Most children in California must be vaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella before starting school.
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By Tara Haelle of Nature magazine
More than ten years after a study in The Lancet falsely linked autism to the measles, mumps and rubella triple vaccine, evidence of reduced immunization rates and rising incidence of disease are spurring politicians to try to make up lost ground.
California has tightened the laws that allow parents in the state to opt out of immunization for their children. It now joins Washington and Vermont in requiring parents who want an exemption to demonstrate that they have received factual information about the risks and benefits of vaccination from a health-care practitioner or the state’s health department.
New Jersey is also considering a bill to strengthen exemption requirements, and similar legislation in Arizona has died in previous legislative sessions, but may be re-introduced next year. The issue is not a partisan one: bills have sponsors in both parties. And it has been recognized outside the medical community — although the California sponsor, Richard Pan (Democrat), is a pediatrician, most of the legislators have no medical background.
Legal loopholes
Each US state sets its own vaccination policies, and most will not generally allow children to attend public school unless they have been vaccinated against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (whooping cough); hepatitis B; the Haemophilus influenzae bacterium; measles, mumps and rubella; polio; and varicella (chicken pox). However, 20 states — including California, Washington and Vermont — allow exemptions for personal or philosophical belief, and 48 offer religious exemptions. All states permit exemptions for legitimate medical reasons.
But exemption rates are growing. In Washington, 6% of children entering kindergarten in 2010–11 had an exemption; in Vermont, the figure was 6.2%, compared with the US average of 1.5%. In California, exemptions rates rose by 25% between 2008 and 2010.
These figures are alarming policy-makers, who fear that vaccination rates may fall below the threshold where even unvaccinated people are protected. "There really is a problem when you don't have herd immunity so that you can stop the infectious diseases," says Senator Karen Keiser (Democrat), who sponsored the Washington law.
Path of least resistance
To increase vaccination rates, law-makers want to make it harder to get an exemption than it is to get a vaccination. "One of the instigators for our laws was the thought that many parents were exempting for convenience," said Michele Roberts, communications manager for the Washington Department of Public Health. "It was easier to sign the exemption form than to track down records or to get your kid to an appointment."
This idea is backed by studies linking the existence of personal-belief exemptions, and the ease of getting them, to reduced vaccination rates and increased incidence of disease.
Diane Peterson, associate director for immunization projects at the Immunization Action Coalition in St Paul, Minnesota, said that strengthening existing rules, for example by requiring a doctor’s signature on exemption forms or asking for annual exemption renewals, is more effective than trying to eliminate philosophical exemptions altogether. "If you don't have a personal-belief exemption, you will have abuse of the religious exemption," she says.
Research by Saad Omer, an epidemiologist at the Emory Vaccine Center in Atlanta, Georgia, points out similar abuses: he and his colleagues have found that medical exemptions are up to six times more common in states that have lax medical-exemption requirements or don't allow philosophical exemptions.
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45 Comments
Add CommentThere is a positive aspect to allowing parents to not vaccinate their kids. They will be sooner eliminated from the gene pool and that branch of stupidity will be gone. People who get their medical advice from a porn star get what they deserve.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com/Jenny_McCarthy_Body_Count/Home.html
Now this is an interesting article! I'm mostly a libertarian. In a nutshell, that means I live by one simple rule. "I won't tell you what to do. You don't tell me what to do. We may have to agree to build a road."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's that last part which makes this interesting. I don't believe that that anti vaxers are making decisions which affect only themselves or their families. In fact, it can be demonstrated that every decision someone makes to NOT vaccinate themselves or their families, actually *increases* the chances that I or my family will become infected. Ever unvaccinated person weakens the herd's immunity and I'm not ok with that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRclbfK5q08&feature=youtube_gdata_player
The California Health Department used extreme coercion to convince us to vaccinate our three-week-old son for Hepatitis B (a sexually transmitted disease - not much of a risk for infants). Immediately after the shot, he entered a near coma of crying and emotional withdrawal - obvious extreme trauma - that lasted about three days. He was later diagnosed with autism. The suffering we've experienced due to our bad decision is indescribable. After studying the issue (I'm a Ph.D. with three M.A.s, so I know how to do research) I think we need a revolution in this country for many reasons, one of which is to stop the medical industry from injecting formaldehyde, mercury and other extreme toxins into our children. My friend the late Lynn Margulis, the greatest biological scientist of the century, said on my radio show that as a general rule, you should NEVER INJECT ANYTHING, EVER - certainly not the stuff in vaccines!!! The skin barrier is there for a reason.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@Kevin Nice Anecdote. Sorry for your problem, but it has been proven time and again that Autism and Vaccines are not related by people who's job it is to do Real research into this without a bias....you wouldn't be biased would you? If you have a PhD and 3 MA's you'd understand fully how you of all people should not be conducting research on autism issues, but I suppose if your grief is clouding your judgement, one thing just leads to another. It is people like you who really are the problem. If you don't want to INJECT ANYTHING EVER, Don't, but don't hold up your PhD as proof the rest of us shouldn't either, not to mention you are making a fine living now on this issue with your radio show and all. Have you considered where we'd be if everyone took your advice? The PhD education shows you should be capable of understanding how hundreds of thousands of kids would die before adulthood and diseases would kill many people each year. Read about it here. http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/whatifstop.htm
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@chaz I'm kind of bored and willing to look about for citations. I'll take the obvious ones in order. 1)hepatitis B vaccine has been shown to last at least 25 years which is why they're getting to it early. (PMID 17298912) 2)Formaldehyde is naturally produced to make amino acids. The tiny amount we *add* to that in a vaccine is not shown to be harmful. (FDA page for vaccine safety FAQ) 3)Thermosol, the mercury containing material, has been eliminated or reduced to trace amounts for kid's vaccines. Trace being 1 microgram. 30 being the allowable per-day limit. (FDA faq again) I have to go someplace now unfortunately. :)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe medical establishment is seeking a cure for the human race. It will be partly successful. The prediction is a third of the planet will die from it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDr Oz did not vaccinate his children
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNeither did the Wizard of Oz. Your point?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisKevin, if you know how to research so well, then why do you seem unaware that the paper that linked vaccines to autism was withdrawn due to fraud? The guy who did the study lost his medical license over the deal. And while Margulis did contribute to biology, she also denied evolution, AIDS/HIV, and was a 911 truther, thus proving that even smart people can believe crazy things. As littlekreen pointed out, the substances in the vaccines are safe.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm sorry if your child really did suffer, but your ignorance is causing you to misplace your anger. Vaccines save countless lives through disease prevention and all the evidence in the world screams the truth of that. Working against the use of vaccines is literally sentencing people to death by diseases that we can easily prevent. Don't seek vengeance for your child's suffering by supporting a cause that will kill more children.
Time and again youngsters are rendered DEAF by (Merck) MMR vaccine; the so-called cure is far worse than the disease.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd now back-pain steroid injections kill - there is NO SAFE anything.
It was NOT your bad decision to cave under the enormous weight of government pressure in the guise of idiot bureaucrats, with or without an M.D. after their name. The murder of our youngsters is simply part of the 'globalist' mentality to reduce population; these Lefties/Democrats don't care whose kid they kill, including some of their own.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSuch a strange mentality. Vaccines are responsible for large increase in population not a reduction. If the government was out to reduce population, giving out vaccines is the last thing they would do.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWouldn't forcing someone to be injected by something against their will be analogous to rape? It would be violating their body in a very personal and permanent way. I, for one, get many vaccines (not flu shot since that is just a crap shoot), but I would never even think about forcing someone else too. The fact that people are discussing forcing injections onto people means we are quite a sad state when it comes to morality and civil liberties.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo, it would not. Rape can only harm the victim, while vaccines are universally better than the alternative (that's why we use them).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHard cases make bad medicine. Reasoning by anecdote, however painful those anecdotes are, is not reasoning. I went through the standard search when I found out my child had cystic fibrosis (the genetics were poorly described, though known to be Mendelian recessive, it was thought to require an environmental trigger). Was it my diet (not enough selenium?). Was it some other controllable factor? Was I to blame? But in the end, simple randomness ruled the day. Luckily for many others, I did not leverage my hard case to make bad medicine for others.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen forming a defensive line for what "science" wants the public to believe, "science" devotees can remarkably easily display tendencies eminently at odds with the very rules of "science" itself.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAmong other things, the readiness to accept the bizarre rise in autism rates, from about 1 in at least 150 in 2002, to 1 in 125 in 2004, to about 1 in 110 around 2006, to about 1 in 88 in 2008. It's interesting that the reported rate has stabilized apparently in the four years since 2008, perhaps due to the increased emphasis on suspicion in vaccines since that date!
Shills insist, though, that "perhaps" the widening of the "definition" of autism has brought in more children. But, then, it should be possible to find a chart indicating the specific combinations of "traits" and how many have been declared "autistic" on the basis of those different combinations. After this comment is placed, the New World Order can quickly concoct such a chart, but it was never made a point of major discussion before.
Of course "science" devotees won't state chapter and verse where it was definitively and verifiably proved, in an incontrovertible form that can be placed literally tangibly into the hands of the "rank and file", that different vaccines do not cause autism, either alone or in various combinations. A lot of shills for the NWO will weasel out by saying, "You can't prove a negative", then go on, in other venues, to state, unequivocally, that it's been "proved" that vaccines don't cause autism. Of course, when the hammer falls and it's finally revealed that autism does come from vaccine treatment, quislings will bleat, "Well, we said vaccines don't cause autism, and by that, we meant all vaccines don't cause it! We never said one or two or a combination don't cause it! So we didn't lie!" In the same way, note the insistence on discussing only a few facets of vaccine make-up, such as Thimerosal, ignoring all the many others, and, from that one claimed "exoneration", "concluding" that "nothing in vaccines represents a threat"!
Note, also, that "science" no longer tries to applaud vaccines, apparently because it can't, and so has started lumping trust in vaccines with belief in climate change. If you don't trust vaccines then you aren't as intelligent as those who believe climate is changing. Note also Mellem's use of the disparaging lumping someone who mistrusts vaccines with those who recognize that the "official story" of September 11 is a lie, another position "science" devotees have apparently been ordered to condemn.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow many making all these "arguments" in favor of vaccines noticed such things as that the autism rate in places like Alabama has actually dropped? Or don't they advertise that because Alabama doesn't trust vaccines? How many realize, too, that the autism rate in boys is about five times that in girls, about 1 in 54 in boys, 1 in 252 in girls? How unlikely is it that the NWO wants to weed out as "undesirable" and, therefore, medically "treatable" facets of human behavior that threaten worldwide NWO enslavement? One of the characteristics that seem to be invoked in "judging" a child to have autism is "failure to engage in imitative activities in play", which can be "interpreted" as an insistence on individuality! Individuality can be something those who wish to turn all humans into "beasts of burden" might want to eliminate.
How unlikely, too, that the New World Order would deliberately infuse vaccines that can prevent disease with chemicals to destroy human nature? Since there will be no treatments allowed on the market that don't contain the contamination, they will "argue" that you are endangering others' health by foregoing the vaccine, but they won't mention that they are endangering human freedom by requiring that all supposedly health promoting vaccines have clandestine factors that can destroy human character?
hmmm...I agree with what you are saying about vaccines...especially since my mother had polio when I was very small- she was one of the lucky ones who survived and was not crippled...but when I was considering not getting my daughter vaccinated (30+years ago) she was adamant it should not be seen as a personal choice, it was part of our social responsibility.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat said, it seems to me there are all sorts of things that 'libertarians' seem to oppose that could easily still fall into that 'build a road' category.
Vaccines ineffective, parents fear the toxic side effects of vaccines, study after Big Pharma rigged study does not ease the fears, rather it reinforces them, especially after all other independent research shows a link to autism, and many other childhood illnesses and diseases. This is what parents fear and what real reporters would report, what we got is incompetent journalists
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am very sorry your son is autistic, I know the heartbreak that kind of diagnosis brings.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat said, you must know that correlation does not equal causation. For all intents and purposes every child who is diagnosed with autism has been immunized by injection. It is also true that virtually every child who is diagnosed with autism has also had a PKU test, and very likely at least one cold.
There is no scientific research that has shown that immunization causes autism. The same percentage of children who are not immunized become autistic as those who are vaccinated. That is about as close as we can get to 'proof', but unless we find 'the' cause, there can be no ultimate 'proof'
I believe you are looking for something outside to blame...when in fact there is no such animal.
Please cite your sources. I truly want to see the 'independant research' that shows the 'link' to autism. Is it scientific research...or simply independant people saying "my child is autistic, and he was vaccinated...so clearly that was the cause".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are correct that some MMR vaccines have 'caused' deafness:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPermanent hearing loss in one or both ears is a well known complication of measles, mumps and meningitis. It is also well known to occur in children with congenital rubella syndrome (but not after rubella infection after birth). Routine immunizations have made these diseases—and hearing loss from them—much less common. Measles- and mumps-containing vaccines are live attenuated virus vaccines. Hearing loss after measles or mumps vaccine is, therefore, theoretically plausible.
Those cases that were attributable indicate the possibilty of becoming --deaf-- following the MMR vaccine equates to one in 200,000,000 doses.
On the other hand, 90% of non-immunized people will get it if exposed and --death-- resulting from measles equates to 3 for every 1000 cases...
I know which odds I'll choose.
I'm sorry, I did not put the quotes in quotations in my reply to tucanfulano...and did not cite my source...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI got my statement about the hearing loss link to immunizations from: http://www.immunizationinfo.org
Which is information from: "The National Network for Immunization Information (NNii) is an affiliation of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Nurses Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the University of Texas Medical Branch, the Society for Adolescent medicine and the American Medical Association."
Oh darn, I forgot all those people are out to get us...
Why this unwarranted faith in the pharmaceutical companies that make vaccines? There is ample evidence that the corporate tests on the safety of their drugs are very much rigged by cherry picking selected studies. They have done the same on tests of vaccine safety. 1000 tests showing vaccines are safe are worthless when done by companies controlled by the likes of the Bankster Rockefellers and Rothschilds. Materialist science buffs are just as lacking in clear thinking and intuition as religious fundamentalists. Independent tests such as in Denmark have shown strong associations between mercury in vaccines and autism but the US media and US science magazines have lied about this.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy this unwarranted faith in the pharmaceutical companies that make vaccines? There is ample evidence that the corporate tests on the safety of their drugs are very much rigged by cherry picking selected studies. They have done the same on tests of vaccine safety. 1000 tests showing vaccines are safe are worthless when done by companies controlled by the likes of the Bankster Rockefellers and Rothschilds. Materialist science buffs are just as lacking in clear thinking and intuition as religious fundamentalists. Independent tests such as in Denmark have shown strong associations between mercury in vaccines and autism but the US media and US science magazines have lied about this.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou should have a stroll thro the cemetery and look at the cases where 2-4 children in a family have died within a short period [back before vaccinations] and all from things we don't get now. Hands up all those who miss polio too. I am sure there are some cases where vaccination has had unfortunate consequences, but it beats the epidemics of the past.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow many times do we need to say this? WAKEFIELD WAS A LIER. VACCINES DON'T CAUSE AUTISM! YOU HAVE NO EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT YOUR FRINGE HYPOTHESIS*!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this*besides "Jenny McCarthy said so".
There's irony in these comments. The Scientific American "Weekly Review" e-mail I received contained, at the top, the article "Is There A Way To Stop Popular Falsehoods From Morphing Into 'Facts'"? And yet, I read the comments, and I'm struck by how many people haven't gotten the memo.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVaccination saves lives. Period, end of story. And I resent the fact that my kid, who IS immunized, is going to have to be the one to provide "herd immunity" to her classmates whose parents were too ignorant to do that for their own kids.
The government agreed that vaccines caused an autism spectrum disorder in the Hannah Poling case. There are other things besides the mitochondrial mutation in Hannah Poling that make young brains susceptible to the apoptosis (programmed cell death) inducing cytokines stimulated by vaccine. Which vaccines and which mutations just haven't been investigated. One that I have found is the link between Hib vaccine (when improperly administered) and hearing loss and autism in those with connexin-26 mutations. Conexin-26 is not only present in inner ears, it is also crucial in the brain cells. It a parent has any relatives with autism they would be foolish to vaccinate their children before the age of say 4. There are NO state laws that require vaccinations before school age. I am an M.D., with degrees in both biology and psychology. I was a medical director of a vaccine company and have two patents in vaccine technology as well as >50 peer reviewed publications in Science, Nature, PNAS, Lancet etc. Why would you have your young children vaccinated for polio when the only polio in the United States in the last 30 years had been CAUSED by vaccine strains. Why diphtheria before 4 years old? The chances of your child getting diphtheria are essentially zero. You cannot communicate tetanus - why make parents vaccinate - there is no herd immunity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPertussis vaccines protect other people's babies. If you as a mother have immunity your baby is protected. Rubella protects the babies of women who have not been vaccinated, not your child. The blind are leading the blind. Do you actually think that there are not a high percentage of physicians that do NOT vaccinate their children. When studied, the percentage was so high that the study could not be published. Do vaccines cause ALL autism. Of course not. Do vaccines cause some autism. Yes, they certainly do, and you can protect your children by waiting to vaccinate them (If you want to contribute to herd immunity wait until the risk of autism is over)
And how much did Jenny McCarthy pay you to ensure that any study you may have done ended up this way?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVaccines do not contribute significantly to the risk of developing autistic spectrum disorders. There is simply too much evidence that is contrary to the anti-vaxxer POV.
And vaccines cannot harm the victom? No one can ever guarantee that since one cannot account for infinite variance in biology. Also, I just read an article about people dying from tainted vaccines.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo just to get it straight, you would take away a person's right to choose what is injected into their body and force them to be injected?
I am a libertarian and I oppose many things, but the difference is in how we oppose things when compared to liberals and conservatives. I definitely do not oppose vaccines. I am sure I have been vaccinated against more than 95% of the people in this discussion from my time in the military and abroad. I oppose forcing other people to take them. I oppose taking people's choices away. If you want to vaccinate yourself and your children then I would oppose anyone standing in your way. If you don't want to, then I vigorously oppose anyone stabbing and injecting you with a chemical by force.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVaccines are better than the alternative. Don't believe me? Go get dipthera yourself.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWould these "tainted vaccines" be the contaiminated corticosteroid (painkiller) injections on the news recently?
Yes. You are risking my immunocompromised mother's health by not getting vaccinated.
The case was heard and the truth about vaccination is a given. So why cater to a few who pretend to know better. The Swiss have the right attitude; it is illegal to not be vaccinated in CH as it should be every where.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am intrigued that those who fear conspiracies are reluctant to vaccinate.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlmost all the diseases mentioned are highly contagious and on a spectrum between unpleasant and fatal.
It is no coincidence that the only live smallpox viruses in the world are in biowarfare labs.
Perhaps an ad campaign - "Do you fear government and Big Pharma? Vaccinate now before they release mutant superbugs on your neighbourhood". Or an internet meme, suggesting that government/pharma is deliberately warning about autism etc, so that troublemaking smart people who make a conscious decision to refuse vaccination can be easily wiped out...
But seriously, your right to have an unvaccinated child should be akin to your right to a rabid pet dog. Either it's illegal, or you can only keep it in private.
If you want your child to share air in a confined classroom, bus, or plane; or attend a public event like sports or concerts, he must be vaccinated before he breathes measles or meningococcus on a newborn baby, an HIV-positive man, or a woman on chemo. Try flying from kenya to Tanzania - if you don't have your WHO Yellow Fever immunization certificate, you will be injected or deported.
Some of us don't have the option of a robust immune system.
@ Diogenes (one of my favorite Greek philosophers!):
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"""I am intrigued that those who fear conspiracies are reluctant to vaccinate."""
It's from the same root mental state.
"""Almost all the diseases mentioned are highly contagious and on a spectrum between unpleasant and fatal."""
Which is why we have vaccines for them.
"""It is no coincidence that the only live smallpox viruses in the world are in biowarfare labs.
Perhaps an ad campaign - "Do you fear government and Big Pharma? Vaccinate now before they release mutant superbugs on your neighbourhood". Or an internet meme, suggesting that government/pharma is deliberately warning about autism etc, so that troublemaking smart people who make a conscious decision to refuse vaccination can be easily wiped out..."""
Dude, that would be hilarious and most likely effective. My dad works in medical devices (needles, syringes, etc.), and works on vaccination campaigns with the CDC sometimes. I'll fly that one past him.
"""But seriously, your right to have an unvaccinated child should be akin to your right to a rabid pet dog. Either it's illegal, or you can only keep it in private.
If you want your child to share air in a confined classroom, bus, or plane; or attend a public event like sports or concerts, he must be vaccinated before he breathes measles or meningococcus on a newborn baby, an HIV-positive man, or a woman on chemo. Try flying from kenya to Tanzania - if you don't have your WHO Yellow Fever immunization certificate, you will be injected or deported."""
Case in point.
"""Some of us don't have the option of a robust immune system."""
I assume that you've of "bubble-boy syndrome" (technically CID, I think). There are so many immunodeficiency disorders and causes that it's hard to count them all.
My approach would be to allow parents to not vaccinate their children if they so desire, but then they must keep their disease-ridden children out of school. Just like we keep contaminated food out of the school cafeteria, we should keep contaminated kids out of the classrooms and playgrounds.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis also protects the un-vaccinated children. Since they are not protected from the diseases, they should keep their outside contacts to a minimum.
But there are places outside of school where these children would come into onctact with other people. One sick kid coughing up *Bordetalla pertussis* onto my immunocompromised mother at the store could kill her.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTwo children rendered deaf out of around a billion saved from death is mighty good odds in favor of the MMR vaccination. Particularly since the vaccine that caused the problem was found to be defective.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo you say that we should return to pre-vaccinations 80% child mortality rate from our current rate of less than 5%? You are simply a monster!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI just looked up the Danish studies on Vaccines and Autism. You, txbodhi, are a blatant liar. The Danish study proved that vaccinations have no link to Autism. That is the actual conclusion published in the study. I don't know what is wrong with you but you should really get some help.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe government you refer to did not in fact, state that the vaccination caused the autism. They stated quite clearly that "the claim sounds plausible". On that basis, with out any evidence, they awarded damages.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is hardly proof and just weakens your argument.
I oppose your demand that 4 children must die for every child not vaccinated to reduce the risk of autism. That is the actual result of your insane position on the topic and there are far more military people that disagree with you than agree.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIntelligent people differ on this.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI just got turned down for the first year on my exemption in NM. I don't support the multi-shot, multi-valent approach and yet, options are not available. So I can't in good conscience choose MMR for my child. Public Health officials do not listen to the concerns of parents but press forward to force vaccination.
Some of the public health argument for vaccines is no different from social engineering. Why not sterilize criminals? It would save lives, right? Better for the majority, even if some people's rights are trammeled on the way.
The vaccine industry has not be receptive to mercury concerns and it took a huge effort to get that far. Small amounts are very dangerous.
Parents whose children have gotten sick and lost their mental and social abilities from a vaccine are told they're delusional because a lab controlled study (who paid for those, anyway? Where does CDC money come from? Who benefits from the results?) discounts their experience.
The industry could make single valent vaccines, break up the MMR, allow parents other pathways, like vaccination far later. Why not? Because it isn't convenient to the institutions who manage this business.
More pricks of the needle are the reason I've been told for formulating these package shots, but really? That's our biggest concern: squeamish customers? Oy.
I've read and heard personally about MMR shot leaading directly to autism and am appalled how readily public health argues that increasing diagnosis doesn't mean more victims. Teachers can tell you otherwise. It's on the rise, so now what?
Our vaccine studies are not funded in political vacuums. Regardless of the Lancet study's mess, does that mean there's nothing behind the obviously tragic reactions to vaccinations? The arguments that it is coincidence are made of straw, so now what?
What if the government mandated that all children drink milk to prevent bone issues? But refused to acknowledge a parent's precautionary concern about hormones in the milk. Industry would fund studies to disprove any harm from the hormones and eventually the system would offer some other kind of milk and everyone would move on. That's what happened.
Focus more attention on policing industry and pollution and stop policing decent people who are not making this stuff up. A few people might do this out of ignorance, but most of us are very careful and pick and choose when it makes sense and which ones are urgent.
And I don't think it was fair of Mellem to say the parent is seeking vengeance. The parent is merely expressing their experience, and we need to hear from one another. Experience, like observation, is an essential part of science, not just empty posturing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this