Controversies in Vaccine Safety

Dr. Christopher Shaw is a Professor in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the University of British Columbia and holds cross appointments with the Department of Experimental Medicine and the Graduate Program in Neuroscience. He is the author of more than 100 peer-reviewed articles as well as numerous book chapters and special reviews. Shaw has edited four books on neuroscience themes. The main focus of his research has been on the Guamanian neurological disease spectrum, ALS-parkinsonism dementia complex (ALS-PDC). Recent work in the laboratory has developed animal models of the disease that are able to recapitulate all the essential behavioural and pathological features. Work in the laboratory also provided one of the first models of aluminum adjuvant-induced neuropathology and these studies have become a new research direction. He is the founder and a former director of Neurodyn, a biotechnology company based out of Prince Edward Island. Neurodyn's efforts are directed at early phase detection and treatment for age-related neurological disorders.

Claire Dwoskin is a child health advocate, philanthropist and leader of an international effort to address the increasing incidence of chronic illness and disability, including autoimmunity, and age related neurological diseases. The Dwoskin Family Foundation is supporting research in the area of adjuvant induced autoimmune diseases, including grants for basic research on factors involved in induction of autoimmune diseases in animal models. Ms. Dwoskin pursues autoimmune disease research as part of her family foundation’s charitable work in the area of vaccine safety and advocacy. She is the founder of Children’s Medical Safety Research Institute, a medical and scientific collaborative established to provide research funding for independent methodologically sound controlled scientific research on vaccines and their ingredients. Prominent peer-reviewed journals including Annals of Medicine, Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry, Lupus, Autoimmunity, and Vaccine have published research and articles funded by her foundation. Ms. Dwoskin is an active volunteer board member of the National Vaccine Information Center. She is the co-founder of the Vaccine Safety Conference, which was organized in part to address the acknowledged significant increases in autoimmune and autoinflammatory diseases in children and adults. She co-chaired the 2nd International Symposium on Vaccines at the 8th International Autoimmunity Congress in Granada, Spain.

Dr. Lluís Luján is a Senior Lecturer in Veterinary Pathology in the Department of Animal Pathology at the University of Zaragoza. He is an ECVP (European College of Veterinary Pathologists) board-certified veterinary pathologist and he has been involved in multiple committees of the college such as the Exam Committee and the Council. He was the President of the ECVP from 2007 to 2009. He has spent more than 30 years working in the field of ovine pathology, a field where he holds more than 50 peer-reviewed papers. Most of his studies deal with chronic sheep diseases, such as those caused by small ruminant lentiviruses (visna/maedi of sheep and caprine arthritis encephalitis) and neurodegenerative diseases caused by prions (scrapie). He has also contributed to the knowledge of non-infectious sheep processes, such as ovine amyloidosis. In 2013, he described the so-called ovine ASIA syndrome, a devastating form of secondary reaction after vaccination, observed in commercial sheep. Since then, the scientific activity of his team is devoted to the research on the topic.