I’ve been alert for tetanus research since my late-October fall opened up an eyebrow. One of the first questions health professionals always ask, if you’ve a cut of any kind, is whether your tetanus shots are up to date. I’m not squeamish, and have had lots of needles over time. But the more I learn about them, the more I question:

a) their effectiveness in creating immunity
b) the misinformation about their overall safety record
c) the degree to which more effective methods are suppressed
d) the media tendency to polarize (i.e. either vaccination, or epidemics)

Sura Nualpradid, freedigitalphotos.net

Tetanus spores are found in all soils around the globe. And tetanus infections cause serious muscle spasms, locking the jaw, breaking bones, and compromising the airways. Yet it’s a rare disease almost everywhere except in war and childbirth. So when a tetanus report crossed my desktop, I went to have a look. I thought you might be interested in a summary of what I found.

A: Tetanus Vaccination Effectiveness in Creating Immunity

Clostridium tetani bacterial strains (the critters that cause tetanus) are serious; an infection in a poorly managed wound or cut can be life-threatening or deadly. Pre-treating C. tetani with formaldehyde creates something called a toxoid, similar enough to the critter for our bodies to use for building antibodies to fight against any live invaders, but no longer living itself.

When this toxoid is injected into a mammal’s bloodstream, that mammal’s blood produces anti-toxin. Any further injection of tetanus into the bloodstream was then subdued by the blood’s anti-toxins. But if tetanus instead entered the skin through a poorly managed wound, that “immunized” mammal died. These studies were carried out in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the early days of vaccination research.

A later study utilized fluorescent markers to track nerve uptake of tetanus toxins in both vaccinated and unvaccinated mammals. They found no difference in the rapidity and the extent of tetanus toxin uptake into the brain. Even recently-vaccinated people with high levels of tetanus anti-toxin in their blood have succumbed to severe and deadly tetanus infections.

So is there insufficient anti-toxin, which is the model underlying the medical system’s bid for more frequent vaccinations? Or is the vaccination not working the way the model assumes? In 1992, a soldier with 2500 times the blood anti-toxin levels considered protective for adults was hospitalized for over 5 weeks of life-saving measures from a tetanus infection… so it’s probably not insufficient anti-toxin at play.

The only studies on the effectiveness of tetanus vaccination in actually preventing tetanus infections have been done on pregnant women in developing countries, in a bid to decrease newborn tetanus infections and death. Hygienic birth conditions entirely prevent newborn tetanus infections, while tetanus-vaccinated pregnant mothers without access to hygienic birth support lost 40% of their newborns to tetanus.

When eaten, dormant tetanus spores have no impact on blood anti-toxin levels. But they do have an impact on agglutinin, another immune defense component. Agglutinin glues together the dormant spores, both rendering them impotent to cause disease, and identifying them as something to fight. Any tetanus species a mammals’ agglutinin has previously encountered through the digestive system is then unable to cause tetanus, unless harsh and infected wounds are present.

B: Misinformation About Tetanus Vaccination Safety

Just a quick note on formaldehyde (because to cover its hazards properly would take a whole textbook). Formaldehyde is used to kill and preserve tetanus bacteria before injecting the mixture as a vaccine against tetanus. In my online programs, I go into some of the evidence linking formaldehyde to the health challenges underlying autism. Essentially, it’s highly toxic and makes reactions to other things worse.

A 1984 Bangladesh study of anti-tetanus vaccination of children already infected with tetanus is sickening. 74% of the children aged 1 to 12 died, and 68% of those aged 13 to 30 died.

C: Suppression of More Effective Routes to Tetanus Immunity

Those kids in the Bangladeshi study? The children aged 1-12 who were given just one gram of vitamin C a day ALL lived. And those aged 13 to 30 given that same single gram of vitamin C (likely insufficient for their larger body size and higher need) saw deaths reduced to 37%.

It isn’t clear whether the trial was a randomized, blinded, trial (considered indisputable), but 20 years later, no-one has bothered to investigate. Drug companies can’t make money from Vitamin C, whereas vaccinations are hugely profitable.

Oral exposure to tetanus (eating or breathing in soil particles) builds resistance to whichever strains of tetanus bacteria are ingested. In 1926, two MDs found that guinea pigs fed separate strains of tetanus bacteria in their food were then resistant to that specific strain of bacteria. Guinea pigs fed all strains of tetanus were unable to be infected by any strains of tetanus bacteria.

When dormant tetanus spores are injected, no disease results. To create tetanus disease from the dormant spores found in soil, you need a festering wound. Period. So don’t let your wounds fester, ok?

Neonatal tetanus is virtually eradicated when a newborn’s umbilical cord is cut with a sterile blade. A 1989 Tanzanian study discovered that hygienic childbirth practices render tetanus vaccination during pregnancy unnecessary (no newborns with tetanus), and that for mothers who had been vaccinated during pregnancy but had no access to hygienic birth support, 40% of their children succumbed to tetanus despite vaccination.

D: Polarization into Vaccination vs. Epidemic Diatribes

For this one, I’m going to ask you to just pay attention. Whenever and wherever you see or hear vaccinations mentioned, either for or against, count how many people don’t polarize by choosing one team or another. And just notice what either side does to any person who refuses to judge and take a side… Then come and tell me about it, ok?