Vaccinations may be harmful to health

In April 2006, 35 children living in Miziakivski Khutory, a village in Vinnytsia oblast, were hospitalized after being given a tuberculin skin test for tuberculosis. The event was widely covered in the media, and the parents of the children asked law enforcement authorities to investigate the case. More than a year has passed and the event has faded into the background, while the victims’ parents have not seen justice.

“We have been going to Kyiv day after day for the past year and a half, knocking on doors of research centers, medical institutions, and government offices, but no one has given us an answer: what were our children injected with? They were in good health when they went to school that morning, but we found them hospitalized in the evening. After what happened, no one investigated the medical agent they were injected with; on top of it, their medical files disappeared from the hospital records. The prosecutor’s office refused to launch a criminal investigation, so we filed an appeal and are now waiting for a ruling. Not all of the parents have been able to endure this red tape in search of justice, so now we only have seven mothers who are still traveling along the thorny path to justice,” Liudmyla Vervoka, mother of one of the victims, told The Day.

The story began when, 15-20 minutes after receiving tuberculin injections, the children became feverish, developed headaches and nausea, and their pupils became dilated. Some children were gasping for breath. All the children had to be hospitalized. Now their parents say they are developing symptoms of serious diseases of their internal organs. Vervoka’s daughter, for example, has been diagnosed with pulmonary sarcoidosis and hepatitis. These are just some of the many illnesses affecting this group of children.

“After that abortive tuberculin test, serious changes in their internal organs appeared in many of the schoolchildren. The Ukrainian and Russian scientists whom we consulted, asking them to investigate the cause of these illnesses, confirm that no tuberculin test can produce such a reaction. No one can tell us what kind of poison our children were injected with. It is horrible even to try to imagine what kind of diseases await our children,” says Svitlana Honchar, the mother of another child.

According to pediatrician Dr. Natalia Kolomiiets, who has long studied the other aspect of vaccinations (the one that epidemiologists never advertise), the injection of the unknown substance caused an immunodeficiency in the Vinnytsia schoolchildren, which led to the emergence of a number of diseases that are supposed to develop at a much later age, only in 20 or 30 years. Dr. Kolomiiets is also convinced that any kind of inoculation is hazardous to people’s health. She warns that the large-scale inoculations against measles and German measles, scheduled for March- April 2008 by Ukraine’s Ministry of Health, may lead to unforeseeable consequences.

“Routine immunizations have already been stopped in many countries, particularly Great Britain (100 years ago), even Russia (10 years ago). Experts have proven that the best kind of immunity appears after a person recovers from a disease in childhood. Let me stress that the vaccine about to be injected against measles and German measles is grown in aborted embryonic cells. Therefore, I cannot rule out the possibility that this cellular matter may be infected by other viruses that cause genetic diseases and cancer,” says Dr. Kolomiiets.

She emphasized the side effects indicated in the vaccine manufacturer’s specifications, namely high fever, arthralgia, encephalitis, and the possibility of thrombocytopenia and anaphylactic response. This vaccine must not be administered to women who are planning to get pregnant: “Since our physicians are planning to inoculate eight million Ukrainians between the ages of 12 and 29, this can cause serious damage to Ukraine’s gene pool. Unfortunately, no one is investigating the consequences of such inoculations. Even worse, no one is held accountable for complications. Why not use the well- known measles monovalent vaccine? Apparently, there’s an outdated shipment of vaccine that someone is trying to fob off on us. After all, mandatory vaccinations are any vaccine manufacturer’s cherished dream, because they spell big revenues.”

Biologist Tetiana Veberova is also opposed to mandatory vaccinations. She says that immunity that is formed after inoculation does not guarantee 100 percent protection against disease: “This is confirmed by the measles, diphtheria, and TB epidemics that continue to gain ground in Ukraine, and by the numbers of patients with post-vaccination complications that are being hushed up by the medical community, while the diagnosis itself is replaced by another one, usually acute respiratory illness. At the same time, adult diseases are appearing in children. A vaccine is a weakened pathogenic agent, but you can’t make your patient healthy by infecting him with a disease,” says Veberova.

The reason that the Ministry of Health is planning measles and German measles inoculations next spring stems from what Ukraine’s Deputy Chief Health Officer Liudmyla Mukharska describes as the measles epidemic that occurred in 2006 (46,000 cases, including four deaths). She says that if additional vaccinations are not carried out there will be over 90,000 cases in Ukraine in five years. In response to The Day’s request for a comment, the health ministry’s press service cited the need to immunize the population against dangerous infectious diseases. However, the MHU refused to comment on those who are responsible for the post-vaccination complications. The case of the children in Vinnytsia oblast suggests the unhappy answer.

COMMENTARY

Press Service, Ministry of Health of Ukraine

The most effective way to lower the morbidity rate of infectious diseases for which there are special preventive treatment techniques is to develop a specific immunity and build up the body’s lasting defenses against such infections by vaccination. Thanks to preventive inoculations, every year the lives of about four million children are saved throughout the world. Such inoculations cost almost 10 times less than courses of treatment. The 2007 budget allocates over 205 million hryvnias for centralized measures and other vaccination programs. Such funding, along with a vaccination calendar, makes it possible to inoculate Ukrainian children in keeping with European standards.

The number of infections for which vaccines are successfully developed is constantly increasing. The MHU’s normative document (national vaccinations calendar) lists mandatory vaccinations and optimal timeframes. The calendar includes four sections on inoculations by age groups, bills of health, vaccinations according to epidemic indications, and recommended vaccinations. A list of infections subject to age-group inoculations has been determined: tuberculosis, poliomyelitis, whooping cough, diphtheria, tetanus, measles, parotiditis, German measles, Hepatitis B, and hemophilic infection (since 2006).

Unfortunately, because of their worries about complications, some parents have an unjustified fear of inoculations for themselves and their children. This is explained by the widespread belief that any post-vaccination health problems are the result of such inoculations. It has been scientifically proven and demonstrated that vaccinations reduce the risks of complications to a minimum, compared to those that arise after an infectious disease.

An analysis of the results of monitoring the side effects of vaccines in Ukraine shows that the rate of post- vaccination reactions and complications is considerably lower than that established by the World Health Organization. A series of coordinated preventive measures, including modern top-quality vaccines, the observance of all inoculation, vaccine transportation, and storage regulations, helps reduce the rate of post-vaccination reactions to a minimum.

Inoculations against measles and German measles are done once a year, then six years later. In order to develop a general immunity, it is necessary to inoculate 95 percent of the population. The WHO has allocated $5.3 billion for this project.