“We aren't taking over Monsanto to establish genetically modified plants in Europe,” Bayer’s chief executive Werner Baumann told the Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper on Monday.
According to Baumann, it’s “not the plan” to use Bayer’s good reputation to impose GM plants on Europe.
Some people think it might be easier for us than for Monsanto, given the reputation we enjoy,” Baumann said. “If politics and society in Europe don't want genetically modified seeds, then we accept that, even if we are of a different opinion.”
Baumann said that given America’s decades of experience there are no “justifiable reasons to be skeptical” about the impact of GM crops on the environment and health safety.
“Today things are different. There are no signs that this technology brings environmental risks or isn't safe,” said Baumann.
EU green politicians and environmentalists have called the takeover a “marriage made in hell.” More than the GM plants themselves, they are concerned about Monsanto flagship glyphosate herbicide, well-known under the trade name ‘Roundup’. Monsanto's “Roundup Ready crops” are designed for use alongside this controversial herbicide, which according to some studies might cause cancer.
EU and UN scientists, such as the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), do not share this opinion, although last year the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) released a groundbreaking report naming glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans.”
Glyphosate’s EU license was set to expire this year, and some member states including France, Sweden, and the Netherlands objected to the renewal. A vote to reauthorize usage of glyphosate on a temporary basis failed in June 2016. However, glyphosate’s license has been extended for 18 months during last hours before expiration. Next re-evaluation of the license is scheduled on the end of 2017.
Monsanto has a longstanding notorious reputation dating back to its production of Agent Orange used by the US in the Vietnam War. The $66 billion takeover and possible rebranding are supposed to fix that. However the reputation that Bayer “enjoys” has been damaged recently by allegations of their own pesticides contributing to mass die-offs of bees.
The companies say that the takeover will contribute to chemical and agricultural research and eventually will help farmers to produce more food. The environmentalists, green politicians and some farmers express concerns that the merger will only tighten a monopolist grip on the markets, and will lead to price increases, GM crops and pesticides spreading.
Source: https://www.rt.com/news/362308-bayer-monsanto-gmo-europe/
]]>The National Drugs Authority (NDA) has recalled six types of drugs and vaccines from the market after investigations indicated that they were not safe for public use
By Emmanuel AinebyoonaKampala.
The National Drugs Authority (NDA) has recalled six types of drugs and vaccines from the market after investigations indicated that they were not safe for public use.
A statement issued by the drugs regulatory body yesterday indicated that the drugs meant for both humans and animals were of poor quality, unsafe and ineffective.
]]> Some of the recalled drugs include Univittal manufactured by Unichem Laboratories Ltd, hydrapres injection supplied by Laboratorios, SA-Bercelona, Spain and Agonal whose generic name is Nalidixic Acid from Agog Pharma Ltd, India.Others are Vitamin B Complex injection manufactured by Anhui Chengshi Manufacture Medicine Co., China, Lyopox + PPR manufactured by MCL Santé Animale based in Morocco and Netvaicain plain manufactured by Swiss Parenterals Pvt Ltd, of India
In an interview yesterday, Ms Kate Kikule, the head of NDA Drug Inspectorate Services said after investigations, some drugs were found to have questionable efficacy whereas others had been wrongly branded by the manufacturers.
“We routinely conduct investigations following complaints from the people, hospitals and clinicians. If a drug does not meet safety standards after laboratory tests, it is recalled through the manufacturer,” Ms Kikule said.
She added: “After tests, we found out that the powdered substance of Hydralazine injection, a medication used to treat hypertension was not dissolving.”
As result, she said that once a substance fails to dissolve that means a drug cannot be used by the consumer.
National Medical Stores general manger Moses Kamabare said he had earlier complained to NDA over the effectiveness of one of the drugs.
He said the drugs were recalled by the supplier about two months back and they are now waiting for replacement.
Ms Kikule said a wrongly branded drug such as the Bupivacaine Injection BP 0.5% can misleed clinicians while administering these drugs thus causing adverse side effects to patients. She said Agonal, whose tablets had turned moldy and black, can cause pain and also stomach upsets once taken by a patient. “Samples of Lyopox + PPR (Sheep Pox and Peste Des Petits Ruminants Vaccine), vaccine for animals were taken for testing in Ethiopia and did not comply with the standards of the World Organisation for Animal Health,” she said.
“Laboratory tests indicated that Multivitamin whose product name is Univittal had poor quality gelatin capsules. Its capsules were sticking to the Aluminum foil used for packaging,” she added.
This, according to Ms Kikule, means the drugs cannot perform its therapeutic role of curing ailments. “We have written to the importers or the local technical representatives of the manufacturers of the products to have these drugs recalled and destroyed,” she said.
However, she said the public should not worry about the recall because it is a normal process that happens worldwide.
The acting director general health services in the Ministry of Health, Prof Anthony Mbonye, said he had not seen the report on the recalled drugs.
Asked to comment on the circumstances under which a drug can be withdrawn from the market, Prof Mbonye said a drug can be recalled due to several reasons, giving an example of drugs which are smuggled into the country and not registered on the drug register.
According to NDA spokesperson Frederick Ssekyana, recalled drugs are collected by the local representative of the manufacturer and taken for destruction at the main incinerator in Nakasongola District.
He said the destruction process is done under the supervision of NDA but at the cost of the manufacturer.
Ms Kikule said the affected drug suppliers have to compensate all the pharmacies and hospitals affected.
eainebyoona@ug.nationmedia.com
]]>India is steeped in synthesised controversy, created by Monsanto on the first GM crop supposedly-approved for commercialisation in India. Engaged in litigation on many fronts, Monsanto is trying to subvert our Patent Law, our Plant Variety and Farmers Rights Act, our Essential Commodities Act , our Anti Monopoly Act (Competition Act). It is behaving as if there is no Parliament, no Democracy, no Sovereign Laws in India to which it is subject. Or, it simply does not have any regard for them.
In another theatre, Monsanto and Bayer are merging. They were one as MOBAY (MonsantoBayer), part of the Poison Cartel of IG Farben. Controlling stakes of both Corporations lies with the same private equity firms.
The expertise of these companies are those of war. IG Farben – Hitler’s economic power and pre-war Germany’s highest foreign exchange earner – was also a foreign intelligence operation. Herman Shmitz was President of IG Farben, Shmitz’s nephew Max Ilgner was a Director of IG Farben, while Max’s brother Rudolph Ilgner handled the New York arm of the ‘VOWI‘ network as vice president of CHEMNYCO.
Paul Warburg – brother of Max Warburg (Board of Directors, Farben Aufsichsrat) – was one of the founding members of the Federal Reserve System in the United States. He was also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Max Warburg and Hermann Schmitz played a central role in the Farben empire. Other “guiding hands” of Farben Vorstand included Carl Bosch, Fritz ter Meer, Kurt Oppenheim and George von Schnitzler. Every one of them were adjudged ‘War Criminals’ after World War II, except Paul Warburg.
Monsanto and Bayer have a long history. They made explosives and lethally poisonous gases using shared technologies and sold them to both sides in both World Wars. The same war chemicals were bought by the Allied Powers and the Axis Powers, from the same manufacturers, with money borrowed from the same federated reserve bank.
Wars were fought, lives were lost, countries carved into holy lands – with artificial boundaries that suit colonisation and resource grab – while Bayer and Monsanto sold chemicals as bombs and poisons and their brothers provided the loans to buy those bombs.
More recently, according to Monsanto’s website Bayer CropScience AG and Monsanto Co. have “entered into a series of long-term business and licensing agreements related to key enabling agricultural technologies”. This gives Monsanto and Bayer free access to each other’s herbicide and the paired herbicide resistance technology. Through cross licensing agreements like these, mergers and acquisitions, the biotech industry has become the IG Farben of today, with Monsanto in the cockpit.
The Global Chemical and GMO industry – Bayer, Dow Agro, DuPont Pioneer, Mahyco, Monsanto and Syngenta – have come together to form Federation of Seed Industry of India (FSII) to try and become bigger bullies in this assault on India’s farmers, the environment , and democratically framed laws that protect the public and national interest.This is in addition to the lolly-group ABLE, the Association of Biotechnology Led Enterprises, which tried to challenge India’s Seed Price Control order issued under the Essential commodities Act, in the High Court of Karnataka. The case was dismissed.
The new Group is not “seed Industry”, they produce no seeds. And they try to stretch patents on chemicals to claim ownership on seed, even in countries where patents on seeds and plants are not allowed by law. This is the case in India, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and many other countries.
All the Monsanto cases in India are related to Monsanto un-scientifically, illegally and illegitimately claiming patents on seed, in contempt of India’s laws, and trying to collect royalties from the Indian seed industry and Indian farmers. The FSII is an “IG Farben 100 Year Family Reunion”, a federation is a coming together of independent and autonomous entities.
The Farben family chemical cartel was responsible for exterminating people in concentration camps . They embody a century of ecocide and genocide, carried out in the name of scientific experimentation and innovation. Today the poison cartel is wearing G-Engineering clothes, and citing the mantra of “innovation” ad nauseum. Hitlers concentration camps were an “innovation” in killing. 100 years later, the Farben Family are carrying out the same extermination, silently, globally, much more efficiently.
Monsanto’s “innovation” of collecting illegal royalties and pushing Indian farmers to suicide is also an innovation in killing without liability, indirectly. Just because there is a new way to kill does not make killing right, or a right. “Innovation” like every human activity, has limits – limits set by ethics, justice, democracy, the rights of people, the rights of nature.
I G Farben was tried at Nuremburg. We have national laws to protect people, their right to life and public health, and the environment. India’s Biosafety laws and Patent, and Plant Variety Act are designed to regulate greedy owners of corporations – with a history of crimes against nature and humanity.
Industry is getting ready to push its next “gene” the GM-Mustard (DMH-11). The GM mustard being promoted as a public sector “innovation” is based on barnase/barstar/ gene system to create male-sterile plants and a bar gene for Glufosinate Resistance.In 2002 Pro-Agro’s (Bayer) application for approval for commercial planting of GM Mustard based on the same system was rejected.
Although banned in India, Bayer finds ways to sell Glufosinate, to the tea gardens of Assam and the apple orchards of Himachal Pradesh, illegally. Sales agents show the Glufosinate sales under the ‘other’ category to avoid regulation. These chemicals are finding their way into the bodies of our children without government approval. Essentially all key patents related to the bar gene are held by Bayer Crop Science which acquired Aventis Cropscience, which itself was created out of the Genetic Engineering divisions of Schering, Rhone Poulenc and Hoechst. Then Bayer acquired Plant Genetics Systems, and entered into cooperation agreement with Evogene – which has patents on genome mapping.
Before any approval is granted to the Genetically Engineered Mustard, the issue of limits to patentability needs to be resolved on the basis of Indian law, patents on plants and seeds and methods of agriculture must not be allowed, because they are not allowed.
Pental, a retired professor and GM-Operative, will not commercialise GM Mustard seed. His Commanding Officers at Bayer/Monsanto/MOBAY will.
Given our experience with GMO cotton, the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) is considering the option of putting in place guidelines for socio-economic assessment to judge proposed GM varieties on the basis of factors such as economy, health, environment, society and culture.
At the core of socio economic assessment is the issue of monopolies and cartels and impact on small farmers. Even though patents on seeds are not allowed, for more that one and a half decade Monsanto has extracted illegal royalties from Indian farmers, trapping them in debt, and triggering an epidemic of farmers suicides. Monsanto’s war on India’s foot soldiers – farmers – is a war being waged by the Farben Family, on our Earth Family.
Copyright © Dr. Vandana Shiva, Global Research, 2016
]]>Since the 1990s, doctors have been under more and more pressure to treat pain as a serious medical issue. Pharmaceutical companies took advantage of this desire, marketing opioid painkillers like OxyContin and Vicodin as a safe, effective solution to pain.
The result: Millions of Americans got hooked on the drugs, and tens of thousands have died from overdoses. In 2014, nearly 19,000 died from overdoses linked to opioid painkillers.
What's worse, as doctors have pulled back on painkillers to halt the epidemic, users have gone to another opioid — heroin. In 2014, more than 10,000 people died from overdoses on that drug as well.
In response to all of this, the Obama administration and other levels of government have stepped up funding for treatment and prevention — and experts agree this will help many of the people currently struggling with addiction.
But fundamentally, doctors still need a way to treat pain. Opioids haven't worked out, causing an urgent crisis instead. One solution, then, is medical marijuana, which studies have shown to be effective at treating chronic pain and averting opioid deaths. It's not a perfect solution, and it won't work for every patient, but it might be one stopgap as this epidemic continues taking tens of thousands of lives.
Source: http://www.vox.com/2016/3/9/11172926/painkillers-opioids-pharma-marijuana
]]>Research director at Denmark’s Nordic Cochrane Centre, Professor Peter Gøtzsche, says the use of most antidepressants and dementia drugs could be halted without inflicting harm on patients. The Danish scientist’s views were published in the British Medical Journal on Tuesday.
READ MORE: Emotional toxicity of austerity eroding mental health, say 400 experts
Gøtzsche warns psychiatric drugs kill patients year in year out, and hold few positive benefits. He says in excess of half a million citizens across the Western world aged 65 and over die annually as a result of taking these drugs.
“Their benefits would need to be colossal to justify this, but they are minimal,” he writes.
“Given their lack of benefit, I estimate we could stop almost all psychotropic drugs without causing harm.”
Gøtzsche, who is also a clinical trials expert, says drug trials funded by big pharmaceutical companies tend to produce biased results because many patients took other medication prior to the tests.
He says patients cease taking the old drugs and then experience a phase of withdrawal prior to taking the trial pharmaceuticals, which appear highly beneficial at first.
The Danish professor also warns fatalities from suicides in clinical trials are significantly under-reported.
In the case of antidepressants venlafaxine and fluoxetine, Gøtzsche casts doubt over their efficacy. He said depression lifts in placebo groups given fake tablets almost as promptly as groups who partake in official clinical tests.
He also stressed the results of trials of drugs used to treat schizophrenia are disconcerting, while those for ADHD are ambiguous.
Commenting on the negative side effects of such pharmaceutical drugs, Gøtzsche argued the “short-term relief” appears to be replaced by “long term harm.”
“Animal studies strongly suggest that these drugs can produce brain damage, which is probably the case for all psychotropic drugs,” he said.
“Given their lack of benefit, I estimate we could stop almost all psychotropic drugs without causing harm – by dropping all antidepressants, ADHD drugs and dementia drugs … and using only a fraction of the antipsychotics and benzodiazepines we currently use.”
“This would lead to healthier and more long-lived populations.”
Gøtzsche says psychotropic drugs are “immensely harmful” if used for prolonged periods.
“They should almost exclusively be used in acute situations and always with a firm plan for tapering off, which can be difficult for many patients,” he adds.
Gøtzsche’s views are sharply contradicted by many experts in the field of mental health. But others, including a diverse group of medical experts and institutions affiliated with the Nordic Cochrane Centre, argue otherwise. The Nordic Cochrane Centre is an independent research hub dedicated to scrutinizing and monitoring the effects of health care.
The debate on psychiatric drugs has gathered momentum in recent times. In the discussion, published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), Gøtzsche’s arguments are contradicted by Professor of Mood Disorders Allan Young and John Crace. Crace, himself a psychiatric patient, writes for the Guardian.
Crace and Young say a broad body of research indicates the drugs are effective and that they are just as helpful as drugs for other ailments. They also argue mental health conditions are the fifth most significant contributor to disabilities worldwide.
While Gøtzsche stresses clinical trials bankrolled by pharma giants churn out skewered results, Young and Crace say the efficacy and safety of psychiatric medication continues to be monitored after research trials come to a close.
However, both Young and Crace acknowledge concern over the side effects and effectiveness of psychiatric medication.
“For some critics, the onus often seems to be on the drug needing to prove innocence from causing harm rather than a balanced approach to evaluating the available evidence,” they write.
“Whether concerns are genuine or an expression of prejudice is not clear, but over time many concerns have been found to be overinflated.”
The BMJ discussion is a preamble to the Maudsley debate at Kings College London on Wednesday. The debate takes place three times a year at the university’s Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN).
Wednesday’s debate focuses on the impacts of psychiatric medications, and poses the question of whether they prove more destructive for patients than beneficial.
Source: https://www.rt.com/uk/258133-antidepressants-unnecessary-for-many/
]]>
Opiod drugs have gotten so popular in the US, often selling for 200 times the price they might in other countries, that many will seek them out before Cocaine or Heroine. Opiod drugs are the second largest drug class globally, but Americans consume almost all of them. Last year 300 million pain pill prescriptions were written in America.
Most people only need opiods during acute illnesses, through childbirth, severe trauma, burns, or during a terminal illness. Thanks to the decisions of politicians swayed by Big Pharma’s money, we use them in the US like breath mints.
And then there’s the massive lobbying campaign aimed directly against a single substance which would likely end opiod abuse forever. Though the US government has claimed that marijuana has no medicinal value, it helps control seizures, stops pain, and has even been shown to dissolve cancerous tumors. No wonder then, that Chandler Pharmaceuticals was one of the biggest donors to Arizona’s anti-marijuana campaign. The company gave$500,000 to oppose the legalization of marijuana for recreational use, making it the largest funder to defeat Proposition 205 in the state.
The journal, Clinical Neurology News reports that marijuana users are less likely to adhere to opiod therapies – simply because they don’t need them.
“For more than a decade, members of a little-known group called the Pain Care Forum have blanketed Washington with messages about prescription painkillers’ vital role in the lives of millions of Americans, creating an echo chamber that has quietly derailed efforts to curb U.S. consumption of drugs like OxyContin, Vicodin and Percocet.”
The annual sales for these few drugs amounts to billions with the OxyContin clan being welcomed to Forbes list of richest families for their efforts.
Though researchers say that opiod sales are finally starting a downward trajectory, Big Pharma’s lobbying to keep them in our medicine cabinets is at an all time high.
]]>One of the few survivors of the asteroid impact 65 million years ago was a small, furry, shrew-like creature that lived in underground burrows and only ventured out at night, when predators weren’t active. The critter—already the product of some 100 million years of evolution—looked like a modern mammal, with body hair and mammary glands, except for one tiny detail: according to a recent genetic study, it didn’t have a placenta. And its kind might never have evolved one if not for a chance encounter with a retrovirus.
Unlike most viruses, which infect, replicate, and then leave their host, retroviruses elbow their way into their host’s genome where they are copied and passed on to daughter cells for the life of the host. This retrovirus, however, managed to sneak its way into one of our ancestor’s sperm or egg cells, able to be passed on to every cell in every subsequent generation. Virus and host had become one.
Without retrovirus, mammals might never have evolved placentas.
“Viral proteins already have functions. It’s much easier to borrow these than to evolve them from scratch,” says Aris Katzourakis, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Oxford.
In that would-be mammal living 160 million years ago, a symbiotic retrovirus enabled it to evolve a placenta over many generations. In order to let a fetus mature inside a mother’s uterus, an animal needed a way to provide oxygen and nutrients while removing waste and keeping both blood supplies separate.
Early mammals used the spare viral parts left in the junk drawers of the genome to use a viral gene to help create the placenta, and other symbiotic viruses help turn us from a ball of cells into a fully-formed squalling infant and protect us from pathogens.
Scientists are discovering that the so-called “junk DNA”—a significant portion of which is from symbiotic viruses—is actually a potent force in the evolution of new species. Although the evolution of pregnancy via the placenta might be some of the most persuasive evidence that viruses stashed deep within the genome can help give rise to new species, it’s not the only proof. New studies revealing the role of endogenous retroviruses in the more recent evolution of humans show that these snippets of DNA are helping to blur the boundary between human and virus. Humans are, in a very real sense, part virus.
“The boundaries between organisms are a bit more merged now, a bit more shadowy. We need to break down those boundaries,” says University of Queensland virologist Paul Young. “The more we look, the more we find overlap,”
Viruses can infect all organisms, from the largest blue whales to the tiniest bacteria. To a host, infections can range from unnoticed to deadly. To the virus, however, infection is an opportunity to unleash its incredible genome copying abilities. Within hours, it can make millions or even billions of copies of itself.
Retroviruses, however, use a slower, stealthier approach. After entering the cell, the retrovirus uses an enzyme called reverse transcriptase to turn its RNA into DNA before making its way to the nucleus. Once in the nucleus, it inserts its DNA into the host’s genome.
Most of the time, when a virus integrates its genome with the host’s, the new hybrid genome dies when the cell and its descendants do. Sometimes, however, a virus will infect a sperm or egg cell. If fertilization occurs, the offspring will have a copy of the viral genome in every single one of its cells. It can pass the hybrid genome on to its offspring, creating what scientists call a fully endogenous retrovirus—a fancy term for a virus that comes from within.
The process requires an astonishingly rare set of circumstances be met, Katzourakis says. “Although endogenous retroviruses make up a pretty large proportion of our genome, in terms of the number of times they’ve infiltrated our genome over the past sixty or so million years, it only comes down to about 30 or 40 distinct occasions,” he says.
In humans, even the most recent of these infiltrations happened tens of thousands of years ago. In domestic sheep and koalas, however, retroviruses are currently establishing themselves, which gives researchers the opportunity to watch the process in action. In the 1980s, Queensland veterinarian Jon Hanger noticed something odd in a breeding colony of about 70–80 koalas. Every year, the colony lost around 10% of its members to immunosuppression or cancer, especially leukemias, a cancer of white blood cells.
“About 60 to 70% of the deaths were from cancer. That’s an unusually high number of cancer deaths in any animal, including ours,” Young says.
Although Hanger was working full-time as a veterinarian, he couldn’t shake his curiosity. The mystery drove him back to school to get a PhD on the topic. By 2000, Hanger and Young had identified the full-length retroviral genome that was causing disease in koalas. The virus, however, wasn’t actively transmitted from koala to koala. Instead, a retrovirus had embedded itself in the koalas’ germline and passed from parent to child.
In other words, the virus that was causing disease was located in the koala genome itself.
“This was the first time anyone had seen this happening in real time. All previous endogenous retroviruses had embedded themselves in host genomes many, many millions of years ago,” Young says.
At the breeding colony that Hanger initially studied in Queensland, he and Young found the retrovirus in the genome of every single koala they tested. As they moved northward, toward the city of Cairns, they found a similar picture: every koala carried the retrovirus. Moving south, however, the number of infected koalas dropped. On Kangaroo Island, off the southern coast of Australia near the center of the continent, only a handful of koalas were infected. Examination of koala pelts from museums showed that the retrovirus has been in koala DNA for at least 200 years, according to a 2012 study in Molecular Biology and Evolution, although they think it was present for a few thousand years—the blink of an eye in evolutionary terms.
“It’s amazing that it would have spread through the germline so quickly,” Young says.
Because the introduction of the retrovirus was still so new, the virus hasn’t accumulated many mutations, and the koala’s genetic machinery still actively turns the viral DNA into active virus. That healthy animals also have this virus continues to stump researchers—what’s making the other koalas sick? Nor can they explain how the retrovirus spread throughout the koala population so quickly, especially when it seems to create deadly problems for a significant number of the animals.
One answer may come from another retrovirus that plagues domestic sheep, creating an infectious form of lung cancer. Unlike the koala retrovirus, the Jaagsiekte sheep retrovirus continues to circulate from sheep to sheep, just like a normal virus, but it has also inserted itself into the sheep’s DNA. Ravinder Kanda, a paleovirologist at the Oxford Brooks University in the U.K., says that those sheep that carry a copy of the retroviral DNA are immune to infection from the circulating retrovirus.
“It blocks the receptors that the virus uses to enter the cell so it can’t get in. It provides an immunity benefit,” Kanda says.
Since every virus is different, Katzourakis says it’s impossible to know whether the endogenous retroviruses that came to infect humans followed a similar path. Following the infections as they happen, as well as having an animal model on which to test hypotheses, will likely help us understand how these symbiotic viruses came to play such a powerful role in our own evolution.
The idea that a symbiotic virus or any symbiotic relationship could have such a profound influence on the evolution of a new species is both new and controversial. For more than a century after Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species, scientists focused on competition as evolution’s chief driving force. Biologist Lynn Margulis wasn’t convinced.
The late University of Massachusetts researcher believed that cooperation also played a role. Her evidence lurked in every cell of every plant and animal. Beginning in the late 1960s, Margulis argued that our cells contained symbiotic bacteria known as mitochondria and chloroplasts, which earned room and board by either supplying energy or producing food from sunlight. Margulis’s idea was ridiculed, and she struggled to find a journal that would publish her hypothesis.
By the 1990s, however, enough genetic evidence had accumulated to show that Margulis was right. Symbiosis was responsible for some of the most significant evolutionary leaps in the history of the planet. Most scientists, however, viewed this event as an anomaly, a once-off freak occurrence that, although significant, didn’t play a role in the ongoing evolution of most species. Margulis, though, saw symbiosis everywhere and believed that this softer, gentler side of evolution was getting short shrift in research. Although most symbiosis research has focused on the role of the microbiome, the viruses tucked into our DNA can play a similar role in splitting apart two populations, turning one species into two. The first wedge scientists discovered was a protein called syncytin.
Boston in the mid-1990s was humming with the activity of the Human Genome Project. Sequencing technologies had advanced to the point where scientists were incorporating gene discovery into even the most basic research. Since the American courts had thus far allowed companies to patent the genes they discovered, companies like the Genetics Institute (now a part of Pfizer) saw a chance to cash in. There, molecular biologist John McCoy was looking for proteins secreted by cells since they seemed good targets for developing potential drugs.
All was going as planned until McCoy’s bioinformatics specialist Steve Howes rushed into his lab in 1997 to show him the sequence of a gene they called syncytin, which their work showed was secreted by placenta tissue.
Before McCoy could go public with his discovery, he needed to figure out exactly what syncytin did, a job he passed to bench scientist Sha Mi, who everyone called Misha. Misha’s experiments seemed to be going as planned until, a few months later, she, too, rushed into McCoy’s lab with findings of her own.
Syncytin is produced only by certain cells in the placenta, and it directs the formation of the cellular boundary between the placenta and maternal tissue. Approximately one week after fertilization, the egg, now a hollow ball of cells called a blastocyst, implants itself into the uterus, stimulating the formation of the placenta, which provides the fetus with oxygen and nutrients while removing carbon dioxide and other wastes. It also serves as a barrier to prevent infection and keep maternal and fetal blood separate. (Mixing the two could cause a fatal autoimmune response.) The cells in the outer layer of the blastocyst form the outer layer of the placenta, and those in direct contact with the uterus are the only ones that made syncytin.
When the scientists looked closer at the DNA sequence of syncytin, they found that it was nearly identical to a viral protein called env that caused the virus to fuse with its host cell. In the placenta, syncytin performed helped the fetus fuse with its mother. At last McCoy, Howe, and Mi knew what syncytin did.
“This was a bona fide retroviral envelope protein that had somehow been captured during evolution and been trained to operate in human biology,” McCoy says.
The two other retroviral genes next to syncytin, gag and pol, were completely non-functional, McCoy says. Only env remained intact. “Everything else about that retrovirus had been trashed,” he says. The team published a paper in Nature in 2000.
“An important step in mammalian evolution was accomplished by capturing this viral envelope gene,” McCoy says. “There’s plenty of examples of viruses picking up human genes, but this is one of the first examples of the reverse.”
Humans aren’t the only species with a placenta, however. All mammals have placentas, including marsupials and egg-laying mammals. Although all of these mammals have a syncytin gene, they don’t all have the same syncytin gene. The syncytin produced by mice is completely different from the two syncytins found in humans and other primates. At numerous points in mammalian evolution, symbiotic retroviruses entered the genome and steered different groups of mammals along different evolutionary paths, according to a 2012 paper in PNAS by virologist Harmit Malik at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. Nor was syncytin the only driver.
Renee Reijo Pera, a developmental biologist and embryonic stem cell expert then at Stanford University, had spent nearly two decades trying to understand how pluripotent embryonic stem cells—which have the ability to become any cell type—mature into their specialized adult forms. Through hints from other animals, she realized that symbiotic viruses were a perfect candidate for this job. Even tiny shifts to the timing of certain developmental events could create large changes. If this piece of DNA was inserted in the right location in the genome, it could help control the expression of nearby genes, making it a perfect candidate for modulating early human development.
“By turning the rheostat a bit, by changing the timing, you can actually change development dramatically,” Reijo Pera says.
Reijo Pera, now the vice president of research and economic development at Montana State University, along with fellow stem cell scientist Joanna Wysocka, focused on the rapid changes that occur in the first week after fertilization. At various stages of development, Reijo Pera, Wysocka, and their colleagues measured which genes were expressed in each individual cell.
The team identified genes derived from the human endogenous retrovirus HERV-K that were active around the time when the embryo was just eight cells. Of the many known edogenous retroviruses in humans, HERV-K is the newest—it inserted itself as recently as 200,000 years ago. It’s so new that several of its copies in the human genome can still produce viral protein. To prevent this, adults keep a tight control on HERV-K by switching it off, though this isn’t the case in very young embryos, Reijo Pera and Wysocka found. But far from being detrimental, HERV-K activates key genes that help transform a single cell into a fully-formed infant. These HERV-K viral particles and proteins also help protect the tiny ball of cells from being infected by other viruses, the researchers showed in a 2015 Nature paper.
A follow-up study in Nature Genetics, published in early 2016, found another, HERV-H, which produced RNA molecules that also switch other genes on and off. The 13 HERV-H switches identified by Reijo Pera and Wysocka’s team help keep the early embryonic cells pluripotent, ready for any job as an adult cell. When the researchers blocked the production of HERV-H’s RNA molecules, they stopped embryo development in its tracks. Further experiments showed that HERVH-derived RNAs are also required to turn adult cells back into pluripotent stem cells.
“This DNA, what we used to think of as junk DNA, is actually modulating our development,” Reijo Pera says.
This pair of studies followed on the heels of a 2015 paper in Cell Stem Cell that showed researchers could identify the specific stage of development of an embryonic cell based on which set of endogenous retroviruses were active. When the embryo had just one or two cells, it had the most endogenous retroviruses active, says Jonathan Göke, a computational biologist at the Genome Institute of Singapore and first author of the 2015 study. As the embryo got larger, viral activity dropped dramatically, though it still continued in specific groups of cells as the fetus developed.
“We know that they’re active. We know that they’re important, but we still don’t know exactly what they do,” he says.
The work is still preliminary, says virologist John Coffin at Tufts University, who has spent much of his long career studying retroviruses, including endogenous retroviruses. “You can clearly see the pattern of expression of these genes, but their actual role still remains to be established,” he says.
HERV-K may also have played an important role in separating some of the first humans from their primate ancestors by making small adjustments in when certain genes were switched on or off, according to Reijo Pera’s research. But with tens of thousands of viruses embedded in our genomes, scientists have only just begun to explore their potential effects. In a recent paper in Science, University of Utah geneticist Cedric Feschotte found that these viruses played a key role in the evolution of the mammalian immune system and, even now, continue to tell certain immune system genes when to turn on and off.
“These viruses put us on the fast track to evolve all the bells and whistles needed to evade other viruses,” Feschotte says. “These viruses are already equipped with all kind of weapons to evade our immune systems that now can be recycled.”
Although one of the viruses in question, Mer41, infiltrated the genome 45 to 60 million years ago, one of the proteins it controls is only found in humans. Still, because infectious diseases are so deadly, improving an organism’s ability to survive pathogens (even if this protection is derived from a virus) can cause rapid evolutionary changes. It suggests, Feschotte says, that endogenous retroviruses almost certainly played a role in the evolution of humans and are continuing to affect us today.
“They are still evolving, just as we are,” Feschotte says.
The effects of retroviruses, however, aren’t always beneficial. Originally, many probably caused disease in the organisms they infected. Look no further than Australia’s koalas. But in the case of our endogenous retroviruses, we’re far removed from that time. The genetic results we see today are the silver linings to what otherwise might have been a deadly epidemic, Feschotte says.
Katzourakis and Reijo Pera both believe that endogenous retroviruses are blurring the line between virus and human.
“It’s changing how we think of ourselves as a species. Such an intimate interaction between ourselves and these viruses, and exchanging DNA that’s useful for us, has really molded how we’re now thinking of ourselves as a dynamic soup of DNA that’s now infiltrated by viruses,” Kazourakis says.
Haig puts it more succinctly. “Are these viruses a part of us? They definitely are.”
source: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/evolution/endogenous-retroviruses/
]]>The majority of vaccinations use an adjuvant to boost their effectiveness and in most cases the adjuvant is an aluminium salt including aluminium phosphate and aluminium hydroxide.
The simplest explanation of how an aluminium adjuvant works is that its injection into the muscle or under the skin produces toxicity, thus providing greater immunity to a particular disease. This is what accelerates and enhances the immune response to the specific vaccine antigens. Without it, the body may react too weakly to build up the required antibodies.
This is an area that I have been looking into for some time and I have been involved in a research project which was recently now published in Nature’s ‘Scientific Reports’. Funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the Dwoskin Foundation the group at Keele University, we investigated the relationship between the physicochemical properties of aluminium adjuvants and the immune response. Specifically, we showed that the reaction of the aluminium adjuvant at the injection site will determine its subsequent fate and therefore its activity both at the injection site and away from the injection site.
One form of aluminium adjuvant which is used in clinically-approved vaccines is an aluminium hydroxyphosphate salt and is more toxic at the injection site than the second form of aluminium adjuvant commonly used in clinically-approved vaccines which is an aluminium oxyhydroxide salt. However, the latter is more easily loaded into immune reactive cells with the possibility to be transported throughout the body.
Our research suggests that the loading of aluminium into viable cells offers a mechanism whereby significant amounts of aluminium, a known neurotoxin, might be translocated throughout the body and even across the blood brain barrier and into the central nervous system.
There are no clinically-approved aluminium adjuvants only clinically approved vaccines which use aluminium adjuvants. This makes it imperative that all vaccine trials which use aluminium salts as adjuvants must not use the aluminium adjuvant as the control or placebo. This has been common practice for many years and has resulted in many vaccine-related adverse events due in part or in entirety to aluminium adjuvants being unaccounted for in vaccine safety trials.
Research at Keele University led by Professor Christopher Exley aims to understand the toxicity of aluminium adjuvants in vaccinations and their latest findings are published in Nature’s ‘Scientific Reports’ (http://www.nature.com/articles/srep31578 ).
]]>In recent years we’ve seen efforts from the NHS and family planning organisations to encourage teens to use these so-called LARCs (long-acting reversible contraceptives), primarily because they eliminate the need to remember to take a pill every day, but also due to the fact they’re commonly believed to have less severe potential side-effects than the pill. The new research suggests this practice is misguided. We already know that those with pre-existing depression may find the pill worsens their symptoms, and if teens were at greater risk of depression, then continuing this practice would be negligent.
The researchers note that, because GPs are less likely to prescribe the pill to women who already have depression and because women who do experience depression on the pill are more likely to stop taking it, this study probably underestimates the potential negative affect that hormonal contraceptives can have on mental health.
Having spent the past eight years researching and writing on the emotional and psychological side-effects of hormonal birth control, I initially felt elated to read this study. Not just for myself, but for the hundreds of women I’ve interviewed over the years. Mood changes are one of the top reasons many women discontinue using the pill within the first year. Finally, here was the kind of large-scale, long-term study I’d been told was necessary before we could seriously talk about this issue or make a change in how we prescribe hormonal contraceptives.
However, I was naive, because it seems that no study will ever be good enough for the medical community to take women’s experiences seriously. As soon as this research dropped, the experts lined up to deliver their usual mix of gaslighting and paternalistic platitudes. We’re told not to be alarmed, concerned, or deterred from continuing to use our hormonal contraceptives, mostly by men who have never and will never take them themselves (partly because the long-term, large-scale study undertaken by WHO on the “acceptability” of the male pill revealed it would negatively impact their emotional wellbeing).
This “pillsplaining” is specific to discussions of research into the side-effects of hormonal birth control. Usually, when the research is on the pill alone, we’re quickly informed there are many other hormone-based methods to choose from, but unfortunately this new study says those alternatives are even worse. One expert even tried to dismiss the link with depression in pill-taking teens as more likely the result of “teen heartbreak”.
So, why is it that we’re not supposed to take this study seriously? Considering that women are fertile just six days per menstrual cycle and men are fertile every single day, that the burden of avoiding unwanted pregnancy falls to us, regardless of the burden that might have on our health and wellbeing, is nothing short of sexism. After all, there are certainly effective alternatives to hormonal contraceptives –the copper coil, diaphragm, condoms and new technology that’s making it simple for women to practice the fertility awareness method, not to mention, of course, vasectomy and the promise of Vasalgel, a contraceptive injection for men.
Yet, we’re reminded with one medical professional’s response to this new research that “an unwanted pregnancy far outweighs all the other side effects that could occur from a contraceptive.” If that’s true, why bother researching the side-effects at all?
It is important to remember that women are twice as likely to experience depression as men, reportedly due to “the fluctuation of progesterone and oestrogen levels”, in other words our biological femaleness. It’s apparently acceptable to blame women’s depression on the fact that they’re women, but it’s not OK to claim a powerful medication formulated from synthetic hormones could be at fault.
To me, and many other women, these Danish researchers are heroes and criticism of their methods (such as, they should have tracked those women using condoms or the copper IUD as well – even though these options were not available to them; or that women were likely depressed because of menstrual cramps – which the pill is supposed to prevent), only highlights the incredible knots the medical establishment will twist itself into in order to deny there’s a problem with the pill.
One of the study’s authors, Øjvind Lidegaard, professor of obstetrics and gynaecology, also brought attention in 2011 to the increased risk of blood clots associated with newer, and supposedly “improved”, hormonal contraceptives such as the ring, the patch and drospirenone-containing pills. Lidegaard plans to focus next on researching the possible “association between taking hormonal birth control and attempting or committing suicide”. Researchers originally flagged up this potential link back in 1970 at the Nelson Pill Hearings, but the topic has not been touched since.
Depression and anxiety from hormonal contraceptives may not be the experience of every woman, but that doesn’t mean it’s not the experience of your friend, your daughter or your partner, and of many women out there, who, in reading about this could have their lives changed for the better.
]]>People make choices – what they will see and what will remain invisible to them. Like the character, Neo, played by Keeanu Reeves in The Matrix, we are often given the choice to take the blue pill or the red pill. The blue pill allows you to remain in your safe little world. Taking the red pill, well, that opens a Pandora’s Box.
In 2009 I stumbled across an interview Dr. Judy Mikovits had given in a television show in Nevada called Nevada Newsmakers. Mikovits was talking about the publication of her article in the journal Science which showed that a recently discovered retrovirus, XMRV (xenotropic murine leukemia virus related virus) had been found in 67% of chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) patients and at 3.75% in healthy patients.
Then she started talking about a potential link to autism, as they had done some early research into the question.
Here is what she said on that television show: There’s always the hypothesis that my child was fine, then they got sick, and then they got autism. Interestingly, on that note, if I might speculate a little bit. This might explain why vaccines lead to autism in some children because these viruses live and divide in the lymphocytes, the immune response cells, the B and T cells. So when you give a vaccine you send your B and T cells into overdrive. That’s its job.
Well, if you’re harboring one virus, and you replicate it a whole bunch, you’ve now broken the balance between the immune response and the virus. So you could have had the underlying virus and them amplified it with the vaccine and then set off the disease, such that your immune system could no longer control the infection and create an immune deficiency.
I put in a call to the Pediatric AIDS Unit at the University of San Francisco. I got their press person, and brought up the idea of a retrovirus in autism and whether there might be tests available, and what thoughts were on an anti-retroviral regimen if a retrovirus could be found.
He immediately said something like, “Well, that might explain why a vaccine could lead to autism.”
I stayed calm and asked, “Could you explain that?”
He said it was similar to what they knew and practiced in HIV/AIDS treatment. If a child is born to an HIV-infected mother, the child is put on anti-retrovirals prior to immunization. He told me I could find the information on their web-site.
This is what I found on the University of California at San Francisco web page on HIV and immunization: Activation of the cellular immune system is important in the pathogenesis of HIV disease, and that fact has given rise to concerns that the activation of the immune system through vaccinations might accelerate the progression of HIV disease . . . These observations suggest that activation of the immune system through vaccinations could accelerate the progression of HIV disease through enhanced replication . . . If feasible, it is preferable to have patients on antiretroviral therapy (ART) prior to receipt of vaccination . . .
This was an explanation for the explosion of not just autism, but also chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). Mikovits was a scientist with a first-rate reputation, having studied HIV/AIDS when it was the deadliest plague on our planet, and spending more than twenty years as a scientist at the National Cancer Institute, collaborating with Dr. Frank Ruscetti, one of the founding fathers of human retrovirology.
I called up Dr. Mikovits and asked if she would talk to me for an interview. She did and we struck up a friendship. I would come to know her over many years, finding in her a scientist with a fierce dedication to helping patients, and a rock-solid integrity.
But I immediately realized that when you are suggesting a reasonable explanation for the illness of millions, and those explanations involved common medical practices, both in vaccinations, and as I would later find, recombinant viral research, you were likely to make some very powerful enemies.
And she did.
Mikovits endured years of torment. Some groups found the retrovirus, as well as a larger family of retroviruses in patient populations, and others did not. One of these groups that found a retrovirus in high numbers in patients with this disease was headed by Dr. Harvey Alter of the FDA, a winner of the Lasker Award (often referred to as the American Nobel Prize for medical research) for his discovery of the hepatitis C virus. Their sequences showed greater diversity than the Mikovits group, but they also found a higher rate of infection in the healthy population, about 6.6%, or around 20 million Americans.
Eventually, a group headed by Ian Lipkin of Columbia University came to the conclusion in 2012 that there was no association between XMRV and patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). But there were problems with the patient group selected by the Lipkin study. They excluded patients with the following conditions: 1. HIV virus, 2. Hepatits B or C virus, 3. Treponema pallidium (tapeworm), 4. B. burgdorfieri (Lyme disease spirochete), 5. Medical or psychiatric illness that might be associated with fatigue, 6. Abnormal serum characteristics, and 7. Abnormal thyroid functions.
A couple of these exclusions were puzzling to one of the early researchers into this condition, Dr. Paul Cheney. Cheney told me that somewhere around 85% of the patients had abnormal thyroid readings. The exclusion of the borellia spirochete was puzzling as it was likely to be found in these patients, especially as they were immune-suppressed. And a “medical or psychiatric condition that might be associated with fatigue?” Cheney said, “Well, this is a medical condition associated with fatigue, so they’re trying to exclude the very disease they’re supposed to be looking for.”
Patient advocate Gerwyn Morris, a micro-biologist, was much more blunt. Morris said it was like “Looking for HIV, but excluding homosexual males, IV drug users, and those who’d received a blood transfusion.”
So the Ian Lipkin of 2012 was saying there was no correlation between the XMRV retrovirus and patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). This also meant that there would be no follow-up on the findings by the Mikovits team of the retrovirus in children with autism and whether, like with HIV, a vaccine could stimulate replication of the retrovirus leading to autism.
But the Ian Lipkin of 2013 would sing a much different tune. Using a patient group collected by Dr. Jose Montoya of Stanford University (a researcher who Mikovits told me did an excellent job of selecting patients likely to have the disease), the findings were remarkably different.
After first reporting an abnormal pattern of inflammatory cytokines and chemokines (the very clue Mikovits had found that put her on the hunt for a retrovirus), Lipkin said in a public conference call with CDC on September 10, 2013: We found retroviruses in 85 percent of the sample pools. Again, it is very difficult at this point to know whether or not this is clinically significant or not, and given the previous experience with retroviruses in chronic fatigue, I am going to be very clear in telling you, although I am reporting this at present in Professor Montoya’s samples, neither he, nor we have concluded that there is a relationship to disease.
CONTINUE READING (Source)
]]>KP Stoller, MD www.incurable-me.com
Source: Bolenreport
A decade before the US Public Health Service (PHS) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) made a joint public statement vowing to remove the mercury preservative Thimerosal from vaccines (circa 1999), I was trying to find the science behind the recommendation to give newborns the Hep B vaccine (more about that later).
There were no protests, letter writing campaigns, distraught mothers of autistic children camping out at AAP headquarters….so, what precipitated this announcement, as shown below, From Pediatrics Sep 1999:
Strangely enough, the AAP walked back that declaration in 2012 and not only reversed its position but defended the use of Thimerosal in vaccines.
Actually, the only thing the AAP ever did (publicly) after the 1999 declaration was protest the pilot of a TV series called Eli Stone when Eli, a lawyer, accused a drug company CEO of knowingly using a mercury laden preservative in vaccines even tho they were aware it was hurting children.
In all likelihood it was the 1997 report to Congress by the EPA on mercury that indicated we had a real big problem with mercury exposure in the United States.
And in the same year the FDA released their Modernization Act leaving little doubt that there would be a push to remove mercury from medicine.
There must of been some sort of panic at the AAP and the PHS. Panic about the anticipated panic the public might have about the mercury in vaccines and that panic could jeopardize the whole national vaccine program if the public lost trust in it.
However there was no panic from the public, no cries of rage and no protests. Quietly, the CDC set one of its epidemiologists working on a project to determine if there was actually a problem with all the thimerosal (mercury) they were injecting into babies and children. That epidemiologist was Thomas Verstraeten, who would present his analysis at the secret, and illegally held meeting, called Simpsonwood in June of 2000. Why was this an illegal meeting?
A government agency cannot invite members of industry (vaccine manufacturers) to a closed meeting – this must be an open meeting – open to the public and Simpsonwood was not.
The transcript of this meeting was only obtained through an FOIA request and it is a bit daunting to read but the Put Children First website has the transcript and a nice review of the highlights from the meeting.
Simpsonwood revealed that all relevant parties, except the public, knew that there was a significant correlation between the use of mercury in vaccines and neurobehavioral disorders including autism. And their main concern was to keep this information out of the hands of lawyers and the public.
I don’t mean to understate the problem here, but this is criminal activity. So, what the CDC did next was have Verstraeten dilute, dumb down and extinguish any statistical significance in his findings and it took about 5 attempts to do this using statistical tricks and chicanery. This is what eventually got published and cited by the CDC as proof thimerosal is a wonderful harmless preservative. In fact one study they gin’ed up showed getting vaccines with thimerosal protected children from autism.
One could postulate that the Simpsonwood meeting was intended to demonstrate to all the vaccine manufacturers how much they screwed up using thimerosal as a preservative, but not to encourage its removal as one might assume – no, it was almost as if the CDC threw this out to vaccine manufacturers with the intent of extracting favors if the CDC covered this up for the vaccine manufacturers. I have no proof of this but one has to wonder what motivated the cover-up and continued advocacy for thimerosal by the CDC.
So much tax payer money was lavished on corrupt academics who wrote methodologically flawed papers exonerating thimerosal as being a problem for children. Propaganda spewed from the CDC, and its front groups, that the mercury in vaccines was a good mercury, because it was not methyl-mercury (the most widely studied organic mercury). Thimerosal was ethyl-mercury after all not methyl mercury. Of course, if you know anything about biochemistry, the additional methyl group (ethyl means there are two methyl groups connected to the mercury not one) makes the mercury even more dangerous, more poisonous and more biologically active than just plain old methyl-mercury.
Which brings us back to why there was no public outcry about mercury in vaccines, or why the USHS/AAP joint statement about the need to remove thimerosal from vaccine didn’t seem to even stir the public’s concern about what its presence might have been doing to children in the preceding years.
The public – and I will include physicians in with the public here, never knew what was in vaccines. They don’t get true “informed consent” when vaccines are given to their children.
Physicians receive no training on how vaccines work, what the components of vaccines are, or how they work. So in a sense, the PHS/AAP were messaging a population about something that wasn’t even on their conscious radar.
I cornered the New Mexico Secretary of Health a decade ago at a town hall meeting (she is now a member of Congress) and asked her if she would look into only ordering mercury free flu vaccine for the state. Her response was that she had received no complaints from any mothers about there being mercury in the flu vaccines being given to their children. My response to her was “that was because mothers didn’t know it was in the flu vaccine.”
As the mercury levels were brought down in some vaccines, it became increasingly important to the CDC to make sure it was reintroduced using other means lest it be discovered that by lowering mercury exposure neuro-behavioral problems would also decline as well. So, the push was on to give pregnant mothers the flu vaccine even though that would cause increase fetal death. It was a sacrifice the CDC was willing to have the public make to, in part, hide the secret that mercury in vaccines was, and still is, causing neurological damage to children all over the world.
You can read my article: Autism as a Minamata disease variant: analysis of a pernicious legacy for further analysis of this topic and the below documentary is very revealing as well. I will continue with what I discovered about the Hep B vaccine in another blog post….. stand by….
“Parents can be reassured that the trace quantities of aluminum in vaccines can’t possibly do harm.“
-Dr Paul Offit: Vaccine promoter, vaccine patent licensor, and self-appointed autism pundit, 2015
Most vaccines contain aluminum adjuvant, an ingredient necessary for stimulating a strong immune response and immunity. The aluminum is in the form of Al hydroxide and/or Al phosphate nanoparticles.
Aluminum has been used in vaccines since the 1920s. Despite this long history, aluminum adjuvant was not studied much beyond its role in vaccine efficacy. The safety of injected Al adjuvant was assumed, largely because aluminum is a normal (if unhealthy) component of many foods. Its one of the most common elements of the Earths crust. Its everywhere.
]]> So consideration of Al adjuvant safety was entirely based upon studies of ingested aluminum. Ingested aluminum has a low absorption (about 0.3%), and when this low absorption is taken into account, there is good reason to expect vaccines to create aluminum toxicity. But that is not the subject of the present commentary. Commentary about the total amount of aluminum in vaccines can be found here: http://vaccinepapers.org/danger-aluminum-vaccines/This article is concerned with the nanoparticulate form of aluminum in vaccines, and the unique way that AANs are transported around the body. The “kinetics” (how it moves around the body) is very different from ingested aluminum.
Ingested Aluminum Kinetics
Ingested aluminum enters the blood from the gut. In the blood, ingested aluminum is in a water-soluble ionic form, typically Al3+ or an aluminum complex*. This aluminum is separated into individual Al atoms, like ordinary salt dissolved in water. Ionic aluminum is toxic, but it is blocked from entering the central nervous system (CNS) by the blood-brain barrier (BBB), and it is rapidly filtered from the blood by the kidneys. Unless large amounts are consumed it does not cause a problem.
Below is a diagram illustrating how ingested aluminum moves through the body. The body’s natural defenses are adequate for preventing harm from normal, natural amounts of ingested aluminum.
Based on on this understanding of ingested aluminum, it was long assumed that AAN follows a similar pathway out of the body. AANs cannot be filtered by the kidneys (they are too large). But it was assumed that the AANs would rapidly dissolve in body fluids, and the resulting Al3+ ions (or other Al ions like AlOH4-), would be filtered out by the kidneys, just like ingested aluminum. However, this simple model is wrong.
Below is a diagram illustrating this wrong understanding of how AANs travels through the body.
This model is wrong because what actually happens is that a type of white blood cell called a macrophage (MF) engulfs or “eats” (process is called “phagocytosis”) the AANs before they can dissolve. Eating foreign material is normal behavior for MFs. When MFs detect bacteria or other pathogens, the MFs engulf the pathogens, and digest them with enzymes. They then tell other immune system cells about the pathogen and how to detect it. MFs eat many types of nanoparticles.
The problem with AANs is that they are not digested by the MF enzymes. And the AANs, once inside the MF, dissolve much more slowly. The AANs persist for a long time (years) and cause the MFs to slowly leak aluminum. MFs that consume the AANs become highly contaminated with aluminum, and spread the aluminum wherever they go. And they go everywhere in the body. MFs generally do not travel in the blood, which explains why no aluminum is found in the blood after vaccination. MFs travel through the lymphatic system.
The MFs are able to travel across the blood brain barrier (BBB). The MFs, once loaded with AANs, act like a Trojan Horse and carry the AANs into the brain. This is harmful, because the brain is very sensitive to aluminum.
Below is a diagram of how AANs actually travels around the body.
Once inside the brain, the aluminum damages brain cells. The damaged brain cells trigger inflammation which attracts more MFs, some of which are loaded with still more aluminum. The result is a vicious cycle.
A Pinch Is All It Takes
The brain is extremely sensitive to aluminum. Concentrations of aluminum as low as 10 nano-molar can cause inflammation of brain tissue. 10 nano-molar is 270 nano-grams aluminum per liter. (nano = 1 billionth). Thats an amazingly small amount.
For a typical brain weight of about 1400 grams, about 380 nano-grams (0.38 micrograms) of aluminum will produce an average concentration of 10 nano-molar. This is extraordinary, because a single vaccine can contain 250 micrograms (250,000 nano-grams), and an infant can receive about 3,675 micrograms in the first 6 months. In other words, just 0.01% of the aluminum in the first 6 months of vaccines is enough to cause inflammation of the entire brain (since 3,675 x 0.01% = 0.3675 micrograms).
Of course, this assumes perfectly uniform distribution of the aluminum in the brain, which is not realistic. However, this calculation establishes plausibility. The amount of aluminum in vaccines greatly exceeds the amount necessary to cause brain inflammation. Al adjuvant from vaccines can cause chronic brain inflammation.
MFs leaking aluminum into the brain will cause inflammation of brain tissue nearby. Thus there may be a “halo” of inflamed brain tissue surrounding each aluminum-loaded MF in the brain.
The Scientific Evidence
The scientific evidence for this “Trojan Horse” mechanism is quite simple, unequivocal and overwhelming. Every step has been proven by multiple studies from well-known universities and government-funded laboratories: the ingestion of AANs by MFs, the movement of MFs into the brain, and the observation that MFs carry nanoparticles into the brain.
First, there is the Flarend study, which shows that even after a month, only about 6% (of Al hydroxide) or 22% (of Al phosphate) are eliminated in urine. Most aluminum adjuvant is retained in the body 1 month after injection (94% of Al hydroxide is retained!). The Flarend study also shows that the aluminum spreads to numerous organs, including the brain.
Flarend paper: In vivo absorption of aluminium-containing vaccine adjuvants using 26Al
The Movsas study (published in 2013) used human infants and obtained similar results. Movsas looked for aluminum in urine and blood before and after routine vaccination with 1200mcg aluminum at the 2-month date. No change in urine or blood levels was observed. Movsas states:
“No significant change in levels of urinary or serum aluminum were seen after vaccination.“
Of course, these results contradict the claims by vaccine advocates that aluminum adjuvant dissolves into the blood and is removed by the kidneys. The reason why Movsas does not observe aluminum in blood or urine is because the aluminum is trapped in the MFs, which do not travel in the blood, and do not release aluminum into the urine.
Movsas paper: Effect of Routine Vaccination on Aluminum and Essential Element Levels in Preterm Infants
Several studies show, with certainty, that MFs engulf AANs. In several studies, the AANs have been stained and photographed inside the MFs, and identified using several different methods. This is not surprising because it is well known that MFs will spontaneously engulf nanoparticles when grown in a solution containing nanoparticles. The composition of the nanoparticles does not matter. MFs will engulf nanoparticles of any composition.
This paper describes an experiment proving that AANs are engulfed by human MFs, when grown in culture.
Paper (Mold et al): Unequivocal identification of intracellular aluminium adjuvant in a monocytic THP-1 cell line (Note: a macrophage (MF) is essentially the same as a “monocyte”. THP-1 is a specific macrophage culture used for research).
Above: Electron microscope images of aluminum adjuvant nanoparticles (AANs) inside macrophages (MFs). From Mold et al.
A study of macrophagic myofasciitis (MMF) patients observed AANs inside MFs at the location of intramuscular vaccine injections. Muscle tissue samples were obtained by biopsy 3 months to 8 years after vaccine injection (average: 36 months). Presence of aluminum inside MFs was confirmed by 3 different methods. Aluminum was present in MFs only, and not in muscle fibers.
Paper (Gherardi et al): Macrophagic myofasciitis lesions assess long-term persistence of vaccine-derived aluminum hydroxide in muscle.
Above: Electron microscope (top) and nuclear microprobe (bottom) images of thin sections of muscle taken from macrophagic myofasciitis (MMF) patients. This study showed that AANs remain inside macrophages (MFs) in muscle tissue for up to 8 years after intramuscular injection. Nuclear microprobe is also called proton-induced X-ray emission (PIXE). From Gherardi et al. 2001.
Inflammation Causes Macrophage Movement
A 2009 study (D’Mello et al.) demonstrated that liver-specific inflammation (liver injury due to blocked bile duct) caused peripheral (“peripheral” = outside the CNS) MFs to enter the CNS. Specifically, microglia in the CNS detected the liver inflammation and became activated. The activated microglia released MCP-1 (also known as CCL2), which recruits macrophages into the brain. When MCP-1 is produced by microglia, macrophages from around the body travel into the brain. This is how AANs get into the brain. MCP-1 is described here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCL2).
An interesting finding of the D’Mello study is that inflammation outside the CNS (i.e. peripheral inflammation) causes MFs to enter the CNS. The MFs will travel to the brain even if the original source of the inflammation is in the liver. Inflammation anywhere in the body may cause MFs to carry aluminum into the brain.
Paper (D’Mello et al.): Cerebral Microglia Recruit Monocytes into the Brain in Response to Tumor Necrosis Factor Signaling during Peripheral Organ Inflammation
AANs Photographed in Mouse Brain
In an impressive study in mice by Khan et al., AANs and other nanoparticles (e.g. latex) were injected intramuscularly. AANs were detected in the brain and spleen, up to one year later. These results contradict the long-assumed “100% of adjuvant dissolves into the blood” belief preferred by vaccine advocates.
Below is a page from this paper showing that AANs were detected in the brain and spleen.
Paper (Khan et al.): Slow CCL2-dependent translocation of biopersistent particles from muscle to brain
Khan observed that transport of AANs is MCP-1 dependent. This fact is further evidence that the macrophages are responsible for transporting the nanoparticles.
Above: Images of aluminum adjuvant nanoparticles (AANs) in brain and spleen of mice. These AANs traveled into the brain from the distant site of intramuscular injection. AANs are not rapidly dissolved and excreted, as vaccine advocates claim. D21, D180, D365 indicate time (in days) between AAN injection, and detection of AANs in the brain. From Khan et al 2013.
The Khan et al. paper concludes with this statement:
“…alum has high neurotoxic potential [49], and planning administration of continuously escalating doses of this poorly biodegradable adjuvant in the population should be carefully evaluated by regulatory agencies since the compound may be insidiously unsafe. It is likely that good tolerance to alum may be challenged by a variety of factors including overimmunization, BBB immaturity, individual susceptibility factors, and aging that may be associated with both subtle BBB alterations and a progressive increase of CCL2 production [50].”
CCL2/MCP-1 production is stimulated by immune activation. Hence, a vaccine that stimulates CCL2/MCP-1 may cause AANs (already in the body or from the vaccine) to move into the brain.
AANs from vaccines may remain harmlessly “dormant” at the injection site for years, until an immune activation event stimulates MCP-1 production. This will cause the macrophages containing AANs to mobilize and transport AANs into the brain and other sensitive tissues. This may explain some of the damage from the MMR vaccine. It is known that the measles vaccine stimulates MCP-1 production (Citation: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24835247), as many infections can. Accordingly, the MMR vaccine can stimulate the movement of AANs (received from prior vaccines) into the brain. This may be a mechanism for MMR causing autism or other neurological damage.
Trojan Horse Technology Applications
The Trojan Horse mechanism of MF-transport of nanoparticles has been studied for applications in getting drugs into the brain (through the BBB). Studies have been done proving that nanoparticles (e.g. containing serotonin, cancer drugs, or HIV drugs) can be transported through the BBB using macrophages. In one specific study, the Trojan Horse mechanism was used to transport nanoparticles into a brain tumor. In this study, human MFs engulfed nanoparticles (made of silica-gold). The particle-loaded MFs were then injected into mice (into the tail) and the particle-loaded MFs were detected in the brain tumor 24 hours later. Paper: Delivery of nanoparticles to brain metastases of breast cancer using a cellular Trojan Horse This paper describes other experiments using MFs to transport materials into the brain:
“More than two decades ago, Fidler and colleagues provided evidence that macrophages of blood monocyte origin can infiltrate experimental brain metastases while the blood–brain barrier is intact (Schackert et al. 1988). Even earlier, Morantz and colleagues had quantified the content of macrophages in clinical specimens (Morantz et al. 1979).”
AND
“The use of monocyte/macrophages as delivery vehicles to the CNS has been investigated in situations other than malignancy. Afergan et al. demonstrated the delivery of serotonin to the brain by monocytes, which had phagocytosed nano-liposomes containing this otherwise brain impermeant drug (Afergan et al. 2008). Dou and colleagues utilized bone marrow derived macrophages as carriers of and depots for antiretroviral drugs to treat and attenuate the symptoms of HIV-associated neurocognitive disorder (Dou et al. 2009). Therefore, we hypothesized that nanoparticle-laden monocytes/macrophages would home in to intracranial metastatic deposits by crossing the blood–brain barrier following injection into the systemic circulation.”
CNS=central nervous system
It’s Proven
Every step has been proven: MFs engulf of Al nanoparticles, MFs cross the BBB and MFs carry nanoparticles into the brain. All these steps have been experimentally demonstrated and proven multiple times. And the entire process has been demonstrated with AANs in mice. AANs from an intramuscular injection were “photographed” in the brain by PIXE. These facts contradict the simplistic and wrong view (preferred by vaccine advocates) of aluminum toxicity based only on the concentration of dissolved aluminum ions in the blood. The story is far more complicated and worrisome than that. The toxicity of aluminum adjuvant is influenced by the transport of Al nanoparticles by MFs through the blood-brain barrier.
Elevated MCP-1/CCL2 in Autistic Brain
Further, MCP-1/CCL2 is elevated in the autistic brain and spinal fluid. This was one of the most significant findings of the Vargas study: Neuroglial Activation and Neuroinflammation in the Brain of Patients with Autism. Vargas stated:
“MCP-1 and TGF-B1 are the most prominent cytokines in the brain of autistic patients.”
AND
“MCP-1, a chemokine involved in innate immune reactions and important mediator for monocyte and T-cell activation and trafficking into areas of tissue injury, appeared to be one of the most relevant proteins found in cytokine protein array studies because it was significantly elevated in both brain tissues and cerebro-spinal fluid.“
Even vargas mentions the function of MCP-1 in causing movement of macrophages (monocytes).
This of course means that in autism, injected AANs will be transported by MFs into the brain from a distant intramuscular injection site. MCP-1 attracts macrophages, which are loaded with AANs by vaccination.
UPDATE: Nov 2015
A new study of Al adjuvant injections in mice has revealed even more complexity to the issue of Al adjuvant transport. As expected, it showed that Al adjuvant transport depends on MCP-1; mice that produce more MCP-1 (due to genetics) suffer greater transport of AANs into the brain.
Surprisingly, it also showed:
1) Transport depends on injection location. Subcutaneous injection (i.e. under the skin) is necessary for brain transport, at least for the dosages used. Intramuscular injection does not produce brain transport. This may be due to the presence of more-mobile white blood cells (dendritic cells) in the skin compared to muscle.
2) Transport depends inversely on dosage. A dosage of 200mcg/kg resulted in brain transport (and behavioral changes) and dosage of 400mcg/kg did not result in brain transport (and showed no behavioral changes). This may be due to the high dosage impairing macrophage mobility. For example, higher local inflammation at the injection site may cause reduced macrophage mobility.
There may also be an interaction between injection location and dosage. The dosage range that causes transport may be different for different tissues.
These phenomena may explain why the prior Al adjuvant injection experiments by the Shaw Laboratory (using 100, 300 and 550mcg/kg in divided doses) showed such strong adverse effects. Though aluminum adjuvant is harmful, in human infants the incidence of harmful effects is likely lower than what was observed in the prior mouse experiments. This has been a criticism made by vaccine advocates. Specifically, vaccine advocates have asserted that the Shaw Laboratory results were implausibly severe and thereforemust wrong. This new study may explain why adverse effects in human infants are less frequent than what was observed by the Shaw Laboratory.
The authors state:
“In previously published studies, motor and behavioral impairments were observed following sc (behind the neck) Alhydrogel® injection to CD1 mice with doses of 100 and 300 μg Al/kg [17,41]. These effects were associated with Al deposits in the central nervous system (spinal cord) assessed by Morin stain. To examine if the route of exposure may represent an important factor for alum toxicity, a nested study was conducted herein, showing that alum particles may penetrate the brain at D45 after the sc (and not im) injection, performed at the dose of 200 μg Al/kg (and not at the dose of 400 μg Al/kg). A higher rate of brain translocation after sc injection may be explained by a much higher density of dendritic cells with high migrating properties, in the skin compared to the muscle. The fact that half dose resulted in brain translocation, which was not observed at higher dose, is reminiscent of the non-monotonic dose/response curves previously observed with environmental toxins, including particulate compounds [67]. In another study, we similarly observed neurobehavioral changes at 200 but not 400 μg Al/kg (Crépeaux et al., manuscript in preparation). The exact significance of such observations is unknown, but one may speculate that huge quantities of alum injected in the tissue may induce blockade of critical macrophage functions such as migration and xeno/autophagic disposition of particles, as previously reported for infectious particles [37].”
sc=subcutaneous
im=intramuscular
Although this study does show that the adverse effects of Al adjuvant are less frequent than observed by the earlier experiments, it is confirmation of the Shaw laboratory results. This study is further evidence that Al adjuvant can cause brain damage at dosages human infants receive from vaccines.
Clearly, there is much more to learn about the dangers of Al adjuvant. The risk of Al adjuvant depends on genetics, on dosage in a complicated way, and on which tissue receives the injection.
Persistence
Another key finding from this study is the extreme biopersistence of Al adjuvant particles. The particles were observed in distant organs and tissues up to 270 days after injection, including in the brain, spleen and lymph nodes. This is confirmation of prior experiments that also found high persistence. Al adjuvant nanoparticles dissolve only very slowly, if at all, and travel extensively around the body.
The authors state:
“The present study confirms that alum is extremely biopersistent [29, 37] and that alum biopersistence can be observed in both the injected muscle and distant organs, including dLNs and spleen. Regarding the strong immunostimulatory effects of alum and the unrequired depot formation for its adjuvant activity [36], long-term biopersistence of alum in lymphoid organs is clearly undesirable, and may cast doubts on the exact level of long-term safety of alum-adjuvanted vaccines [37].”
dLNs = draining lymph nodes
alum = aluminum adjuvant
Full Paper (Crepeaux et al): Highly delayed systemic translocation of aluminum-based adjuvant in CD1 mice following intramuscular injections
Further reading: see this review paper by Dr Romain Gherardi (a co-author of the Khan et al paper): Biopersistence and brain translocation of aluminum adjuvants of vaccines
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NOTES:
AANs: Aluminum adjuvant nanoparticles. Used in most vaccines.
BBB: Blood brain barrier. Protects brain from aluminum in normal conditions.
MF: Macrophage (same thing as monocyte). A type of white blood cell. Can travel through the BBB.
CNS: Central nervous system (brain + spinal cord).
CCL2/MCP-1: Macrophage chemoattractant protein. Immune system signaling substance that attracts MFs. Causes MFs to transport aluminum into the brain and around the body.
* Under physiologic conditions, some dissolved aluminum will not be in the Al3+ form, but rather AlOH4-. For the sake of this discussion, this is irrelevant, so we will use Al3+, even though this is not really correct. But AlOH4- arguably contains Al3+ in the center.
Monocytes and macrophages are basically the same thing. From nature.com: “Macrophages (and their precursors, monocytes) are the ‘big eaters’ of the immune system. These cells reside in every tissue of the body, albeit in different guises — such as microglia (brain), Kupffer cells (liver) and osteoclasts (bone) — where they engulf apoptotic cells and pathogens and produce immune effector molecules. Upon tissue damage or infection, monocytes are rapidly recruited to the tissue, where they differentiate into tissue macrophages. Macrophages are remarkably plastic and can change their functional phenotype depending on the environmental cues they receive. Through their ability to clear pathogens and instruct other immune cells, these cells have a central role in protecting the host but also contribute to the pathogenesis of inflammatory and degenerative diseases.”
TO SE THE PAPERS IN THIS POST CLICK HERE (Original post)
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College students are coming down with an illness most people think hasn't been a problem in the US for years: the mumps.
Three students at Butler University, two at Indiana University, and two at Kansas State University have been diagnosed with the mumps in the past few weeks. Most had been fully vaccinated against the disease, according to their universities.
Libby Nelson: Most, if not all, of the students getting mumps recently had been vaccinated as kids. Why did they get sick anyway?
William Schaffner: The initial immunization is part of three vaccines that are given together — measles, mumps, and rubella. Of the three elements in the vaccine, the mumps portion is the least effective.
Although immediate protection is excellent, its capacity to protect wanes over time, for example, 10 to 15 years. So what happens is when you get to high school and particularly college age, many people in the population have waning immunity, such that if they encounter someone who’s excreting a lot of mumps virus, they’re likely to get infected.
When we get out to 10 to 15 years after immunization, effectiveness is thought to be somewhere between 80 percent and 85 or 86 percent. So that leaves a proportion, and it’s a substantial proportion, of people who were once vaccinated newly susceptible to at least what we call modified disease, a disease of lesser severity.
LN: But they still have to run into someone excreting the virus. Where are these cases coming from?
WS: [Mumps] is gone from the United States, basically. So it has to be imported from areas of the world where we still have mumps.
Usually someone in Europe is exposed to mumps, comes to the US during the incubation period, develops mumps here, and spreads it through close contact. That’s often the case in colleges, where there’s a lot of international interaction, and many of our cases of mumps introductions have been traced back to Europe.
LN: Why are so many Europeans getting mumps?
WS: Why don’t the Europeans do a better job? We’re nattering at them at the present time. They also have measles outbreaks, and some of the importations of measles come from our cousins in Europe — developed countries that do not have that tradition of enforcing immunization requirements the way we do.
They don’t have "no shots, no school" laws, for example, that we tell them they need to institute.
In some ways, Europe now has more measles and more mumps than many parts of the developing world, where the [World Health Organization] and its various agencies and the Gates Foundation have been very much more effective in distributing these basic vaccines. Now we have Europe as a major continuing reservoir of these so-called childhood communicable diseases.
LN: Many hear that these vaccine-preventable diseases are coming back and they blame the anti-vaccination movement in the US. Is it at fault here?
WS: It plays a lesser role in this particular circumstance. There are going to be some people affected in these outbreaks of mumps who avoided vaccination, but that’s not the primary issue here. The primary issue is that the protective effect of the immunization wanes.
Remember, as you said, the substantial majority of people who are affected are people who have actually been vaccinated, and that’s because the protection afforded by the vaccine diminishes over time. By the time you get into college, if you look at the entire population, assuming the entire population has essentially been vaccinated, the vaccine protects about 80 to 85 percent. So that leaves roughly 15 to 20 percent of people who once were vaccinated who are now newly susceptible.
LN: How serious of a disease is mumps?
WS: You can get complications of mumps: encephalitis, inflammation of the brain; meningitis, inflammation of tissues covering the brain. You can get complications of orchitis, which is inflammation of the testicles in males and the ovaries in women. There’s also a sense that if you get this mumps/encephalitis/meningitis, you can be left with hearing loss afterward. None of which is nice.
So there are potentially noteworthy complications, although deaths are pretty rare.
[People who have been vaccinated and have had their effectiveness wear off] are likely to have a modified illness. … It’s not as severe. The men are less likely to get orchitis, that is the testicles involved, and the ladies are less likely as well.
LN: Is there anything that can be done to fix the vaccine wearing off? What about a booster shot?
WS: That's recommended in outbreak circumstances — another dose of vaccine for populations at risk. It’s not a perfect solution, because the mumps vaccine itself is not a perfect vaccine. So this revaccination provides a partial answer, but it usually is not good enough to abruptly end the outbreak.
Source: http://www.vox.com/2016/2/15/11004268/mumps-vaccines-indiana-kansas-butler
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Continue reading: http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DrugSafety/InformationbyDrugClass/ucm500325.htm
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