Dr. Mercola
November 4, 2010
In the early 1950s, the United States administered four vaccines -- diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis and smallpox. Children received 13 doses of four vaccines by the time they were two years old and not more than three vaccines in a single visit.
By the mid-1980s, there were seven vaccines -- diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, measles, mumps, rubella and polio.
Children received 15 doses of seven vaccines by the time they were two years old and not more than four vaccines in a single visit.
Since the mid-1980s, many vaccines have been added to the schedule.
Today, children may receive as many as 37 doses of 14 vaccines by the age of two, and as many as eight vaccines in a single visit!
The United States recommends more vaccines than any country in world. The CDC recommends 48 doses of 14 vaccines by age six, and 69 doses of 16 vaccines by age 18.
The CDC also recommends an annual flu shot for all Americans from six months of age through year of death.
What exactly is fueling this dramatic rise in the number of shots recommended to our children and adults?
Are Infectious Diseases on the Rise?
Outside of an occasional local outbreak, like the recent whooping cough epidemic in California that the media blew completely out of proportion, the diseases included on the vaccination schedule are actually stable in the 21st century United States.
According to Dr. Robert Sears, author of The Vaccine Book, the number of childhood cases of diseases included on the vaccine schedule, in the U.S. in 2007, was:
* Pneumococus -- approx. 10,000 cases a year
* Diphtheria - 5 cases per year, 0 cases some years
* Tetanus - 1 case per year in children under 5
* Pertussis - approx. 10,000 cases a year
* Hepatitus B - 30 cases in 1 year olds, 30 cases in 1-5 year olds
* Rotavirus - 500,000 cases, 50,000 hospitalizations, 20-70 deaths
* Polio - 0 cases since 1985
* Measles - 50-100 cases a year
* Mumps - 250 cases a year
* Rubella - 250 cases a year
* Chickenpox - 50,000 cases a year
* Hepatitis A - 10,000 cases a year, most in children aged 5-14
* Flu - Millions of cases
* Meningococcal Disease - approx. 3000 cases a year
Media stories about an occasional local outbreak of a disease, usually designed to promote as much fear as possible, never seem to balance their accounts with readily available statistics supporting the facts about childhood diseases in the U.S.
Has the incidence of serious infectious childhood disease in the U.S been reduced solely due to widespread use of vaccines (as vaccine proponents always claim), or has improved sanitation, health care and living conditions played a big role both before and after vaccines came on the scene?
Are other first-world nations, which are currently giving fewer vaccines to their children than the U.S., experiencing a similar drop in infectious diseases thanks to improved living conditions?
With some of the highest vaccine rates on earth, does the United States have the world's healthiest children?
To better answer these questions, we have to look at the overall picture of the health of our children in the United States.
Has More Vaccination Led to More Health?
Unfortunately in the United States, especially when it comes to anything that has to do with your health, there is a misguided notion that more is always better. You see this time and time again in products on pharmacy shelves marketed as "maximum strength". You could say the U.S has a fascination with believing that if a little is good, a lot must be better.
This is not always the case. Take for instance aspirin, considered by many to be one of the safest drugs. If you take two aspirin, your headache may disappear. If you take ten, you may experience some serious problems. If you take 50, you better hope there's a hospital nearby!
The question must be asked -- has dramatically increasing the number of vaccines given to our children during the past 30 years actually led to healthier or sicker children?
There is accumulating evidence that dramatically increasing the numbers of vaccinations our children get has made vaccine makers richer, while America's children are moving in the opposite direction of health -- statistics show they are actually getting sicker...
During the past 30 years, the number of vaccinations our children receive has tripled, and during that same period of time, the number of children with learning disabilities, ADHD, asthma and diabetes has also more than tripled!
Vaccine makers and proponents will tell you that these statistics are unrelated. But no good scientific evidence currently exists that demonstrates vaccines ARE NOT contributing to the increasing incidence of chronic illness and disability in our children.
More than twice as many children have chronic brain and immune system dysfunction today than they did in the 1970s when half as many vaccines were given to children.
Sadly, today in America:
* 1 in 6 children is diagnosed with a learning disability
* 1 in 9 children suffer from asthma
* 1 in 110 develop autism
* 1 in 450 become diabetic
As the National Vaccine Information Center asks in a bulletin entitled "48 Doses of Vaccines Before Age 6" :
"Is the atypical manipulation of the immune system with more and more vaccines in early life setting some children up for chronic disease and disability?
IS LESS BETTER?"
Clearly, more and more vaccines are not solving the widespread health problems currently affecting our children. The fact is, vaccines could be a major part of the problem.
Flu Shots for ALL Americans
Today, the most common childhood infection is influenza, and in the past few years federal health officials have directed doctors to give all Americans an annual flu shot, from six months of age onward, until the year of death.
New Jersey has also passed a law requiring all children attending daycare or pre-school to get an annual flu shot, and some health care workers are being fired if they refuse to get an annual flu shot.
This can only be viewed as the prelude to a much larger campaign that, in the future, may end up dictating whether you will be allowed to enter higher education, get a job, or even travel... Simply put, this trend of mandating annual influenza vaccinations must be resisted and stopped.
Is There Evidence the Flu Shot is Necessary, Safe or Effective?
Many studies funded by pharmaceutical companies selling vaccines have "proved" that influenza vaccine is safe and effective. But independent reviews of those studies have found the opposite is true.
Studies are now showing what people who refuse to take flu shots have known for a long time: that flu shots simply do not work as advertised.
For example:
* Giving young children flu shots appeared to have no impact on flu-related doctor visits or hospitalizations during two recent flu seasons, according to a study published in the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine.
* The flu vaccine is no more effective for children than a placebo, according to a large-scale, systematic review of 51 studies, published in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.
* NO studies have conclusively proven that flu shots prevent flu-related deaths among the elderly.
* A study published in the Lancet found that influenza vaccination was NOT associated with a reduced risk of pneumonia in older people.
* Research published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine also confirms that there has been no decrease in deaths from influenza and pneumonia, despite the fact that vaccination coverage among the elderly has increased from 15 percent in 1980 to 65 percent today.
For even more information, studies, and statistics about the flu shot, please review this previous article.
In 2009, public health doctors at the World Health Organization (WHO) and in the U.S. declared a H1N1 "swine flu" pandemic when a new bird-swine-human strain of H1N1 influenza was identified in Mexico.
However, the 2009 "swine flu" pandemic turned out to be very mild - one of the mildest influenza seasons in recent years, in fact! -- while the pandemic H1N1 swine flu vaccine turned out to be HIGHLY reactive.
It has been alleged that the 2009 pandemic H1N1 swine flu vaccine is much more deadly than the swine flu itself. In fact, in 2010 Australia temporarily banned use of seasonal influenza vaccine containing the pandemic H1N1 strain for children under the age of five after 99 children were admitted to the hospital with convulsions after receiving the shot!
The U.S. 2010/2011 seasonal influenza vaccine contains the pandemic H1N1 vaccine strain that caused so many convulsions in Australian children.
A federal oversight committee reviewing the 2009 pandemic H1N1 vaccine used in the U.S. found a possible link between the swine flu vaccine with Guillain-Barrre Syndrome (GBS), idiopathic thrombocytopenia purpura (ITP), a blood clotting disorder, and Bell's Palsy, which causes facial paralysis,
It's astounding how effective drug companies are at manipulating national health policy. They have been able to manipulate and pervert the public health system so they now can sell toxic, ineffective flu shots in pharmacies, airports, college campuses, grocery stores, and countless other outlets, without ANY solid evidence that the flu shots even work, and despite the many questionable ingredients found in the shots, such as:
* Thimerosal, which is known to be very toxic by inhalation, ingestion, and in contact with skin, (still included in multi-dose flu vaccine despite a legitimate public outcry about the known dangers of mercury!)
* Formaldehyde or Formalin
* Chicken kidney cells, aka Chicken DNA
* Monosodium glutamate
* Octoxinol-9 (Triton X-100), also used in spermicidal applications!
Since we don't know whether many of our sick and disabled children are chronically ill because they've already been over-vaccinated, why are we trying to force more vaccines, like the ineffective and risky flu vaccine, on them?
And why are governments constantly trying to mandate even more shots for children?
Follow the Money
The vaccine industry seems to view the 308 million people living in the United States as little more than pin cushions for their profitable vaccine products.
Pharmaceutical profits from swine-flu-related drugs alone have soared - with earnings between $10 billion and $15 billion in 2009, according to estimates from investment bank JPMorgan.
A report from 2007 entitled "Pipeline and Commercial Insight: Pediatric and Adolescent Vaccines," written by vaccine analyst Hedwig Kresse, makes some interesting points about the future of vaccine profits.
The report includes an assessment of products and forecast of market size and coverage rates to the year 2016, predicting that due to the "promising commercial potential" of new, high-price vaccines, the pediatric and adolescent vaccine market will quadruple from approximately $4.3 billion in 2006, to over $16 billion by 2016, across the US, the EU-five including France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK, and Japan.
The crucial factor for success in the pediatric market, the report notes, is the introduction of products into the national vaccination schedules.
As an example, Dr. Kresse cites Wyeth's Prevnar, as the first premium price vaccine launched in the US in 2000 for vaccinating infants against pneumonia and meningitis. Since then, Prevnar has been added to the childhood vaccination schedules in the US and EU-five despite its high price of nearly $320 for the four-dose regimen.
The sad reality could be that the motivation for continually increasing both the number of shots given and the price of the vaccines is nothing more than a desire by big Pharma to improve "market share" and profits.
The Alliance Between the Vaccine Industry and the Government
In the first quarter of 2010 alone, the US federal government representatives received $19 million per day from lobbyists, and over $1 billion in total lobbyist spending, a large chunk of the money coming from the health care sector.
Keep in mind, this is only federal lobbying efforts. This figure doesn't take into account the millions more spent lobbying at the state level, not to mention the cozy lobbying arrangements between the drug reps and individual doctors.
Why this massive lobbying push by the vaccine industry?
One of the reasons (certainly not the only one), is to influence vaccine mandates. The vaccine industry has a vested interest in (and continually spends big money on) trying to make sure that more vaccines and more doses are mandated by the government.
For every mandate they have successfully pushed through, there are some recent ones that have failed due to action taken by parents of vaccine injured children and others to defeat them.
Currently in California, there is a bill under consideration to make pertussis vaccine booster doses mandatory for all children between 7th and 12th grade.
And in New York there has been a battle over a bill to make flu shots mandatory for all health care workers, and those who refuse an annual flu shot stand to lose their job.
There are also a whopping 145 additional vaccines in the pipeline being developed and tested in clinical trials. Since drug companies are going to want a stable, predictable market in the U.S. for these new vaccines, they're likely to press for mandated use of many of them, both by children and adults.
Prejudice Against the Unvaccinated?
One of your basic freedoms as a human being is your right to decide what you put into your own body.
Especially when it comes to medical risk-taking, there is a basic human right to be fully informed about all risks and have the ability to refuse to allow substances you consider to be harmful, toxic or poisonous to be forced upon you.
But are those of us who are trying to exercise our right to informed consent to medical risk-taking facing prejudice and discrimination?
When it comes to getting an education, keeping your job, or being allowed to obtain health insurance and medical care, the answer could soon be "yes."
Besides the potential looming threat of job loss for unvaccinated health care workers in New York, students in all 50 US states are required to get dozens of doses of vaccines to enroll in school (exemptions to this requirement do exist however. More about that in a minute).
Furthermore, according to WebMD, the new government healthcare reform may include trying to make vaccines mandatory, meaning a real possibility now exists that you will be required to receive mandated vaccines to qualify for health insurance:
"The CDC almost certainly will make universal flu vaccination official U.S. policy for this fall's 2010-2011 flu season, as it consistently follows the advice of the panel of outside experts, called the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP)."
The partnership between government health agencies and big Pharma, based on ideology, profit-making and bad science, is moving closer and closer to discriminating against those who want to exercise their informed consent rights when it comes to making voluntary vaccination decisions.
The Vaccine Industry's Fight Against Exemptions
Not only do the vaccine manufacturers want to take away your freedom of choice, there is also a new push coming from the vaccine industry to remove the existing non-medical legal exemptions to vaccination, which include:
* Religious Exemption-- All states allow a religious exemption to vaccination except Mississippi and West Virginia.
* Philosophical, Personal or Conscientious Belief Exemption-- The following 18 states allow exemption to vaccination based on philosophical, personal or conscientiously held beliefs: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.
These exemptions are apparently viewed by the vaccine industry as unfair market practices that interfere with their ability to maximize profits. There is nothing the drug companies would like more than to make all their vaccines mandatory, without exception. And unfortunately, through extremely powerfully lobbying, they've managed to manipulate our politicians and public health officials to help them push their wares.
Do you want your right to make informed health and vaccine choices for yourself and your family taken out of your hands?
They do. They are fighting to do just that.
Will you let them?
Dr. Paul "For Profit" Offit
One of the names you see again and again as a proponent for the safety and efficacy of vaccines is Dr. Paul Offit.
Who is Paul Offit?
Dr. Paul Offit, also known as "For Profit" Offit, is a fairly well-known and frequent proponent of forced vaccination. He regularly dismisses many of the potential vaccine risks and promotes vaccine mandates. But he is not just a doctor who believes that vaccinations save lives.
Far from it.
If you want to read a fascinating expose of this doctor, read the recent Philadelphia Magazine expose on him.
Offit is a listed inventor on a cluster of patents that protect Merck's RotaTeq vaccine and share the title "Rotavirus Reassortant Vaccine." They include four granted U.S. patents -- US5626851, US5750109, US6113910 and US6290968 -- and two granted European patents -- EP323708 and EP493575.
He is also the recipient of a $350,000 grant from Merck for the vaccine's development, a consultant to Merck Pharmaceuticals and, the icing on the cake, previously served as a member of The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).
ACIP is a 15-member panel of immunization experts, selected by the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. They provide advice and guidelines to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on vaccine-preventable diseases.
As a member of the ACIP from 1998 to 2003, Offit was involved in CDC recommendations about giving rotavirus vaccine to all babies. He voted "yes" three times out of four on issues pertaining to the ACIP's rotavirus use recommendation.
To clarify, Offit voted for the FIRST Rotashield vaccine manufactured by Wyeth (monkey-human hybrid virus) approved by ACIP in 1998 to be given to all babies. He abstained from the vote in 1999 to recommend that Rotashield be removed from the market.
He did not vote for the Merck RotaTeq vaccine (cow-human hybrid virus) to be recommended for use in all babies because he was prevented under ACIP/government rules from voting to recommend a product he had a personal financial stake in.
As a result of the rotavirus vaccine being added to the CDC's childhood vaccination schedule, the value of Offit's stake in the Merck RotaTeq vaccine he helped to create skyrocketed.
In 2008 CHOP sold its royalty stake in RotaTeq for $182 million, and Offit received an unspecified chunk: his share of the intellectual property, according to him was "in the millions".
Why Isn't This ILLEGAL?
Though Offit declines to say exactly how much he has gained personally, Age of Autism reported that Offit earned at least $29 million, and perhaps as much as $55 million from being a co-inventor of a rotavirus vaccine that was recommended by US public health agencies for universal use by all American babies.
Of course, all of this begs the question -- can someone's vote on an "independent" government vaccine policymaking committee be trusted as being "unbiased" when that person could eventually profit from the committee's vaccine policy recommendation?
Would Offit, or anyone for that matter, truly be an unbiased judge of a vaccine's safety and effectiveness when there is that big of a personal financial stake in the outcome?
It's a rhetorical question, but I think the answer speaks for itself. Especially when you consider that Offit is also the doctor who made the infamous and scientifically irresponsible assertion that "an infant can safely receive up to 10,000 vaccines at once and 100,000 in a lifetime."
The Vaccine Industry's Ethical Questions
Besides the questions of whether vaccines are safe or effective, or whether supposedly independent vaccine advisory panels have been hijacked by doctors with financial conflicts of interest, or whether the questionable ingredients in vaccines have been properly tested for toxicity, there are other questions to consider as well.
No discussion of the business practices of the vaccine industry would be complete without addressing the questionable ethical practices long associated with the pharmaceutical industry.
Numerous times in the past 50 years they have been accused of falsifying drug study results, paying bribes, covering up or omitting side effects and deaths, and denying responsibility when drugs are pulled off the market for killing people.
For an eye-opening introduction to the criminal side of the vaccine industry please review this recent article.
According to an ABC News story from 2010, drug company reps from Eli Lily were instructed by the company to regularly give lavish gifts to doctors, and push more profitable drugs at higher doses in order to maximize profits, regardless of safety concerns. According to the story:
"To sell their drugs, pharmaceutical companies hire former cheerleaders and ex-models to wine and dine doctors, exaggerate the drug's benefits and underplay their side-effects, a former sales rep told a Congressional committee this morning."
With an ethical track record like this, full of outright lies, cover-ups, denials and bribery, how can you trust anything they say?
Always Look for Hidden Motivations
It is understandable that most people would like to believe the words of respected leaders in the health field, and companies claiming they are producing products that save lives.
Unfortunately, it is often naïve to trust blindly.
It's not enough to look at the obvious credentials of people who give you advice and tell you to trust them, whether they are pro- or anti- an issue or hold a prestigious degree and title. Today, you also have to consider the hidden motivations behind their recommendations.
* What do they believe in?
* Where is their loyalty?
* Where is their money coming from?
* What does a company stand to gain financially from a government mandate?
It's very sad to say, but some of the most trusted voices in defense of vaccine safety and forced vaccination policies are closely tied to paid shills for the pharmaceutical industry.
As CBS News reported in 2008, these include:
* The American Academy of Pediatrics, to whom the vaccine industry gives millions for conferences, grants, medical education classes and even to help build their headquarters.
* Every Child By Two, a group that promotes early immunization for all children and admits they receive money from the vaccine industry -- but won't say how much.
* Paul Offit, who in addition to the monies described above holds in a $1.5-million research chair at Children's Hospital, funded by Merck.
So the next time you come across someone arguing in favor of the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, and the need for more vaccines and vaccine mandates, take a moment to investigate the source.
Take the time to research the information they are leaving out of the discussion.
I think if you approach the subject of vaccines in this way, most of the time you will be very surprised by the information you will find.
My Appeal to You
NVIC Advocacy PosterPlease don't sit this one out! We need to take action NOW.
Mercola.com & NVIC are dedicating Nov. 1-6 Vaccine Awareness Week in a joint effort to raise public awareness about important vaccination issues.
Vaccine Awareness Week will feature a series of articles and interviews on vaccine topics of interest to Mercola.com newsletter subscribers and NVIC Vaccine E-newsletter readers.
Tell everyone. Tell your friends, your family. With a little bit of effort, we can make significant strides toward preserving our freedom to make voluntary health decisions affecting our future, especially our children's future.
One of the top goals for NVIC is preserving your freedom of choice about if and when to use vaccines. This non-profit charity has been fighting for your right to make informed VOLUNTARY vaccine choices since 1982.
During this Vaccine Awareness Week, NVIC is launching the online NVIC Advocacy Portal that will give you the tools you need to take action to protect legal medical, religious and conscientious belief exemptions to vaccination in YOUR state.
Please take a moment to register for the NVIC Advocacy Portal at www.NVICadvocacy.org TODAY!
And while you are at it, please make a donation to NVIC so they can continue fighting on behalf of all Americans to make sure we don't lose our informed consent rights when it comes to vaccination.
Your Donations to the NVIC help fund efforts that raise vaccine awareness, including the following excellent vaccine resources:
* Special Report: Influenza Vaccine Mandates Ineffective & Unwise
* Are You Over Vaccinating Your Child?
* Vaccine Ingredients Calculator
* How to Legally Avoid Immunizations
Stay tuned to this newsletter for more updates, or follow the National Vaccine Information Center on Facebook. Together we CAN make a difference!
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