The vaccine question

Imagine if a cure was discovered that would prevent all HIV related deaths. How much impact do you think that would have?

Let’s think even bigger: Imagine if a treatment was discovered which could prevent all deaths from stroke. According to the World Health Organization approximately 5.5 million people die from stroke every year (550 million deaths every one hundred years).

The estimated death count from smallpox in the 20th century ranges between 300-500 million people (1 out of every 7 children in Russia). Since the world population was smaller at the time, smallpox was a bigger killer in the 20th century than stroke is in our current generation. Three hundred million people - roughly the current population of the United States, about 10 times more people than have died from AIDS, 10 times more than died during world war 1 and about 100,000 times as many deaths as attributed to the 911 attack. Only about 1 in 4 are people who contract small pox die from the disease, so the 300–500 million estimate does not include the many survivors were scarred or blinded by the disease. What happened to small pox?

In 1798 Edward Jenner demonstrated that inoculation with cowpox could protect against smallpox initiating the use of vaccination. By the 1950s it was estimated that the infection had decreased to about 50 million cases of smallpox world-wide per year and intense vaccination efforts led to eradication of the disease with the last natural case of small pox documented in Somalia in 1977.

This is probably one of the greatest achievements of medical science to date.

Since the 1930’s Thiomersal, which is a mercury-containing compound, has been used in some vaccines to prevent bacterial and fungal growth. Questions have arisen as to whether the mercury contained in the vaccine preservative could cause health problems, particularly whether it is associated with an increase in autism.

The Lancet, a leading medical journal, published an article written in 1998 by a Dr. Andrew Wakefield suggesting that autism was linked to children receiving mercury containing measles-mumps-rubella vaccine. Despite this study being based on only 12 children (11 males and 1 female) and scientific evidence to the contrary, Britain's child vaccination rates consequently fell by 20% after the study came out and the UK and America has had waves of measles outbreaks. In 1998, the year the study came out, England and Wales had 56 cases of measles; by 2008 the number was 1,370. In 2007, a large outbreak of mumps was set off in Canada after the virus was purportedly imported from the United Kingdom.

It has been discovered that Dr. Wakefield had been paid to conduct his study on children who were clients of a lawyer preparing to initiate a lawsuit. The General Medical Council recently concluded, after a lengthy investigation into Wakefield’s study, that it was fraught with financial and scientific conflicts of interest. The medical community, including 10 of the 13 authors of the original paper, have rejected the validity of the findings years ago. Little to no scientific evidence supports the study’s findings, and subsequent studies have refuted its claims. In February of this year the Lancet officially retracted the paper, something it doesn’t do lightly and an act which officially invalidates the study.

Controversy on both sides of the debate

Shortly after the Lancet’s retraction a scandal was brought to light form the other side of the table. Poul Thorsen, a researcher who was on two important publications discrediting the link between mercury containing preservatives and autism, is allegedly being investigated for potentially forging documents in order to misappropriate 2 million dollars of grant funding.

Dr. Thorsen was not the lead author or involved in collecting the data and the coauthors of the two studies maintain validity of the research. Federal authorities are investigating.

This has not prevented writers from attacking any scientific work connected to Dr. Thorsen, particularly Robert Kennedy Jr, an active spokesperson for the autism-Thiomersal link .

There is reason for concern and our attention

Dr. Arnold Relman, editor of the New England Journal of Medicine from 1977 to 1991 claims that, “The commercialization of medicine poses the greatest threat to U.S. health care,” and that “From my experience and perspective, it’s clear that fraudulent, unethical behavior is a more common problem than it used to be.”

Can vaccines be made thiomersal free?

So to summarize, vaccination is scientifically proven improve our bodies immune response and increase our chances of immunity. Yet, the problem is the use of questionable preservatives in the vaccine, and whether they are harmful. Can the vaccines be produced without Thiomersal?

The short answer is yes. Thiomersal use as a preservative was phased out of Canadian vaccines. It is sometimes used in the production of the vaccine, but is later filtered out. The degree to which some trace elements are left in the vaccine is still a point of contention, and it is possible to make the vaccines without the use of Thiomersal at all.

Mercury free MMR vaccines are available and are produced, but have an increased cost of administration, which limits their availability in the developing nations where cost is a factor. Even though the link has been officially discredited, most of the remaining Thiomersal vaccines are now headed for poorer developing nations.

Relevant Links:

http://www.avert.org/worldstats.htm
http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=156969
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704022804575041544115791952.html
http://www.who.int/vaccine_safety/topics/thiomersal/questions/en/index.html
http://www.who.int/cardiovascular_diseases/resources/atlas/en/
http://www.who.int/cardiovascular_diseases/en/cvd_atlas_14_deathHD.pdf
http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2010/02/02/autism-mmr-lancet-Wakefield.html#ixzz0ioueLfic
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/article972665.ece