Vaccine Injuries and Legal Mandates
by Dr. Joseph Mercola
September 17, 2019
Source
STORY AT-A-GLANCE
- The pharmaceutical industry is now the most distrusted and poorly regarded industry in the U.S. A mere 27% have a “totally positive” view of the drug industry, while 58% have a “totally negative” view
- A pilot case-control study published in 2017 found that subjects with newly diagnosed anorexia nervosa were 80% more likely than controls to have had a vaccination in the previous three months
- Influenza vaccination during the prior year was also associated with a higher risk for anorexia nervosa, obsessive compulsive disorder and anxiety disorder
- A 2015 report found that of the 1,469 child deaths reported to the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, 79.4% had received one or more vaccines on the same day they died. The most common cause of death, based on autopsy records, was sudden infant death syndrome, accounting for 44% of cases
- Research published in 2006 found vaccination-associated adverse events occur in 1 in 6 toddlers receiving the first dose of measles-mumps-rubella vaccine; high fever occurs in 1 in 20
The pharmaceutical industry is now the most distrusted and poorly regarded industry in the U.S. This according to the latest Gallup Poll1 published September 3, 2019, which assesses Americans’ views of 25 industry sectors on an annual basis. A mere 27% have a “totally positive” view of the drug industry, while 58% have a “totally negative” view; 15% are neutral.
It’s an unexpected turn of events, surely, as signs of growing distrust have become more readily evident. Big Pharma distrust was also blamed for “fueling the anti-vaxxer movement and playing a role in the measles outbreak” in an April 2019 article in USA Today.2
Quoted in the article, vaccine profiteer and patent holder3 Dr. Paul Offit also capitalizes on the recent revelation that the FBI now views conspiracy theories as a “significant domestic terrorism threat.”4
“‘In order to believe vaccines are hurting you means your doctor is lying to you,’ Offit says. To believe that, ‘on some level you have to be a conspiracy theorist’ who believes the industry is ‘directing the government and the health care industry to lie about vaccines.'”5
In other words, if you have doubts about vaccine safety and would like to see more evidence, you’re a conspiracy theorist, placing you in the category of a domestic terrorist threat. At least that’s what Offit would like you to think. The fact is, lies are being told about vaccines.
As just one example, and an egregious one, in a January 2019 interview with CBS News,6 Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), flat-out denied that vaccines can cause injury or death. That is not only misinformation, it’s an outright lie.
Since 1988, the federally operated vaccine injury compensation program (VICP) created under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 has paid out about $4 billion in awards to vaccine injured victims, and that’s just 31% of the petitions filed for compensation.7
Doctors Routinely Withhold Risk Information
Misinformation about the safety of vaccines is being pushed front and center, and evidence of harm is not only being swept under the proverbial rug, those sharing that information are vilified, harassed and threatened in not entirely subtle ways.
There is a revolving door between people who work for U.S. federal health agencies and then go to work for the pharmaceutical industry and the other way around.8,9
This means that Big Pharma, which over the past decade has spent $2.5 billion lobbying the federal government, is having a tremendous influence on vaccine regulation, policymaking and law.10 These are not theories. They’re provable facts.
Yet in recent times, we’ve seen vicious public attacks against anyone who questions vaccine safety, policy and law, or vaccine science. There have been extreme calls for public shaming, identification, criminal prosecution, quarantine and imprisonment of those criticizing vaccine safety and/or refusing to get government recommended vaccines.
One doctor who develops vaccines and lobbies for “no exceptions” forced vaccination laws has referred to parents of vaccine injured children as a “hate group,” and one prominent newspaper suggested vaccine critics should be physically harmed.11,12,13, 14
Most providers of vaccine information on the internet are also now being censored by Google and other platforms, effectively preventing people from finding what could be life-saving information15 that, indeed, most are never given by their pediatrician.
The withholding of information about potentially life-threatening side effects and long-term injury is unlikely to be maliciously intended, but when a child is injured, parents will surely feel like they were lied to all the same.
That children suffer brain injury, long-term health effects and death is a reality, not a conspiracy theory.
In the emotional video above, Rachel Ortiz testifies in opposition of Maine’s bill LD 79816 (which would remove religious and philosophical vaccine exemptions) and in support of LD 98717 (which would expand medical vaccine exemptions), sharing the story of how a routine childhood vaccination caused irreversible brain damage to her son.
One of the things you typically hear from parents sharing their stories of how a vaccine injured their child is the tremendous weight of guilt. They trusted the doctors, who didn’t warn them there were risks, and their ignorance injured (or worse, killed) their beloved child. A 2015 article by Yahoo Parenting featured Susan Lawson and her daughter Julia:18
“When … Lawson … hears parents declaring, unequivocally, that everyone should vaccinate their children because it’s perfectly safe, she says it feels ‘like a punch in the gut.’
That’s because she’s seen another side of the story: Her daughter Julia, now 9, was left with permanent brain damage — an injury acknowledged by a federal court payout — after receiving her MMRV (measles-mumps-rubella-varicella) shot when she was a year old.
Lawson, a veterinarian who had the utmost faith in medicine, had never before questioned vaccinations, and had always inoculated Julia right on schedule. But now she began to wonder. Hospital doctors dismissed any thought of a connection.
But when Lawson asked a pediatrician about it, she was told it could be a possibility. Every family featured in this story received a payment by the United States Court of Federal Claims, which concluded that their rare injuries were caused by the vaccines.
‘I felt shocked, bewildered, and guilty,’ Lawson recalls. ‘We were trying to protect her, and instead I destroyed her. The guilt is huge.'”
However, firsthand testimony and billions in VICP payouts aren’t the only evidence available that vaccines are causing debilitating harm and not just temporary soreness at the injection site. There are scientific studies raising red flags as well. For example, a pilot case-control study19 published in Frontiers in Psychiatry in January 2017 found that:
“Subjects with newly diagnosed AN [anorexia nervosa] were more likely than controls to have had any vaccination in the previous 3 months [hazard ratio 1.80, 95% confidence interval 1.21–2.68].
Influenza vaccinations during the prior 3, 6, and 12 months were also associated with incident diagnoses of AN, OCD [obsessive compulsive disorder], and an anxiety disorder. Several other associations were also significant … (hepatitis A with OCD and AN; hepatitis B with AN; and meningitis with AN and chronic tic disorder).
This pilot epidemiologic analysis implies that the onset of some neuro-psychiatric disorders may be temporally related to prior vaccinations in a subset of individuals. These findings warrant further investigation …”
A Pattern of Clear Concern
Another example is “Deaths Reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, United States, 1997-2013,”20 published in 2015. In this report, it’s stated that of the 1,469 child death reports, 79.4% had received one or more vaccines on the same day they died.
The most common cause of death, based on autopsy records, was sudden infant death syndrome, accounting for 44% of cases, followed by asphyxia (6%), septicemia (4.9%) and pneumonia (4.6%). In adults, the vaccine associated with the greatest number of deaths was inactivated influenza vaccine, which featured in 51.4% of adult deaths reported to VAERS.
Despite these shocking findings, the report concludes that “No concerning pattern was noted among death reports submitted to VAERS during 1997-2013.” How can the fact that 79.4% of infant deaths occur on the same day that they’re vaccinated be a pattern of no concern? It’s those kinds of illogical conclusions that give rise to suspicions of conspiracy, because little else makes sense.
Even some of our health officials have at times been pressed enough to let the truth slip out. In a BMJ response21 to “Measles: Europe Sees Record Number of Cases and 37 Deaths so Far This Year,”22 published in 2018, U.K. editor of AgeofAutism.com, John Stone, cites papers highlighting the questionable safety of vaccines.
Included in his citations are three Cochrane reviews, one of which concluded “The design and reporting of safety outcomes in MMR vaccine studies, both pre- and post-marketing, are largely inadequate,” and “The evidence of adverse events following immunization with MMR cannot be separated from its role in preventing the target diseases.”23
Government Admissions Are on the Record
In his response, Stone also points out that the question of whether vaccines can cause autism has been acknowledged in the affirmative by the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) on various occasions. He writes:24
“The HHS HRSA told journalists Sharyl Attkisson and David Kirby on separate occasions: ‘The government has never compensated, nor has it ever been ordered to compensate, any case based on a determination that autism was actually caused by vaccines.
We have compensated cases in which children exhibited an encephalopathy, or general brain disease. Encephalopathy may be accompanied by a medical progression of an array of symptoms including autistic behavior, autism, or seizures.’
And CDC director Julie Gerberding admitted to CNN following the Hannah Poling settlement:25 ‘Now, we all know that vaccines can occasionally cause fevers in kids. So if a child was immunized, got a fever, had other complications from the vaccines.
And if you’re predisposed with the mitochondrial disorder, it can certainly set off some damage. Some of the symptoms can be symptoms that have characteristics of autism…’
An investigation into U.S. vaccine injury court in 2011 found 83 cases of compensated vaccine injury in which autism is mentioned, but which because they are sealed cannot be used as precedents.”
Needed Studies Can Be Done, but Aren’t
While working for CBS News in 2008, Attkisson also interviewed Dr. Bernadine Healy, “the most well-known medical voice yet to counter the government” on the claim that vaccines cannot cause autism.26
Healy, a former head of the National Institutes of Health, claimed that once she began looking at the vaccine-autism question, “she found credible published, peer-reviewed scientific studies that support the idea of an association,” Atkisson writes, adding:27
“She dug a little deeper and was surprised to find that the government has not embarked upon some of the most basic research that could help answer the question of a link.
The more she dug, she says, the more she came to believe the government and medical establishment were intentionally avoiding the question because they were afraid of the answer … Healy says the government has a long way to go to even do basic research that could get at the heart of what she believes is an open question.
For example: why in the past decade hasn’t the government compared the autism/ADD rate of unvaccinated children with that of vaccinated children? If the rate is the same, it tends to point away from vaccines. If the rate is markedly lower in unvaccinated children, it tends to point toward vaccines.
The government has a dataset of unvaccinated children available. It has published more than one survey of parents of undervaccinated and unvaccinated children (to find out why the parents are choosing not to vaccinate).
It would seem simple to use those same families to measure their rate of autism/ADD. Also, why hasn’t the government used vaccine court as a resource to ask the autism/vaccine question?
There, nearly 5,000 families have self-selected as believing their children’s autism was caused by vaccines. Many have expressed willingness to let their children’s medical records be released and studied; but nobody in the government has been interested.”
Two other examples of published studies that put a dent in the armored wall of denial that vaccines can cause harm are:
•A 2006 study in the journal Pediatrics, which found 18% of toddlers experienced an adverse event following their first dose of measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine. Of those, high fever occurred in 6%.
The authors concluded that “Vaccination-associated adverse events occur in ∼1 of every 6 toddlers receiving measles-mumps-rubella vaccine dose 1, with high fever occurring in 1 of 20.”
•Similarly, a 2010 paper28 in Pediatrics “assessed seizures and fever visits among children aged 12 to 23 months after MMRV [mumps-measles-rubella-varicella] and separate MMR + varicella vaccines” and “compared seizure risk after MMRV vaccine to that after MMR + varicella vaccines.” The authors reported that:
“Seizure and fever significantly clustered 7 to 10 days after vaccination with all measles-containing vaccines but not after varicella vaccination alone. Seizure risk during days 7 to 10 was higher after MMRV than after MMR + varicella vaccination (relative risk: 1.98…) …
Vaccination with MMRV results in 1 additional febrile seizure for every 2,300 doses given instead of separate MMR + varicella vaccines. Providers who recommend MMRV should communicate to parents that it increases the risk of fever and seizure over that already associated with measles-containing vaccines.”
Bureaucrats Take Over Medical Decision-Making in California
While Californians have already been stripped of their religious and philosophical vaccine exemptions, matters are about to get even more serious with the expected implementation of SB 27629 and SB 714.30
SB 276 — which California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law31 September 9, 2019 — will further limit parents’ ability to get a medical exemption for their child by requiring all medical vaccine exemptions written by doctors to be approved by a state health official,32 and SB 714 places new restrictions on which physicians are eligible to issue medical exemptions.
Specifically, any doctor who has faced disciplinary action in the past will not be allowed to issue medical exemptions, and any exemption written by an ineligible doctor would be rendered null and void with the enactment of this law. As reported by the Los Angeles Times on September 6, 2019:33
“[T]he governor will sign SB 276 once the Legislature passes SB 714 … [Orange County pediatrician Bob] Sears, who is currently subject to a 35-month probation order issued by the medical board in a vaccine case that did not involve school medical exemptions, expressed disbelief over the amendments …
‘[This bill would] mean that any exemption written by a doctor who has been disciplined by the board for any reason, even one unrelated to vaccination, will be subject to revocation,’ Sears said.
‘So the hundreds of patients I’ve written exemptions for over the past four years after having a severe vaccine reaction will lose their exemptions. This seems like a broad overreach from a government that is supposed to protect its medically fragile children.'”
The new amendments also narrow the scope of medical conditions that qualify for an exemption, limiting exemptions to those having suffered severe anaphylaxis, encephalopathy (coma), one rare immunodeficiency disorder, and in the case of the rotavirus vaccine only, cases of intussusception (twisted bowel).
Doctors Who Write Exemptions Must Work for Free
Under the revised law, doctors issuing medical exemptions will be monitored, and they will no longer be allowed to charge for the service of issuing a medical exemption. In other words, any doctor who writes a medical exemption must do so for free. As reported by PR Newswire on June 18, 2019:34
“Attorney Leigh Dundas believes the amendments go too far, and that no licensed physician will remain willing to author a valid exemption under the new statutory framework.
‘Any American, let alone a licensed professional, who is told they will have to work for free, told they will be monitored and tracked for doing their work — and further told a simple accusation will make them guilty until proven innocent — would quit their job,’ Dundas said. ‘SB 276 bill targets the very professionals who save our children’s lives.'”
Many California Pediatricians Refuse to Write Exemptions
Dundas’ prediction appears to have come true already. According to Advocates for Physicians’ Rights, pediatricians in California have already stopped issuing medical exemptions en masse. The group claims to have called 882 California doctors asking to receive “a medical exemption for a child who suffered an anaphylactic reaction after [his] 12-month shots.”35
They were repeatedly told the doctor was not issuing medical exemptions for any reason — and requires a complete vaccination history for all patients. A video featuring several of these calls was posted on the organization’s Facebook page on August 30, 2019.36
If this accurately mirrors the current state of affairs in California, this means children who have already suffered a severe and potentially life-threatening vaccine reaction not only may have a very difficult time finding a doctor who will write them a medical vaccine exemption, they also may not be able to get basic health checkups and medical attention unless fully vaccinated. This could well turn into a life-threatening Catch-22 for many families.
Remember, this is not about protecting the public from measles. It’s about enforcing a full vaccination schedule from cradle to grave, one slippery-sloped step at a time. Eventually, you won’t be able to go to school or work in a public building without every single vaccine recommended on the adult schedule. It’s just a matter of time.
Driving this agenda are millions of dollars of donations. The palms of California lawmakers were greased in 2015,37 which led to the revocation of the religious and philosophical belief exemption.
So far in 2019, health and pharmaceutical lobbyists have doled out $155,174,705 to push their various agendas forward,38 and one of those agendas is a mandatory cradle to grave vaccination schedule for everyone.
It stands to reason that people have different biological weaknesses, and the push for a one-size-fits-all regimen means a lot of children will be sacrificed “for the greater good.” But how can a public health program simply slaughter the vulnerable rather than taking measures to protect everyone?
“Public health” by definition includes everyone. Yet when it comes to vaccination, this inclusivity and right of everyone to pursue optimal health doesn’t seem to apply anymore. It’s imperative that we continue to fight for the right to life and health of all children, not just those who can survive vaccination.
One of the most powerful videos I’ve ever seen
The following video from Barbara Loe Fisher is one of the most powerful videos that I have ever seen. I am hopeful that watching this video will inspire you to take up the cause and join the fight for vaccine freedom and independence.
There is a cultural war and collusion between many industries and federal regulatory agencies that results in a suppression of the truth about vital important health issues. If this suppression continues we will gradually and progressively erode our private individual rights that our ancestors fought so hard to achieve. Please take a few minutes to watch this video.
Protect your right to informed consent and defend vaccine exemptions
With all the uncertainty surrounding the safety and efficacy of vaccines, it’s critical to protect your right to make independent health choices and exercise voluntary informed consent to vaccination. It is urgent that everyone in America stand up and fight to protect and expand vaccine informed consent protections in state public health and employment laws. The best way to do this is to get personally involved with your state legislators and educate the leaders in your community.
Think globally, act locally
National vaccine policy recommendations are made at the federal level but vaccine laws are made at the state level. It is at the state level where your action to protect your vaccine choice rights can have the greatest impact.
It is critical for EVERYONE to get involved now in standing up for the legal right to make voluntary vaccine choices in America because those choices are being threatened by lobbyists representing drug companies, medical trade associations and public health officials, who are trying to persuade legislators to strip all vaccine exemptions from public health laws.
Signing up for NVIC’s free Advocacy Portal at www.NVICAdvocacy.org gives you immediate, easy access to your own state legislators on your smartphone or computer so you can make your voice heard. You will be kept up to date on the latest state bills threatening your vaccine choice rights and will get practical, useful information to help you become an effective vaccine choice advocate in your own community.
Also, when national vaccine issues come up, you will have the up-to-date information and call-to-action items you need at your fingertips. So, please, as your first step, sign up for the NVIC Advocacy Portal.
Share your story with the media and people you know
If you or a family member has suffered a serious vaccine reaction, injury or death, please talk about it. If we don’t share information and experiences with one another, everybody feels alone and afraid to speak up. Write a letter to the editor if you have a different perspective on a vaccine story that appears in your local newspaper. Make a call in to a radio talk show that is presenting only one side of the vaccine story.
I must be frank with you: You have to be brave because you might be strongly criticized for daring to talk about the “other side” of the vaccine story. Be prepared for it and have the courage to not back down. Only by sharing our perspective and what we know to be true about vaccination will the public conversation about vaccination open up so people are not afraid to talk about it.
We cannot allow the drug companies and medical trade associations funded by drug companies or public health officials promoting forced use of a growing list of vaccines to dominate the conversation about vaccination.
The vaccine injured cannot be swept under the carpet and treated like nothing more than “statistically acceptable collateral damage” of national one-size-fits-all mandatory vaccination policies that put way too many people at risk for injury and death. We shouldn’t be treating people like guinea pigs instead of human beings.
Internet resources where you can learn more
I encourage you to visit the website of the nonprofit charity, the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), at www.NVIC.org:
- NVIC Memorial for Vaccine Victims — View descriptions and photos of children and adults who have suffered vaccine reactions, injuries and deaths. If you or your child experiences an adverse vaccine event, please consider posting and sharing your story here.
- If You Vaccinate, Ask 8 Questions — Learn how to recognize vaccine reaction symptoms and prevent vaccine injuries.
- Vaccine Freedom Wall — View or post descriptions of harassment and sanctions by doctors, employers and school and health officials for making independent vaccine choices.
- Vaccine Failure Wall — View or post descriptions about vaccines that have failed to work and protect the vaccinated from disease.
Connect with your doctor or find a new one who will listen and care
If your pediatrician or doctor refuses to provide medical care to you or your child unless you agree to get vaccines you don’t want, I strongly encourage you to have the courage to find another doctor. Harassment, intimidation and refusal of medical care are becoming the modus operandi of the medical establishment in an effort to stop the change in attitude of many parents about vaccinations after they become truly educated about health and vaccination. However, there is hope.
At least 15% of young doctors recently polled admit that they’re starting to adopt a more individualized approach to vaccinations in direct response to the vaccine safety concerns of parents.
It is good news that there is a growing number of smart young doctors who prefer to work as partners with parents in making personalized vaccine decisions for children, including delaying vaccinations or giving children fewer vaccines on the same day, or continuing to provide medical care for those families who decline use of one or more vaccines.
So, take the time to locate a doctor who treats you with compassion and respect, and who is willing to work with you to do what is right for your child.
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