Doctors Denying Vaccine Risks: An American Tragedy

by Barbara Loe Fisher

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

AAP Strong Arms CBS

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

AAP: Follow the Money

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

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

AAP: Censoring Vaccine Information

This, together with the fact that in February 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court gave drug companies a bigger shield8 from vaccine injury lawsuits – even if the company could have made a safer vaccine – means that the only power Americans have left to protect ourselves from vaccine injury is to arm ourselves with information and defend the legal right to make vaccine choices.9 But, clearly, that is getting harder to do when doctors and organizations paid by the pharmaceutical industry are trying to censor vaccine information and block all public conversation about vaccination, while lobbying to take away the human right to informed consent to medical risking taking.10, 11, 12, 13

Dr. Paul Offit: Follow the Money

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

Offit spent a large part of his new book demonizing me and NVIC with the half witted, zealous obsession of a stalker.22 Just this week, a newspaper in Orange County, CA published a retraction23 for printing Offit’s defamatory accusation that veteran CBS journalist, Sharyl Attkisson, lied when she accurately reported in 2008 that Offit failed to inform CBS about exactly how much money he and his employer, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, are paid by Merck. Merck is the manufacturer and marketer of Vioxx and a whole slew of vaccines, including Offit’s rotavirus vaccine and Gardasil, hepatitis B, chicken pox, shingles and MMR vaccines.24

Doctors Demanding We Must Trust

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

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

New Vaccines, New Mandates, Big Profits

How many of these hundreds of new vaccines will be fast tracked by the FDA32, 33 and mandated for children as soon as they are licensed?34 Probably most of them, because that is how drug companies with no liability make big profits – by making sure that every vaccine they make and sell is legally required to be used by every child. And adults are not exempt from the vaccine mandate creep either, just ask American health care workers, who are being fired if they don’t get an annual flu shot,35 as well as lots of other vaccines.

Doctors Should Partner With Parents To Prevent Vaccine Reactions

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

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

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

Brain Inflammation: From Infections & Vaccines

Brain inflammation36 is one of the most feared complications of vaccination and has been since the first vaccines – smallpox and rabies vaccines - were created and given to humans. 37, 38 Doctors have known for more than a century that brain inflammation,39 whether it is caused by an infection or a vaccination,40, 41, 42 can cause different kinds of permanent brain dysfunction that ranges from multiple learning disabilities to medication resistant seizure disorders, mental retardation43 and, yes, sometimes can result in a constellation of brain dysfunction symptoms that are labeled by doctors as “autism.” 44, 45

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

Writing Off Vaccine Reaction Symptoms Is Dangerous

Too often doctors today – just like doctors back in the 1980’s – are not telling parents about what to look for after vaccines are given. Too many pediatricians today are listening to the advice of Paul Offit48, 49 and, instead of adhering to the precautionary principle, are dangerously writing off symptoms of vaccine reactions as a “coincidence” without having a clue about whether that is true for an individual child.

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

Learn How to Make Informed Vaccine Choices

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

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

One Size Does Not Fit All

America’s children would be better served if the American Academy of Pediatrics leadership educated its membership about how to be intelligent, compassionate partners with parents in preventing vaccine reactions, injuries and deaths rather than write off symptoms of vaccine reactions as a “coincidence” and bully parents into submitting to one-size-fits-all vaccine policies that are not safe for every single child. People are not all the same and we do not all react the same way to pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines.56 Some children are genetically and biologically at higher risk for suffering life-altering vaccine reactions.57
Pretending that is not true is both intellectually dishonest and cruel. No child is expendable and no pediatrician should be encouraged to be a zealous implementer of state vaccine policy first instead of, first, doing no harm.

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

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

References:
1 NVIC. NVIC & Mercola.com on Times Square. NVIC Vaccine E-newsletter March 23, 2011.
2 Autism News Beat (an anonymous blogger). AAP asks CBS to pull anti-vaccine ad. April 13, 2011.
3 The Skeptical Teacher (aka anonymous blogger mattusmaximus). ALERT: Demand That CBS Not Air Outdoor Anti-Vaccine Ad! April 15, 2011.
4 Platt, M. Doctors demand the removal of anti-vaccine ad from Times Square. The Guardian (UK). April 18, 2011.
5 Lagorio C. How Independent Are Vaccine Defenders? CBS News. July 25, 2008.
6 NVIC. Federal Law – National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986.
7 Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program: Statistics Report (as of April 4, 2011).
8 Supreme Court of the United States. Russell Bruesewitz et al v. Wyeth et al. No. 09-152. Argued October 12, 2010 – Decided February 22, 2011.
9 Fisher BL. No Pharma Liability? No Vaccine Mandates. March 2, 2011.
10 AAP. State Government Affairs: State Legislation Report 2010. Childhood Immunization Challenges.
11 Friedman M. NJ Senate Bill would establish stricter rules on vaccination exemptions citing religious reasons. Star Ledger. March 15, 2011.
12 Fisher BL. Vaccines and Individual Rights. Wall Street Journal. January 27, 2007.
13 Fisher, BL. WA & NJ Families Stand Up for Vaccine Choices. NVIC Vaccine E-newsletter. March 23, 2011.
14 Fagone, J. Will This Doctor Hurt Your Baby? Philadelphia Magazine. March 27, 2009.
15 Handley JB. Columbia University Press and Dr. Paul Offit Sued for Autism’s False Prophets. Age of Autism. February 10, 2009.
16. Wallace A. An Epidemic of Fear: One Man’s Battle Against the Anti-VaccineMovement. Wired. November 2009.
17 Barbara Loe Arthur (aka Barbara Loe Fisher), Plaintiff v. Paul A. Offit, M.D. et al, Defendants. Civil Action No. 01:09-cv-1398. U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Plaintiff’s Opposition to Motion to Dismiss filed Feb. 3, 2010 on behalf of plaintiff by Jonathan W. Emord with Andrea G. Ferrenz, Peter A. Arhangelsky, Christopher K. Niederhauser of Emord & Associates, Counsel for Plaintiff.
18 Orange County Register. CORRECTION re: August 4, 2008 article “Dr. Paul Offit Responds.” April 18, 2011.
19 Kalb, C. Stomping Through a Medical Minefield. Newsweek Magazine. October 25, 2008.
20 Poling J. Letter re: Vaccines and Autism Revisited – The Hannah Poling Case. NEnglJMed 2008; 359:655-565. Aust 7, 2008.
21 Offit PA, Moser CA. The Problem with Dr. Bob’s Alternate Vaccine Schedule. Pediatrics 2009; 123: e164-e169.
22 Offit P. Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All. Basic Books: 2011.
23 See Reference #18.
24 MerckVaccines.com
25 AAP. 2011 Immunization Schedules.
26 Cry for Vaccine Freedom Wall.NVIC.
27 Kotz D. Flexible Approach to Vaccination Comes Under Fire.U.S. News. December 29, 2008.
28 Flanaga-Klygis EA, Sharp E. Frader JE. Dismissing the Family Who Refuses Vaccines: A Study of Pediatrician Attitudes.Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2005; 159: 929-934.
29 AAP.Medical Home (National Center for Medical Home Implementation).
30 U.S. National Institutes of Health.Vaccine Clinical Trials.
31 Associated Press. Vaccines market gives pharmaceutical industry a boost. NJ.com. November 17, 2009.
32 NVIC. Merck’s Gardasil Vaccine Not Proven Safe for Little Girls. NVIC Press Release: June 27, 2006.
33 Computer Sciences Corporation. Case Studies: Regulatory Affairs. Fast Tracking Vaccine Program.
34 Zimm A, Preston D. Merck Gets First U.S. Cancer Shot Mandate, From Texas (Update 3). Bloomberg News. February 2, 2007.
35 Fisher BL. Forcing Flu Shots on Healthcare Workers: Who Is Next? NVIC. September 10, 2010.
36 Merck Manual. Definition of Encephalitis (brain inflammation).
37 Altman LK. Smallpox Vaccine Transmission Raises Liability Issue. New York Times. December 16, 2002.
38 The Rockefeller University. The Birth of the Concept of Autoimmune Demyelinating Disease and Creation of An Animal Model to Test New Therapies for Multiple Sclerosis. The Rockefeller University Hospital.
39 News-Medical.Net. Brain inflammation is a sign of autism. Nov. 15, 2004.
40 Gold, R. Pertussis: The Disease & the Vaccine. Canadian Family Physician. Vol 32, January 1986, pp. 79-83.
41 Steinman L, Weiss A et al. Pertussis toxin is required for pertussis vaccine encephalopathy. Proc Natl Acad Sci, 1985. December; 82(24) 8733-8736.
42 Hofstetter HH, Shive CL, Forsthuber TC. Pertussis Toxin Modulates the Immune Response to Neuroantigens Injected in Incomplete Freund’s Adjuvant: Induction of Th1 Cells and Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis in the Presence of High Frequencies of Th2 Cells. The Journal of Immunology, 2002. 169: 117-125.
43 Stratton KR, Howe CJ, Johnston RB. DPT Vaccine and Chronic Nervous System Dysfunction: A New Analysis. Institute of Medicine: National Academy Press. 1994.
44 Ashwood P, Wills S, VandeWater J. The immune response in autism: a new frontier for autism research. Journal of Leukocyte Biology 2006; 80: 1-15.
45 Fisher BL. Vaccines, Autism & Chronic Inflammation: The New Epidemic. NVIC. 2008.
46 Coulter HL, Fisher BL. DPT: A Shot in the Dark. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 1985.
47 Fisher BL. Medical Science & Public Trust: The policy, ethics and law of vaccination in the 20th & 21st centuries. Presentation at the Vaccine Safety: Evaluating the Science Conference. January 3, 2011.
48 The Colbert Report. Interview with Paul Offit. February 1, 2011.
49 Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism. Interview with Paul Offit. January 31, 2011.
50 International Memorial for Vaccine Victims. Hepatitis B Vaccine Reaction Report. NVIC.
51 Epilepsy.com. Online discussion about seizures after immunizations. April 2005.
52 NVIC. Gardasil & The Damage Done: Gabrielle’s Gardasil Vaccine Reaction. December 2008.
53 NVIC. If You Vaccinate, Ask 8!
55 Vaccine Ingredients Calculator.
56 National Center for Biotechnology Information. One Size Does Not Fit All.
57 PBS NewsHour. Autism Now. Six-Part Series (On Air April 18-25 and online)

Click here to watch the video
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No Pharma Liability? No Vaccine Mandates.

by Barbara Loe Fisher

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

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

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

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

Big Pharma Blackmailed Congress in 1982

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

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

Supreme Court Allows Seat Belt Injury Lawsuits

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

Civil Liability Is A Consumer Protection

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

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

Parents in 1980’s Opposed Total Liability Shield

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

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

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

1986 Law: Pharma Liability Was The Safety Net

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

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

Supreme Court Wrote Pharma A Blank Check

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

Every American Pays Surcharge on Every Vaccination

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

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

130 vaccinations from birth to death

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

Hundreds of New Vaccines In Development

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

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

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

Americans Forced to Get More Vaccines Than Anyone in World

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

There is no other word for this but tyranny.

Vaccines Are Phamaceutical Products

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

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

No liability?

No accountability?

No mandates.

Stand Up for Health Freedom

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

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

Join NVIC: Help Us Help You

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

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

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

Protect Vaccine Exemptions in Your State

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

Donate $10 and NVIC Receives $30 to Defend Freedom

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

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

We Cannot Be Afraid

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

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

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

No forced vaccination.

Not in America.

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

References

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

21 See Reference # 5.

22 See References # 3, 5, 6, 9

23 See Reference # 8

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

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

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

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

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

29 Injury Board, LawWiki. Contaminated Food Products.

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

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

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

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

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

35 See References # 5

36 See Reference #6

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

38 See Reference # 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

45 Vaccination Schedule – United Kingdom.

46 Vaccination Schedule – Australia

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

48 Vaccination Schedule – Netherlands

49 Vaccination Schedule – Germany

50 Vaccination Schedule - Japan

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

52 See References # 18, 19, 20

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



Click here to watch the video:
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WA State Vaccine Law Threatens Exemptions & Violates Privacy

by Barbara Loe Fisher

If you are a resident of Washington state, you should know that there is a bill quietly sailing through your state legislature that violates your privacy and threatens your right to make informed, voluntary decisions about vaccination. House Bill 1015 1 and Senate Bill 5005 also discriminates against parents by failing to give them equal protection under the federal National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 (PL 99-660). 2

The proposed new law will legally require doctors and nurses to personally sign off on all religious or personal belief exemptions to vaccination filed with the state. Parents seeking non-medical exemptions will be required to include a signature from a vaccine provider on the exemption form stating that they have been given vaccine benefit and risk information. 3 Currently Washington state mandatory vaccination laws 4 only require signatures from medical personnel when medical exemptions are filed.

If this bill becomes law, it will put doctors, nurses and other medical personnel in the legal position of acting as inquisitors of religious beliefs held by fellow citizens, which is an invasion of privacy and a de facto violation of First Amendment rights. 5 Americans associated with the medical profession will have the power to sit in judgment of, or interfere with, the free exercise of religious, spiritual or conscientious beliefs of other Americans. It will also make it easier for doctors to punish parents making selective vaccine choices by denying their children medical care, which is the official policy of many U.S. pediatricians. 6

The ethical principle of informed consent 7 to medical risk taking means that you, as an individual or the legal guardian of an individual, have the human right to be fully informed about the benefits and risks of a medical intervention and make a voluntary decision without being harassed or coerced by anyone. 8 The informed consent principle protects individuals in every society from exploitation by those in positions of power in medicine, government and industry. 9, 10, 11

The proposed Washington state bill makes it easier for doctors and other medical personnel to violate an individual’s informed consent rights and discriminate against those filing vaccine exemptions, who may hold different beliefs and values. 12, 13, 14, 15 Informed consent is especially important when it comes to vaccination because doctors and nurses cannot predict ahead of time who will be injured by vaccines. More than $2 billion dollars has been awarded by the U.S. Court of Claims 16 to compensate vaccine victims, mostly children, whose doctors did not know they would suffer brain inflammation, immune dysregulation and become permanently disabled or even die after vaccination. 17, 18, 19

Co-sponsors of the new Washington state vaccine law do not acknowledge in the bill that there is already a federal law in place since 1986, 20, 21 which legally requires doctors, nurses and all vaccine providers to:

  1. Give parents vaccine benefit and risk information before vaccination takes place;
  2. Record serious health problems, including hospitalizations, injuries and deaths, after vaccination in the child’s permanent medical records;
  3. Report serious health problems after vaccination 22 to the federal Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS); 23 and
  4. Keep a permanent record of all vaccines given, including the manufacturer’s name and lot number.

Unfortunately, today most vaccine providers do not obey these important federal law requirements. So if the goal of the new law is to educate parents about vaccination, it should simply state that all vaccine providers are legally required to give every parent Vaccine Information Statements (VIS) produced by the Centers for Disease Control, 24 which also contain information about reporting vaccine reactions and the federal vaccine injury compensation program.

If you are a Washington State resident and do not want to lose your right to file a religious or personal belief exemption to vaccination without getting the signature of a doctor or nurse, you need take action TODAY.

Sign up for NVIC's Advocacy Portal and learn how to take action and make your voice heard. No matter what state you live in, please join forces now with the oldest, largest, and most experienced vaccine safety and informed consent organization, the non-profit National Vaccine Information Center, 25, 26 and fight for your freedom to make voluntary vaccine choices in America.

If it can happen in Washington state, it can happen in your state. Defend your informed consent rights.

Please forward the public service announcement linked to the end of this commentary to everyone you know about how to join NVIC’s Advocacy Portal.

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

Click here to watch NVIC’s Advocacy Portal Public Service Announcement.

References

1 Washington State Legislature. House Bill 1015 and Senate Bill

2The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 (PL 99-660). Subpart C - Assuring a Safer Childhood Vaccination Program in the United States (300 aa 25-28): Recording and reporting of information; vaccine information; mandate for safer childhood vaccines; manufacturer recordkeeping and reporting.

3 Washington State House of Representatives, Office of Program Research. Bill Analysis (HB1015) Health Care & Wellness Committee. January 11, 2011.

4 Washington State Vaccine Requirements.

5 United States Constitution, First Amendment.

6 Flanagan-Klygis EA, Sharp L, Frader JE. Dismissing the Family Who Refuses Vaccines. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med 2005; 159:929-934

7 University of Washington School of Medicine. Ethics in Medicine: Informed Consent.

8 Doyal L. Good clinical practice and informed consent are inseparable. Heart 2002; 87(2): 103-105.

9 Encyclopedia of Virginia. Buck v. Bell (1927).

10 Seidelman WE. Nuremberg lamentation: for the forgotten victims of medical science. British Medical Journal 1996; 313: 1463-7.

11 Annas GJ. Globalization of Clinical Trials and Informed Consent. N Eng J Med 2009; 360:2050-2053.

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

13 Offit, P. Mandating Influenza Vaccine: One Hospital’s Experience. Medscape 2010.

14 Sullivan PL. 2010. Influenza Vaccination in HealthCare Workers: Should It Be Mandatory? Journal of Issues in Nursing.

15 Evans G, Bostrom A, Johnston RB, Fisher BL, Stoto MA, editors. Risk Communication and Vaccination: Summary of a Workshop. Institute of Medicine, National Academies Press 1997.

16 U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program Statistics Report (January 3, 2011).

17 Waldenbuerg WS, Wallace SE. When Science is Silent: Examining Compensation of Vaccine-Related Injuries When Scientific Evidence of Causation is Inconclusive. Wake Forest Law Review 2007; 42: 303-331.

18 Poling J, Poling T. Letters: Vaccines, Autism and Our Daughter, Hannah. New York Times April 15, 2008.

19 U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program Vaccine Injury Table.

20 See Reference #1

21 National Vaccine Information Center. National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

22 MedAlerts.org: Online Access to the U.S. Government’s VAERS Data

23 U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS).

24 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control: Vaccine Information Statements.

25 National Vaccine Information Center. About Us.

26 In the U.S. Supreme Court of the United States: Bruesewitz v. Wyeth-Lederle Vaccines and Lederle Laboratories. Petition of Amici Curiae National Vaccine Information Center, it’s co-founders and 11 other organizations in support of Petitioners.


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