Kids Vaccine Linked to Fever, Seizures

By MIKE STOBBE

AP Medical Writer

5:28 PM CST, February 28, 2008 ATLANTA

Children suffered higher rates of fever-related convulsions when they got a Merck & Co. combination vaccine instead of two separate shots, according to a new study presented Wednesday.

The results prompted a federal advisory panel on vaccines to water down their preference for the combo vaccine ProQuad, which protects against measles, mumps and rubella as well as chickenpox.

In the study of children ages 12 months through 23 months, the rate of seizures was twice as high in toddlers who got ProQuad, compared with those who got one shot for chickenpox and one for the three other diseases.

The risk translates to about one extra case of convulsion for every 2,000 doses of ProQuad given said Dr. Nicola Klein, who lead the federally funded study. She presented the data at a meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

The study focused on children who develop fevers and then go into convulsions -- an occurrence that frightens parents but usually has no lingering consequences. There were no deaths in the new study.

ProQuad was licensed in 2005. It's been in extremely short supply since last year, when Merck suspended production because of manufacturing problems. The company expects to resume ProQuad production next year.

The panel had previously taken a position that they preferred doctors give children as few needlesticks as possible, and that ProQuad is preferable to giving separate shots.

It voted Wednesday to amend that, to say they're no longer voicing a preference for ProQuad over the separate shots.

"Safety, shortages, delivery issues -- lots of reasons not to state such a strong preference," said member panel Patsy Stinchfield, an infectious disease expert at Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota.

Merck officials said their own research, though preliminary, also showed a doubling of the risk in children within five to 12 days of vaccination. However, the occurrence was low -- about 5 cases in 10,000, Merck officials said.

They said there was five times more chickenpox antigen, the key ingredient, in the ProQuad shot than in the stand-alone chickenpox shot. But they said it's not clear that would explain the difference in seizure rates.

For some reason, the difference disappears when comparing rates for 30 days, Merck officials added.

Klein's research checked seizure rates only at seven to 10 days after vaccination, and looked at about 43,000 kids who got ProQuad and 315,000 who got the two other shots together. It found fever-related seizures occurred at a rate of 9 per 10,000 children vaccinated with ProQuad, compared with 4 per 10,000 for those who got separate shots.

Klein is co-director of Kaiser Permanente Vaccine Study Center in Oakland, Calif., one of seven sites in the study. Her work was funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

ProQuad costs $124 per dose, about the same as the two other shots combined.

Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

A Review of Thimerosal

A Review of Thimerosal (Merthiolate) And Its Ethylmercury Breakdown Product: Specific Historical Considerations Regarding Safety And Effectiveness

Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part B, 10:575–596, 2007 ISSN: 1093-7404 print / 1521-6950
David A. Geier1, Lisa K. Sykes2, Mark R. Geier3 1The Institute of Chronic Illnesses, Inc., 2CoMeD, Inc., and 3The Genetic Centers of America, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA

Thimerosal (Merthiolate) is an ethylmercury-containing pharmaceutical compound that is 49.55% mercury and that was developed in 1927. Thimerosal has been marketed as an antimicrobial agent in a range of products, including topical antiseptic solutions and antiseptic ointments for treating cuts, nasal sprays, eye solutions, vaginal spermicides, diaper rash treatments, and perhaps most importantly as a preservative in vaccines and other injectable biological products, including Rho(D)-immune globulin preparations, despite evidence, dating to the early 1930s, indicating Thimerosal to be potentially hazardous to humans and ineffective as an antimicrobial agent.

Despite this, Thimerosal was not scrutinized as part of U.S. pharmaceutical products until the 1980s, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration finally recognized its demonstrated ineffectiveness and toxicity in topical pharmaceutical products, and began to eliminate it from these. Ironically, while Thimerosal was being eliminated from topicals, it was becoming more and more ubiquitous in the recommended immunization schedule for infants and pregnant women.

Furthermore, Thimerosal continues to be administered, as part of mandated immunizations and other pharmaceutical products, in the United States and globally. The ubiquitous and largely unchecked place of Thimerosal in pharmaceuticals, therefore, represents a medical crisis.

Age of Autism Article

The Age of Autism highlights the Fox25 TV interview about the immunization problems with vaccines in Oklahoma.

Click Here to read the article and view the video.

Fox 25 Interview about Vaccines in Oklahoma

Click Here to view the TV story by Fox25 News in Oklahoma City. The story aired Sunday evening, Feb 17th, 2008 at 9:30pm.

Rep. Doug Cox, MD

Representative Doug Cox, MD R-Grove, has agreed to the be House sponsor for SB 1407. Rep Cox, the only practicing doctor in the legislature, is the Chairman of the House Health Committee.

SB 1407, Thimerosal Reduction Bill in our Vaccines, was passed out of the Senate Insurance Committee on Thursday, Feb 14th 9-1. The bill now is forwarded to the entire Senate body for a floor vote.

University of Calgary Study on Mercury

To learn the effect of mercury has on the Brain, please watch this short video.

Vaccination policy lags behind vaccine science

December 09, 2007Vaccination policy lags behind vaccine science
by Teresa Binstock December 9, 2007
http://ravenintelle ctions.typepad. com/from_ the_desk_ of_teresa_ b/2007/12/ vaccination-pol.htmlination-pol. html

Although vaccinologists have long enjoyed the prominence of their field'sorthodoxy, skepticism is arising in respected venues. The British MedicalJournal allows the question, "Are US flu death figures more PR thanscience?" and the journal Vaccine presents an article titled, "Why isevidence-based medicine so harsh on vaccines?"

Debate about the safety ofvaccinations continues. Many parents believe their child's neurologic, behavioral, or certain otherphysiological problems were caused or exacerbated by vaccinations. The CDC,which receives gargantuan funding to promote vaccinations (1-2), assuresthe public of their safety. Despite these assurances, a reporting systemfor vaccine-related adverse effects exists (3-4). A growing body ofmedical research suggests that subgroups of individuals can be adverselyaffected by environmental exposures that, for most people, seem not togenerate untoward effects (eg, 5).

Consider some new words: pharmacogenomics, pharmacogenetics, andnutrigenomics. Each calls attention to the interplay between environmentalfactors and the human genome. Pharmacogenetics refers to how drugs interactwith various gene alleles. An example is that some people detoxify ananti-cancer drug before it can do its work. Conversely, some individualsdetoxify a given drug so poorly that a therapeutic dose normal for mostpeople is far too high. Nutrigenomics refers to relationships among properlevels of intra-body nutrients, a person's gene alleles, and his or herneed for nutritional boosting of one metabolic pathway or another (6). Theword toxicogenomics refers to the interplay between gene alleles andenvironmental chemicals (5). Each of these fancy words has an inherentprinciple. People are not identical. There is much inter-individualvariation in the human genome, and these differences often cause peoplerespond to differently to otherwise similar chemical exposures. A majorramification is that medical treatments based upon a "one size fits all"policy often create problems for some individuals. This may be what isoccurring as childhood vaccinations become more numerous.

In fact, the new insights about pharmacogenomics and nutrigenomics ought beapplied to the nation's vaccination policy. Might subtle genetic variationsaccount for why some children experience adverse reactions to vaccinations?If so, are one-size-fits- all mandates for vaccinations likely to injuresome children? Ought a sick child not be vaccinated? Certainly, somecontraindications against vaccinations are known and declared, but findingsin pharmacogenomics and nutrigenomics suggest that officially declaredvaccination contraindications circa 2007 may be insufficient for protectinginfants and toddlers whose gene alleles and nutritional status indicateenhanced likelihood of risk. These concerns are not theoretical.

Vaccine guidelines are virtually compulsory in most states. Most parentsare informed that they consent. School attendance is one of the primarylevers by which vaccinations are enforced. Recently, Maryland prompted aflurry of news articles describing school-related vaccination- enforcement(eg, 7). Similarly, New Jersey is likely to add four vaccinations asconditions for preschool and kindergarten registration (eg, 8). Theseevents proceed even as many physicians, researchers, and parents questionthe wisdom of infants, toddlers, and young children receiving so manyvaccinations so early in life.

Gregory A. Poland, M.D., is a Mayo researcher. He and his colleagues havepublished numerous findings about gene alleles and their effects upon anindividual's ability to produce titers to vaccinal antigens. Needless tosay, their research and similar studies by others help us understand thegenomic basis for inter-individual responses to vaccinations (eg, 9-19).Some individuals are low responders, they hardly generate a titer to avaccinal antigen. Other individuals are high responders, they generateantibody responses far higher than normal. These differences providepossible clues regarding why vaccinations are not safe for every child, whymany parents describe post-vaccinal adverse effects, and do so while theCDC and AMA continue to trumpet vaccine safety, even as some states seekincreased enforcement of compulsory vaccinations in accord with aone-size-fits- all policy.

For more than ten years, many parents of autistic children have purchasedtiter-based immune screens for vaccinal antigens and for herpes viruses.Many such parents report that their autistic child who had been vaccinatedhas one or several missing titers for a vaccinal antigen. Since somevaccines contain live-viruses (described as attenuated), if someindividuals have one or more alleles that impair immune responses to aspecific vaccine's antigen, might that vaccine's live-virus be effectivelyless attenuated for that subgroup of individuals? Since some viruses areknown to have the potential of affecting the central nervous system ofhumans (20-26), would vaccinal injections with attenuated versions of thoseviruses be more likely to generate adverse effects in individuals withmissing or weak titers against those viruses? As suggested by findings inpharmacogenetics and in the work of Dr. Poland and colleagues, the answermay well be Yes! Some individuals are likely to be affected by injectionsof live-viruses, even those claimed to be attenuated. Furthermore, thework of Merrill Chase and others has made clear that a missing titer mayrepresent additional immune weaknesses.

The findings mentioned in this brief essay indicate an important concern.Is enforcement of a one-size-fits- all vaccination policy certain to induceadverse effects in some children? Again, the answer appears to be Yes.Perhaps the policy of enforcing mandatory vaccinations needs be tempered bygenomic testing of children so that individuals with relevant alleles orweakened immunity can be identified before they are placed at risk byvaccination incidents. Such testing would not be inexpensive, butestablishing a pre-vaccination testing policy might reduce the number ofadverse events and thus inhibit the growing costs of long-term care forseverely affected individuals.
Teresa Binstock
1. http://www.iom.%20edu/Object.%20File/Master/%2019/029/0.%20pdf
2. http://weldon.%20house.gov/%20News/DocumentSin%20gle.aspx?
3. http://vaers.%20hhs.gov/
4. http://www.nvic.%20org/
5. Toxicogenomics: a pivotal piece in the puzzle of toxicologicalresearch. Gatzidou ET et al. J Appl Toxicol. 2007 Jul-Aug;27(4) :302-9.
6. Nutrigenomics: The Genome–Food Interfacehttp://www.ehponlin%20e.org/docs/%202007/115-%2012/focus-%20abs.html
7. http://www.nytimes.%20com/2007/%2011/18/us/%2018vaccine.%20html?fta=
8. http://www.nytimes.%20com/2007/%2012/09/nyregion/%2009vaccine.%20html
9: Variation in vaccine response in normal populations. Pharmacogenomics.2004 Jun;5(4):417- 27.
10: The genetic basis for measles vaccine failure. Acta Paediatr Suppl.2004 May;93(445): 43-6; 11: Correlations among measles virus-specific antibody,lymphoproliferation and Th1/Th2 cytokine responses followingmeasles-mumps- rubella-II (MMR-II) vaccination. Clin Exp Immunol. 2005Dec;142(3):498- 504.
12: Human leukocyte antigen polymorphisms: variable humoral immuneresponses to viral vaccines. Expert Rev Vaccines. 2006 Feb;5(1):33- 43.
13: Human leukocyte antigen haplotypes in the genetic control of immuneresponse to measles-mumps- rubella vaccine. J Infect Dis. 2006 Mar1;193(5):655- 63. Epub 2006 Jan 27.
14: Immune activation at effector and gene expression levels after measlesvaccination in healthy individuals: a pilot study. Hum Immunol. 2005Nov;66(11):1125- 36. Epub 2006 Jan 4.
15: Importance of HLA-DQ and HLA-DP polymorphisms in cytokine responses tonaturally processed HLA-DR-derived measles virus peptides. Vaccine. 2006Jun 19;24(25):5381- 9. Epub 2006 May 3.
16: Associations between measles vaccine immunity and single-nucleotidepolymorphisms in cytokine and cytokine receptor genes. J Infect Dis. 2007Jan 1;195(1):21- 9. Epub 2006 Nov 20.
17: Human leukocyte antigen and interleukin 2, 10 and 12p40 cytokineresponses to measles: is there evidence of the HLA effect? Cytokine. 2006Nov;36(3-4): 173-9. Epub 2007 Jan 17.
18: Variations in measles vaccine-specific humoral immunity bypolymorphisms in SLAM and CD46 measles virus receptors.J Allergy ClinImmunol. 2007 Sep;120(3):666- 72. Epub 2007 Jun 8.
19: Heterogeneity in vaccine immune response: the role of immunogeneticsand the emerging field of vaccinomics. Clin Pharmacol Ther. 2007Dec;82(6):653- 64. Epub 2007 Oct 31.
20. Measles virus in the CNS: the role of viral and host factors for theestablishment and maintenance of a persistent infection. J Neurovirol. 1999Dec;5(6):613- 22.
21. Increase in adhesion molecules in cerebrospinal fluid of children withmumps and mumps meningitis. Scand J Immunol. 2006 Oct;64(4):420- 4.
22. An adult case of mumps brainstem meningoencephalitis with a pastmeasles-mumps- rubella (MMR) vaccination. Korean J Intern Med. 2006Jun;21(2):154- 7.
23. Neurological aspects of rubella virus infection. Intervirology.1997;40(2-3) :167-75.
24. Congenital rubella syndrome due to infection after maternal antibodyconversion with vaccine. Jpn J Infect Dis. 2003 Apr;56(2):68- 9.
25. Congenital rubella syndrome despite repeated vaccination of the mother:a coincidence of vaccine failure with failure to vaccinate. Acta Paediatr.1994 Jun;83(6):674- 7.
26. Complications of varicella in children: emphasis on skin and centralnervous system disorders. J Microbiol Immunol Infect. 2000 Dec;33(4):248- 52
27. Polymerase chain reaction analysis and oligoclonal antibody in thecerebrospinal fluid from 34 patients with varicella-zoster virus infectionof the nervous system. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 2006 Aug;77(8):938- 42.

Senate Insurance Committee advances SB 1407

The Oklahoma Senate Retirement & Insurance Committee today voted 9-1 to advance Senator Jay Paul Gumm's SB 1407, the Thimerosal Reduction in Vaccines Bill. The bill now will be advanced to entire Senate for an upcoming floor vote later this month.

The debate in the committee was centered around the Department of Health's contention that the bill was about vaccines causing autism. There was no mention in the bill of autism. Also, the Department of Health stated that they would not able to purchase enough supply of thimerosal. That was another false statement.

Senate Insurance Committee to hear SB 1407

The Oklahoma Senate Insurance Committee will hear SB 1407 (Sen. Jay Paul Gumm) in committee on Thursday, Feb 14th, 2008 at 9:00am, Room 419-C at the capitol.

Senator Jay Paul Gumm requests parents, friends, medical practitioners, and other concerned citizens that want to remove Thimerosal from our vaccines, plan to attend.

If you have further questions, please contact Wayne Rohde (405) 973-7049.