Are pregnant women receiving vaccines endangering their baby?

[BellyBelly]

Are pregnant women receiving vaccine endangering their baby?

It has always been a principle of medicine that one should not vaccinate pregnant women, except in extreme cases, because the risk to the baby is just too high. Recently, we have seen two examples of violation of this policy. When the HPV vaccine Gardasil was first released the CDC and the manufacturer (Merck Pharmaceutical Company) recommended that it be given to pregnant women.

Shortly after beginning this dangerous practice it was ordered halted because a number of women were losing their babies and babies were being born with major malformations.

It is known that stimulating a woman's immune system during midterm and later term pregnancy significantly increases the risk that her baby will develop autism during childhood and schizophrenia sometime during the teenage years and afterward. (1)

Compelling scientific evidence also shows an increased risk of seizures in the baby and later as an adult. (2) In fact, a number of neurodevelopmental and behavioral problems can occur in babies born to women immunologically stimulated during pregnancy. (3-6)

It is true that serious flu infections or E. coli infections during pregnancy are a major risk for all these complications, but a woman's risk of becoming infected, is a very small fraction of 1 %, yet the CDC, medical doctors, and the media are announcing that all pregnant women should be vaccinated for the swine flu.

The media repeats the manufacturers' mantra that this vaccine is produced exactly like the seasonal flu, when in fact it is not. Yes, they use chicken eggs, but the rest has been fast tracked and many shortcuts on safety procedures have been allowed. Many physicians are calling for all pregnant women to be vaccinated with at least three vaccines, two of which contain mercury. There is also evidence to show that a large number of these women will gain no protection from the vaccine.

Dr. Michael Bronze, a professor of internal medicine at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, writing for emedicine medscape.com (WebMD), states that the risk of a pregnant women being hospitalized with the H1N1 infection is 0.32 per 100,000 pregnant women (which is 1 in 300,000 pregnant women). One can safely say, based on the Australian/New Zealand experience (at the peak of their flu season) and the American data somewhere in the middle of their flu season, that pregnant women have about a 99.97% chance they will not become so sick as to require hospital care at any level.The death rate of pregnant women who were admitted to the ICU was 7.7%, a fairly low figure for infectious ICU patients. Remember, most patients admitted to the hospital are admitted for hydration and are not that ill in terms of the infection itself.

The countries in the southern hemisphere have already gone through their fall and winter, that is the seasons of peak flu infections. Epidemiologists and virologists have been surprised at how mild this flu pandemic has been in the Southern Hemisphere, with relatively few deaths and few hospitalizations in most areas.

Dr. Bronze also notes that animal studies have shown that vaccines harm unborn babies and that no safety studies have been done in humans. A recent study done by Dr. Laura Hewitson, a professor of obstetrics at the University of Pittsburg Medical Center, found that a single vaccine used in human babies, when used in newborn monkeys, caused significant abnormalities in brainstem development. (7) This mass vaccination program for H1N1 variant virus will be the largest experiment on pregnant women in history and could end as a monumental disaster.

Every pregnant women in America needs to see the video interview (below) regarding the dangers of pregnant women receiving vaccine.

More Information: The Swine Flu Coverup - America deserves the truth

[tenar]

That's interesting. Does anyone have to hand the data showing how much mercury is in the flu vaccines compared to how much we ingest, or is normally in our body, anyway? If not, I'll have a go at finding out, if I can. My understanding is that the minute amounts of mercury in those vaccines that contain it are trivial compared to the amount we all normally get from elsewhere, but I don't know offhand the figures for flu vaccines in particular.

As a point of interest, the results of 3 separate studies on vaccination of women with the normal seasonal flu vaccine (this isn't the current swine flu vaccine) suggest that it is safer for the woman and the baby if the woman has the vaccine during her pregnancy.

There is a discussion of this here, though I saw the report in a few places recently:

Medical News: IDSA: Flu Vaccine Benefits Moms and Babies - in Meeting Coverage, IDSA from MedPage Today

It is important to note, as noted on the article I link, that these are (or were at the time the article was written) not yet published results, but have been presented at a conference. This means the research has not yet been peer-reviewed, and we don't know the quality of journal they will be published in eventually, assuming they get published at all (which doesn't make the results wrong, just indicates that they are work-in-progress - it does make a difference which journal things end up being published in, as one can in general have more confidence in studies published in the very highest ranking journals).

I don't think I had a flu shot last year when I was pregnant. Certainly if I am ever pregnant again I will do some research (I'll look for the published versions of those studies, for starters) and consider getting a shot, if it really is safer for me and for the unborn baby to do so.

[Kitt3n]

I've said this somewhere else too, but....

if we are so cautious when we are pregnant that we won't even ingest HAM or certain CHEESE etc etc, why the hell would you shoot something (ANYTHING) directly into your blood stream?!

[Stretcher Bearer]

From the Skeptical OB Blog

The Skeptical OB: The truth about thimerosal


The truth about thimerosal




Vaccinations have been around for over 200 years and vaccine rejectionists have been around for nearly that long. Over the years, the basis for claims of harm from vaccines have changed, but one factor has remained constant. Vaccine rejectionists have never been right. The current fear mongering surrounding thimerosal is just the latest iteration in an ongoing effort. That fear mongering rests on two factors, ignorance of basic chemistry and ignorance of the existing research on thimerosal.

To hear vaccine rejectionists tell it, all mercury containing compounds are dangerous and therefore thimerosal is dangerous. But that?s not how chemistry works. The toxicity of a substance depends on how atoms are arranged, not simply which atoms are present. The fact that some mercury compounds are dangerous does not mean that thimerosal must be dangerous because it contains mercury.

Consider the example of sodium. Sodium is both poisonous and explosive. That does not mean that compounds that contain sodium are either poisonous or explosive. Table salt (sodium chloride) contains sodium, yet we do not worry that salting our food will result in an explosion at the dinner table.

Similarly, mercury is poisonous, but that does not mean that any compound that contains mercury is also poisonous. Some mercury containing compounds, like methyl mercury, are poisonous. Methyl mercury is the found in fish and is the reason why restrictions of fish consumption are recommended for certain groups. Thimerosal is ethyl mercury and is not poisonous.

Though methyl mercury and ethyl mercury might sound like they are very similar, one is poisonous and the other is not. How can that be? Consider the case of alcohol. Methyl alcohol (methanol), also known as wood alcohol, will lead to blindness or death if you drink it. Ethyl alcohol (ethanol) is the alcohol found in wine and spirits. Chemical structure is more important than the identity of the individual atoms that make up the compound.

The safety of thimerosal is more than simply theoretical. Contrary to the claims of vaccine rejectionists, thimerosal has been studied extensively in large populations. There have been many studies that demonstrate the safety of thimerosal.

Consider the study Thimerosal exposure in infants and developmental disorders: a retrospective cohort study in the United Kingdom does not support a causal association (Andrews et al. Pediatrics 114. 584-591.2004). This was a retrospective cohort study was performed of 109 863 children who received thimerosal containing DPT vaccines. The study found no evidence that thimerosal caused developmental delays.

Thimerosal exposure in infants and developmental disorders: a prospective cohort study in the United kingdom does not support a causal association (Heron et al. Pediatrics 114. 577-583.2004) followed 14,000 children for up to 7+ years. The authors found:

Contrary to expectation, it was common for the unadjusted results to suggest a beneficial effect of thimerosal exposure. For example, exposure at 3 months was inversely associated with hyperactivity and conduct problems at 47 months; motor development at 6 months and at 30 months; difficulties with sounds at 81 months; and speech therapy, special needs, and "statementing" at 91 months? CONCLUSIONS: We could find no convincing evidence that early exposure to thimerosal had any deleterious effect on neurologic or psychological outcome.

The bottom line is that the vaccine rejectionists are wrong once again. The fact that thimerosal contains mercury does not mean it is dangerous because the chemical structure determines the danger, not the identity of the individual atoms. More importantly, thimerosal has been studied extensively in large populations over time and has been demonstrated repeatedly to be safe.

[tenar]

Originally Posted by Kitt3n

I've said this somewhere else too, but....

if we are so cautious when we are pregnant that we won't even ingest HAM or certain CHEESE etc etc, why the hell would you shoot something (ANYTHING) directly into your blood stream?!

Not the same thing at all. Our blood already contains heaps of things, including mercury and other heavy metals...

Ham itself is perfectly safe.
The listeria bacteria it commonly contains is definitely not safe for the unborn babies. That's the point.

Unfortunately there is no vaccine for listeriosis.

[Schmickers]

Originally Posted by Stretcher Bearer

From the Skeptical OB Blog


Though methyl mercury and ethyl mercury might sound like they are very similar, one is poisonous and the other is not. How can that be? Consider the case of alcohol. Methyl alcohol (methanol), also known as wood alcohol, will lead to blindness or death if you drink it. Ethyl alcohol (ethanol) is the alcohol found in wine and spirits. Chemical structure is more important than the identity of the individual atoms that make up the compound.

An interesting analogy. However, ethanol is very poisonous - people still die from acute alcohol poisoning when they go on a bender, and alcohol is also poisonous in cumulative doses - alcohol abuse causes brain damage, cirrhosis of the liver, and blood vessel damage, just to name a few side effects. So perhaps it would be more correct for the Skeptical Ob to say that these two types of alcohol are poisonous in different ways.