Following on from the medieval war of words on measles......., lies, emotional blackmail, weasel words and chameleon science is also being purveyed in the whooping cough battle.
Starting with the most obvious, is Vaccinet’s trumpeting headline about a Washington whooping cough outbreak recently that: "Anti-vaccine movement causes the worst whooping cough epidemic in 70 years." Meanwhile other provaccine sites –while taking the line that everyone should have their pertussis shots with breakfast, no matter what age – at least have the decency not to lie in the text, even if the videos are outright blackmail. Who in their right mind would leave a baby coughing, on their backs?. The medical profession says, about the Washington outbreak, that:
Tom Skinner, a spokesman for the CDC, said that although it may come to mind, the outbreaks are probably not the result of the increase in the number of parents choosing not to vaccinate their children from certain diseases. …..
“It’s not likely that vaccine refusal is having a large role in this,” he said. “Pertussis is a bacterium that’s cyclical in nature. We see these outbreaks from time to time as immunity wanes in our populations.”
It only comes to mind, because they say it does and have programmed people to believe it does, with people like Offit constantly using the term "how the anti-vaccine movement threatens us all". However, the war of words goes much deeper than that. It permeates the medical literature as well, and is partly a measure to cover their tracks.
But first, some definitions, so that you don’t get lost in the swamp.
ACT is Adenylate cyclase toxin. Once a whooping cough bacteria has landed up attached to cells in the bronchi, a gene switches on which produce this toxin which acts like a forcefield. This toxin stops the immmune system from recognising the bacteria straight away and gives the bacteria about a two week advantage until the immune system wakes up to the fact it’s been duped. This is one of the crucial “antigens”. In natural immunity the body reacts very strongly to ACT, and produces very high levels of immunity to it. The next time a person meets whooping cough, the body very quickly throws the kitchen sink and the whole house at the whooping cough bacteria, and clears it rapidly from the system.
(Addition December 2013: In May this year, for the first time, ACT during infection and in vitro manufacture was cultured, and Eby 13 is the first real study on ACT, even though they have known it's crucial role for some time).
Original Antigenic Sin. When a person gets an infectious disease for the first time, the body responds to WHAT it sees, WHERE it sees it. The body forms immunity on the basis of THAT experience. The immune system assumes that the next time that same thing comes around, it will come again, in the same form and place. HOWEVER, if a person’s immunity to a vaccine creates different pathways from natural immunity, that causes a problem. The body still sees “the thing” but the different immunity doesn’t work against the thing in the same way as it should.
In the case of natural whooping cough immunity, ACT or adenylate cyclase toxin, forms the basis of the initial immune response, and that front line immune response is crucial for removing the bacteria on reinfection. No vaccine can have ACT in it, because it’s made in the body, as part of the disease process and it seems vaccine manufacturers were not able to the whooping cough bacteria to excrete ACT in the vaccine substrates, because most articles which test recipients of the whole cell vaccine, find only low ACT antibodies. And the newer acellular whooping cough vaccine doesn't have ACT in it at all. The immunity created from an acellular vaccine misses this step out, and immunity from the old whole cell vaccine showed levels of ACT antibodies which were much much lower than that triggered by a natural infection.
(Addition December 2013 addition. Original antigenic sin has been confirmed by a recent study in 2013, by Warfel.So when a vaccinated person contracts pertussis again, the bacteria can get a good hold, because there is no front line ACT defence, to stop the bacteria from attaching, and starting an infection. After a vaccine in which there is no ACT, the immune system will NOT respond to ACT in the future, because the programme has been set by the first contact which was the needle, not the bacteria. And here is the proof in Table 1:
After the disease, and convalescence, on re-exposure, there was no carriage and therefore no spread. During infection baboons spread whooping cough for 30 days. After "immunity" from acellular vaccine, pertussis was spread for 35 days, and after "immunity" from whole cell vaccine, pertussis was spread for 19 days.
So the vaccinated are much more of a danger to babies and the general public, because while the vaccine may (or may not) prevent serious symptoms, because the person thinks nothing much is wrong, they will continue going to school, work, or whatever while infecting all those around them. That doesn't happen with immunity from the disease. Natural immunity does NOT result in spreading on subsequent contact with the bacteria.
Which is probably the reason why in Sweden, up until 2000, clinical infections were primarily been in the 3 - 11 age group, whereas now, infection ages are starting to spread outside of those age ranges. /end Dec 13 addition)
An “epitope” is part of the antigen. Imagine the whooping cough bacteria is like a jig saw puzzle. Imagine an outside envelope, genes , toxins and other stuff. Each different bit, is a “linked epitope”, and all the epitopes which are “linked”, are the bits which put together make up an antigen.
So the expression “Linked epitope suppression” is actually a very devious way of describing original antigenic sin. Worse, "linked epitope suppression" has been reframed to give it a slightly different meaning as well. What they are saying is that because the vaccine presents different epitopes to the disease, it gives a different immunity. They say this means that the usual immune system patterns essential to natural immunity - are suppressed, because the body responds to the antigens which were in the vaccine, and not the real ones presented in the bacteria. “Suppression” though, infers that the vaccine “suppresses” the proper immune response - but this isn’t true. The proper immune response can’t happen, because the initial programming was all wrong in the first place. It isn't suppressed. It just... doesn't happen.
And unfortunately, unlike a computer, you can’t reboot, or reinstall immune system programming to correct the glitch. Once the programming is set by the vaccine, that’s how the programming stays from that point on, and that’s why it is and should be called.... “original antigenic sin”.
Original antigenic sin, is a very graphic term and it’s no wonder it’s been removed from their vocabulary, because it implies a man-made problem.
Now that you have these terms, perhaps you can follow the rest of the blog. PT stands for pertussis toxin. (You can look up the other abbreviations yourself if you have the need)
The first mention of “original antigenic sin” was in a paper written in 2004 by James Cherry for whom pertussis vaccine has been his life long baby. He said:
In 2010, Dr Cherry revisited the concept, but this time, he no longer used the words, “original antigenic sin”. I mean, as a term in this context, it could be construed that the scientist has committed a sin. Which actually, is quite correct, but who wants to admit to being a “sinner”? Instead, this is what Dr Cherry said.
Cherry uses the new sanitised expression….. Linked epitope suppression.
However, not only have the words been changed, the concept has been subtly twisted as if to say it’s just a vaccine to vaccine problem.
In 2004, Cherry’s original antigenic sin, related to the fact that natural pertussis immunity is driven by responding to ACT, which is triggered by the infection process. The vaccines didn’t include ACT, and when a vaccinated person was later exposed to whooping cough, they responded to the epitopes in the vaccine. Vaccine induced immunity looks at the toxin ACT being produced by the bacteria, and doesn't recognise it as something it should do something about. The immune system does nothing and the bacteria says, "Wonderful - I can stay here." This means that vaccinated person don’t clear the bacteria quickly, like naturally immune people can. The vaccinated are therefore a potential walking source of prolonged infection – though that was never clearly stated. This fact alone, explains the very high rates of whooping cough today.
No longer are the whooping cough scientists comparing original antigenic sin in terms of vaccinated versus ...unvaccinated and taking the readers attention away from what the optimum comparison is, which is what happens during natural immunity to whooping cough.
Now, they are inferring that "linked epitope suppression" just means that the old whole cell vaccine had the “right” type of immunity - compared to the acellular vaccine which has the wrong type of immunity, when in 2004, there was admission that even the whole cell vaccine didn't match up to natural immunity. There might have a grain of truth in the comparison with the whole cell and acellular vaccines, except for the fact that Dr Cherry admitted that only “some” whole cell vaccines, might have “some” ACT in it. See above - 5 out of 25 people in old studies, with immunity to ACT from whole cell vaccinees. However, the question which isn't asked or answered, is whether the immunity those people had, was really courtesy of a first infection from the disease, not the actual vaccine. The problem is that it’s almost impossible to put ACT into a whooping cough vaccine, as Dr Cherry should know, because ACT is only switched on and expressed ONCE the bacteria is lodged in the bronchi of a PERSON. It’s just about impossible to create ACT in a culture medium. Were that not so, surely it would have been put into the vaccine when the lack of it was first identified as a problem in 1998, and subsequently bemoaned by Cherry in 2004?!!!
Enter a chap called Sheridan in 2012. A sort of blog come news release on JAMA notified us that in Australia, the whooping cough epidemic was because of “Linked epitope suppression” and that the acellular vaccines didn’t work nearly as well as the old whole cell ones did. A read of the letter Sheridan wrote in JAMA shows this:
So again, let’s not talk about “original antigenic sin”. But the word inhibit is perhaps better than suppress.
The reason scientists don't want to talk about "original antigenic sin" is because if you have to explain to the public what “original antigenic sin” meant in principle and in practical fact, you have to explain that you’ve breached a fundamental immunological tenet, and that actually, whooping cough vaccine immunity is vastly inferior - AND that vaccine immunity has “unintended consequences” in the future. The reader, or listener, might not like that.
Cherry is certainly not going to do that! He has made his reputation and fortune off the back of pertussis vaccines and disease.Cherry won’t even quote medical articles which say natural immunity lasts 30 years. In a recent article entitled “Why Do Pertussis Vaccine Fail?” he states that because vaccine immunity is better than disease immunity, he doesn’t think live vaccine research is worthwhile!!:
At this point you should read his article called “Epidemic Pertussis in 2012 – The Resurgence of a Vaccine-Preventable Disease” Note the studies which had “substantial observer bias” – and who they were authored by. Cherry. Nothing like admitting to a flawed CV. Give Cherry his due – he admits to observer bias now, as he did way back in 1998. But they are still listed in his CV.
The problem I have is that just about everything written about the whooping cough vaccines, is “biased”… period. Not just with “observer” bias, but with language bias and interpretation bias. In justifying the introduction of acellular vaccines, both the medical literature and the media went to great pains to extol how much safer, and how much more effective the acellular vaccines were than the whole cell. I have kept all those clippings and medical articles. Now the literature is saying that acellular vaccines were never as good as the whole-cell vaccine. What does that tell you about the observer bias of scientists, and their ability to write something specifically to justify an "end"? Exactly what .... changed???
If we were to sit down and reanalyse everything that’s ever been written about how wonderful the various whooping cough vaccines were/are, you would wonder just how many sides exist, to the “mouth”. If we had the benefit of an infallible truth machine, I wonder how much fundamental error in basic principles, we would also find.
I can tell you now and so can whole generations who had whooping cough naturally..., that natural immunity to whooping cough lasts a WHOLE lot longer than immunity from EITHER the whole cell or acellular vaccine does. There are many medical articles which confirm that. I can also tell you now, that the majority of carriers are VACCINATED people whose immunity to whooping cough is dysfunctional, because of “original antigenic sin” – a situation where the doctor-induced immunity doesn’t prevent either carriage or reinfection.
Go back and read the whooping cough immunity page. Understand the implications of that. And when you do, you will see very clearly exactly why people like Dr James Cherry and others have abandoned the term “original antigenic sin” in preference to the reframed, safer, sanitised, but incorrect term - “linked epitope suppression”. I'm surprised they don't call it the "coincidental effect". Not only do these doctors have to resort to redefinition of terms, but fact is now completely confused by the redefinition of what whooping cough is, how it’s diagnosed and the reframing of their own parameters of discussion about it.However, the majority of parents will never realise that jiggery pokery has been waved right under their noses, and they've been hoodwinked. Why? Because the majority of parents don't read the medical literature and just trust their doctors.
Cherry’s 2012 “resurgence” article itself, is also a bundle of excuses, and contradictions in fact and thought.
Not that that any of these contradictions will bother scientists. All these shifting sands of science means they'll never be without a job, or big incomes, particularly when their solution is what I predicted years ago. Just use more whooping cough vaccines at every possible opportunity. The vaccine companies love the income that vaccine failure brings in. These experts also assume that mere mothers will know nothing about their chameleon activities, ... book cooking (observer bias) and term swapping. They are correct. The majority of parents have no idea that science is sometimes anything but fact, or that the principle of "informed consent" is a joke, because terms change like a chameleon's skin, and facts stretch as reliably as funny putty.
