CDC Committee Vote on Flu Vaccine Endangers Chlidren to Age 18

by Barbara Loe Fisher

Without scientific evidence that it is both safe and effective to repeatedly administer influenza vaccine to children, the members of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices(ACIP) voted Feb. 28, 2008 to vaccinate all infants and children up to age 18 with influenza vaccine every year. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/health/28flu.ht ml? em&ex=1204261200&en=a727f3655a7f32cc&ei=5087 %0A The vote came in the middle of a flu season that has seen widespread outbreaks of type A and type B strains of influenza that were not included in this year's influenza vaccine. http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN0 850501820080208? feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews&sp=true A report out of Canada last fall indicated that influenza vaccine strains contained in last year's vaccines appeared to be mutating. http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNe ws/20071024/flu_shot_071024/20071024hub=TopSto ries

The questionable safey and efficacy of influenza vaccine has been a subject of controversy for decades, despite the insistence by the drug industry and doctors selling the vaccine and government health officials promoting its use that most Americans should get a flu shot every year. Often public health officials at the World Health Organization (WHO) and in the U.S. fail to choose the right influenza strains for the vaccine. http://www.nvic.org/History/News letters/%203770Reaction.pdf

In the past few years, comprehensive reviews of influenza vaccine studies published in the medical literature revealed a stunning lack of scientific support for the safety and effectiveness of giving influenza vaccine to not only children but also to the elderly http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/333/7574/912. The truth is that (1) only 20 percent of all respiratory flu-like illness in a normal flu season is, in fact influenza, and misdiagnosis often occurs; (2) the CDC has never provided published documentation that 36,000 Americans die from actual influenza every year versus respiratory illness that looks like influenza but is not; (3) there is little scientific evidence that influenza vaccine works or is safe for anyone; (4) government policies targeting all infants and children for annual flu vaccination may well endanger the long term health of this and future generations of children by atypically manipulating the immune system with repeated vaccination in an attempt to prevent all natural experience with type A or type B influzenza; and (5) these misguided flu vaccine policies could not only weaken the ability of future generations to experience and successfully heal from a bout with the flu without severe complications or death but also could put pressure on influenza viruses to mutate into more virulent, vaccine resistent forms that will cause future virulent epidemics in populations.

The majority of the American public, including doctors and nurses, refuse to get a flu shot every year despite the millions of dollars spent by the pharmaceutical industry and taxpayer money spent by the CDC to vigorously promote its use. http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/influenza/general/news/jul0207 acip.html

Recently, there have been calls by doctors advocating a cradle to the grave approach to vaccination that would require all 300 million Americans to get an annual flu shot. http://www.abcnews.go.com/Health/Flu/s tory?id=3781181

The drug companies selling flu vaccine have one goal: making profit on the millions of doses of vaccine produced every year rather than throwing it away because of poor uptake. CDC officials, eager to help the drug companies out, keep issuing ever widening recommendations to qualify more Americans for getting a flu shot. What began as an effort decades ago to protect those over 65 from complications of influenza that can be deadly for the elderly, has become a boondoggle for drug companies selling and doctors making profit on administering influenza vaccine to everyone, including babies, children and adults.

For the past four decades, every time the CDC has recommended a vaccine for "universal use" by children, those "recommendations" are translated into vaccine laws at the state level. Last year, New Jersey became the first state to mandate influenza vaccine for children as a requirement for attending school. Most states now require nearly three dozen doses vaccines that the CDC has "recommended."

The majority of Americans may not want to get a flu shot every year but the time is soon approaching when they will have no choice. Strident calls by vaccine makers, administrators and policymakers for more vaccine mandates and societal punishments for refusing to comply (" No shots - no education, no health insurance, no job) are paving the way for the day when rolling up your sleeve for a flu shot will become as mandatory and punishable as drinking and driving.

Increasingly, the CDC is guilty of endangering the public health, not protecting it. There is no excuse for issuing vaccine policies not supported by scientific data. The only recourse the public has is to change vaccine laws in the states to allow exemptions for conscientious and religious beliefs, as well as widen the medical exemption to allow enlightened doctors to exempt those with health conditions that are not acknowledged by the CDC as a reason for deferring vaccination. If vaccine laws cannot be made more flexible by allowing wider exemptions, then the day will come when the public will have no choice but to work for the repeal of all vaccine laws.

The National Vaccine Information Center remains committed to working to insert vaccine safety and informed consent protections in vaccine laws in America.

NO FORCED VACCINATION. NOT IN AMERICA.