> Environmental and Health Concerns > Vaccinations

Another Vaccination Threatens
by author Edda West

Parents brace yourselves! Another vaccine called Prevnar is about to be added to the infant and young child schedule.

This new vaccine is heralded with unprecedented fanfare in a high profile media and advertising campaign. It’s to be the miracle drug that will prevent ear infections, pneumonia, bacteria in the blood and meningitis in children under the age of two. It’s already fast tracked to market in the US.

Dr Victor Marchessault, chair of the National Advisory Committee on Immunization says, "This is a vaccine you have to recommend."

But Dr Erdem Cantekin, PhD, Professor of Otolaryngology and an internationally recognized authority on otitis media (ear infections) has serious concerns about the effectiveness and safety of the new pneumococcal vaccine. With more than 90 known serotypes of pneumococcal bacteria, he worries that the vaccine will change serotype natural balance and exert selective pressure on microbial ecology.

In a scathing critique of the inadequate science behind this product, its low margin of efficacy and absence of long-term safety data, Dr Cantekin presented his expert analysis of the Prevnar vaccine trials at the Second International Public Conference on Vaccination in September of last year.

The Conference was hosted by the National Vaccine Information Centre (the oldest North American consumer group advocating for vaccine safety and informed consent). It was attended by nearly 500 people from the US, Canada, Britain and several European countries. Conference delegates heard presentations made by epidemiologists, pediatric neurologists, microbiologists, cell biologists, immunologists and other medical specialists. The speakers discussed the biological mechanisms of vaccine adverse reactions, ways in which vaccines can lead to chronic illness and therapies used to help children whose mental regression and immune dysfunction suddenly develop after vaccination.

The Prevnar Debate

Dr Cantekin found Prevnar ineffective for ear infections and pneumonia. The data on meningitis prevention are still inconclusive.

The vaccine trial had no placebo group, rather it had a control group of children who were given an experimental meningitis C vaccine. Prevnar-administered children had four times more seizures and they had four times more gastritis than the control group. Significantly, more children who received the vaccine developed asthma. Furthermore, the Food and Drug Administration did not approve Prevnar for pneumonia or for otitis media.

Dr Cantekin asks, "Why does the American Academy of Pediatrics want our children to be immunized using Prevnar? Why are all those experts excited? I am afraid the answer is not in the scientific domain."

Show Us The Science

The Conference theme was Challenging the Status Quo. Together with a call to "show us the science!" it underscored the serious concern shared by many of the presenters about the glaring lack of credible science behind vaccine efficacy and safety claims. Also troubling is the absence of rigorously designed, controlled, long-term studies proving vaccine safety. Dr Cantekin held Prevnar as a prime example of the incestuous ties and conflicts of interest that prevail in vaccine licensing and marketing, where the dominant climate of profit-driven health care, absent of checks and balances, forfeits public health and safety for corporate interests.
A key phrase that came up many times at the Conference was "atypical patterns of exposure." What are the effects of multiple viral and bacterial antigens given in the form of as many as nine vaccines at one time on the child’s immune system? What burdens do they place on the child’s ability to cope? And on patterns of newly emerging diseases?

"We have changed the pattern of exposure of children to common childhood pathogens," says British physician Dr Andrew Wakefield. He has consistently found measles viruses in the gut of children suffering from a severe inflammatory bowel syndrome, and in children who develop regressive autism after receiving the measles, mumps and rubella vaccines (MMR).

"As we increase the load of antigen exposure in the form of these ‘atypical exposures’ to infection, we may be skewing the immune system further and further in a way that renders the child susceptible," he warns.

Dr Mary Megson diagnoses and treats developmentally delayed children in Richmond, Virginia. She has found that the children of families with a history of G-alpha protein defect are at high risk for developing autism after vaccination. Also associated with this genetic defect is a history of night blindness, impaired depth perception, photo-flash sensitivity, milk allergies, high cholesterol, irritable bowel disease and the children are more vulnerable to injury.

Dr Megson stressed the importance of vitamin A for the normal function of the immune system and cold water fish oils in the treatment of autistic children. Many of these children are immunodeficient when injected with the MMR vaccine at 15 to 18 months They end up with a "leaky gut wall" and suffer chronically from milk and wheat allergies with recurrent ear infections and sinusitis.

What The Public Doesn’t Know

In her keynote speech, National Vaccine Information Centre President Barbara Loe Fisher zeroed in on the discrepancies between what is revealed in science and what actually is told to the public. She warned of the deliberate cover-up and perpetuation of the mythology of vaccine safety despite the scientific evidence proving the contrary. Public pressure forced US vaccine researchers to follow up on the babies in the 1979 University of California Los Angeles/Food and Drug Administration study who had suffered from convulsions, collapse and shock after the diptheria polio tetneaus (DPT) vaccination. A decade later it was found that almost every one of the children had low IQ, learning disabilities, attention defecit hyper-activity disorder or developmental delay. Only four of the 16 children followed up tested as normal.

But what was told to the public in their conclusion of the study?

“There is no evidence that any of the 16 children suffered any serious neurologic damage as a result of either convulsions or hypotonic-hyporesponsive episodes. We conclude that it is unlikely that such reactions lead to significant neruologic impairment.”

Edda West is the coordinator of Vaccine Risk Awareness Network, a resource group committed to educating the public about the risks of vaccines and to empower individuals to make informed decisions when considering vaccination. You can reach VRAN at (250) 355 2525.

Source: alive #220, February 2001