Understanding The Vaccine Controversy
by Roger R. Gervais, B.Sc., D.C., N.D.

Dr. Harold Buttram, M.D. writes in the Townsend Letter for Doctors about vaccines. He states that there is a serious trend of deteriorating health among North American children. Allergic disorders, such as asthma, are rapidly increasing both in frequency and severity. There is a pattern of sickliness among today's children that was unknown several generations ago. A majority of children are on antibiotics frequently or in some instances continually. With each passing year there appears to be a pattern of increasing crippling of the immune systems of our children. Surveys among teachers tend to confirm this ominous trend of ill-health.

If this adverse trend is in fact taking place, what are the causes? As yet no one knows why this is happening, but there is sufficient scientific evidence now available to suspect that current childhood vaccinations may be one of the underlying causes. In a survey conducted by Dr. Michel Odent, it was found that children receiving the Pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine, were six times more likely to develop asthma than children not receiving this vaccine.

One consequence of childhood vaccinations may be that of the chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), now estimated to afflict some five million young adults, predominantly women. In CFS patients, the reservoir of uncommitted immune cells, essential for new infectious challenges, has been found to be decreased.

These changes are precisely those which could be predicted from multiple vaccines on the highly immature systems of infants and children. This is as yet mere theory, but one would expect that even remote dangers of this nature would be thoroughly researched before promotion of vaccination programs. Such testing would be relatively simple by means of blood tests for immune levels before and at varying intervals following vaccinations. Have such studies been done? As far as I am aware they have not been done, nor are they being considered.

Live virus vaccines require incubation in animal tissues. The oral polio vaccine is incubated in monkey kidney tissue, and the MMR vaccine (measles, mumps, rubella) in chick embryo. Incubation of live viruses in animal tissue brings two formidable risks. The first is the danger of foreign viral contamination.

In 1985 a simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) very similar to the HIV virus was discovered in African monkeys. This, together with the fact that the earliest known cases of AIDS were near in time and location to polio vaccine campaigns in Africa, raises the question as to whether some mutation of SIV, for which the oral polio vaccine was the vehicle, could have been the original source of the AIDS epidemic. Articles have appeared reviewing this matter and appealing for further research into this vital question.

Such research is more than academic. New SIVs continue to be discovered, raising the possibility that there is a continued danger of viral contaminants finding their way into present oral polio vaccines. The second danger is that viruses are notoriously prone to the process of jumping genes, whereby the viruses may incorporate genetic material from the animal tissues in which they are incubated and subsequently introduce this animal genetic material into the child receiving the vaccine. In theory, this could set the stage for later immune disorders including autoimmune diseases.

Finally, there is understandable concern among public health officials and parents alike as to what would happen without the vaccines. In the case of at least one (the Pertussis vaccine), the vaccine, which is known or suspected of causing infantile encephalitis and sudden infant death syndrome, would appear to be worse than the disease. It has also been implicated in bacterial infections including meningitis.

Many years ago, Sweden banned the Pertussis vaccine because of these dangers. For similar reasons, Japan delays the vaccine until after two years of age, whereas in North America, it is usually administered at two months of age. Both Sweden and Japan are credited with having the lowest infant mortality rates in the world. This fact would tend to discredit claims that the Pertussis vaccine is necessary to prevent an escalation of infant mortality in North America.

Vaccination does not constitute immunity. Children vaccinated with MMR can still get measles and mumps. In October/November 1990, clinical mumps developed in 54 students; 53 out of those 54 were fully vaccinated! The Chicago Department of Health noted that of 186 Pertussis cases in Chicago in the fall of 1993, “74 percent were as up to date as possible on their immunizations.” A large number of children are found to be sero-negative (which means they show no evidence of immunity in blood tests) four to five years after receiving the rubella vaccination. In another study, 80 percent of army recruits who had been immunized against rubella came down with the disease.

Some vaccines contain preservatives that are carcinogenic toxins (formaldehyde and thimerosol) and are being injected into two/four/six month old infants whose immune systems are not fully developed. Each vaccine has its preservative, neutralizer and carrying agent, none of which are indigenous to the body. [Editor's note: Since this article was first published in 1996, formaldehyde and thimerosol have been reduced or phased out of most vaccines.]

The triple antigen, DPT, which is the Diphtheria, Pertussis, Tetanus vaccine, contains the following poisons: formaldehyde, mercury, and aluminum phosphate, and that's from the 1980 Physicians Desk Reference. The packet insert accompanying the vaccine lists the following poisons: aluminum potassium sulfate, a mercury derivative called Thimersol and sodium phosphate. The packet insert for the polio vaccine lists monkey kidney cell culture, lactalbumin hydrozylate, antibiotics and calf serum. The packet insert for the MMR vaccine produced by Merck Sharp and Dhome for measles, mumps and rubella lists chick embryo and neomycin, which is a mixture of antibiotics. Chick embryo, monkey kidney cells and calf serum are all foreign proteins that are biological substances composed of animal cells which, because they enter directly into the bloodstream, can become part of our genetic material.

These foreign proteins, as well as other carriers and reaction products of a vaccine, are potential allergens and can produce anaphylactic shock. (Signs and symptoms: in one to 15 minutes, the patient feels uneasy, becomes agitated and flushed, and complains of palpitations, paresthesias, pruritus, throbbing in the ears, coughing, sneezing, urticaria-angioedema, and difficulty breathing. The manifestations of shock may develop within another one or two minutes, and the patient may become incontinent, convulse, become unresponsive, and die – Merck Manual 16th edition).

The packet insert for the DTP vaccine (Diphtheria, Tetanus and Pertussis), lists under its side effects and adverse reactions:

1. Severe temperature elevations, 105 degrees or higher

2. Collapse with rapid recovery

3. Collapse followed by prolonged prostration in shock-like state.

4. Screaming episodes.

5. Isolated convulsions with or without fever.

6. Frank encephalopathy, (brain damage) with changes in the level of consciousness, focal neurological signs, convulsions with or without permanent neurological and/or mental deficit.

One in every 100 children react with convulsions or collapse or high-pitched screaming to the DTP vaccine. One out of every three of these – that is one out of every 300 – will remain permanently damaged. Now, according to the testimony of the Assistant Secretary of Health, Edward Grant, Jr., before the U.S. Senate Committee on May 3, 1985, every year 35,000 children suffer neurological damage because of the DTP vaccine.

Evidence suggests that immunizations damage the immune system itself. By focusing exclusively on increased antibody production, which is only one aspect of the immune process, immunizations isolate dysfunction and allow it to substitute for the entire immune response, because vaccines trick the body so that it will no longer initiate a generalized response. They accomplish what the entire immune system seems to have been evolved to prevent. That is, they place the virus directly into the blood and give it access to the major immune organs and tissues without any obvious way of getting rid of it.

The World Health Statistics Annual 1973-1976, Volume II states “There has been a steady decline of infectious diseases in most developing countries regardless of the percentage of immunizations administered in these countries.” The polio vaccine statistics were manipulated to give the impression of Salk vaccine success as follows:

Redefinition of an epidemic: More cases were required to refer to polio as an epidemic after the introduction of the Salk vaccine. In other words, you needed 20 cases per hundred thousand to have an epidemic before the vaccine was introduced, and after the vaccine, they changed that number to 35 cases per hundred thousand per year to require the definition of epidemic.

Redefinition of the disease: In order to qualify for classification as paralytic polio myelitis, the patient had to exhibit paralytic symptoms for at least 60 days after the onset of the disease. That was after they started the vaccination program. Before the vaccination program started in 1954, the patient had to exhibit paralytic symptoms for only 24 hours. This means that if you walked into a doctors' office before the vaccine was introduced, and you said, “Oh, I have paralytic symptoms here. I've had them for about two weeks,” that would have been classified as polio. After the vaccine, if you walked into that same doctors' office and said, “Oh, I've had these symptoms for two or three weeks now,” they would have waited for two months before calling it polio.

The Los Angeles County Health Index Morbidity and Mortality Reportable Disease Data show charts of cases of viral or aseptic meningitis and polio from 1955 to 1966. In that period of time, polio dropped from 273 cases to five. The number of cases of aseptic meningitis from 1955 to 1966 increased in almost the same proportion from 50 cases to 256 cases. They simply changed the name, same disease, and you thought polio was wiped out at that point. The disease was simply reclassified.

Diseases come in and reach a peak and then subside. In Europe between 1940 and 1950 polio disappeared without any vaccination program. During the 1962 Congressional hearings on HR10541, Dr. Bernard Greenberg, head of the Department of Biostatistics at the University of North Carolina, School of Public Health, testified that not only did polio increase substantially after the introduction of mass and frequently compulsory immunization programs, but statistics were manipulated and statements made by the Public Health Service to give the opposite impression. At the same hearings, it was said that Massachusetts had a type-two polio outbreak and there were more paralytic cases in people who were triple vaccinated than in people who were unvaccinated. In the past 10 years in Texas, there were 11,351 cases of measles and 26 deaths. Also during the past 10 years in Texas, there were 1,768 cases of Pertussis and 10 deaths.

In direct contrast, there were nearly 54,000 vaccine adverse events reported to the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) in a 20 month period that included more than 700 deaths. FDA Commissioner David Kessler has stated only one in 10 adverse events following vaccine administration are reported. Jonas Salk, the inventor of the IPV, injected polio vaccine, testified before a Senate sub-committee that nearly all polio outbreaks since 1961 were caused by the oral polio vaccine.

The body has its own methods of defense. These defense mechanisms depend upon the vitality of the body at that time. If it is vital enough, the body will resist all infections. If it isn't vital enough, no one, including your doctor, can improve its vitality by injecting it with poisons of any kind.

Informed consent means the parent/guardian is given time to read, understand and research the information about the risks and dangers of immunizations. It does not mean getting that information at the same time that the vaccine is administered. Whatever you do, please learn more about vaccines before you vaccinate your child. At least get to a medical library and do your own research. Because, when it happens to your child, the risks are 100 percent that you and your child, not your doctor or health department, will live with the consequences.

Learn More

• Vaccines: Are They Really Safe and Effective? A Parents Guide to Childhood Shots, Neil Z. Miller, New Atlantean Press, P.O. Box 9638-925, Santa Fe, NM 87504, 1992
• Vaccination; 100 Years of Orthodox Research Shows that Vaccines Represent a Medical Assault of the Immune System, Viera Scheibner, Ph.D., 1993 (available from New Atlantean Press – see above)
• Michel R. Odent, M.D. et al, Pertussis vaccination and asthma: is there a link? (Letters), JAMA, Vol. 272, No. 8, August 24/31, 1994, Pages 592-3.
• Consumer organization calls for independent testing of polio vaccine for link to AIDS, National Vaccine Information Center news release, 512 West Maple Ave., Suite 206, Vienna, VA 22180, June 15, 1994
• Human Genetics, Singer, S., Freeman and Company, New York, page 103.
• Blanck, G. et al, Multiple insertions and tandem repeats of Origin Mins Simiam virus 40 DNA in transformed rat mouse cells, Journal of Virology, May 1988, 1520-1523.
• Kumar, S. And Miller, L.K., Effects of serial passage of Autographa Californica nuclear polyhedrosis virus in cell culture, Virus Research, Vol. 7, 1987, 335-349.
• Kimura, M. And Sakai, K., Acellular Pertussis vaccines and fatal infections, The Lancet, April 16, 1988, 881-882.
• Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, July 1995; 149(7): 774-778.
• The Immunization Resource Guide: Where to Find Answers to All Your Questions About Childhood Immunizations by Diane Rozario (1995, Patter Publications)

Roger R. Gervais, D.C., N.D. is a homeschooling parent and naturopathic physician living in British Columbia, Canada. This article was published in 1996.

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