Thousands of UK children
are now being injected with the measles/rubella vaccine, regardless of previous
immunizations and discounting any natural immunity acquired through having
these diseases. We are told in leaflets and by countless experts that the
benefits grossly outweigh the disadvantages.
My 27-year-old son
developed ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis), also known as CFS (chronic fatigue
syndrome), amongst many other names, after an atypical case of measles aged 12.
Stephen reacted badly to
the measles vaccine when he was given it at a year old with repeated and
prolonged screaming fits.
Although very alert as a
young baby, he was late in walking and even later with speech (two and three
years respectively). At 10, he caught measles, recovering normally. Two years
on he contracted glandular fever, treated with antibiotics; within two months
he had another bout of measles, this time
atypical, and ME followed.
In his case, the measles
immunization offered no life-long protection; instead a later double bout of
the illness led to chronic debilitating disease.
But how common are
long-term or immediate ME problems due to immunization generally?
Most of the existing
literature on the disorder focuses that it is caused by infections, particularly
entero and (to a lesser extent) Epstein Barr viruses (glandular fever). Early
accounts of epidemic outbreaks describe it as abortive and non-paralytic
poliomyelitis, affecting mainly hospital staff, people in institutions or
military establishments, largely among women. But recent publications also
mention the involvement of toxins, vaccines and other drugs in some cases in
the cause of this or a similar disorder, sometimes in its onset.
For instance, one study
mentions cases where vaccination against tetanus, cholera, flu and typhoid were
associated with onset of the syndrome, without infection (The Lancet 1988:
1286-87). Another found that 9 per cent of cases started after immunization or
surgery (Postgrad Med J, 1990; 66: 526-30). WCR Weir's report in the Royal
Society of Medicine's Medical Literature: Infectious Diseases (1992; 61: 3-8)
mentions various vaccines as precipitating the disorder.
In a major publication
documenting papers presented at the 1990 first World Symposium on ME held in
Cambridge, plus other available material (BM Hyde. et al. The Clinical and
Scientific Basis of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis
/ Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. The Nightingale Research
Foundation, Ottawa 1992), one group of researchers found that teachers, health
care and social workers, that is, people in close contact with infections and
with many routine immunizations, were more prone to the disorder. Some epidemic
outbreaks occurred after individuals were exposed to prophylactic shots
against diphtheria; whooping cough and smallpox, the greatest risk being
eight -14 days post inoculation.
In the same publication, CM Poser, examining
chronic fatigue post viral syndrome (CFPVS), multiple sclerosis (MS) and chronic
disseminated encephalomyelitis (CDEM) commented:
"It is well recognized that in
all three conditions a viral infection or an immunization may precede a bout of
illness. The latter is of particular significance in CFPVS, which has been
reported after immunization against tetanus, cholera, influenza and typhoid, and
more recently after vaccination against hepatitis B."
Again, in the same book, HH Fudenberg
states that the problems encountered by
sufferers of ME are partly due to system dysfunction caused by antigen
stimulation (the foreign bodies that prompt our antibody responses) by
incomplete, dead (and/or perhaps latent) viruses.
At the international
conference on CFS, held at Dublin last May, three papers documented the
involvement of vaccines in this disorder. E Salit showed that of 134 patients,
10 (7.5 per cent) of CFS patients had immunizations within three months prior
to becoming ill. BM Hyde et al found that over 3 per cent of 1826 ME/CFS
patients fell ill immediately after immunization.
In my own study, 12.4 per cent of 225 ME/CFS subjects (81 per cent with a
diagnosis of ME) were vaccinated in the month before ME onset, as were 16 per
cent of a separate group of young people under 25, diagnosed or believed to
have ME (over an extended period this rate could rise to 25 per cent).
Complications appear to
occur when a) vaccines "interact" with a dormant or incubating infection; b) in
subjects where immune system may be impaired (e.g. after prolonged steroid
treatment); c) other "allergy problems" exist.
I, too, found a link with
ME and those professions regularly exposed to immunization. 45 per cent of 157
non-student cases came from health care and teaching professions.
Finally, the National Task
Force Report on
CFS/PVFS/ME, largely funded by the UK's Department of
Health and published on 13 September of this year, acknowledges immunizations
as trigger factors and as causes of
relapses, among others.
Complications may arise due to an exhausted immune
system, or depressed cell mediated immunity response (that is, the immune
system response in the cells) during a persistent viral infection. The ABPI
Data Sheet Compendium (1994/5) documents depressed cell-mediated immunity
for up to four weeks or longer after immunization with the new measles vaccines.
No one knows how many new cases of ME will result
from this new vaccine campaign; there are bound to be some and possibly
many. An even greater query may hang over the children's health in future years.
Republished with permission of What Doctors Don't Tell
You, a monthly newsletter which reviews conventional medicine and provides proof
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