Jonathan Collin, MD
Should We Really Throw All Vaccines in the Waste Basket?
Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, there was a small but vocal resistance against routine child vaccination. The relationship between autism and vaccination was hotly denied by the medical establishment ten years earlier, but concerned parents were not convinced. Among health professionals, chiropractors and naturopathic physicians decried the vaccination schedules demanded by pediatricians. Still more than 80% children did receive routine vaccines and ordinary childhood illnesses such as diphtheria and measles did not occur. However, in the late 2000s certain communities, some religious, some affluent began to espouse the risk of routine child immunization, resulting in numerous outbreaks of measles and other childhood infections. Public attitude toward vaccination for children and the elderly remained strong; anti-vaccination thinking was largely limited to the fringes.
When the pandemic ensued in 2020, public health authorities locked down “non-essential” public settings shutting down dining in restaurants, drinking in bars, viewing movies and concerts, even attending “non-essential” medical clinics. Although it was not meant to shut down administering shots to children, effectively most kids fell off their vaccine schedules. Of course, with schools shut, children were not being exposed to colds and URI infections dropped precipitously.
Early in 2021, Pfizer and Moderna launched their mRNA Covid-19 vaccines causing a stampede among health workers and the public to be vaccinated. Briefly there was a scarcity of vaccine due to the incredible demand. However, by July it was apparent that a cohort of at least 80% of the population would not be vaccinated. The public health messaging for being jabbed was promising immunity to Covid-19 or at least not severe illness. Various states began to offer money if one got the two shots. Still more than 40% refused vaccination causing the Feds and States to demand proof of vaccination for ongoing employment, entrance into public arenas, airline travel, even drinking at the bar. Some states did not pursue these demands. Nevertheless, the mandates led to wide-ranging resistance with government, military, academic, hospital, public, and business workers refusing to be injected.
As one would imagine the medical community reacted divisively regarding the mandates. While the vast majority of MDs agreed to the vaccination series, a vocal minority expressed major reservations about the risks of the Covid-19 “experimental” vaccine. Numerous studies began to appear questioning its safety and efficacy notably published in non-mainstream journals. In fact, various authors attempted to post their concerns on social media but were denied permission to post journal reports, with those insistent on posting anti-vaxx commentary being ostracized from Facebook, Twitter (now X), and other sites. Negative vaccine reporting did appear on the internet, but search engines made it difficult to read anti-vaxx reports.
As the pandemic wound down in 2023, social media stopped censoring reports. Studies on the mRNA vaccines are now relatively easy to access compared to years past. Many of the mRNA reports have concluded that the vaccines are safe and effective although not as originally promised to wholly prevent Covid-19 infection. However, there have also been studies that have observed significant adverse effects occurring post-vaccination. Some studies have suggested that there is a relatively high risk of incurring an adverse effect from the mRNA vaccine with questionable value in preventing Covid-19 infection. As one would expect, worry that the vaccine is not entirely safe and effective spread throughout the public. The result is that a much higher percentage of the population is no longer secure with doctors and hospitals, not trusting that routine vaccination should be done in children, the elderly, or anyone. It has been estimated that less than 60% of children have received routine childhood vaccination in the past two years. Among the integrative and naturopathic medical community, it is assumed that the percentage of children and adults receiving vaccination is even lower than 60%.
Do we throw out the entire pediatric vaccination schedule? Do adults no longer need a flu or pneumonia vaccine? Are we really prepared to no longer vaccinate against polio, hepatitis, measles? Meanwhile, what do we make of reports demonstrating efficacy of vaccination beyond preventing the viral infection? A recent study revealed that those who received the flu vaccine had a significantly reduced risk of developing a major cardiac event or dying from such an event.1 Another recent report demonstrated a lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease in those patients who are routinely vaccinated.2 Ask anyone who has suffered with shingles whether they would have preferred to have received the vaccine series. Despite what conservative newsletters claim not everyone who received the Covid-19 vaccine develops myocarditis or turbo cancer or sustained an unexplained sudden death. When and if a new vaccine is developed for malaria and AIDS, the benefit/risk ratio assuredly argues for vaccination.
A book review of Cause Unknown-The Epidemic of Sudden Deaths in 2021 and 2022 by Edward Dowd reviewed by Craig Soderberg in this issue makes the contrary argument that the Covid-19 vaccine is responsible for an uptick of sudden deaths.
A New Standard of Care: Alternative Cancer Therapies by Megan Smith, MS
Linda Isaacs, MD, who carries on the nutritional cancer treatment originated by the orthodontist Donald W. Kelly and later developed by Nicholas Gonzalez, MD, was interviewed by Megan Smith, MS, for her documentary: A New Standard of Care: Alternative Cancer Therapies: https://youtu.be/JhLRU7LlMU0?si=ccTHJu4hdV6Entbx . Without touting Isaacs’s two illuminating Q&A discussions in the film, she suggested that we should give it a gander and write a review.
The video available on YouTube is lengthy streaming for nearly 5 hours and is best viewed over 2-3 sittings. Smith’s videography is excellent giving the viewer a wonderful opportunity to listen to many of the heavy weights in alternative cancer care, including Stanislaw Burzynski, MD, Francisco Contreras, MD, James Forsythe, MD, Stephen J. Iacoboni, MD, Tom Lodi, MD, Toni Bark, MD, Alan Cantwell, MD, Dr. Donato Perez Garcia, and Thomas Rau, MD. Given the political activism that alternative cancer treatment has been subject to over the past fifty years, it is not surprising that Sen. Tom Harkin and Rep. Berkley Bedell are questioned about their involvement in Congress and with the N.I.H.
Megan Smith is very interested in the thinking in the conventional medical community. For this she has recorded her dialogue with Otis Brawley, MD, of the American Cancer Society and Dr. Jeffrey White, the head of the NCCAM branch of the NIH. Smith also wanted to know the thinking of academics and medical writers dialoguing with Keith Scott-Mumby, MD, MB, and Thomas Levy, MD, JD.
Megan Smith’s husband, Proctor, was diagnosed with a late-stage cancer and enrolled in conventional care with surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. The chemotherapy with the agent CisPlatin after its initial series weakened her husband to the point that he was obligated to use a wheelchair. After the second round of the CisPlatin, he became entirely paralyzed and never recovered his physical strength. Eventually Proctor died without ever gaining any quality of life using the conventional cancer care. Both Proctor and Smith only learned about alternative cancer therapies late into his treatment when he was very debilitated.
The question Megan Smith tries to explore in this documentary is whether the standard of care needs to be changed to feature alternative cancer treatments. As expected neither the American Cancer Society nor the NIH appeared to show not even the slightest interest in such a change in standard of care. Yet, for the alternative cancer doctors, lawyers, advocates, educators, and patients such a change in standard of care is not only warranted but long overdue. Given the abysmal track record of the standard of care there is no longer justification to maintain a failed evidence-based system. Yet, who will authorize the change? Clearly not big Pharma with its profits in chemotherapy and not the oncologists who do handsomely administering chemo. Still change is needed—and it is needed now.
You can check out the trailer before taking on the long viewing: https://youtu.be/WoSqs0xqJqM?si=dNBoPEU9KoKSn5C
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Jonathan Collin, MD
Publisher
References
1. Omidi, F et al. Influenza vaccination and major cardiovascular risk: a systematic review and meta-analysis of clinical trials studies. Scientific Reports. Nov. 19, 2023.13:20235. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-47690-9
2. Harris K, Ling Y, Bukhbinder AS, Chen L, Phelps KN, Cruz G, Thomas J, Kim Y, Jiang X, Schulz PE. The Impact of Routine Vaccinations on Alzheimer’s Disease Risk in Persons 65 Years and Older: A Claims-Based Cohort Study using Propensity Score Matching. J Alzheimers Dis. 2023;95(2):703-718. doi: 10.3233/JAD-221231. PMID: 37574727; PMCID: PMC10578243.
Published December 16, 2023