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.

22 comments:

Designs By Leigha said...

Thanks for all that you do!

Anonymous said...

I wonder whether the AAP has any clue that the decreased public trust in government and health authorities might have something to do with the fact that the allopathic medical profession is currently the 3rd leading cause of death in the United States.

Turning themselves into an unashamedly fascist tool of the pharmaceutical industry is highly unlikely to increase this level of trust, but that certainly won't stop them from trying.

Maybe NVIC should come up with a response letter to the form letter that the pediatricians are going to be handing out.

I got something similar from my pediatrician (I'm in Canada) when I told her we didn't want her vaccinating our children. It had the usual nonsense about diseases being very dangerous and risky, vaccines being completely safe, etc. etc. We had to sign a statement indicating that we accepted full responsibility for declining the standard-of-care recommendation of our medical care provider-of-record. I notice that there was no counter-statement if we had chosen to go the vaccination route, along the lines of the medical profession accepting full responsibility for any damage caused by vaccines! They're very quick to blame us parents for non-vaccine-related disease damage, but just try getting them to accept their share of responsibility for anything they do...

CrazyChel said...

I stumbled onto NVIC, and thus your blog, completely by accident and am stunned that the Autism community hasn't sent me this direction before. My 13 yr old son was diagnosed with Asperger's, Tourette's, sensory integration deficit, and extreme food allergies just 2 years ago. Until then we fought a battle to figure out why he reacted to the world the way he did. Our battle heightened when we realized our 2nd and 3rd sons (now 10 & 8) were showing similar symptoms. By a fluke by the military our 5 yr old daughter never received shots past the age of 3 months, and she shows no symptoms of delay.
I am still baffled by a medical and educational system that believes it's my problem to "fix" and not their problem to help me.
I'm also surprised at the lack of connection to the military's immunization program. I know for a fact that shots were used past expiration dates, given more times than needed because of lost records, and that there is a connection to the Anthrax shot they still won't admit. I would be interested to hear from you on what research has been done on military families and if there are any statistics available.
Thank you for keeping the public informed!
Michelle Bodine
Richland WA

Amanda said...

I was sent a letter from a Ped about 18 months ago and informed our children were no longer welcome in the practice because I didn't blindly follow all of the Dr's decisions. It took a few phone calls and in office interviews before I found a physician that doesn't harass me every time I take one of our 4 children into the office. We made an agreement. When & if we were ready to even selectively vaccinate, we would inform the Dr. until then, he would not bring it up unless we approached the subject, and asked questions. We see a DO Family physician now, and he has been wonderful.

Mama to Monkeys said...

My pediatrician pulled this on me when I refused to vaccinate my daughter at her four month visit. He told me that she was a "danger to society, and should not under any circumstances leave the house." He claimed that she was a "walking time bomb" and that "it only hurts for a second to get a shot". He obviously did not hear a single thing I had said in my reasoning to discontinue with the recommended vaccine schedule. I had told him that we (my husband and I) decided that since vaccines are not something you can take back we did not feel comfortable doing them until we had a chance to do more research and come to our own conclusions.

I have since found a new pediatrician who is extremely understanding and encourages her patient's parents to make their own choices. She has said "I have vaccinated my children, but on a much different schedule than the AAP's, but it's your choice."

I like that. And I even don't mind signing a refusal to vaccinate form because I look at it as an informed consent/refusal issue. And that is one of my pet issues.

Great post, glad to have found you.

Karin Person Finley said...

As a parent who vaccinates her child I am wondering how DO you justify the fact that not vaccinating your child puts my child at a higher risk? I am honestly asking to help understand your opinion. Thanks

Anonymous said...

I say fire the pediatricians!

Let's get back to letting the family practitioners treat our children. It's the way it was when I grew up.

Pediatricians AREN'T the only doctors qualified to treat children!

It has been my experience that the family doctors are much more accomodating when it comes to immunizations.

Most pediatricians have one bag of tricks...Vaccines and Antibiotics.

Anonymous said...

If vaccines truly work then why are unvaccinated children a threat to vaccinated childre? That is always the question. They are a threat because Dr.'s and the CDC and the FDA know that vaccines truly don't work the way we are told. When there was a measles outbreak in CA guess who go the measles no the invaxed kids the vaxed kids.
As for the papers they make you sign I refuse to even sign those for refusing vaccines. They can be used against you as child abuse. We had a few parents who refused signed the waivers and who see DAN Dr.'s and guess what our lovely neurodevelopmental peds turned them into children and youth for child abuse and gave those forms and said they were force feeding their kids biomeds. But yet it is ok for them to force feed our kids drugs go figure
ylnzr

Sarah said...

kansaskp to answer your question:
if the vaccines work, why do you fear for your child's safety? In all honesty, your child is more dangerous for my child. My child doesn't have the disease coursing through her, your child sheds the disease and could make my child sick. I feel that's a lesser risk than putting formaldehyde, aluminum, MSG and latex (and those are just a FEW of the ingredients that are scary) directly into my child's blood stream. I'd rather my child get the disease naturally.

Once your child has a vaccine reaction you may feel differently. I did vaccinate my oldest and my second up to the MMR. When I couldn't shake a horrible feeling regarding the MMR and my second child I did more research and chose to skip that vaccine. My third got the HIB and had a reaction (to a very mild vaccine, mind you). I decided to only allow boosters for my older two after that. My second had a reaction to EVERY booster she got (remember, she had those vaccines previously!). Needless to say my youngest hasn't been vaccinated and won't be!

My children are not a hazard to your children, unless your child's vaccines don't work. Most parents who don't vaccinate put a LOT of time and energy into researching the vaccines and most who have devoted the time and energy chose to not vaccinate. It's not an issue of neglect, quite the opposite. We want our children to remain healthy and vaccines seem to be a hindrance to that goal.

Becca said...

KansasKP,

What makes you think your child is any better protected against "vaccine preventable disease" than ours? If I remember correctly the big Mumps outbreak a couple years ago in the midwest (US) occurred in a group of people with 90-100% vaccine compliance. Vaccines don't work all the time...ask my 6yr old son who contracted a BAD case of chicken pox 11months after he was vaccinated (stopped vax in 2005). And Vaccines aren't safe. Ask my 4yr old son who is developmentally a 2yr old after regressing into Autism (stopped vax at 1yr old). Or ask my Daughter who I stupidly allowed to have 2 doses of the DTaP because I was scared of Pertussis...she wore the scar of that 2nd dose in the form of a golfball sized lump on her thigh for 4months (will never vax my children again).

Anonymous said...

kansaskp, I am curious as to how you come to the conclusion that not vaccinating my child puts your child at risk. At risk of what, exactly? Are you assuming that vaccines work, or that they don't?

Anonymous said...

To the woman who wants to know how those of us who don't vaccinate our children justify the risk to her vaccinated child? I ask, if you have such faith in vaccines, why are you so concerned about my unvaccinated child giving yours a disease? I don't mean to sound sarcasitc, but we need to ask that question. Furthermore, I urge parents who don't understand why parents don't vaccinate to examine unvaccinated children. They are not sickly crippled time-bombs like the AAP would like to paint.

Anonymous said...

Barbara thank you and please keep up the good work. I have noticed other "official" sources trotting out the "selfish" argument lately. The irrationality of this always surprises me. Vaccinators and non-vaccinators make their choices for the same "selfish" reasons: in an attempt to eliminate or reduce a perceived risk to themselves or their family members. The only difference is the risk perception. Vaccinators perceive disease risk to be greater and non-vaccinators perceive vaccination risk to be greater. No one vaccinates their children to protect other children, they do it to "protect" their own children. If their action has a potentially beneficial side effect via herd immunity for others in society, that's great. To KansasKP: If your childrens' vaccinations were effective they will be "protected" (temporarily anyway, until the artificial immunity wanes or you forget to keep getting boosters). If the vaccinations fail to protect against disease look to the inefficacy of the vaccine, not unvaccinated children, for responsibility. Read the vaccine pkg inserts, they disclose that vaccines are not 100% effective.

Anonymous said...

To those of you who are worried about my unvaccinated children putting yours at risk...if vaccines are so wonderful and offer so much protection, then why are you worried? Your child is vaccinate. They are "safe." If my child gets, chicken pox for example, and your child is vaccinated, if you believe that vaccines work, then what is your worry? Your child cannot get it from my child. My child is more at risk from your child. Everytime your child gets vaccinated with a live vaccine, such as the MMR, it sheds. My child can get MM or R from your child's shedding vaccine.

So, what is your concern?

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for all you do here.

As I read your blog entry, I thought every other line, "Yep, been there, done that. Yep, that too. Oh yeah, I remember that."

I was constantly harrassed and belittled by almost every pediatrician I ever took my {now two year old} daughter to. I was called irresponsible, a threat to society and finally told, "don't even think about bringing your kid in here if she even so much as has a sniffle."

Fine by me.

I honestly feel as though we are living in some sort of twisted form of Nazi Germany when it comes to our children's health care and our own right to choose what we believe is safest for OUR children.

I agree with the last anonymous commenter. Forget the peds! I stopped taking my daughter to them a loooooong time ago. There is one that I actually found that is bearable, but she only goes when there's a real need. But for her routine "well baby visits", yah right! I realized a long time ago all those are are a quick ride to the shot bus. So when I wasn't giving her shots, they became: weigh, measure, get harrassed about vaccines. Ridiculous.

This war is about to get ugly because the information out there about vaccines, illnesses, learning disabilities, autism, neurological damage, etc. is bulging at the seams. And people are only becoming more informed as the minutes tick by. I think letters like the ones peds are sending out right now is a huge sign of the times. We are on the verge of a major showdown. And parents who are willing to run against major organizations like AAP to protect their children are NOT going to back down. EVER.

Jenny W said...

dear kansaskp-- thank u for at least being honest enough with those of us who don't vx, to ask questions and want to dialog. in response to your question, when my unvaxxed kids get sick it is part of the waiver i sign at the school to keep them away til they're symptom free. i also agree to pull them out of school should there be an outbreak of any communicable disease, since they're supposedly more at risk. as a side note though-- we are FAR healthier than our friends who are vaxxed! we got chickenpox and both girls were done in 5 days. FIVE. as opposed to 15-16 the websites all said. we also had strep once, treated it naturally and it was gone in 3 days. our bodies were created to heal themselves, if we just give them a chance!

Anonymous said...

Dr. Kerry Swindle in Tucson was polite then became ruder, asking if we were going to have our daughter grow up in a bubble.

There was a recent outbreak of whooping cough and she warned us that our daughter was at risk for contracting this "deadly" disease.

90% of the kids got it. All of them had been vaccinated for the whooping cough. So I asked Dr. Swindle - quite an appropriate last name, eh? - what the school should do and she said "vaccinate them again."

The school however was rather smart: they cleaned the entire school twice over and do you know why? Because whooping cough is a bacterial infection. Cleanliness is right next to godly health.

It's our bodies, not the AAP's. Declaring war on parents is just the kind of irrational response I expected. Confused? No, informed; no longer are we deaf and dumb and blind and born to swallow.

Anonymous said...

To parents...

As the AAP clearly pointed out that trust in the FDA and the health 'industry' has gone south, the federal government has made it next to impossible to hold BIG pharma liable if you or your child becomes another death statistic due to the shot or pill. The more drugs / vaccines they, by-law, can cram down the throats and veins of the public the bigger profits they can make in a crappy economy.

http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/30341

This forcing of parents to 'push' their dope into the veins of any child without their consent is really an issue that goes beyond medical.

Medicating people WITHOUT their consent is a human rights violation of the Nuremberg Code
http://www.cirp.org/library/ethics/nuremberg/

Since there is no satisfactory testing of all persons for ill reactions to these vaccines the AAP the CDC and FDA ARE EXPERIMENTING on the population. Quite frankly it's even worse since, in fact, what they are proposing to do by vaccinating the population (yes adults will be next) without consent is playing Russian Roulette.

John H

Anonymous said...

Someone who has these scientific studies showing how dangerous vaccines are, please post the citations so I can obtain copies to review on my own. I would greatly appreciate it.

Anonymous said...

anonymous wrote..

"Someone who has these scientific studies showing how dangerous vaccines are, please post the citations..."

I'm not trying to be a 'bad guy' but you're going to have to do some work yourself. It really is YOUR responsibility to gather together the 'mountain' of reports.

Here is a great website to get you on your way...
http://www.whale.to/vaccines.html
for citations..
http://www.whale.to/vaccine/citations.html

beyond citations...

You can ask for the inserts on the vaccines themselves. There are plenty of 'Dangers' listed. Check the ingredients and research them independently. Look for thimerosal. Then ask why is it still in the shot when the media from your TV to the New England Journal of Medicine swears on a stack of advertising accounts it's been taken out.

Unfortunately the known dangers of vaccines such as GARDASIL get's posted on the CDC / FDA's websites and mysterously vanishes. You will learn this as YOU do your own research. Fortunately people have taken 'screen shots' of much of the negatives posted on big pharma's drugs. YOU can find them on your own, if you really want to know.
Research... 'Drugs (pharmaceuticals) kill more people than decease.' Yes, vaccines ARE included in these reports.

You will need to read 'actual' court documents on the very dangerous vaccine DTP. That is, the ones that were NOT sealed. Even when a vaccine is proven to be dangerous in court it still is not enough to get it pulled by your loving government. Think about that. I'm still waiting for a 'logical' explanation.

Speaking of the government, go to them for disease info statistics. Look up 'Measles deaths 1901 to 1968. Ask yourself fundamental questions as to why everyone had to get measles shots after it had declined 99.4% by 1968 BEFORE the vaccine?

Also, ask someone, anyone who thinks that vaccines are the second coming of the messiah, why did America go from #3 in infant mortality to #23, on the table of countries, the very same time vaccinations became compulsory. These are governments own statistics. This FACT has been spun by those with vested interests close to big pharma from here to Sunday, but even a five year old can figure this one out. America is now down there with Romania when it comes to infant mortality. Tell your doctor this when he / she gives you the 'outweighs the risks' standard robotic answer.

I hope this helps. It's just the tip of the vaccine iceberg.

Anonymous said...

To the person asking for citations on the risks of vaccination: Read Neil Z. Miller's recent book "Vaccine Safety Manual" It contains over fifty full PAGES of reference citations.

Anonymous said...

It is shocking to read that Aluminum is still being regularly used in vaccines in spite of the fact that it is a known neurotoxin.

US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health
Curr Med Chem. 2011;18(17):2630-7.

Aluminum vaccine adjuvants: are they safe?
Tomljenovic L1, Shaw CA.

Abstract

Aluminum is an experimentally demonstrated neurotoxin and the most commonly used vaccine adjuvant. Despite almost 90 years of widespread use of aluminum adjuvants, medical science's understanding about their mechanisms of action is still remarkably poor. There is also a concerning scarcity of data on toxicology and pharmacokinetics of these compounds. In spite of this, the notion that aluminum in vaccines is safe appears to be widely accepted. Experimental research, however, clearly shows that aluminum adjuvants have a potential to induce serious immunological disorders in humans. In particular, aluminum in adjuvant form carries a risk for autoimmunity, long-term brain inflammation and associated neurological complications and may thus have profound and widespread adverse health consequences. In our opinion, the possibility that vaccine benefits may have been overrated and the risk of potential adverse effects underestimated, has not been rigorously evaluated in the medical and scientific community. We hope that the present paper will provide a framework for a much needed and long overdue assessment of this highly contentious medical issue.

PMID: 21568886 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]