The first big medical/political/philosophical decision that the parents must make is how to deal with the pressure from MDs, relatives, and state laws to have the child get the immunization shots. Most reluctance is about the diphtheria/pertussis/tetanus (DPT) vaccine because of the well-publicized reactions some infants have after the shots. I was the standard pediatrician from 1950 to 1975 and insisted that the children brought to me would get these "specific stimulants to the immune system." We were the experts in preventive care; we knew what we were doing. We were behind the pressure on the legislators to pass a law: "No shots, no school." That was medical bigotry at its arrogant best.
In my private practice I diagnosed about six to eight cases of whooping cough a year. They were sick. Most of them had not had the full three DPT shots in their first year, but some of them had the complete series and even a booster at 18 months, and they still got whooping cough. I began to have mixed feelings about the efficacy of the vaccine, especially when so many parents reported fevers and irritability for a day or so after the shots.
We were told to explain to the parents that the risk of complications or even death from the disease was greater than the risk of any bad reaction from the vaccine. It is also possible that the same children who will have a bad reaction from the pertussis shots are the same ones who would come down with the disease if exposed, and be more likely to have complications from it.
The statistics on pertussis are that the incidence and the severity of whooping cough were decreasing in the 1920s and 1930s before the widespread use of the pertussis vaccine. As far as I know there is no difference in the immunity acquired in the natural course of the disease, whooping cough, than the immunity, if gained, from the pertussis vaccine. But there is an obvious difference in the natural immunity and the vaccine-induced immunity in the case of the hard measles (rubeola), as there are many reports of adolescents getting a measles-like disease even when properly immunized as 15-month-old infants.
Dr. Archie Kalokerinos wrote a book, Every Second Child, in 1974, delineating his experiences with the Australian government's vaccine program to improve the health of the Aborigines. Every other child so immunized as infants died within a few days of the DPT shots. The mothers tried to hide their children, but in the outback there are precious few bushes behind which to hide. His recourse was to administer, at his own expense, 100 mgs. of vitamin C per month of age, per day, to each of his patients. (A six-month-old would get 600 mgs. The one- to two-year-old received 1,000 mgs., and the two-year-old received two grams, and so on until age ten, after which the dose stayed at 10 grams daily.) Result: No child died when on his regime. He became convinced that the sudden infant death syndrome was related to the DPT shots. However, there is no correlation in our country with the DPT shots and SIDS.
Using that as a guide, I began to use the following protocol: When I gave the DPT shot to an infant, I gave a shot of a mixed B complex and vitamin C (50 mgs.) in a separate muscle. No one had a reaction, even those who had reactions from previous DPTs. Recently, I have given the following advice: Administer 1,000 mgs. of C, 500 mgs. of calcium, and 50 mgs. of B6 to the child the day before, the day of, and the day after the DPT. The children so primed seem to have no trouble with the shot. This mixture must have temporarily shored up the immune system to the point that the body can process this foreign material in an efficient and safe way.
If, however, you can keep your infant from being exposed to whooping cough in that first year, you will avoid the fear of a reaction from the pertussis vaccine. I believe that the diphtheria and tetanus shot is appropriate. No matter how healthy children are, they can still get punctured, suffer, and die from lockjaw. Since the tetanus spores are carried in on a contaminated nail or stick, the shot seems to imitate the puncture wound. By the same token, since the polio virus enters the system through the alimentary canal, the polio drops make sense to give the child a natural as possible immunity.
Not so with the measles, mumps, and rubella. Those diseases are airborne and the droplets enter through the nose and throat passages and are then processed through the tonsils, adenoids, lining cells of the lungs, then on to the blood, the lymph tissue, the spleen, the liver, and the rest of the body. The vaccine given by shot does not get processed through the body's immune system so the inoculated person only gets antibody protection, not cellular protection. This must be the reason that vaccinated children are getting an odd form of measles again.
I do worry about the pregnant woman who might acquire rubella during the first few months of a pregnancy. I would want her to get the rubella shot when she is 13 years old.
My general rule: Have your child immunized against diphtheria and tetanus by using the shot. Give the child the polio drops. Forget the pertussis vaccine; it is not as efficacious as it should be. Forget the measles and mumps shots. Give your child immune boosters: breast milk for the first 12 months of life, extra vitamin C a la Kalokerinos, and echinacea if sickness occurs. If your state mandates these shots, do the C, calcium, and B6 as outlined above.
I welcome your comments about this emotionally charged medical procedure.
Lendon H. Smith, M.D.
Portland, Oregon
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