New Generation of Vaccine Adjuvants: Worst Ever?

New Generation of Vaccine Adjuvants: Worst Ever?

A new generation of vaccine adjuvants is being rolled
out, literally mass produced. They’re touted as safe, but they share a
dirty secret: They’re oil-based, which could make them the most
dangerous yet in a product line that is, by definition, toxic.


Lipid Splashing over Syringe


by Heidi Stevenson

All vaccine adjuvants are, by definition, toxic. Their function is to
stimulate the immune system, that is, to initiate a response to a toxic
agent. So, a new generation of adjuvants is being promoted as less
toxic than any that have come before, while at the same time doing an
even better job of priming the immune system so it will react to weak
antigens. This leads to the question of how an adjuvant can be both
safer than previous adjuvants and also more capable of agitating the
stronger immune system response required to promote antibody creation to
weaker antigens.

These new adjuvants are made from outer membrane vesicles (OMVs). A
vesicle is a cavity, or sac. In a bacterium, OMVs are sacs that protrude
from the exterior—membrane—of its body to protect itself in hostile
environments. An OMV’s function is to be toxic.

Recombinant DNA technology is used to engineer bacteria so that they
make OMVs to be used as antigens or adjuvants, which are then processed
and added to vaccines. All of these products that are grown on the
surfaces of microbes have one thing in common: they are proteoliposomes:

A proteoliposome is a liposome with one or more proteins inserted.
A liposome is a minute spherical sac of phospholipid molecules enclosing a water droplet.
A phospholipid is a type of lipid.
A lipid is a fatty acid. That is, a lipid is a fat.

And that makes these new adjuvants, or antigens with adjuvants built
in, particularly worrisome. Fats and oils are known to be exceptionally
dangerous when injected. Their similarity to normal body tissues is the
reason. Fats do not normally enter the body through injections. They are
either digested or created by the body, in which case there’s no
problem. However, injection is not a normal means for lipids to enter
the body.

Therefore, an injected lipid can be seen by the immune system as an
invader. Of course, the response to an invader is to create antibodies
against it. Since lipids normally exist throughout the body, when the
immune system is radicalized into seeing a lipid as the enemy, it’s
attacked—wherever it’s found, even when it’s a normal part of the body.

That’s the definition of an autoimmune disorder: the body’s own immune system starts attacking itself.

It’s not a secret that injection of lipids causes autoimmune
disorders. In fact, it’s so well known that lipid injection is a
standard technique for creating autoimmune disorders in laboratory
animals for study. In particular, the active ingredient in Freund’s
adjuvant, a lipid, is used to create an analog of human rheumatoid
arthritis in lab rats.

Yet, lipids, in the form of recombinantly-created OMVs, are being added to vaccines for injection into humans!

Why Move to OMV Adjuvants?


The push for OMV adjuvants is happening because vaccine antigens—the
part of a vaccine that’s supposed to trigger an autoimmune response that
results in antibodies—need to create a strong immune response. But
that’s not an easy task unless the antigen is a live microbe, which
could cause a full-fledged disease. That’s why weakened or killed
microbes have traditionally been used.

However, such weakened and killed microbes are not easy to produce,
nor can the process be hurried. It is, therefore, expensive and, in the
case of influenza, can take too long to respond to an ongoing outbreak.
So, the modern approach is to utilize bits of microbes, or better yet,
to grow those bits through recombinant DNA, such as in tobacco plants.
The problem with this method is that these protein bits don’t create
much of an immune response. Therefore, since the old standard, aluminum,
doesn’t accomplish the job well enough, stronger adjuvants are required
to initiate that response.

That’s why there’s a rush to implement OMV antigens and adjuvants.
Once the process for a particular antigen or adjuvant is worked out, it
becomes a relatively inexpensive process to grow it on a large scale for
vaccines.

At this point, there is one vaccine with an OMV adjuvant on the
market, Cervarix. Its adjuvant is marketed as AS04. It contains aluminum
and OMV-derived 3-O-desacyl-4’-monophosphoryl lipid A (MPL). You can
see from the chemical name that MPL is a lipid.

OMV Adjuvant Safety?


Adjuvants were discovered by accident when it was noted that
dirty—literally dirty, contaminated—vaccine containers produced better
results in terms of a vaccine’s ability to create antibodies. It was
literally the dirty secret of vaccinology, and led to the intentional
contamination of vaccines. The contaminants were relabeled as adjuvants.

Of course, there are side effects to adjuvants. The one that became
standard, aluminum, is a known toxin. But, as long as it made the
vaccine more effective at producing antibodies, the toxic properties of
aluminum were—and still are—swept under the rug.

Other adjuvants had been tried, but all were even more toxic. Among
the very worst were ones based on oils, Freund’s adjuvants. These were
quickly determined to be far too toxic for use in vaccines, though they
did find another marketable use. Freund’s adjuvants are now routinely
used in medical research because they create the equivalent of human
autoimmune disorders, such as rheumatoid arthritis, in laboratory
animals, which are then studied to find treatments for the human
disorders.

Now they have found OMV adjuvants, which are being promoted as the safest yet. A recent report in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), discusses
“a less toxic mixture of monophosphorylated lipid A species (MPL)” made
through the OMV methodology. Notice that the emphasis is on “less
toxic”.

The fallacious claim that OMV lipids are safe is based on their being
natural. It’s that very fact, that they’re natural—literally analogs of
normal body chemistry—that makes them so dangerous. Their injection can
cause them to be seen as toxins—which, of course, in this context they
are—which can result in antibodies being developed against chemicals
that are naturally found in the body. An autoimmune disease is the
body’s immune system turning on itself.

There is, though, a great deal of emphasis on OMV lipids’ ability to
elicit a strong immune system response to create antibodies. Just how
something can be less toxic, yet cause a stronger response to toxicity
is not explored.

Apparently, it’s to be taken on faith that these lipids are safe,
when all other lipids are too dangerous for use in humans. But where are
the trials to prove it?

Slipping Around the Approval Process


The FDA has made clear that they don’t approve adjuvants. Their logic
is that adjuvants are not produced for end users. They’re produced for
use in products that go to end users. The FDA doesn’t focus on
individual ingredients in medical products. So they approve vaccines
that include adjuvants, thus evading the issue of adjuvants’ toxicity.

Obviously, you cannot run tests of products that are intended to do
harm, which is the case with all vaccine adjuvants, and hope to
demonstrate safety. So, you won’t see safety trials of them. It would,
of course, be considered unethical.

But apparently not so unethical that there’s any reason to stop their use in vaccines.

OMV adjuvants are now being promoted as “designer bacteria”. They’re
being touted as safe, yet better able to elicit a response from weak
antigens—a process that, by definition, requires more toxic adjuvants,
not less toxic ones.

So, are the new generation of OMV adjuvants the worst ever? Is there any reason to assume otherwise?

Of one thing we can be certain: We’ll find out on the bodies of our
children. These adjuvants are now being rolled out in a big way. They’re
the basis of the enormous number of vaccines in the pipeline.


Source:-
http://gaia-health.com/gaia-blog/2013-01-26/new-generation-of-vaccine-adjuvants-worst-ever/