Aluminum
Aluminum is one of the most abundant metals in the Earth’s crust – a chemical element now recognized as a neurotoxin, especially when the human body reaches its burden, though, according to one of the foremost experts on aluminum, Bioinorganic Chemistry professor Dr. Christopher Exley, said in the Environmental Science Processes & Impacts Journal that, “The reality is that the majority of people are completely ignorant of their exposure to aluminum in their everyday lives.” Exley’s research has shown aluminum is the most significant contributing factor to Alzheimer’s disease. One of the most widely-used, cost-effective metals, it is made into everything from cookware to deodorant. Also used in vaccines as an adjuvant, aluminum has now been linked to seizures and brain injury, behavioral disorders, gastrointestinal and inflammatory disease, organ failure, reproductive harm, and infant death. The FDA has never safety tested aluminum in vaccines. Instead, in 1975, the FDA grandfathered in aluminum without toxicology testing, declaring it “Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS).” Below is information on some of the different types of aluminum and their uses:
Aluminum Hydroxide
Used pharmaceutically as an antacid in humans and animals, precipitated aluminum hydroxide is one of a half a dozen distinct forms of aluminum adjuvants present in vaccines, including the Infanrix DTaP, Kinrix DTaP-IPV combination vaccine, Pediarix DTaP-HepB-IPV combination vaccine, Havrix Aep A, Engerix-B Hep B, Twinrix HepA/HepB, Ixiaro Japanese Encephalitis, Bexsero Meningococcal, and Boostrix Tdap. As one of the ingredients in the Biothrax Anthrax vaccine, aluminum hydroxide was named as the “most likely culprit” of the motor neuron degeneration and cognitive dysfunction found in military personnel commonly known as the “Gulf War Syndrome.” After studying mice to mimic the same symptoms of the Western armies in the 1990-1991 Gulf War, a study was published in the Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry that showed the heavy neurotoxicity of the aluminum hydroxide as a vaccine adjuvant.
Aluminum Phosphate
Aluminum Phosphate is one of a half a dozen distinct forms of aluminum adjuvants present in vaccines, including the Daptacel DTaP, Pediarix DTaP-HepB-IPV combination vaccine, Twinrix HepA/HepB, Tenivac Td, Mass Biologics Td, and Adacel Tdap. A breakthrough study by scientists from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada demonstrated significant correlations between rates of Autism and total aluminum adjuvants given to children through vaccines in several Western countries.
Aluminum Salts
Aluminum salts are some of a half a dozen distinct forms of aluminum adjuvants present in vaccines, including the Pediarix DTaP-HepB-IPV combination vaccine. Recognizing the risks of neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s, numerous researchers have called for a halt to the use of aluminum salts in vaccines. In one study from France, researchers suggested re-substituting aluminum salts for calcium phosphate as an adjuvant, as calcium phosphate was the original adjuvant France used in the DTaP and poliomyelitis vaccines before it was replaced with aluminum salts in the late 1980s.
Amorphous Aluminum Hydroxyphosphate Sulfate (AAHS)
Amorphous Aluminum Hydroxyphosphate Sulfate (AAHS) is one of a half a dozen distinct forms of aluminum adjuvants present in vaccines, including the PedvaxHIB, Vaqta HepA, and Gardasil Human Papillomavirus (HPV). Studies have found 100% of the intramuscularly injected aluminum vaccine adjuvant is absorbed into the systemic circulation and travels to different sites in the body such as the brain, joints and the spleen where it accumulates and is retained for years post-vaccination. A 2017 peer-reviewed report found evidence of numerous adverse events reported after vaccination with Merck’s Gardasil vaccines, including life-threatening injuries, permanent disabilities, hospitalizations and deaths.
Dietary Aluminum
Aluminum in the food supply comes from natural sources such as water, food additives and aluminum food container and utensil contamination. Certain tea leaves, particularly black tea, contain low levels of aluminum. Intake of aluminum in food additives vary, with dyes, cake mix, processed cheese, baking powder and baking soda among the highest. According to a study from the University of Wisconsin, the intake of aluminum in foods is less than 1% of that consumed by individuals using aluminum containing pharmaceuticals, yet dietary factors, including citrate affecting the absorption of aluminum and aluminum contamination of soy-based and lactose intolerant infant formula are of great concern to public health.
New Safety Concerns Raised About the Quantities of Aluminum in Childhood Vaccines
A 2011 FDA study that looked at the safety of using aluminum in infant vaccines concluded that “episodic exposures to vaccines that contain aluminum adjuvant continue to be extremely low risk to infants and that the benefits of using vaccines containing aluminum adjuvant outweigh any theoretical concerns.” However, Physicians for Informed Consent recently took another look at the paper and found that a critical math error was made which negates the FDA’s conclusion.
Institutional Inertia: Is Enough Being Done to Protect Children from Aluminum Toxicity?
Aluminum is the most abundant metal in the Earth’s crust. For most of human history, aluminum was not bioavailable; however, it became so in the late 1880s when chemists developed and patented the smelting process that helped turned the metal into the fixture of modern life—and the omnipresent “ecotoxin”—that it is today. Roughly 130 years later, it is no exaggeration to say that aluminum has become an active (albeit unhelpful) “participant in human evolution.”
Experimental Epilepsy in the Monkey Following Multiple Intracerebral Injections of Alumina Cream
The multiple intracerebral injection of alumina cream (aluminum hydroxide cream) into a principal cerebral sensorimotor cortical area is effective in producing chronic epilepsy in monkeys. Some of the clinical, pathological and electroencephalographic features of such epileptic animals, supplemented by a motion picture demonstration of a reactive monkey are the subject of the present report.