Vaccines and the immune system.

[Spectrolite]

I'm still doing my research.
And this is the gist of what I know about so far about the immune system and how vaxes negatively effect them. Please comment and add onto my list. I am trying to keep this as short and sweet and clear as possible so I can remember all this info

*Fact: Scientists know very little about the immune system and how it works.

*Fact: The immune system of an infant's is quite different from that of an adults.

*Fact of theory? :They skew the immune response from Th1 to Th2 (not sure exactly what this means yet, but it's not what the body is meant to do...

*Theory: The antibodies floating around the system can cause a phenomenon called "molecular mimicry". this is a theory that says: the antibodies are looking for the VPD in the body. But since the disease never comes around for those antibodies to fight it off, they start attacking molecularly similar pieces in the natural body. Which would then cause an autoimmune disorder.
(this i learned from one of Sherri Tenpenny's videos online, and the study "Vaccination and autoimmunity-'vaccinosis': a dangerous liaison?" is here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10648110 )
Are there more studies like this?? What a great title!!!

*Researched fact: Vaccines cause immunity suppression, as seen in cases of patients being vaxed with DTP and then coming down with polio in the epidemic era. (this I learned from an article by Randall Neustaedter at http://www.healthy.net/scr/article.asp?ID=539)

and finally...
*Fact: Many non-vaxing or vax-delaying parents choose not to vaccinate their young babies because they believe that the system should develop naturally. This, along with good nutrition, etc etc, gives the child a better chance of having a stronger immune system.

[an_domhan]

Vaccination and this kind of artificial introduction of disease is relatively new to humans. In terms of evolution, it's not even a fraction of an eyeblink.

[Marnica]

Nice overview. Read up on the skewing. It is quite interesting.

[Gitti]

Originally Posted by Spectrolite

*Fact: Scientists know very little about the immune system and how it works.

Correct. Immunology is a research field and everything that deals with immunology is guess work and experimental.

*Fact: The immune system of an infant's is quite different from that of an adults.

Most likely so and not only that, each human being has an individual immune system that develops and matures on individual terms.

*Fact of theory? :They skew the immune response from Th1 to Th2 (not sure exactly what this means yet, but it's not what the body is meant to do...

Correct. And no immunologist can tell you what the consequences of that are.
Here is a good article that explains it in a way - http://www.garynull.com/Documents/ni...tions_work.htm

*Fact: Many non-vaxing or vax-delaying parents choose not to vaccinate their young babies because they believe that the system should develop naturally. This, along with good nutrition, etc etc, gives the child a better chance of having a stronger immune system.

That is how we understand immunity and how it worked before all this hocus- pocus medicine. Our three grandchildren are (pretty much) vaccine free and will remain so. The two youngest who are completely vaccine free are by far the healthiest kids I have ever seen.

You are doing a great job researching. Keep posting what you uncover. And never quit asking questions.

[mamakay]

*Theory: The antibodies floating around the system can cause a phenomenon called "molecular mimicry". this is a theory that says: the antibodies are looking for the VPD in the body. But since the disease never comes around for those antibodies to fight it off, they start attacking molecularly similar pieces in the natural body. Which would then cause an autoimmune disorder.
(this i learned from one of Sherri Tenpenny's videos online, and the study "Vaccination and autoimmunity-'vaccinosis': a dangerous liaison?" is here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10648110 )

There probably is some molecular mimicry that goes on with some vaccines sometimes, but "vaccinosis" is probably not a real phenomenon.

[Marnica]

Originally Posted by mamakay

There probably is some molecular mimicry that goes on with some vaccines sometimes, but "vaccinosis" is probably not a real phenomenon.

I find this interesting because "vaccinosis" is a recognized phenomenon in animals so why are humans so different.

[mamakay]

Originally Posted by Marnica

I find this interesting because "vaccinosis" is a recognized phenomenon in animals so why are humans so different.

A vast majority of vets don't consider vaccinosis a real phenomenon.

[gr8blessings]

Originally Posted by Gitti

Correct. And no immunologist can tell you what the consequences of that are.
Here is a good article that explains it in a way - http://www.garynull.com/Documents/ni...tions_work.htm

I'm sorry but that is not a good article since it contains numerous errors about the immune system.

You can find basic information about the immune system in this online textbook. Unfortunately, you have to search for a topic and can't read the text cover-to-cover, unless you cleverly string together the search terms. The book is also outdated (2001) and a more recent edition from a library would be better but not all of us have access to a medical research library so we make due with what we have. It certainly is better than nothing.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bv...m.TOC&depth=10

This article is much better at describing vaccine immunology, but it is quite technical and assumes that the reader has already taken a course in basic immunology (i.e. read the textbook cover to cover first).

http://www.who.int/immunization/docu...immunology.pdf


gr8blessings

[mamakay]

Originally Posted by gr8blessings

I'm sorry but that is not a good article since it contains numerous errors about the immune system.

You can find basic information about the immune system in this online textbook. Unfortunately, you have to search for a topic and can't read the text cover-to-cover, unless you cleverly string together the search terms. The book is also outdated (2001) and a more recent edition from a library would be better but not all of us have access to a medical research library so we make due with what we have. It certainly is better than nothing.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bv...m.TOC&depth=10

This article is much better at describing vaccine immunology, but it is quite technical and assumes that the reader has already taken a course in basic immunology (i.e. read the textbook cover to cover first).

http://www.who.int/immunization/docu...immunology.pdf


gr8blessings

I like how that second link starts off:

To generate vaccine-mediated protection is a complex challenge.
Currently available vaccines have largely been developed
empirically, with little or no understanding on how they
activate the immune system.

[luminesce]

Originally Posted by Spectrolite

*Fact: Scientists know very little about the immune system and how it works.

Well, I think this is both true and false. I'm reading "How the Immune System Works" by Lauren M. Sompayrac and what we do know is very detailed and rather fascinating. It is a lot to take in. However, there is still a lot that we don't know and what we do know changes constantly. I think we take a lot of liberties with our immune system, particularly with vaccination and display quite a bit of arrogance about our repository of knowledge.

Originally Posted by Spectrolite

*Fact: The immune system of an infant's is quite different from that of an adults.

This is definitely true. In general, I think an infant's immune system is intact, just not mature or exposed. How this connects to the issue of vaccination is one that has probably not been studied enough.

Originally Posted by Spectrolite

*Fact of theory? :They skew the immune response from Th1 to Th2 (not sure exactly what this means yet, but it's not what the body is meant to do...

I'm not familiar with this site and didn't read the whole article but this looks like a good overview:

http://www.ei-resource.org/articles/...inations-work/

Originally Posted by Spectrolite

*Theory: The antibodies floating around the system can cause a phenomenon called "molecular mimicry". this is a theory that says: the antibodies are looking for the VPD in the body. But since the disease never comes around for those antibodies to fight it off, they start attacking molecularly similar pieces in the natural body. Which would then cause an autoimmune disorder.
(this i learned from one of Sherri Tenpenny's videos online, and the study "Vaccination and autoimmunity-'vaccinosis': a dangerous liaison?" is here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10648110 )
Are there more studies like this?? What a great title!!!

I can't really talk completely intelligently about this but here goes... From what I've read about our immune system our adaptive immune system has the innate ability to recognize anything as foreign (we're talking 100 million different possibilities and including synthetic substances only created recently), which I find absolutely amazing given the limited amount of genetic material cells have to work with. An nobel prize was won for the discovery of how this is done (http://www.nytimes.com/1987/10/13/sc...pagewanted=all). Tonegawa challenged the dogma that all DNA in every cell in the body is the same. Not so for B cells - as they mature, they mix up the DNA via a modular design and connect the genes together with diversity allowing incredible antibody diversity. So overall, our bodies innately have the ability to recognize and attack its own cells but there are a myriad of ways, checks and balances it trains itself to not do so. I think vaccinations may play a role in autoimmunity but maybe in a more diverse and complex way than is explained above.

Originally Posted by Spectrolite

*Researched fact: Vaccines cause immunity suppression, as seen in cases of patients being vaxed with DTP and then coming down with polio in the epidemic era. (this I learned from an article by Randall Neustaedter at http://www.healthy.net/scr/article.asp?ID=539)

Can't comment on this.

Originally Posted by Spectrolite

*Fact: Many non-vaxing or vax-delaying parents choose not to vaccinate their young babies because they believe that the system should develop naturally. This, along with good nutrition, etc etc, gives the child a better chance of having a stronger immune system.

I'm sure that, and the lack of good safety studies, surveillance and honesty about our vaccination program are the two main reasons parents choose to delay or not vaccinate.

[luminesce]

Originally Posted by mamakay

I like how that second link starts off:

This is probably the biggest problem I have with vaccinations and pharmaceutical research in general. "Let's pick a chemical compound/design a vaccine, get a general idea of what it might do in the body without really understanding the mechanism of action, throw some darts, see how much damage it causes in a clinical trial, do a cost to benefit analysis (utilitarianism, anyone?) with people's lives, see how much of that damage we can mitigate with good marketing and public relations and go from there..." Having said that, I don't think the motivation is necessarily wrong - I think researchers contribute for the right reasons - to try to save lives. Maybe the problem is that we are just still in a bit of the dark ages when it comes to understanding our bodies (relatively to where we'll be in a couple hundred years anyway.) My gripe is that more money is dumped into this way of doing research when we should be doing more research to simply gain knowledge. With knowledge would come the ability to make people healthy in more universal ways and to design drugs and vaccines more logically and safely.

[Spectrolite]

Quote:
Currently available vaccines have largely been developed
empirically, with little or no understanding on how they
activate the immune system.

Holy Moly.

That is one scary, scary statement that is so clearly written by scientists for scientists. If ALL parents were given this bit to read before the needle went in, how many would stop to think??? This statement also reads, to me at least:"so we are simply experimenting all the while..."

Wow. I think this really gives major points to my non-vax argument basket.

[ema-adama]

Originally Posted by Spectrolite

*Fact of theory? :They skew the immune response from Th1 to Th2 (not sure exactly what this means yet, but it's not what the body is meant to do...

I have been reading a little bit about this and I am not sure what about the vaccine skews the immune system. I remember reading on a google book that aluminium skews a Th2 response. I wonder if vaccines that do not contain aluminium also skew the immune system - hopefully I will unravel this with time.

Originally Posted by mamakay

I like how that second link starts off:

To generate vaccine-mediated protection is a complex challenge.
Currently available vaccines have largely been developed
empirically, with little or no understanding on how they
activate the immune system.

Originally Posted by serenitii

Well, I think this is both true and false. I'm reading "How the Immune System Works" by Lauren M. Sompayrac and what we do know is very detailed and rather fascinating. It is a lot to take in. However, there is still a lot that we don't know and what we do know changes constantly. I think we take a lot of liberties with our immune system, particularly with vaccination and display quite a bit of arrogance about our repository of knowledge.

Yes to the bolded part.

I'm sure that, and the lack of good safety studies, surveillance and honesty about our vaccination program are the two main reasons parents choose to delay or not vaccinate.

Yes again. Although these reasons are much harder to address and so are swept under the carpet.

[GutInstinct]

*Fact: Many non-vaxing or vax-delaying parents choose not to vaccinate their young babies because they believe that the system should develop naturally. This, along with good nutrition, etc etc, gives the child a better chance of having a stronger immune system.

Well, my exclusively breastfed, unvaxxed 16-month-old son has never been sick. Minor sniffles, yes, but nothing big at all, never even an ear infection! Just saying...

I've read a LOT on this subject and honestly feel ill thinking about the toxic overload going directly into babies' bloodstreams. And how can parents not think that some of these chemicals affect neurological development?? Yikes!

I need to read more about the blood-brain barrier, but what I've learned so far makes me glad we've held off. We think we'll start SOME shots around age 4.

[gr8blessings]

Originally Posted by Spectrolite

Quote:
Currently available vaccines have largely been developed
empirically, with little or no understanding on how they
activate the immune system.

Holy Moly.

That is one scary, scary statement that is so clearly written by scientists for scientists. If ALL parents were given this bit to read before the needle went in, how many would stop to think??? This statement also reads, to me at least:"so we are simply experimenting all the while..."

Wow. I think this really gives major points to my non-vax argument basket.

Oh, please don't use this as a point in your non-vax argument because then you or someone else will then post here wondering why their doctor thinks them to be uneducated.

First of all, vaccines were initially developed in the 12th century by the Chinese with immunization to smallpox. Jenner further developed and named the technique in 1796. The scientific information obtained about the host-pathogen relationship and vaccination since then has only strengthened what the Chinese observed almost 1000 years ago: vaccination works to reduce mortality and morbidity. To ignore almost 200 years of scientific evidence supporting vaccination, would indeed make you look uneducated.

Second, most of human knowledge has been empirically determined, should we discard that information too? We'd have to given up lots, like food, water, shelter, clothes.

Third, how the knowledge is obtained is irrelevant to whether we can use the information or not. I don't have a detailed, scientific understanding of my vehicle's mechanical parts, but I do know that if I turn the key and step on the gas pedal the car goes and if I step on the brake it stops. I can then use that vehicle to do things useful things for my family, like get groceries.

Finally, alternative medicine has also been determined empirically and has little to no scientific evidence to support it. Furthermore, some alternative approaches are not even biologically plausible. It would be very hard to look educated if you use the above quote in your argument not to vaccinate while at the same time using alternative medicine to keep your family healthy.

I think that your real argument against vaccines is that the safety and efficiency of the vaccine does not justify the risk of an adverse reaction. The statement you quoted simply does not support that argument. A better approach would be to say "science has done experiment A,B,C to show that vaccines are safe and efficient, the problems with these studies are 1,2,3 and studies X,Y,Z need to be done to convince me that vaccines are safe and efficient." This is the argument you need to develop.

gr8blessings

[kiara7]

Originally Posted by GutInstinct

Well, my exclusively breastfed, unvaxxed 16-month-old son has never been sick. Minor sniffles, yes, but nothing big at all, never even an ear infection! Just saying...

I've read a LOT on this subject and honestly feel ill thinking about the toxic overload going directly into babies' bloodstreams. And how can parents not think that some of these chemicals affect neurological development?? Yikes!

I need to read more about the blood-brain barrier, but what I've learned so far makes me glad we've held off. We think we'll start SOME shots around age 4.

How can doctors/scientists/government not think that too???

[Gitti]

Originally Posted by gr8blessings

First of all, vaccines were initially developed in the 12th century by the Chinese with immunization to smallpox.

And was then abandoned by the emperor permanently. Must have not like the results.

To ignore almost 200 years of scientific evidence supporting vaccination, would indeed make you look uneducated.

What evidence?
Cancer in very young children? At such a rate that it is a thriving business?
Allergies and asthma in more than 50% of our kids?
Rheumatism and diabetes in kids younger than ever seen in our history?
"Modern diseases"?
The fact that over 30% of our kids need some assistance to make it though a school day?

Finally, alternative medicine has also been determined empirically and has little to no scientific evidence to support it.

To ignore over 3000 years of evidence doesn't make one look uneducated? Or at the very least brainwashed into a Zeitgeist?

http://www.unani.com/hipporcates.htm

X,Y,Z need to be done to convince me that vaccines are safe and efficient."

Oh I don't know about XYZ, just simply comparing fully vaccinated kids to completely vaccine free kids. That would show a lot.
Why is that kind of study not being done? I have 3 grandchildren who will NEVER be vaccinated. There are thousand of children who will never be vaccinated. There is nothing unethical about using them for comparison. So there is no excuse. It is not being done because the outcome would prove without a shadow of a doubt that vaccines are detrimental to our health.

[ema-adama]

I don't have the time to go into this now, but it is interesting and worth exploring the Chinese vaccination. Smallpox scabs were sniffed and not injected.

[an_domhan]

Originally Posted by gr8blessings

Jenner further developed and named the technique in 1796. The scientific information obtained about the host-pathogen relationship and vaccination since then has only strengthened what the Chinese observed almost 1000 years ago: vaccination works to reduce mortality and morbidity.

Was this before or after his guinea pig son died at age 21 of TB?

To ignore almost 200 years of scientific evidence supporting vaccination, would indeed make you look uneducated.

Nothing scientific about not having a bona-fide control group.

Third, how the knowledge is obtained is irrelevant to whether we can use the information or not. I don't have a detailed, scientific understanding of my vehicle's mechanical parts, but I do know that if I turn the key and step on the gas pedal the car goes and if I step on the brake it stops. I can then use that vehicle to do things useful things for my family, like get groceries.

Yeah, but you're not a mechanic espousing the benefits of using a car to go get your groceries as opposed to someone walking instead, and hiding behind science to do it.

[Spectrolite]

Originally Posted by gr8blessings

Oh, please don't use this as a point in your non-vax argument because then you or someone else will then post here wondering why their doctor thinks them to be uneducated.

gr8blessings

well, I thought about what you said, and I see it this way.

They are stating that they don't know much about the immune system, but they are very happy to go on and state that their vax products are nearly 100% safe (a la Offit).

How can they be so humble to say that their knowledge of the human body is limited yet be so arrogantly sure that their created vaccines do good for that same body?

It doesn't make sense.