Vaccination: an analysis of the health risks—part II

Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, Nov, 2003 by Gary Null, Martin Feldman

Dr. Jane M. Orient, executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, puts the facts plainly. According to a recent federal government study, she says, "children younger than 14 are three times more likely to die or suffer adverse reactions after receiving hepatitis B vaccines than to catch the disease." (46)

Is the Hepatitis B Vaccine Effective? Vaccine supporters claim that the development of an antibody response to the virus contained in the vaccine equals protection against the disease. So we are now vaccinating millions of children against hepatitis B to prevent them from contracting the disease later in life. But for this to happen, the level of antibodies that are supposed to be protective has to remain high for very long periods. The evidence proves that this is not happening.

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine evaluated the persistence of anti-hepatitis-B antibodies in 773 homosexual men immunized against the virus. Of these, 635 produced antibodies. After five years, however, such antibodies no longer existed in 15% of the respondents, and their levels declined sharply--below levels deemed to be protective--in another 27%. In fact, hepatitis B developed in 55 men, and two individuals became carriers of the hepatitis B virus. (47) Another study shows that after three years, 36% of individuals who initially responded to the hepatitis B immunization lost anti-hepatitis-B antibodies. (48)

Why then are we needlessly vaccinating millions of children if by the time they'll be adults and might be exposed to the virus, they won't have the antibodies that are supposed to protect them? And, in any case, are these antibodies offering protection against the disease?

Adverse Reactions to Hepatitis B Vaccine. The National Vaccine Information Center, in its report on hepatitis B vaccination, cites 38 reports in the international medical literature presenting evidence that hepatitis B vaccination is causing chronic autoimmune and neurological disease in children and adults. Yet this is not information given in the vaccine manufacturer's literature.

Tourbah et al. reported in a 1999 article published in the journal Neurology that eight patients developed encephalitis and central nervous system demyelinating disease within 10 weeks of receiving hepatitis B vaccination. (49)

Further Readings: Articles in the medical literature associate the hepatitis B vaccine with complications affecting the nervous system (50-53) and the joints (54-58) as well as other adverse effects. (59)

Measles/Mumps/Rubella (MMR)Vaccine

As with hepatitis B, physicians are notoriously reluctant to follow their own advice when it comes to measles vaccination. One study reported that obstetrician/gynecologists had the lowest vaccination rate among doctors for the German measles vaccine. Pediatricians didn't fare much better. The authors attributed such findings to "fear of unforeseen vaccine reactions." (60)

The fact that the MMR vaccine is particularly ineffective, with a high percentage of those inoculated getting the disease, is undoubtedly a factor here. (61-72) According to The New England Journal of Medicine, 60% of all measles cases among American schoolchildren between 1985 and 1986 occurred in those who were vaccinated. (73)