Aluminum in vaccines linked to skin lesions, autoimmune disorders and brain inflammation

11/03/2015 / By Julie Wilson

Aluminum hydroxide, a dominant metal-based adjuvant used in vaccines, may be causing a myriad of chronic diseases in the vaccinated population, including skin lesions, autoimmune disorders, long-term brain inflammation and neurological complications, according to a new report published in the Journal of Trace Elements of Medicine and Biology.

Aluminum hydroxide and other toxic adjuvants are added to vaccines as a cost-effective way to increase antibody titers using fewer antigens, explains The Sleuth Journal. Antibody titers are used to detect the presence and measure the amount of antibodies within a person’s blood, which indicates the strength of the body’s immune response, according to Healthline.

The new research sheds light on the health effects of using an aluminum-based adjuvant in vaccines, which has been widely accepted as safe by the medical community despite the fact that scientists understand very little about its impact.

Vaccines causing aluminum overload at injection sites

“It is a curious fact of vaccine history that while aluminum hydroxide has been injected into billions of people and has been used for almost one century as the only vaccine adjuvant approved worldwide, its mechanism of action is not fully understood, and is only being investigated with any depth in the past five years,” reports The Sleuth Journal.

Scientists found that aluminum-based adjuvants sometimes cause irritation at the vaccine injection site, contributing to the development of pathogenic diseases including chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), macrophagic myofasciitis (MMF) and subcutaneous pseudolymphoma.

MMF is a skin lesion containing aluminum salts found at vaccine injection sites. Limited research suggests that “MMF may represent a simple marker of vaccination with long-term persistence of aluminium at the injection site and local inflammatory response to it, without other symptoms or consequences,” according to the World Health Organization.

Subcutaneous pseudolymphoma is an inflammatory response to stimuli that simulates a lymphoma (blood cell cancer), but behaves in a benign manner.

CFS affects more than 1 million Americans and is characterized by fatigue that can’t be attributed to other underlying medical conditions. Symptoms of CFS include extreme fatigue, joint paint, memory loss and headaches.

Why toxic vaccine adjuvants pose serious risks

While toxic vaccine adjuvants produce more antibodies, the synthetic response generated by the body’s immune system doesn’t guarantee that they will target the correct antigen, explains The Sleuth Journal, which is “the true measure of vaccine effectiveness;” in fact, “unnaturally stimulated antibodies cross-react with and/or attack self-structures, e.g. myelin basic protein, leading to the break down of immunological self-tolerance, i.e. autoimmunity.”

Aluminum hydroxide induces an enhanced immune response by activating the inflammasome within myeloid cells, which as The Sleuth Journal explains, is “a key immune-mediated activator of the inflammatory response” and is known to cause cell death.

Mounting science suggests aluminum adjuvants present dangerous health risks

Previous research on the impacts of using toxic aluminum adjuvants in vaccines raises similar safety concerns.

A report published last year in the journal Current Medicinal Chemistry describes aluminum as being “an experimentally demonstrated neurotoxin.” While it’s been widely used for more than 90 years, scientists still have a poor understanding about how it works.

Researchers wrote:

There is also a concerning scarcity of data on toxicology and pharmacokinetics of these compounds. In spite of this, the notion that aluminum in vaccines is safe appears to be widely accepted. Experimental research, however, clearly shows that aluminum adjuvants have a potential to induce serious immunological disorders in humans. In particular, aluminum in adjuvant form carries a risk for autoimmunity, long-term brain inflammation and associated neurological complications and may thus have profound and widespread adverse health consequences. In our opinion, the possibility that vaccine benefits may have been overrated and the risk of potential adverse effects underestimated, has not been rigorously evaluated in the medical and scientific community.

Other studies have examined and suggested a link between aluminum-based adjuvants and autism, sudden infant death syndrome and breast cancer.

“Aluminum has no known beneficial function in biology,” says The Sleuth Journal, adding that it’s important “to avoid unnecessary exposures, especially when it concerns the health of our infants and children who are already faced with an ever-increasing body burden of this, and other highly toxic metals.

“It is clear that if we implement the precautionary principle, vaccines which contain this, or any other, highly toxic metal should be avoided at all costs.”

Additional sources:

eMedicine.MedScape.com