Aluminum in Vaccines: Where Are the Safety Studies?

Since the 1930s vaccine makers have been using aluminum as an adjuvant in vaccines. However, from what I’ve been able to gather over years of researching vaccines and vaccinations, there doesn’t seem to be studies determining aluminum safety issues. If such studies exist, I hereby request the U.S. CDC and FDA please publish them and supply me with a copy, as I’d love to ‘digest’ and dissect them.

As a matter of fact, when Congressman Dan Burton held his vaccine-autism link hearings from 1999-2004, the question that FDA was asked repeatedly was, Where are your [safety] studies? The FDA’s reply was that they would be very expensive to do.

One of the more compelling facts about aluminum is that it is a blood brain barrier neurotoxin as reported by W. Zheng in 2001 and Bioport Corp. in 2002. Additionally, there are many studies confirming its ability to activate brain microglia and increase inflammatory cytokines thereby contributing to brain excitotoxicity as reported by C. Garrel, et al., in 1994; M. Tsunoda in 1999; C. Struys-Ponsar, et al., in 2000; A. Campbell, in 2004; M.S. Petrik, et al., in 2007; Blaylock and Strunecka in 2009; C.A. Shaw, et al., in 2009; and X. Li, et al., in 2009.

Regarding the role of aluminum in vaccines and brain inflammation, I just co-authored a paper with Dr. Harold E. Buttram, MD, titled “Vaccines and Brain Inflammation,” which has been accepted for publication by an online journal. Dr. Buttram and I are hopeful our paper will bring more issues to the forefront regarding vaccines, brain inflammation, and the probable etiology that adjuvants, excipients, and neurotoxins have with regard to brain inflammation and encephalopathy.

Recently a post-doctoral fellow, L. Tomljenovic, and a professor, C.A. Shaw, both associated with the University of British Columbia, Canada, published the paper, “Aluminum Vaccine Adjuvants: Are they Safe?” that needs to be taken seriously by Big Pharma, vaccinologists, and the U.S. HHS, CDC, and FDA for the documentation of research regarding aluminum in vaccines and health-related problems associated with it.

According to Tomljenovic and Shaw, In spite of these above data [regarding parenteral exposure], infants and children up to 6 months of age in the U.S. and other developed countries receive 14.7 to 49 times more than the FDA safety limits for aluminum from parenteral sources from vaccines through mandatory immunization programs.

Table 2, which accompanies that statement, indicates that in the United States the “Estimated total aluminum body burden (pg/kg bw/day) per vaccination” is as follows:

At birth        73.5 pg/kg bw/day      [14.7 times FDA safety limit] 1 month      -0-
2 month      245                                [49 times FDA safety limit] 3 month      -0-
4 month      171.1                              [34.22 times FDA safety limit] 5 month      -0-
6 month      161.2                              [32.24 times FDA safety limit]

FDA Safety limit for aluminum from parenteral sources is 5 pg/kg bw/day. [Emphasis added]

The question everyone ought to be asking is this: What is the cumulative or total amount of aluminum storing as a toxic body burden in tiny infants’ bodies? From my math calculations, there is a total of 650.8 picograms/kilograms body weight injected over the first six months of infants’ lives. What kind of toxic burden does that body load place on a six-month-old infant whose immune system is developing? How does the liver detoxify such a heavy-duty load of aluminum? What does that amount of aluminum do to the kidneys? What effect is there on brain cells? After all, these infants aren’t fully-grown and don’t possess healthy adult body detoxifying capabilities.

Science and medicine know what happens to kidney dialysis patients if they receive kidney-filtering water that contains aluminum used as a flocking agent in municipal water systems. In these patients the accumulation of aluminum in tissues causes an encephalopathy (dialysis encephalopathy or dialysis dementia), a specific form of metabolic bone disease (osteomalacic dialysis osteodystrophy), and an anemia and also plays an etiological role in some of the other complications associated with end-stage chronic renal disease. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1568504/.

Tomljenovic and Shaw state that In addition, fatalities have been reported among individuals who were vaccinated against with the anthrax vaccine. These included deaths from sudden cardiac arrest, myocardial infarction with polyarteritis nodosa, aplastic anemia, CNS, lymphoma, and suicide, as per the Anthrax Vaccine Adsorbed product monograph (2002).

If we read the above statement again, we realize deaths from sudden cardiac arrest. In an infant can that be equated with Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)? However, Tomljenovic and Shaw point out that According to Zinka et al. , there was a 13-fold increase in infant death following introduction of hexavalent vaccines into immunization practice.

Fatal outcomes have also been reported following administration of pediatric aluminum-adjuvanted hexavalent vaccines, one of which (Hexavac) was subsequently withdrawn from use, apparently due to its poor effectiveness. Zinka et al. reported six cases of sudden infant death that occurred within 48 hours after vaccination with hexavalent vaccines. The post-mortem analysis of six children aged 4 to 17 months (five of whom were vaccinated with Hexavac and one with Infanrix Hexa), revealed abnormal pathologic findings particularly affecting the nervous system.

To read Tomljenovic and Shaw’s excellent paper on aluminum in vaccines, please see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21568886.

Currently four formulations of aluminum are used in vaccines: Aluminum phosphate, Aluminum hydroxide, Aluminum hydroxyphosphate sulfate, and Aluminum potassium sulfate. One of the above four formulations of aluminum is in most infant/toddler vaccines, and there is a heavy-duty amount in the HPV vaccine Gardasil®. Here is a listing for just a few vaccines:

Aluminum load in vaccines
DtaP (diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis) [each 0.5 mL dose] 625 mcg
Hepatitis B [each 0.5 mL dose] 375 mcg
Hepatitis A [each 0.5 mL dose] 250 mcg
Hib (haemophilus influenza type B) [each 0.5 mL dose] 225 mcg
HPV (human papillomarirus) [each 0.5 mL dose] 225 mcg
PVC (pneumococcal [pneumonia] conjugate vaccine) [each 0.5 mL dose] 125 mcg
Source: Vaccines & Vaccinations: The Need for Congressional Investigation
http://vactruth.com/vaccines-vaccinations-the-need-for-congressional-investigation/

So what do you think the FDA should do about aluminum in vaccines?

Photo Credit: LAC/BAC
About the author

Catherine J. Frompovich

Catherine J Frompovich is a retired natural nutritionist who earned advanced degrees in Nutrition and Holistic Health Sciences, Certification in Orthomolecular Theory and Practice plus Paralegal Studies. Her work has been published in national and airline magazines since the early 1980s. Catherine authored numerous books on health issues along with co-authoring papers and monographs with physicians, nurses, and holistic healthcare professionals. She has been a consumer healthcare researcher 35 years and counting. Catherine is an editor and writing consultant who helps authors get into publication. For numerous semesters she taught several writing courses for a suburban Philadelphia school district’s Adult Evening School. Her passion is assisting and guiding authors into print. Catherine’s latest book, A Cancer Answer, Holistic BREAST Cancer Management, A Guide to Effective & Non-Toxic Treatments, will be available on Amazon.com and as a Kindle eBook sometime in July 2012. Two of Catherine’s more recent books on Amazon.com are Our Chemical Lives And The Hijacking Of Our DNA, A Probe Into What’s Probably Making Us Sick (2009) and Lord, How Can I Make It Through Grieving My Loss, An Inspirational Guide Through the Grieving Process (2008).