Boosting the ability to fight against infections relies on the efficacy of the recommended therapeutic regimen. This strategy has proven to be effective with specially designed antigenic preparations known as vaccines. The discovery of small pox vaccine by Sir Edward Jenner might have drawn the attention of many researchers and venture capitalists to invent and produce novel vaccines for a variety of life threatening conditions.
We might have heard about vaccines since our early childhood days as they were considered as the crucial stages of vaccine administration. But, concerns do exist about these promising candidates on the grounds that they induce side affects. As such, this issue has become more prominent in the recent period and appears to warn parents before blindly vaccinating their children. So, there is need to make an in depth review about vaccines in connection with this controversy.
Initially, knowing the constituents or ingredients that make up the vaccine may help in better understanding the risk. To start with the well known Polio vaccine, it has Polio virus/ monkey kidney cell, beef heart infusion/fetal bovine serum, formaldehyde, phenol/ phenoxyethanol, dry natural latex rubber and neomycin as ingredients and the side effects include soreness, redness, swelling, or itching where the shot was given (30% – 74%) headache, nausea, abdominal pain, muscle aches, dizziness anaphylactic Shock/ Anaphylactoid, SIDS and or Deaths reported, Guillain–Barre Syndrome / Bell’s palsy.
It was reported that long term studies have not been done for carcinogenic, mutagenic potential or fertility impairment, developmental malformation (animal reproduction studies), effects on pregnant woman, fetus, or transmission of toxins to human breast milk. Chicken Pox vaccine commercially known as Varivax (M) has varicella virus/ human diploid lung cells, Embryonic Guinea pig cell cultures, Beef heart infusion/ fetal bovine serum, ammonium sulfate, MSG (monosodium glutamate) and neomycin as the essential constituents.
The adverse reactions of this vaccine are soreness or swelling where the shot was given Fever, Mild rash, up to a month after vaccination.It is possible for these people to infect other members of their household, but this is extremely rare. Anaphylactic Shock/ Anaphylactoid, Encephalitis/ Encephalopathy, Seizures/infantile spasms, Guillain-Barre Syndrome/ Bell’s Palsy, Aseptic Menningitis / Transverse myelitis, Arthritis/ Arthraglia, Thrombocytopenia, Urticaria, Optic neuritis, Otitis Media (ear infection), Lymphadenopathy, Impetigo, cellulites, and herpes zoste.Next, MMR vaccine for Measles, Mumps & Rubella is marketed as M-M-R II (M), M-R-Vax II (M), Biavax (M), Attenuvax (M), Meruvax II (M) and Mumpsvax (M).
The ingredients include Measles virus / chick embryo culture,Mumps virus / chick embryo culture, Rubella virus / human diploid lung cells, Beef heart infusion / fetal bovine serum, Human albumin, Sorbitol/sucrose, MSG (monosodium glutamate) and neomycin.
The possible side effects of this vaccine are fever, mild rash, swelling of glandsa in the cheeks or necks, Anaphylactic Shock/ Anaphylactoid, Encephalitis/ Encephalopathy, SIDS and or Deaths reported, Seizures/infantile spasms, Aseptic Menningitis / Transverse myelitis, Athritis/ Arthraglia, Thrombocytopenia, S-J S, Erythema Multiform, Diabetes Mellitus, Optic neuritis, Nerve Deafness, Otitis Media (ear infection), , Atypical measles, Parotitis (mumps), Impetigo, cellulites and herpes zoster. The vaccine for Diphtheria, Tetanus Toxoids, & Acellular pertussis is DTa P. It has the ingredients such as Diphtheria, Tetanus Toxoids, & Acellular pertussis endotoxin, beef heart infusion/fetal bovine serum, aluminum, formaldehyde, thimerosal (mercury derivative), phenol/ phenoxyethanol, polysorbate 80 (Tween 80), and dry natural latex rubber.
It may induce side effects such as Fussiness Tiredness or poor appetite, Vomiting Seizure Non-stop crying, High fever, 105 degrees Fahrenheit or higher, Anaphylactic Shock/Anaphylactoi, Encephalitis/Encephalopathy, SIDS and or deaths reported, Seizures/infantile spasms, Guillain-Barre Syndrome/ Bells Palsy, Arthritis/Arthralgia, and Diabetes Mellitus.
Hepatitis –B, has Hepatitis B virus gene/yeast protein, aluminum, formaldehyde, thimerosal (mercury derivative) as the constituents and the listed adverse reactions of this vaccine are soreness ,mild to moderate fever,Anaphylactic Shock/Anaphylactoid, Encephalitis/ Encephalopathy, SIDS and or Deaths reported,Seizures/infantile spasms, Guillain- Barre Syndrome / Bell’s Palsy, Aseptic Menningitis / Transverse myelitis, Multiple sclerosis, Arthritis / Arthralgia, Thrombocytopenia, S-J S, Erythema Multiforme, Diabetes Mellitus, Urticaria, Systemic Lupus erthematosus (SLE), Elevation of liver enzymes, Optic neuritis, Otitis Media (ear infection), and Renal failure.
The side effects mentioned for some of the well known vaccine preparations may also depend on dosage and there are several opinions in this context. Previously, a correlation was reported between an increase in IDDM [juvenile onset diabetes] in different age groups and number of vaccines which have risen concerns that whether immunization provides an overall benefit to anyone or to society in general. It was found that some committees that make important medical decisions for an entire generation of American children are maintaining closely related, or otherwise, incestuous ties with agencies that work for gaining power, or manufacturers that look for enormous profits, from the policy that is made.
We have seen that mercury is used as one of the ingredient in vaccines. It was found that infants have been receiving up to 15 doses of mercury-containing vaccines by the time they are 6 months old. This dose is considered as a heavy burden of foreign immunologic material with adverse reactions, when introduced into the immature systems of children.
Research has revealed that if an average 5 kg-infant received all thimerosal-containing vaccines at his two-month visit, his exposure that day would be 62.5 mcg ethyl mercury–125 times as great as the environmental protection agency (EPA) guideline.
This could be due to lack appropriate animal and laboratory testing on vaccines containing thimerosal (and aluminum) before the government has reached a vaccine program that exposed infants to the levels of thimerosal that occurred. Therefore, it may suggest good number of laboratory experiments to confirm the safety of a vaccine before recommending to children.
Further, complaints are on rise from parents when they find their children (healthy baby, child, teenager, usually a boy) develop sudden fall or slowly decline into autism, after they were given DPT or DT, or MMR booster doses. This may indicate that booster doses have negative impact on the children’s health. It was found that in the last thirty years, the increase in vaccine shots has coincided with childhood cancers rising to become the top most disease from which children under the age of 14 are dying. Nearly 10,000 sudden infant death syndromes (SIDS) that occur in the United States each year are related to one or more of the vaccines that are usually prescribed for children.
Available data have revealed that most of the studies on vaccine reactions end up with follow-up of up to only 48 hours. This may not be sufficient to study reactions to vaccination because most vaccine reactions are delayed, starting only 2-3 weeks after vaccination. It was described that 12 out of the 18 vaccine doses the average child receives before the age of two contain Thimerosal. This is equivalent to a pin-head of mercury (more that 200 micrograms) and is extremely unsafe for human consumption. Therefore, these reports reflect the danger of infant vaccine dosages and it can be inferred that vaccines are not safe and effective.
Although, vaccines have contributed to the eradication of life threatening conditions like small pox, chicken pox and polio, the incidence of vaccine induced adverse reactions or death even, in some nations may indicate that controversies still surround this field which requires thorough investigations from the root level.
Hence, it may appear reasonable to infer that diseases that were reported to decline may appear to proceed at the same rate prior to vaccine administration. In other words, there is not much improvement in view of the described side effects or dosages.
Further, Dr.Sherri Tenpenny, a physician and researcher has provided valuable insights on vaccines that might enable society to develop good awareness. She says that the risk of vaccination must be considered as important as and potentially more serious than the risk of a childhood disease. It was found that years of experience and thousands of hours of research have lead to conclusions that are not uniformly accepted. She insists that humans are blessed with God’s gift of protective barriers against infectious diseases, including the skin and immune system.
In addition, she questions the use or injecting solutions of chemically-treated, inactivated viruses, parts of bacteria, traces of animal tissue and heavy metals, such as mercury and aluminum for keeping human beings—babies, children and adults healthy. She highlights by stressing that low infection rates and high vaccination rates should not become the foundation of public health policy and vaccine reactions should not be discounted. It is essential for the parents, all adults, and children to retain the right to refuse vaccines.
Next, she described that it is essential to understand that the terms effective, defined by a medical doctor and protective defined by a researcher, in vaccine research are not synonyms. This is because; it was revealed that that the presence of an antibody in the blood does not necessarily protect individuals from infection. Many outbreaks have been reported to occur in completely vaccinated populations. For example, the outbreak of measles in a group of children had a vaccination rate of greater than 99 percent. Vaccines could be harmful and have not been proven to be medically to protect from infection.
It was found that parents have become scared of pediatricians and are seeking information on their own.
Next from her reports, according to the Government Accounting Office (GAO) publication only 10-20% of all procedures currently used in medical practice have been shown to be efficacious by controlled trials and 80 to 90% of the usual and customary practices assumed to be effective have no scientific proof that they work. Serious side effects that arise in the research study could be easily deleted by a pen.
In one of the trials involving a combination vaccine, Comvax®, it was found that 17 children who have received the vaccine developed adverse reactions like seizure, asthma, diarrhea, apnea (stopped breathing).Three deaths that also occurred among participants were attributed to sudden infant death syndrome that occurred more than 14 days after administration of a dose of vaccine (29, 31, and 38 days, respectively.).But, these reactions were not judged and related to the vaccine. Instead, a stroke of the pen has damaged the evidence and the new vaccine was reported to be “well-tolerated and safe.”
This incident may indicate that the researchers are unwilling to accept the failure of the vaccine in conferring protection and are more favoring its success through promotion by suppressing the truth. Hence, it is high time that people should realize the facts and mysteries concerned with the vaccine development and come forward to express their concerns.
Dr, Tenpenny reported that the out break of H5N1 in China has prompted the unnecessary culling of birds to prevent the spread of the disease. Diseases arising from the out break, like Pneumonia, are due to vast amount of environmental toxicities complicated by the presence of H5N1. Here, it may be inferred that outbreaks may prompt researchers to invent a novel vaccine that may require huge expenditure.
Therefore, it is may appear reasonable to agree with Dr.Tenpenny, who indicated that until the underlying causes are addressed and a massive environmental clean up is undertaken, poultry and human outbreaks will no doubt continue to occur.
In one of the articles published in Pediatrics, a mathematical formula demonstrated that children can be vaccinated with thousands of vaccines without any adverse reactions and each infant would have the theoretical capacity to respond to about 10,000 vaccines at any one time. According to Dr.Offit, children would be contaminated with nearly 51 vaccine antigens by the time they are six months of age. If they receive all doses of all recommended vaccines, including annual flu shots and boosters for MMR and chickenpox that number increases to 113 by the time children enter school.
This number may not require the measurable amounts or doses of formaldehyde, aluminum, calf serum, gelatin and other chemical aliquots injected with each vaccine. However, these predictions will not enable parents to totally eliminate doubts regarding vaccines. They might conclude that there would not be any need of vaccination if the immune system is that strong. But doctors might recognize this study as an opportunity to push the saying that “vaccines are safe and effective.”
The efficacy of some of the vaccines is still in controversy. It was found from the multiple studies that flu shots are ineffective in all ages. In a review of 51 studies involving more than 260,000 children, including 17 papers translated from Russian, researchers concluded that there was no evidence that injecting children 6-23 months of age with flu vaccines is any more effective than placebo. These results also coincided with that found in healthy adults.
Therefore, this would raise questions that it is wasteful of injecting three viruses and a load of toxic chemicals into their body in an attempt to avoid the flu when the vaccine is inefficient.
Dr.Tenpenny reported that during vaccination decisions one should trust intuition, gut feeling, and own internal guidance system but not pediatricians as they often go beyond helpful suggestions. She suggests us sitting quietly and privately, and see how we “feel” when we consider vaccination. She reports that feelings could enable us determine whether we need more information or are there fears concerned with a particular vaccine.
From the above information, it may indicate that Pediatricians may be taught about the vaccines and may be forced to push the vaccines by some parties who stand on their personal gain or manufacturers benefit.
Further, immunizing a segment of population would help in minimizing the infection or disease in the unimmunised segment according to herd effect theory ( Jacob John & Reuben Samuel ,2000).But this theory may fail in cases when the unimmunised population are under threat of any new infection or migrate to far off places. Since these people have not been vaccinated, they may need to rely on their transmitters for acquiring immunity when they encounter infectious attack.
FDA should monitor the vaccine development by strictly implementing the CDC mandatory vaccine schedule. Vaccines that were proved dangerous to the society need to be banned from re-entering into the market. It was known that FDA has come up with the process that makes the warnings, use instructions and precautionary information of the labels distributed with each vaccine. This would enable to the health care providers and the users to get familiar with the risks of vaccines.
References
- Know Vaccines. 2008. Web.
- Deep down wellness Chiropractic and Natural health. Web.
- Sherri Tenpenny.” Vaccine Assumptions – Are They Effective?”2008. Web.
- Sherri Tenpenny. “Vaccine-Assumptions—Are-They-Safe ”. 2008. Web.
- Sherri Tenpenny.” Vaccination-Decisions—Who-Should-You- Trust”. 2008. Web.
- Sherri Tenpenny.” The-Influenza-Vaccine—Proof-It-Doesn’t-Work “. 2008. Web.
- Sherri Tenpenny.” Its-Not-the-Chickens,-Its-The-Environment,-Stupid”. 2008. Web.
- Sherri Tenpenny.” How-Many-Vaccines-at-One-Time-Are-Too-Many”. 2008. Web.
- Jacob John T and Reuben Samuel. “Herd immunity and herd effect: new insights and definitions.” Journal European Journal of Epidemiology 16.7 (2000):601-606.
- Guidance for Industry. 2004. Web.
- Possible side effects from vaccine. 2007. Web.