Homeopathy for Vaccine Injuries, Part 1

IN BRIEF

Vaccine have helped to save millions of lives but in some cases may also cause unintended injuries. Such vaccine injuries can be immediate or delayed, with delayed reactions often being missed by health care providers. Homeopathy may help to prevent, identify and heal such vaccine injuries. 

Anke Zimmermann, BSc, FCAH

A Brief History of Vaccines

Vaccines have been around for over a two hundred years. The smallpox vaccine was introduced by Edward Jenner in 1796. 

In 1885 Louis Pasteur developed the rabies vaccine. Vaccines against diphtheria, tetanus, anthrax, cholera, plague, typhoid, tuberculosis, and more were developed through the 1930s.

The 1950's brought us polio vaccines, followed by the measles vaccine  in the early 60s and the MMR vaccine licensed by Merck in 1871. The late 70s brought meningococcal and pneumococcal vaccines and improvements in rabies vaccines.

​Hib and Hep-B vaccines were added in the mid 80s.  Mid 90s added Hep-A vaccines, the chickenpox vaccine was licensed in 1995 and rotavirus vaccines in the late 90s. The HPV vaccine was licensed for sale in 2006 and the rotavirus vaccine added to the routine childhood immunization schedule. Currently there are over 200 new vaccines in development. 

Vaccine Injuries

Not all has been smooth sailing though. Since the inception of vaccines some individuals have suffered vaccine injuries and even deaths. Homeopathy has been used successfully throughout this time to help those affected by adverse vaccine events. 

Vaccine injury is a controversial topic even though it has been officially acknowledged by governments around the world and vaccine injury compensation systems have been set up for those unlucky enough to suffer complications or death as a result of vaccines. 

In the 1970s and early 1980 the DPT vaccine (diphteria-pertussis-tetanus) via its whole-cell pertussis component, created so much vaccine damage and ensuing legal troubles for manufacturers that a television documentary likened receiving a DPT shot to playing roulette. 

Consequently in 1986 vaccine manufacturers started pressuring Congress for protection from vaccine injury lawsuits, threatening not to make any more vaccines otherwise. The cold war was still on and the possibility of bioterrorism ever present so President Reagan didn't want to lose the good graces of this industry,  ultimately gave in and granted complete liability protection from vaccine injuries to manufacturers as well as personnel administering vaccines. 

Safety Testing​ Exemptions

Most people do not know that the vaccine companies have an even more important exemption. They are almost completely exempt from safety testing their products. The reason for that is that the CDC (Centres for Disease Control) is a quasi-military agency, which is why people at the CDC often have military ranks, like Surgeon General. As per their website: "CDC is the nation’s health protection agency, working 24/7 to protect America from health and safety threats, both foreign and domestic. CDC increases the health security of our nation." [1]

The vaccine program was originally initiated as a national security defense against bio-terrorism attacks, such as anthrax. The CDC/US government wanted to be able to bring a vaccine to market quickly, without needing to wait for years of safety testing, which is normally required for all new drugs. 

Therefor they decided to create a special category for vaccines which they called 'biologics', and which don't really need to be tested at all. The pharmaceutical industry took full advantage of this loophole after they received their liability protection and this created a gold rush for vaccines.

Current Vaccine Schedule

Today, children vaccinated according to the CDC’s schedule will have received fifty doses of fourteen vaccines by the age of six. By the age of eighteen, children may may have received upwards of seventy-two doses of nineteen vaccines. The schedule in Canada omits only the Hep-B vaccine at birth except for some subgroups. 

Please see recommended schedule as per US CDC below.

None of these vaccines, except for a small subgroup in HPV vaccine pre-clinical trials, have ever been tested against a placebo or in long-term studies and therefor nobody can scientifically tell us what kind of risk profile any of these products have. No vaccine on the market has been tested for it's potential to cause cancer, mutations or birth defects. 

Please see the comparison of drug vs vaccine approval processes below, compliments of Children's Health Defense. 

Drug Vs Vaccine Approval Process

Additionally, as acknowledged by the Institute of Medicine in a 2013 report, no studies have been done to test the entire vaccination schedule to determine the long-term effects of the cumulative number of vaccines and their ingredients, which include the known neurotoxins aluminum and mercury.

​Nobody knows if vaccines save more lives than they take or damage.

Vaccine Injury Compensation Systems

​Back to 1986: Congress simultaneously created the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA) and National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP) [2] to aid victims of vaccine injuries as vaccines were deemed to be unavoidably unsafe. This program has paid out in excess of $4 billion to families who incurred vaccine injuries and deaths since then [3], even though barely one third (31% or 6,276) of the filed petitions were actually compensated. ​

Canada does not have a vaccine injury compensation system at all except for Quebec. All G8 nations with the exception of Canada and Russia have vaccine injury compensation systems. 

It is also estimated that only 1-2% of vaccine injuries are ever reported, so the compensated cases likely reflect only a small fraction of actual vaccine injuries. [4]

I myself have seen about 200 children and adults with vaccine injuries over the past eight years, only three were actually acknowledged by doctors or nurses as vaccine injuries and reported. 

Homeopathy and Vaccine Injuries in the Past

From the time of Jenner homeopaths noticed that vaccines can cause bot acute and long-term, undesired effects in susceptible individuals, which often could be addressed with homeopathy.  In the late 1800s, British homeopath Dr. James Compton Burnett was among the first to discover that smallpox vaccines could trigger chronic disease. He was among the first to use Thuja as a remedy for vaccine damage, also known as 'vaccinosis' in homeopathic circles [5].

Thuja is still often recommended as the #1 homeopathic remedy to use for adverse vaccine reactions. However, though Thuja was an effective treatment for vaccinosis back in Burnett’s day, in modern times it is largely ineffective for treating the adverse effects of vaccines. Silica was also traditionally often recommended to help with vaccine injury.

Healing Vaccine Damage in Modern Times

With the increasing numbers of vaccines and their many different components administered nowadays Thuja is now rarely effective to address vaccine injury on its own.

Tinus Smits, a medical doctor and homeopath from Holland was one of the first to use homeopathic remedies made from the many different vaccines in use now in an organized way to address vaccine damage.

​He wrote an interesting booklet, titled 'Post-Vaccination Syndrome', which can be read on his website here. It describes his experience with vaccine injuries and their effective management with homeopathy. I will describe my own experience further on in this article. 

Acute and Chronic Vaccine Damage

It is  known that vaccines can cause both acute and chronic adverse events, based on clinical trials as well as post-licensure reporting. Homeopathy can be helpful for both. 

Acute events can include fever,  lethargy, excessive sleepiness, absent-mindedness, convulsions, encephalitis and/or meningitis, frequent and inconsolable crying, penetrating and heart-rending shrieking (cri encephalique), swelling and induration around the injections site, whooping-type cough, bronchitis, diarrhea, fainting, shock, pneumonia, death, cot death/sudden infant death syndrome (since the Japanese delayed the whooping-cough vaccination to the age of two years, cot deaths have been practically obliterated in Japan 3).

From a homeopathic point of view Aconite can be a great first-aid remedy for acute vaccine injuries as they are often related to shock and sudden inflammation. Aconite is a remedy ideally suited for conditions that come on suddenly and fast or are caused by sudden traumatic events such as a fright or sudden onset of an acute infection. 

Institutes of Medicine Reports

The Institute of Medicine (IOM),  now called the National Academy of Medicine,  is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. Operating outside the framework of the U.S. federal government, it relies on a volunteer workforce of scientists and other experts, operating under a formal peer-review system. The IOM published a series of reports on evidence for adverse effects of vaccines between 1991 and 2013 confirming that:

Vaccines can and do carry risks for complications that can be greater for some individuals than others and may lead to chronic brain and immune system damage or death. (This section with grateful acknowledgement to the National Vaccine Information Centre.)

Adverse Effects of Vaccines: Evidence and Causality
​

Adverse Effects of Vaccines: Evidence and Causality published by the Institute of Medicine (2012). Reviews the epidemiological, clinical, and biological evidence regarding adverse health events associated with specific vaccines covered by the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), including the varicella zoster vaccine, influenza vaccines, the hepatitis B vaccine, and the human papillomavirus vaccine, among others. NVIC Note: This report investigated 158 of the most commonly reported vaccine adverse events and for 85%, or 135, of these events the IOM was prevented from determining causality due to either an absence of science, or the lack of quality science.

Multiple Immunizations and Immune Dysfunction

Multiple Immunizations and Immune Dysfunction published by the Institute of Medicine (2002). The committee recommends limited but continued public health attention to this issue in terms of capitalizing on current research efforts. No recommendations for policy review is made, but the committee does recommend an analysis of new frameworks for immunization policy, particularly as the number of licensed vaccines increases.

Childhood Immunization Schedule and Safety: Stakeholder Concerns, Scientific Evidence, and Future Studies

Childhood Immunization Schedule and Safety: Stakeholder Concerns, Scientific Evidence, and Future Studies Released: January 16, 2013 - Pre-Publication Status. A new report from the Institute of Medicine, examines evidence about the schedule's safety and recommends the best way to conduct any needed investigations. Click here to read NVIC's summary of this report's vaccine safety science gaps.

Click here to read NVIC's summary of this report's vaccine safety science gaps.

Vaccine Safety Research, Data Access, and Public Trust

Vaccine Safety Research, Data Access, and Public Trust published by the Institute of Medicine (2005). In this report, the committee that was asked to review aspects of this program recommends that two new oversight groups are needed to ensure that the policies and procedures of the VSD and its data sharing program are implemented as fairly and openly as possible.

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 IOM committees published reports in 1991, 1994a, 1994b, and 2012 and found that the following health problems are causally related to vaccination:

•            Acute encephalopathy (brain inflammation)
  • Chronic Nervous System Dysfunction (brain damage)
  • Anaphylaxis (whole-body allergic reaction)
  • Febrile Seizures (convulsions with fever)
  • Guillain-Barre Syndrome (peripheral nerve inflammation)
  • Brachial Neuritis (arm nerve inflammation)
  • Deltoid Bursitis (shoulder inflammation)
  • Acute & Chronic Arthritis (joint inflammation)
  • Syncope (sudden loss of consciousness/fainting)
  • Hypotonic/Hyporesponsive Episodes (shock and “unusual shock-like state)
  • Protracted, Inconsolable Crying and Screaming
  • Vaccine Strain Infection (smallpox, live polio, measles, varicella zoster vaccines)
  • Death (smallpox, live polio, measles vaccines)

The IOM published a report in 2013 that revealed the federally recommended birth to six-year old child vaccine schedule had not been fully scientifically evaluated and there was not enough scientific evidence for physician committees to determine if the childhood vaccine schedule is or is not associated with the development of the following brain and immune system disorders prevalent among children today:

• • Asthma
  • Atopy
  • Allergy
  • Autoimmunity
  • Autism
  • Learning disorders
  • Communication disorders
  • Developmental disorders
  • Intellectual disability
  • Attention deficit disorder
  • Disruptive behavior disorder
  • Tics and Tourette’s syndrome
  • Seizures
  • Febrile seizures
  • Epilepsy

Chronic or Delayed Vaccine Damage or Injury

Delayed or chronic vaccine damage is often missed clinically because vaccine manufacturers are not required to conduct long-term safety testing, nor testing against a neutral placebo, as mentioned. Therefor we don't know much about what happens months or years after the injections of vaccines. Manufacturers are also not required to test the vaccines in combination with each other as was described in the relevant IOM reports.  

There now exists a growing concern which links immunizations to the huge increase in recent decades of auto-immune diseases[6, 7] e.g., rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, lupus erythematosus, lymphoma, autoimmune demyelinative optic neuritis, diabetes mellitus, etc as well as to neurodegenerative conditions and immunological abnormalities. Autism appears to be both an immunological as well as neurological condition with autoimmune phenomena described in the literature [8, 9, ].

Vaccinated vs Unvaccinated Children

The first peer-reviewed study [9] comparing health outcomes of vaccinated children versus unvaccinated was published in 2017 in the Journal of Translational Science  by epidemiologists from the School of Public Health at Jackson State University. The study found that vaccinated children had increased risks of autism (4.2 times), ADHD (4.2 times), learning disabilities (5.2 times) eczema (2.9 times), and an astounding 30 times the risk of allergic rhinitis compared to unvaccinated children. This was only a small pilot study but authors noted that "the strength and consistency of the findings, the apparent “dose-response” relationship between vaccination status and several forms of chronic illness, and the significant association between vaccination and NDDs (neurodevelopmental disorders) all support the possibility that some aspect of the current vaccination program could be contributing to risks of childhood morbidity."

There are several other small studies comparing vaccinated to unvaccinated children, all with similar results. Children's Health Defense has prepared a 31-slide presentation looking at all the known studies so far. ​

Dr. Paul Thomas

Dr. Paul Thomas, an integrative pediatrician in Portland, Oregon, examined autism rates in his practice of 3,344 patients who were either vaccinated on schedule, using an alternate schedule as described in his book "The Vaccine Friendly Plan", or not vaccinated at all. Autism rates for unvaccinated children in his practice were 1 in 715, on his alternate schedule 1 in 438 and on the regular CDC schedule a whopping 1 in 45!

Dr. Paul Thomas, autism rates in vaccinated vs unvaccinated children, courtesy of Children's Health Defense

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Dr. Thomas opened up his practice data to a deep dive by an independent and internationally known health informatics expert who found results—“more powerful than a study”—that amazed them both: ten years of practice data clearly show that unvaccinated and partially vaccinated children had a dramatically lower risk of autism compared to children vaccinated according to the CDC schedule.

In an interview with Del Bigtree on the show HighWire, Dr. Thomas put his practice data in a wider context, noting that if California followed the modified vaccine schedule, it would spare about 9,000 cases of autism annually. At a national level, the slower schedule would prevent about 90,000 cases of autism annually. 

Tinus Smits, Post-Vaccination Syndrome

Tinus Smits writes in 'Post-Vaccination Syndrome': "By carefully studying and recording the cases we arrive at the following catalogue of chronic post-vaccination symptoms: Colds, amber or green phlegm, inflamed eyes, loss of eye contact, squinting, inflammation of the middle ear, bronchitis,  expectoration, coughing, asthma, eczema, allergies, inflamed joints, tiredness and lack of vigour, excessive thirst, diabetes, diarrhoea, constipation, headaches, disturbed sleep with periods of waking and crying, epilepsy, rididity of the back, muscle cramps, light-headedness, lack of concentration, loss of memory, growth disturbances, lack of coordination, disturbed development, behavioural problems such as fidgeting, aggressiveness, irritation, moodiness, emotional imbalance, confusion, loss of will power, mental torpidity." 

I would like to add to that: Toe walking and other gait abnormalities, impaired fine motor movements, speech delays and difficulties, problems with chewing and swallowing, impaired eye tracking. 

Clinical Experience with Vaccine Injury, Post-Vaccination Syndrome

I became very interested in vaccine injuries after reading Tinus Smit's book "Autism - Beyond Despair" in 2011. Up until that time I did not have any concerns with vaccine safety, but I had been very interested in autism and related disorders for two decades already. The book came as a tremendous shock to me and stimulated thousands of hours of intense research into vaccines safety. I also started using homeopathic remedies made from vaccines as a new tool to help my clients, with tremendous success. 

To be continued in part 2, coming soon

References

1. https://www.cdc.gov/about/24-7/index.html

2. https://www.congress.gov/bill/99th-congress/house-bill/5546

3. https://www.hrsa.gov/sites/default/files/hrsa/vaccine-compensation/data/monthly-stats-june-2019.pdf

4. ​Human and Experimental Toxicology, 31(10) 1012–1021, DOI: 10.1177/0960327112440111, Relative trends in hospitalizations and mortality among infants by the number of vaccine doses and age, based on the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), 1990–2010 

5. Comptom Burnett, Vaccinosis and its Cure by Thuja https://archive.org/details/vaccinosisandit00burngoog/page/n4

​6. Vaccine-induced Autoimmunity., Cohen AD, Shoenfeld Y.  Journal of Autoimmunity. 1996;9(6):699–703. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

7. Vaccines and Autoimmunity, ​Editors: Shoenfeld, Y,  Agmon-Levin, N, Tomljenovic, L, ​2015, Wiley Blackwell

8.Abnormal measles-mumps-rubella antibodies and CNS autoimmunity in children with autism,   Singh VK, Lin SX, Newell E, Nelson C., ​J Biomed Sci. 2002 Jul-Aug;9(4):359-64.

9. Elevated levels of measles antibodies in children with autism, Singh VK1, Jensen RL., ​Pediatr Neurol. 2003 Apr;28(4):292-4

10. Maternal immune activation yields offspring displaying mouse versions of the three core symptoms of autism, Malkova, Natalia V. Yu, Collin Z. Hsiao, Elaine Y. Moore, Marlyn J. Patterson, Paul H. Brain, behavior, and immunity 2012; 26(4):607-16

11. Neuroglial Activation and Neuroinflammation in the Brain of Patients with Autism
Vargas, Diana L. Nascimbene, Caterina. Krishnan, Chitra. Zimmerman, Andrew W. Pardo, Carlos A. Annals of neurology 2005; 57(1):67-81
PubMed Link

12. Elevated immune response in the brain of autistic patients.
Li, Xiaohong. Chauhan, Abha. Sheikh, Ashfaq M. Patil, Sangita. Chauhan, Ved. Li, Xiu-Min. Ji, Lina. Brown, Ted. Malik, Mazhar. Journal of neuroimmunology 2009; 207(1-2):111-6
Pubmed Link
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13. Pregnancy, Immunity, Schizophrenia, and Autism
Patterson, P. H. (2006). Engineering and Science, 69(3), 10-21.

14. Microglial activation in young adults with autism spectrum disorder-1
Suzuki, Katsuaki. Sugihara, Genichi. Ouchi, Yasuomi. Nakamura, Kazuhiko. Futatsubashi, Masami. Takebayashi, Kiyokazu. Yoshihara, Yujiro. Omata, Kei. Matsumoto, Kaori. Tsuchiya, Kenji J. Iwata, Yasuhide. Tsujii, Masatsugu. Sugiyama, Toshirou. Mori, Norio. JAMA psychiatry 2013; 70(1):49-58
PubMed Link
​
15. Maternal immune activation causes age and region-specific changes in brain cytokines in offspring throughout development.
Garay, Paula A. Hsiao, Elaine Y. Patterson, Paul H. McAllister, A K. Brain, behavior, and immunity 2013; 31():54-68
PubMed Link

16. Gestational Exposure to a Viral Mimetic Poly(I-C) Results in Long-Lasting Changes in Mitochondrial Function by Leucocytes in the Adult Offspring
Giulivi, Cecilia. Napoli, Eleonora. Schwartzer, Jared. Careaga, Milo. Ashwood, Paul. Mediators of inflammation 2013; 2013():609602
PubMed Link

17. Mawson AR (2017) Pilot comparative study on the health of vaccinated and unvaccinated 6- to 12-year-old U.S. children, Journal of Translational Science, ​ Volume 3(3): 1-12, 2017