Dr Rick

It's also amazing how people distort expert opinion: Dr Halsey, an expert in vaccine-related adverse reactions at the John Hopkins School of Public Health published a review of combination vaccines in 2001.

Here's his abstract:

Pediatr Infect Dis J 2001 Nov;20(11 Suppl):S40-4
 
Safety of combination vaccines: perception versus reality.
Halsey NA.
Institute for Vaccine Safety, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA. nhalsey@jhsph.edu

"BACKGROUND: Combination vaccines contain multiple antigens to protect against several diseases simultaneously and have simplified the delivery of childhood immunizations. Children are healthier today because of the use of combination vaccines, and the United States is benefiting from record low numbers of vaccine-preventable diseases. Despite obvious benefits, concerns and misconceptions exist regarding the safety and efficacy of combination vaccines. METHODS: A review of the pediatric literature to dispel the common misperceptions and potential barriers to combining vaccines. RESULTS: Assurance that combination vaccines approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration undergo extensive testing will help to alleviate concerns regarding safety and efficacy of combination vaccines. Food and Drug Administration standards are rigorous and require that combination vaccines be as safe and effective as each component of the vaccine administered separately. Combination vaccines have been available for >50 years, and lessons learned during this time are continuously applied to the development and use of new products. CONCLUSIONS: Children will benefit from new combination vaccines because fewer injections will be required to protect against vaccine-preventable diseases, allowing for the introduction of new vaccines into the immunization schedule and prevention of additional diseases."

Rick

Dr Rick

Here's an abstract of a recent review on the preservative:

Pediatrics 2001 May;107(5):1147-54

An assessment of thimerosal use in childhood vaccines.
Ball LK, Ball R, Pratt RD.
Division of Vaccines and Related Products Applications, Office of Vaccines Research and Review, Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, Foodand Drug Administration, Rockville, Maryland 20852, USA. balll@cber.fda.gov
BACKGROUND: On July 7, 1999, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the US Public Health Service issued a joint statement calling for removal of thimerosal, a mercury-containing preservative, from vaccines. This action was prompted in part by a risk assessment from the Food and Drug Administration that is presented here. METHODS: The risk assessment consisted of hazard identification, dose-response assessment, exposure assessment, and risk characterization. The literature was reviewed to identify known toxicity of thimerosal, ethylmercury (a metabolite of thimerosal) and methylmercury (a similar organic mercury compound) and to determine the doses at which toxicity occurs. Maximal potential exposure to mercury from vaccines was calculated for children at 6 months old and 2 years, under the US childhood immunization schedule, and compared with the limits for mercury exposure developed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease Registry, the Food and Drug Administration, and the World Health Organization. RESULTS: Delayed-type hypersensitivity reactions from thimerosal exposure are well-recognized. Identified acute toxicity from inadvertent high-dose exposure to thimerosal includes neurotoxicity and nephrotoxicity. Limited data on toxicity from low-dose exposures to ethylmercury are available, but toxicity may be similar to that of methylmercury. Chronic, low-dose methylmercury exposure may cause subtle neurologic abnormalities. Depending on the immunization schedule, vaccine formulation, and infant weight, cumulative exposure of infants to mercury from thimerosal during the first 6 months of life may exceed EPA guidelines. CONCLUSION: Our review revealed no evidence of harm caused by doses of thimerosal in vaccines, except for local hypersensitivity reactions. However, some infants may be exposed to cumulative levels of mercury during the first 6 months of life that exceed EPA recommendations. Exposure of infants to mercury in vaccines can be reduced or eliminated by using products formulated without thimerosal as a preservative."

Thimerosal is no longer used as a preservative in vaccines.

Rick

[ November 10, 2002: Message edited by: rbochnermd ]</p>

Ales

There is no doubt about it. I pointed out to the results of the "Center for Complex Infectious Diseases" (www.ccid.org) that there exists a new and insiduous form of virus called "stealth virus" that lives mainly in human brain and seems to cause major neuropsychiatric problems, icluding CFS/ME; this virus was unequivocally traced down to a virus that lives in an African monkey, whose kidneys are/were used for the production of polio vaccines.

Dr Rick

I was not aware of any of this.

Unfortunately, the links you provided do not work for me: the ccid one goes to a homepage but brings up a blank when I click-on the "stealth virus" icon. The Yahoo one pulls-up a page that says the support group is no longer available.

The oral polio vaccine currently in use is manufactured with recombinant technology and not derived from monkeys or any other animal source.

My search on medline turned up this reference regarding the simian-derived older vaccine:

Virology 2001 Aug 15;287(1):13-7

No evidence of HIV and SIV sequences in two separate lots of polio vaccines used in the first U.S. polio vaccine campaign.
Rizzo P, Matker C, Powers A, Setlak P, Heeney JL, Carbone M.
Cardinal Bernardin Cancer Center, Department of Pathology, Loyola University Chicago, Maywood, Illinois 60153, USA.

"We obtained sealed vials of two different polio vaccine lots, expiration date 1955, which were used in the first U.S. polio vaccine campaign. These early lots were pulled from the market because they contained live infectious poliovirus which caused polio in some of the vaccines. Theoretically, these vaccines could have contained other infectious retroviruses, including HIV. No viral sequences were detected using RT-PCR analyses with primers capable of amplifying chimpanzee SIV and HIV-1-related viruses nor with primers for macaque SIV, sooty mangabey SIV, and HIV-2-related viruses. Poliovirus sequences were readily amplified by RT-PCR, suggesting that the technique used would have detected SIV or HIV sequences, if present."

Do you have some references I could access that describe and characterize the "stealth virus" you refer to?

Rick

echidna

Rbochnermd, this morning’s news was hailing an American finding linking infant brain size with autism. My radio reception was pretty crap but I think there was found to be a link made to a growth spurt in head size at around the fourth month, if that’s not too reminiscent of phrenology.

Ales

These references are available on-line at

<a href="http://www.ccid.org/publications.htm#" target="_blank">http://www.ccid.org/publications.htm#</a>

Stealth Virus Epidemic in the Mohave Valley: Severe Vacuolating Encephalopathy in a Child Presenting with a Behavioral Disorder Experimental and Molecular Pathology, April, 1999

Stealth Adaptation of an African Green Monkey Simian Cytomegalovirus Experimental and Molecular Pathology, April, 1999

Bacterial-Related Sequences in a Simian Cytomegalovirus-Derived Stealth Virus Culture Experimental and Molecular Pathology, April, 1999

Melanoma Growth Stimulatory Activity (MGSA/GRO-alpha) Chemokine Genes Incorporated into an African Green Monkey Simian Cytomegalovirus-Derived Stealth Virus. Experimental and Molecular Pathology, April, 1999

Viteria: Bacterial Sequences in Animal and Human Viruses The Journal of Degenerative Diseases Vol 1. May 1999

Cellular Sequences in Stealth Viruses Pathobiology, S. Karger AG, 1998, Vol. 66, 55-58.

Detection of RNA sequences in cultures of a stealth virus isolated from the cerebrospinal fluid of a health care worker with chronic fatigue syndrome Stealth Virus Epidemic in the Mohave Valley Pathobiology, S. Karger AG, 1997, Vol. 65, 51-56.

Simian Cytomegalovirus-Related Stealth Virus Isolated from the Cerebrospinal Fluid of a Patient with Bipolar Psychosis and Acute Encephalopathy Pathobiology, S. Karger AG, 1996, Vol. 64, 64-66.

Stealth Viral Encephalopathy: Report of a Fatal Case Complicated by Cerebral Vasculitis Pathobiology, S. Karger AG, 1996, Vol. 64, 59-63.

Genetic Instability and Fragmentation of a Stealth Viral Genome Pathobiology, S. Karger AG, 1996, Vol. 64, 9-17.

Severe Stealth Virus Encephalopathy following Chronic Fatigue Syndrome-like Illness: Clinical and Histopathological Features Pathobiology, S. Karger AG, 1996, Vol. 64, 1-8.

Herpesvirus-Related Sequences in Salivary Gland Tumors Journal of Experimental and Clinical Cancer Research, Regina Elena Institute for Cancer Research, 1996, Vol. 15 No. 1, 1-4.

Acute Encephalopathy Induced in Cats with a Stealth Virus Isolated from a Patient with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Pathobiology, S. Karger AG, 1995, Vol. 63, 115-118.

African Green Monkey Origin of the Cytopathic 'Stealth Virus' Isolated from a Patient with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Clinical and Diagnostic Virology, Elsevier Science B.V., 1995, Vol. 4 No. 2, 93-103.

Stealth Viruses as Neuropathogens CAP Today, College of American Pathologists, 1994, Vol. 8 No. 10, 67-70.

Try to search "stealth virus" Martin
in Google.

<a href="http://www.google.com" target="_blank">www.google.com</a>

John Martin discovered the stealth viruses.

There are at least 2 active Yahoo groups on stealth viruses. One of them is at

<a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheStealthVirusSupportGroup" target="_blank">http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheStealthVirusSupportGroup</a>

Toto

Dr. Rick - do you think that parents who refused to vaccinate their children while thimerisol was in the vaccines were doing the right thing, even if they didn't know exactly what was wrong with the vaccines?

I ask this because I think that we should be as skeptical of modern medicine as we are of alternative health. I am of an age where I have had a certain amount of bad medicine practiced on me, subsequently shown to be based on bad science, and I have known people who have had very bad procedures done on them, which were the cutting edge at the time and are now viewed with horror. For a while, I reacted to this by refusing most medical advice from western MD's. I have moderated my stance a bit, but I am still leary of the real scientific basis of a lot of modern medicine.

Synaesthesia

VERY interesting. This report was published BEFORE a recent article in the NYT which asserted that the link was credible.

Dr Rick

The NYT magazine article was about the mercury levels that were present in vaccines while thimerosol was used as a preservative. It also discussed speculation that autism was somehow related to the preservative or the vaccines.

The recent study in the NEJM effectively refutes the unsubstantiated assertion that autism is linked to the MMR vaccine.

That does not mean that we should put thimerosol back in vaccines. What we can take away from the NEJM study and the available data is that, despite concerns about it's effects while it was in use, there is no evidence that anyone was harmed by the thimerosol that was in the vaccines that were used to save millions of children each year.

Note the dates of the hearings and studies used in to put the article together; not only was there not a single one that found a clinical link between autism and vaccinations, they also all preceded the recent NEJM study.

If there is something wrong with the vaccine that could be linked to Autism, why do you suppose that a study involving over 500,000 children couldn't find it?

What clinical evidence is there that vaccines cause Autism?

<strong> Yes, vaccinations save millions of lives every year, and every year millions of children die because they weren't vaccinated.

Rick

[ November 11, 2002: Message edited by: rbochnermd ]</p>

Dr Rick

Thanks for the references; could you please point-out so I may follow-up on the one that supports this assertion:

[qb] Certain viruses can prevent host immune elimination by avoiding antigenic recognition. The term "stealth" has been applied to such viruses, and they are actually very common and have been around for a long time; an example of one is the Epstein-Barr virus.

Thanks, again.

Rick

[ November 11, 2002: Message edited by: rbochnermd ]</p>