Concerned About Vaccines And Autoimmune Disease?

[miriam]

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Edited by miriam - Yesterday at 5:48 pm

[CrunchyChristianMama]

Subbing to hear what others have to say.  I have a DD with an autoimmune disease, but she has never been vaccinated.  I was fully (and then some) vaccinated though.

[Xerxella]

It is an interesting article, but really above my IQ level. 

The text reads:  

"Conclusions/Significance

Systemic autoimmunity appears to be the inevitable consequence of over-stimulating the host's immune ‘system’ by repeated immunization with antigen, to the levels that surpass system's self-organized criticality. "     

I would be interested if they could tell us in plain english how much of the antigens were injected into the mice and how that relates to humans.  I would think that too much of anything injected into the body would cause problems.   

CrunchyChristianMama - I would imagine that any problem with the body can have multiple causes.  Like smoking causes lung cancer, but there are cases of lung cancer in non smokers.  KWIM

[Mirzam]

My take on the subject of immunity is very simplistic. The immune system as current medical science describes is wrong. The immune system doesn't exist in the way it is portrayed, ie as an attack system. It is in actuality a healing support system, and the various mechanisms are there purely to assist the body heal and to return to a normal state of being. Antibodies are merely soluble blood proteins that play a role in the healing of wounds. In a test tube these blood proteins (globulins), with an appropriate concentration of acids and bases, minerals and solvents will arbitrarily bind with other proteins, so that you can make any sample from an animal or person test either positive or negative. Antibodies are merely an indication of cell damage, they rise due to wounds in the body. In the case of vaccination these wounds are the results of the toxic ingredients (not the bacteria or virus) in vaccines. 

[Alenushka]

A defect in HLA governing genes is the reason why autoimmune desease run in the families. There are plenty of unvaxed people who have them too.

Originally Posted by Mirzam 

My take on the subject of immunity is very simplistic. The immune system as current medical science describes is wrong. The immune system doesn't exist in the way it is portrayed, ie as an attack system. It is in actuality a healing support system, and the various mechanisms are there purely to assist the body heal and to return to a normal state of being. Antibodies are merely soluble blood proteins that play a role in the healing of wounds. In a test tube these blood proteins (globulins), with an appropriate concentration of acids and bases, minerals and solvents will arbitrarily bind with other proteins, so that you can make any sample from an animal or person test either positive or negative. Antibodies are merely an indication of cell damage, they rise due to wounds in the body. In the case of vaccination these wounds are the results of the toxic ingredients (not the bacteria or virus) in vaccines. 

[Kanna]

Originally Posted by Mirzam 

My take on the subject of immunity is very simplistic. The immune system as current medical science describes is wrong. The immune system doesn't exist in the way it is portrayed, ie as an attack system. It is in actuality a healing support system, and the various mechanisms are there purely to assist the body heal and to return to a normal state of being. Antibodies are merely soluble blood proteins that play a role in the healing of wounds. In a test tube these blood proteins (globulins), with an appropriate concentration of acids and bases, minerals and solvents will arbitrarily bind with other proteins, so that you can make any sample from an animal or person test either positive or negative. Antibodies are merely an indication of cell damage, they rise due to wounds in the body. In the case of vaccination these wounds are the results of the toxic ingredients (not the bacteria or virus) in vaccines. 

With all due respect, but can you point me to any scientific studies to back those claims up? I'm a bit doubtful if things really work the way you describe.

[Kanna]

Originally Posted by miriam 

This peer reviewed, double blind, scientific study, is PUBLISHED!

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0008382

It has jumped through all the hoops.

I'm not so certain about the "jumped through all the hoops" bit.

First of all, the website itself only checks if the study is technically sound. They make NO judgement about the acutal content beyond that.

Quote: "PLoS ONE will rigorously peer-review your submissions and publish all papers that are judged to be technically sound.....Academic Editors (AEs) ...evaluate the paper and decide whether it describes a body of work that meets the editorial criteria."

Second, I find their "peer review" process to be lacking.

Quote: "Selection of reviewers for a particular manuscript is the responsibility of the AE.....reviewers may remain anonymous."

So if the AE, for whatever reason, has a personal bias on the subject, he can allow submission or block it how he sees fit. PLUS he's the one to select the reviewers, so nothing keeps him from selecting reviewers that share his bias.

Third: On the review process itself: According to PLoS ONE, a review should address the following questions:

• What are the main claims of the paper?
• Are the claims properly placed in the context of the previous literature?
• Do the experimental data support the claims? If not, what other evidence is required?
• Who would find this paper of interest? And why?
• In what further directions would it be useful to take the current research?

• Is the manuscript written clearly enough that it is understandable to non-specialists? If not, how could it be improved?
• Have the authors provided adequate proof for their claims without overselling them?
• Have the authors treated the previous literature fairly?
• Does the paper offer enough details of its methodology that its experiments could be reproduced?

Please note that according to these standards, a review can make NO statement about the actual scientific significance or relevance of the paper in question.

Fourth:

The test subjects mentioned are MICE. And they weren't even normal mice, but genetically modified mice know as BALB/c mice.

Also, while the results of  tests done on mice can give strong hints about pathomechanisms in humans, it is not possible to directly infer how the same pathomechanism would play out in human beings. Further research is required to do that.

Fifth:

The article says that the mice were "immunized repeatedly with antigen".

Sorry but antigens are NOT the same thing as vaccines.

The paper also quite clearly states what kind of antigens were used in the experiments:

staphylococcus enterotoxin B (SEB)

ovalbumin (OVA)

keyhole limpet hemocyanin (KLH)

SEB is NOT something contained in vaccines.

OVA can be found in influenza vaccine, rabies vaccine......and eggs. Like the ones you buy in the supermarket. I'd hazard that you might be able to overstimulate the immunesystem of a genetically modified mouse with it, and maybe the immune system of someone who is allergic to eggs, but a very probably NOT the immune system of a normal, healthy human being.

KLH also is NOT something contained in vaccines.

Sixth:

The paper says that mere contact with the substances mentioned is not enough to induce autoimmunity. It is also necessary for the immunesystem to be OVERSTIMULATED by the antigen in question.

Quote: ".....autoimmunity arises not from ‘autoimmunity’, but as a natural consequence of normal immune response when stimulated maximally beyond system's self-organized criticality".

Seventh:

Since the amount of antigen contained in a vaccine is FAR less than the amount of antigen that will be present in a body when you actually contract the disease in question, the research indicates that you are MUCH more likely to aquire an autoimmune disease when you fall ill with the disease instead of being vaccinated....and the authors of the paper point this out too:

"It then follows that the ability of certain antigens such as measles virus to cause autoimmunity may be due to their ability, in conjunction with its ability to present antigen, to overstimulate CD4⁺ and/or CD8⁺ T cells of certain hosts beyond integrity of their immune system. Living organisms are constantly exposed to a broad range of environmental antigens, as exemplified by the recent re-emergence of measles virus infection among a subpopulation of Japanese young adults who were not vaccinated against the virus."

Basically, if more research is conducted in the direction this paper goes, and the findings within the paper are confirmed as scientifically significant and aplicable to humans, this would acutally make a strong case FOR vaccination in order to prevent the occurence of autoimmune diseases.

[miriam]

W

Edited by miriam - Yesterday at 5:48 pm

[Kanna]

If the theory put forward in the paper is confirmed by more scientific evidence (which I think is likely), then people which are vaccinated will have a LOWER RISK of developing autoimmune diseases than non-vaccinated people.

The paper says that one of the causes for autoimmune diseases seem to be infections, e.g. with measels.

The research so far suggest that in the course of such an infection, since the body is presented with a tremendous amount of antigens (like bacterial DNA, bacterial surface proteins, bacterial toxins, etc.) , this might result in overstimulation of the normal immune response, beyond the immune systems' ability to handle such a stimulation.

The immunesystem then ceases to function normally due to this overstimulation and the patient develops an auto-immune disease.

Quote: ".....autoimmunity arises not from ‘autoimmunity’, but as a natural consequence of normal immune response when stimulated maximally beyond system's self-organized criticality".

Being well vaccinated wouldn't mean that you are COMPLETELY safe from developing an autoimmune disease (there are also hereditary factors at play), but it would lower the risk of people developing autoimmune diseases, since they would be less likely to be exposed to the massive amount of antigens that are present in the body when you catch a disease like measels. And so it's less likely that their immunesystem will be overstimulated.

(And before you ask, yes, the amount of antigens found in vaccines is a LOT smaller than the amount of antigens found in a patients' body when they're sick, even if you use MMR. To back this point with a bit of data: in this study ( http://www.springerlink.com/content/g68517g8p076165n/ ) they found that the DNA bacterial load correlates with the rise of an infection marker: C-reactive protein (and yes, bacterial DNA is an antigen).

Patients with pneumonia have seriously elevated CRP, patients that have been vaccinated only have mildly elevated CRP, since vaccination only causes a very mild inflammation (as this study shows: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X04004426 ))

[Kanna]

Originally Posted by miriam 

This peer reviewed, double blind, scientific study, is PUBLISHED!

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0008382

It has jumped through all the hoops.

.....uhm, for the sake of accuracy, I think I should set this right: The study was NOT double blind.

As a rule, a double blind study makes only sense when the test-subjects are human beings, since the intended effect of a double-blind study is to rule out subjective bias.

Since the experimental subjects in this study were mice, which are not capable of holding a subjective bias, due to a lack of cognitive capability, it would not make sense to design this kind of study as a double-blind study in the first place.

[miriam]

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Edited by miriam - Yesterday at 5:45 pm

[Alenushka]

Nope, actually you can read about it on CDC website. Something different was found

"Since those findings were reported, one group of researchers found a link between rubella vaccine and temporary, acute arthritis, arthralgia (joint pain) or myalgia (muscle pain) when the vaccine was administered within 12 months of giving birth.(2) Another group found no evidence of any increased risk of developing chronic arthritis, arthralgia, or myalgia"

Susceptibility to a number of autoimmune diseases is genetic. Disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis and type 1 diabetes, is associated with particular alleles of HLA-DR or HLA-DQ genes

Autoimmune desease existed long before vaccines were invented.

[Kanna]

Originally Posted by miriam 

One of the well known side effects of the measles vaccine for adults is rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune condition. 

That is why most ob/gyns refuse MMR boosters; they do not want to slow down their practice.  ACOG has despaired of this since it issued its first recommendation to its members.

Just for the sake of keeping this debate as concise as possible: If you make claims like "One of the well known side effects of the measles vaccine for adults is rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune condition.", could you please link to the appropriate studies? This would be helpful in putting things into context.
 

[Emmeline II]

Originally Posted by Kanna 

Just for the sake of keeping this debate as concise as possible: If you make claims like "One of the well known side effects of the measles vaccine for adults is rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune condition.", could you please link to the appropriate studies? This would be helpful in putting things into context.
 

It is a tabled vaccine injury.
 

[Kanna]

Originally Posted by Emmeline II 

It is a tabled vaccine injury.
 

Sorry, even thought my english is quite good, I'm not a native speaker and sometimes there are idioms I'm not familiar with.

What does "tabled" mean in this context?
 

[Emmeline II]

Originally Posted by Kanna Sorry, even thought my english is quite good, I'm not a native speaker and sometimes there are idioms I'm not familiar with.

What does "tabled" mean in this context?
 

HRSA - National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program

Apparently rheumatoid arthritis is now excluded from the table, replaced with the narrowly defined "chronic arthritis"--guess if you develop rheumatoid arthritis shortly after a post partum MMR there is no compensation for you .
 

[Alenushka]

RA is very specific disorder  with specific blood work and symptoms.  I have to say "chronic arthritis" is kin of meaningless. There many types of arthritis. This sounds like "catch it all labels for subjective self reporting".  It would be interesting to see x-ray and MRI data.

I had mumps at 18 because no one tested my MMR titers. It was one of the most horrific experiences ever.

I also happened to have a very rare abortive from of RA. I developed it before I got my MMR upon arrival to US.

Guess what? I would rather have any from of arthritis than mumps again. I do not care of experience measles or rubella either.  I am really happy I did not have rubella while pregnant.

There is an easy way to avoid  rare MMR postpartum complication  ....have the titers and booster done before getting pregnant.

One should not get MMR for a year after being treated with IVIG because of increase risk of toxicity.

[kathymuggle]

Here is a  mainstream article on immune issues and vaccines.

http://image.thelancet.com/extras/02art9340web.pdf

I imagine pro-vaxxers will read it one way, while non-vaxxers will read it another.

It did say this:  (FAQ panel 3)

 Autoimmune thrombocytopenia has been described after measles vaccination, but with a much lower frequency than that seen after wild measles virus infection (one in 30 000 vs one in 5000)

However, Canada had an average of 10 measles cases per year  (2002-2006http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/im/meas-roug/index-eng.php).  

The current stats on measles in Canada show it is overwhelmingly more likely for me to get autoimmune throbocytopenia (whatever that is!)  from a measles vax than from a wild measles at this point in time

The article also mentionned Guillian Bar in association with flu vax., and if memory recollects, put the risk at 1/100 000.  Now I do not vax for multiple reasons, but if someone were solely looking at immune issues and solely looking at known risks, it might warrant looking into the issue as the prevalency of the flu and the dangers from flu are probably higher than the 1/100 000.

Edited by kathymuggle - 8/8/11 at 9:25am

[kathymuggle]

Originally Posted by Alenushka 

Guess what? I would rather have any from of arthritis than mumps again. 

Arthritis can be crippling and chronic.  I would take mumps over arthritis. DH had mumps in adolescence (and went on to father 3 children).  It wasn't fun, but it was not horrifying. 

Maybe you had a particularly bad case of mumps and it is colouring your view?  (which is legitimate for personal choices, but not as an argument)

Edited by kathymuggle - 8/8/11 at 9:24am

[Chloebelle]

Originally Posted by Alenushka 

Guess what? I would rather have any from of arthritis than mumps again. I do not care of experience measles or rubella either.  I am really happy I did not have rubella while pregnant.

Careful what you wish for is all I can say. Arthritis is debilitating and extremely painful. I would say you had a bad case of mumps (or perhaps misdiagnosed?) I had mumps and it was a very mild illness.