I am pretty tired of seeing articles pro-vaccination on my FB newsfeed. It is not that I am against vaccines...on the contrary, but I think that the important thing is to educate people and not chastise them. The way I see it, people who don;t vaccinate are either ferociously against vaccines or just not sure about them... the people who are passionately against them will never change their mind, no matter what, so we need to focus on the people who are unsure about them, because these are probably people who just have doubts and fears and will not respond to being called dumb or ignorant....
So, I decided to do some research and find out why people decide not to vaccinate. I found this:
http://www.thankyourbody.com/why-we-chose-not-to-vaccinate-our-child/
This is my response to that
Dear Robin,
Thank you so much for posting about your decision to not
vaccinate your kids. It was a very brave move, and frankly, as someone who believes
in vaccines I have been trying really hard to understand why people are against
them, and I am very interested to have a respectful and open-minded discussion
about it.
Let me give you a little bit of background on myself. I am a
research fellow at XXX with a PhD in Bionegineering from the XXX. I have worked on research in a wide range of issues
including cardiovascular stents, cytomegalovirus and breast cancer cell
motility but my true expertise and main research focus for the past 6 years has
been pancreatic and hepatic tissue engineering…so I don’t claim to be an expert
in vaccinations, but have a enough scientific training hat I consider myself
capable of deciphering through the literature with relative ease and have been
trained to critically an objectively read through scientific literature.
As a disclaimer, and so that you understand that I have no ulterior
motives here, I will let you know that after 6 years of graduate school, I make
42K a year (The NIH standard) as a research fellow, and my goal is to eventually establish myself
in academia, so I don’t foresee ever working for a pharmaceutical company, or
enter industry in general.
So, going back to your article, I would like to offer a
discussion of some of your concerns.
First, there is the issue of the ingredients of
vaccinations. Now, I can’t really discuss each of them individually, so I would
like to discuss the ingredients in the MMR vaccine, which protects against
measles, which is the culprit of the current state of panic. The CDC link you
posted states that the MMR vaccine contains Medium 199, Minimum Essential
Medium, phosphate, recombinant human albumin, neomycin, sorbitol, hydrolyzed
gelatin, chick embryo cell culture, WI-38 human diploid lung fibroblasts. So,
Medium 199 and Minimal Essential Medium (MEM) are common cell culture medias.
They are used for the maintenance of cell cultures and contain a number of
nutrients necessary for the cells to survive. All this nutrients are things
that you’d commonly ingest such as vitamins, amino acids (which make up
proteins) and some inorganic salts (such as just normal table salt). Once
again, most, if not all of the ingredients are things that you’d ingest with
most foods and are necessary for survivals of cells in culture or n the body.
Phosphate is also naturally occurring and we need it for survival. It is part
of the energy metabolism of all cells and many other cell functions and the
body produces it…briefly, ADP is converted into ATP by addition of a phosphate group
and ATP is converted to ADP by losing a phosphate group , and this constant
cycling is what produced energy for cells to survive. Also, phosphate is added
to glucose entering pancreatic beta
cells, and then cleaved, which results in release of insulin, which is
necessary for the cells to uptake glucose and therefore survive (glucose is our
main source of energy). Human albumin is a protein produced by liver and it is
very important for a number of things, including detoxification. A recombinant
form of the protein just means that it is made in the lab, which is good,
because you know it is free of possible pathogens. Recombinant proteins are
purified, so it really is just the active form of a protein that is produced in
the human body. Neomycin is an antibiotic, which just protects the vaccine from
getting contaminated with bacteria. sorbitol is a type of sugar that you find
in corn syrup and a number of fruits. Hydrolized gelatin is derived from
collagen. Basically, gelatin is denatured collagen, which is found in the skin
and most tissues. Denaturation takes place by heating collagen (or altering the
pH). Through denaturation, the collagen bonds break down in a process called hydrolysis,
changing the structure, but not the content of the collagen. The last 2 are a
little bit deceiving. They don’t actually put whole chick embryo cells or human
lung cells into the vaccines, but the inactivated viruses are propagated in the
cells and then extracted, but they list them because there may be some cell
components in the vaccine. This is important for people with allergies…for
instance, if you are allergic to eggs or poultry, since there may be some
traces of chick cells in the vaccine, you may get a reaction from it. Finally,
let me say that I was actually surprised at how harmless the ingredients of the
MMR vaccine are.
As for the safety of the vaccines, the pharmaceutical companies
do the testing required by the FDA, but in order to have long term studies you’d
need to give the drug as experimental drug to a lot of volunteers and follow
for a long time before approval. I have never been involved with FDA approval,
but have studies the process, and believe me when I say; it is not an easy
process. Long term effects may not be studied by pharmaceutical companies but
they are done by researchers in academic institutions. Typically, when
submitting these studies for publication, the manuscripts is reviewed by people
who are considered experts in the field to make sure it was properly performed
and the conclusion are well supported by the observations. Ina addition, you
are required to disclose any conflicts of interests (such as affiliation to
pharmaceutical companies). Failure to do so could destroy your career. An
interesting fact is that Andrew Wakefield, the author of the study that linked
vaccines to autism, was hired as a consultant for a pharmaceutical company
designing a new line of vaccines that claimed to be better than the ones that
supposedly caused autism. He failed to disclose this, on top of a deeply flawed
study with a very homogeneous and statistically too small group of patients.
As for the increase in diseases including allergies and
psychological disorders, there are a number of things that may contribute to
it, and while there may be a correlation, causation has never been proven. I
once heard someone saying that linking vaccines to autism is like linking
climate change to the decrease in pirates…the correlations are practically the
same (but causation has never been proved) On top of an increase of vaccines,
we have seen an increase in pollution, technology, change if lifestyles…all of
which could very well contribute to these. Another plausible explanation is
that while the rate of diagnosis has increased, the rate of the diseases has
not. For psychological diseases, guidelines for diagnosis have been created in
the last 30 years, so, before these guidelines, kids often when without a diagnosis
and simply labeled as trouble makers or problematic. For allergies, there are
actually several interesting articles that suggest that the increase
in incidence is not wide-spread in the world and changes in our behaviors have
affected that. For instance, 30 years ago, nobody really avoided peanut butter,
which this days is suggested to be avoided until the age of 2. When compared to
other countries where peanuts are widely used in their diet and there are no recommendations
against it (such as Israel) the incidence of peanut allergies is much greater
here. To me, that makes sense….the reason being that babies are born without an
immune system, and maturation takes a long time. Allergies are an extreme
immune response to something…so if we introduce allergens at an age where the
immune system is not fully developed this extreme reactions are not possible
sensitizing people to the culprits so that in the future no allergic reaction
is developed. Now, understand that I am not saying that we should go out and
give peanuts to newborns… this is just a hypothesis and one that I have never
tested…and to the best of my knowledge nobody has either… but is a hypothesis
based on scientific facts.
About the pharmaceutical industry being a money making
machine, I totally agree…they are evil (which is why I don’t want to go into
industry), but the FDA is a government run regulatory agency, and while obviously
there may be some corruption behind it, I like to think for the most part their
main goal is the wellness of the population. Also, the FDA makes no money from
pharmaceutical companies.
Regarding your healthy life-style, access to clean water and
a strong immune system, some scientists would actually disagree with you. In
order to be immune to things you need to be exposed to them….which is why kids
get sick more often that adults do. Basically, the body sees microbes and doesn’t
recognize them, therefore can’t fight them as fast…but if your body has seen a disease
causing pathogen before it has the machinery to fight it fast (it already has
the antibodies against it). This is one reason people sometimes get sick when
they travel while the locals tolerate the local food, water. Don’t get me wrong…I
am not saying go get aids, or hepatitits…those are deadly diseases and you
should stay away from them! But, a little bit of dirt doesn’t hurt anyone!
So…with that, I am done with my rant, and all I ask is for
you to give it some more thought. I would be very happy to answer any other questions
you have, or at the very least, try to help you find the answers. Thanks again
for being so brave as to openly admit that you chose to avoid vaccinations…I am
sure there has been some hate mail, and I am sorry if that is the case.
Have a great day
