Rolfe
Adult human female
I’m thinking this is an aspect of the Wakefield situation that has been underexplored. Do the parents who idolise Wakefield know what he was really planning to inject into their children - and may actually be injecting?
Colostrum is the first milk produced by most mammalian species and contains the antibodies that provide passive maternal immunity to the newborn. The human placenta is very unusual in being permeable to macromolecules such as antibodies, with the result that the human infant is born with its passive immunity safely on board. Antibodies in human milk fulfil a fairly minor role and breast-feeding is not essential to the acquisition of maternal antibodies. (This has its downside in that maternal anti-foetal antibodies will affect the foetus in utero while in most animals the danger does not present until after birth.)
In non-human mammals the placenta is impermeable to antibody molecules and the neonate is born with no passive immunity. This has to be acquired within the first hours of life by consuming the mother’s colostrum, specially-secreted milk that is extremely high in immunoglobulins. To this end, the gut mucosa of the neonate is permeable to these molecules, which are absorbed intact. This permeability begins to decline quite sharply after about eight hours, and has vanished entirely by two days of age - by which time the mother is secreting ordinary milk.
Wakefield’s notorious patent application for a “measles vaccine”, which was also in some miraculous way a treatment for MMR-induced autism, was for a product derived from goat colostrum. Brian Deer has made available images of the entire text of two versions of the relevant patent applications.
http://briandeer.com/wakefield/vaccine-patent.htm
http://briandeer.com/mmr/1998-vaccine-patent.pdf
The product is described by Wakefield as “transfer factor”, and in his usual confident manner he has pontificated about the “extensive scientific literature, demonstrating safety and efficacy of TF in different diseases” and the number of experts he consulted on this subject. However, this literature seems conspicuous by its absence and this is not a product with a scientific pedigree. The Wikipedia article on transfer factor doesn’t mention colostrum, merely describing a component of cell mediated immunity, and states in relation to therapeutic uses, “the United States Food and Drug Administration regulates transfer factors as a dietary supplement and has issued a warning notice to a website selling transfer factors that they have not been proven to be effective or safe in the treatment of any condition, nor have there been any biological licenses or New Drug Applications produced for the substance.”
Deer’s treatment of this aspect acknowledges that the approach is quackery, but otherwise majors on the evidence contained in the patent application literature of Wakefield’s plans (even from before the controversial paper was published) to carry out a standardised testing protocol on the 12 children described, and to profit from the discrediting of the MMR by offering his product not only as a treatment for “vaccine-induced autism” but as a measles vaccine in its own right. However, closer examination of the nature of the product and its production is very instructive, and might be rather disturbing for any parent already concerned about what is being injected into their children’s bodies.
I am not an immunologist, but the basic biology of transfer factor as a component of CMI appears to be uncontentious enough. Nevertheless, virtually all the returns for a google search on “transfer factor” are quack sites. Exactly where colostrum comes into it, I’m not certain. However, this seems to be Wakefield’s (and woo in general’s) preferred method for manufacturing the stuff.
I am a vet, and I have to say that my knowledge of colostrum is confined to its immunoglobulin content. Standard veterinary teaching does not acknowledge that colostrum intake provides any active immunity, whether humoral or CMI. I have been unable to find any mainstream information on this subject online apart from an isolated 1977 paper describing T-lymphocytes in human colostrum. Any link combining transfer factor and colostrum appears to be woo.
Wakefield’s patent application’s description of the production of his transfer factor product makes startling reading.
First he describes the injecting of mice with “live or killed virus or an antigen derived from such a measles virus”. The mice are presumably killed and their lymphocytes harvested. A filtrate of these lymphocytes is then added to “an immunologically virgin human lymphoblastoid cell line”. The source of this cell line is not specified, however this seems to resonate with his guru Hugh Fudenberg’s statement to Deer that he was curing autistic children with a preparation derived from his own bone marrow.
Then, “one cell is serially expanded 10-fold with killed measles virus and interleukin-2, to a billion cells. Measles virus-specific TF preparations are made from this expanded cell population.” Following some description of a purification process, the recipe then introduces the goats.
“The ability of TF to stimulate further TF production, and the cross-species reactivity of TF are subsequently exploited in order to produce large quantities of concentrated TF at low cost. This is achieved by injecting the TF preparation into pregnant goats 3 times prior to delivery. Colostrums are collected for the first 3 days post-delivery and TF preparations were made from these by micropore filtration.”
So, we have measles virus and mice. Then we have the mice lymphocytes and a human cell line. Then more measles virus, for some reason. Then goats, and the final product coming from the colostrum of the nanny-goat. The route of administration described in the patent application is oral, but intramuscular injection is also referred to. There is description of reactions of human patients to this preparation, but absolutely no hint of any of the normal drug testing procedures that would have to be undertaken for any product to be licensed as a safe and effective therapeutic agent. Really, read the original text. It’s a classic example of junk science.
Just how happy should concerned parents be to have something like this injected into their children? Mice? Human bone marrow? Goat’s milk? Measles virus involved in the production process? Absolutely no background literature supporting the process, and no evidence of any safety or efficacy testing?
Just this year, something else has emerged that should put a whole new perspective on the use of animal colostrum as a therapeutic agent. A new, fatal syndrome, bovine neonatal pancytopenia, has recently been identified in young calves. The cause of this is as yet unknown, but suspicions currently centre on toxic properties of the colostrum of cows which have themselves been vaccinated. The syndrome has not been recognised in goats, nevertheless the wisdom of consuming colostrum or a colostrum-derived product from any animal has to be questioned - especially an animal that has been subjected to an unorthodox vaccination procedure.
A further area of concern is the welfare of the goats used in the production. In order to harvest colostrum, the newborn kids must be prevented from sucking. This will necessitate someone observing the animals constantly so that the neonates can be whisked away before they have got to their feet. (If anyone has devised a mechanical system for ensuring that a newborn kid can’t get to its mother’s udder even if parturition is unobserved, I really, really, don’t want to hear about it.) Kids would have to be fed artificial colostrum for the three days described in the patent, before they could be allowed to nurse. Maybe. Or would there simply be so many unwanted kids, these would be shot at birth?
Where is all this being done? How many goats are involved? What are the welfare standards? Did any of this animal experimentation (for that is what it is) have a proper Home Office licence, if it was done in Britain? Where might one find answers to these questions?
It would be perfectly possible to do this with acceptable welfare standards as a small cottage industry, with just a few animals. However, Wakefield clearly envisaged mass production of a product intended to supersede the MMR he was trying to discredit. How many litres of colostrum a day would the new industry require? Just how was this to be achieved? How many barns full of battery goats would be needed to supply this market? How many unwanted kids would be shot?
I wonder how many of Wakefield’s disciples have any idea about the production of this stuff he wants to give to their children. Do you think we should tell them?
Rolfe.
Colostrum is the first milk produced by most mammalian species and contains the antibodies that provide passive maternal immunity to the newborn. The human placenta is very unusual in being permeable to macromolecules such as antibodies, with the result that the human infant is born with its passive immunity safely on board. Antibodies in human milk fulfil a fairly minor role and breast-feeding is not essential to the acquisition of maternal antibodies. (This has its downside in that maternal anti-foetal antibodies will affect the foetus in utero while in most animals the danger does not present until after birth.)
In non-human mammals the placenta is impermeable to antibody molecules and the neonate is born with no passive immunity. This has to be acquired within the first hours of life by consuming the mother’s colostrum, specially-secreted milk that is extremely high in immunoglobulins. To this end, the gut mucosa of the neonate is permeable to these molecules, which are absorbed intact. This permeability begins to decline quite sharply after about eight hours, and has vanished entirely by two days of age - by which time the mother is secreting ordinary milk.
Wakefield’s notorious patent application for a “measles vaccine”, which was also in some miraculous way a treatment for MMR-induced autism, was for a product derived from goat colostrum. Brian Deer has made available images of the entire text of two versions of the relevant patent applications.
http://briandeer.com/wakefield/vaccine-patent.htm
http://briandeer.com/mmr/1998-vaccine-patent.pdf
The product is described by Wakefield as “transfer factor”, and in his usual confident manner he has pontificated about the “extensive scientific literature, demonstrating safety and efficacy of TF in different diseases” and the number of experts he consulted on this subject. However, this literature seems conspicuous by its absence and this is not a product with a scientific pedigree. The Wikipedia article on transfer factor doesn’t mention colostrum, merely describing a component of cell mediated immunity, and states in relation to therapeutic uses, “the United States Food and Drug Administration regulates transfer factors as a dietary supplement and has issued a warning notice to a website selling transfer factors that they have not been proven to be effective or safe in the treatment of any condition, nor have there been any biological licenses or New Drug Applications produced for the substance.”
Deer’s treatment of this aspect acknowledges that the approach is quackery, but otherwise majors on the evidence contained in the patent application literature of Wakefield’s plans (even from before the controversial paper was published) to carry out a standardised testing protocol on the 12 children described, and to profit from the discrediting of the MMR by offering his product not only as a treatment for “vaccine-induced autism” but as a measles vaccine in its own right. However, closer examination of the nature of the product and its production is very instructive, and might be rather disturbing for any parent already concerned about what is being injected into their children’s bodies.
I am not an immunologist, but the basic biology of transfer factor as a component of CMI appears to be uncontentious enough. Nevertheless, virtually all the returns for a google search on “transfer factor” are quack sites. Exactly where colostrum comes into it, I’m not certain. However, this seems to be Wakefield’s (and woo in general’s) preferred method for manufacturing the stuff.
I am a vet, and I have to say that my knowledge of colostrum is confined to its immunoglobulin content. Standard veterinary teaching does not acknowledge that colostrum intake provides any active immunity, whether humoral or CMI. I have been unable to find any mainstream information on this subject online apart from an isolated 1977 paper describing T-lymphocytes in human colostrum. Any link combining transfer factor and colostrum appears to be woo.
Wakefield’s patent application’s description of the production of his transfer factor product makes startling reading.
First he describes the injecting of mice with “live or killed virus or an antigen derived from such a measles virus”. The mice are presumably killed and their lymphocytes harvested. A filtrate of these lymphocytes is then added to “an immunologically virgin human lymphoblastoid cell line”. The source of this cell line is not specified, however this seems to resonate with his guru Hugh Fudenberg’s statement to Deer that he was curing autistic children with a preparation derived from his own bone marrow.
Then, “one cell is serially expanded 10-fold with killed measles virus and interleukin-2, to a billion cells. Measles virus-specific TF preparations are made from this expanded cell population.” Following some description of a purification process, the recipe then introduces the goats.
“The ability of TF to stimulate further TF production, and the cross-species reactivity of TF are subsequently exploited in order to produce large quantities of concentrated TF at low cost. This is achieved by injecting the TF preparation into pregnant goats 3 times prior to delivery. Colostrums are collected for the first 3 days post-delivery and TF preparations were made from these by micropore filtration.”
So, we have measles virus and mice. Then we have the mice lymphocytes and a human cell line. Then more measles virus, for some reason. Then goats, and the final product coming from the colostrum of the nanny-goat. The route of administration described in the patent application is oral, but intramuscular injection is also referred to. There is description of reactions of human patients to this preparation, but absolutely no hint of any of the normal drug testing procedures that would have to be undertaken for any product to be licensed as a safe and effective therapeutic agent. Really, read the original text. It’s a classic example of junk science.
Just how happy should concerned parents be to have something like this injected into their children? Mice? Human bone marrow? Goat’s milk? Measles virus involved in the production process? Absolutely no background literature supporting the process, and no evidence of any safety or efficacy testing?
Just this year, something else has emerged that should put a whole new perspective on the use of animal colostrum as a therapeutic agent. A new, fatal syndrome, bovine neonatal pancytopenia, has recently been identified in young calves. The cause of this is as yet unknown, but suspicions currently centre on toxic properties of the colostrum of cows which have themselves been vaccinated. The syndrome has not been recognised in goats, nevertheless the wisdom of consuming colostrum or a colostrum-derived product from any animal has to be questioned - especially an animal that has been subjected to an unorthodox vaccination procedure.
A further area of concern is the welfare of the goats used in the production. In order to harvest colostrum, the newborn kids must be prevented from sucking. This will necessitate someone observing the animals constantly so that the neonates can be whisked away before they have got to their feet. (If anyone has devised a mechanical system for ensuring that a newborn kid can’t get to its mother’s udder even if parturition is unobserved, I really, really, don’t want to hear about it.) Kids would have to be fed artificial colostrum for the three days described in the patent, before they could be allowed to nurse. Maybe. Or would there simply be so many unwanted kids, these would be shot at birth?
Where is all this being done? How many goats are involved? What are the welfare standards? Did any of this animal experimentation (for that is what it is) have a proper Home Office licence, if it was done in Britain? Where might one find answers to these questions?
It would be perfectly possible to do this with acceptable welfare standards as a small cottage industry, with just a few animals. However, Wakefield clearly envisaged mass production of a product intended to supersede the MMR he was trying to discredit. How many litres of colostrum a day would the new industry require? Just how was this to be achieved? How many barns full of battery goats would be needed to supply this market? How many unwanted kids would be shot?
I wonder how many of Wakefield’s disciples have any idea about the production of this stuff he wants to give to their children. Do you think we should tell them?
Rolfe.
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