Our vaccines are clean

Posted by ERV on April 20, 2010
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I dunno if you guys know how good we have it today with vaccines.

Let me try this analogy– Lets say you want to bake some bread. You have a basic recipe, so you know you need flour, yeast, water, and you make some really basic bread. Except the bread that comes out of the oven is a loaf of cinnamon raisin walnut bread. So, youre happy, cause you got bread, and its good, but you dont know how the hell the cinnamon/raisins/walnuts got in there.

Thats kinda how old-school vaccines worked. Scientist made a vaccine, it worked, yay!… but there was other stuff in that end batch they didnt know was there cause they didnt know they added it and they didnt know to look for it, or they plain ol didnt know such things existed.

Does that make any sense? Just a long way of saying “In the olden days, vaccines could get a bit messy.”

With the technology we have at our disposal today, this isnt really an issue anymore. Not only do we have lots of lovely ways of killing wayward things that might sneak into a vaccine, but we have lots of neat technology for monitoring our vaccines for little buggars that still try to sneak through.

Viral nucleic acids in live-attenuated vaccines: detection of minority variants and an adventitious virus.

This paper is so super cool– They looked for contaminating viruses in lots of traditional vaccines using pyrosequencing (sequenced EVERYTHING in the mix):

  • Trivalent oral poliovirus (OPV)
  • Rubella (Meruvax-II)
  • Measles (Attenuvax)
  • Yellow fever (YF-Vax)
  • Varicella-Zoster (Varivax)
  • Multivalent Measles/Mumps/Rubella (MMR-II)
  • Two rotavirus live vaccines (Rotarix and Rotateq)

So if there is any super-scary contaminant in these usual vaccines, these folks were gonna find it!

And they basically found jack squat.

YAY!

Attenuvax had a tiny bit of ALV in it, but ALV cant infect humans. MMRII and YF-Vax had ALV too, but they had to use super crazy sensitive PCR to kinda-sorta see it. So it appears ALV is going to be in any vaccine we make from chicken embryos… but again, doesnt exactly matter because it cant infect us.

Rotateq had a teeeeeny teeeeny tiny amount of SRV in it, but its non-functional DNA (its from an ERV in the cell line used to grow the vaccine). They also found some in Rotarix (with super crazy sensitive PCR), implying that like the chicken embryos and ALV, SRV is going to be in any vaccine that uses the Vero cell line at some level… but they couldnt find it anywhere in the Oral Polio Vaccine, which also uses the Vero cell line. Yay!

Rotarix had a lot, actually, of PCV1… PCV1 is harmless (in pigs and humans), but like, there was (relatively) a lot of it, so these folks investigated further. They checked the other rotavirus vaccine (Rotateq), but didnt have any PCV1, even with super crazy sensitive PCR. So, these scientists were concerned Glaxo (maker of Rotarix) had an industry-wide contaminant going, so they checked another vaccine from Glaxo, Pediarix, that contains “diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis bacteria, hepatitis B and killed polioviruses.” It didnt have any PCV1.

It turns out PCV1 is in the ‘seed’ cells Glaxo uses to make Rotarix. Even though PCV1 is harmless, I mean, its like ant legs in your canned pears. You know theyre there. Its harmless. You dont really ever think about it until someone says to you “Did you know the FDA allows manufacturers to have like 6 ant legs per can?” But if there were a way to make sure there was never ant legs in your canned pears, itd be nice. So Glaxo pulled their current stock of the vax, and is remaking it, minus PCV1.

There are no scary crazy IZ A GUNNA KILLZ MAH BABBY stuff in our vaccines! Yay!!

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Comments

  1. #1 dean
    April 20, 2010

    Good news indeed.

    Prepare for an onslaught of poorly written (can you scrawl when typing?) screeds about how much you’re covering up and how all you science folks want children to die.

    how do you put up with it?

  2. #2 mo
    April 20, 2010

    But you will be quote mined. :/

  3. #3 Sili
    April 20, 2010

    So Glaxo pulled their current stock of the vax, and is remaking it, minus PCV1.

    BUT IF PCVeleventyone! IS SAFE, Y R DEY REMOOVINGS EET?!!

    Eurrgh. That hurt.

    Still, someone is gonna take this as evidence of foul play.

  4. #4 Shirakawasuna
    April 20, 2010

    Pyrosequencing magic is the beeeeeest

  5. #5 JohnV
    April 20, 2010

    There’s ant legs in my canned pears? :(

  6. #6 Kemanorel
    April 20, 2010

    But didn’t you know it’s the MERCURY in the vaccines that causes autism!!!!!!1111!!!111one111!!!two!

    /snark

  7. #7 D. C. Sessions
    April 20, 2010

    They checked the other rubella vaccine (Rotateq),

    Rotateq is a rotavirus vaccine, not a rubella vaccine.

    Brief moment of appreciation for Paul Offit.

  8. #8 ERV
    April 20, 2010

    JohnV– I think the technical term is ‘insect filth‘. :-/

    D. C. Sessions– Fixed! Thanks! Youda thought the ‘rota’ in the name would have tipped me off…

  9. #9 Greg Laden
    April 20, 2010

    Why is this not a “peer reviewed research” post? It would probably get wider circulation.

    Oh, and I’m glad the vac’s are cleaner.

  10. #10 Ken
    April 20, 2010

    I’m never eating canned pears again!

    But at least the vaccines sound OK…..

  11. #11 William Wallace
    April 20, 2010

    I think the major problem was (and may still be) the unsteral material they use to grow the vaccines. E.g., Monkey kidneys, Ape livers, chicken eggs, etc. It was I thought one of the reasons they (they being vaccine manufacturers) put thimerosal in vaccines–it was cheaper than actually getting better growing material (akin to beef irradiation being cheaper than hiring people who actually know how to butcher animals).

    If you had to wager, Abbie, what is the probability in your mind they in 25 years we will find out that we inadvertantly introduced something during the manufacturing process that causes cancer? Are you saying that the risk is now 0?

  12. #12 Jimbo Jones
    April 20, 2010

    Right on cue. *facepalm*

    Nice bit of research. Should help against anti-vaxxer recruitment quite a bit, even if we’ll never get through to the self-righteous bastards at the heart of the “movement”. Case in point, in comment #11.

    Now, if only I was better at describing epidemiology…

  13. #13 T. Bruce McNeely
    April 20, 2010

    William Wallace:

    You think wrong.

    Your comment is concentrated dumb.

    Cancer? The Hepatitis B vaccine and HPV vaccines prevent cancer. The probability of vaccines causing cancer is so low that it would be perverse to say there is any risk at all.

  14. #14 Prometheus
    April 20, 2010

    Barf. I hate finding pears in my canned ant legs.

  15. #15 Party Cactus
    April 21, 2010

    Science marches on. Denialism sits on a rock. The key word is here reasonable risk. Is it possible that vaccines will cause [insert problem here] via some long term and presently unknown effect? Of course it’s always possible there’s some hidden unknown, no one can claim much of anything with absolute beyond an unreasonable doubt certainty, that’s why science is mostly theories and not laws (one of the huge advantages crankery has over real science is that the latter is bound by honesty). But, there’s not a shred of evidence to prove it, and in some cases (like autism), quite a bit of evidence against it. Should we really still have a slew of various horrible diseases because of a fear of a technically possible though highly unlikely and absolutely baseless risk? No, that’s absolutely ridiculous.

  16. #16 TotallyUncool
    April 21, 2010

    We all know that food processing companies add ant legs to pears to give them their flavor, but is that any reason to make heartless jokes about this barbaric practice?

    Have you ever tried scurrying along a busy ant trail with only five, or even four, legs? If you can find even one tiny scrap of humanity in your ice-cold heart, you will weep at the plight of these mutilated creatures!

    EVIL!

  17. #17 TotallyUncool
    April 21, 2010

    Hey, the blog filter took out my clever all-caps slogan — all it left in was the last word!

    But that isn’t going to stop me from taking George Orwell’s name in vain! Here’s my slogan without the all-caps and boldface:

    “Six legs good, four or five legs not so good, two legs evil!”

    Truth will prevail! (Even if the joke goes flat in the process.)

  18. #18 Prometheus
    April 21, 2010

    “But that isn’t going to stop me from taking George Orwell’s name in vain! Here’s my slogan without the all-caps and boldface:

    “Six legs good, four or five legs not so good, two legs evil!”"

    Hurf Durf
    *Adjusts monocle*

    That’s not an Orwell paraphrase. That’s H.G. Wells. from a book my retarded musician ex-girlfriend* called “The Island of Doctor Moron”.

    *She was very cute but I got a hernia from suppressing laughing in her face every day.

  19. #19 Paul S.
    April 21, 2010

    Bah! Ant legs and other insect parts are a great source of protein. I think that more should be added to canned fruit. It could be marketed as having all natural protein protein added.

    Seriously, though, it’s ironic that vaccines have worked so well that people have pretty much forgotten how dangerous many of the diseases that they protect against used to be, which in turn allows some people to ignore concerns about real diseases when they focus on imagined threats with no evidence.

  20. #20 JohnV
    April 21, 2010

    omg @ that FDA page.

    BERRIES Canned and Frozen
    Insects and larvae – Average of 4 or more larvae per 500 grams OR Average of 10 or more whole insects or equivalent per 500 grams (excluding thrips, aphids and mites)

    PEANUT BUTTER
    Insect filth – Average of 30 or more insect fragments per 100 grams
    Rodent filth – Average of 1 or more rodent hairs per 100 grams

  21. #21 Prometheus
    April 21, 2010

    See. That’s why I don’t buy Del Monte anymore. The berries are okay but they totally rip you off on the larvae and filth allotment.

  22. #22 Ivan
    April 21, 2010

    @TotallyUncool

    I really doubt there’s a filter. It just means that you screwed up your tags– anything that comes between errant angle brackets < and > will just disappear.

    [If you want literal angle brackets like I just made, then you have to type &lt; and &gt; and you can't preview your post or else the stupid blog software will screw them up.]

    [[If you want to tell someone else how to make literal angle brackets like I just did, then you have to type &amp;lt; ...]]

    INFINITE LOOP DETECTED… COMMENT ABORTED

  23. #23 William Wallace
    April 22, 2010

    T. Bruce McNeely, what is SV40 and how did it come to exist in humans residing in the west?

    (You wizzards of smart like Wikipedia, right?)

  24. #24 TotallyUncool
    April 22, 2010

    For a really good high-larvae-content meal, there’s nothing like sago grubs:
    http://www.yatlik.com/photos/P3100090.jpg

    (Add a few ant legs for flavor.)

    Hurf Durf
    *Adjusts monocle*

    That’s not an Orwell paraphrase. That’s H.G. Wells. from a book my retarded musician ex-girlfriend* called “The Island of Doctor Moron”.

    *She was very cute but I got a hernia from suppressing laughing in her face every day.

    Then my misattribution just compounds the abuse — if that isn’t failing to kill two nonexistent birds with negative one stone, I don’t know what is!

  25. #25 LanceR, JSG
    April 22, 2010

    @Limp Willy: T. Bruce McNeely, what is SV40 and how did it come to exist in humans residing in the west?

    (You wizzards of smart like Wikipedia, right?)

    What is SV40? Flamingly irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Not to straining your reading comprehension skills, but did you miss the “In the olden days, vaccines could get a bit messy.” part? Did you also fail to connect that to the article you cited: “It was difficult to detect small quantities of virus until the advent of PCR; since then, stored samples of vaccine made after 1962 have tested negative for SV40″

    Of course you did… because you’re dishonest. You should at least try to find citations that don’t immediately refute your very argument.

  26. #26 Scientizzle
    April 23, 2010

    Have you guys heard? I just read on some science website that there’s ant legs in our vaccines! WTF is wrong we these Big Pharma criminals?!

  27. #27 alison
    April 25, 2010

    On the number of legs – the paraphrase is Orwellian, from Animal Farm: four legs good, two legs bad (until late in the piece when the pigs took to walking on their hind legs…)

    Great post Abby, thank you :-)

  28. #28 Erwin Alber
    April 26, 2010

    So, vaccines are clean?

    Oh, really?

    I suggest you verify your facts before you promote such complete and utter rubbish.

    E.g. check out this link and video:

    Vaccine Contamination: Pig Virus DNA Found in Rotarix

    Posted: 4/7/2010 2:17:52 AM

    http://www.nvic.org/NVIC-Vaccine-News/April-2010/Vaccine-Contamination-Pig-Virus-DNA-Found-in-Rota.aspx

    I’m not surprised; modern vaccines are like those of earlier times absolute filth.

    At one of her lectures I attended, Dr Eva Snead MD stated: “Vaccines may look clean and sterile when they come out of their package, but that’s very deceptive. The contents of vaccines are of a similar order of cleanliness as the stuff one can scrape off from under the inside rim of one’s toilet.”

    I believe it. There is no way any vax maniac is going to come near me or any other member of my family with this disgusting filth.

  29. #29 Tezcatlipoca
    April 29, 2010

    Ah yes,

    the lovely Dr Eva Snead, champion of the “HIV is man-made” set. One of her quotes,”if you have been vaccinated, you have the virus…” OH NOES!!!

  30. #30 JustaTech
    April 30, 2010

    @Erwin, (#28): Sir, you seem to have totally missed the point of this post. The “Vaccine Contamination: Pig Virus DNA Found in Rotarix” was in fact discussed, and the hyperbolic concern over it rejected, just up the page.

    And if you can scrape things off the underside of your toilet seat, you need to clean it far more often.

    Speaking as a “vax maniac”, I will stay as far from you as I possibly can as long as you promise to keep yourself, your children, and all of your secondary and tertiary contacts at least 500 yards and downwind of me, my family, my friends, my co-workers and everyone else I come into contact with on a regular and irregular basis.

  31. #31 David Helliwell
    May 3, 2010

    Not only do vaccines kill, the Earth is also flat (haven’t fallen off yet) and it is only 44,000 years old!

  32. #32 Jen H
    May 6, 2010

    Are you a physician? Do you know EXACTLY how the human body will react to foreign DNA that is injected into it? Truth is, there is a Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund that is set aside from each vaccine for the people who die or are injured from receiving a vaccination. Even if these animal viruses may not be a culprit for infection who is to say they cannot mutate and eventually infect humans? Either way, there are risks with vaccines. Children do get sick and die from receiving them.

  33. #33 ERV
    May 6, 2010

    Jen– Are you a physician?

    Physicians receive only very rudimentary basic science education. Physicians are not the ‘experts’ on this topic– PhDs in micro/immuno are.

    Do you know EXACTLY how the human body will react to foreign DNA that is injected into it?

    Yes. The non-methylated DNA will activate TLR9 on immune cells, and when there is no real threat, the cells will go back to sleep. Alternatively, absolutely nothing will happen. Humans are not competent bacteria.

    Even if these animal viruses may not be a culprit for infection who is to say they cannot mutate…

    *bored with Jens arrogance and stupidity*

  34. #34 rob
    May 18, 2010

    i just got the stoopid vaccine. now i am immune to stupidity with an uptake of about 98%.

    i can already see jen h’s post fading into white.

  35. #35 Houston Chirorapactor
    February 26, 2011

    If you look at science years ago, we would believe that life starts by itself. I mean after all that’s why if you let meat rot, you will get maggots that form out of it. Science is always behind. If you really believe they are finding all the possible viral contaminants in the mix, you are fooling yourself. That was the same reason why Bayer had a batch of blood products for hemophiliacs contaminated with HIV. Back then, they didn’t know how to screen for it. The good thing is that Bayer did find out and instead of destroying the batch, just sent it overseas to Europe. Just go to my blog and type in Bayer. It will make you upset and definitely put doubt in your mind.

  36. #36 Houston Chiropractor
    February 26, 2011

    OOPS, EDITED:

    If you look at science years ago, we would believe that life starts by itself. I mean after all that’s why if you let meat rot, you will get maggots that form out of it. Science is always behind. If you really believe they are finding all the possible viral contaminants in the mix, you are fooling yourself. That was the same reason why Bayer had a batch of blood products for hemophiliacs contaminated with HIV. Back then, they didn’t know how to screen for it. The good thing is that Bayer did find out and instead of destroying the batch, just sent it overseas to Europe. Just go to my blog and type in Bayer. It will make you upset and definitely put doubt in your mind.

  37. #37 allen
    January 2, 2012

    Abbie your article says nothing about the Salk’s vaccinations ,sv-40 or siv injected ,not ingested , into hundreds of millions of youth .after salk’s there begun efforts to “clean things up “. the “original mistake” may be the only relevent one for the increase in cancers and aids . to me the only safe level of risk is – no risk at all . BMJ 1961 does have an article where those injected did seroconvert ,whereas, those fed sv-40 orally did not .