The Vaccine Machine

Trust the Liars

2013-02-13T09:51:00.001-08:00

You guys are gonna get a kick out of this. Vaccine pusher / drug company shill Amy Pisani the executive director of Every Child By Two @3:08 states "Vaccines save millions and millions of lives every day around the world." Millions means at least two million, so millions and millions means at least 4 million. So according to Amy, four million lives are saved each and every day due to the miracle of vaccination. This is of course impossible. In one year alone 1.46 billion lives would be saved because of vaccines. The population of the entire planet only amounts to about seven billion souls. In just five years time the entire planet would be saved by vaccines. Absurd! Ms. Pisani is yet another unfortunate example of an establishment functionary being either obliviously ignorant about the vaccination issue or incredibly dishonest. I don’t know which is worse. So for parents who have heard the song and dance about how we should only accept immunization information from websites approved by a conflicted vaccine establishment, remember it’s people such as Amy who are running and recommending these sites.

Educating the Uneducatable

2012-11-01T09:33:00.000-07:00

Yesterday one of our Facebook members shared our Halloween themed meme on her Facebook page and got this reaction criticizing the meme's content:

...one does not prelude the other

and

The vast majority of medically educated doctors, nurses and scientists throughout the world (including your own pediatrician) believe that, properly used, vaccines are generally safe and effective. Are they infallible? Certainly not, no more so than antibiotics or seatbelts. You can also choose to believe that the world is flat. It's your right. It's also my right to call into question illogical comments, like the one posted. It's simply not either or. There is no vast pharmaceutical company conspiracy. If there is then hundreds of thousands of doctors are incredibly stupid and the anti-vaccine amateurs have all the answers. I don't believe that.

Here is my response:

Your friends criticism of this meme fails in several ways. He constructs a “vast pharmaceutical company conspiracy” straw man argument out of a one sentence meme having nothing to do with a “conspiracy.” Then he goes off on a “flat Earth” tangent which has as much relevance as does the “conspiracy” straw man.
Then he puts his faith in a medical system that over and over is found, by the mainstream media and some elements of the system itself, to be overtreating patients with antibiotics, cat scans, x-rays, unnecessary surgery etc. He then creates a false dichotomy in which the only way obedience to the vaccination schedule can be unwise is if “hundreds of thousands of doctors are incredibly stupid and the anti-vaccine amateurs have all the answers” Then assumes something’s safety and effectiveness automatically makes a product valuable to me. (And can you really call the pertussis shot, for example, effective when one now needs six or seven doses over a twenty year period? Especially when a natural infection provides 30 years to lifetime immunity and decreases the chances of transmission during the child bearing years) Let’s not even talk about if they are safe or not. It is a fact when a child is vaccinated; pain is inflicted on him or her. There must be a good reason for this. (Eighteen trips to the doctor during one's childhood for a yearly, painful flu shot seems hardly worthwhile when you're unlikely to get the illness or suffer substantially from it) But in addition to the pain are the accepted common adverse events: high pitched crying, somnolence, fever, irritability etc. Then there are risks such as the chance of contamination (SV40 incident with polio vaccines) or discovering mercury levels exceeded safety limits after a generation has received those vaccines. Then add in something like this recent news which illustrates how little we know about playing around with biological systems

Then combine it with this Institute of Medicine report from 2004:

The report, issued by the IOM’s Immunization Safety Review Committee, found that scientific evidence from epidemiological studies on whether allergy, including asthma, can be caused by multiple vaccinations was conflicting and concluded that the evidence “was inadequate to accept or reject a causal relationship.” The Committee concluded that epidemiological studies to date “favor rejection of a causal relationship between multiple immunizations and increased risk for infections and for type 1 diabetes.” However, the Committee also concluded that they did find some biological mechanism evidence that vaccines could increase the risk of immune dysfunction in some children that could lead to increased infections and allergy, including asthma. They stated that, “The biological mechanisms evidence regarding increased risk for infections is strong.”

Then add to that the huge increases in the immune dysfunction in the young and ask yourself if tricking that developing system is such a good idea.

So to conclude, nutrition status (part one of the meme) determines to a large degree the severity of these illnesses. On the other hand drugs and medications are detrimental unless they have a benefit that overcomes their risks and side effects. So if part one protects, why take on the risks of part two? As the risk of an illness drops, the benefit of the preventative measure also drops. So yes, if you take the steps mentioned in part one of the meme you may not need the treatments touched upon in part two.

An Open Letter to Lisa Murawski

2012-05-03T08:53:00.000-07:00

AB2109, the bill to herd California parents into a doctor's office for a vaccine lecture in order to obtain a vaccine exemption, is getting closer and closer to becoming law. Just this week, based upon an error-ridden fiscal assessment, the bill passed out of the Assembly Appropriations Committee. One interesting point regarding the cost analysis was its blatant incongruence. Initially, in order to scare readers, the report describes a frightening scenario in which parents are abandoning vaccines in droves:

the number of vaccine exemptions has increased dramatically in the last decade, leading to real concern about the loss of "herd immunity" and potential for serious disease outbreaks

Amazingly, the costs to combat such a major problem will, according to the report, be almost no existent. To minimize cost concerns in order to get the bill out of committee, readers are promised the remedy to drag all these exemptors back to the herd will have almost no financial impact on the state. The report asserts:

Any impact on Medi-Cal or Healthy Families Program from a small number of
increased office visits, to the extent any program enrollees seek exemptions and require additional office visits to do so, is likely to be negligible.

Further mistakes and misrepresentation prompted me to contact the author. Here is the text of an email I sent today:

In your analysis of AB2109 you state:

“In contrast, the risk of death if someone contracts measles is about 1 in 500”

Not that you care, but this bit of “information” has no basis in reality. In the pre-vaccine era 3-4 million people contracted the measles with ~400 deaths. In Europe in 2011 about 30K cases were reported with ~9 deaths. Your 1-500 number is fantasy

http://www.cdc.gov/measles/vaccination.html
Measles can be prevented by the combination MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine. In the decade before the measles vaccination program began, an estimated 3–4 million people in the United States were infected each year, of whom 400–500 died,

http://www.epimonitor.net/Measles_Outbreak_in_Europe.htm
A new report by the World Health Organization in the Weekly Epidemiologic Record has documented more than 30,000 cases of measles in the European Region in 2010 and more than 26,000 thru October in 2011. These numbers of cases come after three years of record low levels in 2007-2009. Measles outbreaks were reported from 36 countries in the region in 2011 and about one quarter of the reported cases (28%) in 2011 were hospitalized and 9 children died.

Additionally, your assertion that, “vaccines are generally considered a crowning public health achievement, and are credited with major reductions in morbidity and mortality over the last century,” is laughable. Anyone not parroting the talking points of the vaccine establishment understands huge decline in mortality came well before the age of vaccination.

http://childhealthsafety.wordpress.com/graphs/

http://www.healthsentinel.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2654:united-states-disease-death-rates&catid=55:united-states-deaths-from-diseases&Itemid=55

I hope parents will not be subjected to this this type of misinformation during their state-mandated vaccine lecture.

Robert Schecter

A Matter of Freedom and Liberty

2012-03-29T13:50:00.001-07:00

The state senator behind a new bill stripping vaccine choice from Vermont parents wrote this piece in the Rutland Herald (directly below) defending his proposed legislation. It is both unpersuasive and confused. Our response below points out the flaws in his reasoning and delineates why the legislation should be rejected.

A matter of health and safety

Published: March 29, 2012

Throughout the debate on whether to eliminate the exemption for children to attend school without the recommended vaccines for philosophical reasons, much has focused on the personal stories of parents involved on both sides. We’ve heard from parents of children whose lives have been saved by a vaccine, and we’ve heard from parents who believe strongly that their children do not need immunizations and should not be forced into medical action. I come at this debate with a personal story of my own.

When he was an infant, my son Bartley received the recommended dosage of vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR). It was the typical torturous experience for a parent to see a needle enter your child’s tiny leg, but it was necessary and safe, our pediatrician said. The problem was the unexpected reaction my son had to the immunization — an extremely high fever. Our doctor recommended we forgo the second dose of MMR and today my son is not fully vaccinated against those diseases. I worried last year when Vermont saw its first case of measles in a decade. I’ll worry tomorrow, just in case.

For me it’s always come down to the single question of whether we can save a child’s life by protecting the greater public. We entered into this debate with a lot of questions and have spent the bulk of the session hearing hours of compelling testimony, studying the science behind the facts and listening to passionate parents on both sides of this issue.

No one will tell you it was easy, and no one will tell you that we take this job lightly. But our job is to ensure our decisions have a positive impact on society, and it would be irresponsible for us to look at the facts — a growing number of vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks in Vermont and an increasing number of children being exempted from having the CDC recommended immunizations to enter kindergarten — and not act.

That is where we find ourselves today: We must act to change the course we are on. For me, if that means one less child contracts whooping cough —compared to more than 90 who did in 2011 — it’s enough of a reason to act.

For many of the opponents, there have been further erroneous arguments to try and derail the legislation, claiming constitutional violations under both the U.S. and Vermont constitutions. After careful review by legislative legal counsel, it is clear that both constitutions allow for the protection of religious beliefs under the First Amendment.

The U.S. Supreme Court decided that a state may impinge upon the practice of a sincere religious belief only if the state’s interest is of “sufficient magnitude” to justify overriding the religious belief. The Vermont Constitution provides that no authority shall interfere with the free exercise of religion.

In contrast, philosophical beliefs do not receive the same protections. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that, since philosophical beliefs are based on a “subjective evaluation and rejection of the secular values accepted by the majority” they do not rise to the level of religious beliefs and thus, not eligible for the same protections. The Vermont Supreme Court ruled that conduct that is “merely a matter of personal preference” does not rise to the demands of religious freedom.

Vermont, like every other state, requires children be vaccinated in order to enroll in school. There are reasons for this mandate. The most important reason is that without immunizations, our community could be plagued by serious, and sometimes fatal diseases that are avoidable. We’ve already seen an alarming rise in whooping cough cases in our state, and those numbers coincide with a high exemption rate.

Eliminating the philosophical exemption is not meant to infringe on parental rights. It’s meant to narrow the scope under which Vermonters can opt out of immunizations and ensure more children receive life-saving vaccines.

While we, as public servants, have an obligation to represent the views of our constituents, so too do we have an obligation to protect the people we serve. Sometimes that means making tough and often unpopular decisions. Passing S.199 to eliminate philosophical exemptions is a matter of public health and safety. It’s that simple.

SEN. KEVIN J. MULLIN

Response: A Matter of Freedom and Liberty

Sen. Mullin

Freedom is the core principle of America. A legitimate government’s role is to ensure that freedom not to “save lives.” A government whose task is to “save lives” is a government that has no limitations.

“Saving lives” sounds nice but for the government to “‘save lives” it must threaten or initiate violence against innocent people. After all what do you think would happen if a parent declined not to apply for a remaining religious exemption? The parent’s child would be barred from school then the parent would be hauled before a court under threat of force for violating the state’s compulsory education laws. Hiding the specter of state-sponsored violence behind compulsory education laws does not mean the violence is not there.

Besides there is no evidence that the change brought about by this law will ever result in the saving of even one life.

As to a vaccine being “necessary” that’s silly. Food and water is necessary. A vaccine is not. In regards to your worry about one case of the measles, that’s mystifying. In the pre-vaccine era, the nation saw as many as four million cases per year. Yet parents were not “worried” about the illness. Worry about your own kids and we’ll worry about ours.

Free people can save lives. If they see mild illnesses such as the measles, mumps and chickenpox as threats they can choose to vaccinate.

As to your insistence that:

The most important reason is that without immunizations, our community could be plagued by serious and sometimes fatal diseases that are avoidable.

This is preposterous. First the most common illnesses prevented by vaccine (at least for a few years) are all mild, not serious. Besides before widespread mandates polio, whooping cough, diphtheria, measles, mumps and rubella were all controlled by voluntary action.

Then there is your “alarm” over whooping cough. No one besides you and your allies in the public heath establishment is “alarmed” by whooping cough. This proposed legislation after all did not emerge from an overwhelming public demand terrified of whooping cough. And to connect the illness to a few vaccine exemptions is absurd. Perhaps when you were “studying the science behind the facts” you failed to come across the “fact” that the whooping cough vaccine is notoriously ineffective and (along with increased awareness) that ineffectiveness is what is driving so-called outbreaks occurring across the country. As to a rising in whooping cough coinciding with exemptions, did you, when playing scientific researcher, come across the principle that correlation does not equal causation. Or would that principle clash with your manufactured narrative undergirding your attempt to strip parents of their right to raise their children as they see fit?

Your remark that the bill will “ensure more children receive life-saving vaccines” is odd. Vaccines prevent generally mild illnesses and mortality from vaccine-preventable illnesses was in a virtual free-fall long before the advent of vaccination. As such the odds a child will receive a vaccine that actually saves his or her life is astronomically low. The life-saving vaccine mantra seems more spin than substance.

Asserting that, “passing S.199… is a matter of public health and safety,” raises the question of whether the people’s freedom can be taken for the nebulous concept of “public health and safety” It cannot unless a threat to that health and safety is the result of a rights violation perpetrated by another. Not vaccinating violates no rights and as such laws forcing the practice upon the unwilling do not come under the purview of government.

You then imagine you “have an obligation to protect the people you serve.” You do not; you have an obligation to protect people’s rights. There is a difference. When the government has the power to protect people it does so by hurting either them (for their own good of course) or others (in this case those who do not want medical treatments for their healthy children) When the government can only protect rights, no innocents are targeted - only those who, by their actions; for example reckless behavior, violence, theft, etc.; become the legitimate targets of government power.

The fundamental problem is you do not understand the concept nation was built on: freedom. Rather you are obsessed with and driven by concepts of collectivism, activism and paternalism.

It’s not your role to manage the health of those living in your state. Vermonters are people able to care for themselves, not pets reliant on your benevolent despotism.

There is one final establishment talking point (not raised here) that needs to be addressed: those too young for vaccines or those with poorly functioning immune systems or those undergoing chemotherapy rely on others for protection. First those concerned about a child being too young to get a vaccine can keep those children home rather than compel others (through the state) to act against their will to create a sterile world for them. Second, while it is terribly sad that some children have health issues their misfortune does not obligate others to act against their better judgment to protect them – especially when that level of protection is ill-defined and likely quite small.

Parents are certainly free to vaccinate based on the above line of reasoning but that action must be voluntary.

Stand up for freedom, Vermont. Reject this misguided legislation.

Robert J. Schecter

California Vaccine Exemption Contact Information

2012-03-29T00:23:00.001-07:00

Click this link for information on how to make your voice heard in Sacramento

http://nvicadvocacy.org/members/Resources/CAOPPOSEAB2109RestrictingVaccineExemptions.aspx

Dr. Bob Sears Defending the Right to Vaccine Exemptions

2012-03-23T07:10:00.001-07:00

Well-known pediatrician and best-selling author Dr. Bob Sears comes out strongly against a bill forcing parents to hear a vaccine lecture before they can get a philosophical exemption to vaccination.

STATEMENT FROM DR BOB SEARS RE: CALIFORNIA ASSEMBLY BILL

California Bill AB2109 Threatens Vaccine Freedom of Choice

The California Legislature is currently considering a bill that would require parents to obtain their doctor’s signature on a government form prior to enrollment in public school if they wish to skip one or more vaccines for their child. Current law allows parents to decline vaccines by signing an exemption form at the school – no doctor’s signature needed. The new law would require “a written statement signed by a health care practitioner that indicates that the practitioner provided the parent with information regarding the benefits and risks of the immunization and the health risks of specified communicable diseases.”

On the surface, this doesn’t seem like a bad idea. It will require parents to prove that they’ve had an informed discussion with their physician. Most parents already have such discussions anyway. However, what gravely concerns me is that some doctors will refuse to sign this form. I know how doctors think. Many doctors strongly believe that vaccines should be mandatory, and that parents should not have the right to decline vaccines. Some doctors are willing to provide care to unvaccinated kids, despite this difference in philosophy. But now the power over this decision will be put directly into doctors’ hands. He or she can simply refuse to sign the form. Doctors who oppose vaccine freedom of choice have been frustrated for years over this issue. Finally, they will have the power to impose their beliefs on their patients. Patients will be forced to find another doctor to sign the form, submit to vaccines, or get kicked out of public school.

Supporters of this bill believe that all doctors will be willing to sign this form, as the signature does not imply agreement with the parent’s decision; it simply signifies that the doctor has provided the parents with information regarding the pros and cons. I disagree. I know for an absolute fact that some doctors will not sign this form out of principle or over fears of liability.

Parents will be forced to “doctor shop” for another doctor to sign their form. This won’t be easy. Some doctors are reluctant to take new patients who don’t vaccinate. Many doctors will be unwilling to sign an exemption form for a new patient or a patient who is only there for one visit (just to get the form signed). Some doctors get financial incentives from insurance companies for having high vaccination rates into their practice; seeing patients to get their form signed will put such bonuses at risk. How many doctors will parents be expected to call? How many “no’s” will a patient need in order to be allowed into school? Natural and alternative health care providers can NOT sign the form; it must be a “regular” medical professional. Some families only see naturopathic or holistic health care practitioners instead of pediatricians. These families will have a difficult time getting the form signed.

And what will happen to those kids who can’t get their formed signed? They will be denied entry into public school.

The sponsors of this bill may have some good intentions, as their primary “public” reason for the bill is to make sure that parents who don’t vaccinate their children are making an informed medical decision under the guidance of their doctor. But it isn’t difficult to see the REAL reason for the bill: to increase vaccination rates in our state by making it more difficult for parents to claim the exemption. But whatever the reason, this bill will likely NOT increase vaccination rates, nor will it create closer partnerships between doctors and patients. It will create anger, financial hardship, animosity, and further mistrust in our medical system.

For those patients who CAN find a doctor to sign their form, these “doctor-patient lectures” are not going to increase vaccination rates: Parents who are seeking a doctor’s signature have already made up their mind. The doctor isn’t going to change it during a ten minute discussion. The time for a doctor to influence parents’ opinion and trust of vaccines is during the initial well-baby checkups, years before such exemption forms even come into play. By the time a child will enter school, the parents have made up their mind to decline vaccines. A lecture from a doctor at this point won’t matter. It’s a waste of everyone’s time and money. At a time when we are trying to decrease health care spending, this bill will add millions of dollars of extra health care visits for families every year. If this unfortunate bill passes in California, the rest of the country will be soon to follow.

And it’s a government intrusion into our personal freedom to make health care decisions for our children.

There are numerous other objections to this bill:

It will cost the parents, or their insurance company, more money for the extra appointments. This could cost our state millions of dollars in extra health care costs every year. We are trying to DECREASE health care spending, not increase it.
This bill may seem like it is designed to create a closer partnership between physician and patients. Instead, it will create more animosity between parents, doctors, and schools, amid a climate of vaccine controversy that is already volatile.
Be aware that the legislators who are sponsoring this bill have received campaign donations from vaccine manufacturers.
Enrollment in public schools may decrease, which will in turn decrease public school funding.

SO WHAT CAN YOU DO?

Call your California Senator and Assemblyperson now and share your opinion. Here’s an easy way. Go to http://nvicadvocacy.org/members/Resources/CAOPPOSEAB2109RestrictingVaccineExemptions.aspx and you will see a summary of the bill, numerous arguments against it, and see contact information for the members of the Assembly Committee on Health who are involved in this bill. You can also register to become a member. It’s free! – see step two below the list of the assemblypersons, or click on this link: http://nvicadvocacy.org/members/Home.aspx. After you register, you can click on AB2109 under the Action Needed Now section. You will be given your California Senator and Assemblyperson’s contact information based on your zip code. You can then call or EMAIL to express your opinion. Thank you for joining me and many others to guard our freedom.

Dr. Bob Sears

Author of The Vaccine Book

TACA Physician Advisory Group

Me and the Bee

2012-03-22T10:28:00.001-07:00

Yesterday the Sacramento Bee expressed its unbridled support for AB 2109, the misguided attempt to herd parents into a doctor's office for a vaccination propaganda session before they can obtain a philosophical exemption. This is their editorial followed by our reply. The above illustration reveals the results the confrontation.

Editorial: We all have a stake in healthy vaccination rate

Published: Wednesday, Mar. 21, 2012 - 12:00 am | Page 10A

In San Diego in 2008, a 7-year-old boy who had not been immunized contracted measles on a trip to Switzerland and spread it to his unvaccinated siblings and then his schoolmates.

Parents of many of those children had invoked a loosely written California law that permitted them to decline to have their children immunized based on their personal beliefs. As a result, the public health authorities found that 11 additional people got measles, including two infants. One had to be hospitalized.

California's "personal belief" law must be tightened.

Assemblyman Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, is a pediatrician who clearly understands the science behind vaccinations, and wisdom of communicating facts to parents.

He has introduced Assembly Bill 2109, a straightforward measure that would require physicians or other qualified health care specialists to inform parents of the benefits and risks of vaccines, and to sign forms attesting that they've imparted the information. Parents who still balk at having their child immunized would need to sign forms stating that they've been told of the rewards and risks.

Parents who fear vaccines are trying to do what they think is right. Many have read scare stories and accepted as truth false information from questionable sources. Pan said that among the most difficult fears to confront is that of autism.

There is no link between vaccinations and autism, but fears persist. As the state Department of Public Health points out, the American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, the Institute of Medicine and World Health Organization all agree that there is no connection between vaccines and autism.

Of course, vaccines have risk. But the benefits are not readily apparent because vaccines have been so successful. Polio is a rarity, thanks to vaccines. Measles is far less common that it was 45 years ago.

Health authorities blame the 2010 pertussis epidemic in which 10 California babies died in part on under-immunization. The state has since expanded the vaccination requirement. In 2011, there were no recorded deaths attributed to pertussis, also known as whooping cough, something that had not happened since 1991.

As it is, about 2 percent of parents opt out of having their children vaccinated. The number is rising, and is much higher at some schools.

Health authorities become alarmed when vaccination rates fall below 85 to 90 percent. That puts all people at risk, particularly those individuals who for medical reasons cannot be immunized.

Of all 58 California counties, Nevada County had the highest rate of parents of entering kindergartners claiming a personal belief exemption in 2010, says the state Department of Public Health. More than 17 percent of entering kindergartners in 2010 had not been vaccinated.

In Sacramento County, 3.2 percent of entering kindergartners arrived without vaccinations in 2010 because of the parents' beliefs. In 2010, eight Sacramento County schools had opt-out rates of 20 percent or greater, all of them private or charter.

California health officials have shown an ability to carry out effective public health campaigns. Smoking is the best example. Tobacco use has fallen dramatically since California embarked on its anti-smoking effort. The whooping cough campaign is another example. By speaking directly and honestly to parents, physicians can have huge impact.

Pan's measure is intended to provide accurate information, and ensure that parents realize that they place their child and other parents' children at risk by failing to get their children immunized. Pan's bill deserves bipartisan support and rapid approval.

The Bee's past stands

An important issue is that California has a very loose "personal belief exemption," an opt-out for parents that need not be based on religion or medical necessity. Legislators ought to revisit that law. … The bottom line: Kids need to get their vaccinations to protect us all.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/03/21/4353744/we-all-have-a-stake-in-healthy.html#storylink=cpy

Response: You have no idea what you're talking about

It's not the responsibility of children to risk their health to protect other people from generally mild illnesses.

And whether or not the law is “loosely written" is beside the point. The law should not exist in the first place. It is not the role of government to coerce parents into medicating their children.

Your naive faith in Dr. Pan is laughable. How does he clearly understand vaccination when his press release announcing the bill attempts to tie vaccination-exemption policy to a 2010 pertussis outbreak that was, in reality, a product of a poorly-functioning vaccine. A review emerging from the Infectious Disease Society of America confirmed:

Pertussis Vaccine's Waning Immunity Caused California Epidemic. The…vaccine’s failure to deliver durable infection protection to children aged 7-10 years led to the 2010 California pertussis epidemic

Your paper obviously believes that if a "public health official says something it must be true. Sad.

Perhaps, it's not Pan's great wisdom driving this misguided bill but rather his debt to the state’s healthcare apparatus. He has received over $175,000 from big healthcare over the last two years

And your assertion that there is no connection between autism and vaccination is odd since only one vaccine {MMR] and one vaccine ingredient [thimerosal] has ever been studied to any great extent. How do you know there is no connection? Did a public health official tell you?

And it’s absurd that you should credit new vaccine requirements for a lack of pertussis deaths. Pertussis is a cyclical illness and manifests every three to five years - of course after a large outbreak numbers would naturally be expected to fall. We had an “outbreak” in 2005 and numbers fell naturally in subsequent years. Relying on the vested interest comprising the public health machine to make up for you ignorance is a poor recipe for journalism and explains your editorial's ridiculous conclusion favoring the harassment of parents

As to your distress over a public health official becoming concerned realize freedom (do you know what that is?) is not to be squashed every time a public health apparatchik becomes concerned After all, it’s their job to manufacture concern; their jobs depend on it.

Then you move on to the talking point about a decline in rates putting all people at risk. That is of course preposterous. How can it put ALL people at risk when the vast majority are vaccinated and vaccine work in most people. Besides, you cannot put someone at risk if you do not have an illness - and not vaccinating is not an illness. As such, the unvaccinated place no one at risk. After all, do those of you who have not been vaccinated against the flu this season believe that you, by simply existing, are putting your friends, family and co-workers “at risk?” Infectious illnesses have been transmitted between people since the dawn of civilization. Therefore, the decision to remain unvaccinated can only withhold potential protection from others, not put them at risk. And no one has an obligation to undergo unwanted medical treatments to provide theoretical protection to others.

You conclude kids have to protect everyone by submitting to unwanted vaccines. But that contradicts your assertion that kids who don't vaccinate are putting others at risk. To put someone at risk you must create a risk that did not previously exist. But if a risk did not previously exist, why would they need to protect other from a non-existent risk. So which is it? Protect or put at risk?

*Editors note. Great job by our own Marlene Pitman Duke in the comments section as well.

Pan for Sale

2012-03-21T09:43:00.000-07:00

Richard Pan, the sponsor of the bill to herd parents into the doctors' office for a vaccine propaganda session, receives more money from so-called health professionals than from any other special interest. This is not surprising since this is the group pushing and profiting from this misguided legislation. They have purchased Pan for $175,000 over the last two years.

http://maplight.org/california/legislator/1397-richard-pan

California's Vaccination Indoctrination

2012-03-20T10:16:00.000-07:00

Across America the right of parents to decide whether or not to vaccinate their children is under attack [1]. Now California families are being targeted.

In February, Dr. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento) introduced a bill to herd parents into a doctor’s office for a lecture on vaccination before those parents would be allowed to exercise an exemption to mandated vaccinations [2].

The ostensible purpose of bills such as these is to provide parents “accurate” information about vaccines. Their real purpose is however to increase vaccination rates by propagandizing parents and making the exemption process more difficult. [3]

The bill’s press release reveals the type of misinformation parents can expect to receive at one of these mandated meetings:

AB 2109 Introduced as Public Health Experts Gather at Capitol to Help Prevent Repeat of California’s 2010 Epidemic

The implication is that exemption policy had something to do with the pertussis outbreak of 2010. This is simply false; there is no scientific evidence to support a connection.

A review emerging from the Infectious Disease Society of America confirmed: [4]

Pertussis Vaccine's Waning Immunity Caused California Epidemic. The…vaccine’s failure to deliver durable infection protection to children aged 7-10 years led to the 2010 California pertussis epidemic

Besides, according to the California State Department of Health, as of March 2010:

Vaccination coverage in California is at or near all-time high levels [5]

The AB2109 press release also reveals a troubling relationship between this bill and a shadowy organization called the California Immunization Coalition. The CIC is an entity comprised of every vaccine-related vested interest imaginable. [6] The group’s dedication is not to accurate information but rather unbridled vaccination. Their web address immunizeca.org says it all.

In 2011 they were the driving force behind Teen Vaccine Week: an “observance” where the group encouraged teachers to engage their students in herd immunity propaganda sessions, the playing of Vaccine Jeopardy (like the TV show) and vaccine-related scavenger hunts. [7]

Is this the group who will be tasked with deciding what’s “accurate?” Will they ensure that we get, as their president Jeff Goad, called it “the right” information? [8]

And why are they so anxious to get us into the doctor’s office to address a non-problem anyway? For years the vaccine promoters have been studying parents to find out what “communication” techniques and talking points to apply in order to make us more malleable to the vaccine proposition. [9]Noted spin doctors have been employed and have concluded that fostering vaccine demand “requires creating concern, anxiety, and worry.” [10]

But how do you create fear of mild illnesses while at the same time using accurate information? The answer is you don’t.

Besides, are doctors even providing accurate information in the first place? Based on my experience, the answer is no. For example Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine industry luminary, is, when discussing the risks posed by vaccine-preventable illnesses, often wildly off base. He claims that, in the pre-vaccine era (the late 50s and early 60s) measles-related deaths numbered 3,000. In reality, according to the CDC [11] and others, deaths numbered only ~450.

Then there’s Dr. Glenn D. Braunstein, of Cedars-Sinai who, in a 2010 Huffington Post piece, asserted that vaccination wiped out typhoid [12] when in reality a vaccine had nothing to do with its demise.[13]

Finally we have TV’s Dr. Nancy Snyderman. In February 2010 on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, she claimed:

Right now we have children dying in the United States of America from measles, mumps… [14]

In reality, no such deaths were occurring.

Is this the type of “reliable” information parents can expect to hear when dragged before the experts?

And since the purpose is to increase vaccine rates do you think doctors will tell parents that mortality from these illnesses was in virtual free fall long before the advent of vaccination? [15] It’s more likely parents will have to listen to the fallacious talking point that unvaccinated children “put the entire community at risk.” [16] This is of course laughably ridiculous. Here’s why.

The vast majority of people in America are protected by the vaccines they’ve already received. Besides, you cannot put someone at risk if you do not have an illness - and not vaccinating is not an illness. After all, do those of you who’ve declined this year’s flu shot believe that you, by simply existing, are putting friends, family and co-workers “at risk?” Of course not.

One would have to engage in a willful suspension of disbelief to imagine an accurate representation of the vaccine issue to emerge from a program designed by a consortium of vaccination-related vested interests. Yet despite a lack of popular demand for this type of legislation, we have, staring us in the face and threatening to become law, this egregious bill designed to strip parental rights simply because a few parents have chosen to exercise those rights.

And while not all of you may be worried about this specific issue, it’s important to remember that if parents lose the freedom to decide, without state involvement, what medical treatments their children will receive, what’s going to stop them from one day coming after you and the freedoms about which you care?

If you live in California, use the following link to contact your representative and demand your vaccine rights!
http://nvicadvocacy.org/members/Resources/CAOPPOSEAB2109RestrictingVaccineExemptions.aspx

One
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2012/02/28/20120228child-vaccine-proponents-urge-stronger-arizona-legislation.html

Two
http://asmdc.org/members/a05/newsroom/press-releases/item/2766-dr-pan-introduces-bill-to-provide-parents-immunization-information-to-prevent-outbreaks

Three
http://www.issaquahpress.com/2011/09/20/state-has-poor-record-for-student-immunizations-high-rate-of-exemptions/

Four
http://www.internalmedicinenews.com/news/conference-news/infectious-diseases-society-of-america-conference/single-article/acellular-pertussis-vaccine-s-waning-immunity-caused-california-epidemic/71de9826f4.html

Five
http://www.cdph.ca.gov/programs/immunize/Documents/HowisCA(03_10).pdf

Six
http://www.immunizeca.org/about/advisory-council

http://www.immunizeca.org/about/board-of-directors

Seven
http://www.cdph.ca.gov/programs/immunize/Pages/PreteenVaccineWeek.aspx

Eight
http://asmdc.org/members/a05/newsroom/press-releases/item/2766-dr-pan-introduces-bill-to-provide-parents-immunization-information-to-prevent-outbreaks

Nine
http://archive.hhs.gov/nvpo/pubs/vcwsummary.pdf

http://www.vdh.state.va.us/clinicians/pdf/vaccinations.pdf

Ten
http://www.iom.edu/~/media/Files/Activity%20Files/PublicHealth/MicrobialThreats/Nowak.pdf

Eleven
http://www.cdc.gov/measles/about/overview.html

Tweleve
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/glenn-d-braunstein-md/vaccinations-still-amazin_b_481523.html

Thirteen
According to the textbook Vaccines (4th edition pages 1060-61):

The highest incidence usually occurs where water supplies serving large populations are contaminated by fecal matter. This situation existed at the end of the 19th century in most large cities in the United States...causing the disease to be highly endemic in large cities. With the introduction of water treatment at the turn of the 20th century...the incidence of typhoid plummeted precipitously in the large cities of the united states

And according to Arthur Allen, a great friend of vaccination and the author of Vaccine: The controversial Story of Medicine's Greatest Lifesaver:

Nationwide, the typhoid death rate declined 99 percent from 1906 to 1936, with little vaccination. P 137

Fourteen
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036789/vp/35406458#35406458

Fifteen
http://insidevaccines.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/us-deaths-1900-1965.jpg

Sixteen
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/family-health/infectious-diseases/articles/2010/03/22/measles-outbreak-triggered-by-unvaccinated-child

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2012/02/28/20120228child-vaccine-proponents-urge-stronger-arizona-legislation.html

*Paul Offit’s assertion regarding the measles appears on page 56 of his book Vaccines

West Virginia Parents Take On the Machine

2012-03-15T10:10:00.000-07:00

This is from We the Parents a group fighting for vaccine choice in West Virginia.

BREAKING NEWS!!!

WEST VIRGINIA SENATORS DENY PARENTS DUE PROCESS
Parents Ignored, Placated, and Insulted by West Virginia’s Legislature

Senator Ron Stollings, a medical doctor in the West Virginia Legislature, made several statements in a February 22, 2012 WOWKTV interview. He is quoted as saying, “states with vaccine exemptions have higher rates of diseases like measles, mumps and diphtheria.” He adds “kids who are not vaccinated could put kids at risk who are.” Both blanket statements are simply untrue and perpetuate unrealistic fears. Senator Stollings goes on to say, that he “is working on a study resolution that he and other senators plan to introduce in the Education Committee. The study would last a year and show both sides of the vaccination issue in hopes of ending the issue in the state.” Parents across the state were pleased with the reasonable efforts the Senate appeared to be taking, and were assured that the issue would be given attention throughout the year during Senate Interim Committee meetings.

Although the need for non-medical exemptions regarding childhood immunization, as 48 other states provide, was brought to the legislative forefront in the in the form of Senate Bill 50 on the first day of the 2012 Legislative Session, many ranking Senate members drug out the legislative process in order to not deal with citizens’ demands. Senator Plymale, chair of the Senate Education Committee, where the bill began, refused to answer the emails, phone calls, or faxes from over 100 parents asking for help in ending mandated healthcare for our children.
Only after over 200 parents rallied on the Capitol steps on February 22, 2012, demanding their voice be heard and demanding their Constitutional rights, did Senator Stollings promise a “study” in a quote to WOWKTV. However, Senator Stollings also ignored phone calls, emails, and faxes from parents for nearly two months. And in the end, all of the stall tactics worked. Although the Senate did vote for the issue to be studied during the interim sessions, the House received the “study resolution” late in the day of the last day of the 2012 Legislative Session and were not given an opportunity to vote on the measure.

If Senator Stollings’ goal is to end the issue (of forced immunization) in the state, as he was quoted, he will not be pleased with the backlash which is brewing. Parents suffering as a result of current unconstitutional, antiquated law who were ignored, placated, and treated with complete disrespect are rallying vigorously and planning a larger grassroots movement in the coming months.

The grassroots movement, We the Parents, has enjoyed favorable press, especially on a national level, and will continue to get the word out on all levels. In addition, expect billboards, radio interviews, rallies, documentary viewings, and major media saturation on local levels specific to West Virginia counties. The movement includes parents, professionals, churches, veterans, and is growing by leaps and bounds, and they are committed to the goal of ensuring that Mountaineers are indeed always free.

##########################
For more information, visit www.wetheparents.info or contact Lori Lee at (304) 532-5412 or email at info@blueroseholistics.com.

Exemptions under Attack

2012-03-14T11:58:00.000-07:00

Vaccine exemptions under attack in Vermont. Check out our new Age of Autism post on the issue.

Vaccines: Eww, Seriously, So Gross!

2012-02-29T17:52:00.001-08:00

Quitter

2012-02-27T21:58:00.001-08:00

The vaccination brochure known as Forbes.com ran this silly piece on doctors firing patients declining vaccines. Since my comments have been in moderation (or whatever vaccination.com calls it) for twelve hours, I've decided to share them here:

Doctors can't "fire" patients because they didn't hire them. All doctors can do is quit. And as more doctors quit, more parents will realize they were unnecessary in the first place. Childhood is not an illness and as such should not be spent in the doctor's office. Yes, kids will no longer get unnecessary antibiotics for conditions for which those drugs are ineffective, but hey, that's just the price they'll have to pay. And I wonder, are these docs "firing" families in which the parents are not up to date as well? They too could “endanger” kids in the waiting room. Perhaps we'll have to wait for the adult-vaccine push to progress further to hear that talking point emerge.

So quit away. We'll learn to live without the unnecessary and overdone well-baby visits - a brilliant ritual in which the healthy are brought into contact with the ill and infirmed. And we'll learn to weigh and measure our kids without your help.

Little Miss Mandates

2012-02-17T10:05:00.000-08:00

A couple of days ago, courtesy of some friends over at Facebook, I discovered a pro-vaccine rant posted at Salon.com written by a one Amanda Marcotte entitled The Superiority Complex of Vaccination Foes. Marcotte, a self-avowed, progressive (a collectivist ideology advancing the notion of an all-powerful state) attacks anyone having the temerity to challenge the wisdom of America’s absurd vaccination policy while at the same disparaging those believing in God. She begins:

Unlike with most anti-vaccination situations, the objections aren't coming from people whose faith in organic foods purchased at yuppie-tested enviroments are better disease prevention than vaccines, but from people returning to Old Faithful, the God card.

Oh those vaccine zealots. They imagine their precious little miracles to be threatened at every turn. Anyone who even desires a choice as to what medical treatments are administered to their healthy children is labeled anti-vaccine. As if vaccines were such a marvel, no rational person could ever oppose them. Sadly, for the public health communities and their statist supporters, vaccines are hardly miracles. They protect against largely mild illnesses* whose ability to cause death or serious injury was falling precipitously before the practice became widespread – this because contributory lifestyle factors almost always determine the progression of an illness.

As to her attacks on those worshiping God, perhaps it is because she thinks we should all really be worshiping the government and its minions in public health.

And finally notice how she employs the shopworn talking point about vaccine disinterest among yuppies (young urban professionals who ostensibly are well-educated) . She apparently favors a world like the one described by Orwell in the book 1984, in which obedience is the norm and “ignorance is strength.”

Continuing Marcotte states:

Obviously, this is not about children's rights. The children's rights are being violated by their parents, who believe their right to use their children as symbols to prove their piety trumps their children's right to health.

She seems painfully unaware that in free countries parents have the right to raise their children as they see fit - unless an action or non-action places those children at risk of serious harm. Not getting vaccinated in no way reaches that threshold. In fact, based on all the mistakes of the past involving vaccination, the procedure’s unknown effects on a child’s developing immune system and the acknowledged side effects many children must endure, one could successfully argue that it is the lifetime of vaccination from which the child needs to be protected.

Then pretending to possess an understanding of “rights,” she declares:

Of course, we live in an environment where conservatives are claiming that it's a violation of "religious liberty" if you can't force your beliefs on others. The degradation of understanding of what a right is and who has it is one that historians of early 21st century America will find fascinating, I'm sure.

Apparently, the only rights she recognizes are those allowing the state to initiate threats and violence against innocent individuals in order to further her collectivist agenda.

Progressive nuts such as Marcottewant the state to be in charge of our health because they want the state to be in charge of us. As such, the decision to medicate us is theirs, not our own. In a world where the government exists to care for us, there is nothing the mommy state cannot do. Sadly supporters of the failed collectivists and progressives ideologies such as Marcotte have little respect for real rights, especially the foundational one: the right to liberty. For them true rights are simply obstacles to the deluded notion that they could ever realize their utopian fantasies.

Rambling on she arrives at the topic of anti-vaccine “fanatics”:

What's interesting here is how revealing this whole situation is of the psychological baggage that leads a person to become an anti-vaccination fanatic.

Marcotte fails to comprehend the real fanatics are the public health do-gooders running around chasing a few cases of mild illnesses such as the measles in order to justify their feeding off the productive, taxpaying members of society. Their baggage requires them to deceive themselves with the delusionary notion that they, by preventing a few cases of the mumps or chickenpox are somehow heroic lifesavers and guardians of America’s children. Talk about psychological baggage.

She then appeals to egalitarianism (another far-left ideology in which the state has to force everyone to be equal and the identical by whatever means necessary) in her defense of America’s indefensible compulsory vaccination policy while using the childlike argument that if an injustice is already being perpetrated against another, it must be OK.

Whether it's because you think God loves you best or because you think your dedication to organic produce confers magical health benefits, the underlying sentiment of anti-vaccination believers is that they and theirs are special, and shouldn't be subject to the unclean health practices of the common folk. Vaccination is just too democratic a practice. Rich and poor, black and white, Christian or not: we all have to sit in the same chair while the same nurse pokes us with the same batch of drugs. They don't even have special needles for the better class of person getting a vaccination. Getting vaccinated is to health care like taking the bus is to transportation. The very act of it insinuates that your special snowflake of a child could become infected with germs that come from someone else's totally-not-special kid

It’s not surprising the author would deride those seeing themselves as individuals and not objects of state control.

The idea that each child is special (I don’t know where the snowflake part comes in but I’ve been seeing it used extensively in the “skeptical” community recently) is anathema to those who would have us live in a hive or in a herd. The dream of Marcotte and those like her has us living as a nation of medicated, homogenized, collectivized, indoctrinated, compliant sheep. To those of us who value freedom, Marcotte's dream is a nightmare and it's one that has been going on for far too long. Time to wake up, America.

*Or they protect against illnesses for which most of us are not at risk. For example hepatitis B.

A Few Shots Against Hypocrisy.

2012-02-14T10:15:00.000-08:00

Today we have a guest post courtesy of Anonymous.

Legislators nationwide are voting to protect children against infectious illness by turning down expanded exemptions, blocking new exemptions and adding burdensome requirements to current exemptions. See South Dakota, Washington State, West Virginia, Arizona and Vermont.

There is even a model draft exemption law being passed around to legislators to save them the trouble of writing their own.

We think the legislators are absolutely right to act to protect children against infectious diseases, but they are overlooking a major disease vector: themselves. Legislators work in crowded conditions, especially state legislators. They conduct hearings in small hearing rooms filled with people, in old buildings with inadequate air circulation. They shake hands. They even kiss babies. Looking at all 50 state legislatures, millions of people visit these buildings every year including busloads of school children.

We propose that legislatures end the hypocrisy of mandating lots and lots of vaccines to babies and children while ignoring their own role as germ magnets and get on board with the CDC vaccine schedule for adults. Since the medical profession is okay with giving even premature babies several vaccines at once, there is no reason that an adult legislator couldn’t do the entire recommended schedule (taking into account gender and age) at one doctor visit.

No, we aren’t talking about volunteering for these vaccines. Vaccines for legislators should be mandatory. Whatever exemption laws are currently in place should apply, so if parents need to get a doctor to sign off on an exemption, the legislator should have to get a doctor to sign off on an exemption. The usual rules for medical exemptions will apply. First you get the vaccines. If you react badly, you tell your doctor. If you can convince your doctor that the vaccine caused the reaction (good luck) and if you can convince the doctor that the reaction was serious enough to preclude more vaccinations (good luck), and if you can convince the doctor to actually sign the medical exemption form and (in some states) the health department to sign off on the form, then you can be exempted from the vaccine which caused the reaction. Only, of course, since you got a whole pile of vaccines at one time neither your nor the doctor have any idea which vaccine did it. Tough.

Obviously these mandates should also apply to everyone working in state health departments, from the janitor to the chief. They should be applied to every doctor or pharmacist who testifies in favor of vaccine mandates. Everyone who testifies in favor of forced vaccination should be vaccinated. Obvious, right?

Lobbyists, too, need to get their shots. All that handshaking…

And governors.

And I’m sure that everyone at the Centers for Disease Control is up to date on every possible vaccination.

Get on it folks!

Reservations about Gardasil

2012-01-04T21:34:00.000-08:00

We're incredibly excited to present our first post by a guest blogger.

Reservations about Gardasil by Tanya DeBuff Wallette:

The mommy wars are still raging. Parents judge each other so harshly that it seems no one wins when it comes to a variety of topics like giving birth the “right” way, breastfeeding, free-range parenting, television watching habits, proper age for things like earrings, cell phones, walking home alone, issues of discipline, etc., etc., etc., and, of course, vaccination. A few months ago I wrote a guest post for The Feminist Breeder in which I expressed my surprise that many of my cohorts in the pro-choice movement, who vehemently defend any woman’s right to choose, seem very much anti-choice when it comes to vaccinations, both for children and adults. I am all for choice when it comes to vaccines. I’m not anti-vaccine, but I’m definitely a skeptic, and have decided from now on to research vaccines and do what I think is best on a case-by-case basis.

When it comes to the HPV vaccine case, I have made my decision. My daughters and my son and any future children I may have will not receive the HPV vaccine while it is my decision to make. When they are old enough they may choose for themselves. I have a real problem with the vaccine, and it’s not because of the way the virus is spread. I have two main problems with Gardasil in particular (not having read too much about Cervarix, a less popular HPV vaccine by a different company).

EFFICACY. According to WebMD, the vaccine is proven to be effective for at least four years, and maybe longer. Long-term effects are not known. (How could they be? The vaccine only came out six years ago!) So, it might last for five years? Six? Gardasil is now recommended for females and males from about age 9 to 26. So if a person received the series at 9 years of age, they’re going to be protected until they’re 14 or so. Then what, a booster? A series of boosters? According to the American Cancer Society, cervical cancer occurs mostly in mid-life, usually under 50 years of age but rarely in those under 20 years of age. Multiple booster shots would likely be necessary to keep immunity up. The vaccine works to protect against those strains that are most likely to cause cancer ONLY if sexual activity hasn’t begun yet.

So if my nine year-old hasn’t had sex (cripes, did I just have to type that? Ack!), they’re protected against four strains for at least four years. If my child has begun sexual activity by the time they receive the injections, and they have been exposed to one of the four strains, “catch-up” vaccines may be useful in protecting against the other three strains. But then again, they may not. The American Cancer Society says “the independent panel making the Society recommendations found that there was not enough proof that catch-up vaccination for all women age 19 to 26 would be beneficial.”

While writing this I attempted to find an article or piece of information discussing this discrepancy. Why vaccinate our children for something they are not likely to contract until middle age? Wouldn’t it make more sense to wait if the protection lasts for only four years? I found nothing in my search for discussion about Gardasil’s length of efficacy. I’m not satisfied with the gap here. If I were to seriously consider this vaccination, I would want to know how long my kids would be protected, and they would also deserve to know if they would need to continue to receive boosters throughout their lives.

It’s generally agreed, at least, that Pap smears remain a necessity even if a woman has had the vaccination. Pap screening can catch atypical cells and precancerous cells, and the rise in the percentage of women getting regular Paps has led to better detection of atypical and/or cancerous cells, which has led to fewer deaths from cervical cancer.

But wait. So women should get Paps regularly. Obviously. Now, here’s an argument I have come across a few times, or something along these lines: “Pap smears are great, but lots of women don’t get regular Paps! This vaccine is here to protect them.” Still, no one’s denying that Paps are still necessary, even with the vaccine. My question is this: If these people see women as neglecting their health screening, or being too busy to get in to see their doctor, why do they think these same women could make it into the office three times in less than a year? I mean, getting to the doctor is getting to the doctor is getting to the doctor. This reasoning is faulty.

And so was Governor Rick Perry’s when he attempted to mandate the HPV vaccine back in 2007. Perry mentioned that he could overlook the government encroachment on parents’ rights because he erred “firmly on the side of protecting life.” Does Perry…wait. Does anyone think that the majority of parents out there aren’t doing their damndest to protect their child’s life? I mean, sure, there are crappy parents out there, crappy guardians, crappy grandparents, who don’t care much what happens to their wards. But I stand by this. Most parents are doing what they think is best for their child. And when we’re informed, we can do that. Lots of parents conclude that Gardasil or Cervarix is right for their child—but not all parents, and that’s their right. If we all know all the information, we should be free to take our own paths, right? Right? And even when folks don’t know all the information (I didn’t research anything my doctor told me to do before a couple of years ago), they still want what’s best and safest for their kids. I did then, when I followed the recommended vaccination schedule, and I do now, when I will not be fully vaccinating my youngest.

SIDE EFFECTS. Look, there’s a lot of stuff out there about how many people have been injured by or had reactions to Gardasil, according to the VAERS reports. I’m aware that there’s no way to verify that the reactions were definitively caused by the vaccine. Correlation does not equal causation and all that. However. For me and my kids, any risk of serious reactions is too high, especially when the vaccine has higher reaction/injury reports (link) than other vaccines.

Currently in California, the HPV vaccine is being offered to 12 year-olds without their parents’ knowledge or consent. Now, if a person has talked to their child about the vaccine and decided it’s the right choice for them or the wrong choice for them, it’s probably no big deal. The kid can say yes or no according to what they and their guardian have decided. But lots of folks don’t have all the information and they’re trusting that the school administration would not do something to harm their children. And I can pretty much guarantee that the school nurse is not giving the tweens information on the VAERS or length of efficacy.

Another thing that surprises me about the pro-choice, environmentalist, eco-feminist crowd I mingle with online is that they don’t question the vaccine, and all vaccines. We are people who question every single thing that goes into our kids’ bodies. Some people don’t allow their kids to have sugar—others forbid sugar substitutes. A lot of us try not to use unnatural food dyes. We check to see if there’s BPA in our plastic. So it makes perfect sense to me that this crowd in particular would wonder about each and every thing that is ingested by or injected into our children, especially vaccines. But again and again I’ve found that those who advocate for informed consent in almost every other issue, are not OK with me deciding not to vaccinate.

Since when did doctors become so elevated? Lots of comments on articles against the HPV vaccine mention that doctors surely have more knowledge than us moms, so we should trust them.

Let me get this straight. We often get second opinions when we’re not sure a doctor is right or when we feel more eyes are needed on the situation. We remain wary of C-section-happy doctors. Why, then, should our trust be blind when it comes to vaccines? As in all occupations, even those which require much schooling, there are bad doctors. Ill-informed doctors. Stubborn doctors. Asshole doctors.

I really love it when I find an article on vaccination that is reasonable and rational. Sharon Begley wrote a great one at The Daily Beast, which actually argues for the HPV vaccine, but acknowledges the opposition’s concerns instead of writing skeptics or anti-vaxxers off as ignorant or selfish. Over at Evil Slut Clique, you can find two separate blog posts with information about Gardasil. Check those out, because that’s what a real conversation about the HPV vaccine looks like. I just don’t have any use for articles that slam doors and hurl insults. There is absolutely nothing wrong with asking questions about Gardasil and every vaccine and medication—actually, it seems just the opposite to me. I find Gardasil’s statement on the website telling: “Only a doctor or health care professional can decide if GARDASIL is right for you or your child.”

Tanya DeBuff Wallette recently graduated with a master's degree in creative writing. She is a contributing writer at Bark, and she blogs as Bess at Alala Mamas. She is a feminist, a newlywed, and a free-range parent who works at home as a medical transcriptionist and in between doing that, writing, and reading, she works on raising three young children

Get Squarepants! Just Don’t Give the Vaccination Schedule a Glance

2011-09-28T06:47:00.000-07:00

This week I read an great article on the Age of Autism website describing Spongebob Squarepants’ fictional response to a recent study appearing in the AAP journal Pediatrics attacking him as a threat to children. The study’s authors somehow ascertained that, based on the how well a group of children did on a series of inconsequential tests, watching the program lessened a child’s ability to do well at school. Of course it wasn’t mentioned that these kids are likely better served by having their minds engaged through a creative cartoon like SBSQ than they are by being confined to a classroom where their imaginations are assailed by boredom, authority and routine.

That aside, I found it odd that watching a harmless cartoon could alter some aspect of a child’s behavior yet a complete alteration and reworking of a child’s immune system through the "miracle" of vaccination couldn't possibly have any negative consequences (even though diseases involving the immune system have exploded just as the vaccination schedule has.) It must be a coincidence and as such no investigation is warranted. As a matter of fact such investigations should be avoided and discouraged because if one of those studies served to cast a negative light on vaccination a panic leading to the deaths of millions would ensue. Confidence in vaccination must be protected at all costs, believe those in charge of the program. And what’s a few million cases of childhood diabetes, asthma, eczema, etc., when the alternative to those diseases is widespread death?

That argument might actually make some degree of sense were prophesies surrounding a devaccination of America true. But of course they’re not. The evidence that millions or even thousands of children would die if any loss of confidence in vaccination would occur does not exist. They are simply unsubstantiated pronouncements generated by those who are inextricably tied to the vaccine industry.

Seventy cases of the measles (a mild childhood illness) in a nation of over three hundred million is called the comeback of a childhood killer. And that’s because of, according to the vaccine establishment, falling rates of vaccination – a claim refuted by the fact that vaccination rates are at all time highs.

Of course those who’s existence is tied to vaccination have no regrets about disseminating false and misleading information when it is in defense of a vaccination program upon which their very existence is dependant. An example can be found in an article describing a few cases of measles in Indiana. This illness, pre-vaccine, was described by the Pan American Health organization as a "minor annoyance."
Fort Wayne’s Journal Gazette reported the state health commissioner’s belief that without him and his public health minions, the measles “could have approached the stuff of unrealistic movie plots.” Amazingly, the movie to which he compared the measles was the recently released Contagion, described in this way on Wikipedia:

Contagion follows the rapid progress of a lethal indirect contact transmission virus that kills within days. As the fast-moving pandemic grows, the worldwide medical community races to find a cure and control the panic that spreads faster than the virus itself. As the virus spreads around the world, ordinary people struggle to survive in a society coming apart.

Additionally, state health department spokeswoman Amy Bukarica was quoted a saying, in response to five cases of the measles, emergency meetings were held and their tone was “serious and urgent.”

Goshen Hospital released a statement stating the “outbreak” could have been “potentially catastrophic”

And finally, Elkhart County health officer Dr. Dan Nafziger concluded the health establishment’s parade of horribles by claiming “the state dodged a bullet.”

So it’s no wonder that studies examining a possible relationship between vaccines and the growing number of diseases affecting the very same immune system upon which those vaccines act have gone largely undone while at the same time Mr. Squarepants is raked over the coals. The difference is simple: the government and the scientific community isn’t in the "talking sponge as TV celebrity" business, it’s in the vaccination business.

The Impenetrable Ignorance of the The L.A. Times

2011-08-17T11:19:00.000-07:00

The L.A Times is at it again. One of the most virulently pro-vaccine / anti-freedom media outlets in America has yet again used it's position of prominence to attack our right to decide what drugs can and cannot be administered to our children.

In an editorial published yesterday, the Times called for the creation of more hurdles and obstacles to impeded the ability our to raise their children as we, and not the LA Times, see fit.

The rationale for this attack is silly and tiresome talking point that, "children who go un-vaccinated are putting others at risk."

Sadly, the blockheads comprising the L.A. Times editorial board still do not, or do not want to understand, that unless you have an illness you CANNOT put someone else at risk of catching the illness you do not have. Being unvaccinated is not synonymous with being sick. It's really quite a simple concept yet, due to the Times obsession with vaccination, one that cannot penetrate the boards collective consciousness.

Demonstrating their imperviousness to logic, they conclude their piece with a call for more intrusion into the lives of parents by parroting another entity sharing their rickety justification for compulsory vaccination: the ethically conflicted vaccine promoters at the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania (a group receiving funding from both the Department of Health and Human services - the same department that runs the vaccine pushing CDC - and Paul Offit's Children's Hospital of Philadelphia) Here's how they put it:

States, including California, should be reexamining the personal belief exemption and tightening procedures. It should not be so easy for relatively few people to jeopardize the health of many others.

So while the establishment and their media dupes have the force of the state behind them, this editorial, and hundreds like it, demonstrate that it is we who have the intellectual basis to defend current exemptions and to someday overturn the very idea of a vaccination mandate from which those exemptions must be sought.

Mr. Ropeik’s Hive

2011-07-21T11:08:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week the LA Times published a disturbing vaccination-related op-ed entitled “Public health: Not vaccinated? Not acceptable” by a one David Ropeik. Mr. Ropeik, an instructor at Harvard and member of the public health intelligentsia, operates a consulting firm specializing in “risk communication.” Not surprisingly, a list of his consulting firm’s clients reads like a who’s who of the vaccine establishment. He is, or has been on the payroll of these vaccine-dependant organizations:

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
State of Florida Department of Public Health
State and local health officers of Arizona
The Massachusetts Department of Public Health
Massachusetts Department of Public Safety
State and local health and public safety officials of Utah
The National Academy of Sciences

So what’s the message he’s crafted to further the Machine’s agenda? It’s a simple one: Those who don’t vaccinate are enemies of the people and the people must rise up against them through the power of the state.

In his article; a piece brimming with collectivist concepts, words and phrases such as the public, society, public health, the community and the common good; Ropeik assembles a litany of ineffectual arguments to assert those having no interest in vaccination are enemies of society, the state and the common good. And that those people must be molded, pressured or nudged to fit the requirements of the collective.

Oddly, Ropeik, whose piece centers on those who don’t vaccinate, begins with a question (which appears repeatedly throughout the piece) that has nothing to do with the unvaccinated. Ropeik asks:

What does society do when one person's behavior puts the greater community at risk?

Put society at risk? The unvaccinated put no one at risk. Infectious illnesses have been transmitted between people since time immemorial. Therefore, the decision to remain unvaccinated can only withhold potential protection from others, not put them at risk. And no one has an obligation to undergo unwanted medical treatments to provide theoretical protection to others.

Ropeick, nonetheless, in a futile attempt to create the illusion that the unvaccinated do put people at risk, continues with a fusillade of bad analogies. Let’s examine each and discover why they are completely irrelevant to the vaccination debate:

You don't get to drive drunk.

No, because you are acting and creating a risk that otherwise would not exist. When you don’t vaccinate you’re neither acting nor, as we’ve already discussed, are you creating a risk.

You don't get to smoke in public places.

Unfortunately, Mr. Ropeik (probably a big Mayor Bloomberg fan) is right. In some localities - further along on the road to collectivism than the nation in general - you can’t smoke in a public place such as a park. But to use the folly of others (smoking in a park puts no one at risk) as moral justification for ill-conceived policy is to use the logic of a child: thinking actions can be justified if one can find just one other person who has committed a similar error.

You don't even get to leave your house if you catch some particularly infectious disease.

Well, influenza is infectious (I don’t know what “particularly infectious” is however). But I’m not aware of any law confining those with the flu to their homes. Nor were any quarantines in effect during a pertussis outbreak here in California in 2010. So without further exposition by Mr. Ropeik, we can attribute little meaning to this point and must therefore move on to the next fallacy. (Besides, not being vaccinated isn't, last I checked, an infectious disease.)

With these arguments now disposed of, let's move another point Ropeik attempts to use to further his agenda: the issue of cost. He states:

When a woman from Switzerland who had not been vaccinated for measles visited Tucson in 2008 and became symptomatic, she went to a local hospital for medical attention. This initiated a chain of events that over the next three months led to at least 14 people, including seven kids, getting measles. Seven of the victims caught the disease while visiting healthcare facilities. Four people had to be hospitalized. The outbreak cost two local hospitals a total of nearly $800,000 [four people at 200,000 a piece? Really?], and the state and local health departments tens of thousands more, to track down the cases, quarantine and treat the sick and notify the thousands of people who might have been exposed.

Later he laments:

Outbreaks are costing the healthcare system millions of dollars, and local and state government (that's taxpayer money, yours and mine) millions more as they try to chase down each outbreak and bring it under control to protect the public's health. Your health, and mine.

But is it the governments role to “chase down” outbreaks? And if so does the government need to chase down every outbreak and should it do it with an unlimited budget? Let’s look at this example to help us decide.

Imagine a movie or TV show in which a woman on a plane, unbeknownst to her, has contracted some type of “superbug” against which no one is immune, death is likely and transmission is easy. The woman is unaware of her state yet infectious. In this case, due to the circumstances described, the government should act. The woman is creating a risk to those with whom she comes into contact whether she knows it or not. So yes there are cases when the government should become involved with infectious illnesses.

In the example Ropeik describes, a small measles outbreak, the case for intervention, while plausible, is not nearly as strong – and it certainly does not support the use of unlimited resources. Here’s why. A woman with the measles would enter into a highly vaccinated population; if there were no vaccine, she’d enter into a population high in natural immunity. And the measles is, as illnesses go, mild. Finally almost everyone disturbed by the news of an outbreak would have access vaccination.

One final factor influencing the decision to act is whether or not the intervention could be expected to help. For example, because of the ubiquity of the flu, quarantine and tracking would be a pointless task.

On the other hand with few cases of the measles, it’s possible that government interventions could help – although I’ve seen no evidence that all the money spent to supposedly “contain” measles outbreaks have had any effect on the course of those outbreaks.

What about the astronomical costs of hospitalization? Surely that’s the fault of the unvaccinated.

Ehh…not really.

The astronomical costs of hospitalization, and of healthcare in general, are largely products of a series of government interventions dating back to the early 1900s

The “healthcare system” of which Mr. Ropeik speaks is a government monstrosity apparently created with the purpose of driving healthcare costs to absurd levels.

Here are some of the government-created factors involved in the meteoric rise in the price of medical care:

· The AMA's government-granted medical monopoly

· FDA over-regulation

· Medicare and Medicaid: two enormous entities both rife with waste and abuse

· Insurance industry regulations mandating unwanted coverage and limiting competition between companies

· The countenancing of frivolous multi-million dollar lawsuits that compel doctors to practice "defensive" medicine

· The controlling of where and how many hospitals can be built

Finally, as to hospitalizations, without detailed information (rarely provided by public health officials) I have to question a measles-associated hospitalization rate that far exceeds any past utilization numbers.

Regardless, the costs incurred by a government engaged in it’s legitimate function does not countenance the violation of the rights of the American people – if money is a problem within the current system, your only solution is to dismantle that system. And if you’re not willing to do that, stop complaining.

This brings us to the punishments section of this piece. Ropeik opines:

Perhaps there should be higher healthcare and insurance costs for unvaccinated people, or "healthy behavior" discounts for people who do get vaccinated, paid for from what society saves by avoiding the spread of disease.

I’m not sure if the insurance industry is clamoring for his opinion regarding how they structure their premiums. But if he’s so concerned, perhaps he should buy an insurance company. Then he could decide what to charge his customers.

And healthy behavior rewards? Sounds like mandatory exercise and approved menus - unless you want to be nudged with 50% higher premium.

Besides, it's quite possibel those who do not vaccinate utilize the “health care system” less frequently than do vaccinators. So perhaps their premiums should be lowered. Either way let’s let insurance companies themselves decide and keep the do-gooders out of it

The errors in logic conclude when Ropeik returns to his original point for the umpteenth time calling for the “government to do what it's there for in the first place: to protect us from the actions of others when as individuals we can't protect ourselves.”

Astonishingly, Ropeik still fails to grasp the fact that not vaccinating is NOT and action and as such violates no ones right to protection.

So the choice is ours (at least for a little while longer). Do we accept more pressure, coercion and punishments and allow hired “communicators” such as Ropeik to lead us deeper into the hive of collectivism or do we think for ourselves, seeing the messages emitting from the vested interests of vaccination for what they are: contrivances manufactured by the Machine in order to persuade us to accept its agenda. Think carefully America, for as John Adams once said, "Liberty, once lost, is lost forever."

The Age of Ignorance

2011-06-23T11:35:00.000-07:00

Here's another example of a reporter demonstrating her belief that an utter lack of knowledge about infectious illnesses qualifies one to write about infectious illnesses.

Elizabeth Flock, on the Washington Post's blog writes:

Scarlet fever was the scourge of the 19th century, infecting thousands and bringing along with it fever, a strawberry-tinted tongue, and infected wounds. After antibiotics were invented, the disease was nearly eradicated.

I've rarely seen so many errors compressed into just one sentence. Let's take a look at them in order of appearance:

"Scarlet fever was THE scourge of the 19th century." THE implies scarlet fever was preeminent as far a "scourges" went, yet throughout the 19th century, scarlet fever killed fewer than consumption, pneumonia and cholera. Additionally depending on the time frame examined, diseases such as diphtheria and typhoid were responsible for more deaths than scarlet fever*. Finally by 1900, and well before the advent of antibiotics, influenza, pneumonia, tuberculosis, diphtheria, measles and whooping Cough were each killing more people than was scarlet fever.

As to the disease being nearly eradicated by antibiotics, here's what Medscape has to say:

In the past century, the number of cases of scarlet fever has remained high

Finally, as to antibiotics being the panacea that saved us from scarlet fever, that's absurd. Mortality from the illness was falling rapidly* in both Europe and The United States as far back as the 1850's: about one hundred years before the widespread use of antibiotics.

Shoddy journalism like this, because it glorifies the medical establishment and perpetuates their myths, enables the Machine to tighten it's grip over parents, making it more difficult for those parents to decide how to raise their children. For that reason, we must take on and expose this type of ignorance where and when ever we see it, letting the media know we find it unacceptable and alerting other parents to the falsehood supporting America's vaccine regimen.

*Modern social conditions: a statistical study of birth, marriage, divorce ... By William Bacon Bailey
P 332-333

Accessable by searching "Google books"

No Vacation from Vaccination

2011-06-21T09:38:00.000-07:00

As Summer begins; and our children's thoughts turn to family vacations, the beach and time with friends, the Machine's thoughts turn to pumping more and more vaccine into those very same children. With a new pertussis vaccine mandate taking affect, the efforts of public health do-gooders are going into over drive. Heck, they're even making banners, buttons and fliers to support their crusade.

Assembly Bill No. 354 (a product of years of behind-the-scenes lobbying by The California Immunization Coalition: a shadowy organization representing a collection of vested interests drawn from medicine, public health, insurance, and the American Association of Pediatrics) mandates that one million older children and teens receive the Tdap vaccine each year. The public debate and input that scuttled attempts in 2007 to burden our children with an HPV vaccine mandate was this time absent.

The law targets an illness known as pertussis: a respiratory tract infection that can lead, in some cases, to severe coughing spells. It’s an illness that can be life threatening in infants but in older children (the targets of this new legislation) and adults, pertussis is usually mild or even asymptomatic.

The new compulsory vaccine includes boosters against two other infectious illnesses: diphtheria and tetanus. Don’t remember last year’s diphtheria and tetanus outbreaks? That’s because they didn’t happen. Your child just gets two extra medications because an individual pertussis booster is unavailable.

The California Immunization Coalition claims:

Immunizing school-aged children is key to preventing pertussis…from spreading in our communities, and school immunization requirements are the best tool for protecting public health from these preventable diseases.

But is the vaccination of one million children “key” to preventing pertussis and, even if it were, would those coercive vaccinations then be justifiable? The answer is on both counts no. Here’s why targeting kids won’t do much of anything. First, you already have a 43% vaccination rate (a level higher than the national average) in those being targeted) Additionally, you have many in the 7th through 12th grades who have already contracted pertussis and are therefore immune. So a large percentage of that entire group can’t transmit pertussis in the first place. Then we’ve got to consider the fact that, since there are far more adults than adolescents, adults will comprise the majority of the estimated 800,000-3 millionundiagnosed adult and adolescent cases that occur in this country each year. And those adults, free from the schoolmaster, aren’t showing much interest in the pertussis vaccine: according to the CDC only 6-14% of adults have received the adult booster.

In a population of 30 million there were, during the worst outbreak in 50 or 60 years, just ten fatalities. There were fourteen cases per one hundred thousand: hardly an existential threat to the state. Since the illness occurs in 3-5 year cycles, fatalities over the next few years will likely range form zero to perhaps two or three (the nation as a whole only experiences ~15-25 fatalities each year). Those figures, poor vaccine-induced immunity and hundreds of thousands of adult infections make it clear that targeting our children is hardly the key to anything. They’re just vulnerable because they’re kids and because they’re in school.

As to my second, point, one million older kids are not objects be used by the state to achieve their goal of providing theoretical protection to babies. Remember, vaccines like any medical procedure carry risks. Concerned families with infants can choose to vaccinate themselves and their own children (70% of infant infections are traceable to family members and or caregivers) Additionally those with babies can, if they so choose, isolate those babies until they can attain vaccine immunity (usually achieved after the first three shots at about six moths. Finally, concerned parents can encourage the hospital at which they give birth adopt vaccination policies to stop transmission by health care workers.

Additionally, vaccinating a twelve year old will likely only buy that child a few years of immunity. Remember the vaccine isn’t very good: even the experts admit “protection” lasts about five years. That’s why this booster will be the sixth pertussis vaccination in these 11 and 12 year-olds’ short lives (natural immunity on the other hand has been shown to last at least thirty years) With such weak immunity, are we then going to require a get out of school series of shots to extend immunity a little further. And will we then use college to keep these children (now really adults) under state control? And when free health care finally comes, will we use that as a mechanism with which to extend mandatory vaccines into perpetuity?

I knew about this new law, but I was surprised by such aggressive kick off: the program doesn’t start till July, which is really the next school year. I guess I shouldn’t have been, after all the group that pushed this legislation through the legislature is now, in conjunction with the California Department of Public Health, conducting something called preteen vaccine week: an event the two groups are both “observing” and “celebrating” and where among other things students are, during class, encouraged to have propaganda contests to see who can best extol the virtues of vaccination. Preteens, teens, adults and seniors are the next big vaccination markets.

Another thing I knew – unlike many Californians - was that exemptions are available to this and any other vaccine. Unfortunately the robocall failed to mention that. But failing to mention vaccine exemptions isn’t unusual. Recent articles about the law, appearing in several local papers, also made no mention of options available to parents.

So at the end of the day this post is really about building awareness. No not the usual disease awareness not even screening awareness and certainly not vaccine awareness I’m writing about freedom awareness. It’s your child’s body, not the school’s and not the government’s. If you think you can help, or if you want “protection for your child, I encourage you to get vaccinated, if however you’re not interested in this new compulsory vaccine, know your rights and know that you can say no.

Meningitis Vaccine? Follow the Money

2011-05-28T12:36:00.000-07:00

My god, the efforts of vaccine pushers are becoming more and more dishonest every day. In Forbes, a magazine whose obsession with vaccination is unrivaled, this article, in order to foist yet another unneeded vaccine onto the already bloated schedule actually tries to portray the ACIP - one of the chief contributors to the overvaccination of America's children - as getting in the way of vaccination.

ACIP is the organization responsible for ensuring that children are compelled to receive new vaccines. First, the FDA approves the vaccine, then the ACIP blesses it with its rubber stamp recommendation and finally the states use that recommendation to mandate it for our kids. But now something might go terribly wrong with that formula. A vaccine, because it is of such little value, is in danger of becoming the first one ever to be denied this coveted recommendation. This has drug makers scrambling. At stake are millions if not billions of dollars. A recommendation must be secured at any cost.

Supporting the drug company efforts are a number of special interest groups and not surprisingly Forbes magazine. Today they released on their blog a desperate plea to garner this billion dollar blessing. Written by
Glenn G. Lammi, a lawyer, (strange until you discover he works for the Washington Legal Foundation, a corporate lobbying group) the piece attcks vaccination's best friend: the ACIP:

Lammi begins:

An immunization advisory panel at CDC may block public acceptance and use of an anti-meningitis vaccine approved as safe and effective by FDA based on “cost-effectiveness” concerns.

It would be a deeply unfortunate irony if we allowed a small number of federal health officials to undermine all that has been achieved by the larger public health establishment (along with private entrepreneurship and enterprise).

Astonishingly, Lammi acts as if the organization whose entire Raison d'être is to peddle vaccines is somehow an impediment to those vaccines.

The author even recognizes the ACIP's fealty to vaccines, acknowledging that:

ACIP has never rejected use of an FDA-approved vaccine in its history.

My god if the ACIP doesn't think a vaccine has any benefits, that vaccine must be pretty unnecessary.

The author then, without bothering to share why it's true, makes this statement:

Even though there is now a meningitis vaccine judged by FDA to be safe and effective for infants, no pediatrician is going to use it, and no health insurer is going to cover its use, until ACIP acts.

Maybe, if no one uses it, it's because it's of little use. But talk to your doctor if you have faith in him. If he recommends it, you're certainly welcome to accept the vaccine - ACIP recommendation or not. And god forbid, if people think it's so necessary, they can actually pay for it with their own money instead of demanding the insurance pay for another unnecessary treatment that drives up costs for everyone else.

Lammi then reveals the real reason this recommendation must be granted:

ACIP and CDC need to understand how their recent actions could severely undermine vaccine development and production in America. Vaccine manufacturing is already fraught with risk. Vaccines are an inherently unstable drug due to the complexity of biologics, resulting in far more failures than successes in development. Bringing one vaccine to market costs upwards of $1 billion. Manufacturing plants, which cost up to $300 million, must meet exacting FDA standards and pass scores of inspections. The return on such massive investments is small compared to other drugs due to actual and virtual government price controls and the inherent limited time and amount of vaccines’ use.

So we must accept anything the drug companies can concoct for the sake of vaccines and vaccine manufacturers - not us. We spent 1 billion dollars on this vaccine and regardless of whether or not it's good for children, they're going to get it. We need to recoup our investment.

Lammi continues, asking incredulously, "If an infant use for meningococcal vaccines becomes the first [vaccine rejected by the ACIP], what kind of message will that send to vaccine makers?"

Let me answer that for you. The message it send is that people are not vaccine receptacles, existing to benefit drug companies.

After his brief flirtation with honesty, Lammi the lobbyist returns to form with this deceptive appeal to get this vaccine its precious recommendation.

Vaccination against diseases that used to kill millions is one of human kind’s greatest technological achievements, a success in which public health organizations and their leaders have played a major role.

He shamelessly conflates a story about millions of saved lives (which even if true applies to Third World countries and long forgotten times) to sell a vaccine against an illness that affects a vanishingly small number of people.

I ask you, do we really need to be continually hit over the head with stories such as these until we realize this obvious truth: it's all about them, not us. With the amounts of money involved, the drug companies will go to any length to insure our children get these vaccines needed or not. The Machine is about the money and the special interests, not our children.

Welcome to West Virgina: Measles Sanctuary State

2011-05-26T11:19:00.000-07:00

Today California finds itself at the mercy of a measles outbreak raging through the state. Thirteen cases have already been reported. Terrified for the safety of my family (after all public health officials say the measles is a killer), I began to think of leaving the state. But where would I go? It seemed the entire country was being affected. Perhaps we could seek refuge in America's heartland, I thought. Those hopes were crushed when I, to my dismay, heard a single case, occurring in Iowa, had triggered a state-wide public health emergency there. How long would it be till that case would engulf the entire region? Too risky, I told myself. It was back to square one. Then I began to hear whispers of a place that was measles-free, of a place where a family could go to live in safety away from the specter the measles

Initially, I scoffed at the idea, "Measles-free? Impossible!" But those whispers wouldn't stop. They grew louder until finally it was revealed to me that there was a safe zone. In the mountains, there was a whole state of people there who didn't get sick; and that state was West Virgina.

I learned local news station were reporting on this miracle.

WOWK TV trumpeted:

No Measles in W.Va. while Other States See Increases

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported a nationally increase in measles, but that trend is not holding true in West Virginia, state officials said.There have been no cases of measles reported to the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources Office of Epidemiology and Prevention Services (OEPS), this year, officials said.

How could that be? What was West Virginia's secret?

“West Virginia has a strong school entry law which requires vaccination against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) and there is no doubt that could be playing a role in helping protect our children,” said State Epidemiologist and OEPS Director Dr. Loretta Haddy.

So that was it. We could thank the herculean efforts of petty tyrants such as Dr. Loretta Haddy: Public Health Servant of the People.

Apparently, the virus couldn't survive the authoritarian vacciantion laws implemented by the state.

While the rest of the country was playing Russian roulette with the lives of their children by allowing parents to claim a vaccination exemption, those in West Virginia, by forcing unwanted vaccines on children and their families, were creating an impenetrable cocoon into which no infectious illness could penetrate.

West Virginia do-gooders were like the pig who built his house ot of bricks while others, oblivious to the dangers, built theirs out of straw: ideal kindling for the wildfire that is the measles

There was one thing however that seemed odd and it made me want to read the story one more time so I could better understand what was transpiring.

What stood out was Dr Public Servant's saying, “West Virginia has a strong school entry law ... and there is no doubt that could be playing a role in helping protect our children."

Which was it, I though, "There's no doubt its protecitng our children" or "It could be playing a role protecting our children" My curiosity was piqued. Rather than rely of the word of public health officials, I was motivated to learn more about the measles and the factors influencing West Virgina's absence of cases. I came across this report by the CDC stating:

During January 1--May 20, 2011, a total of 118 cases were reported from 23 states and New York City

So more than half the states, regardless of vaccination laws, were just like West Virginia: they also experienced exactly zero cases of the measles. The Mountain State and its totalitarian laws were not so special after all.

I even discovered that California, with it's liberal exemption laws, had a 79% vaccination rate. West Virgina with it's draconian laws managed a vaccination rate of only 77%. (This is based on 2008 data the most recent I could find)

Additionally the CDC reported:

Of the 118 cases, 105 (89%) were associated with importation from other countries,

That made me ask myself, "Is West Virginia a hub of international travel?" After all four states accounted for almost half the reported cases. And all see more visitors from abroad than does West Virginia. California and Massachusetts (another state without a philosophical exemption) due to their size; Utah, due to Mormon missionaries and Minnesota, due to it large Somali population.

As to the measles, the more I looked into it I found they weren't the deadly killer they were portrayed to be. As a matter of fact, before vaccination, almost everyone who got the measles did quite well. Even parents of the era expressed little concern when their children contracted the illness.

There was no West Virgina miracle. It was all an illusion. We could stay home. We'd be safe in California, measles or no measles. What a relief

Turning a few cases of a mild illness about which few parents in the pre-vaccine era were concerned into a disease akin to Ebola or for that matter the Andromeda Strain is simply a transparent attempt by the vested interests to lay the groundwork to restrict exemptions in the future. If more people wake up to the scam that is the modern vaccine program, rates may, as the establishment fears, drop. If that does happen, more cases of mild illnesses may occur. Therefore, if the public can be made to accept the idea that a few cases of the measles is an emergency, the establishment will be well positioned to call for rollbacks to exemptions if any substantial increase in infectious illnesses occurs due a partial repudiation of vaccination.

What the establishment does not want to accept is that regardless of the number of measles cases, they do not have the right to medicate children against the wishes of their family. If people see more cases of a certain illness and feel threatened by that, they can certainly get their children vaccinated. But to force that vaccination on families is a direct affront to the liberty that lies at the core of this nation. Forced vaccination was not justified when all children contracted these childhood illnesses and it certainly wouldn't be justified if a fraction of those pre-vaccine era cases returned.

Measles Emergency.

2011-05-25T10:57:00.000-07:00

With the pertussis epidemic of 2010 behind us, the public health community is scrambling for some new contrivance with which to scare the American public. They appear to have found it. Their latest propaganda efforts surround a few cases of measles scattered across the nation. To rational human beings it's the measles; to the public health community it's "an emergency"

Yesterday I posted a little comment on a story out of Iowa in which it was reported public health fanatics were declaring an "emergency" over one, yes one, case of the measles. I thought that was the end of it until I saw a story even more absurd than the original. It began with the same news reported yesterday:

State health officials declared a “public health emergency” Tuesday after a test confirmed a case of measles in an unvaccinated Dallas County baby who apparently picked up the disease in India.

The piece then went from humorous to absurd with a statement that is among the most ridiculous I've ever come across; and it comes from a doctor: the person parents are told to talk for unbiased credible answers about vaccination. Anyway here's (witch?) doctor Patricia Quinlisk on the measles:

“I get asked by medical students, ‘Which disease are you most afraid of?' And they expect me to say Ebola or SARS or something like that – but, it’s measles,” she said. “I don’t think people understand how bad it can be, how many people can get seriously ill and, unfortunately, how many people can die from this disease. It’s bad and it’s probably the most spreadable disease we have in our society.”

Nothing could be farther from the truth. In the pre-vaccine era, there were three to four million cases of the measles each year with only about four hundred and fifty reported deaths. And those deaths likely occurred in a subset of the population that were at increased vulnerability due to nutritional deficiencies or inadequate living conditions. The fact that naive medical school students are subjected to fabrications such as the one put forth by doctor Quinlisk perhaps explains the fanaticism that drives some pediatricians to discharge patients who decline the vaccine for this mild illness.

Those who were parents back when the measles was prevalent didn't think much of the illness and saw it as just another part of childhood. Much like those of us who've gone through the chickenpox with our own children. This fact is however antithetical to Quinlisk's goal of fear mongering so, in the same story, she's reported as engaging in this odd attempt at historical revisionism:

Dr. Patricia Quinlisk, medical director for the Iowa Department of Public Health, said many Americans falsely recall measles as a benign childhood illness.

Quinlisk's attempt to redefine the past to serve her establishment is eerily is reminiscent of the tactics used by the totalitarian regime portrayed in George Orwell's novel 1984. "The Party," as it was called, famously believed that the past needed to be recreated in a way to serve the needs and desires of the regime. (The novel's famous quote "Those who control the past control the future" summarizes that philosophy) But sadly for the good doctor her assertion about America's experience with the measles is as fictitious as Orwell's novel. Unfortunately, for readers of the Register, the fiction continues with this statement:

Two to three people die out of every 1,000 who come down with the disease, health authorities say.

We did two pieces on this recently bandied-about statistic, debunking it here and showing the CDC can quote no basis for it here.

The piece winds down revealing:

Most Iowans are either vaccinated against measles or are immune because they had it as children.

So what's the emergency then? The rational person, not having a vested interest in either vaccines or the promotion of an irrational fear of infectious illnesses, would say there is none. But the vested interest driving this story are not interested in the truth, they're interested in advancing an agenda that solidifies their power and reinforces a system upon which they depend. This story of a measles "emergency" and the blatant attempts at historical revisionism further demonstrate that the entire vaccine program is simply a contrivance built to serve the needs, not of us, but of the Machine and those who comprise it.

Dr Wendy's Washington

2011-05-17T14:00:00.000-07:00

The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens

unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.

George Washington

In the state named after a great champion of freedom, freedom has just suffered a chilling setback. Parents who choose not to vaccinate their children will now be forced to attend meetings with medical professionals designed to harass them into accepting unwanted vaccines. Reminiscent of Chairman Mao's reeducation camps, these meeting are finding great favor among the community of do-gooders comprising the public health and medical establishments.

One who is particularly enamoured with the new law is Dr. Wendy Sue Swanson, a.k.a. Seattle Moma Doc,

a pediatrician and graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s school of Bioethics, home of vaccine cheerleader Art Kaplan. She's taken the time to write a blog post celebrating the type of nanny state progressivism that would have George Washington spinning in his grave

I stumbled upon it when I ventured into that viper’s nest of vaccine extremism, Vaccinate Your Baby!

Anyway Dr. Swanson begins:

Yesterday Governor Gregoire signed a new bill into law that will demand families talk with a health care worker about the risks when exempting from immunizations

How nice. In Dr. Swanson's police state utopia, the government can demand parents subject themselves to harassment from the propagandists of a public health apparatus dependant upon vaccination.

Swanson then, perhaps to create an imaginary crisis from which the state must save us, employs the common trick popular among the vaccine establishment of pretending that numbers appearing significant on a relative basis are meaningful in absolute terms. She warns:

In the last 10 years there has been a doubling in the number of students with exemptions for vaccinations in our schools.

Yes, that may be true; exemptions may climb from 2,000 to 6,000 (the press release only gives percentages not actual numbers so 2,000 to 6,000 is a guess extrapolated from California exemption data) over a ten year period - in a population of millions - but rates overall may increase due to various factors including state funding, vaccine campaigns and public heath outreach.

But what if rising exemptions mean more parents are becoming aware of the scam behind vaccination and are deciding not to participate. For a Machine whose existence is predicated upon such a scam, dissent of this nature cannot be tolerated and must be extinguished at first sign.

To that end, Dr Swanson then descends into wild speculation to advance her rickety case in support of these browbeating sessions, stating:

The biggest reason [for exemptions] may be a convenience factor.

And that's based on what exactly? She offers no evidence, even though, in today’s blogosphere, links to support statements are quite easy to incorporate into one’s work. Maybe she just made it up? Regardless, what she does do is use the weasel word may which can be used to say anything regardless of the facts.

Weasel words are important components of the Machine’s propaganda efforts and in this case Dr. Wendy Sue employs the weasel word may with great alacrity. But in reality, with no evidence, "convenience" may either be the biggest reason or "convenience" may not be the biggest reason.

Perhaps she feels the public will be more amenable to being led around by the nose if she can sketch the debate in terms of irresponsible parents to busy to take the time to get their life saving vaccines

Or maybe parents, rather than being lazy and stupid like the establishment imagines us to be, just realize despite the millions spend hyping vaccines those vaccines aren’t very important.

But wait here comes her defense of her position

The state suggests that 95% of exemptions are not for a medical reason, but one for convenience.

Ah yes, an unsubstantiated “suggestion” by the state. Wonderful. We’d be crazy not to believe anything the state “suggests” because they have our best interest at heart and because they have no vested interest in maintaining high levels of unwanted vaccination.

Her limited grasp of the vaccination issue (and fixation on the imagined convenience factor) then leads her to state:

Seems like you’d never opt out of immunizations for convenience putting your child or another child at risk.

But as readers of this blog are well aware, not vaccinating cannot put anyone at risk. Infectious agents predate vaccines; therefore one can only protect against, not create, risks because, again, those risks have always existed. As a parent you do have the responsibility to protect your child (not the children of others) so then the issue becomes protect from what: potentially risky medical interventions or mild illnesses that used to be part of growing up. I think I’ll let parents, not the police state, decide which is more worrisome.