Dr. Mercola Interviews Dr. Meryl Nass on Vaccine Adaptations
By Dr. Mercola
The average person in the United States and, for that matter, most of the world has been convinced – or a better term might be “manipulated” – that there is an overwhelming benefit received from vaccines.
Most people accept the recommendation to vaccinate from the media, public health agencies and their physicians without question.
But one of the purposes of this site is to encourage you to exercise caution, do your due diligence, and explore all sides of prevailing health issues. This is especially important when it comes to vaccinations, as the media and most physicians will almost universally provide only one side of the equation.
In reality, these medical interventions do have side effects, which are often far more common than the preapproval clinical research revealed … and they are often not nearly as beneficial as they are purported to be by the conventional medical authorities.
Meanwhile, as my interview with Dr. Meryl Nass, a physician in Bar Harbor, Maine, revealed, there are many unforeseen consequences of mass vaccination … consequences that could end up seriously impacting public health in a very negative way.
Vaccines May Trigger Bacterial Adaptations, Strain Replacement and Antibiotic-Resistant Disease
Dr. Nass begins by discussing Prevnar, a vaccine used against pneumonia, meningitis, and deadly bloodstream infections in young children. When the vaccine was first licensed in 2000, it contained seven pneumococcal strains (PCV-7).
While some decreases were initially reported in diseases linked to these seven strains, by 2008 there was evidence that the mass use of the vaccine in U.S. children had “put pressure on some of the 80 other pneumococcal strains to cause invasive disease and was responsible for increasing the rates of otitis media [ear infection], meningitis and pneumonia caused by serotypes not included in the seven-valent vaccine.”1, 2
As a result, in 2010 a new Prevnar vaccine with 13 serotypes instead of seven (PCV-13) was released, in an attempt to stop the newly added pneumococcal strains from causing invasive disease.
Dr. Nass explained:
“Now, the reason for [the introduction of new PCV-13 vaccine] was that when Prevnar was originally introduced, it seemed to cause a reduction in cases of meningitis, and possibly pneumonia, due to the bacteria that were included in the vaccine. Subsequently, there was an increase in cases throughout the United States and also in the rest of the world of strains that were not included in the vaccine.
There have been a lot of studies on this. In some places, there are more infections than before. In most places, there seems to be net fewer, but not a lot net fewer. The infections that now occur – not everywhere, but it seems that in the majority of places – are more antibiotic-resistant than they were before.”
Now, in the United States ear infections and sinus infections, many of which are caused by pneumococcal bacteria, have become much harder to treat because of increasing resistance to antibiotics. This is due not only to the overuse of antibiotics in medicine and, more importantly, in agricultural animal feed, but also likely due to the widespread use of the Prevnar vaccine.
Serious Diseases on the Rise Due to Possible Vaccine-Induced Bacterial and Viral Adaptations
It’s not only ear and sinus infections that may be mutating into hard-to-treat strains thanks to the use of vaccinations. Other cases noted in the literature include:
- Whooping Cough: In Australia, dangerous new strains of whooping cough bacteria were reported in March 2012.3 The vaccine, researchers said, was responsible. The reason for this is because, while whooping cough is primarily attributed toBordetella pertussis infection, it is also caused by another closely related pathogen called B. parapertussis, which the vaccine does NOT protect against.
Two years earlier, scientists at Penn State had already reported that receiving the pertussis vaccine significantly enhanced nasal colonization of B. parapertussis, thereby promoting vaccine-resistant whooping cough outbreaks.4
- Hepatitis B: In 2007, immunologists discovered mutated vaccine-resistant viruses were causing disease.5
- Polio: The oral polio vaccine, which is still used in many third-world countries, is made from three live polio viruses, and carries a risk of causing polio. The viruses in the vaccine can also mutate or recombine into a deadlier version, igniting new outbreaks.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) admits that 154 cases of polio in the US that occurred between 1980 and 1999 were vaccine-associated, or on average 8 cases per year in the U.S.6
According to Nature,7 poliovirus reverts to virulence in 2 to 4 babies per million vaccinated. And, according to an article inClinical Infectious Diseases,8 the risk of vaccine-associated polio ranged from 0 to 9 per million persons vaccinated for each of the three Sabin strains. The World Health Organization (WHO) acknowledges:9
“In very rare cases, the administration of OPV [oral polio vaccine] results in vaccine-associated paralysis associated with a reversion of the vaccine strains to the more neurovirulent profile of wild poliovirus. In a few instances, such vaccine strains have become both neurovirulent and transmissible and have resulted in infectious poliomyelitis.”
This problem is so significant that oral polio vaccines are no longer used in the developed world. (They were stopped in the U.S. in 2000 and replaced by injected vaccines that were not live.) However, because they are cheaper to produce than injected vaccines, they are still used in the “less developed” world.
In addition, Dr. Nass pointed out:
“…in the literature, it’s been noted that there’s been strain replacement for whooping cough (Bordetella pertussis), Neisseria meningitidis (which is the organism that causes a lot of meningitis), and Haemophilus influenzae. And there have been articles about the potential problems with new vaccines in development for tuberculosis, and whether they will cause strain replacement.
This is a new problem that was identified first in the last 10 years. It’s been studied reasonably well for Prevnar and for Strep pneumoniae… but it hasn’t been studied as well for all the other vaccines and other infections. We can look back and say what happened, but what we can’t do is predict what will happen with the new Prevnar 13 vaccine or other potential pneumococcal conjugate vaccines that are in development. We can bring new vaccines in, but we don’t know what effect they’ll have on the ecology of diseases in the future. And I think it’s something that needs to be looked at much more carefully before we license vaccines.”
Vaccine Effectiveness and Safety Also Called Into Question
There are countless examples of currently recommended vaccinations that have questionable or short-lived effectiveness — flu shots, the MMR vaccine, and the whooping cough vaccine, just to name a few. There are even more examples of vaccines for which the safety profile has never been established.
Prevnar is one such example, as its original approval was based on a clinical trial that compared the Prevnar 7 vaccine to an experimental vaccine. No inert control was used, which means it was impossible to gauge what kinds of side effects were occurring due to Prevnar, since it was being weighed against the side effects being caused by another (experimental meningitis) vaccine. And since the other vaccine was never licensed in the U.S., we don’t really know what side effects it causes. We were only told that Prevnar didn’t cause significantly worse side effects than the other experimental vaccine.
So when you compare the side effects between the experimental vaccine group and the control group, you don’t see a difference, because they’re both being given injections that are potentially toxic, rather than the control group receiving an inert placebo like a saline injection.
Then, when Prevnar 13 came to be licensed, the manufacturer compared it to Prevnar 7 and decided that since the side effects were similar, it meant the newer version was safe to bring to the market. Of course, the true risks of Prevnar 7 had never been fully established, so this comparison, too, was meaningless.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) did acknowledge this, and told the vaccine’s maker to conduct an additional six studies on safety and efficacy (after approving the license and use of the vaccine) … but these are being conducted by the drug’s maker, which means they’re highly subject to conflict of interest and bias. Dr. Nass continued:
“This is an example of how little we know… when we bring products into the market. We basically know very little about their safety and their effectiveness when they are first licensed. We learn about them as people use the products. There was an interesting paradox in how the Prevnar vaccine was licensed. When it was originally licensed, it was said that it didn’t really reduce ear infections. It didn’t really reduce sinus infections. But what it did reduce were these invasive, very serious, and life-threatening pneumococcal infections, which were primarily pneumonias, bacteremias (which is bacteria in the bloodstream), and meningitis.
Now, think about that for a minute. How can there be a treatment or a preventive medication such as a vaccine that reduces serious infections caused by certain bacteria but doesn’t reduce the minor infections caused by the identical bacteria? How can that be? …It doesn’t make biological sense.”
Get Informed Before Making Your Vaccination Decisions
There are basic differences between naturally acquired immunity and temporary vaccine-induced antibody production. But few are willing to look at this issue — least of all conventional medicine, which is so dominated by pharmaceutical companies seeking bigger markets and more profits from the investment they make in developing new vaccines.
Unfortunately, if we continue down the road they’re paving for us, and they turn out to be wrong about the effectiveness, safety, and overall long-term side effects of vaccines, then we’re on an extremely dangerous slippery slope.
As Dr. Nass said:
“…many vaccines, hundreds of vaccines, are in development now. It’s possible that huge numbers of vaccines will be brought into clinical practice in the next few years. If that happens, not only do we have no idea how any one individual vaccine may affect the pattern of disease and the pattern of drug resistance, but we have absolutely no idea how the combination of vaccines will affect us. It’s something we really need to be observing and collecting information on, as they come into use.”
This is also why I believe we really need an open and fearless conversation about vaccines; one that addresses the glaring questions about vaccine effectiveness (or lack thereof) and vaccine side effects, and leaves room for real, honest answers, and alternatives to our society’s use of vaccination as the primary disease prevention tool.
Until that happens, however, it is imperative to continue to educate yourself and your family on the issues surrounding vaccinations of all kinds.
To help you locate all the latest vaccine information on my site, I’ve created a dedicated Vaccine News page. Bookmark it and return often. I also recommend you familiarize yourself with the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) web site. As a leader for vaccine safety, the NVIC offers information on everything from vaccine laws to late-breaking vaccine news and how you can get involved to protect vaccine choices in your state.
What You Can Do to Make a Difference
While it seems “old-fashioned,” the only truly effective actions you can take to protect the right to informed consent to vaccination and expand vaccine exemptions, is to get personally involved with your state legislators and the leaders in your community.
THINK GLOBALLY, ACT LOCALLY.
Mass vaccination policies are made at the federal level but vaccine laws are made at the state level, and it is at the state level where your action to protect your vaccine choice rights can have the greatest impact.
Signing up for NVIC’s free Advocacy Portal at www.NVICAdvocacy.org not only gives you access to practical, useful information to help you become an effective vaccine choice advocate in your own community, but when national vaccine issues come up, you will have the up-to-date information and call to action items you need at your fingertips to make sure your voice is heard.
So please, as your first step, sign up for the NVIC Advocacy Portal.
Contact Your Elected Officials
Write or email your elected state representatives and share your concerns. Call them, or better yet, make an appointment to visit them in person in their office. Don’t let them forget you!
It is so important for you to reach out and make sure your concerns get on the radar screen of the leaders and opinion makers in your community, especially the politicians you elect and are directly involved in making vaccine laws in your state. These are your elected representatives, so you have a right and a responsibility to let them know what’s really happening in your life and the lives of people you know when it comes to vaccine mandates. Be sure to share the “real life” experiences that you or people you know have had with vaccination.
Share Your Story with the Media and People You Know
If you or a family member has suffered a serious vaccine reaction, injury or death, please talk about it. If we don’t share information and experiences with each other, everybody feels alone and afraid to speak up. Write a letter to the editor if you have a different perspective on a vaccine story that appears in your local newspaper. Make a call in to a radio talk show that is only presenting one side of the vaccine story.
I must be frank with you; you have to be brave because you might be strongly criticized for daring to talk about the “other side” of the vaccine story. Be prepared for it and have the courage to not back down. Only by sharing our perspective and what we know to be true about vaccination will the public conversation about vaccination open up so people are not afraid to talk about it.
We cannot allow the drug companies and medical trade associations funded by drug companies to dominate the conversation about vaccination. The vaccine injured cannot be swept under the carpet and treated like nothing more than “statistically acceptable collateral damage” of national one-size-fits-all mass vaccination policies that put way too many people at risk for injury and death. We shouldn’t be treating people like guinea pigs instead of human beings.
Internet Resources Where You Can Learn More
I encourage you to visit the following web pages on the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) website at www.NVIC.org:
- NVIC Memorial for Vaccine Victims: View descriptions and photos of children and adults, who have suffered vaccine reactions, injuries and deaths. If you or your child experiences an adverse vaccine event, please consider posting and sharing your story here.
- If You Vaccinate, Ask 8 Questions: Learn how to recognize vaccine reaction symptoms and prevent vaccine injuries.
- Vaccine Freedom Wall: View or post descriptions of harassment by doctors or government officials for making independent vaccine choices.
Connect with Your Doctor or Find a New One that Will Listen and Care
If your pediatrician or doctor refuses to provide medical care to you or your child unless you agree to get vaccines you don’t want, I strongly encourage you to have the courage to find another doctor. Harassment, intimidation, and refusal of medical care is becoming the modus operandi of the medical establishment in an effort to stop the change in attitude of many parents about vaccinations after they become truly educated about health and vaccination.
However, there is hope.
At least 15 percent of young doctors recently polled admit that they’re starting to adopt a more individualized approach to vaccinations in direct response to the vaccine safety concerns of parents. It is good news that there is a growing number of smart young doctors, who prefer to work as partners with parents in making personalized vaccine decisions for children, including delaying vaccinations or giving children fewer vaccines on the same day or continuing to provide medical care for those families, who decline use of one or more vaccines.
So take the time to locate a doctor, who treats you with compassion and respect and is willing to work with you to do what is right for your child.
Read the full article here: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/01/15/dr-nass-on-vaccination.aspx