Once again Flea has been going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down in it. This time he's brought back a particularly tasty little morsel for his readers' consideration.

We have located a woman named Viera Scheibner. An anti-vaccination website describes Dr. Scheibner as "a retired Principal Research Scientist with a doctorate in Natural Sciences." (Actually, she's a micropaleontologist).

Her bio continues:

"Despite extensive research of orthodox medical research published on vaccines over the past 100 years, [Dr. Scheibner] could find no scientific evidence that these injections of highly noxious substances prevent diseases, quite the contrary, that they increase susceptibility to them, in addition to causing a host of immune disorders and other damage to the body, including the brain. She was forced to conclude that they represent nothing but a medical assault on the immune system... [Dr. Scheibner] is also accepted as expert witness in court cases relating to death and injuries caused by vaccines, such as so-called “shaken baby” syndrome injuries, which like many vaccine injuries can be fatal."

Scare-quotes around the words "shaken baby"? Expert witness in court cases? What's up with that?

Here's what: Scheibner is author of an article entitled Shaken Baby Syndrome Diagnosis on Shaky Ground, published in the Journal of Australasian College of Nutritional & Environmental Medicine, (Vol. 20 No. 2; August 2001)

"ABSTRACT An epidemic of accusations against parents and baby sitters of shaken baby syndrome is sweeping the developed world. The United States and the United Kingdom are in the forefront of such questionable practice. Brain (mainly subdural, less often subarachnoid) and retinal haemorrhages, retinal detachments, and rib and other bone ‘fractures’ are considered pathognomonic. However, the reality of these injuries is very different and well documented: the vast majority occur after the administration of childhood vaccines and a minority of cases are due to documented birth injuries and pre-eclamptic and eclamptic states of the mothers.

Evidence that vaccines cause brain and retinal haemorrhages and increased fragility of bones, has been published in refereed medical journals. That this has been to a great extent due to the depletion of vitamin C reserves resulting in acute scurvy, has also been published. I refer to such articles and demonstrate that there is a viable differential diagnosis available explaining the observed injuries in what is called the Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) as non-traumatic injuries, and that the diagnosis of SBS is an incorrect evaluation of the cause of such injuries; it has resulted in unspeakable injustices and suffering for the affected individuals and their families, and deprived the surviving babies of their parental care by replacing it with foster care. It does not reflect well on the justice and medical systems in the developed world which are, sadly, characterised by blindness to the most obvious and victimisation of the innocent. Those who inject babies with great numbers of vaccines within short periods of time in the first months of life, often ignoring the observed serious reactions to the previous lots of vaccines, are not only the accusers of innocent carers, but are not prosecuted or brought to justice; quite to the contrary, they continue injecting babies with toxic cocktails of vaccines and creating further innumerable cases of grievous bodily harm and death."

The "evidence" in refereed medical journals demonstrating that vaccines cause brain and retinal hemorrhages and increased fragility of bones" consists of a single reference to this Lancet article.

What about bones? How do vaccines cause the characteristic bony injuries associated with shaken baby syndrome? Scheibner answers: vaccines cause scurvy. (Honest: Flea is not making this up):

"Vaccines of the kind given to babies as early as at birth and then one month later (hepatitis B vaccine) and DPT, Polio and Hib at 6 to 8 weeks of age, contain a number of toxins. The DPT (three in one vaccine), being the toxoid vaccine, contains pertussis, diphtheria and tetanus toxins which are treated with formaldehyde to decrease their toxicity. However, all of these treated toxins (toxoids) have the ability to revert back to their original toxicity by passage in the injected individuals, as demonstrated by Samore and Siber. These toxins are capable of causing, and they demonstrably cause, serious immunological, vascular and metabolic injuries, of which scurvy is one of many documented mechanisms."

Got it? Flea did a PubMed for vaccine-associated scurvy - couldn't find anything. By the way, here's the link to the abstract of the Samore and Siber article Scheibner cites. It says nothing at all about wild-type conversion of pertussis toxin, and the study was performed in rats.

Scheibner's conclusion? "The practice of accusing innocent carers of injuring vaccine-damaged children should cease forthwith."

And I only alone am escaped to tell thee.