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/