Nexus - 0214 - New Times Magazine-pages

Page Content (OCR)

VACCINATIONS "Only after a vaccine is found to be safe and effective is it licensed for use.” (Principles and Practice of Infectious Diseases, Mandell, Douglas and Bennett.) ten AA AA Imenwieere\ wa nk These are the facts about vaccines that the medical profes- sion and the drug companies won't tell you. WHOOPING COUGH (PERTUSSIS) VACCINE lhe vaccine against whooping cough is combined with vaccines for diphtheria and tetanus and is known as the DPT or triple antigen vaccine. Professor Gordon Stewart, in an article on whooping cough (Here's Health, March 1980), comments on the histo- ty of this vaccine in Britain. "Introduced in 1957, this vaccine had been administered to 70 per cent of infants by 1960 and over 70 per cent of all children by 1969. "The national programme was monitored from 1957-1968 by the Public Health Laboratory Service. In 1969 they reported that the vaccines were "not very effective” in that they had failed to control outbreaks or to ge fully-vaccinated children from infection. During this time the proportion of children vaccinated rose to 80 per cent or more, and it is a matter of record that whooping cough continued to decline in preva- lence and severity. But, equally, it is firmly on record not only that whooping cough occurred in fully-vaccinated children, but also that severe adverse reactions to the vac- cine were causing problems and concern. "If reference be made to events at the time of the earlier trials of pertussis vaccine when given alone (i.e., not as part of triple vaccine) in the USA and UK, it becomes clear that the inclusion of pertussis vaccine makes triple vaccine much more likely to be followed by adverse reactions involving the heart and nervous system. Such reactions include shock, collapse, convulsions and screaming fits, all of which had been recorded in some of the children who received pertussis vaccine alone in the earlier trials. Such signs were extremely infrequent or altogether absent in the earlier usage of the other two components of triple vaccine. "More light was thrown on this problem when Professor W. amg in Hamburg, and Dr John Wilson with colleagues at the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Reet, London, reported independently that signs of severe brain damage began to appear in some children soon after adverse reactions to triple vaccine. At ‘Sbout f e same time, a number of reports appeared in the press from different parts of the UK about children who were previously well but had become mentally retarded or paralysed soon after receiving triple vaccine. The government, on the advice of its advisory committees, responded to these oe by re-affirming the efficacy and safety of pertussis vaccine and by insisting that this component be retained in triple vaccine. They insisted also that a high level of vaccination among children of all ages must be maintained if epi- demics were to be averted. "At that time in 1974, vaccination levels generally were about 30 per cent, seldom below 70 per cent and often above 90 per cent. The last outbreak of whooping cough had been in 1970-71 and, as epidemics are currently liable to occur every three to four years, another = was expected and did in fact occur in 1974-75. This provided an opportunity for reviewing the efficacy of pertussis vaccine. It soon became apparent that protection was again incomplete and at best temporary, in that in all reports pub- lished at that time, a considerable proportion (30-50 per cent) of cases occurred in fully- vaccinated children. "Meanwhile, reports about brain damage continued to circulate, leading to debates between experts and in parliament about the safety of the vaccine. The main advisory committee (the Joint Committee on Immunisation and Vaccination) stuck firmly to its view (first expressed in 1964) that the vaccine was safe as well as effective and that brain damage, if it occurred at all, was excessively rare, affecting no more than 1:300,000 infants vaccinated. They did, however, emphasise the need for caution, and recommend that the vaccine be withheld from children who showed signs of disorder in the nervous system, or had a family history of same, or who reacted badly to a first or second injection. There was by this time considerable doubt in many quarters, to which the government repent | by setting up, through the Committee on the Safety of Medicines, a special — panel to review the suspected toxicity of the vaccine. They — in 1978 a scheme for compensation of parents of vaccine-damaged children. Extracted from chapter 3, of the book VACCINATION - THE HIDDEN FACTS by lan Sinclair Available through NEXUS Magazine PO Box 30, Mapleton Qld 4560 Price: $29 (includes postage) JUNE - JULY 1993 NEXUS ¢ 27