Did you know?

Secret sources of BPA

So you've thrown away the can opener, stopped eating foods that come in plastic packages, and use only BPA-free containers at home. 

Believe it or not, you could STILL have super-high levels of this endocrine-disrupting chemical -- because it's in positively everything, up to and including the newspaper you read this morning. 

One more reason to go online for your news! 

New tests find that common paper products contain up to 1 MILLION times the BPA of food containers -- with the highest levels found in newspapers and paper tickets. 

You might think this isn't worth worrying about since you don't eat paper -- but BPA can actually enter the body through your skin. One study last year found that 30 percent of the BPA from paper receipts remains on the skin two hours after exposure -- and you can't even wash it off. 

Because those same BPA-laced receipts are then tossed in with the recycling, this chemical is now found in just about every product made from recycled paper: business cards, napkins, paper food wrappers and toilet paper. 

Throw in all the sources you already know about -- especially plastic food containers and canned goods -- and you could be exposed at every waking moment... from your morning newspaper to the can of beer at the end of the day.

Stop waiting for the government to act on this one -- if all these industries insist on using BPA, insist on buying other products instead. Hit 'em in the wallet hard enough, and eventually they'll get the message... or they'll be out of business. 

Either outcome is acceptable to me. 

Showing my "can-don't" attitude, 

William Campbell Douglass II, M.D.

Jim Rogers interviews

Out of the Backyard: New Latin American and Caribbean Bloc Defies Washington

By: Benjamin Dangl, Toward Freedom | News Analysis

Truthout

Rain clouds ringed the lush hillsides and poor neighborhoods cradling Caracas, Venezuela as dozens of Latin American and Caribbean heads of state trickled out of the airport and into motorcades and hotel rooms.They were gathering for the foundational summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), a new regional bloc aimed at self-determination outside the scope of Washington’s power.

Notably absent were the presidents of the US and Canada – they were not invited to participate. "It's the death sentence for the Monroe Doctrine," Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said of the creation of the CELAC, referring to a US policy developed in 1823 that has served as a pretext for Washington's interventions in the region. Indeed, the CELAC has been put forth by many participating presidents as an organization to replace the US-dominated Organization of American States (OAS), empower Latin American and Caribbean unity, and create a more equal and just society on the region’s own terms.

The CELAC meeting comes a time when Washington’s presence in the region is waning. Following the nightmarish decades of the Cold War, in which Washington propped up dictators and waged wars on Latin American nations, a new era has opened up; in the past decade a wave of leftist presidents have taken office on socialist and anti-imperialist platforms.

The creation of the CELAC reflected this new reality, and is one of various recent developments aimed at unifying Latin America and the Caribbean as a progressive alternative to US domination. Other such regional blocs include the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) which has successfully resolved diplomatic crises without pressure from Washington, the Bank of the South, which is aimed at providing alternatives to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and the Bolivarian Alliance of Latin America (ALBA), which was created as an alternative to the Free Trade Area of the Americas, a deal which would have expanded the North American Free Trade Agreement throughout Latin America, but failed due to regional opposition.

The global economic crisis was on many of the leaders’ minds during the CELAC conference. "It seems it's a terminal, structural crisis of capitalism," Bolivian President Evo Morales said in a speech at the gathering. "I feel we're meeting at a good moment to debate ... the great unity of the countries of America, without the United States."

The 33 nations comprising the CELAC make up some 600 million people, and together are the number one food exporter on the planet. The combined GDP of the bloc is around $6 trillion, and in a time of global economic woes, the region now has its lowest poverty rate in 20 years; the growth rate in 2010 was over 6% - more than twice that of the US. These numbers reflect the success of the region’s social programs and anti-poverty initiatives.

In an interview with Telesur, Evo Morales said the space opened by the CELAC provides a great opportunity to expand the commerce of Latin America and the Caribbean in a way that does not depend on the precarious markets of the US and Europe. In this respect he saw a central goal of the CELAC being to “implement politics of solidarity, with complementary instead of competitive commerce to resolve social problems…”

While the US is the leading trading partner for most Latin American and Caribbean countries, China is making enormous inroads as well, becoming the main trade ally of the economic powerhouses of Brazil and Chile. This shift was underlined by the fact that Chinese President Hu Jintao sent a letter of congratulations to the leaders forming the CELAC. The letter, which Chávez read out loud to the summit participants, congratulated the heads of state on creating the CELAC, and promised that Hu would work toward expanding relations with the region’s new organization.

The US, for its part, did not send a word of congratulations. Indeed, Washington’s official take on the CELAC meeting downplayed the new group’s significance and reinforced US commitment to the OAS. Commenting on the CELAC, US Department of State spokesman Mark Toner said, “There [are] many sub-regional organizations in the hemisphere, some of which we belong to. Others, such as this, we don’t. We continue, obviously, to work through the OAS as the preeminent multilateral organization speaking for the hemisphere.”

Many heads of state actually saw the CELAC meeting as the beginning of the end for the OAS in the region. This position, held most passionately by leaders from Ecuador, Bolivia, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba, was best articulated by Venezuelan President, and host of the CELAC meeting, Hugo Chávez. "As the years pass, CELAC will leave behind the old OAS," Chávez said at the summit. “OAS is far from the spirit of our peoples and integration in Latin America. CELAC is born with a new spirit; it is a platform for people's economic, political and social development, which is very different from OAS.” He later told reporters, “There have been many coup d'états with total support from the OAS, and it won’t be this way with the CELAC.”

However, the presidents involved in the CELAC vary widely in political ideology and foreign policy, and there were differing opinions in regards to relations with the OAS. Some saw the CELAC as something that could work alongside the OAS. As Mexican chancellor Patricia Espinosa said, the OAS and the CELAC are “complementary forces of cooperation and dialogue.”

A test of the CELAC will be how it overcomes such differences and makes concrete steps toward developing regional integration, combating poverty, upholding human rights, protecting the environment and building peace, among other goals. The final agreements of the two day meeting touched upon expanding south to south business and trade deals, combating climate change and building better social programs across the region to impact marginalized communities. In addition, the CELAC participants backed the legalization of coca leaves (widely used as a medicine and for cultural purposes in the Andes), condemned the criminalization of immigrants and migrants, and criticized the US for its embargo against Cuba.

Various presidents at the CELAC spoke of how to approach these dominant issues. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said the CELAC should “monitor and rate” the US anti-drug efforts. As long as the US continues its consumption of drugs, Ortega said, “All the money, regardless of by how much it’s multiplied, and all the blood, no matter how much is spilled” won’t end the drug trade.

Yet there are plenty of contradictions within the CELAC organization itself. The group is for democracy but includes the participation of Porfirio Lobo from Honduras, the president who replaced Manuel Zelaya in unfair elections following a 2009 military coup. The CELAC is for environmental protection, yet its largest participant, Brazil, is promoting an ecologically disastrous agricultural model of soy plantations, GMO crops and poisonous pesticides that are ruining the countryside and displacing small farmers. The group is for fairer trade networks and peace, yet various participating nations have already signed devastating trade deals with the US, and corrupt politicians at high levels of government across the region are deeply tied to the violence and profits of the transnational drug trade.

These are some of the serious challenges posed to Latin American and Caribbean unity and progress, but they do not cancel out the new bloc’s historical and political significance. The creation of the CELAC will likely prove to be a significant step toward the deepening of a struggle for independence and unity in the region, a struggle initiated nearly 200 years ago and largely led by Latin American liberator Simón Bolívar, whose legacy was regularly invoked at the CELAC conference.

In 1829, a year before his death, Bolívar famously said, “The United States appears destined by Providence to plague America with miseries in the name of Freedom.” Yet with the foundation of the CELAC under the clouds of Caracas, the march toward self-determination is still on.

BENJAMIN DANGL

Benjamin Dangl has worked as a journalist throughout Latin America and is the author of the new book, Dancing with Dynamite: Social Movements and States in Latin America (AK Press). For more information, visit DancingwithDynamite.com. Email Bendangl(at)gmail(dot)com.

http://www.truth-out.org/out-backyard-new-latin-american-and-caribbean-bloc-defies-washington/1323612864

Protect the Krisna Valley in Hungary

VÉDJUK MEG KRISNA-VÖLGYET ÉS A SZENT TEHENEKET!

A 270 hektáros Krisna-völgy jelenleg 300 szerzetesnek és kisgyermekes családnak, és 52 szentként tisztelt tehénnek valamint ökörnek a lakóhelye. Az egyházügyi törvény módosítása után kialakult rendezetlen jogi helyzet miatt azonban 2012. január 1-én ők mindannyian elveszíthetik otthonukat, életterüket, s az ország egyik legkiemelkedőbb ökogazdasága és turisztikai célpontja bezár.

A Somogyvámos határában lévő Krisna-völgyet 1993-ban kárpótlási jegyekért, saját erőből és adományokból vásárolták a hívők. Az első lakók a telet az akólban, szalmabálák között dideregve töltötték. Főzni, meleg ételhez jutni nem tudtak, mert a palackban megfagyott a gáz. De nem adták fel. Lemondásuknak és eltökéltségüknek köszönhetően az elhanyagolt birkalegelők és az ugaron fekvő területek néhány év alatt virágzó kertekké, lombos ligetekké és dúsan termő biogazdasággá változtak. Krisna-völgy az elmúlt években több, mint félmillió hazai és külföldi kisiskolást, egyetemistát, családot és turistát látott vendégül, s osztotta meg tapasztalatait velük. A vegyszermentes növénytermesztésre és szennyvíztisztításra, és a megújuló energiaforrások használatára épülő, önellátó Krisna-völgyi gazdaság világviszonylatban is elismertséget jelent Magyarországnak.

Védjük meg az ország egyik legfontosabb biogazdaságát és turisztikai célpontját! Mentsük meg a családokat, a szerzeteseket és a szent teheneket! Csatlakozz Te is a december 13-án 14.00 órai kezdettel a Parlament melletti téren (Kossuth tér 4., a Közigazgatási és Igazságügyi Minisztérium előtt), a Krisna-völgyi tehenek jelenlétében tartandó békés demonstrációhoz, melyben cselekvésre kérjük az ország vezetőit!

You can sign the petition here:
http://www.petitions24.com/krisna

Interview in Hungarian:
http://www.krisna.hu/w/?q=node/4256

Kérünk, fejezd ki Te is szimpátiádat petíciónk aláírásával: http://www.peticiok.com/krisna

További információk: www.krisna.hu 

Mérő Mátyás (Madhupati dász) 06-1-212-62-70

Is war with Iran inevitable?

By Susanna Rustin

The Guardian

Former UK foreign minister Malcolm Rifkind fears Iran wants to develop nuclear weapons. Not so, says campaigner Abbas Edalat, who thinks western hawks want war.

As tensions between Iran and the west escalate, and US politicians call for regime change, Susanna Rustin talks to former foreign secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind and Iranian-British academic Abbas Edalat, founder of the Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran, about Iran's nuclear programme and the likelihood of war. 

Malcolm Rifkind: I do not advocate a military attack on Iran, but the International Atomic Energy Agency says Iran is failing to comply with agency requirements and UN security council resolutions and it is very difficult for the international community to say it doesn't matter. If Iran is trying to develop a nuclear weapons capability, that has massive implications.

Abbas Edalat: Sixty years ago the British government was demonising the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mosaddegh, and it is doing the same to the Islamic Republic. When sanctions failed then, it organised with the US the 1953 coup and brought back the Shah. And in Iraq the same unfounded allegations of weapons of mass destruction that we are seeing now were used to justify an illegal war. Western intelligence sources are feeding fabricated evidence to the IAEA, whose new head [Yukiya Amano] was disclosed by WikiLeaks to be a hardline supporter of the US. But the IAEA's latest report [last month] is disappointing for the western alliance because it says Iran has not diverted its declared nuclear material [to weapons].

MR: Many of us who believe the Iraq war was disgraceful also believe Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons. If it does, it is likely that Saudi Arabia and possibly Egypt and Turkey will follow. Even Russia and China have supported pressure on Iran. You are wrong if you think Iran has only the west to deal with.

AE: A couple of days ago the prime minister of the United Arab Emirates said they don't think Iran is building nuclear weapons. I think the international community has seen the catastrophic illegal invasion of Iraq and does not want that repeated. And you didn't mention the coup of 1953, for which Britain has never apologised. What is happening now is a re-run. Russia has said the latest sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran are illegal. The west is playing a game of hypocrisy and deception. President Obama wrote last year to the leaders of Brazil and Turkey, urging them to persuade Iran to deposit 1,200kg of low-enriched uranium in Turkey. Three weeks later Turkey and Brazil brokered a deal exactly on those terms. Did the White House welcome this breakthrough? No, it proposed new sanctions at the UN.

Susanna Rustin: Is there evidence last week's attack on the British embassy in Tehran was approved by the authorities?

MR: It is inconceivable an invasion of a foreign embassy by a large crowd could happen without government connivance.

AE: This allegation is contradicted by US vice-president Joe Biden, who said he has no evidence the attack was orchestrated by the Iranian leadership. When did it happen? Just after the UK imposed sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran.

MR: Most reasonable people will say, fortunately we have the IAEA. You say it is pressured by the US; that's an insult. Its latest report said Iran is taking action in its nuclear programme that is only consistent with a military purpose. We acknowledge mistakes were made in the past – you referred to the Mosaddegh affair and I can only give my personal view. I think that was a foolish mistake.

SR: Should the British apologise?

MR: I don't believe in demands for apologies. The question is why Iran, which has more oil and gas than almost any country, needs to give such a huge priority to nuclear energy. WikiLeaks quoted King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia calling for the head of the serpent – that was his phrase – to be cut off, meaning he wanted a military attack on Iran.

AE: There is no shred of evidence that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. There is a fatwa by the supreme leader against weapons of mass destruction. And you quote King Abdullah, but the overwhelming majority of Arab people approve of Iran's nuclear programme.

SR: Does the discredited evidence of WMD in Iraq make tackling Iran harder?

MR: Much more difficult – the main beneficiary of the Iraq war was the Iranian government. Iraq traditionally was a sort of buffer but that has now disappeared because of the stupid policy of the US and Tony Blair's government.

SR: What do ordinary Iranians think?

AE: Sanctions will only unite them. Almost all the evidence in the most recent IAEA report is old, and Mohamed ElBaradei [former IAEA director] always said he had no confidence in allegations from the intelligence services of Israel and the US. The New York Times in 2004 questioned the provenance of the laptop from which these documents came.

MR: So everyone is wicked except Iran! Every piece of evidence is dismissed as fabrication. It's very depressing. Iran is a great country and ought to be playing a much more important role in the world. Instead, it has made itself a focus of antagonism. It is probably trying at the moment to produce the enriched uranium and missile technology that would enable it to stop for a period, then go to the final stage in months. Iran missed an opportunity when Obama came to power. He was willing to open up dialogue that could have led to normalisation of relations. And the Iranian government threw it back. The regime likes external enemies because it helps rally support at home.

AE: Old habits die hard, Sir Malcolm.

MR: Yours as well as ours!

AE: But we have not invaded another country for 250 years. When Iran was under attack by the western-backed invasion from Iraq, it did not respond in kind with chemical warfare. In October last year Sir John Sawers, the head of MI6, publicly said that the west should use covert operations to block Iran's nuclear programme. Since then two Iranian scientists have been assassinated. Why do you think Iranians believe MI6, Mossad and the CIA were behind that?

MR: I chair the Intelligence and Security Committee and can categorically say the UK does not support assassinations. The US, on occasion, has given authority for that to happen, so have the Israelis.

SR: Were the US or Israel behind the assassinations?

MR: I don't think the Americans were, I've no idea about the Israelis.

SR: How do you expect the situation to develop?

MR: It depends on the Iranian government. If the IAEA concludes at any stage there is no reason for concern, there is no way international action could be taken. 

AE: The US House foreign relations committee has produced a bill that would prevent Obama having dialogue with Iran for the first time in history. The current hawkish policy of western governments will lead to military conflict. And that will be a catastrophe.

For comments:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/dec/09/is-war-with-iran-inevitable-nuclear-weapons

Cameron made "bad" Euro deal, says Clegg

By Channel 4 News

The UK emerged from last week's Brussels summit with a "bad deal", says Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, who fears Britain will now become "isolated and marginalised" within the EU.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg admitted today he was "bitterly disappointed" by the outcome of last week's European Council, when David Cameron wielded Britain's veto.

He warned that Britain could be left "isolated and marginalised" in the wake of the summit.

"I'm bitterly disappointed by the outcome of last week's summit, precisely because I think now there is a danger that the UK will be isolated and marginalised within the European Union," Mr Clegg told BBC1's Andrew Marr Show.

"I don't think that's good for jobs, in the City or elsewhere. I don't think it's good for growth or for families up and down the country."

He said he would now be doing "everything I can to ensure this setback does not become a permanent divide".

'Spectacularly misguided'

Mr Clegg spoke by telephone to the prime minister at 4am on Friday, as talks ended in Brussels.

The Lib Dem leader said: "I said this was bad for Britain. I made it clear that it was untenable for me to welcome it."

He said Tories welcoming the outcome of the summit were "spectacularly misguided".

At prime minister's questions last Wednesday, Conservative backbenchers urged David Cameron to show "bulldog spirit" in Brussels.

But Mr Clegg said today: "There's nothing bulldog about Britain hovering somewhere in the mid-Atlantic, not standing tall in Europe, not being taken seriously in Washington."

He warned the UK was "retreating further to the margins of Europe".

Read more: Will UK be left out in the cold?

'Not good for Britain'

Earlier, in today's Independent on Sunday, a source close to Mr Clegg said there had been "a spectacular failure to deliver in the country's interest" at the Brussels summit.

"Nick certainly doesn't think this is a good deal for Britain, for British jobs or British growth," the source said.

"It leaves us isolated in Europe and that is not in our national interest. Nick's fear is that we become the lonely man of Europe."

The source said Mr Clegg "couldn't believe it" when, on Friday morning, he was informed of the course of events and how Mr Cameron had sought to negotiate with fellow EU leaders.

'Reasonable requests'

Speaking on BBC Radio Nottingham, Conservative Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke, a pro-European, described the outcome of the summit as "disappointing".

"There will be a big statement made by the prime minister on Monday, where I shall be sitting listening, and I shall be discussing what we are going to do now," Mr Clarke said.

Meanwhile, Foreign Secretary William Hague, writing in The Telegraph, gave his backing to Mr Cameron.

"Our requests were moderate, reasonable and relevant, given the potential spill-over from fiscal to financial integration," wrote Mr Hague.

"We did not go to Brussels seeking a row. We went in search of agreement. It is a matter of regret that no agreement that was acceptable to all 27 EU countries could be reached.

"But it is better to have no change to the EU treaties than a change that did not protect our interests."

How soda can slowly kill you

Breaking news: Sugar is bad for you! 

I know, I know -- you'd have to be soft in the head to think this stuff won't damage your heart… but judging by the always-rising sales of sugary drinks, that message hasn't exactly sunk in with the masses. 

Now, a new study confirms -- surprise, surprise! -- that sugar will wreck your insides even if you're perfectly slim on the outside… and that women in particular face the highest risks. 

Soda, bottled teas, juice drinks, energy drinks, and those crazy "coffee" concoctions from Starbucks -- you name it, researchers say women who drank just two a day over five years were 400 percent more likely to have high triglycerides than women who didn't drink the stuff, no matter what they weighed.

What's more, those two daily drinks threw glucose levels so far out of whack that these women -- yes, even the thin ones -- were already facing a higher risk of diabetes. 

But I don't need to see yet another study on this -- just the ingredients labels on those drinks: A single can of soda contains TEN teaspoons or sugar, while a small bottle of that garbage contains 16. 

How can that NOT wreck your insides? 

Don't think you can get yourself off the hook by switching to diet soda -- because if there's anything worse for you than sugar, it's the chemical sweeteners used in low-calorie drinks. 

And the worst of the worst is the most common artificial sweetener of all: aspartame. This lab-created monstrosity has been linked to cancer, dementia, premature birth, migraines, seizures, and more. 

In other words, if you're at all interested in keeping healthy, avoid both sugary drinks and diet drinks. 

Coffee, tea, seltzer, water (filtered by reverse osmosis) and even booze are all much better options. 

Getting bitter over sweets, 

William Campbell Douglass II, M.D.

U.S. panel backs anthrax experiments on children

By William Campbell Douglass II, M.D.

It's the biggest medical scandal in U.S. history... and it hasn't even happened yet!

The feds are getting ready to pump children and possibly babies full of the anthrax vaccine -- despite the fact that this same vaccine has already been linked to nerve damage, autoimmune disorders and even DEATH in adults. 

Of course, they know this will be a hard sell to an American public that's becoming increasingly skeptical of vaccines -- so they're pushing it forward the only way they can: with ruthless fear-mongering. 

"At the end of the day, do we want to wait for an attack and give it to millions and millions of children and collect data at that time?" Daniel B. Fagbuy, chair of the National Biodefense Science Board panel that signed off on the plan, told the Washington Post. 

What utter and despicable nonsense. Anthrax is not like the flu -- it doesn't spread from person to person. Someone with anthrax can sneeze right in your face, and you wouldn't get the disease. 

The only way to get it is to come into direct contact with anthrax spores -- and when that happens, there's already a safe and highly effective way of dealing with it: antibiotics for those exposed. 

In other words, the danger is neither clear nor present -- and if that ever changes, we can deal with it easily enough when the time comes. 

But the NBSB claims we "need" (yes "NEED") to know right now if the vaccine is safe for children, if it's effective and what dose should be used. 

Think of the logistics of figuring that out. To test safety, you'd have to inject a bunch of children and babies and then see how many are left standing (or crawling). 

Then, if you have enough kids left, you can start to tinker with the dose and test for effectiveness. 

Ethically, the only option here is to test for antibodies after the shots -- but let's be realistic here: Antibodies alone won't tell the whole story. The only way to REALLY tell for sure if the vaccine actually prevents anthrax is to deliberately expose the children to anthrax -- including an unvaccinated control group. 

And if you think our government would never, ever do something like that... well, you just don't know our government very well.

Fat, sick and nearly dead

An inspiring journey to health through juicing

100 pounds overweight, loaded up on steroids and suffering from a debilitating autoimmune disease, Joe Cross is at the end of his rope and the end of his hope. In the mirror he saw a 310lb man whose gut was bigger than a beach ball and a path laid out before him that wouldn't end well- with one foot already in the grave, the other wasn't far behind. FAT, SICK & NEARLY DEAD is an inspiring film that chronicles Joe's personal mission to regain his health. With doctors and conventional medicines unable to help long-term, Joe turns to the only option left, the body's ability to heal itself. He trades in the junk food and hits the road with juicer and generator in tow, vowing only to drink fresh fruit and vegetable juice for the next 60 days. Across 3,000 miles Joe has one goal in mind: To get off his pills and achieve a balanced lifestyle. While talking to more than 500 Americans about food, health and longevity, it's at a truck stop in Arizona where Joe meets a truck driver who suffers from the same rare condition. Phil Staples is morbidly obese weighing in at 429 lbs; a cheeseburger away from a heart-attack. As Joe is recovering his health, Phil begins his own epic journey to get well. What emerges is nothing short of amazing - an inspiring tale of healing and human connection. Part road trip, part self-help manifesto, FAT, SICK & NEARLY DEAD defies the traditional documentary format to present an unconventional and uplifting story of two men from different worlds who each realize that the only person who can save them is themselves.

Thrive 11/11/11

Vaccination and Renal Patients: A critical examination of assumed safety and effectiveness

By Suzanne Humphries, MD                                                                                                    

October 4, 2011

“…health is not sacrosanct or free from vested interests. The traditional grandeur of the learned profession of medicine cannot be taken for granted. It has to be earned by every new generation of physicians.”[1]

Nephrologists are in the position of overseeing the health of patients with inflammatory kidney diseases of unknown origin, autoimmune disorders, and acute and chronic kidney diseases of many etiologies. A nephrologist is a specialist consultant and the patients we see are often referred by family doctors and internal medicine physicians. Several doctors who routinely refer patients to me have unquestioningly accepted the idea that “vaccines are safe for everyone” and the “benefit outweighs the small risk.” They inquired about my reasoning to withhold vaccinations in sick kidney patients.

Until I did my own research, I was also uninformed and accepted vaccines as safe and effective. Doctors do not receive any education on vaccine composition and the potential adverse effects. In medical training, we were told that patients should receive the vaccine schedule, and were assured that vaccines are safe and effective, except perhaps in a very small minority of people – maybe one in a million.

Information given to doctors about the 200-year history of vaccination is limited to carefully selected sound-bites that pre-empt any concerns. We were led to believe that vaccines are solely responsible for the eradication of infectious diseases such as smallpox. Most accepted, without question or personal study, that vaccines greatly reduced illnesses and are a benefit to overall human health. Few know that the mortality for “vaccine preventable diseases” had massively declined before the vaccine campaigns began. But it is painfully obvious from figure 1 (at end of document)[2] that the mortality for the major infectious diseases, including those for which no vaccines were ever created, had regressed to nearly undetectable levels in the population – long before vaccines were introduced.

Patients with acute and chronic illnesses are target groups to be heavily vaccinated even though vaccines have barely been tested for safety or long-term consequences in these populations. Most doctors and patients assume that vaccines are simply a solution of sterile saline and “dead” microorganisms. They are not aware of the manufacturing process to make a vaccine, the contents in the vial, or the potential risks of each component. Doctors wrongly assume that vaccines “protect” their patients from disease, without any adverse consequences on their health, and that vaccinated people won’t get that disease.

Other than vaccines, is there any other drug or biological, that is given across-the-board to all comers, without regard for health status, age, or risk of aggravating an existing illness? Given the conflict of interest among members of the major vaccine-promoting committees, vaccines fall into a category that deserves independent study by health care providers.

Every patient should be informed about the potential risks of vaccination and the lack of evidence that vaccines will not harm them over the long-term. Patients have a personal right to choose – and refuse. Their informed choices should be respected. But in order for them to be informed, the person informing them would have to be informed – and doctors are not informed.

Autoimmune and inflammatory considerations

Some of the causes of kidney disease are autoimmune, vasculitic (inflammation of blood vessels), and granulomatous (described below). There are many conditions labeled as “idiopathic”(cause unknown) in nephrology and many are inflammatory in nature. When will doctors make the connection between vaccination and these adverse events?

A mechanism called “molecular mimicry”[3] occurs when an antibody generated by a vaccine inadvertently recognizes and binds to healthy tissue in the body. The immune system then senses the antibody-healthy tissue complex as foreign and attacks it. As a result, the previously healthy tissue, such as kidney glomeruli (the tiny filters in the kidney) or small blood vessels in the kidney, can develop significant inflammation and disease. This is an autoimmune reaction (against self).

“There is, last but not least, a paucity of clinical and epidemiological data on the potential of vaccines to induce autoimmune hazards. These adverse events, whether they appear days, weeks or months following vaccination, might be frequently overlooked. The awareness of physicians and caregivers to these associations and reports such as the one described in this issue by Vainer-Mossel et al. might enable better assessment of post-vaccination complications as well as susceptibility and safety issues.”[4]

Vaccines are designed to create a state of inflammation, and raise LDL and CRP levels.[5] Why then would we give a vaccine to a patient who already has an inflammatory kidney or heart event? Why wouldn’t it be obvious that vaccination can make these conditions worse? With an understanding of the above and the absence of placebo-controlled, long-term follow up studies, we cannot reassure people that vaccines will not create or exacerbate an autoimmune disease. Vaccine-induced acute autoimmune reactions including Guillain-Barre syndrome, thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura, vasculitis and nephritis[6] are well-described in the medical literature and often listed on vaccine package inserts. If patients were followed longer and if doctors took a more accurate vaccine administration history (of the vaccines given before the new medical problems occur), more vaccine-associated damage would become obvious.

“The rarity and subacute presentation of post-vaccination autoimmune phenomena means that ascertaining causality between these events can be difficult. Moreover, the latency period between vaccination and autoimmunity ranges from days to years.”[7]

A granuloma is a circumscribed nodular inflammation. Granulomas have a typical pattern when examined under a microscope and contain macrophage cells, lymphocytes, neutrophils, and eosinophils (allergy-related immune cells). Granulomas can be caused by a variety of biologic, chemical and physical irritants of tissue.

Some idiopathic (no known cause) renal diseases are granulomatous in nature, and may be caused by an allergic reaction.[8] Patients with granulomatous diseases often present with renal failure and can have allergic manifestations.[9] No cause is ever found for half [10] of all granulomatous interstitial nephritis – a specific granulomatous condition. Aluminum in vaccines is a documented cause of granuloma formation [11], and there is no certainty that aluminum in vaccines is not the cause of many occult or idiopathic kidney problems. Aluminum is in the following vaccines: DTP, DTaP, some Hib, Pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, Hepatitis B, all combination DTaP/Hib,Tdap or Hepatitis B vaccines, Hepatitis A, HPV, Anthrax and Rabies vaccines. Can patients be assured that their renal interstitial granulomatous or autoimmune illness is not due to an allergic reaction to a previous vaccination? Or that they will not develop an atypical allergy to a vaccine component? The answer, of course, is no.

Here is a partial list of diseases that are “granulomatous,” involve the kidney and more frequently than not, the underlying cause is never known:

*Wegener’s granulomatosis

*Churg-Strauss disease

*Sarcoidosis

*Granulomatous interstitial nephritis

These diagnoses often carry very poor prognoses, and their treatments are very unpleasant and dangerous. Given the likelihood that vaccines can cause disease in vulnerable patients it is impossible to predict safety across the board, and it is even more difficult to know which patients will suffer the consequences of a vaccine. The risk-benefit ratio is not necessarily one of favor for vaccination, and our inflamed kidney patients should not be reassured that the vaccine is necessary and safe. Most people would rather choose getting the flu with the miniscule risk of its complications, than develop a vaccine-induced kidney ailment. But for an unidentifiable part of the population this choice cannot be made. Vaccination is like a game of roulette. Some people seem to tolerate it (at least for the first few weeks, and thereafter nobody knows) while others could become case reports in medical literature.

Medical Center Experience

I witnessed multiple patients who were stable for years with chronic kidney disease (CKD) deteriorate or relapse rapidly after the flu and/or pneumonia vaccines. Other doctors just assume that deterioration is what you expect in a person with chronic disease, so when they see it, they don’t connect it with a vaccine. Yet given how often it happens, if doctors asked questions about vaccines when renal patients suddenly and rapidly decline, and saw that it happens repeatedly, you would think that they would make the link. But they don’t. It is a mysteriously huge blind spot.

In the Winter of 2009, I treated multiple adult patients who required dialysis after receiving both seasonal and H1N1 vaccines and/or pneumonia vaccines. No other cause for their renal failure could be identified. Some patients stated that they became ill after their flu shot. Two of these patients died and one remained on dialysis.

On the other hand no patients were dialyzed, in my eleven years of service at this hospital, simply after a case of influenza. We can see patients develop renal failure during flu-like illnesses – but almost exclusively only if they are prescribed and take large doses of NSAID pain medicine(e.g., ibuprophen), Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme Inhibitors (blood pressure drugs), Angiotensin Receptor Blockers, and/or they were severely volume depleted (dehydrated).

When recently-vaccinated people present to the doctor with acute kidney failure, have not taken any other nephrotoxin, and have no other cause for the kidney failure, the vaccine must be seriously considered as having precipitated the problem. Yet physicians will go out of their way to deny the vaccine as culprit even after they fail to find any other underlying cause. They have no problem admitting that other drugs cause kidney disease, but seem to have a reflex to deny a vaccine as problematic. Could this be from the sound-bites they have heard over and over - about vaccines being safe?

The CDC recommendations:[12]

“In general, vaccinations should be deferred when a precaution is present. However, a vaccination might be indicated in the presence of a precaution because the benefit of protection from the vaccine outweighs the risk for an adverse reaction. This is left to the healthcare provider to make a decision. The following are precautions for TIV:

Presence of a moderate or severe acute illness with or without a fever. Persons who were hospitalized with an acute illness but who are now well enough to be discharged from a hospital can be vaccinated.”

This recommendation leaves loopholes to vaccinate just about anyone, but is there any science to defend it? How could the benefit of vaccinating a severely-ill patient, or a patient who has organ impairment (and may not mount a significant antibody response anyway) outweigh the risk? Why is there such a rush to vaccinate all hospital patients even though any potential protection will not be present for weeks? Could it have more to do with medical policy and reimbursement than with what is in the best interest of a sick patient?

As doctors, this CDC recommendation isn’t adhered to, because before we evaluate a patient, vaccines have already been given by nurses and others who have no medical mandate. This often occurs on the first hospital-day, not when they are “well enough to be discharged.” My efforts to change the hospital vaccine policy to wait until discharge was categorically refused by the administration and hospital policy makers – at a meeting that I was not permitted to attend.

Patients are routinely given influenza and pneumonia vaccines on their first day of hospitalization; after a major surgical procedure; during an acute illness (like kidney failure, lymphoma, pneumonia, infections, auto-immune diseases, heart attacks) and often before a full diagnosis has been made.

In many cases, I would try to cancel or defer vaccinations using a written order, but was thwarted because a nurse had already injected the patient with a vaccine ordered by the pharmacist- via a standing hospital policy. I found this unacceptable, and my effort to adjust the inpatient vaccination policy of the hospital was futile.

These vaccines can harm patients who are already ill, especially renal patients. While the nephrologists are left trying to figure out the cause of the patient’s renal failure, any vaccine can make the inflammatory reactions already occurring in the kidney worse.

It is well-accepted that renal vulnerability to inflammatory and drug insults can stem from diabetes, concomitant kidney-toxic drugs, myeloma, recovering acute kidney injury, or an existing, but as yet undiagnosed renal disease. Giving vaccines as soon as a patient is admitted to the ward makes no logical scientific sense, and makes it much harder for doctors to diagnose the admitting problem. Needless vaccination is a liability issue for the doctor and the hospital that must be carefully reviewed.

Peer-Reviewed Literature

The literature is peppered with case reports of acute kidney injury, renal failure and vasculitis after vaccines.[13] In 2009, the BMC Nephrology published a case report that concluded, “Our case as well as previous anecdotal reports suggests that vaccination and the resulting stimulations of the immune system might cause Nephrotic Syndrome(MCNS) and other severe immune reactions. Increased awareness in that regard might help to expand the database of those cases.”[14]

Increased awareness will only happen if doctors and hospitals are open to the likelihood of vaccine reactions in their patients, and are taking an accurate vaccine history. They must consider the possibility of a vaccine reaction occurring weeks to months after a vaccine, since this time period is rational – and since vaccine events have not been studied for auto-immunity over such a time frame. The burden of proof still rests upon the vaccine manufacturers and advisory groups who have neglected to do long-term studies, yet still tout vaccines as an acceptable preventative in the chronically ill, based on limited scientific information.

I have spent the past few years reading much of the available literature on the safety of vaccines – both conventional and alternative. None of these studies can convincingly conclude that vaccines are safe or protective. None discuss the safety of injecting two vaccines on the same day into a patient with acute or chronic kidney disease. If a patient with new-onset kidney failure gets a vaccine and does not recover kidney function, how can anyone be certain that recovery would not have taken place without a vaccine? The assumption is always that the vaccine had nothing to do with the poor outcomes.

Placebo-controlled double blind studies using a saline placebo, with statistical power, and follow-up longer than a few weeks, demonstrating the efficacy and renal safety of any vaccine in the renal failure population, are lacking. Yet renal patients are constantly told that the benefit outweighs the risk; where does this come from? Extrapolation and “consensus opinion-based” recommendations of the MMWR.[15]

Immune-complex glomerulonephritis and renal vasculitis are very serious types of inflammatory disorders. They are difficult to treat, and the patients find the suppressive treatments very stressful, both physically and emotionally. For this reason, doctors should consider the possible adverse outcomes or jeopardized renal recovery after injecting antigens, adjuvants, detergents, stealth viruses and preservatives into patients with these illnesses.

A review of the research often concludes that vaccines can be given “safely” to all renal patients, no matter what their chronic illness may be. These same studies only follow a very small numbers of patients for 4-6 weeks. These articles show that many of the test subjects were taking NSAIDS, corticosteroids, methotrexate or rituximab, a powerful monoclonal anti-B-cell antibody. They suggest that adequate antibody response can be achieved in chronically-ill persons, but rarely if ever discuss the relapse or exacerbation rate of the original disease after the vaccine is given. The immune-suppressing drugs in these studies may very well mask acute inflammatory vaccine reactions leading the analysis of the vaccine effect to be negligible. But who can extrapolate the effect on long-term remission after a vaccine has been given and the drugs are tapered? Vaccination studies do not follow subjects looking at decline in kidney function from normal kidneys or already- injured kidneys, subsequent inflammatory disorders, or reactivation of renal inflammatory disorders after being in remission for years. Nor do they assess the rate of myocardial infarctions, strokes, and cancer. None of these articles can convincingly conclude that vaccines are safe or protective in the chronically ill.

In 2004, the journal, Vaccine published an article titled, “Impaired response rates but adequate protection rates to influenza vaccination in dialysis patients.”[16] This misleading article is typical of the research that suggests vaccines are safe and protective for people on dialysis. After reading the article, one is left wondering how such a conclusion was made from the data in the study. The patients on dialysis did not respond to the vaccine, even after multiple injections. Protection was considered adequate if the person had a “hemagglutinin titer greater than 40” but there was no longitudinal follow-up to see if any of the vaccinated people contracted influenza throughout the rest of the winter.

It is well-documented that an antibody titer is not an adequate reflection of immunity. For example, recent outbreaks of mumps[17] and pertussis[18] were in populations where more than 80 percent had been adequately vaccinated and assumed to have had protective titers. From the MMWR report on mumps17“Of the 24 patients for whom vaccination status was reported, 20 (83%) had received age-appropriate vaccination with 2 doses, one (4%) had received partial age-appropriate vaccination with 1 dose” From the BMJ15 85.9% of children with pertussis who presented to the doctor with over 14 days of coughing, were fully vaccinated.

Protective immunity is a complex mechanism and involves much more than an antibody. Keeping in mind that IgA is the natural antibody on mucus membranes and that cell-mediated immunity is the other arm of immunity- antibody production being the one most focused on with vaccination; Dr. Jerry Weir of the FDA has said “No specific IgA antibody titer has been correlated with reduction in influenza-like illness… Cell-mediated immunity (CMI) is a likely contributor to protection and may provide some degree of cross-protection[to other types of influenza].No specific measure of cell-mediated immunity has been correlated with reduction in influenza-like illness.”[19]

Thus, there are other important aspects of immunity that remain complete unknowns when it comes to vaccinations and the peer-reviewed literature. It is a leap of faith to assume that immunity can be reliably replicated solely by the crude process of inducing a temporary antibody through vaccination.

Efficacy of Influenza Shots in Adults

A study that shows a treatment approach to be “efficacious” means that the study produced good outcomes in a controlled experimental trial, often in highly-constrained conditions. Translating efficacious practices to routine practice settings to produce effective results (i.e., results that show protection in the face of the disease, or “effectiveness”) is one of the more challenging issues of evidence-based practice.

Efficacy in the vaccine literature is usually measured as antibody production at a desired titer. The assumption that an antibody titer of 1:40 is protective and translates into effectiveness is nothing more than an educated guess and far from a scientifically-established truth. Here are some examples of the statements made by leading investigators and drug companies about influenza titers and presumed protection:

“In some human challenge studies, antibody titers of ≥1:40 have been associated with protection from influenza illness in up to 50% of subjects.”[20]

“…., hemagglutination-inhibition and microneutralization antibody titers of 1:40 or more were seen in 92 to 100% and 100% of recipients of MF59-adjuvanted vaccine, respectively, and in 74 to 79% and 78 to 83% of recipients of nonadjuvanted vaccine, respectively…Monovalent 2009 influenza A (H1N1) MF59-adjuvanted vaccine generates antibody responses likely to be associated with protection after a single dose is administered.”[21]

“The criterion of an HI titre of at least 40 IU is based upon the assumption of a correlation with a reduction in influenza-like illness when most of the vaccinated population has some degree of pre-existing immunity against inter-pandemic strains.”[22]

“A serum antibody hemagglutination inhibition (HI) titer of 40 is accepted [but not proven] as the level of serum HI antibody associated with >50% reduction of the risk of contracting an influenza infection or influenza disease. However, it should be kept in mind that other immune parameters also contribute to protection so that HI titer alone may not guarantee immunity or predict susceptibility.”[23]

While there are thousands of published studies on different aspects of the influenza vaccines, the results are widely variable as are the study designs. But underlying most of them is an assumption that a titer of 1:40 protects; not a fact, proof or truth. This must be taken into consideration when making sweeping statements about the efficacy and effectiveness of influenza vaccines.

Effectiveness would be a preferred end point in a study since it is more reflective of reality than the constraints in an efficacy study. While the media hype and policy-making medical boards report on the safety and effectiveness of flu vaccines, this simply has never been proven. Cohort studies examining the rates of influenza disease and morbidity in the vaccinated vs. the unvaccinated are scarce.

Manzoli et al. reported in a 2009 cohort study involving 32,457 vaccinated vs. unvaccinated individuals that “vaccination did not significantly reduce the risk of in-hospital death, influenza or pneumonia admission.”[24] Effectiveness, in this study, was not obvious in the vaccinated group.

I have consulted on cases of acute hospital-acquired renal failure that developed within 24 hours of a newly marketed “high-dose Fluzone” vaccine in ill patients who had slightly-impaired kidneys at the time of vaccine administration. In these cases the kidney function plummeted abruptly after the vaccines. There is NO data to support such a vaccination practice. In addition, the package insert of the flu vaccine and the CDC documents admit “Data from clinical trials comparing Fluzone to Fluzone High-Dose among persons aged 65 years or older indicate that a stronger immune response (i.e., higher antibody levels) occurs after vaccination with Fluzone High-Dose. Whether or not the improved immune response leads to greater protection against influenza disease after vaccination is not yet known.” Thus, effectiveness for this particular vaccine is completely unknown and efficacy is measured by an antibody. And, as always, there is no data on carcinogenicity or renal safety.

The peer-reviewed literature and vaccine package inserts report that antibody production is often blunted in high-risk groups.[25] So even if vaccine-induced antibody production did correlate with effectiveness, there is reason to believe that it would not be a manner of protection for chronically ill people.

Hazardous Components in Pneumonia and Influenza Vaccines

The effects of the various toxic components in vaccines, such as formaldehyde and thimerosal in influenza vaccines, and phenol in the adult pneumonia vaccines, have been poorly studied in the medical literature, but the toxic levels are well documented by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) states that formaldehyde is immediately dangerous to life and health at 20 ppm (parts per million).[26] All injectable influenza vaccines have measureable amounts of formaldehyde. Listed on the package inserts as “micrograms per dose,” a conversion reveals that influenza vaccines can contain 50 to 200ppm of formaldehyde. The detractors from this argument will cite evidence that the body makes formaldehyde, but this is an invalid comparison. An injection in micrograms/ml concentration is not comparable to the natural and widely dispersed production in nanogram quantities of formaldehyde-like hydrocarbons within the body. The human body makes highly-acidic stomach secretions, stool and bile. It is a natural occurrence in a natural location. Injecting these secretions into a muscle would not have the same benign effect. There are no published studies that examine the outcome of injecting 50-200ppm of formaldehyde year after year.

Formaldehyde in small amounts is known to have synergy with other toxic substances,[27] and is a known carcinogen with multiple cellular toxicities, including DNA damage, allergies and spontaneous abortion.[28] The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classifies formaldehyde as a human carcinogen.[29]

Several commonly-used influenza vaccines still contain mercury in the form of thimerosal. Mercury is a known neurotoxin and nephrotoxin, which contributes to hypertension, immunosuppression, renal tubular necrosis, renal failure, anemia, proteinuria and a host of other illnesses. The multidose vial of Fluzone, manufactured by Sanofi-Pasteur, contains 25 mcg of thimerosal in each adult dose. The cumulative effect of annual mercury-containing vaccines, from childhood through adult life, cannot promote health and its neurotoxicity and nephrotoxicity are very real risks.

The EPA has determined that the level of phenol in lakes and streams should be limited to less than 21 ppm to avoid toxic exposure. Yet doctors don’t appear to be disturbed when they read in the manufacturer’s documents, that the concentration of phenol in the adult pneumonia vaccines is 2,500 ppm(0.25%). OSHA documents that, “The effects of phenol exposure in humans are similar to those produced in animals: systemic absorption causes central nervous system impairment and liver and kidney damage.”[30]

Other ingredients found in flu shots may surprise the uninformed: avian (stealth) viruses[31], antibiotics (aminoglycosides),detergents (triton X-100 and sodium deoxycholate), hydrocortisone, monosodium glutamate(MSG), polysorbate 80, sucrose, thimerosal (mercury)and gelatin. All of these substances can be dangerous and toxic – especially when injected.

Monkey kidney cells, aborted human fetus, immortalized (like cancer) cells are among the cell line substrates used for manufacturing viral vaccines. The contamination of any vaccine with animal cells and animal or recombinant DNA is a very real possibility.[32] The FDA has published concerns over it. Animal matter has contaminated vaccines since the inception of vaccination, and continues to occur today. Vaccines are tested for occult viruses, and if they are not found are considered “specific-pathogen free.” But vaccines can only be tested for viruses that are known, and for which a test has been developed.

The original polio vaccines were made from infected neural tissue. It was deemed too risky to use such tissue for human vaccines, due to the possibility of inducing encephalitis and severe anaphylactic reactions. Instead, monkey kidney tissue was chosen and is still used for polio vaccine and vaccinia vaccine(smallpox) manufacture. Early on, in the 1950’s concern was raised over the possibility that antigens from monkey kidney tissue would pose a risk for nephritis in children injected with residual monkey kidney cells from vaccines. Today’s polio and smallpox vaccine ingredients still list “monkey kidney tissue.” To date, no adequate long-term studies have put this concern to rest. As seen above, nephritis can occur months to years after vaccination. Since nephritis is a low-incidence condition, a large sample of vaccinated and unvaccinated children would need to be followed, for a period of months to years, to adequately rule out the higher incidence of nephritis in polio-vaccinated children.

Polyoma viruses

It is now an accepted fact that vaccines have been a vehicle for polyoma (poly meaning multiple and omameaning tumor, as these viruses are known to cause multiple tumors) virus transmission from animals to humans. The simian virus40 originated in monkey kidneys and has been associated with two common forms of human renal pathology called FSGS[33] (focal and segmental glomerulosclerosis), and tubular necrosis[34]. Other polyoma viruses can be reactivated during immunosuppressive treatment of kidney diseases and transplantation, and result in transplant failure and cancers.

SV40 was given its name as it was the fortieth monkey virus discovered. Since then, over 100 such viruses have been detected. SV40 has tropism (attraction) for human kidneys. Stealth pathogens that can’t be tested for could lead to devastating problems later after the vaccinee’s immune system is compromised. Modern detection assays for SV40 have been shown to be insufficient by a leading investigator of SV40.[35] The stealth virus problem is not just a thing of the distant past that has been addressed and contained. “Seed virus” used to grow polio virus in cultures was taken from stored contaminated polio vaccines as late as the 1990’s.[36] Inactivated vaccines against adenoviruses and hepatitis A virus also exposed humans to SV40.[37].

Acceptance of the monkey virus called SV40 as a carcinogenic vaccine contaminant took the medical and pharmaceutical community over 30 years. During that time, hundreds of millions of people were infected with it. This potent cancer virus has been described by one of the foremost scientists in the field of virology, Dr Michele Carbone, as “the perfect war machine” because it affects at least 4 major cellular mechanisms that either promote cancer or interfere with cancer fighting defenses.[38] Recently, three new polyoma viruses (KIV, WUV, and Merkel Cell Py (MCV)) were added to the list of viruses that infect humans, yet SV40 is the only one to even have cursory study in conjunction to vaccine contamination. And that was only because a scientist working for the Division of Biologics (now FDA) named Dr. Bernice Eddy in the 1950’s publicized her findings despite concerted efforts to silence her. Polyoma viruses are now considered ubiquitous and the consensus is that they are acquired in childhood. The question is, are they acquired as a normal part of life or are they acquired from animal-derived vaccines given during childhood? This is an area of virology that has not been touched.

Polyoma viruses that infect humans become activated during episodes of immunosuppression.[39] Another type of polyomavirus, called BK polyoma virus, is associated with failed renal transplants and malignancies in renal transplant patients[40]. Viral reactivation has been well documented in patients who have undergone organ transplantation.[41] As any transplant nephrologist will attest, polyoma virus reactivation often culminates in transplant rejection, and transplant patients have a much higher incidence of malignancies than the general population.

BK polyoma is also a recognized complication of kidney failure in patients undergoing immunosuppression for cancers and for non-renal organ transplants.[42] While BK polyoma is considered a rare complication, renal failure is not rare in patients undergoing chemotherapy. Without a more comprehensive investigation in the area of renal failure during chemotherapy, it will remain unknown how often these problems are silently occurring. Most cases of renal failure during chemotherapy are simply called tubular necrosis and are not deeply investigated.

Many renal patients are given immunosuppressive medications to treat their native glomerular kidney disease (various forms of inflammatory nephritis), which could certainly reactivate latent polyoma viruses. A little-known fact is that both BK polyoma and SV40 are capable of causing renal tubular necrosis[43]; another cause of kidney failure for which doctors frequently never find an underlying cause.

Focal and segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) is another serious kidney disease and it is difficult to reverse. The nephrology literature documents that the SV40 polyoma virus has been discovered in FSGS lesions on kidney biopsy.[44] The accepted medical treatment involves high doses of corticosteroids and immunosuppressive medications, often for months or years. The consequence of potential latent viral activation could be additional kidney injury or cancer stimulation during the immunosuppressive treatments in patient’s FSGS. We know that the immunosuppressive treatments can be carcinogenic but there has not been serious investigation into dormant cancer viruses contributing to the increased rates of cancer in persons undergoing immunosuppressive treatments. Until these concerns can be put to rest, we cannot simply say that the benefit of vaccination outweighs the risk.

When a patient does not recover after a treated episode of glomerulonephritis it is always assumed that the treatment simply didn’t’ work, but is it possible that the kidneys fail due to a reactivated latent kidney virus? Much more research is needed in order to understand the potential consequences of polyoma virus infection in patients treated for auto-immune diseases with steroids and cytotoxic agents aimed at purposefully impairing the immune cells of the body.

A potential stealth virus problem will exist as long as vaccines use animal products. Most vaccines contain more than one animal byproduct. In 2009, a porcine (pig) virus was discovered in both brands of the infant rotavirus vaccine manufactured from monkey-gut viruses. PCV-2 (porcine circovirus 2), came from a commonly-used protease extracted from pigs, called trypsin.[45] This virus is a known cause of wasting-disease and immunosuppression in pigs.

The FDA issued a statement reinstating the rotavirus vaccines from both companies for ingestion in infants, citing the benign nature of the virus in humans. This proclamation was made without any research into the effect a pig virus can have on infants, now or in the future. Any correlation between vaccine contaminants and cancers or wasting disease, especially in the immunosuppressed, will remain unknown and unstudied.

Immunity to responsibility

In 1986, a law was passed that exempted Pharmaceutical companies and doctors from any liability after a vaccine adverse event. “No vaccine manufacturer shall be liable in a civil action for damages arising from a vaccine-related injury or death.” (Public Law 99-660) At that time a fund was established which is filled by tax-payer money. This fund is designed to compensate the most severe cases. Patients whose chronic inflammatory issues are worsened by vaccines do not qualify.

In 2010 the US Supreme Court ruling in the case of Bruesewitz et al. v. Wyeth LLC, set a new precedent that further pads the vaccine manufacturers. The decision stated that vaccines are “unavoidably unsafe.”

Summary

All healthcare providers involved with the care of renal patients should evaluate the true risk of the vaccine vs. the benefit of overall health. This needs to be done by taking into consideration the broad array of information available. Those who do this will undoubtedly be surprised at what they find when addressing the topic thoroughly, with an open mind, realizing that there is not one single drug or procedure that they routinely give to all their patients, six months of age and older, every year of life.

Many patients are fearful of repercussions from providers for refusing vaccines. Health care providers should be caregivers and informed consultants, not dictators. Patients deserve to have their long-term health carefully considered with information that encompasses more than “protocols” and CDC guidelines that have no consideration for each individual’s health or need. Health care providers are not mandated to push the issue of vaccination, and they are hopefully bound to their oath to do no harm.

In today’s environment, health care providers have unfortunately become glorified slave- technicians rather than free-thinking, intellectual advocates of health. As we can see here, at the very least for kidney patients, vaccination recommendations and assumptions have outpaced their science base. It therefore rests on the shoulders of health care providers who wish to give the best possible care, to individualize treatment for those patients for whom data is absent, incomplete or questionable. Physicians are free to individualize medical care and that includes vaccination, but in order to do so they must independently research the very real risks involved in assembly-line vaccination.

[1] Ratner H.,1988, “An Untold Vaccine Story,” Child and Family. vol 20:50-59 uscl.info/edoc/doc.php?doc_id=93&action=inline Dr Herbert Ratner was a voice of reason during the dangerous Salk vaccine campaign starting in 1954, that caused poliomyelitis outbreaks, the most famous being the “Cutter Incident.”

[2] Roman Bystrianyk, healthsentinel.com. See figure 1.

[3] –Korzeniowska-Kowal A. et al., 2001 “Molecular mimicry of bacterial polysaccharides and their role in etiology of infectious and autoimmune diseases.” PostepyHig Med Dosw. 55(2):211-32. PMID 11468971 –Orbach H. et al., 2010 “Vaccines and autoimmune disorders.” Discov Med. Feb;9(45)90-7. PMID 20193633

[4] Agmon-Levin N. et al.,2009 “Influenza vaccine and autoimmunity.” Isr Med Assoc J. Mar;11(3):183-5. PMID 19544711

[5]Liuba P. et al., 2007”Residual adverse changes in arterial endothelial function and LDL oxidation after a mild systemic inflammation induced by influenza vaccination.” Ann Med. 39(5):392-9. PMID 17701480

Tsai MY et al.,2005 “Effect of influenza vaccine on markers of inflammation and lipid profile.” J Lab Clin Med. June: 145(6): 323-27. PMID 15976761

Posthouwer D. et al. 2004 “Influenza and Pneumococcal Vaccination as a model to assess C-reactive protein response to mild systemic inflammation.” Vaccine. Dec 2;23(3);362-5. PMID 15530681

[6] Tishler M. Shoenfeld Y., 2004 “Vaccination may be associated with Autoimmune Diseases.” Isr Med Assoc J, Jul;6(7):430-2. PMID 15274537 [7] Agmon-Levin N. et al., 2009 “Vaccines and autoimmunity.” Nat Rev Rheumatol. Nov;5(11):648-52. PMID 19865091

[8] Bijol V. et al., 2006 “Granulomatous Interstitial Nephritis: A Clinicopathologic Study of 46 cases from a single institution.” Int J Surg Pathol. 14(1): 57-63. PMID 16501836.

[9] Vaideeswar P. Mittal BV., 2001 “Idiopathic necrotising granulomatous interstitial nephritis.” J Postgrad Med, April-Jun;47(2):111-2

[10]Pasquet F. et al., 2010 “Granulomatous interstitial nephritis: A retrospective study of 44 cases.” Rev Med Interne. Oct;31(10):676-6. PMID 20605281

–Joss N. et al., 2007 “Granulomatous interstitial nephritis.” Clin J Am Soc Nephrol. Mar;2(2):222-30. PMID 17699417.

[11] Bordet AL., 2001 “Post-vaccination granuloma due to aluminum hydroxide.” Ann Pathol. Apr;21(2):149-52.

[12] Seasonal Influenza Vaccine Safety: A Summary for Clinicians http://www.cdc.gov/flu/professionals/vaccination/vaccine_safety.htm

[13] . Yanai-Barar, et al. 2002 “Influenza vaccination induced leukocytoclastic vasculitis and pauci-immune crescentic glomerulonephritis.” Clinical Nephrology, Vol 58. No. 3.

–Damjanov, Ivan, 1979 “Progression of Renal Disease in Henoch-Schonlein Purpura After Influenza Vaccination.”JAMA, vol. 242, No.23. p2555-2556.

–Ulm, S. et al., 2006 “Leukocytoclastic vasculitis and acute renal failure after influenza vaccination in an elderly patient with myelodysplastic syndrome.” Onkoligie, vol. 29, No. 10, 470-2.

–Tavadia, S., 2003 “Leukocytoclastic vasculitis and influenza vaccination.” Clin Exp Dermatol., vol 28, No 2, 154-6.

–Kielstein, JT. 2000 “Minimal Change nephrotic syndrome in a 65-year-old patient following influenza vaccination.” Clin Nephrol, vol 54, no 3, 246-8.

–Narendran, A., 1993 “Systemic Vasculitis following influenza vaccination—report of 3 cases and literature review.” J Rheumatol, vol 20, no 8, 1429-31.

–Kelsall, J., 1997 ”Microscopic Polyangiitis After Influenza Vaccination.” J Rheumatol, vol. 24:6, 1198-1202

[14] Clajus, C. et al., 2009 “Minimal change nephrotic syndrome in an 82 year old patient following a tetanus-diphteria-poliomyelitis-vaccination.” BMC Nephrology, Aug, 10:21.

[15] Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) is a weekly epidemiological digest for the United States published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

[16] Vogtlander, NP et al., 2004 “Impaired response rates, but satisfying protection rates to influenza vaccination in dialysis patients.” Vaccine, Jun 2;22(17-18):2199-201. PMID: 15149777.

[17] MMWR report, November 12, 2009/ 58(Dispatch);1-4. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm58d1112a1.htm

[18] Harnden A. et al., 2006 “Whooping cough in school age children.” BMJ Jul 22;333(7560):174-7. PMID 16829538

[19] Weir Jerry P.,”Use of Surrogate Markers of Efficacy.”Presentation for the FDA. Weir is the Director of division of viral products/CBER/FDA. www.fda.gov/downloads/BiologicsBloodVaccines/…/ucm090498.pdf

[20] FluLaval package insert.

[21] Clark T. et al.,2009. “Trial of 2009 Influenza A Monovalent MF59-Adjuvanted Vaccine.”NEJM.361:2424-2435. PMID 19745215.

[22] Ibid. Jerry Weir.

[23] Meeting Report. 2008. FDA/NIH/WHO public workshop on immune correlates of protection against influenza A viruses in support of pandemic vaccine development, Bethesda, Maryland, US, December 10–11, 2007. Vaccine.Aug 12;26(34)4299-4303. PMID 18582523.

[24] Manzoli L. et al.,2009 “Influenza vaccine effectiveness for the elderly: a cohort study involving general practitioners in Abruzzo, Italy.” J Prev Med Hyg Jun;50(2)109-12. PMID 2009941

[25] –Brydak LB and Machala M., 2000 “Humoral immune response to influenza vaccination in patients from high risk groups.” Drugs Jul:60(1):35-53. PMID 10929929.

–Stiver, H Grant et al. 1977 “Impaired Serum Antibody Response to Inactivated Influenza A and B Vaccine in Renal Transplant Recipients.” Infection and immunity June ;16(3)738-41. PMID 330394.

–Cappel, R et al., 1983 “Impaired Humoral and Cell-Mediated Immune Response in Dialyzed Patients after Influenza Vaccination.” Nephron 33(1): 21-5. PMID 6188069.

[26] Occupational Health And Safetyhttp://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/chemicals/chem_profiles/formaldehyde/health_for.html

[27] Zeliger, Harold.,2008 “Human toxicology of chemical substances.” William Andrew Press. ISBN-10:1437734634

–Toxicological Review of Formaldehyde Inhalation-Assessment. 2010 “Quantitative Assessment, Major Conclusions in the Characterization of Hazard and Dose Response, and References.” www.epa.gov/irishttp://cfpub.epa.gov/ncea/iris_drafts/recordisplay.cfm?deid=223614

[28] National Cancer Institute. Formaldehyde and Cancer Risk. http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/formaldehyde

[29] International Agency for Research on Cancer (June 2004). IARC Monographs on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans. Volume 88 (2006): Formaldehyde, 2-Butoxyethanol and 1-tert-Butoxypropan-2-ol. Retrieved May 4, 2009, from: http://monographs.iarc.fr/ENG/Monographs/vol88/index.php

[30]Occupational Safety and Health Guideline for Phenol.http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/healthguidelines/phenol/recognition.html

BREAST CANCER & THE ENVIRONMENT RESEARCH CENTERS. Early Life Exposure to Phenols and Breast Cancer Risk in Later Years FACT SHEET on PHENOLS.http://www.zerobreastcancer.org/research/bcerc_factsheets_phenols.pdf

[31] Harris R. et al., 1966 “Contaminant viruses in two live virus vaccines produced in chick cells.” Journal of Hygiene Mar;64: 1-7. PMID 4286627. –Starke G. et al.,1968 “On the problem of foreign viruses in viral vaccines produced on the chick embryo base.” Pharmazie Dec;23(12):669-78. PMID 4304716.

[32] McReardon B., “What’s coming through that needle? The problem of pathogenic vaccine contamination.” Fully referenced on line document: http://www.vaclib.org/sites/vac_coming_thru.html

[33] Li RM et al, 2002 “Molecular identification of SV40 infection in human subjects and possible association with kidney disease.” J Am Soc Nephrol Sep;13(9):2320-30. PMID 12191976.

[34] Dr Keerti Shah, a veteran SV40 scientist stated this in a workshop at the NIH January 27th 1997. Simian Virus 40(SV40): A possible human polyomavirus workshop. Page 30 of transcript.

[35] Rizzo P., 1999 “Unique Strains of SV40 in Commercial Poliovaccines from 1955 Not Readily Identifiable with Current Testing for SV40 Infection.” Cancer Res Dec 15(24):6103-8. PMID 10626798.

[36] Bookchin and Schumacher, “The Virus and The Vaccine.” St. Martin’s Griffin (June 23, 2005). ISBN 0312342721

[37] Rollison DE et al.,2004 “Case-control study of cancer among US Army veterans exposed to simian virus 40-contaminated adenovirus vaccine.” Am J Epidemiol Aug 15;160(4):317-24. PMID 15286016.

–Richmond JE et al.,1984 “Characterisation of a polyomavirus in two foetal rhesus monkey kidney cell lines used for the growth of hepatitis A virus.” Arch Virol 80(2-3):131-46. PMID 6326710.

[38] Bookchin and Schumacher, “The Virus and The Vaccine.” St. Martin’s Griffin (June 23, 2005). ISBN 0312342721

[39] Chen and Li RM et al., 2002 “BK Virus and SV40 Co-Infection in Polyomavirus Nephropathy.” TransplantationDec 15;74(11) 1497-1504. PMID 12490781.

[40] Chen CH et al., 2010 “High Incidence of Malignancy in Polyomavirus-Associated Nephropathy in Renal Transplant Recipients.” Transplantation Proceedings, Apr;42(3),817-18. PMID 20430180.

[41] Ibid.

[42] Aoki K et al., 2010 “Acute renal failure associated with systemic polyoma BK virus activation in a patient with peripheral T cell lymphoma.” Int J Hematol. Nov;92(4):638-41. PMID 20924732.

[43] Ibid. Shah.

[44] Ibid. Li RM.

[45] Ma H. et al., 2011 “Investigations of porcine circovirus type 1 (PCV1) in vaccine-related and other cell lines.”Vaccine Aug 8.