AAP Urges Early Autism Diagnosis, Then Drugs Often Used

AAP Urges Early Autism Diagnosis, Then Drugs Often Used

by Barbara Loe Fisher

America's pediatricians, who cannot explain to American parents why so many of their young, highly vaccinated children are developing autism and other developmental disabilities, announced this week at a conference in San Francisco that it is time for doctors to get serious about diagnosing autism early and often.
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1677611,00.html?xid=feed-yahoo-healthsci
This push for "early diagnosis" before age two is coupled with a push for "early intervention." Currently that intervention involves doctors prescribing psychiatric drugs for 80 percent of the children diagnosed with autism or Asperger disorder according to a report released at the same conference.
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/565002

Although few parents would argue that it is important to recognize when a child is regressing physically, mentally and emotionally into autism, many parents are more interested in addressing the biological root causes for the kinds of brain and immune system dysfunction that their autistic children are exhibiting, rather than giving their children psychotropic drugs that only suppress the symptoms. Many parents, like Cindy Goldenberg in the early 1990's and Jenny McCarthy a decade later, have found that eliminating gluten and casein from their child's diet and employing other alternative therapies to repair healthy immune function, can effectively address vaccine-related biological causes for autism and greatly improve their children's health.

However, currently mainstream American pediatricians are overwhelmingly attempting to deal with the autism explosion by drugging children. Tobias Gerhard, PhD, assistant professor at the Rutgers University Institute for Health, Health Care Policy, and Aging Research acknowledged that the prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorders increased 10-fold in the last decade and presented an analysis of medical care surveys reflecting two million health visits involving autism or Asperger disorder. He found that children were overwhelmingly male and white and that disruptive behavioral disorders were involved with 3 of every 10 cases.

The surveys revealed that about 80% of children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder are treated with at least one psychiatic drug; 30% are given antipsychotic drugs, 40% antidepressants, 40% stimulants and about 30% some other drug, including mood stabilizers and anticonvulsants. Some children are prescribed several medications. "As with many psychiatric conditions in children, we really know very little [about] how these drugs actually work and how they should be used in practice," Dr. Gerhard said.

In Canada, where there is a nationalized health care system and long waiting lines for a doctor's appointment, there is a warning by Canadian pediatricians that early screening and treatment for autism is easier said than done. The former president of the Canadian Pediatric Society, Emmet Francoeur, points out that increased screening would involve an increase in the number of evaluation teams and treatment services, all of which is time consuming and expensive. He says "Unfortunately, unlike a broken bone or pneumonia, where you can take an x-ray and come up with a diagnosis, it takes multiple observers looking at multiple aspects of a child's development to diagnose autism."
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071030.wautism30/BNStory/specialScienceandHealth/home

As hard as it is for pediatricians to figure out how they are going to identify and treat lots of highly vaccinated autistic children, it is much harder for parents searching for answers for why their once healthy children developed autism and how to help them heal. The diagnostic screening tests, the visits to different doctors specializing in different parts of the body and the drug and behavioral therapies that may or may not work, can bankrupt the average middle class family.

One day, the educational and health care costs associated with the biggest epidemic our nation has ever experienced - the chronic disease and disability epidemic - may bankrupt our nation. It is a chronic illness epidemic that makes the polio epidemic of the 1950's look small by comparison. We are all paying a very high price for the failure of pediatricians, drug companies and government health officials to act responsibly in the 1980's when parents of DPT vaccine injured children pleaded with them to conduct methodologically sound scientific studies to investigate the biological mechanisms and genetic factors involved in vaccine-induced regression and neuroimmune dysfunction.

"Today Show" Talks Exemptions & Autism Cases

"Today Show" Talks Law & Autism Cases Skyrocket

by Barbara Loe Fisher

On Friday, Oct. 19, 2007 NBC's "Today Show" featured a 6 minute segment about the rising numbers of parents who are taking exemptions to vaccination for their children. In the live debate, which was moderated by "Today Show" co-host, Meredith Vieira, I faced off with California pediatrician Tanya Remer Altmann, M.D.

In my opening statement, I said:

"I have been a vaccine safety activist for 25 years and I have never seen the public debate about the right of parents to make informed, voluntary vaccination decisions be more intense than it is today. And I think that is because the states are requiring twice as many vaccines as were required in the 1980's and 90's when my children - my three children - were getting vaccinated. And, we are seeing with this increased vaccination 1 in 6 child now learning disabled, 1 in 9 asthmatic, 1 in 150 becoming autistic. We are seeing a child public health crisis that is unlike any crisis we have ever seen, including the epidemics of infectious disease we have experienced in the past."

To view the "Today Show" segment go to
http://video.ivillage.com/player/?id=169608&dst=rss%7Civillagevideo%7C

Today, California autism activist Rick Rollens has released another new report on the skyrocking autism cases among young children living in California, all of whom got twice as many vaccines as my children got when they were young. Rick's son developed autism after suffering vaccine reactions and Rick went on to co- found the M.I.N.D. Institute - UC Davis after first warning America about the autism epidemic in 1997. His work with the California legislature to address the autism epidemic has included issuing periodic reports since 1997 about the never-ending increases in the numbers of children developing autism in California.

Rick reports that a record 1,060 new intakes of professionally diagnosed full syndrome DSM IV autism were added to California's developmental services system from July 3, 2007 to October 3, 2007. Children eligible for DDS services are between 3 and 21 years old. Three year old children entering the system today would have been born in 2004.

"According to the most recent report released this past week by California's Department of Developmental Services (DDS) (www.dds.ca.gov), California's developmental services system added a record 1,060 new intakes of professionally diagnosed full syndrome DSM IV autism during the 87 day period from July 3, 2007 to October 3, 2007....a rate of 12 new children a day, seven days a week..... or one new child every two hours.

Never in the 40 year history of California's developmental services system have 1000 or more new children been added in any one three month period to it's system. During the past 9 months alone California has added over 2900 new children with full syndrome autism (as always, the numbers of new intakes ONLY includes professionally diagnosed cases of full syndrome DSM IV autism and DOES NOT include any other autism spectrum disorders like PDD, NOS, or Asperger's Syndrome). Keep in mind that it took 16 years (from 1971 to 1987) for California's DD system to see a total population of 2700 persons with autism...during the past 9 MONTHS alone California has added 2900 new cases.

Autism is not only the fastest growing condition in California's DD system, now accounting for over 60% of all the new intakes (the remaining less then 40% being the COMBINED numbers of new intakes with mental retardation, cerebral palsy, epilepsy, and conditions that have as part of the condition mental retardation such as genetic diseases Fragile X and Down's), but; now there are more persons in California's DD system with a primary diagnosis of autism than with cerebral palsy.

Unlike any other of the conditions served by California's DD system where you see between 55- 60% of those populations over the age of 22 years old, with autism only 16% of the population is over the age of 22 years old, 84% between 3 and 21, and eight out of ten between 3 and 18 years old."

Attacks on Vaccine Exemptions Increase

Attacks on Vaccine Exemptions Increase

by Barbara Loe Fisher

As more and more Americans witness healthy children regressing after being repeatedly injected with dozens of doses of vaccines and becoming learning disabled, hyperactive, asthmatic, autistic and diabetic, more parents want to be able to make better informed, voluntary choices about vaccination. There is nothing like the first-hand experience of watching your child or grandchild regress within days or weeks of being injected with 5 to 10 vaccines and become a totally different child physically, mentally and emotionally, to persuade you to investigate legal avenues for avoiding more vaccines that could cause more harm. So it is not surprising that the Associated Press found that a greater number of parents today are seeking religious exemption to vaccination in the 28 states that do not allow a personal, philosophical or conscientious belief exemption to vaccination.
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-vaccineskeptics,0,5771185.story

The vaccine safety and informed consent movement that was launched by parents of DPT vaccine injured children in 1982 has gained momentum with each new vaccine added to the mandatory list for school entry since that time. Primarily a grassroots movement powered by the educated middle class, where most successful social revolutions in technologically advanced countries begin, citizen activists are pointing out serious gaps in the quality and quantity of the scientific evidence supporting the cradle to the grave approach to vaccination adopted by government officials over the past quarter century. They are advocating that doctors be required to adhere to the informed consent ethic when administering vaccines.

It is this intellectual challenge to the validity of the science and ethics of forced vaccination policies that makes the doctors who operate and profit from mandatory vaccination policies so angry. They are not used to well informed, articulate health care consumers challenging their wisdom and demanding equality in making health care decisions for children. Angry that their authoritarian, paternalistic stance is not playing well in middle America anymore, some doctors are turning their anger into a desire for revenge.

While educated Americans challenge the scientific and moral basis for legally requiring citizens to use multiple vaccines throughout life, forced vaccination proponents like rotavirus vaccine patent holder and Merck consultant, Paul Offit, M.D., are leading an unprecedented assault on the philosophical and religious belief exemption to vaccination. Dismissing parental concern about vaccine risks as an "irrational, fear based decision," he and his colleagues want to socially ostracize and legally punish those who approach maintaining health and wellness in a different way and decline to purchase and use every vaccine industry produces and government recommends.
http://vaccineawakening.blogspot.com/search?q=exemptions

On September 15, Dr. Offit sponsored a "Vaccine Education Symposium" at the Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania which featured speakers such as Dan Salmon, Ph.D., who has alleged that exemptions to vaccination are not protected by the U.S. Constitution and should be eliminated or severely curtailed
(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=retrieve&db=pubmed&list_uids=12037257&dopt=AbstractPlus), as well as lawyers, vaccine manufacturers and CDC officials. At the symposium, discussions involved (1) requiring vaccination of all nurses and other health care workers as a condition of employment; (2) passing laws to facilitate prosecution of parents of unvaccinated children for economic damages when vaccinated children contract vaccine preventable diseases; (3) routine posting and publishing of lists of unvaccinated individuals in public places in communities; and (4) prosecuting parents who homeschool their children for child neglect if they do not vaccinate them.

The military approach to dissent is a risky one as it threatens to fatally compromise what is left of the sacred trust that exists between pediatricians and parents. But this approach has become much more common since September 11, 2001, when doctors and public health officials viewed that tragic event as an opportunity to aggressively promote vaccination and disease control as a matter of national security.
http://www.nvic.org/2005_11-15_NVIC_Sen%20Burr_BioShield%202_v7.pdf

State mandatory vaccination laws have their roots in the 1905 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Jacobsen v Massachusetts. A Swedish Lutheran pastor, Reverend Henning Jacobsen and his son objected to a law requiring revaccination with smallpox vaccine because they had suffered severe reactions to the first vaccination. The nine Supreme Court justices at the turn of the century denied Jacobsen and his lawyers the right to present scientific evidence for harm caused by the smallpox vaccine, preferring to believe the lawyers representing public health officials who convinced them that doctors could predict ahead of time who would be injured by vaccination.

In the majority opinion, the Justices demonstrated a remarkable blind faith, bordering on religious conviction, in the infallibility of medical doctors and the safety of smallpox vaccination. The Court stated that "The matured opinions of medical men everywhere and the experience of mankind as all must know, negative the suggestion that it is not possible in any case to determine whether vaccination is safe."

Only briefly did the Justices address the issue of individual susceptibility to the potentially harmful effects of vaccination when they stated that mandatory vaccination must not be forced on a person whose physical condition would make vaccination "cruel and inhuman to the last degree. We are not to be understood as holding that the statute was intended to be applied in such a case or, if it was so intended, that the judiciary would not be competent to interfere and protect the health and life of the individual concerned. All laws should receive sensible construction."

Of course, in the succeeding 100 years since that Supreme Court decision affirming the power of the state to "keep in view the welfare, comfort and safety of the many and not permit the interests of the many to be subordinated to the wishes or convenience of the few," it has become clear that doctors cannot determine ahead of time who will be harmed by vaccination and that many more than a "few" have been injured or died from the effects of mass use of multiple vaccines in childhood as evidenced by the nearly two billion dollars paid to vaccine victims by the government since 1988.
http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/statistics_report.htm
An interesting historical fact about the fallout of the ethically flawed Jacobsen v Massachusetts decision is its citing by US Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendall Holmes in 1927 to justify the eugenics- movement inspired forced sterilization of a mentally retarded girl. Holmes agreed that the state could compel the young girl to be sterilized because "the principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the fallopian tubes."

Since 1905, the majority of states have provided for medical, religious and/or philosophical, personal belief or conscientious belief exemption to vaccination. Today, all but two states allow religious exemption to vaccination.
http://www.nvic.org/state-site/state-exemptions.htm.
Since 1905, the numbers of vaccines recommended by doctors and required by state law has increased from one vaccine - smallpox - to nearly three dozen doses of 10 to 12 vaccines.

In the past, some states have required that an individual belong to a church or religion that adheres to a tenet opposing vaccination. However, when that restrictive language has been challenged at the state Supreme Court level, it has been struck down as unconstitutional (Sherr v. Northport-East Northport Union Free Sch. Dist., 672 F. Supp. 81, 89-90 (E.D. N.Y. 1987). Today, the exercise of religious exemption to vaccination usually requires a citizen to hold a sincere personal spiritual or religious belief that does not have to be tied to a specific church or religion. In some states, parents are required to either write a notarized statement and/or also obtain a letter from their spiritual advisor attesting to their sincere religious beliefs regarding vaccination.

The religious belief exemption is provided under the law for citizens who believe in a Creator and engage in prayer and may also consult scripture for guidance in making vaccination decisions which are spiritually based. Many parents of Christian, Jewish, Muslim and non-denominational spiritual beliefs, who already have a vaccine injured child, are engaging in prayer and consulting scripture for guidance in making vaccination decisions for their other children. It is important for the religious exemption to vaccination to only be taken by those who truly hold sincere religious or spiritual beliefs regarding vaccination.

The 18 states which allow philosophical, personal or conscientious belief exemption to vaccination are the states which come the closest to allowing voluntary, informed consent to vaccination in America. NVIC supports the addition of conscientious belief exemption to all state vaccine laws, such as the law in Texas obtained in 2004 by parents led by Dawn Richardson, president of Parents Requesting Open Vaccine Education (PROVE), so citizens without sincere religious beliefs opposing vaccination can exercise a conscientious belief exemption.
http://www.nvic.org/state-site/Texas.htm

Although pro-forced vaccination proponents are promoting the demonization and punishment of parents who advocate informed consent to vaccination, including the right to take a religious or conscientious belief exemption, they do not have a strong ethical basis for their position. The genetic co-factor involved in adverse responses to vaccination make one-size- fits-all forced vaccination laws a de facto selection of the genetically vulnerable for sacrifice and that kind of government policy should not be tolerated by any state.

As more children regress into poor health after vaccination and more parents discover that vaccines carry far greater risks than pediatricians and public health officials have admitted to date, there will be a greater public demand for flexibility in mandatory vaccination laws. Paul Offit and his cohorts would do well to respect and acknowledge genetic diversity and the need for informed consent protections in mandatory vaccination laws rather than attempt to turn enforcement of those laws into a military operation. That primitive approach will not survive the test of time.

Pediatricians Spy, Vaccine Pushers Target NASCAR

Pediatricians Spy, Vaccine Pushers Target NASCAR

by Barbara Loe Fisher


Do you know what your pediatrician is asking your child when you step out of the examining room? I'll bet you'd never guess.

According to one Dad in Massachusetts, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) have convinced America's pediatricians that they are agents of the State rather than healers paid by parents to offer medical advice for their children. He reports that the AAP now encourages doctors to ignore "legal barriers and deference to parental involvement" and spy on families by extracting personal information out of their little patients about Mom and Dad's lifestyle choices.
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view.bg?articleid=1035832.

Whether pediatricians are just behaving badly in Massachusetts or are acting out all over the USA, it is disconcerting to hear that any doctor is secretly grilling children about whether Mom and Dad make them feel "uncomfortable" or smoke, drink, get high on (prescription?) drugs or own a gun. Even more alarming is the allegation that some pediatricians feel compelled to make a "report" to the State when the trusting little souls snitch on Mom and Dad for having a Michelob while watching Monday night football or harboring a registered rifle for duck hunting.

What makes this story so compelling is that a lot of doctors are acting like policemen these days. Could it have anything to do with the fact that, during the past quarter century, America's private docs have become joined at the hip with the ones wearing white military uniforms, who are running the U.S. Public Health Service?

Vaccination has been used as an organizing tool by over-zealous public health officials to appropriate power during the past quarter century. And their zeal has gotten a whole lot worse since September 11, 2001.

Maybe that is why young congressional aides employed by the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee were told to get hepatitis A, hepatitis B, tetanus, diphtheria and influenza vaccines before deploying for combat at - - - the NASCAR in Concord, North Carolina and Talladega, Alabama! http://www.charlotte.com/109/story/314034.html

Apparently "public health" advisors to the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee either consider visiting North Carolina and Alabama to be Third World hazardous duty or they think NASCAR fans are especially infectious. Either way, somebody had to think real hard about which vaccines to put on the congressional staffer's "must do" list before heading for the race track. Most of the vaccines selected were either in the "poor sanitation" (tetanus, diphtheria, hepatitis A) or risky "lifestyle" (hepatitis B) category.

The militarization of America's medical profession is a prescription for civil rights disaster. The next time you witness a doctor acting like a CIA operative or policeman, stifle the urge to either salute smartly or cower in the corner. Instead, publicize his or her bad behavior by writing an Op Ed in your local newspaper. And don't forget to blast it into cyberspace, where truth and freedom are alive and well.



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"Thanks to guidelines issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics and supported by the commonwealth, doctors across Massachusetts are interrogating our kids about mom and dad's "bad" behavior. We used to be proud parents. Now, thanks to the AAP, we're "persons of interest." ....Of course doctors have a choice. They could choose, for example, to ask me about my drunken revels, and not my children. They could choose not to put my children in this terrible position. They could choose, even here in Massachusetts, to leave their politics out of the office. But the doctors aren't asking us parents. They're asking our kids. Worst of all, they're asking all kids about sexual abuse without any provocation or probable cause. The American Academy of Pediatrics has declared all parents guilty until proven innocent....." - Michael Graham, Boston Herald ( October 4, 2007)
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view.bg?articleid=1035832

"Getting a hepatitis shot is standard procedure for travelers to parts of Africa and Asia, but some congressional aides [of the House Homeland Security Committee] were instructed to get immunized before going to Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord and the racetrack in Talladega, Ala.....Staff who organized the trips advised the NASCAR-bound aides to get a range of vaccines before attending -- hepatitis A, hepatitis B, tetanus, diphtheria and influenza. Rep. Robin Hayes, a Republican from Concord, took umbrage when he heard about it. "I have never heard of immunizations for domestic travel, and as the representative for Concord, N.C., I feel compelled to ask why the heck the committee feels that immunizations are needed to travel to my hometown," Hayes said in an Oct. 5 letter to Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., who chairs the Homeland Security panel. "I have been to numerous NASCAR races, and the folks who attend these events certainly do not pose any health hazard to congressional staffers or anyone else," Hayes added. Thompson said the immunizations are commonly recommended for people working in hospitals, holding centers and similar locations. "I am sure you would agree that providing immunizations to personnel involved in public safety is good public health policy, and there is no need to exclude staff from taking the preventative measures that the public health community recommends -- regardless of why and where mass gatherings are taking place," Thompson said in the letter." - Lisa Zagaroli, Charlotte Observer (October 11, 2007)
http://www.charlotte.com/109/story/314034.html

CA Governor Vetos Vaccine Mandate

CA GOVERNOR SAYS "NO" TO PNEUMOCOCCAL VACCINE MANDATE

by Barbara Loe Fisher

It has been a bad year for drug company lobbyists and doctors pressuring politicians in California to pass new vaccine mandates for children in the state. GARDASIL maker, Merck, and pro-forced vaccination proponents tried to ram through HPV vaccine mandates last winter and, when they were soundly defeated, tried to pass a law (AB16) this summer that would have allowed a State Health Officer to mandate every new vaccine the CDC recommends for universal use. That proposed law did not make it to the Governor's desk but a bill to mandate Prevnar (pneumococcal vaccine) did get to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's desk (SB 533) and he vetoed it on October 5.

California's premiere autism activist, Rick Rollens, got word yesterday that the Governor issued the following statement explaining his veto:

"I am returning Senate Bill 533 without my signature. While I am a strong proponent of prevention and support efforts to improve vaccine rates for children, I am unable to sign this bill as California's public health experts believe it is not needed. The Department of Public Health can already require young children receive the pneumococcal vaccine. California's vaccine experts have not established a mandate because they believe it is not needed. Approximately 86 percent of children are already being vaccinated under a voluntary system. For this reason, I am returning this bill without my signature."

Behind the scenes, federal and state public health officials have always joined with the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and other medical organizations to support the lobbying efforts of vaccine manufacturers to get new vaccines mandated by states. This successful lobbying blitz has resulted in the more than doubling of the numbers of doses of vaccines children must get in order to attend daycare or school in the past quarter century.

Vaccine mandates mean assured and predictable profits for vaccine manufacturers. However, the fact that Governor Schwarzenegger indicated in his veto statement that state public health officials did not believe they needed the Prevnar mandate because "86 percent of children are already being vaccinated under a voluntary system" is an encouraging sign. Perhaps California state health officials are beginning to pay attention to the public's growing distaste for new vaccine mandates and have decided to pick their vaccine mandate battles more carefully.

Prevnar vaccine has been a blockbuster for Wyeth since it was licensed in 2000. So many parents wanted to get it for their children that Wyeth ran out of supplies in 2001, causing vaccine shortages and Prevnar continues to be a huge profit making enterprise for Wyeth. http://vaccineawakening.blogspot.com/search?q=prevnar

The same is true for Merck's GARDASIL vaccine. Merck's financial bottomline has been helped enormously by voluntary use of GARSASIL by women and young girls in America since GARDASIL was licensed in 2006.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/merck-reports-12-profit-rise/story.aspx?guid=%7BA8E36AAF-940F-4BB7-90BA-95FCCB8571C3%7D

Vaccine mandates are not needed in the 21st century because the millions that drug companies can spend to advertise a new vaccine, coupled with the millions of taxpayer dollars that the CDC spends to promote mass use of new vaccines gets the job done without trampling on individual rights and the informed consent ethic. Leading proponents of business ethics are beginning to acknowledge the importance of respecting the informed consent ethic, a position which the National Vaccine Information Center has taken and promoted publicly for the past 25 years http://alertmindpublishing.com/columnView.php?ID=czoyOiIzNSI7

Vaccines should be subjected to the law of supply and demand in the free market system like any other product produced by any industry. When people are allowed to exercise informed consent to risk taking, they own the decision they make and can take responsibility for the consequences of that decision. When people are forced to take a risk rather than make a voluntary, informed choice, they justifiably feel betrayed by those who coerced them when the risk turns out to be 100 percent.

Governor Schwarzenegger has the right idea: vaccine mandates are not needed for every vaccine that industry produces and the federal government promotes for children.
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http://alertmindpublishing.com/columnView.php?ID=czoyOiIzNSI7
"Merck, like all business enterprises, has a right to unlimited profits providing it conducts itself ethically. An essential condition for ethical business is to deal only by mutual consent. This means that all parties involved must act of their own free will, without coercion. By advocating mandatory treatments, Merck participated in an attempt to violate individual rights. It is not too late for Merck to act responsibly. In promoting Gardasil it should explain the benefits of using the vaccine, enumerate the potential downsides, and admit that at this time more needs to be learned about its effects. Merck should talk to government officials, but the message must change. Merck could explain that Gardasil is a valuable treatment to be used only with the voluntary consent of responsible adults - either women or the parents of young girls. Merck should actively lobby against legislation that would coerce individuals to use its products." - Barry A. Liebling (March 2007)

Mutant Polio Viruses Pollute Water, Para

Mutated Live Vaccine Polioviruses Pollute Water, Paralyze

by Barbara Loe Fisher

In yet another stunning example of arrogant and immoral behavior, doctors at the World Health Organization (WHO) and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) admitted last week that they deliberately did not tell "the public" that neurovirulent mutated vaccine strain live polio viruses are polluting world water supplies and are responsible for polio outbreaks among children in Nigeria and other countries. Dr. David Heymann, a leader in WHO's polio eradication effort, reportedly explained that WHO "considered the [Nigerian] outbreak to be a problem for scientists and not something that would change global vaccination practices" so WHO didn't share the information with the public until now.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071005/ap_on_he_me/nigeria_polio_paradox

There is a lot of information that WHO and CDC officials have not shared with the public about what forcing worldwide use of a live oral polio for 40 years has done. The Sabin live polio vaccine - which is the public health community's main claim to fame and fortune in the 20th century - may not only have unleashed the most feared autoimmune disorder to plague man in two centuries
( http://www.lrb.co.uk/v25/n07/hoop01_.html ) as well as caused increases in brain, bone and lung cancers ( http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/jnci%3b94/3/229-a.pdf)
but also has created mutant paralytic viruses that could cripple many more humans than would have been crippled if the live virus polio vaccine had never been used at all.

The US abandoned the Sabin live polio vaccine in 1999 and switched to the inactivated Salk vaccine that cannot cause vaccine strain polio. So why are billions of dollars being spent to pour the risky live virus polio vaccine into the mouths of the poorest babies in the most underprivileged countries in the world where sanitation and water supplies are already compromised?

The worst part of this deception is that WHO and CDC spin doctors are trying to convince parents in Africa, India and elsewhere that it is the "unvaccinated" who are causing vaccine strain polio outbreaks even though many of these children are getting 9 or 10 polio vaccinations
http://vaccineawakening.blogspot.com/search?q=India%2C+polio+vaccine Although public health officials are trying to blame polio outbreaks on the 'unvaccinated," the medical literature documents that assertion to be false.

Here is just a sampling of articles from the medical literature about mutated vaccine strain polio viruses causing paralytic disease in vaccinated populations:

1) In 1999, Paul Fine took information from a WHO document and published an article in the American Journal of Epidemiology on the transmissability and persistence of oral polio viruses. He concluded that "the findings indicate that OPV viruses could persist under various plausible circumstances" after mass vaccination with live OPV around the world is stopped.
(http://pt.wkhealth.com/pt/re/ajep/abstract.00000429-199911150-00001.htm;jsessionid=HKgZjMMTjTzWZ9tW5wGr0wThFLHL2JPG2DxRvhKgywb2NL11TyvJ!-656639706!181195629!8091!-1)

(2) In 2000, Israeli and CDC researchers reported in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology that a "highly evolved derivative of the Type 2 oral poliovaccine strain" was isolated from sewage in Israel. They concluded that "the presence in the environment of a highly evolved, neurovirulent OPV- derived poliovirus in the absence of polio cases has important implications for strategies for the cessation of immunization with OPV following global polio eradication." (http://jcm.asm.org/cgi/content/abstract/38/10/3729)

(3) In 2002, Japanese researchers reported in the Journal of General Virology on a 1993-1995 survey of poliovirus in river and sewage water. They concluded that "The prevalence of virulent type vaccine derived polioviruses (VDPV's) in river and sewage water suggested that the oral poliovaccine itself had led to wide environmental pollution in nature." (http://vir.sgmjournals.org/cgi/content/asbtract/83/5/1107)

(4) In 2002, Russian and FDA researchers reported in the Journal of Virology on the "Long Term Circulation of Vaccine-Derived Poliovirus That Causes Paralytic Disease" after finding a highly evolved derivative of the Sabin vaccine strain isolated in a case of paralytic poliomyelitis from a healthy 7 month old baby "in an apparently adequately immunized population." When the researchers analyzed the genome of the isolate, they found it was a double (type1-type2) vaccine-derived recombinant and that the number of mutations suggested "both had diverged from their vaccine predecessors." They concluded that "The reported data indicate that vaccine-derived viruses may make their way through narrow breaches and evolve into transmissible pathogens even in adequately immunized populations." (http://jvi.asm.org/cgi/content/full/76/13/6791)

(5) In 2003, Russian and FDA researchers published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences a "Microarray analysis of evolution of RNA viruses: Evidence of circulation of virulent highly divergent vaccine-derived polioviruses." They said "We identified a type-3 VDPV (vaccine derived polio virus) isolated from a healthy person and missed by conventional methods of screening. The mutational profile of the polio strain was consistent with less than 1 year circulation in human population and was highly virulent in transgenic mice, confirming the ability of VDPV to persist in communities despite high levels of immunity." (http://www/pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/100/16/9398)

(6) In 2005, Russian and FDA researchers published an article in Journal of Virology in which they reported on results of a study of vaccine-derived isolates from "an immunocompromised poliomyelitis patient, the contacts, and the local sewage." They acknowledged that "The increased neurovirulence of vaccine derivatives has been known since the beginning of OPV use, but their ability to establish circulation in communities has been recognized only recently during the latest stages of the polio eradication campaign." They go on to discuss the new recombinant type 2/type1 genome that has developed as a result of mass use of live polio vaccine as well as "another mutation in the VP3 protein" that may facilitate "virus spread in immunized populations." Their conclusion:

"The patterns and rates of the accumulation of synonymous mutations in isolates collected from the patient over the extended period of [vaccine strain poliovirus] excretion suggest either a substantially nonuniform rate of mutagenesis throughout the genome, or, more likely, the strains may have been intratypic recombinants between coevolving derivatives with different degrees of divergence from the vaccine parent. This study provides insight into the early stages of the establishment of circulation by runaway vaccine strains." ( http://jvi.asm.org/cgi/content/abstract/79/2/1062)

For too long, vaccine-wielding doctors employed by the U.S. government and worldwide medical organizations, like the WHO, have joined with pharmaceutical companies and conned politicians and populations around the world into accepting forced use of vaccines that have not been properly tested and regulated. When doctors and scientists think they are entitled to experiment on people and keep those medical experiments secret, it is no wonder that iatragenic diseases like cancers, AIDS and mutated vaccine strain viral diseases soon follow.

It is time to take the holy robes off of doctors and scientists who are tinkering with the biological integrity of the human race and the ecological balance on earth. The parents in Africa and India, who are fleeing from the vaccine-wielding doctors hunting their children down, are not ignorant or crazy. They are exercising common sense.

FOR 25 YEARS, THE NATIONAL VACCINE INFORMATION CENTER HAS BEEN TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT VACCINE RISKS AND FIGHTING FOR YOUR FREEDOM TO MAKE INFORMED, VOLUNTARY VACCINATION CHOICES. PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT TO CONSIDER HOW IMPORTANT THIS VOICE FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM IS FOR YOU, YOUR FAMILY AND FUTURE GENERATIONS.

PLEASE BECOME A SUPPORTER OF NVIC AND GIVE A GENEROUS TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATION AT https://www.nvic.org/makingcashdonations.htm


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"A polio outbreak in Nigeria was caused by the vaccine designed to stop it, international health officials say, leaving at least 69 children paralyzed.....The CDC and the World Health Organization announced the cause of the polio outbreak last week, even though they knew about it last year.....The oral polio vaccine contains a weakened version of polio virus....In rare instances, as the virus passes through unimmunized children, it can mutate into a form that is dangerous enough to spark new outbreaks. In 2001, officials reported that 22 children were paralyzed from polio in the Dominican Republic and Haiti in this way. Subsequent vaccine-caused polio outbreaks have occurred in the Philippines, Madagascar, China and Indonesia.....CDC's Kew added: "The people who are against immunization may seize on anything that could strengthen their position, even if it's scientifically untenable."....WHO said that changing the vaccination strategy is unnecessary. "It would be nice if we had a more stable oral polio vaccine, but that's not the way it is today," Heymann said. "We will continue working the way we have been working because we don't want children to be paralyzed anywhere." - Maria Cheng, Associated Press (October 5, 2007)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071005/ap_on_he_me/nigeria_polio_paradox

"Between 1961 and 1978, Lederle, a leading vaccine manufacturer, controlled between 70 to 80 percent of the oral polio vaccine market. Its product was known as "Orimune". From 1978 until 2000 (the year the United States prohibited the sale of the oral polio vaccine), that company had 100% of the American market for oral polio vaccine. It has claimed that it distributed over 650 million doses in the United States alone since its licensure. At the conference of the United States of America, Department of Health & Human Services, held on Monday, January 29-30, 1997 entitled CBER-NCI-NICHD-NIP-NVPO SIMIAN VIRUS 40 (SV40): A POSSIBLE HUMAN POLYOMAVIRUS WORKSHOP, representatives of Lederle assured the assembly that all oral polio vaccine in the United States manufactured by that company was SV40 free and that it had prepared the vaccine in green monkey kidney cells that do not harbor the SV40 virus. Internal Documents obtained by SV40 Cancer.com tell a different story." - SV40Cancer.com (http://www.sv40cancer.com/knew.asp)

"Four years ago I wrote The River, a book in which I argued for a new theory of how the Aids pandemic began. The book proved very controversial, and provoked what I would consider a defensive response from many in the scientific community, who damned the theory on insubstantial grounds. I am returning to this subject now because there is new evidence, both historical and scientific, to demonstrate that the theory was buried prematurely. After 27 million deaths and the infection of more than 66 million people with HIV, there are now strong indications that human hands - in particular, those of the doctor and the scientist - started the AIDS pandemic. This is not the theory of origin favoured by most in the medical establishment: the familiar 'cut hunter' or natural transfer theory proposes that a single hunter or bushmeat seller became infected with simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) while skinning or butchering a chimp, and that the pandemic started from that one infection. The theory of origin that I supported in The River is the OPV (oral polio vaccine) theory, and it requires a little background. In the 1950s, OPVs were prepared in primate cells, as most still are today. As a result, each OPV contained not only weakened poliovirus, but also whichever monkey viruses happened to be present in the cell substrate......" - Edward Hooper, London Review of Books (April 3, 2003)
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v25/n07/hoop01_.html

Combo Vaccine Study Proves Nothing

Combo Vaccine Study Proves Nothing

by Barbara Loe Fisher

A study funded by British vaccine maker, GlaxoSmithKline, and conducted by University of Rochester vaccine developers claims to have proven that simultaneously injecting infants with 7 vaccines in separate shots is no more reactive or less effective than simultaneously injecting infants with 7 vaccines contained in combination shots.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/84606.php

Specifically, GSK conducted the study in an effort to "prove" that the 5 vaccines in 1 shot, Pediarix, can be given simultaneously with other vaccines without causing more reactions or compromising the effectiveness of the pertussis (whooping cough) portion of the shot as pre-licensure studies indicated.
http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/01/transcripts/3733t1.htm

What do GSK officials and University of Rochester doctors running the study for GSK think that they have proven about Pediarix safety and effectiveness? Do they really believe the educated public will be reassured by a study that only included 575 two month old healthy babies divided into three groups - all of whom got seven vaccines whether given separately or in combination?

To accurately answer outstanding questions about Pediarix safety and effectiveness - as well as the safety and effectiveness of repeatedly injecting babies with seven vaccines simultaneously at two, four, and six months - GSK would have had to prospectively enroll at least 3,000 - 5,000 infants aged two months to five years and followed them up for at least five years. The study should also have included an unvaccinated group of children with a five year follow-up period to compare the brain and immune system function of unvaccinated children to those who were injected with Pediatrix in combination with other vaccines. By age five, the symptoms of ADHD, learning disabilities, autism, asthma, severe allergies and other neuroimmune dysfunction become apparent and, if autism occurs in about 10 per 1,000 children, a study of 3,000 to 5,000 children would yield between 30 and 50 autistic children by age five in all groups if there are no health outcome differences between vaccinated and unvaccinated children.

Even without an unvaccinated control group, it is ludicrous to conclude that studying 575 healthy newborns and following them up for 7 months generates enough useful data to conclude much of anything about giving infants so many vaccines on one day, whether the vaccines are given separately or in combination. This study by GSK to promote purchase and use of Pediarix does nothing to reassure parents and doctors that there are no adverse long term health consequences from repeatedly using this vaccine in combination with other pediatric vaccines in the first year of life.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Medical World News Today, October 4, 2007
Study Checks the Safety of Combination Vaccines

"Only more immunizations will enter the schedule," said Michael Pichichero, M.D., professor of Microbiology/Immunology, Pediatrics and Medicine at the University of Rochester and the study's lead author. "Coupling or tripling of these vaccines is increasingly important, as this streamlining helps to promote parent compliance, timely vaccination and fewer administration errors." .....The earlier studies found that when the vaccines were co-administered, a suboptimal immune response was produced against whooping cough, and more uncomfortable reactions, such as swelling at the injection site, could be expected.... "Vaccine opponents may liken the process of the body processing simultaneous vaccines to a computer running too many applications; the machine grows slow, and the programs, one by one, begin to terminate," Pichichero said. "But those fears are unfounded; we have found no evidence that a child's body is at any point approaching a maximum threshold as far as learning to produce immune responses." ...."If pediatricians were holding out on making the switch to a combined vaccine for fear that its protection might be inferior, they no longer need be concerned," Pichichero said. "It seems the clinical relevance of any previously observed differences with regard to whooping cough immunity have been dispelled." - Medical World News Today (October 3, 2007)

Moldy FluMist Holds Up Final FDA Approval

Moldy FluMist Holds Up Final FDA Approval

by Barbara Loe Fisher

Until June 2003, when the FDA approved the first live virus flu vaccine, FluMist, the only flu vaccine that was used in the US was the killed or inactivated flu vaccine injected into the arm. FluMist manufactured by MedImmune was the first vaccine designed to be squirted up the nose and given to healthy children and adults.

Generally, Americans have not been enthusiastic about squirting live virus flu vaccine up their noses. Call it irrational. Call it the "yuck" factor. Call it instinct. FluMist has largely remained a non-starter.

The fact that the FDA had to recently slap MedImmune on the hands after inspectors reportedly found excessive amounts of mold and bacteria during early stages of the production process of FluMist doesn't help. A September 10, 2007 Washington Post article said the company was cited for "significant deviations for current good manufacturing practice."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/09/AR2007090901612.html?nav=rss_business

In pre-licensure clinical trials of FluMist, there was an increased risk of asthma, upper respiratory infections, musculoskeletal pain, otitis media and croup for some children and an increased risk for upper respiratory symptoms in adults after inhaling the live vaccine. FluMist contains attenuated live flu viruses and poses a risk of transmission of live flu virus from the recently vaccinated to close contacts. When I was sitting on the FDA Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee in 2002, I voted "no" when asked if safety had been proven. http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/02/transcripts/3912t1-03.pdf

Among other things, I said "The fact that live vaccine flu virus is shed in 80 percent of recipients poses an additional risk for our population at large, particularly for immune compromised individuals across all age groups. The outstanding questions about the true rate of transmission of vaccine strain viruses among children needs to be clarified as does the retention of the attenuation of shed viruses and the high frequency of nucleotide changes. Because this live virus nasal vaccine is not indicated for high risk health groups, which have historically been the targeted populations to receive flu vaccine, it's a very serious step to move to the use of a live virus vaccine for the majority of healthy individuals, and a standard for proof of safety must be very high. I don't think that standard has yet been met by the data which have been presented so far."

Initially, the FDA approved the vaccine for healthy children over 5 and adults under 49. Both MedImmune and vaccine distributor, Wyeth, thought they had a blockbuster on their hands. In the summer and fall of 2003, the companies launched a $100 million ad campaign that featured Wal Marts offering to squirt the vaccine up the noses of shoppers.(MedImmune, Inc. [Investors] News Releases. September 10, 2003 "FluMist Available in Pharmacies This Fall."). At a cost of between $46 and $150 a dose, the companies were projecting between $120 million and $140 million in sales.

But by late October 2003, it became apparent that few of the four million doses of FluMist that MedImmune had produced were being purchased. By January 2004, the company was trying to give it away. MedImmune has been trying to capture market share for FluMist ever since the disastrous FluMist debut in the 2003-2004 flu season.

Now, the FDA has given MedImmune (recently acquired by British drug firm Astra Zeneca) another chance by approving FluMist for healthy children over two years. But still, the warning remains about not giving FluMist to anyone with asthma or children under five with a history of wheezing. http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2007/NEW01705.html

What healthy adults and parents of healthy children need to ask themselves is: why do healthy people need to deliberately inhale live flu viruses when the majority of healthy people don't get that sick from the flu and recover without any complications?

Keep reading NVIC's E-News for further reports on the Flu and You as the flu season approaches and the Flu Patrol gears up to scare the living daylights out of you so you inhale deeply or roll up your sleeve without giving it a second thought.

In the News:

"The FDA sent the Gaithersburg firm a lengthy warning letter in May, citing "significant deviations from current good manufacturing practice." Agency officials were concerned that MedImmune had not properly followed up after excessive levels of mold and bacteria were found during early stages of the production process. The FDA said the vaccine had not been contaminated. The FDA's warning letter has held up shipments of FluMist. It also put on hold MedImmune's efforts to win regulatory approval for use of the vaccine by children under 5. Expanding the vaccine's use in that important market has been a cornerstone of the firm's efforts to boost the prospects for FluMist, which has not been a hit in the marketplace. It is now approved only for people ages 5 to 49. FDA and MedImmune officials said the process to win approval for use by younger children could now continue. Less than two weeks before the warning letter was issued, an FDA advisory panel unanimously agreed that FluMist worked in children under 5. The panel was mixed on whether FluMist was safe enough for children younger than 2." - Michael Rosenwald, Washington Post (September 10, 2007)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/09/AR2007090901612.html?nav=rss_business

"The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved expanding the population for use of the nasal influenza vaccine FluMist to include children between the ages of 2 and 5. Approval for the vaccine, which contains a weakened form of the live virus and is sprayed in the nose, was previously limited to healthy children 5 years of age and older and to adults up to age 49.......Children under the age of 2 should not receive FluMist because there was an increased risk of hospitalization and wheezing for this age group during the clinical trials. Commonly observed adverse events from the vaccine were generally mild and most often included runny nose and/or nasal congestion, as well as a slight fever in children 2 to 6 years of age. FluMist should not be administered to anyone with asthma or to children under the age of 5 years with recurrent wheezing because of the potential for increased wheezing after receiving the vaccine. People who are allergic to any of FluMist's components, including eggs or egg products, should also not receive the vaccine....." - FDA Press Release (September 19, 2007) http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2007/NEW01705.html MedImmune Says FluMist Problems




Senate Vet Committee Looks At Anthrax Vaccine

Senate Vet Committee Looks At Anthrax Vaccine

by Barbara Loe Fisher

Tomorrow, Tuesday, Sept. 25 at 9:30 a.m. in the Dirksen Building, the Senate Committee on Veteran's Affairs will hold an oversight hearing on Persian Gulf War illness research and treatments. The goal of the hearing is to examine current research trends and identify new treatments. Maine physician and anthrax vaccine expert, Meryl Nass, M.D., will be testifying.

Meryl, who is the medical director for the Military and Biodefense Vaccine Project of the National Vaccine Information Center
(http://www.military-biodefensevaccines.org/) and a blogger at
http://www.anthraxvaccine.blogspot.com/, has interviewed and helped many anthrax vaccine victims over the last decade. She is urging that citizens call or write a letter to Senators on the Veterans Affairs Committee listed below and urge that a hearing be held on the mandatory anthrax vaccine program, which has left thousands of soldiers suffering with chronic illness and disability. She says that many of the vaccine injured soldiers need better medical care and disability pensions.

Meryl is also a strong advocate for an end to the mandatory anthrax vaccination of all military personnel. In 2005, NVIC joined with Meryl and veterans groups in an amicus brief filed in a DC federal court lawsuit to stop the Defense Department from forcing soldiers to get anthrax vaccine without their voluntary, informed consent.

Soldiers who refuse to get the highly reactive anthrax vaccine, like Private First Class Leif Hamre, 22, are threatened and punished. According to an article in The Raw Story, Hamre said "The tactics they have used to coerce me into taking the shot are unregulated, unscrupulous and downright un- American," Hamre wrote in a recent open letter to family, friends and others who are campaigning against the military's mandatory anthrax vaccine program. "They have tried to turn my platoon against me in various ways (which is not totally unsuccessful). Along with the more common tactics like intimidation and threats (including the possibility of a forceful inoculation). I can only imagine what will come as I continue with this."
http://rawstory.com//printstory.php?story=7554

The demonization and persecution of soldiers, who are fighting for the right to exercise informed consent to vaccination in the military, is similar to the demonization and persecution of parents, who are fighting for the right to exercise informed consent to vaccination of their children. Civilian forced vaccination proponents like Paul Offit, Dan Salmon and Arthur Caplan, who advocate mandatory vaccination with every vaccine drug companies produce, are thinking up ways to punish the non-vaccinators. For the crime of refusing vaccination, they are talking about (1) posting the names of non-vaccinators on a public list; (2) prosecuting them; (3) fining them; (4) taxing them. What will be next? Imprisonment?

Perhaps these arrogant, ignorant bullies posing as healers and "ethicists" should take a look back in history to the times when the fine art of pitting citizen against citizen became the basis for branding minorities in society as a threat to the public welfare to justify taking away their civil liberties, then their jobs, then their homes, then their lives.

If the State can tag, track down and force individuals against their will to be injected with biologicals of 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.

Following is a list of members of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee:


Democrats:

Daniel K. Akaka, Hawaii

CHAIRMAN: John D. Rockefeller IV, West Virginia

Patty Murray, Washington

Barack Obama, Illinois

Sherrod Brown, Ohio

Jon Tester, Montana

Jim Webb, Virginia

Bernard Sanders, Vermont (Independent)


Republican:

Richard Burr, North Carolina

RANKING MEMBER Senator: Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania

Larry Craig, Idaho

Kay Bailey Hutchison, Texas

Lindsey Graham, South Carolina

John Ensign, Nevada

Johnny Isakson, Georgia


************************************************************

"According to Hamre, 22, the military gave him an ultimatum in late June: Either take the mandated six- shot anthrax series or face military punishment. He was given 24 hours to decide. After conducting several hours of research into the drug and its history of triggering serious adverse reactions, the Minnesota native concluded that the "vaccine was dangerous" and "should probably still be in a lab right now for further testing." He decided to refuse it..... Hamre's mother, Mary, said that after her son refused the anthrax shot series he was assigned extra duty, taken off missions, significantly dropped in rank and pay scale, and confined to a certain area on the base - all while working an 18-hour work day, seven days a week. Making matters even worse, she said, is the difficulty the family has had in trying to communicate with Leif since he refused the shots. Baghdad remains a volatile and unstable city, and the electricity is still very unreliable, frequently cutting in and out, and is only on for certain portions of the day.....Facing the possibility that he could be permanently dismissed from the military because of his refusal to take the anthrax vaccine has been hard on her son, Mary said, especially since Leif has been proud to serve his country and follow in the footsteps of his father, who also was in the Army. Mary, 55, lives in Minnesota and works as a massage therapist. "They try to break them down..... but someone has got to take a stand," she said." - Julie Weisberg, The Raw Story (September 17, 2007)

Antibiotic & Vaccine Pushing Doctors Create "Superbugs"

Antibiotic & Vaccine Pushing Doctors Create "Superbug"

by Barbara Loe Fisher

In the post-World War II days of the 1950's, I remember our family doctor came to our house when I had strep throat and gave me a penicillan shot. By the early 1960's, doctors weren't making house calls anymore but every time my Mom took me to the doctor - whether it was for the stomach flu or a bad cold - the doctor wrote a prescription for a bottle of antibiotics. It didn't matter whether it was a viral or bacterial infection, at the end of the office visit he wrote a prescription for antibiotics.

Today, doctors who listened to drug company salesmen in the 1950's and 1960's and recklessly prescribed antibiotics for every sore throat or sniffle, are trying to blame the deadly increase in antibiotic- resistant superbugs cropping up around the world on the people they told to take the antibiotics in the first place. A quick Google search on the subject took me to a website operated by the Medical College of Wisconsin, which warns that "Antibiotic resistance occurs when bacteria change in some way that reduces or eliminates the effectiveness of the medicines designed to cure or prevent infections. Over time, some bacteria have developed ways to dodge the effects of antibiotics. Widespread use of antibiotics is thought to have spurred evolutionary changes in bacteria that allow them to survive these powerful drugs. The bacteria continue to multiply, causing more harm..... "Our first step toward correcting the problem is to build public knowledge and awareness of when antibiotics work -- and when they don't," said Richard Besser, MD, CDC's medical director of the campaign. "We want Americans to keep their families and communities healthy by getting smart about the proper use of antibiotics."
(http://healthlink.mcw.edu/article/1031002561.html).

Hello, Dr. Besser! Antibiotics are prescribed by DOCTORS. People do not "use" antibiotics without a doctor's prescription. They don't wake up and say to themselves "I think I will take an antibiotic today and help bacteria evolve into superbugs that will kill thousands." No, that iatrogenic problem has been caused by a medical profession too narrow-minded, lazy and self-serving to look beyond drugs and vaccines to a more natural, less toxic and less expensive way to help people maintain wellness and heal from illness.

Antibiotics like penicillan should always have been reserved for the most life threatening bacterial infections. The rest of the time, doctors should have told us to get plenty of sleep, drink lots of fluids, eat nutritious food high in vitamin C and D and seek out non-pharmaceutical therapies so we could get well the old fashioned way and strengthen the natural healing ability of our immune systems.

It is too late for doctors to turn the clock back and refrain from pushing pricey antibiotics on patients for everything from an ear infection to a hangnail. The damage has been done.

However, doctors have an opportunity right now to stop making the same mistake with vaccines. The warning signs have been around for a long time but doctors have a habit of closing their eyes and putting their hands over their ears when they don't want to see the obvious: microorganisms which drug companies and government health officials have targeted for eradication by mandatory vaccine use are evolving into vaccine-resistant strains that may well end up killing and destroying the health of more people than would have been killed or made sick if the vaccines had never been used at all.

Case in point: Wyeth's pneumococcal vaccine, Prevnar.

Prevnar vaccine contains seven of the most antibiotic-resistant pneumococcal strains, although there are more than 80 strains of the organism, which live harmlessly in the noses and throats of most people and rarely cause disease. Why some people go on to develop serious pneumococcal disease is unknown but those with dysfunctional immune systems are thought to be at highest risk. In 2001, the CDC told America that pneumococcal infections cause approximately 700 cases of meningitis, 17,000 cases of blood stream infections and 200 deaths in American children under age five every year, with 35 of these deaths being caused by pneumococcal meningitis (Centers for Disease Control. Dec. 10,2001 press release: ACIP Votes to Temporarily Revise Recommendations for Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine).

Even before Prevnar was licensed by the FDA in February 2000 and the CDC immediately recommended all babies under two get four doses, drug company officials heavily promoted it as an "ear infection" vaccine. They did this even though their own clinical studies demonstrated a less than 7 percent efficacy for preventing ear infections (Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories. Sept. 25, 1998 press release: New Investigational Vaccine Demonstrates High Efficacy Against Pneumococcal Disease in Children; Kaiser Permanente. May 4, 1999 press release: Investigational Vaccine Is First To Show Effectiveness Against Childhood Ear Infections).

Prevnar's safety was not scientifically well established, either. In the clinical trials that Wyeth conducted with the help of Kaiser Permanente, the experimental pneumococcal vaccine was compared against an experimental meningococcal vaccine. This meant the trial had no true placebo as the reaction profile was unknown for both experimental vaccines, fundamentally compromising the scientific validity of the safety trial. Children in the Prevnar group suffered more seizures, irritability, high fevers and other reactions. There were 12 deaths in the Prevnar group but they were dismissed by trial investigators as "Sudden Infant Death Syndrome." (Wyeth- Lederle Product Manufacturer Insert Pneumococcal 7- Valent Conjugate Vaccine (PREVNAR). Issued February 2000).

Wyeth remains the sole source for pneumococcal vaccine for American children today. Because company officials deliberately targeted the lucrative ear infection market, Prevnar became the best selling new pharmaceutical in 2000 and generated $461M for Wyeth that year. This spring, a Wall Street report entitled "Wyeth profit rises 12%, helped by vaccine sales" reported "First-quarter revenue for Prevnar, Wyeth's vaccine to prevent invasive pneumococcal disease in infants and young children, rose 43% to $617 million. U.S. net revenue increased 16% due to improvement in compliance rates, the addition of 250,000 doses to the CDC vaccine stockpile, as well as price increases."
(http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/wyeth-profit-rises-12-vaccine/story.aspx?guid=%7B75FA93B9-7CFF-4AE3-AB99-38C7CD1809CE%7D)

Bottom line: The pneumococcal vaccine was developed because doctors had over-prescribed antibiotics for four decades and the most serious cases of pneumoccocal disease were no longer responding to antibiotics.

There is always a big price to pay when doctors fool around with Mother Nature. The Prevnar vaccine that was developed by doctors to solve a problem with antibiotic resistance created by doctors has now created another monster: a vaccine-resistant virulent strain of strep that is causing ear infections in children that cannot be treated with any known antibiotic safe for use in children. This week doctors in Rochester, NY report Prevnar vaccine is becoming "less effective" as vaccinated children are coming down with a new and really nasty type of pneumococcal disease.

An Associated Press article reporting on the new vaccine-induced and vaccine resistant pneumococcal strain of strep said "Because these bacteria easily swap gene components to become even more hardy, "new types may emerge that can both escape containment by vaccine and spread throughout the world," Dr. Daniel Musher of Baylor College of Medicine wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine last year."
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5ikSAE-746aflWJZc32diXfBsde9A

Currently, 13 states mandate Prevnar vaccine for daycare entry: Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas and Virginia. How many of the politicians who listened to doctors and voted for vaccine mandates in those states, knew that their action would contribute to creation of a "superbug" that may end up killing many more than the 200 children under five the CDC said died from pneumococcal infection every year when Prevnar was licensed?

The most sickening part of this story is that, according to the AP article "Wyeth anticipated this and is testing a second-generation vaccine. But it is at least two years from reaching the market, and the new strains could become a public health problem in the meantime if they spread hard-to-treat infections through day care centers and schools."

WYETH ANTICIPATED THIS WOULD HAPPEN? In 2000, when Wyeth was hyping Prenvar as an "ear infection" vaccine, why weren't parents told this would happen? Doctors at Wyeth must have been at work on "second and third generation" vaccines since 2000. Because, after all, there are more than 80 pneumococcal strains which presents scores of opportunities for lots of them to mutate into killer antibiotic and vaccine resistant "superbugs." That should keep pneumococcal vaccine creators and marketeers in the money for at least a century.

Ah, Brave New World. And when will the majority of Americans wake up, stand up, and "just say no" to laws forcing them to serve up their children as guinea pigs while vaccine-obsessed doctors and drug companies ignorantly destroy what remains of the earth's ecological balance and the biological integrity of the human race?

Menactra, Doctors in Denial and the Vaccine Police

" A growing grassroots movement is pushing for more states to require the shot. Currently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends Menactra for kids ages 11 to 18, but only 12 percent of teenagers got the vaccine in 2006. Many of those advocating for mandatory vaccinations are parents, including Frankie Milley, who have lost children to meningitis. Nine years ago, her 18-year-old son, Ryan, died of the disease, and since then, she has worked in her home state of Texas to make meningitis education available to all families. She also supported a bill currently being considered by the Texas Legislature that would require college students to get the vaccine.....Others believe parents should be able to choose which vaccinations they - or their children - receive. Education about the vaccination is vital, but families should know the risks and be able to make their own decisions, says Dr. John Dorman, a committee member of that same American College Health Association (ACHA) committee and a clinical professor of medicine at Stanford University…..Barbara Loe Fisher, president and co-founder of the National Vaccine Information Center, believes more attention should be drawn to potential hazards. Her Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit works on the prevention of injuries and deaths caused by vaccinations. "I just I don't understand why we have to force people," Fisher says. "We should make [vaccinations] available at low or no cost, but forcing people is another issue." - Melissa Dahl, MSNBC (September 26, 2007)

" We need to get our priorities straight when it comes to mandating or requiring vaccines. When there is a fatal disease that is easily prevented by a safe vaccine, the shot ought to win out every time over our dislike of being told what to do.....The Centers for Disease Control recommends that everyone ages 11 to 18 should get [Menactra], as well as those headed off to live in college dorms or going into the military. But in 2006, only 12 percent of teenagers got the vaccine. So why isn't everyone in this age group getting vaccinated? The answers are the same ones that continue to haunt vaccines - unjustified safety concerns, resistance to mandates and cost.....Americans are generally leery of requiring or mandating vaccines. They value informed choice. But do you really want to leave an issue as important as vaccination left up to busy college freshmen to think about? Menectra is safe, so it's hard to know why anyone living in a dorm or close quarters would not want to get vaccinated.....If you don't mandate vaccines then insurers often won't pay for them. In our screwy world of health care, mandates have more to do with reimbursement then they do the police blocking access to the dorm until you show your vaccination card....Sometimes choice ought to yield to common sense and evidence….- Arthur Caplan, Ph.D., MSNBC (September 6, 2007)

"According to a survey of 650 patients published last week in Drug Safety, a peer-reviewed journal, doctors frequently ignored or dismissed patients' concerns about [statin] side effects. The study suggests this pattern of reaction goes beyond statins to other drugs. When doctors fail to recognize a patient's symptoms as drug side effects, more than that patient's care is put at risk. Because the doctor makes no "adverse event report" to the Food and Drug Administration, the regulatory agency may underestimate the problem, and other doctors and patients may assume the drug is safer than it is....patients surveyed said their doctors rarely linked their symptoms to statins -- even when the symptoms were well-documented as side effects. "Overwhelmingly, it was the patient that initiated that conversation" making the connection between the statin and their symptoms, [survey author] Golomb said. Many doctors instead attributed the symptoms to the normal aging process, denied their connection to statins or dismissed the symptoms altogether -- missing opportunities to switch their patients' prescriptions or otherwise mitigate the side effects, Golomb said....The findings raise important concerns about American drug safety monitoring, said Harvard Medical School professor Jerry Avorn…." - Ishani Ganguli, The Washington Post (August 28, 2007)

"The number of serious adverse drug events reported to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) more than doubled between 1998 and 2005, as did deaths associated with adverse drug events, according to a report in the September 10 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine .....The overall relative increase was four times faster than the growth in total U.S. outpatient prescriptions, which grew in the same period from 2.7 billion to 3.8 billion," the authors write. A total of 1,489 drugs were associated with adverse events, but a subset of 51 drugs that each had 500 or more reports in any year accounted for 203,957 or 43.6 percent of the total adverse event reports in the study....."Contrary to our expectations, drugs related to safety withdrawals were a modest share of all reported events and declined in importance over time," the authors write....."Among the most frequently reported drugs associated with fatal events, we observed a disproportionate contribution of pain medications and drugs that modify the immune system." ......These data show a marked increase in reported deaths and serious injuries associated with drug therapy over the study period," they conclude. "The results highlight the importance of this public health problem and illustrate the need for improved systems to manage the risks of prescription drugs." - Science Daily (September 10, 2007)

Barbara Loe Fisher Commentary:

After 25 years, the public debate about forced vaccination has become a passionate dialogue about children who have been hurt or died from infectious diseases and children who have been hurt or died from reactions to mandated vaccines. Mothers and fathers, armed with a memory of watching a beloved child regress into poor health after complications from an infectious disease or complications from a vaccination, describe how their children died or became crippled mentally and physically.

The only difference between them is that parents of children, whose injuries or deaths were due to infectious disease complications, are supported in their grief by influential leaders in academic medicine, government health agencies and the pharmaceutical industry while parents of children, whose injuries or deaths were due to vaccine complications, are ignored or criticized by opinion makers in society for speaking out about their grief. An injury or death, whether it is caused by a disease or a vaccine, is tragic and yet the response by society is different in large part because those who promote mandatory use of vaccines refuse to acknowledge or take any responsibility for the reality of vaccine induced injuries and deaths.

Doctors In Denial About Pharmaceutical Product Reactions

It is not new for doctors to stubbornly deny that medical interventions they prescribe for people cause harm. Blood letting, treating syphilis with arsenic and mercury, lobotomies, and prescribing thalidomide for morning sickness are just a few examples of medical treatments recommended by doctors over the centuries which have ended up crippling and killing people. As more prescription drugs and vaccines are produced by industry for doctors to routinely prescribe – or mandate - there are more drug and vaccine reactions being experienced by the people who follow their doctors’ orders. And the more people are being hurt, the deeper doctors retreat into denial.

Last month, a patient survey published in the journal, Drug Safety, found that doctors frequently ignored or dismissed concerns about side effects of prescribed statin drugs, which are supposed to lower cholesterol. The survey authors remarked “Person after person spontaneously [told] us that their doctors told them that symptoms like muscle pain couldn’t have come from the drug. We were surprised at how prevalent that experience was.”

Instead of investigating and taking their patient’s reports of statin-related illness seriously, the prescribing doctors either dismissed as unimportant the complaints by patients that they were suffering pain and “problems with memory or attention, or tingling or numbness in their hands and feet” or attributed these symptoms to “the normal aging process.” One Harvard Medical School professor observed “We already know that there is horrendous underreporting of [prescription drug] side effects. Ninety to 99 percent of serious side effects are not reported by doctors.”

The notorious underreporting by doctors of negative patient health outcomes after prescription drug use was highlighted by a report this week from the Institute for Safe Medication Practices, which revealed that the number of serious adverse drug events and deaths reported to the FDA more than doubled between 1998 and 2005. Most of the reaction reports were associated with drugs that remained on the market and were not withdrawn for safety reasons. The authors concluded that “The results highlight the importance of this public health problem and illustrate the need for improved systems to manage the risk of prescription drugs.” If less than 10 percent of all doctors do report prescription drug-associated health problems, then this recent doubling of reaction reports indicates a real problem, with many doctors denying the real risks of prescription drugs.

Doctors in Denial About Vaccine Reactions

Most doctors also fail to report serious health problems following vaccination to the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). The VAERS functions as a voluntary reporting system even though the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 mandated that doctors report hospitalizations, injuries and deaths (there were no legal sanctions attached to failing to report). Because vaccines are given to healthy people, the psychological and emotional barriers for doctors to admit that government mandated vaccines are causing harm is even greater than the reluctance of doctors to admit that drugs they prescribe for sick people are causing harm.

There have been estimates that fewer than 10 percent, even as low as 1 to 4 percent, of adverse events which occur after vaccine use are ever reported to VAERS by doctors giving vaccines. Because doctors have advocated that vaccines be mandated, the numbers of doctors who report reactions to mandated vaccines is probably even less than the numbers of doctors who report prescription drug reactions. (The reporting sensitivities of two passive surveillance systems for vaccine adverse events. Am J Public Health 1995; 85:1706-9.; Braun M. Vaccine adverse event reporting system (VAERS): usefulness and limitations. John’s Hopkins Bloomburg School of Public Health. Food and Drug Administration, Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. The clinical impact of adverse event reporting. MedWatch. October 1996.)

Doctors denying the reality of pharmaceutical product risks is a big problem when a newly licensed vaccine is promoted by federal health officials for mass use. Immediately other “experts” in academia, government and industry start beating the drums for states to mandate use of the new vaccine. Most frequently, the strategy used is to talk about serious complications of the disease while denying the vaccine has any serious complications.

Case in point: meningococcal disease and Menactra vaccine.

Meningococcal Disease

Meningococcal disease, which involves inflammation of the covering of the brain or spinal cord, is a serious bacterial infection that occurs rarely in the US. Out of our population of 300 million people, it is estimated to affect between 1400 and 2800 American children and adults (.05-1.1 per 100,000) per year. Death is estimated to occur in 10-14 percent of victims and leave 11-19 percent with chronic disability, including brain damage and loss of limbs. There are 13 meningococcal organism subgroups and five serotypes are responsible for nearly all cases of the disease worldwide: A, B, C, Y and W-135. Serotypes B, C and Y cause the majority of all cases in America. (http://0www.cdc.gov.mill1.sjlibrary.org/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5407a1.htm)

As many as 20 percent of all people carry the bacteria in the back of the nose and throat at any given time, especially in the winter, but remain healthy and asymptomatic. Transmission of the bacteria requires exchange of saliva or nasal secretions between people and so kissing, sharing eating utensils and other close personal contact is required.

It is unknown why only a very small number of people, who carry or come into contact with meningococcal bacteria, develop serious disease. Factors that affect the immune system’s ability to fight off infection are important and people at increased risk for the disease are those living in crowded and unsanitary conditions such as prisons; those with chronic illness or who have had recent respiratory infections; and those who drink alcohol and smoke or are exposed to smoke.

Symptoms of meningococcal disease can develop and move quickly: high fever, severe headache; neck stiffness and pain, especially when attempting to touch chin to chest; nausea and vomiting; extreme fatigue; unconsciousness; confusion and irritability; inability to look at bright lights; convulsions. In babies, symptoms of meningococcal disease are very similar to symptoms of brain inflammation complications after vaccination: high pitched screaming with arching back; staring expression; cold hands and feet; bulging fontanel, and unresponsiveness/inability to wake the baby.

Early diagnosis and antibiotic treatment of meningococcal disease are key to preventing severe complications that end in death and disability.

Menactra Vaccine

Menactra vaccine marketed by Sanofi was licensed in 2005 and immediately the CDC recommended it for universal use by 11 year old children entering sixth grade and 18 year olds entering college. This year, in an effort to increase vaccine uptake, the CDC directed doctors to give 40 million children between the ages of 11 and 18 a dose of Menactra, which costs between $85 and $100 per shot.

Menactra protects against serotypes A, C, Y and W-135. However, the vaccine does not contain serotype B, which causes about one-third of all cases of meningococcal disease in the US. and more than 50 percent of cases in young infants. Therefore, in terms of preventing meningococcal disease in America, Menactra is ineffective 30 to 50 percent of the time, depending upon age.

Menactra was evaluated by Sanofi in about 7,600 individuals aged 11-55 years in clinical trials comparing Menommune and Menactra vaccines and were followed up for 7 days; 28 days and 6 months. Vaccine adverse reactions among 11-18 year olds in clinical trials cited in the product manufacturer insert include local pain, swelling and redness (10-59%); headache (35%); fatigue (30%); aching joints (17%); diarrhea (12%); loss of appetite (10%); chills and fever (5-7%); vomiting (2%); and rash (1%). There have also been reports of vasovagal syncope (collapse); facial palsy; transverse myelitis; urticaria, and musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders, including myalgia. (http://www.blogger.com/(http://www.fda.gov/cber/label/mpdtsan033007LB.pdf).). Two deaths have been reported to VAERS after receipt of Menactra.

After five cases of Guillain Barre Syndrome were reported to VAERS in 2005, the FDA issued a warning for parents and doctors monitoring of vaccine recipients for signs of GBS. (http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2005/NEW01238.html) By October 2006, 15 cases of GBS had been reported. (http://www.fda.gov/cber/safety/gbs102006.htm). While federal health officials suggested the possibility of “a small increased risk of GBS” following receipt of Menactra, the implication was that most of the GBS cases occurring after Menactra were unrelated to the vaccine.

On August 15, 2007, the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) issued a report analyzing reports of GBS and other serious adverse events to VAERS after individuals received HPV (Gardasil) vaccine alone or administered simultaneously with Menactra. (http://www.nvic.org/Diseases/HPV/HPV_Vaccine_Safety_Report_-_Part_III_(081507_revised)[1].pdf) NVIC found a more than 1,000 percent statistically significant increased risk of reports of GBS to VAERS when Gardasil was administered simultaneously with Menactra. When Menactra was given simultaneously with Gardasil, NVIC also found a statistically significant increased risk of reports of other serious adverse events to VAERS:

· Respiratory problem reports increased by 114 percent;

· cardiac problem reports increased by 118 percent;

· neuromuscular and coordination problem reports increased by 234 percent;

· convulsions and central nervous system problem reports increased by 301 percent;

· reports of injuries from falls after unconsciousness (vasovagal syncope) increased by 674 percent;

Menactra and Gardasil were never studied in clinical trials to evaluate safety when both vaccines were given simultaneously.

The Bottom Line: The Disease and the Vaccine Have Risks

Both meningococcal disease and Menactra vaccine pose serious health risks. Your risk of contracting an infectious disease and dying or suffering long term health consequences depends upon the risk of exposure to the organism causing the disease, your genetic susceptibility and your general health that affects the ability of your immune system to deal with the challenge. You take a risk of suffering a vaccine reaction when you get vaccinated and that risk can be lesser or greater depending upon the vaccine(s) involved, your genetic susceptibility and your general health that affects the ability of your immune system to deal with the challenge.

Calls for Mandatory Vaccination with Menactra

In America, there are M.D.’s and Ph.D.’s who have placed themselves in positions of influence in academic and medical institutions, industry and government and who serve as advocates for mandatory vaccination. Some of these pro-forced vaccination proponents are vaccine developers and patent holders or consultants for drug companies that make and sell vaccines. Others are simply ideologically opposed to the concept that individuals have a right to informed consent to medical interventions, such as vaccination, which carry a risk of injury or death. These pro-forced vaccinators favor empowering government officials to use the heel of the boot of the State to compel citizens against their will to take vaccine risks with their lives and the lives of their children.

A common tactic used to advocate for mandatory vaccination is to deny that vaccines carry risks or, if they do, they are so minimal they are unworthy of anyone’s concern. If pro-forced vaccinators ever do acknowledge that “rare” injuries or deaths occur after vaccination, they usually invoke the utilitarian “greater good” defense to justify the “rare” casualties of forced vaccination policies.

This ignorant a priori denial of vaccine risks in order to justify forced vaccination makes it impossible, of course, for pro-forced vaccinators to ever admit vaccines carry significant risks. It is even harder for them to admit that genetic factors may play a role in making the vaccine risk greater for some than others because that would mean that mandatory vaccination is a de facto selection of the genetically vulnerable for sacrifice. And we don’t have to look too far back in history to realize what happens when the State gets into the business of deciding whose DNA is worthy of survival.

Which is it, Arthur? Informed Consent or Violating Human Rights?

Arthur Caplan got his Ph.D. in the history and philosophy of science at Columbia University and serves as a professor of bioethics for University of Pennsylvania. He is also a consultant for GlaxoSmithKline and commentator for MSNBC.

In 1992 Caplan wrote about forced medical experimentation by doctors on captive people in concentration camps during World War II, including typhus vaccine experiments. At the time, Caplan defended the Nuremberg Code, which was created by the judges of the Nuremberg Tribunal who presided over The Doctor’s Trial at which doctors were charged with crimes against humanity. The doctors on trial used a “greater good” utilitarian defense to justify the biomedical experiments they performed without the informed consent of their captives, saying they did it to further scientific knowledge and “benefit humanity.”

Caplan said “Those who created the [Nuremberg] Code realized that they had to find a powerful moral foundation for rejecting the crass utilitarianism so much in evidence in the arguments used by those on trial to justify their actions.The Nuremberg Code explicitly rejects the moral argument that the creation of benefits for many justifies the sacrifice of the few. Every experiment, no matter how important or valuable, requires the express voluntary consent of the individual. The right of individuals to control their bodies trumps the interest of others in obtaining knowledge or benefits from them,” said Caplan. (Caplan AL. The Doctor's Trial and Analogies to the Holocaust in Contemporary Bioethical Debates. In: Annas GJ, Grodin MA, eds. The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg Code. New York, NY: Oxford University Press; 1992: 258-275).

It was a ringing endorsement for the human right to informed consent by subjects participating in medical experiments. And although Caplan’s remarks addressed horrific medical experimentation performed on unconsenting individuals during the Holocaust, his statement appropriately suggests a broader rejection of the “argument that the creation of benefits for many justifies the sacrifice of the few” when it comes to forced medical risk taking.

In March 2005, Caplan advocated that Terri Sclavo’s husband be allowed to disconnect her feeding tube, which would lead to the death of his severely brain damaged wife. Defending the right of legal guardians to exercise informed consent for those who cannot exercise it themselves, Caplan said “We have had a consensus in this country that you have a right to refuse any and all medical care that you might not want. Christian Scientists do not have to accept medical care, nor do Jehovah’s Witnesses need to accept blood transfusions, or fundamentalist Protestants who would rather pray than get chemotherapy. Those who are disabled and cannot communicate have the exact same rights. Their closest family members have the power to speak for them.” (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7231440/page/2)

Despite his earlier endorsement of the right for individuals or their guardians to exercise informed consent to medical interventions, lately Caplan has joined his University of Pennsylvania colleague, rotavirus vaccine patent holder Paul Offit, M.D., and become a vocal advocate of forced vaccination. Last week, in an MSNBC opinion piece Caplan sneered “We need to get our priorities straight when it comes to mandating or requiring vaccines. When there is a fatal disease that is easily prevented by a safe vaccine, the shot ought to win out every time over our dislike of being told what to do.”

Then Caplan went one step further. In an article in a recent Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, he said “States should encourage parents to get their homeschooled students vaccinated through enacting the same laws as those for public school students. This could be done by enforcing current laws through neglect petitions or by requiring that children be immunized before participating in school sponsored programs.” (Donna Khalili, Arthur Caplan (2007). Off the Grid: Vaccinations Among Homeschooled Children. The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 35 (3), 471–477).)

Many parents homeschool their children because they want to provide them with a superior learning environment, which includes being protected from unnecessary toxic exposures from pharmaceutical products like vaccines. Other parents have children who are already vaccine injured and are trying to protect them from further harm. Children homeschooled from birth are among the brightest and healthiest in the country and often get scholarships to college, precisely because they have not been over-vaccinated and do not suffer with ADHD, learning disabilities, autism, asthma and diabetes like their highly vaccinated public school counterparts.

The forced vaccinators are plenty worried about the fact that the unvaccinated children in America are brighter and healthier than the highly vaccinated. They cannot tolerate that comparison and are apparently willing to do whatever it takes to turn government employees into the Vaccine Police, who can knock on parents' doors and charge them with child neglect for failing to salute CDC officials smartly and inject their children with 56 doses of 16 vaccines by age 12.

Any Man Who Takes the Liberty of Another…Is Bound to Become a Tyrant

American writer and philosopher, H.K. Mencken, who was an elitist critic of democracy and religious beliefs and many values Americans hold dear, was nevertheless a champion of personal liberty. His words are truer today than they have ever been, as Americans are assaulted by attacks on personal freedom in the area of health care choices by M.D./Ph.D. ideologues. Mencken said:

“I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman’s club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave.”

Americans tend to take their individual freedoms for granted, as if our nation’s founders guaranteed them for us in the U.S. Constitution. Unfortunately, in the Age of Scientism, it is the arrogant, power-hungry pharmaceutical product peddlers hiding behind letters written after their names who are working diligently to take those freedoms away. How much longer are we going to let them do it?


If the State can tag, track down and force individuals against their will to be injected with biologicals of 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.