Thoughts on the Vaccination Process by Dr. Richard Moskowitz

Note: For Dr. Moskowitz's original, formatted document, pleaseDownload Some Thoughts on Vaccination.

By Dr. Richard Moskowitz

In Vaccines: a Reappraisal, my intention was to provide a comprehensive overview of the subject, including some politics and history as well.  Now I want to focus more narrowly on those parts of the book that address the science of the vaccination process in general. Many years of practicing medicine and studying the scientific literature have convinced me that all vaccines pose a serious threat of chronic disease and death, and that these most dreadful outcomes are neither rare aberrations nor unrelated coincidences, but direct consequences of the physiological mechanisms by which vaccines achieve their intended and seemingly laudable goals.  In what follows, I will briefly mention what is and isn't known about those mechanisms, what clinical observations have led me to this hypothesis regarding them, what scientific evidence appears to support it, and what kind of research will be needed to validate or refute it.  

Immunity, True and False.

            In the early years of my practice, a deep misgiving led me to stop vaccinating before I could say why.  Reviewing basic immunology reminded me that acute febrile illnesses like the measles are essentially the concerted effort of the immune system to expel the offending virus or bacterium from the blood, requiring an elaborate array of defense mechanisms, namely,

1) inflammatory sensitization of the epithelium lining the nasal, oral, and pharyngeal cavities through which it entered,
as preparation for expelling it, by sneezing and coughing;

2) activating and signaling macrophages and monocytes, wandering phago-cytic cells that detect, engulf, and digest 
invading viruses (or neutrophilseosinophils, and basophils, in the case of bacteria, allergens, and toxins, respectively);

3) activating the complement system, serum proteins that attach to and fragment them;

4) releasing interferons, interleukins, and other inflammatory cytokines, peptides that direct the phagocytes to where 
they are needed;

5) synthesis of specific antibodies by lymphocytes and plasma cells in the thymus and bone marrow, which clump the viruses together, render them insoluble, and initiate phagocytosis; and

6) encryption of a permanent "memory" of the infection within the genetic material of these cells, to help them recognize and respond to viruses even more promptly and efficiently in the future.1

            In sum, it seems reasonable to conclude that natural immunity requires the removal of foreign viruses and bacteria from the blood, a collaborative project of the immune system as a whole, and cannot be achieved by any of these mechanisms acting independently of the others.

            For most healthy people, the immunity that results is absolute, lifelong, and profoundly health-giving, in two important senses. It is specific, in that virtually everyone who recovers from the measles will never again be susceptible to it, even if large-scale epidemics are active in their neighborhood.2   But it also involves a nonspecific priming of the cellular immune mechanism to respond acutely, vigorously, and in concert, to whatever other infections it may encounter in the future.3

            Since vaccination is intended to substitute for this splendid outpouring and indeed render it unnecessary, it's easy to forget that coming down with and recovering from such illnesses represent a huge net gain for the general health of individuals, their descendants, and ultimately of their communities, their country, and of human life on the planet, indeed that they are the formative experiences by which natural immunity, a fundamental prerequisite of good health, is achieved and maintained throughout life.

            This basic truth is reinforced by a large body of epidemiological evidence that contracting and recovering from ordinary childhood diseases with fever, like measles, mumps, chicken pox, and influenza, provides significant protection against acquiring many chronic ailments later in life, especially autoimmune diseases, such as asthma, allergies, seizures, type 1 diabetes, ITP, et al., and genital, prostate, GI, skin, lung, and ENT cancer.4         

            In any case, whatever good vaccines accomplish necessarily falls far short of these goals, as well as imposing significant obstacles to actually attaining them. When a child is vaccinated with the attenuated measles virus, after a brief inflammatory reaction at the injection site, the virus goes directly into the blood without hindrance: there is no sensitization of the nasopharyngeal epithelium, no incubation period, no massive outpouring, no fever, no acute illness, and thus, above all, no obvious mechanism or pathway for getting rid of it. 

            After 14 days or so, measurable titers of specific antibodies will probably be detectable in the serum, and the recipients will probably, though not always, be somewhat less likely to come down with the corresponding acute disease, at least in the near future, than they were before.  But there is no massive outpouring, no acute illness, no priming of the immune system, no improvement in their general health or that of their neighbors, and above all, no concerted effort to expel the virus. Where it goes, how it persuades the immune system to continue producing antibodies against it for years or even decades, and what price we have to pay for the partial, temporary, and defective immunity that they represent, are questions that it seems we're not supposed to ask, and can expect either righteous indignation or sneering contempt when we do.

            What bothers me about mass vaccination is that it feels like a conjuror's trick, designed to accomplish by deception what the whole immune mechanism seems to have evolved to prevent, namely, granting viruses and bacteria free and immediate access to the major internal organs of the immune system with no reliable way of getting rid of them.  I hope I'm wrong, but my sense is that for vaccines to produce specific antibodies continuously for as long as possible, absent the acute disease they were designed to help get rid of, must entail the ongoing physical presence of these vaccine organisms, or the highly antigenic substances produced by or from them, remaining inside the body on a chronic and indeed more or less permanent basis.  In other words, vaccination is a chronicphenomenon, and presumably involves some type of semi-permanent carrier state that, necessarily and indeed by design, poses a chronic antigenic challenge to the antibody-producing cells without any definite endpoint.

            Precisely how this carrier state is achieved is a mystery that for some reason is rarely discussed or even considered important; but whatever the mechanism may be, it strikes me as a perfect recipe for autoimmune phenomena, even if the recipient doesn't actually fall ill or develop visible signs and symptoms within a short time.   

            With the live-virus vaccines, it's easy to imagine how such a long-term carrier state might come about.  The viruses of herpes simplex and chickenpox, for example, can survive for many years in a latent, subclinical state by attaching themselves to the genetic material of their host cells, commandeering their metabolism to the extent of replicating along with them, and provoking acute herpes lesions, shingles, etc., only many years later, if at all.5  If the attenuated live-virus strains of the MMR, chickenpox, oral polio, influenza, and rotavirus vaccines possess a similar capability, presumably the cells harboring them as "episomes" will themselves come to be recognized as "foreign," and thus subject to immediate or subsequent autoimmune attack by their uninfected neighbors. 

            As for the toxoids, and the various killed, denatured, recombinant, and other supposedly "non-living" vaccines, the "how" question remains shrouded in mystery.  What we do know is that these vaccines cannot remain inside the body or function antigenically for extended periods of time without the help of various chemical adsorbents, detergents, fixatives, preservatives, sterilizing agents, and so-called "adjuvants," all of them more or less toxic, and that enabling such long-term carriage is indeed their main if not sole purpose.6  But the exact mechanisms are as yet poorly understood, or at least seldom talked about.  If the industry knows the answer, they're not telling; and the CDC and FDA seem entirely content for it to remain a well-guarded trade secret. This all-important question fairly cries out for independent investigation.

            It is surely misleading, if not the exact opposite of the truth, to claim that vaccines somehow protect us from developing acute infectious diseases if in fact they merely drive the offending virus or bacterium or some derivative of them more deeply into the internal organs of the immune system and cause them to harbor it chronically, such that they are incapable or at least much less capable of getting rid of it.  And if that's true, it poses the further question whether vaccination might also be reprogramming the immune system to respond chronically rather than acutely to other foreign antigens as well. The late Dr. Robert Mendelsohn warned more than 40 years ago that we could be trading off the acute diseases we vaccinate against for the chronic diseases that are so rampant in the developed world today.7

Lessons from Clinical Practice.

            Assorted impressions from my 52 years of clinical practice were what led me to ask these questions in the first place.  Already in the 'Seventies and early 'Eighties, when only the DPT, MMR, and polio vaccines were in the picture, my gut feeling not to vaccinate led me to notice relatively minor chronic or episodic acute illnesses that were traceable to a particular vaccine component, like two children vaccinated with MMR who developed enlarged, inflamed parotid glands and swollen retroauricular and suboccipital lymph nodes, which pointed to the mumps and rubella components, respectively, especially when these complaints disappeared when given the homeopathic "nosodes" prepared from actual cases of these diseases.8 

            Another child vaccinated with the DPT soon developed high fever and a CBC with WBC's in the leukemoid range, mainly lymphocytes, monocytes, neutrophils (many with toxic granulations), many immature band forms, metamyelocytes, and even more immature forms.  Without knowing the history, a pediatrician friend immediately identified the slide as pertussis; and that child also recovered promptly and completely after a single dose of the DPT nosode, and remained well thereafter.9  Several other cases involved recurrent high fevers of unknown origin, which were likewise cured with the help of the DPT nosode.10 

            By the late 'Eighties and 'Nineties, with more and more vaccines added to the schedule, and often several given at once, I noticed that children recently vaccinated also reacted nonspecifically, by becoming more susceptible to contracting whatever acute illnesses were going around their school or neighborhood, or by developing more intense or chronic versions of whatever illnesses they were already bothered by, such as ear infections, which were almost ubiquitous at that time. 

            One 19-month-old girl had developed 5 acute ear infections with high fever and earache since her MMR at 15 months, with as many rounds of antibiotics, accompanied by marked exacerbation of the eczema and nasal allergies she had had only mildly since birth.  With homeopathic treatment and a moratorium on antibiotics and further vaccinations, her ears cleared up rapidly, and she remained well thereafter.11

            Another 15-month-old girl had 11 ear infections that never cleared up despite 11 rounds of antibiotics, beginning with a high fever and earache at 2 months, soon after her first DPT, HiB, and polio combination.  All later episodes were afebrile, and two with no symptoms at all, just some fluid behind the drum seen through the otoscope. Asking the parents to stop vaccinating for a while, I gave her a homeopathic medicine, and within two weeks she developed a typical acute episode just like her first one, with high fever, violent earache, and loud screaming, which resolved in less than a day with simple acute remedies. She never had another episode.12  This case confirmed my hunch that vaccination reprograms the immune system to respond chronically to things, since the acute episode had initiated the cure, and thus restored the proper role of antibody production in facilitating phagocytosis and expulsion, rather than operating independently.

            A 10-month-old girl developed a distinctive pattern of repeated acute ear infections, each with high fever, intense earache, and loud screaming, in response to two different vaccinations, beginning with 5 episodes soon after her first DPT, HiB, and polio combination at 2 months, which promptly subsided with the aid of homeopathic treatment, but then reappeared with a vengeance after the parents separated and the father took her for the MMR, resulting in 3 more episodes, which also responded well to homeopathy.   Last seen as a college student, she has been well for over a decade, in spite of developing acute illnesses when she visited her dad and got vaccines and antibiotics from the docs he took her to.13  In this case, her identical reaction pattern was triggered by two vaccines, one live and one not, i.e., by the vaccination process itself, yet was also uniquely her own.

            Dozens of similar ear-infection cases helped me recognize an analogous pattern of nonspecific, individualized reactions to vaccines across the entire spectrum of my practice, involving all vaccines, adults as well as children, illnesses of every type, and common enough to be the rule, rather than the exception. 

            The clearest example was an 18-year-old girl with a history of enuresis and major obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) as a child, who recovered beautifully on homeopathic treatment, and had remained almost symptom-free for over 10 years, but then relapsed massively within a week after an MMR booster that was required before entering college. Once again she responded promptly to the same homeopathic remedy she had benefited from as a child, completed her degree with high honors, and is now a successful career woman, married with a child, and enjoying excellent health.14

            For several decades I've witnessed similar patterns in many different clinical situations of varying degrees of severity.  A 4-year-old boy with severe allergic asthma came for remedies because taking bronchodilators and corticosteroid inhalers all year round hadn't prevented several major flareups requiring oral prednisone and antibiotics.  After 6 weeks of homeopathic treatment, he'd cut his inhaled steroids by half, maintained higher peak flows, and got through a cold for the first time with no asthma or drugs.  The following spring and summer, at the height of his allergy season, he remained healthy and energetic on half-doses of inhaler, with peak flows at record levels.  After a pre-K DPT booster in the fall, he promptly relapsed into asthmatic bronchitis, and his allergies returned in full force.  Responding well to the same homeopathic medicine as before, he continued to improve over the next 2 years without needing to come back or repeat it.15

            A boy of 15 months with croup, recurrent colds, and mental retardation was  born to a high-risk mother with IDDM, and spent weeks on a respirator in the NICU for "undeveloped lungs," with cyanosis and unstable blood sugars.  Soon after his first DPT, HiB, and polio combination, he became restless, with swollen glands and a sickly pallor that lasted for months, and culminated in a prolonged bout of croup with high fever and sunken chest that required hospitalization and IV corticosteroids.  In spite of delaying the second round of shots for many months, he developed croup again almost immediately after getting them, with swollen glands and the same symptoms as before. He appeared subnormal when I first saw him, with his mouth hanging open, hiding behind his mother. With homeopathic treatment, and no shots, antibiotics, or steroids, the whole illness cleared up within a few days; and a month later, he had no croup in the dead of winter.  I never saw him again, but 6 years later his mother called to report that he was still "thriving and developing normally, like other children his age."16

            A 3-year-old girl came in with frequent attacks of "shuddering," tensing her limbs, shaking her head, and stiffening her body.  Seemingly healthy at birth, she nursed well and remained alert and energetic until her first DPT, HiB, and polio combination at 2 months, when she screamed violently for 3 days and spit up excessively.  The seizures began at 6 months, after her 3rd round, and convinced her parents to stop vaccinating her for good.  Sporadic at first, the attacks became more frequent with solid foods, and were averaging 200 per day by her 2nd birthday, by which time her gentle nature often gave way to violent temper tantrums, and her speech and learning were also adversely affected. After 6 months of homeopathic treatment, she seemed an altogether different child, active and vivacious, yet calmer, with no seizures, and rapid improvements in speech and learning, all of which have continued over the years, with the parents dead-set against revaccinating her.17

            These few cases stand for many more that I've seen and cared for with basically  the same story.  It might be asthma, eczema, ear infections, allergies, sinusitis, ADHD, autism, behavior problems, learning disability, or you name it; and we're doing beautifully, the pediatrician is thrilled, and the parents delighted, until it's time for booster x, it doesn't matter which, and within 2 weeks, we're right back to square one. 

            After several decades and many more cases beyond counting, I can summarize them as follows:

1. They often don't manifest until several weeks or even months after the

                 shot, an interval well beyond the limit of adverse reactions officially

                 accepted and listed as such.

2. They involve a nonspecific reaction to something in the nature of the

                vaccination process per se, rather than a specific reaction to a particular

                vaccine.

3. They involve activation of disease tendencies that were latent in that

                 particular child, or reactivation, exacerbation, or progression into a

                 chronic state of illnesses already manifest, and thus characteristic of

                 the patient rather than any particular vaccine.

4. They may occur after any vaccine, or two or more different vaccines,

                  again suggesting a sensitivity on the part of the recipient to the vaccination

                  process in general, rather than to any particular vaccine.

.

5. They involve many of the same illnesses that unvaccinated children

                 are also coming down with, including asthma, eczema, allergies, sinusitis,

                 ADHD, learning disabilities, autism, etc., and indeed encompassing the

                 whole spectrum of ordinary family practice.

6. They're common enough to be the rule rather than the exception, which

                 indicates that vaccines intensify or add to chronic disease tendencies that

                 are already present, even if they don't become manifest at the time, but only

                 predisposed to react more and more forcibly in the future, whether to later

                 vaccinations or when exposed to drugs, chemicals, and allergens that they

                 have become sensitized to as a result.

7. They may also be activated or exacerbated by other environmental

                  factors, such as drugs, herbicides, pesticides, toxins, and pollutants,

                  demonstrating that neither vaccines nor genetic predispositions can be the

                  only causal factor, or, to put it differently, that the dichotomy between

                  hereditary and environmental causes is a false one.

8. They are easily missed, even when looked for, with so many vaccines

                 being given, and often so little time between them, until the child gets well

                 for several months, and then promptly relapses in the same fashion after

                 the next shot.

            To the parents of dead or severely vaccine-injured children, making worse what's already there hardly does justice to the grief, suffering, and shock they have to endure on a daily basis.  But these worst cases can't be properly understood without being mindful of the underlying substratum, the often insidious and subclinical alterations that often prepare the ground for them, and thus call attention to something in the nature of the vaccination process per se that alters the biochemistry and physiology of every recipient in the same direction, whether or not they ever become clinically ill from it.  This is the big question that urgently needs to be answered, but is seldom even asked.

Vaccine Effectiveness.

            The official criteria for vaccine effectiveness and the simplistic, mechanical causality they are based on provide further evidence of something unseen happening below the surface, as does the fact that the drug industry, the federal agencies meant to regulate them, and the physician-advisory group that sets our vaccination policy, seldom meet a vaccine that they don't like.

            To be deemed effective, vaccines need satisfy only two simple criteria, namely,

            1) a major reduction in the incidence, morbidity, and mortality of the acute

                diseases that the vaccine is directed against; and

               

            2) a substantial and prolonged increase in the serum concentration of specific

                antibodies against the viruses or bacteria in question, to a level officially

                designated as "immune" to it.

At best, both criteria are ambiguous and misleading, with a tendency to hide negative outcomes that a more holistic perspective will be needed to reveal.

            Several diseases considered vaccine-preventable, e.g., diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus, were already in serious decline before the vaccines were introduced, largely because of improvements in sanitation and public health.18  With polio, the sharp decline in recorded cases began the same year as the CDC's new policy of restricting the definition of the disease to those with paralysis lasting more than 60 days, and later, when serology became available, to those testing positive for the virus.19  With chickenpox and rotavirus, mild and non-threatening to begin with, the vaccines were marketed for economic reasons, to save parents the expense of missing work when their kids were sick.20

            Judging efficacy by simply calculating incidence figures is even more inadequate because most vaccines, even if "successful" in that sense, promote the appearance of mutant strains of these same or related organisms.  The pneumococcus and HiB bacteria, while occasionally associated with invasive disease, are mutant strains of organisms residing in the nasopharynx of healthy people for centuries, while the vaccines targeting them have elicited new, resistant, pathogenic strains, and will eventually alter the ecosystem of our normal flora in ways that we cannot foresee.21

            Another more urgent example is the disease whooping cough, which was fast dying out by the 1940's, but has reappeared with a vengeance in the last 20 years, mainly occurring in and being disseminated by vaccinated individuals, and involving not only the wild type, which the vaccine does not wholly prevent, but also a mutant strain that is resistant to it, and a wholly new species that likewise affects mainly the vaccinated.22

            Yet another is polio.  While both the OPV and IPV have been somewhat effective in preventing large-scale outbreaks like those of the 1950's, a paralytic disease clinically indistinguishable from but even more virulent than the original,  has recently become widespread in India, which uses the OPV.  It is named Non-Polio Acute Flaccid Paralysis (NPAFP), lest anyone suspect that the polio or the vaccine is to blame.23 In the US, which long ago declared polio eliminated and resumed the original IPV, a similar disease has emerged and been named Acute Flaccid Myelitis (AFM), for similar reasons, with the related enterovirus D-68 widely suspected as the cause.24

            The latest example is measles, officially "eliminated" from the US in 2000, several hundred cases of which have been reported in every year since, the vast majority of them in vaccinated individuals.  Rather than simply admitting that they had made a mistake, the CDC, the industry, and several blue states allowing personal-belief and religious exemptions have exploited the somewhat larger number this year to declare a public health emergency and whip up a media frenzy in order to tighten their various mandates and raise their vaccination rates above 95%, the minimum thought necessary for "herd immunity" to prevent large-scale outbreaks.25

            Yet they know well and are reluctant to admit that a large majority of the cases are vaccinated, just as they have always been, and indeed that they are the ones spreading the disease, mainly by shedding, which continues for weeks after injecting the live-virus MMR vaccine.26  They still blame it on the unvaccinated, because for the vaccine to be effective implies that they must be the reservoir of the disease, which the general public almost uniformly believes.  Yet that assurance is belied by the hysteria aroused to justify the emergency; for if the vaccine were truly effective, those vaccinated should have nothing to fear, while if they have good reason to fear catching the disease, then the vaccine can't be as effective as it's claimed to be  . 

            What is genuinely new about this year's outbreaks is the little-known fact that a significant percentage of the cases implicate the vaccine-strain virus rather than the wild-type, and are also occurring more often than usual in the unvaccinated,27 thus ironically justifying the outreach to them, while directly implicating the vaccine in its spread.

            Another important ambiguity lies in using the specific antibody titer to measure the immune status of vaccine recipients. Even vaccine advocates admit that few vaccines are completely effective, since most targeted diseases continue to break out and even predominate in highly-vaccinated populations.28 These alleged "vaccine failures" are used to argue for additional "booster" doses, based on the assumptions  

            that they represent "bad batches," and nothing more;

            that low titers in the vaccinated mean that their vaccines have "worn off,"

                   leaving behind a "blank slate;" 

            that the titer can be manipulated up to the desired level by simply adding more

                    shots, which are likewise assumed to be harmless; and

            that the titer is an accurate measure of immune status, of the extent to which

                    the vaccinated are susceptible or resistant to infection with the natural

                    disease.

            But every one of these assumptions is false. Our common understanding of how vaccines really accomplish what they accomplish is fundamentally mistaken, and requires a completely different perspective that looks at the procedure much more broadly and deeply than our current set of blinders seems to allow.

            First, the titer can't be ratcheted up at will by simply adding more boosters.  In 1980 a leading vaccine advocate found that children receiving the MMR who later developed low titers responded to a booster only minimally and for an unacceptably short time.29 When later measles outbreaks in highly-vaccinated populations generated pressure to act, his research was shelved, he booster was mandated, and it remains in force to this day.

            In 1986, researchers studying a measles outbreak, in which 94% of the cases were vaccinated, also identified a sizable number of mild cases, consisting of a paler rash, no fever, and minimal discomfort, fatigue, or other systemic involvement.30  They were surprised to learn that this mild version was commonest in vaccinated kids with no antibodies at all, while the usual acute illness was seen in those unvaccinated, as expected, but mainly in vaccinated individuals with high titers in the supposedly "immune" range.31

            This paradoxical finding indicated subclinical viral activity in the vaccinated cohort that was undetected and indeed belied by serological testing, and raised the possibility that vaccinees with low or zero titers were being misidentified as susceptible, inappropriately revaccinated, and thus put at risk of developing further adverse reactions.

            A few years later, I came across just such a misfortune when reviewing the VICP compensation claim of a young lab tech who received 3 Hep B shots as required for her training, suffered a severe cough that lasted for months, but tested still susceptible four years later, when applying for a job.  Her new employer insisted on a second series, and this time she developed an even worse cough, and eventually a nodular goiter, autoimmune thyroiditis, esophageal reflux, palpitations, and anxiety as well, all of which required constant medical supervision and maintenance doses of several different drugs all year round.32   

            In other words, high titers don't necessarily mean "immune," and low or zero titers need not mean "susceptible," so that the antibody titer fails as an accurate measure of immune status, and indeed points to a subclinical alteration in the immunocompetent cells that renders vaccinated people more prone to develop some reactivation or exacerbation of their pre-existing chronic disease pattern.33

Vaccine Safety.

            Almost all studies of vaccine safety have been designed and carefully micromanaged by the drug manufacturers themselves, simply to hide its true extent, with the connivance and often active co-operation of the FDA and the CDC, the federal agencies created to regulate them. This deception has been achieved mainly through faulty science, in that

            1) instead of genuine placebo controls involving unvaccinated subjects, most

                 studies use other vaccines, or the adjuvant alone, as "controls;"34

            2) the period of supervision for adverse events involves only days or at most

                a few weeks after any given shot, thus arbitrarily dismissing the chronic

                dimension from consideration, leaving unsupervised intervals of several

                months or years between shots, so that adverse events occurring at those

                times are easily ignored or excluded;35

            3) the lead investigator is given unlimited authority to decide whether a given

                adverse event is or is not vaccine-related, according to criteria that remain

                unspecified;36

            4) adverse events occurring within the period of supervision are regularly

                excluded unless they appear on the list of those officially approved and

                therefore solicited in advance, thus automatically excluding the possibility

                of discovering new ones;37

            5) adverse events that are reported by the subjects but do not appear on the

                list, are not specifically asked about by the investigator, and/or occur

                outside the narrowly permitted time limits, are subject to much stricter

                standards of verification and apt to be rejected by the investigator;38 and

            6) in the few instances where placebo-control groups are included, they are

                usually too small to yield statistically significant results,39 and in some

                cases are deliberately merged with other "control" groups, such as those

                receiving the adjuvant alone, to render their much smaller numbers of

                adverse reactions invisible within the larger total.40

            A former drug company Vice-President has admitted that similar tactics for concealing the true number of adverse reactions are widespread in the industry, and that the studies are designed and intended to make their products look as attractive as possible,41 while a former Editor of NEJM, who was fired for her book exposing such tactics, affirms that a shockingly high percentage of the results of drug safety and other medical research studies are unreliable.42 

            Similar exclusions pervade the federal VAERS system for reporting adverse events to the CDC,43 and the VICP program for compensating them,44 so that the actual number of vaccine deaths and injuries among both patients and experimental subjects remain unknown, and indeed unknowable according to the present system.  All of which becomes a powerful argument for independent investigation without these restrictions, because vaccine-mediated immunity is by definition a chronic phenomenon, and most of the studies currently available are those conducted by the industry itself and are corrupted by the unregulated motive of commercial profit.

Smoking Gun #1: Autoimmune Disease.

            The first compelling evidence of autoimmune reactions to vaccines was provided by Dr. Wakefield, a British gastroenterologist, who found that children who received the MMR vaccine were much more likely to develop Crohn's and ulcerative colitis later in life than those who did not.45 This shocking result led him to perform intestinal biopsies for several autistic children with digestive symptoms like those of Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, which confirmed lesions that closely resembled these major autoimmune disorders.46  Because his biopsies could not be refuted, he was viciously attacked on personal grounds,47 cashiered from his hospital position, and had his medical license suspended,48 an effort that already hinted at another major cover-up.

            Other reported adverse reactions involved a wide variety of autoimmune diseases.  Early studies showed that GBS, MS, and other autoimmune neuropathies could occur up to 10 months following vaccination.49 Dr. Shoenfeld, a leading authority on autoimmune diseases, discovered a syndrome caused by adjuvants, notably aluminum, beginning with vague symptoms like myalgias, arthralgias, and weakness soon after being vaccinated, which were often ignored until another vaccination or infection precipitated overt autoimmune disease.50  This progression from undiagnosed vague symptoms to major autoimmune disease, often involving several months or more, convinced him that all vaccines contain all the necessary elements for inducing autoimmune diseases,51 so that this risk is inherent in every vaccine, and therefore in the vaccination process per se.

            Another important discovery arising from his work and that of his colleagues is that aluminum adjuvants generate autoimmune vaccine-adjuvant complexes that readily cross the blood-brain barrier, are of too high a molecular weight to be excreted by the kidneys, and result in various forms of neuropathy and brain damage, including GBS, ADHD, autism, and others,52 all of which have shown dramatic increases in recent decades, without any attempt being made to explain them.  Other investigators have similarly implicated aluminum adjuvants in Alzheimer's, ALS, learning disabilities, and sensory processing disorders as well.53,54,55

            A preliminary review of the adverse reactions reported to VAERS after different vaccines, as well as those listed on the package inserts, suggests that the live-virus vaccines can also precipitate a comparable array of brain and CNS pathology and other autoimmune diseases, so that the same mechanisms are in play across the board, regardless of the type of vaccine involved. Only careful and thorough investigation of adverse reactions, independent of the drug industry and the CDC, and including chronic diseases requiring longer to develop, will put that question to rest.

Smoking Gun #2: Brain Damage.

            The work of these investigators leads directly to vaccine-related disorders of the brain and CNS, since these are rampant in society at present, involving almost 29% of all US children by the CDC's own figures,56 and since all vaccines clearly have that capability; but the cover-ups just described make it impossible to know what proportion of them are indeed vaccine-related until independent studies are conducted to find out.

            The earliest known connection was "DPT encephalopathy," a wastebasket term invented in the 1980's for various forms of brain damage linked to the DPT vaccine.57  Many victims received court-ordered compensation for damages, and resulted in the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, which established the VAERS system for reporting vaccine injuries and the taxpayer-funded VICP program for compensating the victims, in lieu of suing the manufacturer,58 which was formally outlawed by the Supreme Court in 2011.59

            Two vaccine ingredients, namely, the preservative Thimerosal60 and adjuvants containing soluble aluminum salts,61 have been implicated in this same range of brain and CNS pathology, despite these links having been strenuously denied and covered up by the industry and their regulatory agencies.62,63 Thimerosal was eventually withdrawn, with a few exceptions, ostensibly for other reasons; aluminum is still widely used as an adjuvant in bacterial and recombinant vaccines.  But similar brain and CNS pathology has been linked to the live-virus vaccines as well,64 once again pointing to an as-yet unidentified dysfunction linked to the vaccination process in general, perhaps similarly mediated by impaired oxidative phosphorylation in the mitochondria.

Smoking Gun #3: Death.

            The term SIDS was coined in response to a growing number of infant deaths soon after vaccination, at first chiefly the DPT, and meaning sudden, unexplained infant deaths (SUID), the cause of which remained unknown even after autopsy.65  It has largely succeeded in ruling out vaccines as a known cause, even though if not precisely because it's unclear what autopsy finding might rule in a vaccine as cause.  Yet preliminary studies in the US postulated such a link to the DPT as far back as the 1980's;66 the work of Dr. Scheibner in Australia amply confirmed it;67 and the Japanese government's delaying the DPT until 2 years of age essentially eliminated SIDS as a problem.68 

            The figures are also easy to manipulate, as shown by the fact that SIDS has declined since the AAP recommended back-sleeping for infants instead of the prone position most parents prefer, but the total number of SUID's remained unchanged,69 suggesting that the "unknown" group was padded to make up the difference, by simply neglecting to perform the autopsy.

            In any case, the risk of vaccines causing death is much larger than SIDS, since deaths may occur at any age, are by no means necessarily sudden, can occur after any vaccine, and involve pathological mechanisms as varied as the individuals who die from them.70  More than a few have been written off as "shaken-baby syndrome," and the victims' parents falsely accused and imprisoned, despite a history of multiple vaccines a short time before.71  The added risk of administering multiple vaccines simultaneously has also been clearly identified,72 although Dr. Offit claims that a newborn can handle 10,000 simultaneously without any problem.73  Here, too, evidence of industry cover-up has surfaced in the form of a secret GSK memo.74

Clinical and Epidemiological Research.

            Among 33 developed countries, the Infant Mortality Rate is directly proportional to the number of separate vaccine components mandated in the first year of life, with the US by far the highest in both categories, and Japan and the Scandinavian countries the lowest.75  Other studies found that infants receiving 6, 7, or 8 vaccine components simultaneously were significantly more likely to be hospitalized afterwards than those receiving 2, 3, or 4, and that those receiving 5, 6, 7, or 8 components at once were significantly more likely to die than those receiving 1, 2, 3, or 4.76  A fourth showed that "undervaccinated" kids receiving fewer vaccine components over time than their fully-vaccinated counterparts were significantly less likely to need outpatient visits, ER visits, and hospitalizations, and that the greatest reductions were in those receiving the fewest.77  All of these studies show the risk to be inherent in the vaccination process per se, rather than in any particular vaccine or combination.

            But even those receiving the fewest still receive a significant number, so the most important need is to compare children following the full CDC schedule with those receiving none at all.  Small pilots show markedly lower incidences of asthma, eczema OM's, tonsillitis, hyperactivity, and epilepsy among the unvaccinated.78

            Other studies show much higher incidence of asthma and allergies, febrile seizures and epilepsy, and IDDM in kids receiving various vaccines than in those who did not.79,80,81  These findings are the flip side of those showing lower incidences of the same autoimmune diseases and various forms of cancer later in life in those who came down with and recovered from acute infectious diseases with fever as children.  Other studies of preemies in the NICU showed high levels of CRP, warning of acute autoimmune cardiopulmonary distress, after being given a single vaccine, and even higher levels after being given several of them simultaneously, while one-sixth of all these preemies and one-third of those multiply vaccinated developed life-threatening apnea, bradycardia, oxygen desaturation, and/or cyanosis within 48 hours.82

Laboratory Science Research.

            Thimerosal damages dendritic cells and astrocytes of the brain and spinal cord, part of the cellular immune system, by causing inflammation, involving excessive secretion of inflammatory cytokines, such as IL-6, and of the excitatory neurotransmitters glutamate and aspartate, resulting in major inhibition of oxidative phosphorylation in the mitochondria.83 

            Aluminum salts in adjuvants likewise readily cross the blood-brain barrier, especially in young infants, and are causally linked to MMF, with muscle and joint pains, CFS, muscle weakness, and CNS impairment, such as MS; muscle biopsies show macrophages, lymphocytes, and damaged muscle fibers, while blood tests show autoantibodies and high levels of IL-1 and IL-6.84 

            Hexavalent vaccines are linked to infant death within 48 hours, showing BBB breakdown, microglial proliferation, infiltration by macrophages and lymphocytes, and high levels of eosinophils and mast-cell tryptase, i.e., anaphylaxis.85  Activation of inflammatory cytokines are also linked to Alzheimer's, autism, and MS.86  The mechanisms are all similar to those described for Thimerosal, again involving impaired oxidative phosphorylation in the mitochondria.87

            Vets compared 5 unvaccinated beagle puppies with 5 fully-vaccinated, and found significant titers of autoantibodies directed against various tissue proteins in the vaccinated group, and none in the unvaccinated.88  The proteins involved included fibronectin, antibodies to which are implicated in scleroderma, RA, and SLE in both dogs and humans; laminin, implicated in RA, glomerulonephritis, and vasculitis; cardiolipin, implicated in cardiomyopathy; and others.89  After 3 years, none of the dogs were clinically ill, but their request for additional funding to follow them for a longer period was turned down.90 

            Studies of this type would be valuable in humans, both to confirm similar autoimmune mechanisms routinely at work in vaccinated people, and to follow them long enough to determine the risks of developing overt autoimmune disease.

            Among other vaccine ingredients, I was especially struck by Polysorbate 80, a detergent and emulsifier often used to convey chemotherapeutic drugs across the BBB in brain tumor cases,91 which would presumably enhance still further the transport of aluminum and its vaccine-adjuvant complexes into already highly-vulnerable infant brain tissue.  For what possible use could a detergent be needed?  Human and animal DNA and proteins also pose risks of serious reactions that haven't been investigated, but very much need to be.

Summary and Conclusions.

            All of the above provides convincing evidence that the vaccination process per se,with or without adjuvants or other toxic chemicals, is inherently dangerous to every patient, because its mechanism of action involves a chronic, long-term carrier state within the immunocompetent cells of the host, and achieves the synthesis of specific antibodies by means of autoimmune phenomena, either by viral episomes attaching themselves to host DNA, or by the formation of high-molecular-weight vaccine-adjuvant complexes. In highly sensitive individuals, these can precipitate a massive autoimmune attack resulting in death or irreversible injury, especially but not exclusively in some form of brain damage.  Much more often, they can either provoke a variety of nondescript symptoms or remain totally subclinical and asymptomatic for long periods of time, and only become manifest at a later date, perhaps in response to a subsequent vaccination, toxic chemical exposure, or allergic response to some substance that the individual has become hypersensitive to as a result. 

            Further proof of this hypothesis is that the risk of such acute attacks or exacerbations is more or less directly proportional to the total load of vaccine components administered simultaneously at the same visit, or accumulated over the patients' lifetime, far more than to any particular vaccine component or chemical ingredient.  In short, it has to do with something inherent in the nature of the vaccination process itself. 

            This important link to the total number of all vaccines across the board means that the fast-growing number of vaccines listed in the CDC schedules of recent years, currently amounting to over 70 vaccine components by age 1892 and about 150 over the course of a lifetime,93 combined with dozens and even hundreds more already in the pipeline and slated for marketing in the future,94 virtually guarantees even more dramatic increases in the various forms of chronic autoimmune diseases now already rampant, especially those involving some form of brain damage, and in deaths as well.  Far from saving money, the hidden cost of all the chronic diseases caused or exacerbated by vaccines make mass vaccination one of the most reckless, dangerous, and wildly expensive medical experiments ever undertaken.

Richard Moskowitz, MD, is a family physician who received his BA from Harvard, Phi Beta Kappa, his MD from New York University, and a US Steel Fellowship in Philosophy at the University of Colorado. He has been in private practice since 1967. After studying herbs, Japanese acupuncture, and other holistic modalities, he has specialized in homeopathic medicine since 1974, and has written four previous books and over a hundred articles on homeopathy, midwifery, natural healing, and the philosophy of medicine. He resides in Boston, Massachusetts.

Notes.

1. Davis, B., et al., Microbiology, 2nd Ed., 1973, p. 1346; Roitt, I., et al.,

      Immunology, 5th Ed., 1998, pp. 23, 45, and 121, et seq.; and Mims, C., et al.,

      Medical Microbiology, 2nd Ed., Mosby, 1998, p. 63 et seq.

2. Mims, op. cit.
3. Ibid.
4. Cf., for example, Albonico, H., et al., 'Febrile Infectious Childhood Diseases in

      the History of Cancer Patients and Matched Controls," Medical Hypotheses

      51:315, 1998, and Kubota, Y., et al., "Association of Measles and Mumps with

      Cardiovascular Disease," Atherosclerosis 241:682, 2015.

5. Davis, op. cit., p. 1418.
6. Exley, C., "Aluminium and Medicine," in Molecular and Supramolecular

      Bio-Inorganic Chemistry, 2009, pp. 45-68.

7. Mendelsohn, R., How to Raise a Healthy Child . . . in Spite of Your Doctor,

      1984, pp. 210-12, passim: "There is growing suspicion that immunization

      against relatively harmless childhood diseases may be responsible for the

      dramatic increase in autoimmune diseases, cancer, leukemia, rheumatoid

      arthritis, Lou Gehrig's disease, lupus, and Guillain-Barré syndrome.  Have we

      traded mumps and measles for cancer and leukemia?"

8. Moskowitz, R., "The Case against Immunizations," Journal of the American

      Institute of Homeopathy 76:7, 1983.

9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. Moskowitz, Vaccines: a Reappraisal, 2017, pp. 60-61.
12. Ibid., p. 62.
13. Ibid., pp. 63-64.
14. Ibid., p. 64.
15. Ibid., pp. 65-66.
16. Ibid., p. 65.
17. Ibid., pp. 66-67.
18. Cf., for example, Dauer, C. C., "Reported Whooping Cough Morbidity and

      Mortality in the United States," Public Health Report 58:661, 1943.

19. Ratner, H., et al., "The Present State of Polio Vaccines," Illinois Medical

      Journal 118:84, 160, 1969.

20. "The Vaccine for Chickenpox," Patient Information Handout, American

      Family Physician 53:652, 1996.

21. Cf., for example, Cantekin, E., Letter, NEJM 344:1719, 2001: "In a short

      time, the predicted serotype replacement, as observed with other bacterial

      vaccines, was realized.  With this clear warning sign, it is perilous to push

      this vaccine."

22. Althouse, B., and Scarpino, S., "Asymptomatic Transmission and the

      Resurgence of Bordetella pertussis," BMC Medicine 13:1186, 2015.

23. Vashisht, N., et al., Trends in Non-Polio Acute Flaccid Paralysis Incidence

      in India, 2000-2013," Pediatrics 135:Supplement, S16, 2015.

24. Greninger, A., et al., "A Novel Enterovirus D68 Strain Associated with Acute

      Flaccid Myelitis Cases in the USA, 2012-14," Lancet Infectious Diseases 15:

      671, 2015.

25. McQuillan, G., et al., "Seroprevalence of Measles Antibody in the United

      States Population, 1999-2004," Journal of Infectious Diseases 196:1459,

      2007.

26. Fisher, B. L., "The Emerging Risks of Live-Virus and Virus-Vectored

      Vaccines: Vaccine-Strain Virus Infection, Shedding, and Transmission," The

      Vaccine Reaction, NVIC.org, 2014.

27. Dillingham, S., "Glass, Germs, and Steel: Why Mayor de Blasio's Draconian

      Public Health Policy Will Fail," New English Review, May 2019.

28. Cf., for example, Avramovich, E., et al., "Measles Outbreak in a Highly-

      Vaccinated Population: Israel, July-August 2017," MMWR 67:1186, 2018.

29. Cherry, J., "The New Epidemiology of Measles and Rubella," Hospital

      Practice, July 1980, p. 52.

30. Edmondson, M., et al., "Mild Measles and Secondary Vaccine Failure during a

      Sustained Outbreak in a Highly-Vaccinated Population," JAMA 263:2467,

      1990.

31. Ibid.
32. T. O. vs. Secretary of Health and Human Services, VICP Claim # 99-635V.
33. Vide supra, notes 11-17.
34. Dr. Colleen Boyle, CDC Official, in Reply to Questioning by Rep. Bill Posey

      (R.-Florida), House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, November

      29, 2012; see also Vaccine Package Inserts.

35. Cf. Vaccine Package Inserts.
36. Ibid.
37. Ibid.
38. Ibid.
39. Cf., for example, Gardasil Package Insert.
40. Ibid.
41. Interview, Dr. Peter Rost, in Gardasil documentary, One More Girl, Posted by

      Arjun Walia, collective-evolution.com, July 7, 2015.

42. Angell, M., "Drug Companies and Doctors: a Story of Corruption," New York

      Review of Books, January 15, 2009, p. 12.

43. "Table of Reportable Events following Vaccination," CDC, cdc.gov/vaccines,

      2008.

44. Holland, M., "Unanswered Questions from the Vaccine Injury Compensation

      Program: a Review of Compensated Cases of Vaccine-Induced Brain Injury,"

      Pace Environmental Law Review 28:485-89.

45. Wakefield, A., et al., "Measles Vaccine: a Risk Factor for Inflammatory Bowel

      Disease?" Lancet 345:1071, 1995.

46. Wakefield, et al., "Ileal Lymphoid-Nodular Hyperplasia, Nonspecific Colitis,

      and Pervasive Developmental Disorder in Children," Lancet 351:637, 1998.

47. Cf., for example, Deer, B., "How the Case against the MMR Was Fixed,"

      British Medical Journal, January 5, 2011.

48. "British Medical Council Bars Doctor Who Linked Vaccines with Autism,"

      New York Times, May 24, 2010.

49. Shoenfeld, Y., et al., Vaccines and Autoimmunity, 2015, Introduction, pp. 2-4.
50. Ibid.
51. Ibid.
52. Exley, op. cit.
53. Exley, "Elevated Urinary Excretion of Aluminium and Iron in Multiple

      Sclerosis," Multiple Sclerosis 12:533, 2000.

54. Exley, Aluminium and Alzheimer's Disease, 2001.
55. Exley, "Multiple Sclerosis," op. cit.
56. "Developmental Disabilities," "ADHD," and "Autism Spectrum Disorder,"

      CDC, cdc.gov.

57. Cf., for example, Mortimer, E., et al., "The Risk of Seizures and Encephalopathy

      after Immunization with the DPT Vaccine," JAMA 263:1641, 1990.

58. Holland, op. cit., p. 480.
59. Ibid., pp. 485-89.
60. Kennedy, R. F., Jr., Thimerosal: Let the Science Speak, 2014.
61. Exley, "Multiple Sclerosis," op. cit.
62. Kennedy, op. cit.
63. Offit, P., and Jew, R., "Addressing Parents' Concerns: Do Vaccines Contain

      Harmful Preservatives, Adjuvants, Additives, or Residuals?" Pediatrics

      112:1394, 2003.

64. Cf., for example, "Written Statement of Dr. William Thompson," CBS News,

      July 29, 2015.

65. "About SUID and SIDS," CDC, cdc.gov.
66. Torch, W., "DPT Immunization: a Potential Cause of SIDS?" Neurology 32:169,

      1982.

67. Scheibner, V., Vaccination: a Medical Assault on the Immune System, 1993,
68. xiii-xv.
69. Cherry, et al., "Report of Task Force on Pertussis and Pertussis Immunization,"

      Supplement, Pediatrics 81:939, 1988.

69. "SUID and SIDS: Vital Statistics Data, Linked Birth-Infant Death Files," CDC,

      cdc.gov.

70. Moskowitz, Vaccines, op. cit., pp. 108-117.
71. "Shaken Baby Conviction Overturned," British Medical Journal 328:719, 2004.
72. Moskowitz, Vaccines, op. cit., pp. 111, 150.
73. Offit, op. cit.
74. England, C., "Vaccine Bombshell: Leaked Confidential Document Exposes 36

      Infants Dead after This Vaccine," VacTruth, vactruth.com, December 16, 2012.

75. Miller, N., and Goldman, G., "Infant Mortality Rates Regressed against the

      Number of Vaccines Routinely Given, Human Experimental Toxicology

      30:1420, 2011.

76. Goldman and Miller, "Relative Trends in Hospitalizations and Mortality among

      Infants by the Number of Vaccine Doses and Age, Based on the VAERS

      Reporting System," Human Experimental Toxicology 31:1012, 2012.

77. Glanz, J., et al., "A Population-Based Cohort Study of Under-Vaccination in 8

      Managed-Care Organizations across the United States," JAMA Pediatrics

      167:284, 2013.

78. Cf., for example, Claridge, S., "Unvaccinated Children Are Healthier,"

      Investigate before You Vaccinate, vaccineinjuryinfo, 2005.

79. Kemp, T., et al., "Is Infant Immunization a Risk Factor for Childhood Asthma or

      Allergy?" Epidemiology 8:678, 1997.

80. Von Spiczak, S., et al., "A Retrospective, Population-Based Study of Seizures

      Related to Childhood Vaccinations," Epilepsia 52:1506, 2011.

81. Classen, J., "Risk of Vaccine-Induced Diabetes in Children with a Family

      History of Type 1 Diabetes," Open Pediatric Medical Journal 2:7, 2008.

82. Pourcyrous, M., et al., "Primary Immunization of Premature Infants with

      Gestational Age Less Than 35 Weeks," Journal of Pediatrics 151:167, 2007.

83. Goth, S., et al., "Uncoupling of ATP-Mediated Calcium Signaling and

      Dysregulated IL-6 Secretion in Dendritic Cells by Nanomolar Thimerosal,"

      Environmental Health Perspectives 114:1083, 2006.

84. Eickhoff, T., and Myers, M., "Aluminum in Vaccines," Workshop Summary,

      Supplement 3, Vaccine 20:S1, 2002.

85. Zinka, B., et al., "Unexplained Cases of Sudden Infant Death Shortly after

      Hexavalent Vaccination," Vaccine 24:5779, 2006.

86. Cf., for example, Exley, "Multiple Sclerosis," op. cit.
87. Mailloux, R., et al., "Aluminum-Induced Mitochondrial Dysfunction," Cell

      Physiology and Biochemistry 20:627, 2007.

88. HogenEsch, H., et al., "Vaccine-Induced Autoimmunity in the Dog," Advances

      in Veterinary Medicine 41:733, 1999.

89. Ibid.
90. Ibid.
91. Palevsky, L., "Aluminum and Vaccine Ingredients: What Do We Know? What

      Don't We Know?" International Medical Council on Vaccination, 2009.

92. "Recommended Immunization Schedule for Persons Aged 0-18 Years," ACIP,

      cdc.gov/vaccines/acip, 2016.

93. "Recommended Adult Immunization Schedule," ACIP, cdc.gov/vaccines/acip, 2016.
94. Moskowitz, Vaccines, op. cit., pp. 226-230.