Vaccines: Are We Killing Our Children

Vaccines:
Are We Killing Our Children?

By Christine O’Leary-Rockey

Across Central Pennsylvania, sneezing and coughing people are lining up inside of public health agencies, doctor’s offices, and even grocery stores to receive that magical shot in the arm that will cure all ills. Yearly flu shots have become as routine for some individuals as the advent of Christmas. This season, the flu shot will inject a soup of three different "killed-batch" viral influenza strains, as opposed to live cultures. Most of us believe that all of these potions and elixirs endorsed by Uncle Sam will make us stronger and more fortified to defend ourselves against the onslaught of the insidious allergens, viruses and cooties that float out there, ambushing us. So much of what we are told, and often do, is thought to maximize youth, vitality and health: values that we try to pass on to our children.

But what if a bastion of American childhood health and safety wasn’t quite as safe as you thought it was? Immunization may seem like the greatest gift that a benevolent government has given to its citizens, but in assuming that we are all the same, with the same physiologies, sensitivities, and constitutions, the mandatory vaccination timetable has resigned a percentage of we, the people, to severe injury … even death.

The Case for Immunization:
Throughout history, diseases like smallpox, diphtheria, whooping cough, polio, and others have taken their toll on mankind, piling up victims, killing and disabling adults and children alike. The attention given it over the years, however, has, in most cases, turned the tables.

The tetanus shot has made lockjaw, a disease that has a 50 percent mortality rate if contracted, a rarely seen ailment.

Before the vaccine completely eradicated it from the face of the Earth by 1977, smallpox was a common cause of death for over 820 years.

Believe it or not, in as recently as 1918, nearly 600,000 Americans died in one epidemic of the Spanish flu, named for the destruction the disease caused in Spain before traveling across the Atlantic. This particular pandemic left over 21 million people dead worldwide. Contrary to popular belief, epidemics aren’t just third world news.

The reason for the decline in the rates of so many of these diseases is modern day vaccines. Through the application of these incredible inventions of modern medicine, the smallpox virus exists only in two freezers in Moscow, Russia, and Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States. Diphtheria is practically unheard of. Even polio and the measles, once as common in children as the chickenpox, have been practically expunged. There have been no known cases of polio in this country for the last several decades… except for those caused by the vaccine itself.

That’s right. In some of us, a vaccine will bring about the very disease it attempts to prevent. Maybe a mere fly in the ointment, except that these diseases, which would doubtless never have occurred had the vaccine not introduced it, lead to paralysis, respiratory damage, and even death.

Speaking of Flies in the Ointment…
In 1905, a man named Jacobsen and his son sued the state of Massachusetts for requiring them to get another injection of the smallpox vaccine despite them both having suffered severe vaccine reactions. They filed out of fear that another vaccination would do them permanent injury or death. Studies done in England and Wales beginning in the 1880s show the percentage of babies dying of smallpox actually dropped as fewer infants and children were given the vaccine. Our government’s own statistics show the declining frequency of diseases like polio and pertussis — until the introduction of the vaccine, after which the vaccination itself became the main cause of the disease. After Jonas Salk’s first polio vaccine was distributed in 1955, it actually induced 260 cases of polio, including 10 deaths. Healthcare workers from the National Institute of Health (NIH) refused to vaccinate themselves or their children, claiming that the vaccine was "worthless as a prevention and dangerous to take." Salk himself said, "When you inoculate children with a polio vaccine you don’t sleep well for two or three weeks."

Certainly, times have changed. Scientists and pharmaceutical companies have worked to create safer and more effective vaccines. The original live-virus polio vaccine has been changed to the safer ‘killed virus’ instead, reducing the number of side effects and illnesses. A new version of the DPT (dipitheria-pertussis-tetanus) vaccine called the DTaP has become available, so far shown to be much safer and less likely to cause permanent impairment than the older version. After too many children were injured or killed, the Rotavirus vaccination requirement was withdrawn in October 1999. For now, it’s back to the pharmacological drawing board with that one.

We are now required by law to vaccinate our children at birth with an injection given to prevent such diseases as Hepatitis B, which is transmitted much the way AIDS is transmitted. Are these shots even necessary? Is it worth gambling the health of an hour-old newborn to prevent that child from contracting an illness that can come only from such adult behaviors as sharing needles or having sex?

A Shot in the Arm
Since the 1940s, the government has maintained a policy of funding vaccine research and pointedly giving little credence to information or evidence of negative side effects. Today, the long-term side effects of vaccines remain unstudied. According to Kathy Williams of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) (www.909shot.com), the information gathered by the medical establishment is only a consequence of the directive to study a vaccine’s effectiveness. "Very few studies have ever been done to determine the rate of reactions," said Williams. "Most studies are done to verify a vaccine’s effectiveness, not its side effects."

The studies that have been done by consumer advocacy groups, concerned parents, and medical practitioners show that vaccines have killed or permanently injured thousands of children every year. Research on these side effects has demonstrated links to such strange and stubborn illnesses as autism, SIDS, childhood arthritis, juvenile diabetes, Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare and unpredictable syndrome that causes weakness and even paralysis of many of the body’s muscles, and a host of others.

Institutions as prestigious as The Journal of Pediatrics, The University School of Nevada School of Medicine at Reno, and The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal have published studies linking vaccines and childhood death and diseases. Evidence to support these findings became so overwhelming that, in 1986, after years of official neglect and denial, President Reagan signed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act into law (PL99-660), officially affirming that vaccines can, and do, kill. This little-known law created an injury compensation system that has paid out over a billion dollars so far to vaccine-injured families. These are significant figures when you realize that only a quarter of the families that apply have been awarded compensation.

Little Green Men and Other Conspiracies
This lack of information smacks of a federal cover-up, right? Not at all. To fulfill its responsibility to public safety, the government has attempted to establish safeguards and information systems to make parents and individuals aware. The states have mandated that informational forms be offered at state health agencies and public schools, alerting parents to possible side effects of the vaccines and what to look for before you vaccinate. While informed consent forms are no longer required, this information is routinely given out in any public venues where the shots are given, like schools and health clinics and can be found online as well. The Center for Disease Control (CDC), the Association of Pediatrics, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and many other institutions have reams of information for the asking. It is assumed that your family doctor will discuss this information with you. In many cases, however, that doctor/patient conversation offers no options at all. The problem, then, is not the lack of available information, but another example of how Big Money Industry spins the information to suit their needs, rather than allow an open and painfully honest public dialogue.

Just The Facts (unless it hurts business)
How does industry do this? By systematically downplaying the inherent risks and warning signs of vaccine reactions and by refusing to acknowledge or study the side effects, both long and short term, of the vaccines on the population. According to the MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccine information page that was printed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services CDC and handed out at the Hillside Elementary School in New Cumberland, "severe reactions" happen in only one out of a million doses. A "severe reaction" may include "deafness, long term seizures, coma, lowered consciousness, and permanent brain damage." It goes on, "Much more likely (one out of 3000 doses given) are seizures, pain and swelling of joints, and a bleeding disorder."

By some counts, up to 50 million children annually receive vaccinations. That means that, this year alone, 50 children will be permanently disabled or die from severe vaccine reactions to the MMR shot. Over 16,600 more will experience seizures, temporary disabilities and other "moderate" disorders.

There are a dozen other mandatory shots for children, including the Hepatitis A & B, DTaP, polio, chickenpox, and Hib (Haemophilus influenzae type b, which can cause bacterial meningitis) vaccines that are given out every year. Do some quick math and the casualties tenfold. In light of these numbers, the question becomes "Which one of these children might be mine?"

The Great Sin of Omission
In the colossal push to create a society free from disease, the government, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that some information is simply irrelevant. Politics tells the parent that these vaccines are all safe, tested and necessary. And even if they aren’t, the government says there isn’t a choice in the matter.

Parents are routinely threatened with fines, the removal of their children from school, and even imprisonment for failing to vaccinate their children as stipulated. As recently as 1996, parents have been charged with medical neglect for failing to vaccinate their children with all of the government-required vaccines. Every parent knows that getting your child’s shots is a legal requirement to letting them in school come kindergarten time, right? Wrong again.

Immunization laws are not federal but state mandates, asserting that all children must have certain vaccinations by certain ages—particularly before they begin school. While the school systems assert that these shots are mandatory, it is simply not the case.

All states provide for a medical exemption (provided it’s written by an M.D. or a D.O.). Forty-eight states currently allow for exemptions based on sincere religious abstention. Fifteen states have provided the right of parents to refuse to vaccinate for philosophical or personal beliefs. Pennsylvania is one of those states that allow for all three of these exemptions. Most parents, of course, are not informed of their right to refuse.

In spite of these rights, parents are harangued and intimidated by physicians and health officials who become indignant and condescending when asked about a vaccine’s safety and necessity.

"I cut off my son’s vaccinations when he was 18 months old after he spiked a fever of 106 degrees," said Rachael Noor, a Colonial Park resident. "I called his pediatrician, who told me just to stick him in a warm tub if he went into seizures and that this was normal, that I shouldn’t worry about it, and then she hung up the phone. When I told our next pediatrician a couple of years later that I was holding off his other shots until he was five and his immune system was a little more developed, he told me that that I was committing child abuse. I couldn’t believe it!"

Cindy Beckett from Camp Hill said, "I stopped immunizing my daughter after my sister’s child (in Maryland) was left with mild retardation following her DPT shot. A couple of years ago the [pre-] school she was enrolled in told me that if I didn’t complete her shots, they were required to terminate her enrollment. I knew my rights, and I told [the principal] what they were and she didn’t believe me. Later, she came back to me and apologized. She said that she called the state and they said that I had been right, but that she’s supposed to tell people it’s mandatory because they don’t want people to know."

Kathy Williams, again speaking on behalf of the NVIC, pointed out that vaccinations are not all bad. "It depends on your point of view," she said. "Look at the vaccine on an individual basis. Not all diseases are contracted the same way, or are as serious as others." As an example, she says, "There is no reason for a newborn to get a Hepatitis B vaccine: this disease is transmitted the same as AIDS. Babies have indeed died from this vaccine."

The government reporting statistics bear this out. Between July 1, 1990 and October 31, 1998, there were 24,775 reports of Hepatitis B-related adverse events reported to the government, including 9,673 serious occurrences and 439 deaths. Chickenpox numbers are scarce due to the newness of the vaccine, but the chickenpox vaccine was recently added to the government list of compensatory claims. "[The chickenpox vaccine] is another unnecessary one that we’re having a lot of problems with. We’ve been getting a lot of complaints," says Williams.

Knowledge is Golden
While some agencies out there are militantly against vaccines, most consumer groups, like the NVIC, are more concerned with accuracy and full disclosure.

"Most parents I talk to do decide to immunize, and we’re all for that," Williams said frankly. "We feel that if people are adequately informed of the safety factors and warning signs to watch for, it would cut the vaccine injury rate by 50 percent."

Here are a few things to know and look for before vaccinating:

Additives like Thimerosal, a mercury derivative found in all of the killed-batch vaccines like the flu shot, are added as an antibacterial to insure that no germs get into the vaccine solution. This substance has proved itself highly toxic, but can easily be avoided by requesting that your doctor use single dose vials, like they do in Europe.

Another safety precaution is to know if there are better versions of vaccines. Avoid the polio vaccine known as the OPV vaccine, and request the one known as IPV instead. This version of the polio vaccine is dramatically safer than the older version that is still being used in some places. Also, request the safer DTaP instead of the DPT.

Checking on your batch number is another way of encouraging vaccine safety. There have been ‘bad batches’ of vaccines produced, so, before receiving a vaccination, one can request the lot number and contact the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) toll-free at 1-800-822-7967 or by toll-free fax at 1-877-721-0366 to inquire about the safety of that particular batch. VAERS was created by the FDA and the CDC to track the ratios and types of vaccine-related injuries and deaths in this country.

Determine, also, the necessity of the vaccine against the possibility of the disease. Some of these diseases are much more dangerous and likely to be contracted than others. Whooping cough is serious no matter what age you contract it. On the other hand, the likelihood of a child or infant contracting Hepatitis B is significantly small, particularly in light of dangers presented by this vaccine. Chickenpox, a common malady of childhood, is seldom a serious disease for the child. Aside from the increasing reports of side effects from this vaccine, there are concerns developing about the actual immunity conferred. The vaccine gives approximately a 10-year immunity. Which means that when the protection wears off, the susceptibility to chickenpox returns. And any doctor will tell you that chickenpox is much more serious when contracted as an adult than as a child.

The political doctrine knows as utilitarianism holds that the consequences of an action judge the rightness or wrongness of the action. It was this principal that the 1905 Supreme Court decision concerning the aforementioned father and son (Jacobsen v. Massachusetts) was based upon. It allowed the government to force individuals to be vaccinated against their will for the public good. This same principal was used to justify forced sterilization of the mentally handicapped to protect the public welfare (Buck v. Bell, 1927).

Just as the military makes allowance for a certain amount of friendly-fire casualties in war, so, too, does the medical community permit a percentage of loss when vaccinating the population with an imperfect medication. Acceptable numbers: Is that what we are?

And In the End…
There is a middle ground between the greater social good and the concerns of the everyday people that comprise the greater society. Congressman Dan Burton (R-Indiana), during 1996 hearings about possible connections between autism and vaccines, asked "Where do you draw the line between public health and the individual?" And indeed, that question has always persisted. But perhaps it should be answered by us, the individuals, and not by the state. There is enough information available for parents and individuals to make informed and knowledgeable decisions. Vaccines and modern medicine bring innumerable benefits, but people in this country have the right to ask questions, to seek accurate information, and in the end, make our own choices to preserve our mortality.