The Baby Dust Diaries

In my previous posts on vaccinations I covered my concerns with Hep B, polio and to a smaller extent MMR.  In general I believe the following illnesses to be normal parts of childhood that actually improve immune health when acquired naturally and that vaccination is pushing the diseases to older populations (see discussion on chicken pox).

• Measles
• Mumps
• Rubella
• Pertussis (whooping cough)
• Varicella (Chicken pox)
• Influenza

I probably won’t talk about these much more because they are in the “duh” category for me.  It is just silly to choose reactive poisons and chemicals in vaccines over non-life threatening illnesses.  If you aren’t convinced about the harm of these vaccines read more information about why fighting off infection normally makes kids healthier.

So, that leaves us these “recommended” childhood vaccinations (see the nice printable list of recommended poisons and toxins here):

• Hep B
• Diptheria
• Tetanus
• HiB
• Pneumococcal
• Polio
• Hep A
• Menigococcal

These are the disease/vaccines I want to cover because they are “scary” as opposed to the benign disease listed in the first section.

Let’s start with DTaP:

DTaP is a combination vaccine that includes diptheria, tetanus, and whooping cough (pertussis, the “a” is for acellular – for some truly frightening reading look up DTP and the injuries it produced before the acellular vaccine was recommended).  Let’s take them one by one.

Pertussis

As mentioned, this is a normal childhood disease so I’m not going to spend much time on it except to say two things:  (1) the chance of death from whooping cough with medical treatment is .2%, and (2) vaccination is shown to increase, by more than double, the rate of childhood asthma.

Tetanus

Tetanus is a bacterium whose spores are found in soil.  Thus it is everywhere and you cannot ‘catch’ it from someone.  In anaerobic (no oxygen) environments it creates a toxoid that is poisonous and can cause nerve damage.  Tetanus is a big problem in 3rd world countries without good sanitation and access to medical facilities.  In the US good wound management makes it very rare.  Since tetanus is anaerobic it grows in deep and dirty wounds – often puncture or crush wounds (hence the “rusty nail” fear).  In the US if a child has a puncture of crush wound, hopefully they are going to the emergency room.  In any ER a person can be given a Tetanus Immunoglogulin (TIG) dose of antibodies to stop the spread of infection.  Since tetanus takes 3-21 days to evolve it can be almost completely avoided by immediate medical care.  

Does it sound like I’m playing with fire?  How about this.  From 1980 until today the average number of tetanus cases in the US per year was 40.  Yeah, just 40 – I’m not missing any zeros there.  And most of those were in persons over 40 (and frequently over 60 since nursing homes are a major hotbed for tetanus due to dirty conditions and bedsores) and IV drug users.  Also, cases of tetanus in children under 5 years of age totaled 2 since 1989.  Yeah, 2 in almost 20 years.  All of this information is directly from the horses (CDC’s) mouth.

Diptheria

Diptheria is also a toxin producing bacterium.  This is all numbers:  In the 1920s 100 people per 100,000 got diptheria in the US, of these 5-10% were fatal cases.  Since 1980 there are .001 cases per 100,000 and no reported deaths.  It is endemic in developing countries (hygiene, clean water, etc. could this be why?) despite vaccination efforts.  A diptheria anti-toxin is available from the CDC.

Side Effects of DTaP

DTaP has the usual list of yucky side effects as I’ve posted before.  You can search for one of the name brands to read the package insert.  One of the startling things to me is that DTaP is often THE cause of SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome):

“more than two-thirds [of studied SIDS deaths] had been vaccinated with DPT prior to death. Of these, 6.5 percent died within 12 hours of vaccination; 13 percent within 24 hours; 26 percent within three days; and 37, 61, and 70 percent within one, two, and three weeks, respectively.”

Diptheria-pertussis-tetanus (DPT) immunization: A potential cause of the sudden infant death. WC Torch - Neurology, 1982

Of course, these studies only prove “temporal” and not “causal” relationships.  You already know how I feel about that.

My past vaccine posts have been long (sorry) and time consuming for me because I try to have references and data.  For this one, I want to just appeal to your basic logic.  That doesn’t mean that there aren’t numbers and research behind this one too…look it up!

Hepatitis B is the first vaccination the CDC wants you to give your baby…at 12 hours old.  Yes, I said hours.  Wow, this must be an important one!  A terrible disease in infants killing by the tens of thousands!

Nope.  Actually Hep B is a blood borne illness passed primarily through high-risk sexual behaviors and sharing dirty needles.  The largest risk to infants is catching it from mom.  Mom’s that are Hep B+ (and they would know since STD testing during pregnancy is routine) then maybe you need this vaccine.  Otherwise you only need this vaccine if:

1. You are an aspiring crack whore*
2. You love the smack
3. You plan on pimping out your new infant (hey, the economy sucks, right?)
4. You firmly believe in hiring drug addicts as babysitters
5. You believe that babies learn reflexes best when dodging dirty hypodermic needles

*note:  being a crack whore has the added benefit of insuring you will never be infertile!

“But why not?” you say.  What’s the harm?  According to the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System, the following have been reported for the Hepatitis B vaccine only:

“If you get polio you will be paralyzed.”

Someone said this to me tonight.  This isn’t an ignorant person and they weren’t trying to convince me that this statement is true.  As with most people we have been convinced of 2 things:  (1) that polio was miraculously cured by a vaccine, and (2) before the vaccine, polio was a horrible epidemic of nature that nearly always meant paralyzation.  This (along with smallpox) is often touted as the star attraction in the Hall of Fame of Why Vaccines Are Your Friends.  So, is it true?  If we stop vaccinating against polio will children once again be in iron lungs and leg braces?

Let’s look at both premises on which we base our fear of Polio.

(1) Polio was miraculously cured by a vaccine.

The chart on the left shows the CDC’s information on the Polio Disease and Vaccination from the CDC Pink Book on Vaccine Preventable Diseases.  As you can see from this chart the vaccine has saved us! Look at all those cases!  Look how modern medicine erradicated this terrible epidemic from the American Landscape!  

Excuse me while I barf.

(You will really be sick if you click on the link above and read that 95% of polio cases since 1980 were categorized as VAPP – Vaccine Associated Paralytic Polio.  This was with the Oral Polio Vaccine that my mother’s generation were given in school.  Now we use Inactivated Polio Vaccine which is an injection.  But remember, vaccines are safe.  But I digress.)

Is the CDC giving us the whole picture?  Let’s look at where polio was before 1950 since we can assume it didn’t appear out of thin air on January 1, 1950.

The above graph lets us look back to 1912.  As you can see, the disease had two peaks one in 1916 and another between 1945 and 1955.  This graph certainly shows that the disease rate went down after the vaccine but what had made it go up so much in the years prior to the vaccine?  Hmmm…doesn’t that coincide in some way with WWI and WWII?  What else was going on that would bring on disease?

A doctor named Biskind heretically postulated a different cause.  The following chart show’s polio cases with timing of organochlorine pesticide use (DDT, PCB, etc.) – click on the chart to enlarge.

Strangely enough, Biskind pointed out that what this study confirms  (Physiological Investigations Into The Action Of DDT, G.W. Van Der Wiel & Co., Arnhem 1949):  that DDT poisoning often causes polio-like physiology.   Coincidence?  What happened in 1983 when DDT was once again allowed in US use?  - click on the chart to enlarge.

Major increase in polio cases in what is called the “post-polio” era since this epidemic in the 80s occurred in previous polio patients who should have been “immune” but were re-infected due to environmental exposure.  So, did the polio vaccine result in the dramatic recovery from the 1945 polio epidemic?  Or, was that the phase out of harmful pesticides like DDT?

(2) Polio was a horrible epidemic of nature

This brings us to point #2.  One doctor, Dr. Morton Biskind postulated in the 50s that the increase in “polio-like” illnesses were due to DDT poisoning and not the polio virus (virus X).  A virus of course can not be caused by an environmental substance (contrary to what your mother told you – you can NOT get a cold (virus) from not wearing a hat!).  If all the polio cases were caused by the polio virus then DDT couldn’t be causing it.  However, people were rarely tested for the polio virus because only virus-polio would be covered financially so cases were diagnosed by symptoms (clinical diagnosis) and not lab diagnosis.  It is probable that President Roosevelt did not have polio but an immune disorder called Guillain-Barre (a notorious vaccine side effect).   Historically, the polio virus was very benign dating back to ancient Egypt.  The 20th century brought the first ever epidemics of the disease.   

But, the mortality rate of polio is atrocious, right?  According to the CDC Pink Book more than 95% of all polio cases are asymptotic - you wouldn’t even know you have it.  4-8% have general flu-like symptoms that last one week with complete recovery.  1-2% experience neck and back stiffness and recover completely in 7-10 days.  Less than 1% experience asymmetrical paralysis lasting days to weeks with full recovery.  Of this 1% most make a full recovery, some will remain paralyzed and 2-5% will die.  That’s 2-5% of the 1% that have paralytic polio and do not recover fully.  This means that 99.5% of all people with viral polio will make a full recovery, with 95% being asymptotic.  Hardly “polio paralyzes you.”  And remember these numbers are based on historical morbidity and mortality which includes the high incidence epidemics of the 20th century that may not have been viral polio at all but similar symptoms caused by pesticide poisoning.

The graphs used so far are pulled from a very detailed explanation on this site.  If you want more information please check it out.  I haven’t even touched on the effects of contamination involving a monkey virus called SV40 that infected polio vaccines.  Read about it here.

The CDC recommends the first polio vaccine for this horrible, deadly disease for infants of only 8 weeks old. It contains 3 types of ‘inactivated’ polio viruses, neomycin, streptomycin, and polymyxin B, formaldehyde, and 2-phenoxyethanol, and a continuous line of monkey kidney cells.  Side effects, as reported by the manufacturer include:

 Erythema,induration and pain occurred in 3.2%, 1% and 13%, respectively, of vaccinees within 48 hours post-vaccination. Temperatures of ≥ 39°C (≥ 102°F) were reported in 38% of vaccinees. Other symptoms included irritability, sleepiness, fussiness, and crying …  Although no causal relationship has been established, deaths have occurred in temporal association after vaccination of infants with IPV.³⁷