Note: The author of the blog is not a health care provider. Consult a qualified health care provider for medical advice about vaccination.
Swine flu (H1N1 pandemic) vaccine side effects
This public relations piece has been seeded into the mainstream media outlets recently. While it makes some good points, it is obviously biased in favor of mass vaccination for swine flu, rather than targeting risk risk groups or doing risk/benefit ratios at the individual level in consultation with a caring, unbiased and truly informed health care provider. Is that bias wise when this position is eerily reminiscent of the blinders on the public health community during the 1976 mass vaccination campaign that led to an extraordinarily high number of cases of paralysis and death following those vaccinations?
Also the article does not recognize that there are different types of swine flu vaccine available. Except for vaccines used the United States, swine flu vaccines contain squalene-based adjuvants as far as I know. And the last sentence of the current Google article does not seem to be true for adjuvanted vaccines when you read the study below.
Published at www.nejm.org September 10, 2009 (NEJM)(10.1056/NEJMoa0907650)
Trial of Influenza A (H1N1) 2009 Monovalent MF59-Adjuvanted Vaccine — Preliminary Report
“Methods We conducted a single-center study, involving 175 adults, 18 to 50 years of age, to test the monovalent influenza A/California/2009 (H1N1) surface-antigen vaccine, in both MF59-adjuvanted and nonadjuvanted forms. Subjects were randomly assigned to receive two intramuscular injections of vaccine containing 7.5 µg of hemagglutinin on day 0 in each arm or one injection on day 0 and the other on day 7, 14, or 21; or two 3.75-µg doses of MF59-adjuvanted vaccine, or 7.5 or 15 µg of nonadjuvanted vaccine, administered 21 days apart. Antibody responses were measured by means of hemagglutination-inhibition assay and a microneutralization assay on days 0, 14, 21, and 42 after injection of the first dose.”
Appendix with details on a notable adverse effect:
Vaccine-related adverse reaction
A probable vaccine-related adverse reaction was reported. One female subject who received two 7.5µg MF59-adjuvanted vaccines on day 0 reported a purpuric rash over her lower limbs,commencing on day 17 post-vaccination and spontaneously resolving within 72 hours. Further
questioning revealed that she had consulted her family practitioner 2-3 months earlier for recurrent, self limiting intermittent rash over lower limbs in the 12 months prior to the study. Investigations, at that time by her physician, included a complete blood count, urea and electrolytes, liver function tests, and C-reactive protein, all of which were within normal values. An autoimmune profile demonstrated positive antinuclear antibodies (1:1600) with positive extractable nuclear antigen antibodies (anti-Ro and anti-La). Antibodies to double stranded DNA and rheumatoid factor were negative. At the time of study enrollment, she was not taking any medication and study staff were not aware of her prior medical history. ….She was referred
to rheumatology with a provisional diagnosis of an underlying connective tissue disease. No treatment was given.
Those anti-bodies were found in a soldier who died after multiple military vaccines, including anthrax vaccine, the one alleged to have contained squalene.
Squalene is a component of both adjuvanted vaccines being used outside of the US.
VACCINATION POSSIBLE CAUSE OF SOLDIER’S ILLNESS AND DEATH
“Both panels concluded that vaccinations may have triggered an illness that ultimately led to the death in April 2003 of SPC [], a 22-year-old Army Reservist, who received several vaccinations at the time she was mobilized for deployment….
….What were the key findings that led to a conclusion of a link?
This soldier had an unusual pattern of antibodies called anti-Ro antibodies that have been associated with lupus in some patients with the disease.
These antibody tests have to be interpreted with care, because most people who test positive do not go on to develop symptoms of lupus. Those people simply carry the antibody around for years and it doesn’t cause a problem. A very small proportion of people who carry the antibody may experience some kind of “trigger” that sets in motion a lupus reaction. This lab finding leads some to conclude that the vaccines may have triggered her lupus; but as can be seen in Specialist [] case, she had received multiple vaccinations in the past without any problem.”
Looks like the same unusual antibodies were found in both adverse reactions. The soldier that died had previously received multiple vaccines apparently without a problem. (Of course, antibody tests are not routinely given prior to and after vaccinations to detect early immune dysfunction triggered by vaccines.) Prior to the fatal adverse reaction, she got anthrax vaccine. Is squalene in these two vaccines the link in these adverse events?
Here is some background on squalene in the anthrax vaccines.
And parts from investigative journalist Gary Matsumoto’s book about that vaccine are online:
Vaccine A: The Covert Government Experiment That’s Killing Our Soldiers–And Why GI’s Are Only The First Victims
Whatever tragically bad decisions may have been made about the formulation and use of that anthrax vaccine, the US military has avoided adjuvanted influenza vaccines after experiments went badly with those decades ago:
“Perhaps it would be as well to end on a note of
caution. The history of the use of drugs in man
indicates the great need for caution before risks are
dismissed as negligible. Until a fuller understanding
of the mechanism of adjuvant action has been
obtained, it is clear that unusual and unwanted
effects may continue to occur whatever the materials
which are used.”
Note: The author of the blog is not a health care provider. Consult a qualified health care provider for medical advice about vaccination.
