Junk Science? Number 115: Vaccines – a necessary evil?
Vaccines polarize people, but why? Vaxers and anti-vaxers either don’t know their facts or don’t use their brains, or both.
I am a scientist, I am trained to think. Because no one pays me to think, I am free to objectively evaluate the facts. And I am neither a vaxer nor an anti-vaxer; I am a safe-vaxer.
Right now so many ‘experts‘ are telling us what to think about a Covid-19 vaccine. ” Coming soon.” ” It will be safe and effective.” ” Thoroughly tested.” ” We are already ordering zillions of doses.” What does history tell us? What are the lessons learned? Let me give you a factually accurate example, so you can make a more realistic and objective assessment of the many claims (writes Chris Woollams, Oxford University Biochemist).
When I was a few years old the world was in a rush to try to develop an effective polio vaccine.
In America at the University of Pittsburgh, Jonas Salk developed a vaccine in 1952. It was widely touted as effective. In 1953 it was tested on a small group of adults and children. JAMA published the results in 1953. It was again tested in two schools in 1954 and subsequently in the Francis Field Trial with 1.8 million children in 44 US states. 440,000 children received the vaccine and the results were published in April 1955.
Depending upon the strain of polio, the vaccine was 65-94% effective. The vaccine was licensed in April 1955 after, in all, 3 years of clinical trials.
The vaccine programme then started and the vaccine was manufactured by several companies, but by the end of 1955 more than 250 cases of paralysis in the limb injected were reported with some children dying.
It was then found that more than 100,000 doses of vaccine manufactured by Wyeth or Cutter Phamaceuticals had not been properly ‘deactivated’.
By the early 60s another problem was identified. Monkey kidney cells were being used to grow the vaccine, but these Simian monkeys had a virus – Simian Monkey Virus or SV-40. More than 1 million children were infected. Subsequently, researchers found SV-40 DNA in people with cancer. To this day that is true. The debate is still ongoing.
To put it simply, problems with the vaccine continued to occur for almost 10 years after it was ‘discovered’ and pronounced ‘effective’.
The WHO launched an initiative to eradicate polio in 1988. Salk vaccine is no longer used. Instead it is a vaccine developed by Albert Sabine and Mikhail Chumakov in the late 50s but updated in the 70s.
Polio was eliminated in the Americas in 1994, Europe in 2002, and in India in 2012. However polio is now making a comeback in certain countries where resistance to vaccination was shown, e.g. Pakistan, Syria, Nigeria.
As a child I missed the Salk vaccine by two months. Luckily I do not have SV-40. I have never contracted Polio. I am a safe-vaxer. This is the only logical and sensible option to be.
Go to: The Truth about Vaccines
