For an update (August 2016) on this correspondence please click here.
March 18, 2015
Dear Mr. Shanks and fellow CBC Producers
I am writing in response to your email comments of March 12, 2015 pertaining to my formal complaint of the CBC’s handling of vaccine related programs by Rex Murphy on Cross Country Check Up and The National in February 2015.
Mr. Shanks, you and I can debate over what was actually stated by Mr. Murphy. I think, however, there is no debate over how it was said and the intent of his comments that day – to demean, dismiss, marginalize, silence and discount the concerns of those who question the safety of the recommended vaccine schedule.
Firstly, my assumption is that you and the other producers at CBC are well intended in your efforts to address the vaccine issue. I’m assuming there is no financial or political conflict of interest that would overtly bias your ability to present a fair and thoughtful exploration of the matter of vaccine safety and effectiveness.
I also assume that the producers and hosts at CBC are no better informed than most Canadians on the issues of vaccine safety and effectiveness. Unless a vaccine has personally injured a family member, most Canadians accept the promotional messages delivered by Health Canada and the pharmaceutical industry as fact.
I make this statement, not in judgment, but simply in observation of your recital of the typical pro-vaccine messages that are routinely delivered in mainstream media whenever questions of vaccine safety and effectiveness are raised –
“Vaccines are safe and effective.”
“The risks of injury are minimal.”
“Vaccine damage is one in a million.”
“The benefits far outweigh the risks.”
“We have a social responsibility to vaccinate.”
“Only a tiny minority of children will experience an adverse reaction.”
“The science on vaccines is clear.”
“Vaccines do not cause autism.”
“Mercury does not cause autism.”
What is missing in your response and in your programming is the thoughtful and thorough exploration of the assumptions and claims made by the pharmaceutical industry with regards to vaccines, as well as clinical evidence to substantiate these claims.
You appear to:
There is a cultural story that the world is safer because of vaccines. Millions of lives have been saved. Vaccines are safe and effective. The benefits far outweigh the risk. While this is a wonderful story, this story has not been substantiated by clinical evidence.
Most people, and I trust CBC producers are similar, accept these statements as facts and assume someone else has verified the facts and that government oversight ensures all is well. Thus, when myself, other parents of vaccine injured children, or a researcher questions these statements and request clinical evidence, we are considered “anti-vaxxers”, “irresponsible”, “tin foil hatters”, fraudulent, and incompetent.
Underlying Assumptions
The vaccine program and the consideration currently being given to making vaccinations mandatory is based on the following four assumptions:
1. Vaccines are effective
2. Vaccines are safe
3. The unvaccinated contract disease because they are unvaccinated
4. The unvaccinated endanger others
Are these assumptions true? What evidence have you seen to substantiate these assumptions? Your programming suggests that you accept these assumptions as true and believe there is no need to investigate further. Are you absolutely certain these assumptions are true?
Deconstructing the Assumptions
#1: Vaccines Are Effective
The support for vaccination is predicated on a non-event; i.e. something not happening. The claim is made that because infectious diseases don’t occur with the same frequency or severity as in the past that vaccines are responsible for the decline.
Are you aware that no clinical proof exists to support the claim that vaccines are primarily responsible for the decline in infectious diseases, let alone the claim of having saved millions of lives? While there is a temporal relationship between the introduction of some vaccines and the decline of some diseases, there is no clinical evidence of a causal relationship.
The vaccine industry rejects a temporal relationship when parents report their child developed autism, asthma, diabetes, seizures, arthritis, speech, language and behavioral challenges, and life threatening allergies following a vaccination, but accept a temporal relationship as valid proof of the effectiveness of vaccines.
Vaccination effectiveness claims are not made on the basis of evidence of the improved health of vaccinated individuals. Vaccine effectiveness claims are made on the presence of anti-bodies and titters in the blood.
There is no clinical evidence that the decline in incidence and mortality from infectious diseases was caused by vaccinations. Instead there is abundant evidence that the decline started with the implementation of public health measures prior to the introduction of vaccines – clean drinking water, closed sanitation systems, and better nutrition. For a detailed historical review of infectious diseases see – Dissolving Illusions by Suzanne Humphries, MD.
#2: Vaccines are Safe
Are you aware that:
#3: People Contract Disease Because They Are Unvaccinated
Media and health authorities routinely oversimplify how the immune system works and reduce the susceptibility to illness to whether someone is vaccinated or not. Doctors too are guilty of diagnosing illnesses based on vaccination status rather than on clinical evidence and test results. Witness the number of measles cases that were diagnosed in unvaccinated populations where medical testing later determined their condition was in fact not measles. Media rarely report on the large numbers of individuals who contract disease even though they are fully vaccinated.
The discussion on which individuals contract disease often doesn’t acknowledge that infectious diseases declined in unvaccinated populations as well as vaccinated populations. Witness the reduction in scarlet fever without any vaccine. This would indicate that vaccines were not the primary cause of the declines.
Media routinely fail to report the high incidence of infectious disease in low-income third world countries where the rates of vaccination are high. The evidence actually supports the belief that clean drinking water, closed sewage sanitation, and better nutrition are more effective in preventing disease than vaccination.
Who is susceptible to illness is a more complex than vaccine compliance.
#4: The Unvaccinated Endanger Others
We love to scapegoat the unvaccinated. We make them responsible for the spread of diseases (witness the media coverage following the Disneyland outbreak). We threaten to charge the unvaccinated for medical services if they contract a “vaccine preventable illness” or ‘cause’ another to contract an illness. We discuss removing children from parents who don’t vaccinate, and prevent unvaccinated children from attending school and withholding public resources simply because they are unvaccinated or partially vaccinated.
The idea that the only plausible reason people contract infectious disease is because other parents don’t get their children vaccinated is a powerful marketing strategy, but scientifically flawed. The fact is:
Why does anyone get sick? Why do some people get sick and others don’t? It’s more than a question of vaccinations. When we reduce our inquiry to whether someone is vaccinated or not we oversimplify human health and do a disservice to everyone. Immunity is substantially more complex than simply the number of antibodies in the blood.
Unanswered Questions:
There are a number of questions that responsible journalists ought to be asking with regards to vaccinations:
1. Is it reasonable or responsible to continue to inject human beings, particularly pregnant women, with mercury when mercury has never been tested by the FDA for safety?
2. Why is it that we don’t hold individuals recently vaccinated with a live vaccine (chicken pox, measles, mumps, rubella, intranasal influenza, shingles) responsible for the spread of infectious diseases due to viral shedding?
3. Should the U.S. Center for Disease Control be trusted on issues of vaccine safety given one of their own senior scientists has come forth as a federal whistleblower alleging scientific fraud by the CDC on the MMR vaccine-autism connection?
4. Should vaccine manufacturer Merck be trusted given two of their own employees have come forth alleging scientific fraud on MMR vaccine effectiveness studies?
5. Is the breadth and depth of the studies done on the safety of the current vaccine schedule adequate given the research is being done only by those who either profit from the vaccines or are responsible for increasing vaccine uptake?
6. Have the children who have gotten sick, disabled, or died from vaccine reactions been studied to identify their vulnerabilities or the vaccine’s defects so that we may identify other vulnerable children or the vaccine’s limitations and prevent further tragedies and loss of life in the future?
7. Do we have a responsibility to those children, their families, and potential vaccine injury victims to conduct independent vaccine safety studies immediately?
8. How many children are we willing to sacrifice in pursuit of the theory of ‘herd immunity’?
Examining the Impact of Mandatory Vaccinations
Mandatory vaccination would mean a significant change in how medicine is practiced today. Currently every physician embraces the motto – ‘First do no harm’. Forced vaccinations would change that. Vaccination is an invasive medical treatment with known risks including death. Are we ready to mandate an invasive medical treatment when the known risks are permanent injury and death?
Second, current medical ethics adhere to the belief that no one should be forced to undergo a medical treatment that carries serious risks without their voluntary and informed consent.
We condemned the forced sterilization of individuals with developmental disabilities, the Tuskegee experiments that intentionally infected black inmates without their knowledge or consent, and the Nazi medical practices that included involuntary euthanasia, experimentation, and sterilization. Yet today we are considering ethical practices similar to those we previously condemned.
If we are to continue down the path of making some vaccinations mandatory, a number of foundational prerequisites need to be in place. These prerequisites ought to include:
1. The mandatory reporting of all adverse effects of vaccinations.
Currently the reporting of adverse effects of vaccination is voluntary with no consequence for a failure to report vaccine injury. It is estimated that less than ten percent of actual vaccine injury incidences are reported.
2. The Training of Physicians to Diagnose Vaccine Injury
Physicians would require training in diagnosing and treating vaccine injury prior to any mandatory treatment. Currently physicians receive no training on how to diagnose or treat vaccine injury. Without proper training in the diagnosis of vaccine injury how can we trust vaccine injury data or rely on this data to make decisions on benefit/risk assessments? How can we subject children to vaccine injury and then not be able to treat them?
3. Mandatory compensation for all vaccine damage including vaccine failure.
Currently there is no national vaccine injury compensation program in Canada other than in the province of Quebec. Nor is there any compensation for illness caused by vaccine failure. Canada is the only western country, other than Russia, without a vaccine injury compensation plan. Is it acceptable to force families to expose their children to the risk of vaccine injury or death and then not compensate families when injury or death occurs?
4. Mandatory evidence of long-term vaccine safety and effectiveness.
Currently there are no long-term clinical trials that demonstrate vaccine safety or effectiveness. Most safety trials are limited to 2 – 6 weeks and effectiveness trials limited to the measurement of anti-bodies in the blood. No safety trials exist that determine the safety of giving multiple vaccinations at once. No large safety trials exist that use an unvaccinated population as the control group. Without adequate safety trials, how can we accurately assess benefit/risk? How can families make an informed choice?
5. Make Vaccine Manufacturers Liable.
The ability to sue manufacturers for vaccine injury is severely compromised in Canada due to the legal requirement that both ‘causation’ and ‘negligence’ be proven. This is an unnecessary barrier to holding manufacturers liable for vaccine injury. In the United States vaccines manufacturers were exempted from vaccine injury liability in 1986 due to the substantial number of liability cases against the manufacturers. Without the risk of liability, vaccine manufacturers have no incentive to make the safest products possible and we have no means to hold them accountable.
6. Oversight by an independent body.
A judicial body to oversee and provide independent evaluation of product safety, as well as evaluate the validity of arguments for imposing medical treatments against one’s consent needs to be established. This body ought to be independent of both industry and government influence and have the powers and independence of the judiciary.
7. Mandatory reporting of all vaccine research trials and outcomes.
Currently the pharmaceutical industry is able to withhold evidence of research trials that produce unfavorable results. The industry routinely publishes only those trials that produce the outcomes favorable to their cause. As a consequence any trials that produce unfavorable results may be withheld from public and government scrutiny. How can we make informed decisions of benefit/risk when data is being withheld? Efforts are underway in Europe to require pharmaceutical companies to disclose all research trials and outcomes. This same level of transparency is needed in Canada.
8. Mandatory quarantine of all vaccinated individuals receiving live and attenuated viruses.
If we are serious about stopping the transmission of viruses then the quarantine of individuals who receive vaccinations that contain live/attenuated viruses (measles, mumps, rubella, rotavirus, chicken pox, shingles and live nasal spray influenza) is required. These vaccines have the ability to transmit the live virus to the general population due to viral shedding. Viral shedding can occur for up to six weeks following vaccination.
Thoughtful and Vigilant
We need to be thoughtful and vigilant before endorsing the idea that government and industry should be given the power to mandate an invasive medical procedure without informed consent, especially where the motive of profit can taint the value and benefit of such medical procedures.
Vaccines and immunology are incredibly complex issues. Not all vaccines are the same, made the same, contain the same ingredients, are made by the same manufacturers, or given to children at the same age with the same immune capacity. Vaccines are not a fixed, static entity. Immunity is constantly changing, morphing, variable and multi-faceted. However, the medical establishment and the media treat vaccines as one uniform, homologous drug and act as if all children have the same level of immune response.
Saying all vaccines are safe and effective is like saying all surgeries are safe and effective. Such statements are without scientific integrity and therefore meaningless. Anyone who states: “the science regarding vaccinations is clear” is either not a scientist or is not being honest. This is a promotional statement, not a science statement.
Being concerned about vaccine safety is not being anti-vaccination. Not trusting the CDC and the pharmaceutical companies is not anti-science. Rather, questioning and demanding evidence of vaccine safety and effectiveness is being responsible parents and health consumers. We ought to be extremely careful when for profit business gets in the delivery of health products and is given authority to decide what goes into our bodies.
A One-Sided Conversation
Rather than have thoughtful dialogue supported by extensive and rigorous evidence, the CBC offers Canadians a one sided conversation, which is no conversation at all.
Could you imagine a criminal trial where only the prosecution got to present their arguments? Or a discussion on pipelines where only the oil companies were allowed to present their perspective? Yet when the topic is the safety and effectiveness of vaccinations the CBC has abandoned their long-standing tradition of open and thoughtful dialogue. Only one side of the story is being told. Only the experts from one side are invited to the table.
A decision of the significance of mandatory vaccinations and the loss of informed consent requires more conversation, not less; more information, not less; more evidence and scrutiny, not less; more caution, not less; more oversight, not less. Unfortunately the opposite is occurring.
The right to informed consent is being attacked and eroded. Those who have experienced the risks of vaccinations are being marginalized and silenced. And this medical tyranny is being aided and abetted by Canada’s national broadcaster. Numerous media reporters have disclosed that a de facto blackout exists in the media with regards to expressing concern about vaccine safety. This undermines the integrity of a democratic Nation.
What I Want from the CBC
1. Respect and Support Our Legal Rights and Freedoms
The CBC has a responsibility to inform their listeners, viewers and readers, not deny them access to information. The CBC has a responsibility to respect and support the Charter rights to fundamental freedoms of conscience and religion, the legal right to security of the person, and the medical ethic of informed consent, not erode them.
2. Recognize All Children Are Important
I want my vaccine injured child to be just as important for consideration as the immuno-compromised child who is the justification given for forcing vaccinations on my child against my and his will. I want the CBC to advocate for the health of all Canadians, not just some.
3. Tell the Truth About Lack of Vaccine Safety Data
I want the CBC to tell the truth about the current status of the vaccination program including the fact that we have no way of knowing whether the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks because adequate data on vaccine safety does not exist. Canadians deserve to know the truth.
4. Admit Their Bias
I want the CBC to acknowledge that they have told only half the story with regards to vaccine safety and effectiveness and make a commitment to share the truth, even if it is inconvenient for the pharmaceutical industry or Health Canada. If the CBC has a financial or political conflict of interest in these matters, I want the CBC to declare this conflict of interest each and every time they report on vaccine issues.
5. Responsible Journalism
I challenge the CBC to be more responsible to victims of vaccine injury, be thorough in their research, learn the facts, honestly challenge the claims made by the pharmaceutical industry, demand evidence, and be a force for truth, health, and choice in Canada.
6. Respectful Labeling
In other debates over controversial issues, (e.g. abortion rights) the media generally treats the two camps with a degree of respect, allowing each to name itself (pro-choice and pro-life). The movement that is other labeled as “anti-vaccine” doesn’t see itself as anti-anything. Rather this movement is characterized by a commitment to respecting and safeguarding the right of Canadians to make voluntary and well-informed decisions about their own and their children’s health care.
This movement also demands independent scientific evaluation of vaccine safety and effectiveness including the comparison of the long-term health of both vaccinated and unvaccinated people.
In the interests of elevating this discussion the CBC might in future call this perspective – “Advocates for Informed Consent” or “Advocates for Vaccine Choice”. The cause that unites us is we want ‘the right to know’ and ‘the right to choose’. Both of these rights should be respected.
7. Declare Intentions
I want to know how the CBC intends to respond to these serious threats to our Charter rights and our medical safety and inform me of what intentions they have for future programming to support Canadian’s right to informed choice. What efforts will the CBC undertake to move beyond simply repeating the promotional claims of the pharmaceutical industry? What efforts will be made to engage in true investigative journalism and address the core concerns of vaccine safety?
Mr. Shanks, I am looking for allies, not adversaries. I am looking for your help in protecting our rights and freedoms as citizens of Canada. I am looking for your assistance in challenging our governments and the pharmaceutical industry to be more open and transparent in their assessment of vaccine safety and effectiveness so that parent’s can make the best decision possible for the health of their children and themselves. I trust this is a cause that we all should support.
I look forward to your response.
Sincerely,
Ted Kuntz
2016 Update
Charles Shanks, Senior Producer Cross Country Checkup finally replies (on August 4, 2016) to Ted Kuntz’s requests for a response. Read the correspondence here (pdf).
Ted’s reply to Charles Shanks’ reply is below:
August 17, 2016
Charles Shanks, Senior Producer
Cross Country Checkup
CBC Radio
Dear Mr. Shanks
Thank you for your August 4, 2016 response to my email of July 10, 2016 pertaining to the nature of coverage by the CBC on the topic of childhood vaccinations. I appreciate the courtesy of your reply.
While you state the “CBC is prohibited by federal regulation and corporate policy from supporting or advocating any point of view on controversial matters” the fact is the CBC does take a clear position in support of, and advocating for, the practice of artificial immunization.
Further, in spite of your assurance “that CBC makes every effort to be fair, accurate and balanced in the presentation of all stories” the reporting by the CBC is not fair, accurate or balanced as pertains to acknowledging the known risks and dangers of childhood vaccines. This is evident in your statement: “to elevate the small risk of a bad reaction to a vaccine to the point that it would be seen as a 50/50 choice would be journalistically irresponsible”.
It had been my hope that in the intervening months since my original formal complaint of March 19, 2015 the CBC would have invested some of their resources in examining the vaccine industry’s claims of vaccine safety and investigating the experiences of parents of vaccine injured children. It is evident this has not been the case.
A National Epidemic
What is undeniable is that we are experiencing a national epidemic of proportions never before seen in the modern era. Today, 1 in 45 children will be diagnosed with autism, a statistic that is projected to increase to one out of every two children by 2032. Yet, our government and mainstream media remain disturbingly silent in acknowledging this epidemic.
To those of us who have read the research literature and are aware of the mounting evidence that shows a relationship between vaccine ingredients and neurodevelopmental disorders given an autism label, the callous disregard and willful blindness of the government and media indicate they are more invested in protecting an industry and a belief system than in protecting our children.
Autism is not the only epidemic affecting Canadian children today. The previous Prime Minister of Canada recognized that 1 in 10 Canadian children have life threatening afflictions. In the last 25 years, at the same time the number of vaccines more than doubled, there have been huge increases in Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), learning disabilities, severe mood dysregulation, life threatening allergies, asthma, obesity, childhood cancers, and juvenile diabetes. Each of these conditions is recognized as a potential adverse event following vaccination.
The CBC incites panic when a few hundred children experience measles, mumps or chicken pox, relatively benign childhood illnesses, yet remain silent about the much more frequent and devastating neurological and immunological conditions listed above. In the United States 50,000 children a year are diagnosed with autism. More than a million children suffer with the disease.
My effort to hold the CBC accountable is not for personal gain. My son has already been permanently damaged by a childhood vaccine. My advocacy is for the children not yet born. I concur with the statements of Laura Hayes in her opening comments to the screening of Vaxxed in California in July 2016. She stated:
“I am not going to mince words tonight as I welcome you. Perhaps if more people had not minced words in years past, my children would not have been injured by vaccines.”
I wish I had been stronger in expressing my concern when my son was first vaccine injured 30 years ago. Had I done so fewer children might have been harmed today.
We Need A Strong Media
The work of raising awareness of vaccine injury cannot be done solely by the parents of vaccine-injured children. Our voices cannot compete with the mass propaganda of the pharmaceutical industry and its ability to capture the mainstream media and politicians.
If this crisis is to be acknowledged and addressed it will need the support of strong, independent, and courageous media. I had hoped and expected the CBC would be one of these agents of responsible and courageous journalism.
As a history student learning about the horrors of the Second World War I wondered how the citizens of a free and democratic Germany could have allowed the holocaust to occur. I know now how such evil can happen. We are witnessing such a holocaust today.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
– Edmund Burke
Mr. Shanks, the CBC, at the very least, is guilty of willful blindness. More realistically, the CBC is engaged in mass censorship and intentional deception. There appears to be an intentional unwillingness to examine the claims of the pharmaceutical industry, to honestly inquire into the experiences of families whose children have been severely injured following vaccination, and to acknowledge the voices of researchers and whistleblowers who report vaccine injury, fraud, and deception.
Credible long-term studies of vaccine safety have not been performed. In no other non-medical discipline would vaccine-type safety studies have any semblance of credibility. After many decades we finally recognized the deception of “tobacco science”. Today we are experiencing the same kind of deception bought and paid for by the pharmaceutical industry.
It’s Time for the CBC to Wake Up
I know the CBC will eventually report on the epidemic that is occurring. I know that the CBC will recognize the widespread devastation caused by the blind belief in the safety of artificial immunization. The tsunami of vaccine injury will eventually be too great to ignore. The question is – how many more children will need to be injured or killed by vaccines before the CBC awakens and claims its role in a free and democratic society?
I am not asking the CBC to advocate either for or against vaccinations. I’m simply asking the CBC to tell the truth about what we know and don’t know about vaccinations. You might start with the attached document – 18 Facts the Ontario Government Likely Won’t Tell You in Their ‘Vaccine Education Sessions’.
You must know that parents like myself will not go away. We can’t. As long as children continue to be harmed and killed by vaccines the voices of parents will only get louder and more plentiful. It would be irresponsible of us to remain silent.
My hope is that sooner than later someone at the CBC is courageous enough to examine and expose this mass deception and destruction, and the increasing violation of our rights and freedoms.
Will you be that someone?
Ted Kuntz
Challenging the Rationale of False Equivalence – Letter to Ms. Enkins, Ombudsman for CBC in response to “Vaccinations and balance, again” (link below) from Ted Kuntz – May 27, 2015
VCC Invites CBC to Show Leadership on Vaccine Issues – Letter to Ms. Enkins, Ombudsman for the CBC in response to “Whooping cough hits home for former anti-vaxxer” from Ted Kuntz – November 10, 2015
The CBC Ombudsman’s responses to numerous complaints regarding the CBC’s vaccine coverage:
Vaccinations and balance, again – Monday, May 4, 2015
The Current and childhood vaccines – Friday, May 1, 2015
The Current on Vaccination – May 19, 2015