Vaccination, Ignorance, Prejudice & Greed

by Barbara Loe Fisher

www.vaccineawakening.blogspot.com
www.NVIC.org
www.StandUpBeCounted.org

Setting up the Unlocking Autism & NVIC exhibit at Netroots Nation the morning of July 17, 2008

It has been a challenging week for families living with the reality of autism and for those educating Americans about the need to institute vaccine safety and informed consent protections in public health programs. It was a week when individual extremists from the political right and the left revealed their capacity for ignorance and prejudice, even as many enlightened Americans demonstrated their capacity for understanding, concern and compassion. It was a week that ended with a revelation that the American Academy of Pediatrics, Every Child by Two and the pediatrician leading a national effort to eliminate exemptions to vaccination, Paul Offit, M.D., are all taking big money from big Pharma.

Several months ago when Unlocking Autism (UA) President Shelley Reynolds called me and asked if NVIC would join UA in mounting a major exhibit at the Netroots Nation progressive blogger conference in Austin, TX July 17-19, I knew it would be an opportunity to reach out to several thousand Americans blogging on important social and political issues. We worked hard to create a professional exhibit (the largest in the Exhibit Hall) that would include representatives from SAFEMINDS, TACA, and Age of Autism contributing information and helping to staff the booth.

The theme of our exhibit was "Vaccine Safety: What's Choice Got To Do With It?" and the buttons and t-shirts we wore said "Vaccines: Our Children. Our Choice. Our Vote" while the facts listed on the 16 foot high tower exhibit included "Vaccine Market: $21 Billion" and "Toxic Vaccine Ingredients" and "One-Size-Fits-All Vaccine Policies" and "No Vaccine Risk Research" and "Autism: 1 in 150 children; 1 in 94 boys; $3.2M per child" and "Giving Mercury to Children on Purpose Is Stupid." We were ready to answer questions from the more than 2,000 bloggers showing up to listen to Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, Al Gore and other speakers talk about issues important to Democrats as well as the nation.

While we were finishing setting up our exhibit on the morning of July 17, Shelley and I, along with Rebecca Estepp (TACA), Theresa Wrangham (SAFEMINDS), Kevin Barry, Paul Arthur (NVIC) and my son, Chris, started networking with other exhibitors. (Later we would be joined by Mark Blaxill from Age of Autism and attorney Jim Moody). The booth directly across from us was Media Matters.

As the bloggers came into the Exhibit Hall and walked by our booth, we handed out vaccine information. Suddenly, a middle-aged woman with a scowl on her face appeared and screamed "baby killer" at Becky but refused to engage in a conversation. Later we were told that several complaints had been lodged with the convention organizers (to which the organizers responded that Netroots Nation welcomed open dialogue on such an important health issue).

A few hours later we learned about the obscene tirade that conservative shock jock Michael Savage had let loose on children with autism and asthma. We had a conversation with our new blogger friends at the Media Matters booth, who were quite familiar with his rants.

By the end of the day, Media Matters, had set their blogger sights on Savage. Their quick action played a major role in galvanizing both the autism community and enlightened Americans from both sides of the political spectrum disgusted by the cruelty of mindless prejudice against children and families suffering with autism and asthma through no fault of their own. Big advertisers like Aflac, Radio Shack and Sears pulled their ads from Savage's nationally syndicated radio show. Radio stations in Virginia, Ohio, Mississippi and elsewhere canceled the show.

During the Netroots Nation convention, we were approached by many bloggers who either had a child with autism in their own family or knew a family living with autism. Pregnant women stopped by our exhibit to learn more about mercury in influenza vaccines. Others stopped by to describe vaccine reactions they or a loved one had suffered in the past. Several longtime NVIC members came up to greet us, grateful that we were there. My son, Chris, brought his camera and filmed my interviews with several bloggers and exhibitors expressing their opinions on topics such as vaccine mandates http://www.youtube.com/v/G_DHFWJpaxU
and diabetes and vaccination http://www.youtube.com/v/tMiWFlCqJ9E

On the last day of the convention, we put our brochures on the luncheon tables. During the final hour, the scowling woman reappeared to hurl one last hateful insult at us. This time she targeted my son, who has come so far in the 28 years since the neurological reaction to his fourth DPT shot that left him with multiple learning disabilities and ADD. She called Chris a "traitor" and shouted "where are your double blind studies?" and then, as he tried to bring me over to speak with her, she ran away shouting "I didn't think so!" before a conversation could take place.

The events of the past week reinforce the fact that ignorance and hate does not belong to any one political party or ideology. The extremists on the right and the left meet at a dangerous intersection which threatens freedom and diminishes the value of individual life.

And when doctors and organizations denying vaccine risks persuade naive public figures to demonize others for making independent vaccine choices, it contributes to an ugly climate of fear and divisiveness. When it turns out those same doctors and organizations get big money from drug companies selling vaccines, the public has no reason to trust what they say or tell us to do.

Vaccination is a subject that elicits emotional responses from both those promoting forced use of multiple vaccines and those defending the human right to informed consent to vaccination. It involves a personal examination of what we know, fear, believe and value because what we choose to do can profoundly affect the health and lives of those we love the most.

Many of the conversations taking place in private and public forums about vaccination are civil and, hopefully, most Americans will turn away from those letting fear, prejudice or greed define who they are. In any case, we should never let someone else define who we are or dictate what we can or cannot do when it comes to protecting the health of our children.

_________________________________________


"What Michael Savage said was foolish, mean-spirited, and hurtful," said J. Jioni Palmer, spokesman for Media Matters. "It's unfortunate he would use his radio program to make fun of and belittle these kids. Instead of ridicule and cheap shots, the children suffering from autism and asthma and their families need support and compassion." During the July 16 edition of his show, Savage claimed that autism is "[a] fraud, a racket.... I'll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out. That's what autism is. What do you mean they scream and they're silent? They don't have a father around to tell them, 'Don't act like a moron. You'll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don't sit there crying and screaming, idiot.' Savage also stated: "[W]hy was there an asthma epidemic amongst minority children? Because I'll tell you why: The children got extra welfare if they were disabled, and they got extra help in school. It was a money racket. Everyone went in and was told [fake cough], "When the nurse looks at you, you go [fake cough], "I don't know, the dust got me." "See, everyone had asthma from the minority community." - Media Matters (July 18, 2008) http://mediamatters.org/items/200807180001

"Conservative radio talk show jock Michael Savage used his nationally syndicated show Monday to defend his controversial remarks on autism, even as outraged parents protested outside the Manhattan offices of his broadcaster, calling for his firing. "My comments about autism were meant to boldly awaken parents and children to the medical community's attempt to label too many children or adults as 'autistic,' Savage wrote on his Web site and read on his broadcast Monday. "Many children are being victimized by being diagnosed with an "illness" which may not exist in all cases. .....Let the truly autistic be treated. Let the falsely diagnosed be free.".....His controversial remarks drove several dozen parents and advocates Monday to protest outside WOR-710 in Manhattan. "That isn't just freedom of speech, it is hateful speech when you say 99 percent of children with autism are brats," said Evelyn Ain, whose 8-year-old son has been diagnosed with autism and who organized the demonstration. "I'll tell you, I wish I had a brat." - Carol Polsky, Newsday (June 21, 2008) http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/am-sav0721,0,1239587.story

Eventually her brother-in-law arranged a series of phone calls between Peet and his own mentor, Paul Offit, M.D., who is chief of infectious diseases at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, a co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine, and a board member of Every Child by Two, a pro-vaccine organization co-founded in 1991 by former first lady Rosalynn Carter. "Once we had spoken, I was shocked at the amount of misinformation floating around, particularly in Hollywood," says Peet, who quickly boned up on the hot-button controversies surrounding the topic, including the unproven link between certain vaccines and autism; the safety of preservatives like mercury-based thimerosal; and the fear that the relatively high number of shots kids receive today can overwhelm young immune systems. Her conclusion? Well, not only is Frankie up-to-date on her vaccines (with no staggering), but her mom will soon appear in public-service announcements for Every Child by Two. "I buy 99 percent organic food for Frankie, and I don't like to give her medicine or put sunscreen on her," says Peet. "But now that I've done my research, vaccines do not concern me." What does concern her is the growing number of unvaccinated children who are benefiting from the "shield" created by the inoculated-we are protected from viruses only if everyone, or most everyone, is immunized: "Frankly, I feel that parents who don't vaccinate their children are parasites." - Jennifer Tung, Cookie Magazine (July 12, 2008) http://www.cookiemag.com/entertainment/2008/07/amandapeet

"The vaccine industry gives millions to the Academy of Pediatrics for conferences, grants, medical education classes and even helped build their headquarters. The totals are kept secret, but public documents reveal bits and pieces.....Every Child By Two, a group that promotes early immunization for all children, admits the group takes money from the vaccine industry, too - but wouldn't tell us how much. A spokesman told CBS News: "There are simply no conflicts to be unearthed." But guess who's listed as the group's treasurers? Officials from Wyeth and a paid advisor to big pharmaceutical clients..... Offit was not willing to be interviewed on this subject but like others in this CBS News investigation, he has strong industry ties. In fact, he's a vaccine industry insider. Offit holds in a $1.5 million dollar research chair at Children's Hospital, funded by Merck. He holds the patent on an anti-diarrhea vaccine he developed with Merck, Rotateq, which has prevented thousands of hospitalizations. And future royalties for the vaccine were just sold for $182 million cash. Dr. Offit's share of vaccine profits? Unknown." - Sharyl Attkisson, CBS-TV News (July 25, 2008) http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/25/cbsnews_investigates/main4296175.shtm

Vaccine Facts & Choice: Drawing the Lines

by Barbara Loe Fisher

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

As the battle lines are being drawn between those who want to force all children to use 69 doses of 16 vaccines and those who are defending the right of parents to exercise voluntary, informed consent to vaccination, it is coming down to a matter of whose message do you trust. Should government health officials, pediatricians and vaccine manufacturers, who have been denying vaccine risks for three decades, be trusted to be defacto lawmakers and force vaccination on everyone or should Americans be allowed to become informed about vaccination and legally make voluntary vaccine choices?

Tonight, July 17, Louise Kao Habakus will be speaking about "Vaccination: Building a Case for Education and Choice" at the Atlantis Ballroom, Tom's River Holiday Inn in Tom's River, NJ at 7.pm.. The mother of two children, Louise is standing up for the right to know and the freedom to decide. The presentation is free but to reserve a seat, send e-mail to terrymillsvactalk@hotmail.com


As more parents report that their young girls are suffering disabling reactions to GARDASIL (see a video clip of the WUSA-TV coverage), doctors determined to coverup HPV vaccine risks are giving out inaccurate information (see video clip of a FOX News story ) while public health officials defending vaccine safety write books and parents want more information and choices.

All Americans deserve the right to be fully informed about the risks associated with any pharmaceutical products or medical procedure and be allowed to make a voluntary decision about taking that risk with their own life or the life of their child. The right to informed consent to medical risk taking is a human right.

__________________________________________


"Christina Bell says 2 weeks after her 12 year old daughter Brittany was injected with the HPV vaccine, "she was walking through my house and collapsed. She told me, she couldn't feel her leg." Today, this once athletic girl has a hard time getting around and often loses her balance. Jessica Vega of Nevada got the shot at school and became temporarily paralyzed. Jamie Venice of Florida passed out and had a seizure after her Gardasil shot. "I don't think this should have been fast-tracked by the FDA," says Barbara Loe Fisher with the National Vaccine Information Center. She says Merck, the manufacturer of the drug managed to get Gardasil approved and to market, after studying the side-effects in just 12- hundred girls. What was their incentive? "It certainly is money because the bottom line for their stock holders is a profit," she says. She claims Merck has taken in an estimated 1.5 billion dollars world-wide from Gardasil sales, all for a vaccine she says may do more harm than good. She says doctors share in the blame. "I think pediatricians need to pay more attention to the patient that's sitting in front of them, rather than thinking they need to implement government policy or promote a new vaccine that a drug company rep has come in and promoted to them."The debate over the HPV vaccine rages on in Virginia after it became the first state in the country to mandate the vaccine for sixth grade girls, albeit with an opt-out provision. Those requirements have been delayed for at least one year to allow more time to study the vaccine's effects on young girls." - Nancy Yamada, WUSA-TV9 (July 7, 2008) http://www.wusa9.com/rss/local_article.aspx?storyid=73698

"It remains to be seen whether the new book will answer all queries. "You are going to continue to see parents doing their own research and coming up with a lot of questions," said Barbara Loe Fisher, a frequent critic of vaccines and co-founder of the National Vaccine Information Center, a nonprofit, parent-led organization that seeks to change the mass vaccination process to allow more opt-out flexibility regarding immunizations. She said she looks forward to reading the book but wonders if it will address the issue now being raised about the effect on children's health of recent expansion in the recommended vaccine schedule. "I've seen the number of vaccines double and the number of doses triple," Fisher said. "No matter what is published in that book, it is still an outstanding question until health authorities give us the answer as to why so many highly vaccinated children are so sick." - Susan J. Landers, American Medical News (July 7, 2008)
http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2008/07/07/hlsa0707.htm


Gardasil Controversy: Are the HPV Vaccine's Side Effects a Legitimate Concern?

produced by Ben Evansky
Fox News
July 11, 2008

TO VIEW VIDEO CLIP:
http://www.foxnews.com/video2/video08.html?maven_referralObject=2233990&maven_referralPlaylistId=&sRevUrl=http://www.foxnews.com/health/index.html

HPV Vaccine Victims Pile Up: $1.5B for Merck

by Barbara Loe Fisher


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




While Merck has pulled in $1.5B from sales of GARDASIL vaccine worldwide, there are continuing reports that girls are being crippled and dying after getting the HPV vaccine fast tracked and licensed by the FDA in 2006. Although the roll-out of GARDASIL with an unparalleled multi-million dollar mass media advertising blitz has created a profitable market for the drug company that took huge losses from Vioxx injury/death lawsuits, the persistent reports of Guillain Barre Syndrome (GBS) paralysis, arthritis, seizures and sudden loss of consciousness within 24 hours of vaccination continue to haunt the marketing campaign.

Last week Judicial Watch issued a report on more than 8,000 GARDASIL reaction reports to the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). A search of the VAERS database , which includes reaction reports through April 30, 2008 released to the public by the FDA, reveals nearly 6,700 reports of injury and death after GARDASIL. Two GARDASIL vaccine injury claims recently were filed in the federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986.

Exactly two years ago, NVIC sounded the first public warning about GARDASIL risks pointing out that Merck had not adequately proven the vaccine was safe and effective to give to girls under age 16. NVIC pointed out that pre- licensure trials were flawed because they used an aluminum containing placebo that may have masked the true reactivity of GARDASIL, which also contains 225 mcg of aluminum. Like mercury, aluminum can cause inflammation in the body and kill brain cells.

The fact that Merck had only studied the vaccine in fewer than 1200 girls under age 16 and followed them up for less than two years before licensure did not seem to bother doctors working for the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), who saluted Merck smartly and promptly recommended that all 11 year old girls entering sixth grade get three doses.

By the end of 2006, Merck had marshaled its well- paid lobbying forces bolstered by a flashy television advertising campaign in an unprecedented effort to persuade legislators in every state to turn CDC recommendations into law and pass HPV vaccine mandates. Texas Governor Rick Perry went so far as to issue an Executive Order mandating the vaccine for all sixth grade girls.

GARDASIL had only been on the market for a few months and nobody, including Merck, knew the full range of side effects when GARDASIL was given to millions of girls entering puberty. Nevertheless, the pressure was on young girls, their parents and state legislators to trust blindly that the vaccine had no real risks.

In early 2007, NVIC again warned the public that there were significant risks associated with GARDASIL , especially when it was combined with other vaccines. NVIC warned that there was evidence that giving GARDASIL during active HPV infection may increase the risk for cervical cancer while girls were not being tested for active HPV infection before getting vaccinated. NVIC also advised that girls should not drive home after getting the shot because of the risk for sudden loss of consciousness after leaving the doctor's office.

In March 2007, the CDC admitted that there was no scientific evidence that GARDASIL can be safely co- administered with other vaccines (like TDaP, meningococcal, varicella, MMR, influenza). Even so, without a second thought, the CDC urged doctors to assume safety and go ahead and give GARDASIL simultaneously with other vaccines.

By end of May 2007 almost every state had rejected proposed mandates for GARDASIL vaccine and there were more than 2,000 GARDASIL adverse events reported to VAERS. In August 2007, NVIC released a comprehensive analysis of GARDASIL reaction reports to VAERS and a critique of the CDC's universal use recommendation. In a letter, NVIC asked the CDC to warn doctors that the simultaneous administration of Menactra with GARDASIL increases the risk for GBS and other serious adverse event reports.

The CDC chose to blow off NVIC's report and do nothing.

Two years after licensure, it is clear that GARDASIL has plenty of risks for young girls. Among the more than 130 GARDASIL reaction reports that have been filed with NVIC's 26-year old Vaccine Reaction Registry is one that was posted by a mother, who witnessed what happened to her daughter on the International Memorial for Vaccine Victims.

Amanda's mother describes her daughter as "a beautiful, active girl that was brought down." Only 14 when she was vaccinated, Amanda "became weak, tired and sick to her stomach" but the symptoms subsided. One week after the second HPV vaccination, her legs "became very weak and she started losing feeling in her feet." She was hospitalized in the Intensive Care Unit for four days with a diagnosis of Guillain-Barre Syndrome.

Amanda's mother said "The doctors thought we were CRAZY when we mentioned that the HPV vaccine could cause this."

"Amanda is constantly sick," says her Mom. "Something has suppressed her immune system so badly she can barely function. The depression got really bad because she is experiencing a lot of pain in her knees now and can't do any sports. She was once very active and right now can barely go to school We were told me her doctors that there is nothing more that they can do and that she could use a good psychiatrist."

How many more girls like Amanda and her mother have had their futures stolen by a vaccine that is supposed to prevent a viral infection that is cleared without any residual effects by more than 90 percent of all who get it to prevent a cancer that causes less than 1 percent of all new cancer cases and cancer deaths in the U.S. every year? Did Amanda and her mother know that cervical cancer can be prevented nearly 100 percent of the time with annual pap smears and early intervention when pre-cancerous cervical lesions are diagnosed?

Or did Amanda's Mom believe Amanda would be "one less" because a pediatrician told her so?

NVIC continues to receive reports from grieving mothers and fathers who can't find doctors to treat their once-healthy daughters who are now chronically ill and disabled after being injected with GARDASIL. In almost every case, the doctors are denying the vaccine had anything to do with what happened.

The tragic denial by the medical profession of the harm vaccines can do continues decade after decade after decade. When will doctors stop being marketers of pharmaceutical products and implementers of government policy and embrace the moral imperative to "first, do no harm?"

The "its all a coincidence" defense mounted by doctors when something bad happens after vaccination is illogical, unscientific and dangerous. When will Americans get up off their knees and stop worshipping men and women in white coats who do not know what they are doing?



__________________________________________


"Katherine Kimzey started suffering debilitating headaches, fainting spells and arthritis-like stiffness last November. Six weeks later, the 14-year-old Dallas resident became so dizzy she could barely walk. She was hospitalized and missed three weeks of school. Then, she had a seizure. For weeks, she bounced back and forth between specialists and was eventually diagnosed with epilepsy. Katherine's mother, Michelle Kimzey, now believes her daughter's symptoms were caused by a new vaccine that was supposed to protect her against cervical cancer...... The HPV vaccine has generated debate across the country and in Texas. Gov. Rick Perry issued an executive order in February 2007 requiring that all sixth-grade girls get the HPV shot. But angry parents and conservative groups fought the mandate, fearing it condoned premarital sex and took away parental rights. The Legislature defeated the order last April. The National Vaccine Information Center heralded the decision, saying that testing of the vaccine was not extensive enough in girls under 12. The nonprofit center had already started warning about the possibility of adverse reactions such as extreme fatigue, arthritis and loss of consciousness. Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder and president of the center, said she's frustrated that the CDC has "assumed safety" for Gardasil, which has been tested only in conjunction with the vaccine for Hepatitis B. Today, girls often receive the Gardasil shot at the same time as a meningitis vaccine and another new booster that immunizes against tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis. The FDA has approved all the vaccines separately, but studies on administering them together are still ongoing. "Not only was Gardasil put on the fast track and licensed quickly," said Ms. Fisher, "but to say safety is assumed and you can give any vaccine with it is even more shocking." - Jessica Myers, Dallas Morning News (June 6, 2008) http: //www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/local news/stories/DN- vaccine_06met.ART.North.Edition1.46ef875.html

"Gardasil has been a shot in the arm for pharmaceutical giant Merck. The company had been reeling from the withdrawal of its anti-arthritis drug Vioxx because of increased risk of heart attacks and resulting lawsuits. Now, however, Merck's new vaccine against the human papilloma virus (HPV) - aimed at combating cervical cancer - has been deployed worldwide, earning an estimated $1.5 billion in sales. But the drug is coming under increasing fire from anti-vaccine activists. Already very vocal about childhood innoculations, now they are expressing concern about the effects of Merck's drug on young girls, a primary focus of the company's big ad campaign....."This issue is not going away as more and more vaccines are brought to the market," Barbara Loe Fisher, president of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) who became an activist after a serious reaction in her son to a DPT vaccine (a combined innoculation against Diptheria, Whooping Cough - pertussis - and Tetanus). Fisher, who has served on an Federal Drug Administration consumer advisory committee on vaccines, takes issue with the CDC's read of the VAERS Gardasil reports. Her organization, NVIC, has called on the CDC and FDA to warn the public that Gardasil has been associated with at least 15 cases of Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS), an autoimmune disorder; and it says there is an increased risk for GBS when Gardasil is co- administered with other vaccines, particularly Menactra, a meningitis vaccine....NVIC is concerned about the growing number of vaccinations required by schools and the push, in some public health quarters, to mandate more vaccines. The political fight has been taken to New York and New Jersey. New York state public health officials have endorsed state legislation that would take the CDC's recommended vaccine list for children and declare it to be mandatory, Fisher says, and she sees that as a move that should alarm parents. Vaccinations should be voluntary, Fisher says, and be made with "informed consent" by parents." - Hilary Hylton-Austin, Time/CNN (June 19, 2008) http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1816507,00.html

"Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released a report based on new documents obtained from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, detailing reports of adverse reactions to the vaccination for human papillomavirus (HPV), Gardasil. The adverse reactions include 10 deaths since September, 2007. (The total number of death reports is at least 18 and as many as 20.) The FDA also produced 140 "serious" reports (27 of which were categorized as "life threatening"), 10 spontaneous abortions and six cases of Guillain-Barre Syndrome - all since January 2008." - Judicial Watch (June 30, 2008) http://www.judicialwatch.org/news/2008/jun/judicial-watch-uncovers-new-fda-records-detailing-ten-new-deaths-140-serious-adverse-e

"About a month after being vaccinated against the cervical cancer-causing HPV virus, 13- year-old Jenny Tetlock missed the lowest hurdle in gym class, the first hint of the degenerative muscle disease that, 15 months later, has left the previously healthy teenager nearly completely paralyzed....Her father, Philip Tetlock, a psychology professor at UC- Berkeley's Haas School of Business, has embarked on an odyssey to find out whether the vaccine or random coincidence is to blame..... Tetlock, though, wonders if Jenny carries genes that predisposed her to problems with the Gardasil vaccine. At age 10, Jenny developed a rare skin disease called pityriasis lichenoides that's thought to be triggered by an overactive immune system, and her grandmother died of a nervous system disease. Could it be that certain genetic tendencies make some people more likely to develop severe reactions from vaccines?....Jenny endures terrible suffering each day."..... "She must watch her capacity to control her own body gradually ebb away-and each day her hopes of ever having a normal human life recede ever further into memory. The disease is cruel beyond belief." - Deborah Kotz, US News & World Report (July 2, 2008) http://www.usnews.com/blogs/on-women/2008/07/02/is-hpv-vaccine-to-blame-for-a-teens-paralysis.html

"Lawyers last month filed the first two claims on behalf of girls with ailments blamed on Gardasil under a federal program to compensate victims of vaccine-caused illness, The Post has learned. Both girls got the injections at their middle schools. One is Jesalee Parsons, now 15, of Oklahoma, who began vomiting the day she got a Gardasil shot and developed pancreatitis, her claim says. "It makes me mad because they're saying how great it is, but they never mention how many people have been hurt by it," Jesalee told The Post. Healthy all her life, her family says, Jesalee has been hospitalized on and off for more than a year. She restricts her diet, takes pain pills and misses many school days. "I'm pretty sick all the time," she said. The other claim was filed for Jessica Vega of Nevada, who came down with Guillain-Barré Syndrome, an immune-system disorder, at age 14 - a week after her second Gardasil shot. Thirty others have reported the syndrome after getting the vaccine. JESSICA'S mom, Rhonda Vega, says the girl's lower legs and arms were paralyzed, but she's learned to walk again. "Protecting girls against cervical cancer is a fabulous thing, but if this is what's going to happen, they need to research it more," she said......Merck spokeswoman Kelley Dougherty said the company "actively monitors" reports of side effects. "An event report does not mean that a causal relationship between an event and vaccination has been established - just that the event occurred after vaccination," she said. - Susan Edelman and Bruce Golding, New York Post (July 6, 2008) http://www.nypost.com/seven/07062008/news/nationalnews/feds_warning_shot_118716.htm

Vaccine-Educated Parents Push Pharma Back in New York

by Barbara Loe Fisher

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

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

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

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

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


__________________________________________




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

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

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

AAP Leadership Fights Informed Vaccine Choices

by Barbara Loe Fisher

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

by Barbara Loe Fisher

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

Parents Rally in Albany Against Forced Vaccination

by Barbara Loe Fisher

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Day of Remembrance: Vaccine Injured March on Capitol Hill

by Barbara Loe Fisher

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NVIC Launches "Stand Up Be Counted Campaign" To Protect Voluntary Vaccination Decisions in America

Washington, D.C. - The oldest and largest consumer organization dedicated to preventing vaccine injuries and deaths, the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), announced today that it will launch a national public education campaign to protect the legal right to make informed, voluntary decisions about vaccination in America.

Citing the tripling of the numbers of doses of vaccines recommended by federal officials for children during the past quarter century, most of which have been mandated for school entry in many states, NVIC is urging citizens to "stand up and be counted" and help inform and empower citizens to insert informed consent protections in state vaccine laws.

Founded in 1982 by parents of vaccine injured children, for the past three decades NVIC has asked government and industry to individualize vaccine policies and conduct prospective studies comparing the health of vaccinated and unvaccinated children. The organization opposed recent attempts to mandate the newly licensed HPV vaccine for all sixth grade girls, as well as criticized the action of Maryland state officials who forced parents in November 2007 to vaccinate their children for chickenpox and hepatitis B or face stiff fines and prison time.

"Twenty-six years is long enough to wait for government officials and the multi-billion dollar vaccine industry to investigate the chronic disease and disability epidemic affecting millions of highly vaccinated American children," said NVIC co-founder and president, Barbara Loe Fisher. "Vaccines are pharmaceutical products sold for profit and federally protected from liability. One-size-fits-all vaccine mandates must be accompanied by strong informed consent protections, including broad exemptions for medical, religious and conscientious belief reasons. Forcing vaccination is a violation of human rights, especially when government guidelines to protect those genetically vulnerable for being harmed by vaccines are non-existent."

NVIC's Stand Up Be Counted Campaign emphasizes prevention of vaccine reactions through education, advocacy and charity. Adopting the slogan "Give a Dollar For Yourself and For Every Person You Love," NVIC's goal is to encourage public support through small $5 and $10 donations for the national vaccine education campaign.

For more information about the campaign go to www.StandUpBeCounted.org where a free ad can be downloaded for placement in community newspapers. NVIC's website at www.NVIC.org is the oldest and largest consumer-operated vaccine information website on the internet and includes an on-line Vaccine Reaction Registry.

NVIC's founders worked with Congress on the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 to insert vaccine safety provisions into the law mandating that doctors (1) give parents written information about vaccine benefits and risks before vaccinating children; (2) keep permanent records of all vaccines given, including the manufacturer's name and lot number; (3) write down serious health problems following vaccination in medical records; and (4) report injuries, hospitalizations and deaths within 30 days of vaccination to the federal Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS).

It is estimated that less than 10 percent of all serious health problems which develop following vaccination are ever reported to the government. NVIC supports the adoption of the federal safety provisions into state vaccine laws with legal sanctions if physicians do not obey the law, including failure to report adverse events that occur after vaccination.

NVIC is endorsing the June 4 "Green Our Vaccines" rally in Washington, D.C. and the call by organizations representing children with autism to remove toxins from vaccines and allow more flexibility in administration of the 48 doses of 14 vaccines pediatricians give to children before age six.

The Center Will Not Hold As Parents & Docs Question Vaccine Policy

by Barbara Loe Fisher

It was only a matter of time. For 26 years parents of vaccine injured children and a few brave doctors have challenged the one-size-fits-all approach to mandated use of multiple vaccines in the absence of sound scientific evidence that policy is safe for all children. Now, when 1 in 6 child in America is learning disabled and 1 in 150 develops autism, more rank and file pediatricians are speaking out about the need to provide pediatric care for unvaccinated children and respect parental choices to use fewer vaccines.

Last week in a CBS-TV interview, HPV vaccine researcher Dr. Diane Harper supported more scientific research as well as the ethical principle of informed consent to vaccination when asked whether HPV vaccine should be mandated. She said "We don't know yet what's going to happen when millions of doses of the vaccine have been given and to put in process a place that says you must have this vaccine, it means you must be part of a big public experiment....... There isn't enough information to have a mandate that you can't go to school until you have this vaccine. It does not make any sense."

This week in another CBS-TV interview, former NIH Director Bernadine Healy, M.D., stood up and spoke out about the need to scientifically investigate the causal association between vaccines and autism, especially the potential for certain individuals to be genetically susceptible to being harmed by vaccines. She said "I think that the public health officials have been too quick to dismiss the hypothesis as irrational.... there may be this susceptible group. The fact that there is concern, that you don't want to know that susceptible group is a real disappointment to me. If you know that susceptible group, you can save those children. If you turn your back on the notion that there is a susceptible group.....what can I say?"

At the same time that enlightened pediatricians, researchers, and former health officials are calling for a re-examination of scientifically questionable vaccine policies that have failed to identify and screen out high risk children and respect parental rights to make informed, voluntary vaccine choices, some British health authorities and politicians are calling for MMR vaccine mandates for British children. The leading proponent for mandates in Britain said "The MMR vaccination rate is at 85% and the target figure is 95%, so it's about catching children who may have moved or lost contact with their health visitor but also saying to parents your child has a right to live free from vaccine preventable diseases." The head of Britain's Medical Association called the proposal "morally and ethically dubious" and added "A Stalinist approach like this would be likely to backfire on an unprecedented scale and increase opposition to vaccinations."

After 26 years, U.S. health officials are also wrestling with how to prove to parents and doctors that current vaccine policies have adequately addressed evidence that more and more children are regressing after vaccination and suffering brain and immune dysfunction. A transcript of the April 11, 2008 National Vaccine Advisory Committee workshop at which parents and doctors expressed their concerns about vaccine safety is now available at http://www.hhs.gov/nvpo/nvac/transcript_apr08.html

In the meantime, 19 parent organizations are endorsing a call for Presidential candidates to pledge to issue two executive orders within 100 days of taking office which would (1) remove mercury from all vaccines by Jan 1. 2010 and (2) require a moratorium on the addition of new vaccines to the recommended list for children until the current vaccine schedule can be proven safe. Supporting organizations include A- CHAMP, Autism One, Autism Research Institute, Autism United, Deirdre Imus Environmental Center for Pediatric Oncology, Environment of Harm Yahoo Group, Generation Rescue, HEAL Foundation, Moms Against Mercury, National Autism Association, National Vaccine Information Center, No Mercury, Safeminds, Schafer Autism Report, Spectrum Magazine, TACA -- Talk About Curing Autism, Treating Autism (UK), Unlocking Autism, and World Mercury Project.

On Wednesday, June 4, 2008 a "Green Our Vaccines" rally will be held in Washington, D.C. questioning the safety of vaccine components and the government's current vaccine schedule.


***********************************************************
" There is a growing controversy over the number of vaccines that children receive and when they receive them. According to the National Vaccine Information Center, in the 1970s, children received 23 doses of vaccine by the time they were 6 years old. Now, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends more than twice as many. For some doctors and parents, that number is disturbing......Hamilton thought that she found a doctor who would respect her decision, but the office told her to put it in writing. Then, according to Hamilton, the office told her, "Whenever you come back in two months, you're going to have to vaccinate. And if you don't vaccinate, don't come back." Hamilton found a pediatrician who will care for their son after checking with about 25 doctors. "He agrees with me in my thinking, in saying that it's perfectly fine in what I'm doing, not making me feel horrible for doing it," she said. Dr. Anuradha Agrawal is a pediatrician in Dallas. She said that she is willing to delay vaccines and spread others out, and does have a small number of patients who have opted not to innoculate their kids. "I cannot say you get this shot now otherwise I cannot see you any further," she said. Dr. Seshagiri Rao believes kids are given too many vaccines. He and a growing number of pediatricians say that Hepatitis B does not need to be given at birth if the mother does not have Hepatitis B......Pediatricians like Dr. Deborah Bains believe that MMR, a triple vaccine that prevents measles, mumps and rubella, puts unnecessary stress on a child's immune system. She explained, "We saw before our eyes this reaction to the vaccination. That was the last time I gave the MMR as a single vaccine." "Being a mom, I believe there are too many," Dr. Agrawal said of the vaccinations. "Being a pediatrician, I believe there are too many, and I don't know what can be done about it. And as the research evolves, as the science evolves, I think there will be more and more." Dr. Rao takes the debate even one more step further, saying, "I think it would be a good idea to revamp the whole vaccination program." - CBS11-TV (Dallas), Stephanie Lucero Reporting (May 9, 2008) http://cbs11tv.com/health/Children.Vaccine.Schedule.2.720610.html

"William Mead was a Pottery Barn baby model and met all the typical milestones. Then, also at age 2, after a set of vaccinations, William became very ill and he, too, changed forever. At first, both sets of parents suspected hearing problems. "The reason we had him tested for a hearing deficit was 'cause he wouldn't respond to us," Mead said. "He no longer used any of his language." "We had him tested for deafness, it was that bad," King said. "I mean, you could slam a book on the floor and he wouldn't turn around to see what the sound was. It was like he was in this bubble of somewhere else, like he'd left the planet or something.....Dr. Bernadine Healy is the former head of the National Institutes of Health, and the most well-known medical voice yet to break with her colleagues on the vaccine-autism question. In an exclusive interview with CBS News, Healy said the question is still open......."But public health officials have been saying they know, they've been implying to the public there's enough evidence and they know it's not causal," Attkisson said. "I think you can't say that," Healy said. "You can't say that." Healy goes on to say public health officials have intentionally avoided researching whether subsets of children are "susceptible" to vaccine side effects - afraid the answer will scare the public......There is a completely expressed concern that they don't want to pursue a hypothesis because that hypothesis could be damaging to the public health community at large by scaring people. "First of all," Healy said, "I think the public's smarter than that. The public values vaccines. But more importantly, I don't think you should ever turn your back on any scientific hypothesis because you're afraid of what it might show." - CBS-TV News, Sharyl Attkisson Reporting (May 12, 2008)
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/12/cbsnews_investigates/main4086809.shtml

"Children who have not received all their vaccinations should not be allowed to start school, a Labour MP has suggested. Speaking in the left-wing Fabian Society magazine, Mary Creagh said the move would increase the uptake of the controversial MMR vaccine. In the same article, public health expert Sir Sandy Macara suggests linking child benefits to vaccinations.....Ms Creagh said primary schools should be compelled to demand proof that children had been given the full range of routine jabs - including MMR - before they could register. The MP for Wakefield, who is also in charge of drawing up the Labour party's public health manifesto for the next election, said the sanction had been used in the US." - BBC-UK (May 11, 2008)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7392510.stm

Examining the Science & Politics of HPV Vaccine

by Barbara Loe Fisher

It has been nearly two years since the FDA fast tracked the licensure of Merck's GARDASIL vaccine and the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommended it for universal use by all 11 year old girls. Calls for state mandates for sixth grade entry soon followed with Merck leading an aggressive lobbying campaign with pro-forced vaccination proponents talking about 12 year old girls having sex. The National Vaccine Information Center countered by publicly framing the debate about GARDASIL mandates as a product safety and informed consent issue: the vaccine had only been tested in fewer than 1200 girls under age 16 followed up for less than two years.

Now, a leading HPV vaccine researcher has spoken out opposing mandates in a three-part series produced by CBS4-TV in Miami. Speaking to investigative journalist Michele Gillen Harper said "We don't know yet what's going to happen when millions of doses of the vaccine have been given and to put in process a place that says you must have this vaccine, it means you must be part of a big public experiment. So we can't do that until we have more data."

It takes a lot of courage for any scientist or physician to stand up and speak out about the need for government, industry and physicians to embrace the precautionary principle: First, do no harm. Dr. Harper has upheld high standards for scientific and ethical integrity by responsibly calling for rigorous post- marketing surveillance of licensed HPV vaccines and adherence to the informed consent ethic.

The National Vaccine Information Center has received nearly 100 reports of serious health problems following vaccination. NVIC issued three reports on GARDASIL adverse events reported to the federal Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS). In August 2007, NVIC called on the CDC to warn doctors that the safety of giving GARDASIL simultaneously in combination with other vaccines had not been proven safe.

A family support group for those who have reported HPV vaccine reactions to NVIC is being created. If you or a loved one has suffered an HPV vaccine reaction, you can make a report to NVIC's 26- year old Vaccine Reaction Registry by going to https://www.nvic.org/report/reaction.htm. Please indicate if you would like to participate in the HPV Vaccine Reaction Family Support Group.


***********************************************************
"According to Dr. Diane Harper, "the vaccine has not been out long enough for us to have post marketing surveillance to really understand what all the potential side effects are going to be. We feel it is very safe." However, she adds, "We don't know yet what's going to happen when millions of doses of the vaccine have been given and to put in process a place that says you must have this vaccine, it means you must be part of a big public experiment. So we can't do that until we have more data." Barbara Loe Fisher agrees. She took to the streets a grass roots fight credited with derailing many efforts around the country to mandate the vaccine. "It was the quickest effort I have ever seen in 25 years for a vaccine to be mandated," says Fisher. A mother of a son who she say was left with learning disabilities following a routine vaccination in the 1980's, Fisher is President and Co Founder of the National Vaccine Information Center. It is a non-profit independent clearinghouse for information on vaccines and disease. Fisher says her organization has been contacted by nearly 100 parents claiming their daughters have suffered some type of adverse reaction following a Gardasil shot - at times given in combination with other vaccines. She says many parents are frustrated in their search for answers and that they don't know where to turn. She tells Gillen "the National Vaccine Information Center is getting reports every week, mostly mothers, of what is happening to their 11-year old girls after receiving Gardasil." - CBS4-TV (Miami), Michele Gillen reporting (May 7, 2008)
http://cbs4.com/video/?id=54565@wfor.dayport.com

"Bell says she now finds herself on a search for answers as to what happened to her daughter, Brittney, just weeks following an injection of Gardasil and a tetanus shot. The former cheerleader and runner's left leg was mysteriously affected by paralysis. The family wants to know if the condition could have been triggered by the vaccines she received that day. Reported adverse events following vaccine injections, including Gardasil, have come under increasing scrutiny by parents reviewing them on the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS)....."Brittany's case is at a quandary," said Sean Cronin, attorney for the Bell family. Cronin says it is an uphill battle trying to investigate whether the Gardasil shot played any role in what has happened to Brittney. Christina Bell says Brittney's pediatrician does not believe there is a link. Now the Bell family has learned that Merck can't be sued over its Gardasil vaccine because it has been added to a federal list of vaccines recommended by the government. The vaccine manufacturers are insulated from liability." - CBS4-TV (Miami), Michele Gillen reporting (May 25, 2008)
http://cbs4.com/video/id =53934@wfor.dayport.com

"Christina Bell's daughter, Brittney, was one of the young girls who recieved the vaccine. Just weeks later, her life took a radical turn for the worse. Seemingly, in a moment's time, Brittney's left leg became paralyzed, her ankle swinging like a rag doll's. Even with a shoe brace, she walks with a limp. "It's hard for me to lift it up," Brittney told Gillen. Brittney's limb paralysis occurred shortly after the 12 year old went to the doctor for a routine tetanus shot for school.....Last February, the FDA told CBS4 that it was investigating reports of 13 deaths following an HPV vaccination. At the time, the agency said it was confident that none were tied to the vaccine and that reports of adverse events were under review but not considered anything out of the ordinary. An FDA spokeswoman told CBS4 this week that she could not provide an update on the number of reported events, including deaths. "I haven't seen updated numbers for several months. We monitor on a daily basis but we don't total it up. We are not seeing a problem," said Susan Cruzan, spokesperson for the FDA.....Brittney's mom said she can't find a doctor willing to report an adverse reaction following the administration of her daughter's vaccines. CBS4 informed her that parents, just like doctors, can report an adverse event and the Bell family has done just that." - CBS4-TV (Miami), April 24, 2007
http://cbs4.com/video/?id=53899@wfor.dayport.com