Recently, an agreement in concept was reached by a World Health Organization convened international expert group meeting, supporting the phase-out of dental mercury use worldwide. Dental Tribune Group Editor Daniel Zimmermann spoke with Prof. Lars Hylander, Associate Professor at the University of Uppsala in Sweden who attended the meeting, about the agreement and strategies for future biomaterials use in dentistry.

Daniel Zimmermann: Prof. Hylander, you recently attended a joint meeting of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) that aimed to assess the latest clinical evidence on dental restorative materials. Could you tell us about the outcome of this meeting?

Prof. Lars Hylander: Most participants agreed that amalgam should be phased out or at least phased down. Dr Poul Erik Petersen, Responsible Officer for Oral Health at the WHO, however, raised several good questions, such as what to tell people in poor countries who cannot even afford dental amalgam fillings. At this point, the room grew rather silent.
A similar consultation was held more in Geneva than ten years ago. What has changed since then
concerning the manner in which dental restorative materials are perceived?

Allergic reactions from amalgam fillings in some patients have been acknowledged by proamalgamists.

Mercury leakages and emissions from dental amalgam into the environment have been fully acknowledged, particularly after dental amalgam was banned in Norway and Sweden, and restricted in Denmark and other places. Proof of methylmercury formation in wastewater from dental clinics is a third factor that makes the continued use of amalgam less justified. Another factor is that alternative tooth filling materials are now available or in development.

What has been decided regarding dental amalgam?
The WHO has not been as quick as Norway, who instituted a ban on dental amalgam in less than six months after the proposal of a ban was presented in the country. Thus far, nothing has been decided, but the WHO can hardly ignore the decision made by the world’s governments within the UNEP to negotiate a mercury treaty, which will begin in Stockholm next June. There was some consensus that mercury use in dentistry should be phased down. A suitable way to do this is to begin teaching alternative restoration techniques, other than dental amalgam, in dental schools.

There was a focus on the oral cavity, which thus ignored the environmental aspects such as mercury emissions from crematoria and leakage of mercury into wastewater from dental clinics and the wearing of amalgam surfaces due to everyday chewing. The American Dental Association demonstrated this most clearly in the presentation by Dr Daniel Meyer, in which it was stated that of the 35 tons of amalgam used annually in the US, only a few hundred kilograms are emitted into the environment.
Which restorative materials were considered to have the most potential for use in developed and developing countries?
Composites and other white filling materials have replaced amalgam in several developed nations. Even in countries without any ban, such as in Japan, less than 4 per cent of the fillings are now fabricated with amalgam, for aesthetic reasons. In addition, many patients do not find it sensible to have as toxic an element as mercury just a few centimetres from their brains.

Composites and glass ionomers are also widely used in many developing countries. The question of why such developments progress so slowly in the big nations of the rich world was raised. Atraumatic restorative treatment with glass ionomers and using only hand tools is a promising alternative, not only for developing countries. In countries in which glass ionomers or composites are produced locally, the cost of these fillings is lower than that of amalgam.
Thank you very much for the interview.

Below, is the letter I have written to PA Attorney General, Thomas Corbett with respect to the fact that both the Pennsylvania and Philadelphia County Dental Associations are recommending that the parents of disabled children be strong-armed into accepting fillings with the neuro-toxin, mercury (otherwise known as dental amalgam) or be forced to take their children elsewhere. The research of Vimy, in the 1980’s proved that mercury in dental fillings is not inert, and, in fact, distributes to all organ systems of the body. I am sure you will agree that the disabled need no further health problems, especially neurologic issues iatrogenically induced by the dental profession. Since there is no evidence to prove mercury fillings are safe, shouldn’t we all be erring on the side of caution, rather than promoting a material that has a tainted history going back to its introduction, more than a century and a half ago? Please note, that the information below my signature was copied and pasted. There is a mistake which I could not correct for some reason. Please be aware that the word amalgam in the first sentence of the third paragraph should have read “composite” fillings.

Dear Mr. Corbett:

As a 1975 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, and a former licensee of the Keystone state, and a keynote speaker before the FDA panel on the toxicity of Hg in dental fillings in 2006, I am astounded at the level of ignorance the message below conveys. Mercury fillings were initially rejected, in the 1850’s by practicing dentists. The technique was adopted by blacksmiths, barbers and jewelers (who the professionals coined the term QUACKs for — the procedure, developed in Germany where mercury = quaksolder) who formed what was the precursor of the ADA. Those with any training in toxicology would know that Hg caused “Mad Hatters’ Disease” – a neurologic disorder. They knew it in 1850! I have been placing composite fillings exclusively since 1990, and see no reason anyone should be arguing in favor of a neurotoxic material for which there are better options. I invite you to open a dialogue, if you are indeed interested in the rights of the citizens of your state, so that bargain-driven and insurance-driven treatment decisions are not relegated to the derision that the tenor of the message below conveys. A copy of this has been released to all local newspapers.
Steve Markus
The Centre for Dentistry at Haddon
www.SmileSouthJersey.com
www.Cent4Dent.com
www.TheEdgeSmiles.com
www.mercurysafedentistrynj.com
www.SymphonicSmiles.com

http://www.sedationdentistnewjersey.com/

http://www.cosmeticdentistrysouthjersey.com/

209 White Horse Pike
Haddon Heights, NJ 08035
856 546 0665

—–

In an act of moral depravity, the Pennsylvania Dental Association (PDA) and the Philadelphia County Dental Society (PCDS) have endorsed strong-arming parents of children with disabilities to force their written consent to mercury fillings. These dental societies issued a statement to the Philadelphia Board of Health dated February 11 giving their stamp of approval to dentists who deny all treatment to disabled children — no tooth cleanings, no preventive care, nothing — unless the parents “consent” to exposing their children to mercury. In the words of the PDA/PCDS representative before the Board of Health, “if a guardian refuses amalgam…we will not see the patient.”

Acknowledging that not having routine dental care is detrimental to health, the PDA/PCDS witness cruelly added that people with disabilities in Philadelphia have no feasible alternative to his amalgam-happy practice: Finding another dental facility equipped to treat people with disabilities would be “a challenge,” he sneered. So the PDA and the PCDS are forcing parents of children with disabilities — even children who already have neurological disorders — to choose: either “consent” to the implantation of a neurotoxin an inch from your child’s brain or no dentist will even clean your child’s teeth.

The PDA and the PCDS know very well that dentists have been successfully placing amalgam in children with disabilities — even under sedation — for years. Both Dr. Chester L. Yokoyama, former Member of the Dental Board of California, and Dr. Blanche Grube, vice president of the International Academy of Biological Dentistry and Medicine, have advised that resin definitely can be used on sedated children. Hence, if these PDA/PCDS dentists can’t implant any filling but this primitive pre-Civil War device, it’s time for them to go get training! And even if PDA/PCDS dentists are too untrained to place non-mercury fillings, what’s their excuse for denying children with disabilities the basic dental cleanings that would prevent cavities in the first place?

Since the PDA and the PCDS claim to support able-bodied persons’ right to choose non-mercury filling materials while announcing support for forcing the disabled to get mercury fillings, we have asked the Attorney General of Pennsylvania to conduct a civil rights investigation, reprinted below. Plain and simple, the sixth-largest chapter of the American Dental Association apparently endorses discrimination against the disabled. (Similar conduct by a North Carolina clinic has already been brought to our attention.)

My friends, now I need your help:

1. Pennsylvanians: If you live or work in the Keystone state, or have family ties there, or your organization has a presence there, please write or email PA Attorney General Thomas Corbett:

Email: civilrights@attorneygeneral.gov
Mailing Address: 16th Floor, Strawberry Square, Harrisburg, PA 17120
Fax: 717-787-8242

Ask the Attorney General to conduct a civil rights investigation into this despicable policy of the Pennsylvania Dental Association and the Philadelphia County Dental Society. Explain to him that every parent needs the right to choose non-mercury dental fillings because mercury is a neurological risk, especially for children who already have neurological problems. If you are a person with a disability or the parent of a child with a disability, explain why it is important for you to have the right to make your own health care decisions and particularly why it is important to be able to choose non-mercury dental fillings. If you share my outrage that these dental trade groups would strong-arm parents into submitting to mercury by threatening not to provide any dental care at all, tell him.

2. Dentists and other dental professionals: Please write PA Attorney General Thomas Corbett (contact info above). Explain that sedated children and children with disabilities can and do get composites. Tell him that the PDA/PCDS policy’s goal is quick & easy profits for dentists, because amalgam is a “drill, fill, and bill” material.

Charlie Brown
24 February 2010

Charles G. Brown, National Counsel
Consumers for Dental Choice
316 F St., N.E., Suite 210, Washington, DC 20002
Ph. 202.544-6333; fax 202.544-6331
charlie@toxicteeth.org, www.toxicteeth.org
Working for Mercury-Free Dentistry

Here’s our request for a civil rights investigation …

Discrimination: PDA and PDCS endorse the denial of all dental treatment
to children with disabilities if parents exercise their right to refuse
mercury fillings, whereas these trade associations permit able-bodied patients to choose non-mercury filling materials

The Pennsylvania Dental Association (PDA) and Philadelphia County Dental Society (PCDS) have endorsed a campaign to force persons with disabilities to submit to mercury amalgam instead of offering them a choice of filling materials — a choice both trade associations openly permit for able-bodied persons.

I. PDA and PCDS promote able-bodied people’s right to make their own health decisions

Everyone is in seeming agreement that individuals have a right to make their own decisions about their bodies, especially decisions affecting their health. In dentistry, this means the right of patients to choose which filling material is implanted into their bodies. PDA and PCDS agree, overtly advocating the patient’s right to choose on their websites: “Many factors may affect your choice of filling material” and “This fact sheet outlines the alternatives available and will help you decide on the right choice for you.” The PCDS even boasted that it “worked hard” to ensure that patients would be presented with all their filling material options.

Increasingly, consumers are exercising their right to refuse dental amalgam, a primitive pre-Civil War filling material containing 50% mercury — a known neurotoxin. In addition to numerous studies indicating that amalgam can cause a wide range of health problems, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has recently issued warnings making clear that amalgam is a neurological risk at least for children and unborn children:

“Dental amalgam also releases low levels of mercury vapor … The developing neurological systems in fetuses and young children may be more sensitive to the neurotoxic effects of mercury vapor. Very limited to no clinical information is available regarding long-term health outcomes in pregnant women and their developing fetuses, and children under the age of six, including infants who are breastfed.”

Although FDA concealed this warning from consumers in a special controls document labeled in bold “Guidance for Industry and FDA Staff,” the City of Philadelphia prudently decided to inform the public about amalgam with a required information sheet describing these neurological risks and the inconclusiveness of scientific evidence.

Armed with this knowledge, consumers are deciding that they do not want mercury in their bodies or the developing brains of their children. As evidenced by their statements, the PDA and PCDS are respecting the decisions of able-bodied consumers.

II. PDA and PCDS deny people with disabilities their right to make their own health decisions

While able-bodied people are permitted to choose the material being implanted into their bodies, PDA and PCDS advocate a very different standard for people with disabilities. In their joint written testimony, submitted to the Philadelphia Board of Health on 11 February 2010 and presented at the board’s meeting on 18 February 2010, PDA and PCDS endorse the policy of Special Smiles LTD, a North Philadelphia clinic that denies all dental treatment to children with disabilities unless their parents sign a statement consenting to the implantation of mercury amalgam in their children.

This policy abolishes the rights of these parents who do not want a known neurotoxin implanted so near the brains of their children, many of whom already have some form of neurological impairment. They are faced not with the choice presented to able-bodied patients — who are free to reject amalgam and still receive preventative treatments and alternative filling materials — but with a cruel Hobson’s choice: either the dentist will insist on subjecting your child to mercury’s risks or he will refuse to so much as clean your child’s teeth.

With “so few facilities” equipped to treat people with disabilities, there may be no other clinic for parents to turn to for this basic dental care that would prevent many of their children’s cavities in the first place (“Remember! Continuous Care Maintains Good Oral Health” taunts the Special Smiles website). Boasting that he has the economic power to force amalgam onto non-consenting patients in North Philadelphia, Dr. Andrew Mramor of Special Smiles acknowledges that finding dental care for children with disabilities after he expels the family is a “challenge.”

III. Dentists are able to provide people with disabilities the mercury-free dental care afforded to the able-bodied, but PDA and PCDS are unwilling to protect this same option for people with disabilities — and promote punishing those who try to exercise their right to make their own health decisions

Nor can PDA and PCDS justify this policy with the implausible claim that their dentists are unable to place alternative filling materials in children with disabilities. Not only have dentists regularly been using non-amalgam fillings for patients with disabilities — even under sedation — for years, but PDA and PCDS advocate denying people with disabilities all dental care as a punishment for exercising their right to make their own health decisions.

The experiences of dentists confirm that any claim that amalgam is the only option for a sedated child with disabilities is patently false. Dr. Chester L. Yokoyama is a former Member of the Dental Board of California and co-founder and former director of Aiding the Medically Compromised, Inc., a non-profit organization established to promote awareness of dental issues for persons with disabilities. Having spent ten years as a dentist treating children with disabilities in the operating room, Dr. Yokoyama clarifies the situation: “Composites can be done under general anesthesia or IV sedation. If the dentist is unwilling to provide composites for children with disabilities, it raises questions about denying such children access to dental treatment. If the dentist is unable to provide composites for children with disabilities, then he or she can seek further training.” Right here in Pennsylvania, Dr. Blanche Grube, a dentist practicing in Scranton, explains,

“We do composites on children who are sedated, and they work. A study shows the difference between the wear on composites and amalgams is negligible. Dentists placing amalgam make more money — they make more per chair per day, because they can rush through doing amalgam without heed to the toxin questions.”

Regardless of whether their dentists have been trained to place alternative filling materials in sedated patients with disabilities, PDA and PCDS have no excuse to advocate denying all dental care — even teeth cleanings — to people with disabilities who object to mercury. To turn them away, knowing that they will have great difficulty finding another dental clinic equipped to perform sedation dentistry on people with disabilities, effectively deprives them of even the basic dental hygienic care that would prevent tooth decay in the first place! This denial of all dental treatment is clearly intended to punish people with disabilities who dared to exercise their right to choose the filling material going into their mouths — the same right PDA and PCDS insist upon for the able-bodied.

IV. Conclusion

The PDA and PCDS are advocating a policy of discrimination against the disabled, going so far as to commend publicly dentists who refuse to treat children with disabilities. The inadequate training of some dentists must not overshadow the patent bad faith of a cabal determined to strong-arm the disabled into submitting to this toxic 19th century relic. A state dental association and a county dental society in the Commonwealth have selected children with disabilities and their parents — already facing so many problems — for this cruel ultimatum: mercury fillings or no dental care at all.

(signed in hard copy mailed to you)
Charles G. Brown
National Counsel
charlie@toxicteeth.org
23 February 2010

Dr. Wakefield has always recommended single antigen vaccines. He hypothesized that the three live viruses given together in the MMR vaccine are the source of potential problems in at least SOME children.

Learn more: http://www.cent4dent.com/html/mercury_issues/vaccines.html
Read the whole article: http://drtenpenny.com/Wakefield_Inquisitioners_Have_their_day.aspx

There was a focus on the oral cavity, which thus ignored the environmental aspects such as mercury emissions from crematoria and leakage of mercury into wastewater from dental clinics and the wearing of amalgam surfaces due to everyday chewing. The American Dental Association demonstrated this most clearly in the presentation by Dr Daniel Meyer, in which it was stated that of the 35 tons of amalgam used annually in the US, only a few hundred kilograms are emitted into the environment.
Which restorative materials were considered to have the most potential for use in developed and developing countries?
Composites and other white filling materials have replaced amalgam in several developed nations. Even in countries without any ban, such as in Japan, less than 4 per cent of the fillings are now fabricated with amalgam, for aesthetic reasons. In addition, many patients do not find it sensible to have as toxic an element as mercury just a few centimetres from their brains.

Composites and glass ionomers are also widely used in many developing countries. The question of why such developments progress so slowly in the big nations of the rich world was raised. Atraumatic restorative treatment with glass ionomers and using only hand tools is a promising alternative, not only for developing countries. In countries in which glass ionomers or composites are produced locally, the cost of these fillings is lower than that of amalgam.
Thank you very much for the interview.

For further information visit our mercury issues section.

Findings were published online in Nature Neuroscience on January 10.

TSC causes benign tumors throughout the body, including the brain. But patients with TSC may have autism, epilepsy or intellectual disabilities even in the absence of these growths. Now, researchers led by Mustafa Sahin, MD, PhD, of Children’s Department of Neurology, provide evidence that mutations in one of the TSC’s causative genes, known as TSC2, prevent growing nerve fibers (axons) from finding their proper destinations in the developing brain.

Studying a well-characterized axon route — between the eye’s retina and the visual area of the brain — Sahin and colleagues showed that when mouse neurons were deficient in TSC2, their axons failed to land in the right places. Further investigation showed that the axons’ tips, known as “growth cones,” did not respond to navigation cues from a group of molecules called ephrins. “Normally ephrins cause growth cones to collapse in neurons, but in tuberous sclerosis the axons don’t heed these repulsive cues, so keep growing,” says Sahin, the study’s senior investigator.

Additional experiments indicated that the loss of responsiveness to ephrin signals resulted from activation of a molecular pathway called mTOR, whose activity increased when neurons were deficient in TSC2. Axon tracing in the mice showed that many axons originating in the retina were not mapping to the expected part of the brain.

Although the study looked only at retinal connections to the brain, the researchers believe their findings may have general relevance for the organization of the developing brain. Scientists speculate that in autism, wiring may be abnormal in the areas of the brain involved in social cognition.
“People have started to look at autism as a developmental disconnection syndrome — there are either too many connections or too few connections between different parts of the brain,” says Sahin. “In the mouse models, we’re seeing an exuberance of connections, consistent with the idea that autism may involve a sensory overload, and/or a lack of filtering of information.”

Sahin hopes that the brain’s miswiring can be corrected by drugs targeting the molecular pathways that cause it. The mTOR pathway is emerging as central to various kinds of axon abnormalities, and drugs inhibiting mTOR has already been approved by the FDA. For example, one mTOR inhibitor, rapamycin, is currently used mainly to prevent organ rejection in transplant patients, and Sahin plans to launch a clinical trial of a rapamycin-like drug in approximately 50 patients with TSC later this year, to see if the drug improves neurocognition, autism and seizures.

In 2008, Sahin and colleagues published related research in Genes & Development showing that when TSC1 and TSC2 are inactivated, brain cells grow more than one axon — an abnormal configuration that exacerbates abnormal brain connectivity. The mTOR pathway was, again, shown to be involved, and when it was inhibited with rapamycin, neurons grew normally, sprouting just one axon.

Supporting the mouse data, a study by Sahin and his colleague Simon Warfield, PhD, in the Computational Radiology Laboratory at Children’s, examined the brains of 10 patients with TSC, 7 of whom also had autism or developmental delay, and 6 unaffected controls. Using an advanced kind of MRI imaging called diffusion tensor imaging, they documented disorganized and structurally abnormal tracts of axons in the TSC group, particularly in the visual and social cognition areas of the brain (see image). The axons also were poorly myelinated — their fatty coating, which helps axons conduct electrical signals, was compromised. (In other studies, done in collaboration with David Kwiatkowski at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, giving rapamycin normalized myelination in mice.)

Sahin has also been studying additional genes previously found to be deleted or duplicated in patients with autism, and finding that deletion of some of them causes neurons to produce multiple axons — an abnormality that, again, appears to be reversed with rapamycin.

“Many of the genes implicated in autism may possibly converge on a few common pathways controlling the wiring of nerve cells,” says Sahin. “Rare genetic disorders like TSC are providing us with vital clues about brain mechanisms leading to autism spectrum disorders. Understanding the neurobiology of these disorders is likely to lead to new treatment options not only for TSC patients, but also for patients with other neurodevelopmental diseases caused by defective myelination and connectivity, such as autism, epilepsy and intellectual disability.”

The current study was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the John Merck Scholars Fund, Tuberous Sclerosis Alliance, the Manton Foundation, the Children’s Hospital Boston Translational Research Program, and the Children’s Hospital Boston Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Research Center.

Duyu Nie was first author on the paper. Coauthors were Duyu Nie, Alessia Di Nardo, Juliette M Han, Hasani Baharanyi, Ioannis Kramvis, and ThanhThao Huynh, all of the F.M. Kirby Neurobiology Center and Department of Neurology, Children’s Hospital Boston; Sandra Dabora of Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Simone Codeluppi and Elena B Pasquale of the Burnham Institute for Medical Research, and University of California San Diego; and Pier Paolo Pandolfi of Beth Israel Deaconess Cancer Center.

For more info, look at the Mercury and Autism pages of My Website.

The Washington Times’ article about the health czar’s conflicts of interest could just as well have been written about Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, who re-entered government through the revolving door of Henry Schein Inc., the nation’s No. 1 dental-products company (“Obama ‘czar’ was highly paid chief of legally troubled firms,” Page 1, Tuesday).

Having made over a million dollars for the light work of being a Schein corporate director, Dr. Hamburg signed an ethics contract pledging not to participate in any activity affecting Schein so long as she held stock or stock options in that company. Then she figuratively tore up the ethics agreement, participating in the rule-making for dental amalgam (so-called silver fillings), even though Schein sells more amalgam than any other company.

After checking her stock option’s value on June 30, Dr. Hamburg insisted on convening a policy meeting on July 1 about the amalgam rule so that she could provide “feedback” to the staff and review the rule’s “next steps.” She then waited until the rule was a fait accompli before purportedly withdrawing (though never actually filing a recusal document). While telling American consumers that she was recused from the issue “based on the requirements of federal ethics laws and the standard of ethical conduct,” Dr. Hamburg reassured her corporate benefactor that her “friendships” at Schein “will outlast the period of my recusal.”

The resulting amalgam rule allows Schein to market amalgam without disclosing the very presence of mercury to consumers, even though this neurotoxin is amalgam’s chief component. It is a 180-degree reversal of Republican Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach’s pro-consumer policy on amalgam, which included a consumer Web site that warned parents and pregnant women that mercury from amalgam can cause neurological damage to children and unborn babies.

With Dr. Hamburg disregarding her ethical obligations to the industry’s benefit, it’s no wonder that right after the rule issued, Schein’s general counsel e-mailed the commissioner that the company is “indebted” to her for her work at FDA.

CHARLES G. BROWN

National counsel

Consumers for Dental Choice

Washington

Nov. 25, 2009

Dear Dr. Markus,
Just a short note to thank you for the many years of excellent dental care that you have provided to me and my family.

Over the past 25 years I have had some unique dental problems which you have always handled promptly and professionally. For that I am very grateful. You have always treated my concerns and questions about my care with the utmost consideration and honesty. As I enter the “ senior citizen “ period of life I know I can contribute my good dental health to your care.

I also want to compliment your staff, who have shown me great kindness over the years. Everyone from your staff is easy to work with, pleasant and helpful.

It has truly been a pleasure to be a patient at the Centre for Dentistry.

Sincerely,
Donna Kovalevich

U.S. health authorities have made pregnant women one of the highest priority groups for getting the H1N1 swine flu vaccine, but is it actually safe for pregnant women and their babies?

In fact, the package inserts for the swine flu vaccines actually say that the safety of these vaccines for pregnant women has not been established. And miscarriage reports from pregnant women who have taken the H1N1 swine flu vaccine are starting to pour in from all over the nation.

The link below contains stories that will shock and anger you. If you are a pregnant mother, please do not take the H1N1 swine flu vaccine. Instead, do everything that you can do to avoid public places and make sure to wash your hands more than you usually would. Research the many great natural ways there are for fighting the flu.

As a pro-safety drug- and vaccine advocate, I believe it’s imperative to be able to unequivocally prove that a drug or vaccine will cause no harm, AND be able to show that it offers measurable benefit, before releasing it to market. This is especially important when we’re dealing with pregnant women and young children.

Neither is true for the flu vaccine during pregnancy, and even less so for the H1N1 vaccine when given to pregnant women.

Flu vaccine manufacturers clearly indicate that safety and effectiveness of their flu vaccines have not been established for pregnant women and nursing mothers. Ditto for their H1N1 vaccines.

Heartbreaking Stories of Losses After H1N1 Vaccination

The source links above contain personal stories of heartbreak – women who lost their babies just hours or days after getting the H1N1 vaccine this year. Naturally, the standard comeback is that miscarriages are commonplace, and surely have nothing to do with the vaccine. However, to simply dismiss these events as “coincidences” is a serious mistake.

Perhaps some of the 20 women on one of the blogs would have miscarried anyway, but when a number of women have healthy, uneventful pregnancies up until they’re injected with a vaccine, and then suddenly miscarry, it most certainly warrants investigation!

Be Part of the Solution – REPORT All Side Effects to VAERS!

I’m willing to bet that most of these incidents have not been properly reported to the authorities, and this is something everyone needs to be better informed about.

Please know that any time you take a pharmaceutical drug, or are injected with a vaccine of any kind, you need to report any and all side effects to your doctor and insist that he or she report it to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). Ask to get a copy of the report to make sure it was done.

Also know that YOU can report it yourself! You don’t have to go via your doctor.
The VAERS web site allows you to fill out an adverse event report on your own.
Unfortunately, since reporting side effects to VAERS is voluntary, only one to 10 percent of all side effects are ever reported!

Yet VAERS can serve a vital function, alerting authorities to significant problems with various drugs and vaccines. We NEED this information, because without it, authorities and drug makers can simply continue to say that a drug or vaccine has been used safely for a number of years, without ever having done any real studies and follow up.

The truth is, we know extremely little about the true safety and effectiveness of most drugs and vaccines on the market.

None of the H1N1 Flu Vaccines Have Ever Been Tested on Pregnant Women
If you are willing to be a guinea pig, then so be it. But I urge you not to be. It’s simply not your responsibility to subject yourself to this type of cruel field testing. Know this: the vaccine manufacturers and the doctors administering the shots are legally protected, should something go wrong. You cannot sue them for damages.

If you read the package inserts, you’ll find that NONE of them have ever been tested for safety and effectiveness in pregnant women and nursing mothers, and none of them are recommended for pregnant women “unless clearly needed.”
(And this is something I’ll get to in a moment…)

You also need to understand that no reproduction studies have been done to determine how these flu vaccines (whether for seasonal- or the H1N1 vaccine) affect future fertility, and whether or how they affect a developing fetus.

So truly, YOU are little more than a test subject; a statistic that may or may not be counted, depending on whether your side effects are properly reported and investigated, should something go awry.

In the US, four H1N1 vaccines have achieved FDA approval, and you can read their package inserts by clicking on the hyperlinks below:
• MedImmune (intranasal spray)
• Novartis
• Sanofi-Pasteur
• CSL Biotherapies, Inc.

For more information about these vaccines, and a quick review of each vaccine’s list of ingredients, please see my previous article A Review of Four Approved Swine Flu Vaccines’ Ingredients.
How Effective is the H1N1 Vaccine, Really?

If you read through the package inserts (hyperlinked above) for the injectable, inactivated flu vaccines, you will find the following paragraph:

“Specific levels of HI antibody titers post-vaccination with inactivated influenza virus vaccine have not been correlated with protection from influenza virus. In some human studies, antibody titers of 1:40 or greater have been associated with protection from influenza illness in up to 50% of subjects.”
What that paragraph explains, is that, to the best of our knowledge, the vaccine only works in half, or less, of those individuals who attain the specified level of seroconversion after vaccination.
The FDA defines seroconversion as achieving an antibody titer of 1:40.
This means that if a vaccine was 100 percent effective at achieving this level of seroconversion, it would protect up to 50 percent of the recipients of the vaccine.

But none of the vaccines are 100 percent effective at achieving seroconversion.
CSL’s vaccine insert, for example, (see pages 11-12), states that their H1N1 vaccine provides seroconversion for:
• 48.7 percent of people aged 18-65
• 34 percent for seniors, 65 and older

That means that, at best, their vaccine works in one out of every four people! (49 percent of 50 percent).

Which, of course, means that the vaccine does NOT work in three out of every four people…
Is a 25 percent chance of reaping any sort of benefit worth the risk, especially if you’re pregnant?
Many health officials and doctors say this benefit is worth the risk, and urge pregnant women to get vaccinated with one or both flu vaccines this year. They claim the potential dangers inherent in getting sick with the flu while pregnant is a far more significant than any potential danger from the vaccine.

But is that really true?

How Dangerous is the Flu While Pregnant, and is Flu Vaccination Warranted?
A paper published in the summer 2006 issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, titled Influenza Vaccination During Pregnancy: A Critical Assessment of the Recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), concludes that the flu vaccine recommendation for pregnant women should be withdrawn as:
a) flu is rarely a complication for pregnant women, and
b) no safety studies have been done

The authors’ state:
“Influenza vaccination during all trimesters of pregnancy is now universally recommended in the United States. We critically reviewed the influenza vaccination policy of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practice and the citations that were used to support their recommendations.
The ACIP’s citations and the current literature indicate that influenza infection is rarely a threat to a normal pregnancy.

There is no convincing evidence of the effectiveness of influenza vaccination during this critical period.

… The ACIP policy recommendation of routinely administering influenza vaccine during pregnancy is ill-advised and unsupported by current scientific literature, and it should be withdrawn…”
Interestingly, it explains that the ACIP’s recommendations are based on just TWO scientific papers that support the claim that the flu is more serious during pregnancy than at other times, and points out the multiple flaws with each of these two studies.

Here’s an excerpt explaining the lack of true evidence presented by the first study:
“A British study compared maternal and neonatal outcomes in women infected with the influenza virus during the second and third trimesters of pregnancy with those of pregnant, uninfected controls. Only 11% of the 1,659 pregnant subjects had serological evidence of the illness; none had detectable influenza A-specific IgM.

There was also no evidence for transplacental transmission of the influenza virus, or autoantibody production in influenza-complicated pregnancies. Influenza infection had no significant impact on labor outcomes, health of the newborn, or maternal well-being.

The authors claimed that overall “complications” in pregnant women with influenza infection occurred more frequently than in controls; however, no individual complication achieved statistical significance.
Many of the listed complications appeared to be subjective complaints such as chest pain and “taking medication,” rather than specific diagnoses, and some could have been related to comorbid conditions that the authors failed to address.

While there was only one recorded case of pneumonia during pregnancy, an uncommon but serious complication of influenza, all other “complications” lacked biological plausibility.
When such nonspecific complications were excluded, there were no significant differences between the two groups…”

Another interesting fact brought to light in this paper is that, ironically, some of the “evidence” used to create the recommendation for flu vaccination for pregnant women shows that it may cause more harm than good!

“Munoz et al. also failed to demonst
rate effectiveness of influenza vaccination in pregnancy during five influenza seasons (1998-2003). Rates of upper respiratory tract infection did not significantly differ between vaccinated and unvaccinated women.

Paradoxically, the authors found four times as many influenza-like illness-related hospitalizations in vaccinated women (2.8% vs 0.7%), an observation similar to that of Neuzil et al (2.2% vs 0.7%) [the second study used to support the ACIP recommendation].

These observations not only challenge vaccine effectiveness, but also raise concern that vaccination actually carries added risk of influenza-like illness.” [Emphasis mine.]
Lastly, the paper questions the rationale for using a polio vaccine study – which was rejected by the Institute of Medicine on the basis of flawed study design – in support of their decision that flu vaccinations are safe for pregnant women.

The authors called the decision “peculiar.”
Indeed…

Final Thoughts
Hopefully, this information will help you weigh the risks and benefits to make a more educated decision for yourself and your family. No one can, nor should, make this decision for you.
I urge you to continue educating yourself about vaccines before yet another generation is lost to medical arrogance and greed.