Vaccine Awakening

Vaccine Wake Up Call for Parents: Your Children Are Being Taken

2011-09-06T10:43:00.000-07:00

by Barbara Loe Fisher

Every mother has had the nightmare. We dream our child, who we love more than we thought we could love anyone, has been taken away by strangers and cannot be found. The cold fear rises up from our stomach into our throats as we search, endlessly, to find the child we would give up our own life to protect from harm.

The biological imperative for parents to protect their young is stronger than the law of any nation. It is stronger than any value or belief. It is primitive and hardwired into a mother’s DNA because it is the fierce protective instinct that enables intelligent life on earth to survive.

Historic Power Struggle: Doctors vs. Parents

The debate about vaccination in the 21^st century is not just about the science and whether vaccines and vaccine policies are a safe and effective way to keep individuals and populations truly healthy.^[1]^, ^[2]

It is also part of an historic power struggle between parents and doctors about whether doctors or anyone else in society should have the legal right to give children a pharmaceutical product or medical treatment that carries a risk of injury or death without the parent’s voluntary, informed consent.^{[3], [4], [5]}

CA Bill Strips Informed Consent Rights from Parents

Today, there is a bill on the desk of California Governor Jerry Brown (Assembly Bill 499)^[6] that has been quietly and quickly rammed through the state legislature by the medical-pharma lobby.^[7]

If Governor Brown signs that bill into law, then children as young as 12 years old will be vaccinated with Gardasil, hepatitis B and future vaccines for sexually transmitted diseases without the knowledge or consent of their parents.

Merck & Pharma Profit

This proposed law would cost the cash-strapped state of California multi-millions of dollars to implement. Most of that money will go to Merck and other vaccine corporations to pay for multiple doses of each vaccine that will be aggressively promoted^[8]^{, [9]} to young children, who are not yet physically, mentally or emotionally mature enough to make fully informed decisions about risk-taking, including whether or not to take a medical risk.^{[10], [11], [12]}

This proposed law gutting parental informed consent rights is great news for drug companies like Merck, which sells Gardasil to the government for $108 per dose,^[13] but it is very bad news for parents.

Parents Legally Responsible for Secretly Vaccinated Children

What if a 12 year old child is biologically at high risk for having a life threatening vaccine reaction but the parent is not told the child has been vaccinated and does not watch for symptoms and the child’s reaction ends in permanent disability?^{[14], [15]}

Will the person, who has secretly given the vaccine to the child without the parent’s knowledge, be legally responsible for what happens if the child has a serious reaction?

Will the drug company that sold the vaccine to the state be legally responsible for the physical harm done to a secretly vaccinated child?

No. The parent will be legally and financially responsible for caring for the child,[16] who was taken by strangers and vaccinated without the parent’s consent, and is now brain damaged for life.

No Liability for Drug Corps or Doctors

In America, there is no legal liability or responsibility for drug companies selling or doctors giving government recommended vaccines when those vaccines injure or kill children or adults.^[17],^[18]

How can the state of California - or any state - give anyone in society the power to secretly take a child away from a parent and subject that child to a medical risk without the parent’s consent?

There is no doctor, no government employee and no politician, who has the moral right to do that to a parent or their child.

When Parental Rights Are Lost, Children Are Exploited

This California legislation that was pushed through the state legislature by pharmaceutical and medical industry lobbyists, will strip parents of the long held legal right to make informed, voluntary decisions about pharmaceutical products and medical procedures that carry risks for their children.

That fundamental legal right is all that stands between parents and exploitation of their children by those in positions of power in society with a personal or professional vested interest in forcing every child to use pharmaceutical products that are not safe or effective for every child.

Wake Up Call for Parents In All States

This is a wake-up call for parents in all states. If politicians can vote to strip parents of their legal right to exercise informed consent to medical risks taken by their children in California, it can happen in your state, too.

If young children can be secretly vaccinated for sexually transmitted diseases without their parents consent today, it will not be long before all babies and children can be secretly vaccinated with every government recommended vaccine without their parents’ consent tomorrow.

CA Parents: Your Children Are Being Taken

Join NVIC’s vaccine choice Advocacy Portal. Stand up for your legal right to make informed, voluntary decisions about medical risk taking for your child today or you will not have that legal right tomorrow.

California parents: NVIC has issued a California Action Alert about Assembly Bill 499 at www.NVICAdvocacy.org.

Let Governor Brown know how you feel about your children being taken from you.

See NVIC Action Alert for California here.

REFERENCES

[1] National Vaccine Information Center. NVIC Statement on Adverse Effects of Vaccines: Evidence and Causality, IOM Committee to Review Adverse Effects of Vaccines. Aug. 25, 2011.

[2] Stratton K, Ford A, Rusch E, Clayton EW, editors. Adverse Effects of Vaccines: Evidence and Causality. Committee to Review Adverse Effects of Vaccines. National Academies Press: 2011.

[3] Klicka CJ. Parental Rights: Decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court Upholding Parental rights as “Fundamental.” 2003.

[4] Parental Right to Refuse Medical Treatment in Mother Doe & Father Doe vs. Anthony Conyers, Jr., Commissioner of VA Dept. of Social Services and Sarah C. Snead, Director of Chesterfield Dept. of Social Services and VA Governor Mark E. Warner. Re: Liberty Interest. June 17, 2005.

[5] Kleifgen B. Informed Consent in Vaccination. Vaccine Ethics.org. July 2010.

[6] California Assembly Bill 499. Fiscal Analysis.

[7] Cochran S. CA AB499 Nixes Parental Consent for Gardasil Shots Given to Preteens. Yahoo News. Aug. 24, 2011.

[8] Zimm A, Preston D. Merck Gets First U.S. Cancer Shot Mandate, From Texas. Feb. 2, 2007.

[9] Rothman SM, Rothman DJ. Marketing HPV Vaccine: Implications for Adolescent Health and Medical Professionalism. JAMA 2009; 302(7): 781-786.

[10] McCabe MA. Involving Children and Adolescents in Medical Decision Making: Developmental and Clinical Considerations. Journal of Pediatric Psychology 1996; 21(4): 505-516.

[11] Oswalt A. Jean Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development. Child Development Theory: Adolesence. MentalHelp.net. Nov. 17, 2010.

[12] Dartmouth College. Press Release: Brain changes significantly after age 18, says Dartmouth research. Feb. 6, 2006.

[13] CDC. Vaccine Price List – 2011.

[14] HRSA. Vaccine Injury Compensation Program Statistics

[15] Attkisson S. Gardasil Researcher Speaks Out. CBS News. Aug. 29, 2009.

[16] Virginia Office of the Attorney General. Family Relationships and the Law. Accessed Sept. 1, 2011

[17] The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986.

[18] NVIC. Press Release: NVIC Cites “Betrayal” of Consumers by U.S. Supreme Court Giving Total Liability Shield to Big Pharma. Feb. 23, 2011.

Click here to watch the video:

The Health Liberty Revolution & Forced Vaccination

2011-08-24T08:23:00.000-07:00

“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” – Abraham Lincoln

by Barbara Loe Fisher

In America today, there is an unprecedented assault on the human right to exercise informed consent to medical risk-taking. It is being led by one of the most powerful and wealthy corporate empires in the world: the global pharmaceutical industry.

What is at stake for Big Pharma is a one trillion dollar market for prescription drugs and vaccines.^[1]What is at stake for the American people is our health and our liberty.

Pharma’s Lucrative Monopoly on U.S. Health Care

For more than a century, pharmaceutical corporations have created a lucrative monopoly on health care in America. They have done this by forging an alliance with a select group of medical doctors and scientists inside and outside of government, who develop and promote widespread drug and vaccine use. Doctors in private practice, who are encouraged to deliver drugs and vaccines to the people, have become - perhapwithout even realizing it - de facto drug company sales reps.^[2]

Americans Consume 40% of All Pharmaceuticals Sold

Americans, who represent about 5 percent of the world’s population,^[3]^[4]are the most highly vaccinated^[5]^[6] and drugged population on the planet.^[7]^[8]We consume nearly 40 percent of all pharmaceutical products sold.^[9] In 2009, doctors ordered 4 billion prescriptions for Americans,^[10]which is one big reason why annual health care costs are nearly $3 trillion dollars in the U.S.^[11]Half of all Americans, including 25 percent of our children take one or more prescription drugs.^[12]

Today American Children Get 3 Times As Many Vaccinations

Today, our children are being given three times as many vaccinations as they got in the early 1980’s. ^[13]^[14]^[15]Three times as many vaccinations means three times as much profit for drug companies and doctors selling vaccines.

The base cost for a child to get every government recommended vaccine in a private pediatrician’s office has increased from $80 per child in 1986^[16] to a whopping $2200 per child in 2011,^[17] and that doesn’t include physician office administration fees. The federal government now spends nearly $4 billion dollars per year to purchase vaccines for public health clinics,^[18] where half of America’s children are vaccinated.

Pharma Growing $36 Billion Vaccine Market

It is no surprise that vaccine development is one of the fastest growing sectors in the pharmaceutical industry.^[19] By 2013, Pharma will enjoy a $36 billion dollar vaccine market.^[20]

Eight Big Drug Corporations Selling Vaccines Get Total Liability Shield

In 1986, there were three major drug corporations selling vaccines in the U.S. (Merck, Lederle, Connaught) and now there are eight (Merck, Pfizer, Sanofi Pasteur, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Astra Zeneca, CSL Biotherapies, Emergent BioSolutions). That is because, in 1986, Pharma blackmailed Congress into giving them partial liability protection from vaccine injury lawsuits^[21]by suggesting they would have to abandon the U.S. childhood vaccine market without a liability shield.

In February of this year, drug companies got what they wanted all along: the U.S. Supreme Court gave Pharma total immunity from lawsuits – even if they could have made a vaccine less harmful. ^[22]^[23] Vaccines, said the Court, are “unavoidably unsafe.”

So if your child is brain injured by a vaccine that you may not have wanted your child to get in the first place, all you can do is file a claim in the federal vaccine injury compensation program. Even though the program has awarded more than $2 billion dollars to vaccine victims, two out of three plaintiffs are turned away empty handed.^[24]

No Liability, No Accountability, No Checks & Balances on Vaccine Safety

With no liability or accountability for those making, licensing, selling and giving vaccines in America, there are no checks and balances to ensure that vaccines are safe and effective. Doctors, who have been taught to believe that infectious microorganisms should be eradicated from the earth with the mandatory use of multiple vaccines, are as ripe for exploitation as the people they vaccinate.

Big Pharma Does Not Want You to Have Vaccine Freedom of Choice

The only barrier left to unlimited vaccine profit-making is the freedom for Americans to choose whether or not to use every new vaccine Pharma creates and wants mandated. Freedom of choice is something Big Pharma and the medical lobby does not want you to have.

They know that many educated consumers in America and around the world are dissatisfied with the old pharmaceutical-based health care paradigm.^[25]^[26]^[27] They know that 63% of all Americans, including 76% of health care workers, are empowering themselves with information and choosing less toxic, less expensive, more naturally effective ways to achieve and maintain health.^[28]

Today, millions of Americans are choosing to buy and eat organic^[29]^[30]and avoid genetically modified foods.^[31]^[32] We are choosing to buy and drink pure water with no chemicals in it. ^[33] We are choosing mercury-free dental fillings.^[34]We are choosing exercise and meditation. We are choosing drug free, hospital free births^[35] and breastfeeding. We are throwing away the bottles of prescription drugs in our medicine cabinet and choosing to get advice from holistic health professionals offering less toxic alternatives to stay well like acupuncture, chiropractic, homeopathy, and naturopathy.^[36]

And we are questioning why we and our children should be required to get a long list of expensive vaccines that carry serious risks^[37] and sometimes don’t work at all.^[38]

This is a health liberty revolution and Pharma knows it.

So Pharma is funding medical organizations profiting from mass vaccination policies^[39] to press politicians into quickly passing laws that force Americans to buy and use dozens of doses of vaccines. ^[40] The goal is to demand that everyone salute smartly and obey doctors’ orders to get vaccinated or be barred from getting an education,^[41]health insurance,^[42] medical care^[43]^[44] or a job. [45] The goal is to, in effect, brand unvaccinated citizens as enemies of the state,^[46]^[47] so they can be fined or imprisoned.

Can this really be happening in America? Yes, it can.

Doctors Threatening People & Taking Away Vaccine Exemptions

In 2007, we witnessed physician public health officials summon nearly 1,000 parents with their children to a Maryland courthouse policed by armed guards and dogs to show proof the children had gotten chickenpox and hepatitis b shots.^[48] Parents were threatened with stiff fines and jail time if they did not comply.

Last spring in Washington state, medical organizations joined with Pharma lobbyists to pressure politicians to pass a law that requires parents to get the signature of a medical doctor or designated medical worker for a child to receive a non-medical exemption to vaccination.^[49] What this means is that some citizens in society, who have M.D. or certain other medical initials written after their names, now have the power in Washington state to pass judgment on the conscientious or spiritually held beliefs of fellow citizens. It gives some citizens, who may be ideologically opposed to the informed consent ethic,^[50]a green light to threaten and coerce other citizens into violating their conscience and personal beliefs.^[51]

This expanded authority is added to the authority that medical doctors have had for a long time, which includes the power to refuse to grant a child a medical exemption to vaccination^[52]^[53]^[54] ^[55] - even when the child has suffered a sudden and serious decline in health following previous vaccinations and could be more seriously harmed if additional vaccines are given.^[56]

Colorado & California Citizens Losing Vaccine Choices

Right now, drug company and medical lobbyists are trying to put further legal restrictions on vaccine exemptions in Colorado ^[57]and other states.^[58] In cash-strapped California, the Pharma-Med lobby is pushing for a law that will allow doctors to give minor children expensive new vaccines for sexually transmitted diseases – like Gardasil - without the informed consent of parents.^[59]

Nobody Accountable for Vaccine Injuries & Deaths

But what happens if a vaccine given to a child without the parent’s consent ends up injuring or killing a child? Is anyone accountable?

No. Nobody is liable in a court of law to be tried before a jury of our peers when our children and grandchildren are injured or die after getting vaccinated – not the drug companies that made the vaccines; not the federal health officials, who licensed and recommend the vaccines; not the doctor or medical worker, who gave the vaccines; and not the state politician, who voted for vaccine mandates or looked the other way while state health officials added another new vaccine to the required list.

Nobody is held accountable or liable when a child is injured or killed by vaccines in America except the parent of that child, whose informed consent rights may have been violated by fellow citizens wielding power they should never have been given.

This is a health liberty revolution.

After 50 years of heavy prescription drug and vaccine use, Americans are waking up to the fact that they are not healthier, but are sicker than ever before. And they are asking a lot of questions.

More of us are wondering why doctors inside and outside of government are insisting that every child get 70 doses of 16 vaccines starting on the first day of life ^[60] and why that list includes expensive new vaccines for mild diseases, like chickenpox, and for diseases you can’t catch in a classroom, like hepatitis B.

More of us are asking why we have to get a flu shot every year ^[61] and why health care workers are losing their jobs if they don’t.^[62]

More of us are looking at vaccine studies published in the medical literature, many of which are paid for by drug companies ^[63] or public health agencies promoting one-size-fits-all vaccine policies, only to discover that a lot of those studies are the best junk science that money can buy.

More of us are watching doctors paid by Pharma^[64]^[65]persuade journalists to demonize anyone asking questions about vaccination ^[66]so other people are afraid to speak up because they know they will be targeted for humiliation and persecution.

Why Are So Many of Our Highly Vaccinated Children So Sick?

But, mostly, we are asking why so many of our highly vaccinated children are so sick with no good explanation coming from the public health officials and doctors we have trusted with their health.

Today, 1 child in 6 in America is learning disabled;^[67] 1 in 9 has asthma;^[68] 1 in 10 is diagnosed with ADHD;^[69] 1 in 110 develops autism;^[70]^[71]1 in 450 becomes diabetic,^[72] and millions more are suffering with severe allergies,^[73] inflammatory bowel disorders,^[74] crippling depression^[75]and other kinds of brain and immune system dysfunction, while America’s infant mortality rate ranks among the worst of all developed nations: 6 out of 1,000 babies born live in America die before their first birthday.^[76]^[77]

New Vaccines Coming to Change Our DNA

Despite the reality that more vaccination does not equal better individual and public health, there are over 3,000 new vaccine clinical trials underway.^[78] Pharma is creating genetically engineered vaccines, which will ramp up the manipulation of our immune systems^[79] and even change our DNA,^[80] ^[81]to prevent everything from tooth decay, ^[82] acne ^[83] and smoking^[84] to high blood pressure,^[85] herpes,^[86] gonorrhea^[87] and HIV/AIDS.^[88]

It is time for all of us to stand up and end our participation in the failed Pharma-based health care paradigm so we can take back our health and our liberty.

If vaccines are safe and effective for everyone, then those, who choose to get vaccinated, should have nothing to fear from those, who choose not to get vaccinated. If vaccines are not safe and effective for everyone, then it is unethical to require anyone to get vaccinated without their voluntary, informed consent.

The human right to protect bodily integrity trumps any authority the state gives to some citizens to coerce other citizens into taking medical risks against their will. Because if the state can tag, track down and force individuals to be injected with biologicals of known and unknown toxicity today, then there will be no limit on which individual freedoms the state can take away in the name of the greater good tomorrow.

Please go to www.NVIC.org and volunteer to work in your state to defend vaccine exemptions. Empower yourself and stand up for liberty today.

It’s your health. Your family. Your choice.

References:

[1] VFA (Association of Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies) – Germany. Statistics: The Global Pharmaceutical Market. Apr. 14, 2010.

[2] Weinberger J. America’s Top Selling Prescription Drugs. CNBC. May 23, 2011.

[3] Rosenberg M. Current USA Population. About.com. July 21, 2011.

[4] Liptak A. U.S. prison population dwarfs that of other nations. New York Times. Apr. 23, 2008.

[5] IAC. State Immunization Mandates.

[6] Miller NZ,, Goldman GS. Infant mortality rates regressed against number of vaccine doses routinely given: Is there a biological or synergistic toxicity?Human and Experimental Toxicology: Published online May 4, 2011.

[7] Matthews AW. So Young and So Many Pills: More Than 25% of Kids and Teens in the U.S. Take Prescriptions on a Regular Basis. Wall Street Journal.Dec. 28, 2010.

[8] CDC. Prescription Drug Use Continues to Increase: U.S. Prescription Drug Data for 2007-2008. NCHS Data Brief: Number 42. September 2010.

[9] See Reference #1.

[10] Van Arnum P. U.S. Prescription Drug Market Rebounds. Pharmaceutical Industry Sourcing and Management: Volume 6, Issue 4. PharmaTech.com. April 7, 2010.

[11] Pickert K. The Unsustainable U.S. Health Care System. Time Magazine. Feb. 4, 2010.

[12] See References #7 & 8.

[16] CDC. Vaccine Price List – 1986.

[17] CDC. Vaccine Price List – 2011.

[18] Hamilton J. Rising costs complicate vaccine guidelines. NPR. July 20, 2011

[19] Drug Discovery & Development. Vaccine Market A Refuge for Big Pharma. January 13, 2011.

[20] Reuters. BCC Research Press Release: Global Market for Vaccines Worth $36.3 Billion by 2013. Technologies and Global Markets. Jan. 24, 2008

[21] National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986(PL99-660).

[22] Supreme Court of the United States. Russell Bruesewitz et al v. Wyeth et al. No. 09-152. Argued October 12, 2010 – Decided February 22, 2011

[23] NVIC. Press Release: NVIC Cites “Betrayal” of Consumers by U.S. Supreme Court Giving Total Liability Shield to Big Pharma. Feb. 23, 2011.

[24] HRSA. Vaccine Injury Compensation Program Statistics

[25] C.S.Mott Children’s Hospital. National Poll on Children’s Health: Vaccine and Medication Safety Are Parents’ Top Research Priorities. University of Michigan Health Center. October 11, 2010.

[26] Consumer Reports. Press Release: Two-Thirds of Americans Say Drug Makers Have Too Much Sway Over Doctors; Information About Safety and Side Effects Sorely Needed. Aug. 24, 2010.

[27] Barnes PM, Bloom B. Complementary and Alternative Medicine Use Among Adults and Children: United States, 2007. National Health Statistics Reports 2008; No. 12.

[28] Shalmali P. Complementary Medicine Popular with Healthcare Workers. MedPage Today. Aug. 19, 2011.

[29] Dettman RL. Organic Produce: Who’s Eating It? A Demographic Profile of Organic Produce Consumers. Paper selected for presentation at the American Agricultural Economics Association Annual Meeting July 27-28, 2008.

[30] Organic Trade Association. Consumer survey finds 41% of parents buying more organic foods than a year ago: US families are buying a wider variety of organic products than ever. Organic Trade Association December 8, 2010.

[31] Organic Consumers Association.

[32] Institute for Responsible Technology.

[33] Fluoride Action Network.

[34] Consumers for Dental Choice.

[35] Doheny K. Home Births Jump 20 Percent in 4 Years: U.S. Report. HealthDay News. May 20, 2011

[36] Eisenberg DM, Davis RB. Trends in Alternative Medicine use in the United States, 1990-1997. JAMA 1998; 280(18): 1569-1575

[37] See Reference #24

[38] Crowe K. Many whooping cough victims have been immunized; Experts Spar Over Prospects of New Disease Strain. Watchdog Institute. Dec. 13, 2010.

[39] Attkisson S. How Independent Are Vaccine Defenders? CBS-TV News. July 25, 2008.

[40] Fisher BL. WA & NJ Families Stand Up for Vaccine Choices. NVIC Vaccine E-News. Mar. 23, 2011.

[41] See Reference #5.

[42] NVIC. Testimonials. Cry for Vaccine Freedom Wall.

[43] Walker E. Should Doctors Fire Young Patients if Their Parents Refuse to Vaccinate Them? MedPage Today. Oct. 29, 2009.

[44] Allen J. Doctors Refuse to See Unvaccinated Children. 7 News (ABC-Denver). Feb. 27, 2011

[45] Caplan A. Time to mandate influenza vaccination in health-care workers. The Lancet July 23, 2011; 378(9788): 310-311.

[46] Sapatkin D. Considering vaccine as public responsibility. Philadelphia Inquirer.. June 24, 2011.

[47] Ropeik D. Refusing vaccination? Risky behavior puts others in danger. Morning Sentinel (Maine). Aug. 20, 2011.

[48] CNN News. Vaccinations…or Jail: County’s Threat to Parents. Nov. 17, 2007.

[49] Fisher BL. WA State Vaccine Law Threatens Exemptions & Threatens Privacy. Feb. 13, 2011. Also see Reference #40.

[50] Kleifgen B. Informed Consent in Vaccination. Vaccine Ethics.org. July 2010.

[51] See References #42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48.

[52] Title 64. Interpretive Rule, Department of Health & Human Resources: Immunization Requirements & Recommendations for New School Enterers. West Virginia. March 21, 2011.

[53] Appeal of N.C. on behalf of her daughter, V.C. from action of the New York City Department of Education regarding immunization. Decision No. 16, 172. November 30, 2010.

[54] Salmon D. Mandatory Immunizations and the Role of Medical, Religious and Philosophical Exemptions. Unpublished Commentary. August 2002.

[55] Knight A. Religious Exemption to North Carolina’s Childhood Immunization Requirements. University of North Carolina School Law Bulletin. Fall 2004.

[56] Fisher BL. Doctors Denying Vaccine Risks: An American Tragedy. NVIC Vaccine E-News. April 21, 2011.

[57] Health Advocacy in the Public Interest (HAPI). Under Attack in Colorado: Religious & Personal Exemptions to Mandatory Vaccinations. July 27, 2011.

[58] AAP. State Government Affairs: State Legislation Report 2010. Childhood Immunization Challenges.

[59] Gilbert K. California mulls giving 12-year olds STD vaccine Gardasil without parental consent. LifeSiteNews.com. Aug. 12, 2011.

[60] See References #14 & 15.

[61] Moyer CS. CDC stresses need for flu shot every year. American Medical News. June 14, 2011.

[62] Fisher BL. Forcing Flu Shots on Health Care Workers: Who Is Next? NVIC Vaccine E-News. Sept. 29, 2011. Also see Reference #45.

[63] Jefferson T. Relation of study quality, concordance, take home message, funding, and impact in studies of influenza vaccines: systematic review.BMJ 2009; 338:b354.

[64] Kotz D. Flexible approach to vaccination comes under fire. U.S. News. Dec. 29, 2008.

[65] Orange County Register. CORRECTION re: August 4, 2008 article “Dr. Paul Offit Responds.” April 18, 2011.

[66] See Reference #56.

[67] Boyle CA, Boulet S et al. Trends in the Prevalence of Developmental Disabilities in US Children 1997-2000. Pediatrics. Published online May 23, 2011

[68] CDC. Asthma in the U.S.: Growing Every Year

[69] Mozes A. Nearly 1 in 10 U.S. Kids Diagnosed with ADHD. HealthDay News. Aug. 18, 2011.

[70] CDC. How Many Children Have Autism? (2006).

[71] Ostrow N. Autism Leads Rise of Developmental Disabilities. Bloomberg News. May 23, 2011.

[72] CDC. National Diabetes Fact Sheet - U.S. 2003.

[73] Landau E. Why are food allergies on the rise? CNN. Aug. 3, 2010.

[74] Vozella L. Inflammatory bowel disease in kids is on a mysterious rise. Herald Review. Sept. 21, 2010.

[75] Carey B. Bi-polar disease cases rise sharply in U.S. children. New York Times. Sept. 3, 2007.

[76] MacDorman MF, Mathews TJ. Behind International Rankings of Infant Mortality: How the U.S. Compares with Europe. NCHS. 2009.

[77] See Reference #6.

[78] NIH. Clinicaltrials.gov. Vaccine Clinical Trials. Accessed Aug. 23, 2011.

[79] Petrovsky N. BioPharm International. New Age Adjuvants: Friend or Foe? Aug. 2, 2007.

[80] DeYoung R. DNA Vaccines. Nvate.com. Aug. 18, 2011.

[81] DNAVaccine.com. GeoVax Announces Expansion of Phase 2A Human HIV/AIDS Vaccine Trial. Dec. 6, 2010.

[82] Stephens A. Could this vaccine end tooth decay? The Daily Mail (UK). Aug. 18, 2011.

[83] Kim J. Acne Vaccines: Therapeutic Option for the Treatment of Acne vulgaris? Journal of Investigative Dermatology 2008; 128: 2353-2354.

[84] Musgrove M. Nabi makes deal for smoking vaccine. Washington Post. Nov. 17, 2009.

[85] Sample I. Vaccine could offer protection against high blood pressure. The Guardian. Mar. 7, 2008.

[86] Valigra L. Genocea’s $35M VC round pushing herpes vaccine torward clinic. Masshightech.com. Jan. 5, 2011.

[87] UroToday Promising Target Identified for Gonorrhea Vaccine. July 20, 2005.

[88] Bowdler N. Monkey HIV vaccines ‘effective,’ say researchers. BBC News. May 11, 2011.

Click here to watch the video

What You Should Know About Meningococcal Disease & The Vaccine

2011-07-18T12:03:00.000-07:00

by Barbara Loe Fisher

Today, pediatricians give American babies as many as 33 doses of 13 different vaccines by 12 months of age.¹^,² Now, federal public health officials are considering recommending that doctors give four more doses of a new vaccine – meningococcal vaccine – to babies between two and 12 months old³^,⁴ in addition to the two doses children already get at 11 and 16 years old.⁵

There are big questions about the necessity, effectiveness, safety and cost of this new proposed change to the child vaccination schedule.

Meningococcal Disease Rare in the U.S.

Invasive Neisseria meningococcal disease is a bacterial infection that involves inflammation of the meninges of the brain and can lead to a serious blood infection. It is very rare in the United States. In our population of 308 million, there are between 1400 and 3000 cases every year that fluctuate with natural cycles.⁶Between 10 and 15% of the cases are fatal with another 10 to 20% ending with brain damage or loss of limbs.

Children Under Age Two Less Likely To Die

It is estimated that, annually, there are between 150 and 300 meningococcal deaths in the U.S.,⁷with an average of 16 babies under age 12 months dying from the disease⁸Children under age two are less likely to die from meningococcal infection compared to older age groups.⁹

Incidence in U.S. Has Decreased to Historic Lows

The good news is that the incidence of the disease has decreased more than 60 percent between 1998 and 2007 to less than 1 case in 100,000 people, which is an historic low in the U.S.¹⁰To put this death rate into context, there are three times as many Americans, who die from heat stroke¹¹or drown in boating accidents¹²every year than die from invasive meningococcal disease.

Maternal Antibodies, Natural Immunity Protects Majority

That is because mothers, who have innate immunity, transfer maternal antibodies to their newborns to protect them in the first few months of life until babies can make their own antibodies.¹³At any given time up 20 to 40 percent of us are asymptomatically colonizing meningococcal organisms in our nasal passages and throats, which throughout life boosts our innate immunity to invasive bacterial infection.^14,¹⁵By the time American children enter adolescence, the vast majority have asymptomatically developed immunity that protects them, which is how our population maintains naturally acquired herd immunity and why cases of invasive disease are so rare in all age groups.

Genetically Vulnerable At High Risk for Disease

However, a tiny minority of individuals have genetic variations and other unknown biological factors that prevent them from naturally developing protective circulating antibodies.¹⁶These are the individuals, tragically, who are up to 7,000 times more likely to get severe invasive meningococcal disease at some point in their lives.¹⁷Clearly, there must be greater attention paid to developing screening techniques to identify those high-risk individuals and help them avoid a potentially fatal or crippling meningococcal infection.

Environmental High Risk Factors

In addition to genetic factors that place some people at higher risk, there are other biological and environmental factors that make people more susceptible. These include smoking or living in a home where people smoke; a recent respiratory infection; crowded living conditions, such as in military and prisons settings; alcohol use; and an underlying chronic illness, especially immune deficiencies such as lupus or HIV/AIDS.¹⁸^,¹⁹

Constant, Close Personal Contact Required

It is not easy to develop invasive meningococcal disease.²⁰You have to be susceptible and have regular close personal contact, such as sharing a toothbrush with or kissing person, who is colonizing meningococcal organisms.

Know Symptoms, Get Immediate Medical Care

Symptoms of meningococcal disease include fever; severe headache; painful, stiff neck; nausea and vomiting; inability to look at bright lights; mental confusion and irritability; extreme fatigue/sleepiness; convulsions and unconsciousness.

In babies, signs of “irritability” can include persistent crying or high pitched screaming with arching of the back, which are symptoms of encephalitis or brain inflammation that can be caused by a bacterial or viral infection or a vaccine reaction.²¹These are danger signs and it is very important to seek immediate medical attention and treatment to help prevent permanent injury or death.

Vaccine Has Only 4 Strains

In 2000, the CDC recommended that all college freshmen get a dose of meningococcal vaccine containing four strains (A, C, W-35, Y)²²and, in 2005, that policy was expanded to include all 11 year olds.²³There is one problem: the vaccine does not contain strain B, which is the strain associated with more than 50 percent of meningococcal cases and deaths,²⁴especially in children under five years old.²⁵

Vaccine Effectiveness Does Not Last, Need Booster

There is another problem: The vaccine has been found to be, at best, only about 58 percent effective within two to five years after adolescents have gotten the shot.^26,²⁷ So, in 2011, when public health officials realized that one dose of meningococcal vaccine did not last, they said that all 16 year olds should get a booster dose.

Vaccine Costs $90 Or More Per Dose

There is another problem: one dose of meningococcal vaccine costs about $90²⁸or more.

The health care price tag to give four doses of meningococcal vaccine to all four million babies born every year in the U.S. costs a whopping $1.4 billion dollars per year. Plus two more doses for all 11 and 16 year olds adds on another nearly $1 billion dollars.

Vaccine Reactions Add to Vaccine Cost

There is another problem. The health care cost to the American taxpayer does not end with the outlay of cash to pay for 6 doses of the vaccine for every child. What about the unacknowledged health care costs to treat the children, who suffer a vaccine reaction that leads to a trip to the ER or hospitalization or permanent brain and immune system problems?

Vaccine Reaction Injuries & Deaths Reported

The manufacturer product inserts for meningococcal vaccine list the following adverse events reported during clinical trials or post licensure: irritability, abnormal crying, fever, drowsiness, fatigue, injection site pain and swelling, sudden loss of consciousness (syncope), diarrhea, headache, joint pain, Guillain Barre Syndrome, brain inflammation, convulsions, and facial palsy.²⁹^,^30,³¹

The federal Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS), which includes only a small fraction of the health problems that occur after vaccination in the U.S.,³²^,³³has recorded more than 2,000 serious health problems, hospitalizations and injuries following meningococcal shots, including 33 deaths with half of the deaths occurring in children under age six.³⁴

Limited or No Data on Giving Vaccine With Other Vaccines

There is very limited or no data on the safety and effectiveness of giving meningococcal vaccines with other vaccines at the same time.³⁵In 2007, the National Vaccine Information Center reported an increase in serious adverse event reports to VAERS when meningococcal vaccine was given simultaneously with HPV vaccine to young girls.³⁶^,³⁷

States & Colleges Already Mandated Vaccine to Attend School

Ten states have already made meningococcal shots mandatory to attend junior high school and 32 states require the shot for college freshman.³⁸^,³⁹If the CDC recommends all babies and children get an additional four meningococcal shots, drug companies and medical organizations financially connected to the pharmaceutical industry⁴⁰will certainly lobby state legislatures to legally require the vaccine for all children attending day care centers and schools.

Are Vaccine Companies Pressuring Government?

Question: Why is the government bowing to pressure from drug companies to recommend and mandate that all American babies get four doses of a very expensive meningococcal vaccine that has big problems with effectiveness, especially when naturally acquired herd immunity is already doing such a good job of controlling the disease in the U.S.?

Trading Natural Herd Immunity for Temporary Vaccine Immunity

By mandating that every American use meningococcal vaccine from infancy, we will be trading the natural herd immunity our population has achieved for inferior vaccine acquired immunity that does not last. That will make our population vaccine dependent, which is great news for drug company stockholders, but will it be bad news for our health and the environment?

Creating a Nightmare Scenario?

Like with excessive antibiotic use,⁴¹^,⁴²we just might be creating a nightmare scenario for meningococcal organisms to mutate into more lethal vaccine resistant bugs⁴³^,⁴⁴^,⁴⁵that will have all of us highly susceptible to invasive meningococcal infection and wishing we had taken the precautionary principle⁴⁶much more seriously.

Bottom line: Meningococcal vaccine is available and can be used by anyone who wants to use it, but there is no reason for government to recommend and schools to mandate the shots for everyone.

Learn More About Disease & Vaccine

Learn more about meningococcal disease and the vaccine at www.NVIC.org and find out what you can do to protect your right to make informed, voluntary vaccine choices in America.

References:

2010; 50(Supplement 2): 554-565.
[25] See Reference #9. Page 50.

[26] CDC. Updated Recommendations for Use of Meningococcal Conjugate Vaccines – ACIP, 2010. JAMA

2011; 305(13): 1291-1293.
[27] See Reference # 9. Pages 55-59.

[28] Tucker M. A Difficult Vaccine Decision. EGMN Notes from the Road. November 2, 2010.

[29] Sanofi-Pasteur. Menactra Product Information Insert. April 22, 2011.

[30] Novartis. Menveo Product Manufacturer Insert. March 2011.

[31] Sanofi Pasteur. Menommune Product Manufacturer Insert. January 2009.

[32] Braun M. Vaccine adverse event reporting system (VAERS): usefulness and limitations.

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
[33] Rosenthanl S, Chen R. The reporting sensitivities of two passive surveillance systems for vaccine adverse events. Am J Public Health 1995; 85: pp. 1706-9.

[34] VAERS. MedAlerts database. Reports of health problems, hospitalizations, injuries and deaths following receipt of meningococcal vaccine.

[35] See References #27-29.

[36] NVIC. Press Release: Analysis Shows Greater Risk of GBS Reports When HPV Vaccine Is Given with Meningococcal and Other Vaccines. August 15, 2007.

[37] Debold V, Downey C, Fisher BL. Human Papilloma Virus Vaccine Safety Analysis of Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System Reports (VAERS): Part III. NVIC August 15, 2007; Adverse Events & Co-Administration of Vaccines: Pages 15-27.

[38] Immunization Action Coalition. Meningococcal Vaccine Mandates for Elementary and High Schools. June 2, 2011.
[39] Immunization Action Coalition. Meningococcal Vaccine Mandates for Colleges & Universities. June 2, 2011.

[40] Fisher BL. Doctors Denying Vaccine Risks: An American Tragedy. NVIC. April 21, 2011.

[41] FDA. Antimicrobial Resistance. June 30, 2011.

[42] Miller T. Spread of Antibiotic-Resistant ‘Superbugs’ Raises Global Concerns. PBS NewsHour. August 12, 2010.

[43] Brueggemann AB, Pai R et al. Vaccine Escape Recombinants Emerge After Pneumococcal Vaccination in the United States. PLOS PathogensNovember 2007; 3(11): e16B.

[44] Millar EV, Pimenta FC et al. Pre-and Post-Conjugate Vaccine Epidemiology of Pneumococcal Serotype 6C Invasive Disease and Carriage Within Navajo and White Mountain Apache Communities. Clinical Infectious Diseases 2010; 51(11): 1258-1265.

[45] van Gils EJM, Hak E et al. Effect of Seven-Valent Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine on Staphylococcus aureus Colonization in a Randomized Controlled Trial. PLOS One June 10, 2011; 6(6):e20229.

[46] Science & Environmental Health Network (SEHN). The Wingspread Statement on the Precautionary Principle. January 1998.

Click here to watch the video:

Vaccines & Liberty: Let Freedom Ring

2011-07-01T05:32:00.000-07:00

by Barbara Loe Fisher

My country, ’tis of thee, 

Sweet land of liberty, 

Of thee I sing: 

Land where my fathers died, 

Land of the pilgrims’ pride, 

From every mountain side, 

Let freedom ring.^[1]

What is liberty?

Webster’s Dictionary defines Liberty as “the quality or state of being free,” which means:^[2]

“Freedom from physical restraint;”
“Freedom from arbitrary or despotic control;”
“The positive enjoyment of various social, political or economic rights and privileges;” and
“The power of choice.”

What is tyranny?

Tyranny is defined as “oppressive power” and “especially, oppressive power exerted by government;”^[3]

“The office, authority and administration of a tyrant;”
“A rigorous condition imposed by some outside agency or force;” or
“An oppressive, harsh or unjust act.”

The courageous men and women, who founded the United States of America and declared independence from tyranny on July 4, 1776, were escaping from the oppression of iron-fisted monarchies. They risked their lives to establish a nation that celebrates liberty, where citizens would be free from persecution for their religious beliefs and would not be under the thumb of an elitist aristocracy.

In the first sentence of the U.S. Constitution, the founders of our nation pledged “to establish justice” and “to secure the Blessings of Liberty” for all citizens.^[4]If democracy is government by the people through elected representatives and majority rule, liberty is defined in the Declaration of Independence^5]and the U.S. Constitution as a natural right belonging to everyone that should never be taken away by the majority.

Natural rights, which are known today as human or moral rights, are individual liberties that belong to all humans no matter where they live.^[6]The right to privacy and free expression in speech and press were defined in the Bill of Rights^[7]as individual liberties, which limit the power of government and prevent abuse of individuals and minorities.

Today, there is no greater threat to liberty in America than the government enforced use of pharmaceutical products, such as vaccines, sold by corporations for profit that can both harm individuals^8],^9]and can fail to work at all.^[10],^[11]Our natural right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” is being violated when government health officials enlist doctors and politicians to track down and coerce us into injecting ourselves and our children with biological products that carry significant health risks for some without our voluntary, informed consent.^12],^[13]

When Americans are threatened with loss of economic and societal privileges, such as being denied a public education, denied medical care, denied health insurance and denied the right to hold a job if we don’t get every dose of every government mandated vaccine, there is no other word for this but tyranny.^14]^,^[15]

The “community immunity” club being used today to take away civil liberties in the name of the greater good, conveniently fails to make a distinction between diseases. Hepatitis B is not polio and chickenpox is not smallpox but vaccine laws requiring mass use of dozens of doses of new vaccines treat all infectious diseases and vaccines the same way.

The large gaps in scientific knowledge about the damage that repeated vaccination from day of birth throughout life could be doing to our brains and immune systems has turned current vaccine laws into a forced, uncontrolled scientific experiment on the American population.^[16],^[17]^,^[18]

The fact that some of us are at greater risk for having our health crippled or losing our lives to vaccines because of genetic and biological risk factors we inherited makes one-size-fits-all vaccine laws “cruel and inhuman in the last degree.”^[19]

The fact that government operated electronic vaccine tracking systems are collecting medical data on us and sharing it with industry and vaccine developers without our informed consent, is a violation of our privacy.^[20]

The fact that scores of new genetically engineered vaccines are being brought to market^[21],^22],^23],^[24]by a wealthy pharmaceutical industry^[25] shielded from civil liability^[26] is a corporate stockholder's dream and a health care consumer’s worst nightmare.

The founders of our country could not have imagined this day would come in America when violation of the most important liberty, the right to self determination and the freedom to choose what we are willing to risk our lives or our children’s lives for, would be taken away from us.

For if the State can tag, track down and force individuals to be injected with biologicals of known and 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.

Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence said “All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”^[27]

Albert Einstein, one of the world’s greatest scientists, echoed Jefferson’s defense of individual liberty, urging us to “Never do anything against conscience, even if the state demands it.”^[28] A philosopher and humanitarian, Einstein insightfully observed that “Force always attracts men of low morality.”^29]

On this July 4^th, I am celebrating the spirit, courage and common sense of the authors of the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution. They knew that individual liberties were the heart and soul of a democracy because individual liberties protect the people from governmental abuse of power.

Are you ready to stand up for the right to follow your conscience and choose the kind of preventive health options you want for yourself and your children, including the freedom to choose to use every government recommended vaccine, some vaccines, or no vaccines at all?

Sign up for NVIC’s free Advocacy Portal at www.NVICAdvocacy.org and learn how you can protect health liberty in your state. Become a donor supporter of NVIC and protect the human rights of all Americans. ^[30]

References:

[1] My Country, Tis’ of Thee. Song sheet. (Author: Samuel Francis Smith, July 1831). Duke University Library Collection.

[2] Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Definition of Liberty.

[3] Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Definition of Tyranny.

[4] United States Constitution. September 17, 1787. U.S. National Archives.

[5] The Declaration of Independence. July 4, 1776. U.S. National Archives.

[6] Fagan A. Human Rights. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. July 5, 2005.

[7] The Bill of Rights. March 4, 1789. Ratified as Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, December 15, 1791. U.S. National Archives.

[8] Coulter HL, Fisher BL. DPT: A Shot in the Dark. 1985: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

[9] Health Resources Services Administration (HRSA), U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. Vaccine Injury Compensation Program Statistics Report.

[10] Crowe K. CDC to Announce Preliminary Findings on California Whooping Cough Epidemic. Watchdog Institute. March 27, 2011.

[11] WABC-TV (NY). Whooping Cough Outbreak on Long Island. June 22, 2011.

[12] Fisher BL. Washington & New Jersey Families Stand Up for Vaccine Choices. NVIC. March 23, 2011.

[13] NVIC. Cry for Vaccine Freedom Wall. Public reports of harassment by medical personnel for attempting to make informed, voluntary decisions about vaccination.

[14] CNN. Vaccinations… or Jail: County’s Threat to Parents. November 15, 2007.

[15] Fisher BL. Forcing Flu Shots on Health Care Workers: Who Is Next? NVIC. September 29, 2010.

[16] Fisher BL. Vaccines, Autism & Chronic Inflammation: The New Epidemic. Autism File. 2009.

[17] Fisher BL, Wrangham TK. NVIC Comments on Draft Recommendations on the Federal Vaccine Safety System. National Vaccine Advisory Committee. June 6, 2011.

[18] Fisher BL. In Memoriam: Infant Deaths & Vaccination. NVIC. May 24, 2011.

[19] Jacobsen v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11(1905). LSU Law Center. See # [84].

[20] Fisher BL. The National Electronic Vaccine Tracking Registry: How the Plan to Force Vaccination Gave Birth to the National ID, A Government Health Records Database, and the End of Medical Privacy. July 1999.

[21] Kinman TG. Risks connected with the use of conventional and genetically engineered vaccines. Vet Q. 1992; 14(3): 110-8.

[22] Frey J. Biological safety concepts of genetically modified live bacterial vaccines. Vaccine 2007 Jul 26; 25(30): 5598-605.

[23] Science Daily. New Nanoparticle Vaccine Is Both More Effective and Less Expensive. September 20, 2007.

[24] U.S. National Institutes of Health. Vaccine Clinical Trials.

[25] Healthcare Finance. Global Vaccine Market Now Exceeds $20B. August 13, 2010.

[26] NVIC. Press Release: NVIC Cites “Betrayal of Consumers by U.S. Supreme Court Decision Giving Total Liability Shield to Big Pharma. February 23, 2011.

[27] American History Central, Encyclopedia of American History. Thomas Jefferson

[28] Brainy Quote. Albert Einstein.

[29] Brainy Quote. Albert Einstein.

[30] Support NVIC: Stand Up and Be Counted. Click here to make a donation.

Click here to watch the video

In Memoriam: Infant Deaths & Vaccination

2011-05-25T11:10:00.000-07:00

by Barbara Loe Fisher

Memorial Day is for remembering those, who have fought and died to defend America and preserve our civil liberties, including freedom of thought, speech, religious belief and conscience. So every Memorial Day I remember the children, who have died after receiving state mandated vaccines, and honor their mothers and fathers, who grieve for them.

Death Has Always Been A Vaccine Complication

From the first human vaccines developed two centuries ago, smallpox and rabies vaccines, death has always been a complication of vaccination.¹² In 1933, the whole cell pertussis vaccine’s ability to kill without warning was first reported in the medical literature when two infants died within minutes of a pertussis shot^.³In 1946, American doctors detailed the sudden deaths of twins within 24 hours of their second diphtheria-pertussis shot.⁴In 1986, the U.S. Congress passed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act and has awarded over $2 billion dollars in compensation for deaths and injuries caused by vaccines.⁵

U.S. Infant Mortality Rate High

According to the most recent National Vital Statistics Report, more than 26,000 American babies born alive in 2009 died before their first birthday, which gives the U.S. a very high infant mortality rate of 6 infant deaths per 1,000 live births.⁶ In 1960, America ranked 12^th in infant mortality among all nations of the world. In 2005, we had fallen to number 30. Today in America, there are more premature babies than ever before and more full term babies die before their first birthday than in most European countries.⁷

Some people argue that not every country calculates their infant mortality statistics the same way, which artificially inflates the poor ranking for the U.S.8 Even if adjustments would boost the U.S. ranking up several notches, there can be no question that a nation, which spends more per capita on healthcare 9 and legally requires their children to get more vaccines than any other country, should have one of the best – not one of the worst – infant mortality rates, especially for healthy babies born full term.

New Study: More Vaccines = Higher Infant Mortality Rate

Now there is a new study published in a peer reviewed medical journal that NVIC has helped to make publicly accessible to everyone, which reveals that developed nations with poor infant mortality rates, like the U.S., tend to give their infants more doses of vaccines before age one.¹⁰The study’s authors found “a high statistically significant correlation between increasing numbers of vaccine doses and increasing infant mortality rates.” To put this into perspective, doctors give American babies 26 doses of vaccines before age one, which is twice as many vaccinations as babies in Sweden and Japan get.

Is it really just a “coincidence” that the infant mortality rate is twice as high in America compared to Sweden and Japan, where half as many vaccinations are given to very young babies?

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome & Vaccination

A mother and father’s worst nightmare is to watch their baby die before reaching their first birthday. When a healthy baby dies unexpectedly shortly after routine vaccinations, often parents ask legitimate questions about whether the vaccines did it. They are usually met with quick denials by doctors and public health officials anxious to defend the safety of vaccines.

The death certificates of many babies, who die shortly after vaccination, list Sudden Infant Death Syndrome or SIDS as the cause of death, which means that no specific symptoms or other reason for death could be found.¹¹That was true in the 1980s, when I was interviewing parents of babies, who died suddenly after DPT shots, for the 1985 book DPT: A Shot in the Dark,¹²which Dr. Harris Coulter and I wrote at a time when SIDS – a newly created medical term - was becoming the leading cause of infant mortality in the U.S ¹³

Vaccine Deaths Described in 1985 Book

What I found and detailed in our book is that most babies dying after DPT shots were not found dead in their cribs without any symptoms before they died. They were dying after suffering plenty of vaccine reaction symptoms within days of their DPT shot, symptoms like high fever; sudden collapse; hours of persistent crying or high pitched screaming with arching of the back that can be a sign of brain inflammation; severe diarrhea; redness, swelling and pain at the injection site and signs of seizures that too many pediatricians were blowing off as unimportant. Other babies, who received several DPT shots, were described by their mothers as suffering a progressive mental and physical deterioration that got worse after each shot before the baby was found dead in the crib.

Inconvenient Truth: More Full Term Babies Dying in America

Several studies in the 1980s showed an association between infant death and DPT vaccinations.¹⁴¹⁵ Today, it is thought that genetic and environmental risk factors combine to leave SIDS babies with signs of petechial hemorrhages, lung congestion and brainstem and neurotransmitter dysfunction.¹⁶ Most doctors continue to deny that vaccination is a risk factor for SIDS¹⁷and say that SIDS has declined since pediatricians launched a national campaign in the 1990s to put babies on their backs to sleep,¹⁸but others point out that the only reason SIDS death statistics have gone down is because, today, fewer infant deaths are labeled “SIDS” by doctors and coroners.¹⁹

The inconvenient truth remains that the numbers of pre-term births continues to increase in America and there are more full-term babies dying before their first birthday than in most developed nations of the world. ²⁰

Half of U.S. Children Chronically Ill

Health officials have no explanation for this horrible child death statistic. They also have no explanation for the fact that, today, an estimated 43 to 54 percent of all American children suffer with at least one chronic illness requiring health insurance reimbursement, including a staggering 26 percent of children under age six years at high risk for developmental, social or behavioral delays.²¹Government officials now admit that, In the past decade, developmental disabilities among American children has increased by a whopping 17 percent and is led by a rise in autism and ADHD.²²²³

American Children Used To Be Healthier

This is not the way it used to be in America when I was growing up in the 1950s and early 1960s. Back then, women were not getting vaccinated during pregnancy ²⁴ and there were only a few vaccines given to babies²⁵and there were few children suffering with learning disabilities, ADHD, autism, asthma and severe allergies,²⁶²⁷ diabetes,²⁸²⁹ bi-polar disorders³⁰and taking a cocktail of prescription medications.³¹And the U.S. was ranked number 12 among all nations in infant mortality, not near the bottom of the list.

Child Health Report Card: F

This is not a very good health report card for a nation that, in the last 50 years, has paid tens of trillions of dollars to the pharmaceutical industry, public health agencies and pediatricians telling us to trust their advice about how to keep our children healthy. More health insurance and more “medical homes” will not turn F’s into A’s on that bad health report card.

May 1986: Parents Reported Vaccine Infant Deaths to CDC

Exactly 25 years ago, in May 1986, I joined with mothers and fathers, whose babies died after DPT shots, and gave a presentation to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. We told physician members of the CDC’s vaccine policymaking committee, who wanted state legislators to strictly enforce laws legally requiring children to get 23 doses of 7 vaccines starting at two months through age six, that doctors did not really know how many children were dying after vaccination. You can read the transcript of that 1986 CDC meeting³² on NVIC’s website and decide for yourself whether anything has really changed in 25 years except the fact that, now, public health officials are ordering doctors to give children 48 doses of 14 vaccines starting on day of birth through age six, with half of those doses given before age one.

On NVIC’s website at NVIC.org, you can also visit the virtual International Memorial for Vaccine Victims to read about or post a description of a vaccine-related death;³³ you can research and read descriptions of deaths following vaccination made to the federal Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System;³⁴ and you can learn more about vaccine reactions so, if your pediatrician does not educate you, you will be armed with that life saving information.³⁵

Vaccine Safety Assumptions Are Dangerous

A death is a death, no matter what the cause. Every death that occurs after vaccination cannot be automatically presumed to be causally related to the vaccines recently given. However, to assume that all or most infant deaths, which occur within hours, days or weeks after vaccination, are just a “coincidence” and not related to vaccination is both scientifically implausible and dangerous.

It is especially dangerous for individual families, as well as for our entire population, to make assumptions about vaccine safety in a vacuum of knowledge. When high infant mortality rates in America correspond with the high numbers of vaccines babies are being given in the first year of life, credible investigation into the child death and chronic disease epidemic should be our highest national priority and vaccination should not be left off the table.

We must remember these children.

Click here to read the new study by Miller & Goldman: Infant mortality rates regressed against number of vaccine doses routinely given: Is there biochemical or synergistic toxicity?

Click here to order the book A Shot in the Dark by Coulter & Fisher.

Click here to read a partial transcript of the May 12, 1986 Meeting at the CDC.

REFERENCES:

1 CME Resource. Smallpox Vaccination: An Update . 2009.

2 Time Magazine. Infectious Disease: Preventing the Incurable. August 14, 1964.

3 Madsen T. 1933. Vaccination against whooping cough. JAMA 1933; 101(3): 187-88

4 Werne J, Garrow I. Fatal anaphylactic shock occurrence in identical twins following second injection of diphtheria toxoid and pertussis antigen. JAMA 1946; 131(9): 730-35.

5 Health Resources Services Administration (HRSA). National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program Vaccine Injury Table.

6 Kochanek KD, Xu J. Deaths: Preliminary Data for 2009. National Vital Statistics Report March 16, 2011. 59(4): 1-68.

7 MacDorman MF, Matthews TJ. Behind International Rankings of Infant Mortality: How the U.S. Compares With Europe. National Center for Health Statistics Data Brief: November 2009.

8 MacDonald E. Financial Times Gets It Wrong on U.S. Infant Mortality Rates. Fox Business News. April 13, 2011.

9 UC Atlas of Global Inequality. Health Care Spending.

10 Miller NZ,, Goldman GS. Infant mortality rates regressed against number of vaccine doses routinely given: Is there a biochemical or synergistic toxicity? Human and Experimental Toxicology: Published online May 4, 2011.

May 4 Press Release: Think Twice Global Vaccine Institute.

11 National Institutes for Health. National Center for Biotechnology Information. National Library of Medicine. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

12 Coulter HL, Fisher BL. DPT: A Shot in the Dark. 1985. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. (1991, Avery, Penguin).

13 See Reference #10, Page 5.

14 Torch WC. Diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus (DPT) immunization: a potential cause of the sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). American Academy of Neurology, 34^th Annual Meeting, 1982. Neurology 32(4).

15 Walker AM, Jick H et al. Diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis immunization and sudden infant death syndrome. Am J Public Health 1987; 77:945-951.

16 Hunt CE, Hauck FR. Sudden infant death syndrome. CMAJ 2006: 174(13).

17 Centers for Disease Control. Vaccine Safety: Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) and Vaccines.

18 Robert Woods Johnson Medical School. News Release: Study Identifies that Multiple Risk Factors Existed in 78 Percent of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Cases. February 15, 2010.

19 See Reference #6, Page 9. Also Reference #10, Pages 5-6.

20 See Reference #7: Key Findings

21 Bethell CD, Kogan MD et al. A National and State Profile of Leading Health Problems and Health Care Quality for US Children: Key Insurance Disparities and Across-State Variations. Academic Pediatrics 2011; 11(3S): 22-33.

22 Boyle CA, Boulet S et al. Trends in the Prevalence of Developmental Disabilities in US Children 1997-2000. Pediatrics. Published online May 23, 2011.

23 Ostrow N. Autism Leads Rise in Developmental Disabilities in U.S. Kids. Bloomberg News. May 23, 2011.

24 Brooks M. Jump in Influenza Immunization Rates Among Pregnant Women. Medscape. December 3, 2011.

25 Immunization Action Coalition. Historic Dates and Events Related to Vaccines and Immunization.

26 Asthma and Allergy Foundation. Asthma Facts & Figures.

27 Enriquez R, Addington W et al. The relationship between vaccine refusal and self-report of atopic disease in children. JACI 2005; 115(4) 737-744.

28 Lee JM, Okumura MJ et al. Trends in Hospitalizations for Diabetes Among Children and Young Adults – United States 1993-2004. Diabetes Care 2007; 30: 3035-3039.

29 Boyles S. Type 1 Diabetes May Double in Young Kids. Medicine.Net. May 27, 2009.

30 Carey, Benedict. Bipolar disorder cases rise sharply in U.S. children. New York Times. September 3, 2007.

31 Mathews AW. So Young and So Many Pills. Wall Street Journal. December 28, 2010.

32 Partial Transcript of the May 12, 1986 ACIP Meeting, Centers for Disease Control, Atlanta.

33 NVIC. International Memorial for Vaccine Victims.

34 Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS). MedAlerts Searchable Database.

35 NVIC. If You Vaccinate, Ask 8 Questions.

Click here to watch the video

Doctors Denying Vaccine Risks: An American Tragedy

2011-04-25T14:29:00.000-07:00

by Barbara Loe Fisher

It is a short 15 second public service message on the CBS Jumbotron on Times Square in New York City that encourages everyone to make informed vaccine choices. The message is sponsored by the nonprofit charity, the National Vaccine Information Center, and made possible by a donation from Mercola.com. It has been shown hourly since March 22, 2011 alongside much bigger ads for a variety of products marketed by large corporations.¹

AAP Strong Arms CBS

On April 13, the President of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) sent a letter to CBS containing misinformation about NVIC in an attempt to strong arm the network into taking the vaccine education message down before it is scheduled to end on April 28. The AAP letter was provided to bloggers,^2,³ who orchestrated an online smear campaign against NVIC and created a petition drive to increase pressure on CBS. Mainstream media outlets like The Guardian in Great Britain republished the AAP’s attack and added more disinformation.⁴

AAP: Follow the Money

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is a trade association with 60,000 pediatrician members that publishes guidelines for giving vaccines to children. In recent years, the public has learned that the AAP has been taking lots of money from vaccine manufacturers and refusing to disclose to the media just how much money it gets from Big Pharma.⁵

In the early 1980’s, the AAP lobbied Congress to give pediatricians and drug companies liability protection from vaccine injury lawsuits while parents of DPT vaccine injured children worked hard to get vaccine safety and informed consent provisions in the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986,⁶which has already paid out more than 2 billion dollars in federal compensation to children and adults harmed by vaccines.⁷ Today, when a pediatrician continues to vaccinate a child after the child has experienced vaccine reactions that get worse after each round of shots, that pediatrician is not held liable in a civil court of law when the child ends up brain damaged or dead because of the pediatrician’s negligence.

AAP: Censoring Vaccine Information

This, together with the fact that in February 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court gave drug companies a bigger shield⁸from vaccine injury lawsuits – even if the company could have made a safer vaccine – means that the only power Americans have left to protect ourselves from vaccine injury is to arm ourselves with information and defend the legal right to make vaccine choices.⁹But, clearly, that is getting harder to do when doctors and organizations paid by the pharmaceutical industry are trying to censor vaccine information and block all public conversation about vaccination, while lobbying to take away the human right to informed consent to medical risking taking.^10,¹¹^,^12,¹³

Dr. Paul Offit: Follow the Money

One of those doctors paid a lot of money by Big Pharma is Dr. Paul Offit.¹⁴He creates new vaccines and has made a career out of denying vaccine risks and defaming people,^15,¹⁶^,¹⁷^,¹⁸ who disagree with his unscientific opinions like his cavalier insistence that it would be safe to give a child 10,000 vaccines at once.¹⁹He delights in spreading misinformation about parents of vaccine injured children,²⁰doctors helping those children,²¹and journalists trying to cover both sides of the vaccine safety debate.

Offit spent a large part of his new book demonizing me and NVIC with the half witted, zealous obsession of a stalker.²²Just this week, a newspaper in Orange County, CA published a retraction²³for printing Offit’s defamatory accusation that veteran CBS journalist, Sharyl Attkisson, lied when she accurately reported in 2008 that Offit failed to inform CBS about exactly how much money he and his employer, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, are paid by Merck. Merck is the manufacturer and marketer of Vioxx and a whole slew of vaccines, including Offit’s rotavirus vaccine and Gardasil, hepatitis B, chicken pox, shingles and MMR vaccines.²⁴

Doctors Demanding We Must Trust

Why should we care about influential doctors, who take big money from Big Pharma, and then spend a lot of their time viciously attacking anyone daring to suggest that vaccines and vaccine policies could be made safer?

We should care because doctors don’t just ask but, increasingly, demand that we trust them with our health and the health of our children. Many pediatricians, who are now giving children six dozen doses of 16 vaccines starting on the day of birth,²⁵throw parents out of their office if they dare to ask too many questions about vaccination or ask for fewer vaccines to be given at once.^26,²⁷^,²⁸ While the AAP is promoting the idea that every child must live in a “family-centered medical home” so pediatricians can “oversee” children’s health,²⁹including giving children three times as many vaccinations as children got three decades ago, there are hundreds of new vaccines in the research pipeline.³⁰^,³¹

New Vaccines, New Mandates, Big Profits

How many of these hundreds of new vaccines will be fast tracked by the FDA^32,³³and mandated for children as soon as they are licensed?³⁴Probably most of them, because that is how drug companies with no liability make big profits – by making sure that every vaccine they make and sell is legally required to be used by every child. And adults are not exempt from the vaccine mandate creep either, just ask American health care workers, who are being fired if they don’t get an annual flu shot,³⁵as well as lots of other vaccines.

Doctors Should Partner With Parents To Prevent Vaccine Reactions

But what about the children, for whom the risks of vaccination are 100 percent? What about them? Aren’t their lives worth saving, too?

Shouldn’t organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics be doing everything they can to teach their members about how to be partners with parents in preventing vaccine reactions instead of throwing families out of their offices and attacking organizations like NVIC representing families, whose loved ones have suffered life-altering vaccine reactions?

Thirty years ago, when I took my healthy, precocious two and a half year old son into his pediatrician for his fourth DPT shot, I was told nothing about how to recognize a vaccine reaction. He had experienced an extremely severe local reaction after his third DPT shot but I did not understand the significance of that and neither did my pediatrician. So another DPT shot was given and I watched my child suffer a convulsion, collapse and many hours of unconsciousness shortly after his vaccination and did not realize he was experiencing a brain inflammation that would change his life and mine forever.

Brain Inflammation: From Infections & Vaccines

Brain inflammation³⁶is one of the most feared complications of vaccination and has been since the first vaccines – smallpox and rabies vaccines - were created and given to humans. ^37,³⁸ Doctors have known for more than a century that brain inflammation,³⁹whether it is caused by an infection or a vaccination,^40,⁴¹^,⁴²can cause different kinds of permanent brain dysfunction that ranges from multiple learning disabilities to medication resistant seizure disorders, mental retardation⁴³and, yes, sometimes can result in a constellation of brain dysfunction symptoms that are labeled by doctors as “autism.” ^44,⁴⁵

In the book, DPT: A Shot in the Dark, published a quarter century ago, there are many case histories of children, whose pediatricians did not tell mothers about how to recognize the symptoms of vaccine reactions and those children were revaccinated over and over again until they were permanently brain damaged or died.⁴⁶A number of these children came from families with strong medical histories of allergy and autoimmunity, like my family,⁴⁷which the pediatricians dismissed as unimportant.

Writing Off Vaccine Reaction Symptoms Is Dangerous

Too often doctors today – just like doctors back in the 1980’s – are not telling parents about what to look for after vaccines are given. Too many pediatricians today are listening to the advice of Paul Offit^48,⁴⁹ and, instead of adhering to the precautionary principle, are dangerously writing off symptoms of vaccine reactions as a “coincidence” without having a clue about whether that is true for an individual child.

At the National Vaccine Information Center, where we have been collecting information on vaccine reactions since 1982, it is clear to us that more than 50 percent of all vaccine injuries and deaths could potentially be prevented if doctors and parents were educated about what a vaccine reaction looks like and if pediatricians were much more cautious about re-vaccinating children when a child gets sicker and sicker after each round of shots.⁵^0,⁵¹^,⁵²

Learn How to Make Informed Vaccine Choices

Because your pediatrician may not tell you how to recognize a symptom of a vaccine reaction, you can download the brochure “If You Vaccinate, Ask 8 Questions” from NVIC’s website. It contains a list of vaccine reactions to look for like high pitched screaming and collapse/shock and seizures.⁵³At NVIC's website, you can also access vaccine product information published by the vaccine manufacturers and the FDA, as well as do your own research about vaccine reactions reported to the federal government.⁵⁴You can access a Vaccine Ingredient Calculator that educates you about vaccine components and how to make informed vaccine choices.⁵⁵

And remember, if your child suffers symptoms of marked deterioration in physical, mental or emotional health after vaccination, you need to make sure your pediatrician writes down those symptoms in the child’s permanent medical record.

One Size Does Not Fit All

America’s children would be better served if the American Academy of Pediatrics leadership educated its membership about how to be intelligent, compassionate partners with parents in preventing vaccine reactions, injuries and deaths rather than write off symptoms of vaccine reactions as a “coincidence” and bully parents into submitting to one-size-fits-all vaccine policies that are not safe for every single child. People are not all the same and we do not all react the same way to pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines.⁵⁶Some children are genetically and biologically at higher risk for suffering life-altering vaccine reactions.⁵⁷

Pretending that is not true is both intellectually dishonest and cruel. No child is expendable and no pediatrician should be encouraged to be a zealous implementer of state vaccine policy first instead of, first, doing no harm.

Click here to read the April 18, 2011 Letter from Barbara Loe Fisher, President, National Vaccine Information Center, to O. Marion Burton, MD, FAAP, President of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Click here to read the April 18, 2011 Letter from Barbara Loe Fisher, President, NVIC, to Leslie Moonves, President, CBS.

References:

1 NVIC. NVIC & Mercola.com on Times Square. NVIC Vaccine E-newsletter March 23, 2011.
2 Autism News Beat (an anonymous blogger). AAP asks CBS to pull anti-vaccine ad. April 13, 2011.
3 The Skeptical Teacher (aka anonymous blogger mattusmaximus). ALERT: Demand That CBS Not Air Outdoor Anti-Vaccine Ad! April 15, 2011.
4 Platt, M. Doctors demand the removal of anti-vaccine ad from Times Square. The Guardian (UK). April 18, 2011.
5 Lagorio C. How Independent Are Vaccine Defenders? CBS News. July 25, 2008.
6 NVIC. Federal Law – National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986.

7 Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program: Statistics Report (as of April 4, 2011).

8 Supreme Court of the United States. Russell Bruesewitz et al v. Wyeth et al. No. 09-152. Argued October 12, 2010 – Decided February 22, 2011.
9 Fisher BL. No Pharma Liability? No Vaccine Mandates. March 2, 2011.
10 AAP. State Government Affairs: State Legislation Report 2010. Childhood Immunization Challenges.
11 Friedman M. NJ Senate Bill would establish stricter rules on vaccination exemptions citing religious reasons. Star Ledger. March 15, 2011.
12 Fisher BL. Vaccines and Individual Rights. Wall Street Journal. January 27, 2007.
13 Fisher, BL. WA & NJ Families Stand Up for Vaccine Choices. NVIC Vaccine E-newsletter. March 23, 2011.
14 Fagone, J. Will This Doctor Hurt Your Baby? Philadelphia Magazine. March 27, 2009.

15 Handley JB. Columbia University Press and Dr. Paul Offit Sued for Autism’s False Prophets. Age of Autism. February 10, 2009.

16. Wallace A. An Epidemic of Fear: One Man’s Battle Against the Anti-VaccineMovement. Wired. November 2009.
17 Barbara Loe Arthur (aka Barbara Loe Fisher), Plaintiff v. Paul A. Offit, M.D. et al, Defendants. Civil Action No. 01:09-cv-1398. U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Plaintiff’s Opposition to Motion to Dismiss filed Feb. 3, 2010 on behalf of plaintiff by Jonathan W. Emord with Andrea G. Ferrenz, Peter A. Arhangelsky, Christopher K. Niederhauser of Emord & Associates, Counsel for Plaintiff.

18 Orange County Register. CORRECTION re: August 4, 2008 article “Dr. Paul Offit Responds.” April 18, 2011.
19 Kalb, C. Stomping Through a Medical Minefield. Newsweek Magazine. October 25, 2008.
20 Poling J. Letter re: Vaccines and Autism Revisited – The Hannah Poling Case. NEnglJMed 2008; 359:655-565. Aust 7, 2008.
21 Offit PA, Moser CA. The Problem with Dr. Bob’s Alternate Vaccine Schedule. Pediatrics 2009; 123: e164-e169.

22 Offit P. Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All. Basic Books: 2011.

23 See Reference #18.

24 MerckVaccines.com
25 AAP. 2011 Immunization Schedules.
26 Cry for Vaccine Freedom Wall.NVIC.
27 Kotz D. Flexible Approach to Vaccination Comes Under Fire.U.S. News. December 29, 2008.
28 Flanaga-Klygis EA, Sharp E. Frader JE. Dismissing the Family Who Refuses Vaccines: A Study of Pediatrician Attitudes.Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2005; 159: 929-934.
29 AAP.Medical Home (National Center for Medical Home Implementation).
30 U.S. National Institutes of Health.Vaccine Clinical Trials.
31 Associated Press. Vaccines market gives pharmaceutical industry a boost. NJ.com. November 17, 2009.
32 NVIC. Merck’s Gardasil Vaccine Not Proven Safe for Little Girls. NVIC Press Release: June 27, 2006.
33 Computer Sciences Corporation. Case Studies: Regulatory Affairs. Fast Tracking Vaccine Program.
34 Zimm A, Preston D. Merck Gets First U.S. Cancer Shot Mandate, From Texas (Update 3). Bloomberg News. February 2, 2007.
35 Fisher BL. Forcing Flu Shots on Healthcare Workers: Who Is Next? NVIC. September 10, 2010.
36 Merck Manual. Definition of Encephalitis (brain inflammation).
37 Altman LK. Smallpox Vaccine Transmission Raises Liability Issue. New York Times. December 16, 2002.
38 The Rockefeller University. The Birth of the Concept of Autoimmune Demyelinating Disease and Creation of An Animal Model to Test New Therapies for Multiple Sclerosis. The Rockefeller University Hospital.
39 News-Medical.Net. Brain inflammation is a sign of autism. Nov. 15, 2004.
40 Gold, R. Pertussis: The Disease & the Vaccine. Canadian Family Physician. Vol 32, January 1986, pp. 79-83.
41 Steinman L, Weiss A et al. Pertussis toxin is required for pertussis vaccine encephalopathy. Proc Natl Acad Sci, 1985. December; 82(24) 8733-8736.
42 Hofstetter HH, Shive CL, Forsthuber TC. Pertussis Toxin Modulates the Immune Response to Neuroantigens Injected in Incomplete Freund’s Adjuvant: Induction of Th1 Cells and Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis in the Presence of High Frequencies of Th2 Cells. The Journal of Immunology, 2002. 169: 117-125.
43 Stratton KR, Howe CJ, Johnston RB. DPT Vaccine and Chronic Nervous System Dysfunction: A New Analysis. Institute of Medicine: National Academy Press. 1994.
44 Ashwood P, Wills S, VandeWater J. The immune response in autism: a new frontier for autism research. Journal of Leukocyte Biology 2006; 80: 1-15.
45 Fisher BL. Vaccines, Autism & Chronic Inflammation: The New Epidemic. NVIC. 2008.
46 Coulter HL, Fisher BL. DPT: A Shot in the Dark. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 1985.
47 Fisher BL. Medical Science & Public Trust: The policy, ethics and law of vaccination in the 20^th & 21^st centuries. Presentation at the Vaccine Safety: Evaluating the Science Conference. January 3, 2011.
48 The Colbert Report. Interview with Paul Offit. February 1, 2011.
49 Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism. Interview with Paul Offit. January 31, 2011.
50 International Memorial for Vaccine Victims. Hepatitis B Vaccine Reaction Report. NVIC.
51 Epilepsy.com. Online discussion about seizures after immunizations. April 2005.
52 NVIC. Gardasil & The Damage Done: Gabrielle’s Gardasil Vaccine Reaction. December 2008.
53 NVIC. If You Vaccinate, Ask 8!

54 MedAlerts Vaccine Reaction Database.

55 Vaccine Ingredients Calculator.
56 National Center for Biotechnology Information. One Size Does Not Fit All.
57 PBS NewsHour. Autism Now. Six-Part Series (On Air April 18-25 and online)

Click here to watch the video

No Pharma Liability? No Vaccine Mandates.

2011-03-03T11:22:00.000-08:00

by Barbara Loe Fisher

On February 22, 2011 the U.S. Supreme Court shielded drug companies from all liability for harm caused by vaccines mandated by government when companies could have made a safer vaccine. ¹

From now on, drug companies selling vaccines in America will not be held accountable by a jury of our peers in a court of law if those vaccines brain damage us but could have been made less toxic. ²

If you get paralyzed by a flu shot or your child has a serious reaction to a vaccine required for school and becomes learning disabled, epileptic, autistic, asthmatic, diabetic or mentally retarded, you are on your own. ³, ⁴, ⁵, ⁶, ⁷, ⁸, ⁹, ¹⁰, ¹¹, ¹², ¹³, ¹⁴, ¹⁵, ¹⁶

From now on – unless we stand up and draw the line on vaccine mandates - the government can legally use police powers to force every American to get hundreds of vaccinations or be punished while those, who are hurt by vaccination, can be more easily swept under the rug and left to fend for themselves. ¹⁷, ¹⁸, ¹⁹&, ²⁰

Big Pharma Blackmailed Congress in 1982

To understand how this happened, we have to turn the clock back to 1982. That is when four big drug companies (Merck, Wyeth, Lederle, Connaught) blackmailed Congress by threatening to stop selling vaccines in America unless a law was passed giving them complete immunity from prosecution. ²¹

The pharmaceutical industry knew they were in big trouble because the old, crude whooping cough vaccine in the DPT shot was causing brain inflammation and death in many children; ²² the live oral polio vaccine was crippling children and adults with vaccine strain polio; ²³ and Americans were filing lawsuits to hold drug companies responsible for the safety of their products.

Supreme Court Allows Seat Belt Injury Lawsuits

On February 23, 2011, one day after the Supreme Court blocked lawsuits against drug companies for failing to make vaccines safer, they cleared the way for lawsuits against car manufacturers for failing to make seat belts safer. ²⁴

Civil Liability Is A Consumer Protection

Civil liability is a consumer protection. In the past, civil liability has protected us from wealthy tobacco corporations selling cigarettes that were once endorsed by doctors and the U.S. government. ²⁵, ²⁶ Civil liability has protected us from defective cars and toys and food and drugs that have passed federal licensing and safety standards. ²⁷, ²⁸, ²⁹, ³⁰

Civil liability put pressure on drug companies to develop and license a less toxic pertussis vaccine in 1996. ³¹ Civil liability put pressure on federal health agencies to replace use of a contaminated, neurotoxic polio vaccine that can paralyze people with one that cannot. ³²

Parents in 1980’s Opposed Total Liability Shield

Thirty years ago the wealthiest and most powerful industry lobbying on Capitol Hill and in state legislatures – the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry - tried very hard to get total liability protection for every vaccine that government regulates, recommends and mandates.

The only difference is that three decades ago, government officials were ordering doctors to give children 23 doses of 7 vaccines and, today, that direct order is up to 70 doses of 16 vaccines. ³³, ³⁴

The parent co-founders of the National Vaccine Information Center worked with Congress back in the early 1980’s and we refused to support any legislation that would legally let the pharmaceutical industry completely off the hook. ³⁵

1986 Law: Pharma Liability Was The Safety Net

Parents successfully argued that, if Congress was going to give drug companies partial liability protection through the creation of a federal vaccine injury compensation alternative to a lawsuit, then language had to be written into the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 that protected a citizen’s right to sue drug companies when federal compensation was denied, or the company had the technological ability to make a vaccine less toxic but refused to do it. ³⁶

Continued civil liability was the safety net for American consumers in that law. Continued civil liability was the leverage that gave some financial incentive for drug companies to make vaccines safer and gave some political incentive for government officials to award federal compensation to the vaccine injured. ³⁷

Supreme Court Wrote Pharma A Blank Check

Now, six activist Supreme Court judges have ripped the liability safety net from the U.S. mass vaccination system and written Big Pharma a blank check by deliberately ignoring the language and legislative history of the 1986 Vaccine Injury Act. Only Justices Sotomayor and Ginsburg, in an accurate and brilliant dissenting opinion, stood up for the people. ³⁸

Every American Pays Surcharge on Every Vaccination

Now it will be much easier for employees in government health agencies and the U.S. Department of Justice and the Vaccine Court to deny vaccine victims federal compensation, which 308 million Americans pay for through a surcharge on each one of the annual flu shots and the dozens of doses of vaccines public health officials say we all should get. ³⁹

There is $3 billion dollars waiting to be awarded in the Vaccine Injury Trust Fund, which has already been raided by federal agencies dragging vaccine victims through years of litigation and looking for ways to deny vaccine risks. ⁴⁰

130 vaccinations from birth to death

The Supreme Court has now given Pharma and evangelistic doctors a green light to lobby legislators to require every American, who lives to be 78 years old, to get more than 130 doses of government recommended vaccines starting on the day of birth through the last year of life. ⁴¹

Hundreds of New Vaccines In Development

That does not include use of any of the hundreds of new vaccines now being developed by drug companies with government approval that will be required in the future - whether those vaccines are necessary or not; whether the vaccines work or not; whether the vaccines are dangerous or not and whether the people want to use the vaccines or not. ⁴², ⁴³

This is not public health. This is exploitation of a captive people by a pharmaceutical industry seeking unlimited profits and by doctors in positions of authority, who have never seen a vaccine they did not want to mandate.

It is a drug company stockholder’s dream, a health care consumer’s worst nightmare and a prescription for tyranny.

Americans Forced to Get More Vaccines Than Anyone in World

Americans are required by law to use more vaccines than any other nation in the world. In no other country - not in Canada, ^44,the United Kingdom, ⁴⁵Australia, ⁴⁶ New Zealand, ⁴⁷the Netherlands, ⁴⁸ Germany, ⁴⁹Japan ⁵⁰or in any other country are citizens subjected to mandatory use of dozens of doses of vaccines under the threat of being denied a public education and health insurance and employment. ⁵¹ ⁵² ⁵³

There is no other word for this but tyranny.

Vaccines Are Phamaceutical Products

Vaccines are pharmaceutical products that carry a risk of injury or death, a risk that can be greater for some than others. If a vaccine is effective, then those choosing to use that vaccine will have nothing to fear from those who make another health care choice. If a vaccine is not effective, then consumers are being asked to take two risks: a risk they will be harmed and a risk the vaccine will not work at all.

That is not a product that should be legally required, especially when doctors cannot predict ahead of time who will be harmed by a vaccine and there is no civil liability for the company selling it, the person giving it or the government official mandating it.

No liability?

No accountability?

No mandates.

Stand Up for Health Freedom

If corporations are in business to make money; if doctors can make mistakes; if judges can get it wrong; if what is considered scientific truth today can turn out to be not true tomorrow; and if nobody is held accountable in the civil justice system for vaccines that could have been made safer, then now is the time for all Americans to stand up for health freedom in this great nation of ours.

There is no freedom more fundamental than the human right to be free to decide what risks we are wiling to take with our lives or our children’s lives.

Join NVIC: Help Us Help You

Please join with the non-profit National Vaccine Information Center, the largest, oldest and most experienced vaccine safety and informed consent watchdog in America.

Help us help you stand up for your right to know and freedom to choose which vaccines that you consider necessary, safe and effective enough to use.

Help us defend every American’s right to seek justice in a civil court of law when vaccines cause harm - or do not work - so that reactive and ineffective vaccines are forced off the market.

Protect Vaccine Exemptions in Your State

Vaccine laws are state laws. Sign up for our free Advocacy Portal at www.NVICAdvocacy.org that will teach you how to participate effectively in the democratic legislative process and defend vaccine exemptions in your state laws. Educate your elected representatives about why it is so important to include strong consumer protections and informed consent rights in all public health laws.

Donate $10 and NVIC Receives $30 to Defend Freedom

Please make a donation – large or small – to NVIC. Because for every dollar you donate by March 31, 2011 THREE dollars will be donated to NVIC by a courageous and compassionate American, who has pledged to expand national public education and state based advocacy programs.

This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to be part of building an effective, well-organized nationwide campaign to take back our freedom to make voluntary vaccination choices.

We Cannot Be Afraid

There is no time to waste. If we don’t learn from history, we will repeat it. We cannot be afraid to empower ourselves as a free people and make our democracy work.

We can win back the freedom we have lost and take control of our health and the future of America. We can do it if we are as brave as those freedom-loving men and women, who founded America two centuries ago.

Be the one to stand up today to make sure that your children and grandchildren and all Americans will not live under tyranny tomorrow.

No forced vaccination.

Not in America.

To watch a 90 second video PSA on this topic, click here.

References

¹ Supreme Court of the United States. Russell Bruesewitz et al v. Wyeth et al. No. 09-152. Argued October 12, 2010 – Decided February 22, 2011.

² Business Wire. NVIC Press Release: National Vaccine Information Center Cites “Betrayal of Consumers by U.S. Supreme Court Giving Total Liabilty Shield to Big Pharma. February 23, 2011.

³ Alderslade R, Bellman MH et al. The National Childhood Encephalopathy Study: a report on 1000 cases of serious neurological disorders in infants and young children from the NCES research team. In: Whooping Cough: Reports from the Committee on the Safety of Medicines and the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation. Department of Health and Social Security, London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office 1981. Br Med J (Clin Res Ed). 1981; May 16; 282(6276):1595-9.

⁴ Cody CL, Baraff L, Cherry JD et al. Nature and rates of adverse reactions associated with DTP and DT immunizations in infants and children. Pediatrics 1981; 68(5): 650-60.

⁵ Coulter HL, Fisher BL. DPT: A Shot in the Dark. 1985.

⁶ National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 (PL99-660).

⁷ Institute of Medicine. Adverse Effects of Pertussis & Rubella Vaccines. 1991.

⁸ Institute of Medicine. Adverse Events Associated with Childhood Vaccines: Evidence Bearing on Causality. 1994.

⁹ Institute of Medicine. DPT Vaccine & Chronic Nervous System Dysfunction: A New Analysis. 1994.

¹⁰ The Economist. Plagued by Cures. November 20, 1997.

¹¹ Enriquez R, Addington W et al. The relationship between vaccine refusal and self-report of atopic disease in children. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2005 Apr;115(4):737-44.

¹² McDonald KL, Hug SL et al. Delay in diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus vaccination is associated with reduced risk of asthma. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2008 Mar;121(3):626-31. Epub 2008 Jan 18.

¹³ Classen JB. Risk of vaccine induced diabetes in children with a family history of type 1 diabetes.The Open Pediatric Medical Journal 2008; 2:7-10.

¹⁴ Haber P, DeStefano F et al. 2004. Guillain-Barre syndrome following influenza vaccination. Journal of the American Medical Association.

¹⁵ Fisher BL. Vaccines, Autism & Chronic Inflammation: The New Epidemic. National Vaccine Information Center 2008.

¹⁶ Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS). 1990 - January 25, 2011: 358,599 vaccine adverse events reported.

¹⁷Jacobsen v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11(1905. LSU Law Center.

¹⁸ Fisher BL. Smallpox & Forced Vaccination: What Every American Needs to Know. National Vaccine Information Center 2001.

¹⁹ ACLU. 2009. NYCLU Urges Public Education and Voluntary Vaccine for H1N1 Flu, Warns Vaccine Mandate Violates Privacy Rights. Testimony by Donna Lieberman.

²⁰ Fisher BL. Forcing Flu Shots on Healthcare Workers: Who Is Next? September 29, 2010.

²¹ See Reference # 5.

²² See References # 3, 5, 6, 9

²³ See Reference # 8

²⁴ Supreme Court of the United States. Williamson et al v. Maza Motor of America, Inc. et al. No. 08-1314. Argued November 3, 2010 – Decided February 23, 2011.

²⁵ Time Magazine. Photo Archive: Your Doctor Wants You to Smoke.

²⁶ Verkuil P. A Leadership Case of Tobacco Use and Regulation. Benjamin Cardozo School of Law. University of Pennsylvania. 1998.

²⁷ Consumer Watch.com. Lawsuits: Car Steering Defect.

²⁸ Injury Board. Mattel Settles Claim Over 2007 Toy Recalls.

²⁹ Injury Board, LawWiki. Contaminated Food Products.

³⁰ Voreocos D, Johnson A. Merck Paid 3,468 Death Claims to Resolve Vioxx Suits. Bloomberg News. July 27, 2010.

³¹ The Pharma Letter. First Acellular DTP Vaccine Licensed for Infants in U.S.August 12, 1996.

³² Rock A. The Lethal Dangers of the Multi-Billion Dollar Vaccine Business. CNN Money. December 1, 1996.

³³ FDA Consumer. Kids Vaccination Schedule Changed. Jan. 1986.

³⁴ U.S. Centers for Disease Control. 2011 Child & Adolescent Immunization Schedules.

³⁵ See References # 5

³⁶ See Reference #6

³⁷ Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. Department of Health & Human Resources. HRSA.

³⁸ See Reference # 1

³⁹ U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. Health Resources Services Administration (HRSA). Vaccine Injury Compensation Program Trust Fund.

⁴⁰ U.S. Department of Treasury (Public Debt). Vaccine Injury Compensation Reports.

⁴¹ U.S. Centers for Disease Control. 2011 Adult Immunization Schedule.

⁴² Drug Discovery & Development. Vaccine Market A Refuge for Big Pharma. January 13, 2011.

⁴³ National Institutes of Health. Clinical Trials – New Vaccines (1,067). Accessed March 2, 2011.

⁴⁴ Vaccination Schedule – Canada and Vaccine Risk Awareness Network (VRAN – Canada’s Vaccine Exemptions

⁴⁵ Vaccination Schedule – United Kingdom.

⁴⁶ Vaccination Schedule – Australia

⁴⁷ Vaccination Schedule – New Zealand and informed choice in New Zealand

⁴⁸ Vaccination Schedule – Netherlands

⁴⁹ Vaccination Schedule – Germany

⁵⁰ Vaccination Schedule - Japan

⁵¹ CNN. Vaccinations or Jail: County’s Threat to Parents. November 15, 2007.

⁵² See References # 18, 19, 20

⁵³ National Vaccine Information Center. Cry For Vaccine Freedom Wall.

Click here to watch the video: