Children's Medical Safety Research Institute

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The Children's Medical Safety Research Institute (CMSRI) was a United States based anti-vaccination group which funded a number of pseudoscientific [1] studies, notably by Christopher Shaw of the University of British Columbia, and his collaborator Lucija Tomljenovic, and by Christopher Exley of Keele University, [2] which purport to link aluminium in vaccines to autism. The studies have been rejected by the World Health Organization [3] and some have been retracted. [4] A claimed "vaccinated vs. unvaccinated" cohort study has also been debunked. [5]

The claimed link between vaccines and autism has been extensively investigated and shown to be false. [6] The scientific consensus is that there is no relationship, causal or otherwise, between vaccines and incidence of autism, [6] [7] [8] and vaccine ingredients do not cause autism. [9]

History

The group was founded by Claire Dwoskin and funded by her and her husband Albert via their Dwoskin Family Foundation. It was wound up in 2018 citing the Dwoskins' divorce. Albert Dwoskin repudiated the group's activities, saying: "After seeing a great deal of evidence, I have concluded that concerns about the safety of vaccination are unfounded [...] The best way to protect children is to make sure they have all their vaccinations as recommended by scientists, doctors and other healthcare professionals." [10]

Exley initially declared no conflict of interest despite being funded by CSMRI, but a formal correction was issued in November 2019. [11] Following the winding up of CSMRI, Exley also lost funding from the UK's research councils, and was blocked from raising funds via GoFundMe citing a policy against use of the platform for anti-vaccination activism. [12]

Controversial Israeli immunologist Yehuda Shoenfeld, originator of the disproven [13] Autoimmune/inflammatory syndrome induced by adjuvants hypothesis, served on the scientific review board. [14]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vaccination</span> Administration of a vaccine to protect against disease

Vaccination is the administration of a vaccine to help the immune system develop immunity from a disease. Vaccines contain a microorganism or virus in a weakened, live or killed state, or proteins or toxins from the organism. In stimulating the body's adaptive immunity, they help prevent sickness from an infectious disease. When a sufficiently large percentage of a population has been vaccinated, herd immunity results. Herd immunity protects those who may be immunocompromised and cannot get a vaccine because even a weakened version would harm them. The effectiveness of vaccination has been widely studied and verified. Vaccination is the most effective method of preventing infectious diseases; widespread immunity due to vaccination is largely responsible for the worldwide eradication of smallpox and the elimination of diseases such as polio and tetanus from much of the world. However, some diseases, such as measles outbreaks in America, have seen rising cases due to relatively low vaccination rates in the 2010s – attributed, in part, to vaccine hesitancy. According to the World Health Organization, vaccination prevents 3.5–5 million deaths per year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vaccine</span> Pathogen-derived preparation that provides acquired immunity to an infectious disease

A vaccine is a biological preparation that provides active acquired immunity to a particular infectious or malignant disease. The safety and effectiveness of vaccines has been widely studied and verified. A vaccine typically contains an agent that resembles a disease-causing microorganism and is often made from weakened or killed forms of the microbe, its toxins, or one of its surface proteins. The agent stimulates the body's immune system to recognize the agent as a threat, destroy it, and to further recognize and destroy any of the microorganisms associated with that agent that it may encounter in the future.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vaccine hesitancy</span> Reluctance or refusal to be vaccinated or have ones children vaccinated

Vaccine hesitancy is a delay in acceptance, or refusal, of vaccines despite the availability of vaccine services and supporting evidence. The term covers refusals to vaccinate, delaying vaccines, accepting vaccines but remaining uncertain about their use, or using certain vaccines but not others. The scientific consensus that vaccines are generally safe and effective is overwhelming. Vaccine hesitancy often results in disease outbreaks and deaths from vaccine-preventable diseases. Therefore, the World Health Organization characterizes vaccine hesitancy as one of the top ten global health threats.

The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), founded under the name Dissatisfied Parents Together (DPT) in 1982, is an American 501(c)(3) organization that has been widely criticized as a leading source of fearmongering and misinformation about vaccines. While NVIC describes itself as the "oldest and largest consumer-led organization advocating for the institution of vaccine safety and informed consent protections", it promotes false and misleading information including the discredited claim that vaccines cause autism, and its campaigns portray vaccination as risky, encouraging people to consider "alternatives." In April 2020, the organization was identified as one of the greatest disseminators of COVID-19 misinformation on Facebook.

A vaccine adverse event (VAE), sometimes referred to as a vaccine injury, is an adverse event caused by vaccination. The World Health Organization (WHO) knows VAEs as Adverse Events Following Immunization (AEFI).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yehuda Shoenfeld</span> Israeli physician

Yehuda Shoenfeld is an Israeli physician and autoimmunity researcher.

Claims of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism have been extensively investigated and found to be false. The link was first suggested in the early 1990s and came to public notice largely as a result of the 1998 Lancet MMR autism fraud, characterised as "perhaps the most damaging medical hoax of the last 100 years". The fraudulent research paper authored by Andrew Wakefield and published in The Lancet claimed to link the vaccine to colitis and autism spectrum disorders. The paper was retracted in 2010 but is still cited by anti-vaccinationists.

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Autoimmune/inflammatory syndrome induced by adjuvants (ASIA), or Shoenfeld's syndrome, is a hypothesised autoimmune disorder proposed by Israeli immunologist Yehuda Shoenfeld in 2011. According to Shoenfeld, the syndrome is triggered by exposure to adjuvants and includes four conditions: "post-vaccination symptoms", macrophagic myofasciitis, Gulf war syndrome, sick building syndrome, and siliconosis. Shoenfeld alleges that the syndrome is caused by adjuvants such as silicone, tetramethylpentadecane, pristane, and aluminum. However, causality is difficult to prove because ASIA only occurs in a small fraction of patients exposed to these adjuvants. Additionally, proponents of this theory allege that the disorder can manifest anywhere from 2 days to 23 years after exposure. Shoenfeld has also named Sjögren's syndrome as potentially being another facet of ASIA.

An alternative vaccination schedule is a vaccination schedule differing from the schedule endorsed by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). These schedules may be either written or ad hoc, and have not been tested for their safety or efficacy. Proponents of such schedules aim to reduce the risk of adverse effects they believe to be caused by vaccine components, such as "immune system overload" that is argued to be caused by exposure to multiple antigens. Parents who adopt these schedules tend to do so because they are concerned about the potential risks of vaccination, rather than because they are unaware of the significance of vaccination's benefits. Delayed vaccination schedules have been shown to lead to an increase in breakthrough infections without any benefit in lower side effect profiles.

<i>Vaxxed</i> 2016 anti-vaccination documentary film

Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe is a 2016 American pseudoscience propaganda film alleging a cover-up by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of a purported link between the MMR vaccine and autism. According to Variety, the film "purports to investigate the claims of a senior scientist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who revealed that the CDC had allegedly manipulated and destroyed data on an important study about autism and the MMR vaccine"; critics derided Vaxxed as an anti-vaccine propaganda film.

Texans for Vaccine Choice (TFVC) is an anti-vaccine Facebook group turned political action committee in Texas which advocates for personal belief exemptions to vaccination requirements, based on "a collection of fake news, half- truths, and conspiracy theories". Andrew Wakefield, the disgraced former medical researcher and originator of the MMR autism hoax, and infectious disease specialist Peter Hotez, both describe TFVC's lobbying as very effective, with the rate of Texas students opting out of at least one vaccine at least doubling in around five years and over 50,000 Texas schoolchildren not being vaccinated.

Christopher Ariel Shaw is a Canadian neuroscientist and professor of ophthalmology at the University of British Columbia.

Extensive investigation into vaccines and autism has shown that there is no relationship between the two, causal or otherwise, and that the vaccine ingredients do not cause it. Vaccinologist Peter Hotez researched the growth of the false claim and concluded that its spread originated with Andrew Wakefield's fraudulent 1998 paper, with no prior paper supporting a link.

Christopher Exley is an English chemist known for his research on the health effects of aluminium exposure. He is Professor of Bioinorganic Chemistry and group leader of the Bioinorganic Chemistry Laboratory at Keele University. He is also an honorary professor at the UHI Millennium Institute. He has published the research finding that Carole Cross, a woman who died from aluminium poisoning as a result of the 1988 Camelford water pollution incident, had brain levels of aluminium over twenty times higher than normal. In 2012, he testified in an inquest into Cross's death in Taunton, England. He asserted that if victims of the poisoning consumed mineral water that contains high levels of silicic acid, even if they did so twenty-four years after the initial poisoning, it could help to remove the aluminium from their brains. He also criticized the government for advising residents of Cornwall to boil their water shortly after the incident, referring to this advice he told the inquest: "The advice given at the time was the worst possible advice to give. Boiling the water would have tripled the concentration of aluminium. It was absolutely terrible advice. I don't think anyone was given any good advice, it is utterly beyond belief and it cannot be acceptable." While some were affected, possibly fatally in one case, and advice at the time was agreed to have been incorrect, it is unlikely that there was any long-term effect from the Camelford incident. In September 2013 the government admitted that there had been a "manifest failure to give prompt appropriate advice and information to affected consumers" and offered an unreserved apology.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vaccination policy of the United States</span> Overview of the vaccination policy in the United States of America

Vaccination policy of the United States is the subset of U.S. federal health policy that deals with immunization against infectious disease. It is decided at various levels of the government, including the individual states. This policy has been developed over the approximately two centuries since the invention of vaccination with the purpose of eradicating disease from the U.S. population, or creating a herd immunity. Policies intended to encourage vaccination impact numerous areas of law, including regulation of vaccine safety, funding of vaccination programs, vaccine mandates, adverse event reporting requirements, and compensation for injuries asserted to be associated with vaccination.

Misinformation related to immunization and the use of vaccines circulates in mass media and social media in spite of the fact that there is no serious hesitancy or debate within mainstream medical and scientific circles about the benefits of vaccination. Unsubstantiated safety concerns related to vaccines are often presented on the internet as being scientific information. A high proportion of internet sources on the topic are "inaccurate on the whole" which can lead people searching for information to form "significant misconceptions about vaccines".

References

  1. ↑ Quan, Douglas (2017-11-01). "UBC journal retraction raises controversial question: Can an activist be a scientist?". National Post . Retrieved 2020-01-08.
  2. ↑ "Move over, Christopher Shaw, there's a new antivaccine scientist in town". sciencebasedmedicine.org. 4 December 2017. Retrieved 2020-01-08.
  3. ↑ "UBC stands behind vaccine studies discredited by WHO" . Retrieved 2020-01-08.
  4. ↑ "Two (now retracted) studies purporting to show that vaccinated children are sicker than unvaccinated children show nothing of the sort". sciencebasedmedicine.org. 11 May 2017. Retrieved 2020-01-08.
  5. ↑ "'First Ever' Study Comparing Vaccinated and Unvaccinated Children Shows Harm from Vaccines?". Snopes.com. 17 May 2017. Retrieved 2020-01-08.
  6. 1 2 Taylor LE, Swerdfeger AL, Eslick GD (June 2014). "Vaccines are not associated with autism: an evidence-based meta-analysis of case-control and cohort studies". Vaccine. 32 (29): 3623–9. doi:10.1016/j.vaccine.2014.04.085. PMID   24814559.
  7. ↑ Bonhoeffer J, Heininger U (June 2007). "Adverse events following immunization: perception and evidence" (PDF). Current Opinion in Infectious Diseases. 20 (3): 237–46. doi:10.1097/QCO.0b013e32811ebfb0. PMID   17471032. S2CID   40669829.
  8. ↑ Boseley S (February 2, 2010). "Lancet retracts 'utterly false' MMR paper". The Guardian. Retrieved February 2, 2010.
  9. ↑ "Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism Concerns". Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . 2018-12-12. Retrieved 2019-02-07.
  10. ↑ Kucinich, Jackie (2019-06-20). "Dem MegaDonor Pulls Funding From Anti-Vax Group, Regrets Involvement" . Retrieved 2020-01-08.
  11. ↑ Exley, Christopher; Mold, Matthew J. (2019-12-01). "Correction to: Aluminium in human brain tissue: how much is too much?". Journal of Biological Inorganic Chemistry. 24 (8): 1283. doi: 10.1007/s00775-019-01722-w . ISSN   1432-1327. PMID   31748978.
  12. ↑ Jonathan Leake, Shanti Das and (2019-04-07). "Funding halted for Professor Chris Exley, who links vaccines to autism". The Sunday Times. ISSN   0956-1382 . Retrieved 2020-01-08.
  13. ↑ Ameratunga, Rohan; Gillis, David; Gold, Michael; Linneberg, Allan; Elwood, J. Mark (2017-11-01). "Evidence Refuting the Existence of Autoimmune/Autoinflammatory Syndrome Induced by Adjuvants (ASIA)". The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice. 5 (6): 1551–1555.e1. doi:10.1016/j.jaip.2017.06.033. ISSN   2213-2198. PMID   28888842.
  14. ↑ Kupferschmidt, Kai (2019-11-06). "Top Israeli immunologist accused of promoting antivaccine views" . Retrieved 2020-01-10.
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