The Vaccine Did It

A toddler who developed severe neurological symptoms including blindness associated with chronic encephalitis and died following MMR vaccination was found to have vaccine-derived mumps virus in his brain, a new study reports.

Published in the current issue of the journal, Acta Neuropathologica, the study is the first of its kind to conclusively demonstrate chronic brain damage in the form of "panencephalitis" due to a vaccine-derived strain of the mumps virus. In light of a recent epidemic of mumps in highly vaccinated populations, the research raises questions about the dangers of live vaccine virus mutations and about public health claims that the MMR is a completely safe and effective vaccine without serious side effects.

MMR, BRAIN INFECTION AND DEATH

The study describes an 18-month old infant who was diagnosed with Severe Combined Immunodeficiency Disease (SCID) -- a serious immune system defect that may follow infection -- four months after he received the triple Measles Mumps Rubella vaccine that contains live viruses.

The baby was treated for the illness but six months later became ill again with fever, rash, diarrhoea, lethargy and seizures. MRI scans of his brain showed evidence of encephalitis -- brain inflammation due to infection.

The toddler was treated with antimicrobials, antivirals and steroids and sent home on anticonvulsant drugs. Over the next few months, behavioural problems became obvious, his hearing was impaired and his speech and language were delayed. A year later, by then four years old, he was still suffering from seizures and he became increasingly lethargic, disoriented and agitated. His walking was increasingly uncoordinated and he began to lose his eyesight.

A repeat MRI scan of the boy's brain revealed abnormalities and a brain biopsy was taken at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London. It revealed neuronal death and evidence of central nervous system damage and chronic inflammation. Despite aggressive treatment, his seizures increased, he became weak on his left side, went blind and the five-year-old died seven weeks later.

VACCINE VIRUS CONFIRMED

Spinal fluid and urine samples collected during the boy's last hospitalisation, as well as RNA re-extracted from his brain biopsy, were sent to the Public Health England Virus Reference Laboratory for sequencing.

Researchers, led by Sofia Morfopoulou of the Division of Infection and Immunity, University College London, and at the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control, used deep sequencing technology to identify the MuV -JL5 vaccine virus strain in the boy's brain biopsy which was negative for all other viruses.

Genetic Drift and Outbreaks

Mutations in the mumps vaccine virus from that in the batch of the vaccine the boy had received were also detected. The study refers to a 2015 study confirming "genetic instability" of mumps vaccine virus that leads to "genetic drift" between different vaccine batches and may explain why some mumps vaccines induce more serious adverse reactions than others, especially when they are grown on different media.

This science may also explain why the mumps vaccine is failing. A recent outbreak among more than 1,600 mostly vaccinated people in Arkansas has public health officers there admitting that the vaccine isn't protecting against emerging new strains of the virus.

It’s part of a growing phenomenon that scientists are reporting in many vaccines called “sero-conversion” – when vaccines diminish the strain of a virus they are targeting, but another strain of the same virus blooms -- just as antibiotics wipe out bacterial infections but leave antibiotic-resistant superbugs to thrive.

One study in chickens found that vaccination against one disease virus “enhances the fitness of more virulent strains”, making it possible for superbug strains to develop and be transmitted to other chickens, creating “conditions that promote the emergence of pathogen strains that cause more severe disease in unvaccinated hosts”.

A 2015 study of humans in the journal Microbiome, found that the nasal flu vaccine did the same thing. The researchers concluded that the vaccine activates the immune system in a way “may foster the disproportionate emergence of potentially pathogenic species such as S. aureus”-- a bug associated with ear infections and serious neuropsychiatric disorders like PANDAS.

Sero-replacement is a recognized snag for numerous vaccines. A 2017 study tries to quantify the problem with a pneumococcal vaccine. It’s a documented difficulty with a rotavirus vaccine. And it’s a long-documented problem with the polio vaccine. This 2016 study , for example, acknowledges that live attenuated oral poliomyelitis vaccine strains are “genetically unstable”, and their circulation (unavoidable when people defecate the vaccine virus which can hang around for decades), “can lead to the emergence of pathogenic circulating vaccine-derived polioviruses”. It turns out, the vaccine virus mutates and recombines with other circulating strains and produces something even more “neurovirulent”.

That is why the World Health Organisation is losing its battle with polio in India. More children are paralyzed and die there now than would ever be harmed by wild polio because they are afflicted with a new “acute flaccid paralysis” -- a polio they won’t call polio because it’s made in their laboratories. It’s also strikingly similar to the polio-like "mystery illness" paralysing children in America.

JUST LIKE MEASLES ENCEPHALITIS

The British researchers in the current study compare this mumps encephalitis case to documented measles encephalitis and suggest a "common pathogenic process" is at work. They cite a 2015 study in the journal Science and Translational Medicine that describes a 13-month-old baby who died from encephalitis after the MMR where vaccine virus was found in his brain and throughout his body. These results make a "strong case for deep sequencing of brain tissue where other methods have failed" to identify a pathogen, the study said.

In their conclusion, the researchers give heed to the "highly effective and safe vaccine" mantra required to keep publishing. As usual, there is no hint of apology for physician-induced death. No consideration of how often this same pathology might play a role in SIDS or autism, of course, although public health has been scratching their heads about those for a very long time. But they do say "this case highlights the importance of developing strategies such as newborn screening to exclude the very small proportion of infants at extremely high risk of complications from live-attenuated vaccines."

That presumes there is a way to screen children at risk of live virus vaccines which include the MMR, the chickenpox and flu vaccines. There is no evidence that the little boy in the study was ill before he got his MMR. Yet they have begun the quest for his deficiency or genetic weakness. And they may find some because we all have them. But they are ignoring the research they just cited, that there is problem inherent in the vaccine manufacturing process and with genetic drift of the viruses. It's more evidence that the old medical paradigm, which sees something wrong with the person who cannot tolerate the drug rather than with the drug itself, is getting older by the minute.

The answer from public health, of course, is always the same: time for another vaccine. Another dose, another strain, another booster for this group or that. And an endless, circuitous virus chase. But in public health, the question if there might be a better way to fight disease in unthinkable. They would never seek to understand why most kids get through measles without a hitch and are left with lifelong protection against the disease and more protection too against diseases like cancer, or to find out what is lacking in the immune systems of the few children who don’t. But can we really continue this aim of vaccinating everyone against everything? What if it came down to something as simple as making sure kids got vitamins instead of vaccines? Too dangerous? At least vitamins couldn’t mutate and infect their brains.

BRING ON RFK JR., PLEASE

Even if screening high-risk newborns from vaccines were possible, (and it’s a great idea), there's no chance of it happening in the current public health paradigm. Because for public health to start screening newborns for susceptibility to vaccine dangers, they would first have to admit what this science shows clearly, that vaccines have dangers. That they can and do cause serious brain damage and even death. And if they admit that, then they have to concede the possibility that vaccines may have a role in other neurodevelopmental disorders that are epidemic in children today.

How likely is that to happen at the Centers for Disease Control where people like Colleen Boyle and Frank DeStefano still oversee immunisation safety? People who, everyone knows, including their colleague who blew the whistle on them, knowingly manipulated, buried and shredded evidence to hide a link between the MMR and autism. People who would deceive the American public, and people across the globe, to protect their vaccines rather than the children who get them. And who would watch as millions of children suffer as a result, and do nothing?

What this science shows more than anything else, is how desperately we need President-elect Trump to move forward in 2017 with his commission on vaccine safety and scientific integrity.

For evidence-based research on the MMR vaccination, visit the GreenMedInfo.com Research Dashboard.

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