MMRV: Too Many Live Viruses At Once
<<< Back to Vaccines
E-NEWS FROM THE NATIONAL VACCINE INFORMATION CENTER
Vienna, Virginia http://www.nvic.org
BL Fisher Note:
Public health officials, drug companies, and pediatricians promoting
injecting children with multiple vaccines - like the new MMRV vaccine -
without regard to individual genetic and other biological differences do not
want to face the facts about vaccine risks. They would rather hide their
collective heads in the sand. How many more vulnerable children have to be
crippled, how many more families lives destroyed because too many doctors
refuse to see what is happening before their eyes? America is reaping a
bitter harvest of children too sick to function in society because we have
been unwilling to put restraints on the elitist M.D./Ph.D. vaccinologists
demanding blind adherence to one-size-fits-all mass vaccination policies.
Monsters and Critics.com, UK
The Age of Autism: Pox-Part 7
By Dan Olmsted May 24, 2006, 3:51 GMT
WASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) -- When a mother in Washington state and
a researcher in Washington, D.C., offer an identical observation about
autistic kids, you can`t help but notice.
That observation is simple but potentially significant: Children later
diagnosed with regressive autism often got physically sick around the time
of their live-virus vaccinations.
Here`s how Denise Rohrbeck, the mom in Olympia, Wash., put it after
collecting vaccine records and medical histories from fellow parents of
local preschoolers diagnosed with full-syndrome autism.
'Most of the parents recall their child had a viral illness -- roseola,
rotavirus or an unnamed flu -- less than four months before or after those
live-virus shots.'
Denise`s three-year-old son, Grant, is a case in point. A couple of months
before he got the live-virus chickenpox and measles-mumps-rubella shots at
the same office visit at age 1, Grant had a stubborn and severe case of
roseola, which like chickenpox is a herpesvirus.
Four days after the MMR and chickenpox injections he became ill with a fever
and lay limp in his mother`s arms for the first time in his life.
'He began having chronic diarrhea, and by his 15-month checkup he had
regressed so drastically that his pediatrician suggested he could be
autistic,' Rohrbeck recalled in Part 1 of this series. The doctor agreed to
the parents` request for an immediate neurodevelopmental evaluation, which
eventually confirmed their fears. By age 2 Grant was diagnosed with
full-syndrome autism.
An even more immediate example is Ryan Boe, an Olympia child profiled in the
last installment. He got his MMR at 16 months and his chickenpox and three
other vaccines two months later. During that visit, Ryan broke out in hives
while still at the doctor`s office, had a 105-degree fever by the end of the
day that lasted a week, and displayed classic signs of regressive autism
within the month.
The second source for the same observation about vaccines, illness and
autism is British researcher Paul Shattock. In an interview in April while
attending an autism conference in Washington, Shattock said he suspects that
children who contract viral infections too close to their MMR shot may have
an increased risk for autism.
He noticed that parents who believed the MMR vaccine triggered their child`s
autism tended to cite an 'undisclosed viral illness' around the time of the
shot.
Shattock decided to test that observation. Britain doesn`t give kids
chickenpox shots, meaning they still get chickenpox, so he looked for a
diagnosis of that unmistakable childhood disease around the time of the MMR
vaccination.
He studied the records of 100 children whose parents blame the MMR for the
onset of autism, compared to 100 children whose parents do not, to see if
there was more chickenpox in the three months on either side of the MMR
immunization.
'Now, there was,' Shattock said. 'It wasn`t statistically significant at the
95 percent level -- but enough to make you think that if it was a huge
study, it might be.'
The implication: Too many viruses too close together from whatever sources
might overload the immune system, lead to persistent infection and,
ultimately, cause brain damage resulting in autism. To Shattock,
old-fashioned chickenpox interacting with measles, mumps and rubella
vaccines looked like a red flag.
What resonates in Olympia is not just the pattern of illness but the
families` problematic histories with chickenpox and other herpesviruses. The
specter: Live-virus chickenpox vaccine and viral infections like roseola
playing the same 'overload' role in vulnerable children as real-live
chickenpox in Shattock`s suspected British cases.
Consider, for example, Jimmy Flinton. As outlined in Part 3, his father,
Paul, had an unusual case of shingles, the reactivated form of the virus, at
15; his paternal grandmother, Mary Southon, had a case at 20 and a lifelong
problem with cold sores -- a kind of herpesvirus -- that eventually infected
her eyes and may require cornea transplants.
Jimmy is one of two Olympia children with autism who were in clinical trials
of investigational, apparently high-dose chickenpox vaccines in conjunction
with the MMR shot.
In 2002, Jimmy was given ProQuad, a four-in-one chickenpox-MMR vaccine that
has about 10 times the typical dose of chickenpox virus. That is necessary
to overcome a phenomenon known as immune interference when live viruses are
combined, according to a spokesman for Merck & Co., which developed the
vaccine.
During the 42-day 'study window' following his vaccination, Jimmy may have
had a slight, brief fever, his mother, Jennifer, recalls. But she said it
was nothing notable, and she didn`t record it on the adverse-event log she
was asked to keep.
But less than four months later Jimmy had an acute illness with a fever
around 102. After that, in retrospect, his development stalled, and he
eventually was diagnosed with full-syndrome autism.
The other child, Timothy Baltzley, was in a clinical trial two years
earlier. As described in Part 4, he got a Merck 'process upgrade' chickenpox
shot that his mother, Kimberly, was told had a much higher amount of
live-virus vaccine.
Again, chickenpox history seems potentially relevant: After two mild cases
as a child, Kimberly had an unusually severe and late case of chickenpox at
16, just three years before Timothy was born.
In his clinical trial, Timothy got the experimental chickenpox shot at the
same office visit as the standard MMR. Kimberly says the pediatrician told
her it was part of the development of the combined chickenpox-MMR vaccine;
Merck, to the contrary, said the two trials were completely unrelated.
Midway through the 42-day 'study window,' Timothy had an acute illness -- a
fever of 102, vomiting and listlessness. Again the pattern: Four
live-but-weakened viruses including a big dose of chickenpox; family
susceptibility; physical illness, and autism.
Both Kimberly Baltzley and Jennifer Flinton are emphatic that the
pediatrician who performed the trials in Olympia, Dr. Carl Lindgren, is not
the source of their concern. (Lindgren referred our questions to Merck.)
'Dr. Lindgren has been incredibly conscientious and proactive in his
dealings with us regarding Jimmy`s autism -- much more so than most
pediatricians would be,' Jennifer said.
'So, not only do w'I worry about pediatricians being vilified,' said Denise
Rohrbeck, the mom who collected the vaccination records. 'We vaccinated our
son because we shared their faith that vaccines were safe.
'If it turns out that some vaccines are not safe for all children and that
these hazards could have been found with more rigorous testing -- or worse,
that the dangers were already known -- that`s the fault of the CDC, the FDA
and the manufacturers,' she said.
'I`ll defend doctors to the end on this point. They are a convenient front
line for those agencies to hide behind -- it`s just shameful.'
That puts the issue squarely in the lap of the drug companies and the
public-health authorities. They say vaccines simply don`t cause autism,
period -- so the idea of susceptibility to a viral overload from live-virus
vaccines, coincident viral infections or any other source is a non-starter.
'We don`t see an association,' Merck spokeswoman Christine Fanelle said,
citing as confirmation a 2004 report by the widely respected Institute of
Medicine, part of the National Academies. That report rejected a link
between autism and either the MMR vaccine or the mercury-based preservative
thimerosal. The report also urged that research dollars be spent on 'more
promising' autism research.
'There will always be some people who say vaccines cause autism despite the
lack of scientific evidence,' Fanelle said. She noted ProQuad subsequently
was approved by the FDA and its safety profile is the same as the individual
chickenpox and MMR shots. Merck acknowledged, however, that it did not
report the two Olympia autism cases to the FDA until this March -- six
months after ProQuad`s approval -- which is when it says it became aware of
them.
The FDA did not respond to requests for comment.
That is where the matter now rests. But several researchers who remain
concerned about a link between vaccines and autism -- in particular from
combined live-virus shots -- say the Olympia cases, grounded in the parents`
concerned but careful observations, may prove hard to ignore indefinitely.
'It`s actually heartbreaking, listening to these parents, for more than just
the immediate reasons their child has met this fate,' said British
researcher Dr. Andrew Wakefield, whose controversial theories on the MMR
vaccine and autism essentially drove him out of England. He is now doing
research in the United States and met with several of the Olympia parents
during an autism conference in Portland, Ore.
'It`s that you`re staring into an abyss,' Wakefield said. 'You`re listening
to stories which reflect the fundamental misconception of vaccine
manufacturers of what viruses are and what they do.'
And what now?
'The way forward is clearly to alert the regulatory authorities to the fact
that these children exist,' Wakefield said, 'that their stories are
consistent with a delayed adverse reaction to the vaccine and that this
would not have been picked up in the (clinical) trials.'
Meanwhile, in Washington state, a law takes effect July 1 requiring proof of
chickenpox immunization before a child can enroll in school or daycare. The
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says ProQuad now is the preferred
way to administer chickenpox and MMR vaccines, ideally on a child`s first
birthday or as soon thereafter as possible.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Last in a series. This ongoing column on the roots and rise of autism
welcomes reader comment. Earlier articles are available at
theageofautism.com. E-mail: [email protected] not think he did anything
wrong with the clinical trial, but we actually think he went above and
beyond the call of duty after the trial.'
Other Olympia parents say similar things, concerned that broader issues of
vaccine safety and a possible link to autism will get translated into
criticism of individual doctors.
