41% of healthcare workers refused to vaccinate against the swine flu during the 2009 pandemic. They believed that the vaccine was ineffective, and there were side effects, and in general, this disease usually passes easily.
57% of healthcare workers refused to get vaccinated against the "regular" flu. (London, Great Britain)
In Japan, the incidence rate of intracranial hemorrhage was 1 in 4,000 babies before using vitamin K. In Germany and the United Kingdom, where vitamin K has been used, the likelihood of hemorrhage was 1 in 30,000. The blood coagulability status in infants was significantly higher when vitamin K2 was given to nursing mothers (15 mg/day from the 14th day after giving birth for two weeks).
Among those children who received an intramuscular injection of vitamin K, the risk of cancer was 2 times higher. A similar result was obtained in another study by the same authors.
This essentially means that prevention of 30-60 cases of hemorrhagic disease will lead to 980 additional cases of cancer.
The fact that human evolution allowed the development of vitamin K deficiency in normal breastfed babies, which leads to a small risk of hemorrhagic disease, have always been perceived as physiologically flawed. The most likely explanation for this phenomenon is that there is some evolutionary advantage that outweighs this risk.
It is possible that relative vitamin K deficiency in the critical phase of rapid growth may protect vulnerable tissues from mutagenesis.
The fatality rate of meningococcal infection in Scotland decreased from 10.3% in 1946-61 to 1.2% in 1971-86. The incidence decreased from 7.9 to 5.3 per 100,000 children.
The incidence of Haemophilus influenzae infection during this time increased by 4, while the fatality rate decreased from 19.2% to 3%.
Intimate kisses with multiple partners are associated with a 3.7 fold increase in the risk of meningococcal infection among teenagers. Preterm delivery is also associated with a 3.7 fold increase in the risk of infection. Previous disease increased the risk by 2.9 times.
Religious ceremonies are associated with an 11 times decrease, and vaccination is associated with an 8 times decrease, in the risk of infection.
Marijuana is associated with a 4.2 times increase in the risk of meningococcal infection, and attending nightclubs by 3.3 times. Attending picnics and dances decreased the risk by 3-4 times.
A meningococcal conjugate vaccine (serogroup C) was added to the national immunization schedule for infants at the age of 2, 3 and 4 months, in England in 1999. Vaccine effectiveness was 93% during the first year after vaccination, but became negative (-81%) after a year. Immunity after vaccination at an older age lasts longer.
Vaccination of teenagers with a conjugate vaccine (against serogroups ACWY) has recently started in England. The authors tested for meningococcal colonization before and after vaccination at a university, and it turned out that despite the 71% vaccination coverage, the colonization increased from 14% to 46%, and serogroup W colonization increased 11-fold, from 0.7% to 8%.
It is estimated that no more than 10% of serious side effects are reported in the UK, and 2% -4% of the non-serious side effects of medications.
The FDA receives less than 1% of suspected serious side effects. effects occur at the end of the second year of the drug on the market, after which the number of messages decreases, although the number of side effects does not change.
MVA85A is a new subunit vaccine designed as a parenteral booster to be given after BCG. In July 2009, researchers began a clinical trial of this vaccine in 2,800 infants in South Africa. The trial results published in 2013 showed no evidence of added protection.
Before the 2009 efficacy trial in South African babies, it had been tested in mice, guinea pigs, cattle, and monkeys and had also undergone early phase safety and immunogenicity trials in humans. However, in 2015 an independent systematic review of eight studies using 192 animals published between 2003 and 2010 concluded that the data did not provide evidence to support efficacy of MVA85A as a BCG booster. Two studies showed significant protection, but in these MVA85A was given differently from the way it was given in humans. One was in guinea pigs and MVA85A was further boosted with a recombinant fowlpox virus. The other was a mouse experiment when both BCG and MVA85A were given intranasally rather than intradermally.
In a UK study in rhesus macaque monkeys, four of the six macaques given BCG alone survived to the end of the experiment. Worryingly, however, only one of the six macaques that received BCG plus MVA85A survived. This study raised the possibility that MVA85A was unsafe and actually impairing the effectiveness of BCG. All this was known to researchers for a year and a half before the start of tests on infants. Nevertheless, the researchers had suppressed this information when they presented the results at the TB conference in Vancouver in 2007, in funding applications and in applications for conducting human trials. They also failed to communicate it to the parents whose babies participated in the vaccine testing.
Peter Beverley, at that time a principal research fellow at Oxford University, was warried about the absence of the data and repeatedly expressed his concerns about the macaque study. In response, the Oxford University shut down Beverley's laboratory. It also refused to provide the trial protocols to the BMJ.
(Mind you, all this happened in Oxford – the most prestigious university in the world. One can only guess what are the practices in other universities and in the pharmaceutical companies' labs).
Hepatitis A and typhoid vaccines for those who travel to endemic countries are not economically feasible, but the malaria pills are. Only 1 in 2,000 people gets infected with hepatitis A during travel, and in 90% of the cases the disease is mild. It is estimated that hepatitis A vaccination in England prevented 0.29 deaths in one year.
In 2016-17, major European cities were overwhelmed with hepatitis A outbreaks. The vast majority of cases were homosexuals. 37 cases were registered in England.
Mothers who don't vaccinate are older and more educated than mothers who do. (United Kingdom)
The higher the level of education, age and income, the more likelihood of parents refusing the MMR, and choosing a monovalent measles vaccine. (United Kingdom)
After the infection, varicella virus remains in the neurons of the spinal ganglia in an inactive form, and a few decades later, due to the weakening of cellular immunity, it can re-activate and cause herpes zoster.
Hope Simpson in 1965 was the first one to suggest that being in contact with chickenpox patients reduces the risk of shingles. This phenomenon is called exogenous boosting. Incidentally, this is the same Hope-Simpson that first suggested that the epidemiology of influenza depends more on the sun, than on the virus.
One of the dangers of vaccination, which is usually disregarded, is that if being in contact with varicella patients actually reduces the risk of re-activation of the virus, then the mass vaccination will cause an increase in the incidence of shingles.
A study conducted in England in 1991 revealed that the incidence of herpes zoster is 25% lower among adults living with children. This figure is most likely underestimated, since many participants of the study that did not live with children at the moment, did so until recently. Exposure to varicella is estimated to provide protection from the shingles for an average of 20 years.
Based on this data, the authors built a mathematical model, and concluded that mass vaccination will cause a shingles epidemic, which will last 30-50 years. 50% of people aged 10 to 44 years will get shingles, and only 46 years later the incidence of shingles will decrease to the level of pre-vaccine era.
Contact with varicella patients is associated with a decrease in risk of herpes zoster by 71%. This figure is probably underestimated, since varicella is contagious before the onset of the rash.
Contact with shingles patients does not decrease the risk of shingles, because shingles is less contagious than chickenpox.
Pediatricians suffer from herpes zoster much less frequently than dermatologists and psychiatrists.
UK does vaccinate against varicella for the following reasons:
1) Chickenpox is more dangerous in adulthood than in childhood. Mortality, as well as the risk of pneumonia and encephalitis due to varicella increases with age.
2) Vaccination will lead to an increase in neonatal and congenital varicella (since mothers would not get exposure in childhood).
3) Vaccination can lead to an increase in the incidence of shingles. It is known that an increase in chickenpox incidence among children under 5 years is associated with a decrease of shingles incidence among 15-44 years age group.
Therefore, UK is being cautious, and waits to see what happens in the countries that do vaccinate.
Most other European countries also do not vaccinate against varicella.
I recently graduated from a medical school and in the 6 years of studying, despite repeated encounters with varicella, I have never heard that anti-inflammatory drugs complicate the course of chickenpox. So I did not take the Daily Mail article, warning against the use of ibuprofen during chickenpox, seriously.
However, I learned that the Ministry of Health and other medical associations really do recommend avoiding ibuprofen during varicella.
It is strange that no one warned me about it during the whole period of my studies. Of course, the information is available, if you go looking for it, but since ibuprofen is such a common medicine, it would be beneficial to have this information covered more widely.
Children, who received Hib vaccine in infancy, had significantly less antibodies than children vaccinated at the age over 1 year.
Hib vaccination was introduced in England in 1992, after which the incidence decreased sharply, but has been increasing again since 1999.
443 Hib cases were registered between 1993 and 2001. 82% of them were fully vaccinated. Vaccine effectiveness was 57%.
Effectiveness was lower for children vaccinated in infancy, as compared to those vaccinated at over 1 year of age.
Vaccine effectiveness decreased 2 years after vaccination.
Effectiveness was lower for children born after 2000, as compared to those born earlier.
Effectiveness was lower for children vaccinated with DTap-Hib combination vaccine, as compared to those vaccinated with other vaccines.
After the introduction of vaccination, Hib incidence among adults in England decreased, but the overall incidence of H. influenzae disease increased due to a sharp increase in the incidence of noncapsulated strains, especially among the elderly. Mortality rate was 59%.
Hib incidence among adults in England decreased after the introduction of the vaccine (probably due to herd immunity), reached its low in 1998, but increased back to its pre-vaccine levels by 2003. The level of Hib antibodies in adults decreased after the introduction of vaccination.
The same happened among children. At first, Hib incidence decreased sharply, but then began to increase sharply, despite the high vaccination coverage. The number of cases among children has been doubling each year since 1998, and most of those infected are fully vaccinated.
After England switched to the acellular pertussis vaccine (DTaP/Hib), an almost 7-times increase in Hib incidence was reported.
A prospective study of 14 thousand men and women living in the UK, lasting 13 years.
The level of vitamin D appears to be in inverse correlation with mortality. Among those whose vitamin D level was >90 nmol/L, mortality was 34% lower than among subjects with vitamin D <30 nmol/L.
Risk of death from cardiovascular diseases in these subjects was 38% lower, from cancer – 15% lower and from lower respiratory infections – 78% lower.
Among other things here, there is a graph of the number of rubella susceptible women of childrearing age in England from 1985 to 1998, which shows no significant change. Solid line represents nulliparous women, and the dotted line is for parous women.
Rubella vaccine was introduced in England in the 1970s for girls of the 11-13 years age group, and the MMR vaccine was introduced in 1988.
2-4 years after receiving the first vaccine, 19.5% of children had measles antibodies below protective level, 23.4% of children had mumps antibodies below protective level, and 4.6% of children had rubella antibodies below protective level.
41% of children did not have protection against at least one of the diseases, which means that a second dose of the vaccine is needed. Similar results were obtained in other studies in the UK and in Canada.
Second dose of the MMR vaccine causes an increase in the levels of measles and rubella antibodies, but 2-3 years later they decrease back to the pre-vaccination levels. Similar results were recorded in other studies in Finland and in other counties.
The authors conclude that the level of antibodies in the blood correlates poorly with the level of protection against the disease.
13 years later, BMJ wonders again whether the UK needs yet another vaccine for infants.
Mumps is not subject to registration, thus the number of cases is unknown, especially since 40% of mumps cases are asymptomatic. Perhaps a combination vaccine with measles is justifiable. This vaccine could be given to children when they start school, for those who have not yet had mumps or measles.
Would the 50% of parents, who agree to the measles vaccine today, agree to another vaccine in addition to it? Only if the unwarranted but widespread fear of infertility from orchitis will outweigh the British distrust of new vaccines. Otherwise, this vaccine will not be in demand.
However, even low vaccination coverage can lead to an increase in the number of adults susceptible to mumps. It is already happening in the US.
For someone who has not had mumps, the vaccine could be a blessing, but for society as a whole, it would be quite the opposite, as the current situation when 95% of adults are immune to mumps would change. This disease may be unpleasant, but it is rarely dangerous. An attempt to prevent it on a massive scale could lead to an increase in disease incidence in adults, with all the risks associated with it.
Here is the analysis of 2,482 cases of mumps hospitalization in 1958-1969 in 16 hospitals in England. They constitute the majority of mumps cases that required hospitalization in the country. Half of the patients were 15 years old or older. Complications were recorded in 42% of all cases. Three patients died, but two of them had another serious underlying illness and mumps might not have had anything to do with the death, and the third patient was most probably misdiagnosed and did not even have mumps. The only complication, which may have been permanent, was deafness in five patients (four of them were adults).
Meningitis in mumps happens so often that some people believe it should not even be considered as a complication, but rather an integral part of the disease. In any case, there is a consensus that mumps meningitis is not dangerous and rarely has any consequences. It is confirmed by this study.
What is usually most feared is orchitis. There is a general fear of infertility from orchitis, but its probability is overestimated. Even though it is impossible to exclude, a small retrospective study did not detect infertility as a consequence of orchitis.
The authors conclude that there is no need for mass vaccination against mumps. It might make sense to vaccinate post-pubertal teenagers on admission to boarding school or the army. Even then, however, it should be remembered that 90% of the boys have already had mumps by the age of 14, which is why they should be checked for antibodies first, and only those who do not have the antibodies should be vaccinated.
Mumps outbreak in London. 51% of the patients had been vaccinated. The effectiveness of one dose of the vaccine is 64%. The effectiveness of two doses – 88%. This effectiveness is much lower than is stated in clinical trials, since immunogenicity (i.e. the amount of antibodies) is not an accurate biological marker of the vaccine effectiveness. Moreover, the vaccines might have been improperly stored, which could have caused them to lose their effectiveness.
The authors also analyze other studies of the mumps vaccine effectiveness. In the 60s, the effectiveness was 97%, in the 70s it was 73-79%, in the 80s – 70-91% and in the 90s – 46-78% (87% for the Urabe strain).
Urabe strain had been used in Great Britain since 1988, and stopped being used in 1992, only after the manufacturers declared that they are stopping production. However, according to the published documents, authorities knew about the dangers of this strain in 1987 already.
Diphtheria outbreak in a British school in 1946 (18 cases). All but two (or three) children have been vaccinated (which is probably the reason why no one died, the authors believe).
Among the 23 unvaccinated children, 13% got sick. Among the 299 vaccinated children, 5% got sick.
One of the unvaccinated children has actually been vaccinated, but more than ten years ago. If he is excluded, then the percentage of sick children among the unvaccinated goes down to 9%.
If the vaccinated children are divided into two groups: those who were vaccinated less than 5 years ago, and those who were vaccinated more than 5 years ago – the incidence rate is the same for both groups. Nonetheless, for those who were recently vaccinated the disease was milder than for those vaccinated a long time ago or those unvaccinated.
The authors conclude that the vaccine is not very effective without the subsequent booster shots and urge to get booster vaccines every three years, in addition to being vaccinated in infancy.
Death from diphtheria in developed countries is so rare that every such case is widely reported in the media. In 2015, a boy died of diphtheria in Spain, and in 2008, a girl died in England. These seem to be the only deaths of children from diphtheria in developed countries in the last 30 years.
Until 2003, tetanus was a rare disease in Great Britain, and mostly happened among the elderly. After 2003, drug users began to get infected with tetanus. In 2003, there were 35 cases of tetanus, and two of them died. The authors researched for common factors and found out that they got sick from infected heroin from Liverpool. The authors urge the doctors and prison staff to vaccinate drug users.
An article by a British doctor states that, according to his long-term experience, whooping cough hasn't disappeared. In fact, after vaccination was implemented, whooping cough only disappeared from official records because doctors stopped diagnosing it.
This article reports that even though vaccination coverage against pertussis in England fell from 78% to 42% between the 1960s and the 1970s, whooping cough-related mortality during this same period decreased 3-fold.
The vaccinated had asthma twice as often as the unvaccinated. The authors believe that 50% of asthma cases (2.9 million) in US children and adolescents would be prevented if the DTP or tetanus vaccination was not administered. More: [1]
In vaccinated with whole-cell vaccine, the risk of allergy was 76% higher. In those who took antibiotics in the first two years of life, the risk of allergy was 2 times higher.
Taking one course of antibiotics increased the risk of developing an allergy by 85%, two courses of antibiotics increased the risk 3-fold, and three courses of antibiotics increased the risk 8-fold.
Those who had measles and had not received the vaccine, had a 45% lower risk of developing an allergy (note: in this case there was no statistical significance).
After the vaccination coverage in England fell sharply due to fear of the DTP vaccine, the number of pertussis cases and pertussis-related deaths fell 4-fold.
A study of 30 thousand children from the UK.
Children vaccinated against diphtheria/tetanus/pertussis/polio had asthma 14 times more often and eczema – 9 times more often than unvaccinated children.
Children vaccinated against measles/mumps/rubella had asthma 3.5 times more often and eczema – 4.5 times more often.
The numbers seem to speak for themselves, right? But these figures do not suit the authors, as they want to justify vaccinations. So they do two sleights of hand.
First, they determined that unvaccinated children visit doctors less. In their opinion, this does not mean that unvaccinated children get sick less often, but rather that their chance of being diagnosed is lower than of those vaccinated! Therefore, they make a correction. It turns out not to be enough, however.
They go further and divide all children into 4 groups by the number of visits to the family doctor, and then analyze each group separately. And, oh miracle, statistical significance among those who go to the doctors often disappears! But among those who went to see doctors less then 3-6 times, the vaccinated children had asthma and eczema 10-15 times more often than the unvaccinated ones anyway.
Authors, with a clear consciousness, conclude that vaccinations do not increase the risk of asthma or eczema.
Doctors, who only read the abstract (meaning almost everyone, since only few people read these articles in full), only learn of the conclusion and, with a calm heart, go on and continue to vaccinate children.
Such sleights of hand are often found in the studies that allegedly prove the safety of vaccinations.
Twins died simultaneously 3 hours after a DTP vaccination. The authors conclude that this happened after the vaccination by a coincidence, that according to their calculations 9 infants a year are expected to die accidentally within 24 hours after the vaccination in the UK, and that the risk of SIDS in twins is 3 times higher. They point out that the number of reported deaths has not reached the projected number.
In 20 years, only 6 deaths after DTP have been reported, but there have probably been other cases. In the 14 months following this high-profile case, 5 deaths were reported within 24 hours of vaccination.
In 1991, the definition of SIDS was changed. For example, autopsy and investigation of the stage of death were not previously required, but have now become mandatory. It also became necessary to investigate personal and family medical history. However, the new definition is by far applied to 35% of cases only. In 7% of cases the definition from 1969 is used, and which definition is used in the remaining cases is unclear.
Mississippi has a 12 times higher SIDS incidence than New York. In some states, investigators do not use SIDS as a cause of death if any other cause is suspected. SIDS incidence may vary within 300-400% from district to district in the same state. More: [1]
In response to this hypothesis, an expert committee was set up in the UK. It issued a report that concluded in its report that the hypothesis is incorrect and that the fire resistant materials are safe.
- The committee found a bacterium instead of a fungus, trimethylarsin instead of arsine, and trimethylsurma instead of stibine. These materials are less toxic and probably are not produced at normal temperatures.
Cook's report (from another committee) found that the concentration of antimony in the liver and blood of those who died of SIDS was higher than normal, and correlated with the antimony content in the mattresses. Infants were also found to have higher levels of antimony than their mothers. But the expert committee concluded that those measurements were unreliable. The levels of antimony in the lungs and blood of infants who died in womb were similar to those in adults, which means that the mattresses had nothing to do with it.
- One study found elevated levels of antimony in the liver in 52% of those who died from SIDS, but only 6% of the control group. Subsequent studies, however, did not find a significant difference between those who died from SIDS and those who died from other causes.
- The committee confirmed that the antimony content of the infants' hair was indeed higher than that of their mothers', but found no correlation with the level of antimony in the mattresses. It concluded that antimony is found in healthy infants as well, which suggests that it is safe in these concentrations. In addition, antimony is found in many products, such as polyester fabrics, which means it is in the dust that we breathe and swallow. If you rub polyester fabric against your hair, antimony remains on it, which also means that the mattresses have nothing to do with SIDS.
Between 1982 and 1992, the incidence of pneumococcal bacteremia and meningitis in England rose 2.3 times.
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