An Open Letter on Vaccinations by Dr. Jay Gordon

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An Open Letter on Vaccinations by Dr. Jay Gordon

I don't give a lot of vaccines.

I still give DPT vaccinations to some children, chicken pox shots to

kids who haven't been able to acquire natural immunity by age ten

years or so, and I give polio vaccines very infrequently. The polio

vaccines are given for what I call " emotional " reasons because my

exposition of the " numbers " (2000 cases of polio out of six or seven

billion people) doesn't counteract the very strong memory of a

beloved aunt or uncle who had polio in fifties or sixties. And many

parents feel much more comfortable traveling to India or parts of

Africa with updated polio immunity for their children and themselves.

By the way, 2007-2008 statistics don't support that discomfort, but I

don't argue much.

In 2007, there were 1314 cases of polio on the planet and 127 of them

were in " endemic " countries: 873 in India, 285 in Nigeria, 41 in the

Congo, 32 in Pakistan and 17 in Afghanistan.

As of July 1, 2008, halfway through the year, we're running a similar

pace with 714 cases of polio reported worldwide. Nigeria has had 353

cases, India 287.

http://www.polioeradication.org/casecount.asp (World Health

Organization Site)

In 1980 I abandoned the recommended vaccine schedule. I received

dozens and dozens of phone calls from moms and dads reporting that

their child had received shots a couple of days ago and they were

acting " a little different. " They couldn't quite put their finger on

it but their child was just not acting quite the same as before I

gave the shots. They'd ask if this was okayÂ…was it normal? Initially,

as I was trained to do, I replied " yes. " After dozens and dozens and

dozens of phone calls, I decided that I had better listen to these

moms a lot more.

I stopped some vaccines. I delayed others.

No, I am not " anti-vaccination. "

I am aware of the public health implications of completely abandoning

our current vaccine schedule, and I certainly don't advocate that.

What I really want is an honest discussion of the risks and benefits

of each vaccine and combinations of vaccines for your child. Just

your child. My experience is that many parents don't have the

opportunity to discuss these concepts and these details with their

doctors.

Some vaccination problems are completely verifiable and a strategy of

delaying vaccines is, in some small way, supported by this recent

article:

Delay in diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus vaccination is associated

with a reduced risk of childhood asthma.

J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2008 Mar;121(3):626- 31. Epub 2008 Jan 18.

When it comes to your children and vaccines, we can and must do

better.

Your newborn receives a vaccine against a disease he can't possibly

contract in the he first year of life, hepatitis B, because our

campaign to vaccinate high-risk groups failed. There has been a large

decrease in the number of cases—and therefore serious complications—

of hepatitis B since we started vaccinating newborns. But I still

believe that the risks to each individual baby far outweigh the

benefits in a family where mom's Hep B status is known.

The combination of vaccines given at two months of age is not

anywhere near as safe as it could if the vaccines were given

separately, the aluminum were removed and if the vaccines were given

at a later age.

Now, when you discuss this topic with your pediatrician, he or she

will clobber my ideas and me. So be it. I have watched children

getting or not getting vaccines for thirty years. I won't publish my

data because I have none suitable for " peer review. " I can tell you

that my very strong impression is that children with the fewest

vaccines, or no vaccines at all, get sick less frequently and are

healthier in general. I truly believe they also develop less autism

and other " persistent developmental delays. "

I know that children still get meningitis and they certainly can get

whooping cough. (The past two years have been very " good " for

pertussis: 156 cases thus far in California for the year and a total

of 228 in all of 2007.) I have not seen bacterial meningitis in a

child in at least twenty years although I did have an eighteen-year-

old contract the disease a couple years ago. He did well and suffered

no consequences. I believe we've reached a point where a discussion

must include the risk of vaccinations because the diseases are so

rare. These diseases did not diminish by " magic " but because vaccines

do work. Public health is an important topic and ignoring that aspect

of the discussion is irresponsible.

The rarity of the diseases against which we vaccinate has caused me

to look much harder at the side effects of vaccines. In what other

area of medicine do we deny side effects? If I have to give you

antibiotics—amoxicil lin—for a urinary tract infection, for instance,

I feel almost apologetic about the rash you might get, the diarrhea

and the yeast infections that every woman knows about. When we give

six shots to your six-week-old daughter, we tell you that, amazingly,

there are no side effects. We know you've heard about

seizures, " collapse syndrome, " autism and more, but these are all

coincidences. I think that even doctors are having trouble believing

that. Dr. Bernadine Healy was the director of the National Institutes

of Health and is still a member of the august Institute of Medicine.

Her article is worth reading. She is very unhappy with the

government's and the medical establishment' s decision to stop looking

at the connection between vaccines and autism.

http://health. usnews.com/ articles/ health/brain- and-

behavior/2008/ 04/10/fighting- the-autism- vaccine-war. html

In what other area of medicine does a 180-pound man and a twelve-

pound baby get the same dose of a medication, the polio vaccine, for

example? Please read Dr. Bob Sears excellent article about aluminum

in vaccines. There's far, far too much and it's a known neurotoxin.

http://www.motherin g.com/articles/ growing_child/ vaccines/ aluminum- new-

thimerosal.html

Mercury has not been removed from all vaccines. Most flu shots still

contain 25 micrograms of mercury as do the tetanus boosters. This

represents 30-60% of the dose a baby or child would have gotten in

the " bad old days " and completely invalidates the argument

that " we've gotten thimerosal out of shots and autism has not gone

down. "

http://www.vaccines afety.edu/ thi-table. html

We must respect pregnant women who may be exposed to toxins in their

food, cosmetics, flu shots, and more. We must respect babies whose

immune systems should be left quiescent and natural for as long as

possible so that they can develop and defend themselves. We must

respect our children who should not be exposed to more environmental

toxins including those in our air, our vaccines, and our water.

The Government has quietly settled over two billion dollars in

vaccine injury claims and is now fighting what will be a losing

battle against 5000 families who claim that the FDA and the CDC did

not protect their children against doses of mercury sufficient to

cause harm.

The CDC says that one out of five children have learning

disabilities. I do not know why we have so many injured children now.

Let me say it again: I am not anti-vaccination.

I am proud to be going to Africa at the end of September to bring 5

million Tetanus shots to the Ivory Coast. In Africa, over 100,000

children die each year from neonatal tetanus. (In America, we average

35-40 cases per year, and the average age is sixty-one years old—a

collection of older guys who probably shouldn't be wandering around a

construction site barefooted anyway!)

There are so many facets to this discussion, and they're all

important enough to merit attention from doctors, politicians, and

all of us. What has led to this incredible increase in autism, ADD,

Childhood and ADOL Depression, and learning disabilities, and how do

we stop and reverse the trend? We need more funding and more respect

for children and families. The debate over vaccines needs to move

over and make way for the real research and work to begin.

Jay Gordon, MD, FAAP

7/20/2008

 

Love, Gabby. :0)

http://stemcellforautism.blogspot.com/

 

" I know of nobody who is purely Autistic or purely neurotypical. Even God had

some Autistic moments, which is why the planets all spin. " ~ Jerry Newport