Vaccine injury happens. Vaccines are a pharmaceutical drug with side effects. This doesn’t mean parents shouldn’t vaccinate, it means parents should maintain the right to informed consent.
Saying vaccines are “safe and effective” is only a partial truth. The Supreme Court ruled clearly that vaccines are “unavoidably unsafe” in 2011, Bruesewitz v. Wyeth LLC.
The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 (NCVIA) shields vaccine manufacturers from liability for the death and disability caused by their vaccines. There is no financial incentive for manufacturers to produce safer vaccines.
More than $3 billion has been paid out to nearly 4,000 claimants from the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.
There is vast underreporting of vaccine adverse events. FDA: As few as 1% of serious adverse reactions are reported. CDC: Only about 10% are reported. Congress: Has heard testimony that medical students are told not to report suspected adverse events, despite federal law requiring doctors to report suspected adverse events. National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) survey: 1 out of 40 doctor’s offices (2.5%) in New York report a death or injury following vaccination. Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS): Only 10% of serious vaccine adverse events are reported.
According to the CDC:
Vaccines are 85–95% effective (5–15% of children do not develop immunity from their vaccines), and most outbreaks start in vaccinated children.
The median vaccine exemption rate in the U.S. is 1.8%. There are more than 5+ times more non-immune *vaccinated* children than exempt children.
Exempt children can get natural immunity, without even developing symptoms. You can’t tell a child’s immune status based on their immunization status.
The limitations of the pertussis, flu, and measles vaccines in particular assures that “outbreaks” will remain part of the public health landscape, the challenge for the media and the public will be not over-reacting to these events. These stories are used by certain legislators to justify the removal of medical freedoms.
From the Associated Press:
A government study offers a new theory on why the whooping cough vaccine doesn’t seem to be working as well as expected.
The research suggests that while the vaccine may keep people from getting sick, it doesn’t prevent them from spreading whooping cough — also known as pertussis — to others.
“It could explain the increase in pertussis that we’re seeing in the U.S.,” said one of the researchers, Tod Merkel of the Food and Drug Administration.
During this flu season, the CDC already came out and said this year’s flu vaccine is not every effective. From CNN:
Scientists are concerned about what they’re seeing so far this flu season, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday, a day after the agency advised doctors this year’s flu vaccine is not as effective because the current strain of the virus has mutated.
From Los Angeles:
Of the pertussis cases in Los Angeles County, 8 percent were individuals who had never been vaccinated. Experts say the number is not a significant factor in the spread of pertussis.
From New York City:
Get the measles vaccine, and you won’t get the measles — or give it to anyone else. Right? Well, not always. A person fully vaccinated against measles has contracted the disease and passed it on to others. The startling case study contradicts received wisdom about the vaccine and suggests that a recent swell of measles outbreaks in developed nations could mean more illnesses even among the vaccinated.
From Baltimore:
Baltimore, Maryland, is still officially free of the wild-type measles after the genotype testing from the measles virus revealed that the 12-month-old baby who ended up in the ER on January 21 with measles-like symptoms was simply experiencing a reaction to her MMR vaccine.
Even with the media hysteria surrounding vaccine exemptions, rational voices have emerged to emphasize the importance of preserving medical freedom.
Dr. Bob Sears, “Mandatory vaccination is not the answer to measles”
Full article:
Excerpt:Measles. It used to be just a disease. Now it’s become a banner under which politicians gather to threaten one of our most sacred rights — the right to give informed consent for medical treatment.Whether you are for vaccines, against them, or neutral, allow me to ask this question: Is vaccination a medical treatment which should fall under the protection of informed consent, or does the government have the right to force them on every American?As a pediatrician, I give patients the MMR vaccine almost every day in my office. And I follow the guidelines of the Centers for Disease Control which mandate that I provide informed consent. The American Medical Association describes informed consent as a patient’s right of self-decision and a basic policy in both ethics and law that physicians must honor.If vaccines were harmless to every single person who received them, then I could understand putting this decision in the hands of our elected officials.
But here are two salient facts:
About 2,000 severe reactions are reported to the CDC each year which result in prolonged hospitalization, permanent disability, or death. Most reactions aren’t even reported, so the true number may be even higher. Yet, because they can’t be proven, the medical community denies that they can happen.
Over $3 billion have been paid out to victims of vaccine reactions. Not $3 million. Not $30 million. Not even $300 million. But $3 billion. Are we paying that much money to victims of pretend reactions? I think not. Let’s stop panicking over what measles might do and calmly examine what it is doing. It has a small and intermittent presence in our country. It makes people sick, then they get over it. It has complications, but rarely so. Vaccination is important and protective. But it cannot be forced; a parent must give consent.
…If you would rather make your own medical decisions within the sacred confines of the doctor/patient relationship, then let Sacramento know now. If you would rather give politicians the power to make medical decisions for you, then give them your support. But you better hurry; the outbreak is winding down, and so is the fear. Give them the power before it’s too late. I’m sure they’ll make plenty of other wise medical decisions for you in the years to come.
Ron Paul, “Vaccine controversy shows we need markets, not mandates”
Full article
Excerpt: Those who are willing to make an “exception” to the principle that parents should make health-care decisions for their children should ask themselves when, in history, has a “limited” infringement on individual liberty stayed limited. By ceding the principle that individuals have the right to make their own health-care decisions, supporters of mandatory vaccines are opening the door for future infringements on health freedom.If government can mandate that children receive vaccines, then why shouldn’t the government mandate that adults receive certain types of vaccines? And if it is the law that individuals must be vaccinated, then why shouldn’t police officers be empowered to physically force resisters to receive a vaccine? If the fear of infections from the unvaccinated justifies mandatory vaccine laws, then why shouldn’t police offices fine or arrest people who don’t wash their hands or cover their noses or mouths when they cough or sneeze in public? Why not force people to eat right and take vitamins in order to lower their risk of contracting an infectious disease? These proposals may seem outlandish, but they are no different in principle from the proposal that government force children to be vaccinated.
Judge Andrew Neapolitano, “To Vaccinate or Not To Vaccinate?”
Full article.
Excerpt:“…no less an authority than the U.S. Supreme Court have rejected that concept. Under the natural law, because you retain the rights inherent in your birth that you have not individually given away to government, the government does not own your body.Rather, you do. And you alone can decide your fate with respect to the ingestion of medicine. What about children? Paul argues that parents are the natural and legal custodians of their children’s bodies until they reach maturity or majority, somewhere between ages 14 and 18, depending on the state of residence.What do the states have to do with this? Under our Constitution, the states, and not the federal government, are the guardians of public health. That is an area of governance not delegated by the states to the feds. Of course, you’d never know this to listen to the debate today in which Big Government politicians, confident in the science, want a one-size-fits-all regimen.No less a champion of government in your face than Hillary Clinton jumped into this debate with a whacky Tweet that argued that because the Earth is round and the sky is blue and science is right, all kids should be vaccinated. What she was really saying is that in her progressive worldview, the coercive power of the federal government can be used to enforce a scientific orthodoxy upon those states and individuals who intellectually reject it.”