Post Vaccine Syndromes & Toxic Liver Heat and Wind

Post vaccine syndromes present unique challenges for our healthcare system because they are often misdiagnosed and always difficult-to-treat due to the nature of internal disease processes. Traditional Chinese Medicine embodies a conceptual framework and treatment protocols for correcting immune regulation problems consistent with post vaccine syndromes. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) in 2006 declared that non-communicable chronic inflammatory disease (NCD) is “an invisible epidemic” and the top cause of deaths worldwide. Classified as “modern diseases”, NCDs have risen sharply over the past 40 years and historically did not exist to any great degree prior to the advent of mass vaccination in the mid-1950’s. 

WHO says that environmental toxins are the causative factor in NCD and the list includes pesticides, herbicides, plastics, preservatives, solvents and heavy metals. The presumption is that the environmental toxins causing NCDs come from a polluted external environment. To cause chronic inflammatory internal diseases, these external pathogenic influences must be able to corrupt the natural defensive barriers of the immune system.

Within the context of Chinese diagnosis, etiologic agents are considered to be “wind” or feng. Wind has a “pernicious influence” on the body. Internal wind, as distinct from external wind, becomes an issue of importance. Once the wind evil penetrates the defensive barriers of the immune system, its nature is dynamic and causes a progression of many pathological manifestations. According to Eight Principle and Six Stage/Division pathogenesis, as “pernicious influences” (wind/feng) invade the interior and enter the conduits and network vessels, phlegm fire emerges and obstructs the qi. When exterior/excess Xie qi (evil) meets zheng qi (normal qi), internal heat, phlegm and liver qi stagnation ensues. The impact of toxic heat as it moves more deeply into all systems of the body triggers a cascade of zang-fu disharmonies, drying fluids, creating phlegm and qi stagnation in the zang-fu organs. The infection becomes “individual specific” depending on the individual’s genetic/constitutional make-up and weaknesses.

Internal wind is related to liver (liver wind stirring) and is said to be the cause of tremors/spasms, convulsions/seizures and dizziness. Chemical “infection” causes inflammation and depressive heat which, in turn, causes qi and blood stagnation. Chemically-induced inflammation inhibits the detoxification enzymes of the liver, leading to toxic liver heat. The health consequence of accumulating toxins in the liver (as well other organs) causes lymphatic congestion (pruritis/eczema, sore throats, gallbladder and ear infections, herpes).  Many chemicals are also neurotoxins (thus neuropathies). Liver toxic heat syndromes are commonly seen in clinical practice. In this pattern, evil heat is exuberant, the body fluids (yin and blood) are injured and the functions of the zang fu organs are severely affected.     

Vaccination is infection by injection, bypassing the protective borders and the natural routes of infection.  Vaccines contain a plethora of environmental toxins including preservatives (formaldehyde), solvents, heavy metals (mercury, lead, etc.) and include biological components from infectious diseases (live/attenuated pathogens, toxoids), genetic material, foreign proteins and, as well, drugs and other chemicals added to increase and prolong the inflammatory reaction of the allergic response. 

Infection by injection delivers these “pernicious” environmental toxins directly into the bloodstream. Circulating throughout the body, the pathogens/toxins take up residence in qi-deficient organs and injured tissues. Once embedded inside tissues, the persistent infection creates a pathogenesis of chronic inflammation as well as possible tumor growth and other morbid states. 

The childhood NCD “modern diseases” list includes: autism spectrum disorders, juvenile diabetes, juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis, Asthma, allergies, IBS/Colitis/Gastroenteritis, Kawasaki Disease, demyelinating diseases, chronic eczema/rashes and chronic/persistent ear infections, UTIs and respiratory illnesses. These are childhood immune regulation disorders that have risen steeply over the past forty years. Hyperergic reaction events for encephalopathy, anaphylaxis, epileptic convulsion/seizure disorders, paralytic conditions (Guillain-Barre’) and sudden/unexplained infant death (SIDS) have also risen sharply during this time period. With the vaccination allergic response and in post vaccine syndromes, liver wind and toxic heat/fire is the pathogenesis of pathogenic influence.

With high vaccination rates in children and increasing rates in adults, most of our current and future patients will present with symptoms/stages of interior disease and liver toxic heat and wind. For the purpose of a differential diagnosis, the question is, “What is the relationship of infection by injection to the development of morbid conditions and pathological mechanisms in the development of disease, from its initial manifestation through its critical development?” 

The treatment to dispel liver toxic heat requires additional consideration for damp/phlegm accumulation, blood stasis, flaring of heart fire and blood/yin/qi deficiency in various organ systems. As subclinical infection is a causative factor, the treatment of the underlying patterns will drive the infection out as health improves. The physician/practitioner must be observant and prepared for the expression of this noxious energy and the putrid substances.