An Open Letter in Support of Parents Wishing to Limit or Avoid Immunizations for their Children.

            At the present time there are growing public and professional concerns about the safety of currently mandated childhood vaccine programs, as reflected by a series of annual Congressional hearings in Washington DC that have taken place since 1999,  sponsored by the U.S. House Government Reform Committee under the chairmanship of Congressman Dan Burton.  At an annual conference of the American College for the Advancement of Medicine during April, 2001 with several hundred physicians in attendance, when one of the speakers asked how many in attendance had concerns about the safety of current childhood vaccines, a large majority raised their hands. 

The Autism Research Institute of San Diego is now widely known as an active support group for families with autistic children and is one of the more active organizations in this field.  Its founding director, Bernard Rimland, Ph.D., has provided the statistics that, in their experience, from 50 to 60% of parents with autistic children believe that their children were damaged by vaccines. In our own office we have seen many autistic children in recent years, and our experience has been very similar, many parents reporting that deterioration of their children took place following vaccines.

As reviewed in presentations at the Congressional hearings mentioned above, the following evidence has been brought forward by various presenters as reasons for the growing concerns about vaccine safety:

-         Safety studies on vaccinations are limited to short time periods only: several days to several weeks.  There are NO (NONE) long-term (months or years) safety studies on any vaccination or immunization. For this reason, there are valid grounds for suspecting that many delayed-type vaccine reactions may be taking place unrecognized as to their true nature.

-    There is no screening system in place, even at a rudimentary level, to identify infants with immunological problems which may place them at greater risk for adverse reactions to the vaccines.

-         A meaningful basic science (scientific infrastructure) is grossly deficient for

the vaccines. (1) By way of explanation, there are two general categories which comprise a basic science for any form of medical intervention, in this case the vaccines:  First, long-term surveillance following the vaccines is, for all intents and purposes, non-existent as previously mentioned, and second, before-and-after testing to determine the effects of the vaccines on various organs and  systems of the body, especially the neurologic, immunologic, and hematologic systems, have never been done in any definitive or systematic fashion. There are a few isolated reports of before-and-after testing of the vaccines in the medical literature, but as far as I am aware, these have never had proper follow up.  Although there are others, the one example given below will give some insight into the scope of the problem:

-         As reported in a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine in 1984, tests of T-lymphocyte subpopulations were done on 11 healthy adults before-and- after routine tetanus booster immunizations.  Tests showed a significant though temporary drop in T-helper lymphocytes (a class of white blood cells which helps govern the immune system) in all of the subjects.  Special concern rests in the fact that in 4 of the subjects the T-helper cells fell to levels found in active AIDS patients. (2)  If this was the result of a single vaccine in healthy adults, it is sobering to think of the consequences of the multiple vaccines (twenty one at last count) routinely given to infants with their immature immune systems during the first six months of life.  However, we can only speculate as to the consequences, as this test has never been repeated.

-         Dating back to the 1930s pharmaceuticals have added thimerosal (made up of     ethyl mercury) to many of the vaccines given to children.  However, it was not until 1999 that the FDA was compelled by a Congressional mandate to disclose the quantity of mercury in the vaccines.  Many became gravely concerned when it was learned that for many years infants had been routinely receiving 25 to 50 or more times the amount of mercury in a given day than was considered safe by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standards. (3).  For centuries mercury has been known to be one of the most toxic of the heavy metals.  Very recently an animal study has revealed a possible mechanism for this toxicity in which mercury vapor exposures resulted in retrograde degeneration of neuronal (brain) membranes, producing molecular lesions similar to those seen in the brains of patients dying with Alzheimer’s disease. (4)

-         The sequel to this story is very interesting.  Apparently as an off-shoot of the    Congressional hearings in which the thimerosal issure had been raised, the Institute of Medicine (a scientific advisory board for the federal government) issued a report on October 1, 2001 entitled, “Thimerosal-Containing Vaccines and Neurodevelopmental Outcomes.”  In essence the statement gave the opinion that, although a causal relation between thimerosal-containing vaccines and the increasing incidence of neurodevelopmental problems in children has not yet been proven, “the hypothesis is biologically plausible.”

-         In other words, the Institute of Medicine admits that there are valid grounds for suspicion that thimerosal-containing vaccines could be contributing to the current epidemic of neurobehavioral problems in American children including autism, attention deficit, hyperactivity, behavioral problems, attention deficit, and learning difficulties.  However, due to deficiencies in scientific infrastructure (their own words), there is insufficient data to prove the matter one way or the other.  It is true that measures are now belatedly (after over 50 years of use) being taken to remove thimerosal from the vaccines, but even this has come about only after intense pressure from the public, and thimerosal is only one of many safety issues involved in the vaccines.

-         Proceeding next from the issue of vaccine safety to the question of the need or necessity for childhood vaccines:  It is true that vaccines played a role in the worldwide eradication of smallpox and eradication of polio from the Western Hemisphere, (5) but vaccine proponents would have us believe that vaccines have been largely responsible for controlling virtually all of the former epidemics of killer disease in the U.S.A.  With the exceptions cited above, the facts do not bear this out.  According to the records of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, from 1911 to 1935 the four leading causes of  childhood deaths from infectious diseases in the U.S.A. were diphtheria, pertussis, scarlet fever, and measles.  However, by 1945 the combined death rates from these causes had declined by 95% before the implementation of mass vaccine programs. (6) According to a report in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report of July 30, 1999, improvements in sanitation, water quality, hygiene, and the introduction of antibiotics have been the most important factors in control of infectious disease in the past century.  Although vaccines were mentioned, they were not included among the major factors. (7)

            In conclusion, with such a scenario as described above for current childhood vaccine programs, I do not feel there is any scientific or moral justification for the current mandating of childhood vaccines at any level.  It is for this reason that, for many years, I have supported the freedom of choice of parents to accept or reject vaccines for their children based on informed consent.  It is my belief that once this system of checks and balances is set in place for the vaccines, allowing parents the right of informed consent to accept or refuse vaccines for their children, vaccines will find their proper level in our health system. 

Caveat for Parents:  All vaccine requirements today are based on state laws, which vary from state to state.  For this reason parents seeking exemptions for the children should look up the vaccine laws (statutes) in their state.  If unsure of the best way to proceed,  parents should seek advice of an attorney.

Harold E Buttram, MD

April 3, 2002

References:

(1)    Stratton KR, Howe CJ, Johnston RB, Editors, Adverse Events Associated with Childhood Vaccines; Evidence Bearing on Causality, Institute of Medicine, National Academy Press, Washington D.C., 1994: 211-236.

(2)    Eibl M et al, Abnormal T-lymphocyte subpopulations in healthy subjects after tetanus booster immunization (letter), New Engl J Med, 1984; 310(3):198-199.

(3)    Halsey NA, Limiting infant exposure to thimerosal in vaccines and other sources of mercury, JAMA, 1999; 282:1763-1766.

(4)    Leong CCW, Naweed IS, Lorscheiderae FL, Retrograde degeneration of neurite membrane structural integrity of nerve growth cones following in vitro exposure to mercury, NeuroReport, accepted for publication Dec. 21, 2000, 12(4): 0733-0737.

(5)    It is true that vaccinations played a role in the elimination of smallpox, but it is a misconception that mass vaccine programs were necessary for its elimination, for the simple reason that mass vaccine programs never took place in large portions of the world.  In many third world countries no more than 10% of the population was vaccinated for reasons of financial and logistical limitations.  Out of necessity it was found that the process of “quarantine and containment,” whereby infected persons were quarantined and contacts surrounding a village area were vaccinated, was sufficient to eliminate the disease. 

In addition, epidemic diseases are by nature cyclical, a prime example of which was the black plague of the Middle Ages, which ceased without any medical or public health intervention. This may also have played a role in the disappearance of smallpox as well as polio.

(6)    Dublin L, Health Progress, 1935-1945, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, 1948, Page 12.

(7)    Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, July 30, 1999, 48:621-628.