Vaccine

U.S. Government Concedes Vaccines Cause Autism        Monday, March 3, 2008 9:36 AM

Moms With More Education Less Likely to Vaccinate Their Kids

Women who never graduated high school are more likely to have their children vaccinated than women who graduated college.

To come to this conclusion, researchers examined data on almost 12,000 families from the National Immunization Survey, a nationwide survey of childhood vaccinations that includes information about ethnicity and socioeconomic status. Children of less-educated mothers were 16 percent more likely to have up-to-date vaccinations.

The study’s senior author posited that the reason could be the controversy regarding the safety of vaccinations, and a higher awareness of this among the educated. 

Dr. Mercola’s Comment: I realize that the issue of vaccination is quite controversial and is one of the bedrocks of “prevention” in conventional medicine. Anyone who opposes them is viewed as a dangerous lunatic.

This is exactly the view I had when I graduated medical school. However, after 20 years of practice and encountering hundreds of vaccine casualties in my practice, and carefully reviewing the evidence, I came to a different conclusion.

I strongly encourage you to review the evidence before you expose your own children to these potentially dangerous injections. I am convinced that their questionable benefits are far outweighed by their side effects.

Apparently many educated parents agree with this position as the above study demonstrates.

Avoiding vaccinations for your children tends to look like the better choice the more you know about the subject. 

Vaccines given to newborns contain an array of potentially toxic chemicals including formaldehyde, aluminum phosphate (toxic and carcinogenic), antibiotics, phenols (corrosive to skin and toxic), live viruses and various other components.

Before you decide to vaccinate your children, do them a favor and look into the many websites. Doing so could literally mean the difference between life and death.

There are alternate and vastly safer methods of protecting yourself against disease that all begin with a truly healthy diet, as outlined in my http://www.mercola.com/nutritionplan/index.htm of course, drug manufacturers and the government they have purchased don’t want you to believe that the foods you consume and the habits you adopt are the primary solution to establishing immunity to diseases and living longer.

They want you to believe that their pharmaceuticals, including vaccines, are essential to your existence, and your children’s.

…”After my firstborn son became a victim to the socialized autism epidemic from immunizations, I have refused to give any more of my children as human sacrifices to ignorance. When my wife insists about vaccinations, I say she must study the issue before making any decisions that can harm our children”.

…”People who insist on immunization have not done due diligence, or they would be against it. The irony, of course, is that people who are in the mainstream, who insist everyone should be inoculated with harmful toxins, think those who oppose their view are uninformed.

…”Those who study the issue out soon realize that vaccines are potentially dangerous, compromising to the immune system, and mind-altering.”

Dispelling Vaccination Myths

Vaccination Myth #1: “Vaccines are safe…” …or are they?

“Vaccination causes significant death and disability at an astounding personal and financial cost to uninformed families.”

Vaccination Myth #2: “Vaccines are very effective…” …or are they?

“Evidence suggests that vaccination is an unreliable means of preventing disease.”

Vaccination Myth #3: “Vaccines are the reason for low disease rates in the US today…” …or are they?

“It is unclear what impact, if any, that vaccines had on 19th and 20th century infectious disease declines.”

Vaccination Myth #4: “Vaccination is based on sound immunization theory and practice…” ...or is it?

“Many of the assumptions upon which immunization theory and practice are based are unproved or have been proven false in their application.”

Vaccination Myth #5: “Childhood diseases are extremely dangerous…” …or are they, really?

“Dangers of childhood diseases are greatly exaggerated in order to scare parents into compliance with a questionable but highly profitable procedure.”

Vaccination Myth #6: “Polio was one of the clearly great vaccination success stories…” …or was it?

“The polio vaccine temporarily reversed disease declines that were underway before the vaccine was introduced; this fact was deliberately covered up by health authorities. In Europe, polio declined in countries that both embraced and rejected the vaccine.”

Vaccination Myth #7: “My child had no reaction to the vaccines, so there is nothing to worry about…” …or is there?

“The long term adverse effects of vaccinations have been ignored in spite of compelling correlations with many serious chronic conditions. Doctors can’t explain the dramatic rise in many of these diseases.”

Vaccination Myth #8: “Vaccines are the only disease prevention option available…” …or are they?

“Documented safe and effective alternatives to vaccination have been available for decades. (However, they have been systematically attacked and suppressed by the medical establishment.)”

Vaccination Myth #9: “Vaccinations are legally mandated and unavoidable…” (USA) …or are they?

“Legal exemptions from vaccinations are available for many-but not all-U.S. citizens.”

Vaccination Myth #10: “Public health officials always place the public’s health above all other concerns…” …or do they?

“Many of the public health officials who determine vaccine policy profit substantially from their policy decisions”.

RESEARCH

FROM: Vaccine Awareness South Africa (VASA).

Not one disease was “eradicated” because of vaccines. 

History reveals that mortality caused by measles, mumps, polio, diptheria, smallpox, and even scarlet fever (which had no vaccine), were already on the decline even before the vaccines were introduced. 

These rates continue to decline at the same pace even after the introduction of the vaccines – not faster which one might think. 

For example, in 1900, the mortality rate from measles was 13.3 deaths in 100,000; in 1940, the mortality rate was 0.5 in 100,000, and in 1960, the mortality rate was just 0.2 deaths in 100,000. The measles vaccine was not introduced until 1963. 

Thanks to our country becoming more industrialized – such as adopting better hygiene habits, improving sanitation, having better access to clean foods and water, and better educating ourselves — our nation’s disease rates and their mortality rates have decreased as a result.

https://business.financialpost.com/opinion/lawrence-solomon-the-untold-story-of-measles

 Study: For 1 in 168 children, vaccines cause side effects so severe that they require an ER visit.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3236196/

Study: Boys vaccinated against Hep B at birth are 3x more likely to develop autism.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21058170

Analysis: SIDs and Infant Mortality Rates Regressed Against Number Of Vaccine Doses Routinely Given “A high statistically significant correlation between increasing number of vaccine doses and increasing infant mortality rates…”

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3170075/

Case Study: Rare simultaneous Sudden Infant Death (SID) of identical twins 2 days after vaccination.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17654772

Study: Rotovirus linked to fatal intestinal disorder in 1 in every 4670 infants. “There was also an increase in the risk of intussusception after the second dose of the vaccine… The strong association between vaccination with RRV-TV and intussusception among otherwise healthy infants supports the existence of a causal relation.”

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1773072/

Study: “Epidemiological evidence supporting an association between… Thimerosal-containing childhood vaccines and the subsequent risk of an ASD diagnosis.”

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3878266/

Study: “The higher the proportion of children receiving recommended vaccinations, the higher was the prevalence of AUT or SLI. A 1% increase in vaccination was associated with an additional 680 children having AUT or SLI. Neither parental behavior nor access to care affected the results, since vaccination proportions were not significantly related (statistically) to any other disability or to the number of pediatricians in a U.S. state. The results suggest that although mercury has been removed from many vaccines, other culprits may link vaccines to autism.”

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21623535

Analysis: “The risk of autism among African American children vaccinated before the age of 2 years was 340% that of those vaccinated later.”

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25377033

Analysis: “Methodological issues and evidence of malfeasance in research purporting to show thimerosal in vaccines is safe.” 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24995277

Study: Link between antibodies from MMR vaccine and central nervous system autoimmune dysfunction in children with autism

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12145534

Study: Link between aluminum in vaccines and prevalence of autism

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22099159

Study: “The related and damaging effect of exposure to high levels of mercury… a viable alternative explanation for the occurrence of regressive autism. The evidence indicates there is alteration to chromosome structure and/or function.”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3364648/

Case Series: Vaccine additives cause autism-like symptoms.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17454560

Analysis: “A comprehensive review of mercury-provoked autism. In conclusion, the overwhelming preponderance of the evidence favours acceptance that Hg exposure is capable of causing some ASDs.”

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19106436

Analysis: Explanation of why some children are at greater risk of developing autism after vaccines. “The evidence suggests that the abnormal sulfation chemistry, limited thiol availability, and decreased GSH reserve capacity could explain why the adverse effects of TM are greater in a subpopulation of children with this susceptibility…”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3774468/

Evidence: “Certain individuals with a mild mitochondrial defect may be highly susceptible to mitochondrial specific toxins” found in vaccines, resulting in autism spectrum disorders.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3697751/

Review: Autism linked to encephalitis (brain swelling) following vaccination.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21299355

Hypotheses: Conjugate vaccines may predispose children to autism spectrum disorders.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21993250
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11339848

Study: Link between autism and prenatal exposure to heavy metals via Rhogam shot in RH-negative mothers. “Children with ASDs (28.30%) were significantly more likely (odds ratio 2.35, 95% confidence interval 1.17-4.52, p < 0.01) to have Rh-negative mothers than controls (14.36%).”

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17674242

Study: Autistic children have difficulty excreting heavy metals like mercury, as evidenced by significantly lower levels of mercury in their hair. This points to a genetic susceptibility to autism in children who cannot effectively detox vaccine toxins.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12933322

Vaccination Myths

Dispelling Vaccination Myths by Alan Phillips

 When my son was set to begin his routine vaccination series at age 2 months, I didn’t know there were any risks associated with immunizations. But the clinic’s flyer contained a contradiction: my child’s chances of a serious adverse reaction to the DPT vaccine were one in 1750, while his chances of dying from pertussis were one in several million.

When I pointed this out to the physician, he angrily disagreed, and stormed out of the room mumbling, “I guess I should read that [flyer] sometime…” Soon thereafter I learned of a child who had been permanently disabled by a vaccine, so I decided to investigate for myself. My findings have so alarmed me that I feel compelled to share them; hence, this report.

Health authorities credit vaccines for disease declines, and assure us of their safety and effectiveness. Yet these assumptions are directly contradicted by government statistics, published medical studies, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports, and the opinions of credible research scientists from around the world.

 In fact, infectious diseases declined steadily for decades prior to mass immunizations, doctors in the U.S. report thousands of serious vaccine reactions each year including hundreds of deaths and permanent disabilities, fully vaccinated populations have experienced epidemics, and researchers attribute dozens of chronic immunological and neurological diseases that have risen dramatically in recent decades to mass immunization campaigns.

Decades of studies published in the world’s leading medical journals have documented vaccine failure and serious adverse vaccine events, including death. Dozens of books written by doctors, researchers, and independent investigators reveal serious flaws in immunization theory and practice.

Yet, incredibly, most pediatricians and parents are unaware of these findings. 

This has begun to change in recent years, however, as a growing number of parents and healthcare providers around the world are becoming aware of the problems and questioning mass mandatory immunization.

There is a growing international movement away from mass mandatory immunization. This report introduces some of the information that provides the basis for the movement.

 My point is not to tell anyone whether or not to vaccinate, but rather, with the utmost urgency, to point out some very good reasons why everyone should examine the facts before deciding whether or not to submit to the procedure.

As a new parent, I was shocked to discover the absence of a legal mandate or professional ethic requiring pediatricians to be fully informed of the risks of vaccination, let alone to inform parents that their children risk death or permanent disability upon being vaccinated.

 I was equally dismayed to see first-hand the prevalence of physicians who are, if with the best of intentions, applying practices based on incomplete, and in some cases, outright mis-information.

This report is only a brief introduction; your own further investigation is warranted and strongly recommended. You may discover that this is the only way to get an objective view, as the controversy is a highly emotional one.

A word of caution: Many have found pediatricians unwilling or unable to discuss this subject calmly with an open mind. Perhaps this is because they have staked their personal identities and professional reputations on the presumed safety and effectiveness of vaccines, and because they are required by their profession to promote vaccination.

But in any event, anecdotal reports suggest that most doctors have great difficulty acknowledging evidence of problems with vaccines. The first pediatrician I attempted to share my findings with yelled angrily at me when I calmly brought up the subject. The misconceptions have very deep roots.

 Vaccination Myth #1: “Vaccines are safe…” …or are they?

The Federal government VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System) was established by Congress under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Compensation Act of 1986. It receives about 11,000 reports of serious adverse reactions to vaccinations annually, which include as many as one to two hundred deaths, and several times that number of permanent disabilities.

VAERS officials report that 15% of adverse events are “serious” (emergency room trip, hospitalization, life-threatening episode, permanent disability, death). Independent analysis of VAERS reports has revealed that up to 50% of reported adverse events for the Hepatitis B vaccine are “serious.” While these figures are alarming, they are only the tip of the iceberg.

The FDA estimates that as few as 1% of serious adverse reactions to vaccines are reported, , and the CDC admits that only about 10% of such events are reported. In fact, Congress has heard testimony that medical students are told not to report suspected adverse events.

The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC, a grassroots organization founded by parents of vaccine-injured and killed children) has conducted its own investigations. It reported: “In New York, only one out of 40 doctor’s offices confirmed that they report a death or injury following vaccination.”

In other words, 97.5% of vaccine related deaths and disabilities go unreported there. Implications about medical ethics aside (federal law directs doctors to report serious adverse events ), these findings suggest that vaccine deaths and serious injuries actually occurring may be from 10 to 100 times greater than the number reported.

With pertussis (often referred to as “whooping cough”), the number of vaccine-related deaths dwarfs the number of disease deaths, which have been about 10 annually for many years according to the CDC, and only 8 in 1993, one of the last peak-incidence years (pertussis runs in 3-4 year cycles; no none knows why, but vaccination rates have no such cycles).

When you factor in under-reporting, the vaccine may be 100 times more deadly than the disease. Some argue that this is a necessary cost to prevent the return of a disease that would be more deadly than the vaccine.

But when you consider the fact that the vast majority of disease decline this century preceded the widespread use of vaccinations (pertussis mortality declined 79% prior to vaccines), and the fact that rates of disease declines remained virtually unchanged following the introduction of mass immunization, present day vaccine casualties cannot reasonably be explained away as a necessary sacrifice for the benefit of a disease-free society.

Unfortunately, the vaccine-related-deaths story doesn’t end here. Studies internationally have shown vaccination to be a cause of SIDS , (SIDS, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, is a “catch-all” diagnosis given when the specific cause of death is unknown; estimates range from 5,000 to 10,000 cases each year in the US).

 One study found the peak incidence of SIDS occurred at the ages of 2 and 4 months in the US, precisely when the first two routine immunizations are given, while another found a clear pattern of correlation extending three weeks after immunization.

Another study found that 3,000 children die within 4 days of vaccination each year in the US (amazingly, the authors reported no SIDS/vaccine relationship), while yet another researcher’s studies led to the conclusion that at least half of SIDS cases are caused by vaccines.

Initial studies suggesting a causal relationship between SIDS and vaccines were quickly followed by vaccine-manufacturer-sponsored studies concluding that there is no relationship between SIDS and vaccines; one such study claimed that there was a slightly lower incidence of SIDS in vaccines.

However, many of these studies were called into question by yet another study that found “confounding” had erroneously skewed the results of these studies in favor of the vaccine.

At best, there is conflicting evidence.

But shouldn’t we err on the side of caution? Shouldn’t any credible correlation between vaccines and infant deaths be just cause for meticulous, widespread monitoring of the vaccination status of all SIDS cases?

Health authorities have chosen to err on the side of denial rather than caution.

In the mid 1970’s Japan raised their vaccination age from two months to two years; their incidence of SIDS dropped dramatically; they went from an infant mortality ranking of 17 to first in the world (i.e., Japan had the lowest infant death rate when infants were not being immunized).

England’s vaccination rate temporarily dropped to about 30% at about the same time following media reports of vaccine-related brain damage. Infant mortality dropped substantially for about 2 years, then rose again in close correlation to rising immunization rates in the late 1970’s.

Despite these experiences, the medical community maintains a posture of denial. Coroners don’t check the vaccination status of SIDS victims, and unsuspecting families continue to pay the price, unaware of the dangers and denied the right to make an informed choice.

FDA and CDC admissions about the lack of adverse event reporting suggests that the total number of adverse reactions actually occurring each year may actually fall within a range of 100,000 to a million (with “serious” events being approximately 20% of these).

This concern is underscored by a study revealing that 1 in 175 children who completed the full DPT series suffered “severe reactions,” and a Dr.’s report for attorneys stating that one in 300 DPT immunizations resulted in seizures.

England actually saw a drop in pertussis deaths when vaccination rates dropped to 30% in the mid 70’s.

Swedish epidemiologist B. Trollfors’ study of pertussis vaccine efficacy and toxicity around the world found that “pertussis-associated mortality is currently very low in industrialized countries and no difference can be discerned when countries with high, low, and zero immunization rates were compared.”

He also found that England, Wales, and West Germany had more pertussis fatalities in 1970 when the immunization rate was high than during the last half of 1980, when rates had fallen.

Vaccinations cost us more than just the lives and health of our children. 

The US Federal Government’s National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP) has paid out over $1.2 billion since 1988 to the families of children injured and killed by vaccines, with money that comes from a tax on vaccines that vaccine recipients pay.

Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies have a captive market; vaccines are legally mandated in all 50 US states (though legally avoidable in most; see Myth #9), yet these same companies are “immune” from accountability for the consequences of their products. Furthermore, they have been allowed to use “gag orders” as a leverage tool in vaccine damage legal settlements to prevent disclosure of information to the public about vaccination dangers.

Such arrangements are clearly unethical; they force an uninformed American public to pay for vaccine manufacturer’s liabilities, while ensuring that this same public will remain ignorant of the dangers of their products. This arrangement also diminishes any incentive that manufacturers might have to produce safer vaccines (after all, when the vaccine causes a death or injury, they don’t have to pay for it; they still get their profit).

It is important to note that insurance companies, who do the best liability studies, refuse to cover vaccine reactions. Profits appear to dictate both the pharmaceutical and insurance companies’ positions.

Vaccination Truth #1:

“Vaccination causes significant death and disability at an astounding personal and financial cost to uninformed families.”

Vaccination Myth #2: “Vaccines are very effective…”…or are they?

The medical literature has a surprising number of studies documenting vaccine failure. Measles, mumps, small pox, pertussis, polio and Hib outbreaks have all occurred in vaccinated populations.

In 1989 the CDC reported: “Among school-aged children, [measles] outbreaks have occurred in schools with vaccination levels of greater than 98 percent. [They] have occurred in all parts of the country, including areas that had not reported measles for years.”

The CDC even reported a measles outbreak in a documented 100% vaccinated population. A study examining this phenomenon concluded, “The apparent paradox is that as measles immunization rates rise to high levels in a population, measles becomes a disease of immunized persons.”

A more recent study found that measles vaccination “produces immune suppression which contributes to an increased susceptibility to other infections.” These studies suggest that the goal of complete “immunization” may actually be counter-productive, a notion underscored by instances in which epidemics followed complete immunization of entire countries.

Japan experienced yearly increases in small pox following the introduction of compulsory vaccines in 1872. By 1892, there were 29,979 deaths, and all had been vaccinated.

In the early 1900’s, the Philippines experienced their worst smallpox epidemic ever after 8 million people received 24.5 million vaccine doses (achieving a vaccination rate of 95%); the death rate quadrupled as a result.

Before England’s first compulsory vaccination law in 1853, the largest two-year smallpox death rate was about 2,000; in 1870-71, England and Wales had over 23,000 smallpox deaths. In 1989, the country of Oman experienced a widespread polio outbreak six months after achieving complete vaccination.

In the US in 1986, 90% of 1300 pertussis cases in Kansas were “adequately vaccinated.” 72% of pertussis cases in the 1993 Chicago outbreak were fully up to date with their vaccinations.

Vaccination Truth #2:

“Evidence suggests that vaccination is an unreliable means of preventing disease.”

 Vaccina”Vaccines are the reason for low disease rates in the US today…” …or are they?

According to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, childhood diseases decreased 90% between 1850 and 1940, paralleling improved sanitation and hygienic practices, well before mandatory vaccination programs.

The Medical Sentinel recently reported, “from 1911 to 1935, the four leading causes of childhood deaths from infectious diseases in the US were diphtheria, pertussis, scarlet fever, and measles. However, by 1945 the combined death rates from these causes had declined by 95 percent, before the implementation of mass immunization programs.”

Thus, at best, vaccinations can only be examined only for their relationship to the small, remaining portion of disease declines that occurred after their introduction. Yet even this role is questionable, as pre-vaccine rates of disease mortality decline remained virtually the same after vaccines were introduced.

Furthermore, European countries that refused immunization for small pox and polio saw the epidemics end along with those countries that mandated it; vaccines were clearly not the sole determining factor. In fact, both small pox and polio immunization campaigns were followed by significant disease incidence increases.

After smallpox vaccination was being mandated, smallpox remained a prevalent disease with some substantial increases, while other infectious diseases simultaneously continued their declines in the absence of vaccines.

In England and Wales, smallpox disease and vaccination rates eventually declined simultaneously over a period of several decades between the 1870’s and the beginning of World War II.

It is thus impossible to say whether or not vaccinations contributed to the continuing declines in disease death rates, or if the declines continued unabated simply due to the same forces which likely brought about the initial declines-improvements in sanitation, hygiene and diet; better housing, transportation and infrastructure; better food preservation techniques and technology; and natural disease cycles.

Underscoring this conclusion was a recent World Health Organization report which found that the disease and mortality rates in third world countries have no direct correlation with immunization procedures or medical treatment, but are closely related to the standard of hygiene and diet.

Credit given to vaccinations for our current disease incidence has simply been grossly exaggerated, if not outright misplaced.

Vaccine advocates point to incidence rather than mortality statistics as evidence of vaccine effectiveness. However, statisticians tell us that mortality statistics are a better measure of disease than incidence figures, for the simple reason that the quality of reporting and record keeping is much higher on fatalities.

 For instance, a survey in New York City revealed that only 3.2% of pediatricians were actually reporting measles cases to the health department. In 1974, the CDC determined that there were 36 cases of measles in Georgia, while the Georgia State Surveillance System reported 660 cases.

In 1982, Maryland state health officials blamed a pertussis epidemic on a television program, “D.P.T.-Vaccine Roulette,” which warned of the dangers of DPT; but when former top virologist for the US Division of Biological Standards, Dr. J. Anthony Morris, analyzed the 41 cases, he confirmed only 5, and all had been vaccinated. Such instances as these demonstrate the fallacy of incidence figures, yet vaccine advocates tend to rely on them indiscriminately.

Vaccination Truth #3

“It is unclear what impact, if any, that vaccines had on 19th and 20th century infectious disease declines.”

 Vaccination”Vaccination is based on sound immunization theory and practice…” …or is it?

The clinical evidence for vaccines is their ability to stimulate antibody production in the recipient. What is not clear, however, is whether or not antibody production constitutes immunity. For example, agamma globulin-anemic children are incapable of producing antibodies, yet they recover from infectious diseases almost as quickly as other children.

Furthermore, a study published by the British Medical Council in 1950 during a diphtheria epidemic concluded that there was no relationship between antibody count and disease incidence; researchers found resistant people with extremely low antibody counts and sick people with high counts.

Natural immunization is a complex interactive process involving many bodily organs and systems; it cannot be replicated by the artificial stimulation of antibodies.

Research also indicates that vaccination commits immune cells to the specific antigens in a vaccine, rendering them incapable of reacting to other infections. Immunological reserves may thus actually be reduced, causing a generally lowered resistance.

Another component of immunization theory is “herd immunity,” the notion that when enough people in a community are immunized, all are protected. As Myth #2 showed, there are many documented instances showing just the opposite — fully vaccinated populations have experienced epidemics.

With measles, this actually seems to be the direct result of high vaccination rates.

In Minnesota, a state epidemiologist concluded that the Hib vaccine increases the risk of illness when a study revealed that vaccinated children were five times more likely to contract meningitis than unvaccinated children.

Surprisingly, vaccination has never actually been clinically proven to be effective in preventing disease, for the simple reason that no researcher has directly exposed test subjects to diseases (nor may they ethically do so).

The medical community’s gold standard, the double blind, placebo-controlled study, has not been used to compare vaccinated and unvaccinated people, and so the practice remains unscientifically proven.

Furthermore, it is important to recognize that not everyone exposed to a disease develops symptoms (indeed, only a tiny percentage of a population need develop symptoms for an epidemic to be declared).

Thus, if a vaccinated individual is exposed to a disease and doesn’t get sick, it is impossible to know whether the vaccine worked, because there is no way to know if that person would have developed symptoms if he or she had not been vaccinated. It is also worth noting that outbreaks in recent years have recorded more disease cases in vaccinated children than in unvaccinated children.

Yet another surprising aspect of immunization practice is the “one size fits all” aspect.

An 8 pound 2 month old baby receives the same dosage as a 40 pound five year old child. Infants with immature, undeveloped immune systems may receive five or more times the dosage, relative to body weight, as older children.

Furthermore, the number of “units” within doses has been found in random testing to range from ½ to 3 times what the label indicates; manufacturing quality controls appear to tolerate a rather large margin of error.

“Hot Lots”-vaccine lots associated with disproportionately high death and disability rates-have been repeatedly identified by the NVIC, but the FDA consistently refuses to intervene to prevent further unnecessary injury and deaths. In fact, individual vaccine lots have never been recalled due to their greater incidence of adverse reactions.

However, the rotavirus vaccine was taken off the market a few months after being introduced when it caused bowel obstructions in many recipients. Incredibly, the FDA and CDC knew about this problem prior to licensing the vaccine, but both organizations still gave their unanimous approval.

Finally, vaccines are administered with the assumption that all recipients-regardless of race, culture, diet, genetic makeup, geographic location, or any other characteristic — will respond the same. This was perhaps never more dramatically disproved than in Australia’s Northern Territory a few years ago, where stepped-up immunization campaigns in native aborigines resulted in an incredible 50% infant mortality rate.

One must wonder about the lives of the survivors, too; if half died, surely the other half did not escape unaffected.

Almost as troubling was a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine reporting that a substantial number of Romanian children were contracting polio from the vaccine.

Researchers found a correlation with injections of antibiotics. A single injection within one month of vaccination raised the risk of polio eight times, two to nine injections raised the risk 27-fold, and 10 or more injections raised the risk 182 times.

What other factors not accounted for in vaccination theory will surface unexpectedly to reveal unforeseen or previously overlooked consequences? We cannot begin to fully comprehend the scope and degree of the danger until public health officials begin looking and reporting in earnest.

In the meantime, entire countries’ populations are unwitting gamblers in a game that many might very well choose not to play if they were given all the rules in advance.

Vaccination Truth #4:

“Many of the assumptions upon which immunization theory and practice are based are unproved or have been proven false in their application.”

Vaccination Myth #5: “Childhood diseases are extremely dangerous…” …or are they, really?

Most childhood infectious diseases have few serious consequences in today’s modern world. Even conservative CDC statistics for pertussis during 1992-94 indicate a 99.8% recovery rate.

In fact, when hundreds of pertussis cases occurred in Ohio and Chicago in the fall 1993 outbreak, an infectious disease expert from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital said, “The disease was very mild, no one died, and no one went to the intensive care unit.”

The vast majority of the time, childhood infectious diseases are benign and self-limiting. They usually impart lifelong immunity, whereas vaccine-induced immunity is only temporary. In fact, the temporary nature of vaccine immunity can create a more dangerous situation in a child’s future.

For example, the new chicken pox vaccine has an effectiveness estimated at 6 – 10 years. If effective, it will postpone the child’s vulnerability until adulthood, when death from the disease, while still rare, is 20 times more likely than in childhood.

“Measles parties” used to be common in Britain; if a child got measles, other parents in the neighborhood would rush their kids over to play with the infected child, to deliberately contract the disease and develop immunity.

This avoids the risk of infection in adulthood when the disease is more dangerous, and provides the benefits of an immune system strengthened by the natural disease process.

About half of measles cases in the late 1980’s resurgence were in adolescents and adults, most of whom were vaccinated as children, and the recommended booster shots may provide protection for less than six months.

Some healthcare professionals are concerned that the virus from the chicken pox vaccine may “reactivate later in life in the form of herpes zoster (shingles) or other immune system disorders.”

Dr. A. Lavin of the Dept. of Pediatrics, St. Luke’s Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio, strongly opposed licensing the new vaccine, “until we actually know…the risks involved in injecting mutated DNA [the vaccine herpes virus] into the host genome [children].” The truth is, no one knows, but the vaccine is now licensed, recommended by health authorities, and quickly becoming mandated throughout the country.

Not only are most infectious diseases rarely dangerous, they can actually play a vital role in the developing a strong, healthy immune system.

Persons who have not had measles have a higher incidence of certain skin diseases, degenerative diseases of bone and cartilage, and certain tumors, while absence of mumps has been linked to higher risks of ovarian cancer. Anthroposophical medical doctors recommend only the tetanus and polio vaccines; they believe contracting the other childhood infectious diseases is beneficial in that it matures and strengthens the immune system.

Vaccination Truth #5:

“Dangers of childhood diseases are greatly exaggerated in order to scare parents into compliance with a questionable but highly profitable procedure.”

Vaccination Myth #6: “Polio was one of the clearly great vaccination success stories…” …or was it?

Six New England states reported increases in polio one year after the Salk vaccine was introduced, ranging from more than doubling in Vermont to Massachusetts’ astounding increase of 642%; other states reported increases as well.

The incidence in Wisconsin increased by a factor of five. Idaho and Utah actually halted vaccination due to the increased incidence and death rate. In 1959, 77.5% of Massachusetts’ paralytic cases had received 3 doses of IPV (injected polio vaccine).

During 1962 U.S. Congressional hearings, Dr. Bernard Greenberg, head of the Dept. of Biostatistics for the University of North Carolina School of Public Health, testified that not only did the cases of polio increase substantially after mandatory vaccinations — a 50% increase from 1957 to 1958, and an 80% increase from 1958 to 1959-but that the statistics were deliberately manipulated by the Public Health Service to give the opposite impression.

It is important to understand that the polio vaccine was not universally accepted, at least initially. Despite this, polio declined both in European countries that refused mass vaccination as well as in those that employed it.

According to researcher-author Dr. Viera Scheibner, 90% of polio cases were eliminated from statistics by health authorities’ redefinition of the disease when the vaccine was introduced, while in reality the Salk vaccine was continuing to cause paralytic polio in several countries at a time when there were no epidemics being caused by the wild virus.

For example, cases of viral and aseptic meningitis, which have symptoms similar to polio, were routinely diagnosed and recorded as polio before the vaccine, but were distinguished and removed from polio statistics after the vaccine.

Also, the number of cases needed to declare an epidemic was raised from 20 to 35, and the requirement for inclusion in paralysis statistics was changed from symptoms that lasted for 24 hours to symptoms lasting 60 days (many polio victims’ paralysis was temporary).

It is no wonder that polio decreased radically after vaccines-at least on paper. In 1985, the CDC reported that 87% of the cases of polio in the US between 1973 and 1983 were caused by the vaccine, and later declared that all but a few imported cases since were caused by the vaccine-and most of the imported cases occurred in fully vaccinated individuals.

Jonas Salk, inventor of the IPV, testified before a Senate subcommittee that nearly all polio outbreaks since 1961 were caused by the oral polio vaccine.

At a workshop on polio vaccines sponsored by the Institute of Medicine and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Samuel Katz of Duke University cited the estimated 8-10 annual US cases of vaccine-associated paralytic polio (VAPP) in people who have taken the oral polio vaccine, and the [four year] absence of wild polio from the western hemisphere.

Jessica Scheer of the National Rehabilitation Hospital Research Center in Washington, D.C., pointed out that most parents are unaware that polio vaccination in this country entails “a small number of human sacrifices each year.”

Compounding this contradiction are low adverse event reporting and the NVIC’s experiences with confirming and correcting misdiagnoses of vaccine reactions, which suggest that the actual number of VAPP “sacrifices” may be 10 to 100 times higher than that cited by the CDC. For these reasons, the live polio virus is no longer in widespread use.

To be sure, polio as it was known in the first half of the 20th century does not exist today. However, declines following polio peaks in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s had been underway again for a period of years by the time the vaccine was introduced.

Vaccination Truth #6:

“The polio vaccine temporarily reversed disease declines that were underway before the vaccine was introduced; this fact was deliberately covered up by health authorities. In Europe, polio declined in countries that both embraced and rejected the vaccine.”

Vaccination Myth #7: “My child had no reaction to the vaccines, so there is nothing to worry about…” …or is there?

The documented long term adverse effects of vaccines include chronic immunological and neurological disorders such as autism, hyperactivity, attention deficit disorders, dyslexia, allergies, cancer, and other conditions, many of which barely existed before mass vaccination programs.

Vaccine ingredients include known toxicants and carcinogens such as thimersol (a mercury derivative), aluminum phosphate, formaldehyde (for which the Poisons Information Centre in Australia claims there is no acceptable safe amount that can be injected into a living human body), and phenoxyethanol (commonly known as antifreeze).

Some of these ingredients are gastrointestinal toxicants, liver toxicants, respiratory toxicants, neurotoxicants, cardiovascular and blood toxicants, reproductive toxicants, and developmental toxicants, to name a few of the known dangers. Chemical ranking systems rate many vaccine ingredients among the most hazardous substances, and they are heavily regulated.

Even microscopic doses of some of these ingredients are known to be able to cause serious injury. In addition, some vaccine mediums used in the production of vaccines contain human diploid cells originating from human aborted fetal tissue, a fact that might affect many people’s vaccination choices-if they only knew this was the case.

Medical historian, researcher and author Harris Coulter, Ph.D. explained that his extensive research revealed childhood immunization to be “causing a low-grade encephalitis in infants on a much wider scale than public health authorities were willing to admit, about 15-20% of all children.”

He points out that the sequelae [conditions known to result from a disease] of encephalitis [inflammation of the brain, a documented adverse effect of vaccination]: autism, learning disabilities, minimal and not-so-minimal brain damage, seizures, epilepsy, sleeping and eating disorders, sexual disorders, asthma, crib death, diabetes, obesity, and impulsive violence are precisely the disorders which afflict contemporary society.

Many of these conditions were formerly relatively rare, but they have become more common as childhood vaccination programs have expanded. Coulter also points out that pertussis toxoid is used to induce encephalitis in lab animals. The pertussis vaccine’s ability to cause brain damage is thus not only known, but relied upon by clinical researchers studying brain disorders.

A German study found correlations between vaccinations and 22 neurological conditions including attention deficit and epilepsy. Another dilemma is that viral elements in vaccines may persist and mutate in the human body for years, with unknown consequences.

Millions of children are partaking in an enormous, crude experiment; and no sincere, organized effort is being made by the medical community to track the negative side effects or to determine the long-term consequences. Since long-term studies on the adverse effects of vaccines are virtually non-existent, their widespread use in the absence of informed consent and adequate safety testing constitutes medical experimentation.

As the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons and the National Vaccine Information Center have pointed out, this is a violation of the first principle of the Nuremberg Code, “the centerpiece of modern bioethics.”

Bart Classen, MD, PhD, founder of Classen Immunotherapies and developer of vaccine technologies, conducted epidemiological studies around the world and found vaccines to be the cause of 79% of insulin type I diabetes in children under 10.

The increase risk ranged from 9% with the diphtheria vaccine to 50% with the Hepatitis B vaccine. According to Classen, CDC data confirms his findings.

However, the implications of Classen’s findings go well beyond diabetes, as his comment in a 1999 issue of the British Medical Journal points out: “The incidence of many other chronic immunological diseases, including asthma, allergies, and immune mediated cancers, has risen rapidly and may also be linked to immunisation.” The diabetes findings may be only the tip of the iceberg.

Recent studies in the U.S. and England suggest that vaccines cause autism. Mercury poisoning and autism have nearly identical symptoms, and a single day’s vaccination regimen may inject 41 times the level of mercury known to cause harm.

California’s autism rate has mushroomed 1000% over the past 20 years, with dramatic increases following the introduction of the MMR vaccine in the early 1980’s. England had dramatic autism increases beginning in the 1990’s, following the introduction of the MMR vaccine there.

Some infants receive 100 times the EPA’s maximum allowable amount of mercury through vaccines. In January, 2000, the Journal of Adverse Drug Reactions reported that the MMR vaccine was not adequately tested and should not have been licensed. Further reinforcing the suspected vaccine-autism connection is the fact that many physicians using a systematic mercury-detoxification regimen with autistic patients have seen dramatic improvements in the health and behavior of their patients.

Today, one out of every 150 children are affected by autism, according to the National Vaccine Information Center. In the early 1940’s, prior to the introduction of most vaccines in current use, it was considered a rare condition that few doctors would ever encounter in their practice.

Vaccination Truth #7:

“The long term adverse effects of vaccinations have been ignored in spite of compelling correlations with many serious chronic conditions. Doctors can’t explain the dramatic rise in many of these diseases.”

Vaccination Myth #8: “Vaccines are the only disease prevention option available…” …or are they?

Most parents feel compelled to take some disease-preventing action for their children. While there is no 100% guarantee anywhere, there are viable alternatives. 

Historically, homeopathy has proven many times to be more effective than allopathic medicine in the treatment and prevention of disease, with risk of harmful side effects.

In a U.S. cholera outbreak in 1849, allopathic medicine saw a 48-60% death rate, while homeopathic hospitals had a documented death rate of only 3%. Roughly similar statistics still hold true for cholera today. Recent epidemiological studies show homeopathic remedies as equaling or surpassing standard vaccinations in preventing disease.

There are reports in which populations that were treated homeopathically after exposure had a 100% success rate-none of the treated caught the disease.

There are homeopathic kits available for disease prevention. Homeopathic remedies can also be taken only during times of increased risk (outbreaks, traveling, etc.), and have proven highly effective in such instances. And since these remedies have no toxic components, they have virtually no side effects. In addition, homeopathy has been effective in reversing some of the disability caused by vaccine reactions, not to mention many other chronic conditions with which allopathic medicine has had little success.

Vaccination Truth #8:

“Documented safe and effective alternatives to vaccination have been available for decades. (However, they have been systematically attacked and suppressed by the medical establishment.)”

Vaccination Myth #9: “Vaccinations are legally mandated and unavoidable…” …or are they?

Vaccine laws vary from state to state. 

While every state legally requires vaccines, every state also has one or more legal exemptions from vaccines. School and health officials will seldom volunteer exemption information, and are often mistaken when they do, so it is important to check the laws in your state to find out exactly what the requirements are. 

Each state offers one or more of the following three kinds of exemptions:

1) Medical Exemption: All 50 states in the US allow for a medical exemption. However, few pediatricians check for indications of increased risk before administering vaccines, so it is advisable for parents to research this matter for themselves if they have reason to believe that their child may be predisposed to vaccine reactions.

Epilepsy, severe allergies, and a previous adverse reaction in a child or sibling are but a few of the many conditions in child or family history which may increase the chances of an adverse reaction, and thus may qualify for a medical exemption from one or more required vaccines.

In general, though, medical exemptions are difficult to get, may be available only to those who have already had a serious vaccine reaction or who have a family history of serious vaccine reactions, may be granted only for the specific vaccine believed to have caused a previous reaction, and may be valid only as long as the condition giving rise to the exemption persists (i.e., may be temporary).

2) Religious Exemption: 47 states allow for a religious exemption (all but MS, AK and WV). A state’s laws may state that membership in an established religious organization is required.

However, this requirement has been held unconstitutional in New York federal courts; personal religious beliefs are sufficient for a religious exemption, regardless of which religious organization you belong to, or whether or not you belong to an organized religion at all.

In one case, the plaintiffs were awarded money damages when the court found that the state had violated their civil rights by denying them a religious exemption.

3) Philosophical or Personal Exemption: Approximately 17 states allow parents to refuse vaccination for personal or philosophical reasons.

It is worth noting that exempted children may be banned from attending schools during local outbreaks. But all schools, public or private, must comply with state vaccination laws and honor legal exemptions.

The best source for a copy of your state’s vaccination laws is state health officials. A phone call to the state Department of Epidemiology or Immunization (the specific name varies from state to state) may be all that it takes to get a copy mailed to you.

Or, for a small fee, the NVIC and New Atlantean Press will sell you a copy of your state’s immunization laws (see contact information at the end of this article). Statutes can be searched on the Internet (for example, see www.findlaw.com), but these sources many not always reflect very recent changes in the law, if there have been any. Law libraries and lawyers are, of course, a good source as well.

Vaccination Truth #9:

“Legal exemptions from vaccinations are available for many-but not all-U.S. citizens.”

Vaccination Myth #10: “Public health officials always place the public’s health above all other concerns…” …or do they?

Vaccination history is riddled with documented instances of deceit portraying vaccines as mighty disease conquerors, when in fact vaccines have had little or no discernible impact on-or have even delayed or reversed-pre-existing disease declines.

The United Kingdom’s Department of Health admitted that vaccination status determined the diagnosis of subsequent diseases: Those found in vaccinated patients received alternate diagnoses; hospital records and death certificates were falsified.

Today, many doctors still refuse to diagnose diseases in vaccinated children, and so the “Myth” about vaccine success persists.

Conflicts of interest are the norm in the vaccine industry. Members and Chairs of the FDA and CDC vaccine advisory committees own stock in drug companies that make vaccines; individuals on both advisory committees own patents for vaccines under consideration or affected by the decisions these committees make.

The CDC grants conflict-of-interest waivers to every member of their advisory committee a year at a time, allowing full participation in the discussions leading up to a vote by every member whether or not they have a financial stake in the decision.

Concerns over vaccine adverse effects and conflicts of interest led the American Society of Physicians and Surgeons to issue a Resolution to Congress calling for a “moratorium on vaccine mandates and for physicians to insist upon truly informed consent for the use of vaccines.”

Approved by unanimous vote at the AAPS October 2000 annual meeting, the resolution made references to the “increasing numbers of mandatory childhood vaccines, to which children are … subjected without … information about potential adverse side effects”; the fact that “safety testing of many vaccines is limited and the data are unavailable for independent scrutiny, so that mass vaccination is equivalent to human experimentation and subject to the Nuremberg Code, which requires voluntary informed consent”; and the fact that “the process of approving and ‘recommending’ vaccines is tainted with conflicts of interest.”

In an October 1999 statement to Congress, Bart Classen, M.D., M.B.A., founder and CEO of Classen Immunotherapies and developer of vaccine technologies, stated, “It is clear … that the government’s immunization policies … are driven by politics and not by science.”

I can give numerous examples where employees of the US Public Health Service … appear to be furthering their careers by acting as propaganda officers to support political agendas.

In one case … employees of a foreign government, who were funded and working closely with the US Public Health Service, submitted false data to a major medical journal. The true data indicated the vaccine was dangerous however the false data that was submitted indicated there was no risk. An employee of the NIH who manages large vaccine grants jointly published a misleading letter about the subject with one of these foreign civil servants.

As you are aware it is illegal to falsify data from research funded by the US government.” Dr. Classen recommended that Congress hire a special prosecutor “to determine if public health officials are following the laws enacted to ensure vaccines are safe” and to determine “if public health officials along with manufacturers are misleading the public about the safety of these products.”

In France, 15,000 French citizens have sued their government over adverse Hepatitis B vaccine reactions. Former public health officials there are serving prison sentences following findings that they did not follow the law to ensure the safety of the vaccine, and school-age Hep B vaccination has been discontinued.

US military personnel may be even worse off: ” … four letters from the FDA/Public Health Service … clearly reveal that the anthrax vaccine was approved for marketing without the manufacturer performing a single controlled clinical trial.”

Clinical trials are, of course, absolutely critical to determining the safety and effectiveness of any pharmaceutical product. Military personnel have been, and continue to be, unwitting subjects in an unethical experiment.

Vaccination Truth #10:

“Many of the public health officials who determine vaccine policy profit substantially from their policy decisions.”

CONCLUSIONS:

In the December 1994 Medical Post, Canadian author of the best-seller Medical Mafia, Guylaine Lanctot, MD, stated, “The medical authorities keep lying. Vaccination has been a disaster on the immune system. It actually causes a lot of illnesses. We are actually changing our genetic code through vaccination…100 years from now we will know that the biggest crime against humanity was vaccines.”

After critically analyzing literally ten’s of thousands of pages of the vaccine medical literature, Dr. Viera Scheibner concluded that “there is no evidence whatsoever of the ability of vaccines to prevent any diseases.

To the contrary, there is a great wealth of evidence that they cause serious side effects.” Dr. Classen has stated, “My data proves that the studies used to support immunization are so flawed that it is impossible to say if immunization provides a net benefit to anyone or to society in general.

“This question can only be determined by proper studies which have never been performed. The flaw of previous studies is that there was no long-term follow up and chronic toxicity was not looked at.

“The American Society of Microbiology has promoted my research…and thus acknowledges the need for proper studies.” To some these may seem like radical positions, but they are not unfounded.

The continued denial and suppression of the evidence against vaccines only perpetuates the “Myths” of their “success” and, more importantly, their negative consequences on our children and society. Aggressive and comprehensive scientific investigation into adverse vaccine events and is clearly warranted, yet immunization programs continue to expand in the absence of such research.

Manufacturer profits are enormous, while accountability for the negative effects is conspicuously absent. This is especially sad given the readily available safe and effective alternatives.

The positions asserted above are not coming from a handful of fringe lunatics; entire professional organizations are beginning to speak out. Criticisms of vaccines are being sounded by an increasing number of credible, reputable scientists, researchers, investigators, and self-educated parents from around the world.

Instead, it is public health officials and die-hard vaccine advocates (many of whom have a financial stake in the outcome of the debate) who are beginning to lose credibility by refusing to acknowledge the growing body of evidence and to address the very real, serious, documented problems.

Meanwhile, the race is on. There are over 200 new vaccines being developed for everything from birth control to cocaine addition. Some 100 of these are already in clinical trials.

Researchers are working on vaccine delivery through nasal sprays, mosquitoes (yes, mosquitoes), and the fruits of “transgenic” plants in which vaccine viruses are grown.

With every adult and child on the planet a potential recipient of vaccines administered periodically throughout their lives, and every healthcare system and government a potential buyer, it is little wonder that countless millions of dollars are spent nurturing the growing multi-billion dollar vaccine industry.

Without public outcry, we will see more and more new vaccines required of us all. And while profits are readily calculable, the real human costs are ignored or suppressed. Whatever your personal vaccination decision, make it an informed one; you have that right and responsibility. It is a difficult issue, but there is more than enough at stake to justify whatever time and energy it takes.

About the Author

Alan Phillips is a co-founder and co-director of Citizens for Healthcare Freedom (CHF), a nonprofit corporation dedicated to raising vaccine awareness and advocating informed choice. He is also a practicing attorney in Chapel Hill, NC and gladly assists people with exemptions to vaccines in NC.

Phillips has a background in technical writing, writing assessment, children’s elementary education, freelance writing and investigative research on alternative health issues, and is known internationally for professional music performance and production. lawpapa@nc.rr.com

For More Information

1. National Vaccine Information Center, 512 Maple Avenue West #206, Vienna, VA 22180. 703-938-DPT3; 800-909-SHOT (7468).
Email: info@909shot.com
Website: http://www.909shot.com

2. Vaccine Information & Awareness (VIA), Karin Schumacher, J.D., Director. 792 Pineview Drive San Jose, CA 95117. 408-397-4192 (voice mail/pager) 408-554-9053 (phone/fax). Email: via@access1.net. For information on all sides of the issue, go to VIA’s Website: http://www.access1.net/viaVaccine Policy Institute, 251 Ridgeway Dr., Dayton, OH 45459, Krystine Severyn, R.Ph., Ph.D., ph/fax: 513-435-4750. Quarterly Newsletter. Information from a highly credentialed, highly informed expert on vaccines.

3. New Atlantean Press P.O. Box 9638 Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-983-1856. Books, tapes, videos, write for catalog.

4. Diane Rozario, Immunization Resource Guide, 4th Edition, Patter Publications, PO Box 204, Burlington, IA 5260. 319-752-0039, 888-513-7770, fx 208-361-8889. Email: patterpublications@yahoo.com. Websites: http://patterpubli-cations.safeshopper.com. This guide has it all, pro and con, and is reasonably priced.

Introductory Vaccine Presentations

Citizens for Healthcare Freedom Director Alan Phillips conducts introductory lectures on the vaccine controversy. Presentations are designed to complement and supplement the information in this article. To sponsor a presentation in your home, office, local library, etc., write to CHF Lectures, PO Box 62282, Durham, NC 27715-2282, or email alan_phillips@unc.edu.

About “Dispelling Vaccination Myths”:

Unsolicited Reprints in:

1. Parenteacher Magazine, Summer 2000.
2. Claudia’s Abundant Life Health Food Market, 09/1999 – 02/2000.
3. Epidemics, Opposing Viewpoints, Greenhaven Press, 1999.
4. Birth Issues, fall 1999. Canadian magazine of the Association for Safe Alternatives in Childbirth (ASAC).
5. The Home-Grown Family, spring, fall, winter 1998-99. Christian home-schooling magazine.
6. The Immune Manual, Life and Health Research Group, CA, 1997.
7. Hindustan Times and other Indian newspapers, two Indian homeopathic journals, 1997 (according to Sai Sanfeevini Foundation, New Delhi, India).
8. NEXUS Magazine, October-November 1997. Multinational magazine.
9. Wildfire, spring 1996. US Native American magazine.
10. Numerous grass-roots organizations’ newsletters around the world.

Unsolicited Distributors:

1. Sai Sanjeevini Foundation, New Delhi, India.
2. HealthAction Network, UK.
3. Vaccine Information Network, New Zealand.
4. Prometheus (publisher), UK.
5. Medical Missionary Press, NC, USA.
6. Asian Pacific Homeopathic Association, Hong Kong.

Request for classroom use by:

1. Sheffield Homeopathic College, UK.
2. A neurologist in Italy.
3. A medical school professor in NC.
Internet Postings: There are many; solicitations are ongoing.

References: – To be supplied upon request.

Vaccine Controversy Continues

Today, children routinely receive 21 vaccinations before they even enter kindergarten- more than double what they received even a decade ago. Vaccine fears are at an all time high, intensified by the recall of the rotavirus vaccine and the problem of MERCURY-CONTAINING vaccines. The debate has reached Congress, which conducted hearings in August 1999. 

Like antibiotics, vaccines have prevented unfathomable suffering, but they also have a real, human cost. Just because we can make a vaccine doesn’t mean that we should give it. Instead we need a sober, continuing re-evaluation of the risks and benefits of each vaccine in the ever-changing world in which we live.

Mercury (an ingredient in several vaccines) Allergies 

Mercury (thimerosal) is an ingredient in several vaccines — included in order to kill any live contaminants. It is most likely to be used for a vaccine stored in a multi-dose vial. In rare instances, this causes allergic reactions. At much higher doses, mercury is a known cause of irreversible nerve and brain damage, especially before birth and in the first 6 months of life.

Mercury was responsible for the first known epidemic of cerebral palsy from a toxin when it was dumped into Minamata Bay in Japan in the 1950’s by a vinyl plastics factory. Might it also cause mercury toxicity in children who frequently get mercury-containing vaccines? This has long been a concern with the gamma globulin shot used to prevent Hepatitis A in travelers. Where practical, the Hepatitis A vaccine is a safer and more effective alternative that does not contain mercury. Still, getting a shot of gamma globulin is still far better than getting hepatitis.

All of the vaccines now in the routine schedule are available in thimerosal-free forms. Other vaccines such as the diphtheria-tetanus, meningococcal, influenza vaccines, and gamma globulin will still contain thimerosal after the first quarter of 2001.These vaccines are not recommended for children as part of the recommended childhood immunization schedule, though for some children the benefits will outweigh the risks. In addition, the vaccination of children in much of the world will continue to require the use of multi-dose vials for reasons of cost and storage capacity.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the United States Public Health Service (PHS) have called for the elimination of mercury from all vaccines. Multi-dose vials require a preservative to prevent microbial contamination after the vial is opened, but manufacturers are encouraged to seek alternatives.

OTHER VIEWS regarding vaccines and vaccinations

The Infant Vaccination Controversy  From the November 1998 Issue of Nutrition Science News by Franklin Cameron

Most parents dutifully take their infants to the doctor or clinic at the prescribed times to be vaccinated. Generally, it doesn’t occur to them to question this public health institution. However, growing numbers of doctors, scientists and parents have become suspicious about the long-term implications of what some consider a national experiment posturing as solid science. It could be said that the development of immunization theory has been compromised by the theory’s very successes.

The history of vaccines does indeed have some glorious chapters. In 1796, British country doctor Edward Jenner formulated a vaccine that led to the global eradication in our time of the deadly smallpox virus. 

A century later, French chemist Louis Pasteur formulated a vaccine against rabies and even foresaw serums made from nonliving substances that would one day materialize as synthetic, chemical vaccines.¹

These are among the defining legends of Western medical lore. Presently, researchers on the vaccine trail have a new dream: to create a “supervaccine” to be used against all invasive bacterial or viral organisms.¹ It would theoretically be injected into infants during their first weeks of life and thereafter protect them against every known human-invasive microorganism including those causing common childhood diseases such as measles, mumps, chicken pox and rubella.

That such a dream could have detractors seems almost sacrilegious. Why would a medical practitioner or a parent oppose such an agenda?

One side of the controversy believes ardently in the military medical metaphor: The body is perceived as a battlefield on which great generals, otherwise known as doctors, wage war against a virulent enemy of viral and bacterial microbes to secure a kind of peace known as health.

On the other side is a holistic belief system, espoused since Hippocrates, holding that deleterious microorganisms aren’t the ultimate cause of disease. Thomas Sydenham, who in the 17th century was known as the “English Hippocrates,” put it this way: “Germs seek their natural habitat–diseased tissue–rather than being the cause of diseased tissue. For example, mosquitoes seek the stagnant water, but do not cause the pool to become stagnant.”²

In our time we’ve witnessed the gradual reemergence of the Hippocratic model as manifested by alternative and preventive medicine. Even as recently as 10 years ago the idea that nutrition could have a positive effect on health was viewed skeptically by many allopathic doctors. Today, it has become a widely accepted tenet of health. “You are what you eat” is no longer perceived as the misguided prattle of fringe health fanatics but the guiding principle of a multibillion-dollar natural products industry.

The aspersion of fringe fanaticism is presently applied to people who question the wisdom of our national vaccination policy. Prominent among the critics are Harris Coulter, Ph.D., and Barbara Fisher; they coauthored DPT: A Shot in the Dark (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985; Warner, 1986; Avery, 1991). This book specifically targets the P in DPT–the pertussis vaccine, which Coulter and Fisher claim had a poor success rate and was even harmful to many infants.

Nutrition Science News had the opportunity to speak separately with Coulter and Fisher for an update on the politics of infant vaccination. Here is what we learned from them.

Adult vs. Infant Vaccination

We live in a society of either/or arguments. One cannot take a stand on an aspect of vaccination without being perceived as railing against all aspects of vaccination. Coulter stresses it is not adult immunizations that are protested. No one, for example, disputes the science or efficacy of the smallpox vaccine. Coulter also agrees that if one were to travel in some parts of Asia, vaccinations against cholera or blackwater fever would be wise. What he and many other scientists dispute are the ever-increasing numbers of infant vaccinations.

In psychology, more than a century of research has been dedicated to understanding how an infant develops into an emotionally mature adult. Clearly articulated developmental stages, each with tasks to be mastered, are well documented. In purely physical terms, our bodies must also pass through developmental phases. Coulter is prominent among a group of scientists who postulate that childhood diseases are part of that normal process. “Contracting and overcoming such diseases,” he says, “is part of a developmental process that actually helps develop a healthy, robust, adult immune system able to meet the challenges that inevitable encounters with viruses and bacteria will present later on.”

On the other side of this controversy is a public health system that assumes its mandate is to eradicate all bacterial and viral disease-causing organisms. The holistic medical contingent argues that some of these organisms are millions of years old. How they fit in the overall web of life–besides giving us measles and chicken pox, for example–is unknown. What virulent organisms they feed on and control is also unknown. Even mainstream scientists admit that solid data on the ecological relationship between humans, the infecting agents and how infestation occurs are lacking.³

Unbeknownst to many parents, infant vaccination has long been a subject of controversy. In his book The Assault on the American Child: Vaccination, Sociopathy, and Criminality (North Atlantic Books, 1990), Coulter documents possible long-term neurologic and other side effects of infant vaccines. Among these are lifelong allergies, autism, brain damage, encephalitis, and dyslexia as well as learning and behavior disorders. 

What Coulter and Fisher vociferously protest is the lack of response to these findings from the government-funded public-health establishment. Fisher, who is also cofounder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) in Vienna, Va., points out that the public-health infrastructure was built with vaccination as the cornerstone of its preventive health policy.

“When I look at it,” Fisher says, “what I see is allopathic medicine at war with the other modalities. Homeopathy, naturopathy, chiropractic are perceived as challenging the basic premise of allopathic medicine, which is that germs are the ultimate cause of illness and must be destroyed–in this case, by vaccines.”

Both Fisher and Coulter agree that not only are vaccines the sacred cow of the public health system, they have also become the golden calf. What that means is money. Fisher points out that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), with an annual budget of around $360 billion, is the most powerful and wealthiest federal agency in the country. On the face of it, that could be wonderful. What better priority than national health? The way it plays out, however, has roused serious concerns in the alternative medical community.

In the United States there are two main vaccine policy-making groups, the Advisory Committee of Immunization Practices (ACIP) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) under HHS. ACIP makes recommendations for vaccine policy. Fisher says these recommendations turn into mandates “because state health officials automatically turn them into state law. In most states,” she says, “[when it comes to public health] you no longer even have a vote by the legislature. All the state health departments have to do is issue a regulation, and it automatically becomes a law.”

Fisher says: “For 16 years I have sat in rooms with these officials, both at scientific conferences and government meetings. I was appointed to the Vaccine Advisory Committee for four years under HHS. I was the token consumer representative.” What she observed was lack of oversight of this huge enterprise. “You have the highly funded HHS. 

You have the federal health infrastructure that funds the state public-health infrastructure. Together they have decided they are going to use vaccines to eradicate disease-causing microorganisms from Earth. Then there are the drug companies that manufacture the vaccines; they have a very profitable relationship with FDA and CDC. Everyone is committed to the same premise. 

What we are trying to make the public realize is that no money whatsoever has been portioned to independent researchers who work outside this very profitable, self-reinforcing loop.”

Unanswered Questions

For year’s dissenters have been raising questions about vaccines. Among them: What is the safe quantity of vaccine antigens that will not cause local, systemic and sometimes severe neurological damage in infants and children? What happens to the vaccine antigens in the body years later? Where do they go, and what are they capable of doing?⁴  

To what degree is the introduction of live viruses via routine vaccination responsible for autoimmune diseases? What effect do live viruses, which are incorporated directly into the genetic material of our cells, have on the cells themselves?⁵

Coulter correlates the explosion of learning disorders in the past 30 years with mass infant inoculations and bemoans the fact that no studies are being conducted to investigate this correlation.⁶ Instead, Congress set up the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program in 1986, thereby creating a no-fault system to protect vaccine manufacturers from lawsuits and to compensate parents of children who have been harmed by vaccines. Since 1990 more than $500 million has been paid out.⁷ One would think that such a large payout would itself raise serious questions about our vaccination practices.

It is ironic that alternative medical practitioners, whose theories have historically been called unscientific, should be demanding: Where are the control groups? Where are the long-term follow-up studies? Where is the adversarial research?

Fisher says: “Brave souls have raised their own money and have identified that these problems exist, but when they try to publish, many are kept out of the medical journals or are even vilified. The public-health infrastructure will brook no view other than ‘vaccines are totally safe and effective.’ “

Currently, vaccines are being mandated in ever-increasing numbers of doses. “Right now in America,” says Fisher, “we require 34 doses of 10 different viral and bacterial vaccines before children are allowed to go to school. Some of these are live virus vaccines–the polio, chicken pox, measles, mumps and rubella vaccines. What concerns us presently is the proposed implementation of vaccination registries that would track every child in the country to ensure that vaccine schedules are complied with. This would even include entitlement programs–no shots, no family assistance. A state legislator in Oregon has proposed a bill to deny tax exemptions for children whose parents cannot prove their children were vaccinated with all the government-recommended vaccines.”

There are three major issues at stake. The first is Coulter’s premise that overcoming childhood diseases constitutes important stages in the development of a robust, adult immune system and that bombarding an infant’s immature immune system with live viruses actually can do more harm than good.

The second issue involves how antibodies are transferred from a mother to her child to protect an infant during its first months and years of life. If the mother had contracted and overcome measles during her childhood, she would be able to pass this immunity on to her baby, both through the placenta and by means of breast-feeding, thereby protecting the child for 12 to 15 months after birth.

Fisher recalls the measles outbreak of 1989/90: “A whole group of young mothers who had been vaccinated against measles, and therefore had only temporary artificial immunity, were not able to give their babies the protection their unvaccinated mothers had given them.” She observes: “We saw a lot of measles in very young babies where they did not naturally occur before. Furthermore, these babies were dying of a particularly nasty kind of measles, which aroused speculation that the virus may have mutated beyond the scope of our present vaccines.”

This leads to the third issue. By artificially suppressing these microorganisms through mass vaccinations, Fisher asks, are we causing them to evolve into more virulent forms? We’ve seen what happened when antibiotics were indiscriminately used; now humans are faced with supergerms for which there is no known defense. Fisher wonders, with vaccines, “Are we actually creating a worse problem for future generations than if we found alternative ways to live in harmony with these viruses?”

The fact remains that none of these questions is being addressed publicly. Says Fisher: “You have a very narrow-minded view of public and individual health that has been embraced by the public health police. I am waiting for the scientists who have the guts to come forward and speak out. They’re going to be in the disciplines of immunology, genetics, microbiology, cell biology and bacteriology. They’ve got to step forward and take the power away from the epidemiologists, who like to manipulate numbers, and the infectious disease specialists, who are absolutely obsessed with the eradication of microorganisms through the use of vaccines.”

The Future of Vaccines

Even more vaccines are coming down the pike. Fisher cites the rotavirus, a new live-virus vaccine to keep babies from getting diarrhea. Also, an AIDS vaccine is on a fast track. That it will be mandated for everyone, she says, is almost certain. “There will be no way of knowing what havoc even a portion of that virus is going to cause years after it is injected into the body. I believe we are in tremendous danger. If we do not rein in this vaccine autocracy, we could literally compromise the biological integrity of the human race.”

That an immunocompromised species might be proceeding into the future is speculative. Whether Coulter, Fisher and others in the alternative medical community are right or just well-intentioned alarmists is not known. What is known is that the questions they have raised have been peremptorily deemed unworthy of government-funded research. Arthur M. Silverstein, professor of ophthalmic immunology at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, writing about the swine flu vaccination tragedy of 1976, when the Guillain-Barré syndrome was identified as a direct consequence of swine flu vaccination, concluded: “The decision to produce a vaccine should probably be separated from the decision to immunize,” and “a mechanism should be built into such programs from the start that requires periodic reevaluation of the premises upon which decisions are made.”⁸ Perhaps a public forum to objectively evaluate the arguments for and against our 

National vaccination policy–including its very premise–is finally now in order.

Franklin Cameron is a freelance writer based in Denver, Colo. His writing specialties are history and natural approaches to physical and mental health.

References – to be supplied upon request.