Vaccines — What's in the Next Cauldron? - Letters to the Editors - upcoming vaccines - Letter to the Editor

Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients,  Jan, 2002  

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Editor:

Thank you for printing the insightful and succinct June 2001 article "Vaccine Scene 2000" by Harold E. Buttram, MD. After reading this power piece concerning vaccine history and the current state of affairs, I thought that your readers would also be interested in knowing more of future vaccine developments on the horizon.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) (www.niaid.nih.gov), a division of the National Institutes of Health, works in conjunction with numerous other branches of government and industry to determine future vaccine development. (1,2) In addition, The Institute of Medicine (IOM), a division of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences, receives government contracts and tax dollars to evaluate which vaccines should be given expeditious priority. Currently, six of the 14 new vaccines recommended in IOM's 1985 report (3) have since been licensed and, in some states, mandated for school or daycare. These include: acellular pertussis, Hemophilus influenzae type B, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, varicella, and rotavirus.

In April 1999, the IOM released a second report (4) that set the stage for vaccine research priorities in this country for the next 20 years. One of the several additional vaccines in the "most favorable" category is influenza vaccine to be given to the general population. The 1985 IOM report also recommended developing a live influenza vaccine, but cautiously recommended it only for high-risk populations.

Currently, the government is about a year or two away from licensing a live, nasal flu vaccine. This vaccine will be mandated for school admission under the guise to protect so-called high-risk individuals for whom influenza can have serious complications. Considering the poor track record of inactivated influenza vaccines in protecting recipients from influenza, (5) is it any wonder that the government is trying to develop the "live, new and improved version"? Live vaccines certainly carry a greater potential of harm, though future profits may shadow this.

Scarier still in the "most favorable category" of the newer 1999 IOM study are the four recommended vaccines designed for sexually-transmitted diseases (chlamydia, herpes, human papillomavirus, and gonorrhea). Unbelievable as it may sound, these are specified for administration to all 12-year-aids.

The HIV vaccine is yet another highly questionable project, not to mention safety issues that are now being tested in Third world countries such as Thailand and Uganda. With its deep-pocket funding, this vaccine in some form will in all likelihood be available beyond the Third world soon. NIAID has increased research related to HIV vaccine design and development, and initiated several propaganda programs to increase public-private collaborations. This includes a new international HIV Vaccine Trials Network comprised of 8-10 clinical sites, a core operations center, statistical and data management center, and centralized laboratory, with the capacity to expand to additional sites as necessary. With all this and more, the NIH budget for HIV/ AIDS vaccine research and development has more than doubled in the past 5 years (and that's a substantial figure). In addition, several legislative proposals to provide additional incentives to the private sector have been promulgated both from within Congress and by provac cine activists' organizations. Finally, the World Bank is working on financial schemes to ensure a large, profitable market for the HW vaccine.

With the HIV vaccine machinery continuously funded and well on its way towards being a marketable product, there still remains much dissention and controversy among virologists about fundamental questions regarding HIV and its alleged link with AIDS. Questions like isolation of the retrovirus as a definable entity have prompted a reward for whoever can isolate the retrovirus according to strict virology standards (The Jody Wells Memorial Prize of [pounds sterling]1000). The rules for isolation of a retrovirus were thoroughly discussed at the Pasteur Institute, Paris, in 1973, and are the logical minimum requirements for establishing the independent existence of HIV. Interestingly, to date, though several researchers have submitted their claim, no one has yet to qualify to collect the reward (www.virusmyth.com).

There is still the unsettled position among virologists as to whether or not HIV causes AIDS and the quality of HIV testing standards. These HIV and AIDS issues are way beyond the scope of this letter. However, questions continue to arise that shadow that bio-logical validity of this vaccine. For example, Dr. Kary Mullis, Biochemist, 1993 Nobel Prize for Chemistry is quoted as saying, "If there is evidence that HIV causes AIDS, there should be scientific documents which either singly or collectively demonstrate that fact, at least with a high probability. There is no such document." Dr. Robert Root-Bernstein, who held a MacArthur Prize fellowship from 1981 to 1986 and is an associate professor of physiology at Michigan State University, has also published several enlightening articles of dissention on this subject. Dr. Root-Bernstein states that he also could not find any evidence to back up the claim that HIV is the cause of AIDS, or that AIDS is a new disease, or that it is contagious. AIDS, according to hi m; is a multi-causal condition and could also be caused by well-known risk factors. The list of researchers who disbelieve in a direct causal relationship continues to grow and would not be complete here without mentioning Dr. Peter Duesberg (www.duesberg.com). He isolated the first cancer gene through his work on retroviruses in 1970, and mapped the genetic structure of these viruses. This, and his subsequent work in the same field, resulted in his election to the National Academy of Sciences in 1986. He is also the recipient of a seven-year Outstanding Investigator Grant from the NIH. On the basis of his experience with retroviruses, Duesberg has challenged the virus-AIDS hypothesis in the pages of such journals as Cancer Research, Lancet, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Science, Nature, Journal of AIDS, AIDS Forschung, Biomedicine and Pharmacotherapeutics, New England Journal of Medicine and Research in Immunology. He has instead proposed the hypothesis that the various American/European A IDS diseases. are brought on by the long-term consumption of recreational drugs and/or AZT itself, which is prescribed to prevent or treat AIDS.