From the July 2003 Idaho Observer:

Hidden Facts about Tuberculosis, the TB Test and the BCG Vaccine

By Ingri Cassel

The Disease

TB is a disease that affects the lungs and can cause people to cough up blood. Other symptoms are: Chest infection, fever, swollen glands, weight loss, night sweats, constant tiredness, and loss of appetite. In rare instances it can affect the bones and brain.

TB is linked to poor living standards and is more common in inner city areas where living conditions are cramped. It is reportedly spread by coughing and sneezing. In 1996 there was a 13 percent rise in TB incidence worldwide.

The Vaccine

The BCG vaccine is given to children aged 10-13 years of age in nearly all countries except the Netherlands and the United States. It is also given to newborn babies of ethnic minority and to babies who live in inner city areas in most countries. In the case of older children, a test is normally done to see whether or not a child is already immune to TB. This is called the Mantoux test, more commonly known as the TB tine test.

The TB Tine Test

The TB tine test is used by a growing number of school districts and employers. It is done by puncturing the skin with 6 tiny needles that inject a trace amount of TB infection into the body with the purpose of seeing whether the person has a reaction. If the person doesn't have a reaction, the result is considered negative for the presence of TB.

The test, however, is not known for its efficacy. The American Academy of Pediatrics tells its members that the test could give false negative and false positive results. The Lancet reported that a lot of medical professionals aren't even sure what a positive test means. It could mean that someone is immune to TB, or it could mean that they are simply allergic to the test.

Composition of Tubersol® - Aventis Pasteur's Mantoux test (from package insert)

“Tubersol® is prepared from a large batch Master Batch, Connaught Tuberculin (CT68) and is a cell-free purified protein fraction obtained from a human strain of Mycobacterium tuberculosis grown on a protein-free synthetic medium, and inactivated.

“Tubersol® is a sterile isotonic solution of Tuberculin in phosphate buffered saline containing Tween 80 as a stabilizer. Phenol 0.28% is added as a preservative.”

Efficacy

The world's largest (and only double-blind) vaccine trial of BCG vaccine was conducted in India. The India study showed that incidence of TB was higher in the vaccinated group than in the control (unvaccinated) group.

The New Scientist wrote: “The world's biggest trial to assess the value of BCG tuberculosis vaccine has made the startling revelation that the vaccine does not give any protection against bacillary forms of tuberculosis.”

The Lancet (14 March 1992) also carried out a study of 83,000 people who had been vaccinated against TB and concluded that they could find no statistically significant protection by the BCG vaccine against tuberculosis. Holland does not have a BCG vaccine program, and they have the lowest TB death rate in Europe.

They don't know how or “if” it works

In the book Vaccines by Plotkin and Mortimer, under the heading 'Efficacy of Bacille Calmette-Guerin' it states:

“The true effectiveness of BCG vaccine has been debated for decades. Large clinical trials from the 1930s through the 1970s yielded wide-ranging and conflicting results, demonstrating efficacy from 0 to 80 percent. The most recent trial in India...only served to continue the argument...Even with years of study and debate, the question 'Does BCG work?' cannot be answered definitively.”

Also under the heading “Immune Responses to Bacille Calmette-Guerin Vaccine” it states:

“The exact immune response elicited by BCG vaccination and its mechanism of action within the host are not well understood...Studies of the immunological events that occur within the human host after BCG vaccination are almost totally lacking...Both animal data and human clinical studies have provided information about the immune response to BCG, yet for no vaccine so widely used, is so little known about its mechanisms of action.

“The immunology is complicated and development of an assay has been hampered by the lack of understanding of the protective response and the inability to identify specific antigens .. Given our incomplete understanding of tuberculosis immunology, we are left with imperfect indicators of immunity.”

Side effects

The side effects of the BCG vaccine include rash, fever, local induration, pain and lymphadenopathy, discharging ulcer, abscess formation, anaphylactic shock, lymphadenitis, difficulty in breathing, nausea, vomiting, phlyctenular conjunctivitis, draining sinuses, death.

In 1930, 73 children were killed by BCG vaccine in a few months. Dr. Neville Irvine's book, “BCG Vaccination in Theory and Practice,” reports of this disaster.

There had been a similar number of deaths in Spain when the Association of Spanish Pediatricians told its members not to use the vaccine. A report in the Medical Monitor (June 1992) also stated that the vaccine can give you TB.

“It can cause disseminated TB in immunosuppressed individuals, including children, and local ulceration and osteitis (wasting away of the bone) appears to be more common in babies.”

Complication rates for serious side effects from the vaccine were recorded at 3-6 children per 200 (1.5 percent to 3 percent).

Contraindications

The vaccine should not be administered if the recipient:

* Is taking steroids or any other immunosuppressive therapy such as radiation or chemotherapy.

* Has cancer or is HIV positive.

* Has a fever or skin condition such as eczema.

* Has had a previous reaction to a vaccination.

* Is allergic to any of the vaccine ingredients.

* Has had a vaccine in the last 3 weeks.

* Is pregnant

(from TB / BCG fact sheet © 1997-2001 VAN UK. Produced by Vaccination Awareness Network UK. 0870 444 0

Sources cited at this link http://www.van.org.uk/tb/bcg-tb_factsheet.PDF

The link to the package insert for Tubersol® is available online at the following link: http://www.vaccineshoppe.com/US_PDF/752-21_4611.pdf

The information in this 6-page insert is quite revealing and worth printing out and READING.

Tubersol®

Tubersol® is the brand name of Aventis Pasteur's TB tine test. The information contained in this package insert is one of the best tools you can use in asserting your right to abstain from this experimental procedure. On page 3 Aventis Pasteur admits to the experimental nature of the product. On page 5 the manufacturer admits the test may give false positive reactions and the only sure test is microbiological examination of sputum (mucous secretion from the lungs, bronchi and trachea) or a chest x-ray. On pages 2 and 3 the many contraindications and potential adverse reactions are listed.

The “phenol” defense

Although there is no guarantee that your school district or employer will honor your wishes in opting for a sputum sample to be checked out in a laboratory, it is certainly worth a try and always worth educating folks on the danger of compromising anyone's immune system by injecting foreign proteins into their system. These carcinogenic substances end up in the bloodstream without censoring by the liver or tonsils, a harmful practice in and of itself. After all, the purity of our bloodstream and lymphatic fluids is our greatest health asset and a true barometer of our state of health.

If I were faced with the prospect of a TB test today, I would use the “phenol defense.” In other words, tell the bureaucrat requiring this procedure that you are highly allergic to phenol, the preservative used in Tubersol®. The 1969 American Heritage Dictionary defines phenol as a “caustic, poisonous, white, crystalline compound...derived from benzene and used in various resins, plastics, disinfectants, and pharmaceuticals. Phenol is also known as 'carbolic acid.'”

Forgotten tuberculosis history

James Phipps, the eight-year-old boy initially vaccinated by Edward Jenner in 1796, was re-vaccinated 20 times, and died at the age of 20. Jenner's own son, who was also vaccinated more than once, died at 21. Both succumbed to TB, a condition that some researchers have linked to the smallpox vaccine. [Favez, G, “Tuberculous Superinfection Following a Smallpox Re-Vaccination”, Praxis, July 21, 1960; 49:698-699; Ambs, E et al, “Tuberculous Abscess of the Upper Arm With Regional Lymphadenitis as a Consequence of Injection in Two Siblings”, Med Klin, July 7, 1967, 62:1050-1054; Eleanor McBean, The Poisoned Needle (Mokelumne Hill, CA : Health Research, 1974) pp. 28-29]

Accurate historical records reveal that the incidence of TB increased at an alarming rate during the smallpox epidemics of the 19th century when smallpox vaccine mandates were enforced. In William Osler's book, Principles and Practices of Medicine (p.330, 8th ed., 1918), he wrote that “with the greatest care certain risks are present... A quiescent malady may be lighted into activity by vaccination. This has happened with congenital syphilis, also with tuberculosis.”

A doctor at the Mayo Clinic, Dr. E.C. Rosenow, recorded in the Mayo Collected Papers, Vol. II, p. 92, that he found “the vaccine serums injected into guinea pigs tended to localize in the lungs.” Even the Surgeon-General of the U.S. Army innocently recorded in a 1918-1919 report that “for all officers and enlisted men, Americans and native troops in all countries where United States troops were serving, tuberculosis of the lungs was the leading cause for discharge; and among American troops at home and abroad there were 31,106 hospital admissions for pulmonary tuberculosis, with 1,114 deaths, in the period of this country's participation in the World War.”

Anne Riley Hale wrote in her book, Medical Voodoo, 1935, p. 38:

“As everyone knows, the world has never witnessed such an orgy of vaccination and inoculation of every description as was inflicted by army-camp doctors upon soldiers of the World War. Join with this the fact that the amazing disease and death toll among them occurred among 'the picked men of the nation' - supposedly the most robust, resistant class of all, who presumably brought to the service each a good pair of lungs, since they must have passed a rigid physical examination by competent medical men...the highest death rate from tuberculosis, and the greatest discharge from the army because of tuberculosis, were among American troops in the camps at home who never got across the seas and whose disabilities could not therefore be chargeable to gas-bombs and trench warfare.”

Naturopathic approach to TB

The medical community considers active tuberculosis a death sentence but this is simply NOT the case. Basic naturopathic principles of detoxification, oxygenation and hydration can be successfully applied in the treatment of tuberculosis.

In Christopher Hobb's book Usnea: The Herbal Antibiotic, usnea is cited as being very effective in the treatment of TB. In fact, usnic acid, one active component in usnea, was proven to be more effective than penicillin in the treatment of TB and other pathogenic organisms. Usnic acid completely inhibited the growth of TB in dilutions as great as one in 50,000 and weakened the bacillus growth at dilutions of up to one in 2 million. Usnic acid has also inhibited the growth of Staphylococcus. Streptococcus and pneumonococcus at dilutions of one part to 20,000.

Usnea is a lichen that grows on trees throughout the northern hemisphere. It is often referred to as Old Man's Beard, hanging in gray-green strands from pine, oak, and Douglas fir trees. Proven clinical uses of Usnea include: Athlete's foot, various fungal infections, acute bacterial infections, lupus erythematosus, trichomonas, ringworm, urinary tract infections, colds and flu, bronchitis, pleurisy, pneumonia, sinus infection and TB.

Usnea is also superior to the drug Flagyl (metronidazole) which is commonly used in the treatment of trichomonas -- a parasite that causes a serious infection of the uterine cervix. Although Flagyl is the commonly prescribed drug for the treatment of trichomonas infection, it can also cause cancer. After oral administration of Flagyl, it makes its way into the bloodstream, cerebrospinal fluid and breastmilk. Nursing mothers should strictly avoid this drug. (Physician's Desk Reference, 1983, p.1874)

Bottom line, AVOID ALL PHARMACEUTICAL DRUGS. Consult with a naturopath if you need help in dealing with a difficult health problem. Consider taking Sheri Nakken's online homeopathy course. http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/homeo.htm

Build up your herbal pharmacy and order a few books from www.azurestandard.com The one we highly recommend is Louise Tenny's Today's Herbal Health.

And, finally, stand tall for medical freedom. It is SO important to challenge the status quo on ALL “required” injections and call it what it is -- forced medical experimentation -- a legalized form of bio-terrorism.