A warning letter about the swine flu vaccine was leaked to the DailyMail over the weekend. Written by Professor Elizabeth Miller, head of the Health Protection Agency’s Immunization Department, it warns neurologists that the influenza vaccine of 1976 was linked to a devastating neurological condition called Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS). “The vaccines used to combat an expected swine influenza pandemic in 1976 were shown to be associated with GBS and were withdrawn from use,” says the July 29 letter.

GBS can cause paralysis and death. One woman mentioned in the DailyMail story — Hilary Wilkinson — was stricken with GBS and had to be fed through a drip while needing a tracheotomy just to breathe. It took her three months in the hospital to learn how to walk and talk again. On the topic of the swine flu vaccine, she says today, “It makes me feel wary that the Government is rolling out this vaccine without any clear idea of the GBS risk, if any. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone… I’m frightened to have the swine flu vaccine if this might happen again — it’s a frightening illness and I think more research needs to be done on the effect of the vaccine.”

An 800 percent increase in GBS risk

A second letter has also surfaced with a warning about the swine flu vaccine. It’s from the Association of British Neurologists and is authored by Dr. Rustam Al-Shahi Salman and Professor Patrick Chinnery. It says “Following the 1976 program of vaccination against swine influenza in the US, a retrospective study found a possible eight-fold increase in the incidence of GBS.”

Adding to the concern, Dr. Tom Jefferson from the Cochrane Collaboration is on the record saying “New vaccines never behave in the way you expect them to. It may be that there is a link to GBS, which is certainly not something I would wish on anybody. But it could end up being anything because one of the additives in one of the vaccines is a substance called squalene, and none of the studies we’ve extracted have any research on it at all.”