More than 500
vaccine-related bills were introduced in U.S. state legislatures in
2019, many of which proposed to restrict or eliminate vaccine exemptions
Only 2% of
children attend public or private schools with vaccine exemptions for
any reason — medical, religious, philosophical or conscience — in the
U.S.
Fear mongering
about measles outbreaks in the U.S. and around the world resulted in the
forced vaccination lobby persuading legislators to eliminate the
religious and conscience exemption in Maine and the religious exemption
in New York.
In Washington state, the conscience exemption for measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine was eliminated.
In California, the legal right of private doctors to grant a medical exemption to vaccination was essentially eliminated.
Harmful vaccine
bills restricting or eliminating vaccine choice were stopped in
Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota,
Missouri, Vermont, Washington, Oregon and Texas, thanks to thousands of
people participating in the vaccine lawmaking process, who personally
contacted their state legislators and showed up for public hearings to
defend their informed consent rights
The online NVIC
Advocacy Portal was a major catalyst for that success. Registration is
free, and puts you in direct electronic contact with your own state and
federal legislators. You also receive action alerts with talking points
via email when vaccine bills are moving in your state or in Congress so
you can take action. Sign up today and consider making a donation to
support NVIC’s important work to prevent vaccine injuries and deaths and
protect your informed consent rights
Barbara Loe Fisher, cofounder and
president of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), a
nonprofit educational charity, has been a tireless human rights advocate
for vaccine safety and informed consent for over 35 years.
In this interview, we discuss measles outbreaks and how the
ever-intensifying pressure by the forced vaccination lobby in 2019 to
eliminate vaccine exemptions, not only in California but in many other
states as well, is affecting the public conversation about vaccination
and informed consent rights.
"It's been an unprecedented year in this country," she says.
"The assault on vaccine exemptions has covered the whole country. The
NVIC has monitored more than 500 vaccine-related bills that have been
introduced in the states this year.
We have actively reported on and issued action alerts, in many
cases, on more than 200 vaccine-related bills. What has happened this
year as a result of the World Health Organization declaring that
vaccine hesitancy is one of the top 10 global threats to health in this
world, [it] was immediately followed by — and I don't think coincidentally — reports of outbreaks of measles, just like in 2015."
Fear Mongering Eliminated Personal Belief Exemptions
As Fisher notes, it was déjà vu all over again. In 2015, there was an outbreak of measles at Disneyland in California. The same thing that happened in 2015 happened again this year.
After the World Health Organization (WHO) declared "vaccine
hesitancy" as one of the top 10 global threats to public health in
January 2019,1
there were highly publicized reports of measles outbreaks in
Washington, California and New York and children attending school with
vaccine exemptions became the scapegoats.2
Just like in 2015, in 2019 the fear mongering about measles
outbreaks was turned into a national media campaign to blame parents
whose children were attending day care and school with vaccine
exemptions, despite the fact that nationally only 2% of children in the
U.S. attend public or private schools with vaccine exemptions for any
reason — medical, religious, philosophical or conscience.3
In 2015, the same kind of exaggerated media hype stampeded the
California legislature into removing the personal belief vaccine
exemption, which included religious and philosophical beliefs.4
This year, the fear mongering resulted in the elimination of the
religious and conscience exemption in Maine and the religious belief
exemption in New York.5 In Washington state, the conscience exemption for measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine was eliminated.
In
California, the legislature passed a bill that essentially eliminates
the medical exemption by legally prohibiting doctors from granting a
child a medical exemption unless it strictly conforms to narrow vaccine
contraindications approved by the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization
Practices (ACIP).
Widespread Assault on Informed Consent to Vaccination Rights
So far in 2019, 18 states have proposed to eliminate or restrict
vaccine exemptions, but only Maine and New York actually went through
with it, and Washington state only restricted the conscience exemption
for MMR vaccine, leaving the religious, conscience and medical exemptions in place for all other vaccines mandated for school attendance.
The good news is that vaccine exemptions were successfully protected
in 15 other states where bills have been introduced to restrict or
remove vaccine exemptions.
"Parents and enlightened health care professionals stood up this
year, contacted their legislators [like] we have asked them to do for
10 years now, and showed up by the thousands at public hearings on
these bills.
We were able to stop bad bills in Alabama, Arizona, Colorado,
Connecticut, Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Vermont, Washington,
Oregon and Texas. We were able to hold the line on some of these
vaccine bills, especially to take away exemptions," Fisher says.
The NVIC Advocacy Portal — an online communications and advocacy
network created 10 years ago — was a major catalyst for that success.6 Registration is free, and puts you in direct electronic contact with your own state and federal legislators.
You also receive action alerts with talking points via email when
bills are moving in your state so you can take action to support good
vaccine bills that protect your right to make voluntary vaccine
decisions for yourself and your children, or to oppose bills that take
that right away from you.
How to Stay in the Know
"What we've done is made it easy for you to become a vaccine choice
activist," Fisher says. And, the strategy is clearly working. So, if
you've not yet signed up, please take a moment to register to be a user
of the NVIC Advocacy Portal today.
"We encourage everyone to sign up because what is happening in this country is, like I said, unprecedented," Fisher says.
"It's going to be worse next year. There are three states — New
Jersey, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — that still have bills pending to
take away vaccine exemptions.
Already, two states — Florida and Massachusetts — have prefiled
bills for 2020 to take away religious exemptions. Florida [also wants
to] restrict the medical exemption to only CDC contraindications.
They're going to create a medical board that's going to review all
medical exemptions.
We're predicting that Colorado, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio,
Oregon and Wisconsin are going to be particularly vulnerable in 2020.
There are bills pending in D.C. and New Jersey [and] we expect more to
be introduced next year that will allow minor children to give consent
to vaccination without their parents' knowledge or consent.
The pattern we're seeing is that there is a move in this country
to eliminate all vaccine exemptions, effectively, because the medical
[exemption] has become so restrictive, it's almost a nonexemption …
Signing up for the NVIC Advocacy Portal really empowers you to
be part of the process in protecting your informed consent rights when
it comes to vaccination."
Vaccinated Can Still Get Infected With, Transmit Disease
The main reason mandatory vaccination proponents give for removing
all personal belief exemptions and severely restricting the medical
vaccine exemption is that unvaccinated children (and adults) pose a
threat to herd immunity, also described by public health officials as "community immunity."
The concept of herd immunity is based on the idea that if a large
enough percentage of individuals in a population are immune to being
infected with and transmitting a viral or bacterial disease, they serve
as a barrier to protect individuals who are not immune.
The theory of vaccine-acquired herd immunity maintains that if a
certain percentage of individuals in a population are vaccinated, a
viral or bacterial disease will not be transmitted in the population
and make vaccinated or unvaccinated people sick.
Estimates made by public health officials for how high the
vaccination rate must be in a population in order to prevent infection
and transmission of measles, mumps, pertussis or other diseases varies, depending upon the microbe causing the disease.
For measles virus, current estimates range from 93% to 95%.7
Nationally, more than 94% of school children in the U.S. have received
two doses of MMR vaccine and, in some states, the MMR vaccination rate
is over 98%,8
yet measles outbreaks still occur. According to the vaccine-acquired
herd immunity theory, this should not happen. As noted by Fisher:
"One of the biggest myths out there is that when you get
vaccinated, you are guaranteed to not get the disease for which you've
been vaccinated against. What people don't understand is you can get
vaccinated and be infected subclinically. That means you have no
symptoms or very few symptoms.9,10,11
But you can still transmit that infection to other people. When
you have subclinical infections or atypically presenting infections in
vaccinated people, those people are not being diagnosed and reported.
Who is being diagnosed and reported? The people who are fully
expressing the symptoms. Many times, those are unvaccinated people.
They're fully expressing, where the vaccinated are atypically or
subclinically presenting. They're never diagnosed and reported.12
So, it looks as if all of the disease is occurring in
unvaccinated people. It's not. With pertussis, the medical literature
is clear that both the whole-cell DPT vaccine and acellular vaccine do
not always block infection. You have subclinical infections and
transmissions.13,14
The same with measles vaccine, mumps vaccine and influenza vaccine … 15,16,17What's happening is people think that only unvaccinated people are actually spreading disease, when that is not true."
What's more, measles outbreaks occurred not just in the U.S. this year, but around the world.18
Unfortunately, there's no data showing the prevalence of how many
vaccinated people are being asymptomatically infected with and
transmitting the wild-type measles virus in the U.S. or other
countries.19,20 If such surveillance is in fact being done, health authorities are not talking about it.
"There's no public acknowledgment that they're doing it. I'd
like them to answer the question, 'How many people in this country are
getting subclinically infected and are transmitting after being
vaccinated?' That's a big question that should be answered," Fisher says.
Can You Trust the Vaccine Rule Makers?
Certainly, the technology exists to provide an answer to that
question. But chances are the answer likely would conflict with current
national vaccine policy and the endgame of maximizing vaccine
manufacturers' profits by aggressively promoting a 100% vaccination
rate with all government recommended vaccines, so it's not a priority.
This is part and parcel of the problem, as many of the most basic
questions about vaccine safety and effectiveness simply are not
addressed with high quality scientific research and data collection.
"There needs to be more transparency with regard to a lot of things with vaccine science policy and law," Fisher says.
"There is not enough transparency on the part of the government, which
develops vaccines in partnership with the drug companies, that
licenses vaccines and that makes national policy for vaccines.
As I mentioned, they're trying to codify into state law the
recommendations by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices
(ACIP) at the CDC.21That's an appointed body by the CDC.22
They're trying to make that body a de facto lawmaking body in
this country. They're unelected people who were appointed by the CDC.
Why should a handful of people be allowed to effectively be lawmakers?"
What's more, individuals appointed to federal vaccine advisory committees can be given conflict of interest waivers.
So, sitting on these vaccine policymaking committees there are
individuals who may have gotten grants from the CDC or another federal
agency involved in vaccine development, regulation, policymaking or
promotion, or may have financial relationships with drug companies
selling vaccines, like being paid to conduct clinical trials, and they
are voting on whether a new vaccine should be licensed or recommended
for universal use by everyone.23
"Alot of people who are considered vaccine
experts definitely have financial relationships with the government, in
terms of government grants and also the manufacturers for testing or
running clinical trials or otherwise being involved with the vaccine
manufacturers.
These public-private partnerships between the federal health
agencies and the pharmaceutical companies that have been allowed by
Congress to develop over the last 30 years are very problematic.24
Because if you have a business partnership with someone and
you're supposed to be regulating that industry, like the FDA is
supposed to be regulating these companies, how are you going to
regulate your business partner? You're not."
Freedom of Choice Does Not Infringe on Pro-Vaccine Beliefs
The massive collusion between the pharmaceutical industry and
federal regulatory agencies that are supposed to monitor and regulate
them is really at the core of the problem, as these unholy alliances
end up putting profits before safety.
There is a revolving door between people who work for U.S. federal
health agencies and then go to work for the pharmaceutical industry and
the other way around.25,26
This means that Big Pharma, which over the past decade has spent $2.5
billion lobbying the federal government, is having a tremendous
influence on vaccine regulation, policymaking and law.27
In recent times, we've seen vicious public attacks against anyone who questions vaccine safety,
policy and law, or vaccine science. There have been extreme calls for
public shaming, identification, criminal prosecution, quarantine and
imprisonment, and demonization of those criticizing vaccine safety and
refusing to get government recommended vaccines.
A doctor developing vaccines who lobbies for "no exceptions" forced
vaccination laws has referred to parents of vaccine injured children as
a "hate group," and one prominent newspaper suggested vaccine critics
should be physically harmed.28,29,30,31
Most providers of vaccine information on the internet are also now
being censored by Google, effectively preventing people from finding
what could be life-saving information.32
As a result of that suppression, it's incumbent upon you, if you
know the truth, to protect the future of our country by fighting for
freedom of choice and freedom of information gathering. As noted by
Fisher:
"These attacks on freedom of speech, the right to dissent, the
right to criticize government and ask them to do a better job in
protecting the public's health is symptomatic of the close financial
partnerships between the pharmaceutical industry, the government and
the medical trade …
I think even people — especially people who want to use vaccines
— who want to follow the CDC's vaccine schedule need to understand
that the work we're doing is actually helping to protect them as well,
because what we're advocating for is proper licensing standards at the
FDA and wise vaccine policy-making at the CDC.
We defend your right to be able to make vaccine choices and use a
few vaccines, all the vaccines or no vaccines. It's your right and
responsibility to make that decision. If your freedom is taken away
from you and you can't make that decision anymore, what you need to
understand is that there are many more vaccines coming."33
"I grew up in the '50s and '60s. I had measles, mumps, rubella,
chicken pox, and so did all of my friends and my family. There wasn't
the fear of these childhood diseases that there is today … In the early
1960s, you had very influential, powerful public health officials and
physicians in this country acknowledging that measles was really a
moderate illness.
It did not cause widespread injury and death. They didn't just
say it once. They said it multiple times, including before they decided
to bring out the first measles vaccine. This is in the literature. It
is contemporary descriptions in the '50s and '60s of what measles was
like.
How did we go from that description to what we have today, which
characterizes measles as one of the biggest threats to humanity? It's
irresponsible. When public health officials and doctors don't tell the
truth, people eventually find out [about it].
And then what happens? They lose trust in what doctors and
public health officials say. Well, they should because they've been
lied to. I know from personal experience. I came from a medical family.
I trusted doctors and science. I believed what I was told. I didn't
question vaccines. My son had a reaction to his fourth DPT shot. I was
shocked that I hadn't been told the truth.
When I did this research on the history of measles and measles
vaccine, I was blown away again by the fact that there was no
transparency now about the real facts about this disease and the real
facts about the risks associated with the vaccines, and also the
effectiveness.
They knew from the very beginning, with the first killed and
live virus measles vaccines, that the measles vaccines were not always
blocking infection and that you could get atypical measles or have no
symptoms and still transmit. They knew this …
They are only digging the hole deeper for people to not trust
what they say. All along the way, they kept moving the goalpost in
terms of how many people would have to be vaccinated in order for there
to be herd immunity."
How Unvaccinated Individuals Strengthen Herd Immunity
Originally, the idea was to eliminate the measles virus entirely.
Yet the concept of herd immunity has always involved a combination of
temporary vaccine-acquired immunity and naturally acquired immunity.
When you're vaccinated, you can get asymptomatically boosted by
coming in contact with the wild-type virus via people who are actively
infected, and this is actually the best type of booster. But as noted
by Fisher, we've chosen instead to manipulate the immune system
of our children in an atypical way, through the administration of
vaccines and vaccine booster shots, doing everything possible to prevent
natural infection.
Can we honestly say that it has resulted in better public health? "I
would argue it has not," Fisher says. By virtually eliminating the
longer-lasting natural immunity offered by natural infection with
wild-type measles virus, we now have a population that is more
vulnerable to infection — not less. Fisher explains:
"What the medical literature shows is that baby boomers and the
generation before us acquired natural immunity, which is qualitatively
superior. It's longer lasting than vaccine-acquired immunity. We have
been helping what looks like vaccine-acquired herd immunity.
We never were vaccinated, but we are contributing to the concept
of what looks like vaccine-acquired herd immunity. When we die, you
won't have that barrier anymore. They know that.35,36
Vaccine-acquired immunity is not the same as naturally acquired
immunity. That has been the problem from the very beginning with the
creation of these vaccines. They have never understood how to make
vaccines mimic naturally acquired immunity exactly.37
I think the most shocking part, whenever I go into the medical
literature, is understanding how much they do not know about the
functioning of the immune system, about how infections confer immunity
and how vaccines stimulate artificial immunity."38
Vaccine Makers Have No Liability
The vaccine industry is a significant profit center, making tens of
billions of dollars each year — certainly enough incentive to continue
the suppression of critics. But the real driver is the fact that in the
U.S. today, vaccine makers have no financial liability for the harm
caused by their products.
In any business, you have to balance financial threats and
opportunities. In the case of vaccines, virtually all threats to the
business have already been eliminated — with the exception of open
public discussion about potential risks and failures of the product as
well as the ability of the consumer to refuse to buy and use the
product.
Financially, the federal government recommends and state governments
mandate use of vaccines and, as of 2011 when the U.S. Supreme Court
majority ruled that FDA licensed vaccines are "unavoidably unsafe,"
giant pharmaceutical companies marketing mandated vaccines in the U.S.
have faced no risk whatsoever when their products cause injury or
death.
"When the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 was passed … the companies still had liability," Fisher says. "They
had liability for design defect, [meaning] failure to make a vaccine
safer. Also, the doctors had liability in 1986. Companies and doctors
could be liable in civil court.
People could also choose to go to the Vaccine Injury
Compensation Program (VCIP) run by the federal government. We also got
safety provisions in that law — the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting
System (VAERS) system, the vaccine information statements, the duty to
write down vaccine names and manufacturers' names and lot numbers in
the medical record.
There were a lot of things that happened in that law, not the
least of which was government acknowledgment that vaccines can injure
and kill. But what happened after that law was passed?
In 1987, the medical trade associations very quietly, without us
knowing about it, got an amendment attached to a budget bill. At the
end of 1987, they gave the doctors liability protection.
Then, over the succeeding decades, Congress looked the other way
while federal agencies and rulemaking authorities gutted that law —
gutted the compensation provisions, gutted the safety provisions — and
Congress itself added amendments at the behest of the [vaccine]
companies and the medical trade associations.39
This law that is in place today isn't recognizable to the law
that we worked on in the 1980s. It's been a huge betrayal of the public
trust. It's a lesson learned. It's very difficult to get justice or to
get a fair law over the long term when you're dealing with politicians
who get great sums of money from the pharmaceutical industry."40
Do You Agree Your Child Is Expendable for the Greater Good?
As noted by Fisher, protecting civil liberties, freedom of thought,
speech, conscience and religious belief are foundational to the
founding and government of the United States. These are fundamental
human rights that we must protect.
"I do believe that if people will wake up and stop being
apathetic and will get involved in the legislative process and elect
people of integrity who will not be bought out, we can turn this
around..." Fisher says.
"I think we can have a revolution, but have it be a renewal, a
rebirth of this country by good people because I do believe that most
people are good and that most people want to help other people; they
don't want injustice or cruelty. They want compassionate laws, not like
the kind we're seeing with vaccines, which are not compassionate.
The [vaccine] laws we're seeing are based on a utilitarian
rationale, which is immoral … That is that some people can be
sacrificed for the rest. That a minority of people can be sacrificed
for the majority ... Once you decide some people are expendable, the
question becomes, 'How many are expendable for the greater good?' …
When you devalue the health of the individual, you, by
extension, eventually devalue public health. This is what is being
lost. We all are valuable. All of our lives are valuable and to be
respected and to be protected. Not just, what the government says,
'some people.'
I look at this whole issue of how we're all supposed to get
vaccinated to protect the immunocompromised who are undergoing
chemotherapy or recently have had an organ transplant. But what about
the people who can't get through the process of vaccination without
being injured or dying?
Why are their lives less important that the lives of people
going through chemotherapy or having an organ transplant? This is why
the narrowing of these vaccine exemptions and the elimination of the
vaccine exemptions is so dangerous for people who can't get through the
process of vaccination without being harmed. There are many more of
those people than people realize."
Some Good News as We Move Forward
The once-open internet is now anything but, thanks to Google
becoming an unassailable monopoly aligned with the drug and chemical
industries, both of which are major revenue sources. As a result, educational platforms are being censored and eliminated. But there's hope.
I recently met with about 500 other individuals in San Diego for a
gathering to discuss the future of the internet, and there's now a plan
in place for the creation of an alternative platform for uncensored
health information. Between us, we have connections with hundreds of
thousands, maybe upwards of half a million to a million health care
clinicians who are sensitive to the censorship issue.
They in turn have connections with thousands of patients in their
practice. Together, I have no doubt we will be able to drive people to
this new search engine. I'm quite certain it will spread like wildfire.
This platform will be every bit as viable and every bit as known
throughout the United States and the world as Google, Facebook, Amazon
and Wikipedia.
People will know that if you want the truth about health — we're not
going to focus on anything else — this is the place. Because
conventional media, the internet through Google, Facebook, YouTube and
all the rest are going to be under strict control.
Support NVIC Today!
Ten years ago, I listened to an audiotape of a vaccine conference
where Barbara Loe Fisher was speaking. Her dedication and passion
inspired me to get involved and to support the NVIC on an ongoing
basis. As a Health Liberty partner, the issues facing NVIC are
highlighted for an entire week each year, during which we ask for your
support.
We hope you'll help us fight this tyranny because, clearly, the tip
of the spear of the oppression of vaccine information is aimed at the
NVIC and others who are trying to present the truth and are concerned
about vaccine safety.
During this Vaccine Awareness Week, I will match your donation to
the NVIC dollar for dollar, to help this invaluable organization
receive the funds they need to continue this important public service
work.
When I first reached out to her a decade ago, the organization was
nearly at the point of having to shut down. Thanks to your combined
support, the NVIC has been able to stay afloat all these years.
"That's true," Fisher says. "You made a very big
difference at a critical point in our history. I will always be
grateful to the many followers you have who have supported NVIC and our
mission. It's made all the difference.
I know that a lot of people count on NVIC because we've been
here for 37 years. We've never wavered in our message. Our message has
always been about preventing vaccine injuries and deaths and defending
informed consent, and I look forward to another 30 years of working
with you."
Click on the link above to see the video and the whole article:
Story at-a-glance
Fear mongering
about measles has reached epidemic proportions in America, and some
state and federal lawmakers are reacting by proposing to severely
restrict the medical vaccine exemption and eliminate all religious and
conscientious belief exemptions in state vaccine laws
These
exemptions, which help prevent vaccine injuries and deaths, also protect
parental rights, civil liberties and the ethical principle of informed
consent to medical risk taking
Evidence
published in the scientific and medical literature reveals a trend of
measles vaccine failures, none of which is being discussed in public
conversations about measles vaccine policies and mandatory vaccination
laws
Vital
statistics data from the early 20th century reveal that, although
measles can cause complications like pneumonia, ear infections, and
brain inflammation, measles infections have never been a leading cause
of death or disability in the U.S.
Research shows
vaccinated persons can be asymptomatically infected with wild type
measles and may experience subclinical measles infections that remain
unidentified and unreported
Irrational Measles Fear is being used as a Pretext for Infringing on Individual Rights
The fatal
tendency of mankind to leave off thinking about a thing when it is no
longer doubtful, is the cause of half their errors.
– John Stuart Mill, 1859
Majorities are never a proof of the truth. – Dr. Walter R. Hadwen, 1896
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. – Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933
Fear. It's a natural and primal human emotion. While human instinct
is exceptional in evaluating and reacting to a natural personal risk, as
in facing a predator, humans are terrible at assessing modern risks.
According to Psychology Today1 this is because our
ancestors were programmed to quickly react and respond to a situation
before it is even consciously perceived. Our reactions aren't based in
logic and statistics, but in lightning fast primitive responses. Threats
such as venomous spiders and snakes2 cause an out-of-proportion fear compared with the more likely threat of being killed in a car crash.3 The low risk of a being killed in a shark attack4 evokes more terror than the much greater chance of dying from a prescription drug.5 (Spider
and snake bites kill approximately 13 people a year and shark attacks
kill 1 person every 2 years in the United States; there were 32,719
deaths in motor vehicle crashes in 2013 and 38,329 people died from a
drug overdose in 2010 in the United States.)
Roman Bystrianyk has been researching the history of diseases and
vaccines for more than 15 years. He has an extensive background in
health and nutrition as well as a BS in engineering and an MS in
computer science. He is the co-author with Suzanne Humphries MD of Dissolving Illusions: Disease, Vaccines, and the Forgotten History.
Infectious diseases fall into this emotional fear-based primal mental
algorithm. This reaction is completely understandable with mankind's
horrifying historical experience with deadly microbes. The black plague
decimated 30-60% of Europe's total population in the mid-1300s,6 a number of cholera pandemics during the 1800s killed millions,7 typhus killed 3 million in Russia during the early 1900s,8 and the list goes on. Historically, infectious diseases killed massive numbers of people. Typhus, typhoid, cholera, dysentery, smallpox, scarlet fever, whooping cough, diphtheria, tuberculosis, measles, and others were responsible for multimillions of deaths in the Western world over many centuries.
So with the recent spate of measles cases in the United States, the
enormous amount of fear and anger comes as no surprise. People who have
chosen not to vaccinate for a variety of reasons, have been viciously
disparaged,9 there have been calls to jail people that don't vaccinate,10 many pediatricians are banning parents who don't vaccinate their kids,11 and laws are quickly being considered to strip people of all rights to refuse any vaccine.12 There
has been nothing short of a panic over the relatively small number of
cases. It has also incited a raging fear that has been fanned by
numerous incendiary media reports. Even comedian Jimmy Kimmel has jumped
in, ridiculing anyone that questions vaccines.13
But let's take a deep breath and a moment to step back from the
hysteria and look at some information that is never part of the
discussion involving infectious diseases. Declining Measles Mortality
It's true that during the 1800s, and even into the early 1900s,
measles was a big killer. In fact, all infectious diseases were the
leading cause of death - whooping cough, scarlet fever, tuberculosis,
and others already mentioned, killed millions. How deadly these
diseases were is often emphasized. The implication is that without
vaccines, we would return to those dark and deadly times. Massive deadly
plagues would all return, and the advances we made because of vaccines
would all be wiped out.
However, looking at mortality records, there is something that is
never mentioned. The death rate for all infectious diseases had
plummeted
Figure 1
Figure 2
before the introduction of vaccines for all those diseases.
For example, in the United States the mortality rate for measles
decreased by more than 98% before the introduction of the measles
vaccine in 1963 (Figure 1). In England, we see the same thing - a dramatic decrease in deaths before the introduction of the measles vaccine in 1968 (Figure 2).
The same can be said for other infectious diseases such as whooping
cough - massive declines in death before the introduction of any
vaccine. Scarlet fever, which was during the 1800s a bigger killer than
whooping cough or measles, went to near zero without the use of a
vaccine.
Before the advent of a measles vaccine, measles was generally considered a mild illness. Even the British Medical Journal remarked
in 1959 at this particular medical practice that over a 10 year span
there were few complications from measles and that all children
recovered.
In the majority of children the whole episode has been well and truly
over in a week . . . In this practice measles is considered as a
relatively mild and inevitable childhood ailment that is best
encountered any time from 3 to 7 years of age. Over the past 10 years
there have been few serious complications at any age, and all children
have made complete recoveries. As a result of this reasoning no special
attempts have been made at prevention even in young infants in whom the
disease has not been found to be especially serious.14
Things were dramatically better before 1963 and the introduction of
the first measles vaccine. In fact, if we look at all the causes of
death from the United States Vital Statistics in 1962, we see that measles accounted for 0.02% of deaths that year (Figure 3).
In 1962, measles was sixth from the bottom for causes of death. You
can look through the list of causes of death and find almost everything
from "Birth Injuries" at 28,199 to "Ulcers" at 12,228 to "Asthma" at 4,896 were far higher than the 408 deaths attributed to "Measles" that year.
Even if there was never a measles vaccine invented in the first
place, would we be experiencing deaths on a massive scale as they were
in the 1800s or early 1900s? Not likely. In fact, if we look at the
exponential
Figure 3
Figure 4
trend line based on 50 years of data, the death rate would have more than likely continued to drop (Figure 4).
We can see the same thing in England - the trend shows a decreasing
death rate that would have continued after the introduction of the
vaccine anyway (Figure 5). It's not, as you may have
believed, that there was death and chaos before the introduction of the
measles vaccine and suddenly as if a magic wand was waved we all lived
happily ever after. In reality, most of the advances came over many
decades of improvement in hygiene, sanitation, electricity,
transportation of food, refrigeration, labor laws, and nutrition. The
innovation and hard won struggle for all these and other societal
improvements were what were instrumental in the mortality decline in all
infectious diseases. You owe much more to your plumber, electrician,
and grocer for the massive improvements in infectious diseases than any
doctor or pharmacist.
Another way to look at the improvements is to see how the case-fatality rate if you caught measles changed over the years (Figure 6).
In 1913, if you caught measles you had as high as a 1 in 29 chance of
dying. This case-fatality rate improved over the century so that by 1955
you odds had improved to 1 in 1,625. Although the CDC states that the
odds of death from measles is 1 in 500 to 1 in 1,000, the odds to just
before the vaccine introduction vary from the low of 1 in 1,625 in 1955
to a high of 1 in 980 in 1961, with an actual average of about 1 in
1,215 in the 10 year years before the vaccine was introduced in 1963.
That doesn't mean there weren't deaths because of measles in 1962.
There were, but they were very rare. For instance, in the six New
England States (Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode
Island, and Connecticut) there were just 16 deaths attributed to
measles. Some states had zero that year. It just wasn't as huge of a
problem as you might think today with all the rage and panic.
Back in 1962, we didn't have the detailed statistics on causes of
death that we have today. The National Safety Council now accumulates
causes of death from being struck by lightning to falling out of a
building to drowning. If we compare the 1962 odds of dying from measles
(1 in 457,000), it falls between drowning in a swimming pool (1 in
486,000) and a fall involving a bed, chair, or other furniture (1 in
424,000); we
Figure 5
Figure 6
can gain a little perspective on the risk if we had no measles vaccine program at all (Figure 7).
As with other Western countries, the mortality rate from measles had
greatly declined in France before the vaccine became available in 1966 (Figure 8). Yet, after its introduction vaccination rates remained low. In 1983 the vaccination rate was less than 20%.15 In
that year there were 20 deaths attributed to measles out of a
population of over 54 million, which is a rate of 0.037 per 100,000 or
approximately 1 in 2.7 million. By 1989 the vaccination rate was still
less than 40%.16 In that year, there were 3 deaths attributed to measles, which is a rate of .005 per 100,000 or 1 in 19.37 million (Figure 9).
Again, to put this in perspective by comparing it to National Safety
Council statistics, you were more than 3 times as likely to be killed by
being hit by lightning (1 in 5,506,120) than dying from measles in
France in 1989 (1 in 19,370,000) when the vaccination rate was well
below what would be considered as sufficient for "herd immunity." Vaccination vs. Natural Infection
Also, the less than perfect history of the measles vaccine is never
mentioned. The first measles vaccine, which was a killed measles virus
(KMV) vaccine introduced in 1963, caused serious problems17 and even deaths.18 After
millions of children were injected with it, the vaccine was quickly but
quietly scrapped and a live vaccine was introduced in 1967 with
proclamations made that a single shot would give lifelong immunity.19 A grandiose and unproven proclamation was made that measles would be eliminated from the United States by 1967.20 Today, all children have to receive 2 doses of the vaccine. Additional shots are recommended to adults by the CDC.21
Contracting natural measles generally gave you solid lifelong immunity.22 The vaccine
doesn't and will require revaccination throughout life. Because of this
artificially generated situation, we could see large scale epidemics
due to less than perfect immunity from the vaccine:
Because measles-specific antibody titer after vaccination is lower
than after natural infection, there is concern that vaccinated persons
may gradually lose protection from measles.
Figure 7
Figure 8
Secondary vaccine failure (loss of immunity over time), in contrast
to primary vaccine failure (no protection immediately after
vaccination), is a concern because of the potential insidious challenge
to measles elimination. For instance, if vaccine-induced immunity wane
to non-protective levels in a high proportion of vaccinated adults, the
level of population protection might decline to allow recurrence of
endemic disease. By means of statistical modeling, Mossong et al.
predicted waning of vaccine-induced immunity 25 years after
immunization.23
Could we have done something different than vaccinating every human
being on the planet multiple times against a relatively mild infectious
disease? Was there another path we could have taken in the 1960s? The
truth is that there was never a serious study of why there was such a
massive decline in deaths before the vaccine. Once there was a vaccine,
virtually everyone jumped onto the bandwagon promoting and creating laws
to enforce this paradigm. But in 1967, scientists knew that antibodies
(the thing that measles vaccine stimulates and which is measured as a
mark of immunity) weren't even needed for normal recovery from measles.24 Experiments done in the 1940s showed that vitamin C was extremely effective against measles, especially when used in higher doses.25 Vitamin A also led to a dramatic decline in measles mortality:
Combined analyses showed that massive doses of vitamin A given to
patients hospitalized with measles were associated with an approximately
60% reduction in the risk of death overall, and with an approximate 90%
reduction among infants.... Administration of vitamin A
to children who developed pneumonia before or during hospital stay
reduced mortality by about 70% compared with control children.26
Figure 9
Figure 10
Trading Places: Lower Disease Incidence vs. Weaker Immunity
Although the mortality rate had decreased over time to very low
levels, the incidence of the disease had only slowly declined by 1963.
After the introduction of the vaccine, there is a precipitous decline in
cases of recorded measles (Figure 10). Some of this
decline in incidence is because of how diseases are measured. If you had
gotten a vaccine and actually did worse than if you caught natural
measles by having a higher fever or atypical measles, you were still
counted as not having measles. With the KMV vaccine, forty-eight percent
of people had a rash, and 83 percent had fevers up to 106°F
post-injection.27 Yet with the measles vaccine, there was an
interruption of viral transmission which reduced wild measles to the
very low levels we see today. So the vaccine ultimately did what it was
designed to do - reduce the cases of wild measles - even if it took a
lot longer and many mistakes along the way to do it.
Today, the vaccine is not risk-free. How much risk is carried with
it? It's hard to tell because the only tracking of problems is done
through a completely voluntary reporting system called the Vaccine
Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). Even the FDA states it receives
less than 1% of suspected serious adverse drug reactions.28 This means only a small
Figure 11
fraction of the events that happen are actually reported. Even so, you can still search the VAERS database29 and quickly discover deaths or other serious problems that are associated with vaccines (Figure 11).
The odds of death are probably low from the vaccine, but then again,
so is a death from measles itself. So we're trying to prevent a
relatively low-risk disease that provides stronger immunity with a
vaccine that has a low risk of causing problems. Because of this weaker
vaccine immunity, there will be calls for vaccinating more and more
adults for measles when in the past it was rare for anyone to get
measles except as a child. Also keep in mind that maternal antibodies of
the vaccinated that are passed to a baby are far weaker than those of
people who attained natural immunity.30 Because of this,
babies are now more vulnerable to measles when in the past they would
have been protected by stronger maternal antibodies. Now there are
considerations for giving the MMR to children at a younger age or their
mothers in an attempt to correct this unexpected problem.31 And these issues are just part of the story.
In the 1950s, it was also observed that mothers often commented on
"how much good the attack (of measles) has done their children."32 We're learning today that exposure to microbes is beneficial because it actually stimulates the immune system, reducing allergies and asthma.33 Was
measles a benefit for those who were well nourished? Could we have
taken on an approach of evaluating and ensuring the health of children
to help them attain lifelong protection from measles while boosting
their immune systems? Was this an approach that would not only have
benefited children in dealing with measles but simultaneously with other
infectious diseases and other health conditions?
In fact there is research showing just that: measles infection
had a whole host of positive immune modulating effects that have been
shown to be beneficial to people:
There was evidence of association between a negative history of
measles, exposure in early life, and development of immunoreactive
diseases, sebaceous skin diseases, degenerative diseases of bone and
cartilage, and certain tumours.34
A reduced risk of Parkinson's disease
was associated with most childhood viral infections. The negative
association was statistically significant for a history of measles prior
to college entrance.35
Our results pointed out a protective role of childhood infectious diseases on the risk of CLL [chronic lymphoid leukaemia] in adults.36
Measles and mumps, especially in case of both infections, were
associated with lower risks of mortality from atherosclerotic CVD
[Cardiovascular Disease].37
In the 1970s, measles infections were observed to cause regression of pre-existing cancer tumors in children.38
So were the mothers of the 1950s right that an attack of measles had
provided their children a benefit? Did the perhaps laudable goal of
eliminating measles result in a number of unanticipated increases of
other more serious diseases? It certainly appears that by vaccinating
with the idea of protecting against measles scientists have been
modifying the immune system without fully comprehending what they have
been doing and with very few understanding the immunologic blowback.
Fear as a Pretext for Infringing on Individual Rights
Is it really so clear-cut that the CDC and WHO should insist on
vaccinating everyone in the United States for measles? Is it reasonable
to have politicians who generally don't understand any of this and who
defer to people who have an extreme pro-vaccine bias to make decisions
to force everyone to follow a set plan? Keep in mind the CDC states that
before the vaccine there were 500 deaths a year from measles39 and 1-2 children out of a 1,000 (or 1 in 500) will die from the disease.40 Yet,
the actual numbers are a little different than what you see presented.
Looking at the data from 5 years before the vaccine, the average number
of deaths was 440, not 500. And there is every probability that this
number would have continued to decline. The chances of dying if you
caught the disease using the same 5 years before the vaccine had an
average of 1 in 1,157 not 1 in 500 or even 1 in 1,000. And the odds may
have been even better. Some have suggested that the chances of dying
from measles were at a much lower rate of 1 to 3 in 10,000.41
In the 1920s, the United States was gripped by a Red Scare.42 President
Wilson's Attorney General, A. Mitchell Palmer conducted a series of
raids on individuals he believed were dangerous to American security. He
deported immigrants without just cause. Federal agents broke into the
homes of suspected anarchists without search warrants, jailed labor
leaders, and held about 5,000 citizens without respecting their right to
legal counsel. Palmer thought that American civil liberties were less
important than rooting out potential wrongdoers.
Today, we're in the midst of a new red scare in the form of fear of a
red measles rash where there are large numbers of people that think
that freedom and self-determination is less important than being
vaccinated. This red scare has led people to propose mandating all
vaccines for everyone without exception. Proposals have been made to
legally sue those who don't vaccinate and are blamed for infecting
someone else.43 Ironically, those who are harmed by a vaccine are actually prevented by law from directly suing the vaccine manufacturer.44
How long before this hysteria results in parents having their
children taken away by the state? Or actually throwing parents in jail
for trying to do what's best for themselves and their children? Do we
want to create a society of totalitarian medical rule where you don't
have a choice in anything that is dictated to you by the government and
pharmaceutical companies? In the early 1900s, compulsory vaccination
laws were used as a justification for forced sterilization of the unfit
based on a later discredited science of eugenics.45 Tens of
thousands of people were forcibly sterilized in the United States, all
based on this notion that the State has supreme rights to compel you to
get vaccinated.
Shouldn't we be putting our efforts into things that are far more dangerous than measles? Every year in the United States nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) kill 16,500 people through gastrointestinal complications alone.46 Secondhand smoke kills 42,000 non-smokers.47 Hospital-acquired pressure sores kill 60,000 people.48 Hospital-acquired infections kill 100,000 people,49 and
one study estimates there are as many as 400,000 premature deaths from
preventable medical harms associated with hospital care.50 The
odds of dying because of medical harm associated with hospital care is 1
in 790 - a far cry from the 1962 chance of dying from measles at 1 in
457,000. And ironically those pediatric offices where you're getting
your vaccine to protect your healthy child from measles was recently
reported at causing 700,000 flu-like illnesses each year in children and
family members within two weeks of the visit.51 That is higher than the approximately 500,000 measles cases that occurred in 1962.
No one is saying that measles wasn't and isn't a problem. But put
into logical perspective, it's not something we need to panic over and
allow laws to be put in place that strip us all of our human rights to
control our own bodies. As a society, we're far more worried about shark
attacks and measles than looking behind the illusions that have led to
the deaths of so many more.
Is any of this ever discussed by any of the talking heads on CNN? Is
there an outcry to jail medical professionals for causing so many
preventable hospital-acquired harms? Where is the mobilization to stop
the 700,000 cases of flu-like illness happening because of pediatric
offices? Is Jimmy Kimmel talking about hospitals and how many people die
each year because of an infection they acquired in that hospital? No,
no, no, and no. Why? Because in large part, many humans react with a
primitive fear response instead of objectively looking at facts,
examining history, and questioning what they've been told.
For additional research on measles, visit the GreenMedInfo database on the subject.
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