Vaccines - Dr. Sears' Vaccination Talk Transcript

[Guest guest]

This is a couple years old, but I just got it from a friend and I thought I

would contribute it to the recent vaccine discussion.

 

 

La Leche League of Southern California and Nevada Conference 2005 presents

Immunizations: Making an Educated Decision for Your Child

 

Dr. Bob Sears, MD

 

Dr. Bob: Ok! Well, let me turn this off. Hey everybody! Can you hear me back

there? Good? Is this a good level of talking? All right!

 

Well, thanks for coming to the talk today. The, uh, this is kind of a tiring

talk to give because its almost like a college lecture. Its really a lot of

medical information, scientific information. ..(hi sweetie! Shell make it more

interesting. ) Ok, so bear with me, Im going to try it make it a little more

interesting and upbeat and occasionally funny. If you think I said something

funny, I did. I mean, dont wonder...was that funny?...go ahead and laugh

because that breaks it up, and its a real kind of tedious topic to get to.

 

All right. So lets jump into this. Vaccinations. This is the shot schedule that

your kids are supposed to get as it stands right now. Your five shots every

couple of months in the beginning and then two or three shots after that all

throughout the first year and half of life. Um, Im going to basically take you

through all those shots and then ask you five questions about each one of those

shots.

Basically is the disease that the shot protects against, is that disease

common? Is the disease severe? Are the vaccine ingredients safe? Is the side

effect profile safe? And, is the disease a public health risk?

Im gonna go through each shot and tell you, and help you to answer yes or no

for each of these questions. Because if the answer is Yes for all these

questions, then that makes that shot more important. If the answer is No for

that shot, then that makes that shot less important. And Im going to go through

and try to help you understand each of these five questions for each shot.

IS THE DISEASE COMMON?

Ok, all right. So basically, so some diseases are very common and some diseases

that we vaccinate for dont even exist in the US. Ill show you which ones those

are. Some diseases are very common but they just dont happen in babies. Or,

some diseases happen only in babies but not in older kids. And as a example of

that, sometimes parents will come to me and say, Im going to wait until my baby

is two years old and then Im going to start giving shots. Well, by then your

baby has missed the time period for a lot of those diseases anyway. And so, so

if youre going to wait until your baby is two, theres a lot of shots your baby

probably doesnt even need. And theres a lot of shots you shouldnt even start if

youre waiting until your baby is two. So timing is really critical to

understanding when these diseases occur in babies, when they occur in children,

and when they occur in teens. (You can probably just let her walk around up

here, shes really

cute when she is just walking up here.)

 

IS THE DISEASE SEVERE?

Ok, severe diseases. Some diseases are very severe and some just arent. Some

diseases are completely harmless. Some are dangerous if a child catches it, but

not an adult. And some, the other way around. Some diseases are totally

harmless for kids but can be severe for adults. So how do you understand all

this?

 

 

 

ARE THE INGREDIENTS SAFE?

And the other question is, are the ingredients in this vaccine safe?

Well, youve all heard about mercury, and Im not really even going to talk about

mercury because its been taken out of almost all vaccines; so Im not going to

dwell on mercury. You could spend two hours talking about mercury. It is still

in flu shots, but there is one flu shot that doesnt have mercury. Some shots

have a tiny little bit of mercury and Ill show you which ones those are. But,

you could get every single shot there is completely mercury-free if you just

know which brands to use. I will show which ones those are.

Shots used to have 12 to 25 micrograms of mercury in each shot. If you got

three shots you could get about 75 micrograms of mercury in one day, and the

FDA says you should only have 1 microgram of mercury in one day. We used to

give babies 75 times that much. Now some shots will have less than .3

micrograms, some will have zero, and some shots will have what we call less

than .3 micrograms. Less than .05 micrograms in other words. If you compare

that to the 25 micrograms that used to be in that shot, its very minimal. So,

is it safe to get a shot that has less than .3 mg of mercury? Sure. Its

probably fine. When you compare it to what you used to get, its much safer, so

if your baby needs a shot and you look at the ingredients and see there is .3

mg of mercury, youre probably safe. Dont let that scare you away from getting

that shot.

Some vaccines come in big doses where a doctor takes 10 doses out of a shot and

give a shot to ten different kids, and those big bottles tend to have a lot of

mercury. The little bottles that only have one shot in them tend to not have

mercury. If you are giving your baby shots and the doctor wont tell you whats

in there, just ask to see the bottle. If its a big bottle, dont get the shot.

It probably has lot of mercury in it. If its a tiny little bottle, then it

doesnt have mercury or has only .3 mg and you are probably safe giving that

shot. You can see examples of big bottles and small bottles so you know what

they look like.

Basically thats where the discussion of mercury is going to end. Its really not

an issue anymore for people deciding now whether or not youre going to give

shots. We know its bad, weve taken it out.

Now some shots have formaldehyde, and thats not healthy for babies. Some shots

have animal tissues or human body tissues used when they make the shots; this

is a list where you can look at ingredients, and see all the animal tissues or

human body tissues that are used to make some of these shots. Ill show you

which ones those are.

Now why does this matter? Why does it matter if we are using animal tissues to

make vaccines? Well, so far in our history its mattered a few times.

Number one is that we use monkey kidneys to make the polio vaccine. We still do

this. A few decades ago, thousands of people were injected with a polio vaccine

where they were using monkeys that had a cancer-causing virus in those monkeys.

Some people were injected with vaccines made from batches that had that

cancer-causing virus in it. Now, they have tracked those people and they dont

think that any of those people have caught that virus, or caught cancer from

this virus, but that was a big scare when we discovered this. Now we still use

monkey kidneys but we know not to use monkey kidneys from monkeys who have this

virus. So now we know to screen for that.

However, this happened again in the 60s. Half a million soldiers were injected

with another type of monkey virus because they were using, not sure what part

of the monkey, but they were using monkey parts to make this vaccine. Half a

million soldiers were injected with a virus that we do know causes brain cancer

and lung cancer and lymphoma in humans. Half a million soldiers got injected

with this virus. We dont even use that vaccine anymore. But, twice in our

history people have been accidentally infected with viruses from monkeys

because we didnt know those viruses existed. Now we know to look for those

issues. But anytime you see a vaccine that uses a monkey kidney or a human

fetus lung or cow blood or anything like that to make the vaccine, you have to

listen to that tiny little issue in the back of your mind, that are there

little infections in there that we dont know about?

Of course we clean and filter the vaccines, we, you know, detoxify the vaccines

and put it through all these processes to clean them, so none of those viruses

make it through. But, um, is that process 100% perfect? I hope it is, but its

possible that we might discover 20 years from now that there is some little

virus in a vaccine that got through. Im not saying there is or will be, Im

saying that its happened twice so far, and I hope it doesnt happen again. Just

realize there is a risk with animal products with any of the vaccines I show

you.

 

ARE THE SIDE EFFECTS PROFILES SAFE?

Again, going through the five questions. Are side effects, you know, some

vaccines have lots of side effects and some have almost no side effects. Ill

show you this. Whats the safety profile of the vaccine? Are there introductory

issues? These vaccines have been researched in ten to twenty or thirty thousand

people, before they are released into the public. The problem is they only

research the safety of the vaccine for a few weeks, maybe a couple of months.

They dont call up those 30,000 people five years later to see what happened.

Its only a few weeks of safety research. So when I say, a vaccine appears to be

safe, what I mean is that in the few weeks of safety research nothing really

bad happened.

How do we do longterm safety research? We release the vaccine into the public,

and over the years say a million kids get the vaccine, and we monitor side

effects. Thats how we do longterm safety research. Im going to tell you in a

nutshell what that has shown us, from the period of 1991-2001.

What we did, is give 2 billion doses of vaccines. Of those, 18,000 people

either died or had a life-threatening illness or had a permanent disability or

were put into the hospital with the side effects, for a long time. Eighteen

thousand people. Out of 2 billion doses. So what does that mean? Well thats

about a one in 10,000 chance of suffering one of those severe effects. If you

are wondering, what is my kids chance of having a severe side effect, the best

data we have shows it to be about a 1 in 10,000 chance.

 

IS THE DISEASE A PUBLIC HEALTH RISK?

So the last question to ask is, is it a public health risk? Should you get a

vaccine because something is a public, you know, risk? Thats a topic called

herd immunity. Meaning, were all protected and if you dont vaccinate, you are

protected still because everyone around is vaccinated. So you need to ask

yourself, are you obligated to vaccinate because everyone else does? Or can you

take advantage of everyone elses vaccinations and dont vaccinate your kids, and

your kids are still protected because all the other kids are. The other issue

with that is, if you dont vaccinate, are you putting others at risk? Can your

child catch diseases and put others at risk? And the other question is, if

everyone stopped vaccinating for a disease, what would happen? Would it come

back? Would people start dying because the disease made a resurgence? Those are

the public health questions that apply to each of these vaccines.

Do vaccines work? Of course they work, at 85-99% depending on what vaccine it

is. I wouldnt not get a vaccine because someone told you it doesnt work. Yeah,

they work well, not perfectly, but they go a long way to preventing the

diseases we are trying to prevent. Dont let anyone tell you that a reason not

to vaccinate is because the shots dont work; thats just not really true.

Now let me explain what Im not going to tell you, just so you know where this

is going. Im not going to tell you whether or not vaccinating is good or bad.

There are lots of good books you can read to tell you how bad shots are, or how

good shots are, so Im not going to tell you that. Im not giving my opinion

about whether vaccines are evil, or good, um... Im not going to try and tell

you to either completely vaccinate or not vaccinate. It doesnt have to an

all-or-nothing decision. You can pick and choose. You can think, Hey, that

disease sounds bad and the vaccine is safe, so Im going to get that one, but

not this one because the disease is harmless and the side effects are hot. So

you can pick and choose, and Im hoping to help you with that. Im not here to

tell you what to do with you child, Im here to give you information so you can

make an educated decision. So thats where Im going.

 

Now, Im going to try to help you understand each of these questions, the

vaccines, the ingredients; I kinda went over all of this. So lets jump into our

first disease.

 

HiB

Hemapholis influenza B is first. HiB. What is this disease? Its meningitis. Ok?

It can infect your bones or your blood stream but mainly in children its

meningitis. We used to have 20,000 cases a year of this disease. About ten

percent of those kids died. A lot of deaths in the mid 80s and 70s. Now, we

have about 20 cases of HiB occurring in children every year. So weve gone from

20,000 cases annually to 20 cases. Weve pretty well gotten rid of this disease.

Not completely but mostly. We are still vaccinating at 2, 4, and 6 months for

HiB, and again at 15 months, because we dont want this coming back. We want to

want to decrease the chance that your kid will be in those 20 or 25 cases that

still happen every year. So thats why we still vaccinate against HiB.

So how is this vaccine made? Well its not made from the whole germ. They use a

few sugars from the outer covering of this germ, they take them out of the germ

and put them into a vaccine. There is no way to catch meningitis from this

vaccine. It is impossible, because youre not getting the whole germ, just some

sugars from it. No animal tissues are used to make this vaccine. There is no

formaldehyde, now there is no mercury but there used to be; now there isnt,

unless you get a big bottle, which has a lot of mercury. In the small bottles,

you dont get mercury. This is one of the purest and safest vaccines, with an

extremely safe ingredient profile.

Side effects? Well, you see a little fever, might be a little fussy, but we

dont see severe side effects from this vaccine. Of all the side effects

reported down the road we just arent seeing severe effects from this. A couple

of really severe things have happened, but over millions of doses, so its

actually one of the safest vaccines.

So how do you decide, for you baby, to get this or not? Or your toddler, or

child? Is the disease common? No; only 20-25 cases each year. Is it a severe

disease? Of course it is. We just saw a baby in our practice that had this

disease infect a bone behind the ear and needed surgery, IV antibiotics, all

kinds of, you know, hospitalizations, because this germ infected one bone

behind the ear. The child was not vaccinated, and if the baby had been, he

might not have gone through this process. The baby is fine now, no long-term

harm, but what Im getting at is that we just saw this disease in our practice

and its serious stuff. So it is severe.

Is the ingredient profile safe? I would say yes, very safe. Side effects are

safe. Is this a public health risk? If we stopped vaccinating for HiB would it

come back? Yeah, I think it would slowly make its way back into the population

and we would have an increase of babies dying from it. Are you putting babies

at risk if you dont vaccinate? I dont know not really its such a rare disease.

But if all of you dont vaccinate then yes, it might pose a public health risk.

I score this a 4 of 5 in the level of importance; the only reason I could give

to not vaccinate is that the disease today is very rare. Thats the only good

reason I can think of to stay away from this vaccine. Also, this is a case of,

if you dont vaccinate until your baby is two, you dont really need this because

the disease only really occurs in babies two and younger. It very rarely does

occur in kids, two to five, but its really only a disease in the first two

years of life. So

dont bring a two year old in to start these shots; you should do it when you

baby is younger.

 

DtaP

Moving on the next shot. DtaP. What is DtaP? Thats diptheria, tetanus, and

pertussis. We give this at 2, 4, 6, and 18 months. We give a booster at 5. Why

do we do all that? Well, ok. Diptheria is just a horrible disease that can kill

you, but it just does not exist in the US anymore. I say that, although its not

100% true. We have most years go by with zero cases; one year in the last 20

years we had five cases, but most years we have zero. So practically speaking

this disease does not exist in the US. Um, tetanus, you get that from a deep

dirty wound. You might be surprised to know we only have 50-100 cases every

year of tetanus in the US. It is, and can be, fatal, but only one or two cases

every year of tetanus in children. I dont know if these kids are vaccinated or

not, but almost all reported cases are adults over 25 who did not keep up with

tetanus shots when they were younger. You get a booster at five and then at

fifteen but adults

dont get that 25 year booster and can catch tetanus. It almost never occurs in

children or in infants.

So you ask yourself, if we are giving these shots at ages 2,4, and 6 months,

why are we giving shots for two diseases that dont even occur in infants? They

dont even really exist much in the US. Why do we do it? Well we do it because

of the P in the DTP, pertussis. Whooping cough. That disease does occur in

babies. And, it is common. Thats we vaccinate at 2, 4, 6, and 18 months.

Because whooping cough, um, it can be fatal for infants. When babies catch it,

about 1 in 160 cases will be fatal. About 1 in 100 cases will result in some

sort of brain damage. Because the coughing from it is so bad, you cant breathe

while coughing and you get a little bit of brain damage from that. Now, most

babies that go through whooping cough come out just fine. But there is a 1 in

160 chance of death for babies. Thats we have the 2,4, 6, and 18 month

schedule, so babies arent spreading whooping cough.

How common is it? We had almost 20,000 cases last year. In CA we have about

1200-1500 a year, closer to 2000 last year. I see it in my practice about every

month. Its not rare at all. And so, thats whooping cough; its common and it can

be severe.

So how do they make this vaccine? The basically take each of the three viruses

and grow the germs in a petri dish with beef extract. Now Im not sure what beef

extract is, but anyone who knows, let me know. Its basically cow that they

grind up and make juice from, I dont know. That goes in the petri dish. The

beef extract is full of proteins and nutrients that feed the virus. The virus

uses the extract to grow. Then they break them up, grind them and destroy them,

and take pieces and put them into the vaccine. They then take chemicals

produced by those viruses and they put those into the vaccine too. Thats how

they make it. Then they filter it, purify it, clean it up. You cant catch the

disease from this vaccine because it doesnt have any whole germ in it. Its just

a small part.

So what are the worrisome ingredients? Well, there is a little bit of

formaldehyde, we know that is toxic and poisonous. They try to filter it out,

but a little bit remains. How much? I dont know how much, and I dont know how

much is safe, but I know its in there a little bit. Mercury is not in there if

its in the big bottle of Tripedia brand, and youve got the .3 mg in the small

bottles. For the most part you can get it mercury-free.

Diptheria then... ok, you can get just the tetanus shot without the whole DTP.

You can also get the diptheria-tetanus without the P part in there. (I thought

that was for older kids... ok. Thats a toy cell phone? I thought that was your

real cell phone! Ok honey! You can bring them up here if they get tired of

sitting around). But beware: if you get the plain tetanus vaccination you are

getting 25 mg of mercury. Many times parents will get a tetanus shot for their

child because they think its safer than the DTP vaccine but youre getting lots

of mercury with that plain tetanus vaccine. There is no mercury in the DT

vaccine without the P. There used to be, but now its out.

There is formaldehyde. They use beef hearts instead of beef extracts to nourish

these germs when they make it. I dont know if that makes it worse, or better,

but just know thats what they use.

Side effects, ok. Has anyone here ever heard that the DTP is the most dangerous

vaccine ever? And that the pertussis in particular is really really bad? If we

are talking about the older DTP vaccine that is true. We no longer use that

vaccine though, and havent been using it since 1998. Now we use the DtaP

vaccine which is very different. Anything you read that is older about the DTP

vaccine cant be applied to the newer DtaP vaccine, which seems much, much

safer. With the new DtaP vaccine we havent really seen any severe side effects

happen. It has a pretty good safety profile.

So five questions, and you can briefly go through this. So DT, not common,

however, it is severe. Are the ingredients safe? They use beef hearts, a little

bit of formaldehyde, and you have to decide for yourself if thats safe or not,

because I dont know. The FDA says it is safe and most people believe that, but

you have to decide for your family. Is the side effect profile safe? Yes. We

just dont see severe side effects happen with this vaccine. Is this a public

healthy risk? For diptheria, if everyone stopped vaccinating, then yeah, it

would come back and it would be serious. If a whole city stopped vaccinating,

it would spread. If your baby isnt vaccinated are you putting others at risk? I

dont think so, because its not a common disease, so it would probably be that

you would not catch it. Is tetanus a public health threat? Not at all, its not

passed from person to person. There are no issues of public health as far as

your decision about

whether or not to vaccinate because you dont catch it from other people. You

catch it from having a wound. But, the five questions look very different for

the pertussis vaccine. It would be nice just to have the pertussis vaccine by

itself but we dont have that now. You have to have all three parts. Common

disease? Yes. Severe? Yes if its a baby, for older children no. I should point

out that pertussis is really only severe for infants under the age of one. If a

five year old catches pertussis it can be pretty rough but the fatality risk is

virtually zero. Its only risky in infants. Are the ingredients safe? Again,

that would be questionable. Is the side effect profile safe? I would say yes, we

just dont see any really bad things with this. Pertussis is a huge public

health risk, though... weve doubled our cases from 2003-2004. Twice as much and

on the rise, and very severe in infants. I just saw a 2 month old with

pertussis, not vaccinated,

in fact almost all the cases I see are not vaccinated.. . but I would score it

4 of 5 on level of importance using these five questions. For older kids I

score it a 3.

 

PNEUMOCOCCIS

Pneumococcis. This is the bacteria that causes meningitis. We dont want your

babies to catch it so we vaccinate at 2, 4, 6, 15 months to protect them. This

is one form of meningitis. How common is it? Well, we dont know because no one

has ever reported it, because it was so common no one kept data on it. Some

estimations show how much it goes around... just guesses but not hard numbers. I

dont think Ive ever seen a case of it, maybe one or two, but its pretty rare.

The numbers we do have, when we surveyed five large cities across the US...

forget that. Were actually looking at something else, I lost my place there.

Ok, what is now being reported now that we are tracking the disease is about 750

cases each year in the last few years in children under five, getting meningitis

and being hospitalized. Almost are kids under age two. If you include adults,

the number is 2 to 3 thousand cases per year. This is not all the cases, just

the ones that

doctors think to report. I am sure the numbers are a lot higher.

How do they make the vaccine? The vaccine is called Prevnar. They take the

germ, grow it in a soy culture, take some sugars out of the germs and throw the

rest away, then put those sugars in the vaccine. So there is no way to get

meningitis from this vaccine. All right?

So the what are the ingredients to think about? Well, there are no animal

tissues. No formaldehyde, like we have in the DtaP. Theres really no dangerous

ingredients used in this vaccine, no mercury. Its a pretty safe ingredient

list.

Side effects. Well, one of the drawbacks with this vaccine is that we see more

kids with fever, swelling, fussiness, redness where they get the shot, a much

higher proportion of kids react to this vaccine when compared with all the

other vaccines. We have had some reports of seizures after the vaccine. There

has been, what else, well, we dont have decades of data or safety research,

weve only been using it since about 2000. I want you to see whats been reported

in the first two years after using it, we have about 30 million doses. We have

about 4000 reports of side effects and about 600 of those are serious reports.

Of the serious reactions about 400 were seizures, about 117 deaths reported

after the administration of this vaccine, mysterious deaths and things like

that. So thats how I look at it, whats being reported.

So you ask yourself, do you get this or not? What do you do? Well, the disease

is pretty common. The disease is severe. The ingredient profile looks safe, but

the side effect profile, we get a lot more than with other vaccines. Some high

fevers, seizures, fussy babies. Is it a public health risk? Oh yeah, it is. So

I scored this vaccine as a 4 of 5 in level of importance. My only real issue is

the side effects are seen more often than in other vaccines.

So Im just going to summarize here. Dont you feel like youre back in college or

something? Ok, so Ive shown you two kinds of meningitis, both are pretty

severe, in babies, whooping cough, another disease severe in babies, HiB,

however, pretty rare. The other two diseases arent rare. The side effect

profile of these three shots are actually the safest profiles compared to next

shots were going to see. They are safer than the ones Im going to be moving

onto. So, severe diseases, fairly common, safer side effect profiles. Higher on

the list of importance.

 

MMR

Now Im moving onto measles, mumps, and rubella. We give the vaccine at age one,

because before age one it just doesnt work. There is no reason to give it

before then because the body doesnt recognize it and it wont work. So we do it

age one and again at age five. Because by then it does work pretty good.

Measles, about one in 500 cases are fatal. That might be higher or lower than

you thought, but its not a terrible, fatal disease that kills everyone that has

it. Fatal about one in 500 cases. We have about 50 to 100 cases every year. Not

a lot. CA has about 20 cases a year. Mumps is so mild, most kids who have it ,

you dont even know theyve caught it. Its so mild that it passes you by and you

dont even know. But in teenagers and adults its severe, it can make you

sterile, cause arthritis, heart stress, kidney problems, brain issues, very

severe in adults, but rarely fatal. How common is it? We have about 250 cases

every year in the US. There are likely more but thats is what is being

reported. So its not like its all over the place, and in children you see about

50 cases a year. Rubella, or German measles, is a completely harmless infection

for children. We have only about 20 cases per year of rubella in children. But

its probably going

unrecognized in the US because its so harmless, you dont go to the doctor, and

also, its so rare the doctor doesnt know what it is because hes never seen it.

Rubella for the most part is extremely rare.

Why do we vaccinate for rubella? Because it can cause birth defects in babies.

If a pregnant mom catches it and it infects her fetus that baby can get birth

defects. We have about 3 babies a year being born with birth defects from

rubella. And in the past 20 years its been about ten babies per year. Not a

lot. Thankfully.

So how do they make this vaccine? There was a fetus who had rubella in the 60s,

they aborted the fetus, they removed the virus from the fetus, and that is the

same virus they have been using all this time. They just keep having the virus

grow itself, reproduce itself, and thats what they use. The measles and mumps

viruses are taken from chick embryos. They infect the chicken embryos then take

the viruses out of the embryos. I dont know why they do that, thats just what

they do. They put the viruses in a petri dish and then add the blood from a cow

fetus, the liquid part, and that nourishes the virus allowing them to multiply

to get more for the vaccines. Then they take human blood units that are donated,

they filter the protein out and put the protein in the petri dish, and that

protein nourishes the viruses as well. Thats how they make this vaccine. They

make sure there is no HIV, hepatitis, they make sure there are no infections

from the

whole process. But, the viruses that are injected into you in this shot are

alive. They are living viruses. Theyre weakened, but they are alive and they

can infect you.

So, there are at least a couple of issues that you would at least want to be

aware of. They are using human blood products to make the vaccine. Of course

they screen and filter it and try to get out any infections that might be

there. They use blood from a cow fetus, to help grow it. There are proteins

from the chicken embryos where they harvest the measles and mumps viruses,

proteins are actually floating around in the final vaccine because they arent

able to filter them all out. So youre getting proteins from chicken embryos.

Now is that harmful? I dont know, I just know thats what listed in the package

insert.

So side effects. There are a lot of side effects. Im not going to read through

them all, but if you are listening to this on tape or reading this, trust me,

they are bad. Bleeding problems, inflammation of blood vessels, visual

problems, rash, but anyway, one of the major ones that I want you to know... if

you get the MMR, children have a tiny risk of getting arthritis. Real sore

joints, fevers. But adult women who get it, if you are adult woman and you

choose to get the MMR for whatever reason, you have a 12-26% chance of

suffering from a severe form of arthritis. A small percentage of those women

will have arthritis for many years. Now why does this apply to you? Because, if

you have a baby, whoever provides your prenatal care checks to see if you have

immunity. If you do, dont worry. If you dont have any rubella immunity, the

nurse is going to give you rubella shot. They might not even ask you first. I

mean there you are, enjoying your new

baby, and the nurse comes in, says, I need to give you this shot, and you

think, ok, whatever, so she gives you this shot that now puts you at real high

risk for arthritis. Thats is listed in the package insert. So if you as adult

woman learn that you do not have immunity you have to look at the risks, ask

yourself how bad is rubella and look at the real risk of arthritis. So decide

for yourself and dont let someone decide for you.

More side effects. Here is a list of neurological side effects reported after

the MMR vaccine. The brain can become inflamed, swollen, you can go into a

coma-like state, you can be paralyzed, have seizures, various nerves can stop

working, you can actually get meningitis as well. All these, including

arthritis, can also occur if you catch these diseases as an adult, by the way.

If as an adult you get these diseases you could have any of the side effects

Ive just mentioned. The package insert says that they do believe there have

been cases of brain swelling that are attributable to the MMR vaccine. They

keep getting reports of brain reports and people going into an almost coma-like

state. But thankfully the data shows it to be one case per million doses. So

its rare. Its there, but rare. The chance is almost zero. But because we

vaccinate so many, someone is going to have a bad side effect from time to

time.

Weve all heard of a link between MMR and autism. To really talk about it and

explain that relationship Id need a whole hour. But in my 30 second version: in

autistic children they are finding the measles virus infecting the intestines.

And its not wild measles, its vaccine-related measles. They are finding it in a

lot of the intestines of autistic children, but not their siblings. Their

siblings are tested and they dont find the measles there. They are finding the

same thing in the spinal fluid of a lot of autistic children but not in their

siblings. So the theory is that measles infection in the vaccine is somehow

triggering autism. Thats all I have time to say on it now, there are lot of

details there, beyond the scope of this talk. I cant tell you for sure whether

or not there is a connection, but there is enough research there to at least

suggest its something we really need to study, to figure out what that

connection is, or at least to

figure out whats happening.

A lot of parents want to give the MMR seperately so you get only one virus at a

time. You probably do experience less side effects this way, but its kind of a

lot of trouble.

So what do you do with the MMR vaccine? Lets apply the five questions we just

went through and see. Are the diseases common? No. Are they severe? No, they

are not. Are the ingredients safe? Well, we talked about the chicken embryo

proteins, the human blood proteins, the whole manufacturing process seems to me

to be questionable about how safe it is to inject it into your child. Is the

side effect profile safe? Its one of the riskier ones. Its got a long list of

possible side effects. It is a public health risk in that if we stopped

vaccinating the diseases would escalate and then we would start to have

problems with the disease. I gave the MMR a 1 out of 5 in importance; I gave it

that low score because its a public health issue, and we could possibly start

seeing birth defects related to rubella if we stop vaccinating. Now for

teenagers and adults, the diseases can be pretty severe. So I raise that rating

to 2 out of 5 for a teenager.

 

HEP B

Moving on to hepatitis B. This is a sexually transmitted disease. Or you can

get it from you know, sharing IV needles, accidentally coming into contact with

blood... and because we know babies are sexually active, we give this to them

at 2, 4, and 9 months. No really. Ok. Why do we do this? Well, heres why. In

the 1990s someone did a research study that suggested 30,000 children every

year maybe getting infected with Hep B in the US. They didnt prove it by

testing 100,000 children or anything, they just, you know, used math and

statistics and population research to make a guess that about 30,000 children

are infected. Everyone freaked out so we started giving babies this shot. And

the fear is that about 1% of, or less than that, of adults, carry Hep B. So

maybe 1% of half a percent of women have Hep B in them, so when they have a

baby, the blood exposure to the baby through the birth canal could give that

baby Hep B. So we thought if we give

every baby a shot for it, we could protect that small percentage of babies

born to mothers who have Hep B. So thats how this all originated. We wanted to

protect this supposed 30,000 kids a year supposedly getting Hep B in the birth

process.

Well, what does the actual research show? Back when we started Hep B vaccine we

had about 11,000 cases per year in the US. Now I told you we made a guess that

we had about 30,000 cases a year in children alone, not to mention the, you

know, 30 to 50 thousand of adults every year. But what is actually being

reported in research is about 11,000 cases a year, almost all adults. Only

100-200 are children. So the whole scare reason that started the whole Hep B

really turned out not to be completely true, there really arent nearly as many

cases as we thought. Since weve been vaccinating the cases of Hep B being

reported have gone down by about half, which is good. Um, but, ok, how much is

being reported now? Now we have about 30 babies each year in the US being born

with Hep B, about 30 toddlers or preschoolers, and about 70 older kids,

elementary and junior high age. Thats a lot less than the 30,000 that we

thought, that we worried about

happening. In teens and young adults we see about 1300 cases a year. So my

conclusion, a conclusion anyway, is that its not really an infant disease.

Unless you are a Hep B positive mom, if you are, you should absolutely get the

vaccine, along with another shot your baby would get when being born that will

prevent them from getting Hep B, um, but, if you are not Hep B positive I cant

think of any good reasons to get this vaccine.

If a dad is Hep B positive, or someone else who lives in the house, chances are

the dads blood will get onto the kids, just in course of raising kids. Dads,

you know when dads shave, they might bleed a little bit, so theres blood on the

face, so they kiss their kids or the kids touch the face, and the blood gets

into the kid. So if you have someone Hep B positive in the family I think it

would be important to vaccinate the babies, maybe everyone in the family. I told

you this, about 1% of people in the US have Hep B, but 12% of Europeans, Middle

Easterners, Africans, uh, South Americans, Asians, they have Hep B. Thats a

lot, a lot of babies being born to Hep B mothers. So its a great idea to

vaccinate for Hep B in a country where Hep B is very prevalent.

Ok. How do they make this vaccine? Well, its basically simple. They got yeast

cells and taught them how to make a Hep B protein. They dont make the whole

germ, just a Hep B protein. They take that protein and put it in the vaccine.

No animal tissues, just a, its a pretty safe manufacturing process. However

they use formaldehyde in this brand, Recondovax.. . there is another brand,

Injurix, that does not use formaldehyde. Mercury is, there is a tiny bit

present, .025 mg in the Injurix brand, but no mercury in the Recondovax. But if

you get the big bottle, there is a lot of mercury in that bottle. You would not

want to get a vaccine from the big bottle.

Side effects, ok. So these are all the side effects that have been reported

since theyve been giving the Hep B vaccine. Some liver damage, some heart

problems, bleeding problems, visual problems, some people come down with Lupus,

arthritis, some neurologic problems like migraines, numbness, weakness, some

paralysis , a few cases of Multiple Schlerosis have happened after having the

Hep B shot, seizures. Those are all the possible side effects listed on the

package insert. The problem is that I cant say how common these side effects

are, only that theyve been reported since this vaccine came into use. Ok, I

want to talk about, well, remember at the beginning of this when I said there

had been 18,000 severe reaction over 2 billion doses? Well how does it apply to

the Hep B vaccines? They took the Hep B alone, and analyzed data, and got about

6000 severe reactions reported including 150 deaths. 73 of those deaths were in

children. Now obviously

all these deaths arent directly related to the Hep B vaccine, but these are

deaths that occurred and the doctor realized, oh, they just had the Hep B

vaccine last week, and so they mail, send it in as a possible reaction. I dont

know how many deaths are truly caused by the vaccination, but this is just the

data that I can show you. So there is a little bit of risk there when you look

at the possible side effects.

So should you give your baby this vaccine? Well, the disease is rare. Is it

severe? Yeah, Hep B is a very severe disease for babies. Are the ingredients

safe? Yeah, we dont have any weird ingredients in this vaccine. Are the side

effects safe? I dont know; there are a lot of possible side effects listed for

this vaccine, so, I dont give it a point there. Is it a public health risk for

your baby? No. If you dont give your baby this shot you are not putting other

babies at risk. Your baby isnt sexually active, other babies arent sexually

active, so theres no public health issue regarding babies. Its a huge public

health issue for teenagers and for moms who carry Hep B, when they deliver a

baby. So the big health issue is for teens. So for teens I give it a 3 out of 5

possible points, and for babies I give it a 2 out of five in the importance

ranking.

 

CHICKEN POX/VARICELLA

Moving on to chicken pox. We give babies a chicken pox shot at age one. (You

guys still with me? Im trying to make it nice and clear without getting bogged

down in too many details.) Ok, well we give chicken pox at age one. Um, chicken

pox is on the decline, we dont see nearly as many cases of it as we used to.

Chicken pox is only fatal in about 1 in 65,000 cases. All right, so, deaths

from chicken pox are almost unheard of. We used to have about 50 deaths from

chicken pox each year, which was tragic, when chicken pox was real common, but

now its not so common and we have very few deaths.

How do they make this vaccine? Well, they had a kid with chicken pox and they

sucked some of the virus out of him, so they got the whole chicken pox virus.

Then they took a human fetus, and Im not sure where that human fetus came from,

but they took a human fetus, they took the lungs out, and they put the lungs

into the petri dish, then they put the chicken pox in the petri dish, and the

virus used the human fetus lung tissue to grow itself and expand. And so thats

how they keep replicating the virus to use for the vaccine. And this is in the

package insert. Then they take guinea pig cells, and they put the virus in with

guinea pig cells so it has a different kind of cell to nourish it and grow and

multiply. Then they have a third group of human cells, not the fetus but

another group of human cells, with, where there is blood from a cows fetus put

in with these human cells to nourish them, then they put the chicken pox virus

into there. It

grows and multiplies, and they get a whole bunch of virus that way, and they

put that into the vaccine. Its a live, a living virus, so it can infect you.

The virus of course is weakened so hopefully it wont infect you, but it can.

So, there is no mercury, great. But you know the human cells, not the fetus

lung cells, but that third group of cells, the human cells, well the proteins

and DNA cells are injected into you, and that is listed in the package insert.

There is a little bit of, the cow fetus blood, there is a little bit of that

which is injected into you as well.

So the chicken pox vaccine side effects. Well, you can have bleeding problems,

your brain can get inflamed, seizures, you can have a bad rash, but all those

things can happen if you catch the disease as well. If you get the disease

these things can happen, if you get the shot these things can happen.

Thankfully its all very rare, the disease or the shot having the effects, both

are very rare.

So where does this disease, where does this shot rank for your babies? Is the

disease common? Yeah. Is it severe? No. Are the ingredients safe? Its very

questionable, because this is such an unusual manufacturing process. Is the

side effect profile safe? Well, the side effects listed, thankfully are very

rare, but they can be pretty severe for the few people that they do affect. Is

chicken pox a public health risk? Yes, if you dont vaccinate your child, you

are increasing the likelihood that others around you will catch the disease. So

I would score this vaccine as a 2 out of 5 on the level of importance. Mainly

because its a common disease and a public health risk, but for the other

factors I give it a lower ranking.

 

POLIO

Ok, you might be interested to know that only 1 in 250 cases of polio will

actually cause paralysis. Little fact I did not used to know. We havent had a

case of polio here in the US in about 25 years. Except for one person, an

immigrant, who brought it in. No other immigrants brought it in. We still have

polio in at least seven other countries in Africa and Asia. But, we dont have

it in Central America, South America, or in Western Europe. So polio is

thankfully gone from our country. We still give the vaccine at 2, 4, 18 months

and 5 years, to keep, obviously, to keep polio out of our country. We dont use

the live oral polio vaccine anymore because that can actually make you

paralyzed, so we dont that anymore. We give you the injected polio vaccine. So

if youve heard that you can catch polio from the vaccine, thats no longer true,

you cant catch it from the vaccine any more.

How do they make it? Well they got some monkey kidneys and they grow the virus

in those monkey kidneys. Then they get a baby cows blood and take the liquid

out and pour that in with the monkey kidneys and thats what they use to nourish

the virus. Its filtered out, and the virus, the virus is killed. So there is no

way it can infect you. So the ingredients, there is a little bit of

formaldehyde that is left over in this vaccine, there are proteins from that

baby cows blood that are in the liquid that are injected into you, residual

proteins. They do use monkey kidney cells which I talked about at the beginning

of this talk, about what has happened in the past with monkey kidneys.

Obviously there arent monkey kidney cells in the final product, they filter

them out, but um, they are there in the process.

Side effects. Well thankfully we dont really see any side effects, except maybe

a little fever, a little fussy, that kind of thing. But bad side effects, we

dont really see that kind of thing.

So how do I rate this shot? Well, the disease is rare, but it is severe. The

ingredients are a little bit questionable but the side effect profile is very

safe. Its not a public health threat in the US because it doesnt exist. So I

score this as a 2 out of 5 for importance for babies in the US. I will point

out that the side effects look really safe, so if you are going to be traveling

to a country that has polio, I would feel very safe about getting this vaccine.

If you are going to, parts of Africa or Asia where the disease exists, well the

side effects just dont seem to happen.

 

SUMMARY

To summarize, I rated Prevnar meningitis, whooping cough, and HiB meningitis as

a 4 out of 5 on the level of importance for babies. I rated Hep B, chicken pox,

polio, kind of about 2 out of 5 just because they dont seem as important in the

rating of diseases that you need to vaccinate against. MMR I rated a 1 out of

5, for measles-mumps- rubella. Mainly because of the side effects, the

ingredients, and those diseases are pretty rare now, thankfully, so I put that

low on the scale of importance.

So heres our vaccination schedule. Now what do you do this? What should you do?

I cant tell you what you should do. I am going to tell you what you can do and

how you might put all this information together. Its called selective

vaccination. It means getting the shots that are more important and safer and

not getting shots that are not important and are riskier. Um, most of the

patients in my practice get all the shots, we do all the routine shots. We do

them a little differently though, we only do two shots at one time. One or two.

But if you are going to, I mean we do have patients that dont get all their

shots, some of them dont get any shots. But the ones that do get some, they get

the ones that are more important. Here is kind of what they do, they do the

meningitis shots, they do the whooping cough or pertussis shots, one or two at a

time.

How does that look on the schedule? Well say the mom comes in and says, hey, my

babys not having sex, so lets skip Hep B for now. And Im like, well, if your

daughter comes home from a date riding on the back of motorcycle with a new

tattoo on her bottom, you might want to reconsider. But ok, skip it for now.

Then the mom might say, well polio doesnt really exist in the US, so lets not

do polio. And then she might say, you know, chicken pox with human lungs that

use to make that, thats kind of weird, and the mom says, maybe Ill just let my

kid catch that. So then the profile, the side effect profile of the MMR, that

side effect profile is the most severe of all the vaccines, and a lot of

parents come to me and tell me that they just dont like the list of side

effects that theyve read so they just want to skip MMR. Um, so what does that

leave us with? Well, basically that leaves the meningitisis and whooping cough.

I keep changing how I do this in my office but Im thinking of doing it this

way: give the baby the whooping cough and the Prevnar shot, at 2 months, right

at the beginning, because those are the worst of the diseases. Then well do

like another whooping cough and a Hib meningitis, remember HiB is a rare

meningitis but it does occur, well do two meningitisis together, and we go

through and see. Basically the baby gets pertussis protection, meningitis

protection, and then we throw a tetanus booster in there when they are five year

olds just to give them some tetanus protection. Right now I might do DT because

its mercury-free, and hopefully one day well have a mercury-free tetanus by

itself, in the next few years so you can just do that.

This is kind of the list of the most important and the safest vaccines. What

about no shots? Some babies arent getting any shots. So if a patient comes to

me and says, I dont want any shots, I say, ok, thats your choice, but you

better breastfeed for at least a year, and it would be best if you went to two

years. And I try to make them commit to two years of breastfeeding so that the

kid will have that protection. If I have a non-vaccinated baby I tell the

family, please dont put your baby in daycare. Consider not putting your baby in

the church nursery, especially during the winter months. And, Ill say if you

are breastfeeding and your baby is not in daycare, then you are in the safest

group of babies. And if you dont want shots, ok, Ill still be your doctor and I

wont give you a hard time because you are in a safe population. I get really

scared if a bottle-fed, daycare family comes to me and says, I dont want any

shots. That scares me

because the baby could get whooping cough, the baby might get meningitis, its a

whole different situation. If you have a lot of older siblings in school who are

getting sick, I say you just have to breastfeed that baby if you arent doing

shots. I mean at least, the minimum of two years. If you have several older

kids, thats just so they dont get the baby sick.

Vaccines for travel, ok, these are the four diseases you might encounter during

travel. I mean, if you get all the shots you are protected. If you decide not

to get shots and you travel to third-world countries, these are diseases you

might come across. Diphtheria, polio, HiB, HiB might be common wherever youre

going, and tetanus, I mean its not like tetanus is more prevalent in another

country but if you were to get wounded in a jungle with no tetanus shots around

you might be in trouble. So if you are going to travel and you think you might

get wounded where youre going you might want to get a tetanus shot before you

go.

Teenagers, well, talk about Hep B. Talk about rubella, you think about the

arthritis risk from that rubella shot. Should you vaccinate your teenage

daughters for rubella? I dont know. If, well, I do have an answer. You can have

a blood test to see if your daughter actually caught rubella as a child and you

never knew it. If she did, you dont need the shot. Chicken pox can be severe if

teenagers or adults catch it, so if you dont do the shot, and your kids never

get chicken pox, you can get a blood test to see if they had it and you never

knew it, then theyre fine. But if you do a blood test and it shows they never

had it, you might think about doing the shot before the teenage years because

it can be pretty bad for teenagers.

Now the good news for all the babies is that in ten years when you have the

think about this again, chicken pox will probably be gone. It probably wont be

here anymore. So dont stress now about chicken pox. Wait ten years then think

about it. Again, you can get a blood test for immunity for your teenagers to

see if theyve had any of these diseases. If you feel like you want any of these

shots, get a blood test on your teen, first, and you might be able to avoid

some of those shots.

All right, were in the home stretch. I think Im about done. That might be it. A

couple of more slides. In fact I need to come back to this one. There are some

books you can read, something pretty informative, gives you a lot about the

pros and the cons of each shot, well these are a couple of good books. I dont

know if Ill ever get around to writing something myself, I might. A couple of

websites for you too. If you want to know where to get all these disease

statistics, its the CDC website, CDC.gov. Click on the left column for state

health statistics then click on morbidity tables, then you figure out how to

pull up the tables that show you the diseases youre interested in. Your local

public health department also sends out information about the diseases you can

get, about whats in your community. I do want to end the talk on this slide.

If you are going to get shots, you can decrease your childs chance of having a

reaction to the shots by giving them Vitamin A and Vitamin C. It shows the

doses there. I guess Ill read it for those of you listening to this. Ok, for a

few days before the shots and for 2 weeks after the shots, give your baby

Vitamin A, you can buy it in the store either as a multivitamin or you can get

Vitamin A mixed with a couple of other vitamins, and you can get Vitamin A

drops by themselves. For your toddlers and your older kids you can give it cod

liver oil, its actually better to use that than the drugstore vitamin A. Give

them anywhere from 1000 to 3000 units of Vitamin A. And, every day, give it for

those days that I mentioned. Then Vitamin C, on the day of the shot and for a

few days after. Give babies about 150 mg twice a day, give children 250 mg

twice a day, give teens or adults about 5000 mg of Vitamin C twice a day. This

will decrease your, well,

it may decrease your chance of side effects. Obviously not guaranteed, but it

might. So I can leave that up for you if youre furiously writing. And I have

some time for some questions now, so if you have a question, Ill start at the

front and work my way back.

 

Q and A

 

Q: At what age would a non-vaccinated child be ok to go into a church nursery

or preschool?

A: Id say over age two. Once they hit two, these diseases dont seem to happen

much at all.

 

Q: Do you have to start shots at 2 months? Can you wait 3 or 4 months?

A: Yeah, you can start anytime. Its just time without protection. But yeah, if

you are low risk, thats fine. You can start anytime. Or, if you start and

decide you dont want to do it, you can stop. You dont have to finish them.

Theres no harm if you stop.

 

Q: How is the Hep B given? Is it given in combination with other shots?

A: Well you can buy the Hep B by itself, or mixed with HiB, or mixed with...

oh... something else, one other mix. It may be that your doctor doesnt buy it

by itself, but it is available by itself. Your doctor doesnt have to buy it for

you.

 

Q: Are doctors obligated to provide shots in single doses?

A: I dont think they are obligated to provide that, but most doctors are now

agreeing to provide mercury-free vaccinations. I mean, I dont really know how

to answer that.

 

Q: Does research show a correlation between the administration of vaccines and

the development of autoimmune diseases in kids that are genetically

predisposed, and if so, would a reaction in one sibling indicate the chance of

the same type of reaction happening with subsequent siblings?

A: Well, one way I can answer that is to say that there are autoimmune diseases

that are on the list of side effects. Logically that would mean, probably yes,

these children would be at more risk. I dont think anyone has done the research

on that, so I cant answer that part. But it is logical that there would be a

higher risk.

 

Q: What age is optimal for the varicella vaccine?

A: Any age between one and twelve.

Q: If your doctor wont provide single dose shots, where can you go to get the

vaccines of your choice?

A: No, I mean, they have to come through a doctor, so I guess you could go to

another doctor. Like if an HMO wont provide what you want you could just pay

cash at another office to get what you want. You could go to your doctor and

give the money for the vaccine and say, could you please order me a single dose

of this vaccine, heres the money for it and money for shipping and an extra $5

for the trouble, that kind of thing. You could try. Depends, your doctor may or

may not do that.

 

Q: What is your opinion of homeopathic vaccines?

A: I know nothing about it, Ive never researched that, so I know nothing about

homeopathic vaccines. Its probably better than doing nothing. But honestly I

dont know much about it. Maybe I should. Do you know where I could learn about

it? A website or something?

 

Q: Why do you prefer to give one or two shots at a time? And how safe is the

flu shot?

A: It decreases your risk of side effects. The safety of a flu shot? Well, the

flu shot you spray in your nose has a lot more side effects, and I dont like

that vaccine and I wont give it. I see a lot of kids get flu symptoms from the

flu vaccine. We dont give it routinely but just give it to kids who really

might need it. I dont use it as a part of routine shots. I probably should make

it part of this talk, and I probably should, but I dont have a complete answer,

sorry.

 

Q: Which shots did you give to your children?

A: Ok, next question! No really, I am not going to answer that. I will tell my

patients that in a confidential setting if they ask.

 

 

Q: What about vaccinations for public schools?

A: Yeah, school systems. Well any public school, every single one in California

has to let you in regardless of your shots. Now they wont tell you that, I mean

they wont offer that information to you. But when you register for school they

give you a blue card to write your vaccines on, on the back of it is a place for

you to sign saying you are declining vaccines. And the law in California says

that they have to let you in. They can hassle you all they want but they have to

let you in. A private school can keep you out for refusing shots. Most wont but

they legally can do that.

 

Q: How severe would a side effect have to be for you to forego the shot?

A: For me, probably severe swelling, where the whole arm or leg gets swollen,

real severe swelling, not just a little like a bug bite. Real high fever more

than three days. Severe screaming or irritability for a couple of days. Because

all these things can happen but if its for a few hours, I think its fine. Or

any of the severe list of side effects, I wouldnt do that shot again.

 

Q: If your child has been sick, how long should you wait to have shots?

A: You should wait until youre well for a couple of weeks, but if youve taken

antibiotics you should wait longer, three or four weeks. Thats my personal

opinion and have no research to back that up, thats just what I suggest.

Q: Would you consider being in places with a high international population to

be risky?

A: No, I wouldnt consider being in downtown Las Angeles or going to LAX to put

you at any greater risk than in your normal life.

 

Q: I have a two year old with no vaccines and we are about to be traveling in

Asia. What shots would you recommend?

A: Still breastfeeding? Ok, well, those four, Diphtheria, polio, Hib

meningitis, Prevnar meningitis, tetanus. I mean those are all potential

diseases you could get. You would probably need two shots of each. Well, shes

over two so shes beyond the main risk of meningitis. The risk of the

meningitisis are probably the same here as anywhere you would travel. So if you

wouldnt vaccinate for it here, you wouldnt vaccinate for it just because you

travel. HiB is different, its rare here, but it might be all over the place

where youre going, It can occur over age two, its rare but it can occur. Its

questionable. You could get DT, polio.

 

Q: Should you have the five year boosters if youve done the rest of the shots?

A: It really comes down to looking at the diseases. I cant really give an

answer. You have a polio booster, MMR booster, and a DtaP booster at age five.

You would just have to decide, look at those diseases and make your own

decision.

 

Q: I have heard that there are cases of children and infants with Hep B, and no

one knows how they got it. Is that true?

A: Correct. There are in fact cases of children with Hep B and no one knows how

they contracted it. You assume it was accidental, they came into contact with

someones saliva, or blood or something, a freak accident. That does happen,

absolutely, but its very rare. Its so rare, you just have to decide what you

want to do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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#ygrp-text{

font-family:Georgia;

}

#ygrp-text p{

margin:0 0 1em 0;}

#ygrp-tpmsgs{

font-family:Arial;

clear:both;}

#ygrp-vitnav{

padding-top:10px;font-family:Verdana;font-size:77%;margin:0;}

#ygrp-vitnav a{

padding:0 1px;}

#ygrp-actbar{

clear:both;margin:25px 0;white-space:nowrap;color:#666;text-align:right;}

#ygrp-actbar .left{

float:left;white-space:nowrap;}

..bld{font-weight:bold;}

#ygrp-grft{

font-family:Verdana;font-size:77%;padding:15px 0;}

#ygrp-ft{

font-family:verdana;font-size:77%;border-top:1px solid #666;

padding:5px 0;

}

#ygrp-mlmsg #logo{

padding-bottom:10px;}

 

#ygrp-reco {

margin-bottom:20px;padding:0px;}

#ygrp-reco #reco-head {

font-weight:bold;color:#ff7900;}

 

#reco-grpname{

font-weight:bold;margin-top:10px;}

#reco-category{

font-size:77%;}

#reco-desc{

font-size:77%;}

 

#ygrp-vital{

background-color:#e0ecee;margin-bottom:20px;padding:2px 0 8px 8px;}

#ygrp-vital #vithd{

font-size:77%;font-family:Verdana;font-weight:bold;color:#333;text-transform:upp\

ercase;}

#ygrp-vital ul{

padding:0;margin:2px 0;}

#ygrp-vital ul li{

list-style-type:none;clear:both;border:1px solid #e0ecee;

}

#ygrp-vital ul li .ct{

font-weight:bold;color:#ff7900;float:right;width:2em;text-align:right;padding-ri\

ght:.5em;}

#ygrp-vital ul li .cat{

font-weight:bold;}

#ygrp-vital a{

text-decoration:none;}

 

#ygrp-vital a:hover{

text-decoration:underline;}

 

#ygrp-sponsor #hd{

color:#999;font-size:77%;}

#ygrp-sponsor #ov{

padding:6px 13px;background-color:#e0ecee;margin-bottom:20px;}

#ygrp-sponsor #ov ul{

padding:0 0 0 8px;margin:0;}

#ygrp-sponsor #ov li{

list-style-type:square;padding:6px 0;font-size:77%;}

#ygrp-sponsor #ov li a{

text-decoration:none;font-size:130%;}

#ygrp-sponsor #nc{

background-color:#eee;margin-bottom:20px;padding:0 8px;}

#ygrp-sponsor .ad{

padding:8px 0;}

#ygrp-sponsor .ad #hd1{

font-family:Arial;font-weight:bold;color:#628c2a;font-size:100%;line-height:122%\

;}

#ygrp-sponsor .ad a{

text-decoration:none;}

#ygrp-sponsor .ad a:hover{

text-decoration:underline;}

#ygrp-sponsor .ad p{

margin:0;}

o{font-size:0;}

..MsoNormal{

margin:0 0 0 0;}

#ygrp-text tt{

font-size:120%;}

blockquote{margin:0 0 0 4px;}

..replbq{margin:4;}

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