Remember exposure in the womb. This Indian study found similar AL levels in cord blood and maternal blood, around 10-20 ug/L. By the time an infant gets their first vaccines, they’ve already been exposed to maternal blood AL for 10 months! So vaccines have to result in greater TAL than maternal exposure in order to have significant effects. Based on the data, I find this unlikely.
But mikes above said:
We give the hepatitis B vaccine, >200micrograms aluminum, at birth
And that looks a heck of a lot higher. So I’m confused by the “Based on the data, I find this unlikely” statement. Edit: I see, it’s because it’s absorbed by the muscle and doesn’t go to the blood, or if it goes to the blood it then goes to the bone?
Like, the maternal blood is being circulated so I’d expect it to lead to some equilibrium Al level (unless it’s absorbed somewhere and not coming free again). Whereas, the vaccine is adding a whole lot that isn’t being circulated out by the vaccine itself (though I assume there must be other mechanisms to dump it out of the body if it isn’t increasing a lot after vaccines).
OK, thanks. On the other hand, if Aluminum is excreted that fast, doesn’t that suggest that the blood level is pretty heavily increased for a short time (since I assume it must be in the blood to get excreted and I also assume that the timescale of such excretion, given that it’s in the blood, should probably be at least a day or so?)
You’re right—it’s what we would expect. And yet the actual blood aluminum levels we measure aren’t that high! So where is all the aluminum? Well, biopsies show that kidneys have something like 10x the AL levels of other soft tissues in rabbits, so I suspect that’s where a lot of the aluminum goes during the first hour. This is then excreted in urine, explaining why urine AL levels are sometimes higher than blood AL levels. After that, tissues slowly release their aluminum into the bloodstream, where they get absorbed by the kidneys before blood AL levels can rise too much. Sounds nice in theory, but probably more complicated/downright wrong in practice.
But mikes above said:
And that looks a heck of a lot higher. So I’m confused by the “Based on the data, I find this unlikely” statement.Edit: I see, it’s because it’s absorbed by the muscle and doesn’t go to the blood, or if it goes to the blood it then goes to the bone?Like, the maternal blood is being circulated so I’d expect it to lead to some equilibrium Al level (unless it’s absorbed somewhere and not coming free again). Whereas, the vaccine is adding a whole lot that isn’t being circulated out by the vaccine itself (though I assume there must be other mechanisms to dump it out of the body if it isn’t increasing a lot after vaccines).It gets excreted over time but also accumulates in the bone, where it is slowly released into the blood over time.
OK, thanks. On the other hand, if Aluminum is excreted that fast, doesn’t that suggest that the blood level is pretty heavily increased for a short time (since I assume it must be in the blood to get excreted and I also assume that the timescale of such excretion, given that it’s in the blood, should probably be at least a day or so?)
You’re right—it’s what we would expect. And yet the actual blood aluminum levels we measure aren’t that high! So where is all the aluminum? Well, biopsies show that kidneys have something like 10x the AL levels of other soft tissues in rabbits, so I suspect that’s where a lot of the aluminum goes during the first hour. This is then excreted in urine, explaining why urine AL levels are sometimes higher than blood AL levels. After that, tissues slowly release their aluminum into the bloodstream, where they get absorbed by the kidneys before blood AL levels can rise too much. Sounds nice in theory, but probably more complicated/downright wrong in practice.
Will do more research tomorrow.