Child Vaccines

The concern over child vaccines is growing among health conscious parents. In a new study, published in JAMA Pediatrics, researchers found that 49 percent of children ages 2-24 months did not receive all recommended vaccinations or did not get vaccinated according to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices schedule.

Researchers analyzed immunization records of 323,247 children born from 2004-2008 and found that the number of under-vaccinated children increased significantly during those four years. In fact, researchers found that 1 in 8 under-vaccinated children’s parents intentionally chose not to adhere to immunization guidelines.

Parents are waking up to the dangers of vaccines
The lead author of the study, Jason Glanz PhD states: “While a large majority of parents in the U.S. choose to vaccinate their children, a growing number of parents are concerned about vaccine safety and choose to vaccinate their children according to alternative immunization schedules. The medical community doesn’t have a lot of data on these alternative schedules, so we are hoping the results from this study will open the door to more opportunities to examine their safety and efficacy.”

The mainstream media reported this news and state that parents may be putting their children at risk by delaying vaccinations, some news organizations are incorrectly stating that the study showed that children who were under-vaccinated had more emergency department visits than those who were vaccinated, but this is not what the study stated. The authors actually concluded that children who were under-vaccinated because of parental choice had significantly lower utilization rates of emergency department visits and outpatient settings – both overall and for specific acute illnesses – than children who were vaccinated on time.

The mainstream media attacks health-conscious parents
Another assumption made by the media was that the under-vaccinated children belonged to parents who do not believe in vaccines and did not visit their pediatricians for well-care visits, but this is not the case. This study was conducted by Kaiser Permanente and the authors stated that in order to be included in the study, a child would need to be part of one of eight ‘managed care organizations’ and that they needed to have at least 1 outpatient visit by 12 months of age and the child would be eliminated from the study if the child’s enrollment in the managed care organization was discontinued. For an abstract on the study, please visit: http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1558057.

Some parents have been delaying vaccines or following alternatives for years and in 2011, Pediatrics reported that 77 percent of Washington stated pediatricians report that they are sometimes or frequently asked to provide alternative childhood vaccine schedules for their patients. Researchers also found that 61 percent of these pediatricians are comfortable using an alternative schedule when asked by a parent. In particular, they felt most comfortable delaying three vaccinations; DTaP, Hib and PCV.

According to the New York Times, following an alternative vaccination scheduled makes it difficult for the AAP and the IOM to monitor vaccine safety. According to Dr. Jackson, Division Chief of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Mercy Hospital of Kansas City, Mo: “We want to drill down as far as we can, and make vaccines as safe as we can. We’re not going find the one-in-a-million serious adverse event if you have thousands of different vaccine schedules out there.”

Dr. Jackson cited a withdrawal of the rotavirus vaccine in 1999, by the CDC, as an example. “We want a vaccine that’s as safe as possible. We realized, as that rotavirus vaccine came back, that in order to pick up that very rare side effect, we have to be able to look at tens of thousands of children. If we have all these different vaccine schedules, we’re going to miss things like that.”

About the author: Sima Ash of Healing 4 Soul is a clinical and classical homeopath and certified clinical nutritionist who utilizes a unique approach pioneered by Tinus Smits, M.D. called CEASE therapy. The aim of CEASE treatment is systematic detoxification of the causes of illness, leading to step by step improvement and restoration of health in the individual. For additional information, please visit – Healing4Soul.com. You can follow Sima on Facebook at ‘Cease Therapy California’ and through her weekly blog on NaturalHealth365.com

Flu Vaccine effectiveness

With the flu season ramping up, many are looking to vaccination as a "preventive" approach. Those who abstain are often accused of being uneducated, or worse, socially irresponsible.  Nothing could be further from the truth.
As it presently stands, it is not sound medical science, but primarily economic and political motivation which generates the immense pressure behind mass participation in the annual ritual of flu vaccination. 

It is a heavily guarded secret within the medical establishment (especially within the corridors of the CDC) that the Cochrane Database Review, considered by many within the evidence-based medical model to be the gold standard for assessing the effectiveness of common medical interventions, does not lend unequivocal scientific support to the belief and/or propaganda that flu vaccines are safe and effective.

To the contrary, these authoritative reviews reveal there is a conspicuous absence of conclusive evidence as to the effectiveness of influenza vaccines in children under 2, healthy adults, the elderly, and healthcare workers who care for the elderly.

What is even more disconcerting is that only one safety study on inactivated flu vaccines has been performed in children under 2 (the population most susceptible to adverse reactions), even though in the USA and Canada current guidelines recommend the vaccination of healthy children from six months old. 

Another alarming finding following the global pandemic declared by the World Health Organization in 2009, is that receipt of the seasonal flu vaccine among Canadians actually increased the rate of medically attended pandemic H1N1 infection. Vaccines, therefore, may actually decrease resistance to viral infection via their immunosuppressive actions. View study.

Can Vaccination Replace Natural Immunity?

At the outset it should be acknowledged that there could be no medical justification for vaccination in the first place if it were not for the observation that periodic infection from wild type pathogens confers lasting, natural immunity. In a very real sense periodic infectious challenges are Nature's immunizations, without which the very concept of vaccination would make absolutely no sense. 

The vaccination process artificially simulates and co-opts a natural process, generating a broad range of adverse unintended consequences, many of which have been documented here. Vaccine proponents would have us believe that natural immunity is inferior to synthetic immunity, and should be replaced by the latter.  In some cases they even suggest breastfeeding should be delayed during immunizations because it "interferes" with the vaccine efficacy. Sounds like naked economic incentives have trumped genuine, serious health concerns for the entire population, especially the very young, the elderly and the sick.

This warped perspective follows from the disingenuous standard vaccine researchers use to "prove" the "efficacy" of their vaccines. The chemical kitchen sink is thrown at the immune system in order to conserve the expensive-to-produce antigen and to generate a more intense immune response - a process, not unlike what happens when you kick a beehive. These chemicals include detergents, anti-freeze, heavy metals, xenotrophic retroviruses, DNA from aborted human fetuses (diploid cells) and other species, etc. Amazingly, vaccine researchers and manufacturers do not have to prove the antibodies actually have affinity with the antigens they are marketed to protect us against, i.e. they do not have to prove "effectiveness," only "efficacy." This semantic trick is at the root of how the world has been deceived into accepting interventions so dangerous that their risk, like nuclear power, is underwritten by world governments, not private insurers who know they would go bankrupt paying out claims to the injured. Also, recent research indicates in some cases no antibodies are required for immunity against some viruses, running diametrically opposed to orthodox vaccinology.

Another point that can not be understated is that the trivalent (3-strained) influenza vaccines are incapable of protecting us against the wide range of pathogens which produce influenza-like illness: 

"Over 200 viruses cause influenza and influenza-like illness which produce the same symptoms (fever, headache, aches and pains, cough and runny noses). Without laboratory tests, doctors cannot tell the two illnesses apart. Both last for days and rarely lead to death or serious illness. At best, vaccines might be effective against only Influenza A and B, which represent about 10% of all circulating viruses." (Cochrane Database).

It is therefore exceedingly clear that it is a mathematical impossibility for influenza vaccines to be effective at preventing wild-circulating strains of influenza. Nutritional support, then, becomes the most logical and reasonable solution.

Immune Status Determines Susceptibility To Infection
The fact is that our immune status determines susceptibility. If the immune system is continually challenged with environmental toxicants, nutritional deficiencies and/or incompatibilities, chronic stress, influenza is far more likely to take hold. If your immune system is strong, many infectious challenges occur, are met with an appropriate response, and often go unnoticed. In other words, it is not a lack of a vaccination that causes infection, rather, the inability of the immune system to function effectively. [Note: In some cases, we may become infected and the ultimate outcome is that we enjoy even greater immunity.]

While there are a broad spectrum of natural substances which have been studied for their anti-influenza properties, vitamin D deserves special consideration due to the fact that it is indispensable to produce antiviral peptides (e.g. cathelicidin) within the immune system, and can be supported for pennies a day.

A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2010, revealed that children receiving 1200 IUs of vitamin D a day were at 59% reduced risk for contracting seasonal Influenza A infection. Moreover as a secondary outcome, only 2 children in the treatment group versus 12 for the control group, experienced an asthma attack.
There are actually a broad range of preventive strategies that are evidence-based, and available without prescription.

    1) Echinacea Tea: J Altern Complement Med. 2000 Aug;6(4):327-34
    2) Elderberry:  J Altern Complement Med. 1995 Winter;1(4):361-9.
    3) American Ginseng:  J Altern Complement Med.  2006 Mar;12(2):153-7.
    4) Green Tea: J Nutr. 2011 Oct ;141(10):1862-70. Epub   2011 Aug 10.
    5) Probiotics: Pediatrics. 2009 Aug;124(2):e172-9.
    6) Vitamin D: PLoS One. 2010;5(6):e11088. Epub 2010 Jun 14.

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For additional research on the under-reported adverse effects of vaccines visit our Health Guide: Vaccine Research

Sayer Ji is the founder and chair of GreenMedInfo.com. His writings have been published in the Wellbeing Journal, the Journal of Gluten Sensitivity, and have been featured on numerous websites, including Mercola.com, NaturalNews.com, Infowars.com, Care2.com. His critically acclaimed essay series The Dark Side of Wheat opens up a new perspective on the universal, human-species specific toxicity of wheat, and is now available for PDF download.

Vaccines - RSV & other diseases

Are vaccines causing RSV and other diseases?

We vaccinate our infants thinking we are protecting them from deadly diseases. Yet, when we vaccinate them, we weaken their immune systems. This leads to poorer health and a greater risk of contracting diseases like the sometimes deadly respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). In a very recent study, infants with severe lower respiratory tract infections are found to have a dysfunctional immune response correlating to the severity of the disease. (RSV is the leading cause of lower respiratory tract infection in young children worldwide).

According to Mark Hall, MD, from Critical Care at Nationwide Children's, "...children with the most severe forms of RSV disease may already be immunosuppressed when we meet them in the ICU, raising the possibility of worsening this immunosuppression with the addition of commonly prescribed corticosteroids used to blunt the pro-inflammatory response to RSV."

Vaccines weaken the immune system

So where does this immunosuppression come from? Injection of vaccine via unnatural routes can use up 70 percent of the immune system's resources, instead of the usual three to four percent with a wild variety disease. Because the body has no extra antibodies waiting to counter the vaccine, the immune system goes into overdrive to deal with the vaccination, leaching critical vitamins away from bones and organs for the production of more antibodies. The resulting lack of vitamins can cause fractures, bruising and retinal bleeding and hemorrhaging, sometimes leading to an incorrectly diagnosed 'shaken baby syndrome' case.

Not only do vaccines weaken the immune system, but the body's massive surge of antibodies to deal with the additives in vaccines can also cause increased allergies and auto-immune diseases. The adrenals, pancreas, pituitary gland, thymus and the spleen also become over-stimulated, leaving the body unable to regulate itself, which has been linked to heart disease, diabetes, asthma and bronchitis, decrease in circulation of blood throughout the body, and atrophying of vascular vessels - to name a few.

Vaccinations are flawed in theory

The medical procedure of artificially acquiring a disease by vaccination to become "immune" to it is flawed in many ways.

• Vaccines are not immunizations and actually do not work long-term, requiring a myriad of "booster shots" that supposedly keep the vaccination from failing
• Vaccines contain hazardous chemicals, GMO products and aborted fetal and animal tissues along with the actual virus or disease proteins. Each one of these additives has its own toxic effects on the body.
• Vaccinations can come in combination (e.g. measles, mumps, rubella all in one). A child would never naturally contract multiple diseases at the same time, and vaccinating this way puts a tremendous strain on the immune system.
• The route of entry is different to a naturally occurring disease. Most diseases enter through the mouth or the nasal cavity - not the skin and muscle. The vaccination breaks the skin with a needle and injects foreign matter into the muscle, effectively bypassing the skin's role in immune function, as well as averting the normal route of infection defense; tonsils, the mucous membranes, and so on.
• Normally, the body becomes primed with extra antibodies after the tonsils are alerted that there is impending infection. By the time the infection takes hold, there is an army of white blood cells waiting to neutralize the invaders. With vaccinations, the infection goes straight to the blood, with no prior build up for the body, and no extra immune cells to deal with it.

The best immunization is natural immunization

Going through the actual disease is the only route for true immunization. The body has a tremendous capacity to catalog diseases it has encountered and will become permanently immune to most diseases. Aside from this, with a healthy diet, healthy environment and without toxic vaccinations, the body will perform in an ideal state of harmony where there is no need for "immunizations."

Sources for this article include:

Innate Immune Dysfunction is Associated with Enhanced Disease Severity in Infants with Respiratory Syncytial Virus Bronchiolitis. Journal of Infectious Diseases, 2012
Cynthia Cournoyer, 'What About Immunizations?', Dennis Nelson Publishers, 1991
http://www.naturalnews.com/035871_vaccination_immunization_myths.html

About the author:
Craig Stellpflug is a Cancer Nutrition Specialist, Lifestyle Coach and Neuro Development Consultant at Healing Pathways Medical Clinic, Scottsdale, AZ. http://www.healingpathwayscancerclinic.com/ With 17 years of clinical experience working with both brain disorders and cancer, Craig has seen first-hand the devastating effects of vaccines and pharmaceuticals on the human body and has come to the conclusion that a natural lifestyle and natural remedies are the true answers to health and vibrant living. You can find his daily health blog at www.blog.realhealthtalk.com and his articles and radio show archives at www.realhealthtalk.com

Mercury-containing vaccine studies

Studies showing mercury-containing vaccines to be safe alleged to be fraudulent

Be aware,before injecting anything into your blood stream. You and only you are responsible for what you put inside your body...after all it's you're body, the only one you have, so make educated decisions, especially when it comes to your health, and the health of those you care for.

In 2010, the Coalition for Mercury-free Drugs (CoMeD, Inc.) submitted a formal allegation to the Inspector General for Health and Human Services. The Coalition alleges studies that show mercury-containing vaccines to be safe, are fraudulent. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) documents show that Danish vaccine researcher Poul Thorsen and the co-authors of "Thimerosal and the occurrence of autism …" concealed the fact that autism declined in Denmark after Thimerosal was removed from the Danish vaccine program.

It is also estimated that Thorsen embezzled at least one million dollars of grant money from the CDC. The Inspector General currently names Thorsen as one of its "Most Wanted" fugitives. A new "wanted" poster featuring Thorsen, suggests that the above-mentioned allegations are credible.

 

Based on few industry-sposored statistical studies including Thorsen's, the United States Government and the World Health Organization defend the ongoing use of Thimerosal, the highly toxic mercury-based vaccine preservative. Mental retardation, however, is listed on the manufacturer's Material Safety Data Sheet for Thimerosal a possible outcome from exposure in utero and in children. Disturbingly and based on Thorsen's public conclusion, however, the former United States Assistant Surgeon General declared that "(Thorsen's) Danish study…provide(s) one strong piece of evidence that Thimerosal is not causally linked to autism." This allegedly frauduelent study also helped the Institute of Medicine reach its 2004 declaration that mercury in vaccines and the autism epidemic are unrelated. 

Children in developed, western nations are receiving mercury-free vaccine formulations. Children in developing countries, however, are receiving many mercury-preserved ones. Rev. Lisa K. Sykes, President of CoMeD, Inc., described this as double standard in vaccine safety that discriminates based on economics and nationality. This discrimination may now also based upon fraudulent data.

Source: http://http://www.sacbee.com/2012/11/15/4988696/discriminatory-vaccine-policy.html

Suggested by the author:

• Medscape.com: FDA does not endorse the safety of a new hepatitis b vaccine
• American doctors most dissatisfied, only 15% agree US healthcare system works
• Pharmaceutical company Bayer acquires nutritional supplement company Schiff
• Premature births: Know the symptoms and be aware of risk factors
• British medical journal claims there is no proof that Tamiflu can stop influenza

Should I Vaccinate?

You have been lead to believe that vaccines are safe. But they are not safe. The birth of the vaccine is one of the worst scientific mistakes and subsequent cover ups in human history. The science behind vaccines is not only flimsy, it is an embarrassment. But money, (which is the true motivation behind vaccines) is flowing in by the billions and has since the birth of the vaccine and so, vaccines continue to be propagated. Medical intervention for those who are ill is a multi billion dollar proposition. But it is an even bigger money maker to require people who are in a state of perfect health to pay for medical intervention, such as a vaccine or drug. 

The world that we live in is a world that is owned and run not by people, but by companies... Companies who have one motivation: Money. And companies who can lobby politicians to pass legislation that is not in the best interest of human life. These same companies own the media. To give the general public the real information about vaccines, hurts sales. Most of the studies done about vaccines are done by the very same companies that stand to profit from the success of these vaccines. Most of the medical clinics you visit make their living off of vaccines. So there is a huge conflict of interest within the medical community relative to vaccination.

Teal explains that as a medical intuitive, she has never seen a human body benefit by a vaccine, she has only ever seen them hurt the human body. She explains that vaccines are no substitute for eating a diet and living a lifestyle that supports the immune system. She goes on to explain that there are natural barriers between a human body and a virus (such as the walls of the respiratory and digestive system) and that by injecting a virus straight into the blood stream, you are by passing those barriers which enable the virus to enter vital organs and to cross the blood brain barrier; which is extremely dangerous. 

The idea that vaccines should be mandatory is unconstitutional. It is a blow at freedom and freedom is precious. In the future, Vaccines will be looked at in the same way that we look at blood letting today. It will be seen as an embarrassment in human history.

Neurological Poison

The Neurological Poison So Common Your Doctor Probably Pushes It

By Dr. Mercola

The presumed intent of a vaccination is to help you build immunity to potentially harmful organisms that contribute to illness and disease.
However, your body's immune system has been designed over the course of countless millennia to ward off infection naturally.

Infectious organisms do not so much invade your body, as take advantage of the opportunity provided to them by an already weakened immune system.
Vaccination is an atypical manipulation of the immune system that stimulates an artificial, temporary immunity and can also involve an atypical inflammatory response that leads to permanent immune and brain dysfunction.

When an antigen is injected directly into your body through a vaccine, and especially when combined with an immune-stimulating adjuvant, your IgA immune system (the one found in your mucous membranes, meant to fight off pathogens that are inhaled or eaten) is bypassed and your body's adaptive immune system kicks into high gear in response to the vaccination.

Vaccine adjuvants can trigger unwanted "hyperactive" immune responses, as they can cause your immune system to overreact to the introduction of the organism you're being vaccinated against, increasing the chance that self-tolerance will be lost, and the immune system will attack its own cells and tissue as if "other."

It's known that vaccine-induced inflammatory responses can lead to permanent alterations in brain and immune function.

A new report in the journal Lupus suggests "a rigorous evaluation of the vaccine-related adverse health impacts in the pediatric population is urgently needed." Indeed, with so many children being frequently subjected to atypical manipulation of the immune system by vaccines that contain intriniscally toxic adjuvants along with over 100 antigenic compounds, such an evaluation is long overdue!

If You Follow the Recommended Vaccine Schedule, Your Child May be Exposed to Toxic Levels of Aluminum

As noted in Lupus:

"In some developed countries, by the time children are 4 to 6 years old, they will have received … high amounts of aluminum (Al) adjuvants through routine vaccinations."

Like other adjuvants such as squalene, an oil based adjuvant used in many vaccines licensed in Europe (but not yet licensed in the U.S.), aluminum hydroxide is added to the vaccine to "boost" your immune response to the antigens in the vaccine.

An antigen is the lab-altered virus, bacteria, toxin or other foreign substances in the vaccine, which is what your body is supposed to respond to and make antibodies against to theoretically stimulate immunity and long lasting protection from natural infection. By using an adjuvant to hyper-stimulate your body's immune response and force your body to make a high number of antibodies, the vaccine manufacturer can use a smaller amount of antigen, which makes production less expensive and increases their profits.

However, artificial vaccine induced immunity is not identical to naturally acquired immunity. Even when adjuvants hyper-stimulate the immune system to increase the antibody count (titers), there is no way to guarantee that there will be long term protection against disease because long lasting immunity involves stimulation of both cell mediated (innate) immunity and humoral (learned) immunity.

In fact, the FDA does not require vaccines to be proven effective (antibody-antigen affinity) before being released onto the market, rather, only that they are capable of producing a certain number of antibodies (titers), which is defined as "vaccine efficacy." There is a big difference between proving that a vaccine is truly "effective" against development of infectious disease and demonstrating that the vaccine can stimulate a certain number of measurable antibodies (efficacy). Judging a vaccine's ability to be protective by only measuring the numbers of antibodies in the blood is a semantic sleight-of-hand that has deluded most of the pro-vaccination public into thinking vaccines have actually been proven to work, which often they have not.

You could throw the chemical kitchen sink into a vaccine to "boost" antibody titers without it doing anything to actually stimulate long lasting immunity that is truly protective. Is it any wonder that experimental evidence suggests the simultaneous administration of even two or three adjuvants can "overcome genetic resistance to autoimmunity"? 

Despite this, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not conduct appropriate toxicity studies during their vaccine safety assessments. However, there is reason to believe that vaccines and their adjuvants are quite toxic when administered to children, and the Lupus report highlights several of them:

"In summary, research evidence shows that increasing concerns about current vaccination practices may indeed be warranted … Taken together, these observations raise plausible concerns about the overall safety of current childhood vaccination programs. When assessing adjuvant toxicity in children, several key points ought to be considered:

1. infants and children should not be viewed as "small adults" with regard to toxicological risk as their unique physiology makes them much more vulnerable to toxic insults
2. in adult humans Al [aluminum] vaccine adjuvants have been linked to a variety of serious autoimmune and inflammatory conditions (i.e., "ASIA"), yet children are regularly exposed to much higher amounts of Al from vaccines than adults
3. it is often assumed that peripheral immune responses do not affect brain function. However, it is now clearly established that there is a bidirectional neuro-immune cross-talk that plays crucial roles in immunoregulation as well as brain function. In turn, perturbations of the neuro-immune axis have been demonstrated in many autoimmune diseases encompassed in "ASIA" and are thought to be driven by a hyperactive immune response
4. the same components of the neuro-immune axis that play key roles in brain development and immune function are heavily targeted by Al adjuvants."

Aluminum is Only One Toxin Contained in Many Vaccines

Aluminum is a well-known neurotoxin that may lead to long-term brain inflammation, along with a broad range of serious health problems. There is overwhelming evidence that chronic immune activation (inflammation) in your brain is a major cause of brain dysfunction in numerous degenerative brain disorders, such as multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's,and ALS, which may explain the reported association between aluminum-containing vaccines and these diseases.

Writing in Current Medicinal Chemistry, researchers also noted that aluminum adjuvants in vaccines can carry serious health risks that have not been thoroughly evaluated:ⁱ

"Despite almost 90 years of widespread use of aluminum adjuvants, medical science's understanding about their mechanisms of action is still remarkably poor. There is also a concerning scarcity of data on toxicology and pharmacokinetics of these compounds. In spite of this, the notion that aluminum in vaccines is safe appears to be widely accepted.

Experimental research, however, clearly shows that aluminum adjuvants have a potential to induce serious immunological disorders in humans. In particular, aluminum in adjuvant form carries a risk for autoimmunity, long-term brain inflammation and associated neurological complications and thus may have profound and widespread adverse health consequences. In our opinion, the possibility that vaccine benefits may have been overrated and the risk of potential adverse effects underestimated, has not been rigorously evaluated in the medical and scientific community."

And this is the overriding point that needs to be understood: there are many signs indicating that we are giving our children far too many vaccines, and that vaccines of all kinds may be far less innocuous than previously believed. The current one-size-fits-all vaccine mandates simply throws too many children under the proverbial bus, because we simply do not know what all these vaccines are doing to individuals with different genetic and biological predisposition to developing chronic inflammation in the body (which can be manifested by a personal or family history of severe allergy, autoimmunity or neurological disorders) or how different vaccines interact when given in combination.

So, while it's known that aluminum is a toxic metal with absolutely no beneficial biological role to play when introduced into your body, it would be shortsighted and counterproductive to pin all adverse vaccine effects on this one ingredient. Different vaccines contain a number of different ingredients that can be toxic for humans and cause serious health problems, such as:

Formaldehyde, a known cancer-causing agent	Phenol (carbolic acid)
Neomycin and streptomycin (antibiotics)	Resin and gelatin, known to cause allergic reactions
Polysorbate 80 (Tween80™), which can cause anaphylactic reactions, and may cause miscarriage and infertility (see the next section for details)	Triton X100 (detergent)

Vaccine Safety Studies are Clearly Lacking

The more vaccines are studied, the more apparent it becomes that proper vaccine studies are lacking. Vaccine expert and pediatrician Larry Palevsky has long pointed out that there is a major difference between naturally acquired immunity and vaccine-induced immunity. Depending upon the disease, obtaining natural immunity can have far greater benefits. However, this fact seems to be completely overlooked by vaccine policymakers in the United States, considering the CDC and AAP recommend that U.S. babies receive 26 doses of vaccines before age 1 (which, incidentally, is twice as many vaccinations as are given to babies in Sweden and Japan).
Dr. Palevsky says:

"When I went through medical school, I was taught that vaccines were completely safe and completely effective, and I had no reason to believe otherwise. All the information that I was taught was pretty standard in all the medical schools and the teachings and scientific literature throughout the country. I had no reason to disbelieve it

Over the years, I kept practicing medicine and using vaccines and thinking that my approach to vaccines was completely onboard with everything else I was taught. But more and more, I kept seeing that my experience of the world, my experience in using and reading about vaccines, and hearing what parents were saying about vaccines were very different from what I was taught in medical school and my residency training.

… and it became clearer to me as I read the research, listened to more and more parents, and found other practitioners who also shared the same concern that vaccines had not been completely proven safe or even completely effective, based on the literature that we have today.

… It didn't appear that the scientific studies that we were given were actually appropriately designed to prove and test the safety and efficacy.

It also came to my attention that there were ingredients in there that were not properly tested, that the comparison groups were not appropriately set up, and that conclusions made about vaccine safety and efficacy just did not fit the scientific standards that I was trained to uphold in my medical school training."

According to Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder and president of the non-profit National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), vaccine injury is the result of a unique interaction between the host and the type and numbers of vaccines given to that person. In other words, vaccine injury and death is induced by a number of co-factors, includin:

Age at the time of vaccination	Personal or family history of brain and immune system dysfunction (allergies, autoimmunity, seizures, etc.)	Health status at the time of vaccination (coinciding acute or chronic illness)
Personal and/or family history of vaccine reactions	Types and numbers of vaccines given the day after an initial reaction took place	Types and numbers of vaccines given prior to experiencing a vaccine reaction

There is a tendency by researchers investigating vaccine injury and death to want to point to "one" cause as the reason for an individual's vaccine reaction, or population-based chronic disease prevalence. This "sole cause" hypothesis is convenient because it is simple and easy to understand. It is also easier for people to think that action can be taken to "fix" the problem if there is only one cause; i.e., separate the MMR vaccine into single doses; take thimerosal or aluminum out of the vaccines, and so forth.

However, the problem with promoting the "sole cause" hypothesis when it comes to vaccination is that the rise in chronic disease and disability among our children, including autism, is likely caused by a multiple factors in any number of combinations. Therefore, by trying to hone in on just one cause, say laying all the blame on a certain type of vaccine adjuvant or preservative and ignoring the effects of increased host susceptibility and simultaneous administration of many vaccines at once or vaccinating children when they are sick, for example, we're likely to fail in our efforts to accurately assess all of the reasons for the vaccine-associated chronic disease and disability epidemic plaguing our children today so we can take meaningful steps to curb it.

This is a major reason why NVIC has been calling for more than two decades for methodologically sound scientific research into the biological mechanisms for vaccine injury and death and a comparison of health outcomes of vaccinated and unvaccinated children. Recently, a new Institute of Medicine Committee has been appointed to look at the feasibility of this kind of study and here is what Barbara Loe Fisher asked the new Committee to consider.

What You Can Do To Make a Difference

While it seems "old-fashioned," the only truly effective actions you can take to protect the right to informed consent to vaccination and legal vaccine exemptions, is to get personally involved with your state legislators and the leaders in your community.

THINK GLOBALLY, ACT LOCALLY.
Mass vaccination policies are made at the federal level but vaccine laws are made at the state level, and it is at the state level where your action to protect your vaccine choice rights will have the greatest impact. Right now, there is assault on non-medical exemptions to vaccination, such as the conscientious belief and religious objection, in state public health laws. The Pharma/Medical Trade Assocaition lobby is joining with public health officials and targeting states like Vermont, California, Arizona, West Virginia and others and citizens living in targeted states are in danger of losing their right to exercise voluntary, informed consent to vaccination.

YOUR state could be the next one targeted for loss of vaccine exemptions.
NVIC has created a free online communications network to keep you informed about vaccine vaccine legislation that either threatens your legal rights to make vaccine choices in your state or is designed to increase your rights. With the click of a mouse on your computer or touch of a smartphone screen, you can be put in touch with YOUR state legislator and communicate to him or her what you want done.

It is quick and easy to sign up to be a user of NVIC's free Advocacy Portal at www.NVICAdvocacy.org. Not only will you get access to practical, useful information to help you become an effective vaccine choice advocate in your own community, but when national vaccine issues come up, you will have the up-to-date information and call to action items you need at your fingertips to make sure your voice is heard.

So please, as your first step, sign up for the NVIC Advocacy Portal.

Contact Your Elected Officials

Write or email your elected state representatives and share your concerns. Call them, or better yet, make an appointment to visit them in person in their office. Don't let them forget you!

It is so important for you to reach out and make sure your concerns get on the radar screen of the leaders and opinion makers in your community, especially the politicians you elect and are directly involved in making vaccine laws in your state. These are your elected representatives, so you have a right and a responsibility to let them know what's really happening in your life and the lives of people you know when it comes to vaccine mandates. Be sure to share the "real life" experiences that you or people you know have had with vaccination.

Share Your Story with the Media and People You Know

If you or a family member has suffered a serious vaccine reaction, injury or death, please talk about it. If we don't share information and experiences with each other, everybody feels alone and afraid to speak up. Write a letter to the editor if you have a different perspective on a vaccine story that appears in your local newspaper. Make a call in to a radio talk show that is only presenting one side of the vaccine story.

I must be frank with you; you have to be brave because you might be strongly criticized for daring to talk about the "other side" of the vaccine story. Be prepared for it and have the courage to not back down. Only by sharing our perspective and what we know to be true about vaccination will the public conversation about vaccination open up so people are not afraid to talk about it.

We cannot allow the drug companies and medical trade associations funded by drug companies to dominate the conversation about vaccination. The vaccine injured cannot be swept under the carpet and treated like nothing more than "statistically acceptable collateral damage" of national one-size-fits-all mass vaccination policies that put way too many people at risk for injury and even death. We shouldn't be treating people like guinea pigs instead of human beings.

Internet Resources Where You Can Learn More

I encourage you to visit the following web pages on the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) website at www.NVIC.org:

• NVIC Memorial for Vaccine Victims: View descriptions and photos of children and adults, who have suffered vaccine reactions, injuries and deaths. If you or your child experiences an adverse vaccine event, please consider posting and sharing your story here.
• If You Vaccinate, Ask 8 Questions: Learn how to recognize vaccine reaction symptoms and prevent vaccine injuries.
• Vaccine Freedom Wall: View or post descriptions of harassment by doctors or government officials for making independent vaccine choices.

Connect with Your Doctor or Find a New One that Will Listen and Care

If your pediatrician or doctor refuses to provide medical care to you or your child unless you agree to get vaccines you don't want, I strongly encourage you to have the courage to find another doctor. Harassment, intimidation, and refusal of medical care is becoming the modus operandi of the medical establishment in an effort to stop the change in attitude of many parents about vaccinations after they become truly educated about health and vaccination.
However, there is hope.

At least 15 percent of young doctors recently polled admit that they're starting to adopt a more individualized approach to vaccinations in direct response to the vaccine safety concerns of parents. It is good news that there is a growing number of smart young doctors, who prefer to work as partners with parents in making personalized vaccine decisions for children, including delaying vaccinations or giving children fewer vaccines on the same day or continuing to provide medical care for those families, who decline use of one or more vaccines.

So take the time to locate a doctor, who treats you with compassion and respect and is willing to work with you to do what is right for your child.