(Natural News) While many people are aware that type 2 diabetes is a primary health concern here in the United States, it turns out type 1 diabetes is on the rise in children as well. Type 1 diabetes is characterized by the body’s inability to produce insulin and is generally considered to be a chronic autoimmune condition. On average, type 1 diabetes only accounts for about five to ten percent of all cases of diabetes. But in the state of Mississippi, the number of children being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes has nearly doubled in the last year.

As The Clarion-Ledger reports, 30 children were diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in the southern state this past August — twice as many diagnosed during the same month last year. Mary Fortune, executive vice president of the Diabetes Foundation of Mississippi, told the Ledger that as far as she knows, there is no suspected cause of the increase so far.

“There’s been talk of environmental, but I don’t think anybody knows right now,” she said.

But Mississippi isn’t the only state to see an increase in the number of children suffering from type 1 diabetes. In April, the New England Medical Journal published a study that revealed the number of children with type 1 diabetes has been increasing by approximately two percent every year since 2002. In other words, the number of kids affected by this life-altering condition has been on the rise for the last 15 years — and it seems like precious little is truly being done to investigate why. Even Keisha Luckey, a pediatric diabetes coordinator for Children’s of Mississippi and a certified diabetes educator, notes that what’s causing this spike in type 1 diabetes is “unknown.”

Are vaccines contributing to the rise of type 1 diabetes?

While much of mainstream medicine would be loath to admit it, there is actually evidence that suggests vaccines can contribute to the onset of type 1 diabetes, in addition to other health problems. As the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) reports, doctors first started noticing signs of trouble back in 1949. At that time, doctors reported that children who received the pertussis vaccine (now part of the DPT shot) had issues with maintaining normal blood glucose levels. According to NVIC, research conducted with mice confirmed that the pertussis vaccine could cause type 1 diabetes.

But it’s not just the pertussis vaccine, now is it?

As NVIC explains:

As diabetes research progressed in the 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s, there were observations that viral infections may be a co-factor in causing diabetes. The introduction of live virus vaccines, such as live MMR vaccine which is made from weakened forms of the live measles, mumps and rubella viruses, has raised questions about whether live vaccine virus could by [sic] a co-factor in causing chronic diseases such as diabetes.

The rubella virus, for instance, has already been connected to causing type 1 diabetes. Multiple studies from the 1980’s have shown that the virus can infect the pancreatic islet cells necessary for insulin secretion, resulting in reduced insulin output. Studies of the mumps virus came to similar conclusions; that virus can also attack the pancreatic islet cells and impede insulin production.

Researcher shows link between vaccines and diabetes

More recently, research pioneered by J. Barthelow Classen, M.D., a former researcher at the National Institutes of Health and the founder and CEO of Classen Immunotherapies, Inc. upholds previous findings. Dr. Classen has investigated vaccines as a perpetrator of diabetes and claims that “the growing epidemic of diabetes in the world is because vaccines given to children at two months and older can induce immune-mediated diabetes.”

In a 1996 study of 100,000 New Zealand-born babies, Dr. Classen found that the incidence of diabetes increased by 60 percent. His findings showed that this increase occurred after a massive push to vaccinate babies six-weeks of age or older with the Hepatitis B vaccine. NVIC reports “the incidence of diabetes before the hepatitis B vaccination program began in 1988 was 11.2 cases per 100,000 children per year while the incidence of diabetes following the hepatitis B vaccination campaign was 18.2 cases per 100,000 children per year.”

It’s really not that hard to imagine; vaccines can cause any number of health problems. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune condition. There’s actual evidence to suggest vaccines can play a role in the onset of type 1 diabetes — it should surprise no one that the number of children affected by this condition is on the rise.

Sources for this article include:

ClarionLedger.com

NVIC.org

Diabetes.co.uk