Vaccine Awakening

H1N1: Fact or Fiction?

2009-11-12T08:31:00.000-08:00

By Barbara Loe Fisher

It’s been about six months since the Department of Health and Human Services and the Secretary of Homeland Security followed the World Health Organization and declared a very scary pandemic influenza public health emergency in the United States.

Last spring we suddenly found ourselves watching You Tube videos of people being quarantined in hotels and detained on airplanes by HazMat teams. When we went to the grocery stores, we encountered fellow Americans wearing face masks. And every time we turned on the television, there were news reports about schools closing so desks and lockers could be scrubbed down.

The Worst Is Yet To Come?

And we watched CDC press conferences 5 warning us that the worst was surely yet to come because the H1N1 swine flu virus first identified outside a pig farm in Mexico had the potential to mutate and kill tens of thousands more Americans 6 than the 36,000 that CDC officials tell us die every year from seasonal influenza.

It was enough to make us very, very afraid.

No Liability for Vaccine Makers

It was enough to make Congress give drug companies more than a billion dollars of our taxes to quickly create H1N1 swine flu vaccines and then throw in another couple of billion dollars for health officials to deliver and aggressively promote vaccination in Sesame Street ads and on the internet and radio and TV. And while they were at it, Congress shielded everyone who has anything to do with making, promoting and giving swine flu vaccines from all liability in civil court whenever somebody gets hurt or dies after getting vaccinated.

It was enough to make us very, very afraid.

Health Worker Mandates & School Vaccination Programs

It was scary enough to make legislators in Massachusetts and other states talk about passing stronger laws to suspend civil liberties and force people to be quarantined or vaccinated whenever a public health emergency was declared. 10 It was scary enough to prompt New York state health officials to mandate that health care workers get seasonal and H1N1 influenza shots or be fired.

And then there were calls by public health officials for children to line up and get vaccinated in schools 12 just like in the polio mass vaccination campaigns of the 1950’s and early 60’s.

Older Americans Have Antibodies to H1N1 Swine Flu

Throughout the summer, we were told that H1N1 swine flu was sweeping through the country 13 and millions of us had already been infected with the new virus and pregnant women and children were dying. 1Curiously, many Americans over 60 were told they didn’t need H1N1 vaccine because we were still protected by antibodies we got when we recovered from being infected with similar H1N1 flu strains in the past.

Drug Companies Want Adjuvants, No More Eggs

And then, the vaccine manufacturers, who had been pressing the FDA for decades to let them use reactive squalene adjuvants in vaccines, started complaining that they couldn’t grow the H1N1 virus fast enough. The threat of vaccine shortages suddenly loomed on the horizon.
The drug companies complained that they didn’t want to use chicken eggs anymore to make flu vaccines. They wanted the FDA to let them use insects and e coli bacteria and fungus and virus like protein particles and dog kidney cells and other really, really interesting stuff.

This is an EMERGENCY they said and drug companies need to be allowed to make flu vaccine any way they want to right now because this is a really serious public health emergency. And, oh by the way, let’s not forget that it is so serious that everyone who has anything to do with making, promoting and giving new flu vaccines need to be shielded from liability in civil court if people get hurt or die after getting vaccinated.

Yes, it was enough to make us all very, very afraid.

H1N1 Swine Flu Looks Like Seasonal Flu

And when we are really afraid, we don’t think we have time to ask questions or double check the facts. We just want someone to tell us what to do right now so we can feel safe and not afraid anymore.

By the end of the summer, while the drug companies and NIH were testing the new H1N1 vaccines on several thousand healthy American children and adults, reports started coming out of Australia and the southern hemisphere where they had just finished their influenza season, that the H1N1 swine flu virus was really not so bad after all. It was not causing excess mortality, which means there weren’t more people dying from H1N1 than had died in years past from other seasonal flu strains.

Yes, people were getting sick with what looked like influenza just like they do every year but –for most people – it was a few days of fever, chills, body aches, runny nose and cough, maybe some diarrhea, staying in bed, drinking lots of water and juice, and then – feeling just fine again.

CDC Stops Confirming Most Suspected H1N1 Cases

Abruptly at the end of July – when the Secretary of Health quietly extended the national public health emergency declaration for three more months - the CDC announced they were not going to lab confirm suspected cases of H1N1 swine flu anymore. The CDC told the states not to test Americans who were flooding doctors offices and hospitals with symptoms of influenza and confirm that they WERE in fact suffering from type A or B influenza, especially H1N1 swine flu.
The story was – if it looks like influenza then it IS influenza and can be ASSUMED to be H1N1 swine flu.

Really? Is that how the CDC “scientifically” calculates how many Americans die from regular influenza every year?

Two to Four Flu Shots For Many Young Children

The decision to stop testing for H1N1 was followed by an announcement that all children between the ages of 6 months and 10 years - who had never gotten a flu shot before - should get 4 doses of influenza vaccine this year: two seasonal flu shots and two doses of H1N1 vaccine. Further, that the millions of chronically ill and disabled children and adults and also pregnant women should be the first in line to get two shots of influenza vaccine this year.

And then Americans, who were still very afraid, started asking questions because most of us, who got sick with flu-like symptoms this year, realized that it was no worse than the flu we got last year. And most of us didn’t know anyone who had died from the flu this year, which was true for most other years as well.

Two to Four Doses of Mercury?

And then we started asking questions about why young children needed two to four doses of influenza vaccine this year. And we thought - what is up with mercury still being in most vials of influenza vaccine? We thought – is it really a good idea to give children – whose doctors don’t have access to single dose vials of mercury free flu vaccine – two to four doses of mercury this year? Especially when it is against HazMat regulations to pour unused mercury containing influenza vaccine down the drain or toss it into a garbage can?

Is It Influenza, Seasonal, H1N1 or None of the Above?

And then a veteran investigative journalist at a major news network published an interesting report about the fact that 83 to 97 percent of all specimens of suspected H1N1 cases sent to the CDC by state health departments for lab confirmation last spring and summer came back negative - for not only H1N1 swine flu influenza - but also negative for ANY kind of type A or Type B influenza. at all. Which confirmed what the CDC’s influenza expert said at an FDA meeting in 2003: that 80 percent of all flu-like illness every year is not actually influenza but viral and bacterial infections that LOOK like influenza.

Wait a minute. Didn’t President Obama stand up at a press conference in October and say that 1,000 Americans, including about 100 children, had died from H1N1 swine flu?

But were those 1,000 H1N1 lab confirmed deaths or deaths that were ASSUMED by the CDC to be deaths caused by swine flu?

And how does that number of deaths compare with the 36,000 deaths that CDC officials say are caused by seasonal influenza every year?

People Started Asking Questions

And then something unusual happened. Doctors started asking questions and privately some of them told their patients not to bother getting the H1N1 vaccine. And the people, who were still being told by health officials to be very, very afraid, started to do their own research using the great new Library of the World, the internet. People started asking more questions of their government health officials – not just in America – but in Great Britain and the Netherlands, in Germany and Italy, in Poland and in Canada and many other countries.

And then the poll results started coming in revealing that about 50 percent of us were saying “yes” I want to get a swine flu shot and 50 percent of us were saying “No, thank you.”

Fear or Facts?

And that is where it stands today. Some of us are still very afraid and some of us are not.
I am reminded of a famous quote from Abraham Lincoln: You can fool some of the people all of the time and you can fool all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.

New Vaccine Ingredients Calculator

And I would urge those of you who want to get seasonal or H1N1 vaccines, to go to the homepage of the website of the National Vaccine Information Center at www.NVIC.org and look at the new Vaccine Ingredient Calculator, which will tell you how much mercury is in those vaccines.

Support NVIC’s Research & Public Education Programs

And I would urge those of you, who want better vaccine science and the right to make vaccine choices, to become a donor supporter of the National Vaccine Information Center’s research and public education programs. Truth and freedom are not free, especially when there are so many doing so much to limit the people’s access to both.

NVIC Launches Research Fund To Study Health & Vaccination

2009-10-13T11:57:00.000-07:00

by Barbara Loe Fisher

“Show Us the Science and Give Us the Choice” was the rallying cry of the 700 parents and health care workers who traveled from 44 states and 11 nations to attend the groundbreaking Fourth International Public Conference on Vaccination sponsored by the National Vaccine Information Center Oct. 2-4, 2009. The historic conference featured presentations by more than 40 world experts in the areas of vaccine science, policy, law, and ethics and raised more than $100,000 to launch an international fund raising campaign for scientific research to investigate health differences between vaccinated and unvaccinated children and identify those at risk for suffering vaccine injury.

Families with healthy children and those with vaccine injured children joined hands with nurses, doctors and allied health care workers in a united call for quality scientific research and the human right to make informed, voluntary vaccination decisions. What we witnessed was a celebration of the human spirit and what we affirmed was dedication to truth in science and the duty to protect the biological integrity of our children.

We are not going to wait any longer for government or industry to answer the big question of whether the nearly 70 doses of 16 vaccines that doctors now give our children between the day of birth and age 18 is contributing to the unexplained chronic disease and disability epidemic that is harming far too many of our children. With 1 child in 6 now learning disabled; 1 in 9 asthmatic; 1 in 100 developing autism; 1 in 450 diabetic and millions more suffering with seizures, rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease, bi-polar disorder and other chronic illness, the National Vaccine Information Center is assembling a group of independent experts from multiple scientific disciplines to immediately evaluate and act to protect our children’s health.

NVIC’s Children’s Fund for Hope, Health and Healing will raise funds to first create data collection systems and conduct small preliminary studies with a longer term goal of conducting a large 10-year clinical study. The scientific research program will evaluate health outcomes of vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals; identify potential high risk factors for adverse responses to vaccination; and investigate the biological mechanisms for vaccine injury and death.

Vicky Debold, PhD, RN, who teaches health research methods at George Mason University and has served as NVIC’s Director of Patient Safety for three years, has been appointed Scientific Research Director for NVIC’s Children’s Fund for Hope, Health & Healing. She is assembling a steering committee of health research experts and has pledged “to leave no stone unturned in our efforts to understand why so many healthy infants and children are regressing after vaccination and becoming chronically ill.”

NVIC will also raise funds to strengthen informed consent protections in US vaccine laws and support health care workers seeking to protect their right to make informed, voluntary vaccination decisions. Dawn Richardson, co-founder and president of PROVE, has been appointed as NVIC’s Director of State Advocacy. Mrs. Richardson led a seven-year successful grassroots campaign to obtain conscientious belief exemption to vaccination in Texas in 2003. She said “There is too much abuse of executive power taking place at the state level when it comes to mandatory vaccination.”

If you want to support unbiased, scientific research into the health effects of vaccination and be part of this historic grassroots movement to defend truth in science and the informed consent principle, become a donor supporter of the consumer-led non-profit (501c3) National Vaccine Information Center. The world’s largest and oldest vaccine safety and informed consent organization is funded by donations from individual citizens and foundations, including Dr. Joseph Mercola and the Albert and Claire Dwoskin Family Foundation. NVIC takes no pharmaceutical industry or government funding.

You can direct your tax deductible donation to scientific research or informed consent advocacy – or both. It’s your choice.

Go to www.NVIC.org to learn more about NVIC’s unmatched 28 year record of public service to prevent vaccine injuries and deaths and also learn how to make an informed decision about H1N1 swine flu vaccination. It’s your family, your health and your choice.

A heartfelt thank you to all the parents, grandparents, nurses, doctors, scientists and health care workers who came and made history with us at the Fourth International Public Conference on Vaccination. You are writing a new chapter in the three decade vaccine safety and informed consent movement.

Together, we CAN stand up and protect our human right to make informed, voluntary vaccine decisions based on good science. Because the future is ours to change for the better if we have the courage and believe we can do it.

Click here to support NVIC’s Research and Advocacy programs.

“The conference was a complete triumph and will go down in history.”

“Thank you Barbara Fisher and your entire support team for an
outstanding conference. My husband and I were so impressed with the entire conference. The speakers were great and the attendees were knowledgable and committed. There was not a wasted moment. As Barbara said, it was a "World Class Conference". It is regrettable that the press did not attend. But committed, loving, concerned moms are powerful force as your organization has shown. Getting the truth out is a challenge in a truth challenged world.
This issue is so much a matter of integrity and it is shocking how little of that important quality is available today.”

“Congratulations on an amazing conference. I think it was the most well attended conference I have ever been to! I am so proud of you and the work of the NVIC.”

“Thank-you so much for the invaluable conference that you put on this past weekend. The speakers you brought together from around the world were amazing. We are fortunate that we were able to attend. There is comfort in knowing that individuals with the utmost integrity and strength have dedicated everything they have in them to magnify the fact that valid science has never been done on the risks and benefits of mass vaccination. I applaud you and others for holding your head's high for nearly 30 years despite the ridicule and opposition you have faced…. My husband, myself, and my family want to be a part of this. Change needs to take place as fast as possible.”

“All I can say is AMAZING, AMAZING, AMAZING. The conference was phenomenal. I can't wait to see everything that comes out of this now…
Thanks again for pulling together such an amazing array of experts and people It was truly a wonderful weekend.”

“I am a long time supporter of NVIC, since Chiropractic College. I was at the conference this past weekend and found it just so Incredible on so many levels. The speakers were invaluable, the presentations, the quality of people attending and the contacts that I made were amazing! I write to you today to let you know that I will be a huge supporter of this new study that you are embarking on, good for you!! It's about time I say…. I applaud you for your bravery and unending dedication for truth and the pursuit of freedom of choice. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. God bless you.”

”Congratulations on pulling off a WONDERFUL conference. I worked a lot of conferences in the past as a webcaster and none even touched the excitement and passion that all those who attended had. It was truly an amazing experience to be a part of. I am so excited for NVIC. It's truly an honor to be a part of such a wonderful thing!!”

“I just wanted to say THANK YOU again for all your hard work in making the conference happen this year. I was thrilled to be part of this event.  Thank you for all the work the NVIC does to educate and empower us to make informed choices. My mission now is to start working with my state legislators to move the philosophical exemption bill forward!!   Thanks again - I'm telling everyone I can about the study that NVIC is now raising money for as well!”

“What a great gathering of fantastic speakers on this topic!! I purchased the recordings already . Just wanted to thank and commend you for all of your hard work!! Keep fighting...people are listening!!

Mild Swine Flu & Over-Hyped Vaccine

2009-10-01T18:46:00.000-07:00

by Barbara Loe Fisher

Every day Americans wake up to news reports that warn us about the dangers of influenza, especially the new H1N1 “swine flu” and the need to roll up our sleeves and get vaccinated. We are witnessing a roll-out of the largest, most expensive mass vaccination campaign in the history of our nation. A rollout that is bigger than even the polio vaccine campaigns of the 1950's.

How much do you know about the disease or vaccine risks so you can make an informed decision about whether to get flu shots for yourself or your children?

H1N1 “Swine Flu” Mild

First, the good news is that swine flu is mild for most people and the virus is not mutating into a more serious form. By the end of September, there had been about 600 deaths in America including about 50 deaths in young children. Complications from infectious diseases like influenza are more common in people with heart, respiratory and other health problems and that is true for swine flu.

Limited Testing of Swine Flu Vaccines

Swine flu vaccines have been tested on only a few thousand healthy Americans for a few weeks. There is little or no information about how safe the vaccine is for pregnant women and chronically ill or disabled children because only a handfull were part of the testing. Nobody will know how safe the vaccine really is until it is given to millions of Americans this year and next year.

Drive-By Flu Shots Risky

Swine flu vaccine is not just being given to children and adults in clinics and doctors offices but also in non-medical settings like pharmacies, stores, schools and even at drive-by kiosks. Getting vaccinated in a non-medical setting can be risky. Driving a car immediately after getting vaccinated, when you could suffer an unexpected a shock collapse reaction can be deadly.

No Compensation For Swine Flu Victims

If you or your child are injured from getting a flu swine flu shot, you are on your own. Because Congress shielded the vaccine manufacturers and any person giving swine flu shots from lawsuits if people get hurt. There is no funded government vaccine injury compensation program for swine flu vaccine.

Swine Flu Reactions: “It’s a Coincidence”

But even if there was a funded vaccine injury compensation program - like the one that had to be created by the federal government in 1976 after that year's swine flu vaccine paralyzed about 500 Americans and killed 25, there is little chance you would be compensated if you or your child does become vaccine injured.

Federal health officials are already pre-emptively warning Americans that most of the deaths and cases of brain inflammation, seizures, paralysis, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, strokes, heart attacks, miscarriages and other serious health problems that develop after swine flu vaccination will be considered a “coincidence” and not related in any way to the flu shots just given.

Prevent Vaccine Injuries

This makes it even more important for Americans to become informed health care consumers. If you choose to get vaccinated and you or your child do suffer a health complication, insist that the health care worker who gave the shot immediately files a report with the federal Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System. If the person who gave the flu shot won't file a vaccine reaction report, you can file it yourself.

Do NOT let a doctor or anyone else tell you that a serious health problem you or your child experiences after vaccination is a coincidence and allow more shots to be given until you know for sure. The most tragic cases of vaccine injury occur when vaccine reaction symptoms are dismissed as a 'coincidence" and more vaccines are given that result in more severe symptoms and sometimes end with permanent brain and immune system damage or death.

Thimerosal in Multi-Dose Vials

Injectable flu shots in multi-dose vials contain the mercury preservative, thimerosal, and some come in single dose vials and do not contain mercury. If you get vaccinated, make sure you know what is in the vaccine you are getting because people can be very allergic to different components of vaccines. And some people can't get the live virus flu vaccine.

FOUR Flu Shots for Young Children?

Doctors are telling some children under 10 years old to get 3 to 4 flu shots this year - 2 shots for seasonal flu and one or two more for swine flu. We have never given young children 3 to 4 flu shots in a single year and there is no information about how safe it is to do that.

Government Spend Billions On H1N1 Vaccine Program

Swine flu shots are free for most Americans because the government has given $1 billion dollars to pharmaceutical companies to create the new swine flu vaccines and has given another $5 billion dollars to state and federal health agencies to promote and deliver the influenza vaccines to people. That is a lot of money. The push to get vaccinated is like nothing we have ever seen before.

Most People Recover From Swine Flu

The fact is: Millions of people around the world have recovered from swine flu and millions more will get sick with fevers, body aches, nasal congestion, cough and sometimes diarrhea and vomiting and recover from it this year and next year without any complications.

People who recover from influenza, including swine flu, get long lasting protection from the flu strain they recovered from. Actually, most people over 60 won't get swine flu this year because they recovered from influenza caused by a similar swine flu strain in the past and still have protective antibodies.

Just the Facts, Not the Hype

So, here are the facts:

* The new swine influenza is mild for most people even though a small number have developed complications and died.

* The swine flu vaccine has been tested for only a few weeks on a few thousand healthy children and adults, including very few pregnant women. We don't know how safe it really is for pregnant women or children and adults with chronic illness even though they are being specially targeted for vaccination by government health officials.

* There is very little information about how safe it is to give swine flu vaccine with other vaccines, including seasonal influenza vaccine.

* There is very little information about whether the swine flu shot will keep you from getting swine flu.

All Vaccines Come With Side Effects: Weigh Risks

All pharmaceutical products, including vaccines, come with side effects. The risk of having a vaccine reaction depends upon the vaccine you are getting; your personal and family medical history; whether you are sick or healthy at the time of vaccination; whether you are taking other medications; and whether you have reacted to vaccines before.

If you decide you or your children are going to get swine flu shots this year, you can learn more by visiting www.NVIC.org.

If Your Child’s School Has Vaccine Clinics

And if you have a child, whose school is going to be holding vaccine clinics and you do NOT want your child to get vaccinated in school, you can take the following actions:

Number One: Write a letter to the school principal stating you do not want your child vaccinated in school without your written consent.

Number Two: Ask to be notified in advance exactly when the in-school vaccine clinics will be held.

Support NVIC, Get Red “NO VACCINE FOR ME” Bracelets

Number Three: Support NVIC and raise awareness in your community by giving your child a red NO VACCINE FOR ME bracelet to wear to school. And wear one yourself.

Go to www.NVIC.org to donate and learn more about how to be prepared for the pandemic public health emergency that has been declared in your state. Learn about the public health laws that govern you. Learn about how you can change them by becoming a citizen activist.

Health Workers Being Forced To Get H1N1 Vaccine

Right now, the government says that the swine flu vaccination program is voluntary. That nobody will be forced to get vaccinated. However, health care workers in New York and other states ARE being forced by law to get swine flu shots this year.

Will that be true for all of us next year?

Stand Up For Your Informed Consent Rights

Please join NVIC and become a grassroots vaccine safety and informed consent advocate in your community. Stand up for the human right to make informed, voluntary health care choices, including vaccine choices, today - so your children and grandchildren and all Americans will have that right tomorrow.

Gardasil & Swine Flu Vaccines: Inconvenient Truths

2009-08-25T05:00:00.000-07:00

by Barbara Loe Fisher

The summer of 2009 revealed two inconvenient truths about vaccination: first, the Gardasil vaccine is not as safe for girls as the government, medical organizations and Merck have said it is; and second, the H1N1 influenza pandemic is not as serious as health officials are telling us it is. Which means that fast tracked swine flu vaccines children will get in schools this fall may end up being more risky than getting the flu.

Doctors Question Benefits & Merck Marketing Tactics

On August 19, the Journal of the American Medical Association published two important articles written by doctors questioning whether HPV vaccine benefits outweigh the risks of recommending it for all young girls. The intellectually honest doctors publicly criticized the aggressive marketing of Gardasil vaccine by Merck and certain Merck-funded U.S. medical organizations and asked for more scientific evidence that universal HPV vaccination is necessary, safe and effective.

Bad Outcome Report After 1 In Every 1,855 Gardasil Shots

In the third article, written by government health officials, it was revealed that 1 in every 1,855 Gardasil shots is followed by a bad health outcome report to the government’s Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System.

These bad health outcomes reported after Gardasil shots include lots of girls suddenly passing out and having seizures within minutes or hours of getting vaccinated and suffering head injuries and broken bones when they hit the floor. In fact, there is a larger than expected rate of girls passing out after getting Gardasil vaccine.

Girls Passing Out & Having Car Accidents

Back in 2007, the National Vaccine Information Center warned that many girls given Gardasil shots were losing consciousness within minutes or hours. Some girls have left doctors offices and fallen unconscious while driving and had car accidents. This brings up the little known fact that four girls who got Gardasil in Merck’s pre-licensure clinical trials died in car accidents. How many of those girls suddenly collapsed while driving?

Clearly, Gardasil vaccine should be given while girls are lying down and they should be warned that sudden collapse can occur without warning within 24 hours of getting vaccinated.

Blood Clots Reports After Gardasil

What else did the recently published government study on Gardasil reveal? Well, we now know that there is a greater than expected rate of reported blood clots in girls who get the vaccine. Some blood clots can lead to pulmonary embolism or stroke, which means the blood clot ends up in the lung or in the brain. In fact four girls have died after they developed a blood clot that traveled to the lung after Gardasil vaccination.

Most Bad Outcome Reports Merck Files FDA Can’t Analyze

But the most shocking fact in this study is that, although nearly 70 percent of all Gardasil reaction reports were filed by Merck, a whopping 89 percent of the reports Merck did file were so incomplete there was not enough information for health officials to do a proper follow-up and review of what happened to the girls who fell unconscious or had convulsions, developed blood clots or inflammation of the brain and nerves, including Guillain Barre syndrome that causes paralysis, or those who suddenly developed serious autoimmune disorders like rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and more.

There were 32 reports of Gardasil-related deaths between 2006 and the end of 2008 but only 20 of these death reports had enough information to be followed up. There are now a total of 43 deaths that have been reported. How many of those Gardasil related deaths cannot be evaluated because of incomplete information?

1986 Law Requires Reporting of Vaccine Injuries & Deaths

This is an outrage. Under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, it is a federal legal requirement for any person – a doctor, nurse or any person who gives a vaccination in America – to file a report with the federal government whenever a vaccination is followed by a bad health outcome, especially a hospitalization, injury or death. Vaccine providers are NOT supposed to be notifying the vaccine manufacturer – which clearly is like flushing the vaccine reaction report down the toilet – they are supposed to be notifying the government. And health officials at the FDA and CDC are supposed to be analyzing each and every report of a serious vaccine injury or death.

Massive Underreporting of Vaccine Bad Outcomes

FDA and CDC officials admit that there is underreporting of vaccine-related bad health outcomes. In fact, some studies say that less than 10 percent or even less than 1 percent of serious vaccine adverse events are ever reported.

Closed Government Databases Used to Deny Vaccine Risks

But health officials are quick to downplay the significance of this. They tell us not to worry because the closed government databases, which the CDC operates with vaccine manufacturers and HMO’s they pay to participate in them, can be relied upon to reassure us that all those seizures and blood clots and cases of brain inflammation, paralysis, lupus and deaths in girls who get Gardasil shots are really – mostly - just a coincidence.

In 2005, the National Vaccine Information Center and other parent groups called on the CDC and FDA to open up those closed government vaccine monitoring databases to public scrutiny.
So far, most of that vaccine reaction data is still hidden from public view so it can’t be independently verified.

Will H1N1 Swine Flu Vaccine Risks Be Hidden From Public?

If the government can let vaccine manufacturers fast track Gardasil vaccine but can’t compel the drug company that makes the vaccine or doctors giving the vaccine - who are shielded from liability - to report each and every death and serious injury that follows vaccination, why should we believe anything government health officials tell us about the safety of vaccines?

Why should we believe that the experimental swine flu vaccines being fast tracked with only a few weeks of study in healthy children and adults are going to be safe and that all vaccine reactions will be reported to the government and then properly followed up?

No Way To Monitor H1N1 Swine Flu Vaccine Side Effects In Schools

It is far more likely that, when children get swine flu vaccine in schools and then get really sick or even die like the Gardasil girls, that all those bad health outcomes will be written off as a coincidence by health officials. That is, IF any reports are made to the government at all! Because few school nurses or other people giving children swine flu vaccines in the schools will be taking medical histories; or have a way to record vaccine information in children’s medical records, much less monitor children for signs of a vaccine reaction and then file a reaction report to the government.

This is not the way to run a national vaccine program. This is not what we expect from doctors in positions of authority who have accepted responsibility for protecting our individual health or the health of our nation.

Doctors & Drug Companies Shielded From Liability Ignoring the Law

In the early 1980’s, parents of DPT vaccine injured children worked very hard on getting informing, recording and reporting safety provisions of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986. We wanted to make sure everything was being done to help prevent vaccine injuries and deaths. Little did we know then that those safety provisions would be blown off by doctors and vaccine manufacturers shielded from liability in that law.

The federal vaccine safety provisions should be codified into every state vaccine law with legal sanctions for doctors and drug companies who fail to file a complete vaccine reaction report.

What Public Health Emergency?

And now, today, we have swine flu vaccines that are being rushed to market with even less testing that the fast tracked Gardasil vaccine had, with the justification that there is a public health emergency. What public health emergency?

As everyone knows by now, the swine flu is no more serious than the garden variety influenza that goes around every year. Just like everyone knows by now that most cervical cancer can be prevented with regular Pap screening and that the very expensive HPV vaccine is questionable at best.

Why are we letting employees working for government agencies and pharmaceutical companies stampede us into taking vaccines that may not be necessary, safe or effective and – certainly - are not properly monitored for safety after they are given to tens of millions of children and adults?

It is time to demand that government officials and drug companies stop conducting national vaccine experiments on the American people.

Come To Fourth International Public Conference on Vaccination

If you want to learn more about vaccines and how to be a vaccine safety and informed consent advocate in your community, come to the Fourth International Public Conference on Vaccination being held October 2-4, 2009 in Washington, D.C. For more information, go to http://www.nvic.org/.

Watch the video bellow:

Swine Flu Vaccine Should Not Be Given to Children in Schools

2009-07-22T07:08:00.000-07:00

by Barbara Loe Fisher

On April 26, a national public health emergency was declared by officials in the U.S. Departments of Health and Homeland Security. We were told it was necessary to declare a national emergency because people were getting sick from a new swine flu virus that began in Mexico and might cause a deadly influenza pandemic. So far, the vast majority of people who get sick with swine flu have symptoms that are no worse than the regular flu and recover completely.

Three Week Testing of Swine Flu Vaccines

The declaration of a national public health emergency last spring set a chain of events in motion: some schools were closed, some people were quarantined and drug companies were given billons of tax dollars to create experimental swine flu vaccines. These new vaccines are being fast tracked by the FDA. We are being told they will only be tested for a few weeks on a few hundred children and adults before being given to children in schools in October.

Liability Protection for Vaccine Injuries & Deaths

Under federal legislation passed by Congress since 2001, an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) allows drug companies, health officials and anyone who gives experimental vaccines to Americans during a declared public health emergency, to be protected from liability if people get hurt.

Safety and Informed Consent At Risk in Schools

The National Vaccine Information Center has been a vaccine safety watchdog since 1982. We are questioning the need to turn schools into medical clinics this fall where swine flu vaccines being rushed to market will be given to children first. We are calling on the Obama Administration and state Governors to provide solid evidence to parents that it is necessary to give children experimental swine flu vaccines in schools.

Are the states prepared to obey vaccine safety provisions in the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, which include:

1. Giving parents written information about vaccine benefits and risks before children are vaccinated;

2. Keeping a record of which vaccines the children get, including the manufacturer’s name and lot number;

3. Recording which vaccines were given in the child’s medical record;

4. Recording serious health problems that develop after vaccination in the child’s medical record and immediately making a report to the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS)

Will States Compensate Vaccine Injured Children?

And there are more questions that need to be answered: Are the states prepared to provide financial compensation to children harmed by swine flu vaccines given in schools? Are parents going to be given complete, truthful information about swine flu vaccine risks and have the right to say “YES” or “NO” before their children are lined up and vaccinated in the school setting?

Vaccines are pharmaceutical products that carry a risk of injury or death and those risks are greater for some than others. 1 in 6 children in America is learning disabled. 1 in 9 has asthma 1 in 150 develops autism. 1 in 450 has diabetes and millions more suffer with allergies and autoimmune disorders. Will the swine flu vaccine be safe for them?

Although it is a good idea for health officials to prepare for a worst case scenario and stockpile vaccines, it is a bad idea to turn schools into medical clinics and basically test experimental swine flu vaccines on children first. Especially when nobody has any liability. That has the potential to hurt children instead of keeping them well.

NVIC Oct. 2-4 Conference Addresses Vaccine Risks

This Oct. 2-4, 2009 in Washington, D.C., parents concerned about the lack of vaccine safety and informed consent protections in the vaccination system will gather with doctors, scientists, bioethicists, legal experts, journalists, and consumer advocates at the Fourth International Public Conference on Vaccination to talk about the science, policy, law and ethics of vaccination.

Register now – Special Early Bird registration ends on July 31.

Click here for more information about swine flu, swine flu vaccines, public health laws that govern you and you family, and how you can be better prepared to make well informed decisions during the declared national public health emergency.

For live links to references for this commentary and to watch a video, click here:

Preventing Gardasil Vaccine Injuries & Deaths

2009-07-16T08:25:00.000-07:00

by Barbara Loe Fisher

She is just 16: the intelligent, lively pretty girl from Kansas, who was a high school gymnast and cheerleader and got straight A’s until, in 2008, three Gardasil shots changed her life and she became one more Gardasil reaction statistic. Today, Gabrielle never knows when she will be back in the hospital emergency room. Diagnosed with inflammation in the brain and body, the brain seizures won’t stop. She has had strokes. The right side of her body is weakened. She is in almost constant pain. Gabi has developed lupus now. Her doctor says she could die.

Fast-Tracked Vaccine

Gardasil vaccine was fast tracked to licensure by the Food and Drug Administration in 2006. It contains genetically engineered virus-like protein particles (VLPs) and aluminum, which affect immune function. The exact mechanism of protection is unknown and the vaccine has not been evaluated for the potential to cause cancer or be toxic to the genes.

It is a vaccine that, by the summer of 2009, already caused more than 15,000 thousand reports of vaccine reactions, including more than 3,000 injuries and 48 deaths. 14 of the girls who died after getting Gardasil were under age 16 just like Gabrielle.

At the National Vaccine Information, we issued our first press release in the summer of 2006 warning parents that Gardasil had not been adequately tested in young girls before government health officials recommended that all 11 and 12 year old girls get three doses of the vaccine.12 Merck only studied Gardasil in fewer than 1200 girls under age 16 and followed them up for about two years before lobbyists tried, unsuccessfully in 2007, to get the vaccine mandated for all sixth grade girls in every state.

Expanding Multi-Billion Dollar Market: Boys Are Next

Even though Gardasil was only tested on about a thousand young girls before licensure in 2006, CDC officials told doctors to give three doses of the vaccine to millions of little girls at a cost averaging $165 per dose. Because Merck did not test Gardasil in pre-licensure clinical trials in combination with all other vaccines routinely given to pre-teen and teenage girls, the CDC suggested that safety could be assumed and directed that Gardasil be given simultaneously with other vaccines.

Now Merck is asking the FDA to license Gardasil for young boys,16 an action that will expand Merck’s market by tens of millions of dollars. In 2008, the global sales from Gardasil topped $2 billion dollars.

HPV Virus Naturally Cleared From Bodies of Most People

But what is Gardasil vaccine supposed to protect our children against? It is supposed to prevent a sexually transmitted virus called HPV. Most people, who have been sexually active, have been exposed to HPV and clear the virus from their bodies within two years without any problems and are left with permanent, lifelong immunity to the HPV strains that caused infection.

The small minority of women, who do not clear the HPV virus, can develop cervical cancer and die IF they do not get regular Pap test screening and immediate treatment of pre-cancerous cervical lesions.

Routine Pap Screening Prevents Cervical Cancer & Death

After routine Pap tests became a standard part of health care for American women in the 1960’s, deaths from cervical cancer dropped by more than 70 percent. In fact, cervical cancer represents less than two percent of all cancers diagnosed in the U.S. every year and is not among the top ten causes of cancer deaths in American women today. About 11,000 American women are diagnosed with cervical cancer every year and about 4,000 women die. Plus Merck, government officials and doctors do not know how long three shots of Gardasil will protect against HPV infection. The vaccine only contains several of the many HPV strains associated with cervical cancer and hasn’t been on the market long enough to know how well it works.

Unknown If Gardasil Prevents HPV Infection Long-Term

In fact, girls are still supposed to get Pap tests even if they have been vaccinated because nobody really knows if Gardasil will prevent HPV infection for a long time without booster shots.

So here’s the bottom line: Gardasil vaccine is supposed to prevent a sexually transmitted infection that is naturally cleared from the body within two years by the vast majority of people. Getting regular Pap tests can help prevent almost all cases of cervical cancer and death.

Treating Gabrielle’s serious Gardasil vaccine injury has cost her family and insurance company tens of thousands of dollars.

Most Vaccine Reactions Not Reported

How many more Gabrielle’s are out there? We don’t know, even though there have been many similar Gardasil reaction reports from doctors and parents in the U.S. and other countries like Spain and Australia.

Fewer than 10 percent, perhaps only one percent of all serious health problems following vaccination are ever reported to U.S. federal health agencies. This means that - instead of the more than 15,000 bad health outcomes following Gardasil vaccination that have already been reported in America – actually there could have been between 150,000 and 1.5 million adverse health events following Gardasil shots which have never been counted.

Government & Doctors Say: “It’s All A Coincidence!”

Why? Because many doctors write off Gardasil related hospitalizations, injuries and deaths as just a “coincidence” and do not report. Labeling bad things that happen after vaccination as a “coincidence” minimizes the risks of vaccination. Officials at the CDC and FDA have dismissed what happened to Gabrielle after she got her Gardasil shots as a coincidence.

In fact, they have only admitted that Gardasil can cause a sudden loss of consciousness and warn that “FDA and the CDC continue to receive reports of traumatic injuries of individuals fainting and falling after receiving Gardasil. Some who have fainted have had serious injuries from falling, which have often occurred while still in the healthcare provider’s office, and other fainting episodes resulted in motor vehicle accidents.” (This fact makes it dangerous for girls to drive alone to and from doctor’s offices where Gardasil shots are given).

But government health officials have told doctors and the American public that ALL of the other serious Gardasil reaction reports, including seizures, paralysis, brain inflammation, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, heart attacks, blood clots, strokes and deaths in young girls and women, are just a coincidence.

All of them.

How unscientific, illogical and irresponsible. We expect a lot more from doctors in charge of making sure vaccines are safe.

What if all of the injuries and deaths associated with Vioxx had been allowed to be written off as a “coincidence” after that dangerous drug had been on the market for years?

Pharmaceutical Products Carry Risks Greater for Some

Every pharmaceutical product, including every vaccine, carries a risk of injury or death. That risk can be greater for some than others.At the not-for-profit National Vaccine Information Center, we have been operating a Vaccine Reaction Registry for nearly three decades.

The most tragic cases of vaccine injury we see are when doctors revaccinate babies, children, teenagers and adults over and over again and ignore the fact that symptoms are getting worse and worse after each dose of vaccine.

Know Gardasil Reaction Symptoms

It is so important to know how to recognize Gardasil vaccine reaction symptoms like:

fainting
seizures
numbness & tingling
pain & weakness
hair loss
rashes
extreme fatigue
other health problems

Report Vaccine Reactions to NVIC

If you or a loved one has suffered a health problem after a Gardasil shot or another vaccine, after a report has been made to the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), go to http://www.nvic.org/Forms/CivilianReactionPage.aspx and file a report. We won’t dismiss your report as just a coincidence. We will treat it seriously and with the respect it deserves.

On the NVIC website, you can sign learn more about HPV and Gardasil Vaccine. You can sign the “Investigate Gardasil Risks Now” petition to Congress and the Obama Administration. You can sign up for this NVIC Vaccine E-newsletter and register for the Fourth International Public Conference on Vaccination being held this Oct. 2-4, 2009 in Washington, D.C., where you can learn from vaccine experts and network with other families in your state to protect vaccine choices.

Empower yourself with information and take action now so we can stop girls like Gabrielle from becoming one more vaccine reaction statistic.

For live links to original sources for references, go to:
http://www.nvic.org/NVIC-Vaccine-News/July-2009/Preventing-Gardasil-Vaccine-Injuries-Deaths.aspx

Swine Flu Vaccine: Will We Have A Choice?

2009-06-23T08:51:00.000-07:00

by Barbara Loe Fisher

The summer will be over before we know it and it will be time for the school year to begin. This fall, many parents are wondering what will happen to their children when they enter the schools. Some public health doctors want to turn schools into vaccination clinics where children will be the first to be injected with experimental swine flu vaccines.

Less Than 50,000 Swine Flu Cases Worldwide

Every day we are being warned by doctors at the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control to worry a lot about the H1N1 influenza A virus, which was first identified in Mexico in April 2009 and is being called the new swine flu. As of June 15, 2009, the World Health Organization states that 76 countries have reported more than 35,000 cases, including 163 deaths. 108 of those deaths have occurred in Mexico.

We are being told that nearly 18,000 Americans have gotten sick from the new swine flu virus, with about 5 percent being hospitalized and 45 dying. It looks like people, who are in poor health to begin with are at greater risk of having complications and dying from the new swine flu, which has symptoms just like regular influenza. This is not surprising because people in poor health are always at greater risk of having complications and dying from infectious disease.

Most Flu-Like Illness Not True Influenza

What a lot of people don’t know is that true type A or type B influenza only causes about 20 percent of all flu-like symptoms that people experience during any given flu season. 80 percent of all flu-like illness in a normal flu season is NOT caused by the type A and B strains of influenza contained in annual flu shots. And vaccine acquired immunity is temporary, while immunity gained after recovering from influenza is longer lasting.

1968 Flu Pandemic Killed 34,000 Americans

The new type A H1N1 influenza virus public health doctors say is making people sick around the world is an unusual combination of human, bird and pig viruses9. Nobody seems to know exactly how this new virus was created and why it suddenly emerged from Mexico in mid-April - or if it will behave like past pandemic influenza viruses that caused 68,000 American deaths in 1957 and killed 34,000 Americans in 196810. (The CDC states that 36,000 Americans die from influenza complications annually, with most of those deaths occurring in the elderly and those in poor health). Influenza pandemics usually start with mild symptoms and progress to more severe symptoms before populations acquire immunity to the virus and it dies out.

Older Americans May Have Antibodies Against Swine Flu

The good news about the new swine flu going around is that there are signs those of us born before 1957, may be naturally protected and at LOWER risk of being infected. Why? Because we recovered from influenza caused by similar influenza strains that circulated in past decades and have long lasting antibodies that help us resist infection. So the aging baby boomers have something to be happy about.

Vaccinated Children Don’t Have Natural Antibodies

But will health officials allow our children and grandchildren to get those same kind of natural protective antibodies to type A and B influenza, including this new swine flu? It doesn’t look like it. First, doctors in America have been insisting for the past few years that every child from six months old to age 18 must get an annual flu shot. Second, there are now calls by U.S. health officials to give American children the first doses of experimental swine flu vaccines in the school setting.

WHO Declares Phase 6 Alert; Public Health Doctors Exercise EUA

This is because the response by doctors at the World Health Organization, who immediately went into high gear within days of identifying the new swine flu virus emerging out of Mexico, was to declare a public health emergency. Now, they have increased the pandemic flu fear alert to Phase 6, which is the equivalent of the U.S. Homeland Security’s Code Red warning of an imminent terrorist attack. Doctors at the Centers for Disease Control, who followed the lead of the World Health Organization, have done the same and are exercising unprecedented power that Congress handed over to them after 9-11.

Fast Tracking of Experimental Vaccines With Novel Adjuvants

Whenever the CDC declares a public health emergency, that declaration allows the Food and Drug Administration to permit emergency use authorization for drug companies to fast track creation of experimental drugs and vaccines that do not have to be tested as thoroughly as vaccines that go through the normal FDA licensing process. In this case, Congress responded to the public health emergency declaration by giving a group of drug companies one billion dollarsto fast track experimental swine flu vaccines that may include whole live19, killed or genetically engineered human and animal influenza viruses, chemicals, and potentially reactive oil based adjuvants that manipulate the immune system to boost the vaccine’s potency.

States Enact Stronger Quarantine & No Free Assembly Laws

In some states, like Massachusetts, public health doctors have persuaded legislators to quickly pass pandemic influenza legislation that will allow state officials to enter the homes and businesses without the approval of occupants; to investigate and quarantine individuals without their consent; to require licensed health care providers to give citizens vaccines and to ban the free assembly of citizens in the state.

What Can You Do?

What does this declaration of a public health emergency in the U.S. mean for you and your family? It means that, right now, you need to become educated about vaccination, influenza, vaccine risks, and the public health laws in your state. You need to find out what your rights and options are under new public health laws that may require you and your children to get vaccinated or be quarantined.

Take Action Now

Go to www.NVIC.org and learn more. Register now to attend the Fourth International Public Conference on Vaccination Oct. 2-4, 2009 in Washington, D.C. and help organize in your state to protect your right to informed consent to vaccination. Call and write the state legislators you elected to make public health laws that govern you and your family. Make your voice heard.

Homeland Security, Department of Defense & CDC

As Department of Homeland Security officials are declaring that any disease outbreak is a matter of homeland security as Department of Defense officials are defining public demonstrations as “low level terrorism;” as CDC officials make plans to re-route airplanes to designated airports with quarantine centers to screen all passengers for signs of swine flu; and as fast tracked experimental pandemic flu vaccines are being created to be given to American children first, it is time for all of us – whether we are public health officials addressing what we believe is a true public health emergency or whether we are ordinary citizens simply trying to protect our health and the health of our children - to act in rational and responsible ways.

Protect Health Choices

Every pharmaceutical drug, including vaccines, carries a risk and those risks are greater for some than others. In this time of fear, we cannot let that fear take away our freedom to make voluntary health choices, including vaccine choices, so we have the power to make sure that the cure is not more dangerous than the disease.

For live links to references for this commentary and to watch a video, click here:

NY Rally & Grassroots Action Defending Vaccine Choice

2009-06-01T09:52:00.000-07:00

by Barbara Loe Fisher

As government-employed doctors and attorneys, along with drug company lobbyists, move to persuade legislators to deny citizens the legal right to make voluntary vaccine decisions, families in different states are working hard to raise public awareness about the need to protect the legal right to make informed, voluntary decisions about vaccination. Tomorrow, Tuesday, June 2 at 10:30 a.m., parents will rally at the Legislative Office Building in Albany, New York to protest proposed new vaccine mandates and support legislation protecting religious exemption and widening medical exemption. They are voicing opposition to a bill that would mandate HPV (Gardasil) vaccine for sixth graders and one that would allow state-designated vaccine providers to give children hepatitis B shots without the informed consent of their parents.

New York Rally for Vaccine Choice

Parent groups in New York have been working since the 1980's and 90's to protect vaccine exemptions. A New York high court ruled in 1987 that parents do not have to belong to an organized church or religion to receive a religious exemption to vaccination. However, that has not prevented New York state-appointed attorneys from grilling parents about their religious beliefs for the purpose of denying the religious exemption. For more information about the June 2 rally in Albany go to www.MyKidsMyChoice.com

Washington, D.C. Parents Challenge Gardasil Use Law

In Washington, D.C., members of the Parents and Citizens Committee to Stop Medical Experimentation in D.C. , a citizen health action group founded in 2007, testified in an April 9 D.C. City Council meeting about the HPV vaccine mandate requiring sixth grade girls to get three doses of Gardasil vaccine. Although there is currently an opt-out provision in the law, parents and health advocates are protesting the lack of vaccine risk information given to girls and parents prior to vaccination and the lack of public awareness that girls can opt-out of the HPV vaccine mandate.

New Jersey Parents for Conscientious Belief Exemption

In neighboring New Jersey, parent groups have been working since the 1980's and 90's on legislation to protect the freedom to make voluntary vaccine decisions. For the past decade, the citizen action group, New Jersey Alliance for Information Choice in Vaccination Choice (NJAICV) has been educating legislators about the need to enact a conscientious belief exemption bill. A newly formed coalition of organizations supporting vaccine choice in New Jersey has added support to the citizen-led vaccine education campaigns in a state which mandates more vaccinations for children than any other state (35 doses of 13 vaccines).

West Virginia Parents in Court to Protect Vaccine Injured Child's Life

Parents living in West Viginia and Mississippi, the two states which allow only a medical exemption written by an M.D. or D.O., continue to suffer discrimination in their struggle to obtain the legal right to file vaccine exemptions for sincerely held religious, conscientious or philosophical beliefs. A citizen action group, West Virginians for Vaccination Exemption, has been working for 10 years to obtain a religious and/or conscientious belief exemption to vaccination. Parents in that state are now going to court to defend their religious beliefs regarding vaccination, with one mother trying to protect her daughter, who regressed into autism after vaccination, from being forced to get more vaccines that could further damage her brain and immune system.

Mississippi Creates Anti-Discrimination Petition

In Mississippi, a recently formed parent support network, the Mississippi Vaccine Information Center, is working on legislation to end discrimination against unvaccinated and partially vaccinated children, whose parents are denied the right to non-medical vaccine exemptions in that state. The group has created a petition that endorses informed consent to vaccination and the inclusion of a religious and philosophical exemption in Mississippi state vaccine laws.

Vaccine Laws Should Protect At-Risk Populations

Doctors working with drug company reps are aggressively lobbying elected officials to pass laws forcing one-size-fits-all vaccine mandates on all children - even those who may be biologically at higher risk than others for suffering vaccine-induced brain and immune system dysfunction. Refusing to acknowledge biodiversity, doctors are clinging to the illogical and unscientific "coincidence" defense for the sole purpose of remaining in denial about vaccine risks. They are acting without conscience when they discriminate against and fail to protect individual children, particularly the already-vaccine injured, from further harm. Citizen activists working in states to insure that vaccine laws include respect for the informed consent principle are protecting both individual and public health.

NVIC's Oct. 2-4 Conference To Focus on Vaccine Choice

Speakers defending the human right to informed consent to vaccination will be featured at the Fourth International Public Conference on Vaccination sponsored by the National Vaccine Information Center October 2-4, 2009 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel (near Dulles Airport) in the Washington, D.C. area.

Scientists, pediatricians, bioethicists, legal experts, journalists and consumer advocates will be discussing the science, policy, law, and ethics of vaccination and the conference will feature advocacy training sessions to help attendees educate their legislators about vaccination.

The conference forum is being created for families and health care providers who want to defend vaccine freedom of choice and work in their communities to protect vaccine exemptions. For more information and to register for best rates before June 30, click here.

Click here to watch a video about NVIC's October Conference.

Click here to watch a video of 11-year old music prodigy Sam Debold, who is recovering from vaccine-associated regressive autism, playing the piano at Autism One. Sam is the son of NVIC's Director of Patient Safety, Vicky Debold, PhD, and Sam will be performing again in October at the banquet at NVIC's conference.

NVIC's October 2009 Vaccine Conference: It's About Informed Choices

2009-05-14T08:36:00.000-07:00

by Barbara Loe Fisher

As many parents head for the Autism One conference in Chicago next week to learn how to heal their children's vaccine-related brain and immune system dysfunction and worldwide anxiety about the swine flu lingers, the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) is opening registration for the Fourth International Public Conference on Vaccination to be held Oct. 2-4, 2009 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Reston, Virginia near Dulles International Airport and Washington, D.C. The largest and oldest non-profit vaccine safety organization in North America, founded in 1982, is sponsoring the event to provide a public forum for open discussion about vaccine issues of concern to parents and health care professionals. The conference theme "Show Us the Science & Give Us A Choice" reflects NVIC's three decade pro- education and pro-informed consent stand defending the right of citizens to make fully informed, voluntary vaccine decisions for themselves and their children.

More than 35 speakers from the U.S. and traveling from Canada, United Kingdom, Italy, Japan, and Kenya will speak about the science, policy, law and economics of vaccination; the human right to informed consent to vaccination; as well as holistic health care options for preventing illness and staying well. Pre-conference state organizing sessions start Thursday evening, Oct. 1, and Friday and Sunday advocacy training, holistic health education and vaccine injury family networking sessions precede a post-conference Monday, Oct. 5 bus trip to Capitol Hill.

Friday, Oct. 2 Highlights: Peggy O'Mara, founder & editor of Mothering Magazine and Jane Bryant, founder & editor of the UK internet news service, One Click, start the first day with a discussion about freedom of the press. The keynote address will be delivered by renowned bioethicist George Annas, JD, MPH, Chair of the Department of Health Law, Bioethics & Human Rights at Boston University School of Public Health. HPV vaccine researcher Professor Diane Harper, MD, MPH of the University of Missouri, Kansas City School of Medicine, will examine informed consent issues involving Gardasil vaccine. Evidence for influenza vaccine efficacy will be reviewed by Italian epidemiologist and physician Tom Jefferson, MD, Cochrane Vaccines Field Coordinator.

Coming all the way from Kenya is cell biologist and vaccine researcher Bonnie Dunbar, PhD, who co- founded the Africa Biomedical Center, to inform the audience about the multi-disciplinary approach to meeting unique health challenges in Africa. She is joined by Canadian pediatrician Colin Forbes, MD, who will recount his more than 40 years of experience caring for children in Kenya and how he helped reduce child mortality in some of the most impoverished child populations in the world.

Returning briefly from a health research position in Japan, MIT doctoral candidate Peter Doshi will outline the impact on democracy of U.S. and global vaccine policies. Human rights activist Shiv Chopra, B.V.Sc., M.Sc., PhD, who was former scientific advisor to Health Canada, and is author of "Rotten to the Core" will give a presentation entitled "Public Health or Corporate Interests?"

During what promises to be an historic conference, pediatrician Bob Sears, M.D. offers an alternative schedule for use of 16 U.S. government recommended vaccines and will debate pediatrician Lawrence Palevsky, M.D., who presents an alternative view of how to maintain health and prevent chronic illness. Holistic health pioneers Joe Mercola, DO and Gary Null, PhD will talk about how good nutrition and understanding how to make healthy life choices is the key to staying well, while holistic veterinarian and immunologist, Richard Pitcairn, DVM, PhD, will teach the audience about how good nutrition and homeopathy can keep pets well and Life University Professor Matthew McCoy, DC, MPH will give a chiropractic perspective on informed consent to vaccination.

"Will the Law Protect Health Freedom?" is the question that constitutional and federal law experts, along with leading medical privacy and health freedom advocates will discuss. Vaccine injury and product liability law will be the topic explored by attorneys, who have won vaccine injury cases in the federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, and also have expertise in vaccine contamination and use of experimental vaccines in soldiers. Longtime vaccine choice lobbyists like PROVE President Dawn Richardson will join longtime autism activists M.I.N.D. Institute co-founder Rick Rollens and Unlocking Autism President Shelley Reynolds and others to help parents organize to educate legislators and protect the right to make informed vaccine choices.

During the past few years, there have been calls for elimination or severe restrictions of vaccine exemptions by doctors with ties to the vaccine industry and by government health officials seeking a 100 percent vaccination rate with all government recommended and mandated vaccines. NVIC has long taken a public stand for the basic human right to protect bodily integrity and the October conference provides a public forum not only for those, who want the freedom to make voluntary choices about using pharmaceutical products and medical interventions that carry known and unknown risks, but also for scientists, doctors, journalists and health safety advocates to present information and defend their right and responsibility to investigate and speak about improving vaccine science and policies to protect individual and public health.

The conference is supported by an educational grant from the Albert and Claire Dwoskin Family Foundation, which has made it possible for NVIC to keep the registration fee for those registering by August 30 at $195 for the three day, three night conference featuring top speakers from around the world. There is a low $95 per night hotel rate, which is unheard of in the Washington, D.C. area for a fine hotel like the Hyatt Regency. Meeting and hotel room space is limited in the only hotel in the village of Reston. Conference registration and hotel room reservation is on a first come, first serve basis. For more information about speakers, sponsorship opportunities and registration, go to www.NVIC.org

Politics, Profits & Pandemic Fear Mongering

2009-05-01T11:31:00.000-07:00

by Barbara Loe Fisher

Are you grabbing your face mask, stocking up on food and Tamiflu, locking your doors and keeping your TV tuned to the news to find out just how bad the "swine flu pandemic" really is going to get? While Americans are being scared to death, few are noticing how much of their tax money politicians are giving to drug companies and government health officials to grease the skids to create more experimental flu vaccines and drugs and more effective ways to quarantine or force their mass use whenever a "public health emergency" is declared in the future.

Call me cynical but not clueless. The bird's eye view I have had for the past 27 years at the National Vaccine Information Center has taught me one thing: the global alliance between Big Pharma and Big Public Health is a prescription for disaster that could extend far beyond a bout with the flu.

The international drama playing out right now before our eyes is an example of how citizens around the world can be easily manipulated by doctors and politicians engaging in fear mongering in the name of disease control to forward agendas that have more to do with ideology, power and corporate profits than health. When the U.S. Director of Homeland Security is the government official doing the talking rather than the U.S. Director of the Centers for Disease Control, put a copy of the U.S. Constitution in your pocket and take a look at federal and state legislation passed since September 11, 2001 to understand which civil rights you don't have anymore when government health officials declare a "public health emergency."

But before we take a look at the threat to civil liberties that pandemic fear mongering poses, let's take a look at how creation of a global human market for influenza vaccines works. It is a blueprint for Successful Marketing 101 (or perhaps it is all just a coincidence).

In 2006, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued an international call for all nations to do whatever it takes to increase public appetite and demand for annual influenza shots as the main strategy to prepare for an influenza pandemic. In April 2007, the WHO used money donated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to fund the creation of influenza vaccine manufacturing plants in Mexico and other countries one week after the FDA gave Sanofi Pasteur a license to produce an experimental bird flu (H5N1) vaccine. Sanofi Pasteur is just one of many drug companies the U.S. government has given millions of dollars to for the creation of bird flu vaccines.

On February 19, 2009, the FDA's Vaccines & Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) discussed whether to give approval for the testing of experimental bird flu vaccine on American infants. VRBPAC consumer member, also NVIC's Director of Patient Safety Vicky Debold,PhD, warned that testing of an experimental pandemic bird flu vaccine on infants in the absence of a real epidemic and without assurances that unapproved novel oil based (squalene) adjuvants (AS03, MF59) are safe, could pose unacceptable risks in terms of inducing severe immune dysfunction.

On February 27, 2009 it was confirmed that an influenza vaccine maker, Baxter International, had released a mixture of seasonal influenza viruses mixed with unlabeled live bird flu viruses to facilities in Czechoslovakia, Germany, and Slovenia. Baxter, which is waiting for a license to manufacturer bird flu vaccine, explained it was an "accident" and that no harm was done.

On April 23, 2009, the world heard the first news reports about a mysterious pig (H1N1) and bird (H5N1)and human hybrid influenza virus that was making people sick near a Mexican pig farm. By April 30, the WHO had issued a Phase 5 "Alert" warning that the world was facing an imminent pandemic influenza epidemic on the strength of several hundred cases of "swine" flu and less than 10 confirmed deaths.

The pandemic flu panic that has an especially strong grip on people living in Mexico and the U.S., thanks to the governments of both countries declaring a "public health emergency," has been a good thing for pharmaceutical companies in the pandemic flu business. Wall Street revealed that the pandemic scare sent stock prices soaring for drug companies making anti-viral drugs, rapid flu diagnosis tests and influenza vaccines. Sanofi Pasteur, GlaxoSmithKline, Novavax, Baxter, Johnson & Johnson, Roche, BioCryst, and Vical are among the drug companies likely to benefit from the world pandemic panic.

In all the chaos that has Americans running to drug stores to buy face masks, closing schools to wipe desks down with rubbing alcohol and avoiding public transportation, there is action being taken behind the scenes by politicians and government health officials to prepare the way for implementation of future quarantine and mass vaccination of citizens with experimental vaccines and drugs that have by- passed normal FDA regulations for demonstrating purity and potency of pharmaceutical products. A "public health emergency" has become an excuse to grease the skids and rush to market experimental drugs and vaccines that are not subject to product liability in the civil courts.

The creation of this pharmaceutical company stockholder dream scenario and simultaneous erosion of civil liberties in the name of disease control began in earnest in 21st century America after the tragic events on September 11, 2001. In a time defined by shock, fear, anger and deep sadness, Congress reacted quickly and passed the Homeland Security Act while CDC officials pulled out model state legislation (Model State Emergency Health Powers Act) that gave sweeping new powers to public health officials to use the militia, if necessary, to quarantine citizens and force them to use experimental drugs and vaccines after the U.S. Secretary of Health declares a "public health emergency."

The stampede in 2001/2002 to re-write long standing public health laws in this country was fueled by reports that terrorists were in possession of weaponized smallpox and anthrax, a fear that was fostered by U.S. government officials and New York Times journalists reporting Iraq had secret stockpiles of weaponized smallpox and anthrax. This myth played a role in public support for the U.S.-Iraq War and persuaded Congress to pass Bioshield and pandemic influenza vaccine legislation that gave billions of dollars to vaccine manufacturers, the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to create experimental bioeterrorism and pandemic flu vaccines while protecting drug companies and doctors from liability for vaccine injuries and deaths that will occur.

The mandated, mass use of multiple vaccines has become big business in the last quarter century since the U.S. Congress passed a law in 1986 shielding vaccine makers and doctors from liability for vaccine injuries and deaths and the numbers of vaccines recommended by the federal health officials for American children multiplied from 23 doses of 7 vaccines to 48 doses of 14 vaccines from birth to age six. For older children and adults, there are several dozen more federally recommended or state mandated vaccinations.

All of this liability protection and government vaccine mandating has been a boon for vaccine profit- making and public health agency empire building. In 1986, four drug companies made and sold vaccines in America and, by 2007, after corporate mergers and acquisitions there were six drug company giants making and selling vaccines in the U.S. Today, there are more drug companies seeking to enter the lucrative multi- billion dollar U.S. vaccine market as financial predictions for global profits from the worldwide vaccine business by 2010 have climbed to more than $20B.

A true global influenza pandemic that could take out projected millions of people is something all nations should prepare for using reasonable strategies to ensure the public health and safety. However, it is a matter of legitimate debate as to whether the primary strategy being urged by the WHO, pharmaceutical companies and government health agencies around the world - ramping up production and use of seasonal influenza vaccine and fast tracking the creation and human testing of influenza vaccines using novel but potentially risky adjuvants and cell substrates - is the way to effectively deal with public health or a future influenza pandemic.

Certainly, the loss of the human right to bodily integrity and informed consent to taking pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines that may pose serious health risks is not justified in the name of controlling pandemic influenza or any other infectious disease outbreak. Politicians should not bow to additional pressure from vaccine manufacturers and public health officials to by-pass normal FDA standards in proving safety and efficacy of pandemic flu vaccines and their components for the purpose of rushing them to market in response to the pandemic panic that has been created. The swine flu debacle of 1976 should have taught Congress that lesson.

A rational perspective that reduces pandemic fear and includes common sense advice for staying healthy in every season is being offered by holistic health doctors, such as Joseph Mercola, D.O. and physician Congressman Ron Paul, M.D. The next time you turn on the TV or the radio or search the internet for the latest news on the flu pandemic, take a deep breath and consider all the natural ways to stay healthy and resist influenza or any illness : washing your hands; eating nutritious food; drinking plenty of water; getting enough exercise, rest and sunshine, and lowering stress - which includes not walking around filled with fear, anxiety and dread.

Doctor-Heroes Standing For Better Vaccine Science

2009-04-06T06:50:00.000-07:00

by Barbara Loe Fisher

The cry that was heard around the world in the early 1980's, when mothers and fathers realized an old, crude pertussis vaccine was killing and damaging the brains of their children, is being echoed today by new generations of parents struggling to raise vaccine injured children. As in the 1980's, mothers and fathers today are forced to watch doctors hold the needles, pull the trigger and then turn their faces away when children are cut down at the beginning of their lives.

Over the decades, we have seen a handful of doctors demonstrate intellectual honesty and rare courage by standing up publicly to acknowledge that vaccine injuries and deaths are real and that more scientific research is needed to fill the gaps in knowledge about why and how vaccines cause harm. Despite criticism and even threats from colleagues to remain silent, these doctor-heroes have chosen commitment to good science and respect for human life to take precedence over protection of the status quo.

On April 3, 2009 on CNN's "Larry King Live," the only woman to have served as director of the National Institute for Health, Bernadine Healy, M.D., firmly countered allegations that scientific research into the vaccine-autism connection should be ended because science has proven "vaccines do not cause autism." Politely disagreeing with Margaret Fisher, M.D., a pediatrician spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and pediatric neurologist Max Wiznitzer, M.D., who testified against compensation for vaccine injured autistic children in the U.S. Court of Claims, Healy said "I really don't believe that this is a closed case from a research point of view."

She said that doctors must "listen to the families of these [autistic] children" because when doctors "listen to the patients the patients will teach." She added that there is an "embarrassing recognition that we know so little about [autism] in terms of what causes it, in terms of how to treat it" and she called for a "comparison of children who have and have not been vaccinated."

As I watched Bernadine Healy, M.D., mother of three, former director of the Red Cross and member of the Institute of Medicine, eloquently argue for good science, common sense, compassion, and cooperation, I remembered the brave physicians in decades past who chose to speak out at critical moments in the history of the vaccine safety and informed consent movement. They include physicians no longer with us such as the late pediatrician Robert Mendelson, M.D.; pediatrician and immunologist Kevin Geraghty, M.D.; and pediatric neurologist John Menkes, M.D., and those still working to prevent vaccine injuries and deaths such as pediatric neurologist Marcel Kinsbourne, M.D., pediatrician Bob Sears, M.D., pediatrician Larry Palevsky, M.D., pediatrician Jay Gordon, M.D., family practice physician Joseph Mercola, D.O., gastroenterologist Andrew Wakefield, M.D., and others like pediatrician Jerry Kartzinel, M.D., who appeared on Friday's Larry King Live show with father and actor Jim Carrey; mother, actress and autism activist Jenny McCarthy; and father and Generation Rescue founder JB Handley, to shine a bright light on vaccine associated regressive autism.

In every generation there are heroes in positions of power, who listen to their conscience and demonstrate uncommon courage by refusing to look the other way while people are being harmed. They are different from the rest because they engage in critical, independent thinking and are not afraid to do the right thing.

On Friday night, Dr. Bernadine Healy single handedly re-instilled faith in many parents that the time honored Hippocratic oath for physicians to "First, Do No Harm" is still alive and embraced by compassionate, enlightened doctors like her. Undoubtedly, there are more doctors wanting to do the right thing when it comes to standing up, speaking out and taking action to prevent vaccine injuries and deaths. When they do, they will join the distinguished ranks of physician heroes who will be remembered and honored for caring about children for whom the risks of vaccination are 100 percent.

Go to http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPT S/0904/03/lkl.01.html to read the CNN transcript of the April 3 "Larry King Live" show, which includes the following quotes:

"I made a deal with God, the day Evan was diagnosed with autism, I said if you show me the way, God, and show me how to heal my boy, I will continue to teach the world how I did it. And within one year of that kind of conversation with God, Evan was undiagnosed with autism.....autism is treatable and preventable." - Jenny McCarthy

"The AAP is financed by the drug companies.... This is a huge business. Vaccines are the largest growing division of the pharmaceutical industry: $13 billion. What we're asking is for them to take a loss for the good of our children." - Jim Carrey

"The American Academy of Pediatrics listens very closely before a vaccine is recommended for use. It goes through extensive trials. It goes through extensive information. All of that information is reviewed very quickly. It's both efficacy and safety information. There's never a rubber stamp. We work very closely before, while the vaccine is being tested to see if it works, it is safe? And only if it's been determined to be safe and effective is it recommended for use. It's not a rubber stamp." - Margaret Fisher, M.D.

"When I was training in medical school I saw one child with autism and they said, Dr. Kartzinel, now, come look quick, here's a child with autism and you'll never see it again....it was very rare....I was just doing general pediatrics and after my son regressed after the mumps, measles and rubella and my wife said, you broke them now you fix them, that's when I started saying, OK, what can I do?" - Jerry Kartzinel, M.D.

"It's going to be shocking for parents to learn that the CDC and AAP don't actually acknowledge that there's been a real rise in autism cases....the Department of Education in 1992 said 16,000 kids were getting autism services. Today - 225,000. That means in 1992 they were missing 93 percent of kids with autism. Where are all the adults with autism? They don't exist. These numbers are real. But if you never acknowledge there's been a real rise, you don't have to find an environmental agent that caused it." - JB Handley

"Initially the complaint was Mercury. That was disproven. Then the complaint was MMR. That was disproven. Now we've got a new moving target, which is that the combined vaccines all together that do this. We can only spend our research money so far before we basically say, let's put it where we know for sure we can help, and not just on speculative ideas. Studies have been done .... and they've shown that issues such as diagnostic substitution, which means they had previous diagnosis, that we have loosening of the diagnostic criteria.... When you change the rules of how you make diagnosis, and that to some degree has happened, people are loosening up. Kids with social issues are being labeled as autistic. The majority -- I think we can account for at least 80 percent of the increased prevalence with those numbers." - Max Wiznitzer, M.D.

Vaccine Bullies & Fighting Back

2009-03-20T09:37:00.000-07:00

By Barbara Loe Fisher

During the past decade, families in the United Kingdom, Canada and America have witnessed the demonization of brave doctors and parents of vaccine injured children. It has been both sickening and frightening to watch physicians and some journalists engage in a relentless persecution of Dr. Andrew Wakefield, who first published research in 1998 examining the potential association between MMR vaccine and autism. It has become obvious that their goal is to turn him into a horrible warning to any physician who dares to investigate vaccine injury, especially regressive autism. Not satisfied with trying to destroy the doctor, who refuses to recant and defends pursuit of scientific truth, forced vaccination proponents are now acting to kill not only freedom of thought and scientific inquiry but also freedom of speech and informed consent to voluntary use of vaccines.

Exactly what was the sin that British gastroenterologist, Andrew Wakefield, M.D. committed in 1998 that made him a target for persecution? He dared to hypothesize that a subset of children may be vulnerable, for immunological reasons, to developing vaccine strain measles virus infection triggered by MMR vaccination that causes acute and chronic inflammation in the body and can lead to persistent health problems, including a form of inflammatory bowel disease and brain dysfunction manifested by autism. It is hardly a radical hypothesis. Since smallpox vaccine, evidence that vaccines can cause acute and chronic immune-mediated inflammation in the brain and other parts of the body has been well documented in the medical literature (A literature review of evidence is featured in the 2008 book "Vaccines, Autism & Chronic Inflammation: The New Epidemic.")

What has so infuriated the vaccine establishment is that the live vaccine strain viral infection mechanism not only has strong biological plausibility but has been acknowledged by physicians and scientists for decades, particularly with regard to live vaccine strain paralytic polio and death from persistent vaccine strain measles infection. In fact, vaccine strain viral infection has been associated with not only live virus polio and measles vaccine, but also with live BCG, chicken pox and, now, rotavirus vaccine. A late-breaking report at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology discusses the development of live vaccine strain rotavirus infection following rotavirus vaccination in children with immune deficiencies. The human-bovine genetic hybrid vaccine, Rotateq, for which Paul Offit, M.D.is a co-patent holder, caused diarrhea, acidosis, failure to thrive, dehydration and shock in two babies with undiagnosed immune system dysfunction within two months of vaccination. Molecular analysis of rotavirus isolates taken from the babies indicated that the rotavirus vaccine strains mutated.

All of the biological mechanisms involved in vaccine induced neuroimmune dysfunction and the biological high risk factors for suffering vaccine injury and death have not been scientifically investigated, and few methodologically sound vaccine risk studies get funded and published in the medical literature, which makes the attempt by doctors and scientists to block the search for scientific truth and limit the public's right to know and act even more repulsive. On February 26, 2009, bully boy Dr. David Salisbury, the Director of Immunization at the UK Department of Health, threatened The One Click Group, a UK internet based news service founded by Jane Bryant, that he would sue them for publishing facts about MMR vaccine risks unless One Click removes the information he wants censored and apologizes for publishing it without his permission.

On March 7, a British newspaper reported that no longer would duly elected legislators have ultimate responsibility for saying "yes" or "no" to new vaccine mandates but that the power to force vaccine use in Britain would be wielded by unelected physicians and scientists, who are members of the government's Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI). A day later, another British newspaper reported that many members of the JCVI have financial ties to vaccine manufacturers, including Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi Pasteur and Novartis and that the JVCI has been involved in past attempts to hide evidence that MMR vaccine can cause brain inflammation and permanent brain damage.

On March 12, a reporter writing for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation called for a "legalized type of censorship," a ban on talking about the "vaccine/autism hypothesis" because he pronounced it "the modern equivalent of falsely crying 'fire' in a crowded theatre." Pointing to opinions issued by three individuals working for the U.S. Court of Claims denying federal compensation to MMR vaccine injured autistic children as if he was referring to the tablet Moses inscribed with the Ten Commandments, bully boy Stephen Strauss demanded that legislatures "draft a law or courts should hand down a ruling prohibiting anti-vaccine promoters from claiming that vaccines cause autism."

This rabid foaming at the mouth, which is being exhibited by physicians and journalists promoting forced vaccination, would be comical if it wasn't for the decidedly Stalinist bent to their rants. Bully boys always choose to use fear and intimidation to try to control the thoughts and actions of others and those calling for censorship and punishment for exercising freedom of thought, expression and informed consent to vaccination are no exception.

But educated citizens committed to defending their right to know and freedom to decide, are acting to protect themselves. Following is listing of events in New Jersey and New York which promote vaccine education and freedom to choose:

Merck Write-In Campaign: Sponsored by the New Jersey Coalition for Vaccination Choice (NJCVC ), an Action Alert that was also published by Age of Autism, urges vaccine maker Merck to continue to market the individual measles, mumps and rubella vaccines rather than forcing parents to give their children the combination MMR vaccine. Write-In Campaign coordinator Louise Habakus says "Let's send a strong message from parents that Merck must resume manufacturing the monovalent vaccines." Click here for more information and a sample letter.

NY Vaccine Mandates & Exemption Action: New York has pending legislation to mandate HPV vaccine (A778) and Hepatitis A vaccine (A6008) as well as legislation protecting medical exemptions (A880/S2339); religious exemptions (A883/S2338); and adding philosophical exemption (A4886/S2337) to vaccine laws. Parents are organizing vaccine education campaigns for legislators and the public. Contact New Yorkers for Vaccination Information Choice (NYVIC)

Learn how important it is to fight for the right to exercise vaccine exemptions by watching an arrogant New York state attorney grill NY Mom Rita Palma about her religious beliefs concerning vaccination. For more information go to www.MyKidsM yChoice.com

March 24: In Albany, NY, the Autism Action Coalition (AAC) holds the First Autism Advocacy Day that will include a 10:30 a.m. rally and Noon meeting with state legislators to advocate for autism support services and the need for a philosophical exemption to vaccination. Click here for more information about the rally and day's events.

March 25: In New York City at 6:30 p.m., pediatrician Lawrence B. Palevsky, M.D. gives a three hour presentation on the safety and efficacy of vaccines. For more information and tickets, go to www.drpalevsky.com

Americans cannot sit back and assume that we will always be free to make choices about use of pharmaceutical products, including vaccines, that physicians and government officials invoking the "greater good" direct us to use. Censorship in science and on the internet combined with forced medical risk taking is a prescription for tyranny and will become a reality if we don't become activist citizens and stop the bully boys from taking away our right to know and freedom to choose. For more information, go to www.NVIC.org.

Talking Vaccine Science with Government: Why Do It?

2009-03-12T11:47:00.000-07:00

by Barbara Loe Fisher

After the historic election in November that saw Barack Obama elected President, I wondered what he and his Administration would do about addressing the question that is on the minds of many parents: Why are so many vaccinated children today chronically ill, suffering with learning disabilities, ADD/ADHD, autism, asthma, diabetes and other brain and immune system problems? Would the Obama Administration acknowledge the importance of looking at whether national vaccine policies are having an unintended negative effect on a growing number of children and adopt a robust vaccine safety research agenda to answer outstanding questions?

Part of the answer came one day after the President took office, on January 21, when he sent a memo to the heads of all federal agencies and told them "My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation and collaboration."

The door is opening and there is a lot of work to be done. Concerned citizens getting involved will keep the participatory democracy process and work products truly transparent, collaborative and meaningful.

This Monday, March 16, there will be an open meeting in Washington, D.C. sponsored by the CDC to get input from the public about the kinds of scientific studies that should be included in the national vaccine safety research agenda.

At stake is a proposal by a vaccine stakeholder Writing Group that met in Salt Lake City last month to look at whether a study comparing the health of vaccinated and unvaccinated children should be included that evaluates whether there are pathological differences in brain and immune system development and function and whether there are biological high risk factors that place some children at higher risk than others for suffering vaccine reactions.

If you want to weigh in, this is an opportunity to make your voice heard either by showing up at the meeting, participating online or by conference call.

Who: National Vaccine Advisory Committee

Where: Department of Health and Human Services; Hubert H. Humphrey Building, Room 800; 200 Independence Avenue, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20201

Why: To talk about the draft vaccine research agenda of CDC's Immunization Safety Office (ISO). Draft documents prepared by the vaccine stakeholder Writing Group that identify potential gaps in the ISO draft research agenda and proposes prioritization criteria for the agenda will be reviewed. These documents are available at: http://www.hhs.gov/nvpo/nvac/PublicEngageme nt.html and include Writing Group Draft Statements on (1) Outcomes; (2) Gaps in the Research Agenda; and (3) Criteria for Assessing ISO Research Topic Priorities. Participants at the March 16 meeting will be asked to comment on potential gaps in the draft agenda and options for developing research priorities.

How to Attend: The meeting will be webcast and audio conferencing is available. Contact Kirsten Vannice (kirsten.vannice@hhs.gov if you want to come to the meeting or be hooked up by computer or phone. Draft agenda, call-in numbers, a link to the webcast and additional materials will be provided to registered participants and posted on the NVPO website in advance of the meeting.

Importance of Meeting: The government's scientific research agenda to investigate vaccine associated brain and immune system dysfunction among children is of great interest to a growing number of Americans living in every state who have children with learning disabilities, ADD/ADHD, autism, asthma, diabetes and other kinds of chronic illness.

The CDC held public engagement meetings in Birmingham, Ashland and Indianapolis in the past few months to ask citizens about their vaccine safety concerns. A vaccine stakeholder meeting in Salt Lake City Feb. 20-21 was also held, coordinated and facilitated by The Keystone Center, to create a suggested framework for setting national vaccine safety research priorities.

There are individuals, special interest groups and corporations opposed to a robust scientific research agenda addressing vaccine safety concerns that involve input from and participation by the public. Those who support both the participatory democracy approach to government policymaking, which is defined by government transparency and collaboration with the people, should consider attending in person, online or on the telephone to voice their concerns.

One way Americans can change government and government policies is by becoming activist citizens advocating for constructive change. President Obama's call for transparency, accountability and public engagement is an opportunity to stand up and make a difference by helping to reform government policy, such as vaccine policy, which affects the health of our children and grandchildren.

The power does belong to the people if the people will stand up and exercise it wisely.

Vaccine Science: A Search for Truth

2009-03-04T08:36:00.000-08:00

by Barbara Loe Fisher

February 2009 turned out to be a month when vaccine science was put on trial in the U.S. Court of Claims in Washington, D.C., in mainstream media and on the internet, in the British Medical Journal and in vaccine safety research initiatives by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Despite concerted efforts by some to close the book on vaccine-related brain dysfunction that includes autism spectrum disorders, it is clear that the search for scientific truth will continue as it always must in science.

The month began with a Feb. 6 CBS-TV news report on new information released by NVIC on serious Gardasil risks, which was followed within 48 hours by a highly orchestrated and very well publicized transatlantic attack on MMR vaccine researcher Andrew Wakefield, M.D. in preparation for a Feb. 12 public announcement by the U.S. Court of Claims denying federal compensation to three children, who regressed into autism after MMR vaccination. The same day that three autistic children were denied federal compensation in the U.S., the British Medical Journal published a Cochrane Collaboration analysis revealing that influenza vaccine studies are more likely to be published in medical journals and rated highly if they are funded by pharmaceutical companies, even when the vaccine studies are of poor quality.

The month ended on a hopeful note with a joint statement finalized February 27 by a CDC- sponsored vaccine safety writing workgroup that asked the National Vaccine Advisory Committee (NVAC) to consider conducting more research into the vaccine schedule, whether some children are biologically at greater risk than others for suffering vaccine reactions and whether there are differences in immune and brain function between vaccinated vs. unvaccinated children. The proposal to investigate adding these kinds of studies to the national vaccie safety research agenda, if approved by the entire NVAC, would include identification of biological markers and biological differences, if any, in brain and immune system function between vaccinated and unvaccinated children.

In a questionable "class action" type Omnibus hearing process, whereby the U.S. Department of Justice allowed (encouraged?) some 5,000 cases of regressive autism after vaccination to be lumped together and argued by plaintiff's lawyers using two narrow biological mechanism hypotheses involving thimerosal and MMR vaccine, the first three Omnibus cases were rejected by three special masters employed by the U.S. Court of Claims. The Court relied heavily on epidemiological studies published in medical journals - the same medical journals which give preferential treatment to methodologically flawed studies funded by vaccine manufacturers.

In a distortion of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act that created the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), the Court appears to have inappropriately assumed authority that Congress never gave them in 1986: to act as judge and jury on a global scientific question yet to be definitively answered by medical science. The special masters of the Court are neither qualified nor was the 1986 law intended to give them the power to determine the scientific validity of whether vaccines can ever cause autism or any other permanent injury. The special masters were supposed to be administrators and facilitators for providing no-fault, non adversarial federal vaccine injury compensation in lieu of a civil lawsuit against vaccine manufacturers and physicians. In fulfilling that responsibility, these administrators for the Court were supposed to "presume" causation in the absence of a more biologically plausible explanation for the child's injuries or death.

The tragic consequence of this and other politically motivated distortions of the 1986 law is that thousands of previously healthy children, who suffered brain injury and regressed into autism after vaccination, are now in danger of having their vaccine injury claims prejudicially judged and dismissed without being given their own day in "vaccine court." Most of these children certainly will never have their day in civil court in front of a jury of their peers.

Vaccine injury cases are each different due to biodiversity, individual extenuating circumstances, vaccines or combination of vaccines given, plus a number of biological mechanisms for vaccine injury and death - known and unknown - that can be argued in an individual case. This means that an individualized, not a group, approach to obtaining and awarding federal vaccine injury compensation is required. A case in point is the Feb. 20 release of a U.S. Court of Claims compensation award to a child who suffered brain inflammation (Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelitis) after MMR vaccination and was left with permanent brain dysfunction, including autism.

There have been other awards in the VICP for cases of DPT and DTaP vaccine induced brain inflammation/encephalopathy that caused permanent brain injury, including autism. A long acknowledged serious complication of both infectious disease and vaccination is acute brain inflammation that can cause chronic brain dysfunction manifested in many different ways. (See Vaccines, Autism & Chronic Inflammation: The New Epidemic)

So, despite the concerted efforts by some to misrepresent the legal and political significance of recent U.S. Court of Claims judgments in order to dismiss vaccine associated autism as having no scientific validity, vaccine safety advocates have pledged to continue calls for credible scientific investigation into vaccine related neuroimmune dysfunction. Andrew Wakefield is demonstrating the same resolve by taking action to clear his name from libelous and slanderous charges by an obsessed British newspaper reporter who is behaving more like a jilted suitor-turned stalker than a credible journalist. Needless to say, Dr. Wakefield and others will continue scientific research into vaccine associated brain and immune system dysfunction in a dedicated effort to add to the base of scientific knowledge about vaccination.

Finally, it is a hopeful sign that at the end of February a joint statement was signed by a diverse group of vaccine stakeholders who met in Salt Lake City Feb. 20-21, 2009 to discuss national vaccine safety research priorities. Assisted by expert facilitators from The Keystone Center, the CDC sponsored Vaccine Safety Writing Group included federal and state public health officials, pediatricians, infectious disease specialists, immunologists, vaccine developers, health policy analysts, child vaccine advocates and representatives from vaccine safety and autism groups including NVIC, SafeMinds and Autism Speaks.

The vaccine stakeholder group stated that the National Vaccine Advisory Committee (NVAC) should "charge an expert panel with evaluating study designs for research on the impact of the standard schedule of vaccination on an array of health outcomes of significant public interest. This draft charge is responsive to issues raised at community meetings in Alabama, Oregon and Indiana as well as the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee request for collaboration with the National Vaccine Program Office."

The group further stated that :

"There is a strong desire to study the health impact of the immunization schedule, potentially through a 'vaccinated vs. unvaccinated study.' Outcomes to assess include biomarkers of immunity and metabolism, and outcomes including but not limited to neurodevelopmental outcomes, allergies, asthma, immune-mediated diseases, and learning disabilities. The inclusion of autism as an outcome is desired."

The meeting of vaccine stakeholders was the latest in a series of government/citizen encounters that began in 2002 in a CDC-sponsored participatory democracy initiative called the Vaccine Policy Analysis Collaborative. Although the original vaccine stakeholder group dissolved in 2005, the CDC's effort to engage the public was revitalized in mid-2008 and after the election of President Obama, who is an advocate of the public engagement process to create mechanisms for meaningful dialogue that will result in well informed and wise government policy.

There is reason to celebrate whenever government officials and vaccine stakeholders support more research into the biological mechanisms and biomarkers for vaccine injury and death. That being said, I have learned first hand that change in government policy can be painfully slow. And so, when another mother calls to tell me that her daughter has died after Gardasil vaccine or is lying crippled in bed unable to walk, my celebration of this vaccine stakeholder recommendation is tempered by the tears I shed with mothers, whose children are being injured by government recommended vaccines today.

Still, it is a hopeful sign that health officials in the new Administration are listening to the legitimate calls for more and better vaccine safety science and will work more effectively with citizens to prevent vaccine injuries and deaths now and in the future. As was discussed in Salt Lake City, the participatory democracy model with regard to government- sponsored research into vaccine-related immune and brain dysfunction, should include transparency and public participation in the design and oversight on conducting of that research.

On March 16, 2009 from 9 to 5 p.m. at the Hubert Humphrey Building, 200 Independence Ave. SW, Washington, D.C., the National Vaccine Advisory Committee will hold an open public meeting for citizens to discuss the government's draft vaccine safety research agenda.
To register to attend, contact Kirsten Vannice at: Kirsten.vannice@hhs.gov. To join the meeting via telephone or by webscast, go to http://www.hhs.gov/nvpo/nvac/PublicEngageme nt.html

Vaccine Studies: Under the Influence of Pharma

2009-02-12T08:46:00.000-08:00

by Barbara Loe Fisher

If you take more than a casual look at the way the mass vaccination system in the U.S. works, you see that pharmaceutical companies marketing vaccines have a lot of clout. It was the pharmaceutical industry that told Congress in 1982 that they were going to leave the nation without vaccines if they didn't get liability protection but have opposed making it less difficult for vaccine victims to obtain federal compensation in the U.S. Court of Claims under a 1986 law that gave them liability protection. It is Pharma lobbyists, who bully the FDA into fast tracking vaccines like Gardasil and who sit at the CDC's policymaking tables urging that new vaccines be recommended for use by all children so they can persuade state legislators to mandate vaccines like influenza vaccine.

Today, a study published in the British Medical Journal reveals the clout that Big Pharma has in the world of medicine journal publishing, specifically the publishing of scientific articles about vaccines. In a Cochrane Collaboration review and analysis of published influenza vaccine studies conducted by Tom Jefferson, M.D., Ph.D. and his colleagues, they found that influenza vaccine studies sponsored by industry are treated more favorably by medical journals even when the studies are of poor quality.

Click here to view the BMJ study:

Jefferson's analysis confirms that drug companies marketing vaccines have a major influence on what gets published and is said about vaccines in medical journals. It is no wonder that there are almost no studies published in the medical literature that call into question vaccine safety. The preferential treatment of Pharma-funded studies also explains why the risks of an inappropriately fast-tracked vaccine like Gardasil are underplayed in the medical literature and why a physician like Andrew Wakefield, M.D., who dared to publish a study in 1998 in a medical journal (The Lancet) calling for more scientific investigation into the possible link between MMR vaccine and regressive autism, has been mercilessly persecuted for more than a decade by both Pharma-funded special interest groups as well as public health officials maintaining close relationships with vaccine manufacturers.

Jefferson and his colleagues identified and assessed 274 published studies on influenza vaccines for their methodological quality and found no relationship between study quality, publication in prestige journals or their subsequent citation in other articles. They also found that most influenza vaccine studies are of poor quality but those with conclusions favorable to influenza vaccinations are of significantly lower methodological quality. The single most important factor determining where the studies were published or how much they were cited was sponsorship, with those partially or wholly funded by the pharmaceutical industry having higher visibility.

Dr. Jefferson commented, "The study shows that one of the levers for accessing prestige journals is the financial size of your sponsor. Pharma sponsors order many reprints of studies supporting their products, often with in house translations into many languages. They also purchase advertising space in the journal. Many publishers openly advertise these services on their website. It is time journals made a full disclosure of their sources of funding.

Earlier this week the National Vaccine Information Center (www.NVIC.org) called on the Obama Administration and Congress to investigate Gardasil vaccine risks. NVIC has long questioned the inappropriate influence of vaccine manufacturers in federal vaccine licensing and policymaking and state vaccine mandates. In 2006, Merck's Gardasil vaccine was fast tracked by the FDA at Merck's request and in 2007 Merck lobbyists mounted an aggressive lobbying campaign to get Gardasil mandated by state legislators for all sixth grade girls, which would have assured the big drug company a predictable market.

The Pharma lobbying effort in 2007 to get all states to mandate Gardasil failed but every other vaccine produced by drug companies and licensed by the FDA in the past quarter century has been mandated. Those new mandates were added to state vaccine laws by legislators and public health officials at the urging of vaccine manufacturer lobbyists and Pharma funded organizations touting vaccine studies published in the medical literature.

In the past three decades, the numbers of doses of government recommended vaccines for children and medical organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics has tripled to 69 doses of 16 vaccines, with 48 doses of 14 vaccines targeted to children under age six. Pharma lobbyists have persuaded most states to pass laws requiring two to three dozen doses of most of the 16 government recommended vaccines. Last year New Jersey became the first state to mandate influenza vaccine for children attending daycare and school.

In the past few years, Dr. Jefferson has authored several independent reviews of influenza studies published in the medical literature for the Cochrane Collaboration, which have been published in the British Medical Journal, questioning the quality of published scientific evidence for influenza vaccine effectiveness and safety for the elderly as well as children.

Clearly, if the makers and marketers of vaccines can influence the quality and quantity of the scientific evidence published in the medical literature proving that vaccines are safe and effective - evidence that is used by states to mandate vaccines and by the U.S. Court of Claims to deny compensation to vaccine injured children - then Congress was wrong in 1986 to protect the makers and marketers of vaccines from liability for injuries and deaths caused by those vaccines.

Government vaccine recommendations, U.S. Court of Claims vaccine injury compensation awards and state vaccine mandates are justified on the strength of scientific published in medical journals. It is time for medical journals to disclose all financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry. It is time for studies questioning the safety and effectiveness of vaccines to receive a fair hearing in scientific journals rather than editors confining themselves to primarily publishing studies funded by the pharmaceutical industry maintaining that every vaccine is totally safe, effective and necessary.

Kudos to the British Medical Journal for having the integrity to publish Jefferson's comprehensive analysis of pharmaceutical money influence on vaccine studies published in the medical literature. Hopefully, this will be a wake-up call for the scientific community, Congress and the public to put an end to the undue influence the pharmaceutical industry has on the science and policy of mass vaccination in the U.S..

BMJ

Relation of study quality, concordance, take home message, funding, and impact in studies of influenza vaccines: systematic review

T Jefferson, coordinator, C Di Pietrantonj, statistician, M G Debalini, researcher, A Rivetti, researcher , V Demicheli, director of health, Piemonte region

Cochrane Vaccines Field, ASL(Azienda Sanitaria Locale) AL 20,15100 Alessandria, Italy
Correspondence to: T Jefferson jefferson.tom@gmail.com
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b354 doi:10.1136/bmj.b354

ABSTRACT

Objective To explore the relation between study concordance, take home message, funding, and dissemination of comparative studies assessing the effects of influenza vaccines.

Design Systematic review without meta-analysis.

Data extraction Search of the Cochrane Library, PubMed, Embase, and the web, without language restriction, for any studies comparing the effects of influenza vaccines against placebo or no intervention. Abstraction and assessment of quality of methods were carried out.

Data synthesis We identified 259 primary studies (274 datasets). Higher quality studies were significantly more likely to show concordance between data presented and conclusions (odds ratio 16.35, 95% confidence interval 4.24 to 63.04) and less likely to favour effectiveness of vaccines (0.04, 0.02 to 0.09). Government funded studies were less likely to have conclusions favouring the vaccines (0.45, 0.26 to 0.90). A higher mean journal impact factor was associated with complete or partial industry funding compared with government or private funding and no funding (differences betweenmeans5.04). Study sizewas not associated with concordance, content of take home message, funding, and study quality. Higher citation index factor was associated with partial or complete industry funding. This was sensitive to the exclusion from the analysis of studies with undeclared funding.

Conclusion Publication in prestigious journals is associated with partial or total industry funding, and this association is not explained by study quality or size.

Gardasil Death & Brain Damage: A National Tragedy

2009-02-09T12:49:00.000-08:00

by Barbara Loe Fisher

The tragic story of Gardasil vaccine is one that is playing out real time in the homes of trusting parents, who thought they were doing the right thing to try to make their daughters "one less," and in the 21st century cyberspace forum of public opinion as well as on television. On Feb. 6, CBS-TV Evening News released NVIC's new report on Gardasil vaccine risks. (watch VIDEO here)

Today, NVIC launched a petition and issued a national press release calling on President Barack Obama, his Administration and Congress to investigate the fast track licensure and universal use recommendation of Gardasil in 2006 and the dismissal of more than 10,000 reports of Gardasil-related reactions, injuries and deaths to the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) as a "coincidence" by federal health officials.

NVIC's latest Gardasil risk report comparing the number and severity of adverse events reported to the federal Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) through November 30, 2008, reveals that death and serious health problems such as stroke, blood clots, cardiac arrest, seizures, fainting, lupus and rechallenge cases are reported three to 30 times more frequently after Gardasil vaccination than after meningococcal (Menactra) vaccination. If the deaths and serious injuries being reported after Gardasil were only a "coincidence," there would be little or no difference between the frequency and severity of vaccine-related adverse events between two vaccines if the vaccines were equally reactive and the number of doses were roughly the same.

Gardasil and Menactra vaccines were licensed within a year of each other and recommended by the CDC for universal use in 11-12 year olds. Although Menactra is given to boys and girls and has already been mandated in many states for high school and college entry, Gardasil is only given to girls and is not yet mandated. Menatra is given as one-dose series and, by February 25, 2008, the CDC reported that about 15.5 million doses of Menactra had been distributed in the U.S. Gardasil is given in a three dose series and the CDC reported that, by July 2008, about 16 million doses had been distributed in the U.S.

This means that about 15 million doses of Menactra were given to about 15 million boys and/or girls and about 16 million doses of Gardasil - if every girl got three doses - were given to about five million girls. It is individuals - not doses of vaccine - who collapse, convulse, become paralyzed, have heart attacks, develop lupus and other chronic health problems after being vaccinated. The fact that death and serious health problems are reported 3 to 30 times more frequently after Gardasil than after Menactra is highly significant and it is irresponsible for federal health officials and Merck to blow it off as unimportant.

What is sad is that the average junior high or high school student could do this VAERS analysis and come to the same conclusion. It does not take an M.D., Ph.D. or math genius to figure it out. In the hours before the CBS News report was broadcast, the best answer that Merck could come up with to address the differences between adverse events associated with Gardasil and Menactra was this:

"It's important to remember that the proven benefit of GARDASIL is that it helps prevent cervical cancer caused by the two virus types responsible for most cases of cervical cancer. Nothing is more important to Merck than the safety of our products and we carefully monitor the safety of GARDASIL on a routine basis. Experts at the FDA and CDC also continue to review data and, as recently as four months ago, said "GARDASIL continues to be safe and effective, and its benefits continue to outweigh its risks." NVIC is not a medical organization and has a long history of raising concerns about vaccines that are in direct conflict with the opinion of leading medical experts. We encourage consumers to get reliable information about the safety of vaccines from www.cdc.gov."

No, it doesn't take a doctor, health official or "medical organization" to do the math. What it takes is caring about every life - whether that life represents a baby, toddler, child, teenager, young adult, adult or senior citizen - because every life is important and nobody deserves to be written off by a drug company or government agency as an expendable casualty of public health policy.

Gabrielle, the 15 year old gymnast, honor roll student and cheerleader from Wichita, Kansas, who talks about how her health has been destroyed by Gardasil vaccine in the CBS report and in the NVIC video press release, spends most of her time at home or at doctors' offices now. A few weeks ago, her school voted her Homecoming Princess. On Saturday, she tried to go to the Homecoming dance. As she was getting dressed, she collapsed with seizures and severe abdominal pain. The medication she has been taking to try to control the seizures she developed after Gardasil vaccination caused her to develop kidney stones. She was rushed to the emergency room and hospitalized.

In the past 27 years, the stories of death and brain damage that have been reported to the National Vaccine Information Center have never changed. Whether the vaccine victims are 15 months old or 15 years old, the stories are the same: a trusting parent took a bright, healthy child to a doctor for a routine vaccination and the child was never the same again.

Gardasil vaccine was inappropriately fast tracked and licensed by the FDA and recommended by the CDC with too little attention paid to the reports of brain and immune system dysfunction that developed after vaccination in pre-licensure clinical trials. That same cavalier attitude toward Gardasil-related deaths and serious health problems, which have been experienced by many girls and young women after licensure, is inexcusable.

Americans are losing trust in pharmaceutical companies making drugs and vaccines and in federal health agencies, whose responsibility is to ensure that drugs and vaccines licensed for public use are safe, effective and necessary. If those responsible for protecting our health are not going to step up to the plate and do their jobs, then it is up to the people to do it.

At www.NVIC.org you can sign the Investigate Gardasil Vaccine Risks Now! petition, read NVIC's new report on Gardasil risks, and check out our new website that makes it easier to navigate and find information to prevent vaccine injuries and deaths.

In 2009, I have a sense of déjà vu, as the story of Gardasil vaccine plays out real time. There are striking parallels between how those operating the mass vaccination system reacted in the 1980's to persistent reports that DPT vaccine was harming more children than originally assumed and the way they are reacting now to persistent reports that Gardasil is more reactive than it was originally assumed. Assumption of safety is no substitute for proof of safety. And turning away from human suffering in order to protect the status quo is not the way to run a government that needs the trust and support of the people.

In the 18th century, Queen Marie Antoinette looked down at a starving people pleading for bread to stay alive and said "Let them eat cake." It is time for everyone in government, industry and medicine to take a different approach to persistent reports of vaccine injuries and deaths or risk metaphorically suffering the same fate that ended the monarchy in France. In the 21st century, today's peasants don't have pitchforks - they have laptops, desktops, smartphones and the internet.

The Great Denial of Vaccine Risks & Freedom

2009-01-20T09:54:00.000-08:00

A man of conscience: Will he end the Great Denial of vaccine risks?

By Barbara Loe Fisher

The Great Denial of vaccine risks for the past three decades by vaccine makers, pediatricians and government officials operating the mass vaccination system is the reason why more and more parents today question and mistrust vaccine science, policy and law. When Harris Coulter and I co-authored DPT: A Shot in the Dark in 1985 exposing flaws in the mass vaccination system that allowed the highly reactive DPT vaccine to stay on the market unimproved for more than 40 years, we never imagined then that those tragic flaws in the system would remain largely intact in 2009.

I knew then that the alliance between industry, organized medicine and government was powerful. But it is only after a quarter century of witnessing the Great Denial of vaccine risks, which has produced millions of vaccine damaged children flooding special education classrooms and doctors offices, that the magnitude of that unchecked power has been fully revealed.

Thomas Jefferson, co-author of the U.S Constitution, said in 1820: "We are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it." When those in power are so afraid of the truth that they abandon reason and are willing to tolerate all kinds of errors in order to hide the truth, people suffer.

Fear of the truth was clearly in play at a Jan. 14 meeting of the Federal Interagency Autism Advisory Committee (IACC) when the Committee took a convenient "re-vote" to nullify a previous vote to use a portion of congressionally appropriated funds in the Combating Autism Act of 2006 to investigate the long reported association between vaccination and autism. Whether the "re-vote" can be blamed on a turf war between federal agencies, a Committee member who defied direction given to her by her employer, Autism Speaks, or a desperate, last minute end-run by health officials to again delay the day when the truth about vaccine risks is known, it is the people who always lose in this high stakes game of denials and delays.

Thomas Jefferson had a lot to say about power, coercion and freedom. He said "Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors? Fallible men; men governed by bad passions, by private as well as public reasons." Ask Rita Palma of New York what it means to be subjected to an inquisition about her religious beliefs by an arrogant and fallible man governed by passions and driven to harass and coerce her for private as well as public reasons. Click here and also click here to watch videos of an attorney, acting on behalf of the state of New York, as he puts Rita on the rack and browbeats her for her religious beliefs and faith in God when it comes to vaccinating her children.

Rita has been working with other parents in New York to support the addition of philosophical exemption to vaccination to New York vaccine laws to protect parents, who exercise religious exemptions, and doctors, who issue medical exemptions from harassment by state officials. A public Vaccine Education Roundtable was sponsored by New York Assemblymen Marc Alessi and Richard Gottfried on Dec. 15, 2008 at Stony Brook University to examine vaccine safety and informed consent issues.

Reason and faith, conscience and science, truth and freedom. Those who participate in the Great Denial of vaccine risks cannot tolerate an unbiased, methodologically sound scientific investigation into those risks. And they cannot tolerate the free exercise of religious belief and conscience by those, whose minds and bodies they must control in order to perpetuate the Great Denial.

In 1997, I was asked to present an argument for the moral right to conscientious belief exemption to vaccination to the National Vaccine Advisory Committee in Washington, D.C. After my 20 minute presentation, there was a several hour "discussion" where I was grilled by public health officials who alternately acknowledged the importance of the informed consent principle and called me "selfish," a "threat to the public health" and "uninformed."

The defining moment of that encounter, for me at least, came when I looked the physician architect of the CDC-led "No shots, No school" campaign in the eye and said "Whether or not I put my child's life on the line for you and your vaccines is between me and my God and not between me and you, Doctor." The way he gritted his teeth and glared at me while his face flushed bright red, spoke volumes about what the Great Denial is all about. It is about whether we, the citizens, are going to have the power to freely choose which pharmaceutical products or other medical interventions we are going to use or whether that power is going to be taken from us by doctors and public health officials.

Jacobsen v. Massachusetts is the U.S. Supreme Court decision which affirmed the constitutional right of the states to enact mandatory vaccination laws. Concerned about controlling smallpox, little did the justices at the turn of the 20th century imagine that federal officials would someday recommend 69 doses of 16 vaccines for children from 12 hours of age through age 18 or that New Jersey would mandate more than three dozen doses of 13 vaccines for children to attend school. In an insightful review of that historic 1905 Supreme Court decision, the Harvard Law Review recently examined the application of Jacobsen v. Massachusetts to vaccine laws in the 21st century.

If one citizen or group of citizens in America are allowed to force fellow citizens to risk injury or death without their voluntary, informed consent, then are Americans free in any sense of the word? When forced risk-taking involves mandated use of pharmaceutical products protected from liability in the Judicial system, which the authors of the Constitution created as a check and balance on the Executive and Legislative branches of government, then people can be easily exploited for power and profit. Unless vaccines and other pharmaceutical products are subject to the law of supply and demand so citizens can freely choose those which are necessary, safe and effective and reject those which are not, the people become nothing more than enslaved consumers of potentially dangerous products marketed by companies with no economic or legal incentive to improve those products.

And if the state can tag, track down and force individuals against their will to be injected with biologicals of unknown toxicity today, then there will be no limit on which individual freedoms the State can take away in the name of the greater good tomorrow.

As the 44th President of the United States is sworn in today in our nation's Capitol, we can only pray that he will have the intelligence, compassion and conscience to make sure that his Administration is not afraid to find out the truth about vaccine risks. With one child in six now developmentally delayed in America and no answers from government health officials as to how they got that way, our nation's future may depend on it.

The National Vaccine Information Center is prepared to stand with other parent groups representing families with vaccine injured children to call for an end to the Great Denial by those responsible for ensuring our children's health and safety.

Let freedom ring: No forced vaccination. Not in America.

2009: The Vaccine Freedom Tipping Point

2009-01-09T10:24:00.000-08:00

by Barbara Loe Fisher

Last night the nighttime medical soap opera, "Private Practice," on ABC-TV demonized parents of children with MMR-vaccine related autism for refusing to vaccinate normal siblings while glorifying doctors forcibly vaccinating children without parental consent. The segment entitled "Contamination" left the viewer with the impression that every child who gets measles will die and that MMR vaccine poses no risks whatsoever to any child. It was a cheap shot at parents with vaccine injured children trying to protect their healthy children from vaccine injury and yet another wake-up call for Americans, who understand the importance of voluntary, informed consent to taking any pharmaceutical product or undergoing any medical procedure that can injure and kill.

As 2008 ended and the New Year began, evidence that the "Tipping Point" in the 27-year old vaccine safety and informed consent movement has arrived is becoming more apparent. There is the escalating rhetoric and hyperbole being spewed by the evangelistic pediatrician from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, who called for doctors to be burned at the stake for the heresy of individualizing CDC and AAP vaccine use guidelines. In a brilliant letter to Pediatrics, it was a parent of a vaccine injured child, neurologist Jon Poling, M.D., who pointed out why sophomoric errors in logic and misunderstanding of the scientific method invalidated the claims of Paul Offit. Soon Dr. Poling was joined by others speaking out in defense of pediatricians like Bob Sears, M.D., who are wisely advocating that doctors and parents engage in shared vaccine decision-making for children.

Then there was the stern reminder to parents from militant New Jersey health officials that babies must get flu shots by January 2009 or face being kicked out of daycare and pre-school. Parents living in the state with the most vaccine mandates (41 doses of 13 vaccines), especially those with children already suffering with health problems, are trying to protect their children from further damage but have no recourse because New Jersey state law only allows restrictive medical and religious exemptions. Vaccine educated parents are writing letters to legislators urging them to pass a conscientious belief exemption to vaccination.

After a Dec. 14 legislative roundtable discussion at Stony Brook University with proponents for and against addition of a philosophical exemption to New York vaccine laws, vaccine educated parents are urging that letters be written to legislators (New York Assembly at http://assembly.stat e.ny.us/ and New York Senate at http://www.senate.state.ny.us/senatehom epage.nsf/senators?OpenForm ) and also to New York Governor David Paterson, Executive Chamber, State Capitol, Albany, NY 12224 in support of the exemption.

Merck rang in the New Year trying to pump up sales of the reactive Gardasil vaccine by asking the FDA to open up the young boy market, while Prevnar-maker Wyeth is making a bid to become the world's most profitable vaccine manufacturer. The Jan. 1 voluntary moratorium by drug companies on giving doctors free pens and trinkets is a token drop in the bucket compared to the big bucks Big Pharma will spend in 2009 to keep doctors convincing Americans that the only way they can stay healthy is to consume more and more drugs and vaccines.

But then came a breath of fresh air this week when the formidable M.I.N.D. Institute at UC-Davis published an epidemiological study confirming that the autism epidemic that has emerged during the past three decades is not due to genetics or "better counting" but is likely caused by environmental co-factors.

2009 is off to a contentious, challenging and promising start. Like all social movements that advocate reform of institutions stubbornly resistant to change, the way is not easy and change does not come quickly or without sacrifice. The three-decade U.S. vaccine safety and informed consent movement is approaching its final and most important stage: the fight for freedom of choice. As several hundred vaccines are being developed and tested in several thousand clinical trials around the world and drug companies are jockeying for market-share positions, doctors are trying harder to convince Americans that 69 doses of 16 vaccines given to children between birth and age 18 will keep America healthy.

The argument that more vaccination will equal better health is an argument that is getting harder to make as one in two Americans suffers from chronic disease and America plummets to 39th in infant mortality while 25 percent of all children are suffering with learning disabilities, ADHD, severe allergies, autism, asthma, diabetes, inflammatory bowel disorder, rheumatoid arthritis and other chronic immune and brain disorders. The question that doctors and public health officials fear most is:

WHY IS THE MOST HIGHLY VACCINATED CHILD POPULATION IN THE WORLD SO SICK AND DISABLED?

Until that question is answered by doctors and public health officials, there aren't enough daytime or evening soap operas, bogus news reports and poorly conducted studies claiming that vaccines are totally safe, or threats by vaccine patent holders and doctors shouting "coincidence" every time another child regresses into chronic poor health after vaccination to keep the tipping point from tipping.

Happy New Year!

"Sears' book, published in October 2007 as part of the Sears Parenting Library, has already sold more than40,000 copies and has moved into the top 100 on the Amazon.com bestseller list. The popularity of Sears' book centers in part on 2 schedules, called alternative and selective, that offer parents a way to avoid giving their children several vaccines at one time. Sears' book is unique. Unlike typical antivaccine books, he offers a middle ground, allowing parents to act on their fears without completely abandoning vaccines. Unfortunately, Sears sounds many antivaccine messages....At the heart of the problem with Sears' schedules is the fact that, at the very least, they will increase the time during which children are susceptible to vaccine-preventable diseases. If more parents insist on Sears' vaccine schedules, then fewer children will be protected, with the inevitable consequence of continued or worsening outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases. In an effort to protect children from harm, Sears' book will likely put more in harm's way." - Paul Offit, Pediatrics (December 29, 2008) http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cg i/content/full/123/1/e164

"In their assault on Dr. Sears, Offit and Moser confuse scientific methodology. Even more dangerous than not having an understanding of science, is the presumption that one does "grasp the scientific method." Actually, in designing an epidemiological study, one must have a good estimate of the effect size, in order to determine the power of a study. Offit misuses the statistical term 'power' to suggest that this allows one to "reject or not to reject the null hypothesis." This is incorrect.....As physicians we took an oath to 'first do no harm' to our individual patients. Dr. Sears offers a pro-vaccine individualized approach to childhood immunization that acknowledges the risks, benefits, and uncertainties of this medical intervention. Dr. Sears should be applauded for his efforts to provide safe vaccination alternatives to his patients, given the void of randomized controlled trials to support continued growth of the current CDC/AAP schedule. Rather than personal attacks, let's turn to science to provide the answers. The enormous public benefit of vaccination cannot be used to stifle open discourse on critical vaccine safety issues. One size does not fit all." - Jon Poling, Pediatrics (January 2, 2009)
http://pediatrics.aappublications.or g/cgi/eletters/123/1/e164#39891

"The state's new law requiring young children attending licensed pre-school and child care centers to get flu vaccinations will be tested this week when thousands of children return to classrooms and playrooms after the long holiday break. New Jersey, the first state in the nation to require flu shots for young schoolchildren, set a Dec. 31 deadline for parents to obtain flu vaccinations for their children. It was part of a new policy requiring a total of four additional immunizations for schoolchildren over the objections of some parents who worry about possible risks from vaccinations. The requirement applies to children between 6 months and 5 years who are attending licensed day care and preschool programs." - Derrick Henry, New York Times (January 4, 2009) http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/ 04/nyregion/new-jersey/04flunj.html? _r=1&ref=education

"Merck filed last month for approval from the Food and Drug Administration for the use of its drug Gardasil by males between the ages 9 to 26, CNBC has confirmed. Since 2006, Gardasil has been approved as a means of preventing cervical and other types of cancer in girls and women. Males carry and transmit the sexually-transmitted virus HPV, which is the leading cause of cervical cancer. Gardasil, a vaccine against HPV, has been a blockbuster product for Merck , but sales growth for the drug has slowed. Approval for boys and older women could help reinvigorate that...." - Mike Huckman, CNBC-TV (January 5, 2009) http://www.cnbc.com/id/28506419/

"Wyeth may become one of the world's biggest vaccine makers with the acquisition of Crucell NV, a Dutch developer of medicines against AIDS, rabies, and Ebola. The drugmaker is in talks to buy Crucell, based in Leiden, Netherlands, for $1.35 billion, according to a person familiar with the deal....Wyeth Chief Executive Officer Bernard Poussot has focused the company's research on vaccines, a dependable source of sales for drugmakers because they don't lose patent protection and are often purchased by governments. Poussot turned Wyeth's pneumonia vaccine Prevnar into its second best-selling product with $2.4 billion in 2007 revenue...." - Shannon Pettypiece, Bloomberg News January 8, 2009 http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news? pid=20601087&sid=as4rY9TI49Yo&refer=worldwide#

"Starting Jan. 1, the pharmaceutical industry has agreed to a voluntary moratorium on the kind of branded goodies - Viagra pens, Zoloft soap dispensers, Lipitor mugs - that were meant to foster good will and, some would say, encourage doctors to prescribe more of the drugs. No longer will Merck furnish doctors with purplish adhesive bandages advertising Gardasil, a vaccine against the human papillomavirus....But some critics said the code did not go far enough to address the influence of drug marketing on the practice of medicine. The guidelines, for example, still permit drug makers to underwrite free lunches for doctors and their staffs or to sponsor dinners for doctors at restaurants, as long as the meals are accompanied by educational presentations....The industry code also permits drug makers to pay doctors as consultants "based on fair market value" - which critics say means that companies can continue to pay individual doctors tens of thousands of dollars or more a year. "We have arrived at a point in the history of medicine in America where doctors have deep, deep financial ties with the drug makers and marketers," said Allan Coukell, the director of policy for the Prescription Project, a nonprofit group in Boston working to promote evidence-based medicine. "Financial entanglements at all the levels have the potential to influence prescribing in a way that is not good." - Natasha Singer, New York Times (December 31, 2008) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/ 12/31/business/31drug.html? partner=rss&emc=rss

"It is time to focus on environmental causes for the rapid rise in autism, a leading researcher said Thursday, after her study concluded that such factors as earlier diagnosis and families moving to California cannot fully explain a dramatic seven- to eightfold increase in the state since the early 1990s. "With no evidence of a leveling off, the possibility of a true increase in incidence deserves serious consideration," states the study, published in the January issue of the journal Epidemiology.... Rick Rollens, the father of an autistic child and co-founder of the M.I.N.D. Institute, agreed. "This is a definitive study that should once and for all put the proverbial nail in the coffin of those who have been denying the existence of an autism epidemic," he said. "The sooner that people recognize the significance of this crisis, the sooner we'll be on our way in trying to address the needs of the children and families," Rollens said." - Sandy Kleffman, Contra Costa Times (January 9, 2009) http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci _11411611?source=rss

New Yorker's Stand Up for Vaccine Exemptions

2008-12-22T10:44:00.000-08:00

Photo courtesy Christine Zichittella-Heeren

by Barbara Loe Fisher

In the harbor of New York City stands the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of freedom that has welcomed millions of immigrants for 112 years, half of the time that the United States of America has been a nation. And on the base of the statue is an inscription that says in part ".....Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free...."

I remembered that phrase when we were driving from Washington, D.C. to New York City and our van got caught up in the Sunday afternoon Manhattan traffic that led us past the Empire State Building on our way to Long Island. Freedom was very much on my mind as we headed for Stony Brook University to participate in the December 15 Vaccine Education Roundtable sponsored by New York state Assemblymen Marc Alessi (D-1st Assembly District) and Richard Gottfried (D-75th Assembly District), who is Chair of the House Health Committee.

Americans have always cherished the freedom to breathe free; to speak, write and dissent without fear of retribution; to believe in God and worship freely without being persecuted; to vote for whom we want to represent us in government and know our vote counts; to follow our conscience and stand up for what is right. Although America is only 222 years old, which is very young compared to other countries that have existed for several thousands of years, during our short history there is no other nation that has defined and defended the freedom of citizens to live in a society based on the principle of equal rights and consent of the governed any better than the United States of America.

These are troubled times for parents in New York and New Jersey and other states. Every day parents are facing more hostility from pediatricians throwing them out of doctor's offices for questioning vaccine safety and are being harassed by government officials determined to force their children to get dozens of doses of state mandated vaccines without voluntary, informed consent. New York currently mandates more than two dozen doses of 11 vaccines for school attendance while New Jersey leads the nation with nearly three dozen doses of 13 vaccines, including annual influenza shots.

Religious exemptions are being pulled by state officials after they throw parents into rooms and grill them for hours about the sincerity of their religious beliefs. Last year in Maryland, state officials threatened several thousand parents with jail time and stiff fines for failing to show proof their children had gotten hepatitis B and chickenpox vaccinations.

It is in this climate of fear and crisis of trust between parents, who want a more equal role in making vaccination decisions for their children, and pediatricians and public health officials, who are determined to strengthen their power to tell parents what to do, that Assemblymen Alessi assembled a panel representing both sides to discuss whether or not a philosophical exemption to vaccination should be added to New York's vaccine laws. Currently New York only provides for a medical and religious exemption, even as 18 other states allow a personal, philosophical or conscientious belief exemption to vaccination.

After the Roundtable, Assemblyman Gottfried expressed strong support for First Amendment rights and told the audience of parents, doctors and legislative staff that he is sponsoring two bills to clarify rights defined under existing religious and medical exemptions so they cannot be violated by state officials. After the Roundtable concluded, he said "Important issues were raised. I look forward to seeing additional data from all sides, especially about the impact of the personal objection laws in other states. I will be reintroducing my bills to strengthen the religious and medical exemptions in the 2009 session. I urge parents to contact their local assembly members and state senators to urge them to co-sponsor."

Assemblyman Alessi commented that "The discussion framed the fact that there is still a large debate on the issue. And although some people in the medical community are adamant that this debate is over, it has only just begun. The amount of conflicting evidence parents are presented with regarding the effects of certain vaccines is staggering. This forum opened the lines of communication between experts in the debate and provided concerned parents with the most recent information on the safety of vaccines. As a parent, I know how difficult it is to make the right decisions regarding our children's health, but if we are to make good decisions, we need to be well informed and continue to have discussions like this roundtable."

At the beginning of the Roundtable, I framed the vaccine safety and informed consent debate and outlined how the informed consent principle relates to philosophical/conscientious belief exemption. I reviewed the general health ranking of New York (25th) compared to the 18 states which have philosophical exemptions (six of the top 10 ranked states have philosophical exemption) and noted that the U.S. uses more vaccines than any nation in the world but ranks 39th in infant mortality. Click here to read my entire presentation with live links to references (see text below).

Other panelists supporting philosophical exemption to vaccination included New York pediatrician Lawrence Palevsky, M.D. , who called for an authentic dialogue that "moves past what appears to a growing number of citizens to be a one-sided, paternalistic, and patronizing set of policies and language with an unwillingness to engage in a real discussion about the science of vaccines." He challenged many of the myths and misconceptions about the safety and effectiveness of vaccine policies.

New York's John Gilmore, executive director of Autism United, who has a vaccine injured son with autism and said "without trust, the proponents of forced vaccination have nothing but authority and authority is an unacceptable basis for any public policy in a democratic society." He pointed out operational flaws and conflicts of interest in vaccine safety regulation and policymaking. Louise Kuo Habakus, of the New Jersey Coalition for Vaccination Choice, who has two young sons recovering from vaccine injuries, presented slides summarizing vaccine risks and questioning whether vaccines can be credited with major infectious disease morbidity and mortality decreases in the 20th century. She recounted her impression of the day's events at http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001dnwJjVVfQ9xgx6_wRS7lh7TxSNcnzFHoSfo95V0kXFw2U7DNhHIPfPmKAN3vPWmpywnIXqQY2UisLZ82JI5lBE3WrGzSK1ASjTXaAuzkYzzHsTxyufU8EA==. (In related events, New Jersey parents held several open houses this week to educate New Jersey legislators about the need to support pending conscientious belief exemption legislation in that state.)

Panelists defending current vaccine policies and opposing philosophical exemptions included New York pediatricians Paul Lee, M.D. , who agreed vaccine safety should be a high priority but disagreed that the amount of mercury and aluminum in vaccines posed a health risk; and longtime vaccine policymaker and American Academy of Pediatrics spokesperson Louis Z. Cooper, M.D. , who agreed trust between pediatricians and parents needs to be strengthened but defended the safety of existing vaccine policies; and Debra Blog, M.D. , medical director of the Immunization Program, New York State Department of Health, who showed slides of children with infectious diseases and strongly opposed adding philosophical exemption to New York state vaccine laws.

Following panelist presentations there was a spirited debate that lasted for more than two hours as panelists argued and defended their positions. NVIC's videographer, Chris Fisher, will be making a video of the day's events available on NVIC's website.

By the end of the day, I thought about how long parents of vaccine injured children have been asking pediatricians to become partners with them in preventing vaccine injuries and deaths. After nearly three decades, parents and doctors inside and outside of government could not be further apart. The failure of pediatricians and public health officials to take seriously the many cases of regression into poor health after vaccination has become the Number One public health problem in the U.S. today.

There will be no resolution until every state has embraced the informed consent ethic and adopted conscientious or philosophical exemption to vaccination in state vaccine laws. At that point, Americans will be free to vote with their feet and the vaccines the public considers to be necessary, safe and effective will be used and those they do not consider to be necessary, safe and effective will be driven off the market. And then, a real time comparison of the long term health of highly vaccinated, less vaccinated and unvaccinated citizens will tell us a lot about the safety and effectiveness of vaccine policies in the last half of the 20th and first half of the 21st centuries.

Statement of Barbara Loe Fisher
Co-founder & President, National Vaccine Information Center
December 15, 2008
at New York Stony Brook UniversityVaccine Education Roundtable

Assemblyman Alessi and NY State Legislators:

Thank you for holding this Vaccine Education Roundtable to discuss issues which impact on Assembly Bill 5468 to insert philosophical exemption in New York vaccine laws. I appreciate the invitation to be part of this panel on behalf of New York members of the National Vaccine Information Center, non-profit organization founded in 1982 to prevent vaccine injuries and deaths through public education and defend the informed consent ethic.

Vaccination is a medical intervention performed on a healthy person which carries an inherent risk of injury or death. The risk of harm can be greater for some than others and there is no guarantee that vaccination will, in fact, confer immunity. With very few predictors having been identified by medical science to give advance warning that harm or failure to confer immunity will occur, vaccination is a medical procedure that could reasonably be termed as experimental each time it is performed on a healthy individual.

Further, the FDA, CDC and vaccine makers openly state that often the numbers of human subjects used in pre-licensing studies are too small to detect all adverse events caused by a new vaccine. This makes government recommended use of newly licensed vaccines by millions of children a de facto uncontrolled national scientific experiment. In this regard, the ethical principle of informed consent to vaccination attains even greater significance.

Informed consent means that a patient or guardian has the right to be fully informed about the benefits and risks of a medical procedure and be allowed to make an informed, voluntary decision about whether or not to take the risk. Informed consent is an important check and balance for the relationship between physicians and patients that encourages physicians to obey the Hippocratic oath to "first, do no harm."

The affirmation of the informed consent ethic in the practice of modern medicine is rooted in a rejection of the traditional paternalistic medical model, which places the patient or guardian in an unequal, powerless position with a physician and facilitates uninformed, involuntary risk taking. The human right for individuals to exercise informed consent to participating in scientific experiments was officially acknowledged by the judges of the Nuremberg Tribunal after World War II. Their ringing endorsement of individual inviolability and the right to self determination when taking medical risks has became an internationally accepted moral guidepost for the ethical practice of modern medicine. The first principle of the Nuremberg Code begins with:

"The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, overreaching or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision."

In America, the closest we come to upholding the informed consent principle with regard to vaccination is in the 18 states which allow personal, philosophical or conscientious belief exemption to vaccination. In the 2008 edition of America's Health Rankings, Vermont is ranked the number one healthiest state. Vermont allows philosophical exemption to vaccination. In fact, out of the top ten ranked healthiest states, six of them allow philosophical exemption (Vermont, Minnesota, Utah, Idaho, Maine, Washington).

New York ranks 25th in health behind the nation's most populous state, California. The state of California has twice as many residents as New York, as well as more foreign born residents and those who speak English as a second language. However, in almost all other demographics,
California is nearly identical to New York in ethnic diversity; numbers of children under age 18; median household income and persons living below poverty.

California allows philosophical exemption to vaccination.

What is interesting is that in the top 10 healthiest states, four had among the lowest vaccination rates for children ages 19 to 35 months: Utah (37th) , Idaho (45th), Maine (40th) and Washington (48th). California which is ahead of New York in overall health ranking, is 31st in vaccination coverage of 19 to 35 month olds while New York is number 9. The healthiest state, Vermont, is 29th in vaccination coverage.

In fact, health is not primarily measured by high vaccination rates or an absence of infectious disease. High vaccination rates are not the most important measure of the overall health of citizens. The 18 states allowing philosophical exemption to vaccination have not compromised individual or public health when compared to other states.

This past September, the CDC announced that national childhood vaccination rates are at near record levels, with at least 90 percent of young children receiving all but one CDC recommended vaccine. Less than 1 percent of children aged 19 to 35 months remain completely unvaccinated.

Today, the U.S. government recommends the use of more vaccines than any other country in the world: 69 doses of 16 vaccines for girls; 66 doses of 15 vaccines for boys given between the day of birth and age 18. That is triple the numbers of vaccinations recommended by public health officials and physician organizations a quarter century ago, when 23 doses of seven vaccines (DPT, MMR, OPV) were routinely given.

But in comparison to other nations, the overall health of Americans has not improved since 2004 and there are 27 countries that exceed the US in healthy life expectancy while the U.S. ranks 39th in infant mortality.

Today, 1 in every 143 babies born in America dies; 1 child in 450 becomes diabetic; 1 in 150 develops autism;1 in 9 suffers with asthma; and 1 in every 6 child is learning disabled.

The chronic disease and disability epidemic that has developed in the last quarter century is killing and injuring more children than any infectious disease epidemic in the history of our nation, including smallpox and polio. The social, economic, and human costs are enormous: nearly two billion dollars has been paid to vaccine victims by the federal government in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program while three-quarters of the more than $2 trillion dollar annual price tag for health care is spent to care for the chronically ill and disabled.

The big question vaccine educated parents are asking is: why are so many of the most highly vaccinated children in the world so sick, suffering with all kinds of chronic brain and immune system dysfunction? Why are babies born in the richest country in the world dying more often than babies born in poorer countries, who do not get vaccinated at all or who get far fewer vaccines?

It is a question that has not been answered by any scientific study conducted to date because there has never been a large, prospective study comparing the long term health of highly vaccinated children to unvaccinated children. In the absence of definitive answers, the right to freely exercise medical, religious and philosophical exemption to vaccination is a human right that may well determine the biological integrity of this and future generations in America.

Because vaccines are pharmaceutical products that carry significant risks greater for some than others; because doctors and public health officials are not infallible; because what is considered scientific truth today can be proven false tomorrow; because philosophical exemption to vaccination does not negatively impact on the health of individuals or states; and because informed consent to medical risk taking is a human right, the National Vaccine Information Center urges legislators to affirm the freedom of all New Yorkers to make informed, voluntary vaccination decisions for themselves and their children by supporting philosophical exemption to vaccination.

Gardasil Deaths, Injuries & Money

2008-12-12T08:06:00.000-08:00

by Barbara Loe Fisher

At the same time that more Gardasil injuries and deaths are being reported every day, those promoting mass use of Gardasil are busy denying the significance of vaccine reactions while Merck is making plans to increase its market share by asking young boys to roll up their sleeves as well.

The discussion in states about whether or not Gardasil should be mandated is still taking place even though all but two state legislatures (Virginia and D.C.) rejected mandates in 2007. It makes it easier for pro- forced vaccination proponents to keep proposed Gardasil mandates on the table when the CDC insists all of the health problems, hospitalizations, injuries and deaths that have been reported to the government's Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) after Gardasil vaccination are just a "coincidence."

Through the end of October 2008, the government has published a list of 9,762 Gardasil- related adverse events, including 30 deaths, that have been reported to VAERS. This number does not include the Gardasil vaccine-related health problems which have been reported to the VAERS but not yet published. It is estimated that only between one and 10 percent of all serious health problems following administration of pharmaceutical products are ever reported to the government. This gross underreporting of vaccine- related hospitalizations, injuries and deaths means that there potentially could be nearly one million health problems following Gardasil vaccination that have actually occurred since the vaccine was licensed in 2006.

But who needs to count if it is all just a "coincidence?" It is good for business to downplay the significance of vaccine reactions and so researchers associated with Glaxo Smith Kline (GSK), who are perhaps looking toward the lucrative U.S. market for GSK's new HPV vaccine (Cervarix), are doing just that.

Waiting for approval at the FDA, Cervarix contains a powerful adjuvant (ASO4) that has not been licensed for use in the U.S. That adjuvant is designed to send the immune system into overdrive. Will it also swell the numbers of VAERS Gardasil adverse events reports that can be conveniently written off as a coincidence by doctors, government and drug company officials?

When perfectly healthy, bright teenage girls and young women get an HPV vaccination and collapse, have seizures, become paralyzed, are left with crippling fatigue and joint pain or suddenly die, their mothers and fathers deserve more than a "coincidence" explanation from doctors, government health officials and vaccine manufacturers. Until the public stands up to the Big Lie and calls it for what it is, those in charge of the U.S. vaccination system will continue to get away with putting policy and profits before good science every time a new vaccine is licensed and recommended for use by millions of Americans.

VIDEO: On Gardasil deaths click here

VIDEO: On Gardasil reactions click here

VIDEO: On Gardasil reactions click here

For Facts about HPV Infection click here

"Emily Tarsell has several paintings done by her daughter, Chris, hanging throughout her Baltimore County home. Chris Tarsell was a talented and aspiring artist, but she suddenly and inexplicably died in June at the age of 21. "No one heard from her," Tarsell said. "They went into her bedroom and found her in the bed, dead." Tarsell said she learned of her daughter's death when police officers knocked on her door. "It was about, I don't know, maybe eight o'clock. I was alone, and then they told me," she said. During an autopsy, a pathologist searched for the cause of Chris's death, but found none. Her final report listed cardiac arrest, cause undetermined, Miller reported. "They could not find anything. All the tests came back negative, so it's still unknown," Tarsell said. Weeks later, a family member mentioned to Tarsell news reports about Gardasil. "My sister and I were stunned," Tarsell said...."It's basically written off as a coincidence -- not connected," said Barbara Loe Fisher, a safety watchdog for the National Vaccine Information Center. She said she is critical of the CDC, FDA and Gardasil in particular, arguing the vaccine was put on the market too fast. "You cannot have the same people who are regulating, making policy for and promoting mass use of vaccines also in charge of making sure they're safe," Fisher said. She said a big shortcoming is the VAERS reporting system. "It's a very passive, voluntary system," she said." - Jayne Miller, WBAL-TV (Baltimore), November 21, 2008) www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqZNhOclixc

"Across the country different states including Arkansas have looked at mandating gardasil for school aged girls. It's a vaccine that helps prevent certain strains of HPV, the Human Papillomavirus which is a sexually transmitted disease that can lead to cervical cancer. But do the benefits outweigh the risks? Jesalee Parsons was 13 when her mother signed off on her to get the Gardasil vaccine at school. Now nearly two years later she says she is still in pain. Jesalee says she was diagnosed with Acute Pancreatitis and since getting one only dose of Gardasil has spent close to 100 days in the hospital, and had two surgeries to remove Pseudocysts. While doctors cannot explain why she has had health problems she and her mother are convinced the vaccine is to blame....Barbara Loe Fisher--President of the National Vaccine Information Center--wants parents to be informed before they allow their daughters to get the three dose vaccine. "We are seeing girls who are collapsing and then having seizure activity when they come to consciousness, continuing seizure disorders. We are seeing arthritis, chronic fatigue, paralysis. Some of these who are going in are perfectly healthy girls going in to get this vaccine and walk out and are chronically ill." The vaccine manufactured by Merck was tested on thousands of females in clinical trials prior to being approved but Fisher says it was not studied thoroughly enough in children. ""If your read the reports you can see certainly a number of them are related to that shot. These are healthy girls, healthy women who are going in and then dying, sometimes within hours, sometimes within days of getting this injection and often the autopsy reports come back with no known cause." - KATV-11 (Little Rock), November 6, 2008 http://www.katv.com/news/stories/110 8/567520_video.html?ref=newsstory

"A study of Merck & Co Inc's cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil found that allergic reactions were uncommon and most young women can tolerate subsequent doses, Australian researchers said on Wednesday. The research involved 25 Australian girls with suspected hypersensitivity to the vaccine which was administered as part of a national immunization program to all females aged 12 to 26 in the country beginning in 2007.....Choo and colleagues noted some components of Merck's treatment -- such as aluminum salts and yeast -- have been associated with allergic reactions.." - Reuters, December 2, 2008 http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE4B 20232008 1203

"Expected sluggish sales for some top products also is playing a role. Merck predicts sales of Gardasil to be flat in 2009 at $1.4 billion to $1.6 billion, a marked slowdown from the product's first couple of years. Merck said Gardasil already has achieved a high rate of vaccinations among girls 13 to 18 years old, and indicated it would be difficult to further boost the rate in this age group. The company also is trying to increase immunizations among women 19 to 26 years old, whose vaccination rate has been lower than expected. Merck has applied for U.S. regulatory approval to market Gardasil to women up to age 45 years old, and plans to file for approval by the end of December to market the vaccine to males ages 9 to 26, for the prevention of external lesions caused by the same virus that causes cervical cancer. It's also possible Gardasil will face new competition in the U.S. next year because GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is awaiting regulatory decision on its own cervical- cancer vaccine, Cervarix." - Peter Loftus, Dow Jones Newswire (December 4, 2008) http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeed s/articles/djf500/200812041031DOWJONESDJONLIN E000733_FORTUNE5.htm

Vaccine Injury Compensation: A Failed Experiment in Tort Reform?

2008-11-20T07:37:00.000-08:00

by Barbara Loe Fisher

On Nov. 14, 1986, President Ronald Reagan signed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 into law, instituting first-time vaccine safety reforms in the U.S. vaccination system and creating the first no-fault federal vaccine injury compensation program alternative to a lawsuit against vaccine manufacturers and pediatricians. Twenty-two years later, on Nov. 18, 2008,
I made a statement to the Advisory Commission on Childhood Vaccines (ACCV) and questioned whether the compensation program is fatally flawed and so broken that it should be repealed. Many parents are wondering whether it would be better to return to civil court without restrictions to sue vaccine manufacturers and doctors for injuries and deaths their children suffered after receiving federally recommended vaccines.

During its two-decade history, two out of three individuals applying for federal vaccine injury compensation have been turned away empty-handed even though to date $1.8B has been awarded to more than 2,200 plaintiff's out of some 12,000 who have applied. Today, nearly 5,000 vaccine injury claims are sitting in limbo because they represent children, who suffered brain and immune system dysfunction after vaccination but have been diagnosed with regressive autism, which is not recognized by the program as a compensable event. There is $2.7B sitting in the Trust Fund which could have been awarded to vaccine victims.

At the time of the law's creation in 1986, Congress said they were committed to setting up a fair, expedited, non-adversarial, less traumatic, less expensive no-fault compensation mechanism alternative to civil litigation. But Congress also acknowledged that any legislation providing liability protection must also be equally committed to preventing vaccine harm. The Act contains strong safety provisions, including first-time mandates for doctors to record and report serious health problems, hospitalizations, injuries and deaths after vaccination and give parents written benefit and risk information before a child is vaccinated.

But few of the safety provisions have been enforced and, as I testified in Congress in 1999 and again at the Nov. 18 ACCV meeting, there has been a betrayal of the promise that was made to parents about how the compensation program would be implemented. Obtaining compensation has become a highly adversarial, time-consuming, traumatic and expensive process for families of vaccine injured children and far too many vaccine victims have been denied compensation while vaccine makers and doctors have enjoyed liability protection and dozens of doses of nine new vaccines have been added to the childhood vaccine schedule.

I pointed out that federal court judges are beginning to look back at the legislative history of the Act, which so clearly affirms the intent of Congress when creating it. In recent court decisions, judges have agreed with parents and their attorneys that the compensation program has become far too difficult for plaintiffs. A recent state Supreme Court ruling also reiterated that Congress never intended to shield vaccine manufacturers from ALL liability for vaccine injuries and deaths when it could be demonstrated that a safer product could have been marketed.

In a Supreme Court of Georgia ruling on October 6, 2008 in American Home Products v. Ferrari, the justices unanimously held that the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act does not give a vaccine manufacturer blanket immunity from vaccine injury lawsuits if it can be proven that the company could have made a safer vaccine. Georgia Supreme Court Justice George Carley wrote that the 1986 law and "the congressional intent behind it shows that the Vaccine Act does not pre-empt all design defect claims." He added that Congress did not "use language which indicates that use of the compensation system is mandatory" but only "an appealing alternative" to the courts.

Justice Carley wrote that there is no evidence that "FDA approval alone renders a vaccine unavoidably safe" and said "We hesitate to hold that a manufacturer is excused from making changes it knows will improve its product merely because an older, more dangerous version received FDA approval," adding that to do so would have "the perverse effect" of granting complete immunity from liability to an entire industry and he concluded that "in the absence of any clear and manifest congressional purpose to achieve that result, we must reject such a far-reaching interpretation."

During the ACCV meeting, longtime plaintiff's attorney Sherry Drew gave a moving description of the suffering that families with vaccine injured children endure and, during public comment at the end of the meeting, Jim Moody, of SafeMinds, and Vicky Debold, RN, PhD joined me in urging the Committee to recommend to the new Secretary of DHHS that more vaccine injured children be compensated. This was echoed by outgoing parent ACCV member Tawny Buck, of Alaska, who has a DPT vaccine injured daughter and new ACCV parent member Sarah Hoiberg, of Florida, who has a five-year old DTaP vaccine injured daughter.

In the 1986 Vaccine Injury Act, the Institute of Medicine was directed to review the medical literature for scientific evidence that vaccines can cause injury and death, which resulted in landmark reports to Congress in 1991 and 1994 providing that evidence. IOM announced at the ACCV meeting that it has recently been contracted by the Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA) to assemble a Committee of scientific experts to review of the medical literature for evidence regarding the biological mechanisms for injury and death in association with varicella zoster (chicken pox), hepatitis B, meningococcal and HPV vaccine. There will be several public workshops during the Committee's two- year study.

NVIC has been calling for basic science research into the biological mechanisms of vaccine injury and death for more than two decades. Without understanding how and why vaccines can cause brain and immune system dysfunction, there will be no way to develop pathological profiles to help scientifically confirm whether or not an individual has been injured or died from vaccination.

The truth about vaccine risks lies in the science, properly designed and conducted. The upcoming IOM review may be hampered by a lack of biological mechanism studies published in the medical literature but the review is also an opportunity to point the way to fill in those gaps in knowledge and the need for additional research that could become part of a national vaccine safety research agenda.

In the absence of scientific certainty, all children who regress into poor health after vaccination should be given a fair hearing in the federal vaccine injury compensation program and generously compensated when no other plausible cause can be found for what happened to them after vaccination. Congress intended the vaccine injury compensation program to be non-adversarial, fair, generous and humane. If it cannot function the way it was intended to function, then parents have every right to call for its repeal and a return to unrestricted lawsuits.

Click here to read my entire ACCV statement with live links to the 1986 Vaccine Injury Act, U.S. Court of Appeals decisions, congressional testimony and other original sources.

Click here for ACCV meeting minutes and dates for upcoming meetings, which can be accessed via tele-conference call by the public who cannot attend the Rockville, Maryland meetings in person.

Flu & You: Know Your Options

2008-11-12T09:46:00.000-08:00

by Barbara Loe Fisher

These days you can't turn around without being reminded that the "flu" season is just around the corner and it is time for every American - but especially infants, kindergarteners through high school graduates and anyone over 50 - to get a shot of influenza vaccine. But there are lots of new questions about whether the influenza vaccine is ineffective in children and whether it is also ineffective in the elderly at the same time there are growing doubts about whether many doctors and health officials have told the public the truth and nothing but the truth about the risks associated with infectious disease and the risks associated with vaccination.

Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) has produced several investigative reports on vaccination during the past several years and a recent CBN report on influenza vaccine examined the validity of the annual influenza mortality figure that the CDC routinely uses (36,000 deaths per year in the U.S. from influenza). The report also presented several perspectives about getting a flu shot versus using a more natural approach to staying well in the flu season. (See VIDEO of report as well as VIDEO outtakes not included in the broadast story featuring Vitamin D Council Executive Director John Cannell, M.D. on pandemic influenza, Heather Maurer on how she made an educated flu shot decision for her child; Virginia Health Commissioner Karen Remley, M.D. on why public health officials like flu shots; and my comments on "cradle-to-grave" vaccine policies and development of a "supervaccine.")

Joseph Mercola, M.D., a champion of the holistic health and wellness lifestyle and strong advocate for the informed consent ethic in medicine, frequently offers alternative perspectives about infectious disease and vaccination. See Dr. Mercola's past newsletters discussing flu vaccination and other vaccination topics at www.mercola.com and view a speech I gave at the Natural Living Conference sponsored by Holistic Moms Network on his website.

In the coming months, the push for Americans to get flu shots will increase but how many will understand the government-acknowledged risks and precautions for inactivated, injected influenza vaccine or the live virus nasal influenza vaccine which are more fully outlined in the manufacturer's product inserts available on the web and at pharmacies and in doctor's offices?

How many Americans know there are practical steps to take during the flu season that will not only help protect against all infections, including actual influenza as well as other "flu-like illnesses" that can often be mistaken for influenza? (Only about 20 percent of all "flu-like" illness is actually influenza and only three strains of the many strains of type A and type B influenza that may be circulating during the year are actually included in the influenza vaccine).

To prevent and treat influenza or flu-like respiratory illness that does not involve fever over 103 F., pneumonia or serious complications which may require medical intervention, the National Vaccine Information Center offers the following non- toxic suggestions:

1. Wash your hands frequently.
2. Avoid close contact with those who are sick.
3. If you are sick, avoid close contact with those who are well.
4. Cover your mouth if you cough or sneeze.
5. Drink plenty of fluids, especially water.
6. Get adequate sleep.
7. Eat a healthy diet rich in vitamins and minerals, especially foods containing vitamin C (such as citrus fruits) and vitamin D (such as cod liver oil) and spend a few minutes a day in sunlight to help your body make and store vitamin D.
8. Exercise regularly when you are well.
9. Lower stress.
10. Consider including holistic alternatives in your wellness or healing plan, such as chiropractic adjustments, homeopathic and naturopathic remedies, acupuncture and other health care options.

Whatever you do this flu season - whether or not you choose to vaccinate - become vaccine educated and know your options.

Knowledge is power and an informed, empowered consumer is one who can stand up for the right to freely exercise informed preventive health options.

See www.NVIC.org and www.StandUpBeCounted.org for more information. Please email PaulNVIC@gmail.com if you would like to volunteer to work in your state to help NVIC educate Americans about vaccination or have special expertise you would like to share. NVIC is also looking for volunteers in the Northern Virginia and greater Washington, D.C. area to assist our staff with many exciting and challenging projects.

"The federal government finds of that 36,000, about 1,000 people die directly from the flu virus. Blame for the remaining 35,000 deaths goes to diseases like pneumonia that may follow the flu. However there's no clear scientific connection between the flu and these more serious afflictions. That means most of the time the shot would have little impact in actually preventing death. Barbara Loe Fisher heads of the non-governmental National Vaccine Information Center. She says the repeated references to 36,000 seems to be an attempt to scare people into getting the shot. Fisher suggests the public is smart enough to decide independently. A free market would be better, she believes. "If we allow vaccines to be subject to the test of the marketplace, then the public will use those vaccines they consider to be safe, effective, and necessary," Fisher says......Dr. John Cannell, Executive Director of the Vitamin D Council, suggests the reason we even have a flu season is because our vitamin D levels drop. That takes place naturally as we get less and less sun with the approach of winter. Cannell explains that less sun means we produce less vitamin D in our skin. "Pretty much any disease, any infectious disease, that is more common in winter is a target of vitamin D," Cannell says. He says that's true even of some serious non-seasonal, prolonged diseases such as tuberculosis. Early in the 19th century, TB sanitariums where people would get sun were one of the few ways to recover from "consumption," as it was known. So Cannell suggests babies get a 1,000 units a day and those two and older get 2,000 units. Many adults and some children need to take more than that. For kids, that can come as a single daily drop of liquid D. Cannell says a recent discovery explains vitamin D's role in the flu season. The vitamin triggers your body to produce its own antibiotics against flu as well as colds." - Gailon Totheroh, CBN News Service (November 4, 2008) VIDEOS at http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/475564.aspx and http: //www.cbn.com/cbnnews/479085.aspx

"Led by Dr. Peter Szilagyi, researchers at University of Rochester studied 414 children aged 5 and younger, who came down with the flu during the 2003-2004 or 2004-2005 flu seasons. These children were compared with over 5,000 controls who did not have influenza during the same seasons. Turns out that flu shots seemed not to make much difference: Kids who got immunized did not get the flu at lower rates than unvaccinated kids. In fact, the immunized youngsters were just as likely to be hospitalized or to visit the doctor as kids who never received the vaccine.......Targeting the correct strain is a always a bit of a guessing game, however; researchers make their best scientifically based prediction as to which flu virus will be making the rounds in a coming season, but they often have to make these predictions up to nine months ahead of time, in order to keep up with the lengthy vaccine manufacturing process. "In some circumstances, it is like forecasting the weather," says Dr. Geoffrey Weinberg, professor of pediatrics at University of Rochester. "Sometimes we are right on, and sometimes we are off." - Alice Park, Time Magazine (October 6 2008) http://www.time.com/time/health/artic le/0,8599,1847794,00.html

"The influenza vaccine, which has been strongly recommended for people over 65 for more than four decades, is losing its reputation as an effective way to ward off the virus in the elderly. A growing number of immunologists and epidemiologists say the vaccine probably does not work very well for people over 70, the group that accounts for three-fourths of all flu deaths. The latest blow was a study in The Lancet last month that called into question much of the statistical evidence for the vaccine's effectiveness. The authors said previous studies had measured the wrong thing: not any actual protection against the flu virus but a fundamental difference between the kinds of people who get vaccines and those who do not. This contention is far from universally accepted. And even skeptics say that until more effective measures are found, older people should continue to be vaccinated, because some protection against the flu is better than none. Still, the Lancet article has reignited a longstanding debate over claims that the vaccine prevents thousands of hospitalizations and deaths in older people. "The whole notion of who needs the vaccine and why is changing before our eyes," said Peter Doshi, a doctoral candidate at M.I.T. who published a paper on the historical impact of influenza in May in The American Journal of Public Health ." - Brenda Goodman, New York Times (September 2, 2008) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/02/health/02flu. html

Vaccines, Politics & Media: Both Sides?

2008-11-03T07:10:00.000-08:00

by Barbara Loe Fisher

http://www.vaccineawakening.blogspot.com/
http://www.nvic.org/
http://www.standupbecounted.org/

With a little help from his friends, a man who has made millions from creating and promoting forced use of vaccines has begun the process of canonizing himself. Frustrated that his new book attempting to debunk the autism-vaccine connection is not selling well, Paul Offit is desperately trying to lose the Dr. Proffit label and morph into a martyr even as he continues to lead a public attack begun in 2007 on those questioning vaccine safety and defending informed consent to vaccination.

The day before Halloween, Offit's good friend TV doc Nancy Snyderman gave him a helping hand when she attempted to relentlessly browbeat the intellectually honest and affable Matt Lauer into agreeing with Offit that public debate about vaccines and autism is dangerous and should immediately cease. Gritting her teeth through a steely grin and hissing "It is NOT controversial" at her stunned NBC-TV colleague over and over again, Snyderman's on-camera meltdown was an unexpected Halloween treat for Moms making breakfast for the kids.

The interesting thing about Snyderman's glowing video tribute to her friend and subsequent tantrum when Lauer innocently labeled the vaccine- autism topic a "controversy," was her insistence that public debate should stop because her hero had gotten "death threats" presumably from distraught parents of vaccine injured autistic children. That same sentiment was forwarded by medical reporters at Newsweek magazine and ABC- TV, who appeared to agree with Offit's point of view that citizens questioning vaccine safety and forced use of vaccines are dangerous.

Adopting a strategy similar to the one that Merck pro-actively employed in 2006 to roll out the poorly tested and reactive Gardasil vaccine, Offit and his colleagues are demonizing parents and doctors questioning vaccine safety by characterizing them as ignorant, crazed, anti-science religious fanatics with a penchant for violance. In a desperate play for sympathy, pro-forced vaccination proponents agreeing with Offit's big stick approach are trying to deflect attention from the fact that they, themselves, created the current climate of fear, distrust, and anger. The bitterness now being expressed by parents, who have been belittled, harassed and threatened by hostile doctors inside and outside of government for standing up for their right to protect their children from vaccine injury and death, was inevitable.

When mothers and fathers take their healthy sons and daughters to pediatricians to get vaccinated and then witness them suffering vaccine reactions and regressing into chronic poor health within hours, days and weeks of getting sometimes 5 to 10 vaccines on one day, they are not going to accept an illogical, unscientific explanation like "it's all a coincidence." When mothers and fathers are thrown out of pediatricians offices and denied child medical care for asking questions about vaccines; or reported to child protective services for refusing to get children every vaccine; or denied exemptions to vaccines by government officials taking a militant "no exceptions" stance, they are going to feel angry.

At the same time, pediatricians, who become pediatricians to help children stay well, are not going to willingly accept the possibility that something they injected into a child injured or killed that child. When they cannot answer questions parents ask about vaccines, they are going to feel angry. The debate is so contentious because it is about life and death issues that affect everyone but neither those questioning vaccine safety nor those defending it serve their causes well by engaging in physical intimidation and threats against each other.

What should be troubling for doctors practicing medicine and journalists reporting on it is the Statist approach being taken by influential doctors like Offit, Greg Poland and Peter Hotez in response to three decades of reports by parents that children are being harmed by vaccination. Those who simultaneously develop new vaccines, help make national vaccine policy and promote forced use of vaccines certainly have the right to earn a profit from the products they create. They also have the right to promote an ideology in which they deeply believe. But Americans, who cherish freedom of thought, speech and action, should think long and hard about all efforts to pit citizen against citizen and marginalize those asking for credible scientific investigation into vaccine risks and the right to make informed, voluntary vaccination decisions.

A more reasoned, open minded approach to the vaccine safety debate was taken by pediatrician James Sears, M.D. and ER physician Travis Stork, M.D., who anchored an Oct. 28 episode of "The Doctors." The new CBS daytime show featured a segment airing different views about vaccine risks and mandatory vaccination in which Julia Berle, of TACA, and I appeared. To the credit of the show's producers, a spirited but civilized debate was allowed.

Both of the show's doctors joined an AAP pediatrician guest in strongly encouraging vaccination. However Dr. Sears and Dr. Stork also encouraged parents to become informed and supported the right of parents to make voluntary decisions about vaccines.

The show has elicited heated discussion on "The Doctors" website and a staff member monitoring the discussion boards yesterday told posters "Time to remind everyone that there is a person behind every screen name. Let's remember to address the topic without personally attacking another member because their views are different from yours. We all can learn from everyone's viewpoint, let's try to keep this discussion progressing in the manner intended." Immediately following this advice, posters who had been attacking one another found common ground even as they agreed to disagree.

At the vaccine freedom rally in Trenton sponsored by the New Jersey Coalition for Vaccination Choice on October 16, pediatrician Larry Palevsky, M.D. encouraged parents to continue speaking out and working for the legal right to voluntary vaccine decision-making. He challenged doctors to open their minds about vaccine risks, stating:

"As Einstein said, we can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. I challenge my colleagues in medicine to listen and learn that there is more to know than what we've been told...... Engage in a more scientific dialogue and not in the rhetoric that keeps coming from those who have a stake in keeping the status quo of one-size-fits-all vaccinations and an ever- increasing vaccine schedule. Take whatever fear you have about speaking out, and turn it into being responsible to our children in a new way."

Another doctor, who has had the courage to step up to the plate and ask her fellow physician colleagues to consider the possibility that vaccine risks are not equal for all and must be examined more thoroughly, is former NIH Director Bernadine Healy, M.D.. In a CBS-TV interview last May, she expressed the view that scientific research must go forward to identify individuals genetically or biologically vulnerable for suffering vaccine injury.

Healy told CBS investigative journalist Sharyl Atkisson: "I don't think you should ever turn your back on any scientific hypothesis because you're afraid of what it might show..... there may be this susceptible group. The fact that there is concern that you don't want to know that susceptible group is a real disappointment to me. If you know that susceptible group, you can save those children. If you turn your back on the notion that there is a susceptible group - what can I say?"

The fear and dread that new vaccine developers and promoters like Offit, Poland and Hotez may have is that their vaccines will not be welcomed with open arms by a public concerned about vaccine risks. But the way to remove public concern about vaccine safety and effectiveness is not to back questioning parents and doctors into a corner and club them into submission and silence.

In the meantime, an editor at the Atlanta Journal Constitution in Georgia is calling for a rejection of a bill to allow New Jersey residents the same freedom that citizens living in 18 other states have: the legal right to exercise conscientious belief exemption to vaccination. And a large HMO in the Midwest is forcing all of its 26,000 employees to get a flu shot every year or be fired.

Tomorrow, all Americans have the opportunity to go to the polls and vote for the candidates they believe will best represent them at the local, state and federal government level. Understanding the positions of candidates on vaccine safety and informed consent issues is important.

We cannot let those who are afraid of the truth about vaccination silence the voices of those who have paid the ultimate price for that fear. Stand by for announcements coming soon about how you can join NVIC in becoming an activist citizen and educate members of your community about the importance of standing up for the right of all Americans to make informed, voluntary decisions about vaccination.
__________________________________________

"People think of me as this wild-eyed maniac," Offit says. "If I sat down with them for 10 minutes, they'd see that my motivation is the same as theirs. You want what's best for kids." Asked how he ranks the intensity of the vitriol aimed at him, Offit says simply, "Abortion, doctors who perform abortions." Nobody's firebombing pediatricians' offices, and there's no moral dilemma here about when life begins. But the overarching question-what happened to my baby?-is still impossible to answer, and the anger is real and it's deep. Some parents of children with autism tell stories with an eerily similar start: an infant who was happy and healthy until she got her shots. Then, suddenly, she lost eye contact and language. Parents' dreams for their babies are buried in sadness, their pockets are emptied to pay for therapies, their worries about their children's future haunt them even as they're trying to get through the screaming, splattered minutes of the day." - Claudia Kalb, Newsweek (November 3, 2008)
http://ww w.newsweek.com/id/165644

"Dr. Gregory Poland, director of the Mayo Vaccine Research Group at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and a vocal proponent of universal flu vaccination, says he is no stranger to such harassment. Among the most egregious things -- I got a letter once railing against my involvement in vaccines and hoping that something serious would happen to me and hoping that something serious would happen to one of my children," he said.....But some people connected to groups that believe a vaccine-autism link exists say that they, too, have been the targets of hateful speech. "I've been called a baby killer," says Rebecca Estepp, national manager of the autism support group Talk About Curing Autism. "One woman got into my face this summer and told me I was going to cause millions of children to die. Emotions are running high because this involves the health of our children....Poland said he believes legislation should be considered to offer special protection to those in the field of vaccine research. "Since this affects not only a person and his or her family, but indeed the public health, special provisions should be considered in terms of legal consequences," he said. "This was done, for example, in the case of abortion protesters.".....Dr. Peter Hotez, immunologist at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and father of a daughter with autism, said he believes that federal public health agencies, including the surgeon general's office and the National Institutes of Health, must take a more active role in dissuading the link between vaccines and autism. "[These organizations] have to be willing to speak out and make strong statements that vaccines do not cause autism," he said. "These organizations have been conspicuous by their silence." - Dan Childs, ABC-TV (October 31, 2008) http://abcnews.go.com/print? id=6150482

" Parents fail to get their children inoculated for a variety of reasons: ignorance of the requirement; concern over how much it will cost; misunderstanding that for the vaccine to be effective against some diseases, children must get follow-up shots....More problematic are the parents who willfully ignore the requirement, substituting their judgment for that of experts who must guard the public health. In New Jersey, the state Legislature is being asked to approve a bill that would allow parents to opt out of mandatory vaccine requirements. The measure was prompted by a new requirement in New Jersey -- the first in the nation -- that pre- schoolers get annual flu shots.....The bill in the New Jersey Legislature would allow parents a "conscientious exemption" as long as they swear they have "sincerely held" objections to immunizations. No doubt many parents have sincerely held beliefs, but allowing them to opt out of vaccination puts the lives of their children at risk as well as the lives of others....The vaccine-autism link has been thoroughly debunked. States should not back off mandatory vaccination laws, and local school districts and health departments should do a better job of enforcing compliance." - Mike King, Atlanta Journal Constitution (October 29, 2008) http://www.ajc.com/s ervices/content/opinion/stories/2008/10/29/vaccinesed .html

" BJC HealthCare, the shining beacon for traditional medical care throughout the Midwest, has made getting a flu shot mandatory for its 26,000 employees. That goes for all employees, even the ones who never come in contact with patients. If anyone refuses, it is going to be considered a breach of the fitness for duty requirement, meaning anyone who refuses to be vaccinated is subject to dismissal. Many employees are unhappy over this new edict. Some employees who see the policy as a blatant violation of their privacy believe it should be at the discretion of the individual to decide what medications to take. Others think the way the policy was presented created an atmosphere of intimidation. When the policy was initially presented to employees, was made clear that without compliance, the employee could no longer work at BJC. Still others suspect that BJC is getting a kickback from the vaccine's manufacturer. Employees receiving the flu vaccination are required to sign a waiver that totally absolves BJC of any liability if the employee is harmed by the vaccine."- Barbara Minton, NaturalNews.com (November 2, 2008)
http:// www.naturalnews.com/024677.html

2008-10-24T11:23:00.000-07:00

CDC Gardasil Risk Report Is A Cover-up

Click here to hear about CDC's denial of Gardasil risks

by Barbara Loe Fisher

This week the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in association with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) issued a report on Gardasil vaccine safety that amounts to a cover-up of serious reactions, including paralysis and deaths, that have been reported to the government's Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS).

Today (October 24, 2008), the National Vaccine Information Center issued a press release that calls on the CDC and FDA to release to the public the study design, data and names of principal investigators involved in the report maintaining that Gardasil vaccine is safe with no serious side effects. NVIC will also be calling on the newly elected President and members of Congress to remove the nation's vaccine safety monitoring system from DHHS and place it in a separate entity reporting directly to Congress.

Sadly, U.S. government officials have learned nothing in the past 26 years from parents asking for investigation of vaccination side effects and identification of individuals at higher risk for having vaccine reactions so their lives can be spared. Now, a callous disregard for human life, which has been tragically demonstrated for decades, is once again illustrated in this latest refusal to properly evaluate the risks of the newly licensed Gardasil vaccine. Why should anyone have confidence in government and drug company officials who do not bother to scientifically investigate the biological mechanisms contributing to serious reactions, injuries and deaths and why some individuals may be more vulnerable than others for suffering Gardasil reactions?

Conflicts of interest are rampant in a mass vaccination infrastructure that has the same people, who are regulating and promoting vaccines, also evaluating vaccine safety. This kind of conflict of interest cannot be tolerated. The people - and only the people being told and often forced to buy and use vaccines - can reform the system by getting involved in the democratic process and appealing to their elected officials and demanding change. Because 26 years is long enough to wait for those in government responsible for ensuring vaccine safety to do the right thing.

At the end of the day, the only way we can have the ability to place economic and political pressure on the public health system to change is to have the right to make informed, voluntary decisions about which vaccines we and our children use. The right to informed consent to vaccination or any medical intervention which carries a risk of injury or death is a human right. Anything less, as we can see from the latest whitewash of Gardasil vaccine risks by government health officials we are supposed to trust, is a threat to both individual and public health.

____________________________________________________________

October 24, 2008 10:10 AM Eastern Daylight Time

http://www.businesswire.com/news/h%20ome/20081024005429/en

BusinessWire

NVIC Says Government Denies Gardasil Risks

Vaccine Watchdog Group Calls for Transparency

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) is calling on the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to publicly release the study design, data and names of principal investigators involved in a statement this week maintaining that Gardasil vaccine is safe with no serious side effects. NVIC will also be calling on the newly elected President and members of Congress to remove the nation's vaccine safety monitoring system from the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and place it in a separate entity reporting directly to Congress to restore trust in the nation's public health laws based on federal mass vaccination policies.

The CDC and FDA are alleging that the vast majority - if not all - of the approximately 9,000 HPV vaccine adverse events, including 27 deaths, reported to the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) are not causally related to the Gardasil vaccine based on internal analysis, including review of medical records of girls and women vaccinated in HMO's participating in the federal Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) Project and other closed government operated databases.

"Transparency in government is essential to trust in government and replication is the hallmark of good science," said NVIC co-founder and president Barbara Loe Fisher. "Parents of young girls and women cut down in their prime - some of them paralyzed or dead within hours or days of getting Gardasil vaccine - deserve better answers than a whitewashing of this vaccine's very serious side effects. Until there is an independent confirmation of these unverified findings by individuals and companies without financial ties to the government or industry, it is not credible."

* In June 2006 NVIC questioned the quality and quantity of Merck's pre-licensure Gardasil vaccine safety data in girls under age 16 and, in 2007, issued three reports analyzing serious Gardasil adverse events reported to VAERS;

* In 2007, Merck lobbied in many states for Gardasil vaccine mandates but failed in most;

* During 2008, about 20 percent of all vaccine adverse event reports to VAERS were related to Gardasil even though it is not a mandated vaccine like most others;

* Last week, reports that Merck's Garda sil sales are falling dramatically and are not offsetting similar declining sales of other drugs associated with safety concerns prompted Merck to lower profit projections and layoff employees.

NVIC was founded in 1982 and worked with Congress on the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act. The non- profit watchdog group advocates for safer vaccine policies and the legal right for Americans to make informed, voluntary decisions about vaccination.

Contacts:

National Vaccine Information Center

Barbara Loe Fisher, 703-938-0342

Permalink:

http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=gw6u5scab.0.0.oblmlwbab.0&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.businesswire.com%2Fnews%2Fhome%2F20081024005429%2Fen

Centers for Disease Control

October 21, 2008

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/vaers/gardasil.htm

Reports of Health Concerns Following HPV Vaccination

HPV Vaccine Safety

The safety of the HPV vaccine was studied in 7 clinical trials before it was licensed. There were over 21,000 girls and women ages 9 through 26 in these clinical trials.

Since it was licensed, CDC and FDA have been closely monitoring the safety of the HPV vaccine. There are 3 systems used to monitor the safety of vaccines after they are licensed and being used in the U.S. These systems can monitor side effects already known to be caused by vaccines as well as detect rare side effects that were not identified during a vaccine's clinical trials. The 3 systems are:

* The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS)--a useful early warning public health system that helps CDC and FDA detect possible side effects or adverse events following vaccination.

* The Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) Project--a project between CDC and 8 health care organizations to study patterns in reports detected by VAERS and determine if a vaccine is causing a side effect.

* The Clinical Immunization Safety Assessment (CISA) Network--a project between 6 academic centers in the U.S. which conduct research on adverse events that might be caused by vaccines.

Reports to VAERS Following HPV Vaccination

As of August 31, 2008, there have been 10,326 VAERS reports of adverse events following Gardasil vaccination in the United States. Of these reports, 94% were reports of events considered to be non-serious, and 6% were reports of events considered to be serious.

Based on all of the information we have today, CDC and FDA have determined that Gardasil is safe to use and effective in preventing 4 types of HPV. As with all approved vaccines, CDC and FDA will continue to closely monitor the safety of Gardasil. Any problems detected with this vaccine will be reported to health officials, healthcare providers, and the public, and needed action will be taken to ensure the public's health and safety.

Non-serious adverse event reports

VAERS defines non-serious adverse events as those other than hospitalization, death, permanent disability, and life-threatening illness.

The vast majority (94%) of the adverse events reports following Gardasil have been non-serious. Reports of non-serious adverse events after Gardasil vaccination have included fainting, pain and swelling at the injection site (the arm), headache, nausea and fever. Fainting is common after injections and vaccinations, especially in adolescents. Falls after fainting may sometimes cause serious injuries, such as head injuries, which can be easily prevented by keeping the vaccinated person seated for up to 15 minutes after vaccination.

Serious adverse event reports

VAERS defines serious adverse events as adverse events that involve hospitalization, death, permanent disability, and life-threatening illness. As with all VAERS reports, serious events may or may not have been caused by the vaccine.

All serious reports (6%) for Gardasil have been carefully analyzed by medical experts. Experts have not found a common medical pattern to the reports of serious adverse events reported for Gardasil that would suggest that they were caused by the vaccine. The following is a summary of the serious adverse event reports that were submitted to VAERS between June 8, 2006 and August 31, 2008.

Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS)

Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) has been reported after vaccination with Gardasil. GBS is a rare disorder that causes muscle weakness. It occurs in 1-2 out of every 100,000 people in their teens. A number of infections can cause GBS. There has been no indication that Gardasil increases the rate of GBS in girls and women above the rate expected in the general population, whether or not they were vaccinated.

Blood Clots

People have reported blood clots after getting Gardasil. These clots have occurred in the heart, lungs, and legs. Most of these people had a risk of getting blood clots, such as taking oral contraceptives (the birth control pill).

Deaths

As of August 31, 2008, there have been 27 U.S. reports of death among females who have received the vaccine. There was no common pattern to the deaths that would suggest that they were caused by the vaccine. Of the 27 U.S. reports:

* 3 reports were related to diabetes or heart failure

* 3 reports were related to viral illnesses or meningitis (an infection in the brain)

* 2 reports were related to drug use

* 2 reports were related to blood clots

* 5 reports are being evaluated (attempting to follow up/identify case)

* 1 report is still under review or VAERS is still waiting for additional medical records, such as an autopsy report or death certificate

* 1 report of seizure disorder (history of seizures)

* 3 reports had an unknown cause of death

* 7 reports that could not be evaluated because they did not have enough information to identify the person, or to verify that a person had died

Reports of adverse events after getting a vaccine can be submitted to VAERS by fax at 1-877-721-0366, online at https://secure.vaers.org/VaersDataEntryintro.htm , or by mail to Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, P.O. Box 1100, Rockville, MD 20849-1100.

Forced Flu Vaccination and Freedom

2008-10-22T12:30:00.000-07:00

by Barbara Loe Fisher

www.vaccineawakening.blogspot.com
www.NVIC.org
www.StandUpBeCounted.org

It is no wonder parents in New Jersey are protesting in the streets in opposition to a mandate by the state health department that all children entering daycare and school have to get an annual flu shot. The mandating of the notoriously ineffective and risky influenza vaccine is turning out to be one vaccine too many for parents. Rightfully, they are calling for scientific evidence that obeying CDC officials and giving children 69 doses of 16 vaccines from birth to age 18 will keep them healthy while demanding the right to make informed, voluntary choices about vaccination.

October 2008 has been a busy month for those who want to force all Americans - especially children - to get a flu shot every year. It doesn't matter if scientific studies have failed to prove that influenza vaccine is effective in children or many adults. It doesn't matter that flu vaccines during the past few years have been essentially worthless because they have not matched circulating strains of Type A and B influenza viruses. And apparently it also doesn't matter if the mortality statistic the flu police cling to - "36,000 annual deaths from influenza" - is scientifically correct or just hype, especially in light of the fact that only about 20 percent of all flu-like illness is actually caused by "influenza."

Bottom line: the flu you thought you caught last year might not actually be "influenza" and, even if it was, the chances that you got a strain of influenza actually contained in the flu vaccine out on the market was slim to none.

But that isn't stopping the pro-forced vaccinators from pushing mandatory flu vaccination on all health care workers, who have an historically low uptake (about 40 percent) when it comes to getting an annual flu shot. So if you are a nurse, doctor, social worker, minister or any other professional who interfaces with "patients" in a medical setting, you are going to be rolling up your sleeve every year and getting that flu shot or you could be forced to divulge your vaccination status to patients, wear a mask or be denied contact with patients.

And what about influenza vaccine injury victims? A quick look at the federal Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) influenza vaccine reaction reports that now number between 24,000 and 34,000 (depending upon if the flu vaccine was given alone or not), illustrate the disturbing similarity of the report descriptions: inflammation of the brain; Guillain-Barre syndrome; chronic joint and limb pain and numbness, chronic fatigue, and permanent neurological damage.

On NVIC's Memorial for Vaccine Victims, there is a report of two children in the same family who regressed after influenza vaccination. Born in 2003, their mother reports that her baby son got a flu shot at seven months and her baby daughter at one year old. They both had behavior changes and regressed developmentally. Their mother said:"Both stopped sleeping, lost the few words they had at seven months and our daughter developed night terrors. Our son lost eye contact after each vax round, finally truly regressing at three after milk was added to their diet. He was diagnosed with autism; our daughter was diagnosed with "benign" language delay." Although their Mom reports that diet changes (gluten/casein/soy free diets) helped them partially recover, she said they still show "all the immune suppression and inflammation of efflux disorder and will have to be treated."At the end of her report she includes the following quote by Rabelais: "Science without conscience is but the ruin of the soul."

Yes, indeed.
__________________________________________

"New Jersey is the first state in the nation to require a flu shot for all children before they enroll in preschools and daycare centers.....But the mandate has infuriated many parents, hundreds of whom gathered in protest Thursday outside the statehouse in Trenton. Parents have formed advocacy groups and enlisted support online for fellow residents to sign their petition against the law. They've banned together to demand what they see as their right to choose what is injected in the bodies of their children. "I have a really big problem with mandatory flu shots in this country," said Louis Kuo-Habukus, a mother of three from New Jersey. "We need to have a choice." Parents flooded the statehouse, carrying signs with slogans like "Parent Power" and "My Child, My Choice," and chanting "No American should be forced to play vaccine roulette with their child." They rallied for support of a "conscientious objectors" clause, which they want added to the bill. It would grant exemptions for children and parents who have a moral objection to the vaccination." - Sharyn Alfonsi, ABC News and ABC World News Tonight (October 16, 2008)

"Parental informed consent is "a civil right, a human right to be free to make intelligent, rational decisions about using pharmaceutical products that risk their children's lives," Fisher told the Holistic Moms Network fifth annual Natural Living Conference. "What the entire debate comes down to is freedom" of choice, said Fisher, a mother, and president of the National Vaccine Information Center. Fisher co-founded the non-profit grass-roots group in Washington in 1982. Health officials and physicians in the past three decades have tripled the number of shots that children are required to have, without adequately studying the possible long-term effects, Fisher charged....From birth to age 18, children currently receive 69 doses of 16 vaccines, including annual flu shots, she said. In 1982, 23 doses of seven vaccines were required, she said. "Today, twice as many children are chronically ill and disabled than in the 1970s and 1980s, when half as many vaccines were given," Fisher said." - Bob Groves, Bergen County Record (NJ), (October 19, 2008) http://www.northjersey.com/news/health/312 44264.html

"In the face of chronic low influenza vaccination rates among healthcare workers, the leading US society of infection control professionals says it's time to require medically eligible workers to either get the immunization or sign a form saying they understand the risks to patients if they skip it. "As part of a comprehensive strategy, we recommend that influenza vaccine be required annually for all healthcare personnel with direct patient care," the Associat ion for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) said in a policy statement released yesterday. "Organizations should adopt a system in which an informed declination is obtained from employees that decline for other than medical reasons," the statement continues. "This information should be utilized by the facility to develop improvement strategies for the following vaccine season." - Robert Roos, CIDRAP News (October 10, 2008)

"Over the past two flu seasons, vaccinating children five and younger did not reduce the number of child hospitalizations or doctor's visits linked to influenza, according to results of a new study....In the study, a team led by Dr. Peter G. Szilagyi, from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry and Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, N.Y., looked at 414 children aged five and younger who developed flu in the 2003-2004 or 2004-2005 flu seasons......after they adjusted for flu risk factors -- such as a child's location, sex, insurance status, chronic health conditions or timing of the vaccine -- the effectiveness of the vaccine could no longer be shown. The effectiveness of the flu shot ranged from 7 percent to 52 percent for 6- to 59-month-old children who had been fully vaccinated, the researchers found. The less- than-perfect match between the strain of flu in the vaccine during the two seasons studied and the flu that was actually circulating may have contributed substantially to the poor effectiveness of the vaccine, Szilagyi's team speculated. In 2003 to 2004, 99 percent of circulating flu was influenza A, but only 11 percent of the influenza A strain in the United States was similar to the strains included in the vaccine." - Health Day News (October 6, 2008) http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ne ws/fullstory_70107.html