Universal reaction

Jagged edges

Ovine ASIA

Systemic signs

Lambs injected with vaccines, and a key ingredient in many vaccines, develop numerous pouches of the toxic metal that spread around their body for at least 15 months and induce behaviour changes, long after the shot, according to a study published this week by Spanish veterinary researchers.Lluís Luján and researchers at the University of Zaragosa divided 78 male lambs into three groups - one receiving an accelerated vaccine schedule for sheep of 19 injections over 15 months, one receiving aluminum salts commonly added to vaccines to provoke an immune response, and one group receiving a saline control."Remarkably, seven of the vaccine lambs (26.9% of the group) showed between 13 and 16 nodules in the right flank" samples of tissue drawn at the end of the experiment when the animals were sacrificed.They were found to clump together in jagged aggregates which the researchers linked to other research.Other researchers have speculated that the jagged edges of aluminum engulfed in macrophages act like a Japanese throwing stars which puncture sacs inside the macrophages and spill out into the cell activating its programmed cell death pathways. That appears to be what Luján's team saw: areas where sacs inside the macrophages showed "discontinuity and loss, leading to the presence of free intracytoplasmic spiculated material." This material invaded areas of apparent cell death and contained the same needle-like shards as well as other materials including carbon, lead, copper and osmium - a byproduct of the staining reaction used in the experiment.Luján first published research on aluminum toxicity in sheep when he discovered that a new and bizarre disease which decimated the Spanish sheep industry in 2009 was in fact caused by a compulsory blue tongue vaccine campaign."Local translocation of [aluminum] may induce further accumulation in distant tissues and be related to the appearance of systemic signs," the current study says."This experiment was part of a comprehensive study to improve understanding of the ovine ASIA syndrome, and it has been successful in reproducing some, but not all, of its most remarkable changes," the researchers said. "Treatment groups also showed higher levels of stress biomarkers, and the clinicopathological picture as a whole showed few significant differences between these groups." These results, the researchers promise, will be published in detail elsewhere.