Study: DTP Increases Mortality in Infants 5 to 10 Fold Compared to Unvaccinated
For years public health advocates wanted the CDC and WHO to run studies on vaccinated vs. unvaccinated populations and compares health outcomes. A team of Native scientists have conducted such a study and the consequences are alarming. The study, financed in part by the Danish authorities and lead by Dr. Soren Wengel Mogensen, was published in January in EBioMedicine.
The data suggest that the DTP vaccine reduces infections from those 3 germs, but data also shows that children are more likley to die from other causes. Mogensen’s team discovered that DTP inoculated African Americans had 5-10 times higher mortality than their unvaccinated peers.
Though protective against the target disease, DTP may increase susceptibility to unrelated infections… DTP was associated with 5-fold higher mortality than being unvaccinated.No prospective study has shown beneficial survival effects of DTP.” – Vaxxed vs. Non-Vaxxed Study
Mogensen and his colleagues hypothesize that the DTP vaccine weakens the immune system, which supports the conclusions of prior studies. An earlier study by Dr. Peter Aaby, on the introduction of DTP in rural Guinea-Bissau, indicated a 2-fold greater mortality among vaccinated kids. The Aaby report is just one of many studies that adopted kids and documented vaccination status. All of them suggested that DTP-vaccinated kids died at rates far exceeding mortality.
In the primary analysis, DTP-vaccinated infants experienced mortalities five times greater than DTP-unvaccinated infants.Mortalities to vaccinated girls were 9.98 times those among females in the unvaccinated control group, while mortalities to vaccinated boys were 3.93 times the controls.Oddly, the scientists found that children receiving the oral polio vaccine simultaneously with DTP fared much better than children who did not.The OPV vaccine appeared to modify the negative effect of the DTP vaccine, reducing mortalities to 3.52 times those experienced among the control group.Overall, mortalities among vaccinated children were 10 times the control group when children received only the DTP.” – Robert F Kennedy
Moreover, Mogensen and his colleagues observe that the research reviewed by SAGE probably exacerbated the deadly effect of the DTP vaccine due to unusually high mortality in the control groups,
Unvaccinated children in these studies have usually been frail children too sick or malnourished to get vaccinated and the studies may therefore have underestimated the negative effect of DTP”. The Mogensen study sought to avoid this pitfall by removing orphans and children from the control group and the research group and by utilizing controls. It included children who had been breastfed. All of the infants were healthy at the right time of vaccination. Nevertheless, the Mogensen authors went longer and point out that, even in their analysis, the unvaccinated kids had status. They conclude that, “The estimate from the natural experiment may therefore still be conservative.”
From the early 1980s, a cascade of lawsuits filed throughout the United States drove DTP manufacturers and threatening to shut down production of vaccines and the DTP shot. That threat led the U.S. Congress to bestow legal immunity on vaccine makers during the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Program from 1986, conducted in December, 1987, from the rollout of “Vaccine Court.” After the recommendation from the Institute of Medicine, thimerosal was removed by vaccine manufacturers from the American DTaP involving 2001-2003. But, multi-dose DTP vaccines given to thousands of children across the African continent carry on to contain huge doses of thimerosal (25mcg of ethylmercury per booth) that exceed the EPA’s maximum exposure levels by many times. Neither the CDC nor the WHO has ever published a vaccinated vs. unvaccinated study that will be necessary to determine the total health consequences of the potent toxin on African children. The Mogensen report is a call for such a research.
The authors close with a bracing rebuke to people health labs,
“It should be of concern that the effect of routine vaccinations on all-cause mortality was not tested in randomized trials. All currently available evidence suggests that DTP vaccine may kill more children from other causes than it saves from diphtheria, tetanus or pertussis. Though a vaccine protects children against the target disease it may simultaneously increase susceptibility to unrelated infections.”
Harvard Immunologist: Unvaccinated Children Pose Zero Risk
An open letter written by Tetyana Obukhanych, a Harvard immunologist, has has been circulating around the internet again. We thought it worth republishing. She wrote the letter back in 2015 in response to vaccine legislation. She makes a strong case for unvaccinated children not endangering the rest of the public.
My name is Tetyana Obukhanych. I hold a PhD in Immunology. I am writing this letter in the hope that it will correct several common misperceptions about vaccines in order to help you formulate a fair and balanced understanding that is supported by accepted vaccine theory and new scientific findings.
Do unvaccinated children pose a higher threat to the public than the vaccinated?
It is often stated that those who choose not to vaccinate their children for reasons of conscience endanger the rest of the public, and this is the rationale behind most of the legislation to end vaccine exemptions currently being considered by federal and state legislators country-wide. You should be aware that the nature of protection afforded by many modern vaccines – and that includes most of the vaccines recommended by the CDC for children – is not consistent with such a statement. I have outlined below the recommended vaccines that cannot prevent transmission of disease either because they are not designed to prevent the transmission of infection (rather, they are intended to prevent disease symptoms), or because they are for non-communicable diseases. People who have not received the vaccines mentioned below pose no higher threat to the general public than those who have, implying that discrimination against non-immunized children in a public school setting may not be warranted.
IPV (inactivated poliovirus vaccine) cannot prevent transmission of poliovirus. Wild poliovirus has been non-existent in the USA for at least two decades. Even if wild poliovirus were to be re-imported by travel, vaccinating for polio with IPV cannot affect the safety of public spaces. Please note that wild poliovirus eradication is attributed to the use of a different vaccine, OPV or oral poliovirus vaccine. Despite being capable of preventing wild poliovirus transmission, use of OPV was phased out long ago in the USA and replaced with IPV due to safety concerns.
Tetanus is not a contagious disease, but rather acquired from deep-puncture wounds contaminated with C. tetani spores. Vaccinating for tetanus (via the DTaP combination vaccine) cannot alter the safety of public spaces; it is intended to render personal protection only.
While intended to prevent the disease-causing effects of the diphtheria toxin, the diphtheria toxoid vaccine (also contained in the DTaP vaccine) is not designed to prevent colonization and transmission of C. diphtheriae. Vaccinating for diphtheria cannot alter the safety of public spaces; it is likewise intended for personal protection only.
The acellular pertussis (aP) vaccine (the final element of the DTaP combined vaccine), now in use in the USA, replaced the whole cell pertussis vaccine in the late 1990s, which was followed by an unprecedented resurgence of whooping cough. An experiment with deliberate pertussis infection in primates revealed that the aP vaccine is not capable of preventing colonization and transmission of B. pertussis. The FDA has issued a warning regarding this crucial finding.Furthermore, the 2013 meeting of the Board of Scientific Counselors at the CDC revealed additional alarming data that pertussis variants (PRN-negative strains) currently circulating in the USA acquired a selective advantage to infect those who are up-to-date for their DTaP boosters, meaning that people who are up-to-date are more likely to be infected, and thus contagious, than people who are not vaccinated.
Among numerous types of H. influenzae, the Hib vaccine covers only type b. Despite its sole intention to reduce symptomatic and asymptomatic (disease-less) Hib carriage, the introduction of the Hib vaccine has inadvertently shifted strain dominance towards other types of H. influenzae (types a through f).These types have been causing invasive disease of high severity and increasing incidence in adults in the era of Hib vaccination of children. The general population is more vulnerable to the invasive disease now than it was prior to the start of the Hib vaccination campaign. Discriminating against children who are not vaccinated for Hib does not make any scientific sense in the era of non-type b H. influenzae disease.
Hepatitis B is a blood-borne virus. It does not spread in a community setting, especially among children who are unlikely to engage in high-risk behaviors, such as needle sharing or sex. Vaccinating children for hepatitis B cannot significantly alter the safety of public spaces. Further, school admission is not prohibited for children who are chronic hepatitis B carriers. To prohibit school admission for those who are simply unvaccinated – and do not even carry hepatitis B – would constitute unreasonable and illogical discrimination.
In summary, a person who is not vaccinated with IPV, DTaP, HepB, and Hib vaccines due to reasons of conscience poses no extra danger to the public than a person who is. No discrimination is warranted.
How often do serious vaccine adverse events happen?
It is often stated that vaccination rarely leads to serious adverse events. Unfortunately, this statement is not supported by science. A recent study done in Ontario, Canada, established that vaccination actually leads to an emergency room visit for 1 in 168 children following their 12-month vaccination appointment and for 1 in 730 children following their 18-month vaccination appointment.
When the risk of an adverse event requiring an ER visit after well-baby vaccinations is demonstrably so high, vaccination must remain a choice for parents, who may understandably be unwilling to assume this immediate risk in order to protect their children from diseases that are generally considered mild or that their children may never be exposed to.
Can discrimination against families who oppose vaccines for reasons of conscience prevent future disease outbreaks of communicable viral diseases, such as measles?
Measles research scientists have for a long time been aware of the “measles paradox.” I quote from the article by Poland & Jacobson (1994) “Failure to Reach the Goal of Measles Elimination: Apparent Paradox of Measles Infections in Immunized Persons.” Arch Intern Med 154:1815-1820:
“The apparent paradox is that as measles immunization rates rise to high levels in a population, measles becomes a disease of immunized persons.”
Further research determined that behind the “measles paradox” is a fraction of the population called low vaccine responders. Low-responders are those who respond poorly to the first dose of the measles vaccine. These individuals then mount a weak immune response to subsequent RE-vaccination and quickly return to the pool of “susceptibles’’ within 2-5 years, despite being fully vaccinated.
Re-vaccination cannot correct low-responsiveness: it appears to be an immuno-genetic trait. The proportion of low-responders among children was estimated to be 4.7% in the USA.
Studies of measles outbreaks in Quebec, Canada, and China attest that outbreaks of measles still happen, even when vaccination compliance is in the highest bracket (95-97% or even 99%). This is because even in high vaccine responders, vaccine-induced antibodies wane over time. Vaccine immunity does not equal life-long immunity acquired after natural exposure.
It has been documented that vaccinated persons who develop breakthrough measles are contagious. In fact, two major measles outbreaks in 2011 (in Quebec, Canada, and in New York, NY) were re-imported by previously vaccinated individuals.
Taken together, these data make it apparent that elimination of vaccine exemptions, currently only utilized by a small percentage of families anyway, will neither solve the problem of disease resurgence nor prevent re-importation and outbreaks of previously eliminated diseases.
Is discrimination against conscientious vaccine objectors the only practical solution?
The majority of measles cases in recent US outbreaks (including the recent Disneyland outbreak) are adults and very young babies, whereas in the pre-vaccination era, measles occurred mainly between the ages 1 and 15. Natural exposure to measles was followed by lifelong immunity from re-infection, whereas vaccine immunity wanes over time, leaving adults unprotected by their childhood shots. Measles is more dangerous for infants and for adults than for school-aged children.
Despite high chances of exposure in the pre-vaccination era, measles practically never happened in babies much younger than one year of age due to the robust maternal immunity transfer mechanism. The vulnerability of very young babies to measles today is the direct outcome of the prolonged mass vaccination campaign of the past, during which their mothers, themselves vaccinated in their childhood, were not able to experience measles naturally at a safe school age and establish the lifelong immunity that would also be transferred to their babies and protect them from measles for the first year of life.
Luckily, a therapeutic backup exists to mimic now-eroded maternal immunity. Infants as well as other vulnerable or immunocompromised individuals, are eligible to receive immunoglobulin, a potentially life-saving measure that supplies antibodies directed against the virus to prevent or ameliorate disease upon exposure.
In summary: 1) due to the properties of modern vaccines, non-vaccinated individuals pose no greater risk of transmission of polio, diphtheria, pertussis, and numerous non-type b H. influenzae strains than vaccinated individuals do, non-vaccinated individuals pose virtually no danger of transmission of hepatitis B in a school setting, and tetanus is not transmissible at all; 2) there is a significantly elevated risk of emergency room visits after childhood vaccination appointments attesting that vaccination is not risk-free; 3) outbreaks of measles cannot be entirely prevented even if we had nearly perfect vaccination compliance; and 4) an effective method of preventing measles and other viral diseases in vaccine-ineligible infants and the immunocompromised, immunoglobulin, is available for those who may be exposed to these diseases.
Taken together, these four facts make it clear that discrimination in a public school setting against children who are not vaccinated for reasons of conscience is completely unwarranted as the vaccine status of conscientious objectors poses no undue public health risk.
Sincerely Yours,
~ Tetyana Obukhanych, PhD
Tetyana Obukhanych, PhD, is the author of the book Vaccine Illusion. She has studied immunology in some of the world’s most prestigious medical institutions. She earned her PhD in Immunology at the Rockefeller University in New York and did postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA and Stanford University in California.
Johnson & Johnson Ordered to Pay $417 Million In Lawsuit Linking Baby Powder to Cancer
A jury in Los Angeles ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay a record breaking $417 million to Eva Echeverria, a hospitalized woman in California. Eva claimed in her lawsuit that the talc ingredient in the company’s well-known baby powder may cause ovarian cancer when applied regularly to the crotch.
The plaintiff alleged Johnson & Johnson does not adequately warn consumers about talcum powder’s potential cancer risks. She says she used the baby powder daily basis from around the 1950s until 2016. Court papers show she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2007.
Mrs. Echeverria is dying from this ovarian cancer and she said to me all she wanted to do was to help the other women throughout the whole country who have ovarian cancer for using Johnson & Johnson for 20 and 30 years,” – Robinson said.
This is not the lawsuit of this kind, or Johnson & Johnson’s first loss, either. In St. Louis, $70 million was awarded to a woman with ovarian cancer due to baby powder usage,
We are pleased the jury did the right thing. They once again reaffirmed the need for Johnson & Johnson to warn the public of the ovarian cancer risk associated with its product,” Attorney Jim Onder
Apparently, Johnson & Johnson is still not adequately warning its customers.
On a side note, did you know Johnson and Johnson produce vaccines?
Can talcum powders cause cancer? Many believe so. According to Cancer.org,
It has been suggested that talcum powder might cause cancer in the ovaries if the powder particles (applied to the genital area or on sanitary napkins, diaphragms, or condoms) were to travel through the vagina, uterus, and fallopian tubes to the ovary. Many studies in women have looked at the possible link between talcum powder and cancer of the ovary. Findings have been mixed, with some studies reporting a slightly increased risk and some reporting no increase.”
There’s a better option.
Homemade Baby Powder Recipe
Ingredients
1/3 cup arrowroot powder
¼ cup bentonite clay powder or White Kaolin Clay
1 tsp chamomile, lavender, or calendula flowers, in powdered form (use a blender)
Instructions
Mix it together, use as needed. If you want, you can add a couple of drops of an essential oil instead of the flower. Be careful with using essential oils and infants. It’s not something that should be taken lightly. Chamomile, lavender, and calendula in controlled amounts are of the few I that are generally considered safe for small children and infants.
If diaper rashes are a problem, the baby’s eco system is unbalanced, and which usually equates to less beneficial bacteria and more Candida in the gut.
MMR Vaccine Science – Del Bigtree Vs. Cathy Newman of Channel 4 News
On March 31, 2017, Del Bigtree was briefly interviewed at the Revolution for Truth Rally in Washington D.C by British Channel 4 News correspondent Cathy Newman.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHqt8Cz2nLk
Throughout the course of the short clip, Del is questioned about his stance on the measles vaccine, and he quickly inundates his correspondent with facts from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). According to Bigtree, modern medicine has it completely backward in regards to the measles vaccine. Before the invention of the measles vaccine in 1964, Bigtree states,
According to Bigtree, modern medicine has it completely backward in regards to the measles vaccine. Before the invention of the measles vaccine in 1964, Bigtree states,
…the death rate from measles was .036 per 100,000 people that got measles. No one has died from the measles, and nearly a hundred children have died from the vaccine. The measles vaccine does kill. And measles was not killing anybody based on scientific evidence before the vaccine ever arrived.”
We looked it up, and according to this page on the CDC, it’s even lower, at 0.016% using the highest possible estimate with the numbers given (500 deaths out of three million). She does not understand his data at first, then decides his science is junk, and then as he states again where he’s getting his numbers, she seems to think that he is not understanding his own statistics. He has to state repeatedly that he is quoting the CDC.
In other words, the death rate from measles was less than one person in 300,000 infected, which is a number so small that it’s statistically insignificant. On the other hand, in the past ten years, close to one hundred children have died from complications from the measles vaccine. Del is stating that this proves the measles vaccine is more deadly than measles ever was.
For those that know Del’s previous work, this stance is hardly surprising. As an Emmy award-winning medical journalist, Del has years of experience in producing medical TV shows, often around controversial issues. After numerous viewers contacted him to request he cover the potential dangers of vaccines and their connection to autism, Bigtree decided to dive into the topic and he hasn’t stopped since.
In 2014, the release of audio recordings of conversations between vaccine researchers Dr. Brian Hooker and Dr. William Thompson revealed potential fraud in the CDC’s research about the correlation between vaccines and autism in children. While the revelations from these audio clips were largely ignored by mainstream media, Del used them as the backbone of his recently released documentary on the risks of vaccines, titled Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe.
About Vaxxed
Working with Dr. Andrew Wakefield, Del was haunted by the evidence he found connecting autistic children and vaccinations. Rather than making a stand against vaccines in general, Vaxxed explores the problems with the MMR vaccine that is formulated to vaccinate children against measles, mumps and rubella all in one. By vaccinating children with the MMR vaccine instead of three individual vaccines, the documentary claims, parents inadvertently increase their children’s risk of developing autism.
History has long prosecuted the people who first make controversial discoveries, and in Bigtree’s view, the widespread disregard for anyone who challenges the safety of vaccines is a modern example. Looking at the epidemic of autism that is sweeping through the country and affecting 1 in 45 children, Bigtree believes that the diagnostic rate will only increase unless something is done to reduce children’s exposure to unsafe vaccinations.
By continuing to question widely-accepted evidence about vaccine safety and dig deeply into the troubling medical questions about vaccines today, there’s little doubt that Del Bigtree will continue to make a stand against the MMR vaccine and seek out ways to educate people about its dangers, no matter what mainstream media chooses to report.
Vaccine Schedule – Why the FDA Ignored Mercury Issues For So Long
Regulatory agencies like the FDA and CDC agree with the classification on mercury as a neurotoxin. But it took until 1997 for the Food and Drug Administration, at the prompting of Congress, to finally tally up the total amount of mercury a six-month-old would be exposed to if the 1997 vaccine schedule was followed. The results of that calculation found that the average six-month-old had the potential to be injected with a total of 187.5 micrograms of mercury. In contrast, the FDA’s daily acceptable intake of mercury for an adult is 0.4 micrograms per kilogram of bodyweight. The FDA has known about the cumulative levels of mercury in childhood vaccines for over 20 years, and yet they still acknowledge that many childhood vaccines contain trace amounts (less than 1 microgram) of thimerosal, and certain inactivated influenza vaccines can contain up to 50 micrograms of thimerosal.
What You Do When You Realize Something Wrong
By any calculation, the level of mercury in childhood vaccines is too high. So why hasn’t it been removed from vaccines? New documents from FDA officials have discovered that the justification for the continued presence of thimerosal has less to do with safety and more to do with image. In an email from Dr. Peter Patriarca, Director, Division of Viral Products, Food and Drug to an official at the CDC, he discussed the impact of removing thimerosal from vaccines in a timely fashion, saying it would:
…raise questions about FDA being ‘asleep at the switch’ for decades by allowing a potentially hazardous compound to remain in many childhood vaccines, and not forcing manufacturers to exclude it from new products.
It will also raise questions about various advisory bodies regarding aggressive recommendations for use. We must keep in mind that the dose of ethylmercury was not generated by “rocket science.” Conversion of the percentage of thimerosal to actual micrograms of mercury involves ninth grade algebra. What took the FDA so long to do the calculations? Why didn’t the CDC and the advisory bodies do these calculations when they rapidly expanded the childhood immunization schedule?”
Equally as distressing as the FDA’s decision to hide culpability is what they’re sacrificing in pursuit of that decision. A press release in 1999 maintained that there wasn’t evidence that vaccines containing thimerosal caused any harm. It also maintained there was no reason to measure mercury exposure in children who received those vaccines, effectively ensuring that that evidence would not materialize anytime soon. In additional justification, public documents released by the FDA measured mercury exposure as if children were only exposed to a small amount of mercury each day through vaccines.
This is in stark contrast to the reality of the situation, where mercury exposure spikes at four specific times: at birth and at well baby (oh the irony!) check-ups at 2, 4, and 6 months. Since that release in 1999, the FDA has made an effort to lower the levels of thimerosal in childhood vaccines. Many still contain trace amounts, though, and the flu vaccine, recommended annually starting at 6 months, seems to be exempt from these reduction efforts thus far.
When Safeguards Are Not Safe
Vaccines are often sold as the best thing you can do for your baby. Yet the people who regulate these vaccines are not inclined to look at them critically. It took Congress requiring a list of intentionally introduced mercury compounds before the organization that regulates them took stock of exactly how much mercury children receive through childhood vaccines. The FDA then presented the data on a six-month average, instead of the four one-time spikes that actually occur and specifically said that testing mercury exposure is not necessary. Why are the vaccines considered necessary when safety checks and studies are not?
Vaccines Linked to the Diagnosis of Neurological Disorders
As natural health advocates, we are not anti-science. In fact, we want more vaccine science, not less. A new study from Yale School of Medicine and Penn State College of Medicine is just that. Researchers have discovered an association between the timing of vaccines and the onset of certain brain disorders in a subset of children.
Data from more than 95,000 insured children age 6-15 was analyzed. The study compared data from three groups: comparing children with certain neurological conditions, children who had received treatment for broken bones, and children who received treatment for open wounds. Dates of treatment for the 3 groups was analyzed comparing the onset of illness or injury to each child’s vaccinations.
The neurological conditions in the first group included obsessive-compulsive disorder, anorexia nervosa, anxiety disorder, chronic tic disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, major depressive disorder, and bipolar disorder.
Researchers looked at each child’s medical records for the year prior to treatment to establish whether or not the child had received vaccines during that period.
This was a well-designed, tightly controlled study. Control subjects without brain disorders were matched with the subjects by age, geographic location and gender.
As expected, broken bones and open wounds showed no significant association with vaccinations.
New cases of major depression, bipolar disorder or ADHD also showed no significant association with vaccinations.
However, children who had been vaccinated were 80 percent more likely to be diagnosed with anorexia and 25 percent more likely to be diagnosed with OCD than their non-vaccinated counterparts. Vaccinated children were also more likely to be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and with tics compared to the controls.” – Robert Kennedy
Different Vaccines, Different Disorders
Certain vaccines resulted in higher diagnoses of certain disorders. The flu shot (recommended yearly by the CDC), was associated with a higher level of OCD, anorexia, and anxiety disorder. Children vaccinated for meningitis, hepatitis A, and hepatitis B saw higher rates of anorexia, chronic tic disorder, and OCD.
Study Conclusions
In the world we live in, science goes where the money goes. Researchers know that conducting a study that questions the safety or efficacy of vaccines is not likely to be a profitable endeavor. In fact, anyone working in science today knows how dangerous it is to disrupt the status quo. For one of many examples, check out Vaccines, Retroviruses, DNA, and the Discovery That Destroyed Judy Mikovits’ Career. Regardless of these risks, these researchers have concluded:
This pilot epidemiologic analysis implies that the onset of some neuropsychiatric disorders may be temporally related to prior vaccinations in a subset of individuals.”
Perhaps the first half of the study’s opening sentence and the final closing sentence were chosen in an attempt to align themselves with the conventional vaccine stance and to mitigate blowback from the damning conclusions reached by their study.
The opening sentence was,
Although the association of the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine with autism spectrum disorder has been convincingly disproven, the onset of certain brain-related autoimmune and inflammatory disorders has been found to be temporally associated with the antecedent administration of various vaccines.”
The first half of this sentence is simply not true. The CDC whistleblower, Dr. William Thompson, revealed the CDC coverup of evidence that the MMR is linked to autism in African American male children under a certain age. The second half is warning us about other problems: brain related autoimmune diseases and inflammatory disorders.
The final sentence was downright ridiculous. After revealing the association between these neurological disorders and vaccines, they had the guile to end their article with this sentence.
Finally, given the modest magnitude of these findings and the clear public health benefits of the timely administration of vaccines in preventing mortality and morbidity in childhood, we encourage families to maintain the currently recommended vaccination schedules while taking all necessary precautions as documented by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”
This sentence speaks for itself. Draw your own conclusions.
In a way, vaccines are preventative medicine. Get the shot; develop immunity for a potentially deadly disease. Vaccine research development now wants to take the preventative mindset to a new level. Inspired by the Ebola outbreak that killed more than 11,000 people in Africa and the more recent Zika virus scare, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) has committed 460 million dollars to drive forward the development of three vaccines for Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), Lassa fever, and Nipah virus. The coalition is also asking the World Economic Forum for a 500 million dollar donation to enable their goal of developing two different experimental vaccines for each disease within five years.
What’s the Big Deal?
There are many serious diseases with no known curative treatment beyond fluids and rest. So what is it about these three diseases that make them special? And what’s the hurry? According to Dr. Jeremy Farrar of the Wellcome Trust (one of the Investors in CEPI), “We know from Ebola, Zika and SARS that epidemics are among the significant threats we face to life, health and prosperity. Vaccines can protect us, but we’ve done too little to develop them as an insurance policy.” The three diseases highlighted by CEPI currently have no vaccines and no clear treatment plans. They’re also on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) list of diseases that urgently need to be addressed with research and development.
The Chosen Three
MERS
MERS is a viral respiratory infection caused by the MERS-coronavirus. Since its discovery in 2012, the WHO has confirmed nearly 1,900 cases of MERS with 666 deaths, resulting in a 35% death rate. People with the infection report varying levels of fever, cough, diarrhea, and shortness of breath. Symptoms are more severe in people with pre-existing health conditions.
While the virus itself is believed to have originated from bats, camels appear to be the current viral host. The spread of the infection is believed to be through coughing or contact with respiratory secretions. Most people contract the virus in healthcare settings. While the majority of cases of MERS have been reported in the Arabian Peninsula, South Korea experienced an outbreak that infected 82 people in three days. In 2014, 2 cases were confirmed in the U.S.
Lassa Fever
Of the three diseases fast-tracked for research and development, Lassa fever has been around the longest. It was discovered in 1969 in Nigeria. It predominantly occurs in West Africa and is transmitted to humans from the African rat, the most common rat in West Africa. Eighty percent of the people who contract Lassa fever have no symptoms other than a mild fever, but around 5,000 of the cases reported every year result in death. The cases that are fatal include symptoms of vomiting, fever, bleeding from body parts, and pain in the back, chest, and abdomen. A quarter of the survivors experience hearing loss. Lassa fever is difficult to distinguish from other hemorrhagic fevers like Ebola, yellow fever, and malaria.
Nipah Virus
Fruit bats are the natural hosts of the Nipah virus. Outbreaks of the virus occur almost every year in Bangladesh, and the virus occurs in India and surrounding countries as well. While the Nipah virus has not caused as many fatalities as the other two diseases targeted by CEPI, the death rate is more severe with nearly three-quarters of those infected dying. Symptoms of the virus include acute respiratory syndrome and acute fatal encephalitis. Nipah virus is transmitted to people through contact with pigs (a likely food source for bats), fruit bats, and raw date palm sap that has been contaminated by them.
Is This the Only Way to Accomplish This?
This is a very aggressive research and development campaign. Developing a single vaccine is a long process that takes from 10-15 years. CEPI’s goal is an ambitious one, but then that makes sense. CEPI is founded by some familiar entities, including the government of Norway, the government of India, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In the midst of the flurry of announcements and ambition, it’s easy to ignore potential issues.
As long as camels, pigs, mice, and bats are around, these diseases will always be present. In the case of Nipah virus, vaccines won’t necessarily stop the spread of it as there has never been a case of it being transmitted from person to person. Sanitation and ensuring that people have the knowledge and option to avoid using contaminated date palm sap. It would be interesting to see how education and strategies on how to avoid African rats in Western Africa would impact the number of people who contract Lassa fever.
As we’ve seen over and over, sanitation and education make a huge difference in preventing the spread of disease. Dispersing sanitation and disease prevention information and improving living conditions has helped to stop the spread of polio, measles, and mumps. Why not utilize sanitation and education to eradicate these diseases as well? The answer is obvious. It may cost less than the development of a vaccine, but it won’t result in a product pharmaceutical companies can sell.