DEADLY INJECTION: THE HIDDEN INGREDIENTS IN VACCINES
By Gary Null, PhD and Nancy Ashley, VMD, MS
For more than 100 years, Americans have lined up to take their vaccines. We have never questioned the safety and efficacy of these vaccines, and why should we? Vaccines are backed by the full faith and confidence of the entire scientific community, including the FDA, the CDC, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, and virtually all of the esteemed medical journals, including the British Medical Journal, the Lancet, and the Journal of the American Medical Association, have given their unconditional support to vaccines. Therefore, in fact, if any physician, scientist, journalist, or health activist ever challenges either the safety or efficacy of vaccines, they are immediately assaulted. The normal arguments are:
- There are dozens of gold standard studies proving beyond a shadow of a doubt the safety and efficacy of every vaccine and every combination of vaccines.
- There is an independent group of scientists at the FDA and the CDC that examines the childhood vaccine schedule to make sure it is appropriate.
- There is no scientific proof that vaccines are dangerous.
- On rare occasions, when someone does have an adverse reaction, it in no way affects the safety and efficacy for anyone else.
- Virtually all major scourges -- polio, smallpox, and measles -- were eliminated by our vaccine program.
Well, I’m persuaded. But there is one little point – what if there is evidence that can prove that vaccines are neither safe nor effective for a given individual? For example, let’s examine the ingredients. Analyzing the data from the finest peer-reviewed studies, are the ingredients non-toxic, non-allergic, non-stressing to the body’s immune system?
Oops! It seems we have a problem, Scotty.
A recent story in the Salem News should have made headlines across the country.1 The reporter describes in detail how vaccines are contaminated with dangerous ingredients -- including cancer, viruses, and bacteria -- which translate into the creation of lifelong patients for the pharmaceutical industry. He cites statistics showing that the lifespan of Americans is decreasing in direct relationship to the increase of vaccines. Can it be true that all the vaccines are contaminated and always have been? How did this get covered up? Who was involved? Scientists, regulatory agencies, members of Congress in oversight positions, all were complicit in the conspiracy of silence and denial of accountability. But you won’t find this story in the New York Times or any of the major media. It won’t make a difference what this reporter said. It won’t lead to health journalists advocating a change in vaccine policies. We won’t have physicians and nurses changing their minds about the safety and efficacy of vaccines. Why? Because they are all part of the official story. They are part of the cult, with the cult-like mind set of true believers. And they must keep protecting the official story at all costs. This is not the way public health policies should be administered.
So at a time of year when vaccines are being pushed upon us from all sides, let’s take a look at what is really in vaccines and how it got there.
THE HISTORY OF VACCINE CONTAMINATION
The common perception that vaccines are a safe, clean product is far removed from reality. The early vaccinologists used technology which was in its infancy, created as they went along with very little thought for the consequences. How did they go about making vaccines in the first place? They started with virus samples, which they obtained primitively from actual cases of disease: polio virus came from a suspension of ground up backbone from a deceased polio victim, measles virus was obtained from a throat culture from a sick 11 year-old boy, mumps virus (the Jeryl Lynn strain) was taken from a throat culture from the daughter of famed vaccine developer, Maurice Hilleman2, the hepatitis B vaccine was derived from infected human blood3, and so on. Of course, since all virus samples for vaccine manufacture were obtained from real life situations, they came with their own bacteria, viruses, and contaminants which were not sterilized away. It might be surprising for most people to learn that vaccines today are still based in these same primitive virus cultures.
Next, in order to produce vaccines for distribution it is necessary to have a large quantity of virus. Since viruses can only grow in a living medium, how could they propagate the viruses? Vaccines were developed by injecting live animals with viruses and then killing them to obtain enough infected tissue to grow large quantities of the virus. In the case of polio, it was the rhesus and African green monkeys that were used. As techniques improved, organs or cells of animals, as well as human tissue, were used, and we currently have vaccines propagated in chick fibroblast cells, chick embryos, chick retinal cells, monkey kidney cells, aborted human fetal lung fibroblast cells, chick kidney cells, mouse brain culture, rhesus fetal lung tissue culture, and sheep red blood cells, to name a few.4 Possibly the most bizarre substrate choice is the recently- approved Cervarix human papillomavirus vaccine by GlaxoSmithKline, which grows the virus in insect cells (Trichoplusia ni, the Cabbage Looper – a member of the moth family).5
Live-attenuated vaccines add yet more animal products to the mix by a process known as passaging.6 In order to reduce the virulence of a virus so that it won’t immediately sicken the vaccine recipient, it is “passaged” by injecting the virus into a series of animals or animal cells – sometimes more than one type -- collecting fluid after the cell or animal appears infected, and repeating the process again and again into more subjects until the virulence is reduced. The consequence, of course, is that with each passage, more foreign cells, proteins, viruses, bacteria, and fragments of DNA are taken from their animal sources and end up in the vaccine.
Once scientists have obtained the virus they deem acceptable, this becomes the seed virus. It is then nurtured with a variety of nutrients, including fetal calf serum, bovine extract, yeast, bovine serum albumin, and human serum albumin. Another animal-based product, porcine trypsin, is used earlier in the process to break down the virus to facilitate viral infection in tissue7.
But surely after they have obtained enough virus to make a vaccine, they purify the end product and filter all of this animal tissue out? Actually, no. There are many obstacles to any successful purification process: they can’t risk destroying the virus they need for the vaccine, and they also can’t filter out anything smaller than the virus itself.8 The result is that our vaccines are crude, unpurified products which cannot be separated from the debris of the cells on which they are grown. The limited tests for contaminants can identify some of the known pathogens, but mostly ignore the vast host of unknown, unstudied small particles and chemicals. How can they even evaluate unwanted viruses in vaccines or even know for sure what is there? The gold standard test to date is the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) which can detect small DNA fragments. The inherent problem, however, is that there has to be a known DNA segment that is unique to a certain pathogen in order for PCR to successfully identify it. PCR therefore could never be used to prove a vaccine to be pure because it cannot identify an unknown virus or contaminant. In many cases, safety or purity of a vaccine is tested by injecting it into animals and evaluating them for infection or tumor formation – a cumbersome, time-consuming, and ultimately unreliable method. As we have seen repeatedly, manufacturers tend to look for a problem only after people are sickened by vaccines. Behind closed doors, many scientists in the field have expressed deep concern about the state of our vaccines. But even the Center for Biologics Evaluation & Research (CBER), which is the arm of the FDA responsible for monitoring vaccine safety, has stated that under current regulations they can only give recommendations to vaccine manufacturers. They have no control over how vaccines are made or what substrates or cells are used.9
We know that these potentially hazardous animal products are used intentionally by the manufacturers and are a part of vaccines. So let’s talk about what has been found in vaccines that wasn’t intended to be there.
ADVENTITIOUS AGENTS
Adventitious agents are microorganisms that have been unintentionally introduced into the manufacturing process of a vaccine and cause contamination. They can be infectious, inflammatory, or tumorigenic, and there are numerous examples throughout vaccine history of contamination with unexpected pathogens.10
Viruses:
Early on it was discovered that using animals or embryos in primary cell cultures resulted in many unwanted viruses ending up in the vaccines. Simian Virus 40 (SV40), discovered in the manufacture of the polio vaccine, is perhaps the best known of these viruses. Because both the Salk and the Sabin vaccines exclusively used monkey kidneys to produce poliovirus, both vaccines were completely contaminated with SV40, which was given to millions of children in the 1950s and 1960s. According to Dr. Ben Sweet, a Merck researcher at the time, “when we started growing the vaccines, we just couldn’t get rid of the SV-40 contaminated virus. We tried to neutralize it, but couldn’t.” 11
Even the use of formaldehyde in the injectable (Salk) polio vaccine wasn’t able to kill it. SV40 is considered an oncogenic virus and it is actually used to induce cancer in the lab setting. The question is then: did widespread vaccination with SV40-contaminated vaccine in the 1950’s and 1960’s play a role in the exponential increase of cancer in the US? In fact, SV 40 has been isolated in many types of cancer, especially brain tumors, bone cancer, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and malignant mesothelioma – a cancer usually associated with asbestos.12 Many researchers believe there is a connection. Although SV40 was ultimately eliminated from the polio vaccines, the other endogenous simian viruses present in monkey kidneys – along with their pathogenic potential -- have been completely ignored.
More recently, in 2010, both rotavirus vaccines were found to be contaminated with porcine circoviruses. Briefly withdrawing Rotarix by GlaxoSmithKine from the market for containing porcine circovirus 1 (PCV1), the FDA allowed it back in use after discovering that RotaTeq, the competing vaccine by Merck, contained both PCV1 and PCV2. Although PCV1 causes only mild disease in pigs, PCV2 causes a serious wasting disease in piglets which is usually fatal. Confronted with the only two rotavirus vaccines on the market both contaminated with circovirus, the FDA chose neither to investigate the potential hazard of this nor to stop giving the vaccine.13, 14 They instead threw up their hands and declared business as usual.
Reverse Transcriptase (RT):
Reverse transcriptase is an enzyme which allows DNA to be synthesized from an RNA template and be incorporated into a cell where it has not been previously, and is an integral factor in the function of retroviruses, such as HIV or the feline leukemia virus.15 In 1996, RT activity was discovered in the MMR vaccine, raising concerns that the vaccine had been contaminated with retroviruses which can cause both disease and initiation of cancer. The World Health Organization (WHO) was responsible for investigating this potential safety hazard. Did they withdraw the vaccine? Did they warn the public about possible risks? No. Without telling the public, the WHO organized studies at certain laboratories which determined that the RT activity was associated with two endogenous avian retroviruses: EAV and ALV. The Avian Leukosis Virus (ALV) can cause cancer in birds, and theoretically could infect the cells of vaccine recipients via RT and cause cancer in them as well. The test methods were not very reassuring: investigators attempted to infect human cells with ALV for only 48 hours before proclaiming that no merger of virus and human DNA had been observed. There was also the possibility that avian virus RT could combine with the live measles virus to create new mutant viruses, which likewise “had not been observed.” Researchers from the WHO were unable to study longer term consequences of the RT fragments in the MMR because the measles virus itself killed the growing culture within 3 or 4 days. So ultimately, the WHO decided that because there was no clear evidence that any harm had occurred thus far, they would leave the MMR vaccine as it was and not require the manufacturers to use a substrate that was RT-free. Since then, endogenous avian vaccines have likewise been found in all the egg-based vaccines -- influenza, yellow fever, and smallpox.16 -- and there has been little investigation into the significance or possible harm.
Bacteria:
It is known that many types of bacteria contaminate vaccines during manufacture, but in most cases this does not come to the attention of the public. In 2007, Merck had to recall 1.2 million doses of PedvaxHIB and COMVAX vaccines (Haemophilus Influenza type B and combined Haemophilus Influenza type B and Hepatitis B) because of bacterial contamination with Bacillus cereus, a gram positive bacteria that frequently causes food poisoning.17
The mycoplasmas are a large class of bacteria and are frequent contaminants of primary and continuous cell lines that are used to make vaccines. While many are harmless, others can cause serious disease in humans, including respiratory ailments and chronic fatigue-like symptoms. Mycoplasma contamination is a serious enough problem that the industry group, Parenteral Drug Association, created a separate Mycoplasma Task Force. 18
The main source of mycoplasma infection for vaccine makers is cross contamination by infected cell culture used in the same laboratory.19
Mycoplasma also commonly infects chickens and eggs. While pathogen-free eggs are used to create vaccine virus seeds, the vaccines themselves are produced from commercial eggs.20 Even though the flocks are regularly tested for a variety of avian pathogens, they only test for the two most common types of mycoplasma, which cannot protect against the host of other mycoplasmas that are common in chickens and eggs. Testing is discretionary, and instead, regulation tends to emphasize rigorous “downstream” inactivation protocols, using formaldehyde and other toxic chemicals to kill the bacteria they know are present. 21
Cancer:
When the famous vaccinologist, Dr. Maurice Hillemann, created an adenovirus vaccine (for the military) from an intestinal cell line he believed to be from normal human tissue, he later found to his chagrin, after a few people had already received his vaccine, that the culture was completely contaminated with cervical cancer (HeLa cells). 22 The cancerous cells had invaded his previously normal cells simply from being in the same laboratory. Does this still happen today? You bet it does. Unfortunately, it seems impossible to completely prevent laboratory contamination from taking place.
Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy
Other pathogens potentially present in human vaccines and of great concern include transmissible agents of spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) from the use of bovine serum and albumin products, which could be contaminated with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).23 Now referred to as “transmissible” agents, the name change is an acknowledgment that these prions could be transferred to people through vaccines. In fact, such instances have occurred, as in England in 2001 when two children in England who had received the same polio vaccine went on to develop Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.24 Vaccine transmission through BSE had been suspected in Great Britain since the late 1980s, when many bovine herds became infected with the disease, but vaccines which could have been contaminated were not removed from the market until almost 10 years later. As frequently happens, those in charge made the decision not to withdraw vaccines initially -- not because there wasn’t a risk of catastrophic illness, but because “the risk to public health through loss of confidence in the vaccine program was greater than the remote theoretical risk associated with the use of bovine materials in vaccine.”25