a Standardized Chemical Allergen.
“Aqueous formaldehyde is corrosive to carbon steel, […].
“When liquid formaldehyde is warmed to room temp in a sealed ampule, it polymerizes rapidly with the evolution of heat […]” [ 189]
Under the header Disinfectants , it defines formaldehyde as:
“[…] used on inanimate objects that destroy harmful microorganisms or inhibit their activity. Disinfectants are classed as complete, destroying SPORES as well as vegetative forms of microorganisms, […]” [190]
It sounds to us like formaldehyde in liquid form can have harmful effects. We understand the dosing is the argument here, but a safe dose is not the same for every single person.
And how does formaldehyde react when combined with all the other toxins in the vaccines?
Synergism
Unfortunately, in vaccines, it seems the synergistic effects of the toxins have never been studied. However, other fields of study have expressed concern for toxic synergism and researched the synergistic effects it has on our bodies when exposed to multiple toxins simultaneously. As with the paper we mentioned earlier regarding accumulation of formaldehyde, this study shows synergistic effects when in contact with mercury. So, for some reason, it appears scientists in other fields test for toxic synergism, just not those who are testing for vaccine safety.
We were able to find a study that focused specifically on synergistic effects, but, of course, it was unrelated to vaccines. It was a Chinese study done to see if co-exposure of air pollutants and formaldehyde could cause Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Among the pollutants, which are listed in the paper, was aluminum (Al) [ 191] .
The interesting part of the study was the fact that when the mice were exposed to toxins alone or formaldehyde alone, it “had little or no effect on the mouse brain.” When the mice were co-exposed to air pollutants and formaldehyde, it “had a significant synergistic adverse effect.” [192]
These adverse effects included “significant cognitive decline”. Other observations included deterioration of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and damages to the hippocampus, which plays an important part of creating memory [ 193] .
Another observation they made was an abnormally induced expression of tau proteins which:
“[…] destroy the stability of microtubules and axonal transport, eventually causing neuronal death, and inducing the occurrence of neurodegenerative diseases.” [194]
The paper also states that “[t]hese safe levels for alone exposure turned into dangerous at co-exposure.” [195]
So, there you have it. At least in this study, they show that levels considered safe became highly toxic when combined.
We now have two studies showing synergism. One showing synergism between formaldehyde and mercury, the other showing synergism between formaldehyde and aluminum. With the immune system working overtime on eliminating all these toxins, surely other functions must suffer.
When a developing brain is desperately fighting off the toxins, could this battle possibly be diverting energy and other resources away from other important developmental processes? We’re not sure of the answer, but when the body is sick, it will shut down some of its functions in order to give energy to fight the sickness. We are theorizing here that the brain may perhaps react in a similar manner.