Thimerosal, which contains the organic
compound ethyl mercury, is a known neurotoxin and used to be a major
ingredient in childhood vaccines. There are over 15,000 articles
in the medical literature describing the adverse health effects
on the human body with exposure to varying amounts and forms of
mercury.
In 1999 the American Academy of Pediatrics
(AAP) urged government agencies to work rapidly toward reducing
children's exposure to mercury from all sources. Because any potential
risk was of concern, the AAP and the USPHS (United States Public
Health Service) agreed that the use of thimerosal-containing vaccines
should be reduced or eliminated.[1]
The AAP recommended that it would be a good idea to remove thimerosal
from vaccines, even though according to them, there was no evidence
linking childhood health issues to thimerosal exposure from vaccines.
In 2008, children are still being injected with thimerosal-containing
vaccines, and old stocks of thimerosal-containing vaccines manufactured
by 1999 continued to be administered to children up to 2003.
However, a growing number of physicians,
scientists and parents maintain that thimerosal has played, and
continues to play a large role in contributing to the emergence
of multiple chronic illnesses in children and adults, including
the neurological spectrum disorders. Aluminum, which is present
in the environment and in many childhood vaccines, may be affecting
the health of our children in ways that we have yet to understand.
Aluminum is a heavy metal with known
neurotoxic effects on human and animal nervous systems. It can be
found in the following childhood vaccines – DTaP, Pediarix (DTaP-Hepatitis
B-Polio combination), Pentacel (DTaP-HIB-Polio combination), Hepatitis
A, Hepatitis B, Haemophilus influenzae B (HIB), Human Papilloma
Virus (HPV), and Pneumococcal vaccines.[2]
In 1996, the American Academy of
Pediatrics issued a position paper on Aluminum Toxicity in Infants
and Children which stated in the first paragraph, “Aluminum
is now being implicated as interfering with a variety of cellular
and metabolic processes in the nervous system and in other tissues.[3]
A review of the medical literature
on aluminum reveals a surprising lack of scientific evidence that
injected aluminum is safe. There is limited understanding of what
happens to children when aluminum is injected into their bodies,
including whether or not it accumulates in tissues and organs or
is properly eliminated from the body. It is also unknown if genetic
factors affect long term adverse health outcomes for those injected
with aluminum containing vaccines.
One in 6 children under the age of
18 in this country has developmental/learning disabilities, although
the numbers may be higher since this 1994 report was published.[4]
Ten percent of all children have asthma.[5] Growing
numbers of children are living with different types of allergies.
That means they have impairment, or even irreversible damage to
their nervous and immune systems. Isn’t it possible that injected
aluminum plays a role in affecting the health of our children’s
nervous and immune systems, as the science we do have seems to suggest?
What is even more concerning is the
lack of accepted scientific data explaining whether injected aluminum
interacts with other vaccine ingredients to cause harm to our children.
Boyd Haley, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at the University
of Kentucky completed lab experiments showing the damaging effects
on nerve cells when he exposed them to aluminum, especially in the
presence of other vaccine ingredients like mercury, formaldehyde,
and the antibiotic neomycin.[6] [7] His data, however,
have been ignored by the scientific, medical and governmental institutions
making vaccine policies.[8] The scientific community
needs to be doing these experiments in the lab before shooting kids
with these ingredients and declaring unequivocal vaccine safety
for all children.
Aluminum is added to vaccines as
an adjuvant so vaccines will produce a stronger antibody response
and be more protective. It is this role as an adjuvant that may
reveal to us the most significant relationship between aluminum
in vaccines and the damage it imparts on the long term health of
our children’s nervous and immune systems.
A Little Science Review
Children are born with a cellular mediated immune system (TH1 cells
– T-helper 1), a humoral immune system (TH2 cells – T-helper 2),
and a regulator immune system (TH3 cells – T-helper 3) as major
pieces of their overall immune systems. These three arms are immature
when babies are born, and begin to mature as children are exposed
to their environments through their nervous systems, skin, airways
and intestines. Antibiotics, poor nutrition, stress, exposure to
heavy metals and other environmental toxins, and the use of vaccines,
may interfere with the proper maturing process of these three arms
of children’s immune systems. In theory, if the TH system is allowed
to mature, and is not interfered with, children will develop a mature,
balanced TH1, TH2 and TH3 immune system by age three.
TH1 and TH2 develop to protect children
from the outside world, producing inflammation and anti-inflammation
responses to foreign particles from the natural environment. TH3
immune cells develop to keep the TH1/TH2 arms of the immune system
in check so the body only produces the amount of inflammation and
anti-inflammation that is needed to protect itself from exposures
in the natural environment.
When TH2 cells are activated properly,
either directly via the natural environment, or through a direct
signal from the TH1 system, the B cell arm of the immune system
is then stimulated, leading to the production of the desired protective
antibodies.[9] [10]
It’s important for the reader
to know that the hallmark of a healthy, mature immune system in
children is demonstrated by an equal and balanced TH1, TH2 and TH3
immune response to the natural environment. TH1, TH2 & TH3 do
not work independently, and require a very important synergistic
relationship to function properly in our bodies. As soon as one
or more of these three arms begins to over or under work in relation
to the other, chronic illness begins to express itself.
More on Aluminum
Aluminum is placed in the vaccines
to selectively target the up-regulation of the humoral arm (TH2
cells) of children’s immune systems, to drive the production of
antibodies. The medical community leads us to believe that this
production of antibodies is what imparts for children a protective
nature against vaccine-preventable illnesses. Yet, this outcome
may come at a cost.
There are multiple articles in the
medical literature demonstrating how chronic illnesses like allergies,[11]
[12] asthma, [13] [14] [15] eczema,[16]
lupus, [17] inflammatory bowel disease, [18]
ADD/ADHD[19] and autism[20]
all exhibit a skewed production and over-activity of the TH2 arm
of the immune system.
Similarly, chronic illnesses like
juvenile diabetes mellitus[21] [22] and rheumatoid
arthritis,[23] multiple sclerosis,[24]
uveits,[25] inflammatory bowel disease,[26]
and autism[27] [28] all exhibit skewed production
and over-activity of the TH1 arm of the immune system.
While aluminum in the vaccines is
specifically targeting the over-activation of TH2 to encourage the
body to produce antibodies, any direct or indirect effect of aluminum
on the health or maturation of the TH1 or TH3 system is unknown.
Yet, in many of these TH2 dominant chronic illnesses, TH1 and TH3
have also been shown to exhibit an impaired immune response to the
environment.[29]
Any direct or indirect effect on
the health or maturation of the TH1, TH2 and TH3 arms of children’s
immune systems from any of the injected vaccine ingredients,
either due to their individual action, or due to their combined
interaction, is unknown as well.
The important synergistic,
balanced activity of TH1, TH2 and TH3, in response to the environment
is dysfunctional and impaired in all chronic illnesses. Children
are not necessarily born with this dysfunction or impairment, although
they may inherit the susceptibility from their parents. How then,
do children develop the expression of these TH1, TH2, TH3 impairments,
into what we describe as chronic illness?
What is clear is aluminum
pushes the TH2 immune system to over perform, and multiple chronic
illnesses in children show immune systems where the TH2 immune response
over performs, while TH1 and TH3 responses are also impaired. Is
there a connection? By having this type of effect on the TH2 system,
is aluminum in any way contributing to the development of these
chronic illnesses in children; especially in those children from
families with a genetic history of the above mentioned chronic illnesses?
Does aluminum also affect the TH1
immune response, unbeknownst to scientists, clinicians and parents?
Does aluminum play a role in impairing the overall synergistic,
balanced activity of TH1, TH2 and TH3, which is a requirement for
a healthy immune system response to the natural environment? There
is no scientific evidence to clarify our understanding one way or
the other, but the evidence may be right in front of us to conclude
otherwise.
Aluminum forces the undeveloped and
immature immune system of infants and children to produce greater
amounts of humoral immune cells (TH2) and antibodies, before their
immune systems have a chance to adapt to the world in which they’ve
barely had a chance to live in.
Under these circumstances,
the activity of aluminum appears to play a vital role in disrupting
the maturation of the immune system in infants and children through
its effects on TH2 and therefore, on TH1 and TH3.
What effect this has on their overall
health in the short or long term is unknown, but this model appears
to help us understand how we may be contributing to the development
of chronic illness in infants and children with the use of aluminum
in vaccines. We also have little understanding of what might happen
to the overall health of their immune systems if parents wait until
later in life to expose them to vaccines containing aluminum, or
if they’re exposed in smaller doses one at a time.
How much of a role does injected
aluminum play, either acting alone, or in conjunction with other
vaccine ingredients and environmental toxins, in the selection and
subsequent development of chronic illnesses, in a susceptible population
of children, through the disruption of TH1, TH2, TH3? There is no
science to answer this question because no one has investigated
this issue.
We have no scientific studies
in infants, children or adults to help us understand the nature
of the progression of TH1, TH2 and TH3 immune responses to any of
the injected materials in vaccines.
You cannot do research on questions
that enough people don’t believe is worth asking, or are afraid
of what the answers might show if the proper studies were done.
It is unfortunate that we continue
to drag out this dialogue by singling out each individual vaccine
ingredient as a detriment to the health of our children. First thimerosal
needed to be removed, despite contentions from the medical community
that there were any real medical reasons to do so, and now aluminum.
According to Environmental Defense[30] (formerly
known as the Environmental Defense fund), all
the vaccine ingredients are poisonous, carcinogenic or potentially
harmful to the skin, gastrointestinal, pulmonary, immune and neurological
systems in our bodies.
What about formaldehyde? Are we going
to wait until another brave physician or scientist writes about
the damaging effects of injected vaccine-containing formaldehyde
on our children’s brains before we are called to demand that formaldehyde
be removed? Or about the problems associated with having Polysorbate-80
in the vaccines?
Polysorbate-80 is used in pharmacology
to assist in the delivery of certain drugs or chemotherapeutic agents
across the blood-brain-barrier. What viral, bacterial, yeast, heavy
metal or other vaccine containing ingredient need to pass into the
brains of our children? Do they belong in the brain? Is that part
of the needed immune response to protect our children from disease?
Do vaccine materials pass across the blood-brain barrier with the
help of Polysorbate-80? If so, are there complications from being
in the brains of our children? Is this another connection to help
us get an understanding of why 1 in 150[31] children
have autism, or 1 in 6 children has developmental/learning disabilities?
If we’re going to do justice to the
topic of vaccine ingredients, we need to look at the potential harm
of all the vaccine ingredients at once,
and examine their individual effects on our children’s immune and
nervous systems. Then, we can examine the interactive effects of
the vaccine ingredients on human tissue, and evaluate the potential
for harm, as Dr. Haley has already successfully done.
How many more children need to be
potentially harmed before we invoke the precautionary principle
and the Hippocratic Oath – First, Do No Harm? If there’s no adequate
science, and we have positive evidence of toxicity from aluminum,
injected alone or in conjunction with other ingredients, and we
have a potential model to understand why certain chronic conditions
may be developing in a susceptible population of children, then
injecting aluminum containing vaccines into anyone should stop right
now until we have the proper scientific proof we need to say otherwise.
We need the same scientific proof of safety for all
vaccine ingredients and their interactions, and we
need parents, scientists and practitioners to stand up and demand
nothing less before we make matters worse.
Lawrence B. Palevsky, MD, FAAP
Pediatrician
________________________
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