There are a lot of people that are convinced that vaccines cause multiple sclerosis (MS). However, these are usually not scientists, but people who have MS themselves. The scientists (who have less of a horse in the race, in my opinion) say vaccines don't cause MS. As a scientist who has MS, I say we don't really know for sure if vaccines play any role or not, but if they do, it is probably small.
Since I already have MS, I am much more concerned with my future relationship with vaccines. Should I get them? Should I avoid them? Are there some that are a good idea and some that are dangerous? The answers to the three questions are: sometimes, sometimes, sometimes.
Here's the deal - for the most part, vaccines are a good idea for people with MS. However, some of them (live virus vaccines) should be avoided, especially if you are taking certain types of treatments for your MS, are having a relapse or just had a dose of Solu-Medrol.
Read the details here: Vaccines and Multiple Sclerosis
I had two bouts with Guillian Barre Syndrome (GBS) before being diagnosed with MS. I’ve always wondered if there is any connection. Also, I’ve been told to avoid the flu shot because of the GBS history. Any input . . .
I had two bouts of Guillian Barre Syndrome (GBS) before being diagnosed with MS. Wondering if there is any connection between the two diseases. I’ve also been told to avoid the flu shot because of the GBS history. Any input?
I wonder about this vaccine thing. I was born & raised in NJ and left when I was 12 to very tropical Thailand. Lived there until I was 17 then moved to (equally tropical!) Texas. According to current MS lore, that should have SUBSTANTIALLY DECREASED my odds of getting MS. (My neuro says it has to do when the thymus gland develops–mine must have been precocious!)
BUT before going to Thailand we had to have zillions of shots & boosters: smallpox, cholera, typhoid, tetanus, yellow fever, plague, goodness knows what else. Then every time there was an outbreak of something we had to have more shots. I’ve probably had 5 smallpox “shots” for example.
Then as an adult, before I got pregnant my “titer” level was checked for measles, and it was low, so I had a measles injection that made me ill with a fever for 4 days.
So I’m definitely wondering about the impact of all these shots!
Along the lines of vaccines, I posted the following on my blog at ActiveMSers.org, a not-for-profit website I set up to help people with multiple sclerosis stay active…
People always give me a strange look when I tell this story. Maybe it’s hoo-haw or total coincidence. See, I think I remember the day and the hour I gave myself MS. When I went in for my Hepatitis B shot (I travel a lot internationally), my doc warned that there had been cases potentially linking the Hep B vaccine and multiple sclerosis. He asked if I had any family history of MS? Nope, I said. Did he have any patients who got MS as a result of the shot, I asked. Maybe one, he said, but it couldn’t be directly linked. I asked him what he would do and he said, “The odds of you getting Hep B on your travels are a lot greater than you getting MS from this shot.” I travel extensively, and planned to do so until I was six feet under. So I said, and this is where it gets a little freaky, “If I’m meant to get MS, I’ll get MS,” and then tapped my shoulder for the injection. A week later my symptoms started: flashes in the eyes. I’m pretty anal about my health—heck, even before MS I always made a mental note of the little things, and often wrote them down in my journal. So when I had my first severe attack eight months later, after multiple visits to the eye doc and to my PCP about other strange symptoms, I looked back for a trigger. When did all this weirdness start? Go figure. Now, do I think the Hep B shot causes MS? Not in most people. Indeed, study after study says no, and I believe them. But with me, it appears it woke up something that had been sleeping. Another vaccination or a cold (or any myriad of triggers) could have woken the MS in me a week, a month, a year later. Or perhaps it would have stayed in its slumber. I’ll never know. For a few weeks I was bummed that I could have given myself MS. But thinking back to that doc visit and weighing all the facts, I would have gotten that vaccine 100 out of 100 times. Destiny? Perhaps, and that’s okay. With all the new friends I’ve made in the MS community and with all the people I’ve helped battle this disease, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I have had MS for 18 years. I had my first flare up 9 months after I got my first hepatitis B vaccine. The sequence of the vaccine was to get 3 shots – the second was 1 month after the first dose and the third was 6 months after the first dose. I was 33 years old when I got my vaccines and in the middle of nursing school. The risk of getting hepatitis B while working as a nurse was a considerable one and I am not sorry that I was vaccinated. I have no family history of MS. I recently retired from my nursing career because of MS. There is no way to know if there is a connection, but like Dave, I feel that the vaccine may have woken up something that was sleeping in me. But whether there is a connection or not, it is what it is and I will do what I can to cope with my situation.
I have a question: does taking Betaseron or any of the interferons make you more apt to get colds, flu, or even react to vaccines? Should one with MS avoid the Hep B vaccines since it is linked?
forget the comment I read the rest of the article
My mom has MS and swears she got it after getting the swine flu vaccine in the 70’s. Who knows!
When I was 47 I had the Hep.B vaccine in three doses. During that year I developed all sorts of strange symptoms that eventually lead to a diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis. I have no doubt in my mind that the vaccine triggered my MS. The trouble with vaccines is that they may trigger an auto immune disease but you are not going to come down with it the next day. By the time your disease manifests itself (it could be two years later) any connection with the vaccine is long forgotten. I work in a public hospital and workers are given the Hep. B vaccine almost the same week they start the job. I work in a small medical unit and the following diseases have developed in my workmates since commencing employment at the hospital: Rheumatoid Arthritis;Lupus; Multiple Sclerosis; Arthritis;Reiters syndrome and Excema. I also know of two teenagers who have both developed Type 1 Diabetes and Coeliac disease at the same time following a vaccine shot.
When the author says scientists she means scientists that work for vaccine manufacturers or get funding from them. There are many reputable scientists that have done true evidence based science proving vaccines can cause MS. The “scientists” the author refers too are usually involved in research fraud which is essentially the center of U.S. mainstream medicine.
Science. We must have continued “faith” in science. Revere it. Worship it. Respect it. Why just look at it’s use of “Blood Letting.” Medical science did it for 2,000 years & abandoned it just 100 years ago. It must have been peer review double blind placebo studied, huh. My, my yes- nothing but nothing is ever done in science or medicine without rigorous unbiased studies & testing.
Then there is the case of hand washing before a medical operation. Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis advocated hand washing before an operation & was run out on a rail into an insane asylum by his co-workers. Ignaz is crazy! He is seeing invisible germs! How dare insult us saying our hands are dirty & need washing!
Montel Williams of course has MS. Did you know 30 years ago he received DPT shot while in the Navy & went blind in one eye & spastic in one leg? And that it was 20 more years before he was diagnosed with MS? To this day he fails to make a connection. Why?
Autism. Is a fact that the Amish do not vaccinate. Is a fact that the Amish have no autism. Wait- they do have autism in the children they adopt from overseas. Those children get vaccines upon entering the land of the “free & the brave” where they can get jail time & fines for selling un-pasteurized un-homogenized raw milk. Gota keep the streets clear of dangerous criminals ya know.
Myself, I was diagnosed for MS 5 years ago. 45 years ago I had adverse reaction to an allergy shot. I believe my allergies were caused by the vaccinations I had received. That is what the books I have on vaccinations tell me.
Dr. Robert Mendelsohn who wrote “How to Raise a Healthy Child in Spite of Your Doctor” said the damage of vaccinations can take years to surface. Yep, I’d say that explains Montel’s & my cases.
But what will Established Medicine do? Continue to advocate their use. Deny. Deny. Delay. Delay. Why? To make an admission would cost billions, if not trillions in liability. Very sad thing- the world is ruled by the $ & so is science.
True science tells you JFK was not assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald. Nor that the WTC’s & Building 7 could have collapsed from planes &/or small fires, but- tell the lie over & over & over again.
From 1852 to 1907 England had a mandatory small pox vaccination law. When the people saw that the vaccination was not effective & actually killing people they stopped complying with the law even at the cost of fines & penalties. The book on the subject “Bodily Matters” has a anti-vaccination picture on the front: A young mother has drawn blood on the face of an English Police (Policy) Officer & the Grim Reaper is giving the infant a small pox vaccination. Sad. Very sad.
Guess that’s they way it will have to be world wide. Grassroots. Medicine will protect it’s wealth at the cost of lives & heart ache, you can count on that. It is just the way people are. If you do not first succeed, then lie, lie and lie again. And again.
I heard on the radio back in the 80’s that people whose small pox shots didn’t take were more susceptible to MS. My mom told me they tried 3 times, and none of them would take. So, I don’t have the mark. How true is this? And, is that study outdated?
I’m just wondering, because I get an annual MRI due to having a brain tumor removed. My last scan discovered White Matter on the left side of my brain. I then went on the internet to investigate, and most of what I read is that; White Matter in Adults is usually an indication of MS. How true is this? Please, I need to know.
Thanks,
Michele
Michele, That’s interesting. As I mentioned above I had numerous smallpox “shots” (really several pokes each time). I have no scar either. I always wondered about that–why some people have huge pock scars and I don’t have any. Never heard the MS connection. Interesting.
Like many of you, I had my first episode and was diagnosed with M.S. after getting a hepititas B vaccination.
I have a daughter with ms she is 18 now. At 16months she received her vaccines of mmr with a reaction. At 17 months I noticed a change in her walking into things (walked at 9months) not hearing all the time. She diagnosed with a seizure disorder. At the age of 12 had trouble with her sight, diagnosed with optic neuritis and Multiple sclerosis. I have since met with parents of children with ms and adults now that she 18. Several of them said that they also feel they were diagnosed with ms after a mmr or the gardisil vaccination. My rule is if the vaccination is a live virus she says no to it. Thier is no doubt in my mind that the mmr vaccine caused her ms, because the seizure are ms related seizures. I believe wes is correct much money would be lost, so they will continue to close thier eyes.
Current research suggests that people who have been infected with the recently discovered FL1953 Protozoan, are at high risk for developing MS. FL1953 can be transmitted to humans by the bite of an insect.
Dr Stephen Fry also discovered that patients with CFS, or those who do not clear Borrelia burgdorfri (Lyme Disease), are also typically infected with this vector-borne pathogen. His findings will be published soon.
Dr Fry also noted that the FL1953 Protozoan may remain dormant, years after initial exposure, and may be made active by trauma to the immune system, including a vaccination, in some rare cases. In these cases, the patient has the GSTM-1 polymorphism, which produces a Glutathione S-Transferase Deficiency, which results in an inability to clear toxins.
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