Breastfeeding can transmit dangerous vaccine viruses to newborns

Wednesday, June 06, 2012 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer
Tags: breastfeeding, vaccines, viruses

(NaturalNews) Mothers who are vaccinated for certain diseases with vaccines that contain live viruses could pass on these viruses to their children through their breast milk. A new study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) highlights one particular case in which a young boy was infected with a vaccine strain of yellow fever via his mother's breast milk, representing the second known case in which breast milk appears responsible for catalyzing the transmission of a vaccine-based disease.

Dr. Susan Kuhn and her colleagues examined a case in which an otherwise healthy five-week-old boy from Canada unexpectedly developed seizures, nasal congestion, abnormal cerebrospinal fluid parameters, and abnormal platelet and leukocyte counts not long after his mother was vaccinated for yellow fever. The boy and his mother had traveled to Venezuela, and prior to their departure, the mother was vaccinated for yellow fever.

Upon investigation, it was eventually determined that the boy likely had developed meningoencephalitis, an inflammatory brain condition that resembles both meningitis and encephalitis, which was accompanied by severe fever. Based on the circumstances of disease development and the boy's various environmental exposures, it was determined that the only logical cause of this infection was through tainted breast milk.

"The clinical presentation, temporal relationship to maternal vaccination, absence of alternative pathogens and immunologic evidence in both serum and cerebrospinal fluid of the infant were strongly supportive of acute central nervous system infection with vaccine strain of yellow fever," wrote the authors in their discussion. "In the absence of any history of vaccination of the child, the only alternative explanation is that he was infected via transmission through breastfeeding by his mother after she was vaccinated."

You can view the full study here: http://www.cmaj.ca/content/early/2011/02/22/cmaj.100619.full.pdf

A similar case occurred several years prior in Brazil, where a roughly five-week-old boy also developed convulsive conditions that required hospital admittance. Like the five-week-old boy from Canada, the Brazilian boy was determined to have meningoencephalitis caused by his mother having received a yellow fever vaccine that transmitted virus components through her breast milk (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21461453).

Yellow fever is not the only live virus to have been observed as transferring through breast milk. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) admits that the rubella vaccine virus can sometimes transfer from mother to child through breast milk after she is vaccinated with rubella or combination rubella vaccines, such as MMR (http://www.fda.gov).

The moral of the story, in other words, is beware of what vaccines you take, should you choose to take them, when breastfeeding your children. Many vaccines contain live viruses that may be transferred via breast milk, causing potentially permanent harm.

Sources for this article include:

http://www.cmaj.ca/content/early/2011/02/22/cmaj.100619.full.pdf