Dr. Theresa Deisher is no stranger to science, research, and ethics. She holds a PhD in Molecular and Cellular Physiology from Stanford University and has spent over 20 years in commercial biotechnology before founding Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute (SCPI) , which promotes consumer awareness about the widespread use of electively aborted fetal material in drug discovery, development, and commercialization.

Dr. Deisher is an inventor with 23 issued U.S. patents. She was the first person to discover adult cardiac derived stem cells, and has been a champion of adult stem cell research for two decades. She is also founder of AVM Biotechnology, which is dedicated to the discovery, development, and commercialization of safe, effective, and ethical stem cell technologies for regenerative medicine, oncology, and fully human biologics.

Deisher spoke to Aleteia’s Zoe Romanowsky about why parents and the general public should not be quick to support government mandated vaccines or believe that all vaccines are safe.

Dr. Deisher, your background is in molecular and cellular physiology and the biotech industry. How did you come to be interested in vaccine science and safety?

We took on the task to develop alternative vaccines from a moral and philosophical perspective. In reading about vaccines one cannot miss the vaccine autism controversy. What was striking is that several scientific articles whose purpose was to refute any link, actually demonstrated a very strong association. That association was between autism rates and the use of fetal manufactured vaccines. Therefore, we undertook a survey of as many countries as possible where autism and vaccine information was accessible and accurate. Across decades and across continents there is an association between the use of fetal manufactured vaccines and autism.

Government mandated vaccination programs are a very divisive issue right now. As a scientist and mother, you are not anti-vaccine, but you believe there are serious problems with vaccines that need to be addressed. Could you explain your position?

The FDA has debated the safety of using human fetal cell lines for vaccine manufacture for over 50 years, yet actual safety studies have never been done. There has never been an epidemiological study that has considered the relative risk of autism diagnosis based on receipt of fetal manufactured vaccines, which includes MMR II, Varivax, Vaqta, Havrix and Pentacel.

People who question the U.S. vaccination schedule, which is very aggressive, and the very real dangers of adjuvants in vaccines, and the long term impact of a heavy vaccination schedule on natural immunity, have rational and sound scientific concerns. It is sad and perplexing that civil, complete, and rational discussions of these concerns are obstructed by pharma, by the media, and unfortunately often by our elected officials, pediatricians, and family physicians.

There is still concern out there that vaccines may cause or trigger autism and other developmental problems. A lot of experts say there is no evidence that vaccines cause autism, but many parents aren’t convinced. A graph on the Sound Choice website shows that the three largest spikes in autism coincide with the introduction of vaccines produced with aborted fetal cells. Is this the piece we’re missing here—that it’s not vaccines per se, but what’s in certain vaccines? And why is this not showing up in the studies that the government agencies and pharmaceutical companies say we should believe?

Yes, this is the piece that we are missing. It is not the MMR, but the fetal contaminants in the MMR. This is not showing up in studies because there are several fetal manufactured vaccines. Studies have looked only at MMR, but never all fetal manufactured vaccines. Children are rarely completely unvaccinated, and in the overwhelming majority of cases when parents reject vaccines, they only reject one or two—typically MMR and DTaP, because of the public perception of a link to autism. However, a child who did not receive MMR likely did receive Varivax (chickenpox) and/or Vaqta or Havrix (hepatitis A). Therefore, studies must be conducted to consider the question of the relative risk of autism if a child received any, a combination, or all of the fetal manufactured vaccines. This has never been done.

In fact, no study has ever looked at the relationship between fetal vaccines and autism. If you have five smelly garbage bags and you take one outside yet the smell remains would you conclude that one garbage bag had no relationship to the smell? Of course not. They have looked at MMR II, but most of those children got the chickenpox vaccine and hep A—both fetal vaccines. No study has ever looked at children who get no fetal vaccines. Yet the data exists. Mennonites vaccinate, but will not use the fetal vaccines and their children have zero autism.

Aside from the morality of using aborted fetal cell lines in the first place why are these vaccines problematic?

The vaccines are contaminated with toxic residuals from the fetal cell lines that are known to be able to trigger autoimmunity and insertional mutagenesis, which is when foreign DNA inserts itself into a recipient’s genome. It is by nature a mutation which can cause disease if it inserts in the wrong place. Perhaps 85% of the genome is susceptible to disease if an insertion occurs.

I read that you are also concerned that vaccines using aborted fetal cell lines may be linked to childhood cancers and other diseases that may not show up for years. Can you explain?

Insertional mutagenesis occurs most readily in stem cells. Lymphomas and leukemias include certain subtypes that involve mutations in stem or progenitor cells. If insertional mutagenesis occurs in a stem cell, that stem cell will remain dormant in the germinal center in the case of BL, FL and DCLBL until it is triggered to grow and mature by the presentation of an antigen (bacteria or virus, etc.). The maturation includes a process called hypermutation and class switching. Mistargeted hypermutation is known to be a likely mechanism in B cell lymphomas. If a B cell precursor or stem cell has been the recipient of insertional mutagenesis, this insertion could interfere with normal class switching and lead to chromosomal translocations and other abnormalities, causing cancer. Insertional mutagenesis puts the cell as subsequent risk for additional mutations and disease.