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No one knows. There have been no studies conducted
to find out if vaccines might cause long-term damage
that may take years to surface. For example, in
the product insert of the pharmaceutical company
Merck's Hepatitis B vaccine we learn that the children
in the test (vaccinated) group were observed a total
of four days to see if the vaccine had any long-term
effects. This is remarkable, since autoimmune damage
may take weeks or months to arise. Unfortunately,
limited testing is typical for childhood vaccines.
In a sense our children are all part of an experiment
to see if vaccines have any long-term effects. In
the pharmaceutical business this is known as "post
marketing surveillance."
US Representative Dan Burton has been holding Congressional
hearings on vaccine safety. Rep. Burton's grandchild
became autistic following her vaccinations.
This is what Rep. Burton recently told the Los
Angeles Times (April 24, 2000):
Instead of hiding our heads in the sand to
protect the status quo, it is time to admit that
the US Government has failed the American public
by not funding adequate studies to determine the
long-term affects of vaccines on our children
and future generations. We have yet to conduct
adequate scientific research to rule out a connection
between vaccines and autism, or to determine whether
low-birth weight or pre-term babies should receive
the same dose of vaccine and use the same shot
schedule.
We have not funded studies or research to
indicate whether it is okay to vaccinate a child
who has repeated ear infections and rounds of
antibiotics, or to determine what children are
likely to be adversely affected by vaccines.
Catherine Diodati, a Canadian researcher based
in Ontario, in her 1999 book, Immunization, History,
Ethics, Law and Health, says long-term studies on
vaccines are not conducted and when studies are
done at all, "the methodology used is highly
questionable." For example, when a new vaccine
is tested on one group of children for adverse events,
the "control" group will not be unvaccinated
kids, but will consist of vaccinated children who
were vaccinated with a different vaccine. This is
known as meaningless or "junk" science.
In September 1993 the US government's Institute
of Medicine released a report entitled Adverse Events
Associated With Childhood Vaccines: Evidence Bearing
on Causality. The report examined putative serious
adverse consequences associated with administration
of diphtheria and tetanus toxoids; measles, mumps,
and measles-mumps-rubella vaccines; oral polio vaccine
and inactivated polio vaccine; hepatitis B vaccines;
and Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) vaccines.
The committee spent 18 months reviewing all available
scientific and medical data, from published and
unpublished individual case reports to controlled
clinical trials. They revealed that the proper studies
had not been done to see if vaccines caused a wide
variety of problems. The committee found that the
evidence favored acceptance of a causal relationship
between diphtheria and tetanus toxoids and Guillain-Barre
syndrome and brachial neuritis, between measles
vaccine and anaphylaxis, between oral polio vaccine
and Guillain-Barre syndrome, and between unconjugated
Hib vaccine and susceptibility to Hib disease.
The committee also found that the evidence established
causality between diphtheria and tetanus toxoids
and anaphylaxis, between measles vaccine and death
from measles vaccine-strain viral infection, between
measles-mumps-rubella vaccine and thrombocytopenia
and anaphylaxis, between oral polio vaccine and
poliomyelitis and death from polio vaccine-strain
viral infection, and between hepatitis B vaccine
and anaphylaxis. For five vaccine-related adverse
events, there was no evidence identified. For the
remaining 33 vaccine-related adverse events, the
evidence was inadequate to accept or reject a causal
relationship.
There are no genetic or laboratory screening tests
available to determine which children will react
to a vaccine (Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers
of America's New Research and Development Database,
http://www.phrma.org/webdb/phrmawdb.html). Also,
no one knows which shot may be the one to cause
damage. It may be the first one or the fifth or
the 25th!
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