Hi i have a six year old son, even before he was born i had issues about weather or not to have him vaccinated, after alot of sleepless nights and research i decided not to have him vaccinated.  I have been grilled by health visitors and doctors as to why i have not had him vaccinated and also been told to fina another doctors practice!  I dont regret not having him vaccinated, hes a normal healthy boy who has the odd cough or cold, he had mumps last year and apart from the swollen face he was just fine.  I have however been considering having the tetanus vaccine as he is now playing outside alot and getting cuts and grazes etc, but when i asked the doctor about this i was told that he could not have it without all the other vaccines and that he would have to start  the vaccine program for an 8 week old baby!!  This is not what i want i only want the tetanus vaccine. Can anyone give me any advise?? I also have been wondering if i am the only parent not to have my child vaccinated!! my friends seem to think i crazy!!  Thanks Sara

Hi Sara,

I know exactly where you are coming from. My two boys are 7 and 8 and they are unvaccinated.  I can now look back on it with amusement but at the time it was quite intimidating what with creches quizzing you up and down and health visitors tut tutting. However it has all been worth it because like yourself they have just had the odd cold whereas all my friends seem to have endless visits to both hospital and doctor. My next door neighbour's child is also unvaccinated and he is now 7 and very healthy.  I am also much more confident about their future well being because I know they don't have any mysterious substances going through their blood stream.

Actually they both got whooping cough about 5 months ago but at the time I just thought it was a persistant cough. It affected them so little that they never even saw a doctor about it. Eventually I had a swab done just to satisfy my curiosity and it came back as positive on whooping cough. If I had known when I was debating the vaccine issue at the time they were born that they would get whooping cough I would have really panicked. Having sailed through it I hope I can offer advice and comfort to those who worry about it. Personally I think it all boils down to the health of their immune system ( I think vaccines seriously compromise the immune system.)

At the moment I am wondering about the measles because they are both at that age and I would be more worried that they didn't get it. I would love to hear from someone on this issue.

Tetanus as a single vaccine is no longer available in Canada

VRAN is frequently contacted by people who have rejected all or most vaccines for their children, but still worry about their child's susceptibility to tetanus.

Vaccine manufacturer Aventis Pasteur confirmed that on the recommendation of Health Canada, they and other companies no longer produce the single component tetanus vaccine. It is only available as a combination vaccine. The reason? To insure that all children under age 7 are "protected" from diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis and polio. Parents are now forced to use either, Quadracel (DTaP + Polio) or Pentacel (DTaP + Polio + Hib). Health Canada has eliminated parental choice in vaccine decision making.

However, the tetanus & diphtheria vaccine (TD-Adsorbed on aluminum phosphate) is available for use in children age 7 and older, and adults not previously vaccinated. The amount of tetanus antigen is the same as in Quadracel & Pentacel This product also contains the mercury based preservative thimerosal. The TD vaccine is not licensed for use in children under age 7 because their "immature immune system requires a higher amount of antigen" and the diphtheria component in this vaccine is too small to mount an adequate immune response. However, if parents want to order the TD-Adsorbed vaccine for younger children, it would hinge on "physician and parental decision".

Health officials have calculated that by removing the availability of single tetanus vaccines, people will be forced to submit to products containing multiple vaccines - a plan that may backfire as indicated by a number of parents who were considering the single tetanus vaccine for their children, but discovering they would be forced to accept multiple vaccines, changed their minds. An emphasis on wound care, is the most essential key to tetanus prevention.

This is an article by Sharon Calahan on her website VACCINETRUTH in response to a similar question.

Tetanus is another one of those subjects that I spent years researching.  I would not have the vaccine, and in making that choice, this is some of the information I would have thought about. I'm not putting it all, otherwise I'd be here writing, in a weeks time...

FACTS

The first is that Australia did a study the results of which were published in the New Zealand Doctor 18, March 1993, pg 23. This was the first time a study like this had ever been done..., to see what the antibody levels were in people 10 years after their last booster. Here is what the medical article said:

quote:

Too many tetanus shots Some people having tetanus boosters already have antibody levels more than 8,000 times (eight thousand) the protective level needed, suggesting Australia's regime of a booster every 10 years is in need of a change. Community physicians say Australia should adopt the UK regime which advises after five doses, further boosters are unnecessary.

So the first thing maybe, is go have a titre count done.

But lets look at this titre thing. Way back in the 80's there was a study done in the Scandinavian J Infect Dis 1983: 15;303 -306, which looked at soldiers who had been given heaps of tetanus vaccine. Their antibody levels were way too high as well, and what they discovered was that "repeated exposure to an antigen, or an overdose of antigen, will not continually enhance the immune response and may lead to inhibition or telerance at either T or B cells level.. in addition, a possible feedback effect stimulated by the high level of toxoid antibodies may suppress, as Stevens
and Saxon have illustrated, the production of more antibodies at a later date"

Okay? Do you understand the implications of this?

It came out loud and clear in The Journal of Family Practice, 1997, Vol 44, No 3, pg 299 - 303 when a 29 year old man was admitted with severe generalised tetanus despite having had a primary series and two booster injections. And his levels were only 100 times that considered protective, not 8,000 times as per the Australian study!!!.

Now, if you look at the New Zealand scene, where it was pointed out in the New Zealand Medical Journal (24th November 1994)that most people over 35 are unlikely to have had a vaccine, since it was only inroduced in 1960, then you have to ask yourself why every over-40 year old, isn't dropping
dead with tetanus. In 1987 a serum survey showed that just over 50% of the 60-65 group had immunity to tetanus. 83% of the 20-29 year olds, 64% of the 30 -35 year olds. And the stats aren't that much better today. I understand they are even lower for the USA than for here. So where did the people with immunity get it from? Many were not vaccinated...see later...

Now, if you have a look at Tetanus in America, one of the most interesting articles is a 1969 one from the New England Medical Journal, Volume 280, Number 11, March 13. And on pages 570 there is a really interesting decline graph for mortality rates, which shows that the mortality rate plummetted dramatically from 64/100,000 in 1900to 8/100,000. in 1940. By 1950, with most mothers still unvaccinated, it was 4.5/100,000.

Not that Tetanus was ever a very common cause of death before hand anyway, in relation to all the other things that historically could do you in. Marasmus was a much more common killer of children than neonatal tetanus ever was... for instance.

They say that it may have been the use of anti-toxin from 1923, but I know far too much about antitoxin to believe that!!! Antitoxin can kill all by itself, primarily because it is made in horses, and has horrendous side-effects in its own right. And some people treated with anti-tetanus toxoid, will die of the toxoid side-effects, but that is the risk you take, if you think yu have a chance of dying anyway.....

But the article also recognises that the anti-toxin is not the only reason, because they cover their bums by also talking about improved obstetric techniques and neonatal care. And I would have to say wound care also. But the graph is pretty amazing.

In interesting study in the American Journal of Public Health, August 1984, Vol 74, No 8, showed that in 1,900 adults over 20 years of age, the overall percentage immunised was 38.6%. Now if, in 1979, in american, only 38.6% of adults were immunised, what are the factors which operated then to prevent thousands of adults daily dying from tetanus?

And obviously there are people still around in USA who still have never been vaccinated. and haven't died yet. But let's look at something else as well. As to why tetanus has always been a rare disease in civilian communities in places like America.

The medical profession has always stated that a person does not acquire natural immunity to tetanus. But the funny thing is that in 1975 in Dakar, in the proceeding of the 4th international symposium on tetanus, they talked about "latent" natural immunity causing reactions to primary immunisation. Then there was the study in JAMA Nov 19, 1982, Volume 248, No 19, in which a large number of the unvaccianted Amish showed serological evidence of immunity to both diphtheria and tetanus.

(Incidentally, the same was though about rabies (that there is no natural immunity), until a recent study showed that in Alaskan trappers who had never had any vaccine, they too had antibodies. Poof goes that theory)

Now, New Zealand should be THE prime hot-bed for tetanus. Everywhere you turn, you fall over horses, etc etc - cows, sheep dogs. opossums, you name it. And even here, Tetanus occurs sometimes, but not often. And what has been most interesting to me is in WHOM it occurs. Recently, I was able to to a bit of poking into the lives of 4 self-confessed tetanus sufferers who were in the stats. And every single one of them had factors in their lives which pre-disposed them to tetanus. One had even had a 3 primary 1 booster schedule, and she ate refined foods, drank, smoked, and did recreation drugs. Well, hey. What state was her immune system in!!! didn't stand a
chance at doing its job...

The other three ate the usual white flour, white sugar, coke, biscuits,very little fruit and vegetables.....

One one was what I would call reasonable healthy, but he smoked like a train - which as I showed him from the med lit, suppresses the immune system considerably, especially in the airways and gut area...

Now, someone here said tetanus is only a risk with rusty nails /horses etc.

It would be wonderful if that were so, but it isn't.

For a start, 5% of us carry it in our guts, happily replicating. In fact, at one time, the best way to get tetanus in the medical literature was to have a hemorrhoid dealt with. Until they got wise to that one..

Tetanus is ubiquitous in our environment. It is everywhere, on everything.

Where do you think it comes from on the rusty nail? Why do you think it is that the highest rate of tetanus in vaccinated people is in homeless drug shooters?

Go get some dust from your mantle-piece tested and it will be there, 10 to the power 6. It is found in bullet wounds, human bite wounds (!!) on your carrots - you likely eat it every day. There is nowhere that tetanus is not. In your carpet, on your soil, and often, on your skin. And if you don't believe me, read the medical literature.

And far from rusty nails being the most common cause of tetanus, that is
not true. Rusty nails account for less that 40% of tetanus. Most tetanus
comes where there is no discernable "portal of entry". It has even been
identified following ear-ache (which left me somewhat gob-smacked --- did
the kid have grommets? and the thing shoved in the ear to "look see",
transfer Tetanus Clostridium? That wasn't even considered...)

Lets look at a bit more history from the medical literature. It has always been known that war-time historically showed up the highest rate of tetanus. Far higher than in civilians. Bullet/schrapnel wounds and all, and the stress of fighting.

Boer war .28 of every thousand wounded got tetanus.
Crimean war 2.0 per 1,000
Am. Civil war 2.0 per thousand
Western front (Flanders horse country WWI average 1.47/thousand wounded. 2nd world war varied from .06 - .43 per thousand. ( and not everyone there was vaccinated either. In the paper on the American Tetanus cases, most who got tetanus had been vaccinated....)

(The difference between the 2nd WW and the first has nothing to do with the vaccine in my opinion. The second world war was in many ways, far more hygienically fought. Where were all the mud-filled trenches, and ghastly living conditions in the second world war, compared to the first? Those who
know their history will see that right away...)

Now, the question should be, not why did the few actually GET tetanus, but why didn't the other 998 per thousand wounded get it? Especially when you realise that it was days, if not weeks, before those wounded people got any serious attention. When you read about weeks in stinking ships amongst the wounded from Gallipoli on their way to hospital in EGYPT as well as the substandard treatment, you have to wonder why they all didn't die.

The answer lies IMO in the unique susceptibility of the individual. That a vaccine can confer immunity is not the question that needs to be answered. The medical profession attributes the decrease in Tetanus SOLELY to vaccination which is grossly misleading.

I mean, look at your family trees? Did all your great-grandparents die of tetanus? Nope. Did they never get exposed to it? ACtually, they had far more wounds likely to have harboured it, than we do today...

A good read of the medical textbooks of the 20's gives some idea as to one chief reason..... In a study done in 1919-1920 by Dr Harriette Chick of the lister Institute, and other working in Pirquets clinic in Vienna, showed that "nearly all children in Central Europe were more or less rachitic"

Remember Rickets? Remember being lined up with cod-liver oil and black-strap molasses. (Last year, there was an article which shows that rickets is rising again in the USA....)

Most older people living now can remember the free milk, cod-liver oil by the spoon-full. One here has already made derogatory comments about it.... Even in the rich communities in London in the 30's there were still over 30% of children with definable nutritional deficiencies...

Now, its interesting in that light, to know that there are studies which show that when you vaccinate people whose nutritional status is not good, at least 30% do not respond to the vaccine, even when given highly concentrated fluid toxoids (Med J Aust, Aug 7, 1976). Again the work by Chandra shows that their rate of non-conversion to the vaccine gets higher with the degree of malnutrition, and that malnourished mothers pass on such low levels of IgG that the babies' passive immunity is virtually nil.

There is no way around the blinding revelation of the obvious that

1) Bad nutrition is a very serious immune suppressor

2) Immune suppression, or malfunction, is the chief determiner of the severity of tetanus.

And the work by Chandra et all, shows that obesity causes immune changes similar to those caused by malnutrition, so nutritional status is wide-ranging in its implications.

And then there is the hysteria factor which suppresses the immune system as well, which was amply demonstrated in the USA in Johb Paul's book "The history of Polio" where at times when the media hype was bordering on the screaming paranoid, people would be admitted with what they called
"pseudo-polio"

Talking of hysteria, rember that hysteria is one of the differential diagnoses of tetanus, as is hypocalcemia, meningitis, rabies, drug withdrawal, strychnine poisoning, and dystonic drug reaction.

"red streaks" may have nothing to do with tetanus at all. When I was in USA in 1993, I got a chigger bite, which the chemist treated with what looked like nail polish, and said it would be just fine. Well, it wasn't. After 4 days, my legs ached, and I had red streaks up to the groin. And while my hosts freaked their heads off, I plonked myself in the bath, took a sterilised 3 inch needle, put a piece of wood between my teeth, and opened it up in a Y shape. The rotten chigger, and pus exploded everywhere....

And within three days, the red streaks had completely gone as had all infection. And since I am fatally allergic to all antibiotics, no, I didn't use them. I let my body do the job it is designed for, with judicious help from vitamin quackery.....

Back to history

There is much made of the fact that the Japanese soldiers in WWII had a lot of tetanus in comparison to the Americans. 14 per hundred.... But when researching this, I was interested to read this "We embarked 284 wounded Japanese soldiers. We found them to be generally dirty, emaciated and with wounds that had been improperly treated." By contrast, the 384 wounded US
solders were described as clean, well-fed with wounds that had been promptly treated.

Aparently this counted for nothing, and that the reason the USA soldiers had escaped "in comparison" was the vaccine. Which makes me very annoyed, because there is another factor they missed out, which is integral to understanding the japanese-- What was not taken into account was that to be taken captive was the ultimate in disgrace to any japanese, and many lost the will to live, and died anyway. Imagine the shape of the immune system of someone with no hope....

Now you would think too, that ALL the US personnel during WWII who got tetanus would have been unimmunised, but not so. There were twelve cases. 6 of them had completed an immunisation schedule, and one had had one shot. And three of the 6 with a completed schedule, died. Three of the unvaccinated suvived. The one who had had one shot, survived. Seems sort of 50/50 to me. (Bull US Army Med Dept, Vol VII, no 4, April 1947). The British records are even stranger, with the immunized often having a higher overall case mortality record than the unimmunsed. In the Lancet, Jan 26, 1946, pg 116 looking at the case Mortality rates, in the "protected" it was 50%, in the Unprotected it was 46.8%, and in the incomplete or doubtful it was 42.1%.

The list of side-effects which I have for Tetanus vaccine is huge, but I won't go into that. What I wanted to reinforce was nutritional status, and some history, but finally to draw your attention to a most interesting study. This is found in the Bangladesh medical Research Council Bulleting, Volume 10, No 1, June 1984.

As I said, a differential diagnosis is Strynchnine poisoning. The first part was to take two day old chicks divided into fur groups with 15 birds in each. Group one got 5 nanograms of strychnine sulphate (SS). Group 2 got SS plus 30 mg of Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C) Group 3 10 nonograms of SS, and group 4 got10 nanos SS and 30 mg Vitamin C. The results were:

Group one, Wings of all birds stretched, Some walked on toes, others kept jumping but could not walk.

Group 2 - No symptoms

Group 3, Extensor paralysis of legs, opisthotonus and severe convulsions,and all but three died.

Group 4, Extensor paralysis in 3 chicks. No neurological symptoms in others. the affected bird recovered in about 30 minutes after the appearance of symptoms.

Then they randomly assigned tetanus cases into four groups.

Ages 1-11

No Vitamin C = 72% mortality rate.

Vitamin C 0% mortality rate.

Ages 13 - 30

Vitamin C, 37% mortality

Non Vitamin C 67.8 % mortality rate.

But they made one mistake with this. All patients got 1,000 mg of Vitamin C. They did not ADJUST UPWARDS the dose of vitamin C for the bigger body weight. Had they done that, the results might have been different. They did another study looking at the use of B 6, pyrodoxine and found that that also reduced both severity an mortality.

Think on that. Tetanus is a toxin-mediated disease, rather like diphtheria. It is determined by nutritional status, and immune function more than anything else...

But there is another interesting fact. The body, with a wound, puts up "road-blocks" to stop the toxin spreading. It is fascinating to me, that it has long been known that "Wound excision should be delayed until the antitoxin is given, as free tetanospasmin is mobilized into the blood-stream during surgical manipulation." In other words, debridement of wounds breaks open these road-blocks, and floods the system with poison....

I also found in interesting that in the Am J Dis Child Vol 135, June 1981, Pg 571 it says "the mortality in reported cases of tetanus is higher in the USA than in developing countries." Perhaps it is because in the USA the methods of treatment are very invastive, include debridement, tracheotomy - a whole host of things which just can't be done in developing countries, not just because of cost, but also because of infection risk.

Hi Eleanor,  Did you have Measles as a child i know i did and most of my friends did, appart from feeling ill for a week or so, nothing bad happened.  It used to be a normal childhood disease and these days its branded a killer!!  My mum told me i had every thing from measles, mumps to whooping cough as a child! Im only 29 now so i cant see why things have changed so much over the last 20 years.

Have you had any of your childrens vaccines??   I havent met anyone yet that is like me and not given any vaccines, i know i cant be the only one, it would just be nice to chat to someone who knows how i feel.