An Interview With Research Immunologist Tetyana Obukhanych PhD, part 2 – June 20, 2012

[Guest guest]

http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org/2012/06/20/an-interview-with-research-immunologist-tetyana-obukhanych-phd-part-2/

An Interview With Research Immunologist Tetyana Obukhanych PhD, part

2

– June 20, 2012

Part 2 of 3 (Part 1 of 3 here

http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org/2012/06/13/interview-with-phd-immunologist-dr-tetyana-obukhanych-by-catherine-frompovich/

)

J Frompovich

Dr. Obukhanych’s passion is educating herself and others about

immunity. One of Tetyana’s ways of doing that is teaching small

one-on-one-type classes in Menlo Park, California to help parents make

their own informed vaccination decisions

(

http://naturalimmunity.blogspot.com). Her classes cover the

‘waterfront’ on vaccine issues and include: if, and when do, vaccines

prevent and not prevent disease­something probably disputed by many;

dangers in vaccines, especially the effects of aluminum, a neurotoxin and

adjuvant in many vaccines that might be sensitizing children to be

allergy-prone; the principles and the flaw of the vaccine design; the

lack of scientific knowledge of natural immunity (a very important topic

for this interviewer) along with nutritional factors that lower

susceptibility to disease­just to mention a few.

’s comments are in italics.

Dr Obukhanych’s comments are in normal font.

I’ve promised to address vaccine injuries. Let’s do it now.

The potential of a vaccine injury is a legitimate concern that people

have when faced with vaccination. Databases of vaccine adverse effects

(such as VAERS in the U.S. and similar databases in other countries) are

replete with reports of complications that come in close temporal

proximity to vaccine administration. These adverse effects range from

numerous but seemingly small effects, such as inflammation at the side of

injection or fever, to more rare but also more adverse or irreversible

conditions, such as allergic reactions or Guillain-Barré syndrome to

mention a few, to perhaps even more rare fatal cases.

How do public health officials approach the concerns of citizens about

vaccine safety in general? They point to scientific publications that

claim to have found no statistical associations between a certain vaccine

and a suspected injury, despite case reports that have initially

instigated such studies.

A typical statistical study that aims to look for an association between

a certain vaccine and a certain adverse effect might answer the following

question: can we find the association by looking at a limited and

randomly selected pool of people from the general population? The answer

quite predictably comes out as: no statistically significant association

has been found that way. However, this is the right answer to the wrong

question.

The question that should be sought instead: is the association likely to

be found in a group of people who are similar (genetically,

nutritionally, metabolically, immunologically, etc.) to the person who

had suffered from an adverse effect?

Such studies are very expensive to execute, they are unlikely to be

funded by governments / funding sources with biased vaccination agendas,

despite the fortunes accumulated by vaccine sales. Therefore, such

studies are simply not being performed.

What are the consequences for society of relying on the wrong type of

study when addressing vaccine safety concerns?

The consequences are that important moderators (i.e. predisposing

factors) to vaccine injuries are not being uncovered in time, a

vulnerable segment of the population continues to be unnecessarily

injured by vaccines, while references to the “lack of evidence” studies

are being misused to silence the dissenters.

With our current state of research on vaccine injures, I will repeat this

over and over again: lack of evidence does not constitute the evidence of

lack.

Say the Establishment claims that the chance to develop a certain

syndrome after a certain vaccine is one in a million, based on the

frequency of previously reported cases.

If you understand the statistics, they say, then you understand that you

have higher chances to get injured in a car accident, or get struck by

lightning, or win a lottery, etc.

What they don’t tell you is that, if you understand the biology as

opposed to mere statistics, then you understand that depending on

particular predisposing factors which you might or might not have (and

which you are not even made aware of due to the lack of research that

would uncover such factors), your chances of getting a certain vaccine

injury would be either close to nil or close to 100 percent.

As of now, we are totally in the dark regarding who will and who won’t

suffer a severe vaccine injury and from which vaccine. No guarantees can

be made. Basically, vaccinate yourself at your own risk.

Can you share information regarding the allegations that aluminum,

which is in many infant vaccines, is toxic to the central nervous system,

crossing the blood brain barrier?

I would refer you to the work of a neuroscientist Dr. Shaw and

his colleagues that will confirm your concerns about neurotoxic effects

of aluminum (alum). This is not in my direct immunologic expertise to

analyze.

I have to admit that Immunology is a very compartmentalized science. I

personally belong to what we call “basic” immunology. Basic Immunology

“supplies” the theory on how the immune system works when challenged with

injected foreign antigens, based

on experiments in research animals. Our main interest and the scope of

expertise are very restricted to understanding cellular and molecular

mechanisms of artificial immune responses and antibody production. That’s

it. As far as immunologists are concerned, aluminum salts are included

into a number of vaccines as adjuvants that trick the immune system into

antibody production. This is alum’s “desired” effect and this is all

immunologists care about.

Immunologists do not “know” about alum’s neurotoxicity because they are

not methodologically equipped to look at what happens in the animal (or

human) overall, how other systems, especially the brain, are affected by

immunization or by alum in particular. This is for another specialist to

deal with. Sad, but this is the reality of science compartmentalization.

How do adjuvants in vaccines trick the immune system? What are the

consequences of that ‘sleight of science’?

Alum’s adjuvant effect has been studied intensively only in the last

5-10 years, despite its use in humans since the 1920s. It appears that

alum’s adjuvant effect depends on its ability to kill cells, its

“cytotoxic” property. This cellular damage releases intracellular

contents, such as DNA and uric acid into the extracellular space, which

is now accessible to the cells of the immune system to act upon. This

cellular damage is sensed by the immune system, which then initiates the

immune response against a “foreign” protein that showed up in the context

of such damage. Without alum and without damage that it creates, the

immune system would simply disregard the injected foreign protein as

innocuous and not make any antibodies against it. But since the whole

point of vaccination is to induce antibody production, then whatever alum

is doing to induce antibody production, is considered favorable.

Doctor, what a sham and shame!

I am not updated on the mechanisms of action of other adjuvants. Most

of the oil-based adjuvants that we use in research animals are prohibited

from the use in humans, because they induce very overt inflammatory

reactions. But I am sure newer adjuvants destined for human use are in

the pipeline and it will remain to be seen what side effects they induce

for the sake of all-important antibody production.

Can you give us a quick ‘sound bite like’ tutorial on antibodies and

why immunology places supposed efficacy in vaccines producing

them?

The concept of antibodies evolved from the research on toxins, such

as diphtheria or tetanus toxins. Initially, antibodies were referred to

as ‘anti-toxins’­some mysterious entities that were appearing in the

blood of toxin-injected research animals that could neutralize the

pathological effects of those toxins.

I would like to mention that based on clinical research described in the

book by Dr. Levy, Curing the Incurable, ascorbic acid would fall

into the definition of an

“anti-toxin,” as it is known to effectively curb the symptoms of most

toxin-mediated as well as infectious diseases when given intravenously at

very large doses.

But immunologic research on anti-toxins went into a very narrow direction

and led to the idea that anti-toxic ability is restricted to a certain

class of immunoglobulins, which we now call antibodies.

Immunologists then realized that such “antibodies” could be raised not

only against toxins, but also against practically any substance that is

presented to the immune system in a certain way. Some of the requirements

for such “immunogenicity” (i.e.­ability to induce antibody production)

are: 1) a substance must be of non-self origin; and 2) it must be

accompanied by a “danger” signal, usually provided by an irritating or

cell-damaging substance called adjuvant or by pathogen-associated pattern

molecules of bacterial or viral origin.

The science of Immunology then got caught up in uncovering excruciatingly

minute details of antibody production process, none of which needs to be

of interest to non-immunologists. Yet, most of the 20th century in basic

immunologic research was devoted to this endeavor, encouraged and

rewarded by numerous Nobel prizes. This only reinforced the notion of the

importance of antibodies, creating the antibody-centered paradigm in

immunology.

Needless to say, the sole purpose of vaccines is to raise antibodies that

bind the microorganisms and toxins, based on the antibody-centered

paradigm of protection. But seeing so many reports of disease outbreaks

occurring in properly vaccinated individuals, as well as reports of the

disease in vaccinated individuals with documented high titers of

antibodies only reinforces my conviction that an antibody-centered

paradigm needs to be re-examined with great scrutiny.

I agree totally with your assessment, Doctor, and the sooner the

better.

If pertussis (whooping cough) is not a virus but a bacterium, how does

that fit into the vaccine paradigm? Aren’t most vaccines formulated for

viruses?

Oh don’t worry about such fine distinctions. I can make you a vaccine

against anything you want, a vaccine against a peanut, if you want one.

Seriously speaking, the term “vaccine” is derived from a Latin word

vaccinia (which stands for cowpox) and was originally referring only to

the procedure of inoculation of a healthy individual with pus from a

cowpox-infected individual. Later on this term was adopted to indicate

injection of an attenuated virus or adjuvanted viral of bacterial

proteins or toxoids in order to produce antibodies against the

corresponding microorganisms or toxins. Pertussis vaccine fits into this

definition, as it is composed of pertussis toxin and a few other

bacterial proteins mixed with adjuvant.

In modern days, the word vaccine is used even more broadly. It is used to

mean panacea. Immunologists are cooking up vaccination strategies against

cancer, autoimmunity, or allergy. I wouldn’t be surprised if one day

someone will be making an attempt to develop a vaccine against

Alzheimer’s disease or even against autism.

To be continued in part 3.

Dr Obukhanych is currently in California, where she lives and

teaches.

She offers classes on vaccines and natural immunity. Her classes are

intended primarily for parents seeking to make more informed vaccination

decisions for their children, but are open to anyone interested in

vaccination issues. Her website is

www.naturalimmunity.blogspot.com

J Frompovich is a retired natural nutritionist who

earned advanced degrees in Nutrition and Holistic Health Sciences,

Certification in Orthomolecular Theory and Practice plus Paralegal

Studies.

Her work has been published in national and airline magazines since the

early 1980s. authored numerous books on health issues along

with co-authoring papers and monographs with physicians, nurses, and

holistic healthcare professionals. She has been a consumer healthcare

researcher 35 years and counting.

is an editor and writing consultant who helps authors get into

publication. For numerous semesters she taught several writing courses

for a suburban Philadelphia school district’s Adult Evening School. Her

passion is assisting and guiding authors into print.

’s latest book, A Cancer Answer, Holistic BREAST Cancer

Management, A Guide to Effective & Non-Toxic Treatments, will be

available on Amazon.com and as a Kindle eBook sometime in July

2012.

Two of ’s more recent books on Amazon.com are Our Chemical Lives

And The Hijacking Of Our DNA, A Probe Into What’s Probably Making Us Sick

(2009) and Lord, How Can I Make It Through Grieving My Loss, An

Inspirational Guide Through the Grieving Process (2008).