An Exercise In Critical Thinking

An Exercise in Critical Thinking - Check out this chart comparing the 1980's vaccine schedule to our current schedule and then ask yourself a few questions.
1) How many kids were dying due to outbreaks of infectious disease in the 1980's?
2) How can we assume this dramatic jump in the number of vaccines is safe when there are no studies on giving multiple vaccines in one day?
3) How can we assume this dramatic jump in the number of vaccines is safe when there are no studies on the health outcomes of the current vaccine schedule in total?
4) How can we assume this dramatic jump in the number of vaccines is safe when there are no studies evaluating the safety of injected aluminum in children when the amount of aluminum exposure in one pediatric visit could be as much as 5 times the allowable amount given to an adult in a single day intravenously in the hospital setting?
5) How can we assume this vaccine schedule is safe when there are still trace amounts of thimerosal (mercury) in many pediatric vaccines and there are ZERO studies that compare populations of children who received vaccines with thimerosal compared to vaccines with NO thimerosal? (all current studies compare vaccines with a high amt of thimerosal to vaccines with LESS)
6) How can we assume the current vaccine schedule is safe when there are ZERO studies comparing the overall health of vaccinated vs. unvaccinated people?
NOTE how many times I used the word "assume" because that's what the CDC and AAP do. In the absence of scientifically answering these questions they are...."assuming" vaccines are "safe". And we know what "assuming" makes of us all. I don't know about you but I think, given vaccines are mandated, my child deserves better than that.

David Kirby: US Health Officials Back Study Idea on Vaccinated vs. Unvaccinated Children – Will Media Take Note?

by David Kirby and published by Age of Autism - Here

It is not accurate for members of the media to report that the link between vaccines has been “disproven.” This is especially true in light of recent news from the National Vaccine Advisory Committee, and a series of news items from the Federal Court of Claims, Federal health agencies, leading universities and top autism researchers around the country. There are now many reasons why the media should continue its coverage of this serious and ongoing debate:

THE NATIONAL VACCINE ADVISORY COMMITTEE (NVAC)

On Friday, February 27, a special group convened by The Keystone Center on behalf of the Department of Health and Human Services’ National Vaccine Advisory Committee Vaccine Safety Working Group (NVAC VSWG) recommended appointing a panel of experts to explore the strengths and weaknesses of conducting studies on health outcomes in vaccinated vs. unvaccinated populations. The group, known as the “Salt Lake City Writing Group,” said it was “desirable” to include autism as one such health outcome.

As they stated in a draft “consensus statement”:

“(There is) a strong desire to study the health impact of the immunization schedule, potentially through a ‘vaccinated vs. unvaccinated study’. Outcomes to assess include biomarkers of immunity and metabolism, and outcomes including but not limited to neurodevelopmental outcomes, allergies, asthma, immune-mediated diseases, and learning disabilities. The inclusion of autism as an outcome is desired”

The Writing Group supported a recommendation to “charge an expert panel with evaluating study designs for research on the impact of the standard schedule of vaccination on an array of health outcomes of significant public interest. This draft charge is responsive to issues raised at community meetings in Alabama, Oregon, and Indiana as well as the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee request for collaboration with the National Vaccine Program Office.”

Writing Group members who drafted the statement included Federal and State health officials, Federal vaccine officials, CDC officials, and leaders of autism and vaccine safety advocacy groups. They included the following individuals:

Federal Health Agencies and Panels

CDC:

Roger Bernier, Ph.D., MPH, Senior Advisor, CDC
Elizabeth Skillen, PhD, MS, Policy Analyst, Immunization Safety Office, CDC

HHS:

Bruce Gellin, M.D., MPH, Director, HHS National Vaccine Program Office (NVPO) and Executive Secretary of NVAC

Dan Salmon, Ph.D., Vaccine Safety Specialist, HHS - NVPO

Ben Schwartz, M.D., former Associate Director for Science, HHS and Medical Director for CARE

NVAC:

Guthrie Birkhead, M.D., MPH Chair, HHS National Vaccine Advisory Committee (NVAC) and member of NVAC Vaccine Safety Working Group, also Deputy Commissioner, Office of Public Health, NY State Dept. of Health

Andrew Pavia, M.D., NVAC Member & Chair, NVAC Vaccine Safety Working Group and with Dept. of Pediatrics, Utah School of Medicine

Chris Carlson, Ph.D., NVAC Vaccine Safety Working Group Member, and with Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center, Seattle

Lance Gordon, Ph.D., NVAC and member of NVAC Vaccine Safety Working Group

James Mason, M.D., DrPH, NVAC Member and member of NVAC Vaccine Safety Working Group, former CDC Director and former Assistant Secretary of Health

Tawny Buck, member of NVAC Vaccine Safety Working Group, parent of DPT brain injured daughter

State & Local Public Health Agencies and Organizations

Anna Buchannan, MPH, Senior Director, Immunization & Infectious Disease, Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO)

Jim Shames, M.D., Medical Director, Jackson County Health Department, OR

David Sundwall, M.D., Executive Director, Utah Department of Health

Collette Young; Ph.D., MS, Surveillance & Training Manager, Oregon Public Health Division, Immunization Program, OR Public Health Division

Robert Bednarczyk, NVAC Research Analyst, NY Department of Health

University/Academic

Joseph A. Bocchini, Jr., M.D., Professor & Chairman, Department of Pediatrics, Louisiana State University

Margaret Dunkle, Senior Fellow, Center for Health Policy Research, George Washington University and Director, Early Identification and Intervention Collaborative, LA County

Alan Greene, M.D., Clinical Profession, Division of General Pediatrics, Packard Children's Hospital, Stanford University School of Medicine;

Heather Zwickey, Ph.D., Dean of Research and Associate Professor of Immunology, National College of Natural Medicine, Oregon

Autism or Vaccine Organizations

Peter Bell, Executive Vice President, Programs and Services, Autism Speaks

Sallie Bernard, Executive Director, Safe Minds

Vicky Debold, PhD, RN, Director of Patient Safety, National Vaccine Information Center;
Barbara Loe Fisher, Co-founder & President, National Vaccine Information Center

Members of Public or Other Child Health Groups

Tracy Cron, RN and mother who attended the Birmingham public engagement workshop
Dennis Johnson, MS, Executive VP, Policy & Advocacy, Children's Health Fund, NYC
Debbie McCune Davis, Program Director, Arizona Partnership for Immunization, Arizona State Senator

(*PLEASE SEE THE DRAFT CONSENSUS STATEMENT at Age of Autism, link above)

CNN - Should I Vaccinate My Baby

Update: After watching this CNN segment, you may want to visit my newer post "Should I Vaccinate My Baby - Vaccine Safety - Why the Controversy?" This new post includes a list of articles and research references, including a link to the CNN segment below. To see the updated post go here.

Yesterday, CNN ran two Segments called "Should I Vaccinate My Baby" and "The Empowered Parent."

Great job CNN! They got a couple points wrong about Hannah Polling but great job none the less. Hannah Neurologist father says the vaccines caused/triggered her mitochondrial disorder which led to her autism and the genetics support this.

Watch - Should I Vaccinate My Baby.

Read - For more information, from CNN, about how to work with your Pediatrician to take precaution's.

As CNN recommends in their report, you may follow Dr. Robert Sears modified vaccine schedule to keep your child up to date yet "be on the safe side". His book is called The Vaccine Book.

Keep in mind that even Dr. Sears recommendations can not grantee that your baby will not suffer a vaccine reaction.

A - Reactions to individual vaccines, for a small subset of kids, are well know and documented. Thus the government compensation program called the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System.

B - Because the government followed the recommendation of the 2004 IOM Vaccine Safety Report, no research has been conducted to look for a link between autism and vaccines. Therefore, if there is a link we do not know what it is about the vaccines that might be causing it. As the former head of the NIH, Dr. Bernadine Healy has said, "The question simply has not been answer." (Watch her interview)So until the question has been answered the recommendations of Dr.s like Robert Sears are the best we can do to, hopeful, diminish any possible risk of adverse reaction.

The Center Will Not Hold As Parents & Doctors Question Vaccine Policy, by Barbara Lowe Fisher

The Center Will Not Hold As Parents & Docs Question Vaccine Policy

by Barbara Loe Fisher

It was only a matter of time. For 26 years parents of vaccine injured children and a few brave doctors have challenged the one-size-fits-all approach to mandated use of multiple vaccines in the absence of sound scientific evidence that policy is safe for all children. Now, when 1 in 6 child in America is learning disabled and 1 in 150 develops autism, more rank and file pediatricians are speaking out about the need to provide pediatric care for unvaccinated children and respect parental choices to use fewer vaccines.

Last week in a CBS-TV interview, HPV vaccine researcher Dr. Diane Harper supported more scientific research as well as the ethical principle of informed consent to vaccination when asked whether HPV vaccine should be mandated. She said "We don't know yet what's going to happen when millions of doses of the vaccine have been given and to put in process a place that says you must have this vaccine, it means you must be part of a big public experiment....... There isn't enough information to have a mandate that you can't go to school until you have this vaccine. It does not make any sense."

This week in another CBS-TV interview, former NIH Director Bernadine Healy, M.D., stood up and spoke out about the need to scientifically investigate the causal association between vaccines and autism, especially the potential for certain individuals to be genetically susceptible to being harmed by vaccines. She said "I think that the public health officials have been too quick to dismiss the hypothesis as irrational.... there may be this susceptible group. The fact that there is concern, that you don't want to know that susceptible group is a real disappointment to me. If you know that susceptible group, you can save those children. If you turn your back on the notion that there is a susceptible group.....what can I say?"

At the same time that enlightened pediatricians, researchers, and former health officials are calling for a re-examination of scientifically questionable vaccine policies that have failed to identify and screen out high risk children and respect parental rights to make informed, voluntary vaccine choices, some British health authorities and politicians are calling for MMR vaccine mandates for British children. The leading proponent for mandates in Britain said "The MMR vaccination rate is at 85% and the target figure is 95%, so it's about catching children who may have moved or lost contact with their health visitor but also saying to parents your child has a right to live free from vaccine preventable diseases." The head of Britain's Medical Association called the proposal "morally and ethically dubious" and added "A Stalinist approach like this would be likely to backfire on an unprecedented scale and increase opposition to vaccinations."

After 26 years, U.S. health officials are also wrestling with how to prove to parents and doctors that current vaccine policies have adequately addressed evidence that more and more children are regressing after vaccination and suffering brain and immune dysfunction. A transcript of the April 11, 2008 National Vaccine Advisory Committee workshop at which parents and doctors expressed their concerns about vaccine safety is now available at http://www.hhs.gov/nvpo/nvac/transcript_apr08.ht ml

In the meantime, 19 parent organizations are endorsing a call for Presidential candidates to pledge to issue two executive orders within 100 days of taking office which would (1) remove mercury from all vaccines by Jan 1. 2010 and (2) require a moratorium on the addition of new vaccines to the recommended list for children until the current vaccine schedule can be proven safe. Supporting organizations include A- CHAMP, Autism One, Autism Research Institute, Autism United, Deirdre Imus Environmental Center for Pediatric Oncology, Environment of Harm Yahoo Group, Generation Rescue, HEAL Foundation, Moms Against Mercury, National Autism Association, National Vaccine Information Center, No Mercury, Safeminds, Schafer Autism Report, Spectrum Magazine, TACA -- Talk About Curing Autism, Treating Autism (UK), Unlocking Autism, and World Mercury Project.

On Wednesday, June 4, 2008 a "Green Our Vaccines" rally will be held in Washington, D.C. questioning the safety of vaccine components and the government's current vaccine schedule.

Vaccines: Defining the Concerns and How to Get Educated

First let me say, we are not anti vaccine. We just don't feel that the proper research exists and that the FDA guidelines on toxins in vaccines should at least meet the standard of other drugs.

Here are a few of the concerns shared by those of us who support vaccine reform.

1. The excessive amount of aluminum. I say excessive because the FDA recommends no more the 25mcg injected per day in preemies and those with impaired kidney function. However, on day one of life a newborn receives 250 mcg in the Hep B Vaccine and at each of the 2, 4 and 6 months visits and infant may receive 295 mcg to 1225 mcg , depending on the combination of brands. And guess what...there has never been a study evaluating the the tolerable amount of aluminum in infants. Want to verify? http://www.mothering.com/articles/growing_child/vaccines/aluminum-new-thimerosal.html

2. There has never been a study evaluating vaccinated vs. non vaccinated populations. There is a bill currently in front of congress to accomplish just this. Please support it, if it makes the senate floor. Read more http://theeducatedparent.blogspot.com/2008/02/dr-boyd-haley-response-to-study.html

3.There has never been a study evaluating the long term impact of 26 to 32 vaccines by age 2.

4.The study so often referenced, as proof of no harm, is the Denmark study. That population is in no way comparable to the US because they have a much less aggressive vaccine schedule. Google this study. You will find it referenced by many experts and critisized by many more.

5. There has never been a study conducted evaluating the safety of combined shots in one visit.

To educate yourself, I would highly recommend

1. the book by Aviva Jill Romm, Vaccination; A Thoughtful Parents Guide. She talks in depth about vaccines and each disease and the risks associated with the disease vs. the possible risk of the vaccine.

2. Also, I hear Dr. Robert Sears book, The Vaccine Book is very good and he gives an alternate schedule

3. This is an excellent article by Dr. Sears, about the high content of aluminum in vaccines http://theeducatedparent.blogspot.com/2008/03/in-recognition-of-autism-awareness.html

4.Here is a superb explanation of the research concerns from Dr. Boyd Haley, the head of the Chemistry Dept at Kentucky State University. http://theeducatedparent.blogspot.com/2008/02/dr-boyd-haley-response-to-study.html.

5. The National Vaccine Information Center is another good source http://www.909shot.com/.

6.And here's information on obtaining a waivers in all 50 states http://www.vaclib.org/exemption.htm . Don't believe that you MUST vaccinate to enter your child in school or daycare. All states provide a right to waiver...they just don't make that right common knowledge.

The Poling Case - Federal Gov't finds in favor of the parents that vaccines caused their daughter's autism

The following link will take you to Adventures in Autism and press coverage related to the Poling Case. The Good Morning America interview was very well done and further down the page you will find the Poling press conference held on March 6. http://feeds.feedburner.com/AdventuresInAutism