March 17, 2015
By Barbara Loe Fisher
More than 1.2 million people in the United States are infected with HIV1 but government officials do not ban HIV infected children and adults from attending school, receiving medical care, being employed, or otherwise participating in society.In fact, there are anti-discrimination laws that guarantee civil rights protections for Americans infected with HIV or living with AIDS.2
No Discrimination or Societal Sanctions for Infected Citizens
In 2012, public health officials reported that about two million people in America are infected with chlamydia, tuberculosis, syphilis, and gonorrhea,3 and they estimate another three million people are infected with hepatitis C.4Like those with HIV or AIDS, these citizens are not targeted for discrimination and blocked from getting a public education, being employed, or moving freely in society.
Live Polio Vaccinated Children Could Still Attend School
Between 1963 and 1999, doctors gave live oral polio vaccine to millions of healthy American children, who became infected with vaccine strain polioviruses they shed in their body fluids and transmitted, sometimes causing other children and adults to contract vaccine strain polio paralysis and die.5,6Those with compromised immune systems were at special risk for getting vaccine strain polio and shedding vaccine strain poliovirus for longer periods of time than healthy persons. Yet, children recently given live oral polio vaccine were not excluded from attending school.
Calls for Societal Sanctions After Measles Diagnosed at Disneyland
We are being asked to discriminate against and condone extreme societal sanctions against fellow citizens,7 including removing religious and conscientious belief vaccine exemptions from state laws8,9 so children cannot attend school without 49 doses of 14 federally recommended vaccines by age six and 20 more vaccinations by age 18.10But in 2015 after a handful of measles cases were identified at Disneyland, suddenly Americans are being asked to surrender civil liberties. How did a handful of measles cases at Disneyland turn into a full-scale assault on civil and human rights in America?
12 States Introduce Bills to Eliminate Non-Medical Vaccine Exemptions
Why have politicians in 12 states already filed legislation to eliminate non-medical vaccine exemptions, leaving only a very narrow medical exemption that most people cannot get?11,12With 93 percent of pediatricians reporting that parents don't trust the safety of the government recommended child vaccine schedule,13 why are many of them refusing to provide medical care to children if they have not gotten every dose of every federally recommended vaccine – no exceptions and no questions asked?14,15,16
Censorship of Speech, Shaming, Imprisonment, MD Licenses Revoked?
Why are editorials calling for censorship of speech17,18 and for parents with unvaccinated children to be hunted down and publicly identified,19 sued,20,21criminally prosecuted, and imprisoned.22And for doctors who criticize vaccine safety to have their medical licenses revoked?23 What is happening right now in America is not about the measles or public health.
Disneyland 'Patient Zero' Never Found – Assumptions Made Anyway
It all started in January 2015 after 320 million Americans24 had just finished ringing in the New Year and California health officials announced that nine visitors to Disneyland were infected with measles.25 Two weeks later, the total number of measles cases was 51, but no public health doctor in the country could find "patient zero."26
Measles Immunity Wanes, High MMR Vaccination Rate in U.S.
It did not matter that the science shows measles vaccine immunity is not lifelong and wanes,29,30,31,32 just like pertussis vaccine immunity is temporary and wanes.33,34,35It is illogical to put all the blame for measles at Disneyland on 1.8 percent of children attending school with vaccine exemptions36,37 when 95 percent of children entering kindergarten have gotten two MMR shots38,39 and only 1 percent of children under age three are unvaccinated.40With a grand total of 170 measles cases reported in 17 states by March 2015, compared to 644 cases reported in 27 states last year,41 and with 42 percent of the California-related cases documented to be in unvaccinated persons, while 13 percent of cases were vaccinated,42 there is no justification for gutting vaccine exemptions in state public health laws.
Witch Hunt Led by Doctors Against Families, Dissenting Doctors
Rational thinking has been the first casualty in this 21st century equivalent of a 17th century witch hunt43 led by defensive doctors in government, industry, academia, and media, who are fed up with parents asking them questions about vaccine risks and failures they can't answer.44,45,46,47
The Cultural War on Freedom, Values, and Beliefs
After headlines like "What would Jesus do about measles?"60 and "God wants you to vaccinate your children"61 marked a new low in American journalism, it became clear that the so-called "vaccine war"62,63 is really a culture war64 on freedoms, values, and beliefs that have long defined who we are as a nation.65,66,67 How it is fought and where it ends will determine the kind of nation America will become in the 21st century.
$100 Billion Vaccine Market in 2025 Featuring Many New Vaccines
The $30 billion global vaccine market today will be worth a projected $100 billion or more in ten years.68 A lucrative public-private business partnership has been forged between government and the pharmaceutical industry69,70,71,72,73,74 with your tax dollars to develop hundreds of new vaccines.75Drug companies completely shielded from product liability because Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court have declared vaccines to be "unavoidably unsafe,"76,77 are rushing to licensure genetically engineered vaccines for syphilis,78 gonorrhea,79herpes,80 HIV/AIDS,81 tuberculosis,82 chlamydia,83 hepatitis C,84 E. coli,85 cytomegalovirus,86 ebola,87,88 salmonella,89norovirus,90 adenovirus,91 enterovirus,92 asthma,93 diabetes,94 obesity,95 high blood pressure,96 anti-smoking,97 anti-cocaine98and anti-heroin99 use, and many more that Pharma and government will want many adults, as well as children, to buy and use.
Adult Immunization Plan Targets Women, Employees, Faith Groups
The new National Adult Immunization Plan aggressively targets pregnant women,100 employers and their employees,101 faith based groups,102 and other adults for increased vaccine use.103,104 Health care workers are already being fired if they do not get an annual flu shot,105 a vaccine that works less than half the time and was completely ineffective this year.106,107The next profession on the firing line is the teaching profession.108,109 A doctor turned politician in Vermont is pushing a bill to require teachers and everyone working in a school to prove they have gotten government recommended vaccines or be re-vaccinated.110 Will your profession be next on that list?
Will You Be Prevented from Moving Freely in Society and Be Punished?
Will laws be passed to not only deny you a public education but prevent you from obtaining health insurance; entering a doctor's office, hospital or retirement home; boarding a bus, plane, or train; buying a ticket for a movie or football game; shopping in a store; getting a driver's license; filing your taxes; or otherwise participating in and moving freely in society unless you show proof you have gotten every government recommended vaccine?Will your healthy unvaccinated children be taken from you111 and will you be fined and thrown in prison?112,113 Will public health officials with police power knock on your door one day and take you to a quarantine camp or forcibly administer vaccines to you and your children without your voluntary informed consent?
If Non-Medical Vaccine Exemptions Removed, You Will Have No Choice
Even if you and your children have willingly received every government recommended vaccine today, if non-medical exemptions are removed from U.S. vaccine laws, you will have no choice if you decide you don't want to use every new liability-free vaccine that government recommends tomorrow. This vaccine culture war is about a lot more than vaccination. Because if the State can tag, track down, and force you against your will to be injected with biologicals of known and unknown toxicity today, then there will be no limit on which other freedoms the State can take away in the name of the greater good tomorrow.
What You Can Do If You Are Ready to Take Action
Are you ready to fight for your freedom? If you are, here is what you can do:GET INVOLVED. Participate in our democracy. Become an active user of the free online vaccine choice advocacy network atNVICAdvocacy.org and work with other people in your state to take action. You will receive email Action Alerts and be put in direct electronic contact with your own legislators so you can call or email them and show up to testify at legislative hearings. Invite your friends and family to do the same.WITNESS. If you experienced vaccine reactions and are now chronically ill or disabled, you can share your experience with others. You are not alone. Vaccine reactions and injuries are not as rare as doctors want to admit to themselves or to patients and parents.114 Today, everybody knows somebody who was healthy, got vaccinated, and was never healthy again.
Talk About What Happened to Your Child After Vaccination
If you are a parent and watched your child scream for hours or collapse, twitch and jerk, or regress physically, mentally, and emotionally, and become a totally different child in the days and weeks after vaccination,115,116,117,118,119,120 you have witnessed a serious event that you can talk about with other people, including legislators representing you in your state Capitol and in Congress.If your child was revaccinated and you observed the same symptoms or your child's health got worse, it is compelling scientific evidence of a causal relationship between vaccination and what happened to your child. In scientific studies, this is called challenge/re-challenge121 and what you saw is called clinical observation,122 even though when parents do the observing most doctors dismiss what happened as "anecdotal"123 evidence or a "coincidence"124,125 that has no value at all.
Your Child's Life Has Value, Don't Let Anyone Bully and Shame You
What you witnessed happen to your child after vaccination does have value because your child's life has value. Don't let a doctor or anyone else bully and shame you into being afraid to talk about what you saw happen after vaccination, especially if your child is now chronically ill or disabled and has been diagnosed with learning disabilities; ADHD; epilepsy; autoimmunity; autism or communication, developmental or disruptive behavior disorders; asthma, allergy or other brain, and immune system dysfunction.126Witnessing about what happened after vaccination is a way to help others understand that every life has value, and no person's life should be considered expendable, and that we must never forget that universal truth.REPORT. It is estimated that only between 1 and 10 percent of serious vaccine-associated reactions, hospitalizations, injuries, and deaths are ever reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS),127,128 even though federal law requires all vaccine providers to make reports. If your doctor refuses to file a vaccine reaction report, you can do it yourself. Go to NVIC.org and learn how.
NVIC Vaccine Reaction Registry; Freedom Wall; Memorial; Failure Wall
If you or your child were bullied or threatened with loss of employment, medical care, health insurance, federal food or housing assistance, the right to attend school, or anything else because of your vaccination status, you can make a report to your state and federal legislators. Register for the NVIC Advocacy Portal today to be put into direct electronic contact with them.On NVIC.org, you can also report a vaccine reaction to NVIC's Vaccine Reaction Registry and share your experiences with others by posting a vaccine harassment report on the Cry for Vaccine Freedom Wall, or creating a page on the Memorial for Vaccine Victims, or reporting a vaccine failure on the Vaccine Failure Wall.LEARN MORE. Become educated about infectious diseases and the science, policy, law, and ethics of vaccination. Go toNVIC.org to find fully referenced, accurate information you can trust.Now, I am going to review five myths and facts that will help you understand what the vaccine culture war is really about:VACCINE CULTURE WAR MYTH NUMBER 1:
Most medical doctors say that vaccines do not cause
injury or death, so it must be true.Doctors who say vaccines are safe for everyone and do not cause injury and death are either uninformed, in denial, or lying. Since the first vaccine for smallpox, doctors have known and it has been well documented that brain inflammation, permanent brain damage, and death have always been among most serious complications of vaccination.129,130 Just like any other pharmaceutical product, vaccines carry a risk of injury or death. These risks can be greater for some people with genetic, biological, and environmental risk factors that doctors do not understand or cannot predict.131
Congress, U.S. Supreme Court Say Vaccines Are 'Unavoidably Unsafe'
Knowing this, Congress in 1986132 and the U.S. Supreme Court in 2011133 declared vaccines to be "unavoidably unsafe" and shielded drug companies from all product liability.134 If you or your child are injured or die after vaccination, you cannot hold the drug company that makes and profits from the vaccine or anyone who regulates, promotes, administers, or mandates the vaccine accountable in a civil court of law in front of a jury of your peers.
Liability for Seat Belt Manufacturers - NOT for Vaccine Manufacturers
Seat belt manufacturers have product liability135 but vaccine manufacturers do not. Doctors can be sued for malpractice except when they administer vaccinations that injure or kill a person. Vaccines are the only product government mandates and completely indemnifies. The federal government has paid $3 billion in compensation to victims of vaccine injury and death under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986.136
VACCINE CULTURE WAR MYTH NUMBER 2:
People who question vaccine safety are ignorant and
do not understand the science.
Just the opposite is true. Most people who question vaccine safety are very intelligent, and understand the difference between good science and bad science.137,138,139 Studies reveal that mothers and fathers with college or post-graduate degrees are the ones who most often question the safety of vaccines.140,141,142 They are wondering whether government policy directing pediatricians to give children three times as many vaccinations as children got 30 years ago143 is safe, effective, and necessary.
Big Knowledge Gaps in Vaccine Safety Science
If growing concerns among parents about vaccination was simply due to ignorance, two decades of reports published by the Institute of Medicine would not have found large knowledge gaps in vaccine safety science.4144 For example, there are fewer than 40 published studies evaluating the safety of the federally recommended child vaccine schedule for infants and children under age six.145VACCINE CULTURE WAR MYTH NUMBER 3:
People who do not vaccinate are selfish and
don't care about the public health.While we are all born equal with equal rights under the law, we are not born all the same. Each one of us is born with different genes and a unique microbiome influenced by epigenetics146 that affects how we respond to diseases147,148 and pharmaceutical products like vaccines.149,150 Many Americans no longer vaccinate today because the risks of vaccination turned out to be 100 percent for them, their children, or other family members. They have good reason to believe that the genes they were born with make them more susceptible to vaccine harm.151,152,153,154,155
Vaccine Vulnerable Families Can't Find Doctors to Write Medical Exemptions
But often these former vaccinators cannot find a doctor to write a medical exemption because almost no health condition qualifies for a medical exemption to vaccination anymore.156 Unless you are dying of cancer and on chemotherapy, have had a recent organ transplant or have the most severe combined immune deficiency, most doctors will not grant you a medical vaccine exemption.157 Non-medical vaccine exemptions are the only way vaccine vulnerable families can protect their lives.
Some Healthy Americans Choosing Different Path to Health
Some Americans use fewer vaccines or remain unvaccinated because they have chosen a different path to health. They focus on boosting immune function with good nutrition, exercise, avoiding environmental toxins, and using holistic health alternatives that do not rely on heavy use of pharmaceutical products.158,159,160,161They are contributing significantly to the public health because they and their children are very healthy.It is not selfish to want to make informed choices about how to stay healthy. It is not selfish to protect yourself and your children from harm, especially if you believe your family is more susceptible to vaccine injury. If everyone protects their own health and the health of their children, the public health will be protected.VACCINE CULTURE WAR MYTH NUMBER 4:
Science trumps religious beliefs so
religious exemptions to vaccination should be eliminated.The attack on Americans with religious or spiritual beliefs is central to the political agenda driving this cultural war.162,163,164Fellow citizens, who do not believe there is a God,165,166,167,168 are demanding that those who have faith in God be required to place the same faith in science and doctors.169 There is a big difference between fallible human beings and God, but some doctors do not understand this difference.
Vaccine Developer Ridicules Religious Belief, Quotes Scripture
One prominent pediatrician vaccine developer,170 who insists that babies can safely be given 10,000 vaccines on the same day,171 has publicly ridiculed religious beliefs172,173,174 but now is hypocritically quoting holy scripture175 and comparing Disneyland to the "Garden of Eden."176 Invoking the name of Jesus, he is trying to shame Christian parents refusing to obey his orders to give their children every government recommended vaccine, including the one he created177 that has made him a very rich man.178,179,180
Mothers Responsible for the Health of Their Children
I remember many years ago when a public health doctor promoting the "No Shots, No School" campaign in America suggested I was "selfish" for declining to give my two youngest children pertussis vaccine even though my oldest son was DPT vaccine injured. Implicit was the suggestion that I had no right to protect my own children's health if it conflicted with what doctors believe protects the public health.I looked him straight in the eyes and said "Doctor, whether or not I put my child's life on the line for you and your vaccine is between me and my God, and not between me and you."As mothers, we carry our babies inside us for nine months, we give birth, we love them more than we thought we could ever love anyone, and we nurture them throughout childhood so they can grow up to be productive adult members of society. We are responsible for their health and we are the ones who care for them when they become sick and unable to care for themselves for any reason, and we are the ones who weep at their graves if they die before we do.
Do Not Let Anyone Violate Your Religious, Conscientious Beliefs
You do not have to belong to an organized religion or state recognized church to hold sincere religious or spiritual beliefs about health and vaccination.181,182,183 As a mother or father, you have the God-given natural right to use the brain and gut instincts God gave you to consider the evidence, examine your conscience, pray for guidance, and exercise the human right to informed consent to medical risk-taking on behalf of your minor child. Do not let a doctor, government employee, or politician take that God-given right away from you.It is a violation of religious freedom to force vaccination when you hold religious or spiritual beliefs opposing use of one or more vaccines, and it is a violation of the human spirit to force you to disobey the certain judgment of your conscience.VACCINE CULTURE WAR MYTH NUMBER 5:
It is ethical for government to sacrifice the few for the many.Based on hedonism184 and a mathematical equation, this philosophy is called utilitarianism185,186 and comes from the word "utility."187 The utilitarian rationale was created as a guide for legislators making public policy by an 18th century British social reformer Jeremy Bentham,188,189,190 In 1905, the U.S. Supreme Court used Bentham's utilitarian rationale to rule in Jacobsen v. Massachusetts that state legislatures had the power to enact mandatory smallpox vaccination laws.191
American Eugenicists, U.S. Supreme Court Embraces Utilitarianism
American eugenicists and social reformers embraced utilitarianism in the early 20th century.192,193 They argued that government has the legal right to discriminate against a minority of citizens judged to be genetically defective or a threat to the health and welfare of society. In 1923, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes194 gave the green light to the state of Virginia to forcibly sterilize a young woman, Carrie Buck, because doctors judged her to be mentally retarded just like her daughter and mother.
Utilitarianism Pseudo-Ethic in Its Most Extreme Form
Doctors and public health officials in the Third Reich implemented utilitarianism in its most extreme form to justify conducting horrific scientific experiments on captive people.197,198 The Nuremberg Tribunal justices presiding over The Doctors Trial after World War II declared utilitarianism to be a pseudo-ethic. They issued the Nuremberg Code outlining the informed consent principle,199,200 which has guided research on humans and the ethical practice of medicine ever since.201,202,203
Forced Vaccination Laws Sacrifice the Genetically Vulnerable
The Institute of Medicine has confirmed that some individuals have known and unknown genetic risk factors that make them more susceptible to vaccine injury and death.204 This means forced vaccination laws that fail to include flexible medical and non-medical exemptions become a utilitarian, de facto selection of the genetically vulnerable for sacrifice.205Is America really going to walk down that road? Are we going to punish citizens for the genes they were born with in the name of the public health? Are we going to slide down the slippery slope of utilitarianism and ignore the profound ethical and legal questions that remain: Who gets to decide what protects the public health? Which individuals should be sacrificed? And how many is too many?
Industry and Government Fail to Fund Good Vaccine Safety Science
Industry206 and government have refused to fund good science to better understand the biological mechanisms for vaccine injury and death, and whether there are important health differences between vaccinated and unvaccinated people,207 and whether increased vaccine use during the past 30 years is a major co-factor in the unexplained chronic disease and disability epidemic plaguing America.With 1 child in 6 diagnosed with learning disabilities,208 1 in 9 with asthma,209,210 1 in 50 with autism211 and 1 in 400 with diabetes,212,213 and millions of Americans suffering with cancer and other immune and brain disorders that cost our nation $3 trillion a year to treat,214,215,216,217 isn't it time for government to explain to taxpayers exactly why vaccine safety science should be left off our nation's scientific research agenda?Perhaps they already know they don't have to do that because they are getting laws passed to hunt down and vaccinate every last child and adult in America. Eliminating non-medical vaccine exemptions will guarantee that scientific evaluation of health outcome differences between vaccinated and unvaccinated people in America will never be done.
The Future Is in Our Hands
The future of health and freedom in America is in our hands. It is in your hands.It's your health. Your family. Your choice.
Protect Your Right to Informed Consent and Defend Vaccine Exemptions
With all the uncertainty surrounding the safety and efficacy of vaccines, it's critical to protect your right to make independent health choices and exercise voluntary informed consent to vaccination. It is urgent that everyone in America stand up and fight to protect and expand vaccine informed consent protections in state public health and employment laws. The best way to do this is to get personally involved with your state legislators and educating the leaders in your community.THINK GLOBALLY, ACT LOCALLY.National vaccine policy recommendations are made at the federal level but vaccine laws are made at the state level. It is at the state level where your action to protect your vaccine choice rights can have the greatest impact. It is critical for EVERYONE to get involved now in standing up for the legal right to make voluntary vaccine choices in America because those choices are being threatened by lobbyists representing drug companies, medical trade associations, and public health officials, who are trying to persuade legislators to strip all vaccine exemptions from public health laws.Signing up for NVIC's free Advocacy Portal at www.NVICAdvocacy.org gives you immediate, easy access to your own state legislators on your Smart Phone or computer so you can make your voice heard. You will be kept up-to-date on the latest state bills threatening your vaccine choice rights and get practical, useful information to help you become an effective vaccine choice advocate in your own community. Also, when national vaccine issues come up, you will have the up-to-date information and call to action items you need at your fingertips.So please, as your first step, sign up for the NVIC Advocacy Portal.
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 one another, 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 or public health officials promoting forced use of a growing list of vaccines 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 mandatory vaccination policies that put way too many people at risk for injury and 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 website of the non-profit charity, the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), atwww.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 and sanctions by doctors, employers, and school and health officials for making independent vaccine choices.
Connect with Your Doctor or Find a New One That Will Listen and Care
Note: I'd like to say something, I'm Sílen from Brazil, where I still live nowadays and here most vaccines are mandatory and they've never prevented most people from developing diseases. During my childhood I've developed chickenpox, mumps, rubella and measles, besides I'd been properly vaccined.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.