Author: Jay Wile

Dr. Wile,

I applaud your courage and conviction, and am deeply thankful that you have publicly taken a stand to present the truth regarding vaccines. If I may, I would like to tell you why this is an important issue for our family.

My daughter and husband went to Russia for a missions trip in the summer of 2001. My daughter was 14. One of the jobs they had on the trip was to work with children starting AWANA clubs. They worked with over 350 children, some of them street children. When Emily returned home, she felt fine, but in a few weeks she began to cough. There was no fever, no runny nose, no anything – except this nagging and worsening cough. She couldn’t sleep. I would find her, blue and gagging, hanging over the bathroom sink at night.

Then, our good old pediatrician – God bless his heart – came up with the answer. In looking through her past records, he discovered that due to a reaction to her 2 month old vaccinations, she had never received the vaccination for pertussis after that. In other words, my daughter had whooping cough.

This story gets worse. Because she had babysat for a cousin, who was only 2 months old and unvaccinnated, the baby came down with whooping cough. My mother, who lived with us at the time, was 83 and had had whooping cough 74 years before – she also came down with it. And, both of my boys came down with it as well.

The difference in the case of pertussis my boys had (who were vaccinated) and my daughter (unprotected) was startling and completely convincing. Emily struggled with pertussis for over 12 weeks. She coughed up blood, she turned blue – unable to breath because she couldn’t stop coughing. Each breath was a whooping, yelping struggle for air. There was a period of about 10 days  at the peak – where she absolutely coughed 24 hours a day. She was using an inhaler to try to expand the bronchioles, and was on medication that didn’t really help. The boys had a really bad cough for three or four weeks, but even the asthmatic one never made me pray for his life like I did for Emily’s on those long nights.

Dr. Wile, the medical community has forgotten how to even test for pertussis. My mother, my daughter and my little nephew all went to the lab for testing, nobody knew what to do or how to document this. I found out through research on the internet (at European sites!) that they weren’t even testing correctly. What a nightmare. But, my daughter did recover, and is fine. As pertussis incidences rise, it scares me to think what a horrible awakening waits for these people who purposefully choose not to protect their children. Thank you for trying to set the record straight.

Cara Shelton

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Note: Mrs. Shelton is not a medical doctor and does not dispense medical advice. She is a mother who understands by experience how important it is to vaccinate her children. Please consult a board-certified medical doctor before making any medical decisions for yourself or your family.

Our fourth child, Katie, was born about the time we started to homeschool in the summer of 1998. I wasn’t totally convinced not to vaccinate, but many of the people we spent time with talked about the dangers of vaccines. I remember being impressed with the logic of one argument that we were essentially injecting poison & disease into our children’s bloodstreams as well as not allowing the natural antibodies that God created to accumulate and build up on their own.

In 1999, Katie was 13 months old and suffered a febrile seizure a week after the DPaT shot. It was a very traumatic experience! I remember carrying my blue baby upstairs, feeling like everything was in SLOW motion. The thought, “She’s not going to make it” was so prevalent as I reached the top of the stairs and placed my baby in my husbands arms. Yet, he quickly did CPR and she started breathing again. Shortly thereafter, the ambulance arrived and took my baby to the ER where they proceeded to poke and prod and try to figure out WHY this baby had a seizure and stopped breathing. After spending the night, NOT sleeping, in the hospital, watching my sleeping baby’s every move and breath, and full of fear of what had caused this horrible problem, I began to wonder if it was the vaccines. The next morning the doctor said that was a very RARE possibility and not to give it another thought. Needless to say, that didn’t satisfy my concerns and we changed doctors.

Over the next few years, we decided NOT to do any more shots for our next 3 children and found out Katie had LOTS of food allergies. I did little research about the hazards of vaccines, but mainly based my decision to not vaccinate off the reports of others who had also decided not to do immunizations. Our pediatrician was very patient with us, but constantly reminded me of the need and safety of immunizations. He did agree it would probably be best for Katie not to receive any more vaccines, but the other children wouldn’t necessarily react just because of Katie’s one time possible immunization seizure. Only God knows for sure what caused Katie’s seizure, but the decision to not immunize came under great scrutiny in September 2004.

Our seventh baby, Emily, came down with a cough when she was nine months old. I have another child with asthma, so I didn’t worry too much. I just gave her a few breathing treatments and figured the changing seasons was causing her to have a cough. Yet, after a week the cough wasn’t improving. By the second week I began to get concerned because the sporadic breathing treatments and over the counter meds weren’t working and the cough seemed to intensify. The doctor seemed to think it was just weather/asthma related, and told me to keep doing what I was doing. Yet, that night a friend commented that the cough reminded her of when her son had whooping cough. The next day I called the doctor back and asked if Pertussis was a possibility since we did not have any immunizations. They quickly put my fears to rest and said it was very unlikely and to keep doing what the doctor had recommended.

We had another sleepless night, with the cough lasting for very long extended periods. I knew it whatever it was, it was serious. My baby would turn so red trying to catch her breath in between these horrible coughing spells. By this time there was a definite “whoop” sound after each cough. I decided we had to go back and see the doctor as soon as possible.

We went to the early morning sick clinic in anticipation of them relieving our fears of Pertussis, only to have the entire family given a state mandated five day quarantine and placed on antibiotics. The doctor only had to hear Emily cough once to decide it must be Pertussis. I was in shock! What did this mean? Was my baby going to die? They quickly took a culture from the back of Emily’s nasal passage and rushed us off to the x-ray lab to see if there were any complications or possible problems.

Within moments of arriving home, the health department called and asked a ton of questions about each child’s symptoms, activities, and contacts over the 3 weeks prior to Emily even starting to cough. It became clear this was a very serious issue that not only affected our family, but our entire community. It was very tedious and time consuming to relate all that information since we are a very active family. Practically our entire church was quarantined because so many people had held Emily during that time period. We were then rushed back to the lab to have all the children that had even a slight cough to get a nose swab culture before taking their first round of antibiotics. We then settled in for a long weekend wait!

The health department continued to call several times a day to check on Emily and see if anyone else had developed symptoms. Also, they were continuing to try to track down anyone we’d had any contact with. At one point I remember explaining to the nurse why we didn’t immunize and expecting her to make me feel guilty. She was very kind in stating we all make decisions based on what we believe is best. She didn’t blame or condemn us for our decision.

Finally, Tuesday morning we got the call that Emily’s culture was positive. The next day they called to say our five year old also tested positive. He had a cough, but it never developed into as bad a whoop as the baby. Thankfully, because Emily was over 6 months old when she contracted Pertussis, she did not have to be hospitalized from the disease and recovered after several months of coughing. Five months after the disease, she still has a horrible cough whenever she gets a little under the weather.

Throughout the entire quarantine, I spent many hours in prayer questioning our original decision. I had believed it was NOT safe to vaccinate and yet, now I was confronted with the fact that it was NOT safe to NOT vaccinate. Either way, we were taking a risk. Our entire community was affected by our decision to not vaccinate! I realized I had to face my fears and TRUST that God would take care of my children. I came to grips with what that meant for me: I had to trust that the vaccines would work for my children’s good like they are supposed to.

We had to wait two months for Emily’s cough to subside enough before getting her first set of immunizations. It was a pretty emotional day with five of my seven children all lined up getting their shots caught up. As they got ready to give Katie her shots, I was shaking. I asked the nurse for confirmation as to which shots Katie had received prior to her seizure in 1999. They confirmed it was the DPaT. I just wasn’t ready to go through that again. The memory was too real. She got her MMR, but I decided NOT to do the DTaP again…just to be safe.

It’s been 3 months. There were NO adverse reactions whatsoever to any of the vaccines. It’s time to go back in for the next round of shots on all the children that were born after Katie. I’ve been waiting for many different reasons—a move to a new town, baby getting sick, new insurance, etc, etc.

While researching some questions online about our science curriculum with Apologia, I came across Dr. Wile’s research on vaccinations. I couldn’t stop reading. I clicked from one article to the next with continued amazement and confirmation that we’d made the right decision. All the lingering fears I’d had were relieved and dispelled as I read the research. All my pediatrician’s counsel over the past 6 years was repeated for me from many different sources. Even the concerns over Katie’s seizure were relieved as I realized it was probably just the anti-vaccination hype that kept me from seeing Katie’s food allergies could have been the cause of the seizure.

I realized I had bought into the anti-vaccination theory without any research or proof. I’d heard of bad immunization cases— of people who believed their autistic child was damaged because of vaccines or their child died because of their immunizations. Fear had motivated me to believe that vaccines were bad.

I can’t make the decision for any other family to vaccinate their children. It is a very personal decision we must each look at carefully. Yet, for me, I realized my decision was not based on facts or research, but fear. God says, “Perfect love casts out all fear.”(1 John 4:18) Also, “He has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind.” (2 Timothy 1:7). I embraced that Word and chose to trust the One that loves my children even more than I do. It is amazing how He continues to confirm to me that the decision to immunize is a wise one.

Kathy Locke

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Note: Mrs. Locke is not a medical doctor and does not dispense medical advice. She is a mother who understands by experience how important it is to vaccinate her children. Please consult a board-certified medical doctor before making any medical decisions for yourself or your family.

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I recently received the following from a homeschooling mother. It shows what happens when people believe the lies of the anti-vaccination movement:

“Thank you for your vaccine stance and research! I am a mother who had heard some “horror stories” and was wary of vaccines. As a result, my 3 year-old daughter (now 7) went deaf in one ear due to complications of chickenpox. I have since immunized my younger son (& dear daughter has been immunized against all other known diseases for which vaccines were appropriate)”

The mother (Tammy) hopes that her experience will keep others from believing those same lies.

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Dr. Wile is not a medical doctor. He is a nuclear chemist. As a result, he does not dispense medical advice. He simply educates the public about scientific issues. Please consult a board-certified medical doctor before making any medical decisions for yourself or your family.

Of the many lies told by anti-vaccination advocates, this is one of the worst, because it hits on a real moral issue. However, anyone with a modicum of training in biology will tell you that it is impossible for vaccines (or any other injected medicine) to contain human tissue. The reason is simple: if you are injected with anything containing tissue from another person, your body will immediately recognize it as an invader and begin attacking it. This immune response is often quite radical and can easily lead to death! This is why blood from a donor to a recipient must be carefully matched before the recipient can receive it. Thus, there is no human tissue of any kind in vaccines. Unfortunately, the anti-vaccination movement (and even some naive pro- life groups) will try to convince the uninformed that vaccines contain tissue from aborted babies and that abortions must be continually done to supply this tissue to the “evil” drug companies. This is, of course, a bald-faced lie. Unfortunately, this lie is particularly evil, in that it targets a person’s morally correct view that abortion is murder.

For any lie to be successful, there must be a grain of truth in it. This lie is no exception. There is a tangential connection between some vaccines and abortion. The hepatitis A vaccine, the rubella portion of the MMR vaccine, the chicken pox vaccine, and the shingles vaccine all contain viruses (weakened or inactivated) that were grown in human cells. A virus must be given a medium in which to propagate. Many vaccines use viruses that can propagate in several kinds of mammal cells, but some viruses are so specific that they can only propagate in human cells. The viruses used in the above-listed vaccines are that specific. Thus, they must be grown in human cells.

Where do the vaccine companies get the cells for these vaccines? They get them from companies like Coriell Cell Repositories, 403 Haddon Avenu, Camden, New Jersey 08103, 800-752-3805. This company has many cell lines, which are cultures of self-perpetuating cells. Each culture of cells is continually reproducing, making more cells. Those cells are sold to researchers, drug companies, and other medical technology firms. The specific cell lines used in vaccines are the MRC-5 and WI-38 cell lines¹, and they have been supplying medical research of all types for more than 45 years. Where do these cell lines come from? That’s where the grain of truth in this lie comes from. Both of these cell lines were cultured from cells taken from two abortions, one (MRC-5) that was performed in September,1966² and one (WI-38) that was performed in July, 1962³.

Now that you have learned the facts, we can discuss the moral issues involved. Is it immoral to use these cell lines to make vaccines? The answer is definitely not. You might think that the cell lines are somehow “tainted” because they come from abortions; however, think about it for a moment. Abortion is murder. A person who claims to be a physician purposefully kills an innocent, unprotected person. That is evil, and there is no doubt about it. However, let’s consider another murder, shall we? Let’s suppose one of your loved ones was shot in a robbery attempt. You rush your loved one to the hospital, but it is too late. Your loved one dies. This is another murder, and it is just as evil. Suppose that the doctors rush in and tell you that there is a young boy in the next room who needs a heart immediately, or he will die. The doctors have analyzed your loved one’s blood and found that your loved one is a perfect match for the dying boy. Would you donate your loved one’s heart to the boy? I certainly would. It would be a tragedy that my loved one was murdered, but at least this would be a “silver lining” in that dark cloud. At least my loved one’s death would mean that a young boy could live.

The cells that were taken from the two aborted babies more than 35 years ago are much like my loved one’s heart. Two innocent babies were killed. However, they were able to donate something that has been used not only to make vaccines, but in many medical research projects over the years. Thus, these cells have been saving millions of lives for almost two generations! Although the babies were clearly murdered, the fact that their cells have been saving lives is at least a silver lining in the dark cloud of their tragic murder.

It is important to note that Federal law is quite specific in the matter of donated fetal tissue. The law does not allow for an abortion to be performed for the purpose of donating tissue, and the law even explicitly states that the abortion procedure cannot be changed in order to collect the tissue⁴. It also prohibits the baby’s family or the doctor from profiting from the donation⁵. Thus, these cells were truly donated, just as any organ might be donated. If a person is an organ donor and he or she is murdered, it is not immoral for you to use those organs. Once again, at least something good will come out of the murder if those organs are used.

Now that you know the facts, you can see why I consider this lie so devious. Anti-vaccination advocates play on a person’s proper moral indignation about abortion, claiming that if a person gets vaccinated, he or she is supporting the abortion industry. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Whether or not you get vaccinated, the same number of abortions will be performed, as abortions are not necessary to make new vaccines. In addition, you are actually dishonoring the memories of those two precious babies if you refuse vaccination, because you are refusing the one good thing that has come from their murder. At the same time, you are putting your life and the lives of your loved ones in jeopardy by refusing one of the greatest protections that medicine has ever developed! How could anyone call himself pro-life if he dishonors the memory of those who have been murdered while risking the lives of those he loves?

Interestingly enough, a June 9, 2005 statement from the Pontifical Academy for Life (the Vatican’s official voice in the area of abortion/right-to-life) comes to essentially the same conclusion. Even though some organizations have mischaracterized the document as condemning the use of such vaccines⁶, the document, in fact, says quite the opposite. It says that when an alternative vaccine which has no connection whatsoever to abortion is available, parents should use it. There is no question that this is the moral thing to do. In addition, when there is no alternative available, parents should object by demonstration, etc. so as to force manufactures to come up with an alternative.

However, as for actually using the vaccines that have no alternatives, the document clearly says that parents can do so in order to protect their children and the community. The English translation of the document (originally written in Italian) says, “As regards the vaccines without an alternative, the need to contest so that others may be prepared must be reaffirmed, as should be the lawfulness of using the former in the meantime insomuch as is necessary in order to avoid a serious risk not only for one’s own children but also, and perhaps more specifically, for the health conditions of the population as a whole – especially for pregnant women.”⁷ Note what this official Roman Catholic document says. It says that parents should CONTEST the vaccines so as to force the manufactures to find new ways to make them, but UNTIL THAT HAPPENS, parents can still use the vaccines that have no alternative, because it will allow them to avoid serious risk to their children, and more importantly, to the population as a whole. The moral good done by the vaccine, then, outweighs any moral evil when it comes to actually USING the vaccine. The statement clearly says the MAKING of the vaccine is bad, but the USE of it is not. In fact, the document specifically mentions rubella as something that should be vaccinated against, even though there is no alternative vaccine – “Moreover, we find, in such a case, a proportional reason, in order to accept the use of these vaccines in the presence of the danger of favouring the spread of the pathological agent, due to the lack of vaccination of children. This is particularly true in the case of vaccination against German measles.”⁷

Because some organizations have tried to mischaracterize this statement, the Catholic News Service (CNS) produced an article that quotes Msgr. Jacques Suaudeau, a medical doctor and official at the Pontifical Academy for Life, as saying, “If the health of the child or of the whole population [is at risk], the parents should accept having their kid be vaccinated if there is no alternative.” ⁸ Because some organizations clearly do not like the Roman Catholic church officially saying that the use of these vaccines is morally acceptable, they have asked the Pontifical Academy for Life to change its statement. However, CNS reports that Msgr. Jacques Suaudeau said the document “could not be changed” because it accurately reflected church teaching.⁸ Despite what you might read, then, even the Vatican supports the use of vaccines that have a tangential relationship to abortion, as long as no alternative vaccines are available.

NOTE: A reader suggested that it would be helpful to present a list of alternatives to the vaccines discussed here. If you feel that you cannot use vaccines that have a tangential relationship to abortion, please follow this link. It is from a well-known pro-life group and discusses the issues in an even-handed manner. More importantly, it contains a list of the vaccines that do have a tangential relationship to abortion and the licensed alternatives to them.

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References

1. Merck and Co, VAQTA (Hepatitis A), M-M-R-II, VARIVAX product inserts 908-423-1000; GLAXO Smithkline Heptatitis A vaccine product insert, 888-825-5249
2. Coriell Cell Repositories – Product AG05965
3. Coriell Cell Repositories – Product AG06814
4. Public Law 103-43; June 10, 1993, National Institutes Of Health Revitalization Act Of 1993, Title I – General Provisions Regarding Title IV Of Public Health Service Act, Part G, Sec. 498A: c-4
5. Public Law 103-43; June 10, 1993, National Institutes Of Health Revitalization Act Of 1993, Title I – General Provisions Regarding Title IV Of Public Health Service Act, Part G, Sec. 498B: a
6. http://www.cogforlife.org/vaticanrelease.htm
7. http://www.immunize.org/concerns/vaticandocument.htm
8. http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0504240.htm

Dr. Wile is not a medical doctor. He is a nuclear chemist. As a result, he does not dispense medical advice. He simply educates the public about scientific issues. Please consult a board-certified medical doctor before making any medical decisions for yourself or your family.

The theory of evolution has damaged science in many ways. It has reduced the progress of science, trapped scientists within an inconsistent framework, and promoted a dogmatic view of science that squelches opposing views. It has also had one other effect: It has reduced the stature of science in the public’s eye. After all, if so many scientists are willing to believe a theory that is opposed by the vast majority of the data, how can you believe anything that scientists say? Many anti-vaccination advocates prey on that perception. They claim that a belief in the safety and efficacy of vaccines is much like a belief in evolution – nothing more than a desire to stay within the “mainstream” of science.

That claim ignores one very important difference between vaccines and evolution: direct, repeatable experiments. Simply put, you cannot put the theory of evolution to the test with an experiment. You can look at data such as fossils, radioactive decay, etc., and then you can INTERPRET those data, but you cannot do any direct experimentation testing the theory. Since your only option is to INTERPRET data, any conclusion that you reach will be very tentative, because interpretation of indirect data is prone to all sorts of problems. Your world view will color the interpretation; the interpretation will be built on many untestable assumptions; and the very data you are using may not even be relevant to the theory. As a result, no matter how careful you are, you may very well be wrong in your conclusion. This is certainly the case when studying the theory of evolution. The data you are studying are indirect, so any conclusion that you reach must be very tentative.

This is definitely not the case when you are studying vaccines (or any other medical procedure), because you can do direct experimentation to determine their safety and efficacy. For example, before a vaccine can be licensed, it must go through several levels of controlled studies. First, it must be tested on animals. A group of animals is given the vaccine, and another group (the control group) is not. They are all then exposed to the germ that causes the disease. If the rate of the disease is significantly lower in the vaccinated animals than in the unvaccinated animals, and if there are no undesirable health effects in the vaccinated animals as compared to the unvaccinated animals, then the vaccine can be tested on human volunteers.

In the first level of human tests, a small group (usually less than 100) of volunteers is given the vaccine. If, over the next few months, there are no adverse effects noted in the small group compared to the population at large, then the vaccine can move on to the next level of clinical testing. In that level, a larger group (usually several hundred volunteers) is given the vaccine, and they are followed for up to two years. The rate of the disease in the testing group is compared to the rate for the nation as a whole. In addition, the rates of several health maladies in the testing group are compared to the rates of those maladies for the nation as a whole. If the rate of the disease is lower in the testing group as compared to the nation as a whole, and if the rates of the health maladies are no higher than the corresponding rates of the nation as a whole, then the vaccine is allowed to go to the final level of testing.

In the final level of testing, a huge group (typically several thousand) of volunteers is given the vaccine, and their health is tracked for several years. Once again, the incidence of the disease in the test group is compared to that of the nation as a whole, and the incidence of several health maladies in the test group are also compared to those of the nation as a whole. In order for the vaccine to be licensed, the rate of the disease against which the vaccine works must be significantly lower in the testing group than in the nation as a whole. In addition, the incidence of health maladies in the testing group must be no higher than that of the nation as a whole.

Notice, then, how vaccines are studied. They are put through direct experiments. First, animals are used. Then, humans are used in three separate kinds of direct experiments. The nation as a whole acts as a control group (those who make up the statistics did not get the vaccine), and those who get the vaccine are compared to that control group. The vaccine can only be licensed if the group that gets the vaccine has a lower incidence of the disease and no more health maladies than the control group. This is the basic scientific method.

In addition to all of these studies, follow-up studies are done once the vaccine is being used in the general population. Groups of people who get the vaccine are constantly compared to groups of people who (by choice or religious conviction) do not get the vaccine. In order for the vaccine to continue to be used, the group getting the vaccine must always have a significantly lower incidence of the disease as compared to those who do not get the vaccine, and they must have no greater rates of health maladies than those who do not get the vaccine. These are direct studies. There is no interpretation involved.

Compare this to the theory of evolution. In the study of evolution, there are no direct experiments. You can look at the fossil record, for example, but you must first assume how those fossils were made. Were they the result of slow accumulation over millions of years or fast, catastrophic processes? There seems to be evidence both ways. I think that the preponderance of evidence favors fast, catastrophic processes, but many scientists would disagree with me on that point. As a result, their interpretation of the fossil record will be different than mine, leading them to a completely different conclusion.

When studying vaccines, we need not make such assumptions. We directly compare those who get the vaccines to those who do not. There is no room for interpretation – if the testing group has a lower incidence of the disease than the control group, then the vaccine is effective. If not, the vaccine is not effective. If the testing group has the same (or lower) rates of health maladies as compared to the control, then the vaccine is safe. If not, the vaccine is not safe.

Because the data related to vaccines is direct, the conclusion that the standard vaccines are safe and effective is a solid, scientific conclusion. As a result, the vast majority of scientists, including young-earth creationists, agree that vaccines are safe and effective. For example, one of the leading young-earth creationist groups in the world is Creation Ministries International. On their website, they have posted a very positive discussion on vaccines. Some of their readers were obviously upset by this, and they wrote in to complain. The scientist at Answers in Genesis had very little patience with them. In addition, I work with a wide variety of young-earth scientists who have various degrees in the life sciences. When I speak with them about the anti-vaccination movement, they all shake their heads. They are familiar with the anti-vaccination movement, but they are also familiar with the science behind vaccines. As a result, they are amazed that anyone could believe the anti-vaccination movement.

Now, does the very fact that most young-earth creationists agree that vaccines are safe and effective prove the case? Of course not. However, the point is that if any scientist is willing to buck the “mainstream” of scientific thought, it would be a young-earth creationist. However, the vast majority agree with the scientific mainstream when it comes to vaccinations. Why? Because the data are so clear on the subject.

Probably the best admonition to Christians comes from Creation Ministries International. In their response to anti-vaccination advocates, they state:

But we urge people to always check what they read, especially on the Internet where anyone can publish anything. The vast majority of websites do not have the checks and balances by highly qualified referees as the CMI site tries to apply.

We also remind Christians that CMI is primarily pro-Bible, especially on its teaching that death is the result of sin. Our anti-evolution/millions of years stance is the corollary of this, not the end in itself. By extension, we are not anti-establishment for its own sake. We oppose the ‘establishment’ only where they conflict with the Bible. So we urge Christians to ensure that their stance comes from being pro-Bible, not a knee-jerk anti-establishmentism.

I truly pray that every Christian takes that admonition to heart!

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Dr. Wile is not a medical doctor. He is a nuclear chemist. As a result, he does not dispense medical advice. He simply educates the public about scientific issues. Please consult a board-certified medical doctor before making any medical decisions for yourself or your family.