Two factors are significant in explaining why these two countries had such serious outbreaks of narcolepsy. One is that their vaccination coverage in children was exceptionally high—significantly higher, in fact, than for any other European country. The other is that the brand used was Pandemrix, made by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).
Narcolepsy is an autoimmune disorder. It’s caused when the immune system turns on hypothalamus cells that excrete the hormone hypocretin, which helps control wakefulness and sleep.
Pandemrix contains the adjuvant AS03. The active ingredient in AS03 is squalene. It is known to cause autoimmune disorders when injected.
Squalene
Squalene sounds innocuous, and therein lies its danger. You can eat it with no harm resulting. You can slather it on your skin with good effect. It acts as an antioxidant and is a precursor to another critical substance, cholesterol. It may even help prevent cancer.
Squalene is found in many foods, including super-healthy olive and palm oils, amaranth, and shark liver oil. However, it is this friendliness that makes it so dangerous when injected.
That vaccines are injected is no accident. The act of injection is an injury, and the body responds to injuries rapidly, both to heal and to address foreign substances. The problem is that virtually anything injected can be seen as a foreign substance, including things that are normally found in the body.
The very fact that squalene is a normal body substance is the problem. By injecting it, the immune system sees it as an enemy and treats it as an antigen. Therefore, squalene can trigger a process that results in creating antibodies to it.
When the immune system creates antibodies to a substance that normally exists in the body, that substance will be attacked and destroyed. That is the definition of an autoimmune disease. Squalene is seen as the enemy, but this enemy exists throughout the body and is a critical component involved in many functions.
That the particular effect of narcolepsy in children would be the first autoimmune disorder noted as a result of its injection with the swine flu vaccine wasn’t predictable. However, the fact that there is an autoimmune disorder should not be a surprise. It was a virtual certainty. The only real question now is just how much more autoimmune disease will be seen.
A Macchiavellian Approach to Vaccines
In Gary Matsumoto’s book,Vaccine A, on the autoimmune diseases caused by injection of squalene with an experimental anthrax vaccine during the first Gulf War, a compelling tale is told of both the devastation wrought on unwitting soldiers and the Macchiavellian thinking that went into it.
The dangers of squalene are well known. In fact, they’ve been known for decades, ever since Freund’s adjuvant was developed.
An adjuvant’s purpose in a vaccine is to increase the activity of the immune system so that a strong enough response to a weak antigen can be developed, thus creating antibodies to the antigen. Freund’s adjuvant is highly effective at doing that. However, it’s also highly effective at causing antibodies to be created against itself. The problem is that the primary ingredient of Freund’s is an oil that’s also found in the human body. As a result, a large and terrible array of autoimmune disorders can result, including rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis, allergic aspermatogenesis (blocking sperm formation, resulting in sterility), allergic neuritis, and allergic uveitis (resulting in blindness).
Therefore, it was quickly realized that Freund’s adjuvant had only one valid purpose: the creation of autoimmune disorders in animals so that they can be used in laboratory testing. This is, in fact, how autoimmune disorders are routinely created to study methods of treatment. However, the misery and suffering that animals undergo has also resulted in recognition that it’s unacceptable cruelty to put them through it—though it continues to happen.
The fact that it’s an oil like much of what’s found in the body is what makes Freund’s so devastating. Squalene is also an oil. In early testing, squalene was found, like Freund’s, to be exceptionally good at triggering an immune response. However, just as Freund’s also proved to trigger the development of antibodies to itself, so did squalene. In fact, it may even be more dangerous than Freund’s!
However, there is a significant problem in vaccine development, and this problem is overcome through the use of a strong adjuvant. Aluminum has been used for decades, but cannot compare with the action of squalene, or of Freund’s, for that matter. Until the last few years, all vaccinations were made from either killed bacteria or viruses, or from live attenuated (weakened) ones. Both approaches, though, are time consuming, expensive, and risky, making vaccines a less-than-effective method of making profits.
Recombinant DNA technology—genetic engineering—changed that picture dramatically. By using it, massive amounts of antigens could be created both quickly and cheaply. Instead of using entire viruses or bacteria as antigens, just bits of them could be used. The disadvantage, though, was that these vaccines tend to be ineffective. Therefore, they require strong adjuvants. But there aren’t many available. Freund’s is not allowed. Aluminum works, but not well enough for most of this technology. The only thing that works and is allowed is squalene.
Therefore, Big Pharma wants squalene. And that’s why it was used in the swine flu vaccines, GSK’s Pandemrix and Novatis’ Focetria. Pandemrix is the one that was used in Sweden and Finland. On top of that, those two countries had high rates of coverage among children—significantly more than other European nations.
Gulf War Syndrome
The result of squalene in Pandemrix is now known, an epidemic of the autoimmune disorder narcolepsy in children. However, we must ask whether this is merely the first round of autoimmune diseases that these children will be suffering. Autoimmune disorders can take time to manifest.
In the aftermath of the Gulf War, a new and devastating syndrome developed among huge numbers, possibly tens of thousands, of American and British soldiers, including those who deployed to Iraq and those who remained stateside. Many fell ill rapidly, but symptoms developed over years. As described in Vaccine A, these autoimmune disorders were devastating. Lupus erythematosus, which is a system-wide attack of connective tissues such as the skin, was a focus. In one case described by Matsumoto, the young man died because his own skin was seen as the enemy and attacked to the point that virtually none was left. Another young man’s cerebellum, the part of the brain that controls muscles was attacked by his autoimmune system, causing it to shrink drastically, with associated loss of his ability to function. These, though, were not the only problems or diagnoses, but they all had one thing in common: they were the result of the autoimmune system attacking squalene-like particles in the body.
Pandemrix contains squalene. We now know that it has caused an outbreak of narcolepsy in Sweden and Finland, the likes of which has never before been seen. Where will it end? What other disorders could develop? What will become of the children given this devasatingly poisonous substance?
We don’t know. The only thing that’s sure is that we will find out—just as we have learned with Gulf War Syndrome. Governments, Big Pharma, and Big Medicine will surely try to cover it up, just as they are still doing with Gulf War Syndrome. But the truth will eventually come out. The only questions are the exact form of autoimmune dysfunction and how many people’s lives will be devastated.
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