The First International Public Conference on Vaccination
Issue 86, January/February 1998
Mothering Magazine
The First International Public Conference on Vaccination was held
in Alexandria, Virginia, September 13 to 15, 1997. The conference was sponsored by
the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), a child-advocacy organization that
promotes vaccine safety and informed choice. NVIC also offers support and information
to parents whose children have been injured by vaccines.
The presenters at the conference included distinguished immunologists,
neurologists, gastroenterologists, geneticists, biochemists, and microbiologists,
as well as legal experts, ethicists, and accomplished practitioners of alternative
and complementary medicine who had experience modifying the severity of vaccine injuries.
Highlights of some of the presentations follow.
Mark R. Geier, MD, PhD, is codirector, Genetic Consultants, and
director, Institute of Immuno-Oncology; president, Genetic Counseling and Research,
Inc.; and director, Molecular Medicine, Inc. Geier is an expert on the biological
effects of vaccine-induced infant death. He cited numerous articles in the medical
literature, including the National Child Encephalophy Study (NCES) reported in the
November 1993 edition of the British Medical Journal, the 1994 Institute of Medicine
follow-up study, "Whooping Cough, the Vaccine, and Reducing Vaccine Reactions,"
and the American Academy of Pediatrics News of November 4, 1994, which all report
inherently dangerous neurological problems associated with the whole-cell pertussis
vaccine.
According to Geier, 79 percent of all infant deaths under one year
of age occur within 28 days of vaccination. Similarly, 71 percent of encephalopathy
in infants under one occurs within 28 days of vaccination--as does 92 percent of
reported febrile convulsions, 88 percent of nonfebrile convulsions, 66 percent of
SIDS, and 99 percent of other neurological symptoms.
Why do some children react to vaccine while others do not? Geier
and others suggested that there can be multiple causes of neurological and immunological
reactions. Certain genotypes may be involved. Whole-cell vaccines can be more reactive
than accellular vaccines. Moreover, the culture medium for the vaccines as well as
numerous additives can cause allergic reactions. Some lots of vaccines may contain
more toxins. Geier also noted that the rubella vaccination was never tested on adult
women, and today we know that one in 50 women who receive rubella vaccine develop
arthritis. Questions exist about the long-term effectiveness of both the MMR and
the hepatitis B vaccine.
Andrew J. Wakefield, MD, is director of research and chairman,
Inflammatory Bowel Disease Study Group, Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, London.
His published articles include "Is Measles Vaccination a Risk Factor for Inflammatory
Bowel Disease?" (The Lancet, 1995). Wakefield is a specialist in Crohn's disease,
a disease which was never reported in children before the early 1970s. The Inflammatory
Bowel Disease Study Group, of which he is chairman, published more than 60 papers
leading up to the testing of the hypothesis that the measles vaccine may be linked
to Crohn's disease.
The measles virus causes a rash almost immediately after infection
that discharges the disease from the body. In the absence of this discharging mechanism,
the measles vaccine may cause persistent infection in the body and delayed chronic
disease. Safety and efficacy trials of the measles vaccine were done in the US between
1958 and 1960, and in the United Kingdom in 1960 and 1964. While efficacy studies
are being conducted for 31 years, safety studies lasted only three weeks.
Approximately four to seven years after the introduction of the
measles vaccine, a rare disease, subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE) was reported
with more frequency. SSPE is characterized by persistent measles infection and cerebral
infection. The average time between exposure to the measles virus and the outbreak
of SSPE is about seven years; the duration between measles vaccination and disease
can be much shorter. One interpretation is that measles vaccination might trigger
disease in those who are persistently infected with measles virus and might precipitate
immunopathology.
Byron M. Hyde, MD, is chairman of the Nightingale Research Foundation
and a physician in general practice in Ottawa, Canada. He is an internationally recognized
authority on the clinical and scientific basis of mylagic encephalomyelitis (ME)
and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), as well as an expert on central nervous system
dysfunction following hepatitis B vaccination. Mylagic encephalomyelitis (ME) is
better known as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and occurs both in epidemics in hospitals
and schools and sporadically in the community of pandemics. ME has an incubation
period of four to five days and leaves the patient with a chronic encephalopathy
and symptoms that include a persistent loss of cognitive and muscular stamina, rapid
fatiguability, and slow recovery. ME is often associated with multiple pain syndromes
and headaches and symptoms of cardiac irregularity. Although some patients recover,
many persist in their illness either continually or in a relapsing manner. Hyde said
that he had examined or was aware of approximately 200 cases of what appeared to
be abnormal hepatitis B vaccination reactions. Although the vast majority of hepatitis
B vaccinations cause no untoward illness, Hyde has observed unexplained associations
that include serious, persisting cognitive dysfunction, loss of IQ, and fatigue syndromes
identical to ME or CFS. Less commonly, he has noted at least two deaths, one associated
with liver failure and one with boils, coma, and a probable encephalopathy. He has
observed one case of permanent left eye blindness and one case of total permanent
blindness and complete deafness, as well as several cases of soldier's arm, a painful
condition in which the muscular strength of the vaccinated arm is injured.
Many of Hyde's hepatitis B vaccination patients were from Quebec,
and he suspects that this population, many of whom have American Indian ancestry,
may have a sensitivity to hepatitis B in much the same way that Peruvian Indians
have a sensitivity to measles vaccine. Hyde also noted that in Canada hepatitis B
is almost always a disease of nonmedical intravenous drug users; prostitutes; homosexuals;
Chinese and African immigrants; and hospital workers who have contact with blood
products. He said that hepatitis B vaccination is essential for these groups and
their immediate contacts.
Hyde believes that until we have a better understanding of why
some hepatitis B-vaccinated patients fall ill with chronic and even permanent fatigue
and cognitive and learning difficulties, non-risk children should not receive hepatitis
B vaccine. Hyde sees no rational medical basis for giving prepubertal children the
hepatitis B vaccine.
Howard B. Urnovitz, PhD, is founder and science director of the
Chronic Illness Research Foundation, Berkeley, California. Urnovitz was the first
to successfully immunize animals to a rare leukemia; discover hybrid monoclonal antibody
polymers; develop an FDA-licensed ten-minute blood test, and a urine test for HIV-1.
According to Urnovitz, 100 million US residents now have chronic illness at a cost
per year of $425 billion. There is a high correlation between chronic disease and
occupation. New research on the Gulf War syndrome indicates that chronic illness
may be related to adaptation to a genotoxic agent. Research into the Gulf War syndrome
indicates that some chromosome abnormality may be involved as the case in many other
abnormalities such as Tourette's syndrome and some active cancers. When chromosomes
get into the blood, the whole immune system is thrown off.
Urnovitz suggested that this research may provide a clue about
how vaccine damage occurs, as viral integration following vaccination may target
fragile "hot spots" in the DNA. Urnovitz, inventor of a urine test for
HIV, reported that 18 or more contaminated viruses, including herpes, have been found
in the polio vaccine. Some of these viruses may be harmless, but others may be giving
rise to new diseases such as Burkitt's lymphoma. HIV may be a hybrid virus from vaccines.
Further, Urnovitz said that the mechanism by which vaccines work
is still unknown and that we must take heed from public health experiments of the
past such as the Tuskegee syphilis experiments, the whole cellular and live polio
vaccines, the AIDS cocktail vaccine, and the Gulf War syndrome. Finally, he called
for independent funding for vaccine research, including determining the role of microbes
as genotoxic agents, and revisiting the live vaccines in this light.
James J. Tuite III is an international security consultant with
special expertise in the proliferation of and human exposure to chemical, biological,
and radiological materials. He is director, Interdisciplinary Sciences, Chronic Illness
Research Foundation; a member of the Board of Directors, National Gulf War Resource
Center; and director, Gulf War Research Foundation. Tuite was the first person to
be asked to look at the Gulf War syndrome by the US Senate. These Gulf War-related
illnesses have been varyingly attributed to hazardous toxicological and radiological
exposures, the time compressed administration of multiple vaccinations, and the administration
of chemoprophylactic drugs.
At first it was estimated that only a few hundred individuals were
complaining of symptoms that have collectively come to be known as Gulf War syndrome.
Currently, the count is nearly 100,000 or about one in six of the US soldiers who
participated in the Gulf War. Prior to the Gulf War, the soldiers received as many
as eight to 15 vaccines in a short period of time, including vaccines for diphtheria,
tetanus, anthrax, botulism, influenza, meningitis (meningococcal), yellow fever,
and MMR.
According to Tuite, guidelines for safe vaccine administration
should consider not only effects of the vaccine but also cofactors such as age, other
immunoaffective exposures, environmental contaminants, and existing infection (which
may be asymptomatic). Examples of possible vaccine coexposures include exposure to
radioactive fallout from the nuclear testing of the 1950s and the 1960s, exposure
to farm and household pesticides, genetic susceptibilities, and service in the Persian
Gulf War, where soldiers were exposed to the time compressed administration of multiple
vaccines, as well as to fallout from the destruction of chemical weapons and many
other hazardous occupational and environmental risks.
Tuite asserted that even minor coexposures are serious when the
body is immunosuppressed, as was the case for those who served in the Gulf War. We
do not know what the chronic effects of these coexposures will be. However, there
is considerable scientific evidence to indicate that exposures similar to those sustained
by these soldiers can result in genetic damage and in chronic diseases such as neuro-immune
disorders, motor neuron disease, and immune-related cancers.
Finally, Tuite suggested that vaccines may confer tolerance rather
than immunity, especially in very young infants, and that vaccine administration
policies should be based on the principle of improving human health rather than solely
on the goal of eradicating diseases. He called for retrospective research on vaccines
and coexposures to determine if current public health policies regarding vaccine
administration and vaccine safety are adequate.
Walter Kyle, JD, is an attorney in private practice in Boston,
Massachusetts, and an expert on vaccine product litigation. He has been involved
in nearly 100 claims by vaccine-injured children and adults, and is an expert on
the manufacturing of polio vaccines. His now-famous hypothesis that HIV developed
in man after lots of live polio vaccine contaminated with simian immunodeficiency
virus (SIV) were released in the 1970s was published in The Lancet in 1992. Kyle
said that oral polio continues to be cultured on green monkey tissues.
Kyle defends individuals seeking compensation or redress from the
federal government and/or vaccine manufacturers for failure to warn that the polio
vaccine is associated with contracting paralytic polio. In a suit Kyle filed against
the federal government, the government was found negligent. All polio today in the
US is related to the polio vaccine. According to Kyle, France switched from the oral
polio vaccine to the injected polio in 1983 and thereby eliminated all polio from
France. In the US, injected polio was approved for use in 1996 but is still being
used in conjunction with oral polio.
In the mid-1970s, multiple live polio vaccines were given to gay
men in Berkeley to treat herpes. Kyle suggested that this may be related to the origins
of AIDS or at least for the presence of HIV and cited as evidence the 900 or more
children, including Whitney Williams, who have tested positive for HIV without any
known risk factors and who have all received oral polio vaccine.
The second day of the conference featured speakers who had expertise
with health modalities that can help vaccine-injured children, as well as researchers
and those who have expertise in legal and ethical issues.
Patricia Kane, PhD, is director of medical research, Carbon Based
Corporation and director of the Bio Body Centre, Five Osprey Drive, Millville, New
Jersey 08332 (609-825-8333). Kane, a clinician specializing in autistic spectrum
disorder, traumatic brain injury, intractable seizure disorders, and preterm neonatal
care, is an expert in nutritional pharmacology. She specializes in examining disturbances
in fatty acid metabolism and the biochemistry of individuals with a myriad of physical
disorders, including those adversely affected by immune insult by vaccination.
Kane has fifteen years of experience with brain-injured and autistic
children. She examines a child's neurochemistry through metabolic mapping to see
what happens in the biochemical pathways when illness is present. Kane uses a metabolic
pharmacological approach to healing, in which medical tests such as blood chemistry
and red cell membrane fatty acid results are entered into a database of some 20,000
medical papers. The computerized medical database then indicates the individual nutrients,
drug interactions, disease patterns, and disturbances within the systems of the body
that are matched to the individual patient. This also gives physicians a treatment
plan that includes specific minerals, vitamins, fatty acids, amino acids, and electrolytes
that are appropriate for the individual child.
Kane noted the research of Dr. Margaret Bauman of Harvard indicates
that prepubertal children with autism have neurons (brain cells) that are too large.
This parallels Kane's work in which she has found a buildup of very long chain fats
in the red blood cells of prepubertal children with autism. According to Kane, this
buildup involves peroxisomal dysfunction, whereby the peroxisomes (an organelle within
cells) become too large as they are engorged with fatty acids that cannot be burned.
Kane also suggested a correlation between high intake of carbohydrates and inflammatory
processes associated with high seizure activity. Eating a highly specialized fat
diet (coconut butter, sesame oil, avocado oil, evening primrose oil), avoiding hydrogenated
fat (margarine, canola oil, peanut oil, peanut butter), and increasing the protein
(chicken, turkey, veal, eggs) and nutrient content of the diet (seeds, nuts, legumes,
whole natural foods) can be very helpful in seizure conditions, de! velopmental delay,
and autism. Kane has also observed that the majority of children with autism have
type A positive blood, which may serve as a marker for children susceptible to vaccination
or immune insult.
Phillip Incao, MD, is founder and director of Gilpin Street Holistic
Center in Denver, Colorado. For 23 years, he was a physician in private practice,
specializing in anthroposophic medicine in rural New York. Incao, who has been an
anthroposophic physician for 26 years, practices family medicine with an emphasis
on pediatrics. Anthroposophy is currently uncommon in the LIS, where only 50 anthroposophical
physicians practice; however, thousands of anthroposophic physicians practice in
Europe.
Incao's medical practice has been comprised of about 50 percent
who vaccinate and 50 percent who do not. He has observed that the nonvaccinated are
healthier. In 20 years of practice, Incao has seen approximately 100 cases of whooping
cough with no complications and no hospitalization. Incao noted that disease serves
a purpose and that there is a difference between health--in which individuals strengthen
their immune systems through overcoming illness--and simply the eradication of disease.
According to Incao, inflammatory diseases such as scarlet fever,
measles, and pertussis become much milder as a country modernizes, an immune system
change that occurs long before vaccination is available. In postmodern Western nations,
these childhood inflammatory diseases actually strengthen the child's immune system
against the cooling, hardening effects of modern life.
Incao suggested that the number of cases of acute inflammatory
diseases (warming, expanding, discharging) is out of balance with the number of chronic
degenerative diseases, such as cancer, which are cooling, contracting, and storing.
Incao cited statistics showing that while the death rate in children under 15 has
declined since 1900, the rate of chronic disease is 3.7 times higher than it was
in 1960. From 1960 to 1980, the number of chronically disabled children doubled,
and it has nearly doubled again since 1982. In 1960, the incidence of asthma, allergies,
and autism in children was 1.8 percent; in the most recent study in 1994, it was
6.7 percent.
An article in the January 1985 edition of The Lancet indicated
that measles infection without rash in childhood is related to a 20 percent greater
incidence of autoimmune disease, tumors, and skin diseases. The normal measles rash
acts to discharge the virus through the skin. Without the appearance of rash, the
infection can persist inside the body. Incao stated that the incidence of asthma
is five times greater and earaches two times greater for those who have received
the whole-cell pertussis vaccine than for those who have not.
J. Barthelow Classen, MD, MBA, is founder and CEO, Classen Immunotherapies,
Inc. As a staff fellow in the Laboratory of Immunology at the National Institutes
of Health (NIH), he conducted research into the causes of autoimmune disease. He
is currently conducting research into the effects of vaccine on autoimmune disease
and has published data on his research into the link between vaccine and insulin-dependent
diabetes.
Classen's research into insulin-dependent diabetes indicates that
vaccinations can cause autoimmune diseases. Chronic toxicity studies have not previously
been done on vaccinations, and the average length of follow-up on safety studies
is 15 to 21 days. In addition, Classen cited research from New Zealand indicating
that the incidence of diabetes there has increased by 50 percent since 1988 when
hepatitis B was given to New Zealand children under 16. He also cited a rapid rise
in the incidence of childhood diabetes since the introduction of the HiB vaccine--50
cases of diabetes per 100,000 vaccinated children. Classen believes that vaccine
changes may cause a 400-fold increase in morbidity. According to Classen, asthma
almost doubled from 1982 to 1993. Rabies vaccine can induce autoimmunity within four
to 20 years. Vaccines in general can cause interferon release, which can in turn
induce human diabetes.
The Code of Federal Regulations says that devices must reasonably
assure safety, but that biologics must demonstrate safety. Classen cited the failure
of vaccine development due to small study populations, poor safety follow-up alongside
lengthy efficacy studies, and animal studies done on strains of animals resistant
to autoimmune disease. Instead, he called for honest labeling, follow-up studies
of five to seven years, sample studies of more than 100,000 people, and autoimmune
susceptible animal toxicity assays. We cannot just assume safety, Classen says.
Peter H. Meyers, JD, is professor of clinical law and director
of the Vaccine Injury Project, George Washington University Law School, 200 G. Street
NW, Washington, DC 20052 (202-994-7463). He was legal counsel to Action on Smoking
and Health (ASH), representing the rights of individuals adversely affected by cigarette
smoke, and was chief counsel, National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws,
where he coordinated national drug-reform litigation to allow persons to obtain marijuana
for medical purposes. He supervises law students who represent individuals seeking
financial compensation before the US Court of Federal Claims under the National Childhood
Vaccine Injury Act of 1986.
Meyers cited a well-known 1905 Supreme Court case, Jacobsen v.
Massachusetts, in which the Court said that the state had the right to deny personal
exemptions to vaccination in time of epidemic. However, the Court went on to say
it was really deferring to the state in the decision and upholding the right of the
state to make its own regulations. According to the National Vaccine Injury Center
(NWC), all states have medical exemptions to vaccination. Two states, Mississippi
and West Virginia, grant only medical exemptions. Twenty-five states grant medical
and religious exemptions. Twenty-three states as well as all of the Canadian provinces
grant medical, religious, and philosophical exemptions. The CDC does not disclose
personal information on exemptions.
A family with a vaccine injury must first seek a claim with the
National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP) and then once the proceeding
is over; if the family is not satisfied, it can sue in state court. The National
Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP) was designed to be relatively quick,
just, and flexible. However, the Justice Department employs about 18 full-time attorneys
to defend vaccine claims. It can take years to receive a decision that a petitioner
is entitled to financial compensation, and once this is done, it takes an average
of 18 months to resolve what the amount of that compensation will be.
David J. Walsh, PhD, is professor of politics at Catholic University
of America in Washington, DC, and served as chair of the Department of Politics for
eight years. He has written extensively on philosophy, politics, and the role of
government in society. His editorials on the value of human life and other ethical
issues have been published regularly in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Wall
Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, and many other syndicated
newspapers.
Walsh said that all things ultimately must stand the test of the
court of public opinion and that we may have reached the point of diminished return
regarding vaccinations. No amount of information can relieve us of the burden of
deciding. Our whole way of life depends on moral awareness, and we must look to our
deeper moral intuition. There are always risks in any act of compulsory power. Walsh
believes that without the element of compulsion there would hardly be any controversy
over vaccinations and that compulsion is not on strong philosophical grounds.
In the case of vaccines, Walsh said, utilitarian arguments dilute
the invincible rights of the human person. The existence of the NVICP is a tacit
admission of illicit compulsion. Walsh suggested that change in vaccine policy will
come about through persuasion and moral pressure. "The health of the majority,"
he said, "will not be bought at the risk to a few individuals."
Eugene D. Robin, MD, active professor emeritus, Stanford University
School of Medicine, could not attend the conference but sent a written statement.
According to Robin, some societal factors are critical to the success or failure
or even highly effective vaccines. Successful vaccine programs for specific diseases
require mass education and participation by a substantial portion of the population
for optimal results. He brought up the cross-over point, the shifting of the ratio
of the number of cases of a given disease to the complications caused by a vaccine.
A point will be reached, called the cross-over point, where the complication rate
of the vaccine for individual patients will be higher than the adverse effects of
the disease. At this point, for individuals the wise thing might be to refuse the
vaccine. However, for society it might be useful to continue vaccination to prevent
recrudescence of the disease in the general population.
Robin finds the term "informed consent" fundamentally
patronizing, suggesting that the healthcare provider is in a superior scientific
position. He prefers the term "informed choice," which implies equality.
Accurate assessment of the risk/benefit ratio of the vaccine by means of a prospective,
randomized, controlled clinical trial should be obligatory. An educational process
involving the public should be mandatory, in which the risks and the uncertainties
are described, as well as the potential benefits. We must be honest and admit that
we do not know the impact of administering multiple, different vaccines on very young
children or, indeed, on anyone. Finally, continued, rigorous clinical evaluation
of a given vaccine should be mandatory.
The conference was attended by healthcare professionals and parents.
Some of the questions and possible courses of action that emerged from the conference
were:
- What are the causes of chronic illness in children? Fund research
into the causes of chronic illness in children.
- Encourage the use of mediums other than monkey kidneys for vaccine
production.
- Fund independent research into the safety of vaccinations.
- Raise tax on vaccinations to fund long-term safety and epidemiological
studies.
- Fund research comparing vaccine compliance rates in states with
philosophical exemptions to rates in states without exemptions.
- Establish oversight committees for vaccination policy-making,
administration and compensation legislation.
- Encourage tolerance of philosophical exemptions for vaccines and
include religious and philosophical exemptions in all state statutes.
- Delay vaccination until age two when the nervous system is mature.
- Let parents know about the existence of the National Vaccine Injury
Compensation Program (NVICP) and the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC).
For a complete audio set of the First International Public Conference
on Vaccination, send $99.00 to Repeat Performance, 2911 Crabapple Lane, Hobart, IN
46342. 219-465-1234. Individual tapes are $7.50 each. Shipping is $2.00 for the first
tape and $.75 for each additional tape up to a maximum of $2.00. Foreign orders add
10 percent.
References are not provided with this report but will be published
by the National Vaccine Information Center (NIVC) with the forthcoming publication
of the proceedings of the conference. Please contact NVIC for more information.
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