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by Barbara Loe Fisher
The bad news about GARDASIL vaccine keeps getting worse and it was only a matter of time before government health officials promoted an "epidemic" to deflect attention from GARDASIL risks and create an excuse to point accusing fingers at parents who decline to give their children one or more of the 16 federally promoted vaccines. They did the same thing in 1985, when publicity about DPT vaccine reactions prompted officials at the CDC and American Academy of Pediatrics to allege there were whooping cough epidemics in eight states due to parents rejecting DPT. Then as now, the cases of disease were divided between vaccinated and unvaccinated children and adults, which is hardly big news.
The government's dire warnings came late last week after newspaper articles examined the muscle that Merck used to get GARDASIL fast tracked and licensed, followed by an aggressive multi-media advertising and lobbying campaign targeting teenage girls which has already netted the big pharmaceutical company more than $1.5 billion in sales worldwide. The New England Journal of Medicine published an editorial discussed in the Wall Street Journal asking good questions about the evidence for long term protection and cost effectiveness of mass use of GARDASIL vaccine, questions that NVIC first raised in 2007.
And new concerns are being voiced about whether the vaccine is safe to give to adolescent girls, whose bodies are undergoing hormonal changes, as no studies have been published to evaluate whether there are increased risks for vaccine reactions depending upon when the vaccine is administered during a girl's monthly hormonal cycle.
Last week, a CDC apparently weary of all the bad publicity about GARDASIL got its taxpayer-funded PR machine in gear and issued a media advisory warning that 131 cases of measles have been reported in the U.S. this year and that half of those cases involved unvaccinated children whose parents homeschooled their children or held religious or philosophical beliefs opposing use of one or more vaccines. National news stories and local news coverage examined the measles outbreaks and allegations of growing parental vaccine refusal.
The New York Times published an editorial and repeated unsubstantiated claims made by the CDC about the numbers of children, who were injured and died from measles in the past, stating that there were 400-500 deaths; 48,000 hospitalizations and 1,000 cases of brain injury out of 3-4 million measles cases every year prior to mass use of measles vaccine. A quick look at MMWR historical charts reveals that the highest number of reported cases of measles in the U.S. since 1945 (and before the measles vaccine was licensed in 1963) was 763,094 cases in 1958. Why don't CDC officials publicly release the documented cases of hospitalization, injury and death due to measles in that year - or ANY year - instead of demanding blind faith in their version of the facts? (For decades, parents have been waiting for the CDC to document the widely published allegation that there are "36,000 deaths" due to influenza every year in the U.S., a statistic that is promoted to justify new directives that every baby and child through age 18 get annual flu shots.)
The publicizing of 131 cases of measles out of a population of 300 million people in the U.S. and blaming the "outbreak" on 63 cases that occurred in unvaccinated children, whose parents hold religious or conscientious objections to vaccination or homeschool, is a transparent attempt by federal employees to persecute fellow citizens holding religious beliefs, moral convictions, intellectual positions and wellness lifestyles different from their own. Adopting a strategy that "the best defense is a good offense," CDC officials are whipping up fear of those who do not vaccinate in order to cover up a three decade refusal to scientifically investigate reports of children regressing into autism and other kinds of chronic illness after administration of MMR and other vaccines. They know the truth about vaccine risks is becoming more widely known and are lobbying hard for removal vaccine exemptions they do not control so all Americans will be forced without exception to get every vaccine marketed by industry and mandated by government officials.
The premature licensure and universal use recommendation of GARDASIL is just the latest example of what is wrong with the mass vaccination system. If there is a crisis of confidence in the safety of vaccines, which prompts parents to ask pediatricians more questions and seek alternative health care options for keeping their children well, that crisis of confidence can be laid squarely at the feet of those operating the mass vaccination system for failing to do their job. As Generation Rescue founder J.B. Handley recently commented, "Most parents I know will take measles over autism.
There is a 92 to 100 percent uptake of MMR vaccine and many other federally recommended childhood vaccines among children entering kindergarten in every state. This is one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, especially in such a large population. If the MMR vaccine is so unreliable that a few hundred cases or even a few thousand cases of measles among 300 million people is a cause for panic, then the benefits of MMR vaccine weighed against its risks are far less than industry, government and medical organizations have admitted.
In the 1960's, when the live virus measles vaccine was licensed, parents were told it would give their babies the same lifelong immunity that having the natural disease confers. By the late 1980's, it was clear that was not true because measles was occurring in both vaccinated and unvaccinated children. Government officials eventually recommended another dose of measles vaccine (usually given as MMR) for all children even though there were outstanding questions about the multiplication of different genetic strains of measles and how this may affect the vaccine's ability to prevent measles on an individual and population basis long term.
Today's young mothers do not have qualitatively superior measles antibodies to transfer to their newborns to protect them in the first year of life as past generations of mothers did because most young mothers giving birth today have been vaccinated and never had measles as children, which confers lifelong immunity. So babies born today are vulnerable to measles from birth instead of from ages 15 months to six years, which is when most children in the past experienced measles by age six and severe complications were rare. For several decades, vaccinologists have been attempting to create a "high titer" EZ measles vaccine that can be given to infants under one year that will override any existing natural maternal antibodies and replace them with vaccine induced antibodies but there have been long-standing questions about EZ measles vaccine safety.
Vaccination does not mimic the natural disease process and offers only temporary immunity, which is why vaccine boosters are frequently given. Every vaccine carries a reaction risk that can be greater for some than others. Measles vaccine, which is part of the combination live virus MMR (measles-mumps- rubella) vaccine can cause brain inflammation and permanent brain damage. There have been more than 46,000 reports of health problems associated with MMR vaccination made to the federal Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) . However, there is gross underreporting of vaccine- related health problems to VAERS and it is estimated that, for example, fewer than 4 percent of all cases of thrombocytopenia (potentially fatal blood disorder) following MMR vaccination are ever reported to VAERS.
The CDC's one-size-fits-all, no-exceptions MMR vaccine policies allow almost no contraindications to MMR vaccine use. According to the CDC, a child can be sick at the time of vaccination or recovering from an illness; have a fever; be taking antibiotics; have a history of allergies; or have experienced a seizure or regression after a previous MMR shot and still be eligible for more MMR vaccine. This kind of cavalier disregard for minimizing vaccine risks is one reason why more parents are questioning government vaccine policies.
Parents, whether they do or do not vaccinate their children, should become informed and clearly understand the symptoms and complications of every infectious disease, including measles. Parents who choose to vaccinate should have a 99 to 100 percent guarantee that the vaccine will, indeed protect their child. They should have a similar guarantee that the vaccine will not injure or kill their child.
Like all pharmaceutical products, vaccines should be subject to the law of supply and demand. When people are captive and unable to make informed, voluntary decisions about vaccines that have been rushed to market on greased skids by federal health agencies, where every vaccine reaction is unscientifically labeled a "coincidence," the first casualty is freedom and the second is the health of innocent children.
Public health officials and pediatricians should explain why 20 percent of America's highly vaccinated child population suffers with chronic illness and disability rather than blaming parents who refuse to salute smartly and take the risk of watching the child they love become one more victim of vaccine damage. |
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