What's In Our Vaccines? - Part One

When the wife and I found out we were expecting, it wasn't long before my mind was racing with all the things that had to be done. Suddenly, nine months seemed a lot shorter. One of the first things to do was read up on immunizations. I'd heard some pretty scary things and you've gotta know what you're getting into going in, 'cause they start pushing their product on you from day one. No joke, they administer the first dose of the Hepatitis B vaccine at birth automatically. You have to tell them not to. And mean it.

So I bought Dr. Sears' The Vaccine Book. I highly recommend it. He just tells it like it is. All facts. When he expresses his own opinion he lets you know explicitly. Besides that, it's extremely easy to read and well organized. At any rate, come to find out, all those horrible things I'd heard are all true. Well, not quite all of them. Even still, I can be a pretty big cynic when it comes to doctors, but there's nothing that could have prepared me for some of it. I've decided to start with the most heinous, disgusting ingredients and progress on through the ones that aren't so bad.

Apparently, both the Varicella (Chicken Pox) and Hepatitis A vaccines involve growing the viruses in a culture composed of what they call "human diploid cells" and the serum (the liquid part) from the blood of a cow fetus, which is used to nourish the human cells. Residual amounts of both these substances are found in the final product that's actually administered. What they don't tell you is that "human diploid cells" is a fancy term for human cells that were harvested from the lungs of a 14-week old male fetus that was aborted in 1966 and were modified to grow in the lab.

While the Rubella vaccine doesn't actually contain aborted fetal tissue, the virus used "was originally taken from an infected aborted fetus in the 1960s," (Sears 87). Unfortunately, though the Measles, Mumps and Rubella vaccines used to be available separately, Merck now only provides them in the combination M-M-R II and ProQuad, which combines them with the Varicella vaccine. As such, had I wanted to immunize my child for the measles and mumps I no longer can.

Certainly no one could be culpable for participating in this activity had they no knowledge of what the vaccines actually contained. But that's the whole problem. They don't want you to know.

Up next: Controversial human and animal tissues.