Learn the Risks; Protect Your Rights.
A Brief History of What Occurred in Green, Healthy Vermont in 2012
by Charlotte Gilruth, CCH
October 16, 2013 – Download a pdf HERE.
***********
Part 1
Vaccine Mandates Today
Pharma envisions a grim future for all of us. Merck’s infographic, “A Lifetime of Vaccines,” depicts seven life stages, from newborn through elderly.[iii] Sanofi Pasteur presents, “New and next generation vaccines for every stage of life.”[iv] The slogans, “You never outgrow the need for vaccines”[v] and “Vaccines are not just for kids,”[vi] probably originating at the CDC (Centers for Disease Control), have spread across the country to places like health departments and pharmacies touting vaccination for adults.[vii] With nearly 300 vaccines under development,[viii] pressure mounts for cradle-to-grave vaccination, including, disturbingly, flu and Tdap (Tetanus/Diphtheria/acellular Pertussis) shots for pregnant women.[ix] The vaccine industry,[x] governmental policymakers,[xi] and medical associations[xii] are working in concert to shift the long-standing public assumption that vaccination mostly ends with childhood.[xiii]
At the same time, the schedule of vaccines required for children–which has tripled since the 1980s[xiv]–continues to expand alarmingly. Childhood vaccination programs, promoted on the federal level and enacted through state health departments, generally resemble that of Vermont, where Department of Health Immunization Regulations specify that once a new vaccine is recommended by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, (ACIP, which consists of 15 experts appointed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services), “there will be a two-year phase-in period before children will be required to have the vaccine in order to enroll in a child-care facility or school.”[xv] Four new vaccines, including an annual flu shot, have recently been added to the CDC-recommended childhood schedule,[xvi] which, when approved, will bring the total to 52 shots (of 68 separate antigens) by age 18; the dangerous and controversial HPV (Human Papilloma Virus) vaccine has been on that list for over two years now.
The recommended schedule for adults shows the same steady increase.[xvii] In 2010 the annual flu vaccine was recommended mostly for adults over 50. That changed to all adults in 2011. In 2012, the recommendation for HPV for males was added. In 2013, a Tdap shot is recommended for pregnant women, one per pregnancy.[xviii]
Regulations Impinge on Parents’ Best Judgment
Immunization regulations as they now stand already restrict parental choices, and pending measures would be even more limiting. A few real-life scenarios underline the pressing need to preserve vaccine exemption rights:
Children are presently counted as “not fully immunized” or “under-immunized”–even if they are missing just one shot from the growing required schedule–and are prohibited from enrolling in any public or private school or day care center. (Home-based day care is the only exception.) Now and in the future, unless parents are prepared to educate their children at home from infancy through the teens, exemptions are the only accepted way to selectively vaccinate their children.
Abolishing the Right to Refuse
Pharmaceutical companies assess restrictive state legislation as an effective means to build a reliable revenue stream[xix] well into the future. Their strategy of enforced compliance will best succeed if exemptions are eliminated.
A sea change seemed to occur in 2011: though the CDC had for many years been tracking and publishing[xx] vaccination rates for schoolchildren and toddlers, a sudden switch of focus happened in 2011. The CDC’s “Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report” started reporting state-by-state vaccine exemption rates[xxi]–as if exemptions were disease outbreaks!–though the June 3, 2011 report stated that “overall exemption rates were low”[xxii] for children entering kindergarten who had an exemption for any reason. (The current rate as of August 2013 is only 1.8%).[xxiii] Also in 2011, the National Public Health Information Coalition[xxiv] was founded, its stated goals to “… help enhance current media activities to reinforce public trust in vaccines, increase awareness that vaccine-preventable diseases are still a danger and emphasize that the benefits of vaccines vastly outweigh any risks.” NPHIC’s voting members[xxv] are comprised of one representative from each state health department. That same year, legislative attacks began in Washington State to restrict “personal belief” (philosophical and religious) exemptions there; continued highlighting of these exemptions in 2012 and 2013 paralleled other assaults on exemptions in Vermont, Washington, Arizona, and Oregon. Is all of this purely coincidence or were these actions connected with the February 22, 2011 U.S.Supreme Court decision that found vaccines “unavoidably unsafe”–thereby shielding those who make and administer them against lawsuits for deaths and injuries caused by vaccines ?[xxvi]
Currently, about half the population (in 17 states), has philosophical exemptions,[xxvii] which allow parents to opt out of any or all vaccines for their children. (Just two states–Mississippi and West Virginia–have no non-medical exemptions.)[xxviii] Proposed legislation in several states allowing minors to agree to vaccines, without parents’ consent or even knowledge, is a new avenue of attack on parental rights.
Until recently the focus has been predominantly on mandated childhood vaccine programs, adding to the number of required vaccines and restricting and eliminating exemptions. Targeting adults is the latest game plan, through intensifying pressure for health care workers, teachers and others to be vaccinated as well. The National Strategy of the National Vaccine Advisory Committee, in cooperation with medical employers and other non-government organizations (NGOs), calls for a mandated immunization program for adults similar to that for children.[xxix] Since 2010, the CDC has been monitoring trends for health care workers receiving the flu vaccine,[xxx] and tracks mandates for healthcare workers and patients by state.[xxxi] In August, 2013, state officials in North Carolina announced a new policy that mandates flu vaccines for 10,000 employees and volunteers in state health care facilities throughout North Carolina.[xxxii]
2013 Proposed Vaccine Legislation Nationwide
Lobbying continually steps up across the nation for vaccine-related regulations. In 2013 there were 47 vaccine-related bills in 17 states–CT, FL, GA, ID, IN, KY, ME, MN, MO, MT, ND, NC, NE, NJ, and NY– that the National Vaccine Information Center recommended be opposed, six of them in Texas, four in Idaho.[xxxiii] Some trends in the bills become apparent upon perusing the list:[xxxiv]
- Proposed mandates for:
Flu vaccines (NJ, MT, IL, MO, CT, PA)
Meningitis vaccine (IL, KS, NE, MO, NY, TX, TN)
HPV (Human Papilloma Virus) vaccine (NY, KY, SC, GA, FL)
Hep B vaccine (MN)
Hep A vaccine (MN)
Tdap vaccine (NE, VT)
- Allows additional practitioners (e.g. optometrists or pharmacists) to administer vaccines (CA, NC, GA, OH, OR, NJ)
- Elimination of parental consent requirement for some vaccines (NY, TX)
- Restriction or removal of exemptions (OR, NJ, VT)
- Restrictive changes in vaccination tracking system (ID, ND, MT, TX)
Unless citizens are alert to pending legislation, rights to vaccine choice can simply evaporate. Many restrictive new bills are likely be introduced all over the U.S. in the 2014 session.
***********
PART 2
A Vermont Drama
“Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made.”[xxxv]
The Journey from S.199 to Act 157
During the 2012 Vermont legislative session, S.199, a bill to eliminate the philosophical exemption,[xxxvi] was defeated after months of resistance spearheaded by a group of citizen advocates, the Vermont Coalition for Vaccine Choice,[xxxvii] composed mostly of parents. (Over 1,500 citizens signed the Coalition’s petition to preserve vaccine choice.) The bill was introduced by Senator Kevin Mullin on January 3rd, with “mirror bill” H.527[xxxviii] sponsored in the House by Representative George Till. These initiatives were fully backed by Vermont’s health department. Health Commissioner Dr. Harry Chen presented a map with measles-like red dots[xxxix] which were supposed to indicate towns at risk for outbreaks, and made inaccurate[xl] claims in the media about declining vaccination rates,[xli] inflaming fear of imminent epidemics in legislators and the public.
In spite of the media buzzing with alarm about the manufactured crisis, with a barrage of newspaper, radio, television, and online messages and arguments,[xlii] S.199 was passed by the Senate Health Care Committee with very little discussion or opportunity for citizens to speak out. After that, a core group of Coalition members decided to be present at the State House almost every day of the session, talking to legislators, attending committee hearings, in general witnessing and participating in the legislative process. Described by a newspaper reporter as, “fixtures” at the State House,[xliii] citizen advocates for vaccine choice were as ever-present as the drug and medical industry lobbyists, employed by Pfizer, VAHHS (Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems), AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics), Fletcher Allen (a large Vermont medical center), the Vermont Medical Society, and the Vermont Ethics Network.[xliv]
We noticed that two or more of those lobbyists were present at each and every related committee hearing, typing meticulous notes of proceedings, rapidly texting and messaging, and whispering to one another. Coalition members also observed the camaraderie between the lobbyists and some legislators, including the vaccine bill sponsors, as they frequently conferred together, handing papers back and forth, at the long table the medical and pharmaceutical lobbyists shared in the the State House cafeteria; Health Commissioner Chen was sometimes present at these informal conclaves.
Another eye-opener was the testimony of the popular mayor of Montpelier, Vermont’s capital city, before the House Health Care Committee[xlv] on March 29th. Though he spoke “as a parent and school board member” and asserted that vaccination rates should be 100%, he claimed his being the Vermont lobbyist for Pfizer–which markets $3.72 billion Prevnar, best-selling vaccine worldwide[xlvi]–posed no conflict of interest.
By the time the Senate voted 25 to 4 on March 2nd to remove the philosophical exemption [xlvii] and S.199 was sent to the House of Representatives, exemption advocates were mobilizing and insisted on being heard. A well-attended public hearing[xlviii] was held, and testimony was accepted at numerous meetings of the House Health Care Committee. Throughout months of deliberation, lawmakers were flooded with thousands of email and voice mail messages, phone calls, and letters defending the philosophical exemption, and many realized they must reconsider their positions if they were to represent the rights and preferences of their constituents. Though he had originally co-sponsored the almost identical House bill (H.527),[xlix] Representative Warren Kitzmiller was one who listened: “I just said, ‘Wait a minute, these are not ignorant folks doing the wrong thing.’ They weren’t against vaccinations, they were against the blasts of multiple vaccinations at one time,”[l] When S.199 came for a vote on the floor of the House on April 12th, a reversal occurred, and the House voted almost unanimously (130 to 3) to preserve the philosophical exemption.[li] As a parent and core member of the Coalition explained this success, “The most dangerous place in the woods is between a mother bear and her cubs.”[lii]
As political neophytes, we were surprised that the battle was not yet over. We learned that exemptions from the vaccines mandated in Vermont–an ever-increasing number– could still be severely restricted in the conference committee comprised of three members from each chamber, charged with finding a compromise between the House and Senate (begging the question of how a right can be compromised–either you have the right or you don’t).
More skirmishes ensued, with amended bills being proposed and rejected for several days; one change was attaching a 90% trigger point for MMR and DTaP/Tdap vaccines (meaning that if vaccination rates for those shots fell below 90% in any given school, the philosophical exemption would be suspended for three years in that school); another revision was adding the clause, “…(D) understands that there are persons with special health needs attending schools and child care facilities who are unable to be vaccinated or who are at heightened risk of contracting a vaccine-preventable communicable disease and for whom such a disease could be life-threatening.”(Italics added.) Senator Mullin went so far as to insist on even more specifically intimidating language being inserted into the bill, saying he could sign the report only “as long as it doesn’t interfere with somebody who is suing somebody for killing their child [by not vaccinating their own], we might be able to agree with that.” (Italics added.)
However, this proposed amended bill produced by the Committee of Conference, which contained the 90% trigger, failed to garner enough support in the House to be passed, even under duress from the Governor (we were informed), so the committee was forced to meet again in the evening and draw up yet another version, dropping the trigger though still retaining all the accusatory language. (Most legislators did not understand why the wording troubled us so.) The next morning, an elated representative told us, “A lot of people stood up to a lot of pressure last night.” This revised bill passed the House 133 to 6 on May 3rd included an amendment requiring the Department of Health to outline vaccine risks; it went on to pass the Senate 20 to 5 and was signed into law by the Governor on May 16th.[lx
Finally, the last public meeting opened with an obviously staged moment when Senator John Campbell melodramatically refused to sign the bill, excoriating parents “…who support the philosophical exemption, afraid of potential harm vaccines may cause their child. I find it a little disturbing that we don’t care about the rest of the children,” then denouncing state representatives: “I really, really hate to see that this legislative body has pretty much succumbed to people who just are very efficient at writing letters and emails, and being vocal in their comments here….” Campbell then made his on-cue exit to meet with a reporter waiting outside the door to take his statement.
*****
2013 Developments
“Road show”–By the beginning of 2013, the Vermont Coalition for Vaccine Choice had decided to be proactive instead of waiting to see what the legislature would do in the new year. We created a “roadshow” of slide presentations[lxxvii] with open discussion that we hosted for the public throughout the winter and spring in various places around the state. The presentations gave an overview of the many facets of vaccination in hopes of raising awareness about vaccine safety, health freedom, and informed consent.
*****
Five New Bills Introduced–Before the end of February, Senator Mullin and Representative Till, original sponsors of the messy legislation in 2012, introduced five more vaccine-related bills in the 2013 session. Two of the bills (H.138 and S.102) try again for the 90% “trigger point” that supporters of forced vaccination had unsuccessfully tried to tack onto the philosophical exemption last year with important differences: if these bills were to pass, non-medical (religious and philosophical) exemptions would be suspended for three years in any school where vaccination rates fall below 90% for any required vaccine. Then, if exemptions were to be suspended, adults (i.e., teachers and volunteers) working in that school would have to show proof that their “…immunization status for that required immunization is current in order to continue working or volunteering at that public school.”[lxxviii]
Two others bills (H.114 and S.103) would require pertussis vaccination for all adults and children in Vermont schools, suspending the philosophical exemption for that vaccine,[lxxix] A fifth bill (S.142)[lxxx] proposes to allow vaccination by pharmacists of any child age seven years of age or older. (This bill must be a particular slap in the face to the parents of Kaylynne Matten, who was seven years old when she died shortly after a “routine” flu shot here in Vermont in December of 2011.)[lxxxi] These bills are in health care committees but were not taken up during year one of the current two-year session. Health Commissioner Chen officially declined to support them, citing a waste of energy with the same probable result as last year’s fiasco over the philosophical exemption.[lxxxii] Only time will tell whether legislators are truly done with trying to force vaccination on all Vermonters.
*****
Summer News and Actions–On August 17th, the Vermont Coalition for Vaccine Choice sponsored another well-received slide presentation on why the philosophical exemption should be preserved. [lxxxiii]
An escalating campaign of biased media reports during the summer kept us on our toes. Vaccine promoters apparently view the beginning of the school year as the perfect time to create a stir about vaccination. By mid-August, 2013, the March of Dimes had sent a letter[lxxxiv] to all lawmakers, penned by the same Roger Clapp who been an instigator in the S.199 uproar last year.[lxxxv] “Seed stories”[lxxxvi] generated by the Gray Group,[lxxxvii] a Boston-based marketing communications company, were sent to Vermont media outlets, both Clapp and the Gray Group again raising alarm about “low” immunization rates. (The Gray Group’s clients include trade organization PhRMA and vaccine maker Pfizer; their letter directs reports to Roger Clapp at the March of Dimes or to certain doctors affiliated with the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). Both organizations receive financial support from pharmaceutical companies.)
VCVC put up a sample letter[lxxxviii] on our website for vaccine rights advocates to send to lawmakers, explaining the Pharma connections of the Gray Group and the March of Dimes, and pointing out the data the Department of Health had released in June, 2013, showing that vaccination rates of schoolchildren in Vermont have never been higher,[lxxxix]and have been increasing for years even while Health Department officials said that rates were falling.[xc]
In an August 12th newscast on Vermont Public Radio,[xci] Health Commissioner Chen announced his intention to spotlight vaccination throughout our school system. Mentioning his concern about exemption rates, he went so far as to incite discrimination against exempting parents: “It gives the communities an opportunity to look at their schools and even the parents, to make that decision about is that ok with them or do they want to try and do something about that?” The report goes on, “It’s very unlikely that lawmakers will consider this issue again during the 2014 session. Instead, Chen says his department will continue to work with individual schools. ‘I certainly think it’s reasonable to see how this information and our efforts can make a difference,’ said Chen, ‘understanding that the Legislature did not support removing the exemption the last time around.’”
Health department and school authorities do not make it easy for parents to exercise or even know about their exemption rights. A page about exemptions on the Department’s website specifies, “The school nurse should supply exemption forms only if requested by the parent or guardian.”[xcii] In addition, VCVC had started to receive complaints that parents had been pressured by schools to defend their decisions to forego any or all vaccines. In response, we sent letters[xciii] to newspapers alerting parents of their right to use the philosophical exemption simply by submitting the required form;[xciv] mention was also made of Chen’s prejudicial intentions toward parents who exempt from vaccines.
Measles appears to have been chosen as “Fright Disease of the Year”: throughout September the media carried reports of “big outbreaks”–involving 159 cases around the country[xcv]–most again blaming unvaccinated individuals. It is puzzling that such a small number of cases would be cause for this degree of alarm in a country with a population of 316 million.[xcvi] Could there be any connection with the enormous financial stakes in the global push to eradicate measles from the face of there earth? The World Health Organization’s plan to accomplish that goal, in partnership with government health agencies, multi-national drug companies and medical trade groups, calls for two doses of MMR vaccine for each of the world’s two billion children, which would amount to a prodigious cost. Barbara Loe Fisher of the National Vaccine Information Center examines these and other aspects of this disturbing situation in her essay, “Measles Reports in America: What Does It Mean?”.[xcvii]
Throughout, the wise and experienced guidance from the National Vaccine Information Center (www.NVIC.org) has been invaluable in navigating the labyrinthine hazards of the legislative process and related vaccine and medical industry vaccine propaganda campaigns.
The Vermont Coalition for Vaccine Choice encourages everyone to investigate for themselves and learn all sides of the vaccine story before deciding. Your health and your rights could depend on it.
(For those confronting restrictive vaccine legislation in their own states, more information is available on the Coalition website–www.vaxchoicevt.com–including resources we have used.)
***********
PART 3
Good Reasons to Guard Our Health Freedoms
“Ending compulsory vaccination is its own human rights struggle.”[xcviii]
- Clicking on the CDC link leads to a click-through link to Daily Candy,
- which leads to a logo on the website of “Vaccinate LA” of a face that is sad and red-spotted on left side, happy and healthy on the right, with a slogan beneath it urging, “Don’t wait, vaccinate.”
- Close inspection reveals a disclaimer under the slogan, announcing that the ad (“publication”) was paid for (“supported”) by the CDC, but “Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of CDC.”
- Moreover, the “About Us” section of “Vaccinate LA” directs media to a representative of Edelman, the “world’s largest independently owned public relations firm”[cix], whose clients include Merck, AstraZeneca, Novartis, and other vaccine manufacturers.[cx]
- Further digging into “Vaccinate LA” shows another disclaimer, this time from the County of Los Angeles, which also declined accountability for the pro-vaccination message: “… the County of Los Angeles nor any of its employees, make any warranty… or assume any liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of such information.”
Apparently, vaccine promoters will pay to motivate consumers to get their shots, yet they refuse to stand behind the messages’ content.
The career of Dr. Julie Gerberding, first woman to direct the CDC, illustrates the tangled ties between the vaccine industry and policymakers. While leading the agency from 2002 through 2009, she made annual predictions that the current flu season might resemble the 1918 Spanish Influenza pandemic, using terms like “very ominous” to describe the threat,[cxi] though each season’s epidemic turned out to be milder than expected. As early as May 2009 through that fall, the advertised possibility of shortages of swine flu shots led to a frenzied demand, with many people waiting in line for hours.[cxii] Dr. Mark Bell, in charge of 18 emergency departments in Southern California, remarked, That’s a scary, frightening place to be in.”[cxiii] However, by April 2010, as people saw that the dreaded pandemic never developed,[cxiv] there was an enormous surplus of swine flu vaccine–out of 162 million doses produced for the American public, 43% was unused, a $260 million waste of taxpayer money.[cxv]
Gerberding resigned from the CDC in early 2009 and is now president of Merck’s vaccine division, which earns the company $5 billion annually.[cxvi] (Merck produces 14 of the 17 vaccines on the schedule the CDC recommends for children, and nine out of ten of those on the adult schedule.) She worked at giant public relations firm Edelman[cxvii] during the mandatory one-year waiting period between leaving a federal agency and entering an industry regulated by that agency. Edelman represents a number of drug companies–including Merck–and was behind all stages of Merck HPV vaccine Gardasil’s “multifaceted and meticulously planned” “marketing juggernaut,” starting with the 2005 campaign to cultivate fear of HPV among women in the U.S.[cxviii] (The CDC added a three-dose series of HPV vaccines to its recommended schedule in 2007.)[cxix]
Gerberding’s duties at Merck:
As president of the vaccines business, she will be responsible for the sale of the company’s current portfolio of vaccines, the introduction of vaccines from the company’s pipeline and the acceleration of Merck’s efforts to broaden vaccinations in developing countries. Gerberding will also collaborate with Merck’s manufacturing division and Merck Research Laboratories to manage links between basic research, late-stage development and manufacturing.[cxx]
The CDC joins with numerous other groups to get out their message. For the flu vaccine alone, a CDC report on its “communication campaign” for 2010-2011 boasts that it is “Engaged with OVER 250 organizations.”[cxxi] (Italics added.) (One of these partners is the public relations business Social Marketing and Communications Center[cxxii], which the CDC works with in an annual campaign that “employs a full suite of advertising, marketing, public relations, and grassroots strategies to reduce disparities in [influenza] vaccination and motivate individuals…to get vaccinated.”) A section of the CDC’s report entitled “The Importance of a Systems Approach” describes a “marketing mix” encompassing both mass media and community level activities, including “traditional materials (posters, flyers, brochures available in print and free web download, in multiple languages for multiple audiences); earned media (donated ad space, radio and satellite media tours); paid media (purchased placement of CDC radio, television, print, on-line ads); social media (managing channels–twitter and facebook updates, videos posted on YouTube, text message project); social media tools (graphic web buttons, widgets, audience-specific e-cards); [and] partnerships and collaborations strategy….”
Some seemingly independent grassroots groups in reality are created and funded by the CDC, its partner groups, and the vaccine industry, “helping vaccine developers quash potential criticism from behind a thin veneer of citizen concern,”[cxxiii] according to one investigator. One group, “Voices for Vaccines”[cxxiv] purports to be a “ parent-driven” group providing to parents “…clear, science-based information about vaccines and vaccine-preventable disease, as well as…the importance of on-time vaccination.” Though claiming no conflicts of interest, “Voices for Vaccines” originated as a branch of The Task Force for Global Health, The Task Force for Vaccine Equity, funded by drug companies Merck and Novartis, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,[cxxv] which operates a a global vaccination agenda. A CDC veteran serves as director.[cxxvi] Such ersatz citizen advocacy has been termed “astroturfing,” (as in “fake grass[roots]”), and has become increasingly common in this digital age.[cxxvii]
A darker tactic, resembling McCarthyism, is to poison public opinion against those who question vaccination, creating a climate of suspicion and hatred. The group Voices for Vaccines disseminates a poster that reads, “The like-minded stick together. Don’t allow clusters of vaccine refusal in your community–vaccine refusal threatens us all.”[cxxviii]
The poster shows a photo of a herd of horses with a small dog sitting in front of them at a distance.
A picture being worth a thousand words, does this suggest that those with differing opinions about vaccination be shunned? Treated like dogs? Driven out of the neighborhood? Voices for Vaccines has joined the vicious media attack[cxxix] orchestrated against celebrity Jenny McCarthy, chosen to co-host the popular talk show “The View”. (McCarthy is vocal in assigning her son’s autism to vaccine injury.)
Ramping up the menace even more, Voices for Vaccines hosted a mid-September teleconference call with Dorit Rubenstein Reiss, a law professor who outlines how parents who decline vaccination might theoretically be sued for their children allegedly infecting others.[cxxx]
Aside from its various industry-driven public relations efforts to hype vaccines, the CDC has created the CDC Foundation in order to be able to accept direct gifts from drug corporations and others,[cxxxi]further calling into question whether it is possible for it to be impartial in spending tax dollars as the United States’ foremost champion of immunization.
Under such a bombardment of biased messages, the chances are vanishingly small for the average person to arrive at a balanced decision about vaccination. Physician Marcia Angell, former editor of the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, who has extensively researched and exposed the abuses of drug companies,[cxxxii] asserts that their “…PR is extremely slick, so education is the first thing consumers can do to protect themselves,”[cxxxiii] Possibly the violent onslaught against vaccine questioners is nothing more than a desperate diversionary tactic to block such investigation.
Faulty Rationale for Taking Away Rights
(“Scapegoating usually is an oversimplification of a more complex issue.”[cxxxiv])
The fast-growing movement to demonize unvaccinated people has no sound basis, as contagious diseases are not as “vaccine-preventable” as we are led to believe.
Because vaccines have never been 100% effective, even vaccinated individuals can be asymptomatic carriers of infection.[cxxxv] Measles outbreaks can occur even when everyone in the group has been vaccinated;[cxxxvi] West Virginia and Mississippi, along with 47 other states, had outbreaks of pertussis from 2012 to 2013,[cxxxvii] though neither state allows philosophical or religious exemptions;[cxxxviii] 50% of the states with outbreaks do not have a philosophical exemption.[cxxxix] Since it is impossible to know who is and who is not immune without blood tests to check antibody levels, those who are vaccinated may be more of a risk for spreading disease than unvaccinated children, who are already required to stay home during an epidemic.
People vaccinated with live-virus vaccines can actively transmit infection for weeks afterward, through “shedding” of attenuated live vaccine viruses.[cxl] The Flu-Mist spray vaccine, which, according to Immunization Program Chief Chris Finley will be targeted for Vermont children, contains this warning in its FDA-Approved Highlights of Prescribing Information:[cxli] “Warning to the unvaccinated: Clinical Trials Demonstrated That FluMist® Quadrivalent Nasal Flu Vaccine is Infectious.”
Those who are not vaccinated are told they are putting at risk those too fragile to be vaccinated; what safeguards are in place to protect such immunocompromised children in schools or day care centers from the shedding of live viruses by their vaccinated peers? The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) estimates that the “…probability of acquiring vaccine virus after close contact with a single LAIV (live attenuated influenza virus) recipient was 0.58%–2.4%.”[cxlii] Therefore, mass vaccination with a LAIV increases the risk of infection with flu virus much more than does exposure to the scattered few unvaccinated individuals, who in Vermont total less than 2% of school children–and it can’t be assumed in any case that they are infected with or carrying flu virus.[cxliii]
Paradoxically, vaccination may exacerbate disease manifestations. A study published in Great Britain’s “Proceedings of the Royal Society”[cxliv] found that measles vaccination “can have a range of unexpected consequences as it reduces the natural boosting of immunity” and that “the interaction between vaccination and waning immunity can lead to pronounced epidemic cycles in which the peak levels of infection can be…orders of magnitude greater than the mean.” The authors “expect similar conclusions to hold for a range of acute infections,” besides measles.
Finally, microbes constantly mutate, so vaccines may become less and less successful at protecting against new circulating strains, similar to the manner in which antibiotic use promotes growth of resistant bacteria. This phenomenon is well-known with influenza viruses: every year vaccine developers attempt to predict the next season’s flu strains, with varying degrees of success.[cxlv] Whooping cough pathogens mutate as well, leading to diminishing effectiveness of the pertussis vaccine;[cxlvi] comparable concerns are associated with the Hepatitis B,[cxlvii] Streptococcus pneumoniae (Pneumococcus)[cxlviii] and Haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib) vaccines. An international conference is scheduled in November of this year to address this important phenomenon of “vaccine-driven pathogen evolution.”[cxlix]
The current director of the CDC, Dr. Thomas Frieden, states, “Antimicrobial resistance is one of our most serious health threats.”[cl] More than two million Americans annually get infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria and of those at least 23,000 die.[cli]
In stark contrast, 159 cases of measles in the whole country so far this year–with no fatalities–are designated as “big measles outbreaks.”[clii]
Like the autism epidemic, “superbugs” are a far bigger problem than a few hundred cases of so-called “vaccine-preventable diseases”–but the corporate media and the U.S. government’s public and private partnerships do nothing more than perpetuate the man-made cycle.
With all the factors involved in contagious illness and susceptibility, blaming the unvaccinated must be either simple-minded or malicious.
Decent Americans deplore discrimination on the basis of race, gender, religion, nationality, language, mental or physical disability, body type, or sexual orientation. Those whose medical orientation diverges from the mainstream deserve the same respect as any other minority. Discrimination is simply a form of bullying, which we don’t tolerate in our schools and should wholly reject in our society.
Besides, medical decisions used to be private!
All illness and affliction, whatever the cause, calls for compassion and kindness, not superstitious bigotry. The calculated polarization of our communities is arguably the most grievous side effect of mass vaccination campaigns.
A Brief History of Health Freedom
(“Patient autonomy is the overarching ethical consideration that forms the core of informed consent.”[cliii]
–American Medical Association Code of Ethics)
Medical freedom was a concern as far back as the founding of America. Dr. Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, contended over 200 years ago that the Constitution should provide for free choice in medical care. Otherwise he predicted that eventually the main medical system would come to dominate all others:
The Constitution of this Republic should make special provision for medical freedom. To restrict the art of healing to one class will constitute the Bastille of medical science. All such laws are un-American and despotic…Unless we put medical freedom into the Constitution; the time will come when medicine will organize into an undercover dictatorship and force people, who wish doctors and treatments of their own choice, to submit to only what the dictating outfit offers.The Constitution of the Republic should make a Special provision for medical freedoms as well as religious freedom.[cliv]
Rush was able to foresee our present predicament with impressive acuity.
Informed consent–full disclosure of the risks and benefits of a medical procedure before voluntary consent or refusal—is a well-established basic human right. The American Medical Association defines it[clv] as “both an ethical obligation and a legal requirement spelled out in statutes and case law in all 50 states.” The AMA further states, “The full disclosure of relevant information to patients is intended to protect each patient’s right to self-determination, bodily integrity, and to protect his or her voluntariness in the healthcare decision-making process.” (Italics added.)
The principle of informed consent was first clearly articulated in the Nuremburg Code of 1947,[clvi] created in response to the experimental medical atrocities perpetrated by Nazi doctors. The Code formed the basis for later agreements such as the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki[clvii] (passed by the World Medical Association) and the 2005 United Nations Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights.[clviii]
“The Greater Good”—Who Decides?
Citizens required to sacrifice their health and well-being to the larger interests of society would do well to question the source of the demand.
The U.S. was a major participant in the Nuremberg tribunal to prosecute Nazi doctors for war crimes, and has outspokenly supported the resulting Code. Yet our government before and since then has sponsored hundreds of unethical medical treatments and experiments[clix]–some secret, some spanning decades–raising the critical question, “Does the state have the moral authority to dictate “the Greater Good” of society or to overrule parents’ decisions about their children’s health?” How can such a regime rightfully declare vaccines an exception to the informed consent requirement?
Parents are most trustworthy to protect their children, as they are more attuned to them than anyone else could possibly be, and bear full responsibility for their upbringing and care. Parents should trust their nurturing instinct, a powerful force to ensure children’s greatest well-being. Beloved pediatrician Robert Mendelsohn says, “All of [the typical pediatrician’s] technology–his tests and shots and x-rays and drugs and theory–in most instances are no substitute for the commonsense care that you, as an informed parent, can provide.”[clx]
And certainly adults are best qualified to decide what goes into their own bodies.
Informed consent is meaningless without the implicit right to freely refuse treatment; thus it cannot coexist with compulsory vaccination. The right to informed consent should be sacrosanct, certainly never abridged by legislation inspired by the fear-mongering propaganda of those who stand to gain financially.
Undeniable Vaccine Risks
If vaccines were an unmixed blessing, the push for universal vaccination would be benign, and no one would argue with promoters who say, “Vaccines are the most effective public health tool ever created.”[clxi]
In fact, vaccine risks are downplayed, while their safety and effectiveness are exaggerated. In 1986, the U.S. Congress lifted liability for manufacture and administration of vaccines,[clxii] then in 2011 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that vaccines are “unavoidably unsafe.”[clxiii] There is no requirement for informed consent with vaccines; rather, federal law requires that healthcare staff provide a VIS (Vaccine Information Statement) to a patient, parent, or legal representative before vaccines are given. VISs assert that, “A vaccine, like any medicine, could possibly cause serious problems, such as severe allergic reactions.” Typical VISs go on to list mild, moderate, or severe problems associated with each particular vaccine.[clxiv] Numerous people becoming ill after dining at the same restaurant would cause alarm, yet the 30,000 adverse vaccine reactions (10-15 percent serious) reported annually to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System[clxv] are not routinely investigated, instead generally dismissed as “coincidence” or “temporal association.”[clxvi] [clxvii] Underreporting of adverse events is very likely: “…“…only about one percent of serious events [adverse drug reactions] are reported,” says Dr. David Kessler, former director of the FDA.[clxviii]
The Merck Manual, the largest-selling medical textbook, says vaccines can cause encephalitis (brain damage, through swelling of the brain), when “A virus or vaccine triggers a reaction that makes the immune system attack brain tissue (an autoimmune reaction).”[clxix] (Italics added.)
An official has stated on behalf of the Department of Health and Human Resources that, “Encephalopathy may be accompanied by a medical progression of an array of symptoms including autistic behavior, autism, or seizures.”[clxx] (Italics added.)
Encephalitis can be the precursor for a host of disorders of the nervous system, such as autism spectrum disorders, Alzheimer’s disease, cerebral palsy, epilepsy (seizure disorders), stroke, intellectual disability, moderate to severe developmental delay, muscular dystrophy, ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease), and multiple sclerosis (MS), so it stands to reason that vaccination is at least a contributing cause of the epidemic of neurological disease. Current figures show Alzheimer’s is now the sixth leading cause of death,[clxxi] one out of six children is developmentally delayed,[clxxii] and autism strikes one in 50 children.[clxxiii]
By comparison, the mere mention of polio conjures visions of iron lungs, deformed limbs, and leg braces–yet at the height of the polio epidemic in 1952, fewer than one child in 7,181 was permanently disabled.[clxxiv]
*****
A comprehensive ongoing survey of thousands of unvaccinated children shows significantly lower rates of allergies, asthma, hay fever, ear infections, sinusitis, neurodermatitis, and ADHD than among those who are vaccinated. As of 2011, only four children in the non-vaccinated group of 7,500 had severe autism; the mothers of all four tested positive for high levels of mercury.[clxxv] [clxxvi] A number of other researchers have also contrasted unvaccinated and vaccinated populations.[clxxvii]
Granted, a formal study comparing vaccinated and unvaccinated groups would be the most conclusive way to settle the question of whether vaccination helps or harms overall health, but it’s a safe bet that such a study will never be undertaken. Studies like this are quite expensive, and who would pay?
The vaccine industry may fear what would be revealed by contrasting vaccinated groups with unvaccinated groups, as all clinical trials differentiate between two groups vaccinated with separate vaccines, rather than following the basic scientific method of contrasting a group given a true placebo with a vaccinated group. For example, Aventis Pasteur SA’s ActHib vaccine was combined with DTP vaccine and compared with a Hepatis B/DTP combination given to the control group. The ActHib package inserts states, “In this large study, deaths due to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and other causes were observed but were not different in the two groups.” (Italics added.) Such a practice masks reactions to individual vaccines.[clxxviii]
To justify this deviation from accepted research protocol, The Helsinki Declaration is cited: that agreement prohibits the use of placebo control groups if there is already a “proven” treatment. (It is considered withholding treatment to use a placebo instead of the “approved” treatment.[clxxix]
*****
Many believe that vaccines are comprised solely of antigens—substances that induce the production of antibodies. Those who carefully read food ingredient labels will be repelled when they examine vaccine package inserts, and learn that vaccines also contain:[clxxx]
- human and animal cells and their residual DNA (including human diploid cells from aborted human fetuses)
-
GMOs (contained in all vaccines)
- micro-organisms/contaminants
- allergens
- neurotoxins
- carcinogens (including carcinogenic viral contamination from infected monkey kidneys)
- poisons
Amounts may be small, but the risk of serious adverse reactions increases with the number of vaccines received.[clxxxi] Indeed, a “synergistic toxicity” may well be created among toxins in vaccines, making them vastly more potent in combination than the sum of their individual virulence.[clxxxii] For instance, Dr. Donald Miller of the University of Washington says the combination of mercury and aluminum has a striking effect on rats: “Doses of mercury that have a 1 percent mortality have a 100 percent mortality rate if some aluminum is there.”[clxxxiii]
Moreover, there appears to be a significant difference in the impact of injected substances compared to those ingested. As an example, people can consume large quantities of gelatin as food without any sign of allergy, yet can develop life-threatening allergies to gelatin after receiving micro-doses injected in vaccines.[clxxxiv]
Vaccines are presumed to be safe, so are usually not tested for toxicity. A CDC/FDA/vaccine company workshop on toxicology and vaccines reported in 2002, “Historically, the non-clinical safety assessment for preventive vaccines has often not included toxicity studies in animal models. This is because vaccines have not been viewed as inherently toxic.”[clxxxv] (Italics added.) This seems an enormous assumption, based more on blind faith than on evidence, especially remembering the U.S. Supreme Court ruling of 2011 that labeled vaccines as “unavoidably unsafe.”[clxxxvi]
Some of the ingredients in vaccines–aluminum hydroxide, squalene, silicone, mineral oil, guaiacol and iodine gadital–are employed as “adjuvants,” substances which help boost immune response. Sometimes the immune system is thereby over-stimulated, resulting in Shoenfeld’s Syndrome (or ASIA: Autoimmune/inflammatory Syndrome Induced by Adjuvants[clxxxvii]), encompassing auto-immune disorders such as postvaccination phenomena, macrophagic myofasciitis, Gulf War Syndrome and siliconosis,[clxxxviii] (some crossing over into neurological damage).
*****
Considering the risk of serious long-term effects of vaccination, thoughtful consumers are forced to wonder whether vaccination is worth the trade-off for the temporary, artificial immunity it may confer. In the face of compelling information to the contrary from trusted mainstream sources, the official position–loudly and monotonously proclaimed–remains that vaccination is predominantly safe and effective. It is hard to accept that purveyors of the most costly medical system in the world[clxxxix] can offer no credible explanation for Americans’ health ranking lowest among similar countries.[cxc]
Clearly vaccination has not improved our overall health, as the U.S. is among the most highly-vaccinated populations.[cxci]
Drug and Vaccine Safety–Who Is Responsible?
The Vioxx Disaster
The Food and Drug Administration quotes deaths from adverse drug reactions as the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S.,[cxcii] about 106,000 deaths per year from non-error adverse effects of medications;[cxciii] serious reactions increase exponentially among those taking four or more drugs simultaneously.[cxciv]
Though many of these deaths are caused by inherent dangers in the drugs themselves, their recall is a difficult and lengthy procedure, due to flaws in the regulatory system and to drug companies blocking the process every step of the way, from distortion of study data through tenaciously fighting against lawsuits for damages.[cxcv]
The Vioxx scandal is emblematic of Pharma’s callous disregard of the vast suffering inflicted by some of its products. Vioxx, prescribed mostly for arthritis pain, was withdrawn from the market in 2004, after it was revealed that its manufacturer Merck &Co. had been withholding information about its risks for more than five years.[cxcvi] During the period after its approval in 1999 and before its recall in 2004, between 88,000 and 139,000 excess cases of serious heart disease and stroke were attributed to Vioxx use, about 30-40% of them deaths.[cxcvii] In his testimony before the Senate Finance Company in 2004,[cxcviii] Dr. David Graham, a reviewer in the Office of Safety Research at the FDA, compared this number to “…500 to 900 jetliners dropping from the sky. This translates to 2-4 aircraft every week, week in and week out, for the past 5 years.” He went on,
…The FDA, as currently configured, is incapable of protecting America against another Vioxx. We are virtually defenseless. It is important that this Committee and the American people understand that what has happened with Vioxx is really a symptom of something far more dangerous to the safety of the American people. Simply put, FDA and its Center for Drug Evaluation and Research are broken.
An observer notes, “The largest rise in American mortality rates occurred in 1999, the year Vioxx was introduced, while the largest drop occurred in 2004, the year it was withdrawn.”[cxcix]
By March of 2006, there were over 10,000 cases and 190 class actions filed against Merck over heart attacks associated with Vioxx and the inadequacy of Merck’s warnings.[cc]
*****
The SV40 Catastrophe: Decades of Industry and Government Deception
A vaccine debacle that dwarfs the Vioxx disaster has already occurred, but has been well camouflaged. The book, The Virus and the Vaccine: Contaminated Vaccine, Deadly Cancers, and Government Neglect (by Debbie Bookchin and Jim Schumacher) tells the convoluted tale of how a monkey virus, SV40, came to contaminate the entire supply of both the Sabin live virus and Salk “killed” virus polio vaccines between 1954 and 1963. (The vaccines were grown in a culture made from monkey kidneys; SV40 was the fortieth simian virus discovered in this substrate.) Though most of the hamsters injected with the virus developed virulent cancers, the problem was suppressed in order to avoid disruption of the national vaccination program, in a classic interplay of conflict of interest, hubris, obfuscation and denial, and bureaucratic inertia that continues to the present. (The entire impeccably referenced book is available online; facts not specifically referenced below can be found in the book.[cci])
Bernice Eddy was a researcher at the Division of Biologic Standards, in charge of vaccine regulation, when she discovered a connection between the monkey culture and tumor formation in hamsters injected with it. (DBS was then part of the NIH, National Institutes of Health; since 1972 it is a division of FDA, renamed the Bureau of Biologics.) Eddy was silenced in 1960 from speaking publicly about her work, because her findings had disturbing implications for the polio immunization program. By the next year, she was fired from vaccine control work, though she continued to research cancer-causing viruses until she retired in 1973; her repeated warnings about the polio vaccine were never heeded.
In 1961, Dr. Maurice Hilleman, then head of Merck’s vaccine division, was alarmed when viable SV40 from the cultured monkey kidneys was discovered in all polio vaccine samples, especially after 80% of the animals injected with the virus developed tumors. Hilleman’s colleague at Merck, Ben Sweet, remembered, “I’ll tell you, we were scared of SV40. If it produced tumors in hamsters, it could produce tumors in man.” Hilleman honorably tried to warn authorities at DBS and NIH, and recommended that all polio vaccine be withdrawn. The NIH director convened the standing committee that advised the federal government about vaccine oversight, six of whose eight members had close personal connections to the Salk vaccine. The committee was dismissive, assuming the virus to be harmless, and recommended that “the present poliomyelitis vaccination program continue to be pursued with vigor with the materials presently available.”
There was no recall, and no announcement about the potential danger. It would be two more years before polio vaccines would be officially free of SV40. As a result, nearly half the U.S. population–approximately 100 million American adults and children– and maybe another 100 million people worldwide were exposed to SV40 during mass polio vaccination campaigns.[ccii]
For thirty years, the matter of whether SV40 causes cancer in humans was abandoned as a political hot potato–no one dared cast an unfavorable light on the polio vaccine or the vaccination program–until another scientist with the tenacity of Bernice Eddy, Dr. Michele Carbone, arrived at the NIH from Italy in 1986 and began work with senior scientists testing how various viruses, including SV40, cause cancer in lab animals.[cciii] When he was given the opportunity to design his own research project, out of curiosity he duplicated Eddy’s original experiments of injecting hamsters with the monkey virus, and was stunned by the tumors that were quickly produced, principally mesothelioma, a type of lung cancer. These findings inevitably led him to ask the taboo question, “Could there be a connection between SV40 and human mesothelioma?” Against the resistance of the NIH heirarchy, and with no funding, Carbone and an Italian colleague worked around the clock for six months doing sophisticated DNA testing of 48 human mesothelioma samples. 29 of them turned out positive for SV40 DNA, while only one out of 28 background samples of lung tissue tested positive, and none of the 23 non-mesothelioma lung tumors or other tumors tested was positive. When the account of their discoveries was accepted by a leading journal and Carbone and his associates asked for a media event to coincide with the publication date,[cciv] like Eddy before them they were ordered to refrain from speaking to the press; Carbone was told he would be “punished” if he did so.
Carbone left the NIH not long after this ultimatum; he and other scientists continued with SV40 research and found the virus in other human cancers, particularly bone,[ccv] lymph,[ccvi] and brain[ccvii] cancers, the types besides mesothelioma most commonly seen in the hamster experiments. Rates for all four cancers–which were rare before 1955–are multiplied in those exposed to polio vaccines contaminated with SV40.[ccviii] Carbone asserts, “There is no doubt SV40 is a human carcinogen. It is one of the most potent human carcinogens that we know.”[ccix]
Still more disconcerting, later studies showed that SV40 appears to pass from human to human and from mother to child, found in 23% of blood samples and 45% of semen from healthy subjects, and in brain tumors of children born after 1965 who presumably did not receive vaccines containing the virus.[ccx]
However, some of the oral polio vaccines manufactured after 1961, until the oral type was removed from the market in 2000, could have been another route of transmission for SV40 infection. Every year before 2000, eight to ten individuals contracted polio and were paralyzed from the oral vaccine itself when one of the virus strains reverted to virulence, though there has been no wild polio in the U.S. since 1979.[ccxi] Stanley Kops, a lawyer who represented some of these vaccine-injured people, discovered through internal documents of both the government and the manufacturing company, Lederle (which became Wyeth, then Pfizer), that SV40 infection had been a problem with the monkeys used to grow the vaccine, so that about half the harvests from a thirteen year period had to be discarded[2] . (Lederle continued to use rhesus monkey kidneys during the 1960s, ‘70s, and ‘80s, although such tissue is almost always infected with SV40.)
Several batches of Lederle’s polio vaccine failed to pass screening tests for SV40, but the vaccines were released anyway; also, testing methods were outmoded and inaccurate compared to the available technology, so the magnitude of unknown SV40 contamination might have added considerably to that caused by known safety lapses. Kops says,
My feeling is that this is the biggest cover-up in the history of vaccine production in the United States. Regulations were made after years of debate. They were explicit. They were prepared to protect the American child who was receiving the vaccine. The safety regulations were not followed….This vaccine manufacturer [Lederle] broke the rules knowingly and decided that it was above the law. That is a travesty.
SV40 contamination may be one important factor in the prevailing cancer epidemic, with noteworthy increases in cancers of bone, lung, lymph, and brain–brain tumors alone increased 30% over a period of 25 years.[ccxii] If the virus is indeed transmitted sexually and can be passed from mothers to their children in utero, the cancers it causes will continue to spread horizontally throughout the population and snowball through generations to come.
In 2002, the conservative Institutes of Medicine concluded “that the evidence is strong that SV40 is a transforming virus,” (can transform healthy cells into cancerous ones), and “the evidence is of moderate strength that SV40 exposure could lead to cancer in humans under natural conditions.”[ccxiii] The IOM also recommended that no further retrospective epidemiological studies be done, citing the difficulty of discerning who has been exposed to SV40 and who has not, since the monkey virus is possibly spreading among those not exposed to it in vaccines.
Most of the studies produced or sponsored by the VEB [Viral Epidemiology Branch–part of the National Cancer Institute, one of the institutes of NIH] were epidemiological and serological ones, attempting to dispel the belief that SV40 could cause cancer in humans.
By 2003, almost a hundred studies had linked SV40 to human cancers, and leading SV40 authorities had performed a meta-analysis[ccxiv] of thirteen of them that found a clear, statistically significant association between SV40 and all the kinds of tumors in which scientists have found the virus over the years. (Odds ratio for brain cancers was four, and five for lymphomas; for mesotheliomas it was 17, for bone cancers 22. The study’s author says, “To put things in perspective, it was an odds ratio of about ten that linked smoking with cancer.”)
A statement posted in 2004 on the website of the NIH’s National Cancer Institute made it clear that the agency’s official position remained basically unchanged for more than 40 years: “Studies Find No Evidence That SV40 Is Related to Human Cancer.”[ccxv] The article was buttressed by five studies of SV40 antibody levels, four by the same author, three of them “case report” studies (a type of epidemiological study, discounted earlier by the IOM as unreliable since SV40 may be spreading) comparing SV40 antibody levels between groups exposed to SV40 and those who were assumed not to have been exposed. One SV40 expert had earlier published an essay examining “…the limitations of conventional [epidemiological] studies that seek to disprove the aetiological link with human cancer.”[ccxvi] The same author commented that antibody tests for the virus are quite complicated, and that “…the absence of an…antibody response [in a given study] does not prove there was no [SV40] infection ever in the past–or even currently.”[ccxvii] (“Appendix A” of The Virus and the Vaccine contains an exhaustive list of articles concerning the association of SV40 with human health.[ccxviii])
Since 2004, the silence from the NIH has been deafening, possibly because those who deny that SV40 causes human cancers finally realized that evidence had mounted irrefutably against their position, and they hoped to save face and minimize damage to the vaccine program by taking SV40 out of the limelight. This helps insure that the public will not become outraged and demand safer vaccines or refuse them altogether.
In their conclusion, the authors of The Virus and the Vaccine point out that “…the story of SV40 calls into question whether protecting the reputation of vaccines at times has been more important to these health officials than actually ensuring they are safe.”
*****
While tracing the destructive path of SV40 after at least 50% of Americans were exposed through contaminated polio vaccines, it’s important to bear in mind that SV40 is just the most conspicuous evil to escape from the Pandora’s Box of vaccine contaminants. There are others that may impact current and future health, including potent viruses and bacteria and their components, as well as genetically engineered organisms and cancer-related or foreign animal proteins and DNA, sourced from humans, cows, chickens and monkeys.[ccxix]A 1984 report found 35% of all cell lines corrupted, and that most lines originated as human cells.[ccxx] Labs all over the world have fought pestilential contamination with HeLa cells, an “immortal cell line” commonly used in biomedical research, derived in 1951 from the unique cervical tumor of Henrietta Lacks.[ccxxi] Even if cells grown from tumors are not necessarily tumorigenic themselves, it is an accepted phenomenon that they can convert to being cancerous after they have been cultured a number of times.[ccxxii]
In 1954, it was not permitted to use cell lines for making vaccines. 1986 WHO guidelines allowed up to 100 pg of cell-source DNA allowed per dose of vaccine (not including viral contaminants). The 1996 recommended limit multiplied that of ’86 a hundredfold, to 10,000 pg (or 10 ng).[ccxxiii] Maurice Hilleman, obviously chastened by his harrowing experience with SV40-tainted polio vaccine, stated in a 1990 article on the use of cell cultures for making vaccines, “Total safety would seem to require complete absence of DNA from the product.”[ccxxiv]
*****
Toymakers Liable, Vaccine Makers Not
Because no other type of medicine is mandated for the masses, safety is a more urgent concern for vaccines than for any other pharmaceutical product. Use of other drugs is subject to informed consent, whereas a burgeoning number of vaccines are mandated, excluded from the informed consent requirement. (No one was forced to take Vioxx.)
At least for the time being, vaccine producers and promoters have succeeded in enveloping them in a mystique of sanctity, almost impervious to question. Dr. Mark Geier, geneticist and former NIH researcher says, “…if you operate on the premise that you can’t tell the public about problems with vaccines because you’ll scare them away, then unfortunately, the problems don’t get fixed.”[ccxxv]
Vaccines have been categorized in a way that allows Pharma to have it both ways: vaccines are “…not viewed as inherently toxic”[ccxxvi] –therefore not requiring the same safety testing as other drugs–and at the same time have been judged “unavoidably unsafe,”[ccxxvii] precluding lawsuits. This logical disconnect has allowed vaccine promoters to sometimes succeed in shifting the burden of proving vaccine safety to the consumer, whereas safety is truly the responsibility of the manufacturers and the FDA. (Products should be proven truly safe before release; this is not done.)
Although toy manufacturers are subject to severe liability penalties,[ccxxviii] Congress (in 1986) and the Supreme Court (in 2011) have completely shielded vaccine companies from liability.[ccxxix] The only accountability vaccine manufacturers have is the consumer’s option to say no to their products. If we take that away, they really have no accountability at all.[ccxxx] Use of other drugs is subject to informed consent, whereas a burgeoning number of vaccines are mandated, excluded from the informed consent requirement.
Supreme Court Justices Sotomayor and Ginsburg dissented the 2011 decision, arguing that the threat of lawsuits provides an incentive for vaccine manufacturers to constantly monitor and improve their products.
Justice Sotomayor writes that the ruling:
…leaves a regulatory vacuum in which no one- neither the FDA nor any other federal agency, nor state and federal juries- ensures that vaccine manufacturers adequately take account of scientific and technological advancements… The vaccine market will often have little or no incentive to improve the designs of vaccines that are already generating significant profit margins. Nothing in the… legislative history remotely suggests that Congress intended that result.”
The world’s biggest vaccine maker, Sanofi Pasteur, has faced huge loss of profits as many countries discover dangerous contamination of the company’s products, sometimes leading to recall. In addition, Sanofi Pasteur has been charged by the Chinese government of bribing hundreds of doctors to prescribe its vaccines. A reporter wonders, “When billions of dollars are at stake in profit margins, can you trust pharmaceutical companies to keep your child’s safety and wellness first in their business plan?”
The same interests who have managed to evade responsibility for exposing more than half the populace to a noxious and contagious viral carcinogen are relentlessly threatening unvaccinated people with lawsuits[ccxxxi] for allegedly spreading acute infections. Pharma’s unprincipled business conduct, in combination with governmental corruption, may be the worst recommendation for the safety of vaccines. It’s hard to trust an industry in which all the major companies have been prosecuted for outright fraud.[ccxxxii]
Squalene: Looming Threat
(“Oil adjuvants are the most insidious chemical weapon ever devised.”–Dr. Pamela Asa[ccxxxiii])
Though so far not deemed safe to license for human vaccines in the U.S. because of its toxicity when injected, the oil adjuvant squalene (MF59 and AS03) was used to boost immune response in a secret experimental anthrax vaccine administered to military personnel, and is implicated as the main cause of Gulf War Illness[ccxxxiv] afflicting approximately a quarter of the 697,000 veterans[ccxxxv] who who served in that war.
Squalene has been proven to induce autoimmune disease with severe neurological damage in several species of animals in 26 studies done around the world since the 1970s.[ccxxxvi] Injection with squalene stimulates production of anti-squalene antibodies,[ccxxxvii] causing a “cross-reaction” in which the antibodies attack similar tissue in the body itself, notably the myelin coating of nerve tissue.
In 2009, a swine flu vaccine with squalene adjuvant (AS03) was administered in a number of European countries. Subsequently, use of the vaccine was linked to a higher risk of narcolepsy in children in England, Finland, Sweden, and Ireland, and to children and adults in France.[ccxxxviii]
New squalene-containing vaccines for flu, HPV, malaria, HIV and herpes have been formulated by scientists funded through the National Institutes of Health; some–such as the prototype vaccines for influenza, HIV, and malaria–are planned for mass vaccination worldwide. The federal government has stockpiled millions of doses of vaccines with squalene adjuvants.[ccxxxix] A recently-released document[ccxl] reveals that 600 doses of squalene-containing H7N9 influenza vaccines have been stockpiled–enough for two doses for every U.S. citizen in the event of a pandemic. Companies may pressure the FDA to bypass normal safety testing of other squalene-containing vaccines, and “fast-track” licensure[ccxli]–which is “intended to facilitate and get an approved product to market expeditiously.”[ccxlii] Even more worrisome is that in a declared emergency, no exemptions would be honored and citizens could be forcibly vaccinated[ccxliii] [ccxliv] whether the vaccines are licensed or not.
The Mercury Debate–Still Unresolved (…and Is Aluminum the New Thimerosal?)
Public health authorities usually assert that the mercury preservative Thimerosal was eliminated from vaccines years ago. However, a number of vaccines still contain Thimerosal:
- DTaP (Diphtheria/Tetanus/acellular Pertussis[Whooping Cough])– (Tripedia brand)
- DT (Diphtheria/Tetanus)
- Td (Tetanus/Diphtheria)
- TT (Tetanus Toxoid)
- Influenza (Afluria, multi-dose Fluzone, Fluvirin, FluLaval)
- Meningicoccal (Menomune)
- (Also, Tripedia may be reconstituted with ActHib to form TriHIBit.)[ccxlv]
According to the FDA, “Thimerosal is approximately 50% [ethyl]mercury (Hg) by weight…Lacking definitive data on the comparative toxicities of ethyl- versus methyl-mercury, FDA considered ethyl- and methyl-mercury as equivalent in its risk evaluation.”[ccxlvi]
The EPA sets the safety limit for mercury in drinking water at only two ppb (parts per billion).[ccxlvii] [ccxlviii] [ccxlix] Destruction of brain neurons occurs at concentrations of .5[ccl] to 20 ppb. (A compelling five-minute video created by researchers at the University of Calgary shows the obliteration of live brain tissue after brief exposure to a 20 ppb solution of mercury.)[ccli] Yet even the so-called “trace” amounts in some vaccines is 1, 000 ppb per dose, while others contain 25,000 ppb per dose![cclii] [ccliii]
While Thimerosal has been greatly reduced in vaccines utilized in this country, more vaccines containing this dangerous substance are still marketed in other countries,[ccliv] demonstrating a cynicism similar to that shown in our exporting pesticides that are banned in the U.S.[cclv]
Aluminum, another potent neurotoxin, has increased in vaccines as mercury has been reduced.[cclvi] A new study has discovered the pathway that aluminum takes from vaccine injection sites to the brain, “where it persists indefinitely.” This research “adds a major link in the association of aluminum adjuvants in vaccines with neurological disorders.”[cclvii] In addition, aluminum is one of the vaccine adjuvants (substances that stimulate immune response to antigens) associated with autoimmune disorders (“Autoimmune/Inflammatory Response Induced by Adjuvants,” or “ASIA.”)[cclviii]
Renowned pediatrician Robert Sears (“Dr. Bob”) worries that “aluminum may end up being another Thimerosal.”[cclix] Additionally, mercury and aluminum in combination is extremely more toxic than either one separately.[cclx]
Specific Vaccines–A Few Facts to Consider
Since there are risks associated with every vaccine, it is the responsibility of consumers to investigate thoroughly before submitting themselves or their children to vaccination. Whether or not to vaccinate, and if so how much, is perhaps the most important health decision parents can make.
Closely analyzing package inserts, Vaccine Information Statements, and VAERS reports is a good start. The Vaccine Safety Manual by Neil Z. Miller is an excellent resource, based on over 1,000 well-documented studies. Miller’s report “Vaccine Safety Tricks and Tips,” is available as a free download.[cclxi] A vaccine research compilation of 307 articles with “medically researched knowledge, relevant information and pertinent data” may be obtained from GreenMedInfo.[cclxii] Sherri Tenpenny, D.O. maintains on her website an extensive, continually updated “Vaccine Research Library,” which includes over five thousand abstracts and full text articles–only from scientific and conventional medical peer-reviewed journals.[cclxiii] The Vermont Coalition for Vaccine Choice website (www.vaxchoicevt.com) has gathered a wealth of medical references and links as well, along with a list of recommended books.
The vaccines addressed here–with the exception of the pertussis vaccine–are those most recently mandated and those that would be required by proposed legislation. All vaccinations on both the childhood and adult schedules should be similarly scrutinized.
IOM Report–Anaphylaxis and Six Vaccines–The Institute of Medicine (IOM) studied adverse eventsclaims to the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), and came up with findings for the causal relationship between specific adverse events and certain vaccines. The committee is quite conservative in their approach, concluding in 85% of the adverse events/vaccine pairs that, “…the evidence is inadequate to accept or reject a causal relationship….”. However, under the category, “Evidence Convincingly Supports a Causal Relationship,” the report states that, “Six types of vaccines—MMR, varicella zoster, influenza, hepatitis B, meningococcal, and tetanus containing vaccines—are linked to anaphylaxis.”[cclxiv] (Emphasis added.) (“Anaphylaxis” is severe allergic reaction that can be life-threatening.)
Pertussis (Whooping Cough) Vaccine–Pertussis is by far the most dangerous of all the vaccines on the required childhood schedule: Children injured and killed by pertussis-containing vaccines have received close to half (44 percent) of the more than $2.6 billion awarded by the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program for vaccine injuries and deaths since 1988.[cclxv] Package inserts of four commonly used pertussis vaccines[cclxvi]—two DTaP vaccines for children (Daptacel, Infanrix) and two TDaP vaccines (Adacel, Boostrix) for adolescents and adults—contain nearly identical language:
“The following adverse events were included based on one or more of the following factors: severity, frequency of reporting, or strength of evidence for a causal relationship to [Daptacel, Adacel].” All four list anaphylaxis (life-threatening allergic reaction), encephalopathy/encephalitis (brain damage), and various types of convulsions and seizures, while Infanrix includes Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) at the very end of its list; a fifth pertussis vaccine,Tripedia, lists autism, all reported in the section “Post-Marketing Experience.”
HPV (Human Papilloma Virus) Vaccine–A public interest group warns, “The FDA adverse event reports on the HPV vaccine[cclxvii] read like a catalog of horrors. Any state or local government now beset by Merck’s lobbying campaigns to mandate this HPV vaccine [Gardasil] for young girls ought to take a look at these adverse health reports.”[cclxviii] Since the approval of Gardasil in 2006 and Cervarix in 2009, there have already been 136 deaths reported in connection with HPV vaccines.[cclxix] Gardasil has had more adverse reactions since its introduction than any other vaccine, and “is associated with 61% of all serious adverse reactions (including 63.8% of all deaths and 81.2% cases of permanent disability) in females younger than 30 years of age.”[cclxx]
Japan’s Health, Labor, and Welfare Ministry recently revoked its recommendation for HPV vaccines, due to numerous reports of serious chronic adverse reactions, including severe headaches, convulsions and seizures, and partial paralysis.[cclxxi] Illegal clinical trials of HPV vaccine were suspended in India after their parliament issued an outraged report decrying the deaths and serious adverse reactions among girls participating in the trials; the report denounced the breach of rules and ethics protocols, including failure to obtain proper informed consent:
“The Committee observes that ICMR [Indian Council of Medical Research] representatives, instead of ensuring highest levels of ethical standards in research studies, apparently acted at the behest of the PATH [Program for Appropriate Technology in Health–partly funded by the Bill and Melissa Gates Foundation]in promoting the interests of manufacturers of the HPV Vaccine [Merck and GlaxoSmithKline].”[cclxxii]
India Times Now asks whether “Indian Tribal Girls [Were] Used As Guinea Pigs?”[cclxxiii]
A three-dose series is recommended for HPV vaccines; Gardasil contains 225 mcg. aluminum per dose;[cclxxiv] Cervarix contains 500 mcg. per dose.[cclxxv
Hepatitis B Vaccine–Statistician Michael Belkin studied “…24,775 VAERS hepatitis B reports from July 1990 to October 31, 1998,” and contends that “any qualified, impartial quantitative analyst or statistician not affiliated with Merck, Smithkline, the CDC, the FDA or the AAP who examines these reports will find a clear and undeniable pattern of central nervous system (CNS) and liver disease striking thousands of people within 0-4 days after vaccination with hepatitis B vaccine.” Belkin also found that, “For ages 16-55, 77% of VAERS reports are women—more than three times as many women as men are reporting adverse reactions to hepatitis B vaccine.” Many hundreds of people suffered serious arthritic reactions, “involving an ER visit, hospitalization, death or disablement. These are the type of adverse reactions reported by many adults who are forced to take the hepatitis B vaccine for their jobs. In the reports of such adverse reactions I’ve taken, the symptoms do not go away, most patients complain it gets worse over time.”[cclxxvi]
The two available Hepatitis B vaccines contain 500 mcg. of aluminum per dose; the Hepatitis A/Hepatitis B combination vaccine contains 450 mcg.[cclxx
(Note on HPV and Hep B Vaccines–Outrageously, in the push by vaccine companies to mandate vaccines,[cclxxviii] diseases not spread by casual contact, such as HPV and Hepatitis B, are lumped with transmissible diseases like polio and pertussis. In other words, children can be kept out of day care or school even if they are missing only the Hep B shot, or–in states requiring it–the HPV vaccine.)
Hepatitis A Vaccine–One Hepatitis A vaccine contains 450 mcg. aluminum per dose, while the other contains 500 mcg. (There are 450 mcg. in the shot combined with Hepatitis B.)[cclxxix]
Influenza Vaccine–The flu vaccine is especially problematic in being recommended or required annually, and some brands still contain Thimerosal.
The founder of the CDC, Dr. Alexander Langmuir, later Emeritus Professor at Harvard, was adamant:
I would not take the flu vaccine, my wife doesn’t take the flu vaccine, no one should take the flu vaccine. And in fact, when I was head of the CDC, I wanted to make that as a public statement, and I refused to say that you should take the flu vaccine. That’s why I’m now a professor at Harvard.[cclxxx][cclxxxi]
Previously, the majority of vaccine injuries reported have been for children, but now most claims are filed by adults, “mainly associated with injuries alleged to have been caused by influenza vaccine,” according to Vito Caserta, Acting Director of Division of Vaccine Injury Compensation. He predicts a ten-year high for vaccine injury filings in 2013.[cclxxxii]
Newer flu vaccines may contain the adjuvant squalene, shown to cause autoimmune disorders.[cclxxxiii]
Danger! Vaccines During Pregnancy[cclxxxiv]
Current vaccine package inserts for Tdap and flu vaccines[cclxxxv] all state that the vaccines “should be given to a pregnant woman only if clearly needed,” preceded in some of these inserts by the disclaimer, “Animal reproduction studies have not been conducted with [vaccine]. It is also not known whether [vaccine] can cause fetal harm when administered to a pregnant woman or can affect reproduction capacity.”
A tenfold increase in miscarriages and stillbirths was reported to VAERS after the H1N1 (Swine Flu) virus was added to the seasonal influenza virus in 2009.[cclxxxvi] (H1N1 is now included in the regular seasonal flu vaccine.)[cclxxxvii]
Moreover, manufacturer’s information for the mercury preservative Thimerosal (still used in some flu vaccines) states, “Exposure to mercury in utero and in children may cause mild to severe mental retardation and mild to severe motor coordination impairment.”[cclxxxviii]
We must suffer collective amnesia about the terrible harm inflicted by past medical intrusions on pregnancy, such as various birth defects resulting from mothers taking Thalidomide during pregnancy[cclxxxix], or the “DES Daughters,” women who developed vaginal tumors due to in utero exposure to a synthetic estrogen prescribed to pregnant women for thirty years.[ccxc]
Combined Vaccines: More Is Less
Researcher Neil Z. Miller points out that vaccines are drugs, and that many infants receive “a cocktail of up to 13 vaccine/drugs” at the same doctor visit. He asks, “When did you last take 8 or more drugs at the same time? If you took 8 or more drugs simultaneously, would you be more surprised if you did or did not have a serious reaction?”[ccxci]
Miller and research partner Goldman found that hospitalization rates of infants as reported to VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System) clearly went up along with the number of vaccine doses administered concurrently.[ccxcii] This finding reflects the general principle that taking four or more drugs at one time causes adverse reaction reports to increase exponentially.[ccxciii]
Whether or not vaccines are officially designated as drugs, the peril of multiple doses remains the same.
Enhanced Wellness vs. Disease Phobia
(“Health is an inside-out phenomenon–it doesn’t come through a needle.”–Dr. Sherri Tenpenny)
Risk-free, common-sense ways to build immunity and stay healthy get lost in the heated debate about vaccination. We all know about yet easily forget to avail ourselves of “Nature’s doctors”: pure drinking water, fresh air, and daily exposure to sunshine. It’s also wise to eat lots of fruits and vegetables, and foods rich in Vitamin C as well as Vitamin D, while restricting intake of sugar and other refined foods. Stress, including negative emotions like fear and anger, directly suppresses the immune system,[ccxciv] so, in addition to getting ample rest, incorporating lifestyle changes such as regular meditation and exercise can help prevent illness.
When sick, it’s best to stay home to avoid infecting others and consult a health practitioner to learn which foods, herbs, and remedies will limit the duration of the illness. The international not-for-profit, Cochrane Collaboration, has found that, “Respiratory virus spread can be reduced by hygienic measures (such as hand washing)….”[ccxcv] and covering coughs and sneezes.
A Crisis of Confidence
A recent Gallup poll queried Americans about their confidence level in 16 key national institutions.[ccxcvi] Confidence in the medical system showed the most change, dropping 6% since 2012.
By its wholesale promotion of an ever-expanding vaccine schedule, glossing over the potential for serious harm, the medical profession betrays public trust in a manner reminiscent of its decades-long support of the tobacco industry. Numerous mid-20th-century cigarette brands boasted doctor recommendations in their ads, with slogans like, “More Doctors Smoke Camels Than Any Other Cigarette”, “20,679 Physicians say ‘Luckies are less irritating,’” and “Just What the Doctor Ordered!” (L&M).[ccxcvii]
As neurosurgeon Russell Blaylock contends, “Almost 30 years passed from the time some iconoclastic men of medicine tried to convince the medical establishment that smoking caused most cases of lung cancer until it was generally accepted.”[ccxcviii]
No doubt current hyper-vaccination will someday be regarded as similarly misguided and reckless.
“Force, no matter how concealed, begets resistance.” (Lakota proverb)
The degree of coercion involved in vaccine promotion should arouse suspicion. Doesn’t an excellent product sell itself?
Vaccine mandates are backed up by “big guns,” though they are usually well-hidden. In 2007, those weapons were brandished openly, when 2,300 parents in Prince George’s County, Maryland, whose children had been barred from school because their vaccinations were not entirely up-to-date, were sent letters by the State’s Attorney Glenn Ivey threatening them, “…unexcused absences by your child may subject you to a criminal charge.” (Truancy in Maryland is punishable by fines of $50 a day and up to ten days in jail for parents.)[ccxcix] The parents were ordered to appear at the Circuit Courthouse on November 17, where armed police guards with dogs ensured compliance while children were vaccinated on the spot.[ccc] (Ironically, the State’s Attorney declined Hepatitis B vaccines for his own children.)[ccci]
The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, a rare physicians’ group that eschews funding from pharmaceutical companies, condemned the “vaccine roundup.” Labeling it a “…campaign of intimidation to brutally enforce blanket vaccine-mandates by government agencies and the school district…,” the AAPS policy director proclaimed, “This power play obliterates informed consent and parental rights.”[cccii]
Those Maryland parents were informed of neither their exemption rights nor of the risks of vaccines.
Manipulative and aggressive boosting of vaccines can’t easily be stopped. The only hope is that individuals break the habit of blind compliance, keeping a tenacious hold on the right to choose their health options while becoming empowered consumers who “vote with their dollars and their feet.”
It is nothing less than tyranny to force individuals to undergo a medical procedure against their beliefs by threatening them with loss of employment or education.
Vaccine exemptions must be cherished by anyone who might wish to refuse even one mandated shot from the profit-based prescription of “a lifetime of vaccines.”
***********
***********
Download a pdf of this article HERE. (We are working to repair the formatting problems in the online version; the pdf version is correct.)
Article may also be found at: http://www.vaxchoicevt.com/gilruth-saynoforced/
A full bibliography may be found below.
(A note to Vermonters: We request that you please sign VCVC’s 2013 petition if you haven’t already done so. There are restrictive immunization bills that are expected to be voted on in the upcoming 2014 legislative session.
For those in other states: We urge you to stay connected with the National Vaccine Information Center for updates about vaccine-related legislation in your states, as the movement to eliminate exemptions continues to escalate.)
Vermonters fought hard to keep our philosophical exemption to vaccines, leading to Vermont receiving NVIC’s 2012 Health Liberty Award:
“The philosophical exemption to vaccination was saved because enough citizens in Vermont woke up to the very real threat posed by multi-national corporations, which have no restrictions on the aggressive marketing of liability-free vaccine products they want every American to be legally required to buy and use. Once Vermonters saw the threat, they did not sit back and let their informed consent rights be taken from them. Because they fought for their health liberty, they became an inspiration to all Americans, who want to be free to make informed, voluntary health choices.”
***********
Charlotte Gilruth maintains a family homeopathy practice in Montpelier, Vermont. She has questioned vaccine safety since 1976, when she was pregnant with her first child. Charlotte advocates for health freedom and medical informed consent as a member of the Vermont Coalition for Vaccine Choice. (www.vaxchoicevt.com)
(Please circulate this essay freely to alert citizens that their vaccine exemption rights are in imminent danger. Kindly forward piece in its entirety, including references. To save paper for print version, print text only on double-sided paper and access references online at http://www.vaxchoicevt.com/gilruth-saynoforced/)
***********
Postscript
Surprisingly, this piece took over six months to write. Every time I thought it was finished, I realized that another section or detail must be included. Since it is an essay rather than a book, however, I will never be able to cover all the intricacies and sub-topics of compulsory vaccination.
Before I can finally release this message, accepting its inevitable limitations, I feel obliged to recommend two excellent books, both of them revolutionary in their meticulous research that contradicts the revisionist history of disease epidemics and vaccine development, and exposes shocking information about how vaccines are produced:
-
- Fear of the Invisible–How Scared Should We Be of Viruses and Vaccines, HIV and AIDS?, by Janine Roberts
- Dissolving Illusions–Disease, Vaccines, and the Forgotten History, by Suzanne Humphries, MD, and Roman Bystrianyk
Both books include further compelling information about the polio vaccine and SV40, which would have made that overly-long and confusing section of this essay even more so, if it had been added.
My principal hope in writing this has been to stir the public to at least wonder about a medical procedure that has been mostly accepted without question for generations. Anyone who breaks through the taboo on inquiry into vaccination will experience unsettling cognitive dissonance when they begin to entertain ideas that oppose all their previous beliefs. My simple advice coincides with my practice: “If in doubt, leave it out.” While those selling products hate to see consumers hesitate, deciding whether to vaccinate one’s children or oneself is too important to rush. After all, most people in the market for a car do extensive research before making a purchase.
If you postpone vaccination, you can always change your mind and get vaccines later. But of course if you have regrets after shots, they cannot be removed.
And to buy the necessary time to make a considered decision, it is imperative to hang onto exemption rights.
***********
Bibliography:
[i] Image credit: Roland, Kustan. Stock Photo. www.123RF.com.
[ii] Phillips, Alan, JD. “Attorney Refutes Dr. Offit’s Vaccine Exemption Criticism.” GreenMedInfo. 10 June 2013. http://tinyurl.com/ofe5rsv
[iii] “Lifetime of Vaccines” Healthy Women. http://tinyurl.com/l9ne2fc
[iv] “Vaccines for Tomorrow.” Sanofi Pasteur, Vaccine Research and Innovation, Vaccine Development http://www.sanofipasteur.com/?codeRubrique=22
[v] “Immunization Schedules for Adults in Easy-to-read Formats” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/easy-to-read/adult.html
[vi] “Attention Older Adults!” [brochure] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
[vii] Google search: “You never outgrow the need for vaccines.” http://tinyurl.comnrhn2hj
[viii] Taylor, Lynne. “US biopharma: ‘nearly 300 vaccines in R&D’, Online Pharma Times. 24 April 2012. http://tinyurl.com/kh2fkmx
[ix] “Immunization Schedules” Vermont Department of Health.
[x] Press Release: “Adult and Adolescent Vaccines Market to 2018 – Promising Novel Candidates in Late-Stage Development and Prevnar Approval for Use in Adults to Drive Growth.” Wall Street Journal. 26 April 2013. http://online.wsj.com/article/PR-CO-20130416-911939.html
[xi] “Recommendations for Adult Immunization.” National Vaccine Advisory Committee. 14 June 2011. http://tinyurl.com/q3pc7b4
[xii] Krupa, Carolyne. “Adult vaccination rate still too low.” American Medical News. 22 February 2012. http://tinyurl.com/n5dtkl9
[xiii] Habakus, Louise Kuo. “The Science, Ethics and Politics of Vaccine Mandates.” Center for Personal Rights. 27 September 2010. http://tinyurl.com/bp6nhcw
[xiv] “49 Doses of 14 Vaccines Before Age 6?” National Vaccine Information Center (pdf poster). http://www.nvic.org/downloads/49-doses-posterb.aspx
[xv] “Vermont Department of Health Immunization Regulations.” hiealthvermont.gov. 1 January 2013. http://tinyurl.com/pojfunw
[xvi] “Immunization Schedules” Vermont Department of Health. http://healthvermont.gov/hc/imm/provider.aspx
[xvii] Ibid.
[xviii] “Vaccine Timeline: Historic Dates and Events Related to Vaccines and Immunization.”Immunization Action Coalition. http://www.immunize.org/timeline/
[xix] Mello, M.M., Abiola, S., and Colgrove, J. “Pharmaceutical companies’ role in state vaccination policymaking: the case of human papillomavirus vaccination.” American Journal of Public Health. May 2012. (Epub 15 March, 2012) PubMed-US National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health.
[xx] “Vaccination Coverage and Surveillance: Annual School Assessment Reports.” Vaccines and Immunizations/Centers for Disease Control. 26 December 2012. http://tinyurl.com/oo4sfyohttp://tinyurl.com/oo4sfyo
[xxi] Centers for Disease Control. Vaccination Coverage Among Children in Kindergarten — United States, 2009–10 School Year. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 3 June 2011 / 60(21);700-704. http://tinyurl.com/qhlhhh5
[xxii] Ibid.
[xxiii] “Vaccination Coverage Among Children in Kindergarten — United States, 2012–13 School Year.” CDC: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). 2 August 2013. http://tinyurl.com/lflzpoc
[xxiv] “2011-2012 Annual Report. nphic.org. http://tinyurl.com/k5upmvv
[xxv] “Voting Members.” nphic.org. http://tinyurl.com/kkmb393
[xxvi] LaGreca, Peter. “Supreme Court Gives Big Pharmaceuticals a Vaccine Against Lawsuits.” Pace International Law Review Blog, Pace Law School. 27 October 27, 2011.
[xxvii] “State Law and Vaccine Requirements.” National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC).
[xxviii] Ibid.
[xxix] “Recommendations for Adult Immunization.” National Vaccine Advisory Committee. 14 June 2011. http://tinyurl.com/q3pc7b4
[xxx] “Seasonal Influenza (Flu): Influenza Vaccination Information for Health Care Workers.” CDC. 26 September 2013. http://www.cdc.gov/flu/HealthcareWorkers.htm
[xxxi] “State Immunization Laws for Healthcare Workers and Patients.” CDC. June 2013. http://tinyurl.com/873js9s
[xxxii] “Flu shot now required for state health care workers.” WRAL.com. 23 August 2013. http://tinyurl.com/lwjx86z
[xxxiii] “NVIC Advocacy Portal: Action Needed Now/Bills to Watch.” National Vaccine Information Center. https://nvicadvocacy.org/members/Home.aspx
[xxxiv] La Vigne, Patrice. “New State Vaccine Bills Threaten Vaccine Choices.” National Vaccine Information Center website. 4 April, 2013. http://tinyurl.com/ktyx4jn
[xxxv] Saxe, John Godfrey (attributed to). University Chronicle. University of Michigan. 27 March 1869.
[xxxvi] “Bill as Introduced: S.199.” Vermont State Legislature. 2012. http://tinyurl.com/l4dnlew
[xxxvii] Vermont Coalition for Vaccine Choice website: http://www.vaxchoicevt.com
[xxxviii] “Bill as Introduced: H.527.” Ibid. http://tinyurl.com/ozj26kf
[xxxix] “S.199 and H.527 Information Briefing.” Scribd digital library. http://tinyurl.com/lttxe8r
[xl] “What Happened Last Year? A Review…” VCVC. 9 July 2013. http://tinyurl.com/lmomojk
[xli] Clapp, Roger. “Immunization Is Critical Protection.” Rutland Herald. 22 February 2012 http://tinyurl.com/oezry3h
[xlii] Google search: “Vermont S.199 2012.” http://tinyurl.com/oar4g2l
[xliii] Hallenbeck, Terri. “Legislature Votes to Preserve Vaccination Exemption.” Burlington Free Press. May 4, 2012. http://tinyurl.com/l8vzn3o
[xliv] Vermont Registered Lobbyists, 2011-2012. Montpelier: Sec. of State James C. Condos. 15 February 2011. http://tinyurl.com/qyfu4l7
[xlv] Audio recording: John Hollar. Vermont Legislative Council. http://www.leg.state.vt.us/CouncilMain.cfm
[xlvi] Geschek, Peter. “Pfizer’s Prevnar 13: The World’s Leading Vaccine And Its Competitors.” Seeking Alpha. 4 April 2013. http://tinyurl.com/orssp9r
[xlvii] “Current Status of a Specific Bill or Resolution: 2011-2012 Legislative Session [H.527] .” The Vermont Legislative Bill Tracking System. http://www.leg.state.vt.us/docs/2012/bills/Intro/H-527.pdf
[xlviii] “Voices for Vaccine Choice.” Vermont Coalition for Vaccine Choice. 31 May 2012. http://tinyurl.com/phjz6ul
[xlix] Ibid.
[l] Hallenbeck, Terri. Ibid.
[li] “Current Status of a Specific Bill… .” Ibid. [S.199, Act 157] http://tinyurl.com/kho4ou9
[lii] Hallenbeck, Terri. Ibid.
[liii] “Journal of the House.” The Vermont Legislative Bill Tracking System. 12 April 2012. http://tinyurl.com/l6ywgn5
[liv] Ibid.
[lv] “S.199–Consideration Interrupted by Adjournment.” Journal of the Senate (Vermont Legislature)–p.178. 4 May 2012. http://tinyurl.com/
[lvi] “Bill Text As Passed Both House and Senate: Official Version.” Vermont Legislative Bill Tracking System. http://tinyurl.com/m9h8439
[lvii] Image credit: Gauger, Eliza. Wired. 12 September 2001. http://tinyurl.com/ktl5sgd
[lviii] Audio recording, “Committee of Conference.” Vermont Legislative Council. April 2012. http://www.leg.state.vt.us/CouncilMain.cfm 27
[lix] Ibid. 30 April 2012.
[lx]“Current Status of a Specific Bill…” Ibid. [S.199]. http://tinyurl.com/kho4ou9
[lxi] “S.199-As Passed Both House and Senate: Official Version.” Sec. 1122, (3) (C)&(D); also (c) (1)&(2). May 2012. http://www.leg.state.vt.us/docs/2012/bills/Passed/S-199.pdf
[lxii] Johnson, Tim. “Foes of mandatory vaccination speak out at hearing today.” Burlington Free Press. 19 October 2012. http://preview.tinyurl.com/mp4t9no
[lxiii] “Vaccine Regulations Public Meeting.” Mad River Valley Television. 19 October 2012. http://tinyurl.com/oh4eswh
[lxiv] Markup, “Required Parent Education….” http://tinyurl.com/mrpxtu3
[lxv] “Comments on Proposed Immunization Regulations/Act 157.” Vermont Coalition for Vaccine Choice. 25 October 2012. http://tinyurl.com/ommnd2u
[lxvi] “Required Parent Education for Completion of the Religious or Philosophical Exemption Request Form in Vermont.” Vermont Department of Health pdf. 29 June 2012 http://tinyurl.com/mz3fq5f
[lxvii] “Annual Philosophical and Religious Immunization Exemptions.” Vermont Department of Health. 02 January 2013. http://healthvermont.gov/hc/imm/documents/Philexemption_2013.pdf
[lxviii] Pearl, Mitchell. “Vaccine Regulations Public Meeting.” Mad River Valley Television. 19 October 2012. http://tinyurl.com/oh4eswh
[lxix] Pearl, Mitchell. Letter to Tracy Dolan, Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Health, re proposed new Immunization Regulations. 15 October 2012. http://tinyurl.com/kp3e4v7
[lxx] “Required Parent Education for Completion of the Religious or Philosophical Exemption Form in Vermont”. Ibid. 2 January 2013.http://tinyurl.com/l2jok6c
[lxxi] “Annual Philosophical and Religious Immunization Exemptions.” Vermont Department of Health. January 2013. http://tinyurl.com/mujwgsd
[lxxii] “Vt. vaccine exemption form relaxed after criticism.” Times Argus. 30 November 2012. http://tinyurl.com/ow6hv55
[lxxiii] “Senator Mullin honored for immunization advocacy.” American Academy of Pediatrics, Vermont Chapter. http://tinyurl.com/lsvcabf
[lxxiv] “Vermont’s Immunization Law-What is the history of philosophical exemptions in Vermont?” Vermont Department of Health. http://tinyurl.com/ocwujrk
[lxxv] “School Immunization Exemption Form–2007.” (2011 version is no longer posted.) Vermont Department of Health. http://tinyurl.com/lzccg4d
[lxxvi] Hallenbeck, Terri. Ibid.
[lxxvii] “Vaccine Decisions (Slide show).” Vermont Coalition for Vaccine Choice. February 2013. http://tinyurl.com/osnmxvo
[lxxviii] “Current Status of a Specific Bill or Resolution–2013-2014 Legislative Session.” The Vermont Legislative Bill Tracking System. H. 138: http://tinyurl.com/lzo58h3 ; S. 102: http://tinyurl.com/mq8jtea
[lxxix] Ibid. H.114: http://tinyurl.com/m6ztdcs. S. 103: http://tinyurl.com/n3uc83h
[lxxx] Ibid. S.142. http://tinyurl.com/ouka8ws
[lxxxi] Bullard, Gina. “Toxicology results in on 7-year-old’s death.” WCAX.com. 26 January 2012. http://tinyurl.com/lzvjzwd
[lxxxii] Kinzel, Bob. Report on vaccine bills with comments from Sen. Till, Health Commissioner Chen. Vermont Public Radio.5 February 2012. http://tinyurl.com/me3fxdt
[lxxxiii] “Health Choices, Vaccine Choices (Slides).” Vermont Coalition for Vaccine Choice. August 2013. http://tinyurl.com/op2tdk7
[lxxxiv] Clapp, Roger. “Letter from March of Dimes to Vermont lawmakers.” 13 August 2013. http://tinyurl.com/lzvjzwd
[lxxxv] Clapp, Roger. Ibid. 22 February 2012. http://tinyurl.com/oezry3h
[lxxxvi] “Seed Stories Being Sent to Vermont Media Outlets.” Vermont Coalition for Vaccine Choice. 13 August 2013. http://tinyurl.com/maltazq
[lxxxvii] Gray Group Inc., Media Relations. http://www.graygroupinc.com/index.html
[lxxxviii] “Sample Letter to Send to Lawmakers: August, 2013.” Vermont Coalition for Vaccine Choice. http://tinyurl.com/pr3vwd5
[lxxxix] “2013: Vaccination Rates Have Never Been Higher.” Vermont Coalition for Vaccine Choice. August, 2013. http://tinyurl.com/po4fbj6
[xc] Weiss-Tisman, Howard. “Vermont immunization rate keeps falling.” Brattleboro Reformer. 29 November 2011. http://www.reformer.com/food/ci_19429370
[xci] Kinzel, Bob. “New Immunization Survey Shows Varying Compliance Rates.” Vermont Public Radio. http://tinyurl.com/m3rv54c
[xcii] “Vermont Immunization Exemptions.” Vermont Department of Health. http://tinyurl.com/osctv2a
[xciii] Gilruth, Charlotte. “Don’t Cave to Pressure.” Letters: Times-Argus. 24 August 2013. http://tinyurl.com/q73vmvg
[xciv] “Annual Philosophical and Religious Immunization Exemptions.” Vermont Department of Health. January 2013. http://tinyurl.com/mujwgsd
[xcv] Stein, Rob. “Big Measles Outbreaks Worry Federal Health Officials.” NPR. 12 September 2013. http://tinyurl.com/l3wpfrt
[xcvi] “Demographics of the United States.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States
[xcvii] Fisher, Barbara Loe. “Measles Reports in America: What Does It Mean?” NVIC. 19 September 2013. http://tinyurl.com/lah4lsj
[xcviii] Habakus, Louise Kuo, MA, Ed. and Holland, Mary, JD, Ed. Vaccine Epidemic: How Corporate Greed, Biased Science, and Coercive Government Threaten Our Human Rights, Our Health and Our Children. New York: Skyhorse. 2011.
[xcix] Image credit: Bezuidenhout, Martesia. Stock Photo. www.123RF.com.
[c] Chomsky, Noam. “Excerpts fromManufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media.” 1992. http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/1992—-02.htm
[ci] Abramson, John, MD. Overdo$ed in America. New York: Harper. 2004
[cii] Gruenberg, Mark. “Researcher: Drug Companies Co-opt Doctors As Part of Marketing Blitz.” Press Associates Union News Service. 2001. http://tinyurl.com/mypybza
[ciii] Abramson. Ibid.
[civ] “National Centers for Disease Control Hiring Professionals.” Federal Jobs Digest. 14 September 2013. http://tinyurl.com/qukaax
[cv] “Alarming demand for flu shots.” Washington Times. 15 October 2004. http://tinyurl.com/kakmr5g
[cvi] “Executive Leaders and and Expert Bios: Glen Nowak, PhD.” Centers for Disease Control. 14 February 2011. http://tinyurl.com/jvozaxz
[cvii] Sheedy, Kristine, PhD. “CDC August 2010 National Flu Survey: CDC’s Influenza Vaccination Communication Campaign: Plans for 2011-2012 Season.” National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, Centers for Disease Control. 11 May 2011. http://tinyurl.com/krhcp7o
[cviii] “Pertussis Epidemic Scam Threatens Children.” Office of Medical and Scientific Justice. 7 June 2011. http://tinyurl.com/n678kxo
[cix] “Edelman (firm).” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edelman_%28firm%29
[cx] “Julianna Richter Appointed Chief Operating Officer, Edelman U.S.” Press Release: Edelman. 4 March 2013. http://tinyurl.com/llyohme
[cxi] Lempinen, Edward W. “Director Gerberding Cites Avian Flu As ‘Very Ominous’ Threat.” Advancing Science, Serving Society. 21 February 2005. http://tinyurl.com/mc8f6j6
[cxii] Van Antwerp, George. “Waiting In Line For Flu Shots.” Enabling Healthy Decisions. 25 October 2009. http://tinyurl.com/lqgopnh
[cxiii] Karimi, Faith. “Hysteria over swine flue is the real danger, some say.” CNN. 4 May 2009. http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/05/03/swine.flu.react/
[cxiv] Knox, Richard. “Flu Pandemic Much Milder Than Expected.” NPR. 8 December 2009. http://tinyurl.com/yjcgnvs
[cxv] Stobbe, Mike. “Expired swine flu shots amount to $260 million loss.” Associated Press. 1 July 2010. http://tinyurl.com/oototca
[cxvi] Solsman, Joan E. “Merck Appoints Former CDC Chief As Head Of Vaccines.” Wall Street Journal. 21 December 2009. http://tinyurl.com/k8fobax
[cxvii] Lee, Jaimy. “Former CDC Director to Consult with Edelman.” PR Week. 30 January 2009. http://tinyurl.com/k24g8zk
[cxviii] Siers-Poisson, Judith. “Research, Develop, and Sell, Sell, Sell: Part Two in a Series on the Politics and PR of Cervical Cancer.” PR Watch. 16 July 2007. http://tinyurl.com/nb7jqs6
[cxix] “Recommended Immunization Schedules for Persons Aged 0–18 Years—United States, 2007.” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly: CDC. 5 January 2007. http://tinyurl.com/qxzjalq
[cxx] Solsman, Joan E. Ibid.
[cxxi] Sheedy, Kristine, PhD. “CDC’s Influenza Vaccination Communication Campaign: Plans for 2011-2012 Season.” National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, Centers for Disease Control. 11 May 2011. http://tinyurl.com/qukaax
[cxxii] “CDC’s National Influenza Vaccination Campaign.” Social Marketing and Communication Center. 2011. http://tinyurl.com/lms286y
[cxxiii] Schneider, Steve. “Big Pharma’s faking a ‘grass-roots’ campaign to keep Jenny McCarthy off ‘The View/Warning shots: Who’s behind the campaign to keep vaccine talk off ‘The View’?.’” News from Underground. 1 August 2013. http://tinyurl.com/khtr4h6
[cxxiv] “Parents Speaking Up for Immunization.” Voices for Vaccines. http://www.voicesforvaccines.org/
[cxxv] “Vaccine Delivery: Strategy Overview.” Gates Foundation. 1999-2013. http://tinyurl.com/lzfy2he
[cxxvi] “Voices for Vaccines is a Top-down Front Operation Launched by a CDC Partner in 2008.” Office of Medical and Scientific Justice. 15 August 2013. http://tinyurl.com/le34eck
[cxxvii] “Astroturfing.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing
[cxxviii] “Poster: The like-minded stick together.” Voices for Vaccines. http://tinyurl.com/mqvobas
[cxxix] “Press Release: Parents Oppose Jenny McCarthy’s Hiring on The View.” Voices for Vaccines. September 2013. http://tinyurl.com/ln28r52
[cxxx] Reiss, Dorit Rubenstein. “Compensating the Victims of Failure to Vaccinate: What Are the Options?” Social Science Research Network. 22 July 2013. http://tinyurl.com/k66w5jw
[cxxxi] Nass, Meryl, MD. “CDC Conflicts of Interest.” Anthrax Vaccine blog. 13 January 2010. http://tinyurl.com/ksqkrcj
[cxxxii] Angell, Marcia, MD. The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It. New York: Random House. 2005.
[cxxxiii] Gruenberg, Mark. Ibid.
[cxxxiv] Anonymous comment. “Herd Immunity.” Science-based Medicine. 5 June 2009. http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/herd-immunity/
[cxxxv] Srugo, Isaac; Benilevi, Daniel; Madeb, Ralph; Shapiro, Sara; Shohat, Tamy; Somekh, Eli; Rimmar, Yossi; Gesrshtein, Vladimir; Gershtein, Rosa; Marva, Esther; Lahat, Nitza. “Pertussis Infection in Fully Vaccinated Children in Day Care Centers, Israel.” Emerging Infectious Diseases, Volume 6, Number 5. October 2000. http://tinyurl.com/lgxb6y9
[cxxxvi] Aufderheide, Jeffry John. “17 Examples of Admitted Vaccine Failure.” Oxford Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Center. 19 July 2013. http://tinyurl.com/leouo43
[cxxxvii] “Changes in Pertussis Reporting by State from 2012 to 2013.” CDC. 12 September 2013. http://www.cdc.gov/pertussis/outbreaks/trends.html
[cxxxviii] “State Law and Vaccine Requirements.” National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC).
[cxxxix] “Vermont’s Whooping Cough Outbreak: A Summary.” Vermont Coalition for Vaccine Choice. 6 February 2013. http://tinyurl.com/op2tdk7
[cxl] “Highlights of Prescribing Information: Flumist Quadrivalent Intranasal Spray, 2013-2014 Formula.” Food and Drug Administration. July 2013. http://tinyurl.com/q68evs7
[cxli] Ibid.
[cxlii] Harper, Scott, MD, et al. “Using Live, Attenuated Influenza Vaccine for Prevention and Control of Influenza: Supplemental Recommendations fo the ACIP–Person-to-Person Transmission of Vaccine Viruses.” CDC: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 26 September 2003. http://tinyurl.com/yfgcpep
[cxliii] “S.199 and H.527 Information Briefing.” Scribd digital library. http://tinyurl.com/lttxe8r
[cxliv] Heffernan, J.M., and Keeling, M.J. “Implications of vaccination and waning immunity.” Proceedings of the Royal Society. 4 March 2009. http://tinyurl.com/l8jm7kn
[cxlv] “Selecting Viruses for the Seasonal Influenza Vaccine.” CDC. 26 September 2013. http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/season/vaccine-selection.htm
[cxlvi] Szabo, Liz. “US Whooping cough may be becoming resistant to vaccines.” USA Today. 18 February 2013. http://tinyurl.com/kv4gvwz “Whooping Cough (Pertussis): Recent Scientific Literature.” Vermont Coaltion for Vaccine Choice. 2 October 2012. http://tinyurl.com/peoo5cg
[cxlvii] “Vaccination campaign doubles HBV mutations.” Science Codex. 7 October 2013. http://tinyurl.com/m434pbj
[cxlviii] Lipstitch, Mark. “Bacterial Vaccines and Serotype Replacement: Lessons from Haemophilus influenzae and Prospects for Streptococcus pneumoniae.” National Institutes of Health. May/June 1999. http://tinyurl.com/n8njol2
[cxlix] “Vaccination: an evolutionary engine for species?” Fondation Merieux. 25-27 November 2013. http://tinyurl.com/la6lmlv
[cl] “Antibiotic Resistance Threats in the United States, 2013.” Centers for Disease Control. 23 April 2013. http://tinyurl.com/plt72qa
[cli] Ibid.
[clii] Stein, Rob. “Big Measles Outbreaks Worry Federal Health Officials.” NPR. 12 September 2013. http://tinyurl.com/l3wpfrt
[cliii] “Informed Consent.” American Medical Association. 2013. http://tinyurl.com/mvmens4. (Note: The cited references to informed consent are no longer available on the AMA website. Does this reflect a policy decision to become less aligned with patients’ rights?)
[cliv] “Freedom of Choice in Health Care Is Your Natural Right.” Rush 2013. http://www.rush2013.com/
[clv] “Informed Consent.” Ibid.
[clvi] “The Nuremberg Code.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Code
[clvii] “Helsinki Accords.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helsinki_Accords
[clviii] “Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights” UNESCO. 19 October 2005. http://tinyurl.com/39a6c9n
[clix] “Unethical human experimentation in the United States.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentation_in_the_United_States
[clx] Mendelsohn, Robert S., MD. How to Raise a Healthy Child…In Spite of Your Doctor. New York: Ballanine. 1984,
[clxi] Gellin, Bruce, MD, MPH. “Vaccines and Infectious Diseases: Putting Risk into Perspective”. (Remarks at AMA Briefing on Microbial Threats.) American Medical Association. 1 June 2000. http://tinyurl.com/n94q31a
[clxii] “National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act.” Wikipedia. http://tinyurl.com/2tpq9h
[clxiii] LaGreca, Peter. “Supreme Court Gives Big Pharmaceuticals a Vaccine Against Lawsuits.” Pace International Law Review Blog, Pace Law School. 27 October 27, 2011.
[clxiv] “Vaccines and Immunizations: Vaccine Information Statements.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/vis/
[clxv] “Vaccine Safety: VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System).” Centers for Disease Control. http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/Activities/vaers.html
[clxvi] “Adverse Events: Classification.” Vaccine Safety Basics 2013. World Health Organization. http://tinyurl.com/k4llkse
[clxvii] “Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).” Vaccine Safety. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. http://tinyurl.com/cc4a2zw
[clxviii] Kessler, DA. “Introducing MEDWatch: a new approach to reporting medication and device adverse effects and product problems.” Journal of the American Medical Association. (June 2, 1993):2765. http://tinyurl.com/ll88ztr
[clxix] “Encephalitis.” Merck Manual Home Health Handbook. May 2013. http://tinyurl.com/kpqsuyu
[clxx] Text of May 5th 2008 email from Tina Cheatham of US HRSA to Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News. 5 May 2008. http://tinyurl.com/6c9pshv
[clxxi] Hamilton, Jon. “Alzheimer’s ‘Epidemic’ Now a Deadlier Threat to Elderly.” National Public Radio. 19 March 2013. http://tinyurl.com/cfynkma
[clxxii] “Developmental Disabilities Increasing in U.S.” Centers for Disease Control. 14 June 2011.http://tinyurl.com/kgfj8k2
[clxxiii] Blumberg, Stephen J. Ph.D, and Bramlett, Matthew D. Ph.D. “Changes in Prevalence of Parent-reported Autism Spectrum Disorder in School-Aged U.S. Children: 2007 to 2011-2012.” CDC, National Center for Health Statistics: National Health Statistics Reports. 20 March 2013. http://tinyurl.com/mnqtsy7
[clxxiv] “Autism and Polio Rates in Children.” Vermont Coalition for Vaccine Choice. October 2013. http://tinyurl.com/ood6bwm
[clxxv] “Survey Results: Are Unvaccinated Children Healthier?” The Healthy Home Economist. 25 August 2011. http://tinyurl.com/kaaue8c
[clxxvi] “State of Health of Unvaccinated Children.” Vaccine Injury.info. http://tinyurl.com/3jhygr4
[clxxvii] “Studies Comparing Vaccinated to Unvaccinated Populations.” Vermont Coalition for Vaccine Choice. http://tinyurl.com/pldbfsj
[clxxviii] “How Are Vaccines Evaluated for Safety?” Inside Vaccines. 2008. http://tinyurl.com/47hbak
[clxxix] Ibid.
[clxxx] Miller, Neil Z . Vaccine Safety Manual. Santa Fe: New Atlantean Press. 2012.
[clxxxi] Goldman, GS and Miller, NZ. “Relative trends in hospitalizations and mortality among infants by the number of vaccine doses and age, based on the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), 1990-2010” Human and Experimental Toxicology. Sage Publications. http://thinktwice.com HET_study2.pdf
[clxxxii] “Synergistic Toxicity.” SafeMinds website http://tinyurl.com/l55m8t6
[clxxxiii] “Dr. Gary Null Speaks on Vaccine Injury: ‘Eli Lilly Material Safety Data Sheet for Thimerosal.’” Vaccine-Injury.info. http://tinyurl.com/leysmom
[clxxxiv] Pool, Vitali, MD, et al. “Prevalence of Anti-Gelatin IgE Antibodies in People With Anaphylaxis After Measles-Mumps-Rubella Vaccine in the United States.” PEDIATRICS. Vol. 110 No. 6, 1 December 2002. http://tinyurl.com/mnv38dx
[clxxxv] “Non-Clinical Safety Evaluation of Preventive Vaccines.” Society of Toxicology/FDA. 2 December 2002. http://tinyurl.com/m35xg7f
[clxxxvi] LaGreca, Peter. “Supreme Court Gives Big Pharmaceuticals a Vaccine Against Lawsuits.” Pace International Law Review Blog, Pace Law School. 27 October 27, 2011.
[clxxxvii] Vera-Lastra, Olga; Medina, Gabriela; Del Pilar Cruz-Domingues, Maria; Jara, Luis; and Shoenfeld, Yehuda. “Autoimmune/inflammatory syndrome induced by adjuvants (Shoenfeld’s syndrome): clinical and immunological spectrum.” Expert Review of Clinical Immunology, Vol. 9. April 2013.ASIAASIA
[clxxxviii] Ibid.
[clxxxix] “Health care in the United States.” Wikipedia. http://tinyurl.com/2yu6kg
[cxc] Ibid.
[cxci] “Increase in USA Vaccine Schedule Vs. Other Countries.” SmartVax. http://tinyurl.com/n6op5pc
[cxcii] “Preventable Adverse Drug Reactions: A Focus on Drug Interactions” FDA. 30 April 2009.
[cxciii] Starfield, Barbara, MD, MPH. “Is US Health Care Really the Best in the World?” Journal of the American Medical Association. 26 July 2000–Vol.284, No. 4. http://tinyurl.com/5sxfn2x
[cxciv] “Preventable Adverse Drug Reactions: A Focus on Drug Interactions” FDA. Ibid.
[cxcv] “Vioxx Hearing: Testimony of David J. Graham, MD, MPH.” United States Senate Committee on Finance. 18 November 2004. http://tinyurl.com/lcq8zb4
[cxcvi] “Rofecoxib.” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rofecoxib
[cxcvii] “Vioxx Hearing: Testimony of David J. Graham, MD, MPH.” Ibid.
[cxcviii] Ibid.
[cxcix] Unz, Ron, quoted by Cockburn, Alexander. “When Half a Million Americans Died and Nobody Noticed.” Reader Supported News. 12 May 2012. http://tinyurl.com/7oy9yaz
[cc] “Rofecoxib.” Ibid.
[cci] Bookchin, Debbie, Schumacher, Jim. The Virus and the Vaccine: Contaminated Vaccine, Deadly Cancers, and Government Neglect. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin. 2004.
[ccii] Ibid.
[cciii] Haddada H, Sogn JA, Coligan JE, Carbone M, Dixon K, Levine AS, Lewis AM Jr. Viral gene inhibition of class I major histocompatibility antigen expression: not a general mechanism governing the tumorigenicity of adenovirus type 2-, adenovirus type 12-, and simian virus 40-transformed Syrian hamster cells. J Virol. August 1988;62(8):2755-61. http://tinyurl.com/kelfl63
[cciv] Carbone M, Pass HI, Rizzo P, Marinetti M, Di Muzio M, Mew DJ, Levine AS, Procopio A. “Simian virus 40-like DNA sequences in human pleural mesothelioma.” Oncogene. 1994 Jun;9(6):1781-90. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8183577
[ccv] Carbone M, Rizzo P, Procopio A, Giuliano M, Pass HI, et al. “SV40-like sequences in human bone tumors.” Oncogene. 1 August 1996; 13(3):527-35. http://tinyurl.com/kjd2c6s
[ccvi] Butel JS, Vilchez RA, Jorgensen JL, Kozinetz CA. “Association between SV40 and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.” Leuk Lymphoma. 2003;44 Suppl 3:S33-9. http://tinyurl.com/jwz27ou
[ccvii] Qi F, Carbone M, Yang H, Gaudino G. “Simian virus 40 transformation, malignant mesothelioma and brain tumors.” Expert Rev Respir Med. October 2011. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21955238
[ccviii] Carlsen, W. “Rogue virus in the vaccine: Early polio vaccine harbored virus now feared to cause cancer in humans.” San Francisco Chronicle. 15 July 2001. Research by Susan Fisher, epidemiologist, Loyola Jinversity Medical Center. http://tinyurl.com/pxxu2lm
[ccix] Bookchin, Debbie, Schumacher, Jim. The Virus and the Vaccine: Contaminated Vaccine, Deadly Cancers, and Government Neglect. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin. 2004. (Entire book: http://tinyurl.com/k5hs3k7 )
[ccx] Martini, F., et al. “SV40 Early Region and Large T Antigen in Human Brain Tumors, Peripheral Blood Cells, and Sperm Fluids from Healthy Individuals.” Cancer Research 56:4820-4825. 1996. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8841004
[ccxi] Brown, David. “Polio Vaccine Change Is Urged to Cut Risk of Contracting Disease.” Washington Post. 19 October 1995. http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-860430.html
[ccxii] Ibid.
[ccxiii] “Immunization Safety Review: SV40 Contamination of Polio Vaccine and Cancer.” Institute of Medicine. 22 October 2002. http://tinyurl.com/m98s26p
[ccxiv] Vilchez RA, Kozinetz CA, Arrington AS, Madden CR, Butel JS. “Simian virus 40 in human cancers.” Am J Med. 1 June 2003;114(8):675-84. http://tinyurl.com/k67p9wy
[ccxv] “Studies Find No Evidence That SV40 is Related to Human Cancer.” National Cancer Institute/NIH. 23 August 2004, http://www.cancer.gov/newscenter/newsfromnci/2004/sv40
[ccxvi] Vilchez RA, Kozinetz CA, Butel JS. “Conventional epidemiology and the link between SV40 and human cancers.” Lancet Oncol. 4 March 2003 (3):188-91. http://tinyurl.com/kyevhzv
[ccxvii] Butel, Janet, interview 8 July 2003. The Virus and the Vaccine. Ibid.
[ccxviii] Bookchin, Debbie, Schumacher, Jim. “Appendix A.” The Virus and the Vaccine: Contaminated Vaccine, Deadly Cancers, and Government Neglect. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin. 2004. http://tinyurl.com/k5hs3k7
[ccxix] McRearden, Benjamin. “What Is Coming Through That Needle? The Problem of Pathogenic Vaccine Contamination.” Tetrahedron. 2002. http://tinyurl.com/y08r
[ccxx] Hukku B, Halton DM, Mally M, Peterson WD Jr. “Cell characterization by use of multiple genetic markers.” Adv Exp Med Biol 1984;172:13-31. PMID 6328905.
[ccxxi] Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. New York: Crown Publishers. 2010.
[ccxxii] Contreras G, Bather R, Furesz J, Becker BC. “Activation of metastatic potential in African green monkey kidney cell lines by prolonged in vitro culture.” In Vitro Cell Dev Biol. November 1985;21(11):649-52. PMID 4066602. http://tinyurl.com/l8y5mbx
[ccxxiii] “DNA Ongogenicity Infectivity.” FDA. 2005. http://www.vaxchoicevt.com/concerned-about-gmos/
[ccxxiv] Hilleman, MR. “History, precedent, and progress in the development of mammalian cell culture systems for preparing vaccines: safety considerations revisited.” J Med Virol. May 1990;31(1):5-12. http://tinyurl.com/nomudvl
[ccxxv] Rock, Andrea. “The Lethal Dangers of the Billion-Dollar Vaccine Business.” Money. 1 December 1996. http://tinyurl.com/k67oqb6
[ccxxvi] “Non-Clinical Safety Evaluation of Preventive Vaccines.” Society of Toxicology/FDA. 2 December 2002. http://tinyurl.com/m35xg7f
[ccxxvii] LaGreca, Peter. “Supreme Court Gives Big Pharmaceuticals a Vaccine Against Lawsuits.” Pace International Law Review Blog, Pace Law School. 27 October 27, 2011.
[ccxxviii] Inc. staff. “Stay Safe, Stay In Touch: A toymaker ponders product liability.” Inc. 1 May 2007. http://www.inc.com/magazine/20070501/ask-inc.html
[ccxxix] “National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act.” Wikipedia. http://tinyurl.com/2tpq9h
[ccxxx] From e-mail conversation with Erik Hemmett, DC. www.ehemmett@hotmail.com
[ccxxxi] Caplan, Arthur L., PhD. “YOUR Fault If Your Unvaccinated Child Makes Someone Sick.” Medscape. 15 October 2013. http://tinyurl.com/ozgwcxu
[ccxxxii] “Pharmaceutical Manufacturers–Fines Paid for Fraud.” Vermont Coalition for Vaccine Choice. http://tinyurl.com/qcvnzm4
[ccxxxiii] Matsumoto, Gary. Vaccine A. New York: Perseus Books. 2004.
[ccxxxiv] Ibid.
[ccxxxv] Rovet, Richard, Capt. “Who Will Defend the Defenders?” Vaccine Epidemic. Ed. Louise Kuo Habakus, MA, Ed. Mary Holland, JD. New York: Skyhorse, 2011.
[ccxxxvi] Matsumoto, Gary. “Squalene References: Squalene Induces Autoimmune Disease in Animals.” Ibid. http://tinyurl.com/ka9wp5j
[ccxxxvii] Ibid. “Squalene References: Specificity of Anti-body Response to Squalene.”
[ccxxxviii] Roos, Robert. “Pandemrix-narcolepsy link reported in English children.” CIDRAP News. 27 February 2013. http://tinyurl.com/kfoqlh9
[ccxxxix] Matsumoto, Gary. Vaccine A. Ibid.
[ccxl] “[H7N9] ALL Americans Will Get Two Experimental Vaccinations.” YouTube. 9 September 2013. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBGVRuYz7_0
[ccxli] Fisher, Barbara Loe. “FDA Proposes Dangerous Vaccine Rule Change.” National Vaccine Information Center. 21 June 2010. http://tinyurl.com/25ettys
[ccxlii] Tiernan, Rosemary, MD, MPH. “Regulatory Perspective on Development of Preventive Vaccines for Global Infectious Diseases (p.34).” Division of Vaccines and Rlated Products Applications/Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research/FDA. 30 October 2007. http://tinyurl.com/l5ffcpr
[ccxliii] “Model State Emergency Health Powers Act.” ACLU. 1 January 2002. http://tinyurl.com/kmxq9bw
[ccxliv] Fisher, Barbara Loe. “Homeland Security: POWER GRAB BY FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SETS STAGE FOR FORCED VACCINATION IN AMERICA.” National Vaccine Information Center. 11 June 2012. http://tinyurl.com/p6gtl5z
[ccxlv] “Thimerosal in Vaccines.” Vaccines, Blood & Biologics. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. http://tinyurl.com/n2z86t
[ccxlvi] Ibid.
[ccxlvii] “National Drinking Water Regulations.” United States Environmental Protection Agency. www.tinyurl.com/y55uvpu
[ccxlviii] Wagnitz, Michael F. “Reputation of Vaccines and the People Who Defend Them.” Pediatrics e-letter. 13 March 2008. http://tinyurl.com/mkytady
[ccxlix] “Vaccine Ingredients–Mercury Debate Is Far from Over.” Center for Personal Rights. Ppt page 15. http://tinyurl.com/kou5ckh
[ccl] Parran, Damani K, Barker, Angela, Ehrich. “Effects of Thimerosal on NGF Signal Transduction and Cell Death in Neuroblastoma Cells.” Oxford Journals: Toxicological Sciences July 2006 86 (1) 132-140. http://tinyurl.com/lupgs35
[ccli] Lorscheider, F.L., Leong, C.C.-W., Syed, N.I. “How Mercury Causes Brain Neuron Degeneration.” Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary. (Produced by Faculty of Medicine and Advanced Media for Learning.) Uploaded December 21, 2008. http://tinyurl.com/m36or24
[cclii] “Thimerosal in Vaccines.” Ibid.
[ccliii] “Vaccine Ingredients–Mercury Debate Is Far from Over.” Ibid.
[ccliv] Hand, Larry. “Thimerosal for Vaccines: AAP Endorses WHO Statement.” Medscape Medical News. 17 December 2012. http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/776288
[cclv] “EPA06: Stop the Export of Banned Pesticides.” U.S.Environmental Protection Agency: Recommendations and Actions. http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/npr/library/reports/EPA6.html
[cclvi] Miller, Neil Z. “Aluminum in Vaccine: A Neurological Gamble.” Thinktwice Global Vaccine Institute. pdf. 2009-2010.http://www.thinktwice.com/aluminum.pdf
[cclvii] Stevenson, Heidi. “Vaccines’ Alum Adjuvant Path to Brain Found: Study.” Gaia Health. 14 April 2013. http://tinyurl.com/d8s53sq
[cclviii] Vera-Lastra, Olga; Medina, Gabriela; Del Pilar Cruz-Domingues, Maria; Jara, Luis; and Shoenfeld, Yehuda. “Autoimmune/inflammatory syndrome induced by adjuvants (Shoenfeld’s syndrome): clinical and immunological spectrum.” Expert Review of Clinical Immunology, Vol. 9. April 2013.ASIAASIA
[cclix] Sears, Robert W., MD. “Aluminum in Vaccines.” Mothering magazine . Issue 146,
January/February 2008. http://www.mothering.com/community/a/aluminum-in-vaccines
[cclx] “Dr. Gary Null Speaks on Vaccine Injury: ‘Eli Lilly Material Safety Data Sheet for Thimerosal.’” Vaccine-Injury.info. http://tinyurl.com/leysmom
[cclxi] Miller, Neil Z. “Vaccine Safety Tricks and Tips.” VacTruth. http://my.vactruth.com/downloads/
[cclxii] “Vaccination: All.” GreenMedInfo. http://tinyurl.com/p2vjo3s
[cclxiii] Tenpenny, Sherri, DO. “The Vaccine Research Library.” Dr. Tenpenny Vaccine Info. http://vaccineresearchlibrary.com/
[cclxiv] “Adverse Effects of Vaccines: Evidence and Causality.” Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. 25 August, 2011. http://tinyurl.com/3apzfma
[cclxv] “National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program–Statistics Reports”. Health Resources and Services Administration; Department of Health and Human Services. 4 June, 2013. http://tinyurl.com/kgc6tcy
[cclxvi] “Vaccines with Supporting Documents.” U.S. Food and Drug Administration. 20 August 2013. http://tinyurl.com/p7jn3h6
[cclxvii] Ibid.
[cclxviii] Fitton, Tom. “Judicial Watch Uncovers Three Deaths Relating to HPV Vaccine/Event Reports Obtained from FDA Detail 1,637 Adverse Reactions to Gardasil” Judicial Watch [public interest group] website. 20 March, 2013. http://tinyurl.com/m6wvsnz
[cclxix] “MedAlerts Home [search engine]: Search the VAERS Database.” National Vaccine Information Center. http://medalerts.org/vaersdb/index.php
[cclxx] Tomljenovic L, et al. “HPV vaccines and cancer prevention, science versus activism.” Infectious Agents and Cancer. 2013 8:6. http://tinyurl.com/oceguea
[cclxxi] “Victims hit cervical cancer vaccines: Paralyzed teens, parents demand subsidized shots be eradicated.” Japan Times. 24 August 2013. http://tinyurl.com/motn4ku
[cclxxii] Singh, Jyotsna. “HPV vaccine deaths: Parliament panel indicts PATH, health officials.” Down to Earth. 3 September 2013. http://tinyurl.com/kdhyz9m
[cclxxiii] “Indian Tribal Girls Used As Guinea Pigs?” India Times Now. 4 September 2013. http://tinyurl.com/m8kww8a
[cclxxiv] “Vaccine Ingredient Calculator: Aluminum” NVIC. http://www.vaccine-tlc.org/
[cclxxv] Ibid.
[cclxxvi] “Michael Belkin Testimony to Congress on Hepatitis B Vaccine–18 May 1999.” The Refusers. 20 May 2012. http://tinyurl.com/n2mu3o8
[cclxxvii] “Vaccine Ingredient Calculator.” National Vaccine Information Center. http://www.vaccine-tlc.org/
[cclxxviii] Mello, M.M., Abiola, S., and Colgrove, J. “Pharmaceutical companies’ role in state vaccination policymaking: the case of human papillomavirus vaccination.” American Journal of Public Health. May 2012. (Epub 15 March, 2012) PubMed-US National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health.
[cclxxix] Ibid.
[cclxxx] Turner, James S, Esq. Quoting from a conversation with Langmuir. Manookian, L.; Nelson, K., Pilaro, C. The Greater Good. [a documentary]. 2012.http://www.greatergoodmovie.org/
[cclxxxi] Turner, James S., JD. “Due Process and the American Constitution.” Vaccine Epidemic. Habakus, Louise Kuo, MA, Ed. and Holland, Mary, JD, Ed. New York: Skyhorse. 2011.
[cclxxxii] Advisory Commission on Childhood Vaccines. “Meeting Book-Section 7-1.”. Health Resources and Services Administration; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 7 March, 2013. http://tinyurl.com/mcxfa9s
[cclxxxiii] Stevenson, Heidi. “Squalene–Is New Vaccine Additive the Worst Yet?” Gaia Health. 27 June 2009. http://tinyurl.com/lpeyxqh
[cclxxxiv] Brogan, Kelly, MD. “Your Baby. Your Body. Their flu.” Thinking Mom’s Revolution. 25 June 2013. http://tinyurl.com/odpwajl
[cclxxxv] “Package Inserts.” Ibid.
[cclxxxvi] Goldman, G.S. “Comparison of VAERS fetal-loss reports during three consecutive influenza seasons: Was there a synergistic fetal toxicity associated with the two-vaccine 2009/2010 season?” Human and Experimental Toxicology. 27 September 2012. http://het.sagepub.com/content/32/5/464
[cclxxxvii] “Package Inserts.” Ibid.
[cclxxxviii] “Dr. Gary Null Speaks on Vaccine Injury: ‘Eli Lilly Material Safety Data Sheet for Thimerosal.’” Vaccine-Injury.info. http://tinyurl.com/leysmom
[cclxxxix] “Thalidomide.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide
[ccxc] “Diethylstilbestrol.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diethylstilbestrol
[ccxci] Miller, Neil Z. “Overdosed Babies”. Thinktwice Global Vaccine Institute. 2009-2010.
[ccxcii] Goldman, GS and Miller, NZ. “Relative trends in hospitalizations and mortality among infants by the number of vaccine doses and age, based on the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), 1990-2010” Human and Experimental Toxicology. Sage Publications. http://thinktwice.com HET_study2.pdf
[ccxciii] “Preventable Adverse Drug Reactions: A Focus on Drug Interactions.” FDA. 30 April 2009.
[ccxciv] Pert, CB, Ruff, MR, Weber, RJ, Herkenham, M. “Neuropeptides and their receptors: a psychosomatic network.” Journal of Immunology. Aug 1985; 135 (2 Suppl_: 820s-826s. PubMed
[ccxcv] Cochrane Acute Respiratory Infections Group. “Physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses.” PubMed. 6 July 2011. http://tinyurl.com/qxu3zbo
[ccxcvi] Mendes, E., Wilke, Joy. “Americans’ Confidence in Congress Falls to Lowest on Record.” Gallup Politics website. June 13, 2013. http://tinyurl.com/l7y8mdo
[ccxcvii] Google search: “Doctor recommended cigarette ads” http://tinyurl.com/leskb3v
[ccxcviii] Blaylock, Russell. “The Danger of Excessive Vaccination During Brain Development.” Mercola.com website. 14 March, 2008. http://tinyurl.com/kvwv2zq
[ccxcix] Hernandez, Nelson. “Get Kids Vaccinated Or Else, Parents Told.” Washington Post. 14 November 2007. http://tinyurl.com/2jevda
[ccc] Fisher, Barbara Loe. “Police with Dogs: Vaccinating Kids in Maryland.” Vaccine Awakening Blogspot. November 2007. http://tinyurl.com/2bkmjr
[ccci] “Doctors Oppose Vaccine Roundup: Expect dangerous reactions when children are treated like cattle.” Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. 16 November 2007. http://tinyurl.com/lr3no68
[cccii] Ibid.