On the Issue of Vaccination Choice
2008-10-R13
(Copyrighted 2008
by Don M. Tow)
An extremely important issue
that has been getting increasing discussion recently is the issue of the
pros and cons of the government mandating a large number of required
vaccinations in children, starting at birth (12 hours old).[1]
The number of recommended vaccines by the
On one side of this
debate is the medical/health establishment, including the AAP, CDC, and
AAFP, who claim that requiring such a large number of vaccinations is just
good health policy that is needed to stop the spread of dangerous infectious
diseases.
They point to statistics that show the large decrease
of infectious diseases since various vaccines were introduced.
For example, in 1920 Diphtheria had 147,991
reported cases resulting in 894 deaths.
The Diphtheria vaccine was introduced in 1923,
and in 2002 it had only 1 reported case.
In the first half of the 20th
century, every year Polio had tens of thousands of cases resulting in over
1,000 deaths.
The Salk Polio vaccine was introduced in 1955
and the Sabin Polio vaccine was introduced in 1962, and today cases of Polio
in the
On the other side of
this debate are various grassroots organizations, like the National Vaccine
Information Center (NVIC) and the New Jersey Coalition for Vaccination
Choice (NJCVC), whose members include a large number of parents who claim
that their children were vaccine-injured, but also include doctors, nurses,
other healthcare professionals, as well as other professionals.
These grassroots organizations claim that
vaccines contain a lot of toxic material and can be harmful.
They point to the sharp increase of chronically
ill and disabled children [who have, e.g., Autism, Attention Deficit
Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), asthma, diabetes] during the last 30-40 years
when the number of government-required vaccines has more than tripled.
For example, in 1970, 1 child in 2,500
developed autism; today 1 child in 150 develops autism.
In 1970, 1 child in 1,750 was diabetic; today 1
child in 450 becomes diabetic.
How can we reconcile
the claims of these two sides?
To answer this, we need to address at least the
following four questions:
Health Benefits of Vaccines:
With the exception of the Smallpox vaccine which
was developed in 1796,
essentially all other
vaccines were developed or began widespread use only in the 20th
century, with many in the second half of the 20th
century.
It is true that there has been a very large decrease
in various infectious diseases in the
The CDC document
“Achievements in Public Health, 1900-1999:
Control of Infectious Diseases” (http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4829a1.htm)
states “The 19th
century shift in population from country to city that accompanied
industrialization and immigration led to overcrowding in poor housing served
by inadequate or nonexistent public water supplies and waste-disposal
system.
These conditions resulted in repeated outbreaks of
cholera, dysentery, TB, typhoid fever, influenza, yellow fever, and
malaria.”
The CDC article goes on to state “By
1900, however, the incidence of many of these diseases had begun to decline
because of public health improvements, implementation of which continued
into the 20th century.
…
From the 1930s through the 1950s, state and local
health departments made substantial progress in disease prevention
activities, including sewage disposal, water treatment, food safety,
organized solid waste disposal, and public education about hygienic
practices (e.g., foodhandling and handwashing). Chlorination and other
treatments of drinking water began in the early 1900s and became widespread
public health practices, further decreasing the incidence of waterborne
diseases.”
Let us discuss more
about the Polio statistics since that is often used to illustrate the
effectiveness of vaccine.
The website (http://www.cispimmunize.org/fam/ImpactofVaccines.pdf)
of the Childhood Immunization Support Program (CISP), which is a program
under the AAP and CDC, gives the following statistics “Between 1951-1954, an
average 16,316 paralytic Polio cases reported; 1,879 deaths.”
It also states “Polio caused by wild-type
viruses eliminated from the
Shortly after Sabin’s oral
Polio vaccine (which uses a weakened form of a live virus instead of Salk’s
“killed” virus) was introduced in 1962, it quickly replaced Salk’s Polio
vaccine because it was cheaper to make, easier to take, and appeared to
provide greater protection.
However, it cannot be given to people with
compromised immune systems, and it is capable of causing Polio in some
recipients of the vaccine, and in individuals with compromised immune
systems who come into close contact with recently vaccinated children.
In 1976, Salk testified that Sabin’s live-virus
vaccine (used almost exclusively in the
It seems that whether
vaccinations have provided such overwhelming benefits with negligible risks
as the medical/health establishment would want us to believe may not be such
a slam-dunk issue.
Although there may be significant benefits, the
risks are not necessarily negligible.
In particular, perhaps there may be certain
susceptible groups who may have a higher probability of having adverse
reactions to any particular vaccine.
Furthermore, when taking into consideration the
large number of required vaccinations and often multiple simultaneous
vaccinations, one wonders what the risks are when all these foreign and
potentially toxic substances are introduced into the bodies of small
children.
Health Risks from Vaccines:
The underlying basis of how a vaccine for a
particular disease works is to introduce (or inoculate) a weak form of the
cause of that disease into the person’s body triggering the generation of
antibodies that can prevent that person from getting that disease.
What is inoculated into the body could be a
dead or weakened live virus or bacterium, or a subunit of that dead or
weakened live virus or bacterium, or other material.
Furthermore, in order to prevent the vaccine
from bacterial and fungal contamination, preservatives such as a mercury
preservative called thimerosal (also spelled as thiomersal) and formaldehyde
are added to various vaccines.
Vaccines began using thimerosal starting in the
1930s.
Vaccines may damage children in several ways. Live or weakened virus
vaccines can actually produce the infection that the vaccine is supposed to
prevent. For example, live Polio, as in the Sabin Polio vaccine, should
never be administered to a child who comes in contact with an HIV patient,
for the weakened virus can "leap" to the HIV patient and produce Polio.
Reports exist of normal parents who have developed Polio from the viral
vaccine given to their children.
A second mechanism of damage comes from neurotoxic
materials often found in vaccines. Thimerosal is the most widely discussed,
since it contains mercury, which could be extremely toxic to the neuro-system
of even adults. The amount of mercury varies with the particular vaccine.
Even when the amount may appear not be large,
there could still be significant risks.
For example, a vaccine may contain about 17
micrograms (mcg) of mercury, which is an amount found in a 6 oz. can of tuna
fish. However, two cans of tuna fish a week already push a 130-pound woman
over the EPA’s safe level, and half a can of tuna fish a week could push a
4- or 5-year old child over the safe level.
When you consider that the vaccine mercury
dosage goes into the child with one application, and not spread over a week,
even one vaccine may already not be safe.
Furthermore, children often take multiple
vaccines during the same visit to the doctor.
For example, at 4 months and 6 months, they
could get respectively 50 mcg and 62.5 mcg of mercury from the multiple
vaccinations during one office visit, which is several times above the safe
limit!
In addition, if the nurse giving the injection did not
shake the vial according to directions before drawing out the vaccine dose,
there is a chance that the child receiving the last dose from the vial could
get as much as 10 times the usual amount in one dose!
With increasing public pressure, the CDC and
AAP finally in 1999 asked vaccine manufacturers to remove thimerosal from
vaccines as soon as possible.
Although thimerosal has been phased out in some
vaccines, many vaccines still contain thimerosal, including the flu vaccine
which is one of the four newly added required vaccinations in NJ for
children between six months and five years old who want to attend a licensed
daycare or pre-school.
The third, and probably the most important mechanism
of vaccine damage, is allergic reactions and the development of an
auto-immune response, stimulated by the vaccine and its adjuvant (a
subsidiary ingredient in a medicine that acts as an assistant). Vaccines
always contain adjuvants (e.g., aluminum), which are substances known to
amplify the body's response to the vaccine. These adjuvants are known to
sometimes cause allergic and auto-immune responses on their own.
It
is important to note that different people may have different degrees of
such allergic reactions.
Although vaccines
with their toxin substances may not result in adverse reactions in most
patients, there could be a subgroup of patients who for one reason or
another may be more susceptible to reacting negatively to the vaccines.
Often the adverse reaction may lead to
life-long serious health problems, or even death.
This is one of the reasons why parents should
be given the option to decide whether or not their children should be
vaccinated, at least for those vaccines where such susceptible group
analysis has not been thoroughly performed.
Existence of Comprehensive and Conflict-of-Interest-Free Review Bodies:
If there are significant risks to vaccines, how
did these vaccines get approval from government review/approval
organizations like the CDC?
Why did it take so many years before CDC asked
the vaccine manufacturers not to include thimerosal in their vaccines?
Why don’t federal oversight bodies such as the
CDC and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) require more
comprehensive research before approving a vaccine?
Why has there been so little research on
susceptibility groups for vaccines?
Why do organizations like the AAP and CDC
strongly recommend such a large number of vaccines?
One reason is money.
The pharmaceutical industry is a very rich and
influential industry.
It has a lot of lobbyists, funds a lot of
research projects, contributes a lot of money to organizations like the AAP,
and is able to place many of their advocates on relevant organizations and
committees that make decisions or provide guidelines on vaccination.
The pharmaceutical industry doesn’t want to
rock the boat that generates billions of dollars of income every year.
Here are several reports of this relationship
and potential conflicts of interest.
Another reason is
just lack of training on the vaccination issue for medical students and
doctors.
For example, Dr. Deborah Ginsburg, a family practice
physician in NJ, who graduated in 1992 from the UCLA Medical School (which
is one of the top medical schools in the U.S.), said that while in medical
school their only training on the issue of vaccines was that vaccines are
safe and their job is to make sure that their patients should follow the
vaccination schedule.
The end result is that most doctors just follow
the recommendations of the AAP, even though the AAP may be heavily
influenced by the pharmaceutical industry.
A clear example of the influence of the pharmaceutical industry is that as
part of the Homeland Security Bill (H.R. 5710) that was passed by Congress
in 2002, the bill contains a provision that
shields the pharmaceutical industry from lawsuits for injuries caused by
FDA-approved vaccines, such as mercury containing pediatric vaccines
possibly associated with the development of autism in many children.
Although
lawsuits for damages from vaccine injuries are still allowed, any
compensation given to the plaintiff comes not from the vaccine manufacturer,
but from a federal government fund that is funded by tax dollars!
This is such a contrast to other situations,
such as with lawsuits against the tobacco industry.
If the pharmaceutical industry claims that
vaccines are extremely safe, then why isn’t it willing to stand up in court
to prove its innocence and take the consequence?
In November 2007,
the federal government conceded a vaccine-autism lawsuit in the Court of
Federal Claims, where the plaintiff claimed that mercury-containing vaccines
were the cause of her autism.
The
damage compensation (not published) will not be provided by the vaccine
manufacturer, but from our tax dollars. There are almost 5,000 other such
cases pending in Federal “
Exemptions from Vaccinations:
In
almost every state, religious and medical exemptions to mandated
vaccinations are provided, although the exact nature of the exemptions could
vary from state to state.
However, as discussed below, the current exemption process is far from
sufficient.
In NJ, one can
request a religious exemption by showing how the administration of
immunizing agents conflicts with the person’s exercise of bona fide
religious tenets or practices.
General philosophical or moral objection to
immunization is not sufficient for an exemption on religious grounds.
In NJ, one can
request a medical exemption by submitting a written statement from a
physician indicating that an immunization is medically contraindicated for a
specific period of time for that person and the reason(s) for the medical
contraindication, based upon valid medical reasons as enumerated by the
Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) of the United States
Public Health Service or the AAP guidelines.
However, in practice it may not be easy to get
a medical exemption.
According to NJ Assemblywoman Charlotte
Vandervalk:
“The medical exemption is worthless.
I have seen first-hand how a doctor’s letter
explaining the medical risk to a particular child was overruled by the Board
of Health.”
Because of the
difficulty and arbitrariness of obtaining a medical exemption, Assemblywoman
Vandervalk has recently introduced a “Conscientious Belief Exemption” bill
(No. 260) to the 213th
Legislature of NJ (http://www.njvaccinationchoice.org/A260.pdf).
This bill would allow a person to request an
exemption to an immunization on the grounds of a sincerely held or moral
objection to the immunization.
It would make it significantly easier to obtain
an exemption.
Summary:
Vaccines
have helped to reduce the amount of
infectious diseases, although overall improvements in the living conditions
of the general population have also helped to reduce these infectious
diseases.
However, vaccines also introduce risks, with perhaps
significant and dangerous risks for certain susceptible groups.
The
number of mandated vaccines has more than tripled during the last 30-40
years, while during this same period, the number of chronically ill and
disabled children has also increased dramatically. According to the National
Vaccine Information Center, today 1 child in 6 is learning disabled, 1 child
in 9 has asthma, 1 child in 150 develops autism (in NJ, 1 boy in 60 develops
autism), and 1 child in 450 becomes diabetic.
Each of these current numbers is significantly
higher than the corresponding number 30-40 years ago.
It seems clear that
we must have a more comprehensive research and analysis of the
benefits/risks tradeoff of vaccines.
Such research and analysis and the resulting
setting of government policies and guidelines should be performed by people
who do not have a conflict of interest.
The research and analysis should not be
confined to average statistics for the population as a whole, but also
trying to identify potentially susceptible groups who are more prone to
adverse reactions from the vaccines.
We must not adopt the attitude of one size fits
all.
We must allow people or their parents to make the
decision whether they should be vaccinated for a particular vaccine if they
belong to a susceptible group for that vaccine, or if
conflict-of-interest-free comprehensive research and analysis has not been
performed on the benefits/risks tradeoff for that particular vaccine.
We must hold vaccine manufacturers accountable
for any damage arising from the use of their vaccines.
Because the
vaccination issue impacts the health and lives of our children and
grandchildren, which are our most precious possession, it should be an issue
of highest importance.
It is important to keep in mind that most of
the people in the pro vaccination-choice camp are not necessarily against
vaccines in general, but they do object to the government mandating them to
give a large number of vaccinations to their children when some of those
vaccinations could result in serious health problems or even deaths for
their children.
When enough research and analysis have been
done in a comprehensive and unbiased method, including on the cumulative
effects of multiple vaccinations simultaneously or over a short period of
time, then perhaps we can come up
with a solution which can reconcile the positions of the two camps mentioned
at the beginning of this article.
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