Vaccines, Aluminium and Asthma

Not yet time to hang out the bunting

It is not that long ago that vaccine manufacturers and their allies strutted their stuff like John Travolta on the streets of New York in Saturday Night Fever. Now, taking the metaphor further, those same organisations have turned their attention to Staying Alive. A new paper, in the journal Academic Pediatrics, ( and the complementary and complimentary accompanying commentary) if nothing else demonstrates that vaccine manufacturers are increasingly concerned. This paper is classic aluminium industry fare, something I write about in detail in my book. What they do is to get a leading authority, in this case Frank DeStefano from the wholly pro-vaccine community, to lead apparently authoritative research that appears to show some aspect of aluminium toxicity in humans. To ensure that this message is published submit it to a ‘friendly’ journal where, in this case, the editor is pro-vaccine and refuses to publish any criticism of published papers (no provision of Letters to the Editor) and the editorial board is a who’s who of the pro-vaccine glitterati. Finally, ask one of the journal friendly referees to write a commentary on the new research and release it to the vaccine safety press.

This paper would not survive peer review at any reputable journal operating independent peer review. By using Academic Pediatrics the vaccine industry has given the impression of a concession on aluminium toxicity in vaccines while at the same time filling the paper with misinformation on aluminium. They know that their research is flawed and as such have no problem publishing it to make it look like they are addressing concerns raised by the Institute of Medicine in 2013 (why decide to address this document ten years later?). This paper will be cited ad nauseum in the future by the vaccine lobby in an attempt to show that they are taking vaccine safety seriously.

The misinformation on aluminium included in this paper is supported by citations to papers written by stooges for the aluminium industry. Not a single reputable and independent researcher on aluminium toxicity in humans is cited in this paper. If any of the world’s leading researchers on aluminium had been sent this manuscript to review they would have rejected it on multiple standpoints. I am not going to review this paper herein. However, you can do this by simply referring back to some of my previous substack posts. For example, you know that the assumption made in this paper that ingested aluminium makes no contribution to the body burden of aluminium is convenient nonsense. You also know that the information given by vaccine manufacturers in the patient information leaflet on the aluminium content is far, far from the reality. The aluminium content of vaccines is no better than a lottery and our research showing this has not been contested by anyone. The flaws in the research and interpretation in this paper are myriad. I decided to contact the lead author and the author of the accompanying commentary and provided them with some unpublished data I had on allergies in infants and prescription of antacids. I am sharing these data with you below.

Allergies and Antacids? A Preliminary Case Study.

For example, using the General Practitioners Research Database (GPRD), can we find any relationship between infant use of aluminium-based antacids and diagnosis of allergy?

Method

􀍻Data Set: West Midlands GPRD

􀍻Select all children aged <6 at 1/1/2000.

􀍻Any prescription of antacid (BNF section 1.1.1)

􀍻Any diagnosis of allergies.

􀍻Preliminary investigation of whether there is any association between prescription of antacids and allergy diagnosis.

Analysis

Cross tabulate antacids (yes/no) with allergy (yes/no)

Caveats

􀍻Is the drug list correct

􀍻Is the list of allergies correct

􀍻Analysis takes no account of which comes first 􀍴the drug or the diagnosis. This MUST be done before any interpretation can be considered.

􀍻Analysis takes no account of reverse causation, do children will allergies get more antacids

􀍻Analysis takes no account of OTC drugs

Results

Odds Ratio for antacid (1.00 yes / 2.00 no) 1.694 (1.123 - 2.557; 95% CI)

For cohort allergy = 1.00 yes 1.687 (1.122 - 2.537; 95% CI)

For cohort allergy = 2.00 no 0.996 (0.992 - 1.000; 95% CI)

N of valid cases 24029

Brief Conclusion

Children aged 0-5 years who had previously received an antacid were 69% more likely to have a diagnosis of allergy.

Prescription of antacids is clearly another confounding factor that was not considered by the authors of this paper. In my email I asked them how this might influence their results and subsequent interpretation. Of course, they have not replied.

Is there any relationship between vaccination with aluminium adjuvants and infant asthma? I am confident that there is but the research in this paper cannot prove or disprove this and this paper is a malignant spirit. It will haunt future research in this field and may even be used to prevent carefully designed future research to test this relationship.

Beware false prophets bearing gifts.