Kenya Catholic Bishops criticise Tetanus vaccinations (Tetanus Vaccine Sterilize Women)

The Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Health Commission has criticised the Government’s planned nation-wide Tetanus vaccination campaign. The statement has expressed deep concern regarding the vaccinations. It says that the campaign leaves many questions unanswered hence the alarm.

This is contained in a media statement released by the Catholic Health Commission of Kenya currently meeting at St Patrick’s Pastoral Centre, Kabula in Bungoma. The statement is co-signed by Bishop Paul Kariuki Njiru of Embu Diocese with his counterpart, Bishop Joseph Mbatia of Nyahururu on behalf of the Commisssion of the Bishops' Conference. The Commission includes 24 health facility managers drawn from Kenya’s Catholic Dioceses.

The Catholic Commission argues that the Government has not sufficiently prepared stakeholders for the vaccinations scheduled for 13 to 19 October 2014. “There has not been adequate stakeholder engagement for consultation in the preparation for the campaign,” the statement says.

The Commission is suspicious about the limited public awareness with this particular campaign unlike in previous ones such as that of the Polio vaccination. This time, the public has not been told of the rationale and background for the Tetanus campaign. The Commission urges the Government to publicly declare a Tetanus crisis in Kenya, if at all there is one. It also questions why the campaign is only targeting women of 14 to 49 years. “Why is the campaign leaving out young girls, boys and men when all are prone to tetanus?” The statement asks. In the midst of so many life-threatening diseases, in Kenya, they are surprised that Tetanus is being prioritised by the Government?

The Commission asserts that “When injected as a vaccine to a non-pregnant woman, the Beta HCG sub unit combined with Tetanus toxoid develops antibodies against Tetanus and HCG so that if a woman’s egg becomes fertilised, her own natural HCG will be destroyed rendering her permanently infertile. In this situation the Tetanus vaccination has been used as a birth control method.” The Commission says that the Catholic Church’s health institutions want to participate in ensuring that the vaccines to be administered are free of this hormone.

The statement ends by saying that the sanctity of life and the dignity of the human person must always be priorities in health care and that the Catholic Church, in the absence of proper and adequate information, will not shy away from raising moral questions on matters affecting human life.

The Catholic Church in Kenya has an extensive network of health facilities that include 58 hospitals, 83 health centers, 311 dispensaries and 17 medical training institutions. The Church coordinates these services through the Catholic Health Commission of Kenya, an arm of the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops (KCCB).

it is targeted to women of childbearing age to prevent neonatal tetanus, a common problem in Africa where often moms "treat" the umbillical cord stump with an herbal concoction. I've seen these kids die, and our Catholic hospital in Africa gave all pregnant woman a tetanus shot or a series if they hadn't received it as kids.

The UN statistics say 58 thousand babies die of neonatal tetanus in 2010, but note that since many are home births far from hospitals, that the death rate is probably

And for all the posters noting the decrease of fertility in some countries, they don't ask if this is the mom's choice or if there is an epidemic of infertility. I suspect the latter: Given a choice, no woman wants a baby every year or two. Even here in the Philippines, where family planning isn't paid for by the gov't, the average fertility rate has gone down from 6 kids per woman to 2.5. Of course, some of this is due to natural family planning,or because they are buying the pills on their own, but some is due to women seeing "hilots" for herbs to abort their kids. But no one wants to talk about it.

they are working on it, but how come none of us doctors on the front line know about it, know that it it is being done, are using it, or even seeing women complaining of infertility?

It sounds like the bishops are mixing up their shots with the birth control shot e.g. DepoProvera

If the HCG vaccine was being used, there would be a lot of studies about it in the medical literature, but there simply hasn't been much published in the last 20 years. There would also be a "paper trail" to companies making the vaccine.

the only papers after the mid 1990's about anti HCG type vaccines are articles saying that the vaccines are being investigated to see if they could turn off sex hormones for prostate cancer, but they are weak and don't work well at turning off the sex hormone as other medicine.. LINK

I took anti-hormones to shrink my endometriosis so I could get pregnant.

It costs 200 dollars a shot. And it caused lots of side effects: Depression, hot flashes, lethargy. And I needed to repeat the shot every month.

They also give it to my men with prostate cancer, warning them about the side effects, and noting that they would be getting a much higher dosage to shrink their cancer.

So the answer is: Why use an expensive shot that needs to be given every month to work?

as for the midwife question: Trained midwives sterilize their scissors, and many countries (Sudan, Liberia, Afghanistan) have programs to train the untrained midwives on safe childbirth.

In Africa, some tribes insist relatives deliver the baby, and in a lot of other places, even after the cord is cut and a dressing placed on the stump, when mom goes home, grandmom decides to take them off and use local herbs or clay treatment.

As I understand it (and you may have better info here) hCG is secreted by the early embryo, from pre-impantation up through more mature development, not by the mother. IN other words it is not a maternal hormone ptoperly so called,, buta baby hormone secreted by the growing zygote-embryo-fetus to initiate and to maintain implantation.

Therefore an anti-hCG drug wouldn't necessarily have any health effect on the mother directly, it would mainly cause her to develop antibodies which would attack the embryo, which is to say, she would have an immune reaction that counteracts the embryo's hCG and therefore disrupts implantation.

Am I right?

And β-hCG is used in the Philippines, Nicaragua and Mexico as a birth control method, am I right?

Now tell me: is there any way to get an effective tetanus shot without the shot being laced with β-hCG? Or is it right that the price of tetanus vaccination would be abortifacient immunity to all your subsequent offspring?

I don't want to misunderstand you with any false assumption, but you seem to write as if early abortions by hormonal disruption are not morally problematic.

From a public health point of view, it would be much better --- would it not? --- to use a Tetanus shot which has no abortifacient side-effects, and a birth control method which is fully reversible, under the control of individual women themselves, without side effects, and not pushed on them by the "motivating" or coercive power of the State?

I have another question:

Have tetanus shots always contained beta hcg, or is this a ‘new’ thing?

When did it become a ‘new’ thing and why...?

Knowing that the shots may cause infertility would cause me to avoid them for my young daughters, is this the effect that public health officials want?

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