Here's an unrelated article, but a must read as well...
HPV Vaccine Victims Pile Up: $1.5B for Merck - This is Barbara Loe Fisher's blog; excellent vaccine related articles here.

This is very disturbing; our future needs protecting...reprinted below. Keep that Oscillo in the house at all times - it really works & it looks like we're gonna need it!

LIFE WITH BIG BROTHER
Feds target children with live flu vaccine
Formula planned for possibly millions contains virus that can spread on contact

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Posted: July 07, 2008
8:03 pm Eastern

By Bob Unruh
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

The federal government plans to give children – possibly millions of them – a live influenza vaccine they could transmit to anyone with whom they come into contact.

The vaccinations could start as early as a few weeks from now, and the infections could be spread for up to three weeks following the vaccinations, officials confirmed.

Each half milliliter portion of the formula, called FluMist, contains particles of "live, attenuated influenza virus," writes Robert Carrillo on his extensive blog posting about the vaccine.

"That means that between 10 million and 100 million viral particles will be forcefully injected into the nostrils administered," he says.

Carillo warns one of the most troubling concerns over the injection is the potential for the viruses to enter directly into the brain.

"At the top of the nasal passages is a paper-thin bone called the cribriform plate," he explains. "The olfactory nerves pass through this bone and line the nasal passages, carrying messenger molecules to the brain that are identified as 'smells' familiar to us. The olfactory tract has long been recognized as a direct pathway to the brain."According to MedImmune, the company providing FluMist, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted earlier this year to "expand flu vaccination recommendations to include all children six months through 18 years of age."

Previously, the recommendations were to vaccinate children from six months to 59 months of age, the report said.

"The new guidelines add approximately 30 million children to the recommended pediatric population to be vaccinated annually against influenza," the company said.

"MedImmune is committed to doing all it can to support the ACIP's expanded influenza vaccination recommendations and to work toward our common goal to vaccinate more children against the flu each year," John Trizzino, vice president, vaccines, said in a prepared statement. "The data presented … highlight the need to use every possible opportunity to improve vaccination rates and compliance, including vaccinating children when they visit their healthcare providers for back-to-school check-ups and sports physicals. We are focused on delivering FluMist(R) (Influenza Virus Vaccine Live, Intranasal) into the marketplace this year beginning in August."

Carrillo, who works with an organization advising about the dangers of vaccines, says among some of the ingredients of various vaccines are human diploid lung cells, fetal bovine serum, aluminum, formaldehyde, mercury and dry natural latex rubber.

In this particular case, however, probably the most significant issues are that recipients of the vaccine could suffer complications. There are advisories against giving it to children under age 2, anyone with asthma or pregnant women, and the vaccine could transmit the virus itself to others.

"It has been documented that the live viruses from the vaccine can be shed (and potentially spread into the community) from recipient children for up to 21 days," Carrillo writes.

Dr. Jane Orient, executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, agreed.

"It's a live virus," she told WND. "There is a risk if you give it to a child, the child could expose someone to that vaccine virus in whom there could be complications."

The drug manufacturer also warns of possible complications for people afflicted with the Guillain-Barre syndrome.

"You could transmit the virus [to someone] in whom the vaccine could cause a reaction," Orient said. "What about a child whose mother turns out to be pregnant?"

There also is a warning about the danger to people whose immune systems are affected, such as individuals taking chemotherapy.

A study cited by the company in its documentation about the vaccine confirmed that a transmission of influenza from a vaccinated child to someone else is possible. That study encompassed 197 children in a day-care center, officials said.

"It does replicate and is shed and has been transmitted to a few individuals in this study," Orient said.

But she said that going from 197 children to 30 million kids, "I would say is a big experiment."

"I would be concerned about the hazards," she told WND. "And I'm not convinced about the benefit."

Orient, who serves as medical adviser for the institute's projects involving human health and disease, also is president of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness and of Physicians for Civil Defense.

Carrillo also cites the moral concerns raised by vaccines. He writes on his blog, "The Bible teaches us that children are a gift from God," and parents are entrusted with the care and welfare of their children.

"Parents, not the state, are responsible to make health care decisions on behalf of their children," he says, noting the moral problems raised by vaccines that are produced using aborted baby lung tissue.

"The Bible also teaches that there have been times in history when evil government and government employees have attempted, through force or color of law, to intimidate, harm or destroy the children of God's people … Therefore, if a parent feels that vaccines are not safe, it is their responsibility to defend our children from an individual or government who is attempting to subject our children to those vaccine risks," he says.

"The Bible teaches that when man's law contradicts God's law, His people must obey God over Man. … Therefore, be it known, should any policy, edict or legislation of man decree our children must be vaccinated, we must obey God rather than man," he says.

"Just so you know one flu shot a year [five] years in a row will increase chances of Alzheimer's by X10 FOLD. WOW! It is criminal that now babies at 6 months old are getting this TOXIC vaccine," Carillo says.

Federal advisory board members cited a study that found fewer than 20 percent of school-age children from 5-19 were vaccinated in their doctors' offices during the most recent influenza season.

"Just so you know, only 10 percent of the adverse reactions gets reported and the count on the site for FluMist so far is over 800 adverse reactions so in reality over 8,000 people have had an adverse reaction," Carrillo counters.

He notes parents still have retained a right to exempt their children.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports the government advisory panel decision doesn't make such flu shots mandatory, but "it will smooth the way for both private insurers and publicly funded vaccination programs to pay for the immunizations."

The report did confirm that controlling influenza among children is a key to fighting the seasonal attacks.

"Kids are the vectors. They bring it home from school and give it to their parents. If you can stop it at school, you stop it at home and break the cycle," says Dr. Frank Malinoski of Gaithersburg, Md., a senior vice president for MedImmune.

The Chronicle report said there have been about two dozen pediatric influenza deaths so far this year. But it also noted the company stands to gain a return on its vaccine, with a price of about $18 per dose.

Another organization, called Families Fighting Flu, Inc., was whole-heartedly in support of the plan.

"We strongly urge all parents to recognize the severity of influenza and get their children vaccinated against the flu every year," said Richard Kanowitz, president of the group.

The organization, however, confirmed it is funded by unrestricted grants from several pharmaceutical companies, including MedImmune.

At Vaccination Liberation officials said vaccines have left flu largely unchanged in recent years anyway.

"Deaths from flu and pneumonia declined by about 90 percent of the year 1900 rates before the widespread use of flu vaccines. This demonstrates with certain[t]y that the major preventive of flu deaths (and flu incidence) is sanitation and nutrition. The fact that no further declines have occur[r]ed in the death rate for combined flu and pneumonia deaths tells us that the ONLY preventive for flu deaths and flu incidence is the lifestyle elements which make a healthy life."

Death toll linked to Gardasil vaccine rises
Complications include shock, 'foaming at mouth,' convulsions, coma

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Posted: June 30, 2008
10:18 pm Eastern

© 2008 WorldNetDaily

"Anaphylactic shock," "foaming at mouth," "grand mal convulsion," "coma" and "now paralyzed" are a few of the startling descriptions included in a new federal report describing the complications from Merck & Co.'s Gardasil medication for sexually transmitted human papillomavirus – which has been proposed as mandatory for all schoolgirls.

The document was obtained from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration by Judicial Watch, a Washington group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, and it has details of 10 deaths just since September.

"Given all the questions about Gardasil, the best public health policy would be to re-evaluate its safety and to prohibit its distribution to minors. In the least, governments should rethink any efforts to mandate or promote this vaccine for children,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

The organization's work uncovered reports of about one death each month since last fall, bringing the total death toll from the drug to at least 18 and as many as 20. There also were 140 "serious" reports of complications including about three dozen classified as life-threatening, 10 spontaneous abortions and half a dozen cases of Guillain-Barre Syndrome.

The document reveals the case of an 18-year-old woman who got the Gardasil vaccine, was found unconscious that evening, and died. Another woman, age 19, got the drug and the next morning was found dead in her bed.

I received a link today about an article on aluminum, because that is also often used as a preservative in many medications (aluminum is linked to alzheimers). This brought to mind a situation I had been wanting to blog about, regarding when our Ladybugs were born.

Many of the Vitamin K shots they routinely give newborns have aluminum in them. Our Big Guy had the Vitamin K shot at birth, because we didn't know any better. However, we refused it for our next 3 children. Then came the twins. We had it refused on our plan, but then my OB became very concerned because they were to be born at 37 weeks, & she felt they were still at risk for brain bleeds (overly dramatic, but I know that now). Taken by surprise, my husband looked over the insert, couldn't find any mention of mercury (thimerosal), so we agreed. Word of caution here, be prepared for anything - ahead of time!

Months later I found out about aluminum being commonly used as a preservative in the Vitamin K shot. Livid, I called the hospital where our twins were born. Thankfully, the brand they used did not have any aluminum or metals for preservatives. Praise God for His protection!

Upon posting on the autism-mercury board, someone knowledgeable also mentioned a link between the Vitamin K shot & newborn jaundice. Interestingly, out of our 6 children, the only 3 to suffer any jaundice were Big Guy & the Ladybugs, & all 3 were the only ones who received the Vitamin K shot!

Coincidence? Yeah right. About as much "coincidence" as the link between vaccs & autism...

Treatment for jaundice may not seem invasive, but it's a big problem for a newborn. It necessitates separation from mom, which is bad for baby on so many levels, but also they cannot nurse during that separation which can create dehydration which can worsen the jaundice. It's a vicious cycle.

Typically, if the levels are within a certain range, extra nursing & sunshine suffices as "treatment". However, our babies' levels were such that they required the light treatments which meant consistent separation from me just a couple of days after birth.

My babies were having trouble getting going with nursing; the last thing they needed was to be separated from me so we couldn't even try. Toward the end they were crying for me constantly enough that the staff seemed to give up treatment before they really wanted to, even though the babies' levels were within range by then. We were pushing hard to get them home, & I think they really thought we'd be back with our still jaundiced newborns.

Thankfully, we didn't need to go back. Ladybug II recovered quickly enough. Ladybug I didn't fare quite as well but our natural family doctor saw she was well otherwise so he wasn't concerned. He said he had seen babies be jaundiced up to 6 months old. After several weeks of her still being jaundiced I consulted a homeopath. He recommended a remedy & she seemed to recover fairly quickly afterward.

Praise Him for natural treatments!

Two more deaths after the Gardasil vaccine. Now they're each "one less". Happy, Big Pharma?

A friend sent this to me; more disturbing information on vaccines...

The Trouble With Vaccines by Dr. Blaylock (Continued)

In Health Tips #547, #548, and #549, I shared excerpts from the May 2008 Issue of The Blaylock Wellness Report (Subscriptions are available at 1-800-485-4350.)

Excerpts of the article continue below:

VACCINES, CONTAMINATION, AND CANCER

“. . . . Most people assume that vaccines are sterile and free from contamination. Nothing could be further from the truth. For example, few among the general public are aware that the polio vaccines from the 1950s and 1960s were contaminated with a cancer-causing virus called SV-40. It is estimated that more than 100,000,000 people worldwide were infected.

“Vaccine scientists scrambled to see if it was causing cancer in people. They began to do long-term studies on large populations of the vaccinated to see if incidences of cancer rose. Yet later evaluations of these same studies showed that the studies were designed to obscure any increase. Why! Because linking the vaccine and cancer would have devastated the entire vaccination program.

“When the story broke in the 1960s, vaccine manufacturers initially assured the public that the SV-40 virus was harmless to humans. Yet they knew from the work of Dr. Bernice Eddy at the National Institute of Health that this virus caused cancer in primates. To this day, vaccine defenders declare there is no problem with the SV-40 contamination.

“Nevertheless, studies led by Dr. Michele Carbone have conclusively shown that this virus is responsible for a number of human cancers, including mesothelioma and bone cancer. One study involved 58,000 women found a 13-fold higher risk in brain tumors in women vaccinated with the vaccine compared to those not exposed to the virus. The polio vaccine, too, was contaminated with cytomegalovirus, which is associated with strokes.

“Recent studies of vaccines from a number of manufacturers who supply vaccines to U.S. citizens found them to be contaminated. In one study, 60% of the vials were contaminated. One of the viruses found in the vaccines was the pestivirus, which is associated with severe brain birth defects. In addition, viral fragments (like viral DNA, RNA, and proteins) have been found in a number of vaccines. Vaccine proponents assure us there is no danger, but the science says otherwise.

“One would think that vaccine sterility would improve with the passage of time but, in fact, it has gotten worse. The main reason is that the communist Chinese have entered the biotechnology market. They are now one of the world’s leading manufacturers, producing 41 of the vaccines used in this country. Soon, they will manufacture the great majority of vaccines.

“Abundant evidence has shown that China’s pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, all controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, produce contaminated products that have resulted in tens of thousands of deaths worldwide and even more in China itself.

“The FDA inspects most pharmaceutical plants in the United States that manufacture vaccines, but a recent report disclosed that it inspects Chinese facilities only once every 13-years.

“To make matters worse, the U.S. government must depend on local Chinese officials to supply them with data and to translate it from Chinese to English. Reports indicate that the translated data the Chinese provide are suspect. Worse still, the FDA inspects only a tiny fraction – 1.8% – of Chinese pharmaceutical and biotechnology sites.

“Our leaders seem to forget that communist China has declared the United States to be its main enemy and has drawn up detailed military plans to take over the United States by the year 2020. Only a complete idiot would hand over virtually all vaccine and pharmaceutical manufacturing to an enemy state. . . ”

EDITOR’S NOTE: Dear friend, please remember the Bible tells us that “The life of the flesh is in the blood,” and when you allow toxic and contaminated substances to be injected into the blood stream of yourself or a loved one, it can only do the body “BAD.” Truly “My (God’s) people are being destroyed for lack of knowledge,” with regard to vaccines.

I am on a group list for vaccination updates & information. The group's list owner was interviewed for a TIME article on vaccinations. Apparently the author was biased & the article is very misinformed (I don't have it nor will I waste "time" & money on it). Go figure; a reporter with her own agenda. What else is new...

Here is the group owner's response to the author (scroll down for a commentary & another response):

Dear Ms. Park,

I am sure that you can guess that I am not thrilled with the vaccination article as it appears in this current issue of TIME.  I am very disappointed at the slant and bias in it.  I feel that you really didn’t take the time to understand and research this issue and just took the words of a few people.  Where are the quotes from the experts on the “other side,” where is mention of such groups as the National Vaccine Information Center ?” It saddens me that you really feel that my decision and my children are “putting the rest of us at risk.”   I am not hiding behind the parents who do vaccinate as “protecting” my kids from disease.  Personally, I think we are trading basically mild childhood diseases for more serious chronic conditions such as autism, diabetes, asthma, etc.  The list goes on and on.  

No one died from these recent measles “epidemics.”  But children are dying from vaccines (as indicated by the VAERS data), and I personally know 3 of them.  Other children are now living with lifelong extensive disabilities.  

I also feel you took my quote out of context.   I was referring to people like Paul Offit and the heads of the CDC when I said, “Things are getting so nasty. People are calling us bad parents, saying it’s child abuse if we don’t vaccinate our children.”  In my community, I have received nothing but support for my decision.  Parents get it, it’s the health officials who don’t.

I expected you to be fair, and you were not.  I feel that you just used me. You wanted a face for people to attach their fears to and you chose us.  Yesterday, I received my first threatening hate e-mail.

Sincerely,

Sue Collins 


COMMENTARY

Nine Points Left Out By TIME article 

      By Louise Habakus

      1. Edward Jenner's smallpox discovery and his vaccine experiments were an unequivocal disaster. If you research the history, you will discover that many people died and came down with terrible diseases such as syphilis because the shots were widely contaminated. Then as today, viruses must be grown on animal or human tissue and viral cross-contamination, cross-species transference, mutation and replication are very real issues (i.e., cross-contamination with other viruses living in the tissue that we didn't know were there) is a very real concern.

      2. The article is based on this concept of herd immunity, that is, the belief that a certain very high threshold of the population must be vaccinated or the disease(s) will return. This is assumed but has never been proven. Disease outbreaks occur in schools and other communities where 99%+ of the population has been vaccinated (New England Journal of Medicine, 3/87). Vaccine makers disclose that it is possible to get the disease from the vaccine. While the press and the government like to blame outbreaks on the unvaccinated, It is not possible to precisely prove this as both unvaccinated and vaccinated contract the disease. Disease transmission can occur through breast milk and through "viral shedding" from the nose and mouth of the recently vaccinated.

      3. Vaccination is commonly credited with the eradication of terrible diseases. However, if you trace worldwide disease death rate trajectories over the past 100-150 years, you will see dramatic and precipitous declines over the entire period before vaccination was even introduced. Before historical revisionism, these gains were originally attributed to significant improvements in sanitation and hygiene (i.e., we no longer have raw sewage running in the streets).

      4. If there is so much controversy about vaccination and if the government is truly very concerned about the consequence if parents are losing confidence and choose to opt out of all vaccination, then why don't they do the unthinkable? Why don't they actually conduct an independent, controlled, double-blind, peer-reviewed study on vaccination? The CDC claims that this would be unethical to deliberately withhold vaccination to children and put them at risk. However, we all know that millions of children are not vaccinated (by Time magazine's own admission, 2-3% of all children) and parents of these children would gladly and gratefully accept the opportunity to participate in this study and to prove that they are indeed responsible and not the societal parasites riding on the good graces of vaccinating parents.

      5. At its heart, science is about observation. That government scientists are willing to so readily dismiss the first-hand observations of tens of thousands of parents who swear that they lost their children to autism just days and weeks after inoculations is irresponsible (and I am being kind). I am shocked that Time magazine did not reference Dr. Bernadine Healy's TV interview on 5/12/08 where she makes a break with her Institute of Medicine (IOM) colleagues and goes on record to say that we must study this further, we must understand what is happening with susceptible groups of children and she chides her colleagues by saying that we must never be afraid of what the truth will show. Dr. Healy is a Harvard-educated physician who did her residency at Johns Hopkins and is former head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and a current member of the IOM. Her credentials are impeccable.

      6. There are unvaccinated populations in this country with significantly lower rates of asthma, diabetes and autism. Former UPI reporter Dan Olmsted investigated the Amish and Chicago's Homefirst pediatric practice. Details can be found at www.ageofautism.com Why are these studies being ignored? CDC's Dr. Gerberding claims that there's something special genetically about the Amish that they don't get autism. How about the 15,000 Homefirst children who are Muslim, Jewish, Christian and Black?

      7. The research studies that the government uses to disprove a link between vaccination and autism are flawed. I urge all parents to read the full studies and the critiques before they are comforted by and choose to parrot the conclusions. All of these government studies are epidemiological. Scientists know that epidemiology is used to identify variables which may be associated with disease incidence in populations; however, epidemiology is never used to prove causation. Only a controlled study can prove or disprove causation.

      8. Time ends its article by saying "such a strategy could reveal new avenues of research..." The government will inspire confidence by funding the research that will settle the debate once and for all. Currently, government sponsored research funding by the NIH is $300 million for leukemia which affects 1 in 25,000 and $160 million for muscular dystrophy which affects 1 in 20,000 than the $15 million spent on autism which affects 1 in 150. That kind of dissonance does not communicate a sincere desire to engage in a respectful and forthcoming dialogue with parents. That government and health officials are taking a harder line with parents in the absence of definitive research is shockingly inappropriate; however well-intentioned, it is still an abuse of power.

      9. Time chides parents for cherry-picking vaccines. I chide Time on cherry-picking case studies to find the lone non-vaccinating parent whose child contracted HiB. Again, this does not contribute to furthering the dialogue.

Some of my comments & thoughts from my own research & experience reg. recent public shows/articles reg. vaccines & certain comments made therein…

I’m not waiting for “green vaccines”. It’s not going to happen. If you took ALL the junk out of the vaccs, you wouldn’t have a vaccine anymore. It’s that simple. There’s nothing natural in there, unless you count aborted human fetal tissue, so it can’t possibly be “green”. If by some fluke there were to be a “green vaccine”, it would be way too expensive for Big Pharma to manufacture & the public to afford.

It is a very odd thing to be “pro” something that you watched almost kill your child.

Let me be clear, I am pro informed consent for all medical & other procedures regarding my children. That means, I’m the parent & I get to choose.

My children’s health & safety are not an “acceptable risk” for what some perceive as the “greater good”.

Someone should have done some research before certain pro-vaccine having saved the world type comments were made. Major diseases were on the decline before the advent of mass vaccination. However, many other diseases & conditions (autism & others) are on the rise … makes one wonder … or should make one wonder.

Diseases vaccines are made to prevent are now treatable & lifelong suffering & death are preventable. Autism, however, can & does cause lifelong suffering. Childhood cancer does kill. Allergies can cause lifelong misery (all rising conditions due to mass vaccination).

If one is vaccinated why is one concerned with catching anything from an unvaccinated? Isn’t that the point of being vaccinated?

People frequently “catch” the disease from the vaccine that is supposed to prevent it. The flu vaccine is an example. People with compromised immune systems are told not to change a baby’s diaper who has just had a live polio vaccine because they can catch polio from the feces.

Seems to me the vaccinated are more of a risk to the unvaccinated then vice versa.

There are responsible ways to handle not vaccinating. Some are: Don’t rely on allopathic medicine. Prevention is important. Don’t eat SAD (standard American diet). Eat naturally & organic as much as possible. If there is an illness try to handle it naturally if possible. Have a working knowledge of vitamins, herbs, & homeopathics (God given gifts to us). Try not to use the antibiotics & don’t squelch fevers (the body’s natural defense against infection) with Tylenol (which is also tough on the liver). Seek out & utilize a naturally oriented, supportive & informed doctor or practitioner for you & your family. If meds are used (& sometimes they are needed) try to do “damage control” with your natural practitioner as soon as possible.

I've noticed that Big Pharma has a new method, which is to make the public afraid of those who do not vaccinate so those folks can be seen as outcasts of society. The more pressure BP puts on them, the more they hope they will be quiet so BP can maintain control. The responses were extremely disturbing, similar to the sound of racial prejudice type hatred at times in tone, & some of the ideas reminicent of a nazi Germany mentality. Perhaps it's working on some folks. I'm sure there are many others willing to research & make educated decisions, rather those based on ridiculous fears that have no basis in fact.

This was such a well written, educated response to the recent NY Times article on vaccs that I had to reprint it here, although the link to her site is below. I did not include a link to the original article, but you can find that on her site as well. 

This is well worth a few minutes to read in its entirety, no matter what side of the fence you sit on.


"Public Health Risk Seen As Public Rejects Vaccines"
March 26, 2008 -Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary

I saw this article in the New York Times recently about a small measles outbreak in San Diego. In some ways that article was a typical pro-vaccine article, using certain techniques in order to give a slightly skewed view of the truth to make a stronger point. For example they cited statistics from around the world (242,000 children die annually from measles) instead of giving us statistics relevant to our lives. If children in third world countries are dying from measles, you could very reasonably conclude that this might not tell you much about what your child’s risk might be. There are obviously differences in circumstances, and at least some of those children might not have access to the healthy food, good sanitation and the excellent palliative care that we generally have available in the US. But there were two parts of the article I found more interesting than the rhetoric: the comment that many pediatricians view people who don’t vaccinate their children as “…parasites, of a sort, benefiting from an otherwise inoculated majority.” I suppose that they got a lot of mileage from calling people parasites instead of free riders, since it’s obviously a more upsetting, pejorative term. The other thing that was interesting was the fact that they got a mother to admit that she was more concerned about her child’s well being than those of other children.

But the most amazing thing about the article was the vitriol contained in the comments by people who think that vaccination should be forced on all children by the government. These people did a lot of name-calling of those who disagree with them, using inflammatory terms like “unscientific”, “poorly educated”, and claiming that non-vaccinators are unable to evaluate validity of reasoning because they don’t share the opinion of the particular comment’s author. It’s an important lesson for all of us to pay very little attention to the authority with which people speak on important matters, but instead to focus on the evidence which they present. This is especially true when the opinion is full of inflammatory, emotional language and is mostly rhetoric rather than evidenced reasoning, as are most of the comments after the article. If I didn’t know better, I would think it was a fervent flame war over religion and not a scientific disagreement.

Let me state my position point-blank, before I go any further: every person making a comment there that makes it seem as though this is a simple problem with an obvious answer (in either direction) does not know what they are talking about. That includes all the physicians and nurses who think that giving people shots for thirty years somehow confers upon them complex, otherwise-unknown scientific truths that have amazingly eluded everyone else. There is a reason that well-educated people around the world disagree in this problem-space: no one knows what the truth is. I maintain that anyone who tells you otherwise hasn’t looked at the problem and the studies very carefully, or has some sort of interest in the conclusion. And that interest may be as benign (and simultaneously malignant) as just assuming that when a lot of credentialed people say something is true, it must be.

Now, let me begin by saying something that I thought would be obvious to everyone: vaccines damage some children. (and this has nothing to do with the recent Hannah Poling case) It is pretty much true that everyone who knows about public health already knows this. This is the reason that vaccine court exists, and the reason that each shot costs a little bit more than it would otherwise; the money gets put into a fund to pay off those that have been hurt by vaccines. Again, it’s called PUBLIC health – it’s not about your child; it’s about the promotion of the healthy well-being of the society at large, knowing that along the way some people will probably be hurt. This is very simple public policy stuff about which it appears lots of people have their heads in the sand.

So far the lesson is that the pro- and anti-vaccine people agree about this general fact, and they’re now arguing about numbers. Pro-vaccine people think that you’re at much higher risk for being injured by illnesses, and the anti-vaccine people think you are at more risk for being harmed by vaccines. The anti-vaccine people are concerned that autoimmune diseases, allergies and autism are caused, at least in part, by vaccines and/or their component parts (meaning live viruses, adjuvants and/or preservatives, mainly) and that many of the illnesses for which we vaccinate are not serious. The pro-vaccine people think that vaccines alone keep us from reverting to the days when hospitals were full of people suffering and dying from diseases that we can now sidestep entirely because effective vaccines have been invented.

I have personally read all of the studies claiming to show that there is no connection between vaccines and autism, and would have read the studies showing that vaccines were evaluated in the long term, had anyone done those sorts of studies. And by that I mean that I have read the studies in their entirety, which means that I did not rely on information that I read about them in Time magazine, I did not have a conversation with someone (an MD or DO, or a medical student – lots of whom commented on the NY Times article) who claimed to have read the study, and lastly (and most importantly) I did not just glance at the abstract and pretend that I read the whole study, considered the methodology carefully and agree that the study actually demonstrates what it claims to show.

And even with all this study of the primary literature it’s the case that I still don’t understand what people are talking about when they say that vaccines have been proven to not cause autism. There are some epidemiological studies, but when I learned about biostatistics and scientific studies, population-based studies were used solely to help define more specific questions that could be investigated via experimental research. They are where one begins to define a medical inquiry, and are almost never used to prove/disprove anything (and certainly are not used to approve drugs or medical devices) because they fall prey to too many confounding factors.

The prior objection about the population-based studies doesn’t even begin to raise the questions about the legitimacy of the particular population studies that were done, and cited by the Institute of Medicine. In one case the children in the country where the study was done were administered half the thimerosal as children in the US, but somehow the study is still cited as perfectly applicable to US children. There was another study, done in the US, but it had a minor difficulty in that all the data that was analysed was “lost” (although individuals have testified that they were instructed to destroy the data), which would under any other circumstance result in the study being disregarded. High standards of proof in medicine usually require that the information used is available so that the results of the analysis can be checked and verified by other parties. In fact, the famous Wakefield study (that claimed an association between autism and measles vaccines by isolating measles in the gut of autistic children) is commonly discredited in this way. But somehow this protocol has been eschewed for studies on only one side of this debate. All this makes me feel a bit as though I’m living in the twilight zone; there’s one standard of proof when you’re discussing the claim that vaccines have no relation to autism, and a separate, more stringent standard of proof for the other side of the debate, and everything else.

But in spite of all these difficulties, every day people claim that there is no association between vaccines and autism. Go ahead and go back and count the number of comments after the New York Times article that claimed that the association between autism and vaccines has been disproven (bonus points for how many times this was said by physicians and med school students). These are the standards of proof being used by these commenters. (assuming they’ve read the studies at all and aren’t just relying on press releases or the likes of sciencedaily’s rubbish summaries that bear no relation to the study in question).

I believe that if someone could show people that do not vaccinate that vaccines were actually safe they might well reconsider; I think the uptake rates on vaccines would increase dramatically if people felt that they were safe and effective. So let me share some ideas that I have for things that could be done to get to get non-vaxers to reconsider, instead of using the brute force of law or personal attack, which a lot of the commenters seemed to be advocating.

Admit that no one has done any long-term study of vaccinations, and that certainly NO ONE has done a study to determine what happens when you give the many shots of the US recommended schedule in a short period of time (other than generate a lot of revenue).

Stop pretending that the thousands of families who have had normally developing children who went for a series of vaccines one day, then screamed for 24 hours (a not-uncommon vax side-effect) and then never uttered another word are imagining it. Science at its heart is all about observation, not fancy journals; so when many people tell a very similar story it certainly warrants real scientific investigation instead of a castigation that people are all collectively imagining things, and that it is a coincidence. I find it astounding that the people of medical science expect people to believe this. When you dismiss the reports and the very observational basis of science and instead engage in heated denial, you are simply extending an open invitation to people to wonder about cover-ups and conspiracies.

Acknowledge that vaccines do not seem to provide the same sort of protection that natural immunity does. There are almost no infections that humans routinely get that are not caused through contact with mucosal or digestive surfaces (malaria being the major exception that comes to mind). In lay-speak, our immune systems have various “layers” of immune globulins that have different roles in immunity – when we inject vaccines, we bypass some levels of immune response, and there is a good chance that this big difference is a factor in the shorter duration of protection that vaccines offer. Because vaccinations don’t seem to confer long-lasting immunity there seems to be an emerging trend where illnesses that used to mainly affect children are now affecting older people (sometimes only in their 20s), and the result has been atypical forms of the illness (like measles) that seem to be more virulent than when the illness is typically contracted as a child. A slightly different problem with the short-lived effect of vaccines is the fact that women used to contract rubella as children, and later, when they became pregnant, their immunity to it was practically assured. Now that we vaccinate against rubella, the immunity that waned, or simply never occurred (via vaccine failure) means that more fetuses are at risk of birth defects due to perinatal rubella infections. Stop pretending that these problems are due to non-vaccinators when vaccines and their incomplete, short-lived immunity contribute to the problem as well.

Stop claiming that practically everyone in the world died of chicken pox and measles ten minutes before the vaccines were invented. Go look have a look at the first hand statistics instead of just mindlessly repeating the propaganda.

Dispense with the arguments from authority such as “I am a physician and I think x.” or “My doctor, who went to Yale, says y.” – people with decades of experience and education have been, and will always continue to be mistaken about things. What matters are the studies and methodologies, and not who said what and what their qualifications are. How many people die each year due to physician error? The Institute of Medicine report from 1999 claimed that the figure is approaching 100,000 people per year. Those people were killed by doctors who made mistakes. Please let’s stop perpetuating the myth that doctors have some extra-human access to anything – they are just people who trade in medicine, and they are sometimes right, and sometimes wrong.

Now let me point out that this debate could be solved with an actual study, devoid of biased funding, done by researchers whose livelihood does not depend on paychecks from the manufacturers of vaccines, investigating the points that I mentioned above. It will be difficult to blind an actual experimental investigation of this sort, because of moral concerns. But there are already plenty of families in the US that do not vaccinate, and comparing rates of the various allergies, ADHD, asthma and autism in children who were and were not vaccinated certainly is a good place to start.

Once some reasonable scientific work has been done in this area, I think we could be on the way to refining our thoughts and concerns. It’s the reluctance to actually discuss the shortcomings and unknowns of vaccination, and instead derail the debate with over-emotionalism and insults that holds both public health and the well being of children back.

And as a private reply to comment #383, B. Pirkle, R.N., San Francisco: Non-vaccinating parents all over will be struck by the irony of your comment. They know all too well that there is no such thing as a free lunch; that’s exactly what they’re trying to get YOU to see. You can’t just inject a bunch of untested stuff into the body, hope it effects the immune system in the way you intend, and assume that there is no cost or downside – that sounds like free lunch idealism at its best. Maybe you should consider taking a little of your own medicine.

Interesting You Tube on the flu vaccine... I especially liked the ending.

Terribly disturbing... the "mother's act". They are screening already; they gave me a form within a day or two after the twins were born! I was shocked as PPD doesn't even start that early. I knew what I was being set up for... drugs. They don't talk to you, they don't find out anything about you, they don't follow up on you personally (I haven't seen a dr since I left the hospital), & there is no help or support for new mothers. Just drugs... & never mind the risk to both mom & baby.

The thing here is we're being set up for no choices; like this is the only option. The "screening" is very questionable as well.

Be prepared...

This is terribly important & disturbing. They give this vaccine routinely to newborns in the hospital. My Big Guy (severe autism) had it within days of birth. They tried to give it to our Ladybugs! We declined & at one point I was somewhat bullied by a pediatric resident of all people (who didn't know who she was talking to ). I ceased my dealings with her rather quickly. Do NOT be bullied! They are your children & need protection! What the peds & big pharma are doing to newborns & children is nothing short of criminal.

Hepatitis B: Discrimination and Vaccine Damage
by Barbara Loe Fisher

A news report out of China, where about 125 million people are hepatitis B carriers, reveals that any child or adult found to be hepatitis B positive faces severe discrimination and societal sanctions while news reports out of Japan reveal that mandatory hepatitis B vaccination programs havetransmitted hepatitis B infection. In France, families of hepatitis B vaccine victims are suing drug giants GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Sanofi Pasteur for aggravated deceit and involuntary homicide for the crippling and killing of children and adults, who were required to take the vaccine. The families have been barred from suing two former French government health officials who initiated and promoted the mandatory hepatitis B vaccination program.

For more than 20 years, the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) has been receiving reports that adults, children and infants are suffering serious reactions to hepatitis B vaccine. Hepatitis B vaccine reaction reports began to come in to NVIC's Vaccine Reaction Registry in the late 1980's from adult health care workers, who reported extreme fatigue, muscle weakness, joint pain, loss of vision, memory loss, heart problems, and development of multiple sclerosis after hepatitis B vaccination.

When the CDC recommended in 1991 that all healthy newborns at 12 hours of age be given hepatitis B vaccine in the newborn nursery, reports of infants dying after hepatitis B vaccination started coming in and continued all through the 90's. When states started mandating the vaccine for all school children in the late 1990's, parents began reporting that their bright, healthy, honor roll students and star athletes were becoming brain damaged, bed ridden and unable to attend school.

In 1999, NVIC published a report that in the U.S. there were more reported cases of hepatitis B vaccine reactions than reported cases of hepatitis B disease in children under 14 years old, an infection that is primarily transmitted in the U.S. among adult high risk groups such as IV drug users and those with multiple partners.

The U.S., Europe and Canada have had historically low rates of hepatitis B disease. In 1990, one year before the CDC told doctors to give every American child three doses of hepatitis B vaccine, there were 21,102 cases of hepatitis B reported in the U.S. out of more than 300 million Americans. In 2005, there were 5,119 hepatitis B cases reported (MMWR, March 30, 2007)

During the past century, medical doctors in positions of power inside and outside of governments around the world have developed an irrational fear of infectious microorganisms, such as hepatitis B virus, and have instilled that fear in the people they counsel. When irrational fear overtakes rational thought, the first casualty is usually the truth; the second is freedom.

The people in China, who are facing cruel discrimination for testing positive for hepatitis B infection, are being persecuted because of myths and misinformation perpetuated by doctors pushing mass use of hepatitis B vaccine and pharmaceutical drugs. The hype that surrounded CDC-inspired mandatory hepatitis B vaccination laws in the late 1990's had doctors declaring to the media that hepatitis B is highly contagious and could be transmitted in school settings, even though they knew transmission was impossible unless there was a direct exchange of blood. When questioned in a public hearing in 1997, CDC official Eric Mast, M.D. admitted "although [the hepatitis B] virus is present in moderate concentrations in saliva, it's not transmitted commonly by casual contact."

Infants who contract hepatitis B, either from their infected mother or infected blood transfusions, are at highest risk for chronic infection. But for the majority of healthy teenagers and adults, who come down with hepatitis B infection, symptoms include nausea, vomiting, low grade fever, pain and swelling in the joints, headache, and cough for two weeks before the onset of jaundice and enlargement/tenderness of the liver that lasts for three to four weeks. Fatigue can last up to a year but "most patients do not require hospital care" and "95 percent of patients have a favorable course and recover completely" with the case fatality ratio be

Those who recover completely from hepatitis B infection acquire life-long immunity. One medical textbook (Robbins Pathologic Textbook of Disease) points out that among those who do not recover completely from hepatitis B infection, fewer than 5 percent become chronic carrriers of the virus, with just one quarter of these in danger of developing life threatening disease later in life. For more information on hepatitis B disease and the vaccine, go here.

The tragic consequences of doctors promoting mass hysteria about infectious diseases, like hepatitis B, and insisting on "no-exceptions" vaccine mandates, are becoming clearer every day. The only hope that citizens of every country have to protect their health and the health of their children is to stand up and pass laws which allow informed, voluntary use of vaccines and prohibit discrimination against those who have a disease or are vaccine injured.

No forced vaccination. Not in America. 

Robert Topp: injured by Hepatitis B Vaccine and reported to NVIC (VaccineMemorial) 

Worth the read... take note of the charts & link at the end; very alarming.

More Families Are Shunning Inoculations
By FRAN SILVERMAN

Published: March 2, 2008

AS states move to require more vaccines for school-age children, an increasing number of parents are saying no to some of the inoculations. They are seeking exemptions from the state in growing numbers, citing religious reasons or saying that they believe the vaccines will do more harm than good.

In the Region
Long Island, Westchester, Connecticut and New Jersey

This fall state lawmakers in New Jersey approved a requirement for flu and pneumonia shots for preschoolers, and two other shots — one for meningitis, and a booster against tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis for sixth graders. Connecticut health officials are considering requiring the diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus booster, and a chicken pox and mumps booster for school-age children and a flu and Hepatitis A shot for children entering preschools. In January, New York started requiring a pneumonia vaccine for preschool children in day care and the DPT booster shot for sixth graders and is considering requiring flu shots for preschoolers in day care.

“With the sheer number of vaccinations recommended there is more of a backlash, more parents with questions,” said Mick Bolduc, epidemiologist for the Connecticut Department of Health’s immunization program.

The resistance of some parents persists despite the overwhelming consensus among scientists and health officials that vaccines are essential for public health and that they do not cause conditions like autism.

Last week, in fact, an advisory panel for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that all children ages 6 months to 18 years should receive an annual influenza shot. Flu has been widespread in almost all states this year.

Currently, flu shots are recommended for children from 6 months to about 5 years.

A pediatrician, Leo Distefano, of West Hartford, CT , who is a member of the state’s chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said women were asking about vaccines before they even gave birth. “In almost every prenatal visit, it’s brought up,” he said. “There’s more and more of a consumer mentality. People are really cautious about just sticking with the routine schedule.”

Katherine Silvan, 37, a hospice minister and social worker from Stamford, CT, refused vaccines for her infant son at the hospital shortly after she gave birth last year, out of concern for his health. “I’m not trying to be extreme and say no vaccines,” she said. “I appreciate that we don’t have polio in this country because of the vaccines. But it should be our personal choice.”

New York