Vaccine-Educated Parents Push Pharma Back in New York

by Barbara Loe Fisher

http://www.vaccineawakening.blogspot.com/
http://www.nvic.org/
http://www.standupbecounted.org/

Vaccine-educated parents in New York stood up for their human right to make informed, voluntary vaccine choices and pushed back Pharma-inspired attempts to pass laws mandating every childhood vaccine the CDC endorses (A10942) and giving children vaccines for sexually transmitted diseases without their parents' knowledge or permission. Parents held rallies and press conferences in Albany at the State Capitol and organized a grassroots email, letter and phone campaign to voice their opposition to all attempts by government officials, drug companies and doctors to force vaccination without parental consent.

The successful challenge by parent activists in New York to powerful and wealthy special interest groups promoting the forced use of multiple vaccines and the removal of non-medical exemptions to vaccination will be followed by a similar grassroots effort in the next legislative session to protect the religious exemption to vaccination (A03064), obtain a philosophical exemption to vaccination (A05468) and widen the medical exemption to vaccination (A03180) in New York.

Rita Palma (http://www.ourkidsourchoice.com/), who had a religious exemption to vaccination for her son denied by Suffolk school officials, organized the rallies attended by families with vaccine injured as well as healthy children. She and Assemblyman Mark Alessi (D-Wading River) appeared on Fox News June 20 to talk about why parents in New York do not want laws mandating their children get more than five dozen vaccinations currently promoted by the CDC and more vaccines in the future endorsed by CDC employees.

Congratulations to all New York citizens and supportive state legislators who stood up and defended freedom. Every vaccine carries a risk of injury or death and that risk is higher for some than others. No individual or self-appointed group in government, industry or medicine should force fellow Americans to put their lives or the lives of their children on the line for pharmaceutical products that can injure or kill without voluntary informed consent.


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"This is something that is a personal issue. It's our children's bodies and that's what we're here to protect, our rights," said Kim Slavis of Canandaigua......The Department of Health says it's a public health issue, but these parents say when it comes to getting shots it's just too many, too soon. "When we were kids, we were getting 10 vaccinations. Now these kids are getting 37 vaccinations before they get into kindergarten," said Michael Smith of Clifton Park.....If they start with this, what are they going to enforce on us next? What will be the next freedom that they take away from us in terms of our medical rights?" Slavis wondered." - WNYT-TV- Albany (June 10, 2008) http://wnyt.com/article/stories/S472932.shtml?cat=300

"A few parents at Tuesday's rally said they endured grueling questioning when they cited religious beliefs to avoid immunizing their children. Dr. Lynn Friedman, a chiropractor, said she unsuccessfully sued the Clarkstown School District in Rockland County to allow her son, now 12, to attend school without vaccinations. The school district questioned the validity of her request for a religious exemption. She went through hours of questioning and had her medical records pored over, she said. Her son goes to private school. "It should be our choice to vaccinate our child," she said.....Carolyn Catalano of Hopewell Junction, Dutchess County, said her 12-month-old son, Tyler, would not be vaccinated. Some of the viruses that there are vaccines against, such as rubella, are normal childhood diseases that healthy children can fight, she said. "He can make his own choice once he's older," said Catalano, a pediatric occupational therapist in Mahopac, Putnam County, who has autistic patients. Angela Luhrs, also of Hopewell Junction, said her 1-year-old son is fully vaccinated, but she wants to start delaying some shots because she doesn't want to overwhelm his system. Eventually, he will get everything, she said. "I am here because I do believe there has to be a point at which parents' choice comes into play," she said. Elisa DiBari of North Salem, Westchester County, said her son, now 10, stopped speaking after receiving the measles/mumps/rubella vaccine at 15 months. He was diagnosed with autism and has had a lot of treatments over the years and is doing well." - Cara Matthews, Democrat & Chronicle (June 11, 2008)

"In my childhood, two vaccines were the extent of it. We muddled through whooping cough, measles, German measles, chicken pox and emerged with stronger immune systems. No one that I knew died of any of these diseases. Multiple vaccines in one needle are obscene. I wouldn't do that to my animals. Stepping on a rusty nail, I went for a tetanus shot. After, the nurse said, "You are all set with your tetanus and diphtheria shots." I was enraged. I spent the next week in bed with a high fever and no way of assessing which vaccine was the culprit. Let us not forget the chief beneficiaries of the vaccine craze: our friends in the pharmaceutical industry who cross over to take Food and Drug Administration posts when they cannot get Congress to do their bidding. The payoffs are enormous, according to a reliable friend who once worked in the FDA. The time is overdue for parents to unite and assert themselves against the tyranny of forced medications. The state does not own our children - yet." - Catherine Portman-Laux, The Journal News (June 23, 2008)




AAP Leadership Fights Informed Vaccine Choices

by Barbara Loe Fisher

http://www.vaccineawakening.blogspot.com/
http://www.nvic.org/
http://www.standupbecounted.org/

In another fit of pique aimed at the growing number of vaccine-educated parents questioning pediatricians about the safety of vaccines, the largest private medical organization representing medical doctors treating children - the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) - recently announced to its membership that it will fight doubting parents in their offices, in the media, on the internet and through a partnership with other wealthy and powerful organizations funded by a pharmaceutical industry committed to doing the same thing.

On May 30, the AAP leadership reports that it met with the leaders of 15 allied organizations in Elk Grove, Illinois to discuss the growing refusal of parents to vaccinate their children according to recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and AAP. A recent letter to AAP members stated:

"The group agreed that recent attacks on vaccines have left parents confused. The rates of exemptions are climbing, and the protection of communities from vaccine preventable diseases is in jeopardy. Participants identified several factors that promote anti-vaccine information:

· Parent-to-parent spread of myths,
· A public that does not understand the risk of vaccine-preventable diseases,
· Internet and media exposure that is not balanced,
· Decreased trust in the government and health care providers,
· Slow response to negative news coverage, and · Increasing calls for philosophical exemptions.

The group recognized strategies that have worked in the past to address these drivers, agreed to jointly promote the positive value of vaccines, and will come together again in July to develop a cohesive message for dissemination. This message will be disseminated in mainstream media, through professional organizations, and via Internet tools. Materials are expected to be available by fall 2008. The group will formally be known as the Immunization Alliance."

Information on the AAP website gives pediatricians instructions about what to do with parents who refuse to obey the doctor's orders, including a sample letter that states:

"By not vaccinating your child you are taking selfish advantage of thousands of others who do vaccinate their children, which decreases the likelihood that your child will contract one of these diseases. We feel such an attitude to be self-centered and unacceptable. We are making you aware of these facts not to scare you or coerce you, but to emphasize the importance of vaccinating your child. We recognize that the choice may be a very emotional one for some parents. We will do everything we can to convince you that vaccinating according to the schedule is the right thing to do.

However, should you have doubts, please discuss these with your health care provider in advance of your visit. In some cases, we may alter the schedule to accommodate parental concerns or reservations. Please be advised, however, that delaying or "breaking up the vaccines" to give one or two at a time over two or more visits goes against expert recommendations, and can put your child at risk for serious illness (or even death) and goes against our medical advice as providers....such additional visits will require additional co-pays on your part. Furthermore, please realize that you will be required to sign a "Refusal to Vaccinate" acknowledgement in the event of lengthy delays.

Finally, if you should absolutely refuse to vaccinate your child despite all our efforts, we will ask you to find another health care provider who shares your views. We do not keep a list of such providers nor would we recommend any such physician."

Educated parents of America attempting to make informed, voluntary vaccination decisions for your children be warned: your pediatrician is out to change your mind about vaccination or teach you a lesson you will never forget.

Hang on to your child because the doctor you have trusted with your child's life might just try to make you out to be a bad parent and not only throw you out of the office but notify state officials to charge you with child medical abuse if you don't agree to give your child every one of those 69 doses of 16 vaccines that doctors working for the Centers for Disease Control say all children from birth to age 18 must get.

Be prepared that the doctor, who you pay to keep your child well, may dutifully obey recent orders given by the AAP leadership to implement one-size- fits-all government vaccine policies: no questions asked. The next time you visit your pediatrician and attempt to ask a question about vaccine reactions or suggest your child get fewer or no vaccines (especially if your child has already suffered serious vaccine reactions your doctor refuses to recognize) be prepared to be humiliated, harassed, threatened and thrown out of the office.

The message from the AAP leadership to vaccine-educated parents is: you WILL give your children every vaccine that industry produces even it brain damages or kills them. You DO NOT have the human right to protect your child from vaccine injury and death because you MUST sacrifice your child for what AAP and government officials have decided is the "greater good." Your child does NOT belong to you and if you don't agree to do exactly what we say, we will make sure your family is denied medical care.

Sounds like a smart plan to me, pediatricians of America, if you want to fatally compromise the last remaining shred of trust that mothers and fathers have in your knowledge about vaccine risks and how to minimize them for the children they love more than anyone in the world.

In the words of Jim Carrey: "How stupid do you think we are?"

Twenty-six years ago, the co-founders of the National Vaccine Information Center came to the table with the AAP leadership to talk about compensating children injured by mandated vaccines because the AAP said it was a matter of "simple justice for children." We believed the AAP leadership really cared about minimizing vaccine risks for the individual child rather than just wanting to pass the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 for the purpose of protecting drug companies and pediatricians from liability for vaccine injuries and deaths so they could continue to implement one-size-fits-all vaccine policies. Time and time again over the past quarter century, the AAP leadership has demonstrated that they betrayed the trust of parents then and now by refusing to work with parents to minimize vaccine risks.

In 1982, it was far easier to sweep vaccine injured children under the carpet because 1 in 6 American child was not becoming learning disabled and 1 in 150 child was not regressing into autism. Today, there are so many highly vaccinated children who are sick and disabled that there is no place to run and no place to hide.

The vaccine safety and informed consent movement has been led by educated middle class mothers and fathers who DO know how to tell a bad scientific study from a good one; who DO know how to calculate the amount of mercury or aluminum in a vaccine; and who DO know the difference between being told a lie and being told the truth about vaccine risks.

AAP: we are not stupid. We will not stand by and watch our children and grandchildren become vaccine damaged because you are obsessed with forcing every child to use every vaccine that Pharma produces with no concern for protecting the children who cannot use every vaccine safely. You can deny us medical care and try to take away our human right to voluntary, informed consent to vaccination but you will never win the war you have declared on millions of vaccine-educated parents in America.

A No-Brainer: Obey the M.D. With the Needle or My Conscience?

by Barbara Loe Fisher

http://www.vaccineawakening.blogspot.com/
http://www.nvic.org/

I know and respect a number of enlightened medical doctors working with Moms and Dads as equal partners in making health care decisions for children, which may include making informed vaccination choices that do not necessarily conform with government policy. I also admire responsible, insightful journalists who do their homework and write astute and balanced articles about vaccine safety and informed consent to vaccination. However, these tend to be the exception and not the rule.

As the vaccination debate becomes more contentious and the divide continues to widen between those who worship at the alter of medical science and those who prefer to kneel at a different kind of alter, caught in the middle are ordinary Americans being forced to choose between obeying their conscience and obeying a medical doctor wielding a needle. Some journalists are desperate to be part of the intellectual elite calling the shots (no pun intended) and go to great lengths to characterize those, who place spiritual faith and conscientious beliefs above the doctor's orders, as ignorant. The desire to discredit people refusing to have blind faith in the opinion of a medical school graduate is most intense when it comes to the issue of vaccination.

During the past 26 years that I have studied and written about vaccination and the informed consent principle, I have been fascinated by the lack of knowledge that doctors giving orders and some journalists, who dutifully assist them in persuading others to follow orders, possess about the subject. Lacking knowledge, they often prefer to canonize medical doctors promoting use of multiple vaccines in early childhood and try to marginalize those who do not believe in non-evidence based pronouncements that "Vaccines are safe and effective and the benefits always outweigh the risks."

Despite the attempt by medical doctors heading up federal and state health agencies to persuade people that vaccination is, in fact, the new "sacrament" (brilliantly labeled by that medical heretic, the late great Robert Mendelsohn, M.D.), vaccination is a medical intervention performed on a healthy person that has the inherent ability to result in the injury or death of that healthy person.

There are hard facts to consider when making a vaccine decision:

1) There can be no guarantee that the deliberate introduction of killed or live microorganisms into the body of a healthy person will not compromise the health or cause the death of that person either immediately or in the future;

2) There are very few biological predictors that have been identified by medical science to give advance warning that injury or death may occur from vaccination;

3) There is no guarantee that a vaccine will, indeed, protect a person from contracting or transmitting an infectious disease; and

4) There is an absence of adequate scientific knowledge about the way vaccines singly or in combination act in the human body at the cellular and molecular level, including whether certain genes predispose some individuals to a greater risk than others for suffering vaccine injury or death.

Therefore, vaccination is a medical procedure that could reasonably be termed experimental each time it is performed on an individual, whether that individual is healthy or has an undiagnosed health condition or genetic predisposition that could raise the risk for being harmed by vaccination.

Further, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and drug companies marketing vaccines openly state that the number of human subjects used in pre-licensing studies are too small to detect all vaccine side effects. So mass use of a new vaccine after the federal government licenses it and recommends it is a de facto uncontrolled scientific experiment. In this regard, the ethical principle of informed consent attains even greater moral, medical and legal significance.

Although doctors take offence when their opinions are challenged, they REALLY get mad when an ordinary Mom questions the value of injecting vaccines into her child 48 times in the first six years of life (now, with the CDC's addition an annual influenza shot and more vaccinations to the adolescent vaccine schedule, it is 69 doses of 16 vaccines by age 18). The arrogant, patronizing response by those doctors, who are intent on mindlessly implementing government policy before taking into consideration the potential risks of vaccination for the 1 in 6 highly vaccinated child in America already suffering with immune or brain dysfunction, is to throw the mother and child out of the office.

It can be especially infuriating for the medical school graduate practicing pediatrics to be confronted by a Mom (or Dad) who knows more about the toxic components, potential high risk factors and life altering side effects of vaccines than they are getting paid by parents to know. But that outrage does not compare to the outrage of mothers and fathers being told by legislators doing the bidding of Big Pharma that an elitist group of CDC-appointed M.D.'s and Ph.D's holding a few meetings in Atlanta should be given the power to make state laws forcing children to get every new vaccine that the pharmaceutical industry creates and sells.

And this is where faith and reason comes in: the reconciliation of faith and reason that leads to a conviction which may be guided by prayer but is confirmed by conscience.

The club that medical doctors use to keep the people ignorant and bound to them by a golden chain from birth is fear: fear of microbes; fear of infection; fear of nature. Like primitives drawing menacing creatures on the walls of caves to ward off evil spirits, the men and women with M.D. written after their names get out their needles and poke them into babies to ward off the evil microbes they believe are out to get us. Giving themselves different names - vaccinologists, pediatricians, infectious disease specialists, public health officials - they are convinced they must fight a war with microbes and believe the only way to save humanity is to force everyone to get injected with more and more of those lab-altered microbes over and over and over again.

Then they tell us we must have faith that every time something bad happens after vaccination, it is only a "coincidence."

Let's see. Shall I consult the Merck Manual or the intelligence God gave me? Shall I obey the medical school graduate or my conscience?

For me and a lot of parents who have watched our once healthy children suffer life-altering vaccine reactions, it is no-brainer. I will stand up for the human right to use the intellect, heart and soul God gave me, pray for guidance, and obey my conscience when it comes to using a pharmaceutical product that could kill or injure me or my children. No government official or medical doctor has the moral authority to take my life or the life of my children to prop up a one-size-fits- all government policy that does not acknowledge biodiversity within the human species or respect individual human life.


"Two weeks ago, a Northern Virginia-based group called the National Vaccine Information Center launched a campaign calling for "broad exemptions for medical, religious and conscientious belief reasons." According to Barbara Loe Fisher, the group's co-founder, "forcing vaccination is a violation of human rights.".....Fisher said her older son had a bad reaction to a childhood vaccine, and "I was very afraid that I would have another child this would happen to," though her pediatrician recommended the girl be immunized. "I prayed about whether God wanted me to do what this physician wanted me to do," she recalled. After a three-hour meeting, she said, her Lutheran pastor signed a statement in support of her exemption. "He said he didn't have to agree with me but that I had a sincere religious belief." School officials accepted it, she said. Although she is aware that some parents might manufacture religious objections, Fisher said she doesn't recommend it. "If you are going to take a religious exemption, you have to have a sincere belief and be true to the spirit and intent of religious exemption," she said. Maryland officials say they are watching immunization trends. Ed Hirshhorn, chief of the state's Vaccines for Children program, said that although he thinks the religious exemption requirement is "too easy," officials are reluctant to seek stronger requirements in the absence of an outbreak of disease or dramatic increase in parental refusal. "You're always opening Pandora's box," he said." - Sandra Boodman, Washington Post (June 10, 2008) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/06/AR2008060603770pf.html

"It wasn't the boy I had a problem with. It was his mother. We had met a few months earlier, when I gave her 14-year-old son a diagnosis of mild asthma. I didn't mind her tough questions, but her tone of voice put me on edge. She seemed suspicious, almost angry. Still, in the end I decided she was just a smart, assertive parent, and I let it go..... This time, she was more confrontational. She complained she had been "forced" to bring in her son for a physical because his school needed a doctor's clearance before he could play sports.... bit my tongue and tried to tell her why I thought they belonged here. Yes, he was probably very healthy. But an annual checkup could help him learn to take charge of his own health as he grew up, and it would give me a chance to encourage healthy choices and to get a good sense of his emotional health during these challenging years. Finally, I pointed out, he was due for a tetanus booster....She was unimpressed. "I don't believe in preventive care," she said. "I'll treat him for tetanus if he needs it." The rest of the visit went more smoothly, mainly because Mom left the room so I could examine her son.....I thought about our conversation on the tetanus booster, when the mother said she didn't believe in preventive care. I'm a pediatrician - prevention is in my DNA. If I accepted her view, I'd be compromising my conscience and my professional ethics. I couldn't do that. I wrote a letter addressed to my patient's mother and sent by certified mail. I kept it brief: "Sometimes, a patient or family and doctor aren't compatible. ... Therefore, I will be dismissing you from my practice." - Rahul K. Parikh, M.D., New York Times (June 10, 2008)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/10/health/views/10case.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

"I have four children and never vaccinated any of them," East Stroudsburg resident Susan Spannagel said. "I come from a holistic family. My father was a chiropractor and my family always had a natural approach to health." Parents have a choice regarding vaccinations and many are now speaking up on the subject. By the age of 6, most children have been injected with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's recommendation of 48 doses of 14 different vaccines, not including optional immunizations. With that number of shots, parents are taking a critical-thinking approach to vaccinations and making themselves aware of the pros and the cons.....The National Vaccination Information Center is another organization dedicated to vaccination issues. The nonprofit was founded in 1982 by Jeff Schwartz, Barbara Loe Fisher and Kathi William who are parents of vaccine-injured children. "We are parents whose kids were injured in the early '80s by the DTP vaccine. My son was injured at 2½ years old and was left with ADD and multiple learning disabilities," co- founder and president of NVIC Barbara Loe Fisher said. "We aren't necessarily anti-vaccination but are instead pro-education," Fisher said. Although Fisher said she feels that we have come a long way in public awareness, there is room for improvement. "My son had the vaccination and changed from a happy, high- functioning child to a sick child that regressed and no longer knew his alphabet or numbers. He became frustrated easily and was emotionally fragile. He stopped just short of autism," Fisher said. "I watch this now and it is happening in greater frequency. There is enough evidence now that vaccines can cause death or injuries." Holistic Family Healthcare in Hackettstown, N.J., is one of a few facilities in the region that provides natural medicine. "I am a primary care provider that allows my patients to not vaccinate. I do not offer vaccinations in my office," said Elaine Hardy, a family nurse practitioner and owner of the facility. "I think it needs to be a parent's choice, an informed choice. I am not against vaccinations at all. I am into doing it in a safe and controlled manner though." - Melanie Van Derveer, Pocono Record ( June 2, 2008)
http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080602/NEWS/806020315

Parents Rally in Albany Against Forced Vaccination

by Barbara Loe Fisher

Parents will rally in Albany, NY on Tuesday, June 10, to protest a vaccine bill (AB10942) that would mandate the 69 doses of 16 vaccines the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommends for all children through age 18 plus would automatically mandate all new vaccines federal officials recommend in the future. Sponsored by the NY House Rules Committee at the request of NY State Health Commissioner Richard Daines, provisions in the legislation would force all children to get annual influenza shots as well as force child use of vaccines for sexually transmitted diseases, such as hepatitis B and HPV, without obtaining permission from parents.

The legislation would make unelected physicians, who are appointed to the federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) by unelected CDC officials, de facto state lawmakers because CDC recommendations for new vaccine use by all children would be automatically turned into state mandates. Duly elected New York state legislators would no longer be accountable to the people who elected them and could look the other way when federal officials recommend every new vaccine produced by industry for "universal use" by every child born in America.

If New York and other states had already passed this kind of legislation before the poorly tested and highly reactive GARDASIL vaccine was recommended by the CDC in 2006 for universal use by all 11 year old girls, Merck would not have had to spend money mounting a national advertising and lobbying campaign in a failed attempt in 2007 to ram GARDASIL vaccine mandates through state legislatures. (Public health laws, including vaccine laws, are enacted by the states and not by the federal government).

Every new vaccine that industry has created and marketed for children in the last quarter century has been recommended by the CDC for universal use by all children, tripling the numbers of doses of vaccines pediatricians give children. During this same time period, the numbers of children suffering with chronic disease and disability has also tripled with no explanation coming from U.S. public health officials about why so many highly vaccinated children are so sick.

In what appears to be a classic act of collective political cowardice, NY Assembly Bill 10942 would force nearly six dozen doses of vaccines on children and many more in the future but there are no publicly named individual sponsors attached to the bill. The only sponsor listed is the "Rules Committee" headed by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) . There is a lot of speculation about how much influence Merck and other vaccine manufacturers, as well as medical organizations and government officials pushing the forced vaccination political agenda, are bringing to bear on legislators behind the scenes.

Parents in New York claim that Assembly Speaker Silver is blocking passage of
AB 5468 for philosophical belief exemption to vaccination in the Assembly (there is a companion bill, SB 3031, in the state Senate). Current NY law only allows parents to file a medical or religious exemption to vaccination and both of these exemptions have become increasingly difficult to obtain in New York. Many parents are reporting that their religious exemptions are being denied or revoked after they have been grilled for hours by state attorneys and school officials about their spiritual beliefs. Some doctors practicing in New York are also reporting that they cannot write medical exemptions without being harassed by state health officials.

Parents protesting attempts by the pharmaceutical industry and government to force nearly six dozen vaccines on children or deny them an education, which limits their ability to hold a job and function in society, are also supporting Assembly Bill 3064 (also SB 1563) for religious exemption to vaccination that would prevent state officials from grilling parents about their religious beliefs for the purpose of denying a religious exemption to vaccination. This bill states that "this legislation is intended to protect parents from inappropriate and intrusive inquiry into their beliefs by government authorities" and already has numerous sponsors.

Parents are also supporting Assembly Bill 3180 (also SB 1575) for medical exemptions to vaccination to allow licensed physicians and certified nurse practitioners to write medical exemptions for children if they believe that "such immunization or immunizations may be detrimental to the person's health or is otherwise medically contraindicated for health reasons" without being subject to override by state health officials seeking to deny medical exemptions. This bill also already has numerous sponsors.

New York citizens, who want to attend the 11:30 a.m. June 10 rally and press conference on the steps of the Capitol Building (Swan St. side) in Albany, can get more information about bus transportation from Long Island, Rochester and suburban Albany as well as other details about the event at http://www.mykidsmychoice.com/. After the rally, parents plan to meet with legislators and then attend a Health Committee meeting at 1 p.m. in the Legislative Office Building (Room 823).

For more information on contacting New York state legislators, go to
http://assembly.state.ny.us/. New York voters can type in their zip code and find contact information for their own Assemblyperson and Senator and voice their opinion. To find out more about contacting NY legislators on this issue, go to the website of A-Champ .

Rita Palma, a Bayport mother of three, said "Vaccines are under more scrutiny than ever. Yet some lawmakers pick right now to create a bill that actually increases vaccine mandates. This bill is a slap in the face to worried parents throughout New York. AB 10942 is being pushed by Big Pharma lobbyists. We need to show them that New Yorkers will not stand for this and make our voices heard."

Congratulations to the parents and those principled lawmakers in New York, who are standing up and being counted in support of legislation protecting the human right to informed consent to vaccination. Every American should have the right to hold sincere religious and conscientious belief convictions about whether or not to subject themselves or their children to harm from a pharmaceutical product, such as a vaccine, that carries an uncertain risk of injury or death.

Doctors are not infallible and the products drug companies create for profit are not always safe or effective for everyone. And no child in America should be subjected to vaccination or any other medical procedure without the informed consent of his or her parents. New York AB 10942 backed by Big Pharma and Big Government is a prescription for tyranny.

Stand Up! Be Counted . Your health and your freedom is on the line.

A Day of Remembrance: Vaccine Injured March on Capitol Hill

by Barbara Loe Fisher

They came by the thousands from all over the America. On June 4, 2008, mothers and fathers with vaccine injured autistic children marched down the middle of Independence Avenue and rallied at the foot of the nation's Capitol. Some parents walked with, held or pushed their children in strollers while others, whose children were too severely brain injured to attend, carried signs and photos. They had come to witness, in one way or another, what had happened to their children after vaccination.

The day broke hot and humid with a threat of torrential rains that would have drenched the marchers. But then, the skies cleared and the sun came out in time for the determined parents and their children to gather on the grounds of the Washington Monument and line up behind Hollywood celebrities Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy leading the march and the "Green Our Vaccines" rally that would follow.

Although the primary message of the march was to call on government health agencies to "remove toxins" from vaccines and "adjust the vaccine schedule" by reducing the numbers of vaccines given to infants simultaneously, NVIC supporters carried signs declaring "No forced vaccination. Not in America." As NVIC co-founder Kathi Williams and I walked past the long line of families waiting to begin the march, we and our now-grown children held up the signs featuring the American flag and statue of liberty. All the way down the line, the families of vaccine injured children clapped and cheered the message of freedom we carried to honor and empower them as we passed.

And while many at the front of the line marching down Independence Avenue chanted "Too many, too soon," those of us bringing up the back of the line chanted "Hey, hey, Ho, ho - forced vaccines have got to go!" with an African American father urging us to shout louder and louder as we approached the Department of Health and Human Services. "Let them hear you," he yelled. "Tell them what you want."

I looked at my 30-year old son, who became multiply learning disabled after a neurological reaction to his fourth DPT shot in 1980 when he was two and a half, as he walked beside me resolutely holding up our sign and shouting in a deep voice "Forced vaccines have got to go." When he was eight years old, I remembered marching in Atlanta in front of the Centers for Disease Control in 1986 with Kathi and the young mothers of babies who had been brain injured or died after DPT vaccination in the 1980's. We were the first generation to march in protest against toxic vaccines and one-size-fits-all government vaccine policies justified by the utilitarian premise that it is ethical to throw a minority of children under the bus in service to others.

The second generation, whose children were born in the 1990's and developed autism after vaccination, held a series of rallies on Capitol Hill sponsored by Unlocking Autism beginning in 2000 when Congressman Dan Burton initiated congressional hearings on the link between autism and vaccines. In the summer of 2005, parents protesting mercury in vaccines marched and rallied on Capitol Hill. Today, the third generation knows that vaccine damage is about more than mercury. It is also about too much vaccination: 48 doses of 14 vaccines given by age six and 69 doses of 16 vaccines federal health officials now say children must get by the time they graduate from high school.

At the rally podium, Jim Carrey delivered a remarkable address that was also a sweet love letter to his partner, Jenny McCarthy. He said "Autism is everywhere. It is on every street and in every town" and he asked the CDC "How stupid do you think we are?"

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and physicians such as Jay Gordon, M.D. and professor of chemistry Boyd Haley, Ph.D. called for removal of toxins from vaccines. Jenny McCarthy, who is the celebrity spokesperson for
Talk About Curing Autism Now (TACA), held up the government's childhood vaccine schedule and said "Parents need to know it is called a recommended schedule, not a mandatory schedule."

Unfortunately, that may not be true in many states in the future. Lobbyists for drug companies making vaccines, medical organizations representing doctors who give vaccines and government health officials are pressing state legislators in every state to pass legislation that would automatically turn CDC new vaccine "recommendations" into state mandatory vaccination laws.

This kind of proposed legislation was beaten back in the California legislature by the education efforts of autism activist Rick Rollens last year. But right now,
the New York State legislature is about to capitulate to the Forced Vaccination Lobby and force children in New York to use every vaccine the CDC "recommends" or face punishment, including loss of the right to get an education.
A rally of families protesting the proposed legislation will be held in Albany, NY at the Capitol Building at 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday, June 10. For more information, go to http://www.mykidsmychoice.com/

I will never forget marching with parents and their vaccine injured children in Washington, D.C. on June 4, 2008. Just as I will never forget all the marches that have gone before during the past quarter century that parents have been asking those who operate and profit from the mass vaccination system to make vaccines and vaccine policies safer.

Three decades of begging is long enough. Now it is time for all Americans - both those with vaccine injured children and those with healthy children - to
Stand Up and Be Counted for the human right to make informed, voluntary decisions about vaccination. Our freedom and the biological integrity of this and future generations is on the line. Without the legal right to say "no" to vaccination, the people have no economic or political leverage to protect themselves and their children from toxic vaccines and dangerous vaccine policies.

The next march on Capitol Hill talking about vaccines should be all about freedom.

(To view more wonderful photos of the rally, go to the blog Adventures in Autism).
http://adventuresinautism.blogspot.com/