Alan
Phillips
The Federal government VAERS
(Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System) was established by Congress under the National
Childhood Vaccine Injury Compensation Act of 1986. It receives about 11,000 reports of
serious adverse reactions to vaccinations annually, which include as many as one to two
hundred deaths, and several times that number of permanent disabilities. VAERS officials
report that 15% of adverse events are "serious" (emergency room trip,
hospitalization, life-threatening episode, permanent disability, death). Independent
analysis of VAERS reports has revealed that up to 50% of reported adverse events for the
Hepatitis B vaccine are "serious." While these figures are alarming, they are
only the tip of the iceberg. The FDA estimates that as few as 1% of serious adverse
reactions to vaccines are reported (3,4),, and the CDC admits that only about 10% of such
events are reported.(5) In fact, Congress has heard testimony that medical students are
told not to report suspected adverse events.(6)
The National Vaccine Information
Center (NVIC, a grassroots organization founded by parents of vaccine-injured and killed
children) has conducted its own investigations.t reported: "In New York, only one out
of 40 doctor's offices confirmed that they report a death or injury following
vaccination." In other words, 97.5% of vaccine related deaths and disabilities go
unreported there. Implications about medical ethics aside (federal law directs doctors to
report serious adverse events(7), these findings suggest that vaccine deaths and serious
injuries actually occurring may be from 10 to 100 times greater than the number reported.
With pertussis (often referred to as
"whooping cough"), the number of vaccine-related deaths dwarfs the number of
disease deaths, which have been about 10 annually for many years according to the CDC, and
only 8 in 1993, one of the last peak-incidence years (pertussis runs in 3-4 year cycles;
no none knows why, but vaccination rates have no such cycles). When you factor in
under-reporting, the vaccine may be 100 times more deadly than the disease. Some argue
that this is a necessary cost to prevent the return of a disease that would be more deadly
than the vaccine. But when you consider the fact that the vast majority of disease decline
this century preceded the widespread use of vaccinations (pertussis mortality declined 79%
prior to vaccines), and the fact that rates of disease declines remained virtually
unchanged following the introduction of mass immunization, present day vaccine casualties
cannot reasonably be explained away as a necessary sacrifice for the benefit of a
disease-free society.
Unfortunately, the
vaccine-related-deaths story doesn’t end here. Studies internationally have shown
vaccination to be a cause of SIDS (8,9), (SIDS, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, is a
"catch-all" diagnosis given when the specific cause of death is unknown;
estimates range from 5,000 to 10,000 cases each year in the US). One study found the peak
incidence of SIDS occurred at the ages of 2 and 4 months in the U.S., precisely when the
first two routine immunizations are given,(10) while another found a clear pattern of
correlation extending three weeks after immunization. Another study found that 3,000
children die within 4 days of vaccination each year in the U.S. (amazingly, the authors
reported no SIDS/vaccine relationship), while yet another researcher’s studies led to
the conclusion that at least half of SIDS cases are caused by vaccines.(11)
Initial studies suggesting a causal
relationship between SIDS and vaccines were quickly followed by
vaccine-manufacturer-sponsored studies concluding that there is no relationship between
SIDS and vaccines; one such study claimed that there was a slightly lower incidence of
SIDS in vaccinees. However, many of these studies were called into question by yet another
study that found "confounding" had erroneously skewed the results of these
studies in favor of the vaccine.(12) At best, there is conflicting evidence. But shouldn't
we err on the side of caution? Shouldn't any credible correlation between vaccines and
infant deaths be just cause for meticulous, widespread monitoring of the vaccination
status of all SIDS cases? Health authorities have chosen to err on the side of denial
rather than caution.
In the mid 1970's Japan raised their
vaccination age from two months to two years; their incidence of SIDS dropped
dramatically;(13) they went from an infant mortality ranking of 17 to first in the world
(i.e., Japan had the lowest infant death rate when infants were not being immunized).
England’s vaccination rate temporarily dropped to about 30% at about the same time
following media reports of vaccine-related brain damage. Infant mortality dropped
substantially for about 2 years, then rose again in close correlation to rising
immunization rates in the late 1970’s. Despite these experiences, the medical
community maintains a posture of denial. Coroners don’t check the vaccination status
of SIDS victims, and unsuspecting families continue to pay the price, unaware of the
dangers and denied the right to make an informed choice.
FDA and CDC admissions about the
lack of adverse event reporting suggests that the total number of adverse reactions
actually occurring each year may actually fall within a range of 100,000 to a million
(with "serious" events being approximately 20% of these). This concern is
underscored by a study revealing that 1 in 175 children who completed the full DPT series
suffered "severe reactions,"(14) and a Dr.'s report for attorneys stating that
one in 300 DPT immunizations resulted in seizures.(15)
England actually saw a drop in
pertussis deaths when vaccination rates dropped to 30% in the mid 70's. Swedish
epidemiologist B. Trollfors’ study of pertussis vaccine efficacy and toxicity around
the world found that "pertussis-associated mortality is currently very low in
industrialised countries and no difference can be discerned when countries with high, low,
and zero immunisation rates were compared." He also found that England, Wales, and
West Germany had more pertussis fatalities in 1970 when the immunization rate was high
than during the last half of 1980, when rates had fallen.(16)
Vaccinations cost us more than just
the lives and health of our children. The U.S. Federal Government's National Vaccine
Injury Compensation Program (NVICP) has paid out over $1.2 billion since 1988 to the
families of children injured and killed by vaccines,(17) with money that comes from a tax
on vaccines that vaccine recipients pay. Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies have a
captive market; vaccines are legally mandated in all 50 U.S. states (though legally
avoidable in most; see Myth #9), yet these same companies are "immune" from
accountability for the consequences of their products. Furthermore, they have been allowed
to use "gag orders" as a leverage tool in vaccine damage legal settlements to
prevent disclosure of information to the public about vaccination dangers. Such
arrangements are clearly unethical; they force an uninformed American public to pay for
vaccine manufacturer's liabilities, while ensuring that this same public will remain
ignorant of the dangers of their products. This arrangement also diminishes any incentive
that manufacturers might have to produce safer vaccines (after all, when the vaccine
causes a death or injury, they don’t have to pay for it; they still get their
profit).
It is important to note that
insurance companies, who do the best liability studies, refuse to cover vaccine reactions.
Profits appear to dictate both the pharmaceutical and insurance companies’ positions.
VACCINATION TRUTH #1:
"Vaccination causes
significant death and disability at an astounding personal and financial cost to
uninformed families."
VACCINATION
MYTH #2:
"Vaccines are very
effective..."
...or are they?
The medical literature has a
surprising number of studies documenting vaccine failure. Measles, mumps, small pox,
pertussis, polio and Hib outbreaks have all occurred in vaccinated
populations.(18,19,20,21,22) In 1989 the CDC reported: "Among school-aged
children, [measles] outbreaks have occurred in schools with vaccination levels of greater
than 98 percent.(23) [They] have occurred in all parts of the country, including areas
that had not reported measles for years."(24) The CDC even reported a measles
outbreak in a documented 100% vaccinated population.(25) A study examining this phenomenon
concluded, "The apparent paradox is that as measles immunization rates rise to high
levels in a population, measles becomes a disease of immunized persons."(26) A more
recent study found that measles vaccination "produces immune suppression which
contributes to an increased susceptibility to other infections."(27) These studies
suggest that the goal of complete "immunization" may actually be
counter-productive, a notion underscored by instances in which epidemics followed complete
immunization of entire countries. Japan experienced yearly increases in small pox
following the introduction of compulsory vaccines in 1872. By 1892, there were
29,979 deaths, and all had been vaccinated.(28) In the early 1900’s, the
Philippines experienced their worst smallpox epidemic ever after 8 million people received
24.5 million vaccine doses (achieving a vaccination rate of 95%); the death rate
quadrupled as a result.(29) Before England’s first compulsory vaccination
law in 1853, the largest two-year smallpox death rate was about 2,000; in
1870-71, England and Wales had over 23,000 smallpox deaths.(30) In 1989, the
country of Oman experienced a widespread polio outbreak six months after achieving
complete vaccination.(31) In the U.S. in 1986, 90% of 1300 pertussis cases in Kansas were
"adequately vaccinated."(32) 72% of pertussis cases in the 1993 Chicago outbreak
were fully up to date with their vaccinations.(33)
See more of this paper at Vaccine website
