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Boise Weekly

December 14, 2011 Features
by George Prentice

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C O M M E N T S - - - 351-394

[Note: the report section "x of y people like this" is not accurate as the numbers simply reflect the number who liked the comment at the time the comment was copied from the BoiseWeekly web site.]

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351. Comment:
     Here is just a small sample of the insanity that accompanies the pro-vaccine paradigm.
     
     An Engineered Doomsday
     
     By The New York Times | Editorial
     
     "cientists have long worried that an influenza virus that has ravaged poultry and wild birds in Asia might evolve to pose a threat to humans. Now scientists financed by the National Institutes of Health have shown in a laboratory how that could happen. In the process they created a virus that could kill tens or hundreds of millions of people if it escaped confinement or was stolen by terrorists.
     
     We nearly always champion unfettered scientific research and open publication of the results. In this case it looks like the research should never have been undertaken because the potential harm is so catastrophic and the potential benefits from studying the virus so speculative.
     
     Unless the scientific community and health officials can provide more persuasive justifications than they have so far, the new virus, which is in the Netherlands, ought to be destroyed. Barring that, it should be put in a few government-controlled laboratories with the highest containment rating, known as biosafety level 4. That is how the United States and Russia contain samples of smallpox, which poses nowhere near the same danger of global devastation.
     
     In the future, it is imperative that any such experiments be rigorously analyzed for potential dangers - preferably through an international review mechanism, but also by governmental funding agencies - before they are undertaken, not after the fact as is happening in this case.
     
     The most frightening research was done by scientists at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, who sought to discover how likely it is that the "bird flu" virus, designated A(H5N1), might mutate from a form that seldom infects or spreads among humans into a form highly transmissible by coughing or sneezing. Thus far the virus has infected close to 600 humans and killed more than half of them, a fatality rate that far exceeds the 2 percent rate in the 1918 influenza pandemic that killed as many as 100 million people.
     
     Working with ferrets, the animal that is most like humans in responding to influenza, the researchers found that a mere five genetic mutations allowed the virus to spread through the air from one ferret to another while maintaining its lethality. A separate study at the University of Wisconsin, about which little is known publicly, produced a virus that is thought to be less virulent.
     
     These findings led to an unprecedented request from an American federal advisory board that the researchers and the two scientific journals that plan to publish the studies omit any details that might help terrorists figure out how to unleash a devastating pandemic. That presumably includes details on how the engineered virus was made and details on the precise mutations that allowed it to go airborne.
     
     We doubt that anything at all should be published, but it seems clear that something will be.
     
     The two journals reviewing the papers seem inclined to follow the advisory board's recommendations that the research be published in a redacted form, provided there is some way for researchers who need the information to gain access to the full details. The Erasmus team believes that more than 100 laboratories and perhaps 1,000 scientists around the world need to know the precise mutations to look for. That would spread the information far too widely. It should suffice to have a few of the most sophisticated laboratories do the analyses.
     
     Defenders of the research in Rotterdam claim it will provide two major benefits for protecting global health. First, they say the findings could prove helpful in monitoring virus samples from infected birds and animals. If genetic analysis found a virus somewhere that was only one or two mutations away from going airborne, public health officials would then know to bear down aggressively in that area to limit human contact with infected poultry and ramp up supplies of vaccines and medicines.
     
     But it is highly uncertain, even improbable, that the virus would mutate in nature along the pathways prodded in a laboratory environment, so the benefit of looking for these five mutations seems marginal.
     
     A second postulated benefit is that the engineered virus can be used to test whether existing antiviral drugs and vaccines would be effective against it and, if they come up short, design new drugs and vaccines that can neutralize it. But genetic changes that affect transmissibility do not necessarily change the properties that make a virus susceptible to drugs or to the antibodies produced by a vaccine, so that approach may not yield much useful new information.
     
     We cannot say there would be no benefits at all from studying the virus. We respect the researchers' desire to protect public health. But the consequences, should the virus escape, are too devastating to risk."
     
     SOURCE: http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/298-185/9340-an-engineered-doomsday
        report 5 of 5 [Not updated]people like this.
     Posted by Health Freedom on January 10, 2012 at 9:34 AM
     

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352. Comment:
     Vaccinations: Parents' Informed Choice
     
     By Lynn Born
     
     "Because the misinformation surrounding vaccination is so extensive, many parents don't even question whether or not they should vaccinate their child, overlooking one of the most important decisions a parent can make. Since medical authorities say vaccination is safe, most parents simply go ahead with vaccination, completely unaware of the potential dangers and unable to recognize a serious reaction when it does occur.
     
     And since government health departments and school authorities give the impression that vaccination is mandated for every child in the United States, most parents believe they are legally required to vaccinate their child. But in all 50 states, you are free to decline vaccination entirely, or adopt a partial vaccination schedule, an important decision about the health and welfare of your child.
     
     However, parents face tremendous pressure from doctors, the media, schools and even other parents, to follow the standard vaccination schedule and subject their child to an ever-escalating protocol of multiple injections at various stages of their young lives, even including injections with several vaccines in the same shot.
     
     Misinformation
     
     Because vaccines are used predominately on our precious children, most people assume that the many vaccines have been subjected to thorough trials and rigorous studies proving that vaccines are safe and effective. Parents have been told that mass vaccination campaigns ended multiple epidemics around the world, that vaccines are effective at preventing the illnesses they are targeted against, that side effects are rare and generally consist of sore arms or mild fevers that pass quickly, and that the few serious negative reactions are carefully tracked and monitored, keeping adverse reactions to a minimum.
     
     However, parents who take the time to dig deeper and pierce this veil of misinformation find that these assertions lack solid scientific backing. Not only has there never been a single long-term study comparing the health and welfare of vaccinated to unvaccinated children, multiple examples can easily be found of vaccinated children acquiring the very illness they have been vaccinated against. Furthermore, there is overwhelming evidence that vaccines can be extremely harmful, permanently disabling and even deadly to our children. And the current system for tracking and reporting adverse reactions to the FDA is sloppy, poorly executed and voluntary rather than mandatory, even when a child has been permanently disabled or killed by a vaccine.
     
     Vaccination Prevents Natural Immunity
     
     When a baby becomes infected with a communicable disease, his immune system responds through a sophisticated web of interlocking reactions that can produce immunity for life to naturally acquired childhood diseases. These miraculous defenses exist, in part, to keep invading microbes and viruses from taking hold in the deeper systems and organs of the body.
     
     But vaccines, which contain both live and dead viruses, killed bacteria, genetically engineered DNA and chemical preservatives, are injected directly into the bloodstream, bypassing the natural immune response. This deprives the body of the ability to naturally develop life-long immunity in all its multifaceted complexity to normal childhood diseases like measles, mumps and chicken pox. Mass vaccination is a manmade attempt to remove the natural infection response from human development and replace it with a series of artificially imposed infections and immune responses determined by the doctor's vaccination schedule.
     
     So Many Shots
     
     Thirty years ago, children received a total of four vaccines, but today a fully vaccinated child receives a whopping 37-50 vaccines during the early, formative years of life, when his developing immune system is most vulnerable. Even an adult immune system would be challenged by so many vaccines given during such a short period of time. While unvaccinated children will never develop every disease for which children are given a vaccine, their bodies are forced by the Center for Disease Control's (CDC) vaccination schedule to respond to them all. Furthermore, the DPT vaccine forces an immune response to diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis on the same day, an event that would never happen in real life. Plus, there are virtually no studies or scientific research on the effects of multiple viral and bacterial vaccines given in combination or in close succession, and how they affect the human body.
     
     Evidence of Vaccine Harm
     
     The medical profession is extremely reluctant to acknowledge adverse reactions to vaccination, even when the reaction is instantaneous or occurs within a few hours, and even with adults who can clearly verbalize their negative reactions, which infants are unable to do. And since no studies have ever tracked negative effects that occur over the long term, reactions that occur days, weeks or years later are almost never attributed to the vaccine.
     
     It is a little-known fact that not a single study exists to prove that vaccines are safe over the long term. "It would be such an easy study to organize. Use three groups of children--the first group fully vaccinated, the second group partially vaccinated, and the third group no vaccinations. Then follow them for up to 10 years and we would be able to see the kinds of problems that are manifesting from these vaccines," says Barbara Loe Fisher, President of the National Vaccine Information Center.[1 However, evidence of vaccine harm is not really a secret-- hundreds of published medical studies have documented both vaccine failure and vaccine harm, even though most pediatricians continue to vaccinate and most parents remain completely unaware of these studies.[2]
     
     One well known example of a long term negative vaccine reaction occurred with the polio vaccine used in the late 1950s into the early 1960s. This vaccine was later found to be contaminated with a monkey virus, SV40, which had tainted the vaccine during production. And even though the virus was discovered in 1960, the contaminated vaccine continued to be given to American children for three more years with the full knowledge of government health authorities, until it was withdrawn in 1963. Thirty years later, SV40 has been isolated in bone, brain and lung cancers of disabled and deceased adults. The SV40 vaccine debacle proves a direct connection between a vaccine and a slow-growing cancer which developed decades after the vaccine.[3] Unfortunately, authorities made no effort to find and track adult recipients of the vaccine, study and catalog their health status, or note their rate of cancer, even though a clear opportunity exists to study long term effects of a vaccine in a very direct and concise way.
     
     Delayed negative reactions have also been confirmed by the work of Dr. Viera Scheibner, who developed a baby monitor in an effort to prevent Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Her monitor sounds an alarm if the baby stops breathing or shows patterns of stress breathing during sleep. In designing the monitor, she had no preconceived intention of specifically tracking vaccination reactions, as she had never conceived of the fact that vaccinations were in any way problematic or harmful.
     
     In due course of tracking infant breathing at night, she recorded the breathing patterns of babies following the DPT injection. She found that the vaccine caused babies a great deal of stress and that this stress showed a remarkable uniformity, with stress flare-ups immediately following the vaccine on day 2 or 5, or delayed reactions on the 15-16th or 20-25th day in babies who recovered and those who subsequently died from SIDS. Scheibner's monitor proved that death from the vaccine sometimes occurs weeks after the injection, in correlation with the stress patterns it identified. However, the longer time frame gives doctors and health authorities every excuse not to attribute it to the DPT shot.
     
     Adverse Events Not Reported or Tracked
     
     One of the great dangers of the current pro-vaccine mentality is the fact that negative vaccine reactions are very rarely reported to the adverse event reporting system, a system rife with problems. When a vaccine is released onto the market, post-marketing surveillance is supposed to track any negative reactions from the millions of people taking the newly released vaccine. However, not only is the adverse reporting system entirely voluntary, 90 to 99 percent of all adverse reactions are never reported, according to David Kessler, head of the FDA for most of the 1990s.[4] And no oversight of any kind ensures that reports made directly to the pharmaceutical companies are then forwarded to the FDA--the process is run entirely by the "honor system."
     
     A very clear example of the poor adverse event documentation occurred during President Bush's recent Smallpox Vaccination Program of 2003. Before the program, the public was repeatedly told to expect death rates from the vaccine of one to two per million. In fact, there were three deaths (that we know of) among the approximately 36,000 civilians and few hundred embedded reporters who were vaccinated.[5] This makes the actual death rate 80 times higher than that which the CDC told the public to expect. Serious adverse reactions such as brain swelling, heart inflammation, heart attacks, uncontrolled ulceration of the skin, among others, were one in 583, seven times higher than the CDC's original guesstimate of one in four thousand. And yet medical authorities and mainstream news continue to use the old, inaccurate numbers rather than update the risk estimate as they should.
     
     Even worse, these numbers were probably vastly underreported since, just as with childhood vaccination reactions, reporting adverse reactions during the smallpox vaccine was not mandatory and was also limited to an arbitrary and ill-defined time frame of 2-4 weeks. What was the rate of death and injury from the vaccine over the next few months and years? All of these important risks should have been studied and tracked for an honest assessment of the true risk of this vaccine, but researchers missed this valuable opportunity due to the usual shoddy and incomplete tracking system that reflects the poor science behind vaccine development.
     
     Hepatitis B Vaccine at Birth
     
     Let's look at the hepatitis B vaccine as a way to examine problems with the development and introduction of any new vaccine.
     
     Hepatitis B is primarily an adult disease transmitted through blood and body fluids. High risk populations include drug users, heterosexuals and homosexuals with many sexual partners, health care workers exposed to blood, and babies born to infected mothers. In 1996, 270 children under the age of 14 were infected with hepatitis B, with only 54 cases reported in the 0-1 age group.
     
     In spite of the low risk for children in general, and in spite of the ability to target at-risk children by specifically testing their mothers before birth, the CDC added the hepatitis B vaccine to the recommended vaccination schedule in 1991, with the first of three doses to be administered on the very day of birth before leaving the hospital.
     
     In 1986, Merck & Co. began marketing the first genetically engineered hepatitis B vaccine. A flagrant example of the poor science behind vaccination development, the FDA approved the vaccine for use after only 1636 doses of Recombivax HB were administered to only 653 children who were subsequently monitored for only 5 days after each dose.[6] Since the vaccine is recommended for the first day of life, Merck was asked for safety data on newborns. They replied, "We have none. Our studies were done on 5- and 10-year-olds."[7] Further, Merck admitted in 1996 that no data is "available for the simultaneous administration of Recombivax HB with other vaccines" even though children are routinely given other vaccines along with Recombivax HB vaccine.
     
     Since the introduction of this vaccine, there have been hundreds of reports in the medical literature (mostly published in international medical journals outside of the United States) citing central nervous system diseases, multiple sclerosis, Guillain-Barre syndrome, arthritis, severe rashes, fever, chronic fatigue, and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) as a direct result of the vaccine. Parents have filed tens of thousands of adverse event reports with the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, including emergency room visits, hospitalization and deaths. A study in New Zealand reported a 60 percent increase in juvenile diabetes after a massive campaign to vaccinate babies from 1988 to 1991 with the hepatitis B vaccine.[8] Even Merck itself admits to systemic complaints such as fever, joint pain, fatigue and weakness in up to 17 percent of all hepatitis B injections. And perhaps most telling of all, over 50 percent of the doctors surveyed in the UK refused to take the hepatitis B vaccine themselves, citing the known dangers from the vaccine, even though as medical professionals working in hospitals, they belong to a high risk group exposed to blood products and needles in the daily course of their work.
     
     But most disturbing is the fundamental question of why this vaccine was recommended for infants in the first place. In 1996, there were 1,080 reports of adverse reactions among 0-1 year olds from the vaccine, including 47 deaths. If only 10 percent of the true deaths and injuries are being reported--an extremely conservative estimate--this means that there were actually over 10,800 adverse reactions and 470 deaths from the vaccine. Yet in that same year, there were only 54 cases of the disease reported in the 0-1 year old group. This frightful equation reveals that for every child that acquires hepatitis B, the vaccine kills 9 babies and injures 200.
     
     Why subject tens of millions of infants to the known dangers of this vaccine when the few babies actually at risk for the disease can be identified by simply screening the mother?[9] And finally, even if parents opt to include this vaccine in their child's vaccine schedule, why is the vaccine given on the day of birth? Parents need time to get to know their child first, so they can compare the baby's health status before and after vaccination, so any harm can be noticed, tracked and treated.
     
     In addition to problems with genetically engineered vaccines, many vaccines--notably the MMR, chickenpox and Sabin polio vaccines--inject live viruses into the body. Various stabilizers and preservatives are added including formaldehyde, lead, aluminum and MSG. Unknown amounts of RNA and DNA from animal and human cell tissue culture have been found as well. And even though concerned parent groups have fought for the removal of the mercury-based preservative thimerisol from childhood vaccines, the pharmaceutical industry still uses mercury in flu vaccines, a new addition to the recommended yearly vaccination schedule for children starting at age 6 months. Additionally, the medical industry has continued to use old lots of thimerisol-containing vaccines until supplies are exhausted, rather than pull them from the market immediately, as they should.
     
     Families "Compensated" For Loss of Their Child
     
     Because of the dramatic increase in the number of injuries from childhood vaccines over the past decades, Congress enacted the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, setting up a fund to compensate parents for injured or dead children (as if a parent could ever be "compensated" for the loss of their child due to vaccination). Application to this fund is the first step parents must take when their child has been harmed; thus, the fund serves to shield the pharmaceutical company from all initial liability. To date, the fund has paid out over $1.2 billion to parents with over 12,000 reports made every year. This is a staggering number considering how many reactions occur that medical authorities refuse to attribute to the vaccine. And if David Kessler is correct and 90-99 percent of all injuries are not even reported, the true number of children injured or killed by vaccines would be 1.2 million or more per year.
     
     The many excellent organizations[10] that work to inform doctors and parents of the risks of vaccines describe the anguished phone calls they receive, recounting the devastation, guilt, confusion and distress that follow.[11] Parents describe babies who within hours or days of their vaccination, run fevers, become restless or listless, fall into deep sleeps interspersed with piercing screams, arch their backs strangely while they cry, fall into comas or repetitive seizures, twitch, jerk, or stare into space blankly. Or, parents describe a general decline in overall health with constant ear infections, sudden sensitivities to foods and food allergies, sleep disturbances, asthma, unexplained rashes, and loss of developmental milestones replaced instead with repetitive head banging or body rocking.
     
     Many parents and doctors believe the staggering increase in chronic childhood illness is a reaction to the dozens of vaccines that are now part of the standard vaccination schedule. Fifty years ago, autism affected less than 1 in 10,000 families, but now 1 in every 68 families have an autistic child. The rate of schoolchildren with autism has increased 1700 percent nationally from 1992 to 2002, creating a huge drain on families, school resources and social services that can never be remedied if the root cause turns out to be vaccination as many suspect, and the true solution is never addressed. Childhood asthma, diabetes, attention deficit disorder, and obesity have skyrocketed as well. As the SV40 polio debacle proved what can happen, "We may be trading mumps and measles during childhood, for cancer and leukemia in adults,"says Barbara Loe Fisher.
     
     Do Vaccines Even Work?
     
     Even if parents find out about the risks of vaccines on their own, their doctors usually assure them that the risk is worth the almost certain benefit of freedom from infectious disease that their child receives. However, time and again, vaccines have simply not worked against the disease they are targeted to prevent. A 1978 survey of 30 states showed that more than half of all children who contracted measles had been fully vaccinated. Sweden abandoned its whooping cough vaccine after it examined 5,140 cases of whooping cough in 1978 and found that 84 percent had been vaccinated three times. A 1990 Journal of American Medicine Association article stated that "Although more than 95 percent of school-aged children in the US are vaccinated against measles, large measles outbreaks continue to occur in schools and most cases. . . occur among previously vaccinated children." The medical literature is filled with example after example of the failure of vaccination to furnish protection against common childhood diseases.
     
     But rather than accept the premise that the entire system of vaccination is fundamentally flawed, the medical industry calls for "booster" shots and re-vaccination, without any solid, long-term studies to see whether immunity is actually achieved and, if so, for how long.
     
     Vaccination Did Not End Epidemics
     
     While we have all been taught that vaccination ended the world's many deadly epidemics, an honest and careful review of original historical medical sources, publications and statistics from the past two hundred years reveals that infectious diseases declined 90 percent before mass vaccination was ever introduced.
     
     Experts attribute the cessation of epidemic diseases not to mass vaccination, but to a major sanitation reform movement that swept Europe during the 1800s. These reforms included moving human waste out of streets via plumbing systems; regularly cleaning streets and stables of horse manure and human waste; improving roads so that meats, vegetables and raw milk could be distributed in cities while still fresh; and upgrading water distribution systems to prevent bacterial contamination.[12]
     
     All the old terror diseases of plague, black death and cholera responded to these reforms, and epidemics declined throughout the 1800s, long before the advent of vaccination. Even the CDC reported in 1999 that infectious diseases declined in the past century due to improvements in sanitation, water and hygiene. Vaccination against whooping cough, diphtheria, measles and polio all occurred only at the very end of the life cycle of each epidemic, exposing the fallacy of the claim that vaccination ended epidemics.[13]
     
     The only exception to this decline in epidemic disease is smallpox, which, contrary to all we have been taught, actually increased with the advent of mandatory vaccination and decreased only after an organized uprising by parents and doctors forced European governments to end their mandatory vaccination programs.[14] Even though the World Health Organization claims credit for the eradication of smallpox worldwide through vaccination, the fact is that smallpox declined in countries around the world whether the population had been vaccinated or not. As Dr. Glen Dittman said in 1986, "It is pathetic and ludicrous to say we vanquished smallpox with vaccines, when only 10 percent of the population were ever vaccinated."
     
     Big Business Creates Pressure to Vaccinate
     
     The children of the United States represent the most highly vaccinated population in the world. Millions of dollars are provided by the multi-national pharmaceuticals to create front organizations like "All Kids Count" and "Immunization Action Coalition," groups with friendly, neutral names that disguise the pharmaceutical funding behind their mandate to promote vaccination. Vaccines produce billions of dollars a year for the drug companies, in part because the federal government funds massive vaccination drives by buying vaccines with our tax dollars and then giving state health departments millions of dollars with the goal of achieving 100 percent vaccine compliance. If they fail, the money can be withdrawn from the state. The result of all of this money available to state health authorities is enormous pressure applied to the schools, which in turn pressure parents by requiring proof of vaccination for entry into school at every level of a child's development.
     
     Resistance
     
     Yet resistance to the mandatory vaccination schedule is growing and millions of parents are questioning both the underlying science of vaccination and expressing concerns about side effects. A 2003 study found that 93 percent of pediatricians and 60 percent of family physicians reported at least one family that had refused a vaccine for their child.
     
     When a parent chooses to limit or opt out of the vaccination schedule, a wide variety of official responses have been reported ranging from no difficulties at all, to the opposite extreme, official threats of medical child neglect charges. It is an unfortunate fact that parents who decline vaccination have been thrown out of their doctors' offices and children have been refused entry into school. In extreme cases, officials have charged parents with medical child neglect and forced them to go to court to retain the right to raise their child.[15] Parents receiving benefits such as welfare, food aid and medical care risk the loss of such aid when they wish to opt out of vaccination.
     
     Yet it is also true that many parents experience no resistance from authorities with their right of vaccination refusal unchallenged, as long as they follow the various state laws for exemption.
     
     vaccinations chart Polio, smallpox and diphtheria were in decline before the introduction of vaccinations. Mandatory smallpox vaccination in England and Wales resulted in a huge increase in the disease. Typhoid fever died out with no vaccination program.
     
     
     
     How to Opt Out
     
     Since this short article cannot examine every vaccine, if you have questions about a specific vaccine, please see the footnotes and recommended reading list at the end of this article to help you decide which, if any, vaccines you feel are safe for your child. While vaccines may be "mandated" by the CDC, they are not "legally required." No one has the legal authority to vaccinate your child against your wishes.
     
     If the birth will take place in a hospital, you can amend the medical treatment forms or your birth plan, and clearly state that you do not want any vaccines for your baby while in the hospital. You should also communicate your request verbally with the staff on all shifts, either yourself or by having your spouse or advocate communicate your wishes clearly and directly.
     
     Once your child is born, the pressure to vaccinate comes from two sources--medical authorities and school authorities. Medically, you are free to make any decision at any time you feel is best regarding your child's vaccination schedule. However, if you opt out of vaccination, many doctors may lie about vaccines being mandatory or frighten you with exaggerated statistics about the dangers of not vaccinating and refuse to treat your child. Unfortunately, the "bread and butter" of pediatric practice are the many "well baby" visits that include vaccination throughout your child's development.[16]
     
     However, it is the entry into day care or school that triggers the need for legal exemptions. There are three types of exemptions--philosophical, medical and religious. There are medical exemptions in all 50 states, religious exemptions in all but two states (West Virginia and Mississippi), and philosophical exemptions in 16 states. You can check the laws for your particular state at www.thinktwice.com or www.909shot.com/state-site/legal-exemptions.htm
     
     Private schools have their own rules and may reject children that have not been vaccinated. Public schools, however, are required by law to accept your exemption, when properly prepared according to the laws of your state. Home schooling sidesteps the issue entirely.
     
     Once you check the laws for your particular state, you can choose the exemption type that is best for your situation. It is very important to submit the appropriate paperwork to the school so that your refusal to vaccinate cannot be interpreted as parental neglect. A philosophical exemption generally requires a short letter simply stating that you object to vaccination. The religious exemption also requires a letter, but some states stipulate that you actually belong to, and are a practicing member of, a religion that specifically objects to vaccination. The medical exemption is usually the most difficult to obtain because doctors are subject to review and censure by state medical authorities when they grant exemptions. In some cases medical exemptions may be obtained from the school nurse--and are often easier to obtain than from a physician.
     
     Happily, simply signing and submitting the exemption is generally all that is needed. Some exemption letters must be notarized or drafted as a signed affidavit. And some School Immunization Records have an exemption section on the form itself, that you simply fill out. Here is an example for California: www.dhs.ca.gov/publications/forms/pdf/pm286b.pdf. For examples of exemption letters for all possible scenarios and all states see www.vaclib.org/pdf/exemption.htm
     
     When discussing your decision to opt out, it is best to remain calm, courteous and diplomatic, even in the face of ignorance or resistance from authorities. Do not enter into arguments with authorities and draw attention to your decision. There is no need to attach documents to your exemption proving evidence of the problems with vaccination or explaining your reasons for opting out--you simply want an exemption for your child. If you encounter belligerent or arrogant authorities who intimidate you with threats of sending you to jail or taking your child away, try to sidestep their resistance in a non-confrontational manner and leave the situation as soon as possible. If you run into this kind of resistance, you should put your wishes in writing, escalate your exemption request to someone above that official, and demand a written response. You'll be surprised how quickly resistance from authorities can fade once they must put their illegal statements and intimidations in writing.[17]
     
     Above all, remember that no authority has the legal right to vaccinate your child without your permission. Should they do so, they open themselves up to legal liability and you have all the resources of the law behind you. While you may experience resistance, they are breaking the law, not you. Do not be coerced or intimidated into vaccinating your child--it is your choice and your right to do what you feel is best.
     
     Naturally Derived Immunity
     
     Those of us involved in the Weston A. Price organization have an intimate understanding of the lies and distortions that various government and corporate forces use to control our food choices. The grassroots Campaign for Real Milk started with research into the facts of the situation, analyzed how the media and agribusiness distorted the true history of raw and pasteurized milk, the organized a drive for freedom of choice, and supported the farmers committed to producing raw milk.
     
     It is these same kinds of distortions and propaganda regarding drugs and vaccines that are sometimes overlooked in the natural food community. The doctor who tells parents that raw milk will give their child TB is the same doctor who assures parents that vaccines are safe, effective and nothing to be concerned about.
     
     We know that children of the many cultures that Weston Price studied needed no vaccination--they grew up vibrant, healthy and strong, able to fight off infectious disease as long as they maintained their original, native diets. Should a child be in any danger from an infectious disease, we have many powerful tools available to us--nutrient-dense healing foods along with homeopathy, acupuncture, herbalism and naturopathy, all systems of earth-based healing that take into account the full well being of the whole person to restore and maintain true health. The recent avalanche of drug scandals exposing death and injury from drugs fully approved by the FDA demonstrates harm far greater than specific problems with individual drugs. Western medicine operates under the assumption that synthetic, genetically engineered drugs and vaccines heal the sick and protect the young from disease, an assumption that parents are expected to accept without question. But when it comes to your child, you are the expert most qualified to decide what is best for your child, using your intelligence and common sense in the same way we fight for our right for real food.
     
     IF YOU MUST VACCINATE
     
     Wait until the child is at least 2 years old. Do not give more than one vaccination at a time. Never vaccinate when the child is sick. Be sure that the vaccines are thimerosal-free. Supplement the child with extra cod liver oil, vitamin C and B12 before each shot. Obtain a medical exemption if the child has had a bad reaction to a vaccination before or if there is a personal or family history of vaccine reactions, convulsions or neurological disorders, severe allergies and/or immune system disorders.
     
     RECOMMENDED BOOKS AND WEBSITES
     
     Vaccines: Are They Really Safe and Effective? by Neil Z. Miller, 2002. Check his website for additional books, www.thinktwice.com.
     
     National Vaccination Information Center, www.909shot.com. Check www.908shot.com/ResourceCenter/ResourceCenter.htm for recommended reading.
     
     Immunization, The Reality Behind the Myth, by Walene James, 1995.
     
     Vaccination: 100 Years of Orthodox Research Shows that Vaccines Represent a medical Assault on the Immune System, by Viera Scheibner, PhD., 1007, New Atlantean Press, (505) 983-1856.
     
     The mercury-autism connection has surfaced to the public's attention with the publication of "Deadly Immunity," by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in the July 2005 issue of Rolling Stone magazine. Kennedy describes a burgeoning scandal that has the potential to bring down the pharmaceutical industry. To read his article, see www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/_/id/7395411.
     
     How to Raise a Healthy Child in Spite of Your Doctors, by Robert Mendelsohn, MD.
     
     About the Author
     
     Lynne Born has been an alternative health care activist, writer and independent medical researcher for over 20 years. She is a longtime member of the Weston A. Price Foundation and enjoys a diet based on homemade full-fat foods, bone broth, raw milk and fermented foods.
     
     ENDNOTES
     
     1. Barbara Loe Fisher, National Vaccination Information Center, http://www.909shot.com. Nevada County, California, has the highest percentage of unvaccinated children in the state of California, providing a perfect setting for this simple study. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/05/25/CM171959.DTL.
     
     2. For their excellent collection of hundreds of peer reviewed, published articles on the dangers, side effects, and inefficacy of vaccination, see Vaccination: 100 Years of Orthodox Research shows that Vaccines Represent a Medical Assault on the Immune System, by Viera Scheibner, Ph.D., 1997. Available from New Atlantean Press, 505-983-1856. See also any of the excellent books by Neil Z. Miller, including Vaccines: Are They Really Safe and Effective?, 2002. Check his website for additional books, http://www.thinktwice.com .
     
     3. Even Dr. Jonas Salk who developed the first polio vaccine admitted under oath that most cases of polio in the USA since 1961 were actually caused by the vaccine.
     
     4. David Kessler, " Introducing MedWatch: A new approach to reporting medication and device adverse effect and product problems," Journal of American Medical Association, July 2, 1993, 269(21): 2765–68.
     
     5. As the deaths followed one after another in March and April 2003, headlines read "First death: Nurse dies after smallpox vaccination"; "Second worker dies of heart attack after smallpox vaccination"; and "Coroner rules [smallpox] vaccinations contributed to reservist's death." (An internet search easily reveals these articles.) Yet, by June 2003, mainstream media articles were not only ignoring the earlier deaths, they continued to use the old, inaccurate figures of one or two deaths per million rather than the newly updated, more truthful numbers that had become apparent during this vaccination program.
     
     6. Merck & Co. 1993 product insert for Recombivax HB.
     
     7. 1997 Illinois Board of Health hearing, The Congressional Quarterly, August 25, 2000, pg. 647.
     
     8. Barthelo Classen, M.D., CEO of Classen Immunotherapies Inc. Epidemiologic study in the New Zealand Medical Journal, 1996.
     
     9. See http://www.909shot.com/History/Newsletters/hepbnlr.htm for more detailed information about the dangers and risks of the Hepatitis B vaccine.
     
     10. National Vaccination Information Center, http://www.909shot.com; Think Twice Global Vaccine Institute, http://www.thinktwice.com.
     
     11. See http://www.thinktwice.com/stories.htm, http://www.mothering.com/articles/growing_child/vaccines/wake.html.
     
     12. The concept that epidemic diseases were ended by sanitation reforms is reinforced when natural disasters destroy sanitation systems and roads, bringing epidemic diseases with the collapse of the infrastructure. Vaccination does not end these epidemics – only the restoration of basic services restores health.
     
     13. See charts showing the decline of epidemics in my article "Smallpox Vaccine has the Pox", http://zmagsite.zmag.org/Aug2003/born0803.html, July/August 2003.
     
     14. For an in-depth study of the unscientific and fraudulent development of the smallpox vaccine, see my article referenced in footnote 13.
     
     15. See Immunization, The Reality Behind the Myth, by Walene James, 1995, Chapter 10 "Appointment with Tyranny" for a story of a court battle over the right to not vaccinate in 1981.
     
     16. See How To Raise a Healthy Child In Spite of Your Doctors, by Robert Mendelsohn, M.D. for an excellent resource on parenting without vaccination.
     
     17. Dr. Joseph Mercola has written an excellent article that details how to handle resistance in your state: How to Legally Avoid Unwanted Immunizations of All Kinds, http://www.mercola.com/fcgi/pf/article/vaccines/legally_avoid_shots.htm.
        report 5 of 5 [Not updated]people like this.
     Posted by Health Freedom on January 10, 2012 at 9:55 AM
     

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353. Comment:
     Vaccine Safety - Evaluating the Science Conference 2011 January 3-8 Tryall Club, Jamaica West Indies
     
     http://www.vaccinesafetyconference.com/speakers.html
     
     
        report 5 of 5 [Not updated]people like this.
     Posted by Health Freedom on January 10, 2012 at 10:09 AM
     

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354. Comment:
     Barbara Loe Fisher, Co-founder & President, National Vaccine Information Center, Vaccine Safety: Evaluating the Science Conference, February 3, 2011, Jamaica West Indies
     
     http://www.vaccinesafetyconference.com/loefisher.html
        report 4 of 4 [Not updated]people like this.
     Posted by Health Freedom on January 10, 2012 at 10:14 AM
     

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355. Comment:
     Mr. Gavin,
     
     Here are just a few sources for your perusal and education. Please let us all know how each of these does not support the wise choice not to vaccinate.
     
     Adams, JM, Brown WH et al. A neuromyelitis optica: severe demyelination occurring years after primary smallpox vaccination. Presented at the Third National Symposium on Neuropathology (Bucharest) September 20-22, 1972.
     
     Alderslade R, Bellman MH et al. The National Childhood Encephalopathy Study: a report on 1000 cases of serious neurological disorders in infants and young children from the NCES research team. In: Whooping Cough: Reports from the Committee on the Safety of Medicines and the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation. Department of Health and Social Security, London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office 1981.
     
     Allen A. H1N1: The Report Card (interview with Secretary Kathleen Sibelius, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services). Reader’s Digest March 2010. http://www.rd.com/health-slideshows/h1n1-the-report-card/article174741.html
     
     Annas GJ. Bioterrorism, Public Health and Civil Liberties. New England Journal of Medicine 2002; 346: 1337-1342. http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM200204253461722
     
     Annas GJ, Grodin MA. The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg Code: Human Rights in Human Experimentation. Oxford University Press 1992.
     
     Anonymous. Toward A Twenty-First Century Jacobson v. Massachusetts. Harvard Law Review 2008; 121(7): 1820-1841. http://www.harvardlawreview.org/issues/121/may08/notes/a_twenty-first-century_jacobson_v_massachusetts.pdf
     
     Associated Press. Shot may be inadvertently boosting superbugs: Strains tied to kid’s ear infections flourish as vaccine fights common germs. MSNBC September 17, 2007. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20825107/
     
     Ausiello CM, Urban F. Vaccine and antigen-dependent type 1 and type 2 cytokine induction after primary vaccination of infants with whole cell or acellular pertussis vaccine. Infect Immunol 1997; 65:2168-74.
     
     Banks WA, Kastin AJ. Aluminum-induced neurotoxicity alterations in membrane function at the blood-brain barrier. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 1989; 13:47-53.
     
     Barnes PM, Bloom B. Complementary and Alternative Medicine Use Among Adults and Children: United States, 2007. National Health Statistics Reports 2008; No. 12. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr012.pdf
     
     Berg JM. Neurological complications of pertussis immunization. British Medical Journal 1958.
     
     Berger S, Moreno JD. Public Trust, Public Health and Public Safety: A Progressive Response to Bioterrorism. Harvard Law & Policy Review 2010; 4: 295-316. http://hlpronline.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/breger_bioterrorism.pdf
     
     Bernard S, Enayati A et al. Autism: A novel form of mercury poisoning. Medical Hypothesis 2001; 56(4):462-471.
     
     Blaylock RL. The central role of excitotoxicity in autism spectrum disorders. Journal of the American Medical Association 2003; 6:10-22.
     
     Blaxill MF, Fisher BL. From Safety Last to Children First: A White Paper on Vaccine Safety. Prepared for the CDC Blue Ribbon Panel on Vaccine Safety September 10, 2004. Age of Autism 2007. http://www.ageofautism.com/mark-blaxills-atlanta-man.html
     
     Bookchin D, Schumacher J. The Virus and the Vaccine. The Atlantic Monthly February 2000. http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2000/02/002bookchin.htm
     
     Borchelt R, Hudson K. Engaging the Scientific Community with the Public: Communication Is a Dialogue, Not a Lecture. Science Progress (Center for American Progress). April 21, 2008. http://www.scienceprogress.org/2008/04/engaging-the-scientific-community-with-the-public/
     
     British Medical Journal. Vaccine preventable diseases fall to all time low in U.S. BMJ 2007; 335: 1070.
     
     Burbacher TM, Shen DD et al. Comparison of blood and brain mercury levels in infant monkeys exposed to methylmercury or vaccines containing thimerosal. Environmental Health Perspectives 2005; 113(8): 1015-21.
     
     Byers RK, Moll FC. Encephalopathies following prophylactic pertussis vaccination. Pediatrics 1948; 1(4): 437-56.
     
     Campbell A, Bondy SC. Aluminum induced oxidative events and its relation to inflammation: a role for the metal in Alzheimer’s disease. Cell Mol Biol 2000; 46:721-30.
     
     Champsaur HF, Bottazzo GF et al. Virologic, immunologic and genetic factors in insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. Journal of Pediatrics 1982; 100:15-20.
     
     Centers for Disease Control. CDC Study: An average 1 in 110 children have an ASD. 2010. http://www.cdc.gov/features/countingautism/
     
     Centers for Disease Control. Percentage of Children Aged 5-17 Years Ever Having Diagnoses of ADHD or Learning Disability by Sex and Diagnosis – U.S., 2003. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report: November 4, 2005. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5443a8.htm
     
     Centers for Disease Control. Press Release: State of Childhood Asthma, U.S. 1980-2005. December 12, 2006. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/06facts/asthma1980-2005.htm Full Report: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/ad/ad381.pdf
     
     Centers for Disease Control. Vaccination Coverage Among Children Entering School – United States, 2005-2006 School Year. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 2006; 55(41): 1124-6.
     
     Chen R. HPV Vaccination: Understanding the Controversy. Yale Journal of Medicine & Law 2009. Vol. VI, Issue 2. http://www.yalemedlaw.com/2010/02/hpv-vaccination-understanding-the-controversy/
     
     Chess S. Autism in children with congenital rubella. Journal of Autism and Childhood Schizophrenia 1971; 1:33-47.
     
     Chiron. Chiron Boicine genetically engineered acellular pertussis vaccine proves superior to currently licensed vaccine. Businesswire July 13, 1995. http://www.thefreelibrary.com/CHIRON+BIOCINE+GENETICALLY+ENGINEERED+ACELLULAR+PERTUSSIS+VACCINE...-a017247344
     
     Classen JB, Classen DC. Association between type 1 diabetes and Hib vaccine, causal relation likely. British Medical Journal 1999; 319:1133.
     
     Cody CL, Baraff L et al. Nature and rates of adverse reactions associated with DPT and DT immunizations in infants and children. Pediatrics 1981; 68(5): 650-60.
     
     Comi AM, Zimmerman AW et al. Familial clustering of autoimmune disorders and evaluation of medical risk factors in autism. Journal of Child Neurology 1999; 14:388-94.
     
     Consumer Reports. Consumer Reports Health Poll Two-Thirds of Americans Say Drug Makers Have To much Sway Over Doctors: Information About Safety and Side Effects Sorely Needed. PR Newswire August 24, 2010. http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/consumer-reports-health-poll-two-thirds-of-americans-say-drug-makers-have-too-much-sway-over-doctors-information-about-safety-and-side-effects-sorely-needed-101364539.html
     
     Cooper LZ, Larson HJ, Katz SL. Protecting Public Trust in Immunization. Pediatrics 2008; 122:149-153. http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/122/1/149
     
     Coulter HL, Fisher BL. DPT: A Shot in the Dark. Harcourt Brace Jovanvich 1985. http://www.nvic.org/resource-center/books.aspx
     
     Coulter HL. Vaccination, Social Violence and Criminality. North Atlantic Books 1990.
     
     Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease. Chronic diseases are creating a national health care crisis. 2010. http://www.fightchronicdisease.org/issues/about.cfm
     
     C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital. National Poll on Children’s Health Parent Views on Medical Research: Safety of Vaccines & Medicines Top Priorities. University of Michigan Health Center October 11, 2010. http://www.med.umich.edu/mott/npch/reports/medicalresearch.htm
     
     Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives. The Brain Immune Connection: Progress Report on Brain Research: 2004. http://www.dana.org/uploadedFiles/The_Dana_Alliances/European_Dana_Alliance_for_the_Brain/progress-report-2004_en.pdf
     
     Davis DR, Epp MD. Changes in USDA Food Composition Data for 43 Garden Crops, 1950 to 1999. Journal of the American College of Nutrition 2004; 23(6): 669-682. http://www.jacn.org/cgi/content/full/23/6/669
     
     De Angelis C. Fontamarosa PB. Impugning the Integrity of Medical Science: The Adverse Effects of Industry Influence. Journal of the American Medical Association 2008; 299(15): 1833-1835. http://www.cwbpi.com/AIDS/reports/JAMAGhostIntegrity.pdf
     
     Department of Health & Human Services, Health Resource & Services Administration (HRSA). Child Health USA (2008-2009). September 2009. http://mchb.hrsa.gov/chusa08/pdfs/c08.pdf
     
     Dettman RL. Organic Produce: Who’s Eating It? A Demographic Profile of Organic Produce Consumers. Paper selected for presentation at the American Agricultural Economics Association Annual Meeting July 27-28, 2008. http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/6446/2/467595.pdf
     
     Eisenberg DM, Davis RB. Trends in Alternative Medicine use in the United States, 1990-1997. Journal of the American Medical Association 1998; 280(18): 1569-1575. http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/280/18/1569.full.pdf+html
     
     Enriquez R, Addington W. The relationship between vaccine refusal and self-report of atopic disease in children. Journal of Allergy & Clinical Immunology 2005; 115(4): 737-744. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15805992
     
     Eppig C, Fincher CL, Thornhill R. Parasite prevalence and the worldwide distribution of cognitive ability. Proc R Soc. Published online June 30, 2010. http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2010/06/29/rspb.2010.0973.full.pdf
     
     Fagone J. Will This Doctor Hurt Your Baby? Philadelphia Magazine May 27, 2009. http://www.phillymag.com/articles/will_this_doctor_hurt_your_baby/
     
     Fisher BL. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting & Data Collection. Statement presented to Institute of Medicine Vaccine Safety Forum. November 6, 1995. http://www.nvic.org/nvic-archives/institutemedicine/datacollection.aspx
     
     Fisher BL. Vaccine Adverse Event Detection Methodologies. Statement presented to Institute of Medicine Vaccine Safety Forum. November 6, 1995. URL
     
     Fisher BL. Vaccine Adverse Event Response Methodologies. Statement presented to Institute of Medicine Vaccine Safety Forum. November 6, 1995. URL
     
     Fisher BL. Vaccine Safety Research Needs: Perspective from Parents. Statement presented to Institute of Medicine Vaccine Safety Forum. April 1, 1996. URL
     
     Fisher BL. The Moral Right to Conscientious, Philosophical or Personal Belief Exemption to Vaccination. Invited presentation to the National Vaccine Advisory Committee. May 2, 1997. URL
     
     Fisher BL. The Hepatitis B Vaccine: Adverse Events. Invited testimony for the Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and House Resources Subcommittee of the House Government Reform Committee. May 18, 1999. URL
     
     Fisher BL. Shots in the Dark. The Next City Magazine 1999. URL
     
     Fisher BL. Compensating Vaccine Injuries: Are Reforms Needed? Testimony for the House Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources, US Government Reform Committee. September 28, 1999. URL
     
     Fisher BL. Vaccine Safety Concerns of Parents. Invited presentation to Institute of Medicine Immunization Safety Review Committee. July 11, 2001. URL
     
     Fisher BL. Smallpox and Forced Vaccination: What Every American Should Know. The Vaccine Reaction (National Vaccine Information Center) Winter 2002. URL
     
     Fisher BL. The SV40 Virus: Has Tainted Polio Vaccine Caused An Increase in Cancer? Invited testimony for Subcommittee on Human Rights & Wellness, U.S. House Government Reform Committee, U.S. House of Representatives. September 10, 2003. URL
     
     Fisher BL. Flu Vaccine: Missing the Mark. The Vaccine Reaction (National Vaccine Information Center). Spring 2004. URL
     
     Fisher BL. National Immunization Program (NIP) Procedures and Data Sharing. Program. Invited presentation to Institute of Medicine Committee on the Review of the NIP’s Research Procedure and Data Sharing Program. July 23, 2004. URL
     
     Fisher BL. In the wake of vaccines. Mothering Magazine September-October 2004. URL
     
     Fisher BL. Letter to Col. Robert P.Kadlec, M.D. (USAF-ret.), staff director, Subcommittee on Bioterrorism and Public Health Preparedness, U.S. Senate, on the Biodefense and Pandemic Preparedness Act of 2005 (Bioshield II). November 15, 2005. URL
     
     Fisher BL. Vaccine Safety Research Priorities: Engaging the Public. Invited presentation to the Vaccine Safety Working Group, National Vaccine Advisory Committee. April 11, 2008. URL
     
     Fisher BL. Vaccines, Autism & Chronic Inflammation: The New Epidemic. National Vaccine Information Center 2008. URL
     
     Fisher BL. The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program: A Failed Experiment in Tort Reform? Invited presentation to the Advisory Commission on Childhood Vaccines. November 18, 2008. URL
     
     Fiore K. Peanut allergies on the rise. Medpage Today: May 14, 2010. URL
     
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     Gao M, Bellugi U et al. Intelligence in William Syndrome Is Related to STX1A, which encosed a component of the presynaptic SNARE complex. PLoS ONE 2010; 5(4):e10292.
     
     URL
     
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     Gross L. A Broken Trust: Lessons from the Vaccine-Autism Wars. PLOS Biology 7 (5): e1000114. May 26, 2009.
     
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     Gupta RK, Relyveid EH. Adverse reactions after injection of adsorbed diptheria – pertussis – tetanus (DPT) vaccine are not due only to pertussis organisms or pertussis components in the vaccine. Vaccine 1991; 9(10): 699-702.
     
     Gupta S, Aggarwal S, Heads C. Brief Report: Dysregulated immune system in children with autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Diseases 1996; 26(4): 439-52.
     
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     Hemachudha T, Griffen DE et al. Myelin basic protein as an encephalitogen in encephalomyelitis and polyneuritis following rabies vaccination. New England Journal of Medicine 1987; 316: 369-74.
     
     Hidvegi E, Cserhati E et al. Serum immunoglobulin E, IgA and IgG antibodies to different cow’s milk proteins in children with cow’s milk allergy; association with prognosis and clinical manifestations. Pediatric Allergy and Immunology 2002; 13(4): 255-61.
     
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     Hofstetter HH, Shive CL, Forsthuber G. Pertussis Toxin Modulates the Immune Response to Neuroantigens Injected in Incomplete Freund’s Adjuvant: Induction of Th1 Cells and Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis in the Prescence of High Frequencies of Th2 Cells. The Journal of Immunology 2002; 169: 117-125. URL
     
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     Offit PA, Quarles J, Gerber MA et al. Addressing Parent’s Concerns: Do Multiple Vaccines Overwhelm or Weaken the Infant’s Immune System? Pediatrics 2002; 109(1): 124-129. URL
     
     Organic Trade Association. Consumer survey finds 41% of parents buying more organic foods than a year ago: US families are buying a wider variety of organic products than ever. Organic Trade Association December 8, 2010. URL
     
     Pande V.V. Pharmacogenetics: Impact on Drug Response and Applications to Infectious Disease Management. Pharmainfo.net Latest Reviews 2007; Vo. 5, Issue 1. URL
     
     Park C, Jung S. Comparison of the rabbit pyrogen test and Limulus amoebocyte lysate (LAL) assay for endotoxin in hepatitis B vaccines and the effect of aluminum hydoxide. Biologicals 2005; 33(3) 145-151.
     
     Pittman M. Variability of the potency of pertussis vaccine in relation to the number of bacteria. Journal of Pediatrics 1954; 45:57-69.
     
     Pittman M. Bordetella pertussis – Bacterial and host factors in the pathogenesis and prevention of whooping cough. In S. Mudd, ed. Infectious agents and host reactions. WB Saunders 1970.
     
     Pittman M. The cause of the harmful effects and prolonged immunity of whooping cough. A hypothesis. Reviews of Infectious Diseases 1979; 1(3): 401-412.
     
     Ponsonsby Al, vad der Mei I et al. Exposure to infant siblings during early life and risk of multiple sclerosis. Journal of the American Medical Association 2005.
     
     Pope JE, Stevens A et al. The development of rheumatoid arthritis after recombinant hepatitis B vaccination. Rheumatology 1999; 7:1636.
     
     Preston A. Bordetella pertussis: the intersection of genomics and pathobiology. Canadian Medical Association Journal 2005; 175(1). URL
     
     Prins JM, Sander JH. Clinical relevance of antibiotic-induced endotoxin release. Antimicrobial Agents Chemotherapy 1994: 8(6): 1211-18.
     
     Quast U, Henessen W. Vaccine induced mumps-like diseases. Developments in Biological Standardization 1979; 43:269-72.
     
     Rimaniol AC, Gras G et al. Aluminum hydroxide adjuvant induces macrophage differentiation towards a specialized antigen-presenting cell type. Vaccine 2004; 22(23-24): 3127-3135.
     
     Robbie-Ryan M, Brown MA. The role of mast cells in allergy and autoimmunity. Current Opinion in Immunology 2002; 14:728-738. URL
     
     Rock A. The Lethal Dangers of the Billion Dollar Vaccine Business. Money Magazine December 1, 1996. URL
     
     Romagnani S. Human Th1 and Th2 subsets: regulation of differentiation and role in protection and immunopathology. International Archives of Allergy and Immunology 1992; 98(4): 279-85. URL
     
     Rook GA, Zumia A. Gulf War syndrome: is it due to a systemic shift in cytokine balance towards Th2 profile? Lancet 1997; 349(9068): 1831-3. URL
     
     Seppa N. The Dark Side of Immunizations? A controversial hypothesis suggests that vaccinations may abet diabetes, asthma. Science News 1997; 151(21): 332. URL
     
     Severance EG, Dickserson FB. Subunit and whole molecule specificity of the anti-bovine casein immune response in recent onset psychosis and schizophrenia. Schizophr Res 2010; 18(1-3): 240-7. URL
     
     Schwartz JL. Commentary: Unintended Consequences:The Primacy of Public Trust in Vaccination. 107 Michigan Law Review. First Impressions 100 (2009). URL
     
     Singh VK, Warren RP et al. Antibodies to myelin basic protein in children with autistic behavior. Brain Behavior Immunology 1993; 7:97-103.
     
     Smith. DA, Germolic DR. Introduction to Immunology and Autoimmunity. Environmental Health Perspectives 1999; 107(55). URL
     
     Steinman L, Sriram S et al. Murine model for pertussis vaccine encephalopathy: Linkage to H-2. Nature 1982; 299:738-40. Steinman L, Weiss A et al. Pertussis toxin is required for pertussis vaccine encephalopathy. Proceedings National Academy of Sciences 1985; 82(24): 8733-8736. URL
     
     Stewart GT. Vaccination against whooping cough: Efficacy vs, risks. The Lancet 1977.
     
     Stewart GT et al. Pertussis vaccine and acute neurological disease in children. British Medical Journal 1981.
     
     Strachen DP. Hay fever, hygiene and household size. British Medical Journal 1989; 299:1259-60.
     
     Strom J. Is universal vaccination against pertussis always justified? British Medical Journal 1960.
     
     Strom J. Further experience of reactions, especially of a cerebral nature, in conjunction with triple vaccination: study based on vaccinations in Sweden 1959-1965. British Medical Journal 1967; 4:320-23.
     
     Sweeten TL, Bowyer SL. Increased prevalence of familial autoimmunity in probands with pervasive developmental disorders. Pediatrics 2003; 112(5).
     
     The Economist Editorial. Plagued by cures. The Economist November 20, 1997. URL
     
     Kugathasan S, Judd RH, Hoffmann RG, et al. Epidemiologic and clinical characteristics of children with newly diagnosed inflammatory bowel disease in Wisconsin: a statewide population-based study. Journal of Pediatrics 2003;143:525-531. URL
     
     Thornhill R, Gangestad WS et al. Major histocompatibility complex genes, symmetry and body scent attractiveness in men and women. Behavioral Ecology 2003; 14(5): 668-678. URL
     
     Tingle AJ, Chantier JK et al. Postpartum rubella immunization: association with development of prolonged arthritis, neurological sequelae, and chronic rubella viremia. Journal of Infectious Diseases 1986; 152: 606-12.
     
     Torch WC. Diptheria-pertussis-tetanus (DPT) immunization: a potential cause of the sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) (abstract). American Academy of Neurology Annual Meeting, April 25-May 1, 1982. Neurology 1982; 32.
     
     Tornan B. Celiac disease: On the rise. Discovery’s Edge (Mayo Clinic). July 2010. URL
     
     Tourbah A., Gout O et al. Encephalitis after hepatitis B vaccination. Neurology 1999; 53:396.
     
     Tuchman RF, Rapin I. Regression in pervasive developmental disorders: seizures and epileptiform electroencephalogram correlates. Pediatrics 1997; 99: 560-66.
     
     Urnovitz HB, Tuite JJ et al. RNAs in the Sera of Persian Gulf War Veterans Have Segments Homologous to Chromosome 22q11.2. Clinical and Diagnostic Laboratory Immunology 1999; 6(3): 330-335. URL
     
     Valenti R, Mitterman T et al. Linking allergy to autoimmune disease. Trends in Immunology 2009; 30(3) 109-116. URL
     
     Valman HB. Contraindications to immunization. British Medical Journal May 3, 1980; 1128-39.
     
     Vargas DL, Nascimbene C et al. Neuroglial activation and neuroinflammation in the brain of patients with autism. Ann Neurol 2004; 57:67-81.
     
     Wakefield A, Murch SH et al. Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children. Lancet 1998; 351:637-41.
     
     Weibel RE, Casserta V et al. Acute encephalopathy followed by permanent brain injury or death associated with further attenuated measles vaccines; a review of claims submitted to the national vaccine injury compensation program. Pediatrics 1998; 101(3): 383-7.
     
     Werne J, Garrow I. Fatal anaphylactic shock occurrence in identical twins following second injection of diptheria toxoid and pertussis antigen. Journal of the American Medical Association 1946; 9: 730-35.
     
     Wickens KL, Crane J et al. Family Size, Infections and Asthma Prevalence in New Zealand Children. Epidemiology 1999; 10(6): 699-705. URL
     
     Wolf R, Smith G, Smith RL. Phamacogenetics. British Medical Journal 2000; 320(7240): 987-990. URL
     
     Zhong F, McCombs C. An autosomal screen for genes that predispose to celiac disease in the western counties of Ireland. Nature Genetics 1996 14:329-33.
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     Posted by Health Freedom on January 10, 2012 at 10:29 AM
     

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356. Comment:
     Vaccine Safety: Evaluating the Science Conference, February 3, 2011, Jamaica West Indies - Presentations
     
     URL
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     Posted by Health Freedom on January 10, 2012 at 10:41 AM
     

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357. Comment:
     Vaccine Safety Conference Outlines Research Gaps
     
     "An international meeting was held in Montego Bay, Jamaica Jan. 3-7, 2011 to discuss current vaccine science and policy safety concerns. Delegates from around the world included senior scientists and physicians, editors of scientific journals, experts in vaccine regulation, social science and health policy, consumer child health advocates, legal experts and members of the media.
     
     The meeting was held in response to acknowledged significant increases in immune and inflammatory diseases in children and adults ranging from asthma and neurodevelopmental disorders to the emergence of previously rare but serious autoimmune health conditions during the past three decades. The concern of delegates paralleled those of 89 percent of recently polled parents in the U.S., who place vaccine safety as their number one medical research priority, while health consumers in other developed countries are also questioning vaccine science and policy.
     
     Delegates affirmed an urgent need for methodologically sound vaccine science to address eroding public confidence in national vaccine policies. Information was presented from the peer reviewed scientific literature that raised serious concerns about gaps in scientific knowledge about:
     
     biological mechanisms and genetic and biological high risk factors for vaccine induced brain and immune dysfunction, including lack of adequate safety data, particularly for delayed or chronic health outcomes; vaccine additives such as aluminum adjuvants (immune stimulating agents) and mercury preservatives; multiple vaccine exposures; bias in reporting of vaccine risks and benefits; and novel vaccine-associated autoimmune diseases.
     
     The need to identify research priorities and conduct bench science and clinical studies to identify how and why certain individuals may be at increased risk of vaccine induced chronic health problems or death was stressed. The need to minimize undue commercial and political influence on academic institutions, medical journals and lay press was also discussed as a factor that impedes open, unbiased scientific inquiry into important outstanding questions about vaccine science and policy.
     
     Representatives of federal agencies responsible for vaccine regulation, promotion, and safety were invited to present but declined.
     
     SOURCE: URL
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     Posted by Health Freedom on January 10, 2012 at 10:45 AM
     

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358. Comment:
     Health Freedom:
     
     You stated:
     
     "I note that you are continuing to assert that most anti-vaccine evidence presented here has been debunked, but you have yet to offer the evidence debunking it."
     
     ...
     
     Perhaps you have failed to follow the links I've offered, or perhaps you have some reason to dispute the evidence shown there. Without clarification, it's hard to guess.
     
     ...
     
     Could you also provide a link to your alternative dictionary, because mine only has the traditional definition of 'shill':
     
     http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/…
     
     ...
     
     Given that you are basically repeating the same points about vaccination, I'm unsure which you feel haven't been addressed.
        report 0 of 0 [Not updated]people like this.
     Posted by James Gavin on January 10, 2012 at 10:52 AM
     

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359. Comment:
     Review: What About Immunizations? Exposing the Vaccine Philosophy by Cynthia Cournoyer (Pub. 2010, Better Books Publishing)
     
     "Many people spend more time researching what color paint to put on their walls, what brand of car to buy, or what vacation package they should choose compared to studying what issues surround vaccination policy and the possible dangers vaccinations pose to the health of their child. Many are not aware that the number of children suffering vaccine damage is escalating exponentially alongside the increase in the vaccination schedule. Most also do not consider that a vaccine will inject foreign DNA and toxins into their child’s body, which can play havoc on their sensitive immune system. Yet, while other medicines and products on the market are held accountable to safety standards, because of the “vaccine philosophy,” a term coined by the author, vaccines do not receive this same scrutiny and are believed safe and effective with the benefits outweighing the risks. It is this philosophy that promotes vaccines blindly and prevents honest inquiry into the possible harmful effects of vaccine policies.
     
     Consequently when people are told by their doctors that they must follow the vaccination schedule, open disclosure of the risks is not forthcoming. Additionally, schools have become the check point of vaccination compliance, and unless the parent knows that they can sign a religious or philosophical exemption, that child will not be allowed to attend school. Therefore it has been entirely up to parents and independent researchers to do their own inquiry into vaccines. What About Immunizations? Exposing the Vaccine Philosophy is a thorough guide to the history, efficacy, research practices, policy protocol and political issues surrounding vaccines.
     
     Fortunately, our society is questioning the entire medical paradigm. Cournoyer points to two opposing health approaches that will lead to completely different practices of health care. When Dr. Weston A. Price studied healthy populations worldwide, he found that their immunity to all disease was due to the nutrient-density of their diets. This is completely in line with the research of French physiologist, Claude Bernard who found that germs and disease would only proliferate if the immune system was weakened—that the general condition of the body was the underlying reason for disease. In conjunction, French biologist, Antoine Bechamp discovered that microorganisms are constantly developing into bacteria. If the tissue is healthy, they will provide life support for the cells. However, if the cells are weakened, they will produce diseased microorganisms, which may evolve into a pathogenic state. Likewise, Hannah Allen, author of Don’t Get Stuck: The Case Against Vaccinations and Injections, argued that diseased microbes are a product of the level of health of the host.
     
     To the contrary, Louis Pasteur believed that germs caused the disease. Yet, on his deathbed, he admitted that “Bernard was right. The seed is nothing, the soil is everything.” Hannah Allen comments, “But like the third automobile, which was the proximate cause of the collision but proceeded on its way with impunity, Pasteur envisioned the truth in the 1880s and abandoned the germ theory, leaving the early immature and erroneous theory to be developed, fostered, and perpetuated by others, the ultimate irony. The mischief, medical misunderstanding and error continue to this day, and the price is incalculable.”
     
     Cournoyer shows us how vaccines were developed in support of Pasteur’s principles. She points however to the poor track record they have had in preventing disease. First, the aspect that vaccines create true immunity to a disease has never been accurately proven. Historically, epidemics have come and gone naturally, often due to societal changes in sanitation and true herd immunity—immunity created over time, by large groups of people recovering from cases of the actual disease. This was true with diseases like small pox, polio and diphtheria. These diseases declined in unvaccinated populations as fast as in highly vaccinated countries. Yet, vaccines were given the credit. In fact, many diseases made a resurgence when the vaccine was implemented.
     
     Vaccines were embraced because of the knowledge that having a moderate form of the disease would procure life-long immunity. However, this permanent kind of immunity and that from receiving a vaccination do not yield the same result. A vaccination injects a weakened form of the disease in the body to provoke an immune response. Thus, the reason why vaccines are reported to work is that they have the ability to raise antibody levels, and this is acknowledged as an indication of protection from the disease. Cournoyer counters this and explains that research proves that this type of immune response may give a false immunity and be permanently weakening the body’s immune system, especially considering the increase in the number of recommended vaccines. This is blatantly evident when you study vaccine efficacy records, which reveal that there is a proportion of people that become ill with diseases for which they have been vaccinated. Additionally there are more children who have chronic illness of all kinds than ever before in history. Given that vaccines challenge immune function, are we creating a population of children susceptible to lifelong illness?
     
     The book further analyzes that we are vaccinating people for diseases for which there is little danger. In countries where there are fewer vaccines, there is no higher incidence of the diseases for which they do not vaccinate against.
     
     Not only is vaccine efficacy dubious, today, the risk for vaccine damage has significantly increased. While more vaccines are added to the mandated schedule every year, reports of vaccine side effects and injury such as fever, rash, drowsiness, fretfulness, vomiting, persistent crying, pallor, coldness, hyporesponsiveness, malaise, convulsions, heart or kidney disorders, erythema, arthralgias, encephalitis or even death are becoming more frequent.
     
     Encephalitis is the primary cause of autism and autism is affecting one in 105 children in our country today! Yet the FDA, medical authorities and the media attempts to convince us that vaccines have not played a role in this epidemic. Cournoyer states that “The primary cause of encephalitis in the United States and other industrialized countries is the childhood vaccination program. Sometimes studies will claim that a vaccine is safe because recipients are not subject to any more encephalitis than the general population. That statement is troubling because our general population is up to 100% vaccinated upon school entry. You cannot compare a vaccinated population with a vaccinated control group and hope to find scientific data.” One must ask, can any widespread medical intervention be considered for “the greater good” when the risk for injury is ever increasing and the track record of effectiveness so poor?
     
     The vaccination policy in other countries has become quite disturbing and makes one question the real motives behind the push for the development of more vaccines. In July, 2011, the Malawi Voice reported that a “group of families who took their children out of the country, to Mozambique, to avoid the free measles vaccine that was being distributed, were rounded up by police and vaccinated at gunpoint upon returning to the country.
     
     “The vaccine safety/choice community has been hearing reports of this happening in Africa for more than a year now, but this is the first official story that I have heard thus far and thus been able to report. In this case the District Health Officer himself, Dr. Matchaya, freely admitted to the newspaper that this was done.
     
     “According to Dr. Medison Matchaya District Health Officer for Nsanje, medics went to vaccinate the children in Nsanje under police escort.
     
     “We were alerted that some children who were hiding in Mozambique were back in the country and we asked police to escort the health officials in order to vaccinate them and we have managed to vaccinate about 131 children,” said Matchaya.
     
     Ginger Taylor, contributing author of the book Vaccine Epidemic commented on this story in her blog, Adventures in Autism, saying:
     
     Wanna know the difference between my vaccine injured son and let’s say, a child in a small African village who suffers a vaccine encephalopathy? In our house we have doors with locks on them to keep him safe inside, and school systems that are legally obligated to serve him. Take a moment and imagine what it would be like to try to keep your neurologically impaired child alive in rural Africa for a month or two. Just watched a short documentary about a new neurological illness befalling children in one African village. Parents have to tie their children to the side of their homes with a rope to prevent them from walking away and dying. That is how they live their entire lives.
     
     Cournoyer reports that vaccine policy is riddled with corruption and conflicts of interest. The vaccine program must therefore be brought to test by independent investigation. By all indications, protecting health is not its true guiding principle.
     
     The author persuades each person to carefully engage in the issues regarding vaccines. Parents are the most knowledgeable advocate for the health of their own children and must trust their instincts in knowing what is best. If vaccines are not proving to be the answer to preventing disease and may in fact be causing more harm than good, can we afford the repercussions of a society of severely ill people?
     
     Harry Truman’s statement, “A nation is only as healthy as its children,” is a chilling prediction. We as a nation must heed this wisdom and prepare to make changes in our perception of what truly will build the health of our children.
     
     It is time to look at strategies that have a track record of building health. It is therefore appropriate for the Germ Theory that has fostered vaccination development, to take a back seat. If we heed the wisdom of Dr. Weston A. Price, Claude Bernard, Antoine Bechamp and Hannah Allen, building the immune system with excellent nutrition can provide us with the underlying principles necessary for reestablishing the health of our society.
     
     By Kathryne Pirtle
     
     About Cynthia Cournoyer:
     
     Newly revised and updated seventh edition, Cynthia has been writing about the vaccine controversy for nearly 30 years. This guide to the vaccination decision was released in December of 2010.
     
     
        report 3 of 3 [Not updated]people like this.
     Posted by Health Freedom on January 10, 2012 at 10:52 AM
     

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360. Comment:
     Mr. Gavin,
     
     RE: "Could you also provide a link to your alternative dictionary, because mine only has the traditional definition of 'shill':"
     
     URL
        report 3 of 3 [Not updated]people like this.
     Posted by Health Freedom on January 10, 2012 at 11:02 AM
     

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361. Comment:
     Health Freedom:
     
     If you wish to present references to support your position, it is customary for you to have actually read the references (and then explain why they are relevant to your argument).
     
     What you appear to have done is another copy pasta.
     
     For example, how do you think this reference supports your choice not to vaccinate?
     
     Offit PA, Quarles J, Gerber MA et al. Addressing Parent’s Concerns: Do Multiple Vaccines Overwhelm or Weaken the Infant’s Immune System? Pediatrics 2002; 109(1): 124-129. http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/…
     
     "Current studies do not support the hypothesis that multiple vaccines overwhelm, weaken, or “use up” the immune system. On the contrary, young infants have an enormous capacity to respond to multiple vaccines, as well as to the many other challenges present in the environment. By providing protection against a number of bacterial and viral pathogens, vaccines prevent the “weakening” of the immune system and consequent secondary bacterial infections occasionally caused by natural infection."
        report 0 of 1 [Not updated]people like this.
     Posted by James Gavin on January 10, 2012 at 11:12 AM
     

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362. Comment:
     Mr. Gavin,
     
     RE "Perhaps you have failed to follow the links I've offered, or perhaps you have some reason to dispute the evidence shown there. Without clarification, it's hard to guess."
     
     My reasons for disputing your so-called evidence seems to be clear to everyone but you. I am not a miracle worker in respect to making the blind able to see.
     
     RE: "Given that you are basically repeating the same points about vaccination, I'm unsure which you feel haven't been addressed."
     
     Me thinks you are being lazy and not reading what I have proffered here because it is self-evident that there is little repetition. Why don't you just begin with the resources for which i most recently requested your input as to how you believe they do not support the wise decision to NOT VAC-SIN-ATE.
        report 3 of 4 [Not updated]people like this.
     Posted by Health Freedom on January 10, 2012 at 11:12 AM
     

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363. Comment:
     Health Freedom:
     
     Did you forget to add the second sentence in that wikipedia article?
     
     "In this sense, they would be an implicit "shill" for the industry at large, possibly because their income is tied to its prosperity."
        report 0 of 1 [Not updated]people like this.
     Posted by James Gavin on January 10, 2012 at 11:17 AM
     

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364. Comment:
     Mr. Gavin,
     
     RE: "If you wish to present references to support your position, it is customary for you to have actually read the references (and then explain why they are relevant to your argument).
     
     It was once customary for the majority of allopathic doctors to treat diseases by bloodletting and leaching and it was also once customary for allopathic doctors to not wash their hands prior to surgery. It should have been self-evident to you that I am not much for custom but I rather follow the wisdom of such wise sages as Emerson who declared: "whoso would be a man, must be a non-conformist"
     
     RE: "What you appear to have done is another copy pasta."
     
     It is obvious to me that your mind does not function much outside the realm of appearances. As you may have heard: "Appearances can be deceiving"
     
     RE: "For example, how do you think this reference supports your choice not to vaccinate?
     
     Offit PA, Quarles J, Gerber MA et al. Addressing Parent’s Concerns: Do Multiple Vaccines Overwhelm or Weaken the Infant’s Immune System? Pediatrics 2002; 109(1): 124-129. http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/…
     
     This reference supports the choice to not vaccinate in that you had to scroll all the way down through the alphabetically organized list of resources to the ones beginning with the letter "O" before you found something disagreeable to your unscientific mind. Now go back and try again!
        report 2 of 3 [Not updated]people like this.
     Posted by Health Freedom on January 10, 2012 at 11:43 AM
     

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365. Comment:
     Health Freedom:
     
     I see you're sticking with the "I know the answer but I'm not telling you... so I win" approach.
     
     Your repetitions:
     
     1. CDC doctors do bad things therefore the science is wrong
     2. CDC, FDA, WHO... corruption
     3. CDC lies... and mercury
     4. CDC coverup
     5. CDC lies... and mercury... and fraud
     6. Toxins... and mercury
     7. SIDS... and cancer... and toxins
     8. CDC coverup... mercury...
     9. Autism
     10. Toxins
     11. CDC Coverup
     12. Toxins
     13. Wakefield
     14. Toxins
     15. Vaccines weaken the immune system
     16. SIDS... toxins
     17. Mercury!
     18. Vaccines weaken the immune system
     19. Toxins... viruses
     20. Germ Theory Denial... and pH
     21. Viruses and Germ Theory Denial
     22. CDC Coverup... toxins and population control
     23. SIDS and too many too soon
     24. Toxins especially mercury
     25. Drug Companies do bad things therefore the science is wrong
     26. Toxins, autism
     27. Wakefield
     28. Mercury
     29. Mercury
     30. Vaccines don't work
     31. Toxins, Big Pharma does bad things therefore the science is wrong
     32. Population control
     33. Population control
     34. Toxins
     35. CDC lies... and mercury
     36. Vaccines weaken the immune system
     37. Toxins
     
        report 0 of 0 [Not updated]people like this.
     Posted by James Gavin on January 10, 2012 at 11:53 AM
     

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366. Comment:
     Mr. Gavin,
     
     And speaking of not reading what has been proffered by way of text and/or links, the time stamps here are proof positive that you are hypocritical in your pointing of the finger, as there is no way you could have read all that I proffered before posting your replies! It seems as though you just breeze through the ant-vaccination science to find something you disagree with. Shame on you!
        report 3 of 3 [Not updated]people like this.
     Posted by Health Freedom on January 10, 2012 at 11:56 AM
     

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367. Comment:
     Mr. Gavin,
     
     If you would have read what was proffered, you would have realized that there is very little repetition relative to your list but simply different takes on the same subjects and if repetition were a poster's sin - you sir would be more in danger of hellfire
     
     Now cease with your ad-hominem attacks on me and get about the business of proving me wrong!
        report 3 of 3 [Not updated]people like this.
     Posted by Health Freedom on January 10, 2012 at 12:03 PM
     

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368. Comment:
     Hello Health Freedom, Thank you for your fabulous posts! I have Cynthia Cournoyer's first book and wouldn't have known that she has a revised and updated edition if it weren't for your post here. I plan on ordering it since she is on the same page on this issue. How to do hotlinks? Not sure it will work for you but all I did was highlight the url on the top of the screen where I was citing from and then copied it and pasted it in the comment here. I am pretty sure that this is also what Idaho Spud did. Is that what Mr. Gavin also has been doing? It is fairly amazing why he persists in addressing a few of your posts with the same unreliable and discredited resources but refuses to respond to your pointed questions here. Also, he has had easy access to articles that require membership by, usually, a medical doctor. Hmmmm.
        report 2 of 2 [Not updated]people like this.
     Posted by ImmunizeWizely on January 10, 2012 at 12:05 PM
     

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369. Comment:
     
     
     Health Freedom:
     
     Presumably you are using a Ad Hominem in a novel manner.
     
     But, for the sake of completeness:
     
     http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/a…
     
     Ad Hominem as it is traditionally applied, is a logical fallacy where a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of, or the person presenting the claim or argument.
     
     ...
     
     Pointing out that someone has raised the same point multiple times:
     
     For example, suggesting that the mercury in vaccination causes harm.
     
     Despite the fact that this position is not supported by the weight of evidence.
     
     Is not an ad hominem.
     
     ...
        report 1 of 2 [Not updated]people like this.
     Posted by James Gavin on January 10, 2012 at 12:36 PM
     

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370. Comment:
     Health Freedom:
     
     You stated:
     
     "And speaking of not reading what has been proffered by way of text and/or links, the time stamps here are proof positive that you are hypocritical in your pointing of the finger, as there is no way you could have read all that I proffered before posting your replies."
     
     ...
     
     This suggests that I was not clear when I explained that I had glanced through the list of studies you copied and pasted.
     
     Allow me to correct that:
     
     I provided references to explain why your assertions were incorrect and misleading.
     
     You stated that all the studies to which I'd linked had been rebutted.
     
     I asked for evidence to support this statement.
     
     You, eventually, provided me with a Gish Gallop of studies.
     
     Just a cursory glance at the list showed Dr Offit's name, so I asked which of these studies actually supported your position - because, as I pointed out earlier, I do only have limited time to search for information and post here.
     
     You directed me to read them all.
     
     ...
     
     Why do you consider it to be hypocritical of me to expect you to have read the references you cite as evidence?
        report 0 of 1 [Not updated]people like this.
     Posted by James Gavin on January 10, 2012 at 1:16 PM
     

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371. Comment:
     Mr. Gavin,
     
     You stated:
     
     "This suggests that I was not clear when I explained that I had glanced through the list of studies you copied and pasted."
     
     Indeed you have not been clear on much throughout this entire thread and nowhere in your recent posts were you honest enough to proffer that you had simply glanced through the list of studies as you say.
     
     RE: "I provided references to explain why your assertions were incorrect and misleading."
     
     Your mismash of pseudo and junk science has only proven that you have discovered the trash troves of misinformation and lamestream medical propaganda that has been placed on the Internet for wannabe critical thinkers and pseudoscientists like yourself.
     
     RE: "You stated that all the studies to which I'd linked had been rebutted."
     
     Indeed the vast majority of them have - right here in this thread
     
     RE: "I asked for evidence to support this statement."
     
     I told you that I cannot make the blind see and just because a blind person does not see something doesn't prove it's not there.
     
     RE: "You, eventually, provided me with a Gish Gallop of studies."
     
     No fast talking here - only your dishonesty in not reading what's been proffered.
     
     RE: "Just a cursory glance at the list showed Dr Offit's name, so I asked which of these studies actually supported your position - because, as I pointed out earlier, I do only have limited time to search for information and post here.
     
     I must have somehow missed your post regarding your limited time to search for information and post here. It sure seemed, not too long ago, that you had all the time in the world to post here.
     
     And your "cursory confession" only bolsters my argument. It has long been my position that you have given nothing but a *cursory glance* to most all that has been proffered here as a rebuttal to your ridiculous, fanciful, and untenable position. Although I do realize that confession is good for one's soul.
     
     RE: "Why do you consider it to be hypocritical of me to expect you to have read the references you cite as evidence?"
     
     I never said I considered anything of the sort. At this point I would ask you to review what has been posted by me in this regards - only this time you may want to give it a l'il more than a cursory glance.
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     Posted by Health Freedom on January 10, 2012 at 2:31 PM
     

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372. Comment:
     Mr. Gavin,
     
     RE: "I see you're sticking with the "I know the answer but I'm not telling you... so I win" approach.
     
     Maybe i should use your approach - "I can't see the evidence that you provided" or "My cursory glance of the information you provided does not reveal any evidence to support your position" or "My position must be the correct one because all the people that have a vested monetary interest in me being correct say I'm correct" or "I can't see the forest for the trees" or "My bully pulpit is better than your facts" or "All the best minds that I can find say the earth is flat"
     
     
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     Posted by Health Freedom on January 10, 2012 at 2:44 PM
     

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373. Comment:
     Mr Gavin,
     
     RE: "Given that you are basically repeating the same points about vaccination, I'm unsure which you feel haven't been addressed.
     
     Here are just a few of the points that I don't feel have been adequately addressed here in this forum. If you feel that any of these issues have been adequately addressed then I would ask you the same courtesy that you ask of others and please point me to the post where you feel they have been adequately addressed.
     
     1. Safety of vaccines
     2. Efficacy of vaccines
     3. Why greed and profits are not incentives for vaccine paradigm
     4. Why so much dissemination of pro-vaccine misinformation and propaganda
     5. The need for vaccines
     6. Corruption in the medical industry
     7. Why God made us with such weak immune systems
     8. Why God did not create trees that sprout hypodermic needles with vaccines
     9. How it is that people like you can be so certain that vaccinations will not end up on the ever increasing pile of discarded medical theories.
     10 How it is that people like you can be so certain that vaccines don't cause neurological damage and disease and alternatively what your theories are about the increase in most all diseases.
     11. Why greed and profits are not the major incentives for the pharmaceutical companies.
     12 How is population controlled in countries such as ours where it has been officially deemed a matter of national security.
     13 Why is it that most doctors know little to nothing about nutrition
     14 Why does the increase in autism coincide with the increase in the number of vaccinations
     15 Why doctors who inject children with elements that a billygoat would find repulsive are not charged with assault.
     16 Why pharmaceutical companies test their drugs on an unsuspecting population
     17. Why the AMA had such a dubious beginning
     18 Why is it that pharmaceutical companies can manufacture drugs and the FDA can approve the same and as a consequence thousands of people die and yet noone stands trial for mass murder
     19 How is it that people who can read still believe in the vaccine paradigm
     20 Why did the pharmaceutical lobbyists spend millions of dollars lobbying to remove their liability for products that they manufacture if they are so safe.
     21 Why are there so many people in the mainstream medical industry being charged with corruption and deception
     
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     Posted by Health Freedom on January 10, 2012 at 3:29 PM
     

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374. Comment:
     Health Freedom:
     
     I do find it quite ironic that you refer to the peer-reviewed articles I have cited from medical journals as 'pseudo and junk science' given that you rely on non-peer-reviewed articles from unreliable sources as your evidence.
     
     ...
     
     Obviously it is easier to attack the messenger rather than the message, but I do wonder why you believe the articles you've referenced can debunk large scale epidemiological studies?
     
     ...
     
     However, in one particular area you are quite right, having re-checked I see that I didn't mentioned having only glanced at the list before noticing Dr Offit's name.
     
     ...
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     Posted by James Gavin on January 10, 2012 at 3:47 PM
     

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375. Comment:
     Health Freedom:
     
     Your questions suggest that you either haven't read my previous posts or that you haven't understood their content.
     
     [Except the theological discussion: I certainly haven't and wouldn't offer my opinion there. I don't even understand why God would create rabies or polio or plague.]
     
     But given that you dismiss all evidence that is contrary to your own beliefs as "junk or pseudoscience" or claim that it has been debunked (apparently by papers you have not read yourself), you'll understand that I'm disinclined to repeat myself again.
        report 0 of 1 [Not updated]people like this.
     Posted by James Gavin on January 10, 2012 at 4:15 PM
     

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376. Comment:
     Mr Gavin,
     
     RE: "I do find it quite ironic that you refer to the peer-reviewed articles I have cited from medical journals as 'pseudo and junk science' given that you rely on non-peer-reviewed articles from unreliable sources as your evidence."
     
     Are we no longer giving examples and simply making wild unsubstantiated claims - my how the (self-proclaimed) mighty have fallen in battle! Do you wish to point me to those peer-reviewed studies of yours. I would say that your debunked science from your debunked researchers does not qualify as credible, sir.
     
     RE: "Obviously it is easier to attack the messenger rather than the message, but I do wonder why you believe the articles you've referenced can debunk large scale epidemiological studies?
     
     And I wonder the same about the articles you presented.
     
     RE: "However, in one particular area you are quite right, having re-checked I see that I didn't mentioned having only glanced at the list before noticing Dr Offit's name."
     
     First I'm wrong - them I'm right - all so confusing to me sir
        report 3 of 3 [Not updated]people like this.
     Posted by Health Freedom on January 10, 2012 at 5:10 PM
     

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377. Comment:
     Mr. Gavin,
     
     RE: "Your questions suggest that you either haven't read my previous posts or that you haven't understood their content."
     
     Oh I read your posts as it would be dishonest for me to just give them a cursory glance as you have done.
     
     RE: "[Except the theological discussion: I certainly haven't and wouldn't offer my opinion there. I don't even understand why God would create rabies or polio or plague.]"
     
     Having trouble finding a peer reviewed study on the issue - are we. Well you might as well find out now rather than later that peer review studies are not the end-all when it comes to life's more serious questions. I for one would love to answer your inquiry but alas I have no peer reviewed studies for you to cursory glance over but simply reason, logic, common sense and a great deal of revelation on the matter.
     
     RE: "But given that you dismiss all evidence that is contrary to your own beliefs as "junk or pseudoscience" or claim that it has been debunked (apparently by papers you have not read yourself), you'll understand that I'm disinclined to repeat myself again."
     
     Did you run completely out of arguments?
     
     I am not the one tenaciously holding onto false beliefs nor am I the one who is unable to adapt to a better, sound, set of beliefs because, as most anti-vaccine advocates, I once ignorantly held to your set of false beliefs. I can understand perfectly where you are coming from as you nit-pick on the pieces of the puzzle. You see - I see the whole picture and not just a few of the pieces as you do.
     
     I take it your not very adept at putting together some of the more complex puzzles such as the vaccine paradigm and that, sir, is why you have failed to answer the majority of my questions presented to you throughout this thread.
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     Posted by Health Freedom on January 10, 2012 at 5:39 PM
     

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378. Comment:
     Modern medicine serves up every stage and aspect of life to Profit. After destroying the methods and knowledge of the old ways, what will be left to replace them?
     
     by Heidi Stevenson
     
     11 August 2009
     
     "We live in a society based on a fatally flawed paradigm, a fact that is becoming apparent as we face a collapsing economic system in a collapsing environment. Even so, many who recognize the flaws of these systems still hold tightly to the concept of a medical system that exists for their benefit. It is, though, part of the same flawed paradigm.
     Where Is Common Sense in Medicine?
     
     Why is a child who gets bored in class labeled with a psychiatric disorder, and then drugged for it? And why are there so many new mental diagnoses? Oppositional defiant disorder? Conduct disorder? Any child who acts up can be labeled with a psychiatric disease—and much the same is true of adults.
     
     Ultrasound is used to determine a baby's position during childbirth, when palpation can do the trick just fine. Why use expensive technology with no longterm independent studies that document its safety on the fetus?
     
     Just as other corporations have raped the earth of its resources and people of their economic freedom, medical corporations are raping people of their health and finances.
     Have you noticed all the "pre" conditions that are being defined? No longer must you worry about getting diabetes, you must also be concerned if your doctor says that you're prediabetic. After convincing us that osteoporosis is a disease that women can virtually expect to get, we now learn that you can also suffer from osteopenia, pre-osteoporosis. Of course, that diagnosis wasn't invented until a drug to treat it was in the process of being developed—a drug that, by the way, probably causes more cases of genuine osteoporosis than it prevents.
     
     Normal life processes are now defined as diseases. Pregnancy is a condition that requires treatment. Let's not even talk about what's happened to childbirth. Menopause is a disease, and attempts have been made to convince men that they have andropause. Suggestions that nearly everyone should be taking statins to prevent heart disease are starting to pop up—in spite of the fact that statins don't prevent heart disease.
     
     If you've ever had an MRI, you probably know that the radiologist always wants to see previous films before examining a new one. Does this make sense? When examining films of severe pathology, about one-fourth of radiologists' diagnoses vary from the rest, and 31% disagree with their own results on second examination of the same films. Could it be that the radiologists want to make sure that they don't contradict each other—or themselves?
     
     Thyroid cancer and dysfunction is becoming commonplace. About 20-30 years ago, dentists started to insist on x-rays as routine parts of examinations, in spite of the fact that radiation exposure is linked to genetic damage. Are common medical diagnostic procedures, such as dental x-rays and mammograms, putting future generations at risk?
     
     Dr. Robert S. Mendelsohn, author of Confessions of a Medical Heretic,(1) enjoys telling of the study that documented 197 out of 200 people being cured of so-called abnormalities simply by retaking the diagnostic tests. So much for the accuracy of modern medical tests.
     
     The Culprit
     
     What's the real cause of all this? Mendelsohn tells a story that leads us to the heart of the issue:
     
     One of the common dangers of going in for an exam is that you'll be used for purposes other than your own. Years ago, after becoming director of an outpatient clinic I found out that one of the routine questions asked of mothers was "Is your child toilet trained?" Every boy who was not toilet trained by the age of four was separated out and referred for a urological workup, which included, among other things, a cytoscopy. All these four-year-old kids were being cytoscoped! I immediately eliminated the question about toilet training. It didn't take long before I got a call from the chairman of the urology department...He was very angry...He said it was important to do this kind of examination in order to find the rare cases in which there might be something organically wrong. Well, of course that was nonsense, because all the rare cases can be identified by measures that are far less dangerous than a cytoscopy.
     
     Then he told me more about what was going on. The real problem was that I was destroying his residency program because in order for a residency to be approved by the accrediting authorities, the residents have to perform a certain number of cytoscopies every year. In this case it was around 150. I was taking away his source of cytoscopies, and I got into trouble over it.
     
     An Allegory
     
     In a brilliant article, "John Deere and the Bereavement Counselor,"(2) John L. McKnight tells the story of a prairie town where bereavement counselors move in. They take over the local means of dealing with grief, in which loved ones and community members mourn together and support each other, with a new bereavement technology, for which they provide the support system to process grief. They convince the local government to provide their services to those who aren't able to afford it. Of course, those who trust in new technologies take advantage of this new and wonderful technique. The former grief infrastructure, such as clergy and family members, avail themselves of the wonderful new tools provided. It isn't long before the new technology replaces the old methods.
     
     The old methods were part of the commons, that is, no single person or group owned them; they were owned by everyone and shared equally. No one would have thought of owning grief. The new methods, though, are held by a new elite, the ones who own the new bereavement technology. The "community of mourners" disappears, replaced by an impersonal service, owned and controlled by an elite group. As McKnight says,
     
     The counselor's new tool will cut through the social fabric, throwing aside kinship, care, neighborly obligations, and community ways of coming together and going on.
     
     McKnight goes on to discuss how such a service technology creates "counterproductive constructions." He points out that these constructions become so costly, they distort a society's economics.They result in "sickening medicine, stupid-making schools, and crime-making correctional systems." And, they result in loss of knowledge, as the old ways of the commons are lost. The Medical System
     
     The medical system is equivalent to McKnight's bereavement counselors. Healthcare has been monopolized and pressed into a crushing hierarchical system. What were once elements of the commons, health and treatment for illness, have been coopted by an establishment that may have started with the best of intentions, but has evolved into a multiple limbed monster. The consent of those it rules is presumed. When one of the nonelite resists, that person is assumed to be deranged, and often treated without his consent—for his own good, of course.
     
     The medical system has helped to destroy community. The dying are treated technologically, while the needs of the person leaving the world are unmet, along with those of loved ones, neighbors, and community. The process of death itself, rather than acknowledged as the final act of life, is lost in a pointless fight that degrades everyone. The person whose health has suffered is likewise treated as the object of technology.
     
     The medical system has lost its purpose. Healing is no longer its goal. Gaining more customers is. Thus, we have the medicalization of normal life processes. The focus on symptoms, rather than their cause, is the issue, so the actual disease is merely masked. Perspective is lost in using drugs with a wide range of deleterious effects, in the hope that one might be beneficial in suppressing one symptom. Its practitioners wear blinders, refusing to see the harm they're doing, and often refusing to provide the care that's desired.
     
     The medical system has molded itself into the modern paradigm of a corporation. Just as we find it virtually impossible to even imagine any part of our needs being supplied by anything other than a corporation, our medical needs are also supplied in that manner. If it wasn't manufactured by a corporation, the system is trying to create suspicion. Vitamins are treated as dangerous. The FDA states that any health claim made for anything—even soup!—makes that thing a drug. Only recently, the maker of Cheerios was informed that its health claims magically turned a breakfast cereal into a drug.
     
     The medical system tells us what they will give us, packaging it into a profitable product. You want to be left alone to deal with the pain of your iatrogenic illness, just given narcotics to ease your suffering? Good luck finding that product for sale. We'll send you to the latest and greatest pain management; that'll teach you how to live with your pain. It doesn't resolve your pain? Well then, you must be mentally ill. Certainly, you're depressed and need the latest and greatest pharmaceutical designed just for depression-induced unmanageable pain. And if that doesn't work, we have...
     
     The medical system has transformed itself into the ultimate modern paradigm—corporate business—and corporations are at the heart of the ill-designed modern paradigm. Just as other corporations have raped the earth of its resources and people of their economic freedom, medical corporations are raping people of their health and finances. The Corporate World
     
     When any business entity transforms itself into a corporation, it almost certainly takes on the characteristics of a sociopath. Watch the documentary, "The Corporation,"(3) which explains that a sociopath exists for his own benefit and has no empathy for others, and that a corporation fits all the traits attributed to such a person. By law, a corporation is beholden to only one thing: profits. By making itself into corporations, the health industry has truly made itself into an industry, a structure designed to make profits by selling goods. The image of its purpose as being for the good of people is relegated to the status of marketing—something designed to convince people to purchase their products.
     
     So, the medical corporation distorts its original objective of healing. It subtly redefines. Rather than healing, it focuses on symptoms. If it can define a health problem in terms of a symptom, then it can focus on suppressing that symptom. If it can suppress that symptom, it can claim success. Medical corporations package products to treat symptoms. So, by the technique of redirection—convincing people that the problem is a symptom, rather than what caused the symptom—products are developed and marketed. The medical corporation is a structure for profits. The original goal of healing is lost. The Bottom Line
     
     If one takes a step back, it becomes obvious that there is something very very wrong with the medical system. It not only condones concepts that make no sense, it advocates for them.
     
     It's obvious that it's irrational to routinely use radiation to detect breast cancer, when the means of detection actually causes the disease it's supposed to find. It should be obvious that this is a flawed approach, unless and until it can be conclusively documented that the benefits outweigh the risks. Instead, the opposite happens: if a technique is profitable, it's used and vigorously promoted and defended. When someone manages to prove that harm outweighs risks, then that person is condemned. It's abandoned only when there's an overwhelming case against it, when the cost of defending is greater than the profits. The bottom line must be served.
     
     Women have gone through menopause ever since there were women. It's simply a stage in life, not something to be cured. Now, though, it's a disease, one that must be fixed be replacing hormones that she no longer requires. The fact that these drugs increase death from heart disease and cancer? Oh well, the bottom line must be served.
     
     The child who can't hold still in school is a nuisance. That child disrupts a part the corporate system—providing fodder for its economic maw. The medical system defines that child as having attention deficit disorder, and then it drugs the child, without any consideration for permanent damage done by the drugs. It profits while strengthening the corporate paradigm. The bottom line must be served.
     
     The bottom line is the paradigm. Everything we require to live is twisted to serve the corporate purpose of profits. Energy. Transportation. Food. Healthcare. Grieving. It makes no difference. Where one corporate function can out-compete another—as in grabbing as much of a person's property during the dying process as possible, leaving less for burial and grieving...well, that's part of the corporate game.
     
     Healthcare has become one of the corporate world's most successful products. In 2008, it was 17% of the US's GDP, about $7,900 per person, and the rate of growth continues to escalate at double the rate of inflation. It's expected to reach 20% of GDP by 2017.(4)
     
     In the world of corporations, few businesses have had the success of Big Med. In 2002, Big Pharma topped the Fortune 500 list. Since then, the energy crunch has launched oil company profits ahead. However, in 2008, the profits of the top eight pharmaceutical firms were in the billions, and all but one of the next 11 were in the hundreds of millions.(5)
     
     In a corporate world, the bottom line is the bottom line. Profits are the raison d'�tre. The Flawed Paradigm
     
     Once a product or service has been corporatized, every aspect of it is addressed for its ability to exact profits. Medicine is no different. By joining the corporate paradigm, medicine has ceased to be primarily a force for wellbeing. Any flaw found, such as a drug's side effects, is turned into yet another profit center. McKnight likens this process to pyramid building, saying:
     
     They [medical corporations] envision a landscape "scattered with pyramids of new technologies and techniques, each designed to correct the error of its predecessor but none without its own error to be corrected. In building these pyramids they will also recognize the unlimited opportunities for research, development, and badly needed employment. Many will even name this pyramiding process "progress" and will note its positive effect upon the gross national product."
     
     Damage is turned into a profit center. The leaders and profiteers of the corporate paradigm see that as good.
     
     The result is distortion of resource use and how we view the world. McKnight tells of Medicaid, wherein the child of a grindingly poor woman is provided with medical care at a cost that's 1� times what is provided for food and shelter. That child's health would almost certainly be better served by providing better food and shelter, but the lens of appropriateness is distorted.
     
     The same may be said for drives to provide vaccinations and medical care to the desperately poor in Africa, when they would be far better served with adequate food, clean water, and a stable environment—their lack being the real source of their misery. That, though, wouldn't serve the corporate medical juggernaut.
     
     Society itself is distorted. Mere humans take on the stature of gods. A person is thrilled when her doctor pays attention to her. She feels special, and even brags about it. What does this say about her view of reality? A mere human is looked upon as a god, whose word must be accepted as truth, and whose every utterance must be obeyed. A class of demigods has been created.
     
     These distortions cannot go on, and what cannot continue won't. We're seeing that in the environment, where pollution of every possible sort is destroying the ecosystem on which we depend. We're seeing it in our economic system, which gets patched over and over, each new patch providing a new source of profits and increasing the risk of the whole system catastrophically coming apart. And we see the same thing in the medical system. It absorbs an insanely large portion of the economic resources. It has changed the focus from healing to suppression of symptoms. It invents diseases. It profits from the damage it creates. It distorts society. It has removed most of the individual's ability to treat illness, causing a massive loss of healing knowledge. It has infiltrated the most private areas of our lives. It presumes to define mental health, and forces those on whom it's placed a mental illness diagnosis to ingest its poisonous drugs.
     
     From birth to death, the corporate medical system has productized and profitized every aspect of health. Modern medicine serves up every stage and aspect of life to Profit. After destroying the methods and knowledge of the old ways, what will be left to replace them? In the end, we'll lose not only the social structures and old knowledge around health, we'll also lose the knowledge and skills of the new. As with a collapsed economy or environment, in the end, we all lose."
     
     SOURCE: URL
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     Posted by Health Freedom on January 10, 2012 at 5:56 PM
     

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379. Comment:
     Mr. Gavin,
     
     How are we to trust this system that claims to have a monopoly on scientific truth but in reality is a front for outright scientific fraud?"
     
     Big Pharma researcher admits to faking dozens of research studies for Pfizer, Merck (opinion)
     
     "It's being called the largest research fraud in medical history. Dr. Scott Reuben, a former member of Pfizer's speakers' bureau, has agreed to plead guilty to faking dozens of research studies that were published in medical journals.
     
     Now being reported across the mainstream media is the fact that Dr. Reuben accepted a $75,000 grant from Pfizer to study Celebrex in 2005. His research, which was published in a medical journal, has since been quoted by hundreds of other doctors and researchers as "proof" that Celebrex helped reduce pain during post-surgical recovery. There's only one problem with all this: No patients were ever enrolled in the study!
     
     Dr. Scott Reuben, it turns out, faked the entire study and got it published anyway.
     
     It wasn't the first study faked by Dr. Reuben: He also faked study data on Bextra and Vioxx drugs, reports the Wall Street Journal.
     
     As a result of Dr. Reuben's faked studies, the peer-reviewed medical journal Anesthesia & Analgesia was forced to retract 10 "scientific" papers authored by Reuben. The Day of London reports that 21 articles written by Dr. Reuben that appear in medical journals have apparently been fabricated, too, and must be retracted.
     
     After being caught fabricating research for Big Pharma, Dr. Reuben has reportedly signed a plea agreement that will require him to return $420,000 that he received from drug companies. He also faces up to a 10-year prison sentence and a $250,000 fine.
     
     He was also fired from his job at the Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Mass. after an internal audit there found that Dr. Reuben had been faking research data for 13 years. (http://www.theday.com/article/20100...)
     
     Business as usual in Big Pharma What's notable about this story is not the fact that a medical researcher faked clinical trials for the pharmaceutical industry. It's not the fact that so-called "scientific" medical journals published his fabricated studies. It's not even the fact that the drug companies paid this quack close to half a million dollars while he kept on pumping out fabricated research.
     
     The real story here is that this is business as usual in the pharmaceutical industry.
     
     Dr. Reuben's actions really aren't that extraordinary. Drug companies bribe researchers and doctors as a routine matter. Medical journals routinely publish false, fraudulent studies. FDA panel members regularly rely on falsified research in making their drug approval decisions, and the mainstream media regularly quotes falsified research in reporting the news.
     
     Fraudulent research, in other words, is widespread in modern medicine. The pharmaceutical industry couldn't operate without it, actually. It is falsified research that gives the industry its best marketing claims and strongest FDA approvals. Quacks like Dr Scott Reuben are an important part of the pharmaceutical profit machine because without falsified research, bribery and corruption, the industry would have very little research at all.
     
     Pay special attention to the fact that the Anesthesia & Analgesia medical journal gladly published Dr. Reuben's faked studies even though this journal claims to be a "scientific" medical journal based on peer review. Funny, isn't it, how such a scientific medical journal gladly publishes fraudulent research with data that was simply invented by the study author. Perhaps these medical journals should be moved out of the non-fiction section of university libraries and placed under science fiction.
     
     Remember, too, that all the proponents of pharmaceuticals, vaccines and mammograms ignorantly claim that their conventional medicine is all based on "good science." It's all scientific and trustworthy, they claim, while accusing alternative medicine of being "woo woo" wishful thinking and non-scientific hype. Perhaps they should have a quick look in the mirror and realize it is their own system of quack medicine that's based largely on fraudulent research, bribery and corruption.
     
     You just have to laugh, actually, when you hear pushers of vaccines and pharmaceuticals claim their medicine is "scientific" while natural medicine is "unproven." Sure it's scientific -- about as scientific as the storyline in a Scooby Doo cartoon, or as credible as the medical license of a six-year-old kid who just received a "let's play doctor" gift set for Christmas. Many pharmaceutical researchers would have better careers as writers of fiction novels rather than scientific papers.
     
     For all those people who ignorantly claim that modern pharmaceutical science is based on "scientific evidence," just give them these three words: Doctor Scott Reuben.
     
     Drug companies support fraudulent research Don't forget that the drug companies openly supported Dr. Scott Reuben's research. They paid him, in fact, to keep on fabricating studies.
     
     The drug companies claim to be innocent in all this, but behind the scenes they had to have known what was going on. Dr. Reuben's research was just too consistently favorable to drug company interests to be scientifically legitimate. If a drug company wanted to "prove" that their drug was good for some new application, all they had to do was ask Dr. Reuben to come up with the research (wink wink). "Here's another fifty thousand dollars to study whether our drug is good for post-surgical pain (wink)."
     
     And before long, Dr. Reuben would magically materialize a brand new study that just happened to "prove" exactly what the sponsoring drug company wanted to prove. Advocates of western medicine claim they don't believe in magic, but when it comes to clinical trials, they actually do: All the results they wish to see just magically appear as long as the right researcher gets paid to materialize the results out of thin air, much like waving a magician's wand and chanting, "Abra cadabra... let there be RESEARCH DATA!"
     
     Shazam! The research data materializes just like that. It all gets written up into a "scientific" paper that also magically gets published in medical journals that fail to ask a single question that might exposed the research fraud.
     
     I guess these people believe in magic after all, huh? Where science is lacking, a little "research magic" conveniently fills the void.
     
     The whole system makes a mockery of real science. It is a system operated by criminals who fabricate whatever "scientific evidence" they need in order to get published in medical journals and win FDA approval for drugs that they fully realize are killing people.
     
     What is "Evidence-Based Medicine?" The fact that a researcher like Dr. Reuben could so successfully fabricate fraudulent study data, then get it published in peer-reviewed science journals, and get away with it for 13 years sheds all kinds of new light on what's really behind "evidence-based medicine."
     
     The recipe for evidence-based medicine is quite simple: Fabricate the evidence! Get it published in any mainstream medical journal. Then you can quote the fabricated evidence as "fact!"
     
     When pushers of pharmaceuticals and vaccines resort to quoting "evidence-based medicine" as their defense, keep in mind that much of their so-called evidence has been entirely fabricated. When they claim their branch of toxic chemical medicine is based on "real science," what they really mean is that it's based on fraudulent science but they've all secretly agreed to call it "real science." When they claim to have "scientific facts" supporting their position, what they really mean is that those "facts" were fabricated by criminal researchers being paid bribes by the drug companies.
     
     "Evidence-based medicine," it turns out, hardly exists anymore. And even if it does, how do you know which studies are real vs. which ones were fabricated? If a trusted, well-paid researcher can get his falsified papers published for 13 years in top-notch science journals -- without getting caught by his peers -- then what does that say about the credibility of the entire peer-review science paper publishing process?
     
     Here's what is says: "Scientific medicine" is a total fraud.
     
     And this fraud isn't limited to Dr Scott Reuben, either. Remember: he engaged in routine research fraud for 13 years before being caught. There are probably thousands of other scientists engaged in similar research fraud right now who haven't yet been caught in the act. Their fraudulent research papers have no doubt already been published in "scientific" medical journals. They've been quoted in the popular press. They've been relied on by FDA decision makers to approve drugs as "safe and effective" for widespread use.
     
     And yet underneath all this, there's nothing more than fraud and quackery. Sure, there may be some legitimate studies mixed in with all the fraud, but how can we tell the difference?
     
     How are we to trust this system that claims to have a monopoly on scientific truth but in reality is a front for outright scientific fraud?"
     
     SOURCE: URL
        report 3 of 3 [Not updated]people like this.
     Posted by Health Freedom on January 10, 2012 at 6:09 PM
     

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380. Comment:
     
     
     Mr. Gavin,
     
     Do you have any peer-reviewed studies about the credibility of peer-reviewed studies. - I thought not.
     
     Research scientist confesses to falsifying numerous studies published in peer-reviewed journals
     
     "The peer review process is alleged to be the "gold standard" of the scientific process, as it is supposed to ensure that only legitimate scientific studies get published. But a recent admission by psychologist and researcher Diederik Stapel, that he knowingly faked and made up data for numerous studies published in peer-reviewed journals proves that the process is more of a joke than anything else.
     
     Reuters London reports that Dutch psychologist Diederik Stapel, who worked at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, has confessed to falsifying research studies on numerous occasions. Blaming the fact that he felt constant pressure to "score points, to publish, to always have to be better," Stapel fudged data and basically made up studies, which were later peer-reviewed and published in reputable journals like Science.
     
     "I have failed as a scientist, as a researcher," said Stapel to the media. "I have adjusted research data and faked research. Not just once, but several times, and not just briefly, but over a long period of time. I am ashamed of this and I am deeply sorry."
     
     But a quick "sorry" just does not cut it, especially considering the weight such studies hold with medical professionals around the world. Studies like the ones Stapel forged are often used to develop new treatment methods for patients, for instance -- and doctors who rely on falsified data to treat patients could end up inadvertently injuring or killing them.
     
     Stapel admits studies are fraudulent, but journals are only concerned, and have no definitive intention of withdrawing them There is no indication, however, that Stapel will be held criminally liable for his disturbing actions, or even that his studies will be withdrawn from the journals in which they were published. Bruce Alberts, editor-in-chief of Science, wrote in an "expression of concern" on the online edition of the journal that "the extent of the fraud by Stapel is substantial." An understatement, the journal also added that it has serious concerns about the validity of Stapel's studies.
     
     Serious concern? A man admits to knowingly falsifying many scientific studies, and one of the journals that published some of them says it now has serious concerns, but has not indicated it will withdraw them. This lightweight response would be humorous if it did not represent an atrocious double standard within the scientific community.
     
     Remember how The Lancet treated Dr. Andrew Wakefield when his work was called into question by outsiders with ulterior motives? Nobody was ever able to prove that Dr. Wakefield's research into the MMR vaccine and autism was falsified. We here at NaturalNews showed that the study was, in fact, valid (http://www.naturalnews.com/Andrew_W...). But thanks to intense political pressure, The Lancet pulled his study anyway, and the media continues to echo the lie that Dr. Wakefield is a fraud.
     
     But in this case, Stapel's work, after admittedly being falsified by the man himself, is only a fleeting "concern." Because after all, the supposedly reputable journals that negligently published his work do not want to face further scrutiny for admitting that they messed up in a major way. And so it goes into the circus of mainstream medical science, which is more concerned with preserving an image and fulfilling an agenda than it is with pursuing the truth."
     
     SOURCE: URL
        report 3 of 3 [Not updated]people like this.
     Posted by Health Freedom on January 10, 2012 at 6:20 PM
     

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381. Comment:
     Vaccine Choice
     
     "ANH medical director, Dr Damien Downing, a practicing medical doctor and President of the British Society for Ecological Medicine, who has taken a deep interest in this issue for some years, tries to get closer to the truth about vaccine efficacy and safety.
     
     vaccinationsMillions of parents every year face a grave dilemma; should we give our child the usual vaccines and risk autism, or refuse them and risk meningitis and other complications, plus increasing pressure to vaccinate from the authorities? How to evaluate the evidence? Who can we trust?
     
     Government policy, in the UK and USA, is clear; all your children should have all the vaccines. If they don't you may be prosecuted (New York), and they may be barred from school (UK). Some countries may refuse immigration of unvaccinated children (Australia). And year by year the list of vaccines just grows.
     
     Because vaccines are the new Pharma. While most of the big-earning drugs are nearing the end of their profit cycles, vaccines are just selling more and more; over $10 billion per annum worldwide, not a profit centre any company wants to abandon. The pharmaceutical multinationals not only have preferential access to government circles via lobbyists and other less transparent links; they are the 'jewel in the crown' of industry, so successful that governments dare not threaten them lest they take their jobs and taxes elsewhere.
     
     Do I – don't I? What should you do? Should you give your child the MMR? Should your daughter have the cervical cancer jab? Should you have the flu jab yourself?
     
     The first principle is that, in a democracy, it should be your choice. Most of us in Europe used to be a democracy until recently, but now, where the Lisbon Treaty is still being pushed through despite a 100% rejection rate by any citizens (France, Holland, Ireland) asked for their opinion, they talk about post-democracy. Post-democracy is a system where most policies and laws are made not by elected representatives voting according to the wishes of the electorate, but by regulations, establishing quangos, and presidential-style decrees that largely bypass any democratic process.
     
     Where countries go to war despite the will of the people; where indeed the elections are not representative. And where compulsory vaccination, alongside compulsory medication of our children for their putative ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), is imposed against our will. And where nutrients that can provide cheap, safe and effective treatments for many problems are being outlawed on the basis of manipulated and flawed evidence.
     
     The second is that you should be provided with the information necessary to make an informed decision. But you won't get the truth from the government or from the manufacturers. You certainly don't get the truth from your broadcasters, as those of us in the UK have found out to our chagrin vaccine choicenow that dear Old Aunty (the BBC) seems to be towing the pro-pharma pro-vaccine health line. You won't even necessarily get the truth from your doctors; although there are many excellent doctors who acknowledge and stand up for their patients' rights, there are many who are, as some of them will admit, afraid to put their heads above the parapet. They have learnt what not to say in order to get on, to have a career. This couldn't be truer of the UK's National Health Service (NHS).
     
     How do you decide when you don't know who to trust? You do your own research and make up your own mind. You know that when people or websites are selling something they may not be offering completely unbiased information – and that goes for governments and companies as well as individuals of course. You know that medical research isn't always pure and unbiased (see link on this website on how pharmaceutical advertising biases what journals publish). You know that you have to form your own judgment even about what we say – and we wouldn't have it otherwise. So listen to what we say, then look at some of the links we provide, then exercise your vaccine choice.
     
     The official line: "Vaccine-autism link disproved".... The frequently-repeated assertion at the heart of autism-denial is that research has proved that there is no link between vaccines and autism. Much of the time this refers back to one paper by a Danish group[i] in 2003 – a group with a vested interest, working as they did for the state-run vaccine industry. The paper considered children diagnosed with autism between 1971 and 2000; thimerosal was removed from vaccines in Denmark in 1992, and the paper argued that because they found that autism cases continued to rise after that date, thimerosal could not have been a causative factor. But regressive autism typically manifests in the second year of life, but is not diagnosed for some years; 75% of affected children in Denmark are thought to be diagnosed and reported between the ages of 5 and 19 years, so the reporting rate would not be expected to fall significantly in the 8 years from the removal of thimerosal to the end of the study.
     
     This is not the most glaring problem in the study, however; that would be the fact that the authors moved the goalposts from 1995 onwards by including children diagnosed as out-patients; prior to that date only in-patients were included. Naturally, out-patients made up the vast majority – 93% of all cases in the analysis, guaranteeing a rise in numbers whatever the mechanism.
     
     The next favourite paper is by Andrews, Miller and others in the UK in 2004[ii]; again there are questions about both the ethical probity and the methodological soundness of the study. Ethical questions arose because the two main authors worked for the Health Protection Agency – so they were partly responsible for the vaccination policy which they were reviewing – and because they did not declare in the paper that they had received money from several vaccine manufacturers; multiple conflicts of interest in fact. The methodological issues included inadequacies in the UK General Practitioner Research database on which the study was based, and the fact that the authors, despite their affilliations, even got the dose of thimerosal wrong, throwing out their calculations. This came to light subsequently, but the study has never been withdrawn, and continues to be cited as valid.
     
     Since then there have been a number of other studies claiming to demonstrate that there is no vaccine-autism link. Most of them have been reviews of other studies (which allows media to quote them as "new research shows that...." when it is nothing of the sort), but the latest is a study from Italy[iii] which is actual, not warmed-over research. The paper, by Dr Alberto Tozzi, has been publicized as demonstrating yet again that thimerosal does not contribute to autism or neurodevelopmental problems. But guess what; it also turns out to have ethical and methodological issues. The ethical one is that the author does not declare any conflict of interest, despite having received grants in the past from Wyeth, GlaxoSmithKline and from Novartis – all major vaccine manufacturers. The methodological one is that there was no real control group; the study compared subjects who had received two different doses of thimerosal in a whooping-cough vaccine in 1992-3. The authors themselves have admitted that "comparing children with no exposure to thimerosal could have improved the study", which didn't prevent it being hyped as further proof of the safety of thimerosal. The other curiousity about the study is that in 1700 students they found only one case of autism; hardly a useful group to compare to primary school children in the UK or USA, where the same number would have more than 20 cases. There may be good reasons why Italian children are different to American ones – chiefly to do with their exposure to other toxins such as pesticides[iv].
     
     Which science? The other standard assertion is that there is no research to link autism to mercury, as contained in the thimerosal preservative; but as Bernard Rimland pointed out time and again, you can only make that assertion by ignoring the evidence – which is what usually happens[v]. The next step is to muddy the waters by recommending that pregnant mothers should avoid eating fish due to its mercury content – although mercury in vaccines, or in your teeth, is perfectly safe! As is the tapwater, food and the air we breathe; the pesticides, flame retardants and other toxins we can't avoid are all harmless, we're told.
     
     Let's be clear on this. Mercury, wherever it comes from, is poisonous to some degree. The younger you are, the more toxic it is; developing brains are much more vulnerable to mercury and to all the other toxins than our adult brains. The mercury in vaccines is in addition to exposure from incinerator fumes, from the mother's dental fillings, from all the background exposures we all receive. And in addition to the pesticides, flame retardants and so on that pervade our ecosystem. Polar bears, otters, fish, humans, we are all being poisoned. Just removing mercury from vaccines won't solve that, it will only remove the worst culprit.
     
     Wakefield Dr. Andrew Wakefield One team of doctors then came up with some possible evidence for an MMR-autism link. The study was published in one of the world's most prestigious medical journals, The Lancet in 1998. Dr Andrew Wakefield and colleagues from the Royal Free Hospital in London reported specific bowel symptoms in a prospective case series of twelve consecutive vaccinated children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders and other disabilities, and alleged a possible connection with the MMR vaccination. In the wake of the paper's publication, the doctors faced a massive assault from the media, the vaccine manufacturers, the government, the UK's General Medical Council (GMC) and a large clutch of doctors. They were accused of professional misconduct, booted from their jobs and in March 2004 the GMC announced it was going to instigate an inquiry.
     
     Last month, the GMC resumed its hearing in the case of Andrew Wakefield, along with colleagues Dr Simon Murch and Professor John Walker-Smith. This hearing has now been running intermittently for 18 months, has cost the taxpayer millions, has kept good doctors from helping autistic and other children, and incredibly, still manages to control mainstream public opinion. Where are the dissenting views? Where is the news about events in this field in the USA? Well it is all on the web, most notably perhaps at Cry Shame (see also ANH feature, 10 July 2008), an apt name for the site that spearheads the news on this travesty of justice and its role in controlling us all; read Martin Walker's fascinating account there of the entire hearing, and read also what is happening with regard to autism in real life.
     
     Our position on Andrew Wakefield and his co-defendants is clear and unchanging; ethically they had no choice, back in 1998, but to report on their identification of what may still be an important finding in a minority of children with autism. The Lancet saw this at the time and published without hesitation; the editor, Richard Horton, must have come under severe pressure thereafter which led him to change his tune, and to allege a conflict of interest on the part of Wakefield.
     
     Nevertheless, in the GMC hearing (last year) Horton asserted that the science of the paper "still stands", and that he "wished, wished, wished" that the clock could be turned back and the paper be considered again in the light in which it was first presented. So say we all.
     
     A Fashionable Diagnosis I couldn't quite believe my ears last week when I heard everybody's 'favourite' media doctor-cum-scientist, Ben Goldacre, on London's BBC Radio 4 suggesting that autism is a fashionable diagnosis. I thought this one had been put to death long ago – if not by Bernard Rimland writing in the Journal of Nutritional and Environmental Medicine in 2000, and elsewhere, then by Gillian Baird's Lancet paper in 2006.
     
     In 2000 Rimland said[vi]; "While there are a few Flat-Earthers who insist that there is no real epidemic of autism, only an increased awareness, it is obvious to everyone else that the number of young children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) has risen, and continues to rise, dramatically."
     
     and went on to substantiate this by reference to a number of studies in several countries.
     
     In 2006 Baird et al said[vii]; "Prevalence of autism and related ASDs is substantially greater than previously recognised."
     
     and reported that, of 56,000 children aged 9 or 10 they surveyed in the South Thames area, 1 in 86 had autism or ASD. Since then, further doubt has been left in the air by a report in the Observer in 2007 (since removed from the newspaper's website) that the Autism Research Centre in Cambridge had conducted their own studies, and found an incidence of one child in 58. All attempts to get this confirmed or denied have been unsuccessful.
     
     So why do we now have a media 'scientist' jumping back a decade to imply that there is no epidemic of autism, only fashionably neurotic parents, misled by unscrupulous people (like me, I guess)? He's entitled to his opinion, of course, so the question is more "Why do we never hear dissenting voices to the chorus of government, industry and academic voices declaring unanimously that vaccines are entirely safe?" Equally, why do we never hear, unless we log on to certain, mostly American, websites (see below for links), about the constantly accruing evidence that mercury and other toxins can cause autism? Not to mention that mercury is found in junk food.
     
     We know that they are not right about these things, so they must be either lying or stupid. Since "they" includes the FDA in America and New Labour over here, it can't be the latter. Could it be that they're lying?
     
     Information management; the truth and the BBC Why do we hear no dissenting voice on the media? Why does, for instance, the UK's BBC allow Professor David Salisbury to state, unchallenged and repeatedly on the Radio 4 Today programme, that;
     
     Measles rates have risen as a result of the "scandal" about media scares over MMR. Measles is a dangerous disease. The MMR-Autism link has been disproved. To refuse the vaccine is "irrational".
     
     The first two statements are questionable, the third is plain falsehood:
     
     vaccination graph
     
     "Measles rates have risen as a result of the 'scandal' about media scares over MMR" Unlikely. The 'scare' started in 1999, but as this graph (from a 2007 London Assembly report[viii]) shows, vaccination rates did not fall until 2002, and not significantly until 2005. Also, DPT vaccination rates fell exactly the same as MMR at the same time. This suggests a loss of faith in the government statements on the whole subject of vaccine safety – just as many young people lost faith in statements on drugs – rather than a response to the media "scare" about MMR.
     
     Since rates for all vaccinations have always been much lower in London, other ethnic and cultural factors must play a part as well.
     
     "Measles is a dangerous disease" Up to a point, Minister. Since GPs seem to retire in their 40s these days, I wonder if there are many around with experience of managing measles? The MMR vaccine was introduced in the UK in 1988, and there is no doubt that it slashed measles rates, so very few GPs under 60 now will have seen much. But as a GP in the 70s I had responsibility for seeing a number of children through measles, and it was a relatively easy matter for the large majority; rest, quiet, minimal television, fluids, call again if any problems arise. The only serious risk of complications is in children with pre-existing problems or risk factors (living with two smoker parents for example).
     
     The real problem with measles is the possible complication of measles encephalitis, which can be fatal, but this only happens in one in several million measles sufferers. As a parent, one has to weigh this against the risk of developing autism or a disease on the autistic spectrum, which is currently at least 1 in 100 for boys, and perhaps as high as 1 in 58; if MMR vaccination contributes to this risk, should you have your child vaccinated with it?
     
     "The MMR-Autism link has been disproved" See above; all the studies that claim to disprove the link have serious questions over their probity and methodology, which are never acknowledged. A reasonable guesstimate of the truth that will no doubt eventually emerge is that MMR is a minor factor in precipitating autism, or perhaps just a common "last straw", but that toxins, particularly but not only mercury preservatives in vaccines, are a major factor.
     
     "To refuse the vaccine is 'irrational'" What is really irrational is to impose the multiple vaccines, such as MMR, on us all, when there is a real doubt over a link to autism. It is unprincipled for government to "manage" the information, and deny us the wherewithal to make informed judgements for ourselves. It is also "irrational" because it destroys trust in the government's statements, on vaccines or on anything. This is the best explanation for the drop in vaccination rates – an entirely rational suspicion that governments and manufacturers are covering up the truth.
     
     The manufacturers have a simple reason to do this; profit. Profit now, from the current vaccine programme, and future profit from the increasing numbers of vaccines that are being rolled out for other diseases. For government it's about control; in our post-democratic surveillance state they seek to control everything we do, without recourse to the democratic process.
     
     One London paediatrician has given more than 3000 single vaccines, and reports them to be equally as effective as MMR in achieving seroconversion, which is notably less effective than the manufacturers and the government claim; both MMR and single vaccines achieved 90% seroconversion for measles, 93% for rubella and only 80% for mumps, against manufacturers' claims of 97% for all three. Equally important is the fact that none of the 1000 children given single vaccines has gone on to develop autism or ASD, in a population that should probably have contained around 17 cases. So why not make the single vaccines available on the NHS?
     
     "Selfish" is the latest label the pro-vaccination media now give to parents who have thus far avoided vaccinating their children – out of concern for their most beloved. That kind of language pulls at the heart strings and requires even more effort on behalf of busy parents who care about making properly informed choices that effect not only their children but more and more, also themselves. It's not fun being a social outcast because you've apparently decided that it's okay to let other children be vaccinated so your own unvaccinated child's risk is lessened.
     
     Find out more On the website of the University of Calgary, where the research happened, you will find one of the scariest movies you'll ever see; URL. This shows just what mercury can do to nerve cells, and at minute dosages. We don't believe that anybody could view that and then dismiss the mercury-autism theory as "implausible".
     
     On Youtube you will find many other clips, including some of Robert Kennedy Jr. on mercury and autism; he wrote a seminal article in Rolling Stone on the subject. Listen to that and a few more (you'll get both sides of the argument there), read what the excellent anonymous blogger, Acta Non Verba, has to say on his/her blog, and have a look at the links below too. Then make your own mind up.
     
     URL URL URL URL
     
     What to do? You decide – it's your right. Personally, if it were my child, I would decide about each vaccine on its merits, and have, or give, single vaccines as and when appropriate. There is no question that vaccines do work, and there are some diseases so dangerous that it's a "no-brainer"; the obvious example is tetanus. Bird flu would be another – if they could make a vaccine that worked. As to the vaccines in MMR; rubella can be very damaging to unborn babies, so girls should definitely be vaccinated before they are old enough to get pregnant. Mumps can be damaging to males' wedding tackle after puberty, and rarely life-threatening. But do all these vaccines have to be given to babies and toddlers? In my opinion, and that of a growing group of my medical colleagues, their immune systems are just not geared up to handle this onslaught. And I would be particularly careful if either parent, or their parents, has a history of allergies or other immune problems, or of problems with chemicals, or of neurological problems such as Alzheimer's or Multiple Sclerosis. There are a few private doctors and clinics around the country who will give you single vaccines (I'm not one of them). You'll find them through any search engine.
     
     But those are my opinions. Now it's your turn to make your choice.
     
     Dr Damien Downing MB BS Medical Director, Alliance for Natural Health President, British Society for Ecological Medicine
     
     [i] Madsen KM, Lauritsen MB, Pedersen CB et al.Thimerosal and the occurrence of autism: negative ecological evidence from Danish population-based data. Pediatrics 2003;112(3):604–6.
     
     [ii] Andrews N, Miller E, Grant A et al. Thimerosal Exposure in Infants and Developmental Disorders: a retrospective cohort study in the United Kingdom does not support a causal association. Pediatrics 2004;114:584-591. URL
     
     [iii] Tozzi, A. et al. Neuropsychological performance 10 years after immunization in infancy with Thimerosal-containing vaccines. Pediatrics 2009; 123(2):475-482. doi: 10.1542/peds.2008-0795.
     
     [iv] D'Amelio M, Ricci I, Sacco R, Liu X, D'Agruma L, Muscarella LA, et al. Paraoxonase gene variants are associated with autism in north america, but not in italy: Possible regional specificity in gene-environment interactions. Mol Psychiatry 2005;10(11):1006-16.
     
     [v] URL
     
     [vi] Rimland B. The autism epidemic, vaccinations, and mercury. J Nutr Environ Med 2000; 10: 261–6.
     
     [vii] Baird G, Simonoff E, Pickles A, Chandler S, Loucas T, Meldrum D, Charman A. Prevalence of disorders of the autism spectrum in a population cohort of children in South Thames: the Special Needs and Autism Project (SNAP). Lancet 2006; 368: 210–5.
     
     [viii] Still Missing the Point? Infant Immunisation in London. London Assembly Health and Public Services Committee, September 2007
     
     SOURCE: URL
        report 2 of 2 [Not updated]people like this.
     Posted by Health Freedom on January 10, 2012 at 6:29 PM
     

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382. Comment:
     "Vaccination: An Updated Analysis of the Health Risk"
     
     A 3-part series
     
     by Gary Null, PhD and Martin Feldman, MD
     
     URL
        report 3 of 3 [Not updated]people like this.
     Posted by Health Freedom on January 10, 2012 at 6:43 PM
     

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383. Comment:
     "...Dr. Horrobin, a brilliant researcher, questioned whether there was "Something Rotten at the Core of Science?" in a 2001 issue of Trends in Pharmacological Sciences. Commenting on an analysis of the medical journal peer review system and a U.S. Supreme Court decision which questioned the authority of peer review, Dr. Horrobin concluded that, "Far from filtering out junk science, peer review may be blocking the flow of innovation and corrupting public support of science."..."
     
     Pharmacogenomics, the next frontier in medicine?
     
     by Dr. Carolyn Dean
     
     "A senior executive with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in the U.K. stunned the medical world on December 8, 2003 when he publicly stated that most prescription medicines do not work on most people who take them. Those of us who have studied drug side effects for decades know that they can often be ineffective as well as dangerous. But for Dr. Allen Roses, worldwide vice‐president of genetics at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), to admit that less than half of the patients taking blockbuster drugs actually benefit from them sounded, at first, like mutiny.
     
     The U.K. has the same problem with its health care system as North America. Only days before Dr. Roses spoke at a scientific meeting in London, the National Health Service reported that the total cost of drugs had soared by 50 percent in the previous three years, from $2.3 billion a year to an annual cost to the taxpayer of $7.2 billion.
     
     An announcement by GSK the previous week promoted a line up of 20 or more new drugs under development that boasted potential earnings of up to $1 Billion (?600m) a year.
     
     Dr. Roses is an academic geneticist originally from Duke University in North Carolina. In his talk he cited figures on how well different classes of drugs work in real patients. And he probably knew just what he was doing - heralding the "brave new world" of genetic engineering and genomics. When you want to promote a new therapy, you have to prove that the previous one is not doing the job or that the new modality at least improves on existing technology. Roses was doing just that when he talked about drugs for Alzheimer's disease working in less than one third of patients, and cancer chemotherapy being effective in less than one in four. Drugs for migraines, osteoporosis, and arthritis do somewhat better and work in about half the patients. His final analysis was that more than 90 percent of drugs work in only 30 to 50 percent of people. That's way less than the placebo effect!
     
     The reason that drugs work effectively, on average, in less than one half of patients according to Dr. Roses, is because their genetic makeup interferes with the medicine in some unknown way. Some people thought it was a gaffe but others admitted that: "Roses is a smart guy and what he is saying will surprise the public but not his colleagues. He is a pioneer of a new culture within the drugs business based on using genes to test for who can benefit from a particular drug."
     
     Roses is on a mission to promote his field of "pharmacogenomics", which applies human genetics to drug development by "identifying "responders", or people who benefit from the drug, with a simple and cheap genetic test that can be used to eliminate those non‐responders who might benefit from another drug. It may be the trend in medicine but it does fly in the face of an industry that markets drugs to the masses, not a select few.
     
     Are we ready to leap into pharmacogenomics when we haven't even mastered nutrition? The late Dr. David Horrobin, a psychopharmacologist and a pioneer in the field of essential fatty acids, asked the quintessential question in his article, "Why do we not make more medical use of nutritional knowledge? How an inadvertent alliance between reductionist scientists, holistic dietitians and drug-oriented regulators and governments has blocked progress." He was probably frustrated with being misquoted so often over the years, thus he made his point perfectly clear in the unwieldy title of his paper.
     
     Dr. Horrobin, a brilliant researcher, questioned whether there was "Something Rotten at the Core of Science?" in a 2001 issue of Trends in Pharmacological Sciences. Commenting on an analysis of the medical journal peer review system and a U.S. Supreme Court decision which questioned the authority of peer review, Dr. Horrobin concluded that, "Far from filtering out junk science, peer review may be blocking the flow of innovation and corrupting public support of science."
     
     Horrobin and a handful of scientists have complained about the peer review process for decades, to no avail. A crack in the armor began in earnest when two researchers, Rothwell and Martyn, laboriously evaluated reviews of papers submitted to two neuroscience journals. They performed a statistical analysis on the correlations among reviewers' recommendations. They concluded that none of the reviewers seemed to agree on anything! Horrobin lamented that, "The core system by which the scientific community allots prestige (in terms of oral presentations at major meetings and publication in major journals) and funding is a non‐validated charade whose processes generate results little better than does chance. Given the fact that most reviewers are likely to be mainstream and broadly supportive of the existing organization of the scientific enterprise, it would not be surprising if the likelihood of support for truly innovative research was considerably less than that provided by chance."
     
     Horrobin noted that scientists often become angry because the public rejects the results of the scientific process. However, the Rothwell and Martyn report indicates that the public may be on the right track and is waiting for science to do more than just state its superiority but actually put itself to objective evaluation. Dr. Horrobin found that in the midst of the rejection of science by the public there is also the fact that pharmaceutical research is failing. The annual number of new chemical entities submitted for approval is steadily declining. Horrobin concluded that drug companies are merging because of failure; it is not a measure of success.
     
     In his field of psychopharmacology, Dr. Horrobin said he was able to find no improvement in the treatment of depression and schizophrenia in the past forty years. "Is it really a success that 27 of every 100 patients taking the selective 5‐HT reuptake inhibitors stop treatment within six weeks compared with the 30 of every 100 who take a 1950's tricyclic antidepressant compound?"
     
     Of course, I say my Future Health Now! online lifestyle and wellness program is the future of medicine, not genetic engineering. William Leiss is past President of the Royal Society of Canada and a widely sought after advisor on the social and ethical implications of "risk controversies and public policy." In an interview available online, Leiss attempts to warn government and the public about galloping technology. Dr. Leiss says there is an unresolved tension between two competing aspects of the scientific revolution in the modern world.
     
     There is a battle between inventive science, the creation of products, and transformative science, which results in cultural change. Inventive science goes from triumph to triumph virtually uncontested and is bolstered by unlimited funding. Even though Francis Bacon in the 1600s championed inventions as a way of improving the human race, it was not until the end of the 1800s that Bacon's dream was realized. The first inventions were in the field of chemistry.
     
     Transformative science was championed in the 1700s as a way of not just understanding and overcoming nature but as an important new way of organizing the basis of social institutions, promoting universal education and rendering social policies and institutes more humane and just.
     
     Dr. Leiss reminds us of the many risks we have overcome through advancement in invention and transformative science. Where would we be if it were not for the many products that have advanced the world through childbirth morality, infant and childhood mortality, infectious diseases, malnutrition, personal security, accidents, birth control, and the treatment of mental disorders reflected in an increase in average lifespan? Bacon would be happy that we have achieved results far beyond what he had expected, however, Leiss is afraid we don't know when to put the brakes on technology. He also asks why have we accepted without challenge most new inventions that have darkened our door?
     
     When it comes to genetic engineering, affecting our very DNA, proponents envision programming perfection in humans, doubling the human lifespan, and developing entirely new life forms once scientists have mastered the necessary genome that will sustain human life.
     
     Leiss thinks that by the late 19th century, the products of science began to be more important than improvement of society through transformative science. He reminds us that World War II brought us extremely close to nuclear war and changed the world immeasurably. But Leiss feels the final frontier is biotechnology that is capable of "modifying" genes at the embryo stage. For neurodegenerative diseases like Huntington's Chorea, this treatment could be a miracle. But what is to stop scientists from enhancing normal performance and creating super geniuses, super athletes, super entertainers, or super politicians. Many questions are yet to be asked. How will these changes affect the gene pool? What about the notion of extending human life? Leiss, with tongue firmly in‐cheek, speculates about a 200‐year life span and spending the last 100 years of life on cruise ships!
     
     Dr. Epstein, a professor of environmental and occupational medicine at The School of Public Health, University of Chicago, spoke at The Lighthouse in New York on November 11, 2001. He said that this century has seen the emergence of new technologies: petrochemicals developed around 1940 with new methods of fractional distillation creating 1 billion pounds in 1940, 50 billion by 1950 and now an annual production of 900 billion pounds; a second concern is nuclear technology and fuel; a third is genetic engineering, an emerging technology with the potential for irreversible health effects.
     
     Epstein says these technologies outstrip any social mechanism that would try to control them. Therefore, we have a complex set of factors, which add up to seeing the actual abolition and desecration of democratic structure by corporate influences on national and government levels. Most journalists in a knee‐jerk reaction cheer on the technologies, says Dr. Epstein, and furthermore, they never see a carcinogen they don't like.
     
     Less than six months after Dr. Roses made his startling announcement that 90 percent of drugs only work on 30‐50 percent of the population, GlaxoSmithKline sponsored a special edition of the well‐known scientific journal, Nature. It was called "Nature: Insight on Human Genomics and Medicine" and GSK defined the parameters of the journal as follows:
     
     1. Pharmacogenetics ‐ exploring the genetic basis for drug response to find the right medicine for the right patient.
     
     2. Disease Genetics - studying patient populations with common disease: asthma, depression, COPD, osteoarthritis, early onset heart disease, and migraine in order to identify disease susceptibility genes.
     
     3. Genomics/Proteomics ‐ understanding the functions of genes, proteins, and their complex interactions to discover and validate new drug targets and biomarkers.
     
     4. Bioinformatics ‐ combining biology, genetics, statistics, and computer.
     
     Exerpted and edited from Death by Modern Medicine: Seeking Safe Solutions, eBook. Dr. Carolyn Dean.
     
     About the author: Dr. Carolyn Dean is a medical doctor and naturopathic doctor. She has been in the forefront of the natural medicine revolution for over 30 years.
     
     Dr. Dean is the author / coauthor of 22 health books (print and eBooks) including The Magnesium Miracle, IBS for Dummies, IBS Cookbook for Dummies, The Yeast Connection and Women's Health, Future Health Now Encyclopedia, Death by Modern Medicine, Everything Alzheimers, and Hormone Balance.
     
     Dr. Dean is Medical Director of the Medical Anti-Aging Clinic and Pharmacy in Dubai Health Care City and Medical Director of the Nutritional Magnesium Association."
     
     SOURCE: URL
        report 3 of 3 [Not updated]people like this.
     Posted by Health Freedom on January 10, 2012 at 7:04 PM
     

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384. Comment:
     
     Is the concept of herd immunity a result of an unscientific, collectivist mentality? report 4 of 4 [Not updated]people like this.
     Posted by Idaho Spud on January 11, 2012 at 7:52 PM

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385. Comment:
     
     To "Health Freedom" re your comment yesterday, 6:09 PM, about this "scientific" medicine being a complete fraud......
     
     I just read the other day in the local media, that mainstream medicine is, some places, using FECAL IMPLANTS. I'm NOT kidding.
     
     I think those who worship vaccines and other unscientific "orthodox" treatments just think differently than those who don't. And, that's just fine and dandy as long as they don't try to force their Vaccine Religion (or, Fecal Implant Religion) on other people.
     
     The big problem is, however, that there are those who do want to force their "gospel" on everybody else regardless of how unscientific and ridiculous it is (like vaccination).
     
     This "scientific" ($$$$$$$$$) mainstream medicine reminds some of the story of the Emperor's New Clothes: To the discerning, there's nothing there. You're right; it's a total fraud.
     
     Thanks for all your great information.
         report 6 of 6 [Not updated]people like this.
     Posted by Idaho Spud on January 11, 2012 at 8:23 PM

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386. Comment:
     
     In fairness to all interested parties that are hoping to find answers to their questions on vaccinations, the possible risks involved vs the effectiveness and may want an overview in an audio presentation please make time to watch and listen to this video provided by Dr. Nancy Banks, a Harvard-trained physician (OB-Gyn).
     
     URL
         report 4 of 4 [Not updated]people like this.
     Posted by JustTheFacts on January 12, 2012 at 3:12 AM

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387. Comment:
     
     Just a warning about information being posted here by Mr. Gavin. Although it is easy to see where his motivation comes from it is only fair and just that readers coming to this comment board have ample opportunity to base their findings on accurate and well intended information. I will repost my message here with additional information:
     
     MY REPOST:
     
     "A 72-page document shows Merck Pharmaceuticals paying $18,641,195.52 to doctors. At the very least, this little document shines sunlight on what many parents of vaccine injured children have been saying all the while: Maybe it’s the cost of keeping the herd quiet.
     
     URL "
     
     ********** Mr. Gavin's attempt at "debunking" HERE:
     
     "Just a warning about the site to which JustTheFacts linked:
     
     URL ... Merck's website is here: URL "
     
     **********
     
     @ Mr. Gavin
     
     Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp., is a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc.
     
     Merck Sharp and Dohme Corp" owns about 10,790 other domains of which of course URL is one. For further clarification Mr. Gavin, Linda Rauch is the Administrative Contact for that website and she can be reached at:
     Merck and Co., Inc.
     One Merck Drive
     Whitehouse Station NJ 08889
     (or by telephone at 1.9084236903
     
         report 4 of 4 [Not updated]people like this.
     Posted by JustTheFacts on January 12, 2012 at 3:43 AM

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388. Comment:
     
     I have many degrees. I see no reason to share them with someone who attempts to win an argument based on a plea to credos fallacy, though.
     
     The information can stand on its own without you attempting to discredit the viewpoints of others b/c you feel superior in your academic choices. Others have far more academic experience under their belt and would not be pleased with many of the holes you left on the ground here.
     
     Primarily:
     
     " And there are no double-blind peer reviewed THEN repeated studies that have proven unvaccinated children are healthier so that is a statement not backed by science nor the medical community."
     
     That's correct. There are also no double-blind peer reviewed THEN repeated studies that have proven vaccinated children are healthier so that is a statement not backed by science nor the medical community.
     
     There are also no double-blind peer reviewed THEN repeated studies that have proven vaccines are safe so that is a statement not backed by science nor the medical community.
     
     There are also no double-blind peer reviewed THEN repeated studies that have proven vaccines are healthier so that is a statement not backed by science nor the medical community.
     
     There are also no double-blind peer reviewed THEN repeated studies that have proven vaccines are directly decreasing mortality rates so that is a statement not backed by science nor the medical community.
     
     There are also no double-blind peer reviewed THEN repeated studies that have proven concomitant vaccination is safe so that is a statement not backed by science nor the medical community.
     
     There are also no double-blind peer reviewed THEN repeated studies that have proven concomitant vaccination is effective so that is a statement not backed by science nor the medical community.
     
     I could go on but I presume someone as educated as yourself can see where this is leading. Widespread vaccination started long before we even had ethical and experimental standards for medical testing. It's a protected experiment; not a proven practice.
         report 4 of 4 [Not updated]people like this.
     Posted by tiffaney on January 12, 2012 at 8:45 AM

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389. Comment:
     
     What Is The Herd Immunity Theory?
     
     The herd immunity theory was originally coined in 1933 by a researcher called Hedrich. He had been studying measles patterns in the US between 1900-1931 (years before any vaccine was ever invented for measles) and he observed that epidemics of the illness only occurred when less than 68% of children had developed a natural immunity to it. This was based upon the principle that children build their own immunity after suffering with or being exposed to the disease. So the herd immunity theory was, in fact, about natural disease processes and nothing to do with vaccination. If 68% of the population were allowed to build their own natural defences, there would be no raging epidemic. Later on, vaccinologists adopted the phrase and increased the figure from 68% to 95% with no scientific justification as to why, and then stated that there had to be 95% vaccine coverage to achieve immunity. Essentially, they took Hedrich’s study and manipulated it to promote their vaccination programmes.
     
     (MONTHLY ESTIMATES OF THE CHILD POPULATION "SUSCEPTIBLE' TO MEASLES, 1900-1931, BALTIMORE, MD, AW HEDRICH, American Journal of Epidemiology, May 1933 - Oxford University Press).
         report 4 of 4 [Not updated]people like this.
     Posted by tiffaney on January 12, 2012 at 8:51 AM

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390. Comment:
     
     http://catholiclane.com/biotech-company-us…
     
     Here's some interesting information. Aborted fetal cell lines have been used in vaccine production for decades. Now there's a wider use for these cell lines. What's next?
         report 3 of 3 [Not updated]people like this.
     Posted by Idaho Spud on January 12, 2012 at 6:55 PM

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391. Comment:
     
     Did anyone notice that the owners of this website has removed this story (thread) from the "Most Commented On" section? The story at the top of the "Most Commented On" section has three (3) comments and this one has 390 comments. What's up with that? This story has also been removed from the "Most Emailed Stories" section. No media bias here...
        report 5 likes, 0 dislikes
     Posted by Health Freedom on January 14, 2012 at 8:07 PM

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392. Comment:
     Health Freedom,
     
     Yes, I noticed that too.
     
     It looks like everyone has pretty much moved on. Too bad. I was working on a reply post to Mr. Gavin, and had an important question for him.
        report 1 like, 0 dislikes
     Posted by ChristyAnn on January 15, 2012 at 8:09 PM

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393. Comment:
     It should be noted that Dr. Wakefield's findings have been replicated by other researchers/scientists.
     
     See http://lewrockwell.com/mercola/mercola173.html
     
     * A new investigation into Dr. Andrew Wakefield’s hotly contested MMR-autism study concluded there was no fraud committed by Dr. Wakefield * At least 28 studies from around the world support Dr. Wakefield’s controversial findings; Dr. Wakefield has also published dozens of peer-reviewed papers looking at the mechanism and cause of inflammatory bowel disease, and has extensively investigated the brain-bowel connection in the context of children with developmental disorders such as autism. * Growing research is now supporting the link between gastrointestinal disturbances and autism; it could be that if your child has suboptimal gut flora, vaccines can become the proverbial "last straw" – the trigger that sends his/her immune system over the edge into the development of chronic heath problems
     
     Again, the Boise Weekly article was extremely poorly researched and crafted. Boise Weekly should be embarrassed to print such blatant propaganda.
        report 2 likes, 0 dislikes
     Posted by ImmunizeWizely on January 26, 2012 at 12:06 PM

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394. Comment:
     Great info ImmunizeWisely!
     
     I would like to add to that, the latest action Dr. Wakefield is taking.
     
     http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/01/04/BritMedJ.pdf
     
     And I agree with the last two sentences of your post. Though I'm not so sure those at the Boise Weekly responsible for the article possess the sense of ethics or honesty required to feel even a remote amount of embarrassment.
        report 0 likes, 0 dislikes
     Posted by ChristyAnn on January 28, 2012 at 3:55 PM
     
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