…but public health “experts” say no changes are needed to the childhood vaccine schedule. Huh?
A recently published, CDC-funded study was conducted in response to a call by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in 2013 for more research into the safety of vaccines, including their use of aluminum as an adjuvant. The results show that children vaccinated with most or all of the recommended aluminum-containing vaccines had a 36 percent higher risk of being diagnosed with persistent asthma than kids who got fewer vaccines. Yet proponents of vaccines were quick to dismiss the results, lest anything disrupt the status quo and threaten the profits of vaccine-makers. It shows that reasonable debate about the safety and benefits of vaccines is next to impossible in this country—which is why we must continue to fight for the right to make our own decisions about these treatments.
The study authors looked at health data from 326,991 children born between the start of 2008 and the end of 2014, who received care at seven sites across the U.S. The authors found “a positive association between cumulative vaccine-associated aluminum before age 24 months and persistent asthma at age 24 through 59 months among children with and without eczema.”
The reaction of Dr. Paul Offit, a longtime proponent of vaccines, says volumes about the state of debate on vaccines in this country. Dr. Offit told the Associated Press that the study’s results have “added nothing to our understanding of vaccines and asthma.” This is the same man who famously said that babies could tolerate “10,000 vaccines at once.”
Out of the 15 diseases children are inoculated against following the CDC’s schedule, seven of the vaccines contain aluminum, including the pneumococcal, diptheria-tetanus-acellular pertussis (DTaP), Hib, Tdap, meningococcal, and the Hepatitis A and B vaccines.
A common refrain from those who tell us not to worry about these aluminum exposures is: aluminum is an abundant metal found in many foods, but this does not account for different absorption rates from aluminum ingestion versus direct injection.
There are many issues with the use of aluminum in vaccines that we’ve raised for years. The FDA has set a limit on the amount of aluminum that can be in vaccines, but this number was based on the amount of aluminum required to enhance the effectiveness of the vaccine. The agency has not empirically determined the safest amount of intramuscularly injected aluminum, relying instead on mere belief that current levels are safe.
The EPA determined a minimum risk level for orally ingested aluminum based on rat studies, which is often what is used to justify aluminum adjuvants in vaccines. The problem is that ingesting aluminum orally, where only about 0.25% is absorbed and then filtered by the kidneys, is very different than injecting it directly into muscle, where it may be absorbed at nearly 100% efficiency over time and can accumulate in organs, including the brain.
There is also research to suggest aluminum in vaccines can cause harm. Animal studies have demonstrated a link between repeated inoculation with aluminum-containing vaccines and severe neurobehavioral outcomes (restlessness, muscle tremors, loss of response to stimuli), the presence of aluminum in central nervous system tissue, and altered expression of certain genes in the brain. Another recent study found that autistic children have up to ten times more aluminum in their brains than what is considered safe in adults.
This complete lack of evidence proving the safety of aluminum adjuvants in vaccines, combined with evidence demonstrating the potential of real harm, is unacceptable and should concern any parent who trusts health authorities with the safety of their children.
Unfortunately, there seems to be a disconnect between health authorities who see it as their duty to vaccinate every child under the sun and the state of the science. We need to be able to ask difficult questions about the safety of vaccines and not be dismissed and labeled as “anti-vaxxers.” Sadly, healthy, science-driven discussions about vaccine safety seem nearly impossible to have, which is why we must fight to defend our right to choose whether or not to vaccinate our children.
