Introduction
In this second part of the Wakefield saga I wanted to explore and discuss the science behind what Wakefield found with the original 12 children and attempt to establish if there could have been an autism link to the MMR vaccine. Natasha Campbell Mcbride a leading expert on autism since it is this disorder in children she treats every day in her practice in Cambridge, and I would like to draw upon her knowledge of the subject as I have done so in previous articles on the gut flora.
The Original Wakefield Research
Wakefield and his team found Lymphoid nodular hyperplasia in some of the children, actually located in the Ileum which is approximately 3.5 metres in length and connects to the bowel and makes up 3/5 ths of the small intestine. The walls of the Ileum are packed with lymph nodes called Peyer’s patches which we have covered in the microbiome and the immune system. We explained in that article that scattered along the mucosa are dome like structures called Peyer’s patches which are lymphatic tissue located throughout the ileum region that are part of the immune system responsible for monitoring microbial colony activity.
Both the Villi and Peyer’s patches drain into the mesenteric lymph nodes and since they monitor bacterial activity they make the ideal site to initiate immune response and a tolerance gateway for harmless bacteria and food particles. These patches contain a mix of immune cells including T and B Lymphocyte cells, Macrophages and Dendrites. The monitoring function of the Peyer’s patches consist of filtering the lymph (tissue liquid) by removing bacteria, viruses,fungi, dead cells and toxins acting as an incarceration chamber which can be examined, since if these various toxic substances cannot be destroyed they are imprisoned. Wakefield and his team conducted endoscopies to gather samples from the Ileum of these various children. Since the Peyer’s patches contain a mix of immune cells to fight infection when the site becomes inflamed due an infection the lymph nodes enlarge and become inflamed thus originating the term Lymphoid nodular hyperplasia or enlarged lymph node.
Wakefield and his team began to investigate what particular infection had caused this enlargement in the children that had developed autism. He suspected the measles virus so he called upon the well known virologist Dr John O’leary ( you remember this man from Part 1 where in 2002 a pathologist John O’Leary of Coombe women’s hospital in Dublin said that he had found RNA from the measles virus in 7% of normal children, and 82% of those 7% were autistic ) to examine the lymph nodes himself and he found the same measles virus in the autistic children as in the MMR vaccine.
Furthermore, Wakefield and his team also described a condition displayed within the autistic children that he called Non-specific Colitis. Colitis refers to inflammation of the colon. From the endoscopy examination they found various stages of gut inflammation, erosion of the mucous membranes contained within the colon and intestines and abscesses filled with pus along with faecal compaction ( a common problem exhibited by autistic children that flip-flop between diarrhea and constipation. An X-ray of the digestive tract, one can observe large amounts of old compacted faeces glued to the walls of the tract and any new food seeps through a narrow opening of the compacted rotting material as an overspill, referred to as over-spill syndrome in autistic children). Dr Campbell Mcbride describes how the gut in some places were so inflamed they almost obstructed the gut lumen, thus resembling Ulcerative Colitis as in Crohn’s disease and some features totally unique in some of the children, which is why Wakefield named it non-specific colitis or ‘Autistic Enterocolitis’.
The $65,000 question or has it increased to $65 million
Appreciating the Gut-Brain Axis
So the question still remains is there a causal link between the MMR vaccine and Autism. As Dr Campbell Mcbride notes in her book Gut and Psychology syndrome (GAPS ) “ I do not believe that things are that simple”. First of all gastroenterologists rarely perform such examinations on the gut with autistic children but in doing in this case Wakefield appreciated ( although I am sure he had this knowledge before, since he is a bright individual) the inseparable link between the gut and the brain and therefore what happens in the gut can have a profound affect on cognitive function especially when the gut becomes toxic and these toxins enter the bloodstream and cross the blood brain barrier.
Children’s/Parents/Physician’s Food Choices
So the big question is does the MMR vaccine cause autism ???. before we answer this we need to look at the average health state of the gut in today’s children. Since the food industry has engineered the processed and fast food to tempt our taste buds a hamburger or a pizza tastes better than steamed broccoli, a bag of chips taste better than a baked potato with healthy organic butter. It is a ‘no brainer’ what the children’s food choices will be. This is perpetrated by the installation of vending machines full of junk food in hospitals..how contradictory is that. Schools are not paying attention to serving healthy food and parents are packing their children’s lunch boxes with processed snacks and what they believe to be healthy processed fruit juice…believe me it’s not, it does not even contain Vitamin C anymore..that disappeared after the processing. I say this in the greatest respect but you have a full cycle of general ignorance on healthy food..95% of the family physicians don’t have a clue about nutrition, so they are unable to counsel the parents, and unless parents have done some basic nutritional research they to are unable to counsel their children. Some parents say they always include a raw carrot in their children’s lunch box..OKAY..what do you think that’s going to do..nothing..in order to absorb any benefit from that carrot you need to partially cook it (steam it for 10 minutes for example) and then the cooking process will extract the beta carotene..one of the nutrients..otherwise you may as well give your child a piece of cardboard to chew on..this is just one example of basic nutrition. Unless you provide a tub of yoghurt that is unsweetened and organic the food will most likely be junk..and don’t be fooled by the words ‘All natural’..in most cases the food maker is insulting your intelligence.
The Unhealthy Gut and The Compromised Immune System
The lifestyle and food choices most children are making are causing epidemic levels of childhood asthma,eczema,diabetes, allergies, hay fever, digestive disorders, autistic spectrum disorders, behavioral problems including ADHD, and ADD and cognitive problems such as Dyspraxia ( motor coordination disruption, speech problems), and Dyslexia ( word blindness ). The common thread to all these conditions is a compromised immune system..caused by ?..anybody that has read my articles of the microbiome..yes an unbalanced gut or gut dysbiosis..caused by…toxins..yes what else ?…food not designed for the body like the food described above..processed and fast food or any food devoid of nutrients..food that feeds your commensal or potentially pathogenic bacteria…yes yes..if you are eating healthy every day, a krispy kreme doughnut once per week is not going to kill you once your gut is healthy.
Vaccines and the Gut
So what are vaccines for ??. To train an inexperienced immune system in a young infant, who has an inexperienced immune system obviously because he hasn’t lived long enough. So this is a good thing because you do not want your child contracting a nasty virus that his/hers immune system has never seen before and chances are his/her innate immunity may not be strong enough to fight the virus and generate the necessary antibodies to fight the ‘Bastard’. So the vaccine pre-trains the infants inexperienced immune system to prepare him/her for battle..to even up the sides a little you might say. What has happened in vaccine world is that the vaccine manufacturers have contaminated the vaccines with unnecessary ingredients and ( as they think) got smarter by combining vaccines like MMR and DPT. First of all I don’t believe that there has been any recorded cases where a child has contracted two diseases simultaneously, let alone three, so to design a triple vaccine in one shot makes no sense biologically, but it triples the assault on the infant’s immune system which we have already established is inexperienced and by definition weak. It is therefore far better to train the inexperienced immune system one at a time with a particular time interval in between. This puts less toxic load on the immune system and allows the immune system time to create the antibodies it needs to fight off any future infection efficiently.
Up to now we have been talking about a child’s healthy gut and healthy immune system, what if the child’s gut and immune system is compromised to start with, would it not be safe to say that an environmental assault like a vaccine could drive the immune system further into a nose dive, and to triple the vaccine load at the same time will potentially damage the compromised gut and the immune system. I believe that was the scenario presented to Wakefield and his team which led them to publish the infamous paper of 1998. I would further say that the MMR vaccine did not cause the autistic outcome but it made an already bad situation in terms of a compromised gut and immune system worse, possibly driving the gut further into dysbiosis, allowing more pathogens to release their toxic metabolites that ultimately crossed the blood brain barrier causing severe cognitive function such as autistic spectrum disorder. In summary an abnormal gut /immune system will potentially produce an abnormal response to a vaccine.
The Wisdom of a Vaccine ‘Expert’
Dr Paul Offit director of the vaccine education centre at the children’s hospital of Philadelphia and the ‘arch-enemy’ of Dr Andrew Wakefield, claims that multiple vaccines given daily is quite acceptable on children and has even stated that you can give thousand of vaccines to a child/day and it would be safe..maybe Dr Offit should consider a career on Wall street because they deal in big numbers as well. This statement is pure nonsense, even if the child’s immune system were healthy the damage that could cause is incalculable, if it didn’t kill the child stone dead, like the thousand cut principle where if you administer 20 cuts or so the immune system will cope, but to expect it to repair 1000 cuts simultaneously would overload the immune system and probably cause death.
The Law of Nature
As Dr Campbell Mcbride points out that before vaccinations, mothers would typically lose one or several children to childhood infections like measles etc, which is synonymous to animal ‘litters’ where some puppies or kittens perish because they are simply too weak. The law of nature dictates that only the strongest shall populate the plant, but in today’s modern world this is simply unacceptable to most mothers so they will do anything to insure the survival of their offspring not matter how weak they are, including vaccination, saving offspring that naturally should never have survived. In the words of Dr Natasha “ We cannot abandon vaccinations altogether unless we are prepared to obey the laws of nature, but it’s time to review vaccine safety and vaccine schedules especially with so many children with compromised immune systems”. Many children that Dr Campbell Mcbride sees in her practice are unvaccinated autistic children, so the child that has a severe gut dysbiosis is potentially going to get these various digestive disorders including autism vaccinated or not. Unfortunately, for the majority of ‘Joe public’ they have allowed themselves to become a herd of non critical thinkers and as soon as the media unleash a vaccine scare most gather into the square asking each other what they should do and they decide to boycott the vaccine process potentially compromising their young infant. However, I believe they have a point of contention if the choice of a single vaccine has been removed, even if the only choice contains some questionable ingredients. Dr Bergman has discussed these vaccine issues a great length so let us try together to establish an appropriate game plan in future articles and attempt to make some health wise decisions concerning vaccines. Let us start with the recommendations outlined in the next section’
Recommendations
The following are suggestions and recommendations as outlined by Dr Natasha Campbell Mcbride:
A comprehensive stool and urine analysis for every child to assess potential risks or gut dysbiosis and immune status, along with the mother’s medical history to assess the state of her gut. This information would then drive one of the following options:
- Any infant born from a mother with some digestive disorder or any gut dysbiotic condition ( eczema, allergies etc) should get no vaccination until at such time the infant has established a healthy gut state. Single shot vaccines spaced apart every 6 weeks once the healthy gut is in place.
- Same thing applies as above if the mother is tested healthy but the infant shows signs of immune system abnormality
- Healthy infants from healthy mothers to receive standard vaccination protocols with single vaccines only. (just like the good old days if possible)
Mandatory vaccination schemes as those administered in parts of the US is an indication of a failed system that feels the need to ‘jack boot’ mothers into vaccinating their children, using outrageous vaccine schedules potentially removing the right of a mother to make informed choices for their child.
TV Personality: The world of medicine has seen its share of miracle cures, from the polio vaccine to heart transplants. But all past achievements may pale in comparison to the work of Dr. Alice Krippin. Thank you so much for joining us this morning.
Dr. Alice Krippin: Not at all.
TV Personality: So, Dr. Krippin, give it to me in a nutshell.
Dr. Alice Krippin: Well, the premise is quite simple – um, take something designed by nature and reprogram it to make it work for the body rather than against it.
TV Personality: You’re talking about a virus?
Dr. Alice Krippin: Indeed, yes. In this case the measles, um, virus which has been engineered at a genetic level to be helpful rather than harmful. Um, I find the best way to describe it is if you can… if you can imagine your body as a highway, and you picture the virus as a very fast car, um, being driven by a very bad man. Imagine the damage that car can cause. Then if you replace that man with a cop… the picture changes. And that’s essentially what we’ve done.
TV Personality: And how many people have you treated so far?
Dr. Alice Krippin: Well, we’ve had ten thousand and nine clinical trials in humans so far.
Quote from I am Legend movie 2007
References/Acknowledgments:
- Gut and Psychology syndrome Dr Natasha Campbell Mcbride 2015
- Autism : how childhood vaccines become villains Sharon Begley 2009 Newsweek
- I am Legend quotes IMD Website
Author: Eric Malouin