Day: January 22, 2023

• In September 2022, The Epoch Times asked the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to release its Proportional Reporting Ratio (PRR) data mining results. The CDC refused. A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request has now forced the release of these data, and they are stunning

• The CDC’s PRR monitoring has identified several hundred safety signals, including for Bell’s palsy, blood clots, pulmonary embolism and death. In individuals aged 18 and older, there are 770 safety signals for different adverse events, and more than 500 of them have a stronger safety signal than myocarditis and pericarditis

• In the 12- to 17-year-old age group there are 96 safety signals, and in the 5- to 11-year-old group there are 66, including myocarditis, pericarditis, ventricular dysfunction, cardiac valve incompetency, pericardial and pleural effusion, chest pain, appendicitis and appendectomies, Kawasaki’s disease and vitiligo

• The proportions of deaths, which were only provided for the 18-plus age group, was 14% for the COVID jabs compared to 4.7% for all other vaccines

• The FDA is also required to perform safety monitoring, using empirical Bayesian data mining. The Epoch Times asked the FDA to release its monitoring results in July 2022 but, like the CDC, the FDA refused, only to admit in December 2022 they’d confirmed the Pfizer shot was linked to pulmonary embolism

In September 2022, The Epoch Times asked the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to release its Proportional Reporting Ratio (PRR) data mining results. PRR

measures how common an adverse event is for a specific drug compared to all the other drugs in the database.

According to the standard operating procedures

for the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), which is run jointly by the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration, the CDC is required to perform these data mining analyses.

Not only did the CDC refuse to release the data, but it also provided false information — twice — in response to The Epoch Times’ questions about the monitoring being performed. As reported by The Epoch Times back in September 2022,

the CDC initially claimed PRR analyses were “outside the agency’s purview” and that no monitoring was being done by them.

Eventually, the agency admitted it was doing PRRs, starting in February 2021, only to later claim they didn’t perform any PRRs until March 2022. The Epoch Times also cited several papers in which the FDA and/or CDC claimed their data mining efforts had come up empty handed.

Now, we find that was all a pack of lies.

In reality, the CDC’s PRR monitoring reveals HUNDREDS of safety signals, including Bell’s palsy, blood clots, pulmonary embolism and death — all of which, according to the rules, require thorough investigation to either confirm or rule out a possible link to the shots. As reported by The Epoch Times in early January 2023:

“The CDC analysis was conducted on adverse events reported from Dec. 14, 2020, to July 29, 2022. The Epoch Times obtained the results through a Freedom of Information Act request after the CDC refused to make the results public …

PRR involves comparing the incidence of a specific adverse event after a specific vaccine to the incidence after all other vaccines. A signal is triggered when three thresholds are met, according to the CDC: a PRR of at least 2, a chi-squared statistic of at least 4, and three or more cases of the event following receipt of the vaccine being analyzed. Chi-squared tests are a form of statistical analysis used to examine data.

The results obtained by The Epoch Times show that there are hundreds of adverse events (AEs) that meet the definition, including serious conditions such as blood clotting in the lungs, intermenstrual bleeding, a lack of oxygen to the heart, and even death. The high numbers, particularly the chi-squared figures, concerned experts.

For many of the events, ‘the chi-squared is so high that, from a Bayesian perspective, the probability that the true rate of the AE of the COVID vaccines is not higher than that of the non-COVID vaccines is essentially zero,’ Norman Fenton, a professor of risk management at Queen Mary University of London, told The Epoch Times in an email after running the numbers through a Bayesian model that provides probabilities based on available information.”

One of the few side effects of the COVID jabs that the CDC has actually acknowledged is myocarditis (heart inflammation), and a related condition called pericarditis (inflammation of the heart sack). Alas, the PRR monitoring results reveal there are more than 500 other adverse events that have stronger warning signals than either of those conditions.

“The proportions of reported deaths was 14% for the COVID jabs compared to 4.7% for all other vaccines.”

Josh Guetzkow, an Israeli professor trained in statistics at Princeton University told The Epoch Times:

“We know that the signal for myocarditis is associated with something that is caused by the mRNA vaccines, so it’s more than reasonable to say that anything with a signal larger than myocarditis/pericarditis should be taken seriously and investigated.”

Guetzkow expanded on his commentary in a January 4, 2023, Substack article.

Below is a summary list of some of the key findings from the CDC’s PRR analysis. Guetzkow goes deeper in his article, so for more details, I suggest reading it in its entirety.

For even more analyses and commentary, see Fenton’s Substack article, “The CDC’s Data on COVID Vaccine Safety Signals.”

If you want to investigate the PRR data for yourself, you can download them from The Epoch Times’ January 3, 2023, article.

You can also find them here.

• In individuals aged 18 and older, there are safety signals for 770 different adverse events, and two-thirds of them (more than 500) have a stronger safety signal than myocarditis and pericarditis. Of those 770 signals, 12 are brand-new conditions that have not been reported following other vaccines.

  Topping the list of safety signals are cardiovascular conditions, followed by neurological conditions. In third and fourth place are thromboembolic conditions and pulmonary conditions. Death is sixth on the list and cancer is 11th. Considering the uptick we’ve seen in aggressive cancers, the fact that death tops cancer really says something.

• The number of serious adverse events reported between mid-December 2020 and the end of July 2022 (just over 19 months) for the COVID jabs is 5.5 times greater than all serious reports for vaccines given to adults in the U.S. over the last 13 years (approximately 73,000 versus 13,000).

• Twice as many COVID jab reports were classified as serious compared to all other vaccines given to adults (11% vs. 5.5%), which meets the definition of a safety signal.

• The proportions of reported deaths, which was only provided for the 18+ age group, was 14% for the COVID jabs compared to 4.7% for all other vaccines. As noted by Fenton,

  “If the CDC wish [sic] to claim that the probability a COVID vaccine adverse event results in death is not significantly higher than that of other vaccines the onus is on them to come up with some other causal explanation for this difference.”

• In the 12- to 17-year-old age group, there are 96 safety signals, including myocarditis, pericarditis, Bell’s Palsy, genital ulcerations, high blood pressure, menstrual irregularities, cardiac valve incompetency, pulmonary embolism, cardiac arrhythmia, thrombosis, pericardial and pleural effusion, appendicitis and perforated appendix, immune thrombocytopenia, chest pain and increased troponin levels (indicative of heart damage).

• In the 5- to 11-year-old group, there are 66 safety signals, including myocarditis, pericarditis, ventricular dysfunction, cardiac valve incompetency, pericardial and pleural effusion, chest pain, appendicitis and appendectomies, Kawasaki’s disease, menstrual irregularities and vitiligo.

It’s worth noting that the CDC didn’t perform its first safety signal analysis until March 25, 2022 — 15 months after the shots were rolled out. Why the long wait — especially since the CDC had announced it would begin monitoring in early 2021? Just consider, for a moment, how many lives have been lost because the CDC failed to properly monitor safety, and still drags its feet when it comes to warning people about the risks involved.

The FDA is also required to perform safety monitoring using another technique called Empirical Bayesian data mining. The Epoch Times first asked the FDA to release its monitoring results back in July 2022,

but like the CDC, the FDA refused and insisted the data showed no evidence of serious adverse effects. In other words, “Just trust us. We’re experts.”

According to the FDA, the only potential signal they’d found through April 16, 2021, was for raised body temperature.

Then, in mid-December 2022 — just four months after The Epoch Times tried to get these data — the FDA announced that pulmonary embolism (blood clots that block blood flow in the lungs) had met the threshold for a statistical signal, and continued to meet the criteria after in-depth evaluation, but it was only linked to the Pfizer jab.

As noted by The Epoch Times,

pulmonary embolism is also identified as a signal in the CDC’s PRR analysis for individuals as young as 12, which really ought to strengthen concerns.

The FDA also admitted it had already evaluated three other warning signals: lack of oxygen to the heart, immune thrombocytopenia (a blood platelet disorder) and intravascular coagulation (a type of blood clotting), but none of these continued to meet the threshold after analysis.

If the FDA was evaluating four warning signals, why did they tell The Epoch Times there was no evidence of ill effects, and why did they claim the only potential signal they’d found was slight fever? Are we to believe they discovered these signals after The Epoch Times asked for the monitoring results and then completed four in-depth investigations in four months?

Whatever the truth, it’s clear that both the CDC and FDA are not being transparent. Worse, they’ve hidden data, knowing it could mean the difference between life and death for hundreds of thousands of people.

The CDC ignoring a clear signal for death is probably the most egregious example of its failures as a public health institution. As early as July 2021, Matthew Crawford published a three-part series

detailing how the CDC was hiding safety signals by using a flawed formula. In August that year, Steve Kirsch informed the agency of these problems, but was ignored.

Then, in an October 3, 2022, article,

Kirsch went on to show how “death” should have triggered a signal even when using the CDC’s flawed formula (which is described in its VAERS standard operating procedures manual

). Here’s an excerpt:

“The formula the CDC uses for generating safety signals is fundamentally flawed; a ‘bad’ vaccine with lots of adverse events will ‘mask’ large numbers of important safety signals … Let me summarize the key points for you in a nutshell: PRR [proportional reporting ratio] is defined on page 16 in the CDC document

as follows …

A ‘safety signal’ is defined on page 16 in the CDC document as a PRR of at least 2, chi-squared statistic of at least 4, and 3 or more cases of the AE [adverse event] following receipt of the specific vaccine of interest. This is the famous ‘and clause.’ Here it is from the document:

Only someone who is incompetent or is deliberately trying to make the vaccines look safe would use the word ‘and’ in the definition of a safety signal.

Using ‘and’ means that if any one of the conditions isn’t satisfied, no safety signal will be generated. As noted below, the PRR will rarely trigger which virtually guarantees that most events generated by an unsafe vaccine will never get flagged.

The PRR value for the COVID vaccines will rarely exceed 1 because there are so many adverse events from the COVID vaccine because it is so dangerous (i.e., B in the formula is a huge number) so the numerator is always near zero. Hence, the ‘safety signal’ is rarely triggered because the vaccine is so dangerous.”

Using a fictitious vaccine as the example, Kirsch explained how an exceptionally dangerous vaccine will fly under the radar and not get flagged, thanks to this flawed formula:

“Suppose we have the world’s most dangerous vaccine that causes adverse events in everyone who gets it and generates 25,000 different adverse events, and each adverse event has 1,000 instances.

That means that the numerator is 1,000/25,000,000 which is just 40 events per million reported events. Now let’s look at actuals for something like deaths. For all other vaccines, there are 6,200 deaths and 1 million adverse events total.

Since 40 per million is less than 6,200 deaths per million, we are not even close to generating a safety signal for deaths from our hypothetical vaccine which killed 1,000 people in a year … The point is that a dangerous vaccine can look very ‘safe’ using the PRR formula.”

Next, Kirsch calculates the PRR for death for the COVID jab — using VAERS data and the CDC’s definitions and formula. As of December 31, 2019, there were 6,157 deaths and 918,717 adverse events total for all vaccines other than the COVID shot. As of September 23, 2022, there were 31,214 deaths and 1.4 million adverse events total for the COVID jabs. Here’s the formula as explained by Kirsch:

“PRR = (31,214/1.4e6) / (6,157/918,717) = 3.32, which exceeds the required threshold of 2. In other words, the COVID vaccine is so deadly that even with all the adverse events generated by the vaccine, the death signal did not get drowned out!

But there is still the chi-square test. Chi-square test results were 18,549 for ‘death,’ which greatly exceeds the required threshold of 4. The CDC chi-square test is clearly satisfied for the COVID vaccine. Because the death signal is so huge, it even survived the PRR test.

This means that even using the CDCs own erroneous … formula, all three criteria were satisfied:

1. PRR>2 [PRR greater than 2]: It was 3.32

2. Chi-square>2 [Chi-square greater than 2]: It was 18,549

3. 3 or more reports: There were over 31,214 death reports received by VAERS … which is more than 3

A safety signal should have been generated but wasn’t. Why not? … Hundreds of thousands of American lives have been lost due to the inability of the CDC to deploy their own flawed safety signal analysis … It’s been known since at least 2004 that using reporting odds ratio (ROR) is a better estimate of relative risk than PRR.

I don’t know why the CDC doesn’t use it.”

The CDC is also hiding the severity of side effects in other ways. As explained by Fenton,

the way side effects are categorized by the CDC help obfuscate the scale of certain problems. For example, “cardiac failure acute,” “cardiac failure,” “infarction,” “myocardial strain” and “myocardial fibrosis” are listed as separate categories, even though in real life they’re all potential effects of myocarditis.

By separating them, you end up with fewer frequency counts per category, thereby giving you an underpowered chi-square test so that a warning signal is not triggered. If related categories were merged, far stronger safety signals would likely emerge.

The CDC is responsible for monitoring both VAERS and V-Safe, and between these two databases, there’s no possible way they could ever say they didn’t know the shots were harming and killing millions of Americans.

The CDC also has access to other databases, including the Defense Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED), which (before it was intentionally altered

) showed massive increases in debilitating and lethal conditions, including a tripling of cancer cases.

The findings in these databases have never been brought forward during any of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) meetings or the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) meetings, at which members have repeatedly voted to authorize the jabs to people of all ages, including infants and pregnant women.

They even added these toxic shots to the childhood vaccine schedule — which allows states to mandate them for school attendance — without addressing any of the 66 safety signals found in the CDC’s PRR analysis. The fact of the matter is that the CDC has known about these risks all along, and there’s no excuse for not sharing and acting on these data.

Mainstream media are ignoring all of this, so help spread the word. Everyone needs to know what the CDC’s safety data reveal. To that end, here are a few suggestions for how you can help:

• Write or call your members of Congress and ask them to investigate the CDC’s safety monitoring — We cannot have a public safety agency that is incapable of monitoring safety and taking appropriate action when problems are found, be it correcting a flawed formula or announcing that a safety signal has been detected. Of course, they must also publish their findings once an investigation has been made.

• Contact your local newspaper and urge them to investigate and report on the CDC’s failure to act on safety signals.

• Share the data on social media and ask why no one in the media, Congress, academia or medical community is investigating these matters.

• Share this information with your doctor and members of the medical community.

• Also share it with university administrators, and ask them to explain how and why, in light of these data, they are still mandating COVID shots.

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The information on this website is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified health care professional and is not intended as medical advice. It is intended as a sharing of knowledge and information from the research and experience of Dr. Mercola and his community. Dr. Mercola encourages you to make your own health care decisions based upon your research and in partnership with a qualified health care professional. The subscription fee being requested is for access to the articles and information posted on this site, and is not being paid for any individual medical advice.

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• By increasing blood flow to the organs, CPR provides a life-saving, temporary treatment for cardiac arrest

• If someone near you experiences cardiac arrest, you should first call 911, then immediately begin CPR

• For the general public, hands-only CPR, or compression-only CPR, is recommended and highly effective

• Perform chest compressions at a rate of 100 to 120 per minute; this is about the same beat as the song “Stayin’ Alive”

• If you have access to an automated external defibrillator (AED), which are required in many public spaces, follow its simple instructions to deliver a shock to the heart

Would you know what to do if a loved one — or even a stranger — went into cardiac arrest? Knowing what to do in this emergency situation, and administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), could save a life. CPR, which involves making chest compressions on the person affected, helps increase blood flow to the organs

until more advanced treatment is available.

In the video above, CNN’s Dr. Tara Narula demonstrates how to perform hands-only CPR if you witness someone go into cardiac arrest. If more people learn this simple technique, it could have major implications for public health as, currently, about 350,000 Americans die annually from cardiac arrest. That’s more than the number of deaths from colorectal cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, influenza, pneumonia, auto accidents, HIV, firearms and house fires combined.

Cardiac arrest occurs suddenly due to a malfunction in the heart that causes it to stop beating. Some cases of cardiac arrest have no symptoms. In other instances, the following symptoms may occur prior to the event:

• Fatigue

• Dizziness

• Shortness of breath

• Nausea

• Chest pain

• Heart palpitations (fast or pounding heart beat)

• Loss of consciousness

While blood loss, lack of oxygen and high levels of potassium and magnesium — which can cause arrhythmia, or irregular heartbeat — can lead to cardiac arrest, there are three primary causes:

1. Arrhythmia — An electrical signal in the heart may lead to an irregular heartbeat known as ventricular fibrillation, which is the No. 1 cause of cardiac arrest. It describes a heartbeat so rapid that the heart trembles instead of pumping blood.

2. Cardiomyopathy (enlarged heart) — This leads to abnormal heart contractions.

3. Coronary artery disease — If coronary arteries become blocked by plaque, it restricts blood flow to the heart. Left untreated, this may lead to heart failure or arrhythmia, which can trigger cardiac arrest.

While cardiac arrest often occurs without warning or a known underlying cause, there are certain risk factors known to increase the risk, which include:

• Alcohol or drug abuse

• Family history of heart disease or cardiac arrest

• Heart disease

• High blood pressure

• Low potassium or magnesium

• Obesity

• Smoking

Unlike a heart attack, which occurs due to blocked blood flow to the heart — and during which the heart usually continues beating — during a cardiac arrest the person loses consciousness and does not have a pulse.

As noted by the American Heart Association, “A heart attack is a ‘circulation’ problem and sudden cardiac arrest is an ‘electrical’ problem.”

The most immediate and recognizable difference is that a heart attack victim will remain conscious with their heart beating, while someone who suffers a sudden cardiac arrest will be unconscious with no discernible heartbeat.

While a heart attack affects the oxygen supply to the heart muscle, cardiac arrest affects the electrical impulses. During a heart attack, part of the heart may have a reduction in oxygen supply if the blood is restricted, but the remaining areas of the muscle will continue to beat.

During a cardiac arrest, the electrical system is impacted by physical conditions, such as cardiomyopathy, heart failure or arrhythmias. A heart attack will also increase your risk of having a sudden cardiac arrest, however, since the loss of oxygen supply will affect the electrical system in the heart. This is perhaps the most common reason for a sudden cardiac arrest.

In other words, loss of oxygen to the heart muscle from a heart attack affects the electrical impulses and may trigger a cardiac arrest.

By increasing blood flow to the organs, CPR provides a life-saving, temporary treatment for cardiac arrest. If someone near you experiences cardiac arrest, you should first call 911, then immediately begin CPR. If you’re a health care provider or well-trained in CPR, the American Heart Association (AHA) recommends using conventional CPR using chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth breathing, at a ratio of 30-to-2 — 30 chest compressions, followed by two breaths, then repeat.

However, for the general public, hands-only CPR, or compression-only CPR, is recommended and highly effective. How does hands-only CPR work, even without mouth-to-mouth breathing? According to AHA:

“When a teen or adult suddenly collapses with cardiac arrest, his or her lungs and blood contain enough oxygen to keep vital organs healthy for the first few minutes, as long as someone provides high quality chest compressions with minimal interruption to pump blood to the heart and brain.”

The basics? “Push hard and fast in the center of the chest.”

Acting fast is crucial, as each minute that CPR is delayed, the person’s chance of survival goes down by 10%.

So doing something, even if it isn’t perfect, is usually better than doing nothing. As noted by AHA:

“Adults who suddenly collapse and are not responsive are likely experiencing sudden cardiac arrest. Their chance of survival is nearly zero unless someone takes action immediately … In the majority of cases, any attempt to provide CPR to a victim is better than no attempt to provide help.”

Fortunately, hands-only CPR is straightforward and involves the following steps:

• Perform chest compressions at a rate of 100 to 120 per minute. This is about the same beat as the song “Stayin’ Alive,” which is 100 beats per minute

• The compressions must be done with enough force, to a depth of about 2 inches for an average adult

While remembering the basics is what’s most important in a time of crisis, there are additional components that ensure the CPR administered is most effective. This includes:

• Don’t stop; minimize interruptions in chest compressions

• Provide compressions at an adequate rate and an adequate depth

• Avoid leaning on the patient between compressions

• Ensure proper hand placement

• Avoid excessive ventilation

It’s important for the public to understand how effective CPR is — and the impact it has on the life of someone suffering from cardiac arrest. Sadly, about 90% of people who experience cardiac arrest outside of a hospital setting die. However, if CPR is administered immediately, the person’s chance of survival can double or triple.

Even though CPR can make the difference between life and death, only about 46% of people who go into cardiac arrest outside of a hospital get immediate help before professionals arrive.

About 70% of Americans indicated they feel helpless to act during a cardiac arrest because they’re not sure how to perform CPR and don’t want to hurt the person.

There are differences between men and women as well, with men being 1.23 times more likely to receive CPR from a bystander in public compared to women. Perhaps as a result, men’s chance of survival is 23% higher than women’s.

The difference, AHA notes, “could come down to anatomy and a bystander being comfortable enough to perform CPR on a woman.”

Increased awareness of the simple steps involved in hands-only CPR can help alleviate the misconception that you must be a health care provider to effectively perform CPR. AHA explains:

“Anyone can learn Hands-Only CPR and save a life. Hands-Only CPR has just two easy steps: If you see a teen or adult suddenly collapse, (1) Call 9-1-1; and (2) Push hard and fast in the center of the chest to the beat of the disco song Stayin’ Alive.”

If you have access to an automated external defibrillator (AED), it should be used immediately to assist a person in cardiac arrest. AEDs are required in certain public spaces in many U.S. states, including schools, athletic facilities, casinos and public golf courses.

When emergency medical personnel arrive to help a person in cardiac arrest, they will use a defibrillator immediately.

The device sends an electric shock, or defibrillation, to the heart, helping it to start beating normally again. If you’re in a public space with an AED available and someone is experiencing cardiac arrest, follow the AED’s included instructions to help. Once the unit is turned on, it will provide voice prompts instructing you on what to do.

It involves placing two sticky pads (electrodes) on the person’s bare chest. One pad goes on the upper right side of the chest, while the other goes on the lower left side of the chest, below the armpit.

The AED will analyze the person’s heart rhythm to determine if an electric shock is needed. If defibrillation shock is necessary, the device will instruct the user to deliver a shock.

You should stand clear of the patient while this occurs.

After the shock is delivered, begin CPR immediately, continuing for two minutes before checking to see if another shock is needed.

AHA promotes a six-step chain of survival that should be followed to help adults in cardiac arrest. “A strong Chain of Survival can improve chances of survival and recovery for victims of cardiac arrest,” it explains. The steps include:

1. Recognition of cardiac arrest and activation of the emergency response system (in the U.S., calling 911)

2. Early CPR with an emphasis on chest compressions

3. Rapid defibrillation

4. Advanced resuscitation by emergency medical services or other health care providers

5. Post-cardiac arrest care

6. Recovery, including additional treatment, observation, rehabilitation and psychological support

As far as prevention, lifestyle changes are key to building a healthy heart. This includes eating right, avoiding excess linoleic acid from seed oils, exercising, dealing with stress and getting proper sleep. For instance, women with low fitness levels have a higher risk of dying from any cause, including cardiac arrest.

While cardiac arrest often occurs unexpectedly, leading an ongoing heart-healthy lifestyle is the best approach to prevention.

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Disclaimer: The entire contents of this website are based upon the opinions of Dr. Mercola, unless otherwise noted. Individual articles are based upon the opinions of the respective author, who retains copyright as marked.

The information on this website is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified health care professional and is not intended as medical advice. It is intended as a sharing of knowledge and information from the research and experience of Dr. Mercola and his community. Dr. Mercola encourages you to make your own health care decisions based upon your research and in partnership with a qualified health care professional. The subscription fee being requested is for access to the articles and information posted on this site, and is not being paid for any individual medical advice.

If you are pregnant, nursing, taking medication, or have a medical condition, consult your health care professional before using products based on this content.

• Research has found a strong link between aluminum exposure and Alzheimer’s disease. Patients with a genetic mutation that predisposes them to early onset of Alzheimer’s and more aggressive disease have universally high aluminum content in their brains

• According to a British researcher, without aluminum in the brain, Alzheimer’s does not develop

• When aluminum was first approved for use in vaccines, it was approved based on its efficacy. It was never actually tested for safety. It was simply assumed to be safe

• Aluminum has been shown to cause mitochondrial dysfunction and depletion of adenine-triphosphate (ATP), which sets the stage for virtually any chronic disease. Aluminum salts can increase levels of glial activation, inflammatory cytokines and amyloid precursor protein within the brain

• Recent research found the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine schedule — when adjusted for bodyweight — exposes children to a level of aluminum that is 15.9 times higher than the recommended “safe” level

For years, I’ve warned that aluminum is a serious neurotoxic hazard involved in rising rates of autism and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). I’ve also warned that vaccines are a significant source of such exposure, and may be one of the worst, since by injecting it, the aluminum bypasses your body’s natural filtering and detoxification systems.

My comments above were one of the reasons the self-appointed global arbiter of fake news, NewsGuard, refused to give us “green” status as a site that follows “basic standards of accuracy and accountability.” In other words, our reporting of aluminum hazards was deemed “fake news.”

Not only were my earlier reports based on published science, but now we have yet another study,

published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, strongly linking aluminum exposure to AD. As reported by SciTech Daily:

“Researchers found significant amounts of aluminum content in brain tissue from donors with familial AD. The study also found a high degree of co-location with the amyloid-beta protein, which leads to early onset of the disease.

‘This is the second study confirming significantly high brain accumulation in familial Alzheimer’s disease, but it is the first to demonstrate an unequivocal association between the location of aluminum and amyloid-beta in the disease.

It shows that aluminum and amyloid-beta are intimately woven in the neuropathology,’ explained lead investigator Christopher Exley, PhD, Birchall Centre, Lennard-Jones Laboratories, Keele University, Staffordshire, UK.”

To gain a better understanding of the link between aluminum exposure and beta-amyloid generation, the researchers examined the brain tissue of donors diagnosed with familial Alzheimer’s disease who also had a specific gene mutation known to increase levels of amyloid-beta, leading to early onset and more aggressive disease.

Aluminum levels were compared to controls with no neurological disease diagnosis. They found striking differences between these two groups. Donors with the genetic mutation had universally high aluminum content.

While all samples had some level of aluminum, 42% of the samples from those with familial Alzheimer’s had “pathologically significant” aluminum levels, and the aluminum was primarily co-located with amyloid beta plaques. As reported by SciTech Daily:

“The results strongly suggest that genetic predispositions known to increase amyloid-beta in brain tissue also predispose individuals to accumulate and retain aluminum in brain tissue …

‘One could envisage increased amyloid-beta in brain tissue as a response to high levels of aluminum content, or that aluminum fosters the accumulation of amyloid-beta,’ said Dr. Exley.

‘Either way, the new research confirms my resolve that within the normal lifespan of humans, there would not be any AD if there were no aluminum in the brain tissue. No aluminum, no AD.'”

Exley’s conclusion deserves repeating: “No aluminum, no AD.” Without aluminum, Alzheimer’s doesn’t develop. That’s not fake news. This research provides conclusive evidence for concern, which means it would be foolish in the extreme to pretend that injecting infants and young children with aluminum-containing vaccines is harmless.

As revealed in my 2015 interview with Dr. Lucija Tomljenovic, featured in “How Vaccine Adjuvants Affect Your Brain,” when aluminum was first approved for use in vaccines, some 95 years ago, it was approved based on its efficacy. It was never actually tested for safety.

Even the total allowable limit was based on efficacy data, not safety data. They simply assumed it was safe. As noted by Tomljenovic in that interview:

“A document

from 2002 from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) … discussing the assessment of vaccine ingredients … and testing specifically in animal models … stated that the routine toxicity studies in animals with vaccine ingredients have not been conducted because it was assumed that these ingredients are safe.

When I read that I was kind of pulling my hairs out [thinking] ‘So, this is your indisputable evidence of safety?’ These documents never made it to mainstream media. It’s just a lie perpetuated over and over again; that we’ve been using these things for over nine decades and it’s been proven safe. No, it’s been ASSUMED safe.”

The propaganda responsible for hiding the dangers of aluminum was addressed in a 2014 review article

in the journal Frontiers of Neurology. In it, Exley (who also co-authored the featured Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease study above) wrote:

“The aluminum industry is a pillar of the developed and developing world and irrespective of the tyranny of human exposure to aluminum it cannot be challenged without significant consequences for businesses, economies, and governments …

There has been and there continues to be systematic attempts by the aluminum industry to suppress research on aluminum and human health.

While independent research in this field is prevented the questions concerning human toxicity remain unanswered. Lack of required research does not equate to lack of biological effect or safety …

Herein, I will make the case that it is inevitable both today and in the future that an individual’s exposure to aluminum is impacting upon their health and is already contributing to, if not causing, chronic diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease.”

Exley points out that one of the most significant factors driving complacency about aluminum exposure is the aluminum industry’s insistence that, since it’s everywhere and found in virtually everybody,

it must be harmless if not essential — we just haven’t figured out how it benefits us yet. However, no beneficial role of aluminum has ever been elucidated, and its presence is in no way evidence of benefit.

Exley also notes that aluminum is rarely acutely toxic, which adds to the complacency problem. Problems only arise once a certain threshold is reached, and even then, its role in disease is rarely if ever investigated.

Yet another factor that helps hide the influence of aluminum in disease is the fact that it acts on many different pathways and acts as a substitute for essential minerals, so aluminum toxicity doesn’t have one specific hallmark.

“The potential for aluminum to interact with and to influence so many biochemical pathways means that the symptoms of its toxicity could be deficiency or sufficiency, agonistic or protagonistic, and any combination of these and other physiology-based events,” Exley writes, adding:

“For aluminum to play a significant role in any disease-related event some degree of toxicity threshold must have been achieved. Essentially, the rate of delivery of Al3+(aq) to target ligands must be sufficient to overcome the inherent robustness of systems that are under attack.

In achieving this threshold either aluminum must accumulate over time within a particular compartment or possibly the administration of a single dose of aluminum could achieve such a threshold instantaneously.

The latter is probably more unusual in human being’s everyday exposure to aluminum except, for example, where aluminum is administered as an adjuvant in vaccination and allergy immunotherapy.”

Importantly, aluminum has the ability to cross the blood-brain-barrier, so any aluminum in the blood can be transported into the brain. “Indeed, aluminum is known to increase the leakiness of epithelial and endothelial barriers and in doing so could concomitantly increase the passage of aluminum from the blood to the brain,” Exley writes.

Exley also points out aluminum can damage your brain function by:

• Adversely influencing neuronal function and survival

• Potentiating damaging redox activity

• Disrupting intracellular calcium signaling that systematically wears down cellular defenses

• Worsening the adverse effects of other heavy metals

• Influencing gene expression

A 2010 paper

also pointed out that aluminum salts “can increase levels of glial activation, inflammatory cytokines and amyloid precursor protein within the brain,” and that “Both normal brain aging and to a greater extent, Alzheimer’s disease are associated with elevated basal levels of markers for inflammation.”

Similarly, a 2018 paper

in the Journal of Research in Medical Sciences cites research showing aluminum affects:

• Axonal transport

• Neurotransmitter synthesis

• Synaptic transmission

• Phosphorylation or de-phosphorylation of proteins

• Protein degradation

• Gene expression

• Peroxidation

• Inflammatory responses

When it comes to altering gene expression, aluminum has been shown to do this via many different routes and mechanisms, including by:

• Binding to histone-DNA complex

• Inducing conformational changes of chromatin

• Inducing topological changes of DNA

• Decreasing expression of neurofilament

• Decreasing expression of tubulin

• Altering expression of neurofilament genes

• Altering expression of amyloid precursor protein

• Altering expression of neuron-specific enolase

• Decreasing expression of transferrin receptor

• Altering expression of RNA polymerase I

• Altering expression of oxidative stress marker genes such as SOD1 and glutathione reductase

• Altering expression of beta-APP secretase

Importantly, as noted in the Journal of Research in Medical Sciences, aluminum has been shown to “cause mitochondrial dysfunction and depletion of adenine-triphosphate (ATP),”

which sets the stage for virtually any chronic disease, not just neurodegenerative diseases.

In December 2019, The Highwire reported

the findings of a study

published in the Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology, which found the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s childhood vaccine schedule — when adjusted for bodyweight — exposes children to a level of aluminum that is 15.9 times higher than the recommended “safe” level.

The researchers point out that previous efforts to assess the aluminum burden created by vaccines were based on “whole-body clearance rates estimated from a study involving a single human subject.”

What’s more, they used an aluminum citrate solution that is not used in vaccines, which may affect the excretion rate. Importantly, infants also have immature renal function, which will inhibit their ability to filter and excrete toxins in the first place.

Other studies

have used orally ingested aluminum to assess and defend safety limits for aluminum in vaccines. This is clearly an unwise comparison, as only 0.1% of orally ingested aluminum is absorbed and made bioavailable from the gastrointestinal tract.

In the Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology study,

the researchers used several different models in an effort to estimate the expected acute and long-term whole-body accumulation of aluminum in children following one of the three possible vaccine schedules:

1. The CDC’s childhood vaccine schedule as of 2019

2. The CDC’s vaccine schedule modified to use low dose aluminum DTaP and aluminum-free Hib vaccines

3. Dr. Paul Thomas’ “vaccine-friendly plan,”

   which recommends giving only one aluminum-containing vaccine per visit (max two) and delaying certain vaccinations

The CDC’s standard schedule resulted in the greatest expected aluminum burden in all model assumptions, while Thomas’ schedule resulted in the lowest. According to the authors:

“Medically, proper organ, cellular and body aluminum detoxification appears to be of ever-increasing importance: Aluminum has been found in the brains of patients with Parkinson’s Disease, Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy, and autism.

Evidence is growing that a host of chronic illnesses of unknown cause that are difficult to diagnose such as PANDAS/PANS, chronic fatigue syndrome may at least in part be due to vaccine aluminum intolerance.

Aluminum compounds occur naturally in the environment and in food, but very little ingested aluminum is absorbed through the intestines. Total aluminum exposure is affected by the aluminum amount in individual vaccines and the timing of repeated vaccinations in the first two years of life.

Dórea and Marques compared the expected levels of aluminum uptake into the body from intravenous and oral intake and concluded that human infants have higher exposure to aluminum from vaccination than from food, water, and formula.

Our calculations confirm that for the CDC schedule, infants up to six months of life receive most of their metabolically available aluminum from vaccines.

It should be expected that most aluminum retained in the body of infants comes from vaccinations combined with the levels of exposure from other exposures to manifest health risks from total exposure, making the timing and total aluminum content of different vaccine schedules an important consideration.”

As noted in the Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology study,

the “safety” limit for aluminum is not weight dependent. The maximum safe limit is based on an adult, and the same limit is transposed to infants weighing a fraction of that.

Importantly, this study found that when multiple aluminum-containing vaccines are given together, as per the CDC schedule, the total aluminum dose ends up exceeding even the assumed safety limit for an adult.

“Adjusting the safe dose limit based on a child’s weight at these ages therefore results in doses that far exceed the estimated safe limit of acute toxicity,” the authors warn,

adding that “on all days of injection the safe limit for a child is exceeded for all three schedules; this points to acute toxicity …

The CDC schedule has the largest violation at 15.9 times the recommended safe level. This occurs at 2 months, when four recommended vaccinations containing aluminum are simultaneously administered.

In addition, modeling the time to clear aluminum from the body using Priest’s equation estimates that for this schedule a child will be over the safe level of aluminum in the body for 149 days from birth to 7 months, constituting about 70 % of days in this period. This points to chronic toxicity …

The modified CDC schedule assumes the same vaccinations at the same times as the CDC schedule, but like the Vaccine Friendly Plan it assumes a lower dose aluminum DTap vaccine, and also combines the ActHib (containing no Al) with low aluminum DTap or PVC13 so that the aluminum adjuvant in the aluminum containing vaccine (ACV) activates an immune response for the ActHib vaccine.

This drops the maximum level of exposure to about 60 % of the original CDC plan with (from 15.9 to 9.3) and drops days above the estimated safe limit in the first 7 months from 70 % of days to 26 % and in the first 2 years from 24 % of days to 8 %.

The Vaccine Friendly Plan schedule skips some vaccinations in the first two years (like HepB) and avoids giving more than two vaccinations containing aluminum together.

The VFP thus further limits maximum exposure to approximately 25 % of the original CDC schedule (from 15.9 to 4.2) and drops days above the estimate limit in the first seven months from 70 % of days to 5 % and in the first two years from 24 % of days to 2 %.”

The health hazards of aluminum are also addressed in a 2017 scientific review

published in the German journal, Deutsches Ärzteblatt International, which also reviews the threshold values associated with various types of exposure.

“Aluminum’s neurotoxic effects in humans and its embryotoxic effects in animal models have been proven,” the paper states, adding that while the acute toxicity of ingested aluminum is low, long-term exposure and buildup is associated with neurotoxic effects, resulting in disorientation, memory impairment and dementia. As noted in this paper:

“In addition to inducing oxidative stress and binding to negatively charged membrane structures in neurons, aluminum is able to modify hippocampal calcium signal pathways that are crucial to neuronal plasticity and, hence, to memory. Cholinergic neurons are particularly susceptible to aluminum neurotoxicity, which affect synthesis of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine.”

Aluminum as a risk factor for neurological disorders is also detailed in a 2018 paper

in the Journal of Research in Medical Sciences. Here, the authors again note that “it is widely accepted that [aluminum] is a recognized neurotoxin, which could cause neurodegeneration.” They also point out that aluminum “affects more than 200 important biological reactions and causes negative effects on [the] central nervous system.”

A 2013 study

shed important light on the vaccine adjuvant alum, a “nanocrystalline compound” that has been shown to spontaneously form “micron/submicron-sized agglomerates.” According to this paper:

“Alum is occasionally detected within monocyte-lineage cells long after immunization in presumably susceptible individuals with systemic/neurologic manifestations or autoimmune (inflammatory) syndrome induced by adjuvants (ASIA) …

Intramuscular injection of alum-containing vaccine was associated with the appearance of aluminum deposits in distant organs, such as spleen and brain where they were still detected one year after injection …

Particles linearly accumulated in the brain up to the six-month endpoint; they were first found in perivascular CD11b+ cells and then in microglia and other neural cells … Cerebral translocation was not observed after direct intravenous injection, but significantly increased in mice with chronically altered blood-brain-barrier …

Continuously escalating doses of this poorly biodegradable adjuvant in the population may become insidiously unsafe, especially in the case of overimmunization or immature/altered blood brain barrier or high constitutive CCL-2 production.”

Clearly, Alzheimer’s and autism are not caused by a single factor. Your diet and lifestyle play significant roles, as do other toxic exposures. Still, aluminum appears to be a significant concern that cannot be overlooked, especially where vaccines are concerned. Can we really justify loading infants up with aluminum at doses that are toxic even to an adult?

To learn more about the factors that raise your risk for Alzheimer’s and recommended prevention strategies, see “How Excess Iron Raises Your Risk for Alzheimer’s,” “Trans Fats Linked to Increased Risk for Alzheimer’s,” and “Lifestyle Factors Linked to Alzheimer’s.”

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