Vaccines And Autism Part I: Vaccine Ingredients
Tuesday October 13th, 2009 // Written by Andrea
Since Tristan’s diagnosis of autism I’ve had a few people ask what my feelings where about the whole vaccine – autism controversy. They wondered if I thought vaccines caused Tristan’s autism and if we choose to vaccinate Maya differently as a result. Since I have a degree in biology and loved immunology I thought I’d do a little series on vaccines. What they are and how they work, what the controversy is about and what we’ve chosen to do with our kids.
How Vaccines Work
There’s some complicated science that goes with immunity and vaccines which is a little beyond the scope of what I want to talk about and it would make for a monster of a post. So I’m going to use an analogy to explain how vaccines work.
Pretend you’re a boxer, say Rocky, and you’ve got the big fight against Apollo Creed. So you train. You train hard. You get a sparing partner, someone to work you’re moves on and who fights back but won’t really hurt you. They’re not as powerful as Apollo but good enough so that you’ll be prepared. On fight night you put your practice into action. Your jabs and crosses are reflexes now and you take Apollo out with a nice knockout punch.
Well vaccines are our sparing partners against illness. They are not as strong as the real illness but they prepare our immune system to know what’s coming and how to best defend. So when we’re exposed to the illness we have the tools fight back and stay healthy.
Sounds like a great system right? In theory it is but there are three main issues surrounding vaccines that give rise to debate and outcry:
- Vaccine Ingredients (Part I)
- Timing of Vaccines (Part II)
- Vaccine Safety Studies (Part III)
- Vaccine Ingredients
Vaccines contain three categories of ingredients. The first is a portion of the virus or bacteria you’re getting protection against, secondly there are chemicals that jump start your immune system to ensure it reacts to the virus (usually aluminum in some form) and finally there are preservatives that keep the vaccine sterile. Preservatives can be mercury, aluminum or formaldehyde.
What are the issues with these ingredients?
The virus or bacteria is grown in live tissue. Live tissue from anything from monkey kidneys, chick embryos and even, this is awful, aborted human fetal tissue. Some of this tissue ends up in the vaccine as well. This raises morality issues if you’re pro-choice, or an animal rights activist. If you have allergies this can also present problems, you could have an allergic reaction to the vaccine because of what it was grown in (like an egg allergy for example).
Also, the chemicals used as preservatives and stabilizers are toxins. Mercury is a neurotoxin (a toxic that acts on nerve cells), formaldehyde is a carcinogen and excessive amounts of aluminum may cause learning disabilities and dementia. Do we really want to be putting these chemicals into our kids?
The Autism Connection
As I already mentioned the chemicals in vaccines are neurotoxins and autism manifests as a neurological disease. Our kids with autism have developmental delays. Could the two be linked? Here in Canada there is no mercury (or called thimerasol in vaccines) in our vaccines, but they do contain aluminum. Here is an interesting article calling aluminum the new thimerasol. It discusses the toxicity of aluminum.
Another issue is the measles mumps and rubella vaccine (MMR). This vaccine contains live virus. It’s been attenuated, which means strains of the virus have been made in a lab to disable their dangerous properties. A good analogy is getting your dog fixed, same dog, just shooting blanks. The problem with this is mainly in the measles virus. Studies have isolated the vaccine strain of the measles virus from children with autism. This shouldn’t happen. The immune system should have fought it off and cleared it from the system. Instead studies have found it wrecks havoc with the immune system by dysregulating it, causing gut inflammation and even leading to encephalopathy (brain disease) which is seen in some kids with autism.
To read more about this I encourage you to check out Changing the Course of Autism by Dr Bryan Jepson the chapter titled: Measles and the MMR Controversy. It cites many studies correlating the MMR vaccine with autism.
A really great website to visit that goes into much more detail about vaccine ingredients is Vaccine Risk Awareness Network.
So what are your thoughts on vaccine ingredients? Do you think more studies need to be done to look into connections between autism and vaccine ingredients?
In Part II I’m going to discuss the vaccine schedule and the lack of vaccine safety studies as it relates to autism.
What do you think about vaccinations?
- I'll never inject that poison! (29%, 4 Votes)
- They are dangerous, I'll only get shots for the deadly viruses (14%, 2 Votes)
- Could be harmful, but benefits outweigh risks for most vaccines (29%, 4 Votes)
- I only have a problem with the vaccination schedule (7%, 1 Votes)
- Everyone should get them all, they save lives (21%, 3 Votes)
Total Voters: 14
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2 comments in the discussion so far...
What do you have to say about it? Don't be shy, join the converstation, we'd love to hear what you think.
I never really gave vaccines much thought until about a year ago.
All my kids had their shots but last year I noticed an awful lot of extra shots and catch ups for older kids. Friends with babies seemed to be at the Drs every other week for yet another shot.
When do we get to the point where the balance is tipped and the risk out weigh the benifits??
I think we are already there.
This mass vaccinating for “EVERYTHING” it seems to me, is a direct off shoot of the new high density daycare and nursery for very young children and babies.
Back in the stone age (when I was a child
) Mum stayed home, you might go to a playschool for a couple of hours a week when you got to 2yrs but apart from the odd playdate you stayed home with mum.
Now you have babies in childcare from a few weeks old. High numbers of kids in one area for upto 5 days a week, the same colds and viruses doing the rounds constantly.
When my eldest went to our village playgroup (2 hrs once a week) at the age of 3yrs, I kept him home if he had a cough or cold. Apart from the fact he wouldn;t be on top form, I didn;t think it was fair for him to “share the love”.
It quickly became aparent than I was the only one who thought this way.
Ill kids are often sent to school and nursery because mum and dad have to work.
Now I am NOT working mum bashing, I am situation bashing. I understand many women feel they have to work, but has the “get women back to work as soon as possible” worldwide government stance lead to this path of trying to iradicate every single childhood ailment?
Maybe I’m just paranoid
Anyway for the record, because of my asthma I was offered a swine flu shot at the Drs this week.
I declined.
Kelly I agree we are there, the balance has been tipped. I get into it more in my next post, but more studies on vaccine safety need to be done. That’s a really interesting point about the daycare, I never thought of it in that context before but it makes a lot of sense. I think sending your kid to daycare when they’re sick also comes from the parents going into work no matter how sick they are, why shouldn’t you send your kid to “work” too.
I think fear has a lot to do with vaccinating too. I think people are terrified of contracting diseases, and even more afraid for their children. I am too, however, I’m also terrified of the ramifications of the vaccine ingredients and crazy vaccination schedule. I really feel like the media hypes up things and gets people into a panic.
We won’t be getting the flu shot or swine flu shot either.