Jenny McCarthy and Holly Robinson Peete speak out

Thanks to Kate, who posted a comment leading to this information on a recent Oprah Winfrey Show. Maybe if we can get enough Hollywood in the mix something may change regarding vaccinations.

From an article recapping Oprah's interview with Hollywood mothers Jenny McCarthy and Holly Robinson Peete:

In recent years, the number of children diagnosed with autism has risen from 1 in every 500 children to 1 in 150—and science has not discovered a reason why. Jenny says she believes that childhood vaccinations may play a part. "What number will it take for people just to start listening to what the mothers of children who have seen autism have been saying for years, which is, 'We vaccinated our baby and something happened."

Jenny says even before Evan received his vaccines, she tried to talk to her pediatrician about it. "Right before his MMR shot, I said to the doctor, 'I have a very bad feeling about this shot. This is the autism shot, isn't it?' And he said, 'No, that is ridiculous. It is a mother's desperate attempt to blame something,' and he swore at me, and then the nurse gave [Evan] the shot," she says. "And I remember going, 'Oh, God, I hope he's right.' And soon thereafter—boom—the soul's gone from his eyes."

Despite her belief, Jenny says she is not against vaccines. "I am all for them, but there needs to be a safer vaccine schedule. There needs to be something done. The fact that the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] acts as if these vaccines are one size fits all is just crazy to me," she says. "People need to start listening to what the moms have been saying."

The recap goes on to say:

We contacted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about whether there is a link between autism and vaccines and they gave us the following statement:

"CDC places a high priority on vaccine safety and the integrity and credibility of its vaccine safety research. This commitment not only stems from our scientific and medical dedication, it is also personal—for most of us who work at CDC are also parents and grandparents. And as such, we too, have high levels of personal interest and concern in the health and safety of children, families and communities. We simply don't know what causes most cases of autism, but we're doing everything we can to find out. The vast majority of science to date does not support an association between thimerosal in vaccines and autism. But we are currently conducting additional studies to further determine what role, if any, thimerosal in vaccines may play in the development of autism. It is important to remember, vaccines protect and save lives. Vaccines protect infants, children and adults from the unnecessary harm and premature death caused by vaccine-preventable diseases."

Read more of this article here.

The CDC is short sited to reference a concern with only a link between thimerosal and vaccines. This has been the primary debate exposed in the public venue regarding vaccines, but there are many other possibilities as to why vaccines may be leading to autism spectrum disorders among other serious effects. As Tim O'Shea writes in The Sanctity of Human Blood:

This fragile, unknown universe within the forming infant brain is exceedingly delicate. It is literally struggling its way into existence. If left to itself for the first two years, nature pulls most of us through. But here's the problem. We've stopped leaving the brain to itself, in this most critical period. First with the additives in vaccines like aluminum, mercury, formaldehyde, phenol, radiator fluids - proven beyond controversy to be neurotoxic (nerve-destroying.) [(16) Blaylock] As these toxins are allowed to freely circulate in the blood environment of the brain, nerve cells are killed. Half-formed nerve cells stop forming. Connectors never get made. Worse, the damage is random, because every infant brain is unique, developing at its own pace, like flowers in a field. There is no predicting when the damage will show up. Maybe the child drops dead, or goes into shock, or turns autistic 2 weeks later, or can't learn to read at age 5, or has "ADD" in adolescence, or Parkinson's at 28, or any other neurologic disorder. Or maybe is simply a little dumber than his parents. Over and over and over.

Returning to the Oprah article once more:

Holly says the CDC's statement about vaccinations has given her hope that parents and medical professionals can lay down their arms and open the lines of communication. "I would just say to the pediatricians, listen to [mothers] sometimes and give us a little bit more respect," Holly says. "Our gut is really dead on."

It's true. Follow your gut. Do the research and don't be afraid to stick with your decision. Doctors will treat you like you are an idiot and they will use scare tactics to convince you otherwise, but if you have looked for information on both sides of the issue and have determined your course of action based on research, be confident in that decision.

A follow-up to the last post

From Kids Health by the Nemours Foundation:

"Will the immunization give my child the very disease it's supposed to prevent?

This is one of parents' most common concerns about vaccines. However, it's impossible to get the disease from any vaccine made with dead (killed) bacteria or viruses or just part of the bacteria or virus.

Only those immunizations made from weakened (also called attenuated) live viruses - like the chickenpox (varicella) or measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine - could possibly make a child develop a mild form of the disease, but it's almost always much less severe than the illness that occurs when a person is infected with the disease-causing virus itself."

What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Children’s Vaccinations

by Stephanie Cave (reviewed by Speak the Controversy)

Overview/General Premise
The book represents the author’s own intent to explore the pros and cons of vaccination. It is divided into three sections discussing (1) the background and basic information about vaccines as well as medical conditions associated with them, (2) the benefits and risks of individual vaccines and the diseases they are designed to prevent, and (3) tools for parents in making an informed decision about vaccines. As the author, Stephanie Cave, concludes in the introduction to this book, “Vaccines have accomplished more than we ever dreamed they would. But we must not get so caught up in the dream that we refuse to wake up to certain realities about those vaccines when it comes to safety and effectiveness. All children deserve a healthy, safe childhood, and parents should be allowed to make informed decisions about their children’s vaccine needs.” (p.xx)

Bias
Stephanie Cave is in the private practice of family medicine. Together with her clinic partner they care for over 700 children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. This book is pro-vaccination in that Dr. Cave does not suggest that children should not be vaccinated, but the book is also anti-vaccination in that it questions the current immunization schedule, the administration of compound vaccines like MMR over individual vaccines, and the blanket approach to vaccination of all children without regard to family history.

Points of Review
Cave dedicates an entire chapter to The Autism Debate. The correlation between the characteristics of autism and those of mercury poisoning cannot be debated, but with recent legislation requiring the removal of thimerosal from vaccines would Dr. Cave still express concern about the link between autism and vaccines? (According to the CDC thimerosal is now only used in the manufacturing of flu vaccines though vaccines once made with thimerosal have not been pulled from the market and may still be administered.) Her primary concern is the removal of mercury from vaccines, which dates the book (published in 2001), and limits the concern between autism and vaccines to this one matter.

Though Cave points out many things to question about vaccination and gives several reasons to decline certain vaccines or postpone vaccination she never makes a direct anti-vaccine sentiment. In general Cave’s perspective appears to be that as long as there isn’t a family history of autoimmune disease and/or a compromised immune system, and if vaccines are given individually at separate appointments the risk from vaccination is limited. Though I agree that the risk of adverse effects is greatly reduced as a result of these considerations, I still question whether the benefits outweigh the risks. There is growing research and concern regarding the correlation between Alzheimer’s Disease and the flu vaccine in the elderly, and chronic arthritis and the rubella vaccine in women that make me question when, if ever, it really becomes beneficial to administer vaccines.

Conclusions
This book may offer the middle ground that neither those that are strongly pro-vaccination support nor those that are strongly anti-vaccination support. I would recommend this book to every parent, especially those that do not realize that there is a controversy surrounding vaccination. This book approaches the topic of vaccination in a manner that recognizes the correlation between vaccination and the reduction of disease but also questions the correlation between vaccination and the risks associated with it. It presents many concerns about the current vaccination schedule and suggests practical alternatives for those that choose to vaccinate their children that will hopefully reduce the risks associated with vaccination. Though the book is somewhat out-of-date future editions (if written) will easily clarify the information that is no longer current.

Vaccines: What Every Parent Should Know

by Paul A. Offit, M.D. and Louis Bell, M.D. (reviewed by Speak the Controversy)

Overview/General Premise
The intention of this book is to discuss vaccination of children, to provide parents with information about the vaccines that children receive, state the side effects of vaccines and weigh the risks against the benefits. The book was published in 1999 so it is somewhat out of date with the current vaccination schedule and as a result does not discuss in depth some of the vaccines that are currently administered to children.

Bias
The general slant of the book is pro-vaccination. Both of the authors are employed in the Department of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia. Louis Bell received a grant from the CDC to enhance pre-school vaccination. Paul Offit received a grant from the pharmaceutical company, Merck, for the development of a Rotavirus vaccine and shares a patent with the company on the vaccine currently in development. He also serves as a consultant to Merck.

Good Point
The book considers the question, “Are vaccines safe?” The authors pose the following three questions to consider, which they attempt to answer in each chapter about specific vaccines: “(1) What are the chances of catching a particular infection? (2) What are the risks of side effects from a particular vaccine? (3) How effective is the vaccine in preventing disease?” (see page 24). These are definitely important questions to be asking about vaccinations. The additional question that needs to be considered is: What is the source of my information? As Offit said in an interview on 60 Minutes in October 2004, “I think questioning vaccines is perfectly reasonable. But I think that when one looks at the data, and sees that vax are safe and effective and...still...says, 'Well, I think there's a conspiracy to sell vaccines' or 'I think my doctor's lying to me,' I think that's when you cross some sort of critical line. What I'm asking is that people trust their experts. And that's sort of a hard thing to politically accept." This quote (in which Offit is indirectly referring to himself as an expect on vaccines), however, along with the paragraph above about the bias of the authors, brings me to my list of things to question about the information in this book.

Things to Question
Each chapter begins with a fictional story of a child and the disease for which a vaccine is available. Chapter 2 opens with a story of Ed and Emily, one of whom is vaccinated and the other of whom is not. The story makes claims as to the outcome of the children being infected with measles and their immunity. The story, as is the case with other stories in the book, is written to show the extreme experiences of the disease causing fear in the reader (this is further evidenced on page 111 in the discussion of natural immunity versus vaccinated immunity). In the end, the story claims that the vaccinated child was immune as a result of receiving the vaccine while the unvaccinated child risked death and had to endure the pain of disease in order to develop natural immunity. The question is: If vaccines always lead to immunity why was there an outbreak of mumps in Iowa in which 65% of those who received the disease were fully vaccinated against it?

Speaking further on the issue of immunity, on page 29, the authors outline two examples of the right to refuse vaccines and the effect on the community. In a recount about the spread of measles in the early nineties in Philadelphia, the authors write: “Unfortunately, people in the surrounding community did not have a chance to participate in that decision” (speaking of the decision of parents in two churches who refused vaccination and were infected with measles). Didn’t the members have “a chance to participate in that decision” when they chose whether or not to have their own children vaccinated? If the authors claim immunity from vaccines, then no member of a community should have to worry about an outbreak of a disease if they are vaccinated. But the reason that people do become infected even after being vaccinated is because vaccines are not a guarantee of immunity. This is an inaccurate claim that the authors state many times as fact.

However, in the chapter on MMR the authors admit that 5% of children will not develop immunity from the first dose of the MMR, which is part of the reasoning for giving two doses. But the primary reason that the authors give for receiving two doses of MMR is because “only about 87 to 90 percent of children actually receive the measles vaccine. Therefore, a recommendation for a second dose provides many children with a second chance to receive their first dose of the vaccine (p. 66).” It seems to me that what the authors are stating is that my child really only needs one dose of the MMR vaccine for a 95% chance of immunity but because some kids miss the first dose we might as well give everyone two. That logic doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me and in many ways supports the “conspiracy theory” that vaccines are just another moneymaker for big business and the government.

There are many additional claims made in this book that I question including the authors repeated statements that “the xxx vaccine does not cause serious side effects” when even the CDC and the government is willing to admit that there are potential serious and even deadly side effects from vaccines (see information on the National Vaccine Compensation Program on page 20 or http://www.cdc.gov/nip/publications/vis/), but for the sake of space I will skip to one final question that I have for the authors. In the last chapter of the book titled Vaccines for Adults the authors write: “So whereas about 500 children die every year from diseases that are clearly preventable by vaccines, between 50,000 to 70,000 adults die from these same diseases (p. 208).” Yet we have implemented a vaccination schedule for children that includes at least 24 vaccinations by the age of 2. Is this really because of the threat of disease and its consequences to children or because we can better guarantee the “sale” of vaccines to parents than to adults themselves? The greatest risks of almost all vaccine preventable diseases is in later adolescence and adulthood, so why do we choose to threaten our children’s quality of life with the input of foreign matter and chemicals (see references throughout the book to monkey DNA, cow DNA, chicken DNA, mouse DNA, and formaldehyde) through the administration of vaccines in excess during the most crucial years of their development?

Conclusion
This book is helpful is stirring up questions about vaccination but I am afraid that many people will “trust their experts” as Paul Offit desires and not question the research on both sides of the issue that have led to the discussions covered in this book. It is clear that this book is biased and uses broad, inflammatory, and unsupported statements to scare the readers into believing that vaccines are the best option for their children without adequately or honestly representing the risks involved with that choice.

Why we've declined

My son is 4 months old. At this point in his life he should have received 13 inoculations according to the 2007 immunization schedule released by the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). He hasn’t received any, however, because my husband and I have chosen not to have him vaccinated. The short answer as to why we have made this decision is because we believe that the risks of vaccination outweigh the benefits. We continue to research and formulate our opinion on vaccination but thus far continue to find further evidence to support our decision and have not found reason to reverse it. What follows are some of the reasons that we see vaccination as a greater risk than a benefit.

According to the CDC fact sheet on the DTaP vaccine (which children are to receive 4 times before age 18 months), your child has a 1 in 14,000 chance of experiencing seizures caused by fever as a result of receiving that vaccine; and a 1 in 3,000 chance from the MMR vaccine (which a child is to receive twice before age 6)—that means your child is more likely to experience a convulsion from either of these vaccines than that they would die in a motor vehicle accident or by drowning (see childstats.gov). We do everything we can to prevent our child from dying in this manner (wearing seat belts and life preservers, only playing by the water when supervised, etc.) and yet we are willing to risk our children experiencing convulsions, which could potentially lead to life altering illnesses? According to a study on febrile convulsions published on pubmed.gov: “The results of this study indicate that even a single experimental febrile convulsion during infancy can exert a long-lasting, if not permanent, enhancement in seizure susceptibility.” Recurrent, unprovoked seizures are what define epilepsy, a chronic neurological condition that cannot be cured.

Additional potential side effects of the MMR vaccine include (as taken from the CDC Fact Sheet on the vaccine): fever (up to 1 person out of 6); mild rash (about 1 person out of 20); swelling of glands in the cheeks or neck; temporary pain and stiffness in the joints, mostly in teenage or adult women (up to 1 out of 4); temporary low platelet count, which can cause a bleeding disorder (about 1 out of 30,000 doses); and serious allergic reaction (less than 1 out of a million doses). The Fact Sheet goes on to say: “Several other severe problems have been known to occur after a child gets MMR vaccine but this happens so rarely, experts cannot be sure whether they are caused by the vaccine or not. These include: deafness, long-term seizures, coma, or lowered consciousness, and permanent brain damage.” It is important to note here that though the CDC makes the statement that “experts cannot be sure whether they are caused by the vaccine or not” (referring to the most life-altering side effects listed) there is apparently enough of a correlation that the CDC feels they should include the possibility in the list of side effects. That alone gives me great pause. In addition, many of the mild side effects that occur frequently such as fever or rash, are symptoms that are generally considered cause for visiting a doctor because they indicate illness, not something that should be considered temporarily “normal.” If the body is responding to a vaccination in the same way that it responds to illness, is the presence of the foreign material found in the vaccine really to the body’s benefit?

This question leads me to another primary reason that I question the benefit of vaccination specifically in regards to its role in causing immunity. As Tim O’Shea writes in The Sanctity of Human Blood, “We're programmed to think of immunization and vaccination as synonyms…In actuality, there's a big difference. Immunization means to make someone immune to something. Vaccination, by contrast, just means to inject something into the bloodstream…True natural immunity happens only after one recovers from the disease itself. With the actual disease, the microorganism had to pass through many of the body's natural immune defense systems in the nose, throat, lungs, and digestive tract before it ever gets as far as the bloodstream.” By bypassing the body’s natural immune response we are risking creating strains of disease resistant to the body’s natural defenses and compromising a healthy system with the injection of foreign material including but not limited to: disease strains from animals and other toxins such as formaldehyde, aluminum, and mercury. As Tim O’ Shea goes on to write, “The thinking behind vaccination is that if the person gets a "minor" case of the disease under the "controlled" conditions of vaccination, he will produce his own antibodies to the disease agent, and this will confer immunity, since his immune system will remember what the "bad bug" looks like. The next time the bug shows up, immune defense cells will be ready to kill it. Unfortunately there is no general agreement that this is what vaccination really does.”

I also have concerns to the validity of vaccines serving to protect the population. According to a publication in Pharmaceutical News in May 2005: “The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, estimates there were almost 20,000 pertussis (whooping cough) cases in 2004 - the highest number of reported cases in more than 40 years.” And yet the pertussis vaccine has been around since the mid-1940’s and the DTaP vaccine specifically has been used readily since 1991. Other evidence also comes directly from the CDC in an article related to the mumps outbreak in Iowa in 2006. According to the article, of the individuals whose vaccine records could be assessed, 65% had been fully vaccination against mumps, while only 6% had not been vaccinated at all. How can one claim that vaccines are eliminating these diseases or at minimum, immunizing against them, with statistics like these direct from the primary proponent of vaccination?

Finally, I question whether it is the responsibility of my child to protect the population from diseases that result from lifestyle choices such as Hepatitis B and HPV? According to the CDC fact sheet on the Hep B vaccine, Hepatitis B is spread by “having unprotected sex with an infected person, sharing needles when injecting illegal drugs, being stuck with a used needle on the job, or during birth when the virus passes from an infected mother to her baby” and yet we administer this vaccine to children 3 times before the age of 6 months. I don’t know about you, but my four month old is not having unprotected sex or using illegal drugs. And the newly released HPV vaccine is another example. According to the CDC website: “Abstaining from sexual activity (i.e., refraining from any genital contact with another individual) is the surest way to prevent genital HPV infection. For those who choose to be sexually active, a monogamous relationship with an uninfected partner is the strategy most likely to prevent future genital HPV infections.” Perhaps instead of spending tax money passing laws that require all women to have the HPV vaccine we should spend our money educating people about the risks of risky behavior? We cannot eliminate immoral behavior or the consequences of that behavior by vaccinating an entire population.

As I mentioned earlier, these thoughts are gathered from the research that we have begun in earnest regarding vaccination. We intend to continue seeking information for and against vaccination and will continue to formulate our opinion as we grow more educated.


References:

Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2006). MMWR Weekly: Mumps Epidemic --- Iowa, 2006. Retrieved 22 April 2007 from http://www.cdc.gov/MMWR/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5513a3.htm.

Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Immunization Program (2001). Diphtheria, Tetanus, & Pertussis Vaccines: What You Need To Know [Electronic version]. Retrieved16 February 2007 from http://www.cdc.gov/nip/publications/VIS/vis-dtp.pdf.

Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Immunization Program (2001). Hepatitis B Vaccine: What You Need To Know [Electronic version]. Retrieved 16 February 2007 from http://www.cdc.gov/nip/publications/VIS/vis-hep-b.pdf.

Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Immunization Program (2007). Human Papillomavirus [Electronic version]. Retrieved 24 April 2007 from http://www.cdc.gov/nip/publications/pink/hpv.pdf.

Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Immunization Program (2003). Measles, Mumps & Rubella Vaccines: What You Need To Know [Electronic version]. Retrieved 22 April 2007 from http://www.cdc.gov/nip/publications/VIS/vis-mmr.pdf.

Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Immunization Program (2007). Recommended Immunization Schedule for Ages 0-6 Years, United States, 2007 [Electronic version]. Retrieved 22 April 2007 from http://www.cispimmunize.org/IZSchedule_Childhood.pdf.

Forum on Child and Family Statistics (2006). America's Children in Brief: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2006 - Child Mortality. Retrieved 16 February 2007 from http://childstats.gov/americaschildren/hea8.asp.

McCaughran JA Jr, Schechter N. (1982). Experimental febrile convulsions: long-term effects of hyperthermia-induced convulsions in the developing rat. Retireved 16 February 1007 from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/

O’Shea, Tim. (2001). The Sanctity of Human Blood excerpted from the third edition of The Sanctity of Human Blood: Vaccination Is Not Immunization by Tim O'Shea. Retrieved 22 April 2007 from http://www.mercola.com/2001/may/30/vaccine_safety.htm

Pharmaceutical News. (2005). Vaccine for whooping cough in teens. Retrieved 16 February 2007 from http://www.news-medical.net/?id=8476.