“The Dose Makes the Poison”: Rethinking Traditional Toxicity Testing
At some point we have all heard the argument “the dose makes the poison” in support of the safety of including small amounts of dangerous ingredients such as formaldehyde, phenol, sodium borate, aluminum, etc., in vaccines, but it is not that simple. Research on the safety of vaccine ingredients, for example, largely ignores contemporary toxicological perspectives on the long-term effects of repeated periodic exposures to low concentrations of dangerous substances. Understanding the basics of chemical-safety testing methods is the first…
Pertussis Microbe Outsmarts the Vaccines as Experts Argue About Why (Part II)
When there are a lot of people with silent asymptomatic pertussis infections, it is impossible to know who is a carrier and who is not, which means that reported cases of pertussis are just the tip of a very big iceberg. It also means that articles blaming whooping cough cases on unvaccinated or partially vaccinated children are nothing more than wishful thinking and scapegoating. When there are a lot of people with silent asymptomatic pertussis infections, it is impossible to know who is a carrier and who is not, which means that reported cases of pertussis are just the tip of a very big iceberg. It also means that articles blaming whooping cough cases on unvaccinated or partially vaccinated children are nothing more than wishful thinking and scapegoating. Bottom Line: Both natural and vaccine acquired immunity is temporary and while vaccination may prevent clinical symptoms, it…
Chickenpox Vaccine May Increase Shingles Risk
Before the licensing of the live varicella zoster (chickenpox) virus vaccine in 1995 and subsequent mandating of the vaccine for all children in the U.S., chickenpox itself was considered one of the milder “rites of passage” for children and the vast majority of children experienced the common childhood disease before age ten. Most people have heard about how parents commonly…
Pertussis Microbe Outsmarts the Vaccines as Experts Argue About Why (Part I)
For the past decade, Americans have been subjected to dire warnings that B. pertussis whooping cough cases are on the rise and it is the fault of parents who don’t vaccinate their children. That myth actually goes back to the early 1980’s, when parents of DPT vaccine injured children in the U.S. were asking for a safer pertussis vaccine while, at the same time, discovering that…
Brazilian Study Unable to Determine Causal Link Between Zika and Brain Disorders
According to a new study led by neurologist Maria Lucia Brito Ferreira, MD of Restoration Hospital in Recife, Brazil, the Zika virus may be linked to an autoimmune disorder, acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM), that is similar to multiple sclerosis. ADEM is an immune mediated inflammatory disorder of the central nervous system that can be triggered by viral or bacterial…
The Story of Measles’ Sharp Decline
In articles published last year in The Vaccine Reaction, “Polio Wasn’t Vanquished, It Was Redefined” and “The Salk ‘Miracle’ Myth,” I proposed that the reason the number of reported cases of polio in the United States declined so much in 1955—the year the Salk inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) was introduced—was due to the redefinition of polio by the U.S. government in 1954.