Cardiovascular Risks from Swine Flu Vaccines

Cardiovascular Risks from Swine Flu Vaccines

Mass vaccinations amid mounting safety concerns

Mass vaccinations for the pandemic H1N1 ‘swine flu' have begun in Britain, the United States, Sweden and elsewhere, targeting hundreds of millions around the world as concerns mount over the safety of the fast-tracked vaccines [1-3] ( Fast-tracked Swine Flu Vaccine under Fire , SiS 43; Swine Flu Pandemic - To Vaccinate or Not to Vaccinate? , Flu Vaccines and the Risk of Cancer , SiS 44). The risks identified so far include neurological damage, developmental defects, and autoimmune diseases from vaccine adjuvants; the potential for generating more virulent disease agents from live attenuated viral vaccines, and cancer from contaminants of cultured cells used to grow the vaccine viruses, or from chemical agents employed in killing the vaccine viruses.

Now, researchers at Mainz University Medical Center in Germany led by Sucharit Bhakdi have added cardiovascular risks that are not generally appreciated. Animal experiments and epidemiological data suggest that over-stimulation of the immune system may accelerate atherogenesis (the build-up of fatty deposits or plaques on the inner wall of arteries) [4]. They are especially concerned about vaccines containing adjuvants to boost immune response, which could aggravate the formation of plagues and atherosclerosis disease. The risks of other widespread diseases due to deregulated immune systems are also possible. Safety trials of vaccines conducted so far have not specifically taken those possible side-effects into account, and “unexpected serious adverse effects” may follow in the wake of mass vaccination programmes. This proved prophetic.