By Kelly Patton
John and Jane Doe are proud parents of a new baby boy they named Sam. When Sam reaches two months of age, they bring him to his pediatrician for his well-baby check-up. During this routine visit, John and Jane sign a consent form and Sam receives his first DPT shot (Diphtheria, Pertussis, and Tetanus) and oral polio vaccine. The same as with most parents, Sam’s parents believe they are doing what is in the best interest of their child and, although they know the shot hurts, they feel it is necessary to protect him against the diseases. They soon learn how misled they were. Only a few hours after his shot, Sam starts high-pitched screaming accompanied with a high fever and projectile vomiting. He then goes into a seizure, becomes very pale, and finally relaxes into a comatose state, lying still with a spacey stare. John and Jane rush Sam to the hospital, but it is too late because Sam already has brain damage. If they had only been aware of the possible dangers of vaccinations, they would have been able to make an informed decision of whether or not to vaccinate their baby. This is only a hypothetical story, but it is not unlike many parent’s true nightmares.
Mass vaccination has been launched, but the parents of potential children to be vaccinated are being misled about vaccinations, of their rights to choose to vaccinate, and of the potential dangers of the vaccinations being administered to their children. Parents must be given the choice to make a fully informed decision to vaccinate or not. Routine and supposedly mandatory vaccines are given to children in the hopes of protecting them against potentially dangerous viruses such as diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, measles, mumps, rubella, polio, and others. But what is a vaccine and how is it supposed to protect against a disease?
According to the Tenth Edition of Miriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, a vaccine is “a preparation of killed microorganisms, living attenuated organisms, or living fully virulent organisms that is administered to produce or artificially increase immunity to a particular disease.” For one who does not understand the technical terms of this definition, a vaccine is a killed, weakened, or live virus that is either given orally or injected by shot, in the hopes of artificially producing a resistance to a particular virus. Knowing what a vaccine is, a parent should gather all information possible, compare it with the child’s health information, and finally make an informed decision on the use of vaccines.
When parents bring their child into a doctor’s office or clinic, the following is a common example of the procedures followed. The parents and child are brought into a treatment room. The child is given a short exam and the parent is told what shot the child is due to receive during that visit. The parent is then given a minimal amount of time to read a consent form and expected to immediately sign it without proper consultation of the dangerous risks involved. In a presentation to the Committee on Government Reform, on August 03, 1999, a pediatric neurologist, Marcel Kinsbourne, M.D. stated:
The remote but real risk of serious disease that attends vaccinations must be scrupulously and comprehensively disclosed to the parents of the children that await vaccination. In a busy pediatric office this is not an easy matter and not all parents readily understand what some of the risks actually entail. It would be helpful if the CDC were to develop handouts that are both comprehensive and user-friendly, that list possible adverse side effects for each vaccine… I suggest that parents be given copies of handouts for each vaccine well ahead of the projected date of vaccination, so that they have sufficient time to digest the information, and to ask any questions they might have.
This is just one expert, of the many experts, who believes that parents are not fully aware of possible dangerous side effects of vaccines. I believe parents should not rely only on the information they receive from the medical doctor, but also research the other information that is out there so they may make fully informed decisions concerning the health of their child. Because of common mass vaccination and vaccination promotion programs like “Shots for Tots”, parents are being misled to believe that vaccines are mandatory, routine, and completely safe. Parents are usually told their child may experience a mild reaction to a vaccine. However, what is not being told is the severe reactions their child may experience. According to the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), a non-profit educational organization, a child may experience reactions like high-pitched screaming, persistent crying for more than three hours, fever over 103F, convulsions or collapse/shock that may lead to either death or permanent brain damage.
One of the diseases a child may receive a vaccine for is pertussis, or whooping cough, which is a contagious respiratory disease caused by the B. pertussis bacterium. NVIC states there have been repeated reports by parents and medical researchers that children are being left with medication resistant convulsions, mental retardation, learning disabilities, and physical handicaps after reacting severely to the pertussis vaccine.
An excerpt from Vaccination, 100 years of Orthodox Research shows that Vaccines Represent a Medical Assault on the Immune System, by a Principal Research Scientist, Viera Scheibner Ph.D., states one such report: “Low (1955) reported a case of a little girl who was born normal in every respect. About 12 hours after an injection of alum-precipitated DPT vaccine she had a brief convulsion.
A month later she was given the second DPT injection; 12 hours later she had severe convulsions and died 12 hours after the onset of the first symptoms. The autopsy showed major brain damage”. Medical professionals often too readily dismiss these reports, and many, many others like it, and the information from these reports is not being made available for parents to review and study. Additionally, there is a strong correlation between vaccines and various, now common, medical conditions such as sudden infant death syndrome, autism, leukemia, cancer, and even AIDS. Encephalitis, or inflammation of the brain, for instance, can cause brain damage with the end result of autism, dyslexia, and learning disabilities.
I do not know if there are any specific medical tests available to test a child for being in a high-risk group for vaccine reaction, but there are some questions parents can ask themselves before they have their child vaccinated. Two of the most important questions are whether the child or a sibling has had a bad reaction before and whether there is a family history of bad reactions, convulsions or neurological disorders, severe allergies, or immune system disorders.
Many doctors believe that vaccinations are routine and mandatory because they prevent the spreading of diseases. Evidence shows that vaccinations are not one-hundred percent effective. Additionally, these doctors also believe that contagious diseases significantly declined after the introduction of vaccinations. On the contrary, evidence shows that some diseases increased after mass vaccination. These figures are too alarming not to correlate them with the rise of vaccinations. In the United States, the incidence and severity of whooping cough had already declined by seventy-nine percent long before the pertussis vaccine was introduced, according to Neil Z. Miller, author of Vaccines: Are They Really Safe and Effective?. Mr. Miller says that in 1853, before England passed a compulsory vaccination law for smallpox, the highest death rate from smallpox, for any two year period, was two thousand cases. He notes that after more than fifteen years of mandatory vaccines, in 1870 and 1871, the death rate from smallpox had risen to more than twenty-three thousand cases. He also says that the polio death rate in the United States had already declined by fifty-five percent in 1953, before the introduction of the Salk killed-virus vaccine for polio. These cases also rose after mass vaccination.
He notes:
“Vermont reported fifteen cases of polio during the one-year period ending August 30, 1954 (before mass inoculations), compared to 55 cases of polio during the one year period ending August 30, 1955 (after mass inoculations)- a 266 percent increase… In New Hampshire the figures were 38-129; in Connecticut they were 144-276; and in Massachusetts they were 273-2027- a whopping 642 percent increase”.
These statistics show that even if vaccinations were not the cause of disease, they certainly did not prevent disease. I believe parents should thoroughly research this information before blindly vaccinating their child. Parents are also being misled over their rights as parents to choose not to vaccinate their children. Parents are being told that in order for their child to attend daycare or school they must be vaccinated. When parents enroll their child into a school, one of the first things they are told to bring in is a copy of their child’s vaccination records. It is not being made clear that the child may still be enrolled if the parents have chosen not to vaccinate. Many times, if the parents do state they have chosen not to vaccinate, they are ridiculed and looked down upon. Usually after attempts at humiliation, and the parents outright stating that they do have these rights, the school official will have them sign a consent form stating their child is not vaccinated and why.
Unfortunately, many parents do not know they have this right, so instead of fighting the administration, they go along with them and take their child in for vaccinations. The law does vary from State to State, but in the State of Louisiana, Section E of R.S. 17:170 states:
“No person seeking to enter any school or facility enumerated in Section A of this Section shall be required to comply with the provisions of this Section if the student or his parent or guardian submits either a written statement from a physician stating that the procedure is contraindicated for medical reasons, or a written dissent from the student or his parent or guardian is presented.”
This means that the child may be exempt from vaccinations due to a medical condition or if parents choose not to vaccinate for philosophical reasons. These reasons could entail believing that the risks of vaccinations outweigh the benefits, or even believing that there is not enough proof that vaccines do cause immunity to a disease. The main point is that if parents choose not to vaccinate their child, they need to know they have the legal right to do so.
Many parents may be worried about being charged with childhood neglect if they choose not to vaccinate because of philosophical reasons, but one must remember that the law is on one’s side. In What Every Parent Should Know About Childhood Immunization, Jamie Murphy declares, “The most important element of declaring your opposition to immunization is that it must be made in writing to be valid”. He continues on by explaining what to do if your exemption is denied. He says that one needs to get the refusal in writing because, in many cases, the wording of one’s exemption may be the only problem. By simply rearranging certain key words or phrases, one can often attain the exemption that was asked for.
If fear from being charged with child neglect truly is a valid reason for parents to have their child vaccinated, the other side of the coin should include fear of being charged with child abuse if they do vaccinate their child. This may sound like an outrageous statement, but a growing number of families are being charged with causing Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) because of subdural hematomas, or spots of bleeding in the brain, where the vaccine is the true culprit. A Red Book report, published in September of 2000, tells of the tragedies that some families have to go through because of this. In a statement from one lawyer, Joseph Krakora, he says he understands that authorities want to protect children, “But when hemorrhaging and subdural hematomas are found, all too quickly doctors and child welfare authorities decide it’s abuse. Just because the facts are consistent with SBS, doesn’t mean it is SBS. Once they see bleeding in the brain, however, they don’t want to hear anything else”.
Unfortunately, as Krakora also states, some doctors will even deny, in court, that vaccines can cause injuries.
Parents have many decisions to make concerning the well being of their child. Whatever decisions or choices need to be made, the most important thing is that parents are well informed. They should easily be able to know their rights and the law, and most importantly not be misled by the ones they are suppose to be able to trust the most. One particularly good resource to use to learn more about the dangers of vaccinations is the NVIC. Their website www.909shot.com gives a lot of information including various reports and personal stories, links to other vaccination information sites, and lists of books available to read. For someone who does not have a computer, most local libraries now have computers available for research or one could call NVIC at 1-800-909-SHOT for more information.
Once a parent has all the information concerning an issue, they should not be ridiculed for making a decision they truly believe to be in the best interest of their child, especially if the issue is controversial. Vaccinations are one of those issues that are extremely controversial, and this issue should not be taken lightly.
If a parent has been or is being harassed for not vaccinating their child, NVIC’s website contains a questionnaire to fill out that will help NVIC to better represent the rights of every individual to exercise informed consent. Parents must be given full rights to gain any information from any study, research, statistics, and even laws. They must remember that although their doctor is suppose to be keeping them and their children healthy by protecting them against diseases, doctors do not always research all of the information, nor do they inform the parents of the information they have researched. Unfortunately, parents must not only rely on their doctor, but on any other information they can obtain so that they may make a fully informed decision choosing to or not to vaccinate their child.
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Kelly Patton is a freshman at Southeastern Louisiana University and a Chiropractic Assistant at Rollette Chiropractic Center in Hammond, Louisiana. If you enjoyed her article, send her an email of appreciation at: [email protected]
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