Ukraine - Unscheduled vaccination: GENIE SET FREE

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Unscheduled vaccination: GENIE SET FREE

Author: Olha SKRYPNYK

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Anton T., a teenager from the town of Kramatorsk, died several weeks

before finishing school. How can his parents ever be consoled? Will the

traditional “God-takes-the-best-to-the-heaven-earliest” help? Will it

help if they hear the officials from the Ministry of Health explain that

the unscheduled vaccination against measles and rubella in Ukraine was

meant to protect Europe from the measles epidemic, as somebody somewhere

at the top decided to eradicate this disease by 2010?!

Compulsory, but not forced, vaccination The tragic

accident in Kramatorsk scared the young people who agreed to get

inoculated, their parents and rank-and-file medics involved in this

dubious project of saving Europe from viruses. It was intensely covered

by the media and caught the attention of the President, who summoned the

Minister of Health to order a thorough inquiry into the case.

While people in Donetsk Oblast are mourning and worrying, senior

officials of the sanitary-and-epidemiologic service at the Ukrainian

Ministry of Health, WHO and UNICEF representatives have called numerous

press briefings to reassure the public that everything is going as

planned and the only reason 14 schoolchildren were hospitalized in

Donetsk Oblast is that doctors there are overcautious. Some time later

the number grew to 68 boys and girls who felt sick after inoculation. In

the evening, Minister V.Kniazevych announced at last that the unscheduled

vaccination was suspended.

Too late, alas! Experts believe the latest events will undermine the

minister’s plans to reorganize the public health system. Time and trust

have been lost, together with the chances of gaining support. ly

speaking, top officials of the ministry of Health had every opportunity

to come off clear, since the decision to have mass vaccination had been

made long before V.Kniazevych was appointed minister. According to the

original plan, the campaign was to be launched in November 2007, but

something did not work then and the launch was postponed for six months.

In the meantime, medical researchers and NGOs managed to raise public

awareness of the problem, pointing to bottlenecks in the campaign.

However, their disturbing conclusions did not seem to interest anyone in

the ministry. On February 23, 2008, in his exclusive interview to

ZN, Minister Kniazevych said he “revoked the decision on the

compulsory character of vaccination. And it is critical that the vaccine

be officially registered in Ukraine.” Nevertheless, three days later – on

February 27 – the Cabinet of Ministers signed a relevant resolution,

which the sanitary-and-epidemiologic service rushed to implement. The

service had always been the greatest enthusiast of and lobbyist for the

campaign of mass vaccination against measles and rubella with the

Indian-made vaccine.

According to competent sources in the Ministry of Health, the concerned

international organizations insisted on the maximum possible number of

vaccinations: they knew in advance how many young people aged 15 to 29

live in a certain city, town or district. Ukrainian public servants, who

are duty-bound to expedite national interests, agreed, yielding to their

argumentation or, rather, surrendering us and our children. There is

enough evidence of the above. You may ask: “Enough for what or whom?” It

is enough for us, Ukrainians who realize that rhetoric about protecting

the population from epidemic, inflation or independent school tests

always disguises somebody’s personal motives. Unfortunately, this

evidence is not enough for the competent authorities obligated by law to

guarantee national security and promote Ukrainians’ rights. State

officials must be of the opinion that 9 million doses of live (sic!)

vaccine against measles and rubella pose neither actual nor potential

threat to 46 million people in Ukraine. Even if the mass vaccination is

called off after all, where and how can this viral invasion be

neutralized? Will the country of origin take the vaccine back? Will WHO

and UNICEF, which brought this Trojan horse to Ukraine, help us get rid

of it?

Under the current political circumstances, not only do outsiders foist

the behavioural rules and patterns of the third world countries on our

children, but they also try to affect their health. According to

researchers, the vaccine, which is cultivated from the cells of a hostile

– Asian – genotype, is harmful to Europeans. But for the Kramatorsk

teenager’s tragic death, high-ranking officials would have never paid

attention to what is going on in the country. Today, at last, various

public agencies have started looking into the matter: commissions are

being set, dozens of meetings are being held to find the way out. Yet so

far they have failed to give a clear answer as to how such a huge batch

of vaccine got to Ukraine. Mind you, these are not medicines but

potentially hazardous immunobiological preparations that should be

toughly controlled by specialized services.

Was mass vaccination justified? It is important to find

out who initiated the mass vaccination. Officials in the Ministry of

Health avoid answering this question referring to the WHO and Ukraine’s

mutual understanding in this regard. At one of the briefings when the

pause following the question grew embarrassingly long, N.Prodanchuk,

First Deputy Minister of Health, admitted: “Ukraine asked for help.”

He told the truth. The ministry archives should be still keeping the

UNICEF representative’s letters of appreciation, addressed to S.Berezhnov

and reading that the Ukrainian Party thankfully accepted all

recommendations of that international organization; so, pursuant to the

previous agreement, mass vaccination was to be launched on November 19,

2007.”

We do not know if N.Prodanchuk received a similar letter of appreciation

– he is a new man in the ministry – but his deputy L. Mukharska has been

in office for quite a while; thus, she has the whole picture of the mass

vaccination. Since last summer, L.Mukharska has been persuading decision

makers and the general public, on numerous occasions, that in 2006

Ukraine went through a major measles epidemic resulting in 45 thousand

cases of disease and 5 deaths. The only way out is mass vaccination

against measles. You may ask: “What does anti-rubella vaccine have to do

with it?” According to L.Mukharska, it is difficult to organize two

campaigns and much more convenient to inoculate people only once with a

two-component vaccine.

Infectiologists, including Academician Zhanna Vozianova, believe in an

alternative approach. First, male teenagers should be vaccinated against

epidemic parotiditis, which outbreaks now and then in the armed forces

and can be complicated with infertility. Second, national monitoring data

show that “almost 85% of the Ukrainian population, both urban and rural,

is seropositive to measles. Only 15% needs vaccine correction.” That

means that the overwhelming majority of people have developed immunity as

the result of either planned vaccination in their childhood or previous

infection with measles. Put differently, there is no need for mass

vaccination.

The data on the number of infected and diseased during the measles

epidemic of 2006 cited by the sanitary-and-epidemiologic service can be

challenged. Official messages the Ministry of Health sent out at that

time are different: “The press service of the Ministry of Health hereby

officially notifies that no measles epidemic is observed in Ukraine,

particularly in Kyiv. According to the WHO criteria, an epidemic is a

situation whereby the prevalence level of a certain infection exceeds 1%

of the total population in a given region.”

Who counted dozens of thousands of infected people so accurately? Why do

different sources quote a different mortality figure – from four to six

persons? It was a hard task for ministry officials to make a U-turn from

denying the measles outbreak point blank to admitting the epidemic. Hence

the numbers: 45 thousand is very close to the WHO standards (1% of the

population is 46 thousand) and, at the same time, it allows the ministry

to save face.

Top managers of the sanitary-and-epidemiologic service love to

demonstrate multicoloured graphs, charts and diagrams so as to make

Ukrainians ashamed, if not frightened: it is from the capital city of

Kyiv that the ominous arrows of the measles epidemic reached out to

Europe, Asia and far-away America.

According to N.Prodanchuk, “we are not 95% protected today, thus the

population cannot be considered safe, according to epidemiologic

indicators. Our situation is not unique: the circumstances in Japan are

even worse. The conclusion is obvious – vaccination is necessary not only

from the standpoint of an individual but also for the sake of protecting

the entire population of Ukraine, of Europe.”

Why did the Ukrainian sanitary-and-epidemiologic service decide that

Ukraine was the only country in Europe that failed to overcome the

measles epidemic? Zhanna Vozianova, an unimpeachable authority in

infectiology, maintains “it is impossible to totally eradicate measles,

at least now. When the discussion about eliminating poliomyelitis and

other infectious diseases was underway, measles was also included in the

list. Yet some time later, experts realized it was premature. The best

they could do at that juncture was to control measles. Ukraine introduced

planned vaccination against measles but its effectiveness was never

analyzed. We know nothing about the level of immunity developed after

each inoculation. We should start with this.”

Europe has measles, Ukraine has mass vaccination

Consistent with Zhanna Vozianova’s opinion are the WHO data on

the measles outbreaks in Romania, Italy, the UK, Germany and other

European countries. Careful analysis of Ukrainian statistics reveals high

measles prevalence in the capital city and border oblasts of Ukraine:

Sumy, Kharkiv and Trans-Carpathian. So it is an even chance that measles

was brought to Ukraine, rather than exported from it. For instance, in

Denmark and Switzerland the virus of B3 genotype was registered, in

Romania it was D4, while in Ukraine and Spain it was D6. Probably,

ministry officials did not notice the difference. In the course of

discussion between high-ranking representatives of the

sanitary-and-epidemiologic service and academics, a professor of

immunology asked what genotype of measles virus was used in the Indian

vaccine. The deputy chief sanitary doctor of Ukraine looked at the

director of the Centre for Immunobiological Preparations, and the two of

them smiled: “Measles is not the flu, it has only one virus!” No wonder

such “competent” officials easily approved the procurement of the

two-component MR vaccine whereas the immunologists consider it a big

mistake.

“Unnecessary immunization leads to higher allergy rates,” argues

Professor Kateryna Harkava. “It is wrong to think that allergies have

only external manifestations, like rash or reddening. One should bear in

mind anaphylactic shock that can be lethal. Before launching mass

vaccination of the adult population, medical scholars and practitioners

should study the vaccination calendar carefully. In the first year of

life a child gets 17 vaccines! The next six months are also stressful –

another four compulsory vaccines. Can such a severe attack on the human

immune system ensure its effective functioning?

“Since the vaccine is of Indian make, we are dealing with the Asian,

rather than the European, population. It means the presence of antigens

unknown to us Ukrainians. It can lead to such allergic reactions and

conditions that we can hardly imagine. We know that 85% of young people

have antibodies to the measles virus, and 89% of women of reproductive

age have antibodies to the rubella virus. What was the rationale for the

decision to mass vaccine young people?”

Many would like to learn about it. Most experts are doubtful about the

Indian vaccine’s quality, especially in view of the manufacturer’s

information on serious complications. The manufacturer lists more

complications than the officials of the Ministry of Health would declare

during the public education campaigns. The sanitary-and-epidemiologic

service would mention rising body temperature and edema at the place of

injunction, whereas the manufacturer also refers to thrombocytopenia (one

case per 30 thousand inoculations), encephalitis and anaphylactic shock

(one case per million inoculations). Our health authorities must think

the manufacturer calumniates itself as, according to H.Moiseyeva,

Director of the Centre for Immunobiological Preparations, they had no

complaints about the Indian vaccine: “Forty million doses of this vaccine

were used in the world for mass immunization. We have the data on

post-vaccine reactions from all over the world, as well as the results of

mass vaccination in Iran, where even pregnant women were subject to it.

We analyzed the WHO data in the Indian vaccine dossier: not a single case

of complications has ever been registered as yet.”

In fact, the Indian vaccine was used in a limited number of countries:

Albania, Romania, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan and Iran.

Russia uses an anti-measles vaccine of its own make, declining

humanitarian aid of this kind. In the UK and Switzerland, measles

outbreaks have not subsided since 2006, but their governments are in no

hurry to mass immunize with the Indian vaccine. Notably, WHO does not

insist on it. Health authorities in Austria, Germany and Norway decided

to control the vaccination process in schools with a mandatory check of

each (sic!) child’s immunity status. In Ukraine the vaccination is

compulsory for every person in the age bracket of 15 to 29 years,

including those who have had measles, although every medical student will

know that in this case people develop life-long immunity. The vaccine, on

the other hand, produces immunity for no longer than several years, in

the best case scenario; in the worst case, it fails to do so. That is

exactly what happened with a lot of boys and girls in 2006. According to

the sanitary-and-epidemiologic service reports, the planned vaccinations

were successful. Today, however, L.Mukharska clarifies that “we used

low-immunogenic vaccines then; they came to Ukraine as part of

humanitarian aid and were not subject to state registration.” Who can

guarantee that the quality of this vaccine, also supplied within the

humanitarian aid programmes, is better?

A false start or a tactical move?One of the most worrying

things is that the anti-rubella vaccine is particularly hazardous for

pregnant women: European manufacturers warn against conception within at

least three months after inoculation. For some reason, the instruction to

the Indian vaccine shortens this time period to two months, and some of

the Ukrainian translations reduce it even more – to 28 days. Similar

inconsistency is observed when it comes to potential complications

related to arthritis and arthralgia: some papers cite the statistics of

20%, others just mention “sporadic cases.”

In March, during consultations with the academic community, the chief

sanitary doctor of Ukraine promised in public: “I will not allow the

import of preparations with potential complications in 20% of arthritis!

My first instruction is to get the vaccine registered in the order

established for all other immunobiological preparations. There are

several manufacturers of this vaccine – they should also be registered in

Ukraine, and those people who do not want to be inoculated with the

Indian vaccine offered by WHO will have a choice. The consequences and

complications of vaccination are not so serious as often said. Even sushi

can cause anaphylactic shock but no one will think of threatening you

with it. The government decided that the campaign will take the entire

year. We had difficult negotiations with WHO and UNICEF. They could not

understand why there were no problems with vaccination in Moldova,

Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. I told them the Ukrainian society is

demonstrating a high level of freedom. We cannot resort to the

totalitarian methods of the past – 30 years ago we would have done it in

a month.”

It is unclear how the currently used methods differ from the totalitarian

ones. Official launch was scheduled for May 26, 2008 but as early as on

May 5 the mass vaccination started in Donetsk Oblast. Luhansk and Poltave

oblasts followed suit. Representatives of the sanitary-and-epidemiologic

service in Ivano-ivsk Oblast claimed on a national TV channel that

not a single school leaver would get a health certificate (required for

applying to college or university) without undergoing vaccination. The

Crimean sanitary-and-epidemiologic authorities assured the public that

the vaccine they were using was of Italian make.

Kharkiv medics refused to launch the vaccination prior to the officially

set date. Now Donetsk health authorities will have to explain why they

injected children with the unregistered vaccine three weeks before the

approved date. The prosecutor’s office will not take oral instructions

for a valid reason.

Post-vaccination silence It seems that the campaign

organizers were interested in the early launch: the timing was most

opportune due to long holidays. Had it not been for the tragic case in

Kramatorsk, nobody would have noticed it.

“Nobody” here refers to the state officials in charge of public health,

security and human rights, as well as political leaders totally ignorant

of the experiment that began in Ukraine. The Supreme Rada kept silent, in

particular its committees specializing in public health, family and legal

matters. The “shadow” government kept silent. So did the politicians who

demanded, a couple of weeks earlier, that the independent examinations

for school leavers be abolished, qualifying them as an experiment with

children: what if a child feels unwell on the examination day but is made

to write it all the same? The boy from Kramatorsk survived the exam; he

would have entered a technical university in the autumn. What he did not

survive was vaccination. Why do the politicians who claim they stand for

the “small” Ukrainians’ interests say nothing now? How could the

inoculated schoolchildren perform successfully at the exam if some of

them had a fever of up to 39°? Kramatorsk mourned and buried 17-year-old

Anton, but the authorities never responded to its grief. Ten days later,

the NSCD Secretary made a passionate speech laying the blame on the

incumbent government. She, of all people, should know how long it takes

to prepare and adopt documents in the Cabinet of Ministers – she used to

be the Minister of Health about a decade ago. Today it is no secret that

the decision to mass vaccinate was made by the previous government on the

initiative of the then minister of health and chief sanitary doctor.

The discussion to mass vaccinate has been underway for almost a year.

Everyone seems to have learnt by now that the two-component MR vaccine is

not used for planned immunization anywhere in the world. Only third world

countries use it for unscheduled/emergency vaccination within a

humanitarian aid framework. Is it credible that proper monitoring covers

all inoculated persons in remote areas? Should one trust the data

provided by health authorities of countries whose medicine is in an even

poorer state than ours?

Why don’t the law enforcement bodies investigate the violation of

Ukrainian legislation by the Ministry of Health? First, the vaccination

calendar provides for two planned anti-measles inoculations in early

childhood, while the unscheduled vaccination of adults is not envisioned

by national laws and regulations. Second, only officially registered

vaccines can be used for immunization. Third, illegal medico-biological

and other experiments with people are penalized with fines, imprisonment

and disqualification. Those interested in details will find them in the

Law of Ukraine “On Protection of the Population from Infectious Diseases”

(2000) and Article 142 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

So who will be held accountable for the premature start of the

vaccination campaign, for the hospitalization of a hundred children and

the teenage boy’s death? Answering this question at the press briefing,

N.Prodanchuk said: “The government, of course!” The journalists had to

ask for clarification: “Which one – Tymoshenko’s or Yanukovych’s?” The

First Deputy Minister replied: “Tymoshenko’s because the decision was

signed in February. First of all, the Minister of Health should be

brought to account.”

N.Prodanchuk emphasized several times that he had held his position for

only four months as if forgetting that Minister V.Kniazevych was also

appointed four months ago. It was not him but his predecessor,

ex-Minister V.Haydayev and former Deputy Minister S.Barazhnov whom WHO

addressed and convinced to carry out the unscheduled vaccination.

Researchers from the Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine also wrote to

them cautioning against hasty imprudent steps but their arguments proved

less convincing.

As a result, the Indian manufacturer got an extremely profitable order.

Some people would argue, though, that the order was for eight, rather

than nine, million doses and that UNICEF paid for everything: USD 5

million for the vaccine and USD 300 thousand for the public education

campaign.

The most important thing is that none of the healthcare officials can

answer the question: was the Indian vaccine registered in Ukraine or not?

N. Prodanchuk said that the vaccine was registered on April

18th. However, the State Drug Service is insisting that the

Indian vaccine was not registered in Ukraine. Who should we believe?

According to the official statements of the sanitary-and-epidemiologic

service made in February, March and April, we can conclude that the

Indian vaccine wasn’t registered and won’t be. “Our legislation

stipulates a possibility of using unregistered drugs under certain

conditions,” said L. Mukhtarskaya. “It was planned that the vaccine would

be imported according to a so-called one-time permission.”

In Europe, health services do not trust the words of producers of drugs

and conduct their own clinical trials with the help of volunteers. This

takes time and costs a lot, but helps to select the best drugs to avoid

tragedies. N. Prodanchuk also promised to conduct such research, but now,

officials insist that certification of WHO is enough for

Ukraine.

“Why not?” says Vyacheslav Kostyliov, the president of public

organization Civil Rights Protection League. “It is not a secret that WHO

carries out its activities thanks to the support of pharmaceutical firms.

UNICEF is the biggest customer of pharmaceutical firms that produce

vaccines. UNICEF purchases and controls the quality of vaccines by

itself.”

Despite all efforts, journalists couldn’t find the answer to the

questions: who is going to be responsible for the death of the boy from

Kramatorsk and who is going to pay compensation to his family? Some time

earlier, Health Ministry officials stated that the producer of the

vaccine would be responsible. However, lawyers qualify this statement of

the Health Ministry officials as a deliberate deception since the

producer of the vaccine didn’t conclude any contracts with Ukraine – the

producer of the vaccine had a contract with UNICEF, which, in its turn,

was executing the order of WHO. Can our state claim WHO? No, it is not

possible even in theory because the Indian vaccine was provided by WHO as

humanitarian aid and was accompanied with WHO’s certificate of quality.

Acknowledgment of the fact that the death of the boy was caused by the

vaccine will undermine the authority of WHO and will provoke distrust to

its system of certification and to the idea of “elimination of measles in

Europe by 2010.”

In order to talk about somebody’s responsibility it is first necessary to

prove that the death was actually caused by the vaccine. I think that

there is no chance of doing this and the Kramatorsk case is vivid proof

of this. It is not clear what exactly the commission will examine for the

entire month, considering that the boy has already been buried. The

diagnosis has been changed three times now, and even though the final

results are expected in a month, Chief Sanitary Inspector N. Prodanchuk

has already announced that the death of the school-boy is not connected

with the vaccination.

Interestingly in India, after four little children died in Tamil-Nadu

state during the recent scheduled vaccination against measles, the

government immediately banned using the vaccine of national origin and

stopped carrying out a national anti-measles immunization

program.

Nevertheless, in Ukraine, healthcare officials are not taking the idea of

stopping the mass vaccination into consideration: despite the order of

the Minister of Health, Kyiv students are being taken to medical centers

for vaccination starting Monday…

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Sheri Nakken, former R.N., MA, Hahnemannian

Homeopath

Vaccination Information & Choice Network, Nevada City CA & Wales

UK

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