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What are the chances that my child may be hurt or
killed by a vaccine?
No one knows.
Although we are repeatedly told by medical and
government authorities that "the benefits of
vaccines outweigh the risks," and vaccine damage
is "minimal" or "infinitesimal,"
these statements are based on faith rather than
science.
The reason is that pediatricians, GPs, nurses and
others who give the shots rarely report vaccine
damage, even though they are required to by law.
According to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA),
only one case of vaccine damage in 10 (10%) is ever
reported to a higher authority. However, according
to Connaught Laboratories only one case in 50 (2%)
is reported (James Froeschle, Connaught Laboratories.
Adverse Events Associated with Childhood Vaccines.
Evidence Bearing on causality. Institute of Medicine.
May 11, 1992, Washington, DC, Appendix B.)
The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC)
did its own study and found similar underreporting.
Why? Among the reasons given are fear of malpractice,
lack of training to recognize vaccine damage and
outright denial that vaccine damage occurs. Medical
and health professionals risk professional censure,
loss of funding, and their own advancement in health
departments, research centers, etc. if they openly
question vaccines. Most doctors who question vaccination
keep quiet.
For a pediatrician to attack what has become the
'bread and butter' of pediatric practice is equivalent
to a priest's denying the infallibility of the Pope.
Robert S. Mendelsohn, M.D., The Medical Time Bomb
Of Immunization Against Disease. East West Journal,
November 1984
Government bureaucrats are also guilty of spreading
incorrect, misleading or outright fraudulent vaccine
information. For example, when a measles vaccine/autism
connection was discovered by a researcher, the Center
for Disease Control (CDC) put out this mis-information
(http://www.cdc.gov/nip/vacsafe/concerns/autism/autism-mmr.htm)
Question to the CDC: "I heard that measles
virus was found in specimens from intestines of
children with autism. Have these data been reviewed
by other scientists?"
CDC Answer: "The recently released finding
has not yet been published in a scientific journal.
This means that it has not been reviewed by other
medical experts, before and after publication
to assure the methods of the study are sound.
No other laboratories have had similar findings."
The truth of the matter is quite different from
the CDC position. The work of Professor John O'Leary
who discovered measles virus in the intestines of
autistic children was reviewed by the Royal College
of Pathologists in December 1999 and was found to
be sound. O'Leary's work was confirmed by another
laboratory (see answer to question 8).
Another question was answered by the CDC in a manner
showing the reflexive denial that is so often seen
among government functionaries:
Question to the CDC: "What if measles
virus is shown to be associated with autism? Would
that mean we should stop vaccinating against measles?"
CDC answer: "If measles virus is shown
to be associated with autism, it would be most
likely that the wild measles virus would be a
greater cause of autism than vaccine virus."
In its unending effort to deny any relationship
between vaccination and autism the CDC carefully
omits contradictory information. In fact, a Japanese
research team not only found measles virus in the
intestines of children with autism but isolated
it to the vaccine strain. (Detection and Sequencing
of Measles Virus from Peripheral Mononuclear Cells
From Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Digestive
Diseases and Sciences, April 2000.)
The medical juggernaut often fires back with papers
of their own that "prove" vaccination
is safe. Such was a sloppily written paper by Dr.
Brent Taylor that supposedly "proved"
that there was no relationship between the MMR shot
and autism. This paper has been severely criticized
by The Royal Statistical Society as being of inferior
quality with confusing statistics. In spite of that
it is often cited by US and UK government officials
to show that the MMR vaccine does not cause autism.
(Taylor B., Miller E., Farrington CP., Petropoulos
M-C., Favot Mayaud I., Li J., Waight PA. Autism
and measles, mumps and rubella vaccine: no epidemiological
evidence for a causal association. Lancet. Vol 353,
June 12 1999, pp. 2026-2029)
An example of the medical profession's unwillingness
ever to admit fault is seen in the history of bloodletting.
Phlebotomy was phased out slowly in the end of the
19th century and beginning of the 20th century,
but it was never stated to have been an error; indeed,
the medical profession held, in the late 19th century,
that the "nature of diseases" had changed
from earlier times, that bloodletting was justified
then, but was no longer needed in the new circumstance.
Harris Coulter Ph.D. Medical Historian. Personal
correspondence to author.
It has been noticed that, in general, European
countries tend to be more open than the US when
it comes to acknowledging vaccine damage. For example,
The Parisian 25 May 2000 stated: "The public
authorities come for the first time to officially
recognize the link between the vaccine and…multiple
sclerosis."
Currently in the UK there is a class action lawsuit
against the government with over 2,000 families
claming that their child was damaged by the MMR
vaccine.
However, even with all the denial and underreporting
of vaccine injury, since 1990 the National Childhood
Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has paid out
over 1 billion dollars in damages to families for
injuries and deaths following a vaccine reaction
(National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, "Monthly
Statistics Report" http://www.hrsa.dhhs.gov/bhpr/vicp/monthly.htm
and http://www.hrsa.dhhs.gov/bhpr/vicp/).
Every year the Food and Drug Administration receives
12,000-14,000 reports sent to the Vaccine Adverse
Events Reporting System (VAERS) of hospitalizations,
injuries and deaths following vaccination (The Vaccine
Adverse Events Reporting System, [VAERS] http://www.vaers.org).
As mentioned previously, this figure may only be
1-10% of the true number (Journal of the American
Medical Association, June 2, 1993, Vol 269, No 21,
pp. 2765-2768).
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