Threat of Shingles Epidemic From Vaccine Use;
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Polevoy sneers at chickenpox parties? He should try this one on for size.
Researcher Threatened
Three different analyses of reported cases of shingles and chickenpox were
published in the October 2003 issue of Vaccine suggesting the threat of a
shingles epidemic in the US due to mass vaccination with chickenpox
(Varicella) vaccine. Evidence showed a significantly reduction of
chickenpox disease in a population corresponded to an unexpectedly high
number of shingles cases among unvaccinated children with a previous
history of chickenpox. Shingles is usually mild in children and can be
severe in adults. Complications from shingles, which is caused by the
reactivation of the chickenpox virus that lies dormant in the body, result
in about three times the number of hospitalizations and five times the
number of deaths as those from chickenpox disease.
Gary Goldman, Ph.D., a former research analyst with the Varicella Active
Surveillance Project (VASP), worked from 1995 through late 2002 at one of
three projects in the United States assigned to actively study the effects
of chickenpox vaccine and received reports from three hundred different
public and private schools, day cares, and health care facilities. He
observed that since the vaccine is eliminating chickenpox disease, children
and adults no longer receive the natural boost to their immune systems that
they received from periodic exposures to the disease. Due to the dramatic
decline in chickenpox, children are now experiencing a higher incidence of
shingles. Goldman predicts a large-scale increase in shingles incidence
will soon become manifest among adults -- a group more susceptible to
serious complications.
Vaccine manufacturers plan to license a booster "shingles" vaccine to
substitute for the boosting that naturally occurred when chickenpox disease
was previously circulating in the population. "This will likely lead to
endless disease-and-cure cycles," says Goldman. "Varicella vaccination
would have been less problematic if all children had the opportunity to
gain natural immunity and only those still susceptible at twelve years old
were vaccinated."
Shortly after communicating on authorship issues with health officials
associated with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) concerning the
shingles data and analysis, Goldman was threatened with legal action if he
published the manuscript in the medical literature. He said, "Whenever
research data and information concerning potential adverse effects
associated with a vaccine used in a human population are suppressed and/or
misrepresented by health authorities, not only is this most disturbing, it
goes against all accepted scientific norms and dangerously compromises
professional ethics."
Between 1995 and 2000, shingles was not being studied, and positive aspects
of vaccination contributed by Goldman were published in the Journal of the
American Medical Association (JAMA) and other medical journals. In 2000,
after hearing reports that school nurses were seeing cases of shingles in
children for the first time, Goldman suggested shingles be added to the
active surveillance project. After two years of shingles data collection,
Goldman documented the adverse effects that might well be associated with
the universal chickenpox vaccination program. Currently, chickenpox
immunization is mandated in thirty-eight states.
The European journal, Vaccine (Volume 21, Issue 27/28) has devoted eighteen
pages to Goldman's three reports.
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