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A User-Friendly Vaccination Schedule
by Donald W. Miller, Jr., MD
Vaccination is a controversial subject, and many parents
worry about subjecting their children to them. Readers of my
article "Mercury on the Mind," about vaccines and
dental amalgams, have asked what vaccines I would recommend
their children receive. This article addresses that question.
In the Recommended Childhood Immunization Schedule put out by
the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), 12
vaccines are given to children before they reach the age of two.
Providers inject them against hepatitis B, diphtheria, tetanus
(lockjaw), pertussis (whooping cough), polio, pneumococcal
infections, Hemophilus influenzae type b infections, measles,
mumps, rubella (German measles), chickenpox, and influenza (the
flu).
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| Dr. Donald W. Miller,
Jr. |
Infectious disease was the leading cause of death in children
100 years ago, with diphtheria, measles, scarlet fever, and
pertussis accounting for most them. Today the leading causes of
death in children less than five years of age are accidents,
genetic abnormalities, developmental disorders, sudden infant
death syndrome, and cancer. A basic tenet of modern medicine is
that vaccines are the reason. There is growing evidence that
this is so, but perhaps not quite in the way conventional
medical wisdom would have it.
A 15-member Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices at
the CDC decides which vaccines should be on the Childhood
Immunization Schedule. It calls for one vaccine, against
hepatitis B, to be given on the day of birth; 7 vaccines at two
months; 6 more (including booster shots) at four months; and as
many as 8 vaccines on the six month well-baby visit. Before a
child reaches the age of two he or she will have received 32
vaccinations on this schedule, including four doses each of
vaccines for Hemophilus influenzae type b infections,
diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis � all of them given during
the first 12 months of life. Seven vaccines injected into a 13
lb. two-month old infant are equivalent to 70 doses in a 130 lb.
adult.
The schedule states, "Your child can safely receive all
vaccines recommended for a particular age during one
visit." Public health officials, however, have not proven
that it is indeed safe to inject this many vaccines into
infants. What's more, they cannot explain why, concurrent with
an increasing number of vaccinations, there has been an
explosion of neurologic and immune system disorders in our
nation�s children.
Fifty years ago, when the immunization schedule contained
only four vaccines (for diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, and
smallpox), autism was virtually unknown. First discovered in
1943, this most devastating malady in what is now a spectrum of
pervasive developmental disorders afflicted less than 1 in
10,000 children. Today, one in every 68 American families has an
autistic child. Other, less severe developmental disorders,
rarely seen before the vaccine era, have also reached epidemic
proportions. Four million American children have Attention
Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. One in six American children are
now classified as "Learning Disabled."
Our children are also experiencing an epidemic of autoimmune
disorders � Type I diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, and
bowel disorders. There has been a 17-fold increase in Type I
diabetes, from 1 in 7,100 children in the 1950s to 1 in 400 now.
Juvenile rheumatoid arthritis afflicts 300,000 American
children. Twenty-five years ago this disease was so rare that
public health officials did not keep any statistics on it. There
has been a 4-fold increase in asthma, and bowel disorders in
children are much more common now than they were 50 years ago.
Health officials consider a vaccine to be safe if no bad
reactions � like seizures, intestinal obstruction, or
anaphylaxis � occur acutely. The CDC has not done any studies
to assess the long-term effects of its immunization schedule. To
do that one must conduct a randomized controlled trial, the
lynchpin of evidenced-based medicine, where one group of
children is vaccinated on the CDC�s schedule and a control
group is not vaccinated. Investigators then follow the two
groups for a number of years (not just three to four weeks, as
has been done in vaccine safety studies). Concerns that
vaccinations in infants cause chronic neurologic and immune
system disorders would be put to rest, and their safety
certified, if the number of children who develop these diseases
is the same in both groups. No such studies have been done, so
vaccine proponents cannot say that vaccines are indeed as safe
as they think they are. (One proponent, interviewed by Dan
Rather on 60 Minutes, who has financial ties to the vaccine
industry that he did not disclose, claims that vaccines
"have a better safety record than vitamins." He
neglected to mention that the U.S. government has paid out more
than $1.5 billion in its Vaccine Injury Compensation Program to
families of children who have been injured or killed by
vaccines.)
There is a growing body of evidence that implicates vaccines
as a causative factor in the deteriorating health of children.
The hypothesis that vaccines cause neurologic and immune system
disorders is a legitimate one � vaccines given in multiple
doses, close together, to very young children following the CDC�s
Immunization Schedule. This hypothesis should be tested by a
large-scale, long-term randomized controlled trial.
Rather than obediently following the government�s schedule,
there is now sufficient evidence, grounded in good science, to
justify adopting a more user-friendly vaccination schedule, one
which is in the best interests of the individual as opposed to
what planners judge best for society as a whole.
New knowledge in neuroimmunology (the study of how the brain�s
immune system works) raises serious questions about the wisdom
of injecting vaccines in children less than two years of age.
The brain has its own specialized immune system, separate
from that of the rest of the body. When a person is vaccinated,
its specialized immune cells, the microglia, become activated
(the blood-brain barrier notwithstanding). Multiple vaccinations
spaced close together over-stimulate the microglia, causing them
to release a variety of toxic elements � cytokines, chemokines,
excitotoxins, proteases, complement, free radicals � that
damage brain cells and their synaptic connections. Researchers
call the damage caused by these toxic substances "bystander
injury." (Pediatricians and other professional colleagues
who question this should read these two reviews by the
neurosurgeon Russell L. Blaylock: "Interaction of
Cytokines, Excitotoxins, Reactive Nitrogen and Oxygen Species in
Autism Spectrum Disorders," in the Journal of the American
Nutraceutical Association [JANA 2003;6(4):21�35], with 167
references. And "Chronic Microglial Activation and
Excitotoxicity Secondary to Excessive Immune Stimulation:
Possible Factors in Gulf War Syndrome and Autism," in the
Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons [JAPS 2004;9(2):46�52],
posted online, with 54 references.)
In humans, the most rapid period of brain development begins
in the third trimester and continues over the first two years of
extra uterine life. (By then brain development is 80 percent
complete.) Until randomized controlled trials demonstrate the
safety of giving vaccines during this time of life, it would be
prudent not to give any vaccinations to children until they are
two years old. From a risk-benefit perspective, there is growing
evidence that the risk of neurologic and autoimmune diseases
from vaccinations outweigh the benefits of avoiding the
childhood infections that they prevent. An exception is
hepatitis B vaccine for infants whose mothers test positive for
this disease.
A user-friendly vaccination schedule prohibits any vaccines
that contain thimerosal, which is 50 percent mercury. Flu
vaccines contain thimerosal, which is reason enough to avoid
them. (See my article "Mercury on the Mind" for more
on this subject.)
One should also avoid vaccines that contain live viruses.
This includes the combined measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR)
vaccine; chickenpox (varicella) vaccine, and the live-virus
polio (Sabin) vaccine. This stricture would not apply to the
smallpox vaccine (also a live-virus one), if a
terrorist-instigated outbreak of smallpox should occur.
Finally, a user-friendly vaccination schedule requires that
vaccinations, after the age of two, be given no more than once
every six months, one at a time, in order to allow the immune
system sufficient time to recover and stabilize between shots.
Which vaccines should be put on this schedule (among those
that do not contain live viruses or thimerosal) is not entirely
clear. The top four would be the pertussis (acelluar � aP �
not whole cell), diphtheria (D), and tetanus (T) vaccines �
given separately (not together, as is usually the case); and the
Salk polio vaccine, with an inactivated (dead) virus, one that
is cultured in human cells, not monkey kidney cells. Perhaps it
should only contain these four vaccines. A good case can be made
(for example, see Gary Null�s Vaccines: A Second Opinion) for
avoiding the three other newer vaccines on the CDC�s schedule
� the hepatitis B, pneumococcal conjugate (PCV7), and
Hemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) vaccines.
Your pediatrician will not like this schedule. They are
taught in medical school and residency training that childhood
immunizations are essential to public health. As one
pediatrician puts it, "Achieving adequate and timely
vaccination of young children is the single most valuable thing
a doctor can do for a patient." They do not question what
their professors teach them, nor are they inclined to critically
examine studies in Pediatrics and the New England Journal of
Medicine that tell them vaccines are safe.
There were 482,000 cases of measles in the U.S in 1962, the
year before a vaccine for this disease became available. Now,
with all fifty states requiring that children be vaccinated
against measles in order to attend school, there were only 56
cases of measles in a population of 290 million people in 2003.
These facts are well known and proudly cited by vaccine
proponents. What is less known, and doctors are not taught, is
that the death rate for measles declined 97.7 percent during the
first 60 years of the 20th century. The mortality rate was 133
deaths per million people in the U.S. in 1900, and had dropped
to 0.3 deaths per million by 1960. Measles caused less than 100
deaths a year in the U.S. before there was a vaccine for this
disease (in 1963). The same thing happened with diphtheria and
pertussis. Mortality rates dropped more than 90 percent in the
early 20th century before vaccines for these diseases were
introduced. This was due to better nutrition (with rapid
delivery of fresh fruit and vegetables to cities and
refrigeration), cleaner water, and improved sanitation (removing
trash from the streets and better sewage systems), not to
vaccines. The World Health Organization promotes mass
vaccination, but knowing these facts states, "The best
vaccine against common infectious diseases is an adequate
diet" � fortified, one might add, with vitamin A.
Since the measles vaccine came into widespread use in this
country this disease has virtually disappeared, and it has
prevented 100 deaths a year. But now, instead, several thousand
normally developing children become autistic after receiving
their MMR shot. Termed "regressive autism," it
accounts for about 30 percent of the 10,000 to 20,000 children
who are diagnosed with autism in this country each year.
To put to rest concerns that MMR vaccination might cause
autism (in a small percentage of children), the New England
Journal of Medicine, in 2002, published a population-based study
from Denmark, where its authors concluded, "This study
provides strong evidence against the hypothesis that MMR
vaccination causes autism." The NEJM did not disclose that
the "Statens Serum Institut," where three of the
authors work, is a for-profit vaccine manufacturer, Denmark�s
largest, or that four other authors have financial ties to this
company. Only one of the eight authors is not associated with
this institute, and the CDC employs him. The study compares the
prevalence of autism in 440,000 MMR vaccinated and 97,000
unvaccinated children in Denmark born in the 1990s. A
statistical slight-of-hand in age adjustment makes the study
show no causal effect; but when unmasked and reformatted, the
data actually shows a statistically significant association
between MMR vaccine and autism (as Carol Stott and her coauthors
make clear in "MMR and Autism in Perspective: the Denmark
Story," in the Fall 2004 Journal of American Physicians and
Surgeons, posted online).
Pediatrics and the Journal of the American Medical
Association also have published studies like this supporting
U.S. vaccine policy, written by authors with similar,
undisclosed conflicts of interest. Looking elsewhere, however,
one comes across a number of disquieting facts about vaccines.
Investigators have found, for example, live measles virus in the
cerebral spinal fluid in children who become autistic after MMR
vaccination. Antibodies to measles virus are elevated in
children with autism but not in normal kids, suggesting that
virus-induced autoimmunity may play a causal role. A study
published in Neurology this year implicates hepatitis B vaccine
as a causative factor in multiple sclerosis.
A communitarian ethic increasingly governs health care in the
U.S. It places a greater value on the health of the community,
on society as a whole, than on the health of particular
individuals. Public health officials have put together a
vaccination schedule designed to eliminate infectious diseases
to which the population is prey. These officials recognize that
these vaccines will harm a small percentage of (genetically
susceptible) individuals, but it is for the common good. The
communitarian code posits that it is morally acceptable, if
necessary, to sacrifice a few for the good of the many. Or as
one observer more bluntly puts it, "Individual sheep can be
sheared and slaughtered if it is for the welfare of their
flock."
In this framework, health care providers become agents of the
state charged with injecting vaccines into people that the
central planners deem necessary. Physicians who remain true to
their Hippocratic Oath and place the interests of their patient
above that of the herd are considered to be out of step with the
times, if not an anachronism.
Like central planners everywhere, the CDC�s Advisory
Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) promulgates a
self-serving, one-size-fits-all vaccine policy. Members of this
committee have ties to vaccine makers, such that the CDC must
grant them waivers from statutory conflict of interest rules.
Even so, and with little evidence to show that it is safe to
subject young children to the ACIP�s crowded immunization
schedule, states nevertheless dutifully make its vaccine
recommendations compulsory.
All 50 states require children to be immunized against
measles, diphtheria, Hemophilus influenzae type b, polio, and
rubella in order to enroll in day care and/or public school.
Forty-nine states also require vaccination against tetanus; 47,
against hepatitis B and mumps; and 43 states now require
vaccination against chickenpox. In order to shield themselves
from any liability for making vaccinations compulsory, all
states provide a medical exemption and 47, a religious
exemption. Nineteen states allow a philosophical exemption. Some
require only a letter from a parent and others, from a physician
or church leader. (To see the exemptions allowed in your state,
their wording and requirements, click here.) Parents, of course,
can refuse vaccination; but if they want to enroll their child
in public school they will need to obtain one of these
exemptions.
Doctors who conclude that the risks of the government�s
immunization schedule outweigh its benefits are placed in a
difficult position. If they counsel parents not to have their
children follow it, health care plans, which track vaccine
compliance as a measure of "quality," will find them
wanting. And if their patient should contract and develop
complications from the disease the vaccine would have prevented
they may find themselves confronting a lawsuit. If a child
becomes autistic following a vaccination, however, the doctor is
protected from any liability because the government requires it
and the child�s parents, if they had chosen to do so, could
have obtained an exemption. (Anti-vaccine advocates call
developing autism, asthma, and Type I diabetes after
vaccinations "vaccination roulette.")
Parents should have the freedom to select whatever
vaccination schedule they want their children to follow,
especially since health care providers and the government
(except via its Vaccine Injury Compensation Program) cannot be
held accountable for any adverse outcomes that might occur. But
if parents elect to not follow the CDC�s immunization
schedule, delaying some vaccinations, refusing others, or
avoiding them altogether, then they must accept the risk that
their child might contract the disease that the vaccine against
it most likely would have prevented.
One consideration, which vaccine proponents do not address,
is this: Could contracting childhood diseases like measles,
mumps, rubella, and chickenpox play a constructive role in the
maturation of a person�s immune system? Or, to put it another
way, does removing natural infection from human experience have
any adverse consequences?
Our species� immune system � a one-trillion-cell army
that patrols our (100-trillion-cell) body � serves two main
purposes. It destroys foreign invaders � viruses, bacteria,
and other pathogens. And it destroys aberrant cells in the body
that run amuck and cause cancer. Behind the barricades of skin
and mucosa, our innate immune system (composed of phagocytes,
natural killer cells, and the 20-protein complement system),
which all animals have, is the body�s first line of defense.
It reacts to invaders lightening fast and indiscriminately, but
it is not very good at eliminating viruses and cancerous cells.
Vertebrates have evolved a second line of defense � the
adaptive immune system. It targets specific viruses and bacteria
and has better artillery for eliminating cancerous cells. This
system matures during childhood, and it has a cellular (Th1) and
humoral (Th2) component (Th = helper T cell).
The viruses that cause measles, mumps, and chickenpox have
infected countless generations of humans, akin to a rite of
passage for each member of our species. Contracting these
diseases strengthens both parts of the adaptive immune system
(Th1 and Th2 ). Mothers who have had measles, mumps, and
chickenpox transfer antibodies against them to their babies in
utero, which protect them during the first year of life from
contracting these infections. Vaccinations do not have the same
effect on the immune system as naturally acquired diseases do.
They stimulate predominantly the Th2 part of this system and not
Th1. (Over-stimulation of Th2 causes autoimmune diseases.) The
cellular Th1 side thwarts cancer, and if it does not become
fully developed in childhood a person can be more prone to have
cancer as an adult. Women who had mumps during childhood, for
example, are found to be less likely to have ovarian cancer than
women who did not have this infection. (This study was published
in Cancer.) Could the fact that cancer has become a leading
cause of death in children be a result of vaccinations? Only a
randomized controlled trial can conclusively answer this
question
With rare exception, a well-nourished child who contracts
measles will recover smoothly from the infection. Fifty years
ago almost all children in the U.S. had measles. And after
contracting this disease, one has life-long immunity to it. The
protection provided by vaccination is temporary. Adults who
contract measles (when the protective effects of the vaccine
wears off) are much more likely to have neurological,
testicular, and ovarian complications. Likewise, rubella is a
benign disease in children, but if a woman acquires it during
pregnancy fetal malformations may develop. One can argue,
heretical as such an argument may be, that it would be better to
let children have measles, at an age when the infection helps
the adaptive immune system mature in a balanced Th1/Th2 fashion
and complications from this disease are minimal, rather than
vaccinate them against this disease (especially considering the
risks of vaccination).
Pertussis and Diphtheria are a different matter. These
diseases are more virulent. Children who contract whooping cough
(pertussis) can be incapacitated for more than a month. Polio
can be devastating in susceptible individuals. And no one wants
to get tetanus (lockjaw). A user-friendly vaccination schedule
would include vaccines against these diseases.
Whatever vaccination schedule one chooses, mothers should
breast-feed their child for as long as possible � a year or
more. Failing that, add Omega-3 fatty acids, especially DHA (docosahexanoic
acid), to the child�s formula.
In summary, this is a vaccination schedule that I would
recommend:
1. No vaccinations until a child is two years old.
2. No vaccines that contain thimerosal (mercury).
3. No live virus vaccines (except for smallpox, should it
recur).
4. These vaccines, to be given one at a time, every six
months, beginning at age 2:
1. Pertussis (acellular, not whole
cell)
2. Diphtheria
3. Tetanus
4. Polio (the Salk vaccine, cultured
in human cells)
American children are the most highly vaccinated kids in the
world. This schedule is an alternative to the one that rules our
"vaccine
nation" (as the Village Voice terms it). In contrast to
the CDC�s immunization schedule, it is user-friendly.
December 10, 2004
Donald Miller
(send him mail)
is a cardiac surgeon and Professor of Surgery at the University
of Washington in Seattle and a member of Doctors for Disaster
Preparedness and writes articles on a variety of subjects for
LewRockwell.com, including bioterrorism. His web site is donaldmiller.com.
Above article Copyright � 2004 LewRockwell.com
An Update on this Vaccination Schedule
In the newsletter New Developments: New Angles on
Developmental Delays (Spring 2005, Vol. 10, No.3), the following
entry is in its News and Comments section (p 3), titled �Friendly
Vaccine Schedule Encounters a Glitch." It says, "Dr.
Donald Miller, author of the �User Friendly vaccine Schedule�
published in the last newsletter [Copywrite 200LewRockwell.com
in 2004], has discovered that the D and T of the DPT are no
longer available separately, without thimerosal. Unless the
vaccine manufacturers can be pressured to make separate
thimerosal-free D, T, and P vaccines, it will be impossible,
unfortunately, to follow the �user friendly� vaccination
schedule as written. Miller believes that the risk of the
combined DPT vaccine, even after age two, outweighs its
benefits, so it is better to do without these shots.�
In my research on this subject, I was persuaded that Dr.
Russell Blaylock is correct in recommending that vaccinations
only be given after the age of two, one at a time, and no closer
than six months apart--and that a "user friendly"
schedule should include only D, T, P and polio, the four
"traditional" vaccines. I did not think before writing
the article to ascertain (assuming it to be the case) that one
could indeed obtain separate D, T, and P vaccines without
thimerosal.
On further investigation I have found that T and D can be
obtained separately, but they contain thimerosal/mercury.
GlaxoSmithKline made a separate pertussis vaccine for the APERT
trial, but apparently no longer does so. A Japanese company is
said to make one (?without thimerosal), but I cannot determine
who it is. If your pediatrician can obtain single-dose vials of
D and T then those would have only an inconsequential trace of
thimerosal, but they are apparently hard to find as well. That
leaves only the polio vaccine.
For a good discussion of why one should avoid most vaccines
on the CDC's schedule I recommend Dr. Sherry Tenpenny's (3-hour)
DVD titled "Vaccines: the Risks, the Benefits, the
Choices." (Amazon.com has it, as do other sites.).
Update from www.donaldmiller.com
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