New Study: Neurotoxicity of Aluminum in Vaccines

New Study: Neurotoxicity of Aluminum in Vaccines


October 12, 2011By Augie





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Today’s post is a double dose of Aluminum in vaccinations. Commonly thought to be a friendly, safe and non-toxic metal, aluminum is anything but. It is a neurotoxin. This was established long before the original Tin Man (Buddy Ebson) was sickened by the aluminum make-up in the making of Wizard of Oz. First, excerpts from the study Aluminum Vaccine Adjuvants: Are they Safe?. In an interview with Dr. David Ayoub by Dr. Joseph Mercola discusses aluminum effects on the neurological system. Ayoub discusses why he thinks aluminum may be much more toxic than mercury in vaccines.



A study published in Current Medicinal Chemistry September 2011 on the toxicity of aluminum in vaccines warns the risks may exceed the intended benefit of the vaccine itself.



Aluminum Vaccine Adjuvants: Are they Safe?



L. Tomljenovic Post-doctoral fellow, Neural Dynamics Research Group, Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, University of British Columbia and C.A. Shaw, Professor, Departments of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences and Experimental Medicine and the Graduate Program in Neuroscience, University of British Columbia.





ABSTRACT



Aluminum is an experimentally demonstrated neurotoxin and the most commonly used vaccine adjuvant. Despite almost 90 years of widespread use of aluminum adjuvants, medical science’s understanding about their mechanisms of action is still remarkably poor. There is also a concerning scarcity of data on toxicology and pharmacokinetics of these compounds. In spite of this, the notion that aluminum in vaccines is safe appears to be widely accepted. Experimental research, however, clearly shows that aluminum adjuvants have a potential to induce serious immunological disorders in humans. In particular, aluminum in adjuvant form carries a risk for autoimmunity, long-term brain inflammation and associated neurological complications and may thus have profound and widespread adverse health consequences. In our opinion, the possibility that vaccine benefits may have been overrated and the risk of potential adverse effects underestimated, has not been rigorously evaluated in the medical and scientific community. We hope that the present paper will provide a framework for a much needed and long overdue assessment of this highly contentious medical issue. Keywords: Aluminum adjuvants, adjuvant safety, autoimmunity, autism, Gulf War Syndrome, multiple sclerosis, macrophagic myofasciitis, neurotoxicity, seizures, Th2 immune response, vaccines.



INTRODUCTION



Aluminum is the most commonly used vaccine adjuvant and until recently the only one licensed for use in the U.S. [1-4]. In its absence, antigenic components of most vaccines (with the exception of live attenuated vaccines), fail to launch an adequate immune response [1, 5, 6]. Paradoxically, despite almost 90 years of widespread use of aluminum adjuvants [3] their precise mechanism of action remains poorly understood [1, 2]. Furthermore, a growing number of studies have linked the use of aluminum adjuvants to serious autoimmune outcomes in humans [5-8]. That concerns about aluminum adjuvant safety are indeed warranted is evident from the summary conclusions of the Aluminum in Vaccines workshop held in Puerto Rico in 2000 [2].



The written consensus amongst the participants of the workshop was listed under the rubric of “pervasive uncertainty”, a term used to denote what remained unknown regarding potential aluminum toxicity from adjuvants. The specific areas of concern were: “1) toxicology and pharmacokinetics, specifically the processing of aluminum by infants and children, 2) mechanisms by which aluminum adjuvants interact with the immune system and 3) the necessity of adjuvants in booster doses.” In the concluding paragraphs of the summary, the report nevertheless claimed that “the use of salts of aluminum as adjuvants in vaccines has proven to be safe and effective” [2]. In light of the items of “pervasive uncertainty”, this statement remains questionable. Given that multiple aluminum-adjuvanted vaccines are often given to very young children (i.e., 2 to 6 months of age), in a single day at individual vaccination sessions [9, 10], concerns for potential impacts of total adjuvant-derived aluminum body burden may be significant [11, 12]. These issues warrant serious consideration since, to the best of our knowledge, no adequate studies have been conducted to assess the safety of simultaneous administration of different vaccines to young children.



Another issue of concern is the lack of any toxicological evaluation about concomitant administration of aluminum with other known toxic compounds which are routine constituents of commercial vaccine preparations, e.g., formaldehyde, formalin, mercury, phenoxyethanol, phenol, sodium borate, polysorbate 80, glutaraldehyde [13, 14]. In spite of all this, aluminum adjuvants are generally regarded as safe [2, 13], and some researchers have even recommended that no further research efforts should be spent on this topic despite “a lack of good-quality evidence”[15].



In the following paper we aim to provide an overview of what is currently known about aluminum adjuvants, their modes of action and mechanisms of potential toxicity. We first present well established evidence that implicates aluminum in a variety of neurological disorders. We then elaborate on the unresolved controversy about aluminum adjuvant safety.



CONCLUSIONS



Aluminum in various forms can be toxic to the nervous system.



The widespread presence in the human environment may underlie a number of CNS disorders. The continued use of aluminum adjuvants in various vaccines for children as well as the general public may be of significant concern. In particular, aluminum presented in this form carries a risk for autoimmunity, long-term brain inflammation and associated neurological complications and may thus have profound and widespread adverse health consequences.



The widely accepted notion of aluminum adjuvant safety does not appear to be firmly established in the scientific literature and, as such, this absence may have lead to an erroneous conclusions regarding the significance of these compounds in the etiologies of many common neurological disorders. Furthermore, the continued use of aluminum-containing placebos in vaccine clinical trials may have lead to an underestimation of the true rate of adverse outcomes associated with aluminum-adjuvanted vaccines.



In our opinion, a comprehensive evaluation of the overall impact of aluminum on human health is overdue. Such an evaluation should include studies designed to determine the short and long-term impacts of dietary aluminum as well as the potential impacts in different age groups of exposure to adjuvant aluminum alone and in combination with other potentially toxic vaccine constituents (e.g., formaldehyde, formalin, mercury, phenoxyethanol, phenol, sodium borate, polysorbate 80, glutaraldehyde). For the latter, until vaccine safety can be comprehensively demonstrated by controlled independent long-term studies that examine the impact on the nervous system in detail, many of those already vaccinated as well as those currently receiving injections may be at risk for health complications that exceed the potential benefits that vaccine prophylaxis may provide.



The issue of aluminum adjuvanted vaccine safety is especially pertinent in light of the legislation which might mandate vaccination regimes for civilian populations (e.g., the Biodefense and Pandemic Vaccine and Drug Development Act of 2005). Whether the risk of protection from a dreaded disease outweighs the risk of toxicity from its presumed prophylactic agent is a question that demands far more rigorous scrutiny than has been provided to date.