Unnecessary injection of risk: vaccination - GREAT ARTICLE!

[Guest guest]

Unnecessary injection of risk:

vaccination

 

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/unnecessary-injection-of-risk-vaccination/story-e6frg8y6-1225860392740

 

VACCINATION is one of the most important public health measures in

history, but there have been problems with this year's seasonal plus

swine flu vaccine. It has been withdrawn for young children because of

adverse side effects experienced by numbers of children across various

states, involving different batches of vaccine.

Health departments still recommend the stand-alone swine flu vaccine

Panvax Junior for youngsters, even though Panvax was associated with

fever in more than 30 per cent of children under three in the only

published study on its use, funded by pharmaceutical manufacturer CSL and

reported last year in The Journal of the American Medical

Association.

Although media reports so far suggest the seasonal flu vaccine causes

worse side effects in young children, Panvax also has caused side effects

such as fever in children of all ages.

That's why I don't think it's a good idea to give Panvax to children

until we have further data, based on a study of a large group of

children, which shows no significant increased rates of fever and other

side effects associated with its use.

Fever was a common reaction in all children receiving the swine flu

vaccine and, not surprisingly, febrile convulsions were also likely to

occur more frequently in vaccinated children, with large numbers being

taken to doctors or hospitals with high fever.

Reports suggest that of the 20,000 to 30,000 children vaccinated in

Western Australia, 250 had adverse reactions and 55 had febrile

convulsions. This means that about one child in every 500 vaccinated had

a febrile convulsion, a very high rate.

Internationally, there's relatively little data on the effects of

vaccinating young children against influenza. Some pharmaceutical

companies have even withheld data they possess from clinical

studies.

The recent CSL study in which 370 Australian children received the H1N1

vaccine has greatly increased the available data.

This data shows that a large percentage of children had fever following

vaccination. It also shows a dose response effect -- the larger the

vaccine dose, the greater the side effects -- and an age relationship:

the younger the child, the more side effects they experienced. Children

under three developed more than twice the rate of fever after vaccination

compared with older children.

Overall, 25 per cent of children receiving the 15 microgram vaccine dose

developed a fever and 41 per cent of those who received the 30mcg dose

got a fever.

This was the data used by Australia's regulatory body, the Therapeutic

Goods Administration, to approve this vaccine for use in

children.

Breaking that down further, the percentages of children under three who

developed a fever after vaccination were very high: 35.4 per cent of

those given a 15mcg dose and 62 per cent of those given the larger

dose.

In many cases, the fever was high. Response was classified as a moderate

or severe systemic reaction -- more than over 38.5C -- in 14.6 per cent

and 30.4 per cent of those receiving the low and high doses

respectively.

Why did such a high percentage of children develop fevers after the swine

flu vaccine?

I think it is likely that many were already immune. So when when they

were again exposed to swine flu components, this time in the vaccine,

they mounted a brisk immune response that included fever.

That's possible, as it is estimated that half of all Australian children

were infected with swine flu last winter.

The CSL study was conducted in October, when Australia was already well

past the July peak of swine flu. Although children known to have

previously been infected with swine flu were excluded from the study,

many may have had asymptomatic or mild swine flu infections.

It would be possible to test this idea by re-examining the data in the

CSL study to see if there's any relationship between pre-existing

antibodies at any level and subsequent reactions.

If this isn't the explanation, we need to quickly pursue and investigate

other explanations since we need to know why we've seen such high rates

of febrile reactions.

A large number of children across Australia have been taken to hospitals

with fevers or febrile seizures after receiving vaccines designed to

protect them against swine and seasonal flu.

We know from the CSL study that if we inject children with swine flu

vaccines, a high percentage of them are likely to develop fevers of more

than 38.5C. We also know that those who get a fever are at risk of

developing potentially dangerous febrile convulsions. Given these

findings, I again argue that -- until further studies show that fever is

infrequent in children after receiving influenza vaccines -- we should

only vaccinate children with serious risk factors such as underlying

heart, lung or neurological diseases.

Last winter, the likelihood that a child without risk factors would die

from swine flu was less than one in a million. When such a high

proportion of children develop moderate to severe febrile reactions to

the influenza vaccine, it's likely that we'll cause more harm than good

by vaccinating the entire population.

I remain surprised that a vaccine that produces fever in such a high

proportion of children, especially those under three, was allowed to be

used in Australia without explicit warnings to parents and without any

formal, prospective, post-marketing surveillance to look at this issue in

large numbers of children.

Peter Collignon, a professor at the Australian National University, is an

infectious diseases physician and clinical microbiologist.

Meryl Dorey

meryl

Australian Vaccination Network

Living Wisdom magazine

Investigate before you vaccinate

02 6687 1699 - Work

02 6687 2032 - FAX

 

 

Sheri Nakken, R.N., MA, Hahnemannian

Homeopath

Vaccination Information & Choice Network, Washington State, USA

Vaccines -

 

http://vaccinationdangers.wordpress.com/ Homeopathy

 

http://homeopathycures.wordpress.com

Vaccine Dangers, Childhood Disease Classes & Homeopathy

Online/email courses - next classes start April 28, May 5 & 6