Underground Knowledge — A discussion group discussion

Excerpt from Vaccine Science Revisited: Are Childhood Immunizations As Safe As Claimed?:

Meningococcal vaccine – The many shades

“No infectious disease is more terrifying to parents than that caused by meningococcus.” Paul Offit (Vaccines. What you should know. p.131)


Meningococcal disease is caused by a germ called Neisseria meningitidis. It can cause, among other things, bacterial meningitis, which is an infection of the membrane covering the brain and the spinal cord. This is very rare, but if you become infected, there is a chance you’ll suffer complications such as mental retardation.

In 2015 there was a meningitis outbreak at the University of Oregon, in Eugene, Oregon, US. There were seven students who were confirmed infected. One died. Because the germ is spread through sneezing and coughing, it’s easy for the germ to find new hosts – especially when people are in close vicinity in dorm rooms and the like.

If you catch it early enough, the germ can be treated with antibiotics before it causes any damage. Being able to recognize abnormal behavior or symptoms in your child can be vital as early medical intervention is required before the germ reaches the nerves or the brain.

As with so many other germs, this one has multiple strains. There are 12 serogroups that we know of, and half of them (A, B, C, W, X, Y) have been known to cause epidemics . Almost one third of all cases are caused by serogroup B. Unfortunately, the childhood vaccines do not protect against serogroup B.

In most industrialized countries, Meningococcal meningitis is very rare. In 2016 in the US, 90 cases were recorded in children age 0-15 years.

According to The World Bank data, the child population in the age group 0-14 was approximately 61,000,000. This is not taking into account all the 15-year-olds as they are combined with a different population group. Ignoring this error, as we are unable to add them to our calculations, about one child in every 677,000 is infected with Meningococcal meningitis. Out of the 90 infected, 11 children died. So, as you can see, although this disease is not very common, it is quite serious and has a high death rate.

The most common vaccines used in the US are Menactra and Menveo. They cover the serogroups A, C, W and Y. When it comes to the age group 0-15, out of the 90 cases, 50 of them were caused by serogroup B and 6 in the non-groupable serotypes.

So, let’s look at this again…. out of the 90 cases of meningococcus illnesses in 2016, the vaccine potentially covered, at the most, 34 of those cases. Using the same calculations as in above paragraph, we are now down to about one sick child in every 1.8 million children. This is the worst-case scenario, as, unfortunately, the death rate table does not specify the serogroups contributing to the number of deaths.

Those in many Third World countries are not so lucky. Some African countries are perhaps worst affected. According to the WHO website:

“Every year, bacterial meningitis epidemics affect more than 400 million people living in the 26 countries of the extended ‘African meningitis belt’ […].”

In the period 1995-2014, there were 900,000 reported cases of meningococcus illnesses in Africa where 90,000 people died and 90,000-180,000 people suffered neurological damage.

It goes without saying this is quite a serious illness in Africa. However, we are unsure whether the medical authorities tested, or are performing serological testing on those infected in the African population the same way they are in the industrialized countries.

Do they know what is causing the bacterial meningitis in Africa? We ask this because there are different serotypes, which means we don’t know how effective the vaccine would be for the African population; and there are other germs that cause meningitis as well.

There are many types of meningitis caused by different organisms such as Hib and streptococcus species, including group B streptococcus. The strain we are concerned about in adolescents and young adults is caused by the bacteria Neisseria meningitidis, specifically in the serogroup B. These deadly bacteria can kill within hours.

Other epidemics throughout the world are documented on the WHO’s website. Most occur in Africa, but in 2005 epidemics were registered in India and the Philippines. Other epidemics outside of the African continent occurred in 2000. The countries involved then were “Singapore, Indonesia, Iran and Morocco , US , France, United Kingdom, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Netherlands.


Side effects

In searching for multiple vaccine trials, we turned to the book Adverse Effects of Vaccines: Evidence and Causality. In the section on the meningococcal vaccine, multiple side effects were considered and accompanying trial studies analyzed. These adverse effects were, as listed in Table 11-1: encephalitis, encephalopathy, acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM), transverse myelitis (TM), multiple sclerosis (MS), Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), chronic inflammatory disseminated polyneuropathy (CIDP), anaphylaxis and chronic headache.

For every single trial study analysis, the conclusion was either insufficient, limited, lacking or inadequate. There was only one study that provided sufficient data to support a hypothesis or conclusion, and this was in the analysis of trials looking into the correlation between the vaccine and anaphylaxis. The authors of the book state:

“The evidence convincingly supports a causal relationship between meningococcal vaccine and anaphylaxis.”

Scientists conduct vaccine trials on vaccines which are designed to be injected into every single child world over. How is it that the best studies medical authorities can come up with consists of insufficient data, which at best is biased, insomuch that their results are unreliable?

In what other scientific fields would this be acceptable?


References for Chapter 37: Meningococcal vaccine – The many shades:

World Health Organization. (2018, February 19). Meningococcal meningitis. [Fact sheet]. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/news-room/fact-she...
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (2017, September). Enhanced Meningococcal Disease Surveillance Report, 2016. [Surveillance Report]. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/meningococcal/dow...
The World Bank. (2017). Population ages 0-14 (% of total). Retrieved from https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/...
Immunization Action Coalition (IAC). (n.d.). Meningococcal ACWY. Retrieved from http://www.immunize.org/askexperts/ex...
World Health Organization (WHO). (n.d.). Global Health Observatory (GHO) data. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/gho/epidemic_disea...
Ibid.
World Health Organization (WHO). (n.d.). Emergency preparedness, response. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/csr/don/archive/di...
World Health Organization (WHO). (2005, June 14). Global Alert and Response (GAR). Retrieved from http://www.who.int/csr/don/2005_06_14...
World Health Organization (WHO). (2005, January 28). Emergency preparedness, response. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/csr/don/2005_01_28...
World Health Organization (WHO). (2000, May 03). Emergency preparedness, response. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/csr/don/2000_05_03...
World Health Organization (WHO). (2000, April 26). Emergency preparedness, response. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/csr/don/2000_04_26...
World Health Organization (WHO). (2000, April 21). Emergency preparedness, response. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/csr/don/2000_04_21...
Stratton, K., Ford, A., Rusch, E., and Clayton, E.W. (2011). Meningococcal Vaccine. In Committee to Review Adverse Effects of Vaccines; Institute of Medicine (Eds.). Adverse Effects of Vaccines: Evidence and Causality. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US). ISBN-13: 978-0-309-21435-3ISBN-10: 0-309-21435-1 Retrieved from https://www.nap.edu/read/13164/chapter/1
Stratton, K., Ford, A., Rusch, E., and Clayton, E.W. (2011). Adverse Effects of Vaccines: Evidence and Causality. Committee to Review Adverse Effects of Vaccines; Institute of Medicine (Eds.). (p. 611). Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US). ISBN-13: 978-0-309-21435-3ISBN-10: 0-309-21435-1 Retrieved from https://www.nap.edu/read/13164/chapte...
Ibid.
Stratton, K., Ford, A., Rusch, E., and Clayton, E.W. (2011). Adverse Effects of Vaccines: Evidence and Causality. Committee to Review Adverse Effects of Vaccines; Institute of Medicine (Eds.). (p. 610). Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US). ISBN-13: 978-0-309-21435-3ISBN-10: 0-309-21435-1 Retrieved from https://www.nap.edu/read/13164/chapte...