READ ALL SO-CALLED “STUDIES” WITH A GRAIN OF SALT…..

“At our April 6 autism hearing, Dr. Paul Offit disclosed that he holds a patent on a rotavirus vaccine and receives grant money from Merck to develop this vaccine.  He also disclosed that he is paid by the pharmaceutical industry to travel around the country and teach doctors that vaccines are safe.  Dr. Offit is a member of the CDC’s advisory committee and voted on three rotavirus issues – including making the recommendation of adding the rotavirus vaccine to the Vaccines for Children’s program. “

From the Opening Statement by Chairman Dan Burton, Committee on Government Reform titled: “FACA: Conflicts of Interest and Vaccine Development: Preserving the Integrity of the Process”,Thursday, June 15, 2000

Among the many questions one might ask, challenging this notion, is the following:  “If infant immune systems are so strong, why is breast-milk designed to help them through their early years?”  - SM

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20020107/hl/infants_1.html

Monday January 7 10:19 AM ET

Infants Can Handle Multiple Vaccines: Experts

By Amy Norton

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Despite some parents' concerns, infants' immune systems are strong enough to handle the many vaccinations they should receive in their first months and years of life, US experts say.

In the January issue of Pediatrics, researchers lay out the evidence that even newborns have sturdy immune systems and that receiving multiple vaccinations does not ``overwhelm'' babies' defenses.

Some recent surveys have indicated that this is a concern for many parents, according to Dr. Paul A. Offit of Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and his colleagues.

``I think it's an understandable concern,'' Offit said in an interview with Reuters Health. For parents, he added, the sight of the multiple needle sticks their babies get at an office visit may seem more threatening than the invisible pathogens vaccines ward off.

Today in the US, children receive 11 routine vaccinations and as many as 20 shots by age 2, Offit and his colleagues note. These immunizations protect against a range of potentially serious infections such as measles, mumps, chicken pox and hepatitis B.

But the sheer number of shots children get has made some parents question whether their young immune systems can withstand it all.

They can, Offit said. Long before birth, he and his colleagues explain, the immune response takes shape, with key immune-system cells called B cells and T cells showing up by the 14th week of pregnancy.

Vaccines prime the immune system to fight certain infections by exposing it to antigens, or proteins, from a virus or bacterium. This allows the body to produce antibodies to the germ, which will protect the child from infection.

According to Offit and his colleagues, an infant's immune system has the ``theoretical capacity'' to respond to roughly 10,000 vaccines at any one time. They estimate that if a baby received all 11 available vaccines at once, this would ``use up'' 0.1% of the immune system.

And in reality, they explain, ``a vaccine never really 'uses up' a fraction of the immune system'' because the child's B cells and T cells are constantly replenished.

Compared with the vast exposure children have to microbes in their environment and in their own bodies, Offit said, ``a vaccine is just a drop in the ocean.''

In addition, he and his colleagues point out, although the number of vaccines children receive shot up over the last century, the number of antigens in these vaccines has declined. The one vaccine children received 100 years ago--the smallpox vaccine--contained 200 proteins. Today's recommended 11 vaccines contain around 130 proteins in total.

Offit explained that advances in the way vaccines are created have allowed this sharp decline.

``Current studies do not support the hypothesis that multiple vaccines overwhelm, weaken, or 'use up' the immune system,'' he and his colleagues write.

Instead, they conclude, ``by providing protection against a number of bacterial and viral pathogens, vaccines prevent the 'weakening' of the immune system.''

SOURCE: Pediatrics 2002;109:124-129.