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.
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
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.
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/
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
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
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
Deja Vu: Spinning Measles
by Barbara Loe Fisher
Last week, CDC officials began spinning the significance of 64 cases of measles reported during the past four months in contrast to the 37 to 508 cases of measles reported annually between 1996 and 2006 in the U.S.. One-quarter (14) of the 64 children and adults who got measles in the past four months were hospitalized but there were no deaths.
A CDC press release and Fact Sheet revealed that nearly half of the 64 measles cases occurred in those too young to be vaccinated or whose vaccination status was not known. Only one fifth (14) of the cases were American children whose parents claimed a religious or personal belief exemption. This fact didn't stop CDC officials from trying to blame the measles "outbreaks" on the exemption-takers by stating "These cases and outbreaks resulted primarily from failure to vaccinate, many because of religious or personal belief exemption."
In addition, the CDC made the following undocumented statement: "Before the measles vaccination program, about 3- 4 million persons in the U.S. were infected each year, of whom 400 to 500 died, 48,000 were hospitalized, and another 1,000 developed chronic disability from measles encephalitis." A quick look at the MMWR historical tables shows that the highest number of measles cases reported since 1945 in the U.S. was 763,094 cases reported in 1958.
What is the real story behind the hyping of 64 cases of measles and attempting to demonize parents who have taken religious or personal belief exemptions to vaccination? Are government health officials trying to deflect attention from the reality that even with a 95-100 percent measles vaccine uptake for children entering kindergarten in two- thirds of the states and a 92 to 95 percent vaccine uptake in all but four states, two doses of measles vaccine does not prevent measles from circulating in the population? Are they softening up the public for a future announcement insisting that a third dose of MMR vaccine must be mandated to "eradicate" measles?
After the first measles vaccine was licensed in 1963 and began to be used on a mass basis in the U.S., health officials estimated the herd immunity threshold was as low as 55 percent vaccine coverage in a population receiving one dose of measles vaccine. (free registration to Medscape required, or click here to view the Abstract in Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal. 25(12):1093- 1101, December 2006) When that belief failed to "eradicate"measles, in 1971 the herd immunity estimate was raised to more than 90 percent coverage and the 1977 Childhood Immunization Initiative was launched with an aggressive enforcement of mandatory vaccination laws. However, by 1989 it was obvious that even with a 95 percent plus vaccination rate for children entering kindergarten in most states, measles was still circulating with about 55,000 cases reported between 1989 and 1991.
Without conducting a thorough investigation to find out why there were measles increases between 1989 and 1991 in a highly vaccinated population or why the measles being seen was unusually virulent, CDC officials announced that all children must get a second dose of measles vaccine. But measles infections persisted and, in 1995, the National Vaccine Information Center reported on informed consent violations and child deaths in a large worldwide high titer measles vaccine experiment in which a very potent experimental measles vaccine was given to children under six months old to try to over- ride maternal antibodies. By 1998, eight distinct genetic groups of wild type measles were identified worldwide in vaccinated and unvaccinated populations.
By 2006, vaccine developers had raised the estimated herd immunity coverage rate for measles eradication to between 93 to 95 percent but obviously even that extremely high coverage rate in most states is not enough to do the job. So what comes next? Will the CDC call for the National Guard to go door-to-door armed with syringes containing measles vaccine to make sure there is not one unvaccinated person in the country?
Measles vaccine, which is part of the combination live virus MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccine can cause brain inflammation and permanent brain damage. There have been nearly 45,000 reports of health problems associated with MMR vaccination made to the federal Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) . However, there is gross underreporting to VAERS and it is estimated that, for example, fewer than 4 percent of all cases of thrombocytopenia (potentially fatal blood disorder) following MMR vaccination are ever reported to VAERS.
In 1997, Andrew Wakefield, M.D. and his colleagues published findings indicating that the MMR vaccine may contribute to the development of inflammatory bowel disease and autism in a subset of children, a scientific debate that continues today.
Parents contact the National Vaccine Information Center every week to file MMR vaccine reaction reports in the NVIC Vaccine Reaction Registry and describe how their children are suffering high fevers, seizures, brain inflammation and regression into autism after MMR vaccination. To view some of these reaction reports, go to the International Memorial for Vaccine Victims .
The CDC's one-size-fits-all, no-exceptions MMR vaccine policies allow almost no contraindications to MMR vaccine use. According to the CDC, a child can be sick at the time of vaccination or recovering from an illness; have a fever; be taking antibiotics; have a history of allergies; or have experienced a seizure or regression after a previous MMR shot and still be eligible for more MMR vaccine.
With oppressive "no missed opportunities" vaccination policies in place, it is no wonder more parents are filing religious and personal belief exemptions to vaccination. Some have no other choice, especially if their children have experienced previous serious health problems following vaccination and they cannot find a doctor to write a medical exemption. Others want to choose less toxic alternatives to vaccination to maintain health and wellness.
Non-medical vaccine exemptions for religious and personal beliefs are all that stand between the people and tyranny when doctors inside and outside of government take an extreme, utilitarian approach to infectious disease control and write off vaccine casualties as acceptable losses. Today, 1 in every 6 highly vaccinated American child is learning disabled, 1 in 9 is asthmatic and 1 in 100 to 150 develops autism while measles and other childhood diseases persist no matter how many doses are given or how high the vaccine coverage rate.
It is time for parents and legislators to take a hard look at whether trying to eradicate many diseases with forced use of multiple vaccines is a fundamentally flawed policy that has failed to achieve better individual or public health. It is time for vaccines, which are pharmaceutical products made and sold by corporations for profit, to be subject to the law of supply and demand rather than be financially subsidized and forced by government on the people.
No forced vaccination. Not in America.
Green Our Vaccines Rally
Wednesday June 4, 2008
9:00 a.m. - 12:30 a.m.
Washington, D.C.
Last week, CDC officials began spinning the significance of 64 cases of measles reported during the past four months in contrast to the 37 to 508 cases of measles reported annually between 1996 and 2006 in the U.S.. One-quarter (14) of the 64 children and adults who got measles in the past four months were hospitalized but there were no deaths.
A CDC press release and Fact Sheet revealed that nearly half of the 64 measles cases occurred in those too young to be vaccinated or whose vaccination status was not known. Only one fifth (14) of the cases were American children whose parents claimed a religious or personal belief exemption. This fact didn't stop CDC officials from trying to blame the measles "outbreaks" on the exemption-takers by stating "These cases and outbreaks resulted primarily from failure to vaccinate, many because of religious or personal belief exemption."
In addition, the CDC made the following undocumented statement: "Before the measles vaccination program, about 3- 4 million persons in the U.S. were infected each year, of whom 400 to 500 died, 48,000 were hospitalized, and another 1,000 developed chronic disability from measles encephalitis." A quick look at the MMWR historical tables shows that the highest number of measles cases reported since 1945 in the U.S. was 763,094 cases reported in 1958.
What is the real story behind the hyping of 64 cases of measles and attempting to demonize parents who have taken religious or personal belief exemptions to vaccination? Are government health officials trying to deflect attention from the reality that even with a 95-100 percent measles vaccine uptake for children entering kindergarten in two- thirds of the states and a 92 to 95 percent vaccine uptake in all but four states, two doses of measles vaccine does not prevent measles from circulating in the population? Are they softening up the public for a future announcement insisting that a third dose of MMR vaccine must be mandated to "eradicate" measles?
After the first measles vaccine was licensed in 1963 and began to be used on a mass basis in the U.S., health officials estimated the herd immunity threshold was as low as 55 percent vaccine coverage in a population receiving one dose of measles vaccine. (free registration to Medscape required, or click here to view the Abstract in Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal. 25(12):1093- 1101, December 2006) When that belief failed to "eradicate"measles, in 1971 the herd immunity estimate was raised to more than 90 percent coverage and the 1977 Childhood Immunization Initiative was launched with an aggressive enforcement of mandatory vaccination laws. However, by 1989 it was obvious that even with a 95 percent plus vaccination rate for children entering kindergarten in most states, measles was still circulating with about 55,000 cases reported between 1989 and 1991.
Without conducting a thorough investigation to find out why there were measles increases between 1989 and 1991 in a highly vaccinated population or why the measles being seen was unusually virulent, CDC officials announced that all children must get a second dose of measles vaccine. But measles infections persisted and, in 1995, the National Vaccine Information Center reported on informed consent violations and child deaths in a large worldwide high titer measles vaccine experiment in which a very potent experimental measles vaccine was given to children under six months old to try to over- ride maternal antibodies. By 1998, eight distinct genetic groups of wild type measles were identified worldwide in vaccinated and unvaccinated populations.
By 2006, vaccine developers had raised the estimated herd immunity coverage rate for measles eradication to between 93 to 95 percent but obviously even that extremely high coverage rate in most states is not enough to do the job. So what comes next? Will the CDC call for the National Guard to go door-to-door armed with syringes containing measles vaccine to make sure there is not one unvaccinated person in the country?
Measles vaccine, which is part of the combination live virus MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccine can cause brain inflammation and permanent brain damage. There have been nearly 45,000 reports of health problems associated with MMR vaccination made to the federal Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) . However, there is gross underreporting to VAERS and it is estimated that, for example, fewer than 4 percent of all cases of thrombocytopenia (potentially fatal blood disorder) following MMR vaccination are ever reported to VAERS.
In 1997, Andrew Wakefield, M.D. and his colleagues published findings indicating that the MMR vaccine may contribute to the development of inflammatory bowel disease and autism in a subset of children, a scientific debate that continues today.
Parents contact the National Vaccine Information Center every week to file MMR vaccine reaction reports in the NVIC Vaccine Reaction Registry and describe how their children are suffering high fevers, seizures, brain inflammation and regression into autism after MMR vaccination. To view some of these reaction reports, go to the International Memorial for Vaccine Victims .
The CDC's one-size-fits-all, no-exceptions MMR vaccine policies allow almost no contraindications to MMR vaccine use. According to the CDC, a child can be sick at the time of vaccination or recovering from an illness; have a fever; be taking antibiotics; have a history of allergies; or have experienced a seizure or regression after a previous MMR shot and still be eligible for more MMR vaccine.
With oppressive "no missed opportunities" vaccination policies in place, it is no wonder more parents are filing religious and personal belief exemptions to vaccination. Some have no other choice, especially if their children have experienced previous serious health problems following vaccination and they cannot find a doctor to write a medical exemption. Others want to choose less toxic alternatives to vaccination to maintain health and wellness.
Non-medical vaccine exemptions for religious and personal beliefs are all that stand between the people and tyranny when doctors inside and outside of government take an extreme, utilitarian approach to infectious disease control and write off vaccine casualties as acceptable losses. Today, 1 in every 6 highly vaccinated American child is learning disabled, 1 in 9 is asthmatic and 1 in 100 to 150 develops autism while measles and other childhood diseases persist no matter how many doses are given or how high the vaccine coverage rate.
It is time for parents and legislators to take a hard look at whether trying to eradicate many diseases with forced use of multiple vaccines is a fundamentally flawed policy that has failed to achieve better individual or public health. It is time for vaccines, which are pharmaceutical products made and sold by corporations for profit, to be subject to the law of supply and demand rather than be financially subsidized and forced by government on the people.
No forced vaccination. Not in America.
Green Our Vaccines Rally
Wednesday June 4, 2008
9:00 a.m. - 12:30 a.m.
Washington, D.C.
Tracking & Forcing Vaccines: Parents Want Choices
by Barbara Loe Fisher
This week, CDC researchers sent out a warning that one in four child under age three in America is "not in compliance" with the CDC vaccine "recommendations" and that "missed doses" or "mistimed" doses is the cause. Some are calling for more vaccine tracking registries that will track children and their parents down to make sure every single one of the 48 doses of 14 vaccines that the CDC says kids must get has been given to every single child. The Los Angeles Times points the finger at "anti-vaccine parents" and urges the California legislature to put an end to the "personal belief"exemption so only doctors adhering to very narrow CDC guidelines for what constitutes a vaccine exemption are allowed to exempt children from vaccination.
The U.S. uses more vaccines than any other country in the world and has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world for young children: 70 to 80 percent of pre-schoolers have been injected with 26 doses of 10 vaccines. That high vaccination rate rises with age to 95 percent or more for six year old children entering kindergarten.
The CDC report lamenting that public health officials have been calculating the vaccine uptake among young children incorrectly comes at a time when the rate of infectious disease is way down but the rate of chronic disease and disability among highly vaccinated children is increasing: 1 in 6 child is learning disabled; 1 in 9 is asthmatic; 1 in 150 develops autism; 1 in 450 has diabetes.
Today, a Gallup poll reveals that half of all Americans report they are "stuck in a cycle of chronic disease" with two thirds of U.S. workers reporting one or more chronic diseases or recurring conditions. Some want to point to "stress" and "overweight" and "smoking" as the cause for the catastrophic high rate of chronic illness among Americans of all ages.
But the public health officials and medical doctors of this country have a lot to answer for and the question everyone should be asking is: Why is the most highly vaccinated population in the world so sick?
Educated health consumers, including informed parents, are taking matters into their own hands. They are choosing healthy lifestyles and wise health care alternatives that do not rely on constant pharmaceutical product use, including using too many vaccines.
UPCOMING EVENTS PROMOTING INFORMED HEALTH CARE CHOICES:
May 8-11, 2008: The First Family Wellness Collaborative Conference and Celebration
Hyatt Regency Philadelphia at Penn's Landing
201 South Columbus Blvd.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19106
Tel: 215-928-1234
Speakers: Dawson Church, PhD, Barbara Loe Fisher, Stephen Marini, D.C., PhD, Jeanne Ohm, D.C., Larry Palevsky, M.D., Lisa Reagan, Nancy Warren, CPM and many more.
$79 for parents and public
http://www.familywellnessfirst.org/
May 12, 2008: Education Before Vaccination Workshop
Bayport-Blue Point Public Library
203 Blue Point Avenue
Blue Point, NY 11715
Speakers: Ronald Sinagra, D.C., Lawrence Palevsky, M.D., Nicholas Argo, Esq., Rita Palma, Michelle Doxsee, Physical Therapist
RSVP: 631-806-2850 (leave message)
Green Our Vaccines Rally
Wednesday June 4, 2008
9:00 a.m. - 12:30 a.m.
Washington, D.C.
This week, CDC researchers sent out a warning that one in four child under age three in America is "not in compliance" with the CDC vaccine "recommendations" and that "missed doses" or "mistimed" doses is the cause. Some are calling for more vaccine tracking registries that will track children and their parents down to make sure every single one of the 48 doses of 14 vaccines that the CDC says kids must get has been given to every single child. The Los Angeles Times points the finger at "anti-vaccine parents" and urges the California legislature to put an end to the "personal belief"exemption so only doctors adhering to very narrow CDC guidelines for what constitutes a vaccine exemption are allowed to exempt children from vaccination.
The U.S. uses more vaccines than any other country in the world and has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world for young children: 70 to 80 percent of pre-schoolers have been injected with 26 doses of 10 vaccines. That high vaccination rate rises with age to 95 percent or more for six year old children entering kindergarten.
The CDC report lamenting that public health officials have been calculating the vaccine uptake among young children incorrectly comes at a time when the rate of infectious disease is way down but the rate of chronic disease and disability among highly vaccinated children is increasing: 1 in 6 child is learning disabled; 1 in 9 is asthmatic; 1 in 150 develops autism; 1 in 450 has diabetes.
Today, a Gallup poll reveals that half of all Americans report they are "stuck in a cycle of chronic disease" with two thirds of U.S. workers reporting one or more chronic diseases or recurring conditions. Some want to point to "stress" and "overweight" and "smoking" as the cause for the catastrophic high rate of chronic illness among Americans of all ages.
But the public health officials and medical doctors of this country have a lot to answer for and the question everyone should be asking is: Why is the most highly vaccinated population in the world so sick?
Educated health consumers, including informed parents, are taking matters into their own hands. They are choosing healthy lifestyles and wise health care alternatives that do not rely on constant pharmaceutical product use, including using too many vaccines.
UPCOMING EVENTS PROMOTING INFORMED HEALTH CARE CHOICES:
May 8-11, 2008: The First Family Wellness Collaborative Conference and Celebration
Hyatt Regency Philadelphia at Penn's Landing
201 South Columbus Blvd.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19106
Tel: 215-928-1234
Speakers: Dawson Church, PhD, Barbara Loe Fisher, Stephen Marini, D.C., PhD, Jeanne Ohm, D.C., Larry Palevsky, M.D., Lisa Reagan, Nancy Warren, CPM and many more.
$79 for parents and public
http://www.familywellnessfirst.org/
May 12, 2008: Education Before Vaccination Workshop
Bayport-Blue Point Public Library
203 Blue Point Avenue
Blue Point, NY 11715
Speakers: Ronald Sinagra, D.C., Lawrence Palevsky, M.D., Nicholas Argo, Esq., Rita Palma, Michelle Doxsee, Physical Therapist
RSVP: 631-806-2850 (leave message)
Green Our Vaccines Rally
Wednesday June 4, 2008
9:00 a.m. - 12:30 a.m.
Washington, D.C.
Anthrax Vaccine Victims Still Seek Truth & Justice
by Barbara Loe Fisher
It remains one of the saddest stories in the long and sad history of forced vaccination: the killing and crippling of young, healthy soldiers in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Israel and other countries with a crude, toxic experimental anthrax vaccine that top military physicians persuaded Generals to order soldiers heading for the Gulf War to take. In the U.S., despite a temporary court injunction issued by a courageous U.S. federal court judge in late 2004 halting the vaccination of U.S. soldiers without their informed, voluntary consent, since early 2006 the same crude, toxic anthrax vaccine has been forced on military recruits. Those who refuse to obey the order face court martial, imprisonment and fines.
On Sunday, May 18, 2008 at 9:30 a.m., an independent film "A Call to Arms" by award winning producer Scott Miller will be shown at the GI Film Festival, Carnegie Institute in Washington, D.C.. This eye-opening film tells the inside story of how the anthrax vaccine has been forced on soldiers with tragic consequences. Tickets are $5 and a powerful trailer of the film can be viewed at http://www.gifilmfestival.com/2008/08filminfo/acalltoarms.html. Scott premiered an earlier version of the film ("Direct Order") at NVIC's Third International Public Conference on Vaccination in 2002.
The mandatory anthrax vaccine program in the U.S. received renewed support from top military officials after September 11, 2001 when mysterious anthrax powder letters were delivered to American citizens and federal legislators. No one has ever been arrested. A recent Truthout Report says that there are new suspects at a U.S. Army bioweapons lab involved in promoting the mandatory anthrax vaccine program who are now being investigated by the FBI.
As retired Air Force Lt. Col. John Richardson pointed out in the Truthout Report, when commenting on the continuing plight of former military pilots seeking restitution for lost promotions and pay because they refused to take the experimental anthrax vaccine after it had killed or injured colleagues:
"Two federal judges have now confirmed the Pentagon broke the law by forcing service members to take anthrax vaccine from 1998 to late 2005. Since 2005, mandating the vaccine is now lawful only because of the FDA's willingness to ignore clear evidence in military medical records of the deaths and disabilities associated with the anthrax vaccine. Just as the government misled the American people about the threat from Iraqi anthrax and the source of the anthrax letter attacks, it continues to mislead the troops about the safety and efficacy of the anthrax vaccine."
John Richardson is a co-founder of the Military and Biodefense Vaccine Project of the National Vaccine Information Center.
On February 29, 2008, six former soldiers pledged to appeal a federal judge's dismissal of their six year old lawsuit challenging the Pentagon's mandatory anthrax vaccination program because there is no scientific proof the vaccine is effective in humans against weaponized, inhaled anthrax. The soldiers search for truth and justice continues at the same time reports surface in Israel that Israeli military doctors experimented on soldiers using the highly reactive U.S. anthrax vaccine. Several Israeli news investigative reports from May 17, 2007 and February 24, 2008 reveal that elite combat unit troops were given the experimental anthrax vaccine in 2000 without being informed what they were getting and, when they suffered severe reactions and disability, were told their poor health had nothing to do with the vaccine they were given.
Forcing toxic vaccines on young soldiers using threats and punishment and denying them the right to informed consent is no different than forcing toxic vaccines on young children by threatening and punishing their parents and denying them informed consent. Forcing people to take pharmaceutical products which can injure and kill without their voluntary, informed consent is a violation of human rights. Ideology, one-size-fits-all medical policies and industry profit-making should not come before human rights.
No forced vaccination. Not in America.
It remains one of the saddest stories in the long and sad history of forced vaccination: the killing and crippling of young, healthy soldiers in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Israel and other countries with a crude, toxic experimental anthrax vaccine that top military physicians persuaded Generals to order soldiers heading for the Gulf War to take. In the U.S., despite a temporary court injunction issued by a courageous U.S. federal court judge in late 2004 halting the vaccination of U.S. soldiers without their informed, voluntary consent, since early 2006 the same crude, toxic anthrax vaccine has been forced on military recruits. Those who refuse to obey the order face court martial, imprisonment and fines.
On Sunday, May 18, 2008 at 9:30 a.m., an independent film "A Call to Arms" by award winning producer Scott Miller will be shown at the GI Film Festival, Carnegie Institute in Washington, D.C.. This eye-opening film tells the inside story of how the anthrax vaccine has been forced on soldiers with tragic consequences. Tickets are $5 and a powerful trailer of the film can be viewed at http://www.gifilmfestival.com/2008/08filminfo/acalltoarms.html. Scott premiered an earlier version of the film ("Direct Order") at NVIC's Third International Public Conference on Vaccination in 2002.
The mandatory anthrax vaccine program in the U.S. received renewed support from top military officials after September 11, 2001 when mysterious anthrax powder letters were delivered to American citizens and federal legislators. No one has ever been arrested. A recent Truthout Report says that there are new suspects at a U.S. Army bioweapons lab involved in promoting the mandatory anthrax vaccine program who are now being investigated by the FBI.
As retired Air Force Lt. Col. John Richardson pointed out in the Truthout Report, when commenting on the continuing plight of former military pilots seeking restitution for lost promotions and pay because they refused to take the experimental anthrax vaccine after it had killed or injured colleagues:
"Two federal judges have now confirmed the Pentagon broke the law by forcing service members to take anthrax vaccine from 1998 to late 2005. Since 2005, mandating the vaccine is now lawful only because of the FDA's willingness to ignore clear evidence in military medical records of the deaths and disabilities associated with the anthrax vaccine. Just as the government misled the American people about the threat from Iraqi anthrax and the source of the anthrax letter attacks, it continues to mislead the troops about the safety and efficacy of the anthrax vaccine."
John Richardson is a co-founder of the Military and Biodefense Vaccine Project of the National Vaccine Information Center.
On February 29, 2008, six former soldiers pledged to appeal a federal judge's dismissal of their six year old lawsuit challenging the Pentagon's mandatory anthrax vaccination program because there is no scientific proof the vaccine is effective in humans against weaponized, inhaled anthrax. The soldiers search for truth and justice continues at the same time reports surface in Israel that Israeli military doctors experimented on soldiers using the highly reactive U.S. anthrax vaccine. Several Israeli news investigative reports from May 17, 2007 and February 24, 2008 reveal that elite combat unit troops were given the experimental anthrax vaccine in 2000 without being informed what they were getting and, when they suffered severe reactions and disability, were told their poor health had nothing to do with the vaccine they were given.
Forcing toxic vaccines on young soldiers using threats and punishment and denying them the right to informed consent is no different than forcing toxic vaccines on young children by threatening and punishing their parents and denying them informed consent. Forcing people to take pharmaceutical products which can injure and kill without their voluntary, informed consent is a violation of human rights. Ideology, one-size-fits-all medical policies and industry profit-making should not come before human rights.
No forced vaccination. Not in America.
*****************************************************************************
"Significantly, the infamous 2001 anthrax powder attacks, killing five people and sickening 17 others after 9/11, were domestic and not foreign in nature. They were allegedly inspired by laboratory insiders who mailed the powder to the offices of two US senators, a number of national news offices in New York City, and elsewhere. The incidents are still under active FBI investigation. That probe, says Fox News, recently identified three or four new suspects at an Army bioweapons lab intricately involved in helping to support the need for the mandated vaccine. They include a deputy commander, an anthrax scientist and a microbiologist. Curiously, at that point in time, the vaccine's continued use was being threatened by closer scrutiny from the US Department of Defense and other Bush administration officials. That review withered away after the attacks. However, the DOD then used the domestic incidents to claim the foreign threat was "real." In the years before and after those episodes, Dingle's and Rempfer's findings that the vaccine was improperly licensed and thus unnecessarily mandated were eventually vindicated by a combination of a federal judge's rulings and subsequent events. After the two officers' initial investigations, the US Government Accounting Office (GAO) reported that the vaccine's systemic adverse reaction rate was 100 times higher than the 0.2 percent rate reported on the product's label. Adverse vaccine reactions include immune disorders, muscle and joint pains, headaches, rashes, fatigue, nausea, diarrhea, chills and fever. At least half a dozen deaths and a warning against birth defects were listed on the vaccine's January 31, 2002, package insert, but they have never been proven to be vaccine-related. The vaccine is not recommended for use by pregnant women or for those who have experienced a history of Guillain-Barre Syndrome. And, last October, the GAO identified a potential $100 million in government waste annually. The anthrax vaccine stockpile for civilian emergencies had been improperly administered by the Department of Health and Human Services, the GAO report said." - Thomas D. Williams, Truthout Report (April 9, 2008) http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/040908A.shtml
"An attorney for six Defense Department employees said yesterday [Feb. 29, 2008] that they will appeal a federal judge's dismissal of their lawsuit challenging the Pentagon's policy of compulsory anthrax vaccinations for certain troops. The employees had argued that, as military personnel, they should not be forced to take the vaccine because there is no scientific proof that it is effective for humans, said Mark Zaid, their attorney. The class- action lawsuit had asked the court to block the Pentagon from inoculating the plaintiffs and to rule that the vaccine was improperly licensed by the Food and Drug Administration. But U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer ruled yesterday that the FDA "did not act arbitrarily or capriciously" and granted the government's request to dismiss the case.....The lawsuit -- filed against the FDA, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Pentagon -- is the third of its kind and the latest chapter in a dispute that has been going on for at least six years.It follows another suit by the same group that led a federal judge to halt mandatory vaccinations in October 2004 on the grounds that an FDA review of the vaccine was insufficient. The anthrax vaccine was then administered on a voluntary basis. After the FDA reviewed the vaccine again and approved it in December 2005, the Pentagon said in October 2006 that it would resume mandatory vaccinations for more than 200,000 troops." - Christopher Lee, Washington Post (March 1, 2008) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/29/AR2008022903317pf.html
The IDF secretly used elite combat soldiers as "guinea pigs" for experimental anthrax vaccines, according to an expose broadcast Wednesday night by the "Uvda" (Fact) documentary program. Presenter Ilana Dayan revealed how in 2000, the army decided to carry out anthrax antibody experiments ahead of independent manufacture in Israel. According to the report, hundreds of young recruits into Israel's elite combat units were offered the opportunity to partake in a top secret experiment codenamed "Omer 2". They were led to believe they were performing a national service of the utmost importance to the state.....Since 2000, the soldiers selected for the experiment underwent a series of seven inoculations, all carried out in top secret, without even the knowledge of their commanding officers. When various symptoms such as serious skin lesions and pneumonia began to appear, the soldiers did not relate them to the experiment and sought standard medical treatment provided by the military. Once soldiers began to suspect that there may be a connection between the vaccines and their symptoms, they contacted the secret unit in charge of the program and presented their case. The symptoms, it was explained to them, had absolutely nothing to do with the inoculations....Professor Tzvi Bentowitz, head of the research institute researching infectious diseases at Ben Gurion University, said, "The fact that this matter was shrouded in secrecy here while it created such an outcry in the US is astonishing, to say the least." The secret medical unit had also contacted the air force in an attempt to recruit pilots for the experiment, but air force officials refused, saying that possible side effects could interfere with pilots' performance. " - Ines Ehrlich, Israel News (May 17, 2007) http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0, 7340,L-3401245,00.html Also see Feb. 24, 2008 update at http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0, 7340,L-3510509,00.html
Public Tells Government Panel: Vaccine Safety Must Come First
by Barbara Loe Fisher
It has been 22 years since the U.S. Congress acknowledged vaccine injuries and deaths by passing the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act and 17 years since the Institute of Medicine first confirmed that vaccines can cause brain and immune system dysfunction while admitting there were significant "gaps" in scientific knowledge about vaccine risks. After nearly three decades of resisting public calls from parents of vaccine injured children for a formal investigation into vaccine safety, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has established the National Vaccine Advisory Committee Working Group on Vaccine Safety to review a scientific research agenda proposed by DHHS.
On April 11, government health officials invited a few parents to Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. to participate on a public engagement panel followed by a one hour public comment period. It was both business as usual and a departure of business as usual that left this participant wondering if it was really a new day and hoping is was not just an old day dressed up in new clothes.
There were physicians, scientists and policymakers on the Committee and in the audience who have been in charge of operating the mass vaccination system since the early 1980s: Dixie Snider, MD, Louis Cooper, MD and Neal Halsey, MD; and the 1990's: Bruce Gellin, Robert Ball, MD, Geoff Evans, MD; and since 2000: Marie McCormick, MD, Dan Salmon, PhD, Ben Schwartz, MD, John Iskander, MD, Karen Midthun, MD, Larry Pickering, MD and others. They admitted they had come together not only to create a scientific agenda to investigate vaccine risks but to also address the growing public "crisis of trust" in the mass vaccination system
The draft recommendations of the Scientific Agenda created by the Immunization Safety Office (ISO) was not released to the public until 9 a.m. on April 11 so parents attending the meeting did not have time to critique and tailor remarks made during the afternoon public engagement panel and public comment session. However, the informed public critical of vaccine safety did make a number of important suggestions.
As the first panel participant from the public to speak, I gave a presentation on vaccine safety research priorities summarizing past and current public calls to investigate vaccine risks and proposed a "20-year study that prospectively enrolls and compares the health outcomes of two groups of children, one group who will be vaccinated with the CDC recommended 48 doses of 14 vaccines by age six and 60 doses of 16 vaccines by age 12 versus another group, who will remain unvaccinated."
Another panel participant, Peter Bell, of Autism Speaks, described his son's regression into autism. While making it clear he is strongly pro-vaccine, Peter gave an eloquent plea for credible scientific research into vaccine safety issues and asked Committee members and government officials to "not demonize parents who are asking questions and searching for answers" to outstanding questions about vaccine risks.
Another presentation from panel members who were supposed to be representing the public was given by attorney Lisa Randall of Voices for Vaccines. She criticized the inclusion of "activists" critical of vaccine safety who "do not represent the mainstream" public opinion and said that she does not want her children to be in the same room with unvaccinated children whose parents have not "stepped up to the plate" and vaccinated them. At public comment time vaccine safety advocate Kelli Ann Davis, who had worked to press government officials to increase public participation in the meeting, questioned where the funding for Vaccines for Children came from and called for SafeMinds board member Mark Blaxill, who was co-author with me of the 2004 White Paper "From Safety Last to Children First" (http://www.ageofautism.com/ .com and http://www.nvic.org/) to be appointed to the NVAC Working Group.
Former pediatric ICU nurse and attorney Terry Poling, whose daughter Hannah was recently awarded uncontested federal compensation under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 after receiving nine vaccines on one day and regressing into autism, asked the Committee to conduct research to identify biological high risk markers for vaccine-related regression. Terry said that Hannah's development of mitochondrial dysfunction following vaccination could be a clue as to why some children are more vulnerable to vaccination than other children.
NVIC Director of Patient Safety, Vicky Debold, PhD, RN, who recently founded Children's Health & Safety Research, LLC, described her son's regression into autism after receiving seven vaccines on one day. Among the patient safety areas she defined were the "failure to rescue" which, in the case of vaccines policy "would be the pervasive failure on the part of nurses and physicians to recognize the importance of challenge-rechallenge phenomena and to modify the vaccination schedule accordingly. This is how my son was injured and is crucial to minimizing future risk."
SafeMinds board member Jim Moody, JD, commented that a lack of credible scientific studies demonstrating vaccine safety makes the application of one-size-fits-all vaccine policies on the entire child population an uncontrolled "scientific experiment." Journalist David Kirby, author of "Evidence of Harm" warned the Committee members that "history will judge each and every one of you. A year from now, five years from now, ten years from now people like me will look back on the history of vaccine safety in this country and look at you folks and say: "What did they do?"
Attorney Patty Healy, who was a former biotech scientist and is NVIC's Director of Counseling, told the Committee that when she became a new Mom eight years ago, she looked at the science for vaccine proof of safety and found it so lacking in substance that she made the difficult decision not to vaccinate her daughter. Patty challenged the Committee to be dedicated to investigating and embracing the truth about vaccine safety no matter what it may be. "Show me the science" she said and "let the chips fall where they may."
Committee Chair Andy Pavia, MD, and the Committee members listened attentively to the public panel members presentations and to the parents who spoke during the public comment time. Several Committee members, including consumer member Tawny Buck, who has a DPT vaccine injured daughter, asked questions of government health officials and made comments indicating that there is a heightened interest in conducting well designed scientific studies examining vaccine injuries and deaths.
Only time will tell if the meeting on Capitol Hill last Friday was for real or for show. Three decades is long enough to wait for government to listen to the people and take action to find out the truth about vaccine risks so every child in America has the opportunity to grow up healthy.
**************************************************************
"A government-appointed working group is charged with picking the most important safety questions for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to research over the next five years. What's unique is that the group also is supposed to get significant public input in setting those priorities, an effort to ease skepticism that authorities hide or discount important information about vaccines. "A crisis of trust is going to be a crisis of public health," said Dr. Bruce Gellin, head of the National Vaccine Program Office. "There's been a lot of anger and a lot of distrust over issues of vaccine safety," Dr. Andrew Pavia, a University of Utah pediatric infectious disease specialist who is chairing the group, told the meeting Friday. "There's a need to engage as many voices as possible," he added. "It's a chance to make sure the right questions are going to be asked." - Lauren Neergard, Associated Press (April 12, 2008)
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gQkR4fS0l1M7ouxFGOr6WtrJpkPQD8VVVRTO0
"What doctors in positions of power in the Department of Health and Human Services need to know at this critical point in time is this: Young parents today, who trusted doctors to give them good advice about how to keep their children well, do not understand why their children are never well when they have been given twice as many vaccines as children in previous generations received. They want a full-scale, transparent scientific investigation into all potential environmental causes of autism and other chronic immune and brain disorders conducted by extra-mural researchers who are not connected to vaccine makers and policymakers with a bias toward existing policy......Just as we did a quarter century ago, they are asking you to listen to what happened to their children after vaccination and take immediate steps to modify current vaccine policies to demonstrate a respect for preventing vaccine reactions, biodiversity and the right to informed consent." - Barbara Loe Fisher, Co-founder & President, NVIC (April 11, 2008) http://www.nvic.org/Issues/vaccine_safety_priorities_2008.htm
" History will judge each and every one of you. A year from now, five years from now, ten years from now, people like me will look back on the history of vaccine safety in this country, and look at you folks, and say, "What did they do?" Now, I am going to guess from your body language that you know that there is an issue here. We have a problem with the vaccine schedule. We don't know what it is. You have the power to listen to these community people, and make some decisions. And you are maybe going to make the decision that you are going to look into this situation, and change things. Or, are you going to decide to protect the status quo?" - David Kirby, Journalist (April 11, 2008)
"As a nurse who used to work in the pediatric ICU unit, studied public health and became a lawyer, I am caring for a daughter who suffered regressive autism after receiving nine vaccines on one day. I now find myself in the middle of a contentious debate about vaccines and autism. What happened to Hannah, who has mitochondrial dysfunction associated with her autism and was awarded uncontested compensation in the federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, should stimulate immediate research into identifying biological markers for screening for vulnerable children." - Terry Poling, JD, RN (April 11, 2008)
"I have a 10-year old boy named Sam. At his 15-month well-baby visit, he experienced a number of serious adverse reactions after receiving seven vaccines. He hasn't fully recovered and it is unlikely that he will. Unfortunately, despite my having doctorates in nursing and public health, neither I, not our pediatrician, knew that the earlier and milder vaccine reactions were warning signs that he was potentially at risk for future and more serious vaccine reactions....The damage is done and, for Sam, it's too late to go back. But it's not too late for other children.... At its' core, the tendency to rigidly stress the need for compliance with a single clinical practice guideline - the national vaccination schedule - for all infants and a reluctance to instruct physicians to meaningfully engage parents in shared decision making or to personalize vaccination health care create conditions that precipitate medical errors and result in unnecessary harm." - Vicky Debold, PhD, RN, Director, Children's Health & Safety Research, LLC and NVIC Director of Patient Safety (April 11, 2008)
"I am a lawyer and I used to work in the biotech industry as a scientist. Eight years ago when I became a new Mom I looked to medicine and science for answers about vaccination. What I found was an absence of scientific studies on the long-term effects of vaccination and the health of vaccinated vs. unvaccinated children. I asked my pediatrician to show me the science. Because of the lack of valid scientific studies in these areas, I chose not to vaccinate my child..... Public health officials are supposed to investigate vaccine risks and only care about finding the truth, regardless of the outcome. They should look for the truth and let the chips fall where they may." - Patty Healy, JD, Director of Counseling, NVIC (April 11, 2008)
It has been 22 years since the U.S. Congress acknowledged vaccine injuries and deaths by passing the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act and 17 years since the Institute of Medicine first confirmed that vaccines can cause brain and immune system dysfunction while admitting there were significant "gaps" in scientific knowledge about vaccine risks. After nearly three decades of resisting public calls from parents of vaccine injured children for a formal investigation into vaccine safety, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has established the National Vaccine Advisory Committee Working Group on Vaccine Safety to review a scientific research agenda proposed by DHHS.
On April 11, government health officials invited a few parents to Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. to participate on a public engagement panel followed by a one hour public comment period. It was both business as usual and a departure of business as usual that left this participant wondering if it was really a new day and hoping is was not just an old day dressed up in new clothes.
There were physicians, scientists and policymakers on the Committee and in the audience who have been in charge of operating the mass vaccination system since the early 1980s: Dixie Snider, MD, Louis Cooper, MD and Neal Halsey, MD; and the 1990's: Bruce Gellin, Robert Ball, MD, Geoff Evans, MD; and since 2000: Marie McCormick, MD, Dan Salmon, PhD, Ben Schwartz, MD, John Iskander, MD, Karen Midthun, MD, Larry Pickering, MD and others. They admitted they had come together not only to create a scientific agenda to investigate vaccine risks but to also address the growing public "crisis of trust" in the mass vaccination system
The draft recommendations of the Scientific Agenda created by the Immunization Safety Office (ISO) was not released to the public until 9 a.m. on April 11 so parents attending the meeting did not have time to critique and tailor remarks made during the afternoon public engagement panel and public comment session. However, the informed public critical of vaccine safety did make a number of important suggestions.
As the first panel participant from the public to speak, I gave a presentation on vaccine safety research priorities summarizing past and current public calls to investigate vaccine risks and proposed a "20-year study that prospectively enrolls and compares the health outcomes of two groups of children, one group who will be vaccinated with the CDC recommended 48 doses of 14 vaccines by age six and 60 doses of 16 vaccines by age 12 versus another group, who will remain unvaccinated."
Another panel participant, Peter Bell, of Autism Speaks, described his son's regression into autism. While making it clear he is strongly pro-vaccine, Peter gave an eloquent plea for credible scientific research into vaccine safety issues and asked Committee members and government officials to "not demonize parents who are asking questions and searching for answers" to outstanding questions about vaccine risks.
Another presentation from panel members who were supposed to be representing the public was given by attorney Lisa Randall of Voices for Vaccines. She criticized the inclusion of "activists" critical of vaccine safety who "do not represent the mainstream" public opinion and said that she does not want her children to be in the same room with unvaccinated children whose parents have not "stepped up to the plate" and vaccinated them. At public comment time vaccine safety advocate Kelli Ann Davis, who had worked to press government officials to increase public participation in the meeting, questioned where the funding for Vaccines for Children came from and called for SafeMinds board member Mark Blaxill, who was co-author with me of the 2004 White Paper "From Safety Last to Children First" (http://www.ageofautism.com/ .com and http://www.nvic.org/) to be appointed to the NVAC Working Group.
Former pediatric ICU nurse and attorney Terry Poling, whose daughter Hannah was recently awarded uncontested federal compensation under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 after receiving nine vaccines on one day and regressing into autism, asked the Committee to conduct research to identify biological high risk markers for vaccine-related regression. Terry said that Hannah's development of mitochondrial dysfunction following vaccination could be a clue as to why some children are more vulnerable to vaccination than other children.
NVIC Director of Patient Safety, Vicky Debold, PhD, RN, who recently founded Children's Health & Safety Research, LLC, described her son's regression into autism after receiving seven vaccines on one day. Among the patient safety areas she defined were the "failure to rescue" which, in the case of vaccines policy "would be the pervasive failure on the part of nurses and physicians to recognize the importance of challenge-rechallenge phenomena and to modify the vaccination schedule accordingly. This is how my son was injured and is crucial to minimizing future risk."
SafeMinds board member Jim Moody, JD, commented that a lack of credible scientific studies demonstrating vaccine safety makes the application of one-size-fits-all vaccine policies on the entire child population an uncontrolled "scientific experiment." Journalist David Kirby, author of "Evidence of Harm" warned the Committee members that "history will judge each and every one of you. A year from now, five years from now, ten years from now people like me will look back on the history of vaccine safety in this country and look at you folks and say: "What did they do?"
Attorney Patty Healy, who was a former biotech scientist and is NVIC's Director of Counseling, told the Committee that when she became a new Mom eight years ago, she looked at the science for vaccine proof of safety and found it so lacking in substance that she made the difficult decision not to vaccinate her daughter. Patty challenged the Committee to be dedicated to investigating and embracing the truth about vaccine safety no matter what it may be. "Show me the science" she said and "let the chips fall where they may."
Committee Chair Andy Pavia, MD, and the Committee members listened attentively to the public panel members presentations and to the parents who spoke during the public comment time. Several Committee members, including consumer member Tawny Buck, who has a DPT vaccine injured daughter, asked questions of government health officials and made comments indicating that there is a heightened interest in conducting well designed scientific studies examining vaccine injuries and deaths.
Only time will tell if the meeting on Capitol Hill last Friday was for real or for show. Three decades is long enough to wait for government to listen to the people and take action to find out the truth about vaccine risks so every child in America has the opportunity to grow up healthy.
**************************************************************
"A government-appointed working group is charged with picking the most important safety questions for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to research over the next five years. What's unique is that the group also is supposed to get significant public input in setting those priorities, an effort to ease skepticism that authorities hide or discount important information about vaccines. "A crisis of trust is going to be a crisis of public health," said Dr. Bruce Gellin, head of the National Vaccine Program Office. "There's been a lot of anger and a lot of distrust over issues of vaccine safety," Dr. Andrew Pavia, a University of Utah pediatric infectious disease specialist who is chairing the group, told the meeting Friday. "There's a need to engage as many voices as possible," he added. "It's a chance to make sure the right questions are going to be asked." - Lauren Neergard, Associated Press (April 12, 2008)
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gQkR4fS0l1M7ouxFGOr6WtrJpkPQD8VVVRTO0
"What doctors in positions of power in the Department of Health and Human Services need to know at this critical point in time is this: Young parents today, who trusted doctors to give them good advice about how to keep their children well, do not understand why their children are never well when they have been given twice as many vaccines as children in previous generations received. They want a full-scale, transparent scientific investigation into all potential environmental causes of autism and other chronic immune and brain disorders conducted by extra-mural researchers who are not connected to vaccine makers and policymakers with a bias toward existing policy......Just as we did a quarter century ago, they are asking you to listen to what happened to their children after vaccination and take immediate steps to modify current vaccine policies to demonstrate a respect for preventing vaccine reactions, biodiversity and the right to informed consent." - Barbara Loe Fisher, Co-founder & President, NVIC (April 11, 2008) http://www.nvic.org/Issues/vaccine_safety_priorities_2008.htm
" History will judge each and every one of you. A year from now, five years from now, ten years from now, people like me will look back on the history of vaccine safety in this country, and look at you folks, and say, "What did they do?" Now, I am going to guess from your body language that you know that there is an issue here. We have a problem with the vaccine schedule. We don't know what it is. You have the power to listen to these community people, and make some decisions. And you are maybe going to make the decision that you are going to look into this situation, and change things. Or, are you going to decide to protect the status quo?" - David Kirby, Journalist (April 11, 2008)
"As a nurse who used to work in the pediatric ICU unit, studied public health and became a lawyer, I am caring for a daughter who suffered regressive autism after receiving nine vaccines on one day. I now find myself in the middle of a contentious debate about vaccines and autism. What happened to Hannah, who has mitochondrial dysfunction associated with her autism and was awarded uncontested compensation in the federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, should stimulate immediate research into identifying biological markers for screening for vulnerable children." - Terry Poling, JD, RN (April 11, 2008)
"I have a 10-year old boy named Sam. At his 15-month well-baby visit, he experienced a number of serious adverse reactions after receiving seven vaccines. He hasn't fully recovered and it is unlikely that he will. Unfortunately, despite my having doctorates in nursing and public health, neither I, not our pediatrician, knew that the earlier and milder vaccine reactions were warning signs that he was potentially at risk for future and more serious vaccine reactions....The damage is done and, for Sam, it's too late to go back. But it's not too late for other children.... At its' core, the tendency to rigidly stress the need for compliance with a single clinical practice guideline - the national vaccination schedule - for all infants and a reluctance to instruct physicians to meaningfully engage parents in shared decision making or to personalize vaccination health care create conditions that precipitate medical errors and result in unnecessary harm." - Vicky Debold, PhD, RN, Director, Children's Health & Safety Research, LLC and NVIC Director of Patient Safety (April 11, 2008)
"I am a lawyer and I used to work in the biotech industry as a scientist. Eight years ago when I became a new Mom I looked to medicine and science for answers about vaccination. What I found was an absence of scientific studies on the long-term effects of vaccination and the health of vaccinated vs. unvaccinated children. I asked my pediatrician to show me the science. Because of the lack of valid scientific studies in these areas, I chose not to vaccinate my child..... Public health officials are supposed to investigate vaccine risks and only care about finding the truth, regardless of the outcome. They should look for the truth and let the chips fall where they may." - Patty Healy, JD, Director of Counseling, NVIC (April 11, 2008)
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