Miller’s Review of Critical Vaccine Studies: 400 Important Scientific Papers Summarized

Book Preface

In modern times, unprecedented advances in the medical field — such as knee and hip replacements — have improved our quality of life. Emergency medical procedures have saved countless lives by restoring damaged or injured organs and tissues. When my three children were young, I believed that vaccines were a medical marvel as well, and they received their full complement of vaccines as prescribed by their physician according to the recommended vaccination schedule. So, when I was hired by the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services (Acute Communicable Disease Control Unit), to help conduct epidemiological studies of varicella disease in the local community known as Antelope Valley (which consisted of approximately 300,000 residences principally in Palmdale and Lancaster, California), I was thrilled to participate. I would be working at one of three active surveillance sites funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to study the impact of the newly recommended chickenpox vaccine, which was just being introduced into the U.S. child population. It was 1995, and with enthusiasm I reflected on the prospect that data from this research project would not only be helpful to the community in which my family and I resided, but also provide insight into how the CDC formulates national policies in connection with the chickenpox vaccine. I served as an Epidemiology Analyst. All positive results and trends that I reported were quickly reviewed and subsequently published in medical journal articles whose authorship honored CDC officials, physicians serving as the co-principal investigators, the project director, myself, and the data collection assistants. By the end of five years, after widespread varicella vaccination, our data demonstrated an 80% decline in varicella disease in the community. In addition, the chickenpox vaccine appeared to be safe. My performance reviews were outstanding and I was encouraged to contribute additional investigations that might lead to further publications. By the end of 1999, long-term nurses in local schools were reporting cases of shingles (herpes zoster) occurring among children where previously such case reports had been extremely rare. Based on this observation, I recommended that shingles be added to our active surveillance project. The shingles case reports should have been collected from the start of the project since both chickenpox and shingles are caused by the same varicella zoster virus. After experiencing a case of chickenpox, the virus remains dormant until the body’s cell-mediated immunity declines to a certain low level at which point the varicella zoster virus can reactivate as shingles. Each time an adult is exposed to a child having chickenpox, the adult receives an exogenous (external) immune boost that helps suppress or postpone the onset of shingles, thus serving as a free and valuable benefit to the adult that could yield a protective effect lasting many years. My observation of a relationship between chickenpox and shingles was not new. In 1965, Dr. Hope-Simpson, serving as a physician in Cirencester, England, studied herpes zoster among the local population. [Proc R Soc Med 1965; 58: 9-20.] He was the first to propose the hypothesis that the rates, or incidence, of shingles in each age group were perhaps due to that group’s exposure to cases of chickenpox. Using approximate incidence rates, the rate of shingles among children aged 1 to 10 years and among adolescents aged 11 to 19 years were the lowest, because so many in these age groups contracted chickenpox and had frequent re-exposure to the disease. During adulthood, the incidence of shingles quadrupled by age 50, due to older adults’ diminishing exposure to children with chickenpox.

Thus, while shingles was primarily thought of as increasing with the onset of old age, in reality, shingles increased as adults experienced fewer contacts with children infected with chickenpox, which in turn caused a decrease in subclinical boosting. In a study of physicians who had frequent contact with children, findings demonstrated that the rate of shingles was one-fourth to one-eighth that of other adults in the same age-group in the general population that typically had less frequent exposure. [Kansenshokagu Zasshi 1995; 69(8): 908-12.]

After collecting two years of shingles case reports in the community, I observed that the incidence of shingles among unvaccinated children who had previously contracted chickenpox was unusually high, approaching the rate seen in adults. This was a foreboding result indicating that universal varicella vaccination could have the effect of increasing the incidence of shingles for a period of 50 or more years among adults who had a prior case of chickenpox — usually a benign case in their youth. Since about 25% of medical costs associated with the varicella zoster virus are due to varicella and about 75% are due to shingles, any increase in shingles would easily offset any cost benefit associated with a reduction in cases of chickenpox.

The CDC had justified its recommendation that all U.S. children receive a chickenpox vaccine based on the cost savings to society attributed to parents not having to stay home from work to care for their child with chickenpox. Further initial cost/benefit assumptions that justified varicella vaccination included, 1) a vaccine cost of $35, 2) one vaccine offering lifetime protection, and 3) no deleterious effects on the closely related shingles epidemiology. These assumptions all proved to be invalid. The current vaccine cost is approximately $100, a two-dose vaccination policy was instituted due to the occurrence of breakthrough varicella disease (vaccinated children were still contracting chickenpox), and recent research on herpes zoster incidence supports Dr. Hope-Simpson’s hypothesis that exposures to chickenpox have a protective effect to suppress or prevent the reactivation of shingles in adults. [Am J Epidemiol 2013; 77(10): 1134-42.]

Instead of stopping the universal varicella vaccination of children in the U.S., the CDC added a second booster dose for children and introduced a shingles vaccine for older adults (who previously received boosts to their immunity at no charge by virtue of the annual outbreaks of chickenpox in their communities). I prepared a paper for review and subsequent publication summarizing the first two years of shingles data. Such review was never forthcoming and I was instructed not to pursue any further investigation of shingles rates in the Antelope Valley. I did not want to become involved in research fraud, so I resigned after eight years of employment and sought to publish the other side of the research data that I felt was being suppressed. However, prior to having several papers published in the journal Vaccine,

I received a notice from the Los Angeles County legal department to “cease and desist.” With the assistance of an experienced attorney, I overcame the CDC’s objection that the data was confidential, and these studies were published. (Some of them are summarized in this book.) The CDC also improperly challenged the methodology that I used and results I derived. However, several years later they published a paper on herpes zoster using methodology similar to that specified in my papers that they had earlier criticized.

The CDC presented herpes zoster incidence rates that closely compared to those I had published following my resignation. [Vaccine 2013 Mar 25; 31(13): 1683, Table 1.] In marketing the varicella vaccine, the vaccine manufacturer used commercials highlighting that a child could die from chickenpox. The chance of this occurring is about the same as a child being struck by lightning. Unfortunately, vaccine research is largely financed by the pharmaceutical companies producing the vaccine or by health agencies that have conflicts of interest with these companies. (Studies that confirm such conflicts of interest are summarized in this book.)

In addition, many CDC-sponsored studies, and other studies promoting vaccines, do not provide raw data to replicate the findings, which is a necessary component of science. Thus, published findings in medical journals and the positive claims associated with any given vaccine are often propaganda — one-sided promotions that fail to disclose any negative effects, which at times can be significant.

For example, a recent paper by Hooker and Kern et al. found evidence of malfeasance in CDC research purporting to show that thimerosal (a mercury-based preservative added to some vaccines) is safe. Although more than 165 studies examined thimerosal and found it to be dangerous, the CDC claims that it is safe and unrelated to autism. The CDC’s claim that thimerosal is safe for use in vaccines and does not cause autism is based on just six studies that it sponsored. Four of the studies withheld important results from final publication and all of them are methodologically unsound. [BioMed Research International 2014; article ID 247218.] These tactics produce continual cycles of disease and treatment.

Following my work with the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services and the CDC, I continued to engage in vaccine research and discovered that my experience with the varicella vaccine was only the tip of the iceberg. In fact, if my children were born today, I would not permit them to be vaccinated. Vaccines with their associated adjuvants can cause serious long-term adverse effects in the form of autoimmune disorders and other chronic detrimental health conditions. Ongoing research continues to elucidate the complexities of the human immune system, providing an improved understanding of the biological mechanisms responsible for adverse vaccine reactions. In addition, the current childhood vaccination schedule is much more crowded than previous schedules, with infants receiving several vaccines during their pediatric well-baby visits. Multiple vaccines administered concomitantly may increase the risk of death. [PloS One 2011 Jan 26; 6(1): e16363; Hum Exp Toxicol 2012; 31(10): 1012-21.]

The National Library of Medicine has a multitude of studies that warn of these negative outcomes, including the possibility of vaccine-related fatalities which can sometimes be characterized as SIDS — sudden infant death syndrome. Detailed toxicological examinations of post-mortem brains and tissues, as well as other specialized investigations, have indeed documented vaccine-related deaths. Yet, there is a movement to make vaccination compulsory, removing all current vaccine exemptions, which will effectively eliminate the doctrine of informed consent, essential for the preservation of human rights.

Rising healthcare costs are, in part, the result of biased scientific research that supports an ever-expanding list of required vaccines that, in reality, have a negative cost and health benefit. Such vaccines create a life-long stream of income flowing into the healthcare system treating all of the people who experience adverse vaccine reactions. About 30,000 reports of suspected adverse vaccine reactions are filed with the U.S. government every year and more than $3.1 billion has already been paid to compensate vaccine victims and their families.

Through independent analysis, it is possible to uncover the lies and deception emanating from the public relations propaganda produced by the vaccine manufacturers and healthcare institutions themselves. This book, Miller’s Review of Critical Vaccine Studies, can assist the reader so that any decision to vaccinate or not is an informed one. The author, Neil Z. Miller, deserves high commendation for his boldness in providing research material in a format that can assist parents and other researchers in their investigation of vaccine truths while gaining a more circumspect understanding of tradeoffs associated with vaccine issues. This invaluable resource with its straightforward summaries of harmful effects that peer-reviewed published research on vaccines has revealed can positively impact the health and lives of millions of children, adolescents and adults.

Contents
Foreword by Gary Goldman, PhD Introduction 1. Vaccination Schedules 2. Thimerosal (Mercury) 3. Aluminum 4. Influenza 5. Pertussis Mutations 6. Pathogen Evolution and Imperfect Vaccines 7. Strain Replacement, Haemophilus Influenzae 8. Strain Replacement, Pneumococcal disease 9. Human Papillomavirus (HPV) 10. Measles and MMR 11. Chickenpox and Shingles 12. Polio, Hepatitis B, and Rotavirus 13. Allergies 14. Seizures 15. Diabetes 16. Thrombocytopenia 17. Premature and Low Birth Weight Infants 18. Hexavalent Vaccines and Sudden Infant Death (SIDS) 19. Cancer and Natural Infections 20. Vitamin A and Measles 21. Vitamin D and Influenza 22. Non-Vaccination by Doctors and Nurses 23. Education Level of Non-Vaccinating Parents 24. Conflicts of Interest, False Studies, and Industry Control