Article: Supporting Children's Health - by Philip Incao, M.D.

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An article written by my family doctor ….

 

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Chris (list mom)

 

http://www.alittleolfactory.com

 

 

Courtesy of AVN - Australian Vaccination Network

 

Supporting Children's Health - Part 1

by Philip Incao, M.D.

 

 

I would like to sincerely thank the editor and publisher of Alternative

Medicine Digest for allowing us to reprint the following article from

their issue 19. This is an excellent publication which I highly

recommend to each and every one of you. Part 2 will appear in the next

issue of the newsletter. If you would like to to Alternative

Medicine Digest ($36(US)/year from Australia) or would like to contact

them, their address is: 21 1/2 Main Street Tiburon California 94920 USA

 

The rate of chronic illness in children has tripled since 1960,

possibly due in part to the overuse of childhood vaccinations. The

surprising news is that the standard childhood illnesses these vaccines

suppress may actually benefit the immune system.

One of the best ways to ensure your children's health is to allow

them to get sick. At first hearing, this concept may sound outrageous.

Yet standard childhood illnesses, such as measles, mumps, and even

whooping cough, may be of key benefit to a child's developing immune

system and it may be inadvisable to suppress these illnesses with

immunisations. Evidence is also accumulating that routine childhood

vaccinations may directly contribute to the emergence of chronic

problems such as eczema, ear infections, asthma, and bowel

inflammations.

It's a challenging medical proposition, but ever since the 1920s,

many European physicians and a small band of American doctors (myself

included, for the past 23 years) have avoided using most vaccinations,

based on a medical approach called Anthroposophic medicine.

In this field, we regard childhood vaccinations as anything but

routine; rather, we consider them in most cases to be suspect,

dangerous, and worthy of exceedingly rigorous review. Generally, we try

to avoid giving most vaccinations and rely instead on alternative, more

natural ways of helping the child cope with what we contend are the

necessary and beneficial illnesses of childhood.

The Immune System Benefits from Early Illness

Before these concepts make sense, it must be pointed out that the

immune system has two different aspects. One aspect is called the

humoral immune system whereby antibodies (specialised defence proteins)

are produced to recognise and neutralise antigens (foreign particles in

the body).

The other aspect is called the cell-mediated immune system, and

involves white blood cells and specialised immune cells called

macrophages which ÒeatÓ antigens. These also help drive the antigens out

of the body, causing skin rashes and discharges of pus and mucus from

the throat and lungs. Both are typical signs of the beneficial acute

inflammatory illnesses of childhood.

These two poles of the immune system have a reciprocal relationship.

That means when the humoral pole is overstimulated (for example, from

vaccines or allergies), the cell-mediated pole tends to be relatively

inactive. Vaccines do not stimulate this pole, so their contents never

get discharged from the body.

Polio and tetanus do not belong to this group of beneficial standard

childhood illnesses. I use the word " standard " to denote acute

inflammatory illnesses (usually with rash and fever) typical and common

to children in Western, industrialised nations. These illnesses are also

standard to childhood as a developmental phase, something akin to the

predictable change in teeth around age seven.

Many years ago, Rudolf Steiner, the Austrian scientist and founder

of the Anthroposophic approach to medicine, argued that childhood

illnesses are a standard feature of childhood because the young body

needs them. Now let's see how this plays out in a standard childhood

illness or its suppression with vaccinations.

An acute inflammatory childhood illness--measles, mumps, rubella,

chicken pox, scarlatina, or whooping cough--develops the cell-mediated

immune system, while a vaccine activates the humoral immune system. The

difference here is crucial because it is the cell-mediated response that

protects the child from future illness and that provides, in effect, the

deeper immunity.

Physicians who practice Anthroposophical medicine generally believe

that having acute but limited inflammatory diseases as a child helps

protect one as an adult against more serious, long-term, chronic

illnesses. Not having these childhood illnesses (because of multiple

vaccinations) can lead to a greater incidence of adult health problems.

The same is true when these childhood illnesses are routinely suppressed

with antibiotics rather than helping the cell-mediated immune system to

work out the illness in a rash or mucous discharge.

Recent research in conventional medical journals is now confirming

this view. In early 1997, a team of British physicians writing in

Science made this provocative statement: " Childhood infections may,

therefore, paradoxically protect against asthma. " In other words, these

infections have a purpose in building general immunity.

The British physicians noted that the incidence of asthma has

doubled since 1977 in Western countries and in the U.S. it is

responsible for 33% of all paediatric emergency-room visits. Yet this

growing incidence of asthma seems to be related more to the suppression

or absence of respiratory infections than to the commonly perceived

cause, air pollution.

Highly polluted European cities where the use of antibiotics and

immunisations is less than in the U.S. have lower asthma rates than

comparable U.S. cities. Conversely, in Tucson, Arizona, despite the dry

heat and lack of irritants (such as dust mites) in the air, the rate of

asthma is the same as elsewhere in the country.

The Science physicians suggested that diseases such as tuberculosis

and whooping cough may permanently alter a child's immune system such

that they confer a lifetime protection against asthma. Certainly they

were not saying children should have tuberculosis, but they noted that

the humoral immune system needs to be tempered by the cell-mediated

response, and this best happens during an infectious childhood disease.

When a child undergoes an intense but short-term lung infection,

this provides the necessary exercise of the cell-mediated immune system.

If this does not happen, the humoral system is left unbridled and

subject to over-reaction to otherwise harmless pollen and dust

particles; eventually, this may lead to asthma.

Let's follow this idea in the case of measles. When a child gets a

measles rash, the body excretes the virus through the skin, usually

within about four days after rash onset. If the child does not get a

measles rash, some of the measles virus remains unneutralised in the

body where it can act as a chronic irritant to the immune system and

contribute to degenerative disease later.

The fever and rash of measles enable the body to burn up the virus;

having a measles vaccine is like planting a seed of future infection in

the body and tricking the body not to reject it. This is because a

vaccine results in only a partial immunity; ie., the humoral system is

triggered while the cell-mediated system remains dormant or can even be

inhibited by the vaccine. This insight was first put forward by Boston

homoeopath Richard Moskowitz, M.D., in the early 1980s.

Danish physician Tove Ronne stated it simply in The Lancet in 1985:

" Measles virus infection without rash in childhood is related to disease

in adult life. " Among these, Dr. Ronne listed skin disease, immune

dysfunctions, degenerative diseases of bone and cartilage, and certain

cancers. It's alarming to note that a few years later, in 1991, the

National Cancer Institute announced that the rate of all cancers among

white American children grew by 4.1% between 1973 and 1988. More

specifically, the rate of childhood leukemia increased by 10.7% while

brain cancers soared by 30.5%.

Predisposing Children to More Disease Later?

Put simply, the research suggests that if children do not undergo

some type of limited respiratory infection, they are more at risk for

developing asthma, among other problems. Michel R. Odent, M.D., and

colleagues at the Primal Health Research Centre in London, England,

documented this connection in a report on 448 children, published in the

Journal of the American Medical Association in 1994.

Out of this group, 243 children (average age, eight years) had been

immunised with the pertussis vaccine for whooping cough. Of these, 26

(10%) had asthma compared to only four (1.9%) of the 208 children not

immunised. This suggests that having the pertussis vaccine can increase

a child's risk of developing asthma by more than five times.

Similarly, in the vaccinated group, 130 children had ear infections

compared to only 59 among the 208 non-vaccinated. Here the risk of

developing subsequent ear infections was increased by almost two times

in pertussis-vaccinated children. The incidence of other diseases

(excluding asthma, ear infections, eczema, and whooping cough) was also

noticeably higher in the vaccinated group--34.6% versus 24% for

non-vaccinated children.

The measles vaccine has been linked with higher rates of

inflammatory bowel disease. Based on a study of 3,545 people who

received live measles vaccine as children, their rate of developing

ulcerative colitis was two-and-one-half times higher and three times

higher for Crohn's compared to an unvaccinated group, as reported in The

Lancet. The MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine has also been

implicated in higher rates of diabetes (see accompanying sidebar, " Do

Vaccinations Cause Diabetes? " ).

There are still other data suggestive of a vaccine link with

disease. For example, for largely " unexplained " reasons, between 1960

and 1981, the rate of activity-limiting chronic conditions among

children doubled from 1.8 to 3.8%, most noticeably in allergic and

mental/nervous system disorders. By 1995, this figure had climbed again

to 6.7%. In other words, the rate more than tripled since 1960. I

contend the rise is not " unexplained; " rather, it is explained by the

fact that we have overused antibiotics and immunisations.

Certainly this evidence paints a picture, and it confirms what

Anthroposophic physicians have contended for 75 years. It is healthier

for the child to undergo an acute upper respiratory infection (with

appropriate herbal and homoeopathic support, described below) than to

suppress or preempt it with antibiotics and vaccinations. The more you

allow children to work out their acute illnesses, to really exercise

their immune systems without suppressing the process, the stronger the

system will be and the less prone the children will be to serious adult

degenerative illnesses.

When an adult comes down with an infectious, inflammatory disease,

it is actually a blessing because it might prevent them from developing

a more serious chronic problem. I've seen adults who suppressed

inflammatory diseases, such as bronchitis or pneumonia, then five to ten

years later came down with cancer. Letting the inflammations run their

course instead (with support, naturally), may have prevented the cancer

from developing.

How Measles Can Cure Eczema

Now let's see how undergoing childhood measles may actually improve

a child's health, both immediately and in the long-term. Consider the

case of Hans, whom I first treated for measles when he was nine.

Hans did not receive the measles vaccine because he was allergic to

eggs. The vaccine contains an egg product and is not recommended for

children with this allergy. When he was nine, he came down with measles,

which is a bit late for children. Of considerable interest here is the

fact that for years Hans had suffered from severe eczema; his skin was

dry and cracked, particularly behind the elbows and knees, and

occasionally it bled. In fact, Hans often could not straighten his legs

because the eczema made it too painful.

His measles produced a strong rash and a fever of 104 F, yet I did

nothing to suppress these reactions with Tylenol (Panadol) or Advil

(Ibuprofin), for example, as conventional medicine would recommend.

Instead, I gave Hans Anthroposophic remedies to support him through the

measles process. Specifically, I gave him low potencies of Apis,

Belladonna, Argentum/ Carbo/Silicea, Ferrum Phosphate, Prunus Spinosa

(from the sloe plum), and Echinacea.

These remedies do not suppress the fever, but allow the constitution

to tolerate it better. The temperature does not need to come down, but

the child needs to be able to tolerate it. Again, the important concept

is that the fever is a natural, useful, necessary process for a child's

health. The child must be closely observed by a medical professional

during the illness process to be sure the course the illness is taking

is benign. It is important to find out if complications like

encephalitis or pneumonia are developing. These rarely occur and are not

directly linked to the degree of the fever.

The remedies we use for children make the body more transparent or

permeable to allow the toxicity or fever process to flow through it

without getting stuck. Let me illustrate this principle with an analogy.

 

If you have a copper rod and you light a candle at one end of it,

the warmth of the flame will flow quickly through the rod and you feel

the warmth at the other end. Similarly, if the body is like a copper

tube, the warmth of the fever will flow through it but not cause a

complication such as a convulsion; but if the body is more like lead,

which is dense and does not conduct heat well, complications are likely

to arise.

The lead does not conduct or dissipate the heat; rather, it starts

to melt at the point of contact with the heat. It remains cold at one

end and gets overheated at the other. This is analogous to the

undesirable situation of children having cold feet and a hot head. Care

should always be taken that children have warm feet, especially during a

fever.

If you suppress the fever with drugs or antibiotics, you block this

flow and make the body more like the lead in this analogy. How long a

child has the disease is not as important as avoiding complications. The

length of time depends on how much toxicity the body needs to discharge

through the fever.

When Hans' measles were over, his eczema had almost completely

disappeared. Hans is now in his twenties and has never had a recurrence

of eczema since his measles. This is a typical example of how

stimulating the cell-mediated side of the immune system can help the

body overcome an allergic problem. The measles process enabled Hans'

system to stop reacting allergically and producing the eczema symptoms.

In a sense, you could say that the fever burned the allergic reaction

out of his body.

His case also underscores the fact that childhood measles in

industrialised countries is a benign disease if you understand how to

treat it. Hans' symptoms, the high fever and intense rash, were not

mild, but scientific studies have shown that the stronger the initial

symptoms, the less likely it is that the child will get the damaging or

dangerous complications, such as encephalitis or pneumonia.

 

Do Vaccinations Cause Diabetes?

While the U.S. population has only doubled since the 1940s, the number

of Americans with diabetes has increased 200 times, and it has increased

by 300% in the last 15 years alone, representing about 15% of all U.S.

health-care costs. Routine childhood vaccinations may be a prime cause

of the diabetes epidemic, according to testimony presented before the

U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations on April 16,

1997, by Harris L. Coulter, Ph.D., medical history scholar and president

of the Center for Empirical Medicine in Washington, D.C.

Based on animal studies, the pertussis vaccine (part of the DPT

vaccination) is known to stimulate overproduction of insulin by the

pancreas. This is followed by exhaustion of that organ's " islets of

Langerhans " (which make insulin) and underproduction of insulin,

resulting in chronic low blood sugar (hypoglycaemia) and eventually

diabetes, says Dr. Coulter.

Both untreated rubella and the rubella vaccine (part of the MMR

inoculation) produce immune complexes that can damage the pancreas and

significantly reduce the levels of insulin that organ is able to

secrete. As an untreated disease, mumps can damage the pancreas. As a

vaccine, there are now many case reports directly linking the onset of

diabetes--sometimes within only a month's time--with receipt of the

mumps vaccination. New Zealand researchers observed a 60% increase in

the cases of juvenile diabetes following a hepatitis-B vaccination

program.

Despite the mounting evidence linking vaccines with diabetes, the U.S.

government refuses to research the connection, says Dr. Coulter. " The

fact that the federal medical establishment--which would be the major

source of funds for such an epidemiologic investigation--is itself

highly committed to the childhood vaccination program, goes far to

explain the absence of any official interest in this connection. "

Washington, DC 20016. Available by e-mail: hlcoulter.

 

 

Send mail to meryl with questions or comments about this web

site. 1998 Australian Vaccination Network, Inc. Last

modified: January 08, 2001

 

http://www.avn.org.au/newpage53.htm

 

 

Supporting Children’s Health – Part 2

 

By Dr. Philip Incao, M.D.

 

How a Fever Can Reverse the Effects of a Vaccination

 

It is increasingly noted that many of the routine childhood vaccinations

can produce a variety of side effects and complications, posing both

immediate and long-term dangers. aged 19 months, had all his

vaccinations, including DPT, MMR, tetanus, polio, and Hib (Haemophilus

influenza type b).

 

After his first two DPT shots at two and four months, Todd screamed

every night for a week, after which his parents and paediatrician

realised he had reacted to the shot and should have no more DPT. At 18

months, Todd received his MMR and polio immunisations, after which he

slept almost continually for two days; when he was awake, he was

lethargic and his breathing was shallow. A week later, Todd had trouble

standing erect and did not want to walk on his own. About two weeks

later, Todd came down with a 104 F fever and a rash. When both subsided,

he was his normal self again.

 

To understand what happened with you need to appreciate the

documented fact that some vaccines can produce a slight but significant

state of encephalitis, or brain inflammation. While this is usually

reversible, it may also leave lingering effects such as dyslexia or

attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. I didn't get to treat Todd

until after all this had happened, so I focused on giving him remedies

to heal his post-encephalitic state. I gave him Arnica, Belladonna, and

Formica to take for the next six to 12 months for the after-effects of

the brain inflammation caused by the vaccines.

's fever and rash following his MMR vaccination was his body's

attempt to " burn " the vaccine toxins out of his system. The first sign

that these materials irritated his system was Todd's lethargy, two-day

sleeping binge, and inability to walk; these symptoms, in fact,

indicated a slight brain inflammation. The second sign was the rash and

fever which arose to discharge these toxins from the body.

 

In Afghanistan, the common treatment for measles is to wrap the child in

blankets to produce a rash. The idea is that the more the measles comes

out as a skin rash, the less likely the child is to get encephalitis or

pneumonia. Anthroposophic physicians concur with the thinking behind

this " folk remedy. "

 

In the months immediately following his MMR injection and reaction, Todd

developed constipation (with movements only every 2-3 days) and a

spastic bowel. I regarded this as another symptom of his vaccine

reaction. Spastic colon is often a symptom of food allergies and

according to research reported by Harris L. Coulter, Ph.D., in

Vaccination, Social Violence, and

Criminality: The Medical Assault on the American Brain (North Atlantic

Books, 1990), many of today's food allergies are traceable to vaccines.

Dr. Coulter noted that encephalitis, especially derived from

vaccinations, can produce allergic states, adding that " the

interrelation among allergies, vaccination, and encephalitis has been an

active topic of medical investigation since the 1930s. "

 

While conventional medicine sees no connection between the digestive and

nervous systems, the interrelatedness of the two is strongly

acknowledged by practitioners of Anthroposophic, Chinese, and

homoeopathic medicine.

 

To correct Todd's intestinal problems, I started him on ground flaxseed

at the rate of two teaspoons, twice daily. Six months later when I saw

him next, Todd was having daily bowel movements; the stools were softer

and were eliminated without pain. He also had no problem standing up or

moving around on his own and by all visible signs was developing

normally.

cured most of the brain inflammation himself by getting the rash

and fever. However, Todd is still at risk for a learning disability such

as dyslexia--in effect, a third layer of reaction and damage from the

vaccines--when he eventually attends school. Many of these relationships

are subtle and problems may not surface or become noticeable until years

later.

 

Remedies for Dealing with Childhood Illnesses

 

Most of the illnesses common to childhood are the standard upper

respiratory tract conditions. While in the view of physicians practicing

Anthroposophic medicine it is crucial to not suppress the illness with

drugs or antibiotics, we offer many remedies to parents to support the

discharging--we call it " the expressing " --of the illness, driving it out

of the body.

 

Typically, I find that about 90% of the childhood illnesses can be

helped with about a dozen low-potency home remedies. I often prescribe

my personalised home remedy " kit, " which contains 13 Anthroposophic or

homoeopathic medicines, to parents wishing to approach their children's

health in this way. For example, Ferrum phosphate is effective for

relieving colds, flu, sinusitis, or any upper respiratory infection such

as bronchitis; Cinnabar is for sore throats and swollen lymph glands;

and Apis belladonna (a homoeopathic combination of the honey bee and

deadly

nightshade) works well for fevers and pain.

 

These are classical homoeopathic remedies, but among specifically

Anthroposophic medicines we often use Infludo for flu, bronchitis, or

pneumonia. This formula contains phosphorus, Aconite, Bryonia,

eucalyptus, Eupatorium, and Sabadilla. For earaches, my home remedy kit

includes capsicum (red pepper) and the herb lovage, given orally or

directly into the ear where it has a gentle warming effect that relieves

the pain. The parents obtain the kits (and other Anthroposophic

medicines) from Weleda Pharmacy which prepares the kit according to my

prescription for each child. Certain old-fashioned remedies, including

milk of magnesia which cleanses the colon, are handy for treating

children with inflammatory diseases.

 

From our medical perspective, it is often not the type of childhood

illness that determines the mix of remedies, but rather the child you

are treating. You have to individualise, based on symptoms and the

child's particular constitution. Two different children with the same

illness may require quite different treatments.

 

Anthroposophic, homoeopathic, and other natural medicines have also

enabled me for the last 20 years to avoid using antibiotics in treating

children. The aim of treatment is to support the externalising and

discharging of the illness process--to get it out of the body--so that

no residual illness remains to become a chronic problem later in life.

The essential point is that health is not merely the absence of illness,

as conventional medicine presumes. Rather, it is the balance between

acute inflammatory and chronic illnesses; when you suppress the first in

childhood, you're likely to get much more chronic illness in adulthood.

 

Do Vaccines Delay Children's Development?

 

According to the U.S. Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families,

7.5 million American children are considered developmentally delayed,

compared to 4.8 million in 1991. Of these 7.5 million, an estimated 30%

are autistic, which is not surprising as autism has been linked with the

MMR vaccine.

 

Children with developmental delays (based on a survey of 696 children,

aged

1-12) are 27% more likely to have had at least three ear infections and

50% more likely to have been on continuing rounds of antibiotics (20

cycles or more), according to the Developmental Delay Registry in March

1995. Most important for this discussion, the study also found that

developmentally delayed children were four times more likely than normal

children to have had a negative reaction to a vaccination.

 

Send mail to meryl with questions or comments about this web

site. 1998 Australian Vaccination Network, Inc. Last

modified: January 08, 2001