New research investigates the progression of allergies from eczema to food allergies to asthma in children, but overlooks vaccines as a potential trigger. Experts cite evidence linking aluminum adjuvants and food proteins in vaccines to allergy development.
New research published Tuesday in the journal Pediatrics validates a phenomenon known as the allergic — or atopic — march, which refers to how allergic diseases progress in a person beginning in infancy.
In the largest study of its kind, researchers from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) analyzed electronic health record (EHR) data collected between 1999 and 2020, from more than 200,000 pediatric patients ages 0 to 18. Their goal was to uncover patterns and prevalence of allergic disease.
Dr. Stanislaw Gabryszewski, a fellow in the Division of Allergy and Immunology at CHOP who led the study, said in a press release:
“Allergic diseases are one of the most common causes of impaired quality of life in children, so to improve the diagnosis and care of children with these diseases, it is important that we have an accurate understanding of how widespread they are, and the risk factors that are associated with them.”
The study found that children, on average, tended to be first diagnosed with eczema at 4 months old, then food allergies and asthma around 13 months, allergic rhinitis — or hay fever — at 26 months, and a rare food allergy called eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) at 35 months.
Peanut, egg and shellfish were the most commonly diagnosed food allergies.
A total of 13.4% of children had two or more allergic conditions. Patients with respiratory allergies like asthma and allergic rhinitis tended to have both conditions.
Dr. David Hill, a pediatric allergy expert at the University of Pennsylvania and one of the study’s authors, told CNN, “If a child is diagnosed with one form of allergy, their likelihood of developing a second form is much higher than the general population.”
The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Pennsylvania Allergy and Asthma Association and a CHOP Food Allergy Pilot Award. Additional infrastructure funding was provided by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Researcher: ‘We should immediately stop multiple vaccines being administered simultaneously’
To examine non-biologic factors that may affect predisposition to allergies, the researchers analyzed demographic trends.
Missing from their analysis and from mainstream reporting on the study was any mention of the link between childhood vaccines and allergies — or even why eczema develops in the first place.
Jonathan Jay Couey, Ph.D., Children’s Health Defense (CHD) staff scientist, told The Defender that it’s “difficult to understand what the authors hypothesize” because “they are only looking for what they want to find: racial disparities.”
Brian Hooker, Ph.D., CHD’s senior director of science and research said:
“I find it incredible that the authors of the Pediatrics paper overlooked vaccines as a potential cause of allergies given that even the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] has made the connection between aluminum in vaccines and asthma as well as eczema.”
Hooker was referring to a CDC-funded study showing that children who received 3 milligrams or more of vaccine-related aluminum had at least a 36% higher risk of developing persistent asthma than kids who got less than 3 milligrams.
According to The Associated Press, experts have criticized the study for its various shortcomings, including failure to account for the effects from other potential aluminum exposures — such as in the air or through diet.
When the research was published last September in the journal Academic Pediatrics, Christopher Exley, Ph.D., an expert on aluminum toxicity, weighed in on the methodology, telling The Defender:
“It [the CDC study] is a classic aluminum industry study appearing to surrender some possible toxicity of aluminum (in vaccines) while actually delivering multiple messages signaling the safety of aluminum in general.”
Hooker told The Defender about an analysis he conducted with Neil Z. Miller of the Institute of Medical and Scientific Inquiry to better understand health outcomes in vaccinated and unvaccinated children.
“We saw an odds ratio of 4.49 (statistically significant) for asthma in vaccinated children versus unvaccinated children. This was limited to vaccines in the first year of life,” Hooker said. “The CDC seems to be confirming my results here.”
Hooker and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., chairman on leave from CHD, have a book coming out next month — “Vax-Unvax: Let the Science Speak” that reviews more than 100 peer-reviewed studies of vaccinated versus unvaccinated populations and analyzes, in the context of those studies, the health differences among infants, children and adults who have been vaccinated and those who weren’t.
A large-scale, Japanese birth cohort study demonstrated that the prevalence of asthma, wheeze and eczema in children at 12 months old was associated with the administration of a larger number of types of inactivated vaccines at the initial immunization before 6 months of age.”
Unlike live-attenuated vaccines, inactivated vaccines use components of the killed virus or bacteria which, because they cannot self-replicate, require an adjuvant (aluminum is often used) to provoke an immune response.
The Japanese researchers said they “strongly support the global vaccination strategy,” while admitting the results of their research “support the reconsideration of better vaccination development in the future.”
There has long been evidence that food proteins in vaccines cause the development of food allergies. In the abstract of a study published in the Journal of Developing Drugs, researcher Vinu Arumugham wrote:
“Many studies since 1940 have demonstrated that food proteins in vaccines cause sensitization in humans. Allergens in vaccines are not fully disclosed. No safe dosage level for injected allergens has been established.
“As a result, allergen quantities in vaccines and injections are not regulated. … It is well recognized that many currently approved vaccines have enough allergen to cause anaphylaxis.”
Arumughan concluded that, given the unknown risk factors, “we should immediately stop multiple vaccines being administered simultaneously.”
Potentially concerning findings on EoE, allergy trends among racial groups
According to U.S. Pharmacist, EoE prevalence has increased over the past two decades, nearly doubling in both adults and children, and occurring in an estimated one in 1,500 to 2,000 persons.
The CHOP study researchers also found that EoE, which has historically been considered a disease affecting primarily white males, is more common among non-white patients — now at 40% — than previously reported.
Meanwhile, a disproportionate number of kids with eczema and asthma were Black.
Couey said:
“A possible explanation for the racial disparity the authors see could be related to income. Lower income children may be more likely to receive more vaccines at once than children from higher-income families who have better insurance and can take their children for regular well visits to receive vaccines on a [more protracted] schedule.
“… It seems the authors are also working under the assumption that allergies develop as a normal consequence of childhood.”
This assumption is unlikely, Couey added, and “stands in stark contrast” to the findings discussed in “Vax-Unvax: Let the Science Speak.”