Dear Mr John Colmers

Let me focus on three  statements in your letter of January 23, 2008.

First, the "additional action through the legal system" you mention was not taken through the legal system but were taken illegally. Parents who chose to abstain from vaccines should have been appraised of and honored for their rights to refuse vaccines through the options of religious and medical exemptions. Thus the public spectacle of un-American and illegal use of police power would not have been viewed by the world.

Secondly, to justify Maryland's illegal actions you quote JAMA, a journal that receives a large portion of its income from advertising by pharmaceutical companies. Other medical journals face similar conflicts of interest.  Your paragraph of justification for vaccination is basically an advertising statement which no person knowledgeable in the science of health would view as sufficient to justify even a voluntary vaccine program. Nothing ever justifies mandatory vaccination. Because it would take a small book to refute all the incorrect statements in JAMA's paragraph that you quote, I will content myself with the last sentence, "Vaccinations are safe and prevent these diseases and their consequences, leading to healthier children."  In fact, in the last 50 years children's health in the USA has taken a sharp nosedive and there is considerable evidence that vaccination is a major contributor to the current epidemic of asthma, allergies, autism, diabetes and attention deficit disorder.  When the measles vaccine was introduced, brain damage associated with measles was one child per 1,000 cases. Because natural immunity due to sanitation, nutrition and hygiene had progressed such that only one child in 10 had measles, this associated brain damage affected one in 10,000 children. Today a similar and even more severe brain damage (autism), largely associated with vaccines, has dramatically risen to 60 children per 10,000 nationwide and about 66/10,000 in Maryland. 

Both government and industry have agreed to posture (lie) that vaccines are safe. However, the CDC sponsored a study in Denmark with 535,303 children to determine if the MMR vaccine contributed to autism. The study proved MMR contributes significantly, but the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) published November 2002 claimed that there was no correlation. Fortunately, the article showed the raw data, which upon conversion showed 48.6 autistic children per hundred thousand that received 6 vaccines and 61 autistic children per hundred thousand that received 7 vaccines including the MMR.  Another study found that when the MMR vaccine was removed from the market in Japan there was a decline in autistic cases. When the MMR's replacement consisting of 3 separate shots given close together in time was instituted, the rate of autism resumed its upward incidence.  An excerpt of the NEJM raw data in Table 1 is posted at http://www.vaclib.org/basic/mmr-errors.htm. Likewise, the graph of incidence of autism in Japan is posted on the same page.

Thirdly, you state "... changes were needed to improve the level of protection from vaccine-preventable diseases for school children." However, the dramatic increase in disease among school children in the last 5 to 6 decades shows that vaccines are NOT protecting our school children and that unvaccinated children are healthier than their vaccinated counterparts. A good example that illustrates the better health of unvaccinated children is the extensive study of Senior Editor of the UPI, Dan Olmstead, whose series, The Age of Autism began in 2005 and is ongoing.  Less vaccination would result in improved level of protection. DOH employees quickly accept pharmaceutical advertising in lieu of unbiased scientific studies. Most vaccine opponents have studied vaccine issues considerable more than have DOH employees. Forced vaccine campaigns are not effective for preserving individual rights or promoting good health in our children. I receive no monies from pharmaceutical interests and am under no pressure from pharma friendly licensing boards. Thus, I resent being given advertising statements which are motivated by profits which in fact ignore children's health and safety needs. The state of Maryland in common with all other states would benefit from an unbiased investigative committee into vaccine safety and effectiveness. The committee should be composed of people from various scientific disciplines to look into how Public Health policies have been diverted from proven health principles in favor of pharmaceutical product dependencies. I offer to serve on this committee.

Sincerely Yours,