"Legislation mandating the HPV vaccine for pre-adolescent schoolgirls is pending in the District, Maryland and Virginia. Those who advocate it are quick to note that parents can opt out of the program. But few can say exactly how many bureaucratic hoops a parent will have to jump through to do that. Besides, why should the onus be on the parents to figure out how not to be in a government-mandated program? In New Hampshire, parents opt in -- and the burden is on the government to show how the vaccine can benefit their children....So are New Hampshire residents somehow smarter and better able to develop effective public health programs? Are they more concerned about their children than the rest of us? Hardly. What they have that we do not is the right attitude. They take their state motto seriously: "Live Free or Die," while too many of us are content to live and die as slaves." - Courtland Milloy, Washington Post , January 24, 2007, Force Is Not the Only Way to Administer a Vaccine
"Medical ethics require that patients have autonomy in their medical decisions, with informed consent. They have a right to know what they have, what the prognosis is, what the proposed treatment is, what the alternatives are, and what the possible side effects are prior to any treatment. Indeed, a patient has a right to say no, even if by refusing treatment they might die. I as a medical professional cannot overrule their decisions. Here we are talking about forcing a person to undergo mandatory drug therapy (vaccination), when they have no disease, under the presumption that they might get a disease based on future poor behavior. This is medically unethical.....Questions remain. As the [HPV] vaccine may not be effective in the long term, will booster shots at $120 be required? What type of world is it when a large company basically can forcibly take money from our pockets?" - Joseph Desoto, Ph.D., Charleston Daily Mail , January 23, 2007, Commentary: Dr. Joseph DeSoto: Shouldn't Force HPV Vaccinations
Barbara Loe Fisher Commentary:
Congratulations to two brave Americans, who have spoken up publicly for the informed consent ethic, which includes the right of parents to make informed, voluntary vaccination choices for their children. Each undoubtedly knew how much criticism and pressure might come as a consequence, but must have chosen to speak out, nevertheless, as a matter of conscience. They and all those who stand up for truth and freedom, despite the personal or professional risk, are following in the footsteps of those who came to America to escape persecution for their beliefs and fought to create a democracy that protects minorities from exploitation by the powerful.
As we are all witnessing, proposed HPV vaccine mandates are rolling through many state legislatures at warp speed. State and federal health officials (who are supposed to be legally prohibited from playing politics) and drug company lobbyists are in state Capitols pressuring politicians to make every little girl in America get injected with three doses of HPV vaccine before becoming sexually active or be denied the right to attend school. They are voting to mandate a vaccine for a disease which cannot be transmitted in school and which will cost the parents, the states and the nation billions to prevent a cancer, which can be almost 100 percent prevented through either abstinence, condom use or annual pap smears.
Citizens in every state, who want to be free to make vaccine choices in the future, should pick up the phone, get to a fax machine, send an email or get in the car and go visit their state representatives and senators and make their voices heard. There is only one mechanism in a democracy for getting vaccine laws passed, which support the right to voluntary, informed consent: vote for politicians who will vote for freedom or vote them out in the next election.
No forced vaccination. Not in America.
". . . If the State can tag, track down and force citizens against their will to be injected with biologicals of unknown toxicity today, there will be no limit on which individual freedoms the State can take away in the name of the greater good tomorrow."
Maryland Threatens Truancy for Unvaccinated Kids
"[Maryland] Officials say they are working with the health department to make sure the remaining students are vaccinated so they may return to school. "If they stay out of school for too many days, it becomes an issue of truancy," Mowen said. Officials have said they might use the court system to encourage parents to get their children vaccinated. Hanlin said before that option is explored officials are "trying to find out what the road blocks are" to being vaccinated." - by Erin Cunningham, The Hagerstown Morning Herald, Maryland, January 23, 2007, Deadline for Vaccinations Passes; School Closed To Some
Barbara Loe Fisher Commentary:
If you want to take a peek at what the future holds for those parents, who do not comply with federal health policies turned into state laws that require children to be injected with dozens of vaccines or be denied an education, just look at the recent strong arm tactics being used in Maryland. For failure to get chickenpox and/or hepatitis B vaccinations, state health and education officials have teamed up to use coercion and intimidation to force vaccination with the threat that the pre-teens will be barred from school and then they and their parents charged with truancy for disobeying state vaccine laws.
Economic and social barriers to vaccine access, which can include inadequate information or limited access to public health clinics, are sometimes factors when students have not received all state mandated vaccines. However, other factors may include (1) personal or family history of adverse reactions to vaccinations; (2) illness at the time of vaccination; (3) personal or family history of immune or neurological disease, which may place the child at increased risk for a vaccine adverse responses; (4) religious or conscientious belief objection to vaccination; or (5) wholistic health care preferences within the family that do not include vaccination.
How many of the children and their parents being hunted down in Maryland by needle wielding state officials are at high risk for suffering vaccine reactions? How many of these children being rounded up and given multiple vaccinations will suffer shock, convulsions, arthritis, asthma, GBS or other signs of vaccine-induced brain and immune system dysfunction shortly after vaccination? How many of these adverse responses to vaccination will be written off as a "coincidence" by health and school officials refusing to take responsibility for what they have done? And how many of the healthy partially or completely unvaccinated children come from families, whose parents have chosen to keep their children healthy with preventive health strategies that do not include drug and vaccine use?
Although citizens should have unimpeded access to vaccines they choose to us, they should also have the freedom to choose preventive health care alternatives to vaccines. Americans living in every state should look to their own vaccine laws and consider the following: If the state can tag, track down and force citizens against their will to be injected with biologicals of unknown toxicity today, will there be any limit on what individual freedoms the state can take away in the name of the greater good tomorrow?
Maryland officials are forcing hepatitis B and chickenpox vaccinations today. How many more will they be forcing on kids tomorrow?
No forced vaccination. Not in America.
Barbara Loe Fisher Commentary:
If you want to take a peek at what the future holds for those parents, who do not comply with federal health policies turned into state laws that require children to be injected with dozens of vaccines or be denied an education, just look at the recent strong arm tactics being used in Maryland. For failure to get chickenpox and/or hepatitis B vaccinations, state health and education officials have teamed up to use coercion and intimidation to force vaccination with the threat that the pre-teens will be barred from school and then they and their parents charged with truancy for disobeying state vaccine laws.
Economic and social barriers to vaccine access, which can include inadequate information or limited access to public health clinics, are sometimes factors when students have not received all state mandated vaccines. However, other factors may include (1) personal or family history of adverse reactions to vaccinations; (2) illness at the time of vaccination; (3) personal or family history of immune or neurological disease, which may place the child at increased risk for a vaccine adverse responses; (4) religious or conscientious belief objection to vaccination; or (5) wholistic health care preferences within the family that do not include vaccination.
How many of the children and their parents being hunted down in Maryland by needle wielding state officials are at high risk for suffering vaccine reactions? How many of these children being rounded up and given multiple vaccinations will suffer shock, convulsions, arthritis, asthma, GBS or other signs of vaccine-induced brain and immune system dysfunction shortly after vaccination? How many of these adverse responses to vaccination will be written off as a "coincidence" by health and school officials refusing to take responsibility for what they have done? And how many of the healthy partially or completely unvaccinated children come from families, whose parents have chosen to keep their children healthy with preventive health strategies that do not include drug and vaccine use?
Although citizens should have unimpeded access to vaccines they choose to us, they should also have the freedom to choose preventive health care alternatives to vaccines. Americans living in every state should look to their own vaccine laws and consider the following: If the state can tag, track down and force citizens against their will to be injected with biologicals of unknown toxicity today, will there be any limit on what individual freedoms the state can take away in the name of the greater good tomorrow?
Maryland officials are forcing hepatitis B and chickenpox vaccinations today. How many more will they be forcing on kids tomorrow?
No forced vaccination. Not in America.
A Call to End Vaccine Exemptions
"Some would argue that philosophical exemptions are a necessary pop-off valve for a society that requires children to be injected with biological agents for the common good. But as anti- vaccine activists continue to push for easy philosophical exemptions, more and more children will suffer and occasionally die from vaccine-preventable diseases. When it comes to issues of public health and safety, we invariably have laws. Many of these laws are strictly enforced and immutable. We don't allow philosophical exemptions to restraining young children in car seats, to smoking in restaurants or to stopping at stop signs. And the notion of requiring vaccines for school entry, while it seems to tear at the very heart of a country founded on the basis of individual rights and freedoms, saves lives. Given the increasing number of states allowing philosophical exemptions to vaccines, at some point we will be forced to decide whether it is our inalienable right to catch and transmit potentially fatal infections." - Paul Offit, The Wall Street Journal, January 20, 2007, Fatal Exemption
Barbara Loe Fisher Commentary:
Drug company consultant, rotavirus vaccine patent holder and vaccine policymaker Paul Offit is calling for an end to exemptions to vaccination unless approved by a medical doctor or government health official. He argues that the unvaccinated place themselves and others at risk for catching and transmitting infectious diseases and, therefore, government should force citizens to purchase and use vaccines without exception. Although Offit admits this authoritarian approach to disease control “tears at the very heart of a country founded on the basis of individual rights and freedoms,” he takes out the sword and urges the slicing begin.
An argument can be made on scientific grounds that the voluntarily vaccinated should have nothing to fear from the voluntarily unvaccinated if vaccines protect individuals from contracting infectious diseases. However, a more compelling argument can be made for the human right to informed consent to medical procedures, such as vaccination, which carry a risk of injury or death. This is particularly relevant when mass vaccination policies do not identify individuals, who are biologically vulnerable to vaccine-induced serious health problems, as has been demonstrated by the more than $1 billion already awarded to vaccine victims under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986.
Offit’s flawed analogy comparing no-exception vaccine laws with no-exception laws requiring citizens to buckle a baby in a car seat, to refrain from lighting up in a restaurant and to put on the brakes at stop signs, fails to appreciate that obeying those laws do not require individuals to risk their health or their lives. Even the military draft in times of war allows exemptions for religious and conscientious belief reasons.
Offit and other pro-forced vaccination proponents have various motivations for their totalitarian stance. However, what appears to unite them is a disdain for the intelligence of the average American and an uncontrollable desire to tell other people what to do.
Elitism is alive and well in America and it haunts the corridors of major academic and medical institutions, where those who practice it receive lots of tangible encouragement and support from industry and government. The average American struggling to be free to make informed, independent choices about health care, including vaccination, is being manipulated by elitists seeking to limit both the information and choices available.
The first step to breaking the chains that bind us to elitists in control of health policy is to understand what they believe and want. Paul Offit is making that clear.
Barbara Loe Fisher Commentary:
Drug company consultant, rotavirus vaccine patent holder and vaccine policymaker Paul Offit is calling for an end to exemptions to vaccination unless approved by a medical doctor or government health official. He argues that the unvaccinated place themselves and others at risk for catching and transmitting infectious diseases and, therefore, government should force citizens to purchase and use vaccines without exception. Although Offit admits this authoritarian approach to disease control “tears at the very heart of a country founded on the basis of individual rights and freedoms,” he takes out the sword and urges the slicing begin.
An argument can be made on scientific grounds that the voluntarily vaccinated should have nothing to fear from the voluntarily unvaccinated if vaccines protect individuals from contracting infectious diseases. However, a more compelling argument can be made for the human right to informed consent to medical procedures, such as vaccination, which carry a risk of injury or death. This is particularly relevant when mass vaccination policies do not identify individuals, who are biologically vulnerable to vaccine-induced serious health problems, as has been demonstrated by the more than $1 billion already awarded to vaccine victims under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986.
Offit’s flawed analogy comparing no-exception vaccine laws with no-exception laws requiring citizens to buckle a baby in a car seat, to refrain from lighting up in a restaurant and to put on the brakes at stop signs, fails to appreciate that obeying those laws do not require individuals to risk their health or their lives. Even the military draft in times of war allows exemptions for religious and conscientious belief reasons.
Offit and other pro-forced vaccination proponents have various motivations for their totalitarian stance. However, what appears to unite them is a disdain for the intelligence of the average American and an uncontrollable desire to tell other people what to do.
Elitism is alive and well in America and it haunts the corridors of major academic and medical institutions, where those who practice it receive lots of tangible encouragement and support from industry and government. The average American struggling to be free to make informed, independent choices about health care, including vaccination, is being manipulated by elitists seeking to limit both the information and choices available.
The first step to breaking the chains that bind us to elitists in control of health policy is to understand what they believe and want. Paul Offit is making that clear.
Lilly Attacks Internet Free Speech
"It is a messy plot that pits Eli Lilly, the pharmaceutical giant at the center of several articles in The New York Times suggesting that the company tried to hide or play down the health risks of its leading antipsychotic drug, Zyprexa, and lawyers representing various individuals, organizations and Web sites - all arguing that their online speech has been gagged. The case has attracted the attention of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the venerable digital rights group based in San Francisco, and one of its lawyers, Fred von Lohmann, who is now representing an anonymous Internet user caught up in the legal fracas. "One of the core missions of the foundation's 16-year history has been to establish that when you go online, you take with you all the same civil rights you had with you in prior media," said von Lohmann. "But of course, you need to fight for that principle." - Tom Zeller, Jr., The New York Times, January 15, 2007, Documents Borne by Winds of Free Speech
Barbara Loe Fisher Commentary:
We have seen it coming for a long time. Wealthy and politically influential pharmaceutical corporations, which market reactive drugs and vaccines, want to shut down free speech on the internet so they can hide the dangers of their products from the public. Right now, pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly is in federal court trying to prevent non- profit health advocacy groups from posting documents on their websites which suggest that Lilly hid or downplayed the dangerous side effects of the antipsychotic drug, Zyprexa, from doctors and patients.
Lilly convinced a federal judge in New York to issue an injunction prohibiting the Alliance for Human Research Protection (www.ahrp.org) headed by Vera Hassner Sharav, as well as MindFreedom International, and their websites from posting Lilly documents detailing Zyprexa risks. The websites were not only barred from posting the company documents but also barred from even directing browsers to other websites that contained the documents.
Lilly is trying to set a legal precedent that the information communicated on the internet by private citizens and advocacy websites based in the U.S. should be exempt from freedom of speech protections guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution, which have historically protected freedom of the press in the U.S. Apparently Lilly would like to pave the way for corporations (and perhaps government agencies?) with something to hide to prevent citizens from talking about what they know on the internet.
The internet, which has become an international forum for free speech and information uncensored by multinational corporations and government agencies, is under attack by those who want to keep the people in the dark, compliant and easily manipulated. Will U.S. District Court Judge Jack B. Weinsten, who is being lobbied by Lilly, put the first nail in the coffin of the last frontier for free speech?
Barbara Loe Fisher Commentary:
We have seen it coming for a long time. Wealthy and politically influential pharmaceutical corporations, which market reactive drugs and vaccines, want to shut down free speech on the internet so they can hide the dangers of their products from the public. Right now, pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly is in federal court trying to prevent non- profit health advocacy groups from posting documents on their websites which suggest that Lilly hid or downplayed the dangerous side effects of the antipsychotic drug, Zyprexa, from doctors and patients.
Lilly convinced a federal judge in New York to issue an injunction prohibiting the Alliance for Human Research Protection (www.ahrp.org) headed by Vera Hassner Sharav, as well as MindFreedom International, and their websites from posting Lilly documents detailing Zyprexa risks. The websites were not only barred from posting the company documents but also barred from even directing browsers to other websites that contained the documents.
Lilly is trying to set a legal precedent that the information communicated on the internet by private citizens and advocacy websites based in the U.S. should be exempt from freedom of speech protections guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution, which have historically protected freedom of the press in the U.S. Apparently Lilly would like to pave the way for corporations (and perhaps government agencies?) with something to hide to prevent citizens from talking about what they know on the internet.
The internet, which has become an international forum for free speech and information uncensored by multinational corporations and government agencies, is under attack by those who want to keep the people in the dark, compliant and easily manipulated. Will U.S. District Court Judge Jack B. Weinsten, who is being lobbied by Lilly, put the first nail in the coffin of the last frontier for free speech?
Using Religion to Promote Flu Vaccine
"Although it is too early to say what the effect would be in humans, an initial course of two or three shots [of universal type A influenza vaccine] could provide long-lasting immunity, topped up with booster shots given every five to ten years. Dr Ashley Birkett, of Acambis, said: "It wouldn't be that one shot protects for life but you would need fewer doses over your lifetime." In addition, the jabs could be produced in vast quantities and stockpiled ahead of a flu pandemic - or even given to people in advance....it may also be possible to create a similar jab against influenza B, which causes a milder form of winter flu....Professor John Oxford, Britain's leading flu expert, said the development of a universal vaccine was the "holy grail" of flu research. He added: "If you get a M2 vaccine which protects against the whole caboodle in the same vaccine, the possibilities are huge." - Fiona MacRae, The Daily Mail, UK, December 28. 2006
The Vaccine To Cure Every Strain of Flu
Barbara Loe Fisher Commentary:
Medical scientists masquerading as saints are once again invoking a familiar religious symbol to describe a new vaccine they are creating. The term "the Holy Grail," which refers to the chalice Christ drank from at the Last Supper, has been used frequently in the past by vaccinologists creating vaccines they want the people to purchase and use on a mass basis. This time scientists working for drug companies in Great Britain and Switzerland are referring to a "universal" vaccine they say will banish type A influenza infection from the earth - and prepare the way for a similar universal type B influenza vaccine.
The assumption that preventing humans from ever experiencing type A (or type B) influenza will result in superior long term health is not based on scientific evidence. Like a religious belief, that assumption is based on faith. It is no wonder the vaccinologists are using religious symbols to describe their new vaccines. They have forgotten who they are. Or perhaps they just want people to believe they - and their creations - are holy.
Experiencing infectious disease, including influenza, has been part of the human condition since man has walked the earth. Why do vaccinologists insist on assuming that the human immune system is incapable of dealing with that experience? Or benefiting from it? Where is the evidence that it is good to never, ever get the flu? Or that "universal" vaccines will not put pressure on microorganisms to mutate into vaccine-resistant strains?
Those who use religious terms to describe the vaccines they want people to believe in and buy may well be asking mankind to use the product based on faith, not scientific evidence.
The Vaccine To Cure Every Strain of Flu
Barbara Loe Fisher Commentary:
Medical scientists masquerading as saints are once again invoking a familiar religious symbol to describe a new vaccine they are creating. The term "the Holy Grail," which refers to the chalice Christ drank from at the Last Supper, has been used frequently in the past by vaccinologists creating vaccines they want the people to purchase and use on a mass basis. This time scientists working for drug companies in Great Britain and Switzerland are referring to a "universal" vaccine they say will banish type A influenza infection from the earth - and prepare the way for a similar universal type B influenza vaccine.
The assumption that preventing humans from ever experiencing type A (or type B) influenza will result in superior long term health is not based on scientific evidence. Like a religious belief, that assumption is based on faith. It is no wonder the vaccinologists are using religious symbols to describe their new vaccines. They have forgotten who they are. Or perhaps they just want people to believe they - and their creations - are holy.
Experiencing infectious disease, including influenza, has been part of the human condition since man has walked the earth. Why do vaccinologists insist on assuming that the human immune system is incapable of dealing with that experience? Or benefiting from it? Where is the evidence that it is good to never, ever get the flu? Or that "universal" vaccines will not put pressure on microorganisms to mutate into vaccine-resistant strains?
Those who use religious terms to describe the vaccines they want people to believe in and buy may well be asking mankind to use the product based on faith, not scientific evidence.
Gates Money Polluting
"The Gates Foundation has poured $218 million into polio and measles immunization and research worldwide, including in the Niger Delta. At the same time that it is paying for inoculations to protect health, it has invested $423 million in Eni, Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil, Chevron and Total of France — the companies responsible for most of the flares blanketing the delta with pollution, beyond anything permitted in the United States or Europe. A sampling of the Gates Foundation's largest investments between $100 million and $1 billion: Abbott Laboratories, Archer Daniels Midland, British Petroleum, Canadian National Railway, Exxon Mobil, Freddie Mac, French Government, Japanese Government, Merck, Schering Plough, Tyco International, Waste Management.....Indeed, local leaders blame oil developments for fostering some of the very afflictions that the foundation combats." - Charles Piller, Edmund Sanders, Robyn Dixon, Seattle Times, January 7, 2007
Barbara Loe Fisher Commentary:
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has more than $60 billion at its disposal - an amount higher than the gross domestic products of 70 percent of the world's nations - is reportedly financially backing corporations which pollute the same areas of Africa that are targeted for vaccines made by companies that Gates also funds. A report in the LA Times points out that:
"Oil bore holes fill with stagnant water, which is ideal for mosquitoes that spread malaria, one of the diseases the foundation is fighting. Investigators for Dr. Nonyenim Solomon Enyidah, health commissioner for Rivers State, where Ebocha is, cite an oil spill clogging rivers as a cause of cholera, another scourge the foundation is battling. The bright, sooty gas flares — which contain toxic byproducts such as benzene, mercury and chromium — lower immunity, Enyidah said, and make children more susceptible to polio and measles — the diseases that the Gates Foundation has helped to inoculate against.
There have been suggestions in the past that most of the diseases affecting modern man have been caused by negligent multinational corporations seeking high profits and doctors and scientists, who mistakenly believe they are helping people by encouraging the use of many toxic drugs and vaccines marketed by multi-national corporations. Sadly, Africa appears to be a place where this is occurring and the poorest people are suffering the most. They are being exploited twice: first by being sickened by manufactured toxins which poison their bodies; and again when that sickness is used to justify purchase and use of many vaccines to theoretically prevent the manmade illnesses.
Ironically, the clueless average American is also helping to exploit the children of Africa and other underdeveloped countries: the more mandated vaccines which Americans are forced to use and pay high prices for, the wealthier the drug companies making vaccines get. The vaccine manufacturers use the high profits they make off of American vaccine mandates to sell the stuff to poor countries like Africa at a reduced rate.
And so the little children are exploited and suffer, American and African alike, and will continue to suffer until Americans stand up and stop the vicious cycle.
"No forced vaccination. Not in America."
Barbara Loe Fisher Commentary:
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has more than $60 billion at its disposal - an amount higher than the gross domestic products of 70 percent of the world's nations - is reportedly financially backing corporations which pollute the same areas of Africa that are targeted for vaccines made by companies that Gates also funds. A report in the LA Times points out that:
"Oil bore holes fill with stagnant water, which is ideal for mosquitoes that spread malaria, one of the diseases the foundation is fighting. Investigators for Dr. Nonyenim Solomon Enyidah, health commissioner for Rivers State, where Ebocha is, cite an oil spill clogging rivers as a cause of cholera, another scourge the foundation is battling. The bright, sooty gas flares — which contain toxic byproducts such as benzene, mercury and chromium — lower immunity, Enyidah said, and make children more susceptible to polio and measles — the diseases that the Gates Foundation has helped to inoculate against.
There have been suggestions in the past that most of the diseases affecting modern man have been caused by negligent multinational corporations seeking high profits and doctors and scientists, who mistakenly believe they are helping people by encouraging the use of many toxic drugs and vaccines marketed by multi-national corporations. Sadly, Africa appears to be a place where this is occurring and the poorest people are suffering the most. They are being exploited twice: first by being sickened by manufactured toxins which poison their bodies; and again when that sickness is used to justify purchase and use of many vaccines to theoretically prevent the manmade illnesses.
Ironically, the clueless average American is also helping to exploit the children of Africa and other underdeveloped countries: the more mandated vaccines which Americans are forced to use and pay high prices for, the wealthier the drug companies making vaccines get. The vaccine manufacturers use the high profits they make off of American vaccine mandates to sell the stuff to poor countries like Africa at a reduced rate.
And so the little children are exploited and suffer, American and African alike, and will continue to suffer until Americans stand up and stop the vicious cycle.
"No forced vaccination. Not in America."