Pneumonia Prevnar (pneumococcal)
Vaccine Pushed on Infants Causes Drug-Resistant Pneumonia:
JAMA Study
Aside from the direct risks of vaccination, yet another is now
clearly documented: drug-resistant forms of the diseases.
6 September 2010
A drug-resistant strain of pneumonia is the result of a highly-praised vaccine routinely given to infants three times in their first year of life, according to a study that will be published in tomorrow's Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The timing of this study is particularly interesting, as it comes shortly after the replacement of the heptavalent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV-7) with an updated version, PCV-13.
The study's introduction reads:
The rapid increase in multiresistant serotype 19A as a cause of invasive and respiratory pneumococcal disease has been associated in time with the widespread implementation of 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccination (PCV-7) inseveral countries. Because spontaneous fluctuations in time and antibiotic selective pressure may have induced this serotype 19A increase, controlled studies are needed to assess the role of PCV-7.
The goal of this study was to see if suspicions of a connection between the use of PCV-7 vaccinations has caused the increase in drug-resistant pneumonias. The results are impressive. There can be no reasonable doubt that pneumonia vaccinations are creating a new, more virulent and less treatable form of the disease. Now that it's been released, what can stop it?
The authors also point out that the full effects of PCV-7 on development of the drug-resistant bacteria may not be fully defined by the study, since it focused on only the first three PCV-7 vaccinations, ignoring that the series consists of a fourth. They note, also, that their sampling method may have minimized the real story—that more drug-resistant bacteria may have emerged than they had accounted for.
The Study
Entitled "Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccination and Nasopharyngeal Acquisition
of Pneumococcal Serotype 19A Strains", the study was performed in the
Netherlands and funded by the Dutch Ministry of Health. Interestingly, several
authors have significant financial ties with Big Pharma. Many of them have
received grants from GlaxoSmithKline, Wyeth, Pfizer, Baxter, and Novartis,
making the results of this study even more remarkable. However, the lead author,
Elske J.M. vanGils, MD, reported no such conflicts.
The study consisted of 1,003 healthy newborns and followed them to age 24 months. The infants were randomly assigned to groups. One group received two doses of PCV-7 at ages 2 and 4 months, the second group received three doses at ages 2, 4, and 11 months, and the third group was not vaccinated with PCV-7.
At the end of the study, 16.2% of the three-dose group had been found to harbor serotype 19A bacteria. The unvaccinated group had a 9.2% rate, and the two-dose group had a 13.2% rate.
Will the Replacement Vaccine Improve Matters?
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recently replaced PCV-7 with PCV-13,
and those children who have already received PCV-7 are being pressed to also
take the new version.
There is little reason to believe that the new vaccine will improve matters. It is, in fact, more likely to make things worse. It consists of 13 strains of pneumonia, including the ones in PCV-7. The only difference the new vaccine could make is to worsen the situation by causing even more drug-resistant bacteria to emerge.
The authors' conclusion is fairly tame:
However, we need to be aware that other serotypes with similar characteristics and disease potential may be the next in line to proliferate and therefore pneumococcal surveillance remains important after introduction of expanded pneumococcal conjugate vaccines.
It's a shame that the authors don't state the obvious: The introduction of pneumonia vaccines is resulting in far greater pneumonia risk than existed before. Even if the PCV-13 vaccine does protect against pneumonia, the fact is that, ultimately, it is producing more virulent and less treatable forms of the disease.
Doctors owe it to patients to inform them that any protection they might gain against pneumonia will ultimately come at the cost of worse disease for which there is no treatment. Parents of newborns should consider the plight of their own children as their grandchildren face virulent disease that was unknown to their grandparents, disease created by the vaccines their doctors are now pushing on them.
What is absolutely clear is that the vaccination scheme is not a carefully thought out program with testing to assure that the public's health is protected. Instead, the public is nothing but a vast testing lab, with each and every person a potential lab rat.