Some folks got an introduction to Taylor Winterstein when she planned to take her $200 a person anti-vax tour across Australia and New Zealand earlier this year.
What’s wrong with that?
These are all places that are dealing with very large measles outbreaks…
Who is Taylor Winterstein?
And Samoa.
We shouldn’t forget that Samoa was on her International Tour.
Catchy slogan, but what about the choice of those who are put at risk because they are too young to be vaccinated or who can’t be vaccinated?
You likely remember Samoa because of the vaccine tragedy that happened there. Two infants died after nurses mixed up the diluent for the MMR vaccine with a powerful anesthetic.
Vaccines were already halted in Samoa, but that didn’t keep Taylor Winterstein from planning to go and further scare folks away from vaccinating and protecting their kids.
And where are we now?
Winterstein actually went to the Truth About Cancer event, which is basically set up to film “free” seminars that push natural treatments for cancer that they later sell to folks for only $499.
While Taylor Winterstein and her family were in California, meeting Andy Wakefield, there has been an epidemic of measles in Samoa, where at least one unvaccinated infant has already died.
“From 1 January 2019 to 10 October
2019 there have been 1742 confirmed cases of measles notified across
New Zealand. 1416 of these confirmed cases are in the Auckland region.”
2019 NZ measles outbreak information
There has also been an awful lot of measles in New Zealand, which was also on her little tour. Two unborn babies have died during these outbreaks, and there are also reports of at least three hospitalizations for encephalitis.
No one expects to hear stories of kids dying after being vaccinated. Fortunately, these types of tragedies are very, very rare.
Still, even one is too many when it might have been prevented. After all, that’s why we vaccinate our kids in the first place. To protect them from life-threatening vaccine preventable diseases.
A Toddler Has Died After Being Vaccinated in Cuba
The Ministry of Health in Cuba released a statement a few days after her death:
“Between October 7 and 8 of this year, three one-year-old children were diagnosed with an adverse event associated with vaccination with PRS, which protects against Mumps, Rubella and Measles, this is applied according to official scheme to children one and six years old.
All had been vaccinated on October 7 at the “Betancourt Neninger” Polyclinic in the municipality of Habana del Este, province of Havana, and immediately after symptoms appeared, they were admitted and received medical attention by professionals of high scientific level in the Pediatric Hospitals ” Borrás Marfán ”and Centro Habana.
Through the active research carried out on all children vaccinated in that Health Area, two more children were detected with symptoms, which motivated their admission.
Painfully on October 9 at night, the one-year-old girl Paloma Domínguez Caballero dies, admitted to the “Borrás Marfán” Hospital as a result of complications. The remaining four children remain admitted: one with intensive attention, which is stable and the others evolve favorably.
The system of active surveillance of the events associated with vaccination carried out in the country has not identified any other children with symptoms.
The PRS vaccine has been used for years in Cuba, imported from India, is endorsed by the World Health Organization and certified by the Center for State Control of Medicines, Equipment and Medical Devices (CECMED).
A Commission of the Ministry of Public Health investigates the causes that caused this unfortunate event.”
Official Note from the Ministry of Public Health on adverse event associated with vaccination with PRS (computer translation)
So what happened?
Tragically, either because of errors or contamination, vaccines can rarely cause people to get sick, either if:
a reconstituted vaccine was used much after six hours – live vaccines can quickly become contaminated if they are kept and used for too long a time
vaccine diluents were mixed up – some vaccines need to be mixed before use and vaccination tragedies can occur when a dangerous medication is used instead of a vaccine’s standard diluent
vaccines were improperly handled – breaking the cold chain – or allowed to expire
In Samoa, the recent tragedy in which two toddlers died, we know that the vaccine diluent was mixed up with a powerful anesthetic.
It doesn’t sound like a diluent mixup happened in Cuba though.
“The mother told the news portal CiberCuba that the daughter’s arm began to swell the same day she was vaccinated. Then the vomits arrived. Less than 24 hours later I was already in intensive care, from where I did not come out alive again.”
Vacuna en mal estado suministrada en Cuba podría haber dejado 25 niños en estado de gravedad
With reports that the vaccines were possibly expired and the child getting sick later in the day, with swelling in her arm, it is more likely that there was some contamination, maybe in a vaccine vial itself.
A 10 dose vial of MMR from the Serum Institute of India Pvt. Ltd.
Which vaccine?
The report says that it was the PRS vaccine – Parotiditis, Rubéola, and Sarampion – or MMR, which is usually available in 5 or 10 multi-dose vials when one dose vials aren’t available.
It was imported from India, which makes many of the vaccines that are used throughout the world, but any contamination likely would have occurred well after it was manufactured and shipped to Cuba.
In all of these cases, there is typically nothing inherently wrong with the vaccine itself.
“Cuba, a relatively poor and small country (population 11.2 million), has managed to bring about remarkable achievements in health in the past 30 years despite difficult fiscal restraints and limited resources.”
MacDonald et al on Infectious Disease Management: Lessons from Cuba
Interestingly, Cuba actually makes most of their other immunizations.
So why would they be using expired vaccines?
Was it a mistake?
Did someone use a leftover vial that had become contaminated with bacteria? Were the vaccines not refrigerated properly? Is it an isolated issue or part of a bigger breakdown in their healthcare system?
With four other sick kids, the use of a contaminated leftover vial that was part of an original 10 dose vial becomes one possible scenario.
We might get some answers if the vaccine vials had not been thrown away after they were used, and are still available for testing.
In Chapias, Mexico, after two infants died in 2015 after getting multiple vaccines, a vial was found to be contaminated with the Staphylococcus hominis bacteria.
A few years later, in 2017, 15 children died in South Sudan when unrefrigerated vaccine was mixed with a syringe that was reused over and over for four days and given to kids by untrained workers.
Again, these are very rare and isolated cases. Remember that billions of doses of vaccines are given each year without problems, saving millions of lives.
Hopefully we will soon learn what really happened to these children in Cuba, especially as that will hopefully help to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Most importantly, don’t let these very rare tragedies scare you away from vaccinating and protecting your kids.
“The Cuban government has confirmed that five children suffered severe reactions and one of them — a 1-year-old girl — died after receiving a vaccine. The serum came from the same company in India that produced vaccines linked to the deaths of three other children following inoculations administered in Cuba in 2002.”
Child dies in Cuba after receiving vaccine made in India. It’s not the first time
We should remember what happened following the tragedy in Samoa. All vaccinations were unnecessarily suspended in the country for a time and MMR vaccinations were suspended for nine months!
What came next?
A measles epidemic that has already seen the death of one toddler!
The death of the girl in Cuba is a terrible tragedy, but folks shouldn’t make it any worse. There is almost certainly nothing wrong with the vaccines from India or any other vaccines in Cuba or anywhere else.
That translates into about 500,000 reported cases each year. Technically, it was likely closer to about 4 million cases in the United States each year, but either way, we know that lots of people got measles.
Then we got a measles vaccine and not surprisingly, cases of measles dropped. Except for a small uptick from 1989 to 1991, we were on our way to eliminating measles.
And we did, in 2000, when the endemic spread of measles was eliminated in the United States. From then on, all measles cases were imported.
In 2004, we had an historic low of just 37 measles cases in the United States!
Will we ever have fewer than 37 cases in a year?
And from 2000 to 2012, we averaged just 87 measles cases each year, which is far below the US average of 283 cases we are now seeing.
No, measles never completely left. It was not eradicated.
But it is certainly making a comeback and soaring to levels that we haven’t seen since 1992!
Just think about it… We had 37 cases of measles in 2004 and this year, we often had 37 cases in a single week!
The California Assembly Appropriations Committee votes Friday on SB276. Today anti-vaccine folks in Californians who oppose this bill gathered at the state capitol encouraging legislators to continue to allow doctors to write fake medical exemptions.
There was plenty of violent imagery on display at the V for Vaccine rally. How many times did RFK, Jr mention guns and homicide?
“They are saying that… any child who is unvaccinated has ever passed measles to another child in a school since 1963. No evidence.”
Robert Kennedy, JR
What?
Although the first measles vaccine was introduced in 1963, it took some time before measles was brought under control and the endemic spread finally eliminated in the United States (2000).
Who was his pediatrician?
No evidence indeed!
He goes on about the MMR being a failed vaccine and that no one should be worried about the unvaccinated if they are vaccinated and protected.
Kennedy even claimed that he read a protocol from Johns Hopkins and not only does it not say anything about immunocompromised people staying away from the unvaccinated, but he says it warns about shedding from the recently vaccinated!
“The increased risk of disease in the pediatric population, in part because of increasing rates of vaccine refusal and in some circumstances more rapid loss of immunity, increases potential exposure of immunodeficient children. The immunosuppressed subject is particularly at risk in crowded living conditions because of the spread of these diseases by aerosol droplets or through the oral-fecal route.”
Medical Advisory Committee of the Immune Deficiency Foundation. Recommendations for live viral and bacterial vaccines in immunodeficient patients and their close contacts
I don’t know what protocol from Johns Hopkins he might have read, but maybe he should have read the Medical Advisory Committee of the Immune Deficiency Foundation. Recommendations for live viral and bacterial vaccines in immunodeficient patients and their close contacts. It clearly warns about the risks of being around someone who is unvaccinated.
Next up was Joshua Coleman.
“These are all undisputed facts. Everyone should know these things.”
4 Billion Paid by Us Government for Vaccine Injuries and Deaths – yes, $4,060,857,713.42 has been paid by the Vaccine Court for 6,355 compensated claims for vaccine injuries since 1989, during which time billions of doses of vaccines have been given
Vaccines Are Made With Aborted Fetal Cells – a cell line whose descendant cells has been copied over and over for over 50 years and are removed before the final vaccine is produced.
US Law Classifies Vaccines As Unavoidably Unsafe – but that legal term doesn’t in any way mean that vaccines are dangerous or extra risky!
Live Virus Vaccines Shed and Spread – while some live vaccines can shed, shedding is not the problem that these folks make it out to be, often going so far as describing a shedding season among other things
“My concern with this bill, is that it’s going to take every exemption I’ve ever done under those guidelines, which are not restricted to CDC contraindications – under those old guidelines, they can now review every single one of my exemptions I’ve done and disqualify each and every one of them and kick those kids out of school. They are sort of retroactively changing the guidelines – so all of the exemptions that I’ve ever done, and other physicians have ever done, and to me that’s a very very concerning precedence for a government to go back like that and negate years of medical care that’s been done legally and properly under the guidelines of 277.”
Bob Sears SB 276 Assembly Health Committee Testimony
SB276 is needed because too many doctors took advantage of SB277.
The Catholic Church teaches that it is lawful to get vaccinated to protect “our children, public health, and the common good” and that we have a “moral obligation to protect the life and health of their children and those around them.”
