1797 Edward Jenner sends a paper to the Royal Society about variolae vaccinae or smallpox of the cow and its potential similarities to human smallpox, and tries to popularize the folklore that exposure to inflamed cow utters with corresponding inflammation or eruptions on the milker’s hands is the cow form of human smallpox. The paper is rejected and returned with a warning “He had better not promulgate such a wild idea if he valued his reputation.”
1798 Edward Jenner publishes his Inquiry variolae vaccinae, or smallpox of the cow.
1800 Jennerian vaccination doctrine spreads all over the world. Benjamin Waterhouse of Harvard University brings it to the U. S.
1855 Medical Inquisition begins in U. S., as Massachusetts is the first state to adopt mandatory vaccination laws.
1868 “Small-pox was introduced from San Francisco in the year 1868. In that year a general vaccination took place, spring lancets being used, which the President of th eBoard of Health (Mr. David Dayton) informed me were difficult, if not impossible, to disinfect—the operation causing irreparable mischief. The synchronicity of the spread of leprosy with general vaccination is a matter beyond discussion, and this terrible disease soon afterwards obtained such a foothold amongst the Hawaiians that the Government made a first attempt to control it by means of segregation. Another outbreak of smallpox occurred in 1873, and yet another in 1881, both followed by general arm-to-arm vaccination and a rapid and alarming development of leprosy, as may be seen in successive reports of the Board of Health. While the preponderance of medical and scientific opinion is against the theory that leprosy is, in the ordinary sense of the word, a contagious disease, the evidence in favour of its being communicable by inoculation is overwhelming.”
1868 The excessive mortality among the prisoners at Andersonville, in the American Civil War, has been mainly attributed to the general re-vaccination, practiced upon them under conditions of severe morbidity.
1879 Mr. P. A. TAYLOR, reveals his intention to introduce a Bill during the next Session for the Repeal of the Compulsory Clauses of the Vaccination Acts, and told the House of Commons, in April, 1879, that he had “seen dozens and scores of persons who had stated to him that they honestly believed that their children had died from Vaccination. They took perfectly healthy children to be vaccinated, an incision was made in the arm, in a few days a sore appeared on the arm, from thence it spread all over the body, and finally the children died in agony” (Lancet, August 21st, 1881).
1880 Mr. J. T. HIBBERT, M.P., then Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Department, written in June, 1880: “The Return (433) shows an increase of deaths from syphilis of infants under one year from 255, in 1847,—to 1,554, in 1875,—which, in my opinion, is one of the most unsatisfactory features in connection with Vaccination, and one which leads me to support the proposed modification of the Vaccination Law now before the House of Commons.”—Lancet, July 17th, 1880.
1881 Pasteur was challenged to give an anthrax vaccine demonstration before the Agricultural Society of Melun, at the farm of Pouilly-le-Fort. On Europe’s most famous horse doctors, human doctors, animal breeders, senators, reporters, farmers, and scientists anxiously waited, and watched, as 24 out of 24 anthrax-inoculated sheep grazed happily next to a row of 22 out of 24 dead ones, because the 22/24 dead ones weren’t vaccinated with Pasteur’s anthrax vaccine.
1885 (July 6) It was widely acknowledged that Pasteur’s vaccination of the nine-year old boy, Joseph Meister, whom Pasteur injected with the “weakened microbes” of hydrophobia (rabies) 2 days after the boy had been bitten 14 times by a rabid dog, “saved the boy”, and heralded a true revolution in Europe against the rabies virus (hydrophobia) was what rabies was called at the time because dogs infected with it acted as if ‘afraid of water’). With further trial and error, though, Pasteur eventually demonstrated that 100% of his non-infected recipient dogs, and rabbits would go on to develop rabies via intracranial injections with dried spinal cord material. Nevertheless, according to most historians of this period, his anthrax vaccine for livestock did not prevent naturally occurring anthrax from destroying cattle, and, it is documented that the French farmers came after Pasteur with a vengeance after one of his mass vaccination programs destroyed thousands of cattle throughout France.
1886 Dr. Creighton, one of the most learned medical scholars of the nineteenth century who wrote The History of Epidemics and commissioned by them to write the article on vaccination in the Encyclopedia Britannica regarding Jenner’s contribution, “In my opinion,” Dr. Creighton said, “based on an extended study of the original data, [I conclude that] Jenner’s work was incorrect, and that cowpox was not, as Jenner stated, ‘Variola Vaccinse,’ and cowpox has nothing to do with variola and was not a protective against variola, and vaccination affords no protection against smallpox.”
1886-1892 In Australia when a few children died as a result of smallpox vaccinations, the government abolished compulsory vaccination in that country and smallpox suddenly declined to the vanishing point. Australia had only three cases of smallpox in 15 years as compared with Japan’s record of 165,774 cases and 28,979 deaths from this cause in only 7 years under compulsory vaccination and re-vaccination.
1889 Dr. G. D. M’Reddie, Civil Surgeon, in his letter to Dr. Ghose, on the 18th February, 1888, states: “From observations I know leprosy is hereditary. It is also contagious in the sense that it is necessary for the discharge from a leprous ulcer to come into direct contact with the broken skin of the recipient, or the blood of a leper to be inoculated into the system, as in vaccination.” (Report on Leprosy to the Hon. H. Beverley, MA., by Madhub Chunder Ghose, Leper Asylum, Calcutta, August 27th, 1889).
1890 First recorded influenza pandemic.
1890 Professor of Hygiene in Berlin, Koch introduced a remedy for turberculosis made from the bacillis itself. Clearly borrowed from homeopathy, Tuberculin had to be employed in homeopathic doses, which Koch failed to do, causing thousands of deaths and virtually ending the career of the Father of German Bacteriology (Harris L. Coulter, Divided Legacy, North Atlantic Books, 1994).
1892 Hawaiian Legislature, June 25, 1892. DAVID DAYTON, Esq., President, Board of Health. “SIR,—An effort is being made in the Legislature to repeal or amend the law relating to vaccination; the object being to leave vaccination optional with parents and individuals.” The chief objection raised against the present compulsory system appears to be the belief of some that leprosy, and other diseases, have been propagated by means of vaccination.”
1894 Vaccination was made compulsory in 1853, but epidemics followed in 1854, 1855, and 1856, culminating in the terrible epidemic in 1871-72 with more than 42,000 deaths. Epidemics followed in 1877 and 1881.”
1896 Diphtheria ‘the physicians began to use antitoxine-today we have a few who do not believe in its value or else employ it after all things else have failed. We believe that the still unnecessarily high death-rate is due to the negligence of parents in not calling attention to the condition of their children’s throats.’ A REPORT OF WORK WITH ANTITOXINE AND FORMALDEHYDE AGAINST DIPHTHERIA. C. Hampson Jones, Public Health Pap Rep. 1899; 25: 333–336.
1900 The Rockefeller and J. P. Morgan syndicate buys Encyclopedia Britannica and all derogatory references to vaccination are removed.
1905 U.S. Supreme Court upholds state law mandating smallpox vaccinations.
1906 to 1928 Vaccines against pertussis and diphtheria developed.
1911 Vaccination is made mandatory in the U.S. armed forces.
1914 ANTI-TYPHOID VACCINATION. Joseph H. Townsend. Am J Public Health (N Y). 1914 November; 4(11): 993–998.
1917 U.S. soldiers are vaccinated prior to going overseas to fight in WW I. They soon begin to drop dead by the thousands from a strange syndrome that preferentially attacks young adults.
1918 “The Pandemic of Influenza in 1918-1919” prepared by the US Department of Health, Education and Welfare Public Health Service National Office of Vital Statistics indicates that the extraordinary feature of “the Great Spanish flu” was that it attacked young people in the prime of life unlike any other epidemics recorded: “The pandemic of influenza in 1918-19 which swept over nearly every continent and island of the whole globe has been described as one of the great human catastrophies. There are excellent descriptions of epidemics and pandemics as far back as the year 1500, and various records of epidemics since the 1918-19 holocaust. Many of them were relatively mild infections, while others were severe, but none of them showed the extraordinary high mortality in young adults that characterized the 1918-19 pandemic and its aftermath in 1920. The greatest amount of mortality in epidemics prior to and subsequent to 1918-19 was found in children under 1 year of age and in persons 65 years and over.”
“Frost, in one of his reports, pointed out that influenza and pneumonia mortality rose sharply in some cities in the United States in December 1915 and January 1916, which may or may not have been related to the 1918 epidemic. In January 1916, influenza was s reported to be epidemic in 22 States, but it was described as a mild type of illness.”
The 1918-19 epidemic was often referred to in the United States as “Spanish influenza,” but there is no reason to believe that it originated in Spain. Indeed the occurrence of influenza in the United States in the spring of 1918 may have preceded that which occurred in Spain.” It has been estimated that there were about 20,000,000 cases of influenza and pneumonia in the United States in 1918-19, with approximately 850,000 deaths. In 1918 alone, 464,959 deaths from influenza and pneumonia were registered in the registration States and the District of Columbia as compared with 115,526 in 1917. “It was the impression of many in 1918 that an unrecognized virus was the primary cause of influenza and that the streptococci, pneumococci, and influenza bacilli were secondary invaders which might be termed “bacterial hitch-hikers.” Attempts by two groups of investigators to transmit the infection by nasal instillation of filtered and unfiltered secretions from influenza cases in human volunteers were not successful. Nor could they produce influenza in the volunteers by nasal instillations with Pfeiffer bacilli.”
If a vaccine containing the viruses now known to cause the disease had been made available early in the epidemic, it is doubtful whether it would have been effective, since the epidemic in the fall of 1918 spread with great rapidity.” Pathologists became intimately familiar with the condition of lungs of victims of bacterial pneumonia at autopsy. But the viral pneumonias caused by the influenza pandemic were so violent that many investigators said the only lungs they had seen that resembled them were from victims of poison gas.
THE USE OF INFLUENZA VACCINE IN THE PRESENT EPIDEMIC. Timothy Leary. Am J Public Health (N Y). 1918 October; 8(10): 754-755, 768.
1919 PRESENT STATUS OF PNEUMOCOCCUS VACCINE. Russell L. Cecil. Am J Public Health (N Y). 1919 August; 9(8): 589–592. ‘ …some experiments with a pneumococcus vaccine, and, after consultation with Dr. Rufus Cole of the Rockefeller Institute, it was decided to prepare a vaccine, type I, II and III pneumococcus, in approximately equal parts, and to inoculate about 50 per cent of the camp with this vaccine. Twelve thousand five hundred and nineteen men were vaccinated at Camp Upton (about 40 per cent of the camp strength)…The local and general reactions were usually mild, but there were quite a few small, sterile, infiltrations at the site of the injection which appeared to be an expression of pneumococcus susceptibility. In spite of the successful results obtained at Camp Upton, there was certain objection to pneumococcus vaccine which interfered somewhat with its extensive use. In the first place, three injections were necessary in order to obtain a satisfactory immunity, and this for obvious reasons was burdensome to the regimental surgeons and to the men themselves, who had already received typhoid and smallpox vaccine. Another objection to pneumococcus vaccine was the occurrence of small sterile infiltrations which sometimes followed its use…this commission was directed to proceed to Camp Wheeler, Georgia, for the purpose of instituting voluntary vaccination among the troops. In this experiment we decided to substitute a pneumococcus lipovaccine for the saline vaccine which we had used at Camp Upton. This vaccine was prepared for us by Col. E.’ R. Whitmore of the Army Medical School, and the dose finally adopted after some preliminary experiments was 30 billion pneumococci (10 billion of each of the fixed types in one cc. of oil). Pneumococcus vaccine, however, produces at best only a moderate degree of protection and probably affords very little cross immunity. Pneumonia rarely occurs as an epidemic scourge like-smallpox so there would be difficulty in having vaccination against pneumonia made compulsory. People do not fear the disease and are, therefore, unwilling to submit to the inconvenience of being vaccinated. An experiment is being carried out at the present time by the United States Public Health Service in the insane asylums of New York State, which should give some very interesting results.
1923 A NEW VACCINE TREATMENT FOR TUBERCULOSIS. Am J Public Health (N Y). 1923 October; 13(10): 851–852.
1924 The first tetanus toxoid (inactivated toxin) was produced and was used to prevent tetanus in the armed services during World War II.
THE SPECIFIC ANTIBODIES OF ANTI-PNEUMOCOCCUS SERA. Am J Public Health (N Y). 1924 September; 14 (9): 767–768. ‘Work of Dr. Lloyd D. Felton have not yet been made public, and presumably will not be published in their entirety until the value of the treatment has been thoroughly studied under careful control. The commercial houses have spent a great deal of money in producing sera against pneumonia, and also in the production of other biological products…The sera which have been devised against some types of pneumonia, and which -have been in use for several years, have at least shown the possibility of a specific cure, though there is still some difference of opinion concerning their value. Dr .Felton’s method of isolation and concentration is one of the simplest which have been proposed, and has the additional advantage of getting rid of the horse serum proteins which have caused so much trouble in the use of sera.’
1926 CURRENT IMMUNIZATION PRACTICE IN DIPHTHERIA, SCARLET FEVER AND MEASLES. IM M U N I ZA T I ON. Fifty-one per cent of the 90 cities reporting believe that the results obtained from the use of scarlet fever toxin and antitoxin justify their use being advocated in public health literature, though only 29 per cent have advocated the Dick test and but 27 per cent have advocated the use of scarlet fever toxin for active immunization..” Donald B. Armstrong and W. F. Walker Am J Public Health (N Y). 1926 November; 16(11): 1099–1102.
THE PREPARATION AND TESTING OF DIPHTHERIA TOXOID (ANATOXINE-RAMON) P. J. Moloney.Am J Public Health (N Y). 1926 December; 16(12): 1208–1210.
ANTITYPHOID VACCINATION BY THE MOUTH. Am J Public Health (N Y). 1924 November; 14(11): 976–977.
THE DICK TEST AND ACTIVE IMMUNIZATION WITH SCARLET FEVER STREPTOCOCCUS TOXIN. Abraham Zingher. Am J Public Health (N Y). 1924 November; 14(11): 955–962. ‘They were able to produce experimental scarlet fever in human beings by planting upon the naso-pharyngeal mucous membrane of several volunteers a culture of the hemolytic streptococcus, which was obtained from the infected finger of a nurse taking care of cases of scarlet fever. With-the-identification of certain strains of the hemolytic streptococcus as the specific agent of scarlet fever, the Dicks continued their investigations and obtained a soluble toxic filtrate 7 from cultures of this organism, which gave positive skin reactions in early cases of scarlet fever and negative reactions in convalescence.
With the toxin the Dicks have succeeded in immunizing actively a number of nurses. Zingher injected with gradually increasing doses of the toxin the positive reactors in a number of schools and institutions. An antitoxic serum has also been produced by the Dicks” by injecting the toxin into horses. The Dick test in relation ‘to scarlet fever closely resembles the Schick test known in connection with the Schick in relation to diphtheria.’
1925 FORMALINIZED DIPHTHERIA TOXOID (ANATOXIN). Am J Public Health (N Y). 1925 December; 15(12): 1092–1093. ‘ACTIVE immunization against diphtheria with toxin-antitoxin had its origin in the injection of horses with this mixture for the production of antitoxin. Toxin-antitoxin has been used now on an extensive scale throughout the world for the immunization of human beings. Diphtheria toxin, in which most of the toxin was changed into toxoid on standing. In 1905, Loewenstein successfully produced tetanus antitoxin in horses by injecting them with a non-toxic preparation of tetanus toxin. In 1922, Ramon commenced a systematic study with diphtheria toxin which had been made non-toxic by the addition of 0.3 to 0.4 per cent formalin and by exposure to incubator temperature for one month. The modified toxin, similar to the modified tetanus toxin of Loewenstein, was designated by Ramon ” anatoxin.” It had properties, such as resistance to heating, that distinguished it from simple toxoid originating from toxin by standing. Moloney has recently stated that the addition of phenol as a preservative to the toxin before its treatment with formalin markedly diminished the immunizing value of the preparation. It is interesting to note that Ramon adds no phenol or any other preservative to the anatoxin, but depends on the formalin itself as a preservative. If the time for compulsory immunization against diphtheria should ever arrive, an absolutely non-toxic but efficient antigenic preparation would be desirable, and one from which the word antitoxin is preferably omitted. Diphtheria toxoid (anatoxin) answers these requirements. There is only one disadvantage to toxoid (anatoxin) as compared with the new 1/10 L+ mixture of toxin-antitoxin. It contains more of the irritating protein than the latter, and this is likely to give rise to somewhat more marked local reactions in those who are especially susceptible to it, i.e., adults. This disadvantage will probably be ultimately overcome by purification of the toxin. For children, especially of preschool age, this objection does not hold true. For them, therefore, the non-toxic toxoid (anatoxin) seems preferable to the toxic mixtures of toxin-antitoxin.’
THE PROPHYLAXIS OF DIPHTHERIA. Am J Public Health (N Y). 1925 January; 15(1): 58. ‘While both the Schick test and the immunization by toxin and antitoxin mixtures were proposed by Europeans, America has been the country in which this work has been done on the largest scale, and in which the methods have received their most rigid testing. The ideal vaccination against diphtheria has not yet been discovered, and recent work in this country and in England particularly, indicates that the antigen of the future may not be the toxin-antitoxin mixture now in use. At this time, the methods used in America are unquestionably the best yet devised and they are the only methods whose value has been demonstrated by tens of thousands of cases in actual practice.’
1926 One of the unfortunate results that have occasionally followed vaccination against smallpox is lockjaw. “While it has been reported that tetanus spores have occasionally been found in smallpox vaccine, the great majority of investigations have been negative. At the Hygienic Laboratory in Washington, vaccine from the various manufacturers is constantly -being examined for tetanus. These investigations make it quite clear that in the great majority of cases of tetanus, the spores entered the vaccination wound after the operation and were not carried in with the virus.” TETANUS AND VACCINATION. Am J Public Health (N Y). 1926 July; 16(7): 718.
VACCINATION OF THE NEWBORN AGAINST TUBERCULOSIS. Am J Public Health (N Y). 1926 May; 16(5): 509.
MEASLES IMMUNIZATION. D. L. Richardson and Harmon P. B. Jordan. Am J Public Health (N Y). 1927 June; 17(6): 607–613. ‘The first successful attempt at immunization against measles was reported in 1915 by Dr. Charles Herman of New York City. Taking advantage of the mild character of measles in infants under 6 months of age, he conceived the idea of producing the disease by swabbing the nose with virus from active cases. The virus was collected on cotton swabs from the noses and throats of patients 24 hours before the appearance of the rash, and these swabs were gently rubbed over the nasal mucosa of 40 infants. Among those thus treated 15 subsequently had a slight rise in temperature and in some instances a few spots appeared upon the face and body. These infants during a considerable period of observation did not contract the disease. Since then Dr. Herman has inoculated many infants in his private practice and reports that this measure protects them. It would seem reasonable to expect that the immunity produced in this manner would be active and as lasting, perhaps, as a, frank attack at a later age. There is also the danger of transmitting some other disease at the same time.
BLOOD SERUM IMMUNIZATION-‘In 1918, Nicolle and Conseil* reported a successful attempt at immunization by injecting blood serum from a convalescent patient. A child in a family of 4 children developed measles. Two of the other children were not treated, but a child 2 years of age was given serum from the first case, taken 10 days after the appearance of the first symptoms in the donor. The 2 untreated children developed measles in three or four days, but the 2 year old child did not develop the disease, although exposed to the first case and the 2 secondary cases. The report of these cases was made before the Rhode Island Medical Society, March, 1919, by Richardson and Connor. Ever since 1918, convalescent measles serum has been kept on hand, if possible, for use in the hospital and for such physicians as desired to use it in their private practice. The use of the serum in institutions and in private practice has received separate study and the results of its use in institutions is presented first. Why the serum failed so often not easily explained. Also used in private practices. children under 3 or 4 years of age. Infants in good health and under 6 or 8 months of age, particularly if nursing, probably do not need to be immunized. The immunity produced is of short duration unless the patient shows some evidence of an attack.
1928 The question of encephalitis following vaccination was investigated by the health organization of the League of Nations in 1928, and on August 27 that year, at Geneva, the League published a report on the situation. Says the report: “The post-vaccinal encephalitis with which we are dealing has become a problem of itself mainly in consequence of the events of the last few years in the Netherlands, England and Wales. In each of these countries, the cases which have occurred have been sufficiently numerous and similar to require them to be considered collectively. Their occurrence has led to the realization that a new, or at least previously unsuspected or unrecognized risk attaches to vaccination. . . the risk has, in the Netherlands, been considered of sufficient gravity to cause the temporary suspension of the administrative measures by which the vaccination of children has been secured, while in England the subject has already received the attention of two expert committees, appointed by the Ministry of Health.”
MEASLES. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1928 December; 18(12): 1508–1509. ‘A recent critical study of four immune sera has been made in England: (1) Tunnicliff’s horse serum, (2) Ferry and Fisher’s horse serum, (3) Degkwitz’s sheep serum, and (4) Serum from convalescentcases of measles.’
Antirabic Immunization with Desiccated Vaccine. D. L. Harris. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1929 September; 19(9): 980–985.
Antirabic Vaccination by Means of Desiccated Virus. Rigney D’aunoy. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1929 September; 19(9): 986–990. ‘ DESICCATED rabies vaccine has been used since 1912 for the immunization of men and dogs.’
1931 Lubeck, Germany, 75 children die in from pediatrician’s experiment with tuberculosis vaccine.
1932 Diphtheria Toxin-Antitoxin and Toxoid : A Comparison. William H. Park and May C. Schroder. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1932 January; 22(1): 7–16. ‘Two preparations, toxin-antitoxin and toxoid, are now being widely used for immunization of infants and young children against diphtheria. Toxin-antitoxin has been longest in use. Behring was the first to employ it experimentally as an immunizing injection in man. His preparation was the undiluted toxic broth with its toxin nearly neutralized by antitoxin. He never gave a clear explanation of how he prepared and standardized it. Park and Zingher were the first to realize that by using the Schick test to determine the susceptibility of the children, and a retest to note the changes in reaction, we could study the immunizing effect of toxinantitoxin injections in human beings. In 1918 we began the serious attempt to immunize the whole child population of New York City. This earlier work was concerned mostly with children of school age, as most parents were not yet willing to have the injections given to the babies and very young children. The most important point is that the toxin-antitoxin to have its maximum effect has to have such toxicity that a human dose kills a 250 gm. guinea pig in about 4 weeks. With decreasing toxicity the immunizing effect is gradually diminished. This slight difference is due to the fact that a dose of suitable toxin-antitoxin is a little more toxic than the Schick test dose, and also to occasional nonspecific protein reactions. The best immunizing material now in use is, however, the nontoxic diphtheria toxoid which Ramon developed. He adopted the suggestions of Glenny as to the use of formalin, and of Loewenstein of Vienna as to the value of non-toxic toxoid in tetanus. He was able also to prepare a stronger toxin, and therefore toxoid, than had previously been prepared. Starting with a highly potent toxin, he reduces its toxicity by the addition of formalin and its storage at 370 C. until it is practically non-toxic. Glenny, working under the direction of O’Brien, found that the addition of sufficient alum to the toxoid to make a 0.2 to 0.5 per cent solution increased appreciably its power to develop antitoxin when injected in horses. It occurred to us that toxoid containing alum might be advantageously used in infants and children. We found some years ago that infants within a few days of birth did not respond well to injections of toxin-antitoxin. New-born babies are usually immune through the transfer to them before birth of antitoxin from their mothers, while in the country the majority are susceptible. This passive antitoxic immunity lasts 6 to 12 months. Another reason for waiting until the babies are at least 6 months of age is that very young infants are more apt to suffer from intestinal and other disturbances.
1934 Immunization of Humans with Alum Precipitated Tetanus Toxoid. D. H. Bergey and S. Etris. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1934 June; 24(6 Pt 1): 582–586.
Precipitated Toxoid as an Immunizing Agent Against Diphtheria. J. N. Baker and D. G. Gill. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1934 January; 24(1): 22–24. ‘THE improvement of toxin or toxoid as an immunizing agent against diphtheria has been the aim of a considerable group of workers in recent years. Ramon,’ in 1925, found that the addition of tapioca to toxoid improved its value as an antigen and concluded that this improvement was likely the result of slower absorption and slower elimination of the antigen. In 1926, Glenny, Pope, Waddington, and Wallace, found that the addition of alum to diphtheria toxoid greatly increased its antigenic value. In 1931, Glenny and Barr described the complete precipitation of diphtheria toxoid with alum and pointed out that the alum toxoid was slowly absorbed and remained in the body for a sufficient length of time to act as its own secondary stimulus. In 1930, Havens and Wells, in Alabama, began laboratory experiments in an effort so to perfect an alum precipitated toxoid that. Graham, in 1931, used their product on a group of children in Lee County, Ala., with encouraging results. Graham, Murphree, and Gill,6 in 1933, reported further clinical experience with about 96 per cent immunity esulting from a single injection. Supported by these findings the Alabama State Committee of Public Health officially approved this product and adopted it as the standard preparation for use in the state. This presentation is largely based on additional clinical observations, not used in prior publications, following its use by various county health officers in Alabama…’
Simultaneous Immunization Against Smallpox and Diphtheria. Charles S. Stern. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1935 September; 25(9): 1034–1035. Since June, 1934, we have used the simultaneous multiple method of immunization against smallpox and diphtheria in all children presented for immunization against these diseases. These children had not been previously immunized against smallpox or diphtheria.
Scarlet Fever Toxin—A Successful Immunizing Agent (Abstract). O. B. Nesbit and Sue Thompson. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1934 June; 24(6 Pt 1): 634–635. ‘ AFTER giving 49,165 doses of scarlet fever toxin, 20,278 primary Dick tests, and 12,713 Dick retests in the Gary schools, we have found that scarlet fever immunization as recommended for use by the Scarlet Fever Committee is a safe procedure and that it is a valuable asset to a community as a prophylactic measure.’
1935 Active Immunization Against Poliomyelitis. Maurice Brodie. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1935 January; 25(1): 54–67. In 1910, when Netter et al first announced that convalescent serum neutralized the virus of poliomyelitis, great hope was held that it had curative powers. Many reports have favored its use. However, as I have pointed out, a several significant controlled studies have failed to uphold its value.
Recommended Procedures for Diphtheria Immunization: Sub-Committee on Evaluation of Administrative Practices of the Committee on Administrative Practice. Haven Emerson, Allen W. Freeman, Charles V. Chapin, Louis I. Dublin, John L. Rice, Henry F. Vaughan, Joseph W. Mountin, and W. F. Walker. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1935 June; 25(6): 712–714.
Diphtheria Studies II—Use of Intradermal Injections of Toxin-Toxoid Mixtures in Diphtheria Immunization. William Edward Bunney. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1935 May; 25(5): 623–632.
Use of Convalescent Measles Serum to Control Measles in a Preparatory School. J. Roswell Gallagher.Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1935 May; 25(5): 595–598. ‘Since 1918 when Nicolle and Conseil advocated the use of convalescent measles serum as a prophylactic agent it has been frequently used in attempts to control measles, particularly in institutions housing young children. Zingher and Park, Park and Freeman, and many others have reported verv satisfactory results from its use; however, because convalescent serum is somewhat difficult to obtain, another effective agent has been sought by various investigators. Tunnicliff and Hoyne and Peterman”t have reported success with a serum produced in goats which had been inoculated with a diplococcus isolated from patients suffering from measles; other workers 1 have noted no preventive action with that serum. In attempting to suppress an outbreak in a preparatory school, however, the use of convalescent serum remains the most practical procedure. Park believes that the immunity conferred by this serum will persist for from 2 to 4 weeks, and that in those individuals who develop attenuated cases a permanent immunity will nevertheless be produced.
The Known and Unknown of Bacillus Pertussis Vaccine. Louis Sauer. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1935 November; 25(11): 1226–1230. ‘DANISH State Serum Institute investigators and clinicians have made valuable contributions on B. pertussis vaccine since 1916. Between 1928 and 1932, 394 selected young nonimmunes, average age about 14 months, were injected with an especially prepared B. pertussis vaccine. No child injected with this Evanston vaccine has contracted typical whooping cough. Two commercial laboratories were authorized by Northwestern University Medical School to make this vaccine. Little is known about the factors which may cause failure-the antigen may be impotent when injected, or the individual may not possess the power to develop immunity. Little is known about the stability of the fraction which confers immunity. Endotoxin, prepared according to Besredka’s method as described by Bordet ” was found to contain living B. pertussis. Mishulow,Mowry, and Scott.. produced the Schwartzman phenomenon with it. Gundel, Keller, and Schliiter prepared an endotoxin which was very toxic for rabbits and mice; skin tests with dilutions of it showed no specificity; nor was its necrotic action neutralized by the addition of convalescent pertussis serum. Very little is known about the effect of other diseases on the immunity response from injected pertussis vaccine. Bacillus pertussis vaccine, like typhoid vaccine, is an mmunizing, not a curative, agent. A time interval of several months is required for immunization to be complete. About 10 per cent of the children injected with a total of 8 c.c. of the approved commercial vaccine contracted pertussis when subsequently exposed to infection. Some of the factors which might interfere with the immunity response are controllable.
1936 Laboratory Problems in the Control of Meningococcus Meningitis. Ross L. Laybourn. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1936 October; 26(10): 979–988. ‘Some mention should be made of the use of meningococcus toxin. The production of meningococcus toxin by Ferry, Norton, and Steele has introduced the possibility of its use for intradermal skin tests, as an index of immunity, and for artificial immunization. Kuhns and the writer have both done some work along these lines but extensive use and prolonged observation will be necessary before definite conclusions may be drawn. The almost universal observation of a lowered general resistance as a predisposing factor for the development of cases of meningococcus meningitis, involving organisms of average virulence, suggests that the intradermal skin test may only give an index of one of several factors concerned in susceptibility to the disease. Limited experience with the use of raw meningococcus toxin as an immunizing agent also indicates that the amount which can be injected without causing severe reactions is not sufficient to produce as high a degree of immunity against the intradermal skin test as is desirable. There are also some observations that suggest that the use of meningococcus toxin may only immunize against certain minor clinical symptoms, similar to what has been alleged in connection with the immunization against scarlet fever with streptococcus toxin.
Staphylococcus Bacteriophage Toxoid: An Improved Staphylococcus Antigen. August Holm, John F. Anderson, and George F. Leonard. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1936 October; 26(10): 1001–1007. ‘THE soluble exotoxin of Staphylococcus pyogenes is converted easily into toxoid. Active immunity in laboratory animals and in human beings may be produced by injection of this toxoid. The endotoxin of the staphylococcus, however, though it is probably an important factor in staphylococcus infections, has received little attention of late. The antitoxin produced by the immunization of horses with staphylococcus toxoid and toxin is used in generalized staphylococcus infections. However, in certain cases of staphylococcemia in adults and adolescents, the administration of antitoxin, even intravenously, was of no effect.’ The failure of the antitoxin to exert a favorable influence has been explained by the undue delay which frequently takes place before the correct diagnosis can be made.’
1937 West Nile virus is said to originate from a black woman from the south Nile river delta in 1937 (Smithburn KC, Hughes TP, Burke AW, Paul JH. A neurotropic virus isolated from the blood of a native of Uganda. Am J Trop Med Hyg; 20:471-92, 1940), before the days of sucrose density gradient centrifugation combined with EM in order to demonstrate viral particles precisely.
An Organism Resembling Hemophilus Pertussis: With Special Reference to Color Changes Produced by Its Growth Upon Certain Media. William L. Bradford and Betty Slavin. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1937 December; 27(12): 1277–1282. ‘IT is now generally believed that recently isolated strains of Hemophilus pertussis belong to a single serological type.’ It is well known, however, that under certain cultural conditions typical strains of the organism undergo definite morphological and immunological changes. Failure to consider these changes, no doubt, has led workers in certain instances to conclude that more than one type of Hemophilus pertussis may be recovered from the upper respiratory tract of persons suffering from the disease.’
1938 the Lancet publishes a piece arguing: “That diphtheria can be prevented by immunization no more implies a command to immunize people than the fact that nitricacid and glycerine make an explosive mixture implies a command to blow up ou rneighbors. Yet the immunization of the masses is undertaken with almost religious fervor…Those who have had to take detailed notice of immunization accidents of the past few years know that to get the truth of what really went wrong generally calls for the resources of something like a secret service .Immunization surely should remain a matter of private,not of public venture—a question for the individual to decide on personal grounds and in term of his own risks, fears and prejudices.”
Experiments on Antirabic Vaccination With Tissue Culture Virus. Leslie T. Webster. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1938 January; 28(1): 44–46.
1939 Immunization Against Tetanus with Alum-Precipitated Tetanus Toxoid. D. H. Bergey, Claude P. Brown, and S. Etris. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1939 April; 29(4): 334–336.
Mass Immunization Against Diphtheria with Sordelli’s Toxoid and Contact Immunization. Alberto P. LeóN, Hernández Vallados, and F. Escarza. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1939 July; 29(7): 720–727.
Diphtheria Immunization With Fluid Toxoid and Alum Precipitated Toxoid —Preliminary Report. Vladimir K. Volk and William Edward Bunney. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1939 March; 29(3): 197–204.
Pneumococcus Diagnostic Serum. Elliott S. Robinson. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1940 April; 30(4): 361–368. Since the improvement of antipneumococcus serum and its more accurate standardization to insure therapeutic doses, and more recently the use of sulfa pyridine really a synthetic antibody-there is promise of a great reduction in the mortality rate in the general population. However, this successful program for the cure of this disease will not conceivably have a bearing upon incident rate. Up to the present, no measure has proved itself adequate to reduce this rate satisfactorily. This is true despite improvement of sanitary conditions, advance in knowledge of adequate diet-especially in relationship to the use of vitamins-and other measures which tend to improve the health of the individual. Yet in some other infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis and scarlet fever, there has been a steady decrease in incidence and severity of the diseases not accounted for by any single measure. In experiments on active immunization in the past, whole-cell polyvalent vaccine in some form was used as an antigen. In taking up the problem again, the antigen employed is an antigenic polysaccharide. This substance has been chosen since it has been shown to contain more immunizing doses than the cells from which it was derived, and because it is soluble, stable, easily sterilized and standardized, and free from reaction-producing characteristics. Assuming that this antigen is as good as any so far tested, it is necessary to take into consideration the following well recognized variables which enter the complex problem of active immunization: namely, the multiplicity of types found in the human host; the short duration of serum antibodies following either the disease or active immunization; the incidence of the disease; and variation in response to a pneumococcus vaccine. Natural immunity is omitted from this list of variables in as much as no satisfactory method has been devised to measure such an attribute in the human host. The problem of the multiplicity of types which cause this disease involves the preparation of a satisfactory polyvalent antigen. The whole-cell vaccine is highly type-specific; and to attempt to make a vaccine of the entire 36 types of pneumococci would be a laborious and unquestionably an impractical procedure. For this reason, endeavors have been made to discover if possible the “common denominator “of this large number of specific types. Accordingly, from the fact that the use of this polysaccharide antigen results in only 50 per cent reduction in incidence, and that there is a very great variation in individual response to this antigen.. assumption that one important factor is the variability of the human host to respond to an active immunizing antigen. The chance for spreading of infection from one individual to another is great as indicated by the high carrier rate. Consequently the host factors must influence the actual infection with the final outcome-lobar pneumonia.
Preparation of Scarlet Fever Toxin. Mary E. Evans and Russell Y. Gottschall. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1939 February; 29(2): 139–142.
1941 In the April, 1941, issue of the Naval Medical Bulletin, reporting on the results of tests on 20,000 recruits at the Naval Training Station at San Diego, California, between July, 1939, and January, 1941, Captain G. E. Thomas of the Medical Corps of the Navy tells the story. He describes an experiment on these men. “All had been checked by all known means and found free of syphilis, and were then confined. These men were vaccinated against smallpox. Those who did not show ‘successful’ vaccination were revaccinated. The experiment showed that more of these developed syphilis from the smallpox vaccination than the percentage who developed syphilis from all causes in the civilian population in the United States.”
On the eve of U.S. entry into World War II, concern about a repeat of the 1918 influenza pandemic and its effect on armed forces led the US military to establish the Commission on Influenza (later combined with other commissions to become the present Armed Forces Epidemiological Board) and place high priority on developing a vaccine (Woodward TE, editor. The histories of the commissions. Washington: Office of The Surgeon General; 1992). Pandemic influenza did not materialize, but the vaccine did. The first successful large-scale influenza vaccine field trials were completed in 1943 (Francis T. Vaccination against influenza. In: World Health Organization. Influenza, a review of current research. Geneva: The Organization; 1954. p. 689–740). In 1947, failure of the vaccine to provide protection against the epidemic influenza type A antigenic variant confirmed concerns of vaccine obsolescence and led to the term “antigenic shift” (von Magnus P. The influenza virus: its morphology, immunology, and kinetics of multiplication. Bull World Health Organ. 1953;8:647–60) and designation of the 1947 FM1 strain by the Commission on Influenza as subgroup A´ on the basis of the hemagglutination inhibition (HI) test.
1942 A report of the US Secretary of War, Henry L. Simpson regarding the deaths from yellow fever shots stated that: “Recent Army experience with yellow fever vaccine resulted in 28,505 cases of hepatitis with 62 deaths.”
An Improved Non-Virulent Rabies Vaccine. L. T. Webster and J. Casals. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1942 March; 32(3): 268–270.
1943 Tetanus Toxoid and Its Use for Active Immunization. D. T. Fraser, D. L. MacLean, H. C. Plummer, and F. O. Wishart. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1943 September; 33(9): 1107–1114.
Typhoid Vaccine Studies VII: Typhoid-Paratyphoid Vaccine. Don Longfellow and George F. Luippold.Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1943 May; 33(5): 561–568.
Laboratory Methods Used in Determining the Value of Sulfadiazine as a Mass Prophylactic Against Meningococcic Infections. Dwight M. Kuhns and Harry A. Feldman. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1943 December; 33(12): 1461–1465. ‘This showed that the administration of small doses of sulfadiazine to an entire population at one and the same time, is the most effective means available for controlling meningococcic outbreaks in closed populations. The carrier rate is precipitously dropped to near-zero and this is immediately reflected in the case rates. But who shall receive such treatment? As was mentioned before, the culturing and treating of case contacts is of little value. Even though sulfadiazine was found to be effective in eliminating carriers from an entire population by the mass prophylactic use of the drug, the measure should not be applied indiscriminately to large groups without first making a careful epidemiologic study. This should include determinations of the carrier rate, as well as of the serological types present. Our studies have shown that when epidemics of meningococcic infection occur, the following conditions are present: high carrier rates, predominance of Group I organisms, and the presence of non-immune (new recruits) individuals in the population.
1944 Pertussis vaccine recommended for universal use in infants.
M. Meadow Bayly, M.R.C.S., British authority on immunology, and author of the book, The Schick Inoculation Against Diphtheria, writes in 1944:“Perhaps the greatest evil of immunization lies in its diversion of public attention from true methods of disease prevention. It encourages public authorities to permit all kinds of sanitary defects and social problems to remain undressed, particularly in schools. It ignores the part played by food and sunlight and many other factors in the maintenance of health. It exaggerates the risk of diphtheria and works upon the fear of parents. The more it is supported bypublic authorities, the more will its dangers and disadvantages be concealed or denied. The pitfalls connected with a comparison of inoculated with uninoculated groups are well known to statisticians and have been emphasized in the medical press; the importance of seeing that the two groups are comparable in all other respects has been entirely ignored in the official statements issued. Our belief that we can attain prevention from diseases originating in filth by injecting toxic substances into the body, has made public authorities in many American cities callous to the demands for ordinances and regulations providing pure milk, ice cream, meat, and other foods.”
1946 Immunization Against Influenza. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1946 September; 36(9): 1045–1046. ‘All in all, it would seem probable that mmunization against influenza may become a part of civilian public health procedure before may years have passed. A recent contribution from Henle and his colleagues at Philadelphia 3 provides valuable criteria as to the details of the process of this procedure, based on its influence upon antibody titer.’
Pertussis Vaccine Prepared with Phase-I Cultures Grown. Sophia M. Cohen and Mary W. Wheeler.Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1946 April; 36(4): 371–376. ‘A modified fluid medium based on Hornibrook’s formula has been developed which provides satisfactory conditions for’ the cultivation of Hemophilus pertussis in the preparation of vaccine. The whole fluid culture vaccine, according to laboratory tests, appears antigenically superior to vaccine prepared from blood-agar cultures. The intracerebral injection of live pertussis culture in mice previously immunized with pertussis vaccine- provided a valuable laboratory procedure for gauging the potency of the vaccine.’
1947 DPT (tri-valent diphtheria/pertussis/tetanus) recommended by the AAP (American Association of Pediatrics) for routine use.
1948 The Vaccination Inquirer reports that the English and Scottish Health Ministers acknowledged more than 25,000 cases of diphtheria in immunized children from 1941 to 1945, with nearly 200 deaths in immunized children. The clinical picture of diphtheria immunization is brought up-to-date by the Journal of the American Medical Association for June 5, 1948, in an article entitled, “Danger of Vaccination and Inoculation.”
Current Status of Immunization Procedures—A Symposium: Pertussis. Joseph A. Bell. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1948 April; 38(4): 478–480. ‘One can safely conclude that certain vaccine products have given substantial protection against clinical pertussis and that other products have not demonstrated value. Unfortunately there is as yet no known quick and effective way of determining for certain that a particular vaccine preparation will be effective. A relatively new mouse protection tests has been developed which looks promising for this purpose. The vaccines which have been shown to have value in field trials in the general population may be classified as fluid vaccines, alum-precipitated vaccines, and mixed vaccines. Of the fluid vaccines, there is good evidence that the fluid vaccine prepared as described by Dr. Kendrick has given substantial protection against clinical pertussis. Three or four doses of this product, representing a total of 70 to 80 billion organisms, and given at weekly intervals between doses, to young children 6-35 months of age, have demonstrated value. Of the alum-precipitated vaccines, there is good evidence that the A-P pertussis vaccine prepared as described by Dr. Harrison and his associates will give substantial protection against clinical pertussis. Three doses of this product representing a total of 30 billion organisms given ‘with a 1 and 3 week interval’ between doses to children 6-35 months of age have demonstrated value. Also, two doses of this product representing a total of only 20 billion organisms and given with a 4 week interval between doses to children 2-35 months of age, have given demonstrated protection. The A-P vaccine has been shown to be effective in young children when given at 2-5 months of age. Of the alum-precipitated mixtures of diphtheria toxoid and pertussis vaccine, an A-P mixture of pertussis vaccine and diphtheria toxoid prepared as described by either Dr. Kendrick or by Dr. Bell has similarly been shown to confer substantial protection against clinical pertussis. Three doses of this product, representing a total of 30 billion organisms and given with a 1 and 4 week interval between doses, gave protection against pertussis. The three doses of the A-P mixed product gave good protection against diphtheria as measured by blood antitoxin titrations. Furthermore, two doses of the A-P mixed product, containing a total of 20 billion organisms and given with a 4 week interval between doses, gave substantial protection against clinical pertussis when administered at either 2-5 months of age or at 6-23 months of age. The two doses of the mixed product incidentally gave better protection against diphtheria than an equivalent amount of comparably given A-P diphtheria toxoid as measured by the Schick test.’
1949 A book entitled, “The Treatment of Poliomyelitis and Other Virus Diseases with Vitamin C: Frederick R. Klenner, Southern Medicine and Surgery, July, 1949: “The treatment employed [in the poliomyelitis epidemic in North Carolina in 1948, 60 cases] was vitamin C in massive doses… given like any other antibiotic every two to four hours. The initial dose was 1000 to 2000 mg., depending on age. Children up to four years received the injections intramuscularly … For patients treated in the home the dose schedule was 2000 mg. by needle every six hours, supplemented by 1000 to 2000 mg. every two hours by mouth … dissolved in fruit juice. All patients were clinically well after 72 hours. Where spinal taps were performed, it was the rule to find a reversion of the fluid to normal after the second day of treatment.”
1950’s UNICEF administered 12 million injections for yaws in Central Africa alone during 1952-57. From the 1950s into the 1980s, unsafe injections may have contributed to the silent spread of HIV in Africa in much the same way that unsafe injections for schistosomiasis and other treatments in Egypt established hepatitis C as a major blood-borne pathogen, infecting about 15% to 20% of the general population at the end of the 1990s” (Editorial with Gisselquist, statistics quoted from: International Journal of STD & AIDS Royal Society of Medicine, October 2002 Africa HIV/AIDS through unsafe medical care. Also available: Africa Policy E-Journal. www.africaaction.org/docs02/hiv0210t.htm.)
1950s –1972: Mentally disabled children at Willowbrook School (NY) were deliberately infected with hepatitis in an attempt to find a vaccine. Participation in the study was a condition for admission to the institution.
1950 (September) Ralph R. Scobey, M.D., president of the Poliomyelitis Research Institute. Inc. Syracuse, New York (Archives of Pediatrics, Sept. 1950) lists 170 diseases of polio-like symptoms and effects but with different names such as: epidemic cholera, cholera morbus, spinal meningitis, spinal apoplexy, inhibitory palsy, intermittent fever, famine fever, worm fever, bilious remittent fever, ergotism, and others. There are also such common nutritional deficiency diseases as beriberi, scurvy, Asiatic plague, pellagra,prison edema, acidosis, and others. “No drugs, medicines or medical treatments have ever been able to cure any of these diseases and no germs have been isolated as the cause. But they all respond to fasting, cleansing, proper diet and improved circulation. The similarity of these diseases to polio is too obvious to go unnoticed. They are, in reality, all one disease with varying stages of intensity and different names. It is ridiculous to assume that polio is caused by a virus and the rest of them are caused by nutritional deficiency. In as much as nerve cells react in much the same way to various poisons, further research will probably show that in these cases polio micro-organisms are not always present, but intoxication (poisoning) may be produced through faulty metabolism or by the absorption of poisons from without” (Ralph Scobey, 1950).
Simultaneous Immunization of Young Children against Diphtheria, Tetanus, and Pertussis : Experience in a Northern Metropolitan Area. Louis W. Sauer and Winston H. Tucker . Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1950 June; 40(6): 681–685.
Simultaneous Immunization against Diphtheria, Tetanus, and Pertussis : Problems Inherent in the Production of a Good Multiple Antigen. Roderick Murray. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1950 June; 40(6): 686–690.
The Problem of Standardization of BCG Vaccine. Joseph D. Aronson and Patricia Schneider. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1950 May; 40(5): 533–544.
Antigenic Activity of Dry Glucose BCG Vaccine. Konrad Birkhaug. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1950 May; 40(5): 545–554.
Mumps Vaccine, inactivated.
1951 The man who became most responsible for the view that poliomyelitis was contagious was Dr. Simon Flexner, author of the famous (or infamous) Flexner Report, which led the way to the closing of the naturopathic and homeopathic colleges in theUnited States. Said Flexner: “It was not easy to establish in an individual case precisely how the disease was acquired; it was difficult to bring evidence that was not at all convincing that this disease was contagious.” In discussing Flexner’s report, L. Emmett Holt stated: “Even five years ago, if anyone had suggested that the disease under discussion was an infectious or contagious one, it would have been looked upon as a joke” (Scobey, Archives of Pediatrics, May 1951).
Vaccination against Tuberculosis with Freeze-Dried BCG Vaccine. F. van Deinse. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1951 October; 41(10): 1209–1214.
BCG Vaccination. Herbert R. Edwards, Robert J. Anderson, Mary V. Dempsey, Esmond R. Long, James E. Parkins, Robert E. Plunkett, Marion W. Sheahan, and George J. Wherrett. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1952 May; 42(5 Pt 2): 72.
1953 Article in the American Journal of Digestive Diseases identifies a number of recently induced chemical toxins such as widespread pesticide use may cause polio and other nervous systems disorders (Morton S. Biskind, MD. Public Health Aspects of the New Insecticides. American Journal of Digestive Diseases, New York, 1953, v 20, p331). Dr. Biskind suggested that DTT (chlorophenoethane, dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane), benzene hexachloride (an organochlorine pesticide), lead, and arsenic, persist in the environment as neurotoxins that cause polio-like symptoms, polio-like physiology, and were dumped onto and into human food at dosage levels far above that approved by the FDA. On a series of graphs prepared by the research of Jim West, the distribution of these toxins in the environment directly correlate with the incidence of various neurological diseases called “polio” before 1965. (Jim West, Chairman of the Science Committee for the NoSpray Coalition in New York City. The No Spray Coalition has organized environmentalists against the city’s pesticide spray campaigns against “West Nile virus“).Biskind claimed:“In 1945, against the advice of investigators who had studied the pharmacology of thecompound and found it dangerous for all forms of life, DDT (chlorophenoethane,dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane) was released in the United States and other countriesfor general use by the public as an insecticide. . Since the last war there have been anumber of curious changes in the incidence of certain ailments and the development of new syndromes never before observed. A most significant feature of this situation is that both man and all his domestic animals have simultaneously been affected. In man, the incidence of poliomyelitis has risen sharply. . . .It was even known by 1945 that DDT is stored in the body fat of mammals and appears in the milk. With this foreknowledge the series of catastrophic events that followed the most intensive campaign of mass poisoning in known human history, should not have surprised the experts. Yet, far from admitting a causal relationship so obvious that in any other field of biology it would be instantly accepted, virtually the entire apparatus of communication, lay and scientific alike, has been devoted to denying, concealing, suppressing, distorting and attempts to convert into its opposite, the overwhelming evidence.
1953 Dr. Kumm was appointed Director of Research of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (NFIP). The NFIP was funded by its “March of Dimes” program, and it sponsored the hasty development of the Salk vaccine in the early 1950s, at the height of the DDT/polio controversy. Dr. Kumm also “served as a civilian consultant to the Surgeon General . . . directing field studies of the use of DDT. . .” (American Journal of Digestive Diseases, 20:330, 1953).
1954 Combined Tetanus-Diphtheria Immunization of Adults: Use of Small Doses of Diphtheria Toxoid.Geoffrey Edsall, James S. Altman, and Andrew J. Gaspar.Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1954 December; 44(12): 1537–1545.
Formaldehyde Treatment and Safety Testing of Experimental Poliomyelitis Vaccines. Jonas E. Salk, Ulrich Krech, J. S. Youngner, Byron L. Bennett, L. J. Lewis, and P. L. Bazeley. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1954 May; 44(5): 563–570. ‘The precise details of the methods which have been developed for destroying the infectivity of poliomyelitis virus by formaldehyde in the preparation of an experimental vaccine, and for safety testing, as yet have not been published. It is the purpose of this communication to discuss the principles underlying the procedures being followed in preparing material for more extensive studies than have been carried out thus far…’
Techniques of Tuberculin Testing and BCG Vaccination. Floyd M. Feldmann. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1954 September; 44(9): 1204.
BCG and Vole Vaccination. Floyd M. Feldmann. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1954 December; 44(12): 1591.
Complications of BCG vaccinations in rural Haiti. H Bonnlander and A M Rossignol. Am J Public Health. 1993 April; 83(4): 583–585.
1955 IPV (inactivated polio vaccine) licensed (was later modified in 1987). The Salk Poliomyelitis Vaccine. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1955 May; 45(5 Pt 1): 676.
The Polio Vaccine Assistance Act of 1955. Otis L. Anderson. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1955 October; 45(10): 1349–1350. ‘The Polio Vaccine Assistance Act of 1955, passed by the last session of the United States Congress in its closing days, and signed by President Eisenhower on August 12, made possible federal grants to the states for the purchase of poliomyelitis vaccine and for the costs of planning and conducting vaccination programs.’
Present Status of the Problem of Vaccination Against Poliomyelitis. Jonas E. Salk. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1955 March; 45(3): 285–297.
On April 24, 1955, an infant with paralytic poliomyelitis was admitted to Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. The patient had been inoculated in the buttock with Cutter vaccine on April 16, and developed flaccid paralysis of both legs on April 24.
(May) “With the announcement that Cutter was withdrawing its vaccine, there ensued a nationwide panic. The AMA put out the warning to all its members to stop using Cutter vaccine, although regrettably some doctors never received word. Many states and cities announced immediate cessation of mass immunizations, even though their vaccine had come from manufacturers other than Cutter. Local health departments began to track down every single dose of Cutter vaccine, which, it was soon discovered, had traversed the entire country. Throughout May and June, cases of polio caused by Cutter’s vaccine spread beyond the Far West and began to appear in every region of the country.The epicenter of the devastation was in California and the rural state of Idaho. Ninety nine cases of polio would eventually be attributed to Cutter vaccine in California, with the incidence of polio among Cutter vaccinees exceeding the textbook definition of a wild polio epidemic by nearly threefold. In Idaho, with eighty-eight polio cases attributed to Cutter vaccine, the rate was fifteen times greater. Before it was over, the ‘Cutter incident,’ as it was euphemistically called in scientific circles, resulted in 260 people contracting polio and almost 200 cases of paralysis. Eleven people died. A devastating epidemic had been caused by two particularly bad batches of vaccine” (The Virus andThe Vaccine-The True Story Of A Cancer -Causing Monkey Virus-Contaminated Polio Vaccine, And the Millions Of Americans Exposed, by Debbie Bookchin and JimSchumacher, St. Martin’s Pres, 2004).
Effects of Routine Immunization of Children with Triple Vaccine (Diphtheria-Tetanus-Pertussis).Johannes Ipsen and Harry E. Bowen. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1955 March; 45(3): 312–318.
Antigenic Activity of Poliomyelitis Vaccines Undergoing Field Test. Jonas E. Salk, L. James Lewis, Byron L. Bennett, Elsie N. Ward, Ulrich Krech, and J. S. Youngner. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1955 February; 45(2): 151–162.
1956 Dr. Albert Sabin tests experimental polio vaccine on 133 prisoners in Ohio.
1957 By January, 17 US states had stopped distributing the vaccine. The same year The New York Times reported that nearly 50 per cent of cases of infantile paralysis in children between the ages of five and 14 had occurred after vaccination” (Bookchin and Schumacker, 2004).
Asian flu pandemic is claimed to kill 100,000 people, due to the “H2N2 influenza virus.”
Immune Response in Guinea Pigs and Monkeys to the Individual Components of a Combined Diphtheria-Pertussis-Tetanus Antigen Plus Poliomyelitis Vaccine. Pearl L. Kendrick and Gordon C. Brown. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1957 April; 47(4 Pt 1): 473–483.
1958– A Study of the Serologic Response to Ultraviolet-Formalin Inactivated Poliomyelitis Vaccine. Joseph G. Molner, Charles P. Anderson, Harry E. Carnes, Eugene A. Timm, and A. R. Taylor. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1958 May; 48(5): 590–598.
Antibody Response to Poliomyelitis Vaccine Administered by Jet Injection. Martha J. Lipson, David H. Carver, Morton G. Eleff, Robert A. Hingson, and Frederick C. Robbins. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1958 May; 48(5): 599–603.
1959-1968 Quadrigen (DPT-IPV combo) used routinely (pulled off the market in1968 for safety and efficacy reasons).
1960 LIVE POLIOVIRUS VACCINES. Morris Greenberg. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1960 June; 50(6 Pt 1):
900–901.
Problems Associated with the Use of Live Poliovirus Vaccine. Joseph L. Melnick. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1960 July; 50(7): 1013–1031.
New Live Vaccines Against Virus Diseases. A. A. Smorodintsev. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1960 June; 50(6 Pt 2): 40–45. ‘The second, live mumps vaccine has been developed in the USSR by Dr. Klatchko and myself. The third, live measles virus vaccine is being extensively studied now in the USSR on the basis of the classical work accomplished in the United States by Dr. John Enders of Harvard Medical School. Live Vaccine Against Mumps During the past five years, laboratory, clinical, and epidemiological efforts have been directed toward the development of live attenuated mumps vaccine, administered intradermally, as an effective immunizing method for children. The work has been done with laboratory strains attenuated by passages through embryonated eggs.
1961 OPV (oral, live-virus Salk polio vaccine) licensed.
“Merck stopped shipping Purivax (its ‘purified’ version of the Salk vaccine) as soon as its own tests in May 1961 confirmed that the vaccine was contaminated with SV40… Its unilateral withdrawal of vaccine from the market had not been well received by the DBS (Division of Biological Standards). If Merck recalled vaccine, then everyone else would have to. That would have resulted in public panic and would have run counter to the Technical Committee’s May 18 directive that polio vaccination ‘continue to be pursued with vigor with the materials presently available.’ In June, after the Girardi cancer results had come in, Hilleman (Merck’s science director) had tried one more time to get all vaccine production halted. That suggestion was rebuffed. Merck had already suspended production and was trying to figure out how to screen SV40 out of the vaccine when DBS tests on vaccine samples indicated that Parke-Davis supplies were also badly contaminated. Parke-Davis now also stopped vaccine manufacture. The truth was that by the time the Associated Press reported the ‘news’ in late July, both companies had not produced vaccine for several weeks. Parke Davis eventually resumed production, but Merck would soon decide that producing a polio vaccine that at times might be contaminated was not worth the risk.” (Bookchin and Schumacker, 2004).
Vaccination Against Influenza. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1961 October; 51(10): 1596.
1962 “The Wistar human tissue study appeared in midsummer 1962, shortly before the human tissue study that Enders had completed at Hilleman’s urging. Enders and his collaborator, another Harvard researcher, Harvey Shein, reached essentially the same conclusions as the Wistar group, with a different kind of tissue, human kidney cells. Koprowski had rushed the Wistar study into press hoping to scoop Enders and gain some publicity for Wistar. But in the end, despite being second, the Enders study attracted a good deal more attention because it was published in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A lengthy New York Times story on August 10, 1962, reported the Enders study:‘A cancer-causing virus has for the first time produced cancer like changes in human cells… Changes that the virus produced in cultures of human kidney cells includedgreatly accelerated growth patterns and chromosomal aberrations…’ “By the fall of 1962, as news of the most recent SV40 research spread, the anxiety that had been growing in scientific circles about the simian virus rearched its zenith.
1962 Injection of live cancer cells into 22 elderly patients at Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital in Brooklyn. Administration covered up, and the NYS licensing board placed the principal investigator on probation for one year. Two years later, The American Cancer Society elected him Vice President.
1963 Measles vaccine, live and inactivated, licensed.
Field trials with further attenuated live measles vaccine without gamma globulin. M B Andelman, A Schwarz, and H Spiegelblatt. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1966 November; 56(11): 1891–1897.
“study is reported on the immunologic and clinical response to the Schwarz strain of live, attenuated measles virus vaccine in a group of children. The vaccine was administered in one injection without gamma globulin. The results are presented, discussed, and recommendations are made on the basis of antibody titers and adverse reactions VACCINATION of measles-susceptible children with the Edmonston “B” strain of live attenuated virus measles vaccine has proved to be a highly effective means of protecting susceptibles against this serious disease. This vaccine, however, produces a spectrum of reactions which range from a mild fever with slight cough, conjunctivitis, and exanthema, to symptoms quite similar to the natural disease. Such symptoms may be evidenced as fever of 103 or over in 30 per cent of susceptibles and a rash in 50 per cent. The simultaneous administration of gamma globulin sharply decreases these reactions without significantly affecting the immune response. The problem of administering two injections simultaneously, or of repeated clinic visits for killed vaccine, has led in some instances to the discontinuance of the recommendation for gamma globulin or prior injections of killed vaccine, without regard to the relatively high incidence of the discomforting reactions which have been experienced by most investigators. Therefore, it is our recommendation that the method of measles immunization should be one of the two discussed, i.e., Edmonston “B” strain with gamma globulin or the further attenuated Schwarz strain without gamma globulin. These two methods have about the same antigenic response and about the same incidence of reactions. The Schwarz strain has some advantages over the Edmonston “B” vaccine. It follows the long-established patterns of other vaccines in that there is no need to administer a second product to counteract the effects of the immunizing vaccine.’
Trivalent Oral Polio Vaccine.
1967 Mumps Vaccine, live.
1968 Hong Kong flu pandemic is claimed to kill 700,000 people, due to the “H3N2 virus”. Both “H2N2” (1957 pandemic) and H3N2 are said to have likely arisen by exchange of genes between avian and human flu viruses, possibly following dual infection in humans.
1969 Rubella vaccine licensed.
Atypical measles syndrome: a continuing problem. E M Nichols. Am J Public Health. 1979 February; 69(2): 160–162.
Atypical measles syndrome (AMS), first described in 1965 by Rauh and Schmidt’, is characterized by high fever, unusual rash, and pneumonia, often with a history of immunization with killed measles vaccine. AMS is generally thought to be a hypersensitivity response to natural measles infection in individuals who have previously received killed measles vaccine, although several investigators have reported
AMS-like illness in children who had been immunized only with live measles vaccine… These latter reports may be misleading since it is sometimes clinically difficult to distinguish typical from atypical measles. During a measles epidemic in 1974-1975 in Northern California, a number of physicians reported laboratory-confirmed measles in patients who had signs and symptoms compatible with AMS.
Fulginiti suggested that the response of recipients of killed measles vaccine to the natural virus depends on the level of serum antibody and the persistence of delayed hypersensitivity induced by the killed vaccine.
He suggests that the serum antibody level is high enough to be fully or partially protective initially following immunization. After several years, serum antibody may fall to very low levels, while delayed hypersensitivity persists. The recipient, no longer protected against measles, may develop atypical measles if exposed. Fulginiti postulated that two thirds of killed vaccine recipients are susceptible to AMS five- to six-years after immunization. Our findings indicate that the hypersensitivity response persists for 10 to 12 years after immunization with killed vaccine. A duration of 14 years was recently reported by Haas and Wendt. Our findings also indicate that only one dose of killed vaccine can predispose to AMS. About 1,836,000 doses of killed measles vaccine were distributed in the United States between 1962 and 1967. Since most individuals received two or three doses of killed vaccine, it is probable that 600,000-900,000 children received some killed vaccine, some of whom may remain susceptible to AMS at least through the 1970s and perhaps longer.’
1970 The HEW reported in 1970 that as much as 26 percent of children receiving rubella vaccination, in national testing programs, developed arthalgia or arthritis. Many had to seek medical attention and some were hospitalised to test for rheumatic fever and rheumatoid arthritis. (Science, US, March 26, 1977.)
1971 MMR (tri-valent measles/mumps/rubella) licensed.
Attenuated rubella vaccine (HPV-77): evaluation in a large controlled trial. R P Lipman, M B Bethel, J H Wooten, R H Levine, and J S Pagano. Am J Public Health. 1971 July; 61(7): 1392–1402.
‘…rubella virus was isolated in 1961. In 1966 the first report was published describing a strain of rubella virus that showed promise as a potential vaccine; this strain (HPV-77) had been attenuated by propagation in African green monkey kidney tissue culture. Preliminary testing in small groups of children indicated a degree of safety and effectiveness that has permitted a subsequent series of large field trials. Of concern in vaccine production, especially with live virus vaccines, is the possibility that extraneous viral agents, indigenous to the species of tissue culture cells used as a vaccine substrate,may contaminate the vaccine. Although monkey-cell cultures used to make vaccines are free of known contaminating microorganisms, monkey cells nevertheless are known to harbor a wide variety of simian viruses, one of which (SV40) contaminated several widely-used vaccines for a long period before its detection. The HPV-77 vaccine was therefore adapted for growth in duck-embryo cell culture, a medium relatively free of latent viruses. Following successful limited testing in small groups, the duck-embryo rubella vaccine has been subjected to extensive clinical evaluation, including the present field trial.’
Comparative field evaluation of three live, attenuated rubella virus vaccines. A F Kehrer and P Isacson. Am J Public Health. 1971 January; 61(1): 152–156. ‘Following are the vaccines administered and the abbreviations used for them. 1. Strain Cendehill, from Smith, Kline, and French, grown in rabbit kidney cell cultures: Lot No. 68014 (SKF), supplied as lyophilized one-dose vial. 2. Strain HPV-77+12 dog kidney, from Philips-Roxane: Lot No. 12-6/6A (PR), supplied as frozen 5 ml vials. 3. Strain HPV-77+5 duck embryo, from Merck, Sharp, and Dohme: Lot No. 267 (MSD), supplied as lyophilized two-dose vial.’
1972 U.S. ended routine use of smallpox vaccine.
Jonas Salk, inventor of the IPV, testified before a Senate subcommittee that nearly all polio outbreaks since 1961 were caused by the oral polio vaccine.
Joint symptoms following an area-wide rubella immunization campaign–report of a survey. R B Wallace, P Libert, M Ibrahim, and P Isacson. Am J Public Health. 1972 May; 62(5): 658–661.
1976 In a published report of the April 7, 1976, WHO meeting of international experts, the final paragraph urged extreme caution in developing live vaccines from A/New Jersey strains (H1N1) because of the possible danger of spread to susceptible human or animal hosts (World Health Organization. Influenza. Wkly Epidemiol Rec. 1976;51:123). That paragraph was written specifically to respond to reports that several investigators outside Western Europe had plans to develop and test such vaccines. One year later, an H1N1 virus, identical to the laboratory strain from1950–1951, swept the world.
During the great swine flu hoax, President Ford is vaccinated before a TV audience of millions. More than 500 people receiving flu vaccinations become paralyzed with Guillain-Barre Syndrome.
1977 Pneumococcal Vaccine- 14-valent
1978 Experimental “hepatitis B” vaccine trials were conducted by the CDC, in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, and the ads for research subjects specifically asked for promiscuous homosexual men, while there is also evidence that the first “hepatitis B” vaccines were also tested on Blacks in Central Africa, and mentally retarded children. (Leonard G. Horowitz, “Hepatitis B Vaccine and the Origin of HIV/AIDS: Perspectives on a Possible Vaccine Induced Pandemic” Les Premieres RecontresMedicales, May 29, 2001).
1979 Bulletin No. 6, March 30, Wyeth DPT Vaccine Recall. “Between August 1978 and March 1979, 77 infants in Tennessee died suddenly from unexpected causes – compared with 74 during the same period in 1977-78. These deaths were diagnosed as sudden infant death syndrome, or crib death. Of these 77 infants, eight died within a week of being vaccinated against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (whooping cough) using the same lot of DTP vaccine.”
Dr. Robert S. Mendelsohn, who was the National Medical Director of “Head Start,” a syndicated columnist who wrote “The People’s Doctor, and the chairman of the Medical Licensure Committee for the State of Illinois, Associate Professor at The University of Illinois, Chicago, and Medical Director of Chicago’s Michael Reese Hospital was quoted as saying: “My suspicion, which is shared by others in my profession, is that the nearly 10,000 SIDS deaths that occur in the United States each year are related to one or more of the vaccines that are routinely given children. The Pertussis vaccine is the most likely villain, but it could also be one or more of the others”(See: Confessions of a medical heretic, Contemporary Books, 1997).
Influenza vaccine–unacceptable or unaccepted. S C Schoenbaum. Am J Public Health. 1979 March; 69(3): 219–221.
Side Effects of Diphtheria-Tetanus Toxoid in Adults. John P. Middaugh. Am J Public Health. 1979 March; 69(3): 246–249.
Swine influenza vaccine program in the community: acceptability, reactions and responses. A S Monto and H W Ross. Am J Public Health. 1979 March; 69(3): 233–237.
1980 Rabies Vaccine -Human Diploid Cell Vaccine.
1981 Japan licenses DTaP vaccine.
Hepatitis B Vaccine.
Meningococcal polysaccharide vaccine (MPSV4 or Menomune) approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
1983 Pneumococcal Vaccine -23-valent.
1983 to 1985 First Hib (Hemophilus influenza B) vaccine (taken off the market in1985 for safety and efficacy reasons).
1984 Announced in a media press release by Dr. Robert Gallo and Health and Human Services Secretary Margaret Heckler, “HIV” is named as “the probable cause of AIDS” and is thought to be “a variant of a known human cancer virus.” Dr. Gallo rushed that same day to patent the first “HIV” test kit, and was subsequently convicted of scientific misconduct by the Dingell Commission and the Office of Scientific Integrity of the NIH (John Crewdson: Gallo Case, Truth Termed A Casualty Report: Science Subverted in AIDS Dispute; Chicago Tribune (CT) – SUNDAY, January 1, 1992), for attempting to steal from Dr. Luc Montagnier’s group at the Pasteur his so-called “HIV-virus, “isolated” from a young male homosexual, with a previous history of treatmet for gonorrhea,syphilis, Herpes I and II, and EBV, At the Gallo “HIV causes AIDS” press release, an”HIV” vaccine is promised in 2 years by Secretary Heckler. The “HIV” virus is said to attack mostly people in the prime of their young lives.
1985 Haemophilus influenza Type b Polysaccharide Vaccine.
Inactivated Poliomyelitis Vaccine (enhanced).
1987 Hib vaccine licensed.
1988 Hib added to vaccine immunization schedule.
Vaccine Injury Compensation Program Funded.
1988 JAMA publishes a report claiming that a case-control study has shown that 41 percent of meningitis occurred in children vaccinated against the disease. The vaccine’s protective efficacy was minus 58 percent. This means that children are much more likely to get the disease if they are vaccinated. (JAMA, 1988, Osterholm et al., 260: 1423-1428.)
1989- 2003 Explosion of autism in U.S. The incidence of autism (and other related disorders) went from about 1 in 2,500 children to 1 in every 166. Up until about 1989 pre-school children got only 3 vaccines (polio, DPT, MMR). By 1999 the CDC recommended a total of 22 vaccines to be given before children reach the 1st grade, including Hepatitis B, which is given to newborns within the first 24 hours of birth. Many of these vaccines contained mercury. In the 1990s approximately 40 million children were injected with mercury-containing vaccines. The cumulative amount of mercury being given to children in this number of vaccines would be an amount 187 times the EPA daily exposure limit.
1990 Conjugate Hib vaccine licensed.
1990-1993 The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) operated by Dissatisfied Parents Together (DPT) says that a new Institute of Medicine (IOM) report on the association between DPT vaccine and permanent brain damage “confirms that the vaccine can cause children to suffer acute brain inflammation which sometimes leads to death or permanent neurological damage. The parent consumer activist group also charges that they have obtained evidence through the Freedom of Information Act that the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) is failing to properly monitor rreports of death and injuries following vaccination and that doctors around the country are failing to report deaths and injuries which occur after vaccination to DHHS.”
“In a year-long investigation of the Vaccine Adverse Reaction Reporting System (VAERS)operated by the Food and Drug Administration, NVIC/DPT analyzed VAERS computer discs used by the FDA to store data on reports of deaths and injuries following DPT vaccination. A total of 54,072 reports of adverse events following vaccination were listedin a 39-month period from July 1990 to November 1993, with 12,504 reports being associated with DPT vaccine, including 471 deaths.”
“A wide variation in the numbers of reports associated with different lots of DPT vaccine were discovered, with some lots listing many more deaths and injuries than others. In one DPT vaccine lot, there were 129 adverse events and 9 deaths reported between September 1992 and September 1993. Most adverse events occurred within a few days of vaccination and many reports also contained descriptions of classic pertussis vaccine reaction symptoms. This particular lot met the FDA’s criteria for triggering an “investigation” (ie., report of one death or two serious injuries within a seven day period) 11 times within a 12-month period.” “There are some lots of vaccine which are associated with many more deaths and injuries than other lots. These lots are often referred to as ‘hot lots.’ Even though the FDA’s criteria for an investigation was triggered 11 times within a 12-month period on just one of the many lots we looked at, we know for a fact the lot was never recalled. The FDA has not recalled a suspicious lot of DPT vaccine because of high numbers of deaths and injuries associated with it for at least 15 years,” said Kathi Williams, NVIC/DPT cofounder and Acting Director. “That is because the position of those who operate VAERS is that the DPT vaccine does not cause death or injury. So the death and injury reports are ignored. It is a shocking example of how little we know about the true extent of vaccine-associated injuries and deaths.”
1990 The FDA grants Department of Defense waiver of Nuremberg Code for use of unapproved drugs and vaccines in Desert Shield.
1991 Diphtheria-Tetanus – Pertussis (Acellular) Vaccine.
Recombinant Hepatitis B recommended for all newborn infants and children.
1991– 210 REPORTED cases of hepatitis B vaccine injury from 1991- 1998 in Illinois, and 5 deaths.
1992 Institute of Medicine releases report presenting evidence indicating that there is: “a causal relation between DTP vaccine and anaphylaxis and between the pertussis component of DTP vaccine and extended periods of inconsolable crying or screaming. The committee also reported that the evidence indicates a causal relation between the rubella vaccine and acute arthritis in adult women. The committee found the available evidence weaker but still consistent with a causal relation between DTP vaccine and two onditions–acute encephalopathy and hypotonic, hyporesponsive episodes–and between rubella vaccine and chronic arthritis in adult women. Estimated incidence rates of these adverse events following vaccination are provided, where possible. The committee found that the evidence does not indicate a causal relation between the DTP vaccine and infantile spasms, hypsarrhythmia, Reye’s syndrome, and sudden infant death syndrome. The committee found insufficient evidence to indicate either the presence or absence of a causal relation between DTP vaccine and chronic neurologic damage, aseptic meningitis, erythema multiforme or other rash, Guillain-Barre syndrome, hemolytic anemia, juvenile diabetes, learning disabilities and attention-deficit disorder, peripheral mononeuropathy, or thrombocytopenia, and between rubella vaccine and radiculoneuritis and other neuropathies or thrombocytopenic purpura.“(C.P. Howson and H.V. Fineberg, Adverse events following pertussis and rubella vaccines. Summary of a report of the Institute of Medicine. JAMA Vol. 267 No. 3, January 15, 1992).
1992 The hepatitis B vaccine causes false positive “HIV” test results (Lee, D, Eby W, Molinaro, G.. HIV false positivity after Hepatitis B vaccination. Lancet 339: 1060, 1992).
Minnesota researchers report that “HIV-sequences” exist in normal in human,chimpanzee, and rhesus monkey DNAs” (Horwitz MS, Boyce-Jacino MT, Faras AJ.Novel human endogenous sequences related to human immunodeficiency virus type 1. JVirol. Apr; 66 (4):2170-9, 1992).
1992 America‘s Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta admits in that the polio live-virus vaccine had become the main cause of polio in the United States. Specifically,the CDC asserted that, from 1973 to 1983, 87% of all (non-imported) cases of polioresulted directly from vaccine administration. Even more amazingly, it was asserted that every non-imported case of polio in the United States from 1980 to 1989 was vaccine induced(Strebel, P. M., et al., Epidemiology of Poliomyelitis in the U.S. One Decade after the Last Reported Case of Indigenous Wild Virus Associated Disease, Clinical Infectious Diseases, CDC, February 1992, pp. 568-579).
1993 DPTH (DPT-Hib combo) licensed.
Mandating vitamin K prophylaxis for newborns in New York State. T H Tulchinsky, M M Patton, L A Randolph, M R Meyer, and J V Linden. Am J Public Health. 1993 August; 83(8): 1166–1168.
1994 The Lancet publishes claims that “The incidence of asthma has been found to be five times more common in vaccinated children.” -The Lancet, 1994.
1995 Varicella (Chicken Pox) Vaccine licensed.
HIB–The changing epidemiology of invasive bacterial infections in Massachusetts children, 1984 through 1991. A M Loughlin, C D Marchant, and S M Lett. Am J Public Health. 1995 March; 85(3): 392–394.
Hepatitis A Vaccine. (3 dose series- SmithKline Beecham).
1996 Dtap licensed; recommended for use instead of whole-cell DPT.
Hib-HepB combo licensed.
Hepatitis A Vaccine. (2 dose series-Merck).
1996 – 872 serious adverse events reported to VAERS in children under 14 years of age who had been injected with hepatitis B vaccine. 48 children were reported to have died after they were injected with hepatitis B vaccine that same year. By contrast, in 1996 only279 cases of hepatitis B disease were reported in children under age 14.
DTaP vaccine for infants.
1997 Polio is not eradicated by vaccination, but likely lurks behind a disease redefinitionand new diagnostic names like viral or aseptic meningitis…….According to one of the1997 issues of the MMWR, there are some 30,000 to 50,000 cases of viral meningitis per year in the United States alone. That’s where it is thought that 30,000 – 50,000 cases of polio disappeared after the introduction of mass vaccination. “Today, various other forms of the word “polio” are still used to describe the effects o fpoisoning, though usually with regard to paralysis in animals. A search of Medline (“polio” and “poison”) finds about 45 contemporary articles where poisoning causality is attributed to polio.
The terminology found was: polioencephalomalacia”,“poliomyelomalacia”, “polyradiculoneuritis”, “neurological picture similar to that of poliomyelitis”, “polioencephalomyelomalacia”, “lumbal poliomyelomalacia”, “cerebrocortical necrosis (polioencephalomalacia)”, “Lead poisoning in grey-headed fruit bats (Pteropus poliocephalus)”, “multifocal-poliomyelomalacia”, “spinal poliomalacia”, “Polio and high-sulfate diets”, “atypical porcine enterovirus encephalomyelitis: possible interraction between enteroviruses and arsenicals”, “polioencephalomalacia and photosensitization associated with kochia scoparia consumption in range cattle”, “bovine polioencephalomalacia.” Viral or aseptic meningitis, Guillaine Barre Syndrome (GBS), Chinese paralytic syndrome, chronic fatigue syndrome, epidemic cholera, cholera morbus, spinal meningitis, spinal apoplexy,inhibitory palsy, intermittent fever, famine fever, worm fever, bilious remittent fever,ergotism, ME, post-polio syndrome, acute flaccid paralysis. (Jim West, Health and Research Publications, ttp://www.geocities.com/harpub/).
1997 (April) Bird flu virus “H5N1” is isolated for the first time from a human patient in Hong Kong. The virus infects 18 patients after close contact with poultry, with six deaths. Fortunately the virus does not spread from person to person. Within three days, Hong Kong’s entire chicken population is slaughtered to prevent further outbreak.
1997 Diptheria Tetanus Toxoids Adsorbed.
DTaP-Infanrix.
October 15,000 French citizens filed a lawsuit against the French government forunder stating the risks and overstating the benefits associated with the hepatitis B vaccine.Hundreds of people were reported to have suffered from auto immune and neurologicaldisorders, including multiple sclerosis, following hepatitis B vaccination. As a result, in October 1998, the French Minister of Health ended the mandatory hepatitis B vaccination program for all school children.
1998 Although the target population for the hepatitis B vaccine are prostitutes and drug addicts and not children, and France had just repealed the mandate because of high number of vaccine injuries, and the CDC admitted that the vaccine may not be effective after 7 yrs for 30-50% of the people vaccinated, and consequently in 1998, the hepatitis B Vaccine is mandated for school age children in first 46, and then in 48 states in the US.
(September) Trial results announced for two new influenza drugs that target the virus’s neuraminidase enzyme, Relenza and Tamiflu, at the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. Donald Rumsfeld serves as Gilead Research)’s chairman from 1997 until he joined the Bush administration in 2001, and he still holds a Gilead stake valued at between $5 million and $25 million, according to federal financial disclosures filed by Rumsfeld.Tamiflu, which is manufactured and marketed by Swiss pharma giant Roche. (http://money.cnn.com/2005/10/31/news/newsmakers/fortune_rumsfeld/)
(November) Data from France released at the 62nd Annual Meeting of the American College of Rheumatology, held November 8-12, 1998, in San Diego, California links immunization against hepatitis B to the development of autoimmune rheumatoid diseases such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. The rise of autoimmunity following hepatitis B immunization in school children and adults has become a major public health concern. In October, the Ministry of Health in France suspended routine hepatitis B immunization of school children while continuing hepatitis B immunization at birth. The reason for this decision was reportedly the increased risk of autoimmune diseases that has been associated with the vaccine when it is given starting at school age or later. The data from France links hepatitis B immunization to both the development of newly diagnosed cases of autoimmune rheumatoid diseases as well as the exacerbation of previously diagnosed cases that were in remission. This finding is supported by data from Canada published in September which linked immunization against hepatitis B to the development of autoimmune rheumatoid diseases in firefighters.“The data from humans and animals is very clear, when you stimulate the immune system with vaccines you increase the risk of autoimmunity and exacerbate smoldering inflammatory conditions. Vaccine induced autoimmunity is a major public health problem because of the number of vaccine doses given and the large percentage ofpeople with undiagnosed inflammatory conditions. We need to develop ways of givingvaccines without increasing the risk of autoimmune diseases” (Classen).
Lyme vaccine (Lymerix) licensed.
Rotavirus vaccine recommended by CDC for universal use in infants.
(August) Rotavirus vaccine licensed.
Hepatitis B Vaccine for ages 0-19 years old by Merck.
(May 18) Testimony of Dr. Jane Orient, MD, President of the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), on the “Hepatitis B Vaccine: held by the Criminal Justice, Drug Policy & Human Resources Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Reform in the U.S. House of Representatives.
1999/2000 A Joint Statement by the U.S. Public Health Service, the AAFP, the AAP, and ACIP urging manufacturers to remove the preservative thimerosal (ethyl mercury) as soon as possible from vaccines routinely recommended for infants.
2000 Prevnar (pneumococcal conjugate vaccine) licensed.
2000 CDC recommends use of IPV instead of OPV (polio vaccine).
2001 “Worldwide polio-related public health alarms sounded on the first day of 2001when a new epidemic was reported to have broken out on the island of Hispaniola, on which Haiti and the Dominican Republic are located. David Brown reported in the Washington Post that a “mutant” poliovirus, derived from strains present in the oral polio vaccine, appeared to have run amok on this Caribbean island during the latter half of 2000. When the US Centers for disease control and Prevention examined these cases, another mystery was revealed: Only about one-third of the paralysis cases were associated with poliovirus. The CDC identified 19 individuals in the Dominican Republic who developed acute flaccid paralysis between July 12 and November 18, 2000. However, poliovirus was detected in only six of those individuals. The cause of the other cases remains unknown. The mystery deepens when we examine World Health Organization statistics on AFP and poliovirus infection in the Dominican Republic for the last several years (http://www-nt.who.int/vaccines/polio/case.asp). Although the number of cases of AFP in the Dominican Republic from 1996 to 1999 range from 4 to 24, not a single case of poliovirus was detected. If we further examine other WHO statistics on poliovirus-associated AFP and those in which the virus is not detected, a striking fact becomes clear: Most acute flaccid paralysis diagnosed around the world today is NOT associated with poliovirus” (James J. Tuite, III).
M.A. Fisher et al. publish that adverse events associated with hepatitis B vaccine in U.S. children less than six years of age, 1993 and 1994 and conclude: “Evidence from this study suggests that hepatitis B vaccine is positively associated with adverse health outcomes in the general population of US children” (Ann Epidemiol Jan;11(1):13-21), 2001.
The World Health Organization (WHO) outlines its new global laboratory proposal, aimed at improving the range, speed and quality of influenza virus surveillance (Science 293, 1729; 2001).
2001 Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System Tables published by the CDC in MMWR show adverse reactions from various vaccines, with the universally mandated hepatitis B vaccine by itself (9,022 cases) topping the list for adverse reactions between 1991-1995, followed by FLU vaccine (4,696 cases). Between 1996-2001, Vericel tops the lists with 9,820 cases, followed by hepatitis B (9,022 cases), followed by FLU vaccine (8,125 cases) .
2002 GSK pulled Lymerix (lyme disease vaccine) off the market.
(February) “Merck Says Tens of Thousands May Need Another Hepatitis A Shot,” Merck & Company said on Friday that an unknown number of people in as many as 27 nations, including 60 000 youngsters in Brazil, might need new shots to prevent infection with the hepatitis A virus because vaccines they received might have been defective.
Pediarix (penta-valent DtaP/HepB/IPV) licensed (against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (whooping cough), hepatitis B, and polio, all in 1 vaccine).
2002 CDC encourages flu vaccine for children.
British Medical Journal publishes article showing that: “Children vaccinated in infancy are at increased risk of hepatitis B virus infection in the late teens” (Hilton Whittle, Shabbar Jaffar, Michael Wansbrough, Maimuna Mendy, Uga Dumpis, Andrew Collison, Andrew Hall. Observational study of vaccine efficacy 14 years after trial of hepatitis B vaccination in Gambian children. (BMJ vol 325, 14 September, 2002).
(May 16) FDA recalls Berna Biotech’s Typhoid Vaccine Live Oral Ty21a lot numbers 16044.1a 16044.1b.” The product may lose potency before the expiration date, even when kept at labeled refrigerated temperatures.”
Figures from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed there were 1,920 confirmed cases of polio reported by laboratories in 2002, up from 483 the previous year.
(Oct. 18) FDA recalls Aventis Pasteur’s Meningococcal Polysaccharide Vaccine, Groups A, C, Y, W-135 Combined, single-dose vials (including single-dose in five dose packaging) lot numbers UB040AA, UB040AB, UB070AA, UB096AA.
” Product failed to meet potency specification during stability testing at 12 months. This failure may affect efficacy in preventing serogroup A meningococcal disease, however, does NOT affect the efficacy against serogroup C, Y, W-135. The firm recommends revaccination for those persons who were vaccinated since January 2, 2001 and have laboratory or industrial exposure to the serogroup A organism, or who may be traveling to high-risk countries for contracting serogroup A meningococcal disease.”
2003 Inhaled flu vaccine (Flumist) being reviewed for approval by the FDA. First live attenuated influenza vaccine licensed for use in 5–49 year old persons.
First Adult Immunization Schedule introduced.
(February 28) Outbreaks of “chicken flu” occur in The Netherlands due to the “H7N7” avian flu virus. By April the virus has spread to nearly 800 poultry farms and resulted in the culling of almost 11 million chickens. “The virus” infects 83 people causing conjunctivitis and flu-like symptoms, and kills one man. The drug Tamiflu is said to protect people against further spread of the virus.
(February 17) FDA recalls antibody to Human Immunodeficiency Virus (Abbott HIVAG-1 Monoclonal EIA Test Kit lot numbers): 92677M200, 92677M201, 92677M202, 95132M100, 95132M101. ” The manufacturer found an increase in the initial reactive rate when compared to historical performance expectations as shown in the package insert. This may result in an increased likelihood of invalid assay runs. Specificity, as defined by repeat reactive rate, and sensitivity continue to meet all performance requirements. Establishments that have the recalled product in inventory are instructed to discontinue use and destroy any remaining product.”
(March 19) FDA recalls Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics Ortho HCV (Hepatitis C virus) Version 3.0 ELISA Test System, lot number TXE358; Ortho Antibody to HBsAg ELISA Test System 2, lot number 2HB567;Ortho HBc ELISA Test System, lot numbers CHK423 and CHK424.
A commentary in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine (Madjid et al. 2003) noted that influenza is readily transmissible by aerosol and that a small number of viruses can cause a full-blown infection. The authors continued: “the possibility for genetic engineering and aerosol transmission [of influenza] suggests an enormous potential for bioterrorism” The possible hostile abuse of influenza virus is seen as a very real threat by public health officials in the USA. $15 million was granted by the US National Institutes of Health to Stanford University to study how to guard against the flu virus “if it were to be unleashed as an agent of bioterrorism”. Stanford University News Release 17 September 2003, http://mednews.stanford.edu/news_releases_html/2003/septrelease/bioterror%20flu.htm
Smallpox vaccine for first-responders recommended following the events of 9/11.
Weeks after the announcement that the “HIV” vaccine, AIDSVAX, had failed, VaxGen (the makers of AIDSVAX) was hit with a shareholder lawsuit that accused the company’s officials of continuing to make positive statements about their vaccine to artificially pump up the company’s stock price, despite mounting evidence that it was not effective. The suit was dismissed last year and VaxGen, under new management, remade itself into a biodefense company, and is now supported with our tax dollars.
In the wake of anthrax being placed in the US mail following the events of 9/11, the anthrax vaccine (not the same one developed by Louis Pasteur used in Desert Storm is found to be non-protective in animal experiments, and despite extensive domestic support for suspending Bayer’s patent on Cipro, Tommy Thompson acting in behalf of the Bush Administration said it is “illegal” to suspend Bayer’s patent on Cipro. Instead he entered into negotiations with Bayer with the intention of lowering the price of Cipro. Facing an unprecedented public embarrassment, Bayer agreed to lower the price of Cipro for government purchase from $1.77 to $0.95. “The Bush administration did not suspend the patent of Bayer largely because it was more concerned with the wider implications of such an action, particularly on the ongoing negotiations at the WTO. Realizing that scrapping Bayer’s patent would set a precedent that could give legitimacy to the growing demands of the poor and developing world for more flexibility on patent issues, the US sent a clear message to the world that patents are more important than public health. Such a calculated move was not only meant to serve the corporate interests of drug manufacturers, but also to convey the message to the developing nations that the US administration would continue its discriminatory policy on the issue of patents.”
2004 Announcement of the failure of the 120 million dollar AIDSVAX program.
January) Japan is claimed to have the first outbreak of avian influenza “H5N1” since 1925, but it isn’t clear who sequenced the “H5N1” strain back in 1925).
(January) WHO confirms “H5N1 infection” in 11 people, eight fatal, in Thailand and Vietnam, but no cases of person to person transmission. The virus has wreaked havoc among poultry in Thailand, Vietnam, Japan and South Korea, and has also appeared in a duck farm in China. WHO is developing vaccine candidates using “H5N1” viruses isolated in 2003 and 2004, at laboratories in the U.S. and U.K. news@nature.com publishes that reverse genetics could offer forward-thinking flu vaccine (23 Jan 2004) doi:10.1038/news040119-15.
(February) United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization advises governments in affected areas that mass culling of birds is failing to halt the disease and that vaccination of targeted poultry flocks is required as well.
(February) West Africa polio campaign is boycotted by Nigerian states. A mass poliomyelitis vaccination campaign got under way to immunize 63 million children across west Africa but was boycotted by four predominantly Muslim states in Nigeria, where leaders claim the oral vaccine causes sterility and spreads AIDS.BMJ (328:485 2004). The west African campaign was intended as a final push to stamp out the disease in the region and is part of the World Health Organization’s 15 year drive to halt transmission of the poliomyelitis virus across the world by 2005. According to Dr Haruna Kaita, the head of the medical team that conducted the test in India, the vaccines contain “undeclared contaminants that can cause malfunctioning of the testes and cause infertility in women.” The team also found “some toxic substances.” “Polio controversy started long ago,” said Dr Kaita. “If you find one batch defective, you should condemn all batches. What these people [proponents of the vaccine] are saying is unethical, illegal, and criminal, and they know that these things are contaminated and they have the potential to cause human hazards. They should be banned rather than cause diseases in innocent children.”
(April 2) FDA recalls Aventis Pasteur’s Imovax rabies vaccine lots: X0667-2, X0667-3, W1419-2, W1419-3. “Precautionary measure stemming from the discovery through routine testing of a non-inactivated production strain of virus in a single product lot, which was not distributed.”
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) retreats from the stated 1999 goal of the AAP and the PHS to remove thimerosal from U.S. vaccines … “Despite its removal from many childhood vaccines, thimerosal is still routinely added to some formulations of influenza vaccine administered to U.S. infants, as well as to several other vaccines (e.g. tetanus-diphtheria and monovalent tetanus) administered to older children and adults.
Inactivated influenza vaccine recommended for all children 6–23 months of age.
2005 (February 24) New bird flu symptoms reported and the B.C. Centre for Disease Control is warning doctors to look out for new symptoms related to the deadly avian flu outbreak in Southeast Asia. At least two children in Vietnam who died of bird flu had diarrhea and seizures rather than classic respiratory symptoms. In the Feb. 17 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers from the Oxford University ClinicalResearch Unit in Ho Chi Minh City said two children died in February 2004 of acute encephalitis that was caused by the “H5N1” type of bird flu. Lab tests showed the “H5N1” virus in the children’s feces, raising fears that the virus could be passed from person to person. Dr. Aleina Tweed, an epidemiologist, said doctors in British Columbia are being told to watch for gastrointestinal problems, especially in children, when they see sick people who have recently travelled in Southeast Asia.
Evidence that vaccine adjuvants like squalene (MF-59), when they have been added to certain lots of anthrax (and perhaps “HIV”) vaccines given to soldiers on threat of court martial if they don’t roll up their shirt on command, have induced autoimmune syndromes in almost 100% of every sick Gulf-War I veteran tested, and have evoked antibodies to squalene in their blood (Gary Matsumoto. Vaccine A, Basic Books Publisher, 2005). Squalene and other adjuvants have been used by scientists for many years to induce rodents to develop arthritis, macrophagic myofasciitis, mutliple-sclerosis (demyelinating syndromes), and lupus (Holmdahl et al. Arthritis induced in rats with nonimmunogenic adjuvants as models for rheumatoid arthritis Immunol Rev. Dec;184:184-202, 2001; Gherardi NK. Lessons from macrophagic myofasciitis: towards definition of a vaccine adjuvant-related syndrome. Rev Neurol (Paris). Feb;159(2):162-4), 2003).
An “encephalitis vaccine” mandated by the CDC for collage-age (young adults) withdrawn for safety reasons (see FDA’s 2005 recall list). Also see CDC’s MMWR. www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5541a2.htm
Merck claims that its Human papilloma vaccine: “was 100 percent effective in preventing precancerous cervical disease, but only when given to women and girls who had never engaged in sex at the time of the shots,” yet, “documents prepared by the FDA suggest some women with persistent HPV infections could be at higher risk of cervical cancer after taking the vaccine.”Dr. Schiffman heads the HPV Troup in the Division of Cancer, Epidemiology,!andGenetics at NCI and is a tenured senior investigator. In mid March,!Dr. Mark Schiffman,MD, MPH, called CAP TODAY’s editor to voice a troubling concern: that laboratories are failing to clinically validate their HPV tests” (September 2005 issue of Pathology/Laboratory Medicine/ and Laboratory Management article released monthly by The Collage ofAmerican Pathologists-CAP). “What surprises me is that this the certainty with which these tests for HPV and cervical cancer} could in any way be controversial, he says. “The issue is not so much controversial, of course, as it is loaded-with money and competitive claims, scientific complexity, and grave medical concerns” (Dr. Schiffman). In the same article, Even Attila Lorincz, PhD, chief scientific officer and senior VP of research development at Digene (one of the HPV test-kit makers) says that “much of the confusion simply boils down to analytical and clinical accuracy is not well enough understood or described by people who write or talk about it,” and that “the problem surfaces in the HPV literature with distressing regularity.”
(August) Deception appears to be the name of the game when the facts reveal that current medical practices are doing major harm to Ameerica’s children. The media is often deceived by medical “experts” whose agenda the reporters don’t recognize. NBC’s moderator, Tim Russert, appears to have been “had” when he accepted as Gospel what Dr. Feinberg’s false claim that since 2003 there has been no Thimerosal preservative used in any vaccines given to infants (other than flue vaccine).
FDA’s current table of vaccine contents calls the lie. (See: http://www.FDA.gov/cber/vaccine/thimerosal.htm). “The latest table still lists Multiple dose DT by Aventis Pastuer ltd as fully preserved; TT vaccine is preserved with Thimerasol; Japanese encephalitis vaccine JE-VAC is thimerasol preserved; Meningococcal vaccine (Menomune) in multidose vials is preserved with Thirmerasol.
21CFR610.15(A) is part of the Code of Federal regulations. It is a law and it is legally binding. It states that a manufacturer must prove that the component is “safe” before putting it into a vaccine as a preservative. This SAFETY test has never been done. FDA has never been taken to task for allowing preservatives that are known to cause neurological damage to be used in vaccines.
Biodefense and Pandemic and Vaccine and Drug Development Act– bill to amend the Public Health Service Act to enhance biodefense and pandemic preparedness activities, to use untested vaccines, drugs, medical products, or “security countermeasures.” without any liability for claims for loss of property, personal injury, or death arising out of, reasonably relating to, or resulting from the design, development, clinical testing and investigation, manufacture, labeling, distribution, sale, purchase, donation, dispensing, prescribing, administration, or use of a security countermeasure or qualified pandemic or epidemic product distributed, sold, purchased, donated, dispensed, prescribed, administered, or used in anticipation of and preparation for, in defense against, or in response to, or recovery from an actual or potential public health emergency that is a designated security countermeasure or a qualified pandemic or epidemic product…” (http://thomas.loc.gov/ Search Bill Title or Number – S.1873RS click ‘enter bill number).’
Newsweek reports that VaxGen, a little-known California biotechnology company, will start its first delivery of its anthrax vaccine to the government six months later than riginally slated. The company was awarded an $877.5 million contract to produce and manufacture the vaccine, which was developed by the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID). Seventy five million doses of VaxGen’s vaccine are to be procured for the Strategic National Stockpile under Project Bioshield, a joint Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) initiative to stimulate the creation of a domestic biodefense industry. Five million doses of Vaxgen competitor Bioport’s vaccine were procured earlier this year in response to Bioport’s aggressive lobbying and anti-VaxGen campaign.
VaxGen’s vaccine has not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Bioport’s vaccine, which has been used by the Defense Department, has been controversial because of its side effects and its FDA approval has been disputed (Project On Government Oversight, Vera Hassner Sharav).
(September) Three more laboratory-confirmed cases of “H5N1” strike Indonesia. President George W. Bush calls for an international partnership that would require countries facing an influenza outbreak to share information and samples with the WHO. But experts say research would speed up if the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) influenza branch threw open its databases of virus sequences and immunological and epidemiological data, and complain that too few of the flu data collected by the CDC are made generally available.
(November) Chinese scientists report “H5N1” avian flu infection in pigs, raising concerns that the virus could exchange genes with human flu strains in this ‘mixing vessel’. None of these pigs was ill, according to National Geographic article, Nov. 2005. “H5N1” virus has spread throughout most of SE Asia, resulting in the culling of over 100 million chickens. In Vietnam and Thailand, the pandemic has infected at least 37 people, with 26 deaths.
MMR-V (measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox) licensed for use in children 12 months to 12 years of age.
Meningococcal conjugate vaccine (MCV4 or MenactraT) licensed in 2005. MCV4 is recommended for all children at their routine preadolescent visit (11 to 12 years of age). MCV4 is the preferred vaccine for people 11 to 55 years of age in these risk groups, but MPSV4 can be used if MCV4 is not available. MPSV4 should be used for children 2 to 10 years old, and adults over 55, who are at risk.
2006 (March) Article appears in the New England Journal of Medicine confirming that “HIV” tests show positive results after recent flu vaccination. (Christian, P. Erickson,Todd McNiff, Jeffrey D. Klausner. Influenza Vaccination and False Positive HIV Results New England Journal of Medicine, Number 13, Volume 354:1422-1423, March 30, 2006).
(March) An article in the March 10, 2006 issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons (JPandS.org) shows that since mercury was removed from childhood vaccines, the alarming increase in reported rates of autism and other neurological disorders (NDs) in children not only stopped, but actually dropped sharply –by as much as 35%. Using the government’s own databases, David A. Geier, B.A. and Mark R. Geier, M.D., Ph.D. analyzed reports of childhood NDs, including autism, before and after removal of mercury-based preservatives. The authors analyzed data from the CDC’s VaccineAdverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) and the California Department of Developmental Services (CDDS) in “Early Downward Trends in Neurodevelopmental Disorders Following Removal of Thimerosal-Containing Vaccines.”
“The numbers from California show that reported autism rates hit a high of 800 in May 2003. If that trend had continued, the reports would have skyrocketed to more than 1000 by the beginning of 2006. But in fact, the Geiers report that the number actually went down to only 620, a real decrease of 22%, and a decrease from the projections of 35%. This analysis directly contradicts 2004 recommendations of the Institute of Medicine which examined vaccine safety data from the National Immunization Program (NIP) of the CDC. While not willing to either rule out or to corroborate a relationship between mercury and autism, the IOM soft-pedaled its findings, and decided no more studies were needed. The authors write: “The IOM stated that the evidence favored rejection of a causal relationship between thimerosal and autism, that such a relationship was not biologically plausible, and that no further studies should be conducted to evaluate it.”
*Thimerosal(Mercury) has not been removed from all vaccines-full dose or trace still exists in some vaccines.
(March) Chiron Recalls Nearly 5.5 Million Vaccine Doses. California-based biotechnology company Chiron Corp. announced Thursday that it’s recalling and withdrawing almost 5.5 million doses of a measles, mumps and rubella vaccine distributed to developing countries and in Italy. The move was made because the vaccine caused a higher rate of such adverse effects such as fever, allergic reactions and glandular swelling than other similar vaccines, the Associated Press reported. The reactions occurred just after inoculation and do not indicate any long-term risk, according to Chiron, which described the recall and withdrawal as a precaution.
(April) Associated press releases article claiming that Bangladesh will vaccinate about 18 million children aged 5 and under to combat polio, which recently re-emerged after authorities believed it had been eradicated five years ago, the country’s health minister said Saturday. Bangladesh carried out extensive vaccination programs in 1995-2004, with the last polio case reported in August 2000, according to the government and WHO.
During National Infant Immunization week, statistics are released that show to date, the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) has paid $1.2 billion to families who have proven that their children suffer permanent disabilities or have died from a vaccine reaction. Less than 25 percent of families who apply through VICP ever get compensated. Many more families never apply for compensation since they do not recognize the symptoms of vaccine damage.
(Sept 1) Polio reported on the rise in Nigeria Lagos, Nigeria despite near-universal vaccination. Nigerian authorities on Friday reported a sharp rise in the number of polio cases in Africa’s most populous country over recent months, despite a government immunization drive.
(December)Senate approves Burr’s bioterrorism bill-a bill to establish the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, commonly referred to as BARDA, which passed by unanimous consent. The bill describes how forced vaccines and quarantines should be signed into law as the ‘debate’ regarding Bush’s war in Iraq continues.
(November) Cervical cancer vaccination funding for Australian girls rejected CSL Limited, Australia’s leading biopharmaceutical company, announced that the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC) rejected CSL’s funding application for its cervical cancer vaccine GARDASIL(r). CSL applied to the PBAC for National Immunisation Program funding for the vaccine for three groups of women, based on the use approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA). An ongoing cohort of 11-12 year old girls delivered through a schools-based program at the end of primary school, a catch-up program for high-school girls (aged 13-18) delivered through secondary schools and a general practice based program for women aged 19-26. Although disappointed, CSL remains committed to securing Government funding for GARDASIL in Australia and will continue to work closely with the Government and PBAC until this is achieved.
Two new tetanus toxoid-diphtheria-acellular pertussis (Tdap) vaccines were licensed. These vaccines are the first pertussis-containing vaccines that can be given to persons older than 7 years. Tetanus toxoid is available as a single shot (TT) but it rarely is given that way as it’s best to also provide needed protection against other diseases at the same time. Children younger than age seven years receive DTaP (tetanus, diphtheria, and acellular pertussis). If they cannot receive the pertussis component of the combined vaccine, they can receive DT (diphtheria and tetanus toxoids for pediatric use). DTaP also can be given as part of two different combination vaccines; one includes DTaP, inactivated polio vaccine, and hepatitis B vaccine, and another contains DTaP and Hib vaccine.
2007 Virological failure is a technical term among “HIV-AIDS” proponents that simply means, a drug has failed to suppress virus because it doesn’t work.( Lockman S. et al., Response to Antiretroviral Therapy after a Single, Peripartum Dose of Nevirapine. The New England Journal of Medicine 356 january 11, 2007).
HPV-Gardasil- vaccine licensed.
Meningitis vaccine-Menactra licensed.
Current Vaccine Schedule CDC Recommendations. (http://www.nytimes.com). Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new immunization schedules, including the first separate ones for adolescents. The recommendations cover two new vaccines for teenagers: one for the virus that causes cervical cancer and the other for a bacterium that causes meningitis and other diseases. The agency has updated its recommended list of vaccines several times over the past 15 years, always after lengthy debate. Each state, rather than the C.D.C., decides which vaccines to make compulsory for entry into school. And some new vaccines are recommended rather than required because their prices are so high.
December 11 Lots of PedvaxHIB® [Haemophilus b Conjugate Vaccine (Meningococcal Protein Conjugate)] and COMVAX® [Haemophilus b Conjugate (Meningococcal Protein Conjugate) and Hepatitis B Recombinant) Vaccine] NDC 0006-4897-00 and 0006-4898-00 Recalled due to lack of assurance of product sterility. http://www.fda.gov/cber/recalls/merckhib121107.htm
References:
American Journal of Public Health
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