In 1984, Christopher Exley, Ph.D., watched a young fish die from acute aluminum toxicity. The whole process took just under forty-eight hours. But, those two days changed his life.
Within the first six hours of exposure to aluminum, the young salmon showed signs of distress and marked behavior changes. After that, it began to seek out the corners of the tank, pushing its head and body against the side of the tank.
After twenty-four hours, the salmon began to move randomly and chaotically around the tank. Finally, after losing its orientation, it flipped onto its back and took its last breath. It died from aluminum toxicity.
Exley was deeply troubled. He had just witnessed with his own eyes how acute aluminum exposure could be toxic to living things. This profound experience directed the course of his scientific research into aluminum toxicity.
A professor at Keele University in Staffordshire, England, Christopher Exley has been researching and publishing original science about aluminum exposure and aluminum toxicity for 35 years.
Dr. Exley is a professor of Bioinorganic Chemistry at Keele University in Staffordshire, United Kingdom. He has published over 200 peer-reviewed papers on aluminum and is considered by many to be the leading authority on aluminum toxicity. Photo of Christopher Exley and Del Bigtree.
Aluminum toxicity in childhood vaccines
Aluminum is one of several adjuvants used in childhood vaccinations.
An adjuvant is a substance that is added to vaccines to provoke a stronger immune response.
As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) explains, several different adjuvants are used in vaccines. In addition to aluminum, these vaccine adjuvants include:
- MF59: an oil-in-water emulsion made of squalene that is used in the influenza vaccine Fluad
- AS01B: used in the vaccine for shingles, this adjuvant is made from bacteria and a compound extracted from soapbark trees
- CpG 1018: a more recent adjuvant made from cytosine phosphoguanine, a synthetic DNA, and used in the Heplisav-B vaccine
List of the vaccines that contain aluminum adjuvants. Screenshot from the CDC.
The amount of aluminum varies by vaccine. Some vaccines, including chickenpox, MMR, meningococcal, and rotavirus, do not contain any adjuvants. The amount of aluminum in childhood vaccines ranges from approximately 125 to 625 micrograms per dose depending on the vaccine.
In a recently published commentary in the Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology, Exley explains that a single injection of a vaccine that includes an aluminum adjuvant can be considered acute exposure to aluminum.
Aluminum is known to be toxic
While common in the environment, aluminum is toxic to humans. It is both a central nervous system and bone toxin.
It’s important we understand how common medical practices are making us sick, especially our children. The more we educate ourselves, the more empowered parents we become and the better able we are to help our children be healthier, as I wrote in an earlier post.
The human body most effectively prevents aluminum from being toxic when it is ingested (that is, swallowed) and passes through the gastrointestinal tract.
In fact, less than 1 percent of ingested aluminum is thought to be absorbed. In other words, almost all aluminum that is ingested leaves the body through the natural digestive process.
In contrast, our human bodies have very little defense against aluminum that is “parenteral,” or that bypasses the gastrointestinal tract.
“Parenteral” is a medical term that is used to refer to something that is put inside the body but not by swallowing. For example, an injection is given into the muscle on the leg, a subcutaneous injection, or an IV are all common routes of parenteral drug administration.
Injected and intravenous aluminum are both considered parenteral aluminum exposure.
According to Exley’s scientific review: “All intramuscularly injected aluminum, e.g. from vaccines, may eventually be absorbed” (my emphasis).
Research published in the New England Journal of Medicine, one of the most prestigious medical journals in the United States and the world, showed evidence of aluminum neurotoxicity due to IV nutrition in premature infants in neonatal intensive care units. The strength of these research findings directly led to strict FDA guidelines on parenteral aluminum in IV nutrition to prevent damage to newborns.
But here’s the problem: The cumulative amounts of aluminum exposure via adjuvants in vaccines far exceed the FDA’s own safety limits.
As outlined by the FDA, children who received injected aluminum at greater than 4 to 5 micrograms per kilogram per day “suffered from central nervous system and bone toxicity. Tissue loading may occur at even lower rates of administration.”
What does this mean?
Let’s say that a typical 2-month-old baby weighs about 5 kilograms. If that baby receives a brand of the DTaP vaccine which contains 625 micrograms of aluminum, then the baby receives 625/5 = 125 mcg/kg parenteral aluminum by injection, which passes directly into the bloodstream, the brain, and other organs. The “safe” amount for that baby is only 25 mcg per day. But the baby is receiving 625 mcg. So the amount the baby is receiving with just one injection is twenty-five times higher than the 25 mcg (4-5 mcg/kg/day) maximum that FDA stipulates for parenteral administration via IV nutrition. This level of exposure, from just one vaccine, constitutes aluminum toxicity.
If you’re interested in pursuing the question of aluminum toxicity, you’ve got some more researching to do.
I recommend you print these articles out, grab a highlighter pen and a strong cup of coffee, and read them in their entirety.
Recent peer-reviewed scientific papers that call into question the safety of using aluminum adjuvants in vaccines:
1) Reconsideration of the immunotherapeutic pediatric safe dose levels of aluminum (Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology, July 2018)
2) Do aluminum vaccine adjuvants contribute to the rising prevalence of autism? (Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry, November 2011)
3) Aluminum in brain tissue in autism (Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology, March 2018)
4) Aluminum hydroxide injections lead to motor deficits and motor neuron degeneration (Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry, November 2009)
5) Autoimmune/autoinflammatory syndrome induced by adjuvants (ASIA syndrome) in commercial sheep (Immunology Research, July 2011)
Exley’s research suggests that aluminum exposure in a single vaccine can be considered acute
In the case of Infanrix Hexa, a vaccine used in Europe and Australia to prevent six diseases (diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, hepatitis B, polio, and Haemophilus influenzae type b or Hib), the concentration of aluminum is approximately 8,000 times higher than was required to kill the salmon parr Exley saw being poisoned to death by aluminum.
Exley has noted that the total concentration of aluminum in the immediate vicinity of the injection site is extremely high.
When a baby or small child receives a vaccine, the injection site often becomes red and sore.
This inflammation is caused by the immune system. White blood cells rush to the injection site to respond to the immune assault.
Exley explains that the majority of injected aluminum adjuvant will be actively taken up, literally eaten, by a number of different cells that come to the injection site.
Macrophages are large white blood cells that have the ability to locate and ingest foreign substances, like bacteria and viruses. Some particles of aluminum adjuvant will be taken up by the body’s macrophages and retained at or close to the injection site as a granuloma.
A granuloma is a collection of macrophages—a small area of inflammation. Other cells heavily laden with aluminum will leave the injection site, visiting local lymph nodes and carrying aluminum to other places in the body.
This is a lot of medical lingo, but stay with me. The important take-away here is that evidence is mounting that these cells may be transporting aluminum into brain tissue.
Perhaps most concerning is that in his research, Exley has found evidence that aluminum can infiltrate brain tissue by crossing the blood-brain barrier and meninges. This aluminum has been found in the brain tissue of people with autism.
Significant exposure to aluminum
An aluminum adjuvant in a vaccine is an acute exposure to aluminum at the vaccine injection site, and also significant exposure to aluminum throughout a baby’s body.
Exley urges that we not be complacent about the use of aluminum adjuvants. Because infants have increased gastrointestinal absorption, reduced urinary excretion, and a developing blood-brain-barrier, he argues that they are uniquely vulnerable to aluminum.
But what about aluminum in breast milk?
The injection of a single dose of Infanrix Hexa (mentioned above) into an infant is equivalent to 164 times the daily dose of aluminum that a baby will be exposed to in breast milk. While a proportion of this aluminum may be retained in a granuloma at the vaccine injection site, even if 40 percent of the aluminum were contained, the daily dose of aluminum in this particular vaccine is still 100 times higher than an infant would receive while breast-feeding.
This high exposure to aluminum, some of which may end up in a baby’s brain, has never been shown to be safe for infants.
Some researchers have dismissed the concern over aluminum exposure, arguing that people are being exposed to aluminum all the time (in breastmilk, beauty products, and cookware, for example).
If we humans are being exposed to more aluminum than our bodies can handle, we should be very, very concerned.
It is the cumulative over-exposure to aluminum that thoughtful researchers and scientists are worried about.
Aluminum has no place in the human body.
Given that it’s toxic to humans and has no beneficial role of any kind in our bodies, it stands to reason that we should take every possible step to reduce aluminum exposure and lower our body burden of aluminum.
Aluminum content in childhood vaccines, vaccine by vaccine. Please note the aluminum content in vaccines is highly variable depending on the brand. The most up to date information can be found at Johns Hopkins University’s Institute for Vaccine Safety. Photo courtesy of The Vaccine-Friendly Plan.
Related Posts:
13 Reasons Why the CDC is Right & You Need to Vaccinate Your Kids
Wondering About Vaccines, Not Sure Where to Start
Medical Doctors Say We’re Doing Too Many Vaccines Too Soon
Published: November 12, 2019
Last update: February 20, 2020
625/25= 25. Your Maths is off by a factor of five.
Thank you so much for catching that, Steve. We have fixed it now.
Is there aluminum in the current flu vaccine? I am concerned about the elderly receiving the high dose flu shot. Would that have even more adjuvants? Could that lead to higher incidents of dementia and Alzheimers from accumulation in the brain tissue?
Flu shots are made every year and their contents vary but it is my understanding that there is no aluminum in the current iterations of flu vaccines. You can read the CDC’s vaccine excipient list (a tremendously helpful reference) here: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/appendices/b/excipient-table-2.pdf That said, several studies have found an association between aluminum and compromised brains in older adults and there is aluminum in other shots that are urged on the elderly, including at least two brands of the meningitis vaccine and at least one brand of the Pneumococcal vaccine (PCV13 – Prevnar 13).
Correct. Flu vaccines never contain Al adjuvant. The immune activation from Al adjuvant is not appropriate for flu vaccines. Al adjuvant causes Th2 type activation. Th2 is associated with autism, asthma and allergic disorders. Th2 activation
http://vaccinepapers.org/two-vaccines-opposite-effects-brain/
Just because they say that there is no Aluminum in those Vaccines doesn’t make it true. Vaccines are designed to damage the patients. The for Profit Medical industry has pushed Vaccines as a way of making life long customers. There are dozens of chemicals added to Vaccines that do nothing for the efficacy of the Vaccine. They have other purposes that are contrary to the Patient’s best interest. When you look at the real list of chemicals in those Vaccines you see MSG. Formaldehyde, fetal human cells, Cancer cells and the smoking gun Polysorbate 80. Polysorbate 80 helps heavy metals pass the Blood- Brain barrier into the Brain where they will wreak havoc for the rest of your life. I got ADHD and a plethora of Allergies from the Polio Vaccine back in 1961. I spent over 10 years going to my father’s Clinic for allergy shots. Over 10,000 kids seen and not one with present day Autism. Then the adjuvant was switched to Aluminum from Mercury and the proliferation of Autism began. My several thousand hours of intense study over more than 50 years clearly shows that the carnage is Intentional as the Vaccines kill more people than the diseases that they “allegedly’ prevent. No Flu shots and NO Gardasil, EVER…
Here’s how they get chemicals into Vaccines without listing them. Chemicals have to be listed if they cross a preset number. So they set the threshold above the amount of the Toxin that they have added to the Vaccine. The CDC IS a Vaccine company so the regulators are the manufacturers…. The UN has declared Agenda 2030 with the goal of dropping World population by several Billion. Vaccines allow for ‘selective herd thinning’ by giving one social sub-group an inert Vaccine while giving another group a deadly Vaccine. Gardasil was designed to give young women reproductive damage besides all the Deaths that were caused by the Vaccine.
Flu vaccines do not and never did contain aluminum.
There was no “switch” from mercury to aluminum. Mercury and Al have different functions in vaccines, and BOTH were present in some vaccines when mercury was used. Mercury (thimerosal) is a preservative. Its function is to prevent fungi and bacteria from growing in the vaccine during storage. Aluminum is an adjuvant. its function is to stimulate inflammation (an immune response).
Preservative and adjuvant functions are completely different.
Darlene, If you are interested in learning more about the connection between aluminum and Alzheimer’s check out the work by Dr. Chris Exley at Keele University and books by Dr. Dennis N Crouse. Dr. Exley has found large amounts of aluminum in the brains of people with Autism and Alzheimer’s. This research is published. Dr. Crouse has an evidence based chapter in one of his books on aluminum being a causal factor of Alzheimer’s. Aluminum slowly accumulates in our bodies and we are being exposed to an increasing amount of aluminum and this is why the rates of Alzheimer’s and Autism are rising. The rise in Autism is mostly due to the increase amount of aluminum children are getting in vaccines.
I appreciate the conversation on this health concern. It’s so important to be able to talk about potential risks so that we can develop safer medical care.
It is misleading to directly compare the Al quantity in vaccines with the Al quantity in IV feeding solutions. The chemical form and elimination of the Al is different from these two forms of aluminum. Al adjuvant in vaccines is much more dangerous than apparent from a simple comparison with Al in IV solutions.
Al in vaccines is made of solid particles, which are persistent in the body and cause chronic inflammation. The Al in IV solutions is water soluble and is eliminated by the kidneys (though this elimination is much slower in infants since infant kidneys work slower). So Al from IV solutions does not tend to cause long term inflammation.
The particulate nature and persistence of Al adjuvant is an important factor contributing to its toxicity, particularly to the brain. This important fact is lost if Al adjuvant dose is compared with IV solution dose.
I think the comparison actually works pretty well. Granted, it’s misleading, but in this case, it makes the case even more important to understand. Not only is it not the same AL, it’s not used in the same manner. So if the safer AL administered to our body in a relatively safe way is unsafe in small doses, then a more dangerous AL administered in a dangerous way, in high doses, is that much worse. AL is not safe. AL is poison, and should be treated as such. I will go so far as to say any substance that is injected into the human body to trigger an immune response, should never be injected into a human body. Build immunity, don’t trigger it.
But the neurotoxicity observed in the preemies that received the IV nutrition containing AL is what prompted the FDA to create the guidelines.
Thank you Jennifer for writing about the dangers of aluminum! This information needs to be mainstream! We all need to share this information. It is beyond alarming what we are doing to our children. I witnessed this first hand working having spent my career working as a Psychologist in the public schools. We are seeing increase rates of Autism due to the increase in the amount of aluminum children are being exposed to and the major source of aluminum is vaccines. One thing I would add which will bring people hope is drinking silica rich mineral water is effective at removing aluminum from our bodies and brains. Dr. Chris Exley has many done research in this area. There are children who have autism and seizures who are seeing improvement from drinking silica rich mineral water.