Vaccines

Well the title of today’s blog is a little tongue and cheek. Unfortunately it is what you probably have heard over and over again presented in news reports. Even if the exact words are not used, it is clearly implied. There is being put forth the assertion that vaccines are completely safe and effective and if you question it you are anti-science and are just crazy. It really is interesting how fanatical this mantra can be and how angry people can get if you even hint at questioning that overall vaccines may not be as good as we are led to believe.

Well I will admit I am one of those ‘crazies’ that has questions about the safety and efficacy of vaccines. I truly believe there are many legitimate questions about vaccines that have not been adequately answered. I think there is a good possibility that in the long-term there are unintended negative effects of vaccination that ultimately may not outweigh the benefit.

The thing that I find funny is that those scientists and doctors that ask questions about vaccines actually make a lot more sense than those that accept that vaccines are completely safe and effective. All people questioning vaccines are not what they are often portrayed as: moms doing research on Google from websites that have no basis in fact. There are very intelligent people with strong scientific backgrounds that question the safety and effectiveness of vaccines. And most of those people are not saying the idea of vaccination is bad or that no one should be vaccinated but that there are legitimate questions that have not been answered and there may be a better way to improve immunity than vaccinations.

I was recently reminded of this when reading the transcript of an interview with Dr. Suzanne Humphries. I will touch on a few points made in this interview but I recommend you read it for yourself and see if the things mentioned there make sense. Also look into the points mentioned and see if they are true. The interview can be found here: Paul Offit’s vaccine lies deconstructed: A mind-blowing interview with Dr. Suzanne Humphries.

A little about Dr. Humphries’ background story I think is important. She did not originally question the safety and effectiveness of vaccines because she was a conventionally trained doctor. Her specialty is in nephrology which deals with kidney function. She noticed that some patients would have worsening kidney function after vaccinations. Also she was concerned about the giving of vaccines to very sick patients as a protocol with no real consideration to their health status. When she brought her concerns to hospital administrators she was basically ignored. This is what started her interest in researching vaccines.

I find the things that she talks about very fascinating. We are told that vaccines were responsible for eradicating small pox and wild polio in the US. Looking into the research and background, it is very possible that vaccines did not play a large part in the decrease in these diseases. In another presentation of hers, she talks about the history of polio in the US and some other possibilities besides the vaccine that contributed to the elimination of wild polio in the US. If you are interested you can watch that presentation here: Suzanne Humphries, MD, speaking on Polio at the Association of Natural Health Conference

So in this current interview some of the things discussed are:

• The measles outbreak at Disneyland
• People vaccinated with live viruses can shed viruses after vaccination
• A response about Dr. Paul Offit’s article “What Would Jesus Do About Measles?”
  • Dr. Offit is a big vaccine supporter and actually co-created a vaccine and likely made millions from it
• There were predictions that due to vaccinations there would outbreaks of diseases in the future
  • This is because the diseases are not eradicated but it changes what populations are most susceptible
• That vaccine manufacturers are not liable for damages caused by vaccines
  • There is actually a ‘vaccine court’ that is set up to compensate those injured by vaccines
• There is a current court case against Merck, a big vaccine manufacturer, that they falsified studies on the mumps part of the MMR vaccine to be able to keep licensure of the vaccine
• ‘Herd immunity’ does not happen with vaccinations and there are several examples of this throughout the world, most notably in China
• There are other studies besides the one by Dr. Wakefield that looks at a link between vaccines and autism
  • In fact Dr. Wakefield’s study was very small and the conclusion was that there was more research needed to look at the possible connection
• The importance of nutrition in preventing and managing illness

These are just some of the main things mentioned. I think they do bring up important questions about vaccines. While I do think vaccines have an effect on the progression of the diseases they are intended to prevent, do we know if that is the best thing? Could many of the chronic diseases we see today be in part related to vaccines? We really don’t know and I think these are important questions to consider. I honestly don’t think that these questions are that crazy. One thing I do know is that vaccines make their manufacturers a lot of money and there is a financial incentive for everyone to be vaccinated and the science behind them is not as ‘unquestionable’ as we are told.

If you have thoughts on the matter I would be interested to hear them, but keep it nice. There is no need for name calling, etc.