…And why there’s something else Dr. Patterson mentioned in his 2006 magazine article, something that today might get him run out of Caltech but was still allowed in the scientific discourse back then, he said this:

Finally, I want to ask a question that’s come up in the literature in the last few years — should we really be promoting universal maternal vaccination? The flu vaccine has been recommended routinely to pregnant women in the United States since 1957. The official policy of the Centers for Disease Control states that “administration of vaccines to women seeking prenatal care is an opportunity for preventative intervention that should not be wasted.” Now you might say, “Well, of course, you don’t want to get the flu if you’re pregnant!” But remember that double-stranded RNA experiment — we activated the immune system, and it caused all these downstream effects on the fetus. And what does a vaccination do? It activates the immune system. That’s the point of vaccination. In practice, not all pregnant women receive flu shots, and I think that universal vaccination of pregnant women could get us into a whole new set of problems.

Dr. Patterson said it, so I don’t have to be the first to bring it up. He said a vaccination “activates the immune system” and he also told us that “immune activation” can cause autism. How exactly does a vaccine activate the immune system?

Answer: Aluminum hydroxide, aka “aluminum adjuvant”.

Discovery #2: Aluminum Adjuvant causes immune activation and is far more neurotoxic than previously thought

Aluminum compounds (Al hydroxide and Al phospate) are the most common adjuvants used in vaccines. They are currently used in the hepatitis A, hepatitis B, diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis(DTaP, Tdap), Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), human papillomavirus (HPV) and pneumococcus (PCV) vaccines. Aluminum adjuvant “activates” the immune system, which induces long term immunity to antigens in the vaccine.

The scientific understanding of aluminum adjuvant toxicity has changed and deepened dramatically in recent years (since 2007).

In fact, the published research on aluminum adjuvant is so new it has not even been considered by our FDA or CDC, who are still basing their recommendations about aluminum use in vaccines on a study published in 2011 that erroneously concluded that aluminum from a vaccine likely ends up in the body’s skeletal system:

“While the contribution of vaccines to an infant’s aluminum body burden can be slightly higher than that of the dietary contribution in our model, the fact that the primary pool where the aluminum is residing, as a long-term storage depot, is likely to be skeletal and not a more sensitive soft organ system is reassuring.”

Most of the guess work about aluminum is based on dissolved aluminum, not aluminum hydroxide, which is the type of aluminum used in vaccines. We’re now learning that aluminum hydroxide is a nanoparticle, absorbed by our body’s macrophage (the immune system’s garbage man) where the macrophage can then easily transport the aluminum hydroxide to the brain (the macrophage passes easily through the blood-brain barrier). If you’d like to see a complete takedown of the “safe level” of aluminum argument still made by the FDA and CDC, see VP’s excellent work, here’s a short excerpt:

“It is not reasonable or scientific to use studies of ingested, water-soluble aluminum salts (like AlCl3 or Al-lactate) to establish a safe dose of injected aluminum adjuvant (comprising aluminum hydroxide/phosphate nanoparticles). The chemical forms and route of administration are different. It is well-established today that nanoparticles can have higher toxicity than bulk orsoluble forms of the same material…It’s the vaccine promoters that created this inherently-invalid approach to aluminum adjuvant safety. Vaccine critics including me argue that the safety of injected aluminum adjuvant can only be tested using injected aluminum adjuvant, not ingested aluminum salts like AlCl3 or Al lactate. This should be common sense. So, leaving aside the important issues of nanoparticle toxicity and administration route, I want to address the question: is it really true that animals (mice or rats) are not harmed by ingesting 62mg/kg/day or 26 mg/kg/day aluminum? After all, this is the fundamental basis for aluminum adjuvant safety. Vaccine promoters rely on Keith and Mitkus to make the case that aluminum adjuvant is safe, and Keith and Mitkus depend on the claim that these dosages are safe for animals to ingest. If the 26 mg/kg/day dosage is in fact harmful to animals, then the analyses by Keith and Mitkus are wrong and unsalvageable. Several studies clearly demonstrate that dosages much lower than 26 mg/kg/day are harmful, and they are presented below.”