by Richard Moskowitz, M.D.

Postscript on Immunizations:

Directions for Future Research

In "The Case Against Immunizations," my intention was simply to understand my own experience, to develop a coherent and plausible line of reasoning that could make sense out of what I had read and thought about, and out of what my patients were telling me. [note 57] The next step is to address the issue of experimental verification, to try to sketch out how to look for valid and repeatable evidence for the safety, efficacy, and mode of action of the common vaccines.

In rereading my article, I was surprised to discover that even the more speculative ideas in it could in fact be tested quite easily, using only the standard research techniques now in common use, which naturally makes me even more curious why such studies were not carried out long ago. Moreover, as I indicated in the text, a number of investigators have already entertained these ideas and even made them public. The obvious reason why they have not been taken seriously is that they are heretical, that even taking the time to study them would require a "paradigm shift" of some magnitude. [note 58]

How Effective Are the Vaccines?

In the text I argued that, if vaccines act by suppressing the immune system's normal capacity to mount an acute response to infection, then

1) a mere drop in the incidence of the acute disease can no longer be accepted as a measure of true immunity; and

2) neither can the presence or concentration of specific antibodies, for the same reason as the diseases in question continue to break out even in serologically highly immune populations.

What would be a far more interesting and relevant measurement would be the degree to which a vaccine protects against the acute disease when it actually does break out, which could be readily ascertained by looking at its attack rate and severity among those fully or partly "immunized," as compared with their unvaccinated friends and neighbors. Although saying nothing about the possibility of immunosuppression, such a study would at least give a truer measure of the vaccine's power to do what its proponents want them to do.

I cannot resist pointing out that all research of this kind requires a sizable group of unimmunized people, courtesy of the same parents who are refusing to vaccinate their kids despite the concerted efforts of the medical and public health authorities to intimidate and punish them. The same result could of course be achieved far more efficiently simply by making the vaccines optional, as they are in West Germany, Sweden, the UK, and other developed countries, and thus allowing the experimental and control groups in effect to select themselves. Conversely, our frantic efforts to secure 100% compliance with the present mandate succeed only in making such studies impossible.

A closely related kind of study would be to measure the effectiveness of revaccination at varying intervals after the original series, giving rise in this case to two control groups:

1) the same unvaccinated group, as before, and

2) another group of children previously vaccinated whose parents decided not to give them the subsequent booster dose.

Such a study would also measure the incidence and severity of the wild-type or acute disease when it does break out, rather than merely the titer or level of circulating antibody, which is probably far less relevant. On the basis of the preliminary investigations I cited in the text, my hunch is that both the primary and booster doses of vaccine give considerably less protection in these situations than either a simple drop in incidence or a rise in antibody titer would indicate. Furthermore, both kinds of study could easily be carried out in suitable animal populations, using vaccines against important diseases peculiar to each species, like canine distemper, leptospirosis, feline leukemia, and so forth, inasmuch as our basic concern remains the efficacy and mode of action of vaccines in general.

The third possibility would be to consider the relationship between specific antibody levels and "immunity" in the larger sense, as outlined above. This could be done relatively simply by measuring baseline antibody titers at regular intervals in everybody, and then retrospectively comparing them in a subgroup of vaccinated kids who later developed the disease with another comparable subgroup who did not. Finally, both could be compared with identical subgroups among the unvaccinated, all or most of whom would presumably show no measurable titers at all prior to exposure.

How Do the Vaccines Act?

As I argued in the text, the problem with such studies is that they all systematically ignore the crucial possibility that vaccines may also act immunosuppressively and thus provoke or elicit a variety of chronic diseases more or less insidiously over long periods of time. This is precisely why the question of their effectiveness ultimately cannot be studied in isolation, without also addressing their mechanism of action in a more comprehensive fashion. Indeed, the narrow issue of "effectiveness" is itself quite misleading, since it tends to focus our attention on the classic acute disease, and to ignore the broad spectrum of biological responses associated with bacteria, viruses, and the vaccines derived from them, including latent, subclinical, and chronic infection as well. In particular, we are already well acquainted with many situations in which inability to develop acute disease represents the exact opposite of good health, i. e., a condition of chronic immune tolerance rather than true immunity.

At the most basic level, we need to study the effect of vaccines both acutely and over the long term on various paramaters of general health and illness. In the case of the pertussis vaccine, for example, careful prospective studies could measure the incidence and severity of blood and CNS abnormalities after vaccination at the usual times and at standard intervals before and after. This could be done relatively inexpensively by performing complete blood counts (CBC's), brief neurological exams, and simple behavioral and psychological assessments on self-selected groups of vaccinated and unvaccinated children.

As a supplement to the above, a number of clinical variables could also be followed at the time of "well-child" and other pediatric visits, such as the incidence and severity of important childhood illnesses like URI's, tonsil, throat, sinus, and ear infections, growth and developmental retardation, swollen glands, and the like, in vaccinated and unvaccinated kids over a period of years. The same format would also make it possible to sort out patterns of morbidity peculiar to each particular vaccine. Once again, the crucial importance of large groups of unvaccinated subjects is evident. With regard to pertussis, my clinical experience so far strongly suggests that the vaccinated group would show a much higher incidence and morbidity from chronic and recurrent infections, with significantly higher rates of complications and disability (myringotomy, hearing loss, poor school performance, etc.).

Finally, the same children could be followed through latency and adolescence to ascertain the prevalence and severity of the whole gamut of chronic ailments, including eczema and asthma, rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus, ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease, MS and other degenerative diseases, hyperactivity and learning disabilities, school and behavior problems, and leukemia and other forms of cancer. I hope I'm wrong, but once again my clinical impression suggests that the vaccinated group would fare significantly worse in all of these categories.

Another more limited study could trace the effect of vaccines on the prevalence and morbidity of other acute infections to which these same children were exposed (influenza, hepatitis, mono, Lyme disease, etc.), to determine whether and to what extent the vaccination process interferes with the immune system's ability to develop an acute response to infection. In this case, there would be two control groups:

1) unvaccinated kids who were later exposed to influenza, hepatitis, mono, and the like; and

2) unvaccinated kids who contracted and recovered from vaccine-preventable diseases (measles, mumps, or whatever) prior to their exposure to influenza, mono, hepatitis, etc.

Here I could simply confess a theoretical bias that both control groups, while perhaps as likely to contract the diseases in question, would show less acute and chronic morbidity as a result of it than their vaccinated counterparts, a bias for which I would gladly substitute more accurate information.

It would also be comparatively simple to design acceptable animal studies along these same lines, to consider the possibility of vaccines acting immunosuppressively. After vaccinating or not vaccinating a given species against the diseases routinely targeted for that animal, we could then measure, for example, leucocyte and macrophage activity both in vivo and in vitro in response to various challenges, such as exposure to unrelated infections, allergens, and chemicals. Other possibilities might include comparing standard liver-function tests and the ability of the spleen and bone marrow in both vaccinated and unvaccinated animals to reject homografts or to respond to hemorrhage or blood transfusion if necessary.

Finally, on the cellular level, cytogenetic studies could also show the effect of vaccination on karyotype and chromosome morphology, beginning with "target" cells for which the vaccine has a known affinity (e. g., liver parenchymal cells in hepatitis, parotid acinar cells in mumps, etc.). With the help of electron microscopy, painstaking examination could also detect the presence of viral DNA or RNA "episomes" or particles inside these same cells, and confirm the suspicion of latency and chronic infection in the case of the live vaccines at least.

In any case, regardless of which studies are actually carried out, the point is that the technology to do them already exists. The only obstacle to their being done is our own refusal to acknowledge the likelihood that vaccines are not simply "wonder drugs" producing specific antibodies and nothing more, but complex, biological agents whose effects on the human organism are virtually unknown and urgently need to be investigated.

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Notes
57. Moskowitz, R., "The Case Against Immunizations," Journal of the American Institute of Homeopathy 76:7, March 1983.

58. Cf. Kuhn, T., The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd Ed., University of Chicago, 1970, Chapters 1 and 2.