Watch this video:

Now read this article.

Somali Americans develop twice the antibody response to rubella from the current vaccine compared to Caucasians in a new Mayo Clinic study on individualized aspects of immune response. A non-Somali, African-American cohort ranked next in immune response, still significantly higher than Caucasians…

Now… read this article.

“This study validates the concerns of the Somali community in Minneapolis,” comments epidemiologist Michael Rosanoff, Autism Speaks associate director for public health research. “There may be factors that put Somali-American children at higher risk of autism and autism with intellectual disability,” he says. “Or these findings may reflect better autism awareness and detection within this tight-knit community. We need to explore these possibilities, and that takes further research.”

Yes. It does take further research.

Or DOES IT???

Let’s review.

1. Somali Americans and Black Americans have greatly increased immune response to the Rubella vaccine, as compared to the immune response of Whites and Hispanics.
2. Children in the Somali immigrant community have significantly higher rates of autism, as compared to the rates of autism for non-Somali children.
   1. The Autism Speaks article shows lower rates of autism in Non-Somali Black Children in Minneapolis; this is hypothesized to be due to lower awareness and lack of access to care among those in the Black Community. This article and this article support that hypothesis.
3. As the vaccinology scientist in the video above explained, differences in the immune response are not only related to how well the vaccine works, they are also related to the frequency and severity of side-effects from the vaccine. (Many of us refer to “side effects” as “adverse reactions.” Adverse reactions may include autism.)
4. The 2004 study conducted by the Vaccine Safety Research Group at The CDC found that Black children who received the MMR vaccine prior to 36 months of age had greatly increased rates of autism, as compared to their non-black peers. (That information was eliminated from the published report. You can read more about that here.)
5. The MMR vaccine contains three live virus vaccines: Measles, Mumps, and Rubella.
6. A growing body of research indicates that at least for many, autism may be the result of an autoimmune response (here and here for a sampling), with higher rates of autoimmune disease among family members, most especially in the mother. This strongly suggests that children who regress in early childhood and are later diagnosed with autism may do so because their immune systems do not respond in the same way TO SOMETHING, as do children who do not develop regressive autism.

What do you suppose that SOMETHING might be?

Could it be…. vaccines? If you believe what the vaccinology scientist has to say, it certainly could be.

A bit of history you might find interesting… When the MMR vaccine was first introduced, it was believed that a single administration would provide protection for life. There continued to be measles outbreaks every year, and it was discovered that approximately 10% of the population showed no sign of antibody response even though they had been vaccinated. So, instead of trying to figure out who those children were, The CDC and ACIP decided to add another MMR to the schedule for ALL children. The result is that 90% of children were OVER-VACCINATED. Guess when that happened? 1989. The huge jump in autism started around 1990.

It should be noted that the study at Mayo was ONLY looking at the Rubella vaccine. As the doctor discussed, further research will no doubt lead us to a better understanding of the differences in response to different vaccines and how things like race, gender, family medical history, and other factors such as genetic SNPs including MTHFR mutations and Cytochrome P450 mutations influence an individual’s response to a particular vaccine, a particular component of a vaccine, or to the simultaneous administration of multiple vaccines.

Until that research is done, it is unconscionable for politicians like Richard Pan to bow to pharmaceutical company pressure by pushing for mandates that would require ALL parents to vaccinate ALL children exactly according to the CDC’s Schedule. The 2015 CDC Schedule for children includes giving up to 13 vaccines at a single well-baby visit.

As noted above and in this post, the elimination of data from the 2004 MMR study has a direct bearing on whether or not parents should be forced to vaccinate their children. Dr. William Thompson was an author of that study and he says things were not reported that should have been. Those things directly affect our children – all of them, regardless of race and regardless of gender.

Please follow this link and

Tell the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee That We Want Hearings 

Our children deserve better. We deserve better. Our future as a nation depends on it.

Here is the transcript of the video, just in case it happens to disappear…

0:00

The most outstanding and to some degree unexpected

0:04

difference that we found is that African-Americans have

0:08

much higher antibody responses to this viral vaccine, rubella,

0:13

than we have seen in any other population.

0:16

Why would that be? Well that’s the subject of the next set of studies,

0:21

but it’s really a foundational finding

0:24

in this respect: We sort of have a population level approach

0:29

to medicine. We do it with drugs, we do it with vaccines. We assume everybody is

0:34

alike and that they all respond the same. This is the basis of personalized or

0:39

individualized medicine.

0:41

Our group has been among the first to show

0:44

that what we know for how people respond to drugs

0:47

turns out to also be true in how people respond to biologics like vaccines.

0:52

So you and I may respond very differently

0:56

as a cohort, say of Caucasians, but my colleague who is African-American

1:01

and the population of African-Americans turn out to have a

1:05

much better response

1:07

to that vaccine. Hispanics have a lower response.

1:10

Well this is really important in terms of how we deliver vaccines, how we design

1:15

vaccines.

1:16

Perhaps the safety of vaccines and this is new information in the biologic field

1:22

and I think is going to change how we practice medicine.

1:25

The vaccine in essence is working differently.

1:28

The question is, “Why?” It’s the same vaccine

1:32

in human beings administered the same way

1:36

and yet it stimulates a very different set of

1:40

gene expression and protein secretion, that protein being

1:45

antibody that protects us when we see the virus.

1:48

 A lot of people haven’t heard of rubella. They think it’s a disease that doesn’t

1:52

exist anymore

1:53

and and that would be naive to think that, certainly in California along some

1:57

of the border states.

1:59

We do still see rubella cases.  In Japan

2:02

and in Europe we’re seeing outbreaks of rubella and measles,

2:06

they’re vaccines that are given together, primarily because if people rejecting

2:11

the vaccine

2:12

out of unfounded fears about the safety of the vaccine,

2:16

but the interesting thought occurs to me maybe we only have to give

2:20

African-Americans

2:22

half the size of the dose that we give to Caucasians.

2:26

That’s an example of individualizing our approach

2:30

to somebody. Eventually what will happen is it won’t be something as

2:34

complicated as race, it will be genetically based.

2:38

So we will look at somebody’s genes that are important to developing immunity

2:43

and based on which ones they carry, say,

2:46

“You don’t need the vaccine. You’re not at any risk.”Or “You need twice the dose of

2:50

the average person, or half the dose.”

2:52

Or, “You’re at risk for this kind of side effect.”

2:55

And that changes how we practice medicine. It’s it’s an exciting new era

2:59

in that regard.

3:01

So we may be able to save cost,

3:04

we may be able to reduce the amount of side effects.

3:08

If you only need half as much vaccine

3:11

to reach the same level of protection, we’re adding cost and potential risk by

3:16

giving you double what you actually need.

3:18

We could extend the vaccine supply twice as far.

3:22

Take African countries for example with this kind of knowledge, and with the

3:27

cost to vaccines…

3:28

What might it mean, that for the same cost we could immunize

3:32

twice as many people? That would just be one practical example

3:37

of an outcome that would be important at least at a population level.

3:41

Fundamentally what it begins to do

3:44

is build a scientific case and database

3:47

for this idea. If we see these kinds of

3:51

dramatic differences with this vaccine, will we see it with another vaccine?

3:57

The answer is yes. We’ve seen that with other vaccines.

4:00

And does that inform our approach to new vaccine development? For example,

4:06

African-Americans, Hispanics, maybe other

4:10

more traditional minority groups could be at greater risk of certain diseases.

4:16

Let’s take HIV for example, or hepatitis B, or

4:20

an even number of diseases. Might knowing this about genetics and how they respond

4:25

to a vaccine

4:27

inform how we go about developing the new vaccine

4:31

for groups most at risk of that disease?

4:34

The other thing that we we didn’t find in this study, but we have found in other

4:38

studies is the effect of gender or sex.

4:41

Traditionally, for every vaccine that’s been studied

4:44

women always respond better than men –

4:47

always without exception. Why is that?

4:51

How do we take advantage of that information

4:54

in building new vaccines and delivering the vaccines we currently have?

4:59

It’s worth pointing out that in years, decades past

5:03

Hispanics, African-americans and other minority groups

5:07

tended to get excluded from research

5:10

and therefore the benefits of medical research.

5:14

That’s changed. And we certainly understand the

5:17

the value of that. This study

5:20

demonstrates the important differences that one can find

5:24

and informs how we approach the medical care of those groups.