Vaccine Pushed on Infants Causes Drug-Resistant Pneumonia: JAMA Study

A drug-resistant strain of pneumonia is the result of a highly-praised vaccine routinely given to infants three times in their first year of life, according to a study that will be published in tomorrow’s Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The timing of this study is particularly interesting, as it comes shortly after the replacement of the heptavalent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV-7) with an updated version, PCV-13.

The study’s introduction reads:

The rapid increase in multiresistant serotype 19A as a cause of invasive and respiratory pneumococcal disease has been associated in time with the widespread implementation of 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccination (PCV-7) inseveral countries. Because spontaneous fluctuations in time and antibiotic selective pressure may have induced this serotype 19A increase, controlled studies are needed to assess the role of PCV-7.

The goal of this study was to see if suspicions of a connection between the use of PCV-7 vaccinations has caused the increase in drug-resistant pneumonias. The results are impressive. There can be no reasonable doubt that pneumonia vaccinations are creating a new, more virulent and less treatable form of the disease. Now that it’s been released, what can stop it?

The authors also point out that the full effects of PCV-7 on development of the drug-resistant bacteria may not be fully defined by the study, since it focused on only the first three PCV-7 vaccinations, ignoring that the series consists of a fourth. They note, also, that their sampling method may have minimized the real story—that more drug-resistant bacteria may have emerged than they had accounted for.

The Study

Entitled “Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccination and Nasopharyngeal Acquisition of Pneumococcal Serotype 19A Strains”, the study was performed in the Netherlands and funded by the Dutch Ministry of Health. Interestingly, several authors have significant financial ties with Big Pharma. Many of them have received grants from GlaxoSmithKline, Wyeth, Pfizer, Baxter, and Novartis, making the results of this study even more remarkable. However, the lead author, Elske J.M. vanGils, MD, reported no such conflicts.

The study consisted of 1,003 healthy newborns and followed them to age 24 months. The infants were randomly assigned to groups. One group received two doses of PCV-7 at ages 2 and 4 months, the second group received three doses at ages 2, 4, and 11 months, and the third group was not vaccinated with PCV-7.

At the end of the study, 16.2% of the three-dose group had been found to harbor serotype 19A bacteria. The unvaccinated group had a 9.2% rate, and the two-dose group had a 13.2% rate.

Will the Replacement Vaccine Improve Matters?

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recently replaced PCV-7 with PCV-13, and those children who have already received PCV-7 are being pressed to also take the new version.

There is little reason to believe that the new vaccine will improve matters. It is, in fact, more…

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