Vaccination does not equal immunisation
In part 3 of the AVN’s series critiquing the new booklet The Science of Immunisation, published by the Australian Academy of Science, Meryl Dorey takes a look at how this booklet incorrectly uses the words vaccination and immunisation as if they both meant the same thing.
Medical ‘science’ uses the words ‘vaccination’ and ‘immunisation’ as though they described the same phenomenon and were interchangeable. They don’t and they aren’t. In science, an animal or human is immune when they are no longer susceptible to a disease. So, for instance, a child who develops measles naturally, even if exposed to the disease many times over its lifetime, will not develop symptoms again because that child is immune.
A child who receives a measles vaccine does not have the same benefit because vaccination cannot provide true lifetime protection in the same way that natural infection can. So that child can be fully vaccinated yet still get the disease. What’s worse, the vaccinated child may never be capable of developing natural immunity due to having received the vaccine and so, is prone to getting the illness over and over again – a situation which only started to occur after the development of mass vaccination against measles.
Despite the knowledge that vaccines don’t immunise and immunisation cannot be conveyed by the process of injecting vaccines into children, adults and animals, the recent booklet entitled The Science of Immunisation, issued by the Australian Academy of Science with financial backing from both the Australian Government and the Australian Medical Association, continues to peddle the myth that vaccinations and immunisations are equal.
Below is a quote from page 3 of the booklet:
What is immunisation?
The purpose of immunisation is to prevent people from acquiring infectious diseases and to protect them against the associated short- and longer-term complications. Immunisation describes the process whereby people are protected against an infection; vaccine refers to the material used for immunisation, while vaccination refers to the act of giving a vaccine to a person. Vaccines work by stimulating the body’s defence mechanisms (immune system) against an infection, helping the immune system detect and destroy the infection when it is encountered in the future without development of significant symptoms or complications.
Page 3, The Science of Immunisation
When those who present themselves as scientists repeatedly say something that is verifiably untrue – and has been known to be verifiably untrue not just for one or two years but for many decades, it is reasonable to question everything they say.
False in one thing…
There is a saying in the law, falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus (false in one thing, false in everything). In other words, once someone is shown to have made intentionally false statements about one thing, everything else they say is considered to be suspect until proven otherwise.
The words ‘immunisation’ and ‘vaccination’ are quite different and cannot and should not be used interchangeably. The fact that they are used that way in this booklet which is supposed to inform parents about how vaccines work, is quite sinister and I believe is meant to intentionally mislead and deceive Australians about the ability of vaccines to prevent diseases.
In fact, it is known that antibodies are not necessary in order to become immune (perhaps resistant might be a better term) to a disease and in fact, the presence of antibodies only means that you have been exposed to a virus or bacteria – not that you have developed immunity or resistance to it. [1],[2],[3], [4]
The role of antibodies – peripheral to protection
The various layers of the human and animal defence systems are not well-understood, but there is knowledge that we have garnered over the last few hundred years about how and why diseases occur in some people whilst avoiding others. Apparently, antibodies have little or no role to play when determining whether or not a person will develop an illness. It is interesting to note that the language in this booklet admits as much.
Rather than saying that vaccines will prevent a person from getting a disease they have been vaccinated against, it simply states that vaccination will “… destroy the infection … without development of significant symptoms or complications.”
This is quite different from what most parents are told by their doctors, the majority of whom also use the words ‘immunisation’ and ‘vaccination’ interchangeably.
Parents in Australia and around the world are told that if they get their child vaccinated against a certain disease – whooping cough for example – their child will be protected against the illness.
How differently might parents look at this issue if they were told that the vaccine isn’t actually intended to prevent infection with whooping cough but simply to “… destroy the infection … without development of significant symptoms or complications …”? In other words, vaccinated people can and do still get whooping cough but supposedly, their symptoms will be less than the symptoms in an unvaccinated person.
What does this admission do to the medical community’s long-held belief in ‘herd immunity’? If vaccination is not actually meant to prevent infection but simply to reduce morbidity (the severity of symptoms), then herd immunity is as much a myth as antibody-induced immunity – the only sort that vaccination is meant to produce in the person or animal vaccinated!
I think most parents would be less likely to subject their children to the risk of vaccines – especially once they knew that there are no clinical studies showing that those who are vaccinated are less likely to develop “significant symptoms or complications”. In fact, due to the alternations in immune function which often follow administration of vaccines, (immune-suppression, autoimmunity, etc.) one could argue that those who are vaccinated may be more likely to have severe symptoms than those who are unvaccinated.
The one study that will set parents’ minds at ease…
Without studies comparing the overall health of the fully vaccinated with the fully unvaccinated – studies which the Australian Vaccination Network has been urging the government to undertake for many years and which they consistently refuse to conduct – we will never know the truth.
So when this booklet claims that vaccines will reduce a vaccinated person’s risk of developing “significant symptoms or complications” from the disease despite a lack of robust scientific data backing up those assertions, it is being both deceptive and misleading. Those who published it must be challenged to show us the science.
[1] Antibodies Are Not Required for Immunity Against Some Viruses; http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120301143426.htm A new study turns the well established theory that antibodies are required for antiviral immunity upside down and reveals that an unexpected partnership between the specific and non-specific divisions of the immune system is critical for fighting some types of viral infections. The research, published online on March 1st in the journal Immunity by Cell Press, may lead to a new understanding of the best way to help protect those exposed to potentially lethal viruses, such as the rabies virus.
[2] Correlates of Vaccine-Induced Immunity; http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/47/3/401.full
The immune system is redundant, and B and T cells collaborate. However, almost all current vaccines work through induction of antibodies in serum or on mucosa that block infection or interfere with microbial invasion of the bloodstream. To protect, antibodies must be functional in the sense of neutralization or opsonophagocytosis. Correlates of protection after vaccination are sometimes absolute quantities but often are relative, such that most infections are prevented at a particular level of response but some will occur above that level because of a large challenge dose or deficient host factors. There may be >1 correlate of protection for a disease, which we term “cocorrelates.” Either effector or central memory may correlate with protection. Cell-mediated immunity also may operate as a correlate or cocorrelate of protection against disease, rather than against infection. In situations where the true correlate of protection is unknown or difficult to measure, surrogate tests (usually antibody measurements) must suffice as predictors of protection by vaccines. Examples of each circumstance are given.
[3] Vaccine Immunology; http://www.who.int/immunization/documents/Elsevier_Vaccine_immunology.pdf
To generate vaccine-mediated protection is a complex challenge. Currently available vaccines have largely been developed empirically, with little or no understanding on how they activate the immune system. Their early protective efficacy is primarily conferred by the induction of antigen-specific antibodies (Box 2–1). However, there is more to antibody-mediated protection than the peak of vaccine-induced antibody titers. The quality of such antibody responses, e.g., their avidity, has been identified as a determining factor of efficacy. In addition, long-term protection requires the persistence of vaccine antibodies and/or the generation of immune memory cells capable of rapid and effective reactivation upon subsequent microbial exposure. The determinants of immune memory induction, as well as the relative contribution of persisting antibodies and of immune memory to protection against specific diseases, are thus essential parameters of long-term vaccine efficacy. The predominant role of B cells in the efficacy of current vaccines should not shadow the importance of T cell responses: T cells are essential to the induction of high-affinity antibodies and immune memory, and novel vaccine targets have been identified against which T cells are likely to be the prime effectors. New methods have emerged allowing us to assess a growing number of vaccine-associated immune parameters, including in humans. This development raises new questions relative to the optimal markers to assess and their correlation with vaccine-induced protection. The identification of immune correlates— or at least surrogates—of vaccine efficacy is a major asset for the development of new vaccines or the optimization of immunization strategies using available vaccines. Thus, their determination generates a considerable amount of interest at all levels, from the immunologist working at the bench to the physician wishing to optimize a vaccine schedule for a specific patient. The tailoring of vaccine strategies for specific vulnerable populations, being the very young, the elderly or the immunosuppressed, is also largely relying on a better understanding of what supports or limits vaccine efficacy under special circumstances. Last, the exponential development of new vaccines raises many questions that are not limited to the targeted diseases and the potential impacts of their prevention, but address the specific and non-specific impacts of such vaccines on the immune system, and thus on health in general. These immune-related concerns have largely spread into the population and questions related to the immunological safety of vaccines, i.e., to their capacity of triggering non-antigen specific responses possibly leading to conditions such as allergy, autoimmunity or even premature death are being raised. The objective of this chapter is to extract from the complex and rapidly evolving fi eld of immunology the main concepts that are useful to better address these important questions.
[4] The kind of research which led to this a broader perspective on the body's immunological mechanisms included a mid-century British investigation on the relationship of the incidence of diphtheria to the presence of antibodies. The study concluded that there was no observable correlation between the antibody count and the incidence of the disease." "The researchers found people who were highly resistant with extremely low antibody count, and people who developed the disease who had high antibody counts.35 (According to Don de Savingy of IDRC, the significance of the role of multiple immunological factors and mechanisms has gained wide recognition in scientific thinking. [For example, it is now generally held that vaccines operate by stimulating non-humeral mechanisms, with antibody serving only as an indicator that a vaccine was given, or that a person was exposed to a particular infectious agent.])"
http://alternative-doctor.com/vaccination/obomsawin.html - Obomsawin’s reference:
35 James, W., Immunization--The Reality Behind The Myth, Bergin & Garvey Publishers Inc., S. Hadley, Massachussetts, 1988, p. 64, refers to original source reference: Report No. 272, British Medical Council, London, England, May, 1950
[1] Antibodies Are Not Required for Immunity Against Some Viruses; http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120301143426.htm A new study turns the well established theory that antibodies are required for antiviral immunity upside down and reveals that an unexpected partnership between the specific and non-specific divisions of the immune system is critical for fighting some types of viral infections. The research, published online on March 1st in the journal Immunity by Cell Press, may lead to a new understanding of the best way to help protect those exposed to potentially lethal viruses, such as the rabies virus.
[1] Correlates of Vaccine-Induced Immunity; http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/47/3/401.full
The immune system is redundant, and B and T cells collaborate. However, almost all current vaccines work through induction of antibodies in serum or on mucosa that block infection or interfere with microbial invasion of the bloodstream. To protect, antibodies must be functional in the sense of neutralization or opsonophagocytosis. Correlates of protection after vaccination are sometimes absolute quantities but often are relative, such that most infections are prevented at a particular level of response but some will occur above that level because of a large challenge dose or deficient host factors. There may be >1 correlate of protection for a disease, which we term “cocorrelates.” Either effector or central memory may correlate with protection. Cell-mediated immunity also may operate as a correlate or cocorrelate of protection against disease, rather than against infection. In situations where the true correlate of protection is unknown or difficult to measure, surrogate tests (usually antibody measurements) must suffice as predictors of protection by vaccines. Examples of each circumstance are given.
[1] Vaccine Immunology; http://www.who.int/immunization/documents/Elsevier_Vaccine_immunology.pdf
To generate vaccine-mediated protection is a complex challenge. Currently available vaccines have largely been developed empirically, with little or no understanding on how they activate the immune system. Their early protective efficacy is primarily conferred by the induction of antigen-specific antibodies (Box 2–1). However, there is more to antibody-mediated protection than the peak of vaccine-induced antibody titers. The quality of such antibody responses, e.g., their avidity, has been identified as a determining factor of efficacy. In addition, long-term protection requires the persistence of vaccine antibodies and/or the generation of immune memory cells capable of rapid and effective reactivation upon subsequent microbial exposure. The determinants of immune memory induction, as well as the relative contribution of persisting antibodies and of immune memory to protection against specific diseases, are thus essential parameters of long-term vaccine efficacy. The predominant role of B cells in the efficacy of current vaccines should not shadow the importance of T cell responses: T cells are essential to the induction of high-affinity antibodies and immune memory, and novel vaccine targets have been identified against which T cells are likely to be the prime effectors. New methods have emerged allowing us to assess a growing number of vaccine-associated immune parameters, including in humans. This development raises new questions relative to the optimal markers to assess and their correlation with vaccine-induced protection. The identification of immune correlates— or at least surrogates—of vaccine efficacy is a major asset for the development of new vaccines or the optimization of immunization strategies using available vaccines. Thus, their determination generates a considerable amount of interest at all levels, from the immunologist working at the bench to the physician wishing to optimize a vaccine schedule for a specific patient. The tailoring of vaccine strategies for specific vulnerable populations, being the very young, the elderly or the immunosuppressed, is also largely relying on a better understanding of what supports or limits vaccine efficacy under special circumstances. Last, the exponential development of new vaccines raises many questions that are not limited to the targeted diseases and the potential impacts of their prevention, but address the specific and non-specific impacts of such vaccines on the immune system, and thus on health in general. These immune-related concerns have largely spread into the population and questions related to the immunological safety of vaccines, i.e., to their capacity of triggering non-antigen specific responses possibly leading to conditions such as allergy, autoimmunity or even premature death are being raised. The objective of this chapter is to extract from the complex and rapidly evolving fi eld of immunology the main concepts that are useful to better address these important questions.
[1] The kind of research which led to this a broader perspective on the body's immunological mechanisms included a mid-century British investigation on the relationship of the incidence of diphtheria to the presence of antibodies. The study concluded that there was no observable correlation between the antibody count and the incidence of the disease." "The researchers found people who were highly resistant with extremely low antibody count, and people who developed the disease who had high antibody counts.35 (According to Don de Savingy of IDRC, the significance of the role of multiple immunological factors and mechanisms has gained wide recognition in scientific thinking. [For example, it is now generally held that vaccines operate by stimulating non-humeral mechanisms, with antibody serving only as an indicator that a vaccine was given, or that a person was exposed to a particular infectious agent.])"
http://alternative-doctor.com/vaccination/obomsawin.html - Obomsawin’s reference:
35 James, W., Immunization--The Reality Behind The Myth, Bergin & Garvey Publishers Inc., S. Hadley, Massachussetts, 1988, p. 64, refers to original source reference: Report No. 272, British Medical Council, London, England, May, 1950