aluminum
Every other year, for more than two decades, a small group of 70 or so scientists have been meeting at different locales across the globe to discuss their speciality: aluminum and its effects on living things.

The science of a metal used in industries from airplane manufacturing to food packaging may sound tedious, but this three-day Keele meeting (named for Keele University in the United Kingdom where it originated) produces a treasure trove of valuable information about the health impact of aluminium exposure. It's a conference of the latest science that the $186 billion aluminum industry denies and public health agencies pretend does not exist.

The 12th Annual Keele Meeting on Aluminum last week in Vancouver, Canada, sponsored by the Children's Medical Safety Research Institute, was no exception. Scientists from 16 countries discussed the latest research about how aluminum impacts plants, animals and humans. We inhale it in pollution, consume it in processed foods, slather it on in toiletries and inject it into ourselves and our babies in vaccines. Neurotoxic aluminium, according to increasing amount of scientific evidence, may stay in the body where it breaches protective barriers, induces wildly oxidative processes and fires inflammation, disrupts genetic transcription, impairs metabolism, accumulates in brain and breasts and testes, is linked to cancer, infertility, Alzheimer's disease and anxious, aggressive and autistic behaviour.

"Some people think it is harmless, but everyone at Keele understands the toxicity of aluminium," said Keele biologist and aluminum expert Christopher Exley who launched the meeting. His research started three decades ago when he began looking into why fish exposed to aluminum in their water died within 24 hours.

Aluminum may be the third most abundant element on earth, said Exley, "but for most of its history, it has been sequestered by silica. It's only in the last few decades that we've managed to put it into biological systems."

And in the last few decades, as aluminum production has soared globally, research on the health consequences of that industry has steadily accumulated.

Aluminum safety myths

The keynote address of the conference was given by Romain Gherardi from the Neuromuscular Pathology Expert Centre at Paris-Est Créteil University (UPEC) who gave a frightening overview of the most novel and profound aluminum research related to vaccination.


Aluminium oxyhydroxide (Alhydrogel), and aluminium hydroxyphosphate (Adjuphos), are nanomaterials widely used as immune stimulants or "adjuvants" of vaccines. Children have received them in increasing doses from the hepatitis B shot on their day of birth, in diphtheria-tetanus shots given repeatedly in their first six months of life and in pneumococcal, meningitis, HPV vaccines and more.

In at least seven different countries, patients with myalgic chronic fatigue syndrome have been described after they received one of these aluminum-containing vaccines. In France in the late '90s, Gherardi began taking biopsies of the deltoid muscle of these patients and he discovered lesions in these - clumps of aggregated aluminium hydroxide engulfed in white blood cells called macrophages - at the injection site. Subsequent studies in mice found that aluminum in these cells slowly migrates to their brains where it seems to prefer to settle, permanently. He called the phenomenon Macrophagic Myofasciitis (MMF).

Macrophagic Myofasciitis (MMF)

MMF mainly manifests as joint and muscle pain, fatigue and weakness, cognitive dysfunction, including attention and memory impairment and sleep disturbances. And many MMF sufferers eventually develop one of more than 100 different autoimmune disorders from alopecia to multiple sclerosis, sometimes years after the initial illness. So MMF is described as a facet of "autoimmune/inflammatory syndrome induced by adjuvants" (ASIA) identified by leading Israeli immunologist Yehuda Shoenfeld in 2011.

But the MMF picture is still developing. Another French researcher, Jérôme Authier, presented his group's findings published in the Journal of Nuclear Medicine this year showing that neuroimaging of MMF patients' brains by PET-scan reveals distinct patterns of impaired glucose metabolism in multiple regions of their brains.

New research presented by Housam Eidi of the University of British Columbia also looked at mouse brain function and aluminium (Al) concentration long after injections. Surprisingly, the researchers found the lowest dose of Alhydrogel exerts the greatest neurotoxic effects. And small particle size seems to be critical for this brain damage, Eidi explained.

But there is a wide gulf between what scientists have been saying about aluminum and MMF for nearly 20 years and what public health says about aluminum today. Gherardi summed up three basic public health myth about aluminum in vaccines that have been turned on their head by recent research:

Myth No. 1: We are told aluminum in vaccines is safe because it is rapidly excreted from the body; it is not. It persists for years after injection.

Myth No 2: Public health maintains injected aluminum is localized in the body to the injection site; it is not. Research shows clearly that it is swallowed up by phagocytic cells and migrates via these to other organs and accumulates in the brain where it exerts neurotoxic effects.

Myth No. 3: Public health toxicology says "the dose is the poison" and extremely high doses of aluminum are needed to do damage. This is not true. Dose-response studies show that low doses of the smallest sized particles of aluminum are the most toxic and it obeys "particle toxicology," not dose-dependent toxicology.


Fourteen Percent at Risk, or More?

Other research Gherardi pointed to showed that aluminum is involved in many crucial functions in the immune and central nervous systems. Preliminary data from DNA screening has identified seven sequences on six genes that were significantly associated with MMF-ASIA compared to normal controls of the "1000 genome project." Ninety-three percent of 365 MMF-ASIA patients had one of these sequences which may be associated with an "inability to clear aluminum from the body," compared to just 14 percent of healthy subjects. Gherardi thinks genetic testing might be able to identify these 14 percent before they get injured by aluminum in vaccines.

So where is the mention of these 14 percent of vulnerable people -- 45.4 million Americans -- including babies and children in danger of neurotoxic damage from aluminum in vaccines on the Centers for Disease Control website? Why are they not mentioned anywhere in the mainstream media?

Currently, no genetic testing is offered to sort those at risk from the rest of the vaccine "herd," so according to these scientists' research, vaccination today is a crap shoot and no one can accurately predict who is at risk.

No one can say how many of the one to four million Americans and millions more globally suffering from serious chronic fatigue are actually suffering from aluminum poisoning. No one can say how many of the current 50 million cases of autoimmune disease in America are a long-term fallout from shots taken years ago.

Terrifying as that is, there were two more days of this research presented. A 2017 study in the Journal of Translational Medicine from Exley's lab demonstrated the presence of some of the highest contents of aluminum ever observed in brain tissue in every section of tissue sampled from brains of patients with familial early-onset Alzheimer's disease. So, could it be that when aluminum migrates from vaccines to brains it is somehow associated with Alzheimer's disease, the terrifying neurodegenerative plague that is expected to affect one in two Americans by 2050?

Vaccine-injured Sheep

Veterinary researchers in Spain have been studying the ovine version of ASIA which wiped out entire Spanish flocks in 2008 following a mass bluetongue vaccination campaign. Their 2013 study found that only a fraction (0.5%) of sheep inoculated with aluminum vaccines showed an acute reaction including lethargy, transient blindness, stupor and seizures.

But later, when exposed to other stressful "triggers" such as cold weather, 50 to 100 percent of vaccinated flocks suddenly developed abnormal behaviour, restlessness, compulsive wool-biting, generalized weakness, weight loss and muscle tremors before they became comatose and died. Post-mortem examinations revealed "severe neuron necrosis" and aluminum in the nerve tissue.

Ongoing unpublished research of the sheep indicates that when they are "over-vaccinated" with aluminum adjuvants alone or in vaccines, they develop aggressive and anxious behaviour including wool-biting which can see whole flocks denuded and is a costly problem for the industry.

The injected sheep also develop granulomas like those seen in humans with MMF which accumulated as doses were added -- in 85 percent of the animals injected with aluminum adjuvant alone and "more severely" in the full 100 percent of vaccinated sheep.

It's curious that the term "over-vaccinated" doesn't even exist when it comes to America's children who are receiving 69 doses of 16 vaccines before age 18.

Breast cancer connection

One of the more than 40 scientists presenting was Philippa Darbre, a reader in oncology at the University of Reading, who first linked the use of aluminum-based antiperspirants to breast cancer. She reviewed the growing literature in that arena that indicates aluminum has been measured in human breast tissue and cysts and in nipple aspirate fluid. Studies show it causes gene instability, cell migration and invasion and growth - all hallmarks of breast cancer. It also enhances tumour growth in normal breast cells and causes breast cancer to metastasize in mice.


Austrian doctoral student Caroline Linhart of the University of Innsbruck presented the preliminary results of a hospital based case-control study which found significantly higher concentration of aluminum in breast tissue of women with cancer and doubling of breast cancer risk for women under 30 who use antiperspirant frequently.

The Damage Done

Brazilian researcher Caroline Martinez said that lab rats fed aluminum-treated water even at low doses had impaired spermatogenesis and sperm quality and testicular inflammation. "Our data demonstrate that 60-day sub-chronic exposure to low doses of aluminum from feed and added to the water, which reflect human dietary aluminum intake, reaches a threshold sufficient to promote male reproductive dysfunction," she reported.

Her findings fit with those of another team of French researchers who reported at the last Keele meeting that they found the sperm of men seeking infertility treatment were loaded with aluminium. This might be an underlying reason for the sudden spike in infertility that affects one in five couples today.

Smog in Los Angeles includes aluminum which may possibly enter our brains when we breathe, according to California researcher Jaaziel Castro who said, "it may be advisable to minimize exposure to particles by avoiding rigorous outdoor activities at peak pollution times."

Other researchers described how aluminum influences genomic transcription, stokes inflammation and has a role instigating inflammatory bowel diseases. They also theorized about its mechanisms of action in autism and leaky gut.

Sadly, no one from the Centers for Disease Control was at the Keele Conference, nor from the FDA or any US vaccine manufacturer (who appear uninterested in the latest science about the dangers of ingredients they market as totally "safe and effective"). There was no mainstream media there to report on the findings about aluminum and breast cancer. There were no Alzheimer's or autoimmune disease patient advocacy groups clamouring for tests to identify those at risk or demanding compensation from the lucrative aluminum and vaccine industries that have been denying the science while victims pile up.

The tone of these scientists was sober as each presentation revealed the clear risks of aluminum to public health. Why no press conference? Why the 'silent scream' rather than shouting a warning from the rooftops?

Throughout history, scientists whose consciences compelled them to become activists have been professionally and publicly scorned. Andrew Wakefield and Gilles-Éric Séralini are two recent examples of how the financially conflicted media and public health deal with dissenters. But a growing number of dedicated individuals and foundations are paying attention and are helping to educate the public, health professionals, scientists and policy makers.

The Children's Medical Safety Research Institute is at the forefront of making this happen. It underwrites vital scientific research and collaboration at conferences like the Keele meeting, and supports articles, documentaries, websites, continuing education and scientific textbooks such as Vaccines and Autoimmunity.

Bringing this knowledge to the public will take continued research, financial support, and the willingness of concerned individuals to share this information with family and friends. You can join them and take action by donating to CMSRI.org and informing your legislator that you are concerned about the toll that aluminium exposure, particularly its easily avoided role in pharmaceuticals, is taking on our society, and especially on our children.

Our website and facebook page keep followers informed with cutting-edge relevant health research. As always, we keep our followers informed about publications that arise from the Keele Meetings and hope you will download and share the many important scientific studies that can be found on the Children's Medical Safety Research Institute website. Sign up for our newsletter today (we never share subscriber information) and please consider making a donation to help us to bring forward science-based, peer-reviewed and published research that is so critical to understanding and bringing to light the dangers facing children's health and safety today.

The Children's Medical Safety Research Institute (CMSRI) is a medical and scientific collaborative established to provide research funding for independent studies on causal factors underlying the chronic disease and disability epidemic.