Expert Pediatrician Exposes Vaccine Myths
Posted by: Dr. Mercola
November 14 2009 | 145,798 views
Dr. Larry Palevsky is a board-certified pediatrician trained at the New York School of Medicine, and one of the leading physicians in the country who, from my view, is actually able to compellingly and convincingly provide sound, rational, scientific justification as to why you need to seriously reconsider the wisdom of choosing vaccines as an option to prevent against most diseases.
The Difference Between What You Learn in School and What Works
Dr. Palevsky says:
“When I went through medical school, I was taught that vaccines were completely safe and completely effective, and I had no reason to believe otherwise. All the information that I was taught was pretty standard in all the medical schools and the teachings and scientific literature throughout the country. I had no reason to disbelieve it.
Over the years, I kept practicing medicine and using vaccines and thinking that my approach to vaccines was completely onboard with everything else I was taught.
But more and more, I kept seeing that my experience of the world, my experience in using and reading about vaccines, and hearing what parents were saying about vaccines were very different from what I was taught in medical school and my residency training.
… and it became clearer to me as I read the research, listened to more and more parents, and found other practitioners who also shared the same concern that vaccines had not been completely proven safe or even completely effective, based on the literature that we have today.
… It didn’t appear that the scientific studies that we were given were actually appropriately designed to prove and test the safety and efficacy.
It also came to my attention that there were ingredients in there that were not properly tested, that the comparison groups were not appropriately set up, and that conclusions made about vaccine safety and efficacy just did not fit the scientific standards that I was trained to uphold in my medical school training.”
Were Vaccines Really the ‘Savior’ Against Past Diseases?
Conventional medicine teaches that the polio and the smallpox epidemics went away because of the vaccines, and that most of the diseases that we faced in the 20th century in the United States were brought down because of the power, strength and the implementation of the vaccine policy.
Meanwhile, there are a significant number of studies in the medical literature that actually show there were many other reasons that these infectious diseases went away.
For example, one article published in 2000 in the Pediatrics Journal describes how, before the World War II, the majority of the infectious diseases the US was faced with – such as diphtheria, tetanus, polio, pertussis, measles, influenza, parapertussis, tuberculosis and scarlet fever – were all reduced before World War II and BEFORE there were antibiotics and vaccinations available to treat or to vaccinate against these diseases.
The reasons for the reductions in incidence rates and mortality of these diseases were predominantly due to the implementation of public health strategies, including:
* Clean water
* Better living conditions
* Improved sanitation
* Improved nutrition
There are many such examples.
Have the Proper Safety Studies Actually Been Done?
So, why is there such a vast difference among intelligent, scientifically oriented, committed and objective scientists and physicians about the safety and efficacy of vaccines?
Dr. Palevsky says:
“I think that if you ask most of my colleagues where they get their information, they will say that they read it from the American Academy of Pediatrics, from the AMA, from the CDC, and in their journals.
But I would like to challenge most of my colleagues to look through the studies themselves to actually see if the proper scientific studies were done using a proper study group and a proper control group.
Were the ingredients in vaccines properly studied?
Is there a difference between being exposed to a virus, bacteria, heavy metal or toxin through the air, food, your intestines and your skin, versus when it’s injected into your body?
Have we really looked at what happens to vaccine materials once injected into a child? Is an antibody sufficient to provide protection for a child against disease?
More and more studies are coming out to show that:
* The proper studies haven’t been done
* Antibodies are not the final way in which your body is protected
* There is a difference between how children process material through air and food versus through injection
* There are particles in vaccines that do accumulate in your body and cause impairments in your immune system
* There are particles in the vaccines that get into your brain, and
* There are foreign DNA particles that get into your body
For many health professionals it is a shock to discover that there is such a lack of information on the safety and efficacy, and a mounting degree of information that actually raises suspicions about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, and whether or not they have been properly studied.”
What we currently have is a one-sided policy; a one way of thinking that is impossible to really allow for the appropriate debate. Science is truly a field where you ask a question, you find an answer, and you don’t have the biases or the influences that change the way an answer or a conclusion is made. We are not seeing that with vaccines.
On a personal note, I recently received the Visionary Award at the NVIC conference in Washington DC. In my acceptance speech, I basically broke down in tears when I told the audience how I felt when I came to realize that by routinely vaccinating thousands of innocent children at my clinic, I’d probably caused damage to many of them. It was a very difficult thing for me to accept intellectually and emotionally.
How a Conventionally Trained Physician Accepts that Vaccines Can Cause Harm
Dr. Palevsky began his investigation in earnest about 10 years ago because parents came to him with complaints, worries, and concerns that something had happened to their children after they were vaccinated.
Interestingly, this is the same way that I became enlightened about vaccines — through the concern of a very patient mother whose family I was taking care of. She gently persisted in showing me the evidence and thank God I listened!
Tragically, most doctors are far too arrogant to even consider that there is any possibility that there might be something wrong with vaccines.
Most pediatricians are indoctrinated to simply tell parents that anything related to a bad outcome from a vaccine is a mere coincidence. But how come there are so many of these “coincidences”?
Says Palevsky,
“It is heartbreaking, because I see many of these kids who were developmentally normal, who were doing well, who were speaking, then whose voices and eye contacts were lost, who went into seizures, who developed asthma and allergies, and they had nowhere to go because they’re doctors told them that they don’t know what they’re talking about. These kids are real.
The literature is showing that there are changes in the immune system of children who are vaccinated, especially if we vaccinate them before one year of age or even at one day of age.
The literature is there. It’s good scientific literature, and it shows that more and more of these kids who are suffering from chronic illness are suffering from impairments of their immune system.
Whether vaccines are causative or contributory, the literature is showing that there is a role that vaccines are playing in creating the groundwork for these children’s immune systems to start to show signs of impairment and destruction.
… When I look at the studies that the American Academy of Pediatrics and the CDC put out, saying that there’s no correlation between vaccination and autism or vaccinations and asthma, I have to say that the studies just don’t hold up to the scientific standards.
You can’t have 25 children in a study and then report that this proves that no children who get autism have any correlation to being injured by vaccines. This is what the media does: they take these conclusions, put it right out in front of the newspapers and say, “Vaccines don’t cause autism.”
When you really look at the studies – and there’s not a proper control group and there’s only 25 people – you can’t make a grand, generalized statement about a general population because you’ve studied 25 children.”
The NVIC Set to Create Groundbreaking Vaccine Safety Research
The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) just raised $100,000 and continues to look for donations and sponsors to allow proper safety studies to be done by independent researchers, who aren’t going to influence the outcomes.
One study that looked at the health outcomes of vaccinated versus unvaccinated children does exist.
Published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology in April 2005, that looked at the health outcomes of children who are fully vaccinated, who are partially vaccinated, and who are not vaccinated at all.
All the investigators asked the parents to do was to report atopic illness. Atopic illness means allergies, asthma, eczema, hay fever. The investigators were blinded, meaning they didn’t know which category the participants belonged to.
When they assessed the data, they found that the largest number of reports by parents of children with atopic illness were in the kids who were fully vaccinated. The second highest reports were in the families who are partially vaccinated. And the lowest number of reports was in the children who were unvaccinated…
The investigators performed a statistical analysis to see if the data was based on chance or on real statistical differences, and found there were statistically significant differences between these groups. They couldn’t understand how this was possible, because the generally accepted consensus is that vaccines are completely safe, and completely effective.
Based on this initial finding, we clearly need to do follow-up studies to ask the same question over and over again; repeat this kind of investigation with different populations across different parts of the country, to unearth the truth!
Dr. Palevsky says:
“Certainly, the issue has been raised about the special interests, the money that’s tied, the policies, how much money the vaccine manufacturers stand to make, the doctors who make decisions on vaccines, and how much money they stand to make. But we need the science and not this conspiracy theory…
If we just stay with the science, and really start to address the need for the science, and look at the fact that there is a lack of science, we will definitely see that more needs to be done.
We have not done due diligence.”
Are Some Vaccines Safer Than Others?
Many may be surprised by Dr. Palevsky’s answer:
“… in my research of the vaccines, and of the basic microbiology and virology that we’re trained to know in our medical training, I cannot understand how a vaccine with a virus can be safe.”
What most people don’t know is that a virus is not “alive,” per se.
It is simply a piece or strand of either RNA or DNA. And even of itself, a virus can’t “do” anything.
In addition it is so tiny that it can only be seen under an electron microscope. It is much smaller than bacteria, which can only be seen in the regular microscope. So viruses cannot be isolated when you make a viral vaccine. All that can be isolated is the tissue, whether it’s human tissue or animal tissue that is believed to have been infected by that specific virus that you’re trying to isolate.
So when a viral culture or a set of cultures are made including the specific virus, you’re going to have the DNA of people or animals who were already infected. Those cells are then taken and grown on animal cells, whether it’s monkey kidney cells or chicken embryo cells.
When mixed together, these cells will splice and recombine, which means that DNA from animal cells are going to mix with DNA from the known infected cells with the virus.
So by definition, a viral vaccine contains foreign animal and, even possibly, foreign human DNA. That’s why if you have an egg allergy, you shouldn’t get certain vaccines because it is known that there’s going to be egg protein in the vaccine.
So the question is, how safe is it to inject viral material that is embedded into the DNA of foreign DNA cells?
What studies have been done to actually test whether foreign DNA is getting into your body; whether it stays in your DNA; whether it gets into your brain; and whether there are foreign animal viruses that are inherently present in animal DNA to begin with?
The Dangers of Adjuvants
Adjuvants are used in vaccines in order to create a sufficiently strong immunological response. Adjuvants augment your immunological response.
But there is clear evidence that adjuvants, like aluminum and squalene impair your immune system.
So while you may be getting the antibodies desired, you are, at the same time, damaging your immune system. Particularly in children, this can set them up to develop chronic illness.
Pushing for Informed Consent
So, does that mean you should never vaccinate against anything?
Dr. Palevsky says:
“That’s something that needs to be left up to the individual parent. I am truly a proponent of informed consent, and I’m truly supportive of families who have done their homework and who have been able to make the choice.
What is the possible risk of the illness? What is the possible health outcome if your child gets one of those illnesses?
And how much do you know about those risks versus how much do you know about the risks of the vaccines and the health outcomes of what may happen when children are vaccinated against single, or even multiple, vaccines?
And when parents are given both sides, it is up to them to make that informed choice.
It is no longer my role to tell them that they must do this vaccine but not that vaccine, because each parent has to make an informed choice based on their understanding of how diseases occur or don’t occur, what science we have available, and whether they feel comfortable with the devil that they know (the science and the outcomes of disease) versus the devil that they don’t know (science and the outcomes of the vaccine).”
What about the Swine Flu Vaccine?
Echoing many other health professionals, including myself, Dr. Palevsky’s concern is that there haven’t been sufficient amounts of scientific investigation to actually be able to say that the vaccines are safe, or even effective.
He says:
“Now if you read the packaging first of the swine flu vaccine, it specifically states that the swine flu or the H1N1 flu vaccine was manufactured in the same manufacturing process as the flu vaccine. Therefore since we believe that the flu vaccine has been sufficiently tested to be safe, we can then conclude that the H1N1 vaccine is safe.
But the public should know that even though our authorities are standing there and saying that the H1N1 vaccine is safe, the proper studies have not been done.
… And it’s unfair to say to parents or to the public that if you come down with a flu-like illness, it must be H1N1. In studies that have been done, people who did get the flu had their noses swabbed, and they were found to have H1N1.
What’s missing in these data is a population of healthy people who have not had any flu symptoms – to actually see if their noses contained H1N1 – because if someone is sick and has the presence of an H1N1 virus in the nose, it doesn’t mean that the H1N1 is causing the illness.
You really have to take an appropriate control group to see if people are colonized with that virus even when they’re not sick.
So we don’t have that data; we really don’t know. I don’t think we can say with good scientific certainty that people who are getting sick from the flu and who are being diagnosed with H1N1 are actually having H1N1 as the cause.”
Other Ways to Protect Yourself Against the Flu
Again, there’s clear evidence in the medical literature that shows proper hygiene, proper sleep, proper diet, proper supplementation with things like vitamin D (making sure that you get your vitamin D level done first), and perhaps vitamin C, can actually prevent you from getting the flu.
Many insist that vaccinated individuals “protect” the unvaccinated against the flu virus – in essence, reaping the benefit of the protection they refuse for themselves, while at the same time putting others in danger.
But how does that make sense?
Says Dr. Palevsky:
“How does vaccinating against the flu virus stop you from carrying the flu virus in your nasal passages?”
And yet, this is what many believe.
The Concept of Herd Immunity – BUSTED!
One of the primary arguments that is being used to justify this insane behavior is “herd immunity.”
The fact is that vaccination does NOT stop you from carrying bacteria or viruses in your nose, in your throat, in your intestines, in your airway, on your skin, or in your body.
But many do not understand the significance of this fact, and have been made to believe that if you’re vaccinated, you won’t carry viruses, and therefore, others will be protected because you’re vaccinated.
As it turns out, this belief is NOT based on scientific fact.
Dr. Palevsky explains:
“This whole concept of herd immunity is very interesting, because we were taught that herd immunity occurs because a certain percentage of a population gets an active illness. Therefore by a certain percentage of getting the active illness, they impart a protection onto the remaining part of the population that has not gotten the illness yet.
And so the herd that is getting the illness is shedding the illness and protecting those who have not gotten it.
In vaccine science, we are extrapolating or concluding that if we vaccinate a certain percentage of people, we are imparting protection on those who have not been vaccinated. And that has NOT been shown to be true, because the true herd immunity in theory is based on an ACTIVE DISEASE, and we know that despite what we’re taught, vaccination does not mimic the natural disease.
So we cannot use the same model of herd immunity in a natural disease in the vaccination policy. But unfortunately, we do use it even though it cannot be used because it doesn’t have scientific backing.
What’s most interesting to me is that the entire concept of herd immunity fails to acknowledge that there is a life cycle of the viruses and the bacteria all on their own, and that what turns them on and off may have nothing to do with the percentage of people who have been infected.
All you have to do is look at the SARS outbreak. That virus that we were supposed to fear didn’t infect 70 or 80 percent of the population, which would then impart herd immunity on the 20 or 30 percent that didn’t get the disease.
This is because the virus itself had a life cycle of its own. And so it came and went without any percentage of the population being protected. There wasn’t herd immunity, and yet the virus died out on its own.
We fail to include that viruses have a life cycle, and that they are in relationship to other organisms and to us. Something activates them and something actually stops them, and it has nothing necessarily to do with the percentage of people who would have the illness or who have been vaccinated.
… It is preposterous to think that a child who is vaccinated no longer carries the bacteria or the viruses that they have been vaccinated against. If, in fact, children are vaccinated, then why are parents and public health authorities afraid that non-vaccinated children are somehow carrying something that their children are not, when they should feel comfortable that their children are vaccinated?
You can’t have it both ways.
You can’t vaccinate believing that your children are protected and then feel that your children are not protected because somehow, some non-vaccinated child is carrying some secret organism that no one else is carrying.
It just doesn’t make any sense.”
The Difference between Natural Immunity and Vaccine-lnduced Immunity
It’s important to understand that the natural illness has greater influence on the health of your body. Says Dr. Palevsky:
“In medical school, the mentors that I had saw children in their practices in the 40s, 50s and all the way up to the 80s getting these flu-like illnesses who were properly treated with rest, fluids and proper supplementation.
Those kids had developmental growth spurts after the illnesses were over.
There is something to say for these viral illnesses that impart a certain boosting of the immune system of your children. And if we’re not letting them have these illnesses, what are we doing to their immune systems? Aren’t we actually hampering their overall health?”
You need to understand that there’s a significant difference between natural immunity and vaccination immunity.
When children are born, they develop natural immunity to hundreds, thousands, millions, and even trillions of microorganisms that they breathe in, eat, and touch through their skin. Their immune systems at the lining of their airways, at the lining of their intestines, and on their skin are actively protecting their body from the outside world.
Those immune systems that are intricately and specifically located in the linings are very important to create memory and protection to the organisms that they continue to breathe, eat, and touch.
That immune system response then has a domino effect on creating other memory and immune responses that give your body antibodies and protection.
That’s a very important step for how the immune system matures in our children. From the linings, the immune system receives information, sends out signals to all other parts of the immune system, and creates an immune response, memory, and antibodies.
On the other hand, when you inject materials into your body, you are bypassing that crucial first step called the primary line of defense.
With vaccination you are just creating an antibody. That does NOT impart long-term immunity because it does not create the kind of memory that occurs when you breathe it in, eat it, or are exposed through the skin, and then go through the course of the natural disease.
Some people will argue that this is why we have nasal spray vaccines.
However, again, you’re making the assumption that you have not already been exposed to the virus at some point, and you’re also making the assumption that exposure automatically leads to infection.
Exposure does not necessarily lead to infection. A lot of it has to do with the overall status of your immune system.
The Dangers of Combining Vaccines
One issue that is frequently ignored is the potential harm from the synergy of combinations of vaccines, which have never been studied.
No one knows whether there’s interaction between the bacteria and the viruses in the vaccines administered as part of the childhood vaccination schedule, or if there is interaction in the trace thimerosal (which is still in some of the multi-vials of certain vaccines), or the large amount of aluminum that is in many of them.
Dr. Palevsky says:
“There is a scientist named Boyd Haley, who has actually looked into some of the vaccine ingredients and (1) what happens to nerve cells when you inject them in the lab to specific vaccine ingredients, and (2) what happens to the nerve cells when you keep adding another vaccine ingredient.
He specifically showed that in the presence of thimerosal, there’s a lot of damage to nerve cells. When you add aluminum to the thimerosal, you need less thimerosal to create the damage to the immune and nerve cells in the presence of aluminum.
Then when you add neomycin – an antibiotic in some of the vaccines – it potentiates the potency of nerve cell damage with aluminum and mercury together.
And when you culture the nerve cells and testosterone, versus estrogen, and you expose them to some of the vaccine ingredients like thimerosal, you actually see that the nerve cells that are exposed to testosterone are more damaged in greater amounts than the nerve cells that are bathed in estrogen.
That raises some concern because we do see that children with neurodevelopmental disorders are 4:1, boys to girls.
So you have to question whether testosterone actually makes children more vulnerable to exposure to toxins like mercury, aluminum or their combination?
None of these studies have been done in humans. People say, “We can’t do those studies.” And I say, “Why not?” They say, “It’s unethical.”
I say, “Well, if it’s unethical to do those studies on vaccine ingredients and combining them together, then it’s unethical to give the vaccines in general.”
So we’re missing a lot of important data that we won’t believe, and we’re also missing a lot of important data that we won’t accumulate because most of the studies that are done are by the manufacturers of the vaccines themselves.”
About Dr. Lawrence B. Palevsky, M.D., F.A.A.P.
Dr. Palevsky is a board certified pediatrician who utilizes a holistic approach to children’s wellness and illness. Dr. Palevsky received his medical degree from the NYU School of Medicine in 1987, completed a three-year pediatric residency at The Mount Sinai Hospital in NYC in 1990, and served as a pediatric fellow in the ambulatory care out-patient department at Bellevue Hospital, NYC, from 1990-1991.
Since 1991, his clinical experience includes working in pediatric emergency and intensive care medicine, in-patient and out-patient pediatric medicine, neonatal intensive care medicine, newborn and delivery room medicine, and conventional, holistic and integrative pediatric private practice at the Center for Health & Healing- an integrative and complementary care medical facility affiliated with the Beth Israel Medical Center in NYC. Dr. Palevsky is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, co-founder and President of the Holistic Pediatric Association (www.hpakids.org) and Past–President of the American Holistic Medical Association (www.holisticmedicine.org).
In his current practice in Northport, Long Island and Manhattan, NYC, Dr. Palevsky offers consultations and educational programs to families and practitioners in the areas of preventive and holistic health; childhood development; lifestyle changes; nutrition for adults, infants and children; safe, alternative treatments for common and difficult to treat acute and chronic pediatric and adult conditions; vaccination controversies; mindful parenting; and rethinking the medical paradigm.
Additionally, he teaches holistic integrative pediatric & adolescent medicine to parents, and medical and allied health professionals, both nationally & internationally, and is available for speaking engagements worldwide.
For more information or to contact Dr. Palevsky, please visit http://www.drpalevsky.com or contact info@drpalevsky.com
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