DTP and Seizures
Despite the fact that the UCLA study tracked reactions in 16,536 doses of DTP and recorded a seizure incidence of 1 in 333, the authors claimed that seizure occurrence could not be statistically verified because of the small number of children (1). The Pollock and Morris study of 1983 tracked an even larger number of children (134,000 DT recipients and 133,000 DT recipients) and noted that the chances of seizure were 5.3 times greater for DTP recipients than for DT recipients. (2)
DTP and Autism?
I’ve seen many stories in magazines like Mothering and online where parents cite a DTP booster, not MMR as when they noticed their child regress and begin to exhibit autistic symptoms. This is anecdotal, but something to consider. A couple of examples:
http://mothering.com/health/childs-severe-reaction-vaccine-alters-life
http://mothering.com/health/wake-vaccines
DTP and Paralytic Polio
It is a documented fact that paralytic polio cases can and do follow DTP injections. This was first documented in 1909 and subsequently seen in the polio outbreaks of the 1950’s in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States (3). We’ve all been told that polio ran rampant in the 1950’s because of a lack of vaccines, but it seems the opposite may be true. But don’t take my word (and the word of the six different studies Neustaedter cites) for it, take the word of Neva Borden in the LDS (Mormon) Church’s April 1986 Ensign magazine:
“May I add further information about the DPT vaccination, which was mentioned in the July 1985 “Random Sampler” article on immunizations.
According to a recent U.S. ABC News presentation on “20/20,” most American doctors are using a British study as the basis for their confidence in safety of the DPT shot. Yet, in the United States, different methods are used than those mentioned in the British study. In the study, a more refined strain of vaccine was used, and the shots were not given until the babies were six months old—which allowed more time for the infants’ nervous systems to mature.
However, in the United States, we are immunizing our two-and three-month-old babies with a cruder strain of the vaccine. Some of these children have negative reactions to DPT shots—reactions that are even being associated with Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or “crib death.”
The study seems to suggest four areas of action for parents: (1) Ask questions and make sure that your doctor is familiar with your child’s and your family’s medical history before administering the DPT vaccine; (2) urge your doctor to follow the warning on bottles of whooping cough vaccine and to pass the warning on to patients; (3) encourage drug manufacturers to make a safer, purer version of the whooping cough vaccine; and (4) wait until your children are six months old before giving them their first DPT shot.
I first became interested in the DPT vaccine when my daughter contracted polio from her DPT shots. Afterwards, my pediatrician told me that I could have “buffered” her against such a strong reaction by giving her Vitamin C just before she received the shot. Each time I buy her a shoe lift, I think of how this belated advice could have saved my daughter from the deformity she now must live with all her life.” (4)
(1) The Vaccine Guide: Making an Informed Decision, Randall Neustaedter, pg. 127
(2) The Vaccine Guide: Making an Informed Decision, Randall Neustaedter, pg. 127
(3) The Vaccine Guide: Making an Informed Decision, Randall Neustaedter, pg. 51
(4) http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=020cef960417b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD
Friday, November 12, 2010
DTP and SIDS
SIDS
According to the Mayo clinic, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome is the leading cause of death for infants in the first year of life.Characteristics of SIDS:
- Occurs mostly at around two and four months old
- A death that is not caused by suffocation, vomiting or choking, birth defects or infection
- “Researchers have discovered that abnormalities in a part of the brain that helps control breathing and arousal likely play a role in SIDS. Infants who die of SIDS may have brainstems that mature more slowly than those of other infants. Myelin, a fatty substance involved in nerve signal transmission, also may develop more slowly in infants with SIDS.”
- Stomach sleeping- infants who sleep on their backs have lower arousal thresholds (1), (2)
- Occur mostly at two and four months
- Have been linked to several infant deaths
- Central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) complications
- Excessive sleepiness
- Seizures
Deaths related to the pertussis vaccine are very controversial. The CDC says that DTP has never been proven to cause any deaths. The evidence is suspicious, though:
- In 1979, 4 infants in Tennessee all died within 24 hours of receiving the same lot of DTP vaccine. (3)
- Dr. William Torch of the University of Reno found that of 103 children who died of SIDS, two-thirds had been vaccinated with DTP three weeks before death. (4).
- The Torch study in 1986 summarized case reports of more than 150 deaths following DTP vaccination by 37 authors in 12 countries. (5)
- The 1990 Walker study concluded that infants vaccinated with DTP were 7.3 times more likely to die of SIDS in the first three days after vaccination than those in the control group. (6)
- A Swedish study of 2,800 infants observed that four babies vaccinated with the acellular pertussis vaccine died within two weeks to five months of vaccination. Based on these findings, Sweden withdrew licensure for the acellular pertussis vaccine. (7)
- In 1983, UCLA’s department of pediatrics conducted a study of 145 infants in Los Angeles county and found that 53 of the babies had received the DTP vaccine shortly before their deaths. 27 died within 28 days of receiving the shot, 17 within a week, and 6 within 24 hours. (8).
http://www.whale.to/vaccine/laura.html
http://www.whale.to/vaccine/dorey.html (permanent damage, later resulting in death)
Two large studies are said to be proof that there is no connection between SIDS and DTP, the Griffin and Cherry studies. These studies suffer from a big problem though: conflict of interest. Dr. Marie Griffin reportedly received her funding from Burroughs Wellcome, the one of the largest manufacturer of pertussis vaccine in the world and Dr. James Cherry was a paid consultant for Ledberle Laboratories, America’s largest pertussis vaccine manufacturer. In 1988, Cherry also admitted to receiving $50,000 per year for testifying on the behalf of vaccine manufacturers in vaccine injury lawsuits. He also received $400,000 in grant funds for UCLA (which partly covered his salary and expenses) and his department at UCLA received $450,000 in “gifts” from Ledberle Laboratories (9). To say these studies were biased is an understatement.
This is in sharp contrast to what happened Andrew Wakefield, the British physician who conducted an infamous study connecting autism and MMR. In 1998, Wakefield and 13 other colleagues published the results of their study of 12 children who had developed gastrointestinal issues and autism simultaeneously and has since studied over 150 children with autism. He found that a majority had elevated levels of IgG measles antibodies when compared to children in a control group and measles specific antigens in their colons. Wakefield’s findings have been replicated by two other researchers, Dr. H. Kawashiwa and Dr. John O’Leary. (10) In May of 2010, Britain’s General Medical Council revoked Wakefield’s license, charged him with “serious professional misconduct”, called his findings flawed, and accused him of presenting his research in a dishonest manner and acting with “callous disregard” towards the children in his study. The council also accused him of failing to disclose conflicts of interest and mishandling the funds he received for research. (9)
Now whether or not Wakefield behaved unethically, he stands accused of the very things that Drs. Griffin and Cherry have been accused of and even admitted to. Yet the medical community has rallied around them and held up their research to be ethical, thorough, and sound. Furthermore, the fact that Wakefield’s results have been replicated gives supports his claims that his research was, indeed, sound. This mother’s experience also supports Wakefield’s findings:
http://mothering.com/health/searching-reasons-why-mothers-report-autism
References
(1) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_to_sleep)(2)http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/sudden-infant-death-syndrome/DS00145/DSECTION=risk-factors
(3) How to Raise a Healthy Child... In Spite of Your Doctor, Robert S. Mendelsohn, pg. 250
(4) How to Raise a Healthy Child... In Spite of Your Doctor, Robert S. Mendelsohn, pg. 250
(5) The Vaccine Guide: Making an Informed Decision, Randall Neustaedter, pg. 131
(6) The Vaccine Guide: Making an Informed Decision, Randall Neustaedter, pg. 131
(7) The Vaccine Guide: Making an Informed Decision, Randall Neustaedter, pg. 137
(8) How to Raise a Healthy Child... In Spite of Your Doctor, Robert S. Mendelsohn, pg. 251
(9) The Vaccine Guide: Risks and Benefits for Children and Adults, Randall Neustaedter, pg. 21
(10) The Vaccine Guide: Risks and Benefits for Children and Adults, Randall Neustaedter, pg. 46
(11) (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704113504575264513643960110.html)
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
DTP Crying, Part II- The So-Called "Purple Crying Phase"
Many of you younger moms have seen the materials on the so-called “purple crying” phase that supposedly all babies go through. My husband and I were required to watch a DVD about it before we could take our son home from the NICU. The experts say that this “phase” has been previously labeled as colic. And they reassure parents that their babies are not in pain- even though they look like it and sound like it. Take a look at the crying associated with the DTP vaccine and Purple Crying:
Purple crying:
http://www.purplecrying.info/sections/index.php?sct=1& (P.S.- This site is very unprofessional with the number of punctuation and grammatical errors it contains.)
DTP crying:
Coincidence?
First of all, let me assure you that crying for hours is not a phase that every baby goes through. My son has never had a period of crying that went on for hours and we have always been able to soothe him by nursing him, cuddling him, or singing to him.
The Purple crying site intersperses anecdotes of normal crying (“He giggles during the day and starts crying at 6 pm like clockwork”) with information on crying that is prolonged and can not be soothed. It’s all one and the same, right? Wrong. The “6 pm clockwork” infant needs to go to bed while the baby who is screaming and won’t stop is experiencing an attack on her central nervous system. And incidentally, the Purple crying website assures you that your baby is not in pain, but offers no proof. Where are the MRI scans of the wailing infant’s brain showing that the pain centers are not active?
Actually, here is their reasoning as to why a baby who cries for hours on end can’t be in pain: “An important reason relates to what we have already described: if these features of crying were manifestations of pain, then we would have to accept that essentially all infants the world over, regardless of culture, are in pain for many hours for many weeks in the first months of life. It also would mean that other animal species who have similar distress curves would be in pain, and that premature infants were not in pain for the first couple of months, but then had weeks to months of pain after being well for six or eight weeks. None of this seems reasonable.” In other words: “Crying for hours can’t mean the baby is pain because babies all over the world over display this type of crying and if that many babies are crying for hours on end, then they can’t be in pain.” (3) However, the DTP vaccine has been administered the world over so if it is harmful, then the effects will be seen in babies from all over the world. Now, if there is a reported worldwide pandemic of swine flu, we are supposed to believe in mass suffering. But babies from around the world screaming for hours? They’re just crying to cry.
They go on to describe a study on the same page which showed that some babies at a doctor’s office for a normal physical examination cried more and louder than others, though they were in the same setting. All this shows is that some babies cry more than others. (Ya think?) So we are told that because some babies cry more than others, a baby who screams for hours cannot possibly be in any pain. Obviously concerns over the baby being in pain are something that these researchers have heard a lot, otherwise this material wouldn’t be going to such lengths to try and prove that the baby is in no pain at all. Well, when your child is screaming for hours, who are you going to believe, her or the doctor? As my dad said, “That goes against everything I know as a parent. When a baby cries like that, there’s something wrong.”
In years past, doctors told mothers to expect their babies to be fussy for several days after the DTP shot. When the baby began screaming, pediatricians said it was simply a normal reaction. Now, doctors don’t even associate it with the shot, it is simply a phase that infants go through.
The most comprehensive study of the pertussis vaccine was conducted at UCLA in 1978-1979, which compared the reactions seen in the 48 hours after vaccination in a group of children receiving the DT vaccine and those receiving the DTP vaccine. The study showed that 50 percent of DTP vaccinees developed fever, 34 percent showed irritability, 35 percent had crying episodes, 40 percent had localized inflammation, 3 percent had prolonged, inconsolable periods of crying and screaming, and 31 percent developed excessive sleepiness (compared with 14% in the DT group) (4). That was just in the first 48 hours- not enough time to see if brain damage would result from the reactions. Again, the CDC says, “More serious adverse events occur rarely (on the order of one per thousands to one per millions of doses), and some are so rare that risk cannot be accurately assessed.” They also say that prolonged episodes of screaming occur in only 1 in 1000 cases. (5) (Citation for this number is vague. The only reference listed is under a heading titled “Additional References” and is a book called Vaccines by Drs. Stanley Plotkin and Walter Orenstien.) 1 in 33 of the children in this study suffered prolonged, inconsolable screaming indicative of central nervous system complications/ encephalopathy. I’d say that’s pretty serious and common, myself.
(1) http://www.purplecrying.info/sections/index.php?sct=1& (P.S.- This site is very unprofessional with the number of punctuation and grammatical errors it contains.)
(2) A Shot in the Dark, Harris L. Coulter and Barbara Loe Fisher, pg. 32
(3) http://www.purplecrying.info/sections/index.php?sct=2&sctpg=11&
(4) The Vaccine Guide: Making an Informed Decision, Randall Neustaedter, pg. 127
(5) http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/6mishome.htm
Purple crying:
- Peaks at two months old
- Unexpected- comes and goes and you don’t know why
- Resists soothing
- Pain-like face
- Long-lasting- up to five hours
- Evening and afternoon (1)
http://www.purplecrying.info/sections/index.php?sct=1& (P.S.- This site is very unprofessional with the number of punctuation and grammatical errors it contains.)
DTP crying:
- Often occurs at two months old- when the first shot of DTP is received
- Unexpected- the parent has been told to expect a slight fever, some fussiness, or maybe some swelling in the shot site at most as a reaction, so the crying seems to come out of left field
- Resists soothing
- Baby looks to be in pain
- Long-lasting- three or more hours
- Occurs a half hour to several hours after the shot- often in the afternoon or evening after returning from the doctor’s office (2)
Coincidence?
First of all, let me assure you that crying for hours is not a phase that every baby goes through. My son has never had a period of crying that went on for hours and we have always been able to soothe him by nursing him, cuddling him, or singing to him.
The Purple crying site intersperses anecdotes of normal crying (“He giggles during the day and starts crying at 6 pm like clockwork”) with information on crying that is prolonged and can not be soothed. It’s all one and the same, right? Wrong. The “6 pm clockwork” infant needs to go to bed while the baby who is screaming and won’t stop is experiencing an attack on her central nervous system. And incidentally, the Purple crying website assures you that your baby is not in pain, but offers no proof. Where are the MRI scans of the wailing infant’s brain showing that the pain centers are not active?
Actually, here is their reasoning as to why a baby who cries for hours on end can’t be in pain: “An important reason relates to what we have already described: if these features of crying were manifestations of pain, then we would have to accept that essentially all infants the world over, regardless of culture, are in pain for many hours for many weeks in the first months of life. It also would mean that other animal species who have similar distress curves would be in pain, and that premature infants were not in pain for the first couple of months, but then had weeks to months of pain after being well for six or eight weeks. None of this seems reasonable.” In other words: “Crying for hours can’t mean the baby is pain because babies all over the world over display this type of crying and if that many babies are crying for hours on end, then they can’t be in pain.” (3) However, the DTP vaccine has been administered the world over so if it is harmful, then the effects will be seen in babies from all over the world. Now, if there is a reported worldwide pandemic of swine flu, we are supposed to believe in mass suffering. But babies from around the world screaming for hours? They’re just crying to cry.
They go on to describe a study on the same page which showed that some babies at a doctor’s office for a normal physical examination cried more and louder than others, though they were in the same setting. All this shows is that some babies cry more than others. (Ya think?) So we are told that because some babies cry more than others, a baby who screams for hours cannot possibly be in any pain. Obviously concerns over the baby being in pain are something that these researchers have heard a lot, otherwise this material wouldn’t be going to such lengths to try and prove that the baby is in no pain at all. Well, when your child is screaming for hours, who are you going to believe, her or the doctor? As my dad said, “That goes against everything I know as a parent. When a baby cries like that, there’s something wrong.”
In years past, doctors told mothers to expect their babies to be fussy for several days after the DTP shot. When the baby began screaming, pediatricians said it was simply a normal reaction. Now, doctors don’t even associate it with the shot, it is simply a phase that infants go through.
The most comprehensive study of the pertussis vaccine was conducted at UCLA in 1978-1979, which compared the reactions seen in the 48 hours after vaccination in a group of children receiving the DT vaccine and those receiving the DTP vaccine. The study showed that 50 percent of DTP vaccinees developed fever, 34 percent showed irritability, 35 percent had crying episodes, 40 percent had localized inflammation, 3 percent had prolonged, inconsolable periods of crying and screaming, and 31 percent developed excessive sleepiness (compared with 14% in the DT group) (4). That was just in the first 48 hours- not enough time to see if brain damage would result from the reactions. Again, the CDC says, “More serious adverse events occur rarely (on the order of one per thousands to one per millions of doses), and some are so rare that risk cannot be accurately assessed.” They also say that prolonged episodes of screaming occur in only 1 in 1000 cases. (5) (Citation for this number is vague. The only reference listed is under a heading titled “Additional References” and is a book called Vaccines by Drs. Stanley Plotkin and Walter Orenstien.) 1 in 33 of the children in this study suffered prolonged, inconsolable screaming indicative of central nervous system complications/ encephalopathy. I’d say that’s pretty serious and common, myself.
(1) http://www.purplecrying.info/sections/index.php?sct=1& (P.S.- This site is very unprofessional with the number of punctuation and grammatical errors it contains.)
(2) A Shot in the Dark, Harris L. Coulter and Barbara Loe Fisher, pg. 32
(3) http://www.purplecrying.info/sections/index.php?sct=2&sctpg=11&
(4) The Vaccine Guide: Making an Informed Decision, Randall Neustaedter, pg. 127
(5) http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/6mishome.htm
DTP Crying, Part I
This begins my series on the DTP shot. Now, I’d like to start off by saying that a few years ago when I was first married I didn’t give vaccination another thought. I almost went and got more shots for myself because I read that it was necessary. I thought people who didn’t vaccinate their kids were either suspicious nut jobs or Christian Scientists (and, no, I don’t equate the one with the other). I thought the parents of autistic kids who didn’t vaccinate their kids any more because they said that was the beginning of their problems were superstitious and under-educated. For me, the turning point was when I started reading Jenny McCarthy’s books and parent after parent detailed how their child began to change within hours of vaccination. Health authorities say it’s all coincidence, but that many “coincidences” didn’t seem logical, so I started to dig deeper. This is what I have found on the DTP shot.
If an herbalist were to tell you that there is an herb that must be administered to your baby to prevent a disease that used to kill many people, but evidence showed that it frequently didn’t prevent the disease and many parents had said that after receiving a dose of this herb their baby screamed inconsolably for hours, would you think it is safe and effective? Now, let’s turn the tables. Say your pediatrician tells you that your baby must receive a shot to prevent a disease that used to kill many people, but evidence showed it frequently didn’t prevent the disease and many parents had said that after receiving this shot their baby screamed inconsolably for hours, would you think it is safe and effective? Some of you may have guessed that the shot I’m talking about is the pertussis vaccine. Hours of high-pitched, inconsolable screaming is a common reaction to the DTP shot, though the CDC says it is very rare. And yes, there are many documented cases of children who have received the DTP vaccine contracting pertussis.
The great irony with the pertussis vaccine is that many parents who go the selective-delayed vaccination route are being told that this shot is necessary and helpful by doctors who tout alternative schedules. I believe these doctors to be sincere in their efforts to protect children, but I also believe they have been misled by the information they received in medical school, which they automatically assume to be correct. (And if you pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to receive certain information, you would hope it is the best researched and most unbiased information out there.)
Dr. Robert S. Mendelsohn quoted the Journal of the American Medical Association on the pertussis vaccine in his book How to Raise a Healthy Child... In Spite of Your Doctor:
“To health professionals, of course, the dangers of DPT are nothing new. The D and T components, which were given long before the P was added in the late 1940’s, are partially purified toxoids considered to carry little risk. The whole-cell P component, consisting of 4 units of protective pertussis antigen per 0.5 ml of DPT is universally acknowledged to be relatively crude and toxic, and the advent of a safer version is eagerly awaited.
Almost from the inception of widespread DPT immunization, severe reactions have been reported, beginning with Byers’s and Moll’s study of vaccine-associated encephalopathy in 1948.The incidence of such reactions has been firmly established. It does seem fairly certain that vaccine-associated seizures, unusual as they are, are considerably more common than brain damage or residual impairment secondary to such seizures.” (1).
The prolonged screaming associated with the DTP vaccine is well-documented. J.M.H. Hopper, a British senior school medical officer, described it in 1961. In 1982, Vincent Fulginiti observed: “Many infants cry and fret after pertussis vaccination; a few adopt a pattern of persistent crying for an hour or longer; the crying is often of unusual pitch or intensity and the baby is inconsolable.This syndrome of screaming is believed to be of encephalopathic in origin... Children who experience such episodes are considered as having CNS [central nervous system] complications and further pertussis vaccine should not be administered” (2). Central nervous system (brain and spine) complications makes sense with this sort of crying. Babies with meningitis (an infection of the meninges, the membranes which enclose the central nervous system) will cry with a shrill scream.
Babies are too young to tell us how they feel, so they cry. One mother whose five year old had a reaction to DTP screaming that his head hurt. He vomited, had 104 degree fever and ran around hiding in corners as if frightened to death. When she rushed him to the hospital, the doctors performed several tests, including a spinal tap and said they could find nothing wrong. One resident said the boy must have taken LSD. The boy's doctor stayed up all night researching the DTP vaccine, and came to the conclusion that the child had suffered a reaction; something the doctor had not thought was possible before. (3).
This could very well be what the baby who screams after DTP could be feeling. If we could translate the cries, it might go something like this: “Mommy, my head HURTS! I’m scared; something is hurting me! It hurts worse than anything I’ve ever felt! Help me, Mommy help me! You always make things better, why can’t you make it go away? No, I’m not hungry; nursing doesn’t make it better! I don’t want to be rocked; I don’t want to be walked; I don’t want to be sung to; I want the pain to stop! Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop! Mommy, make it better, please make it better! I’m so scared, Mommy! HELP ME!!!!
The Bible documents how the ancient Israelites sacrificed their infants in fires for idolatrous fertility rites and God's condemnation of this. I have wondered what on Earth could make these people throw their live babies into fires. Now I wonder if the arguments for infant sacrifice went something like this: “We need to conduct these rituals to ensure that we get a good harvest and so that the women will be fertile and more babies will be born. This is for the public good. You’re being selfish if you don’t sacrifice your baby. Think of the rest of us. How can you possibly put everyone else at risk just because you want your child to live? Sacrificing a child is a great honor and is the responsibility of every good citizen.” The difference between the Israelites and modern parents is that the Israelites knew what they were doing was wrong and modern parents have been deceived about the benefits and risks of the pertussis vaccine and are trying to protect their children.
This kind of crying used to be listed on the package as a contraindication against further DTP shots (way back in 1984). And in 1990, the vaccine manufacturers, Public Health Services Immunization Practices Advisory Committee and the American Academy of Pediatrics considered prolonged screaming episodes to be an absolute contraindication against further pertussis vaccination (4). A friend of mine took her daughter in for the first round of vaccines at two months old. After arriving home, the baby screamed for four hours. The pediatrician said nothing about contraindications for further DTP shots. The little girl received a second round at four months, which was followed by a severe vomiting episode and a trip to the ER about a week later.
(1) How to Raise a Healthy Child... In Spite of Your Doctor, Robert S. Mendelsohn, pg. 243
(2) A Shot in the Dark, Harris L. Coulter and Barbara Loe Fisher, pg. (32)
(3) A Shot in the Dark, Harris L. Coulter and Barbara Loe Fisher, pg. (33)
(4) A Shot in the Dark, Harris L. Coulter and Barbara Loe Fisher, pg. (32)
If an herbalist were to tell you that there is an herb that must be administered to your baby to prevent a disease that used to kill many people, but evidence showed that it frequently didn’t prevent the disease and many parents had said that after receiving a dose of this herb their baby screamed inconsolably for hours, would you think it is safe and effective? Now, let’s turn the tables. Say your pediatrician tells you that your baby must receive a shot to prevent a disease that used to kill many people, but evidence showed it frequently didn’t prevent the disease and many parents had said that after receiving this shot their baby screamed inconsolably for hours, would you think it is safe and effective? Some of you may have guessed that the shot I’m talking about is the pertussis vaccine. Hours of high-pitched, inconsolable screaming is a common reaction to the DTP shot, though the CDC says it is very rare. And yes, there are many documented cases of children who have received the DTP vaccine contracting pertussis.
The great irony with the pertussis vaccine is that many parents who go the selective-delayed vaccination route are being told that this shot is necessary and helpful by doctors who tout alternative schedules. I believe these doctors to be sincere in their efforts to protect children, but I also believe they have been misled by the information they received in medical school, which they automatically assume to be correct. (And if you pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to receive certain information, you would hope it is the best researched and most unbiased information out there.)
Dr. Robert S. Mendelsohn quoted the Journal of the American Medical Association on the pertussis vaccine in his book How to Raise a Healthy Child... In Spite of Your Doctor:
“To health professionals, of course, the dangers of DPT are nothing new. The D and T components, which were given long before the P was added in the late 1940’s, are partially purified toxoids considered to carry little risk. The whole-cell P component, consisting of 4 units of protective pertussis antigen per 0.5 ml of DPT is universally acknowledged to be relatively crude and toxic, and the advent of a safer version is eagerly awaited.
Almost from the inception of widespread DPT immunization, severe reactions have been reported, beginning with Byers’s and Moll’s study of vaccine-associated encephalopathy in 1948.The incidence of such reactions has been firmly established. It does seem fairly certain that vaccine-associated seizures, unusual as they are, are considerably more common than brain damage or residual impairment secondary to such seizures.” (1).
The prolonged screaming associated with the DTP vaccine is well-documented. J.M.H. Hopper, a British senior school medical officer, described it in 1961. In 1982, Vincent Fulginiti observed: “Many infants cry and fret after pertussis vaccination; a few adopt a pattern of persistent crying for an hour or longer; the crying is often of unusual pitch or intensity and the baby is inconsolable.This syndrome of screaming is believed to be of encephalopathic in origin... Children who experience such episodes are considered as having CNS [central nervous system] complications and further pertussis vaccine should not be administered” (2). Central nervous system (brain and spine) complications makes sense with this sort of crying. Babies with meningitis (an infection of the meninges, the membranes which enclose the central nervous system) will cry with a shrill scream.
Babies are too young to tell us how they feel, so they cry. One mother whose five year old had a reaction to DTP screaming that his head hurt. He vomited, had 104 degree fever and ran around hiding in corners as if frightened to death. When she rushed him to the hospital, the doctors performed several tests, including a spinal tap and said they could find nothing wrong. One resident said the boy must have taken LSD. The boy's doctor stayed up all night researching the DTP vaccine, and came to the conclusion that the child had suffered a reaction; something the doctor had not thought was possible before. (3).
This could very well be what the baby who screams after DTP could be feeling. If we could translate the cries, it might go something like this: “Mommy, my head HURTS! I’m scared; something is hurting me! It hurts worse than anything I’ve ever felt! Help me, Mommy help me! You always make things better, why can’t you make it go away? No, I’m not hungry; nursing doesn’t make it better! I don’t want to be rocked; I don’t want to be walked; I don’t want to be sung to; I want the pain to stop! Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop! Mommy, make it better, please make it better! I’m so scared, Mommy! HELP ME!!!!
The Bible documents how the ancient Israelites sacrificed their infants in fires for idolatrous fertility rites and God's condemnation of this. I have wondered what on Earth could make these people throw their live babies into fires. Now I wonder if the arguments for infant sacrifice went something like this: “We need to conduct these rituals to ensure that we get a good harvest and so that the women will be fertile and more babies will be born. This is for the public good. You’re being selfish if you don’t sacrifice your baby. Think of the rest of us. How can you possibly put everyone else at risk just because you want your child to live? Sacrificing a child is a great honor and is the responsibility of every good citizen.” The difference between the Israelites and modern parents is that the Israelites knew what they were doing was wrong and modern parents have been deceived about the benefits and risks of the pertussis vaccine and are trying to protect their children.
This kind of crying used to be listed on the package as a contraindication against further DTP shots (way back in 1984). And in 1990, the vaccine manufacturers, Public Health Services Immunization Practices Advisory Committee and the American Academy of Pediatrics considered prolonged screaming episodes to be an absolute contraindication against further pertussis vaccination (4). A friend of mine took her daughter in for the first round of vaccines at two months old. After arriving home, the baby screamed for four hours. The pediatrician said nothing about contraindications for further DTP shots. The little girl received a second round at four months, which was followed by a severe vomiting episode and a trip to the ER about a week later.
(1) How to Raise a Healthy Child... In Spite of Your Doctor, Robert S. Mendelsohn, pg. 243
(2) A Shot in the Dark, Harris L. Coulter and Barbara Loe Fisher, pg. (32)
(3) A Shot in the Dark, Harris L. Coulter and Barbara Loe Fisher, pg. (33)
(4) A Shot in the Dark, Harris L. Coulter and Barbara Loe Fisher, pg. (32)
Sunday, November 7, 2010
H1N1 Influenza
My sister was working as a patient tech at a large children’s hospital in 2009 when health officials prognosticated a H1N1 “pandemic”. She said that she and her coworkers were assigned double and triple shifts in advance of the flu season because the hospital was convinced they would be flooded with flu victims. Well, the pandemic never materialized as the hospital imagined and my sister and her coworkers ended up with several leisurely overtime shifts where they were payed to hang out in the physical therapy room.
It is true that during 1918-1919 (which coincided with World War I) a swine flu pandemic swept the world and killed many people, including large numbers of young people (the types of people serving in the military at the time). However, in 1918 the idea that viruses could cause disease was still relatively new and factors claimed by doctors to cause the flu included nakedness, German contaminated fish, dirt, dust, unwashed pajamas, Chinese people, open windows, closed windows, old books, and “some cosmic influence” (1). Furthermore, the world was at war and young soldiers were under physical and mental stress from combat were confined in close quarters and eating a diet that most likely consisted of canned food and other less-than-healthy fare. Many were probably also recovering from battle wounds. Travelling around the world to fight gave the virus ample opportunity to spread, especially when covering your mouth with your sleeve to cough and sneeze, washing your hands, and eating a diet high in fresh fruits and vegetables to strengthen the immune system were never even considered as ways to prevent the spread of the flu.
In fact, the mass vaccination campaign that took place in 1976 happened not because thousands of people were dying, but because an eighteen year old army private in the middle of basic training at Fort Dix, New Jersey fell ill with the flu and (against orders) left his quarters to go on an all night hike with his platoon wearing a fifty pound pack in the middle of winter and subsequently collapsed and died. Private David Lewis’s death was considered out of the ordinary for flu deaths because he was young and physically fit (2). Several recruits at Fort Dix tested positive for H1N1 as did Private Lewis’s body, the strain of flu that caused the 1918-19 epidemic, health officials panicked. They assumed that because H1N1 had killed many young people in 1918-19 and had just killed a previously a young, fit army private, that it must be a particularly lethal strain of of flu.
Let’s be rational, though. If you were stressed out, physically fatigued, possibly recovering from battle wounds, in cramped quarters with lots of other people who didn’t cover their noses or mouths when they coughed or sneezed, eating a diet low in fresh produce, and didn’t wash your hands, do you think it would take a lot for you to get deathly ill? If you were in the middle of the flu and made the decision to go on an all night hike with a fifty pound pack in the middle of winter, do you think it would take much to kill you? Furthermore, an article written for the medical journal Clinical Infectious Diseases shows evidence that the high number of deaths among young adults during the 1918 pandemic was due to doctors giving dangerously high dosages of aspirin to flu patients. (3) Interestingly enough, when Private Lewis collapsed, his sergeant gave him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and never got sick. (4). This is not typical of an especially deathly flu strain. Health officials put one and one together and came up with ten, looking only at the virus and deaths, not taking into account the other factors which contributed to the deaths. Many doctors attacked the CDC’s projection of 21 million people dead worldwide from H1N1 in 1976. They said that most of the deaths in 1918-1919 were because of secondary infections of bacterial pneumonia, which could be easily treated in twentieth-century intensive care units (5)Garrett 169.
The number of actual swine flu cases in 2009 is much in debate since the CDC told doctors not to test for the H1N1 virus, saying that the test can be inaccurate and give false negatives.(6) That may very well be, but it would still be more accurate than diagnosing on symptoms alone. This is also interesting because the CDC says that one of the limitations in determining whether a report to VAERS constitutes a vaccine reaction is lab test results (7) In other words, there is no need to perform lab tests to confirm a case of swine flu, but laboratory tests are necessary to establish that there has been a vaccine reaction.
On a personal note, I would like relate my experience with being in a so-called high risk category for swine flu. In December of 2009 I was seven months pregnant. Swine flu pandemic warnings were everywhere and I was aware that as a pregnant woman I was considered to be at risk for complications from H1N1. I did not get the H1N1 vaccine. A few days after Christmas I became sick. I had deviated some from my diet and eaten some junk food over the past week and my husband’s whole family (including several young children) were all crammed into my in-laws house with us. It’s possible I had H1N1. Along with a little nausea and vomiting, I had a bad sore throat- a symptom which was supposed to be particular to the swine flu and which I had not experienced in other bouts of the flu, but impossible to knowfor sure without testing. I spent the day in bed, taking little sips of water and little spoonfuls of dry, whole grain cereal throughout the day. By evening, I was starting to feel better and started drinking more water to make sure I didn’t get dehydrated and eating plain foods to sustain my baby and myself. The next day I was tired, but otherwise fine. My son shows no ill effects at all from episode with the flu. (His birth defect occurred within the first few weeks of conception, long before I had the flu.) He is very healthy and is the highest functioning child the doctors have ever seen for his particular birth defect, physically normally and above average cognitively.
I have seen a few women on forums say that they get the flu vaccine because a friend lost a pregnancy because of H1N1 influenza. I find this suspect since testing was stopped. I've also heard tell of women who lost pregnancies shortly after receiving the flu shot. I find it almost hilarious when these women chirp, "I got the flu shot and I was only down for three days afterwards! It's not so bad. Go get it yourself!" Ah, yes. We are deathly afraid of getting sick from a virus. But if we get sick from a vaccine, it's A-OK! A columnist for the Wall Street Journal described getting sick after the flu shot and the denial he received from everyone, in a column titled "They Shoot Flu Shot Skeptics, Don't They?". "If you won the lottery after you got the flu shot, you wouldn't think the two are connected!" a friend sneered. But we don't shoot lottery tickets into our bloodstream, now do we? (For the full column go to http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303362404575580494166396722.html?mod=googlenews_wsj )
All of my research indicates that the H1N1 virus is no more serious than other types of flu. Standard flu treatment should suffice in most cases. A healthy diet, exercise, and hand washing will likely go a long way to preventing any strain of flu and and lessening its severity.
(1) The Coming Plague, Laurie Garrett, pg. 158
(2) The Coming Plague, Laurie Garrett, pg. 154
(3) (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/606060)
(4) The Coming Plague, Laurie Garrett, pg. 159
(5) The Coming Plague, Laurie Garrett, pg. 169
(6) http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/diagnostic_testing_public_qa.htm
(7) http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/6mishome.htm#additional
It is true that during 1918-1919 (which coincided with World War I) a swine flu pandemic swept the world and killed many people, including large numbers of young people (the types of people serving in the military at the time). However, in 1918 the idea that viruses could cause disease was still relatively new and factors claimed by doctors to cause the flu included nakedness, German contaminated fish, dirt, dust, unwashed pajamas, Chinese people, open windows, closed windows, old books, and “some cosmic influence” (1). Furthermore, the world was at war and young soldiers were under physical and mental stress from combat were confined in close quarters and eating a diet that most likely consisted of canned food and other less-than-healthy fare. Many were probably also recovering from battle wounds. Travelling around the world to fight gave the virus ample opportunity to spread, especially when covering your mouth with your sleeve to cough and sneeze, washing your hands, and eating a diet high in fresh fruits and vegetables to strengthen the immune system were never even considered as ways to prevent the spread of the flu.
In fact, the mass vaccination campaign that took place in 1976 happened not because thousands of people were dying, but because an eighteen year old army private in the middle of basic training at Fort Dix, New Jersey fell ill with the flu and (against orders) left his quarters to go on an all night hike with his platoon wearing a fifty pound pack in the middle of winter and subsequently collapsed and died. Private David Lewis’s death was considered out of the ordinary for flu deaths because he was young and physically fit (2). Several recruits at Fort Dix tested positive for H1N1 as did Private Lewis’s body, the strain of flu that caused the 1918-19 epidemic, health officials panicked. They assumed that because H1N1 had killed many young people in 1918-19 and had just killed a previously a young, fit army private, that it must be a particularly lethal strain of of flu.
Let’s be rational, though. If you were stressed out, physically fatigued, possibly recovering from battle wounds, in cramped quarters with lots of other people who didn’t cover their noses or mouths when they coughed or sneezed, eating a diet low in fresh produce, and didn’t wash your hands, do you think it would take a lot for you to get deathly ill? If you were in the middle of the flu and made the decision to go on an all night hike with a fifty pound pack in the middle of winter, do you think it would take much to kill you? Furthermore, an article written for the medical journal Clinical Infectious Diseases shows evidence that the high number of deaths among young adults during the 1918 pandemic was due to doctors giving dangerously high dosages of aspirin to flu patients. (3) Interestingly enough, when Private Lewis collapsed, his sergeant gave him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and never got sick. (4). This is not typical of an especially deathly flu strain. Health officials put one and one together and came up with ten, looking only at the virus and deaths, not taking into account the other factors which contributed to the deaths. Many doctors attacked the CDC’s projection of 21 million people dead worldwide from H1N1 in 1976. They said that most of the deaths in 1918-1919 were because of secondary infections of bacterial pneumonia, which could be easily treated in twentieth-century intensive care units (5)Garrett 169.
The number of actual swine flu cases in 2009 is much in debate since the CDC told doctors not to test for the H1N1 virus, saying that the test can be inaccurate and give false negatives.(6) That may very well be, but it would still be more accurate than diagnosing on symptoms alone. This is also interesting because the CDC says that one of the limitations in determining whether a report to VAERS constitutes a vaccine reaction is lab test results (7) In other words, there is no need to perform lab tests to confirm a case of swine flu, but laboratory tests are necessary to establish that there has been a vaccine reaction.
On a personal note, I would like relate my experience with being in a so-called high risk category for swine flu. In December of 2009 I was seven months pregnant. Swine flu pandemic warnings were everywhere and I was aware that as a pregnant woman I was considered to be at risk for complications from H1N1. I did not get the H1N1 vaccine. A few days after Christmas I became sick. I had deviated some from my diet and eaten some junk food over the past week and my husband’s whole family (including several young children) were all crammed into my in-laws house with us. It’s possible I had H1N1. Along with a little nausea and vomiting, I had a bad sore throat- a symptom which was supposed to be particular to the swine flu and which I had not experienced in other bouts of the flu, but impossible to knowfor sure without testing. I spent the day in bed, taking little sips of water and little spoonfuls of dry, whole grain cereal throughout the day. By evening, I was starting to feel better and started drinking more water to make sure I didn’t get dehydrated and eating plain foods to sustain my baby and myself. The next day I was tired, but otherwise fine. My son shows no ill effects at all from episode with the flu. (His birth defect occurred within the first few weeks of conception, long before I had the flu.) He is very healthy and is the highest functioning child the doctors have ever seen for his particular birth defect, physically normally and above average cognitively.
I have seen a few women on forums say that they get the flu vaccine because a friend lost a pregnancy because of H1N1 influenza. I find this suspect since testing was stopped. I've also heard tell of women who lost pregnancies shortly after receiving the flu shot. I find it almost hilarious when these women chirp, "I got the flu shot and I was only down for three days afterwards! It's not so bad. Go get it yourself!" Ah, yes. We are deathly afraid of getting sick from a virus. But if we get sick from a vaccine, it's A-OK! A columnist for the Wall Street Journal described getting sick after the flu shot and the denial he received from everyone, in a column titled "They Shoot Flu Shot Skeptics, Don't They?". "If you won the lottery after you got the flu shot, you wouldn't think the two are connected!" a friend sneered. But we don't shoot lottery tickets into our bloodstream, now do we? (For the full column go to http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303362404575580494166396722.html?mod=googlenews_wsj )
All of my research indicates that the H1N1 virus is no more serious than other types of flu. Standard flu treatment should suffice in most cases. A healthy diet, exercise, and hand washing will likely go a long way to preventing any strain of flu and and lessening its severity.
(1) The Coming Plague, Laurie Garrett, pg. 158
(2) The Coming Plague, Laurie Garrett, pg. 154
(3) (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/606060)
(4) The Coming Plague, Laurie Garrett, pg. 159
(5) The Coming Plague, Laurie Garrett, pg. 169
(6) http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/diagnostic_testing_public_qa.htm
(7) http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/6mishome.htm#additional
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Yardsticks
It can be confusing to sort through all the information we are given from doctors, books, friends, and the media. Here are some “yardsticks” to help you measure the soundness of advice you are being given:
- Who stands to make a great deal of money from this stance? Vaccines, for example are a billion dollar industry for the manufacturers and the doctors who give them. A book about the dangers of vaccination is highly unlikely to generate that sort of profit. Books, may not be all that profitable to begin with once printing costs, agents’ fees, marketing costs, etc. are subtracted from the price. The writer of a book that questions vaccination may not end up seeing a huge profit. Herbs and (more recently high doses of vitamins) have been used to treat diseases for thousands of years quite successfully. But you can’t patent high doses vitamin A for measles, high doses of vitamin C for pertussis, garlic and onions for preventing heart disease.
- Does the information I’m receiving contradict other advice I’ve been given? Would you feed your child a whole container of Round-Up one drop at a time over several years? Aaahhh! No way! Now how about produce that has been grown with pesticides? Pregnant women have been advised by FDA to avoid eating swordfish, king mackerel and other fish that have high mercury levels. Yet they are encouraged to go out and get a flu shot and put mercury from thimerosal, formaldehyde and potassium chloride (the chemical used in high doses for lethal injections) into their bloodstreams. Doctors generally warn against the use of herbs or homeopathic preparations because no long term studies have been done on them, but no long term studies have done on the flu shot or prenatal ultrasound. Pregnant women are cautioned not to lie on their backs for long periods of time in their second and third trimesters because it can cut off blood flow to the baby, yet the are required to lie on their backs for hours during labor at a hospital when medications such as pitocin and epidurals are used. (For a link to download a list of vaccine additives go to http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/additives.htm)
- Have I researched both sides of this issue? Doctors’ education often doesn’t extend to learning about lesser-intervention options such as home birth or the use of herbs. They probably won’t be able to give you all the facts simply because they don’t know them. Research both sides of any issue before making a decision You can’t be fully educated about an issue unless you have looked at both sides.
- What do the results show? For all of our hospitals and medical intervention, the United States still has a very high infant mortality rate for an industrialized nation. We spend the most on health care of any nation in the world, yet we rank lower for life expectancy than many other industrialized nations. We are told that our children need vaccines to keep diseases at bay, but time and again, vaccinated children still contract and spread the diseases they are immunized against.
Intro to This Blog
There is scientific evidence that chemicals in food, toxins in vaccines, and too much unnecessary medical intervention can cause serious health problems. The medical community says they don’t have answers to causes of the following pervasive conditions:
(2) Mayo Clinic website, Autism http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/autism/DS00348/DSECTION=causes
(3) National Center for Shaken Baby Syndrome http://www.purplecrying.info/sections/index.php?sct=1&
(4) Mayo Clinic website; ADHD http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/adhd/DS00275/DSECTION=causes
- SIDS- “Exactly why SIDS occurs remains elusive...”- Mayo Clinic (1)
- Autism- “Autism has no single, known cause”- Mayo Clinic (2)
- “Purple Crying”- “a normal part of every infant’s development”- National Center for Shaken Baby Syndrome (3)
- ADHD- “there's still a lot that isn't known about ADHD”- Mayo Clinic (4)
The question comes down to this: Would you rather live in a world where terrible health crises can strike your child at random, or would you rather live in a world where vaccines, chemicals in food, and too much medical intervention cause health crises that can be prevented and treated by other, less invasive means? The choice is yours. I know that not everyone will be convinced by this data. Many people will believe what they want to believe, regardless of evidence. But I will be presenting my research in this blog nonetheless.
References
(1) Mayo Clinic website; SIDS http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/sudden-infant-death-syndrome/DS00145/DSECTION=causes(2) Mayo Clinic website, Autism http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/autism/DS00348/DSECTION=causes
(3) National Center for Shaken Baby Syndrome http://www.purplecrying.info/sections/index.php?sct=1&
(4) Mayo Clinic website; ADHD http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/adhd/DS00275/DSECTION=causes
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