OVER-VACCINATED CHILDREN & THE ALLERGY EPIDEMIC ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.MARCH 26, 2018
The global prevalence of allergic diseases is skyrocketing, affecting 30% to 40% of the
world's population.
Allergic conditions include food allergies, anaphylaxis, asthma, eczema, allergic rhinitis,
allergic conjunctivitis and reactions to drugs and insects.
Often, these burdensome conditions start young, are overlapping and have the potential to
be severe or fatal.
A study of children with peanut allergy, for example, found that the median age of onset
was 12 months; 40% to 60% of peanut-allergic children had concurrent asthma, atopic dermatitis,
and/or other food allergies; and over a third (35%) had experienced anaphylaxis upon initial
peanut exposure.
Anaphylactic outcomes are worse when multiple allergic conditions are present.
…an escalating number of children have been hospitalized for food allergies or have visited
an emergency department for primarily food-related anaphylaxis over the past couple of decades.
In the U.S., food allergies are widespread and are the most common cause of anaphylaxis
in children.
One in 13 American children—about two per classroom—has at least one food allergy,
and food allergies increased by 50% from 1997 to 2011.
An analysis of New York City school system data showed that the incidence of epinephrine
administration for severe food allergy increased threefold from 2007 to 2013.
Likewise, an escalating number of children have been hospitalized for food allergies
or have visited an emergency department for primarily food-related anaphylaxis over the
past couple of decades.
Similar trends are playing out all over the world.
As each new decade ushers in higher childhood allergy rates, researchers mostly have scratched
their heads, citing the poorly operationalized "hygiene hypothesis" or feebly asserting
that the reasons for the increase remain "unclear."
A few investigators have pointed to possible risk factors such as cesarean delivery and
novel food technologies.
However, given that the hallmark of allergic disease is an altered immune response, it
stands to reason that vaccines— which purposefully set out to "reprogram immunity"—are
major contenders as allergy triggers.
A Perfect Storm In her 2011 book, The Peanut Allergy Epidemic,
Heather Fraser assembles persuasive scientific and historical evidence that lays the blame
for the mass peanut allergy phenomenon (and the steep rise in childhood allergies of all
types) on the "extensive and sudden" changes made to childhood vaccine programs in the
U.S. and elsewhere in the late 1980s.
According to Fraser, a series of critical factors synergistically converged during this
time period to create a perfect storm and launch the allergy and chronic illness epidemics
that have been ongoing ever since.
These factors include:
Abrupt and massive expansion of the childhood vaccine schedule: In the U.S., the schedule
went from three recommended vaccines in the mid-1980s to fifteendifferent vaccines currently.
Initiation of vaccination on the day of birth: This includes both the hepatitis B vaccine
and synthetic vitamin K injection.
Changes in vaccine technology: Changes include production of recombinant(genetically engineered)
vaccines and conjugate vaccines (which couple a weak vaccine antigen to a protein carrier),
both of which actively go after "immunologic memory" and non-antibody immune response.
Vastly increased use of aluminum adjuvants, which stimulate a stronger immune response
that can easily veer into the realm of "immune dysregulation."
Increased vaccine coverage: Only about half of American two-year-olds in the late 1980s
had completed their recommended series of vaccines, but a decade later, about nine in
ten 19-35-month-olds were receiving all or most recommended vaccines.
…vaccinated children had a significantly greater odds of having a diagnosed allergic
condition compared to unvaccinated children A study conducted in 2012 and published in
2017 in the Journal of Translational Sciencecompared chronic health problems in vaccinated and
unvaccinated 6-to-12-year-olds—in other words, children born between 2000 and 2006.
The results lend credence to Fraser's thinking about vaccination and allergy trends.
Among many striking results, the authors found that vaccinated children had a significantly
greater odds of having a diagnosed allergic condition compared to unvaccinated children:
10.4% versus 0.4% for allergic rhinitis, 22.2% versus 6.9% for "other" allergies and
9.5% versus 3.6% for eczema and other forms of atopic dermatitis.
Other studies also have linked vaccines to atopic conditions and allergic sensitization.
Allergy as an inevitable response to vaccination To grasp how the chain of vaccine-related
events initiated roughly 30 years ago has bred today's worldwide allergy epidemics,
one has to understand that vaccines, by their very nature, induce an unnatural immune response.
This property of vaccines is called "immunogenicity."
Pharmaceutical researchers note that it can be tricky to achieve "wanted" immunogenicity
while avoiding "unwanted" immune responses that later result in "clinically adverse
consequences."
Considering this question, Fraser calls attention to an important 1991 paper in The Quarterly
Review of Biology that put forth the plausible view of allergy as an evolutionary form of
immunological defense against "commonly allergenic" toxins, including metals and
carcinogens.
From this perspective, allergy symptoms (such as vomiting, sneezing and decreased blood
pressure) are logical bodily responses intended to expel toxic substances or slow their circulation
in the body.
Fraser elegantly connects vaccines to this view of allergy as an evolved immunological
response to toxins.
She and other writers have pointed out that awareness of the association between injected
toxins and allergic reactions goes back to at least the early 20th century, when a French
physiologist coined the term "anaphylaxis" to describe what happened to a dog injected
twice with a hive-inducing marine toxin; the dog died within minutes of the second injection,
administered three weeks after the first.
Later, a 1940s study described how tetanus vaccine could induce allergy in humans.
In fact, the medical literature is replete with terms such as "bystander effects"
and vaccine-induced allergic responses to "non-target antigens," all of which describe
vaccines' almost guaranteed ability to produce unwanted immunogenicity in the form of allergy.
Notwithstanding the fact that vaccines also contain a plethora of worrisome ingredients—"immunogens,
preservatives, adjuvants, antibiotics and manufacturing by-products" in addition to
carrier proteins and live or inactivated viruses and toxins—Fraser believes that vaccines'
skewing of the immune system as a whole is the most significant contributor to subsequent
allergy.
The era of food allergy began with the post-millennial generation, the same faction who received
new immunizations during early childhood.
The role of aluminum Because of its powerful immune-stimulating
effects, aluminum is the one vaccine ingredient that perhaps should be singled out for its
pivotal role in creating allergies.
As one research group recently noted, aluminum adjuvants induce "Th2 responses to coadministered
antigens and potentially to unrelated environmental allergens, thus providing bystander…responses
that contribute to allergic disease."
The probability of sensitization may be even greater with simultaneous administration of
multiplealuminum-containing vaccines.
Another study from 2016 bluntly stated: "The era of food
allergy began with the post-millennial generation, the same faction who received new immunizations
during early childhood.
Many of these vaccines contain alum, an adjuvant known to induce allergic phenotypes."
A recent case report measured serum immunoglobulin E (IgE) levels in two children before and
after the children received aluminum-containing vaccines.
(IgE are the immune system antibodies that, together with histamine-storing white blood
cells called mast cells, "contribute substantially to disease development, progression and…pathology
in many people afflicted with…allergic disorders.")
In both cases, children's levels of total IgE and food allergen-specific IgE increased
following vaccination.
In another aluminum-related study, 64 Swedish children who received diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis
(DTP) vaccines containing aluminum adjuvants experienced persistent vaccine-induced itching
nodules (with a median duration of five years), and 95% developed a contact allergy to aluminum.
Disturbing trends As if the rise of food and other allergies
were not bad enough, studies are documenting a qualitative shift in the "natural history"
of food allergy toward a "more frequently…persistent rather than…transient" condition.
Moreover, dangerous manifestations of allergy such as anaphylaxis may be even more widespread
than we know, because anywhere from 21% to 57% of cases of anaphylaxis are misclassified
and given a less severe diagnostic code.
As a result, children's quality of life suffers, and once-rare items like epinephrine
autoinjectors are becoming a fixture at schools and summer camps.
Although many researchers recognize the importance of avoiding "excessive activation" of
the immune system in early life, the rush to overload the vaccine schedule continues
unchecked.
It is time to look at the scientific evidence and strengthen children's immune systems
in ways that do not result in massive collateral damage.
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