Medical health authorities, including doctors, nurses, and other members of the allopathic fraternity, employ a number of strategies designed to elicit parental submission to vaccine guidelines. Currently, parents are expected to grant authorities permission to inject their children's pure and sacred little bodies with more than 30 blends of germs, bacteria, and other foul substances -- all before they enter school!
To adequately assess the relevance of vaccine-related news, or the perils of vaccine-related situations you may find yourself in -- and to increase your knowledge about how to protect your loved ones -- several of the more common vaccine-related schemes you're likely to encounter are included in the following section, along with samples of each.
[Note: This article was originally published in 1995. See Immunization Theory vs. Reality for a list of citations.]
1. Calling the Shots "Immunizations." Numerous studies indicate that vaccines cannot be relied upon to boost the immune system and protect an individual from contracting the disease the vaccines were designed to offset. For example, the Minnesota Department of Health reported 769 cases of mumps in school children. But 632 of these cases (82 percent) occurred in children who were previously vaccinated against this disease.(119) The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that 89 percent of all school-age children who recently contracted measles had been vaccinated against the disease.(120-122) And the New England Journal of Medicine published a study revealing that the pertussis vaccine "failed to give...protection against the disease." In fact, more than 80 percent of cases in a recent epidemic occurred in children who had received regular doses of the shot.(123,124)
According to Dr. Sandra Huffman, head of Nurture: The Center to Prevent Childhood Malnutrition, "Increasing Americans' breastfeeding rate would prevent more childhood diseases -- and deaths -- than [vaccination programs endorsed by the government]."(125) A distinction must therefore be made: breastfed babies are immunized;(126-128) children who are injected with germs and other toxic substances are vaccinated.
Calling the shots "preventive medicine" is deceptive as well. According to Dr. Kenneth Cooper, pioneering author of Aerobics, "My concept of preventive medicine is trying to prevent the things that kill us. Infectious disease is way down the list."(129) (Dr. Cooper was ostracized from the medical community for promoting exercise to improve health!)
2. Rationalization and Denial. Medical personnel find it difficult to confront the vaccine issue head-on. It is much easier to falsely justify the use of vaccines or simply reject the idea that they may be unsafe and ineffective. Some doctors become so agitated when the topic is raised, they refuse to even discuss it. Doctors who are willing to exchange ideas and concerns regarding the safety and efficacy of vaccines often rely upon rationalization and denial.
The rationalization and denial ploy can be blatant or veiled. Blatant rationalization is easier to spot. For example, in a recently published pediatric legal paper, a Canadian neurologist candidly writes, "In this article [on vaccine-induced brain injury], I will...offer some suggestions for pediatricians to rationalize this emotional controversy." He also plainly states, "A vigorous effort is required to dispel the myth of DTP-induced brain damage."(130) He makes his recommendation in spite of the horrendous amount of literature in the medical journals indicating a causal relationship between this vaccine and severe mental impairment.(131)
The veiled Rationalization and Denial ploy is harder to detect. At first it appears logical and sound. But it merely represents a more intricate attempt at suppressing and confounding the truth. For example, according to some researchers, the DPT vaccine does not cause seizures; instead, "fever from the DTP vaccine may trigger one of these seizures."(132) Or, according to an experienced vaccine policymaker, Ed Mortimer, M.D., "These kids already had underlying problems and DTP was the first fever-producing insult that occurred to the child."(133) Again, it wasn't the vaccine that caused the brain damage; it was the fever from the vaccine.
More examples of the rationalization and denial ploy:
When the incidence of a disease is low, authorities claim high vaccination rates are responsible. When outbreaks occur, we are told not enough people received the shots. For example, prior to a recent measles outbreak in a Hobbs, New Mexico, school district, authorities boasted a 98 percent vaccination rate. Then, when 76 cases of the disease broke out, researchers claimed that "vaccine failure was associated with immunizations that could not be documented in the provider's records."(134)
Although the Food and Drug Administration was legally bound to establish and oversee the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), and even though every year about 12,000 reports of adverse reactions to vaccines are made to the FDA,(135) authorities refuse to follow up on these cases because "the agency could not possibly investigate each report," and besides, "a cause and effect relationship is not presumed."(136)
By November 10, 1999, the Vaccine Injury Compensation System had already paid out more than $1 billion to settle claims of vaccine-induced damage or death.(137) However, because vaccine manufacturers and the federal government are not required to admit responsibility, even when a claim is paid, they are able to assert that "the settlement of a claim does not necessarily establish liability."(138)
3. Double Talk and Creative Logic. Medical advisers were using this ploy as far back as 1806. In that year Edward Jenner, the dubious "father of modern vaccinations," was under examination by a College of Physicians committee. Numerous members of the English population who had recently been vaccinated with Jenner's concoction, and who were therefore considered immune to smallpox, had caught the disease. Many were afflicted with painful skin eruptions and died. When the commonly relied upon denial ploy was no longer effective, it was revealed that "spurious," or phony, cowpox was the cause. As the number of vaccinated people afflicted with the disease grew, so, too, did public fear. How, Jenner was asked, could spurious cowpox be identified and avoided? Spurious cowpox, he explained, wasn't meant to describe irregularities on the part of the cow, but rather certain quirks in the action of cowpox on the part of the vaccinated. In other words, when the vaccinated recovered from the ordeal, and did not contract smallpox, the cowpox was genuine; otherwise it was spurious.(139)
Current uses of the double talk ploy may be found at almost any forum or seminar where vaccine policymakers congregate. For example, at a recent FDA workshop officials indicated they were justified in administering new and unproven vaccines by claiming it is unethical to withhold them!(140)
Here is another example of the "unethical" argument: A recent study found that the AIDS virus directly causes cancer. You'd think this would stifle the researchers' goal of creating an AIDS vaccine. In fact, Gerald Myers, director of the HIV Sequence Database Analysis Project at Los Alamos National Laboratory, warrants that a live vaccine would carry a risk of causing cancer -- both in the vaccinated person and in their offspring. Nevertheless, he claims that "the risk might be worth it" to prevent the spread of AIDS. "It could be unethical not to try it."(141)
A common use of the double talk and creative logic ploy may be found whenever health officials make the outrageous claim that unvaccinated children are a threat to the rest of society. This argument indicates how little faith authorities place in their own vaccines. If the vaccines were truly effective, only the unvaccinated would be at risk. This argument also overlooks the potential for vaccinated individuals to spread the virus to unvaccinated populations. For example, in separate scientific studies, the new rubella vaccine introduced in 1979 was found to be a cause of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, an immunological disorder first reported in the United States in 1982. Given to children, the vaccine was shown to linger in their systems for years and the vaccine virus can be passed on to adults through casual contact.(142-144)
In an attempt to conceal vaccine failures, medical authorities will often resort to the double talk ploy, sometimes in conjunction with the scare tactics ruse. In spite of their enterprising babble, however, they can't always hoodwink the public. For example, the international Medical Observer states that "a new strain of measles resistant to vaccine" has been discovered. This is immediately contradicted by the statement: "Those who have been lax about vaccination will be unprotected." Although the implication is that everyone should get vaccinated, a vaccine is obviously useless if a new strain of measles is resistant to it!(145)
More examples of the double talk ploy:
Scientists seeking human volunteers to test a new experimental AIDS vaccine try to assuage fear and mistrust by claiming there is "no evidence" it will cause AIDS. How could there be evidence? It is new and experimental and hasn't been tested yet! And, of course, there is "no evidence" that it won't cause AIDS.(146)
In an attempt to convince the public that vaccines offer the best of all worlds, medical researchers, and the journalists who quote them, often get tangled in their own webs of deception. For example, in a recently published pro-vaccine article, the author claims that unvaccinated children are susceptible to infection. He then contradicts himself by claiming that vaccinated children "insulate" or protect, the unvaccinated. The illogical implication is that when unvaccinated children contract an infectious disease it is because they are unvaccinated. However, if they remain free from disease, it is because the vaccinated are providing them with immunity.(147)
Every so often the double talk employed by authorities is so transparent it's bewildering that so few people question its validity. In a recent promotional blitz, flu vaccine manufacturers and public health officials made the claim that the new and improved flu vaccine "is prepared from inactivated flu virus [Translation: "dead" flu virus -- see Euphemisms addressed below] and cannot cause the disease." (A rare admission that earlier versions did cause the disease.) In the same paragraph they warn that "some individuals might develop a mild fever and feeling of malaise" for a few days after receiving the shot.(148) (Sounds like the flu to me!)
Other times the double talk employed by vaccine researchers is remarkably elaborate. Although it is a simple matter to determine the efficacy of a vaccine -- give it to people who want it, withhold it from those who don't, and tally the incidence of disease -- some scientists have other ideas. One writes: "Under heterogeneity of vaccine effect, a general expression for a summary vaccine efficacy parameter is a function of the vaccine efficacy in the different vaccinated strata weighted by the fraction of the vaccinated subpopulations in each stratum. Interpretation and estimability of the summary vaccine efficacy parameter depends on whether the strata are identifiable, and whether the heterogeneity is host- or vaccine-related." To support this garrulous babble, a full-page mathematical model is provided.(149)
A final look at the double talk and creative logic ploy yields the following revelations: children who keep to "appropriate" vaccine schedules are "protected," unless they haven't yet received the full battery of shots and contract the affliction -- in which case they are evidently "still susceptible to the disease."(150) In such instances the vaccine does not fail, or worse, cause the disease; these become "non-preventable" cases!(151)
4. The "I Forgot to Mention" ploy is a common tactic used by health and medical authorities with an interest in omitting vital information. For example, a spokesman for the Ohio Department of Health supplied the Dayton Daily News with these statistics: 2,720 cases of measles were reported in Ohio during a recent year. This figure was used in conjunction with the godfather ploy (an offer hard to refuse) when the following threat was made as well: "Get shots or forget 7th grade." What the official failed to mention was that more than 72 percent of these cases occurred in vaccinated people.(152) This figure is comparable to other outbreaks around the country, where a majority of measles cases often occur in vaccinated children, "sometimes in schools with vaccination levels of greater than 98 percent."(153,154)
A concerned individual recounts her personal experience with the measles vaccine and the "I forgot to mention" ploy: "Fort Lewis College had a measles epidemic and the school closed down for a short time. The following year, I returned as a postgraduate for a teacher's certificate and was denied reentry until I submitted to a measles vaccine -- even though I had been fully vaccinated as a child. This fall I reentered Fort Lewis College, and they wanted me to get another measles shot! They told me the one I had already taken 'didn't work.' I refused the shot and told them I was refusing all other shots as well. They replied, 'Okay, just sign this waiver.' No one ever tells you that the shots may be declined by signing a personal waiver."(155)
Another example of the "I forgot to mention" ploy may be found in official evaluations of Reye's Syndrome, an often fatal disease of the brain and liver. According to Dr. Robert Mendelsohn, the CDC is "quick to suggest a relationship between [this childhood disease] and certain flu outbreaks," but they make no mention of "an association between this disease and the flu vaccine itself."(156)
5. Gimmicks. Devising strategies to boost vaccination rates is a prime preoccupation of vaccine policymakers. Without doubt, the gimmick ploy is a proven winner. In fact, the AMA recently admitted that "adult vaccines need a gimmick."(157) CDC physicians recommend catchy slogans, like "Vaccines are not just kid stuff."(158) Shari Lewis and her puppet, Lamb Chop, were seen delivering pro-vaccination messages to the public on TV.(159) Even Bill Clinton was seen in print ads imploring parents to be sure their children receive "All their shots while they're tots."(160)
6. Bribes. Within the same family of wily maneuvers, one may find the bribe ploy. For example, in England the National Health Service pays a "bonus" to doctors with vaccination rates above specified percentages.(161) Here in the United States, former president Jimmy Carter was seen on TV offering free Michael Jackson concert tickets to parents who agreed to vaccinate their children.(162) In Saginaw County, Michigan, children were promised "a free order of french fries" if they were one of the first thousand people to receive their shots.(163) And in Taos, New Mexico, "all students who return consent forms and receive vaccinations will be entered in raffles for great prizes!"(164)
7. Skewed Statistics. Researchers are trying to develop a new vaccine to combat respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) -- even though Dr. Bill Gary of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) admits that "an RSV vaccine was developed 10 to 15 years ago, but was unsuccessful and made many people ill." To foster interest in this obscure project, and to improve the illusion that we need the vaccine, a recent report released by the CDC indicates that "about half" of the 69 labs that track diseases for the agency reported a 16 percent increase in RSV cases.(165) Stating "about half" is deceptively vague, and choosing not to list the percent increase or decrease of RSV cases in the other "about half" of the 69 labs is manipulative and dishonest.
Another good example of the skewed statistics ploy came from the Clinton administration. Goaded by the medical community, federal authorities announced their dubious goal to vaccinate all U.S. children. To accomplish this feat, Clinton sought $300 million from Congress. To bolster his case he made the bogus claim that "we can prevent the worst infectious diseases of children with vaccines and save $10 for every $1 invested."(166) But he failed to supply facts and figures to support his claim. Perhaps this was because the administration chose instead to invoke the "I forgot to mention" ploy, conveniently neglecting to factor in the millions of dollars the government had already spent compensating families of children damaged or killed by the vaccines.(167)
A further example of the skewed statistics ploy:
The use of control subjects (individuals utilized as a standard of comparison for verifying the results of an experiment) is an established procedure in most fields of scientific inquiry. Not so within the vaccine research community. New experimental vaccines that are tested on a group of people are rarely matched against an equal number of untested people. Indeed, after a new AIDS vaccine was tested on hundreds of people, some of the volunteers were found to be infected with HIV. However, because the number of control subjects was suspiciously small (38 people) -- and therefore worthless -- the National Institutes of Health (NIH) was able to claim "there is no statistical basis for concluding that the vaccine has contributed to an increased vulnerability to infection."(168)
8. The Fraud ploy has proven to be an early and consistent success. In 1956, soon after the Salk polio vaccine was introduced, officials decided to determine how safe and effective it really was. The results of this study -- the now infamous Francis Field Trials -- would help determine the feasibility of continuing to vaccinate millions of young children. What they discovered would have stopped most ethical people from continuing: large numbers of children were contracting polio after receiving the vaccine. Clearly, the vaccine was either unsafe (it was causing the disease it was meant to prevent) or ineffective (it failed to protect). Instead of removing the vaccine from the market, however, officials decided to exclude from the statistics all cases of polio that occurred within 30 days after vaccination on the pretext that such cases were "pre-existing."(169,170)
The NIH, an influential branch of the vaccine oligarchy, was recently placed under investigation for interfering with charges of scientific fraud within its own ranks. According to a New York Times report, Walter W. Stewart and Dr. Ned Feder, scientific fraud investigators for the NIH, were summarily dismissed from their duties following the release of a report critical of other NIH scientists. Without warning their offices were closed and sealed, along with all the files of current investigations. The two scientists were then transferred to jobs unrelated to their work of previous years. This incident reveals how studies and reports critical of official dogma may be suppressed, and highlights "the continuing ethical battles over how government and universities should monitor scientists."(171)
9. Fortune-telling. When medical and health authorities are at a loss to explain the cause of injury and death that occurs soon after a childhood shot, and denial is insufficient, they may resort to the fortune-telling ploy. In fact, the FDA's official position is that "the 'event' [Translation: adverse reaction to a vaccine -- see the Euphemism ploy] may have been related to an underlying disease or condition...or may have occurred by chance at the same time the vaccine was administered." In other words, the child was destined to be damaged or die at the time of the shot anyway.(172)
The past director of the Ohio Department of Health, and other vaccine authorities, label vaccine-induced injury or death as "only temporal.: Once again, this translates to mean the damage was coincidental; it would have occurred anyway.(173)
More examples of the fortune-telling ploy:
"Bad Flu Season Forecast" blared the headlines. "A severe flu season is at hand; get flu shots right away."(174) Who are these doomsday prophets, and where do they get their psychic news?
According to the U.S. government's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), the efficacy of a flu vaccine depends upon whether the government has correctly "predicted" [Translation: guessed] which viruses should be placed in that year's vaccine. There has to be a "good match" between the flu virus actually present in the community at the end of the year and the vaccine that was produced several months earlier.(175)
10. "Pardon Me." Medical institutions wary of vaccine reactions often protect their members by enforcing the "pardon me" rule, exempting doctors from their own regulations. For example, in Evanston, Illinois, a 46-year-old social worker was fired from her job when she refused to take a rubella shot. Hospital policy requires all employees --except physicians -- to be vaccinated against rubella. Doctors are not considered "employees."(176)
A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association reports that obstetrician-gynecologists are the least likely of all doctors to submit to the rubella vaccine. Fewer than 10 percent are inoculated, and blood tests indicate they are susceptible to rubella. The researchers conclude that a "fear of unforeseen vaccine reactions" lead these specialists to invoke their self-exempting "pardon me" rule.(177)
Some doctors refuse to vaccinate their own children as well. According to Dr. Jerome Murphy, former head of Pediatric Neurology at Milwaukee Children's Hospital, "There is just overwhelming data that there's an association [between the pertussis vaccine and seizures]. I know it has influenced many pediatric neurologists not to have their own children immunized with pertussis."(178)
The FDA recently lost an important legal battle when they permitted the live virus polio vaccine, manufactured by Lederle Labs, to be released to the public even though it did not meet existing safety standards. As a result, several people were severely damaged. After losing the U.S. Supreme Court case, the FDA immediately implemented the "pardon me" ploy, and rewrote its safety procedures so that previously unacceptable safety measures would be allowable. Consequently, Lederle can continue to produce and the FDA can continue to sanction the same kind of polio vaccine that caused injuries in the first place.(179)
11. Delusions of Grandeur. Doctors, medical scientists, allopathic policymakers, and vaccine manufacturers, are prone to experience delusions of grandeur. This occurs whenever they take credit for a drop in nearly every communicable disease. But a greater than 95 percent decline in the incidence and severity of many of these diseases already occurred before the introduction of the vaccines. Such conceit also disregards the many diseases -- like scarlet fever and the plague -- that declined on their own, even though vaccines were not developed against them.(180)
Health officials claim high vaccination rates are required to disrupt the spread of a disease and eliminate its occurrence. For example, they take full credit -- delusions of grandeur -- for the current low incidence of polio in the United States. However, in many European countries that refused to mandate polio vaccines a fraction of the people were vaccinated, and polio disappeared.181 To explain this enigma, officials rely upon the double talk and creative logic ploy: evidently enough people were vaccinated "to interrupt the virus's normal lines of transmission through the population." Yet, countries like Finland used the killed-virus vaccine, which officials do not credit with the ability to confer immunity upon the unvaccinated!(182)
More recently, Finland has claimed to have "eradicated" measles, mumps, and rubella -- even though only 30 percent of the people were vaccinated. Also, although researchers claim these diseases were "eradicated," they note that there are about "ten cases of each disease a year, most of them 'probably imported' [from another country]."(183)
Vaccine policymakers promised that by 1982 measles would be eradicated from the Earth—delusions of grandeur.184 Today, in the 1990s, it has returned with a vengeance. The death rate for measles is more than 20 times higher than before the vaccine was in widespread use.(185)
Medical policymakers are unrelenting in their efforts to play God. After realizing "the number of visits to a healthcare provider [for vaccines] is an impediment" to receiving the entire battery of shots, they proposed the development of a single vaccine to provide "lifelong immunization" against many common childhood diseases. They call this single shot a "supervaccine" or "magic bullet" and have lobbied Congress for funds to continue research along these lines.(186) When we consider the medical community's inability to provide lifelong immunity against a single disease, their dismal success rate with current multiple vaccines (DPT and MMR), and the number of vaccine-related injury and death claims clogging the courts, this latest "mad science" venture clearly demonstrates their wicked propensity toward delusions of grandeur.
12. Surprise Attack. Parents often report they are harassed by medical personnel wishing to vaccinate their children even when they visit their medical health care provider for other reasons. In fact, some doctors appear to be so obsessed with the vaccination status of their clients that they disregard the stated purpose of the visit. Therefore, anticipate the surprise attack.
The surprise attack is actually taught to members of the medical fraternity, as noted in the Journal of the American Medical Association: "Each encounter with a health care provider, including an emergency department visit or hospitalization, is an opportunity to screen immunization status and, if indicated, administer needed vaccines. Before discharge from the hospital, children should receive immunizations for which they are eligible. In addition, children accompanying parents or siblings who are seeking any service should also be screened and, when indicated, given needed vaccines."(187)
The consequences of being unprepared for the surprise attack can be severe indeed. The Jonathan story published elsewhere on this site illustrates one parent's reaction to being ambushed by the medical profession.
Another concerned mother describes her surprise attack in these words:
"My husband and I chose a midwife and had a homebirth, which was wonderful. The midwife insisted that I take our daughter to a local pediatrician for a newborn exam.... The reason I'm telling you this is because we were treated like trash. I was told that a homebirth is an automatic 'red flag.' The doctor reported us to Social Services, and we were subjected to a painful interrogation. I was [also] interrogated as to my beliefs about immunizations. My daughter was only two weeks old...and yet they wanted to inject her with multiple vaccines.
"How can I find a doctor for my daughter? I do not want to repeat this horrible experience...for fear Social Services will again be sent to investigate us because we don't take our daughter to doctors for regular 'well-baby' checkups, which is really a ploy to force vaccines on innocent babies and unsuspecting parents."(188)
13. Intimidation and Coercion. Doctors often claim vaccines are mandatory. Many threaten to withhold treatment, or they frighten parents when they reject the shots. As one mother puts it: "The pediatrician I have refused to service me because I am not willing to follow medical 'rules.' Another M.D. agreed to work with me, but only after I listened to him warn me [in very explicit terms, about all the dangers that could happen to my child.]"(189)
Another mother writes: "I am a concerned parent who has not vaccinated my 13 month old. I am met by my baby doctor in a critical and almost attacking nature. There seems to be no room in his mind-set for a choice on this issue."(190)
Putting this in clearer perspective, another mother writes: "I am an Australian citizen [living in the United States]. I never realized what an issue [vaccinations are] in this country until I had my own children, and how much pressure the medical world puts on you, and above all else, how much clout the schools have. I really don't know of any other country that makes this into such a difficult decision, and so one-sided in regard to information. Where I'm from, you either do, or you don't, immunize. The question is asked, the decision made, and that's it forever, unless you change your mind! Incidentally, a large majority [of parents in Australia] do not immunize [their children], and we don't have a higher incidence [of disease] than in the U.S."(191)
Note: The United States has one of the worst infant mortality rates among developed countries. In fact, the rate at which babies die in the first year of life has consistently increased since the 1950s when mass immunization campaigns were initiated. Today, infant mortality rates in some U.S. cities match those in developing countries.(192)
Public school officials -- the unwitting henchmen for the medical profession -- often warn parents their children will not be able to enter school without complying with vaccine mandates. Each state, however, offers one or more exemptions to the shots. In spite of these exemptions, one mother was told by authorities that she would need to write a letter explaining why her son was not vaccinated, and that she would accept full responsibility for any epidemics that occurred while her child was enrolled at the school!(193)
A concerned father tells this story: "I applied for religious exemption for my son at his public school in Totowa, New Jersey. The school nurse reported the exemption to the Board of Health. The New Jersey State Immunization Supervisor then sent a letter to the school principal. In it he stated that my letter of exemption was 'not good enough,' and that my son is not to be admitted into the school building at all. The school principal wrote me a letter confirming that my son would not be permitted to enter school, and threatened that `I had better begin immunizing' my son. I must meet the August deadline to register my son for school, but they won't even let him in the building. Time is running out, and my son's education is being denied."(194)
Note: This story is often told by parents throughout the nation. Evidently, state laws are immaterial to authorities intent upon using the intimidation and coercion ploy to deny parents their legal rights. For example, a clause in the New Jersey State Sanitary Code, Chapter 26:1A-9.1, allows for "exemption for pupils from mandatory immunization if the parent or guardian objects thereto in a written statement signed by the parent or guardian upon the ground that the proposed immunization interferes with the free exercise of the pupil's religious rights."
An apprehensive California mother reports that when her child was rushed to the hospital emergency room for a minor mishap, medical personnel were more interested in the child's vaccination status than in the nature of her injury [the surprise attack]. Upon learning the child was not "up-to-date" on her shots, they refused to release the child to her mother until she gave her permission for the shots to be administered. When she refused, these doctors reported her to Social Services, claiming she was "abusing her child." Soon thereafter the State Attorney General joined in the case and sought to prosecute the mother --even though the vaccine laws in her state permit parents the option to refuse vaccines based on personal convictions against them!(195)
Many parents report that doctors and nurses are intimidating them into vaccinating their newborns immediately after birth. One mother reports: "The very first time I heard about the hepatitis B vaccine was at the hospital after giving birth to my second child. They told me all babies must receive this vaccine before they can be released from the hospital. Needless to say, I refused it, although they persisted in badgering me. Later, when I took my baby to the pediatrician for her two-week checkup, he tried to frighten me into giving her the shot. He said hepatitis is very contagious and my child could easily catch it from other kids or infected adults. When I told him that I didn't feel right about giving the vaccine to my infant, he informed me that I would need to find another doctor because he would not treat my baby."(196)
On November 20, 1993, a nationally syndicated prime-time TV news magazine, The Crusaders, aired a gutsy show on the dangers of the DPT vaccine. Parents of vaccine-damaged children were interviewed, and rare, emotionally wrenching footage of their severely disabled children was shown. While most of the American medical community denies a link between the shots and brain damage or death, listeners heard vaccine expert Dr. Michael Pakickero warn parents that some batches of the DPT vaccine are more toxic than others. And, Dr. John Menkis, the former head of pediatrics and neurology at UCLA, candidly acknowledged, "You will have permanent, irreversible brain damage, which was not present before [DPT] vaccination." Meanwhile, Michael Settonni, the show's premier research journalist, estimated from government sources that "at least two children are reportedly killed or injured by the vaccine every day."(197)
A few days after this show aired, Mr. John Butte, executive producer of The Crusaders, received a scathing letter from Thomas Balbier, Jr., Director of the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), demanding a retraction. He asserted that the number of current vaccine injury and death claims filed by parents during the past few years represent claims of damage "for virtually the entire 20th century." He also blasted the show for directing listeners to the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) -- a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving vaccine safety and supporting a parent's right to choose for or against vaccines. He claimed that NVIC is "not sanctioned" by the federal government, and therefore is "not the official spokesperson" for information on vaccine safety. He also made what appeared to be a veiled threat by noting that copies of his letter were being sent to the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission.(198)
Note: On January 8, 1994, The Crusaders aired a retraction by quoting the medical industry's most cherished -- and fraudulent -- data on the DPT vaccine: a controversial study conducted in Great Britain during the 1950s. Even though 42 of the babies in the study had convulsions within 28 days of receiving the shots, 80 percent of the babies were 14 months of age or older, and the tests were designed to test the efficacy (not safety) of the vaccine, U.S. health authorities still use these results as evidence that the vaccine is safe to give to babies as young as six weeks of age.199 Obviously, the intimidation and coercion ploy was, once again, a wicked success.
On March 19, 1992, Rolling Stone magazine published a remarkable story documenting potential correlations between the first polio vaccines and AIDS. Many independent researchers considered the exposé forthright and extraordinarily well investigated. Several months later, however, the magazine printed a half-page "clarification" indicating that any connection between early polio vaccines and AIDS is "one of several disputed and unproven theories."200 Evidently, future vaccination campaigns and scientific reputations were jeopardized by the original story.
More examples of the intimidation and coercion ploy:
An Ohio woman with two children killed by the DPT vaccine received threatening letters from the Ohio Department of Health informing her that her only surviving child had to be vaccinated.201
A grieving mother whose baby died 17 hours after receiving a DPT shot was threatened with losing her WIC benefits for refusing to vaccinate her other children.(202)
A Kansas mother who objected to the vaccines was told that the state would seize her child, force the vaccinations upon her, and place her in a foster home. The child was vaccinated and is now permanently disabled as a result of the shot.(203)
This final example of the intimidation and coercion ploy clearly illustrates the arrogant and insensitive nature of the medical community. Grieving and dejected parents who personally contact the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System to report how their child was damaged or killed by a vaccine should be forewarned to expect an envelope in the mail with the following bold red letters emblazoned across the front: IMMUNIZE EARLY!(204)
14. The Godfather ploy is an extreme variation of the intimidation and coercion maneuver. It may involve blackmail. For example, poor mothers on state aid in Maryland must now get their children vaccinated or the state will take $25 from their monthly welfare checks for every preschool child not up to date on shots and checkups. A family sanctioned for three months will receive a call from a social service worker, who will request to visit the home to "help resolve the situation and any other problems." Whereas child advocate groups claim Maryland's new law is punitive and unfair, the state's human resources secretary argues that "many [of these welfare recipients] just needed a push to do what is expected of them as responsible parents."(205)
Here is another example of the godfather ploy: Health insurance companies are threatening to cancel policies when parents refuse vaccines for their children -- unless parents sign a form absolving the insurance company from liability if the child contracts certain diseases.(206)
An extreme version of the godfather ploy -- framing the parents -- is now being reported with increasing regularity by frantic family members. Apparently, medical personnel intent on maintaining the vaccine deception will do anything to deflect blame. Moms and dads who are still grieving over their dead babies following the shots, are now being charged with homicide. For example, one mother, whose healthy baby died just 2 days after receiving DPT and MMR vaccines, was so outraged at this government sanctioned criminal activity, that she tried to fight back with a lawsuit. Authorities responded by charging her with the murder of her child.(207)
15. Scare Tactics. Whenever medical policymakers and their media pawns embark on a promotional blitz to increase vaccination rates, they invariably rely on the scare tactics ploy. Although this stratagem is similar to the intimidation and coercion ploy, subtle differences exist. Practitioners of the intimidation ploy seek mainly to dominate parental decision-making through the sheer force of their will. The scare tactics ruse attempts primarily to manipulate emotions and influence behavior by overstating sad and frightening stories about the unvaccinated.
One recently published pro-vaccine article describes in frightening detail the dangers of nonvaccination. First, readers are informed that "even adults can be killed from preventable infectious diseases." Next, an emergency room nurse graphically recounts her attempts to restart the heart of a man who had contracted measles and continued to get sicker: A bacteria that usually causes strep throat "had invaded the small holes in the man's skin" left by his measles rash. The man's heart couldn't be restarted, and he died from the secondary infection. Then, to clinch our emotions, we are told that he left three small children.(208)
Note: This very same measles vaccine that authorities claim could have prevented this tragedy, very likely caused it. Prior to the introduction of the measles vaccine, measles was a relatively tame childhood illness, and was virtually unheard of in infant, adolescent, and adult populations. But the vaccine changed all that. Now measles is contracted by age groups more likely to experience extreme complications, including death.(209,210)
A chickenpox vaccine has been available for years; however, authorities have been reluctant to approve it, for many people agree the disease is relatively harmless. Nevertheless, medical forces were prepared to approve it because "the U.S. could save five times as much as it would spend on the vaccine" by avoiding the costs incurred by moms and dads who stay home to care for their sick children. In response to the medical industry's grand plans to promote this vaccine, media pawns rushed to print fearful stories detailing the dangers of this "serious" disease. For example, one newspaper published a personal story that started with "How my son died from chickenpox." This scare tactic ruse was coupled with the "I (almost) forgot to mention" ploy, because the child had a preexisting condition that left him vulnerable to infection.(211)
Note: On March 17, 1995, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it had approved a chickenpox vaccine.(212) Shortly thereafter, the American Academy of Pediatrics began recommending it for all infants.(213)
16. Euphemisms. Medical personnel often attempt to conceal the facts by using vague terms with hidden meanings -- the euphemism ploy. For example, doctors have been notified by the CDC that cases of Hib may occur after vaccination, "prior to the onset of the protective effects of the vaccine." [Translation: Our vaccine may give your child the disease.] Other studies warn of "increased susceptibility" to the disease in the first 7 days after vaccination. [Another veiled confession that the vaccine may give a child the disease.] In addition, children who contract a particular disease, even though they have received their shots according to the recommended schedule -- an earlier schedule that has since been changed (see the variable recommendations ploy) -- aren't the victims of an ineffective vaccine, or a vaccine failure; instead, they were "inappropriately vaccinated." These are labeled "nonpreventable" cases.(214-216)
In 1993, in England, two of the three MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccines in use at the time were quietly withdrawn because of what health authorities claim was a "slight" risk of "transient" meningitis.217 A recent study in the United States has determined that the risk of illness and death from childhood shots is real but "extraordinarily low," leading authorities to conclude that these are "very rare events."(218) Such remote and fleeting possibilities stand in stark contrast to the words employed by authorities interested in promoting their cause. Then we must be wary of the "poorly developed" immune systems of young children (as an argument in favor of the vaccines!), the "extremely infectious" nature of the virus, and the "grave risk of complications" associated with contracting the disease.(219,220)
More examples of the euphemism ploy:
Researchers are trying to develop a "magic bullet" super-vaccine "that could be given once at birth to immunize infants to all childhood diseases"(221)-- delusions of grandeur. Perhaps they call it a "magic bullet" because infant deaths from the "shot" will remain a mystery to the medical scoundrels who pull the trigger.
The public is informed that vaccination rates increase by the time children enter school because parents are "motivated" -- not compelled -- to have their children vaccinated.(222)
Finally, be wary whenever authorities announce that an "unprecedented" or "experimental" vaccine will soon be available. What they really mean is, "we're seeking human guinea pigs to study the effects of our newest concoction."
17. Outright Lies. Lying is an established ploy of the medical community. It is a quick and easy way to promote the vaccine cause without having to rely upon honesty, morality, or ethics. Shrewd members of the medical fraternity know that very few people question doctors and their comrades.
The American Nurses Association recently collaborated with Every Child by Two, the Rosalynn Carter/Betty Bumpers Campaign for Early Immunization, "to educate nurses, parents, business leaders, civic organizations, and educators about the urgent need to immunize children." Their aggressive stance against unvaccinated children includes a news release with the following claim: several childhood diseases -- including polio, diphtheria, rubella, mumps, and tetanus -- are undergoing a "resurgence." This statement is an outright lie, obviously made to scare parents into vaccinating their children. None of these diseases is making a comeback. In fact, all are at their lowest rates of occurrence since records on their existence have been kept.(223)
According to Donna Shalala, President Clinton's secretary of Health and Human Services, "This year's flu, the Beijing strain, is expected to hit very hard." She also claimed that 10,000 to 45,000 Americans lose their lives to influenza each year.224 However, official government statistics, which Donna Shalala oversees, contradict her claim. In 1991, the CDC reported just 990 deaths attributable to influenza; in 1992, 1,260. Americans die at rates 3 or 4 times greater from common diseases such as asthma (4,650 deaths in 1992), stomach ulcers (5,770 deaths in 1992) and nutritional deficiencies (3,100 deaths in 1992).(225)
18. Variable and Illogical Recommendations. Our children are being used as guinea pigs. To conceal this fact, authorities frequently change their recommendations. New and experimental vaccines replace old and ineffective ones. The number of doses and ages to receive them are altered on a regular basis as well, often with little rationale to justify either the original recommendation or the switch. For example, in 1985 the first Hib vaccine (haemophilus influenzae type b) was approved for general use in the United States and was quickly recommended for all children two years old and up --even though 75 percent of all Hib cases occur before two years of age! In 1988, a new "conjugated" Hib vaccine was approved for use in children at least 18 months of age. By 1991, its recommended use was extended to infants as young as two months old. Today, a genetically engineered Hib vaccine has replaced all earlier versions.(226-229)
In 1963, the recommended age for measles vaccination was 9 months. In 1965 it was changed to 12 months. In 1976 it was changed to 15 months.(230) However, since fewer moms have natural immunity to measles today -- due to the large number of mothers who received childhood shots in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s -- and therefore cannot pass protective antibodies on to their infants, outbreaks of cases are now occurring in children under 15 months of age.(231) In fact, by 1993, more than 25 percent of all measles cases were appearing in babies under one year of age.(232) As a result, in some areas of the country the recommended age to receive the measles vaccine was lowered again, bringing us full circle to initial recommendations -- when most children were, according to medical authorities, "inappropriately vaccinated!"(233)
Recent data indicates that a large majority of measles cases are occurring in vaccinated people.(234) To conceal this fact, authorities rely upon the variable recommendations ploy and now recommend a measles booster shot at 4 to 6 years.(235) Some schools are requiring proof of revaccination before children can enter the 7th grade. Many colleges are refusing to admit students who have no evidence of revaccination. Yet, earlier studies -- one recently published in the Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal -- demonstrated that booster doses of the measles shot are relatively ineffective.(236,237)
Are altered recommendations based on sound science or personal convenience? Vaccine policymakers anxious to introduce the chickenpox vaccine were stymied by the number of vaccines already in existence. They could not decide at what age to recommend their new product. They wanted to make room for it at 15 months, but that would necessitate changing the third of four recommended ages to receive the oral polio vaccine from "15 to 18 months" to "6 months." However, because there is "more leeway" with the MMR vaccine, they considered changing the first of three recommended ages to receive it from "15 months" to "12 to 15 months."(238)
A "plasma-derived" hepatitis vaccination was introduced in the 1970s. In 1987, a genetically engineered "yeast-derived" vaccine was developed. In 1991, the CDC and AAP began the process of mandating the new vaccine for all infants -- even though adult IV drug users, not children, are most at risk of contracting this disease!(239)
Here is one final example of the variable and illogical recommendations ploy: Authorities are so incensed by the number of people claiming vaccines damaged or killed a family member, that they are seeking to further restrict the stringent criteria for entering the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. For example, the newly revised rules stipulate that a severe reaction to a DPT vaccine -- such as anaphylactic shock -- must occur within 4 hours! In other words, if your previously healthy child receives the vaccine at 10 o'clock in the morning, has a violent allergic reaction -- gasps for air, collapses into unconsciousness -- at 3 o'clock that afternoon, and is later diagnosed as brain damaged, the federal government will say that the damage is not related to the shot and therefore you don't have a claim. Other criteria for entering the program have been restricted as well, or removed altogether.(240)
19. Adjustable Diagnoses and Exaggerated Epidemics. Health officials realized early on that vaccine efficacy rates could be maximized by creative diagnoses. Remember, "the credit of vaccination is kept up statistically by diagnosing all the [cases of smallpox after vaccinations] as pustular eczema [or anything else] except smallpox."(241) In other words, if the nonvaccinated contract the disease, call it one thing; if the vaccinated become ill, name it something else.
The medical profession often goes to great lengths to create the illusion of extraordinary vaccine efficacy rates. As an example, the standards for defining polio were changed when the live-virus polio vaccine was introduced. The new definition of a "polio epidemic" required more cases to be reported (35 per 100,000 instead of the customary 20 per 100,000). At this time paralytic polio was redefined as well, making it more difficult to confirm, and therefore tally, cases. Prior to the introduction of the vaccine the patient only had to exhibit paralytic symptoms for 24 hours. Laboratory confirmation and tests to determine residual (prolonged) paralysis were not required. The new definition required the patient to exhibit paralytic symptoms for at least 60 days, and residual paralysis had to be confirmed twice during the course of the disease. Finally, after the vaccine was introduced cases of aseptic meningitis (an infectious disease often difficult to distinguish from polio) were more often reported as a separate disease from polio. But such cases were counted as polio before the vaccine was introduced.(242,243) The vaccine's reported efficacy was therefore skewed.
More recently, two siblings contracted a bad cough, and they were brought to the family doctor for a checkup. In a separate visit, their 2 cousins, who also contracted a bad cough, were brought to the same doctor. Prior to being examined, the doctor asked each set of parents the vaccine status of their children. The first 2 children, who were not vaccinated, were diagnosed as having pertussis. The other 2 children, who had been vaccinated against pertussis, were diagnosed as having bronchitis. No clinical test was performed on any of the children.(244) This tactic serves two functions: 1) it inflates whooping cough statistics suggesting the need for a pertussis vaccine, and 2) it suppresses the truth that the vaccine is ineffective.
Babies who die soon after receiving vaccinations are often diagnosed with Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). In fact, this tactic is so handy that coroners are permitted to use this term to certify toddler deaths up to the age of 24 months.(245,246)
Vaccine epidemics are often "created" when health officials misdiagnose ailments, or overstate the number of cases. As an example, when television programs challenged the safety of the pertussis vaccine, the Maryland Health Department deceived the public by blaming a new "epidemic" of whooping cough on the impact of these shows. When Dr. J. Anthony Morris, former top virologist for the U.S. Division of Biological Standards, analyzed the original data, however, he concluded the Maryland epidemic didn't exist. In only 5 of the 41 cases was there reasonable evidence to correctly diagnose whooping cough. And each of these 5 children had received from one to four doses of the pertussis vaccine.(247)
In Placitas, New Mexico, headlines warned parents of a dangerous whooping cough "epidemic" in that town. But only three cases of whooping cough were discovered, two of them in siblings, all three of them in children who were vaccinated.(248)
20. Patriotic Duty and Social Responsibility (also known as the Guilt Trip). According to Dr. Martin Smith of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), "children of the nation are soldiers in the defense of this country against disease."(249) Vaccine advocates maintain that some children must be sacrificed "for the welfare, safety, and comfort" of the nation.(250) One mother, whose child was permanently brain damaged within hours after receiving a DPT vaccine, was told by the family doctor that this was the price her child had to pay to keep other children safe. According to Dr. George Flores, Sonoma County public health officer, parents who reject vaccines "don't consider the effect of their child on the rest of society."(251) Apparently, unvaccinated children are a danger to everyone who is vaccinated, even though the vaccinated are supposed to be "protected." (We are told that for the shots to work, everyone must play along.)(252) And families who decline the shots, we are told, are somehow reaping the benefits from those who dutifully have their children vaccinated.(253)
21. Unethical Experimentation. In December 1990, a federal regulation was adopted whereby the FDA gave permission to the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to circumvent U.S. and international laws forbidding medical experiments on unwilling subjects. This is the decree that allowed the DoD to inject American Gulf War troops with unapproved experimental drugs and vaccines without their informed consent by deeming it "not feasible" to obtain the soldiers' permission.(254) Today, many of these vets, their spouses, and their children, are crippled by unknown diseases.(255)
In a class action lawsuit, American Indians in South Dakota are suing the FDA and CDC for testing a new hepatitis A vaccine on their infants. Health officials did not warn the parents the exposed children would be at risk for cancer, convulsions, eye disorders, or death.(256) Authorities now plan to test hepatitis A vaccine on remote Northwest Alaska villagers.(257)
Simultaneously administered vaccines have not been proven safe, yet authorities continue to recommend them and medical health practitioners continue to inject them. A recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found lowered levels of pertussis antibodies in children who were simultaneously given the DPT and Hib vaccines. According to the author of the study, "This concern must be addressed, for obviously we do not want to expose our children to the risk of vaccines without providing them with optimum benefit."(258)
Every year during the fall and winter seasons a new flu virus is thought to circulate throughout the community. To produce a vaccine for this virus, health officials must correctly predict nearly a year in advance which virus will arrive (causing some people to speculate that when officials guess correctly, it's really the vaccine itself that may be spreading the disease). With production usually beginning in January, and the final product licensed by the FDA in August, just a month or two before the shots are distributed, who does it seem the vaccines are being tested on?(259)
Vaccine researchers perform unethical experiments on human populations whenever their newest creations are ready to be tested. Therefore it comes as no surprise to learn of their plans to add foreign substances -- viral matter -- to the food supply. In fact, biotechnology firms have been experimenting with adding vaccines to bananas, lettuce, potatoes, tomatoes, and soybeans for several years now.(260,261) Who do you think these vaccines will be tested on?
22. Mandates. If vaccines are so wonderful, why does the government need to mandate them? You'd think that everyone would be lining up to get the shots. But vaccination rates are modest. The Clinton administration claimed that the price and accessibility of vaccines were hindering parents from maintaining vaccine schedules.(262) However, according to a survey conducted by The Gallup Organization on behalf of Lederle Laboratories, a major vaccine manufacturer, the "cost and time involved are least important" considerations for parents deciding whether to vaccinate their children. "The possibility of side effects is most frequently rated as important in making the decision."(263)
State laws require children to be vaccinated before they can enter public school -- unless a parent signs a waiver indicating opposition to the shots. While some states offer a philosophical or religious exemption, all provide a medical exemption -- if contraindications exist. But parents should not have to sign a waiver objecting to mandatory vaccines. Instead, those who elect to have their children vaccinated should be obligated to read the full range of possible adverse reactions. Then, parents who still elect to have their children vaccinated should be required to sign a form indicating that they understand all the risks involved.
Mandating vaccines is also an unscrupulous means of extorting money from trusting parents. Imagine the exorbitant profits of any company that produces a product everyone is required by law to buy -- even against their will. Moreover, the extreme wealth acquired through this medical racket is not hoarded by the drug makers alone; common doctors share in the booty. According to the late Dr. Robert Mendelsohn, world-renowned pediatrician, vaccines are the "bread and butter" of pediatric practice.(264) Others speculate that the damage caused by the shots may be responsible for new ailments and rare diseases(265-267) -- enough to keep medical specialists affluent and busy for years to come.
Imagine for a moment a group of nutritionists who develop a multivitamin. They place their own people in a position to evaluate the benefits and risks of the product. It is now "officially" declared safe and effective. In fact, children who take this new multivitamin are reported to be 50 percent healthier than other children. But there is a catch: the costly vitamins must be taken at regular intervals and everyone must take them or they won't work. They won't enhance health, we are told, because the disease-prone "unprotected" children -- progeny of irresponsible parents -- will pass their germs on to the "protected" children -- children of "responsible" families. So the nutritionists lobby government officials to mandate their product. Busy lawmakers study the "official" study results, determine that "protecting" children is a high priority, and decide to support the goals and ambitions of this powerful lobbying force.
Imagine any coalition of professionals with an agenda to pursue. Say, a guild of hypnotists has determined that children can be hypnotized to perform better in school than children who are not hypnotized. But again there is a catch: the children must be taken from their parents at regular intervals to be hypnotized, and all children must be hypnotized or the effects will be incomplete. Would you agree to this practice? Mind control, body control; who has authority over our children?
23. Refusing to Report Vaccine Reactions. Despite a federal law passed by Congress in 1986 -- the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act -- requiring all doctors who administer vaccines to report vaccine reactions to federal health officials, many choose to ignore this legal requirement. Doctors often justify their refusal to report vaccine reactions by claiming the shot had nothing to do with the child's injury or death. The will of Congress is being subverted, resulting in a gross underreporting of vaccine injuries and deaths.(268)
The Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) is the federal program designated to tally reports of vaccine injuries and deaths. By the year 2002, tens of thousands of reactions to vaccines, including deaths, were reported -- despite the medical boycott against reporting incidents.(269) Still, one must magnify these figures tenfold, because the FDA estimates that 90 percent of doctors do not report incidents.(270)
To further confirm the degree of underreporting that occurs, in 1988 and 1989 Connaught Laboratories conducted a study to determine the true rate of adverse events associated with the vaccines they produce. During this period of time, unsolicited ("spontaneous") reports of adverse events occurred at the rate of 20 per million doses. However, when they supplied the vaccine to doctors with a request to report any adverse event that occurred within 30 days of a vaccination, provided that it resulted in a physician visit, the rate of adverse events skyrocketed to 927 events per million doses. According to Dr. Jim Froeschle, director of clinical research at Connaught Laboratories, these differences indicate "a fifty-fold underreporting of adverse events."(271) Yet, even this figure may be conservative. According to Dr. David Kessler, M.D., director of the Food and Drug Administration, "Only about one percent of serious events [adverse drug reactions] are reported to the FDA."(272)
The following testimonials from parents and relatives of vaccine-damaged children illustrate how easily doctors can dismiss apparent vaccine reactions and thus justify not reporting them:
"Our son had his 2nd DPT shot and oral polio [vaccine] at four months of age on September 22, 1989. He had reacted to his 1st DPT immunization two months earlier with prolonged high-pitched screaming and projectile vomiting.... After his 2nd shot he immediately started the high-pitched screaming again. He could no longer hold his head up and could not keep his food down. He couldn't sleep or stay awake, he had absence seizures, dozens to hundreds a day. He deteriorated daily and died April 14, 1990." The doctor would not report this reaction. He did not feel that it was related to the vaccine.
"Our 16-month-old grandson received his 4th DPT shot on December 5, 1989, and he died 24 days later. He also received the MMR and oral polio vaccines at the same time. Within 24 hours his legs were red and swollen, he had a fever of 103 degrees, and he was very fussy and irritable.... His previous shots had similar reactions.... We know the shot contributed to his death." The doctor would not report this reaction. He did not feel that it was related to the vaccine.
"We lost our beautiful, precious and adored 4-month-old son 26 hours after receiving the DPT vaccination and oral polio [vaccine] at his well-baby checkup on January 25, 1990.... We were aware our son's behavior patterns changed after the shot.... He was staring, looked spacey, only took short naps, vomited his bottle.... The doctor was insistent that this was a SIDS death." The doctor would not report this reaction. He did not feel that it was related to the vaccine.
"Our son had his 1st DPT vaccination and oral polio vaccine at 14 months old on February 22, 1990. That evening he started high-pitched screaming. The next two days he had a temperature of 101 degrees and slept for 15 hours. When he awoke he was extremely irritable.... My son was in a lot of body pain. At times he looked like he had a stroke. At other times he was curled up in a hard knot we couldn't straighten. He was having seizures and we didn't know it.... He continues to have seizures. The doctor, even though law required him to record manufacturer and lot number, did not record the number." The doctor would not report this reaction. He did not feel that it was related to the vaccine.
"My son had his first DPT shot at his 2-month checkup on May 8, 1990.... Four hours later he started crying.... I noticed he was pale and like a statue.... He stopped breathing. I picked him up and shook him and he started breathing again. A friend was visiting and called 911. My son stopped breathing 8 to 10 more times with me shaking him out of it each time before the paramedics arrived. He was ash white...screaming when we got to the hospital.... I have another child who had severe reactions from his shots. He had a seizure after each of his first three DPT shots and was on medication for three years." The doctor would not report this reaction. He did not feel that it was related to the vaccine.
"My 16-month-old grandson had his 2nd DPT shot, MMR, and polio at his well-baby checkup on August 16, 1990. In less than 48 hours he had a temperature of 105 degrees and went into convulsions.... My grandson has deteriorated daily. He walks stiff-legged, or his knee collapses on under him.... He has trouble with his bowels, constipation one minute followed by diarrhea running down his leg the next minute. We look at our old videos and realize how much he has changed." The doctor would not report this reaction, nor would he give the parents the manufacturers, and lot numbers of the vaccines he administered.
"My grandson had his 1st DPT shot and oral polio [vaccine] at his 2-month well-baby checkup on June 8, 1990. Within 21 hours he was dead. After the shot he started crying [high-pitched screaming].... My grandson began projectile vomiting and continued the high-pitched crying.... At 7 A.M. my daughter awoke and found my grandson to have a purple color on one side of his face, clenched fists, blood coming from his nose and mouth and not breathing. My grandson was dead. I have promised my daughter that his death will not be in vain and just another statistic labeled SIDS." The doctor would not report this reaction. He did not feel that it was related to the vaccine.(273)
24. Suppress Information/Prohibit Conflicting Testimony. On April 1, 1993, several bills were introduced in Congress to establish a federal "tracking and surveillance" system that would monitor parents who choose not to vaccinate their children. A few weeks later, Representative Henry Waxman and Senator Ted Kennedy chaired "public" hearings on this legislation, but prohibited input from individual parents, parent organizations, and healthcare professionals concerned about vaccine safety. Instead, only groups with a vested interest in ratifying these bills were permitted to attend: White House sponsors, several presidents of multibillion dollar companies that produce vaccines, agents of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and public health officials.(274)
The Salk "inactivated" or "killed-virus" vaccine was actually regulated to permit 5,000 live viruses per million doses. Yet, because the vaccine was promoted as being incapable of causing polio, cases that occurred following administration of the vaccine were denied, and it was excluded from the Vaccine Injury Table.(275) The CDC also refuses to acknowledge occurrences of encephalitis and seizure disorders following administration of the oral polio vaccine, even though encephalitis has been known to occur following polio contracted under natural conditions.(276)
More examples of the suppression ploy:
A recent report published in Lancet notes that some people contract meningitis after receiving the MMR vaccine. Nevertheless, the author concludes that "because of the extreme rarity of this complication, parents need not be told about the risk before deciding on vaccination."(277)
Even though a national drug evaluation committee (ADRAC) recommended that children should be observed for a sufficient period of time after vaccination to monitor reactions, authorities fought against the suggested period of observation on the grounds that it causes inconvenience to parents and increases anxiety about the safety of childhood shots.(278)
When the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 was passed into law, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) was ordered by Congress "to develop and disseminate vaccine information materials for distribution by health care workers." This material was to include information on adverse reactions, contraindications, and the availability of a federal compensation program for people who are injured or die from a mandated vaccine. HHS was to satisfy this legal requirement by December 22, 1988. By March 4, 1991, this matter was still unsettled. When HHS eventually submitted the required information, "they failed to meet even minimal standards of scientific rigor, candor, and fairness." Vaccine risks were systematically understated or ignored.(279)
Although medical personnel are required by law to provide their clients with information booklets explaining the benefits and risks of vaccinations before they receive their shots, few doctors offer these booklets to their clients. The following story illustrates the type of damage that can occur when healthcare providers choose to suppress lifesaving information:
"I am a 29-nine-year old female who received an MMR vaccine required by [the medical center where I work]. Since receiving that vaccine I've experienced a number of side effects: dizziness, headaches, numbness of my feet and ankles, shortness of breath, chest pain, and aching joints.
"I have seen several doctors over the last six months, more times than I can count. Those doctors that admitted the vaccine may have something to do with these symptoms felt that within six months the symptoms would subside. Unfortunately, this is not the case. In fact, some symptoms have gotten worse. My ankles are numb almost continuously, the chest pain has begun to include pain in my left arm and jaw, accompanied by difficulty breathing.
"Every aspect of my life has been affected by this, including my work ability, which is the reason I had to have the vaccine in the first place. I was told I either had to get it, or I wouldn't have a job. Unfortunately, by this time I have already given up the job I held for over five years.
"I was not given any information prior to receiving the vaccine. [I later learned] that people allergic to eggs should not receive this vaccine. I am allergic to eggs, but the hospital staff never asked or told me anything. My primary care physician is at a loss about what to do with me. But I continue to suffer."(280)
25. Psychological Projection. Medical personnel are notorious for seeing in others the very thoughts, feelings, and actions they deny in themselves. This subtle and unconscious defense against anxiety and guilt is what psychologists refer to as projection. Vaccine researchers, for example, are disappointed that women and minorities have been reluctant to be experimented on with a new AIDS vaccine, even in light of recent revelations about Cold War radiation tests on unwitting subjects. The reluctant volunteers -- not the researchers -- were blamed for harboring a "mistaken belief" that the vaccine could cause AIDS, despite what the scientists say.(281)
Note: Less than 5 months later, researchers were forced to acknowledge that "at least five volunteers in the government's principal AIDS vaccine study have become infected with the AIDS virus after receiving the vaccine." One of the subjects is said to have undergone "an unusually rapid decline in the number of white blood cells, the standard measure for the progress of AIDS." This has raised researchers' concerns "not only about how well the vaccine works but whether it may have increased the likelihood of their infection and...even accelerated the progression of disease."(282)
Medical policymakers and some lawmakers claim parents are abusing their children by not allowing them to be vaccinated.(283,284) Some parents have been accused of child abuse -- "shaking baby syndrome" -- after their children had seizures or went into a coma following vaccinations.(285) In fact, the authorities who allow these dangerous vaccines to be administered are abusing the children and implicating the parents. Parents have lost custody of their loved ones in this manner.(286)
26. Organized Propaganda. Community organizations and parent groups are often enlisted by medical associations to help organize campaigns against unvaccinated children. "Volunteers" rarely question the cult-like doctrines the pro-vaccinators foist in their direction. But are these organizations, and their helpers, really doing the community a service? How honest are vaccine campaigns that omit mention of the thousands of families affected every year by adverse reactions to vaccines? Why are the true facts prohibited from being revealed? And why can't parents be trusted to weigh the facts for themselves?
The medical-industrial complex is well-prepared for almost any unfavorable eventuality that may occur. For example, soon after the NBC television show "NOW" broadcast a story about the dangerous DPT vaccine, a DPT manufacturer sent telegrams to health professionals throughout the nation reassuring them of the vaccine's safety.(287) After the show aired a second time, the CDC organized a propaganda blitz by swiftly faxing biased pro-vaccine information to doctors and other concerned people throughout the nation. In this fax, the CDC had the audacity to claim that "Almost all infants with any medical illness, including death, will have been vaccinated earlier in their life.... [and] Almost all infants with any medical illness, including death, will have drunk milk earlier in their life,"(288) implying that receiving shots is as benign as drinking milk.
27. Legal Immunity. When the FDA tested a batch of DPT vaccine, they found the entire lot to be 200 percent more potent than regulations allowed. Instead of immediately destroying it, the agency allowed health authorities to "test" it on hundreds of children in Michigan. This proved to be a tragic gamble. Later, when the parents of children who were paralyzed and brain damaged from the mandatory shots tried to sue the state, the courts disallowed their case because the "doctrine of sovereign immunity" protects the government from claims arising from services that only the government can provide.(289)
A 13-year-old Pennsylvania girl suffered irreversible brain damage from a measles vaccine received during a mandatory mass vaccination program at her school. However, a court decision made it clear that neither the vaccine manufacturers nor the government could be held responsible because the vaccines were "unavoidably unsafe." [Translation: Parents are compelled to play the medical establishment's unique brand of Russian roulette.] The court also claimed the vaccine maker adequately delineated risks on its package insert.290 Consequently, these parents were deemed solely responsible for the care of their now mentally retarded daughter -- even though they, like most parents, were not warned about vaccine dangers, were not told about these inserts, and withheld permission for their daughter to be vaccinated!(291)
Drug companies are legally immune against most claims of vaccine damage, and their incentive to produce safer vaccines was removed when the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 was passed. This law states that "no vaccine manufacturer shall be liable in a civil action for damages arising from a vaccine-related injury or death." Incredibly, the original draft also stated: "The term vaccine-related injury or death means an illness, injury, condition or death associated with one or more of the vaccines listed in the vaccine injury table except that the term does not include an illness, injury, condition or death associated with an adulterant or contaminant intentionally added to such a vaccine."(292)
28. Threats to go out of Business. Before the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 was enacted, vaccine manufacturers were being sued so often and for so much money, that many threatened to -- and did -- go out of business.(293) When the government began accepting liability for vaccine injuries and deaths, the enterprising drug companies succeeded in removing an important incentive to produce safe and effective vaccines.
29. Stonewalling. Vaccine officials use the stonewalling tactic whenever they want to delay or avoid accepting accountability. For example, when one mother, whose son died four days after his second polio shot, studied his provisional autopsy report, she noted that there were major findings of myocarditis, and hepatitis, and that the polio virus had been extracted from these diseased organs -- conditions not inconsistent with a vaccine reaction. But when she questioned the pathology department's initial conclusion -- Sudden Infant Death Syndrome -- and requested additional tests to determine whether the polio virus was a wild or vaccine strain, she was led into a nine-year battle with the CDC to secure the results. (Medical authorities were forced to concede the truth: the vaccine caused the child's polio.)(294)
When a child is killed by a mandated vaccine, the government is expected to compensate the parents, awarding them up to $250,000. However, if the child is seriously injured by the vaccine, continues to live, and requires lifetime care, several million dollars may be awarded. Government officials may be reluctant to settle cases quickly, hoping the damaged child will die, thereby lowering the payment. This is exactly what millions of people learned when The Crusaders, a television newsmagazine, aired a gutsy show on the dangerous pertussis vaccine. The father of a young boy who suffered severe and permanent brain damage just hours after a DPT shot could not get the government to settle his case. The family needs the money to pay for the child's specialized care, but "if something were to happen to him and he did not live, they would not have to pay for his life care."(295)
30. Secrecy. If vaccines offered benefits only, the government wouldn't need to mandate them, and the ploys noted in this chapter wouldn't be necessary. Instead, parents would be lining up to get the shots. Members of the medical fraternity realize this, and have banded together to conceal how the vaccines are made, who they're tested on, how effective they really are, and the true rates of adverse events. Even the manufacturer's cost to market vaccines is considered a "trade secret or confidential information."(296)
Doctors who have dared to publicly question vaccines, "have been warned that their careers are at stake and they risk [losing their license to practice medicine]."(297) Others are discredited.(298)
After one family's son was damaged by a DPT shot, they obtained, through the Freedom of Information Act, a computerized record of more than 34,000 adverse reactions to vaccines over a three-year period. They had a hunch their son had received a bad vaccine -- from a "hot lot" -- and wanted to see if they could protect other children from being hurt.
After a great deal of research, they discovered that their son had been vaccinated from a hot lot. The death rate associated with this batch was three times higher than that linked with other lots. Ten children had died from it. But when the parents spoke to officials at the FDA to determine if the agency would conduct an investigation, they were told that "due to the size of the lot, the deaths did not warrant significant investigation." When they inquired about the size of the lot, the FDA flatly stated, "That's confidential."(299)
Parents everywhere would like to know how many deaths would be enough to warrant an investigation. If ten isn't enough, is twenty? Thirty? Forty? What's enough? What industry is permitted to operate in secrecy, and put out a product to the public without accountability? Concerned citizens cannot even find out from the government what the mechanism is to institute a recall, if indeed one even exists.(300)
Drug company awards for vaccine damage are usually settled out of court. Parents who expect to receive compensation for their child who was damaged or killed by a vaccine are often obligated to remain silent as a condition of the agreement. Parents seeking compensation from the Federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program are often counseled to refrain from discussing their cases, and settlements, as well.(301)
To learn how difficult it is to break the secrecy pact, try to obtain specific vaccine information from the CDC or FDA. They'll be happy to send you their official propaganda but will quickly turn apprehensive and restrained when you start probing for additional information. These public organizations, supported by taxpayer dollars, have all sorts of information. However, they're unlikely to share it with average citizens, for then we'd be able to make our own rational, informed decisions regarding the shots. But the American people are entitled to know the answers to their questions before submitting their children to "mandated" vaccines.
"We could kneel on broken glass and give the American Medical Association (AMA) everything it wanted, and still they will oppose it. They are going to push us as far as possible, and then they are just going to screw us." --Federal Healthcare Task Force Member, Time Magazine (September 20, 1993), p. 61.
"Every doctor will allow a colleague to decimate a whole countryside sooner than violate the bond of professional etiquette by giving him away." --George Bernard Shaw
This article was excerpted from the vaccine archives of Neil Z. Miller.
See Immunization Theory vs. Reality for references and more information.
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