Study Suggests Vaccines Targeting Mucus Membranes Could Reduce Risk of SIDS

Science & Health | Family & Society

5 hours ago

Originally posted by: Children's Health Defense

A new peer-reviewed study linking vaccination to sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, suggests that replacing traditional vaccines with nasal or oral vaccines that target the mucosal immune system could significantly reduce the risk of SIDS, one of the leading causes of infant death in high-income countries.

Traditional infant vaccines are designed to elicit systemic immunity, the body’s broad-based immune response throughout the blood and lymphatic system, said the researchers who led the study.

However, that vaccination strategy is based on clinical trials in adults, whose immune systems are more developed than those of infants, the authors said.

Vaccines that target the systemic immune system can overwhelm infants and trigger immunodeficiency, leading to SIDS or other adverse effects, according to the paper, published last week in the European Society of Medicine.

Those shots are also particularly ineffective against respiratory viruses because they don’t address the infection that is entering the body through the mucosal surface.

Vaccines that target the mucosal immune system, which protects the eyes, ears, nose, throat, gastrointestinal, urinary and genital membranes, would be more effective, the authors say. This immune system provides the “first line of defense” against toxic agents entering the body.

These vaccines would be administered orally or nasally and would strengthen an infant’s ability to protect against any pathogen, one of the study’s authors, Edward J. Steele, Ph.D., told The Defender.

Steele explained that if a person is exposed to a flu virus through the nose, the mucosal immune system will be activated throughout the entire body and can prime the immune system for broader defense.

Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., senior research scientist for Children’s Health Defense, said the paper outlined an “interesting immunization strategy.”

“A vaccine that does not invoke a mucosal immune response will not be able to prevent pathogens from infecting the mucosal membrane,” he said.

For example, the pertussis vaccine can reduce or prevent symptoms of the disease. However, it doesn’t prevent vaccinated people from becoming infected or transmitting the bacteria, because that happens at the mucosal membrane, Jablonowski said.

He said that mucosal immunity is best achieved using live pathogens, which may be communicable and could cause the disease you’re trying to prevent.

Live vaccines, even when weakened, “are still pathogens that for eons have evaded our defenses and can cause damage to the human host. It’s possible the ‘cure’ could become the disease,” Jablonowski said.

‘Multiple shots of aluminum-based vaccines in babies are dangerous’

The authors concede that vaccines that target the mucosal immune system raise some concerns. For example, nasal sprays run the risk of crossing the blood-brain barrier, they wrote.

Steele acknowledged that the issues raised by Jablonowski are legitimate and require extensive research and safety testing.

However, Steele said, those concerns don’t negate the study’s premise that vaccines targeting mucosal immunity ought to be investigated as a potentially safer alternative.

He said the mucosal vaccine would not contain highly toxic adjuvants, such as aluminum, which are likely linked to SIDS.

Steele said while mucosal vaccines would need to have an adjuvant component, animal studies show these vaccines can use ingredients that are safer than “the current crop [of adjuvants] designed to supercharge the systemic immune system.”

Steele said:

“We’ve got to warn people that multiple shots of aluminum-based vaccines in babies are dangerous. That’s got to stop. That means we’ve got to moderate the whole approach to vaccination.”

Researcher Neil Z. Miller, an expert on SIDS and vaccines, agreed the study’s approach shows promise.

“To limit cases of SIDS and other adverse vaccine reactions, the authors provide evidence that we need to stimulate the mucosal immune system rather than the systemic immune system,” said Miller, author of “Vaccines: Are They Really Safe and Effective?”

“Currently, parents of infants have no safe options to vaccine risks other than delaying or avoiding vaccinations entirely,” he said.

Growing number of studies link SIDS to vaccinations

A SIDS diagnosis is given when an infant under age 1 dies suddenly, typically during sleep, and an investigation into the death fails to yield a cause.

Ninety-five percent of SIDS deaths occur in the first six months of life, peaking at 2 to 4 months of age.

Each year, the U.S. records more than five infant deaths per 1,000 live births, far exceeding the rates in other high-income countries.

SIDS is the third-leading cause of death among infants, after birth defects and prematurity. Yet the medical industry remains puzzled about the cause.

Public health researchers have developed a “triple-risk model” for explaining SIDS. The model says SIDS occurs when a baby has an unknown medical condition, is going through an important period of development where the body changes quickly, and encounters an outside stressor, such as sleeping on his/her stomach.

However, an extensive and growing body of research links SIDS to vaccination.

Miller’s analysis of sudden infant deaths in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) showed 78.3% of cases reported between 1990 and 2019 occurred within seven days of vaccination.

A recent peer-reviewed study found a positive statistical correlation between infant mortality rates and the number of vaccine doses received by babies. This confirmed findings by the same researchers a decade ago.

A 2018 Health Affairs study reported that U.S. mortality began to rise disproportionately compared with rates recorded in other wealthy countries in the 1980s — the same time the country saw a major uptick in childhood vaccination.

A 2023 study published in the Cureus Journal of Medical Science found that developed nations requiring the most neonatal vaccine doses tended to have the worst childhood mortality rates.

A new study published in the International Journal of Medical Sciences found that underdeveloped liver enzyme pathways in some infants may make it harder for them to process toxic ingredients in vaccines, a condition that could lead to SIDS.

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The study reviewed existing scientific literature, pharmacogenetic data, and epidemiological studies to investigate how infants’ immature or variable cytochrome P450 enzymes affect how they metabolize vaccine excipients, or inactive ingredients, and the implications for immune response and safety outcomes, particularly as they relate to SIDS.

Steele told The Defender that in a previous paper, he and his colleagues used a regression analysis to link rates of infant mortality in high-income countries — which he said is largely driven by SIDS — to the number of vaccines given to infants.

They found that as the number of vaccines given to children increased, so did rates of infant mortality.

In their paper, the authors built on that research to hypothesize that vaccines that target the systemic immune system can cause immunodeficiency in infants. Vaccines can compromise their innate immune system, challenging their ability to respond normally to pathogens and potentially leading to SIDS. In some babies, they said, exposure to toxic ingredients in vaccines causes an aberrant state, making them vulnerable to infections that healthy babies could easily overcome.

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