March 2014 – This month, non-vaccinating parents are being maligned, sometimes viciously, by those who’re fearful of measles. Non-vaccinating Ontario mother, Gina Merlin, has countered: “I am really behind the idea of informed consent. To me it is all about the individual person having the right and obligation to research and determine what is the risk to their child.” She and her husband do this each time another vaccine is offered and base their choice upon their own research, not solely on information from pro-vaccine sources.
Tamara – who lives on the West Coast and has no children – addressed the bullying by Phil Plait in An Open Letter to the National Post where his article was published. She wrote: “These bullies are worried about children not getting vaccinated yet, they seem to clearly promote disheartening, hateful, crushing behavior towards others; there is no debate on whether that kills. It does. Bullying has led to suicides. Their despicable behavior just makes them hypocrites and it saddens me that you published this article where Plait revels in the verbal lashing of another human being. His self-righteousness where he thinks he’s saving lives all around him will be counteracted when his little darlings grow up to be bullies like their daddy and set free in this world to wreak havoc.”
Since writing her letter and after “a few days” reading “information on both sides of the vaccination debate”, Tamara has jumped to the conclusion that the world’s children need to be immunized. She thinks the most expedient course of action would be to focus on impoverished children whose parents, unlike those of the western world, cannot afford to pay for vaccines. But if she’d spent some time on our website, she could have found information which might have made her more cautious. For instance, she could have seen a fully referenced article about recent effects of polio vaccine in India; studies showing increased mortality as well as increased morbidity and poor growth from DPT vaccine injected together with measles vaccine in Guinea Bassau; graphs showing the steady decline of mortality from various diseases prior to the introduction of mass vaccination programs; and an enlightening article about herd immunity.
VRAN coordinator, Edda West, sent a letter to the reporter who wrote the article concerning the non-vaccinating Merlins and who then followed up with a second article about Mallory Olsheski, a mother who was terrified that measles transmitted to her son by unvaccinated children could kill him. This, she explained, was because he’d had a heart transplant when he was five months old and therefore was so immunodepressed that he couldn’t receive vaccines himself. Following are excerpts from Edda’s letter.
Dear Liz, “I’m the mother of a child who experienced a severe reaction to MMR vaccine in 1977. Seeing my healthy toddler made so ill by this vaccine is what led me to explore the vaccine issue….Our society does not treat children who experience devastating vaccine reactions and injuries with the same concern as those whose frail health puts them in jeopardy should they acquire an infectious disease…. the child or adult who becomes a casualty of a severe vaccine reaction is considered collateral damage in the war on disease and left to struggle on his/her own without acknowledgement or help from medical or government officials or society as a whole….their family may be forced to deal with the burden of care for a lifelong disability. Canada is one of few western countries that does not recognize nor compensate vaccine injured people.
“The utilitarian principle postulates that the morally right action is the action that produces the most good. Unfortunately, utilitarianism as applied to mass vaccination crosses the moral line when it demands that we agree to sacrifice those biologically and genetically vulnerable individuals who will sustain a vaccine injury, to protect society as a whole and in order to save those who are immune-compromised.
“What do you think Mallory would say to a mother whose baby died following a series of vaccines which included the live virus oral polio vaccine now discontinued from use in Canada and the U.S.?? It can cause polio and acute flaccid paralysis, a polio-like disease with a higher death rate. This happened in Canada before the live polio vaccine was discontinued and is a huge issue in the developing world. An article by Jacob Puliyel MD discusses the situation: “In 2011, there were an extra 47,500 new cases of NPAFP [Non-Polio Acute Flaccid Paralysis]. Clinically indistinguishable from polio paralysis but twice as deadly, the incidence of NPAFP was directly proportional to doses of oral polio received.”
“And, in your article about Mallory’s immune-compromised child, you’ve inserted public health’s bald faced lie that ‘serious adverse reactions to measles, mumps, rubella and varicella (chicken pox) vaccines ‘are rare following immunization’, even though I sent you links to a Canadian MMR study, and our commentary on it. That study found 5 deaths and 1 in 168 children in ER after MMR vaccine. Even then, there was no follow up of thousands of children who reacted to MMR to discover any long term consequences. Why on earth would you not have mentioned the study given that you were provided this information??
“Concerning the question as to whether it’s selfish not to accept vaccines, it’s very difficult to come to a conclusion when we consider the case of the child with a heart transplant. No one would want to jeopardize this child’s wellbeing. Yet, because our medical system has NOT honestly evaluated the real risks associated with the large number of vaccines given to the majority of children, they are putting untold numbers of children at risk from the vaccines.
“Parents like the mother in your article falsely assume that those who are vaccinated (as are Mallory Olsheski’s other children) won’t get the disease or pass it on to their medically fragile children. Unfortunately it’s a false assumption. If they did some research into the issue, they’d soon find out that vaccination doesn’t guarantee immunity and it’s becoming less so every day. You state that ‘herd immunity occurs when at least 95 percent of a population is vaccinated.’ Have you not heard that measles keeps breaking out in fully vaccinated groups – see Quebec measles outbreak in fully vaccinated high school students in 2011, and recent cases in Calgary where 3 out of 4 cases were fully immunized.”
Sincerely, Edda West
Not only is vaccination sometimes ineffective but vaccination with live virus vaccines sometimes results in transmission of infective virus to others. Rita Hoffman has found several studies which demonstrate this. After noticing a letter by MOH Dr Isra Levy, of Ottawa Public Health who wrote, “We encourage parents to choose vaccination as the most effective and safe method to protect the health of their children”, Rita responded with a list of studies which demonstrate such transmission from several live virus vaccines:
“Flumist influenza vaccine – the CDC : “One study of 197 children aged 8 through 36 months in a child care center assessed transmissibility of vaccine viruses from 98 vaccinated children to the 99 unvaccinated children; 80% of vaccine recipients shed one or more virus strains (mean duration: 7.6 days).”
“Rotavirus vaccine – Pediatrics science journal, ‘Sibling Transmission of Vaccine-Derived Rotavirus (RotaTeq) Associated with Rotavirus Gastroenteritis’: “We document here the occurrence of vaccine-derived rotavirus (RotaTeq [Merck and Co, Whitehouse Station, NJ]) transmission from a vaccinated infant to an older, unvaccinated sibling, resulting in symptomatic rotavirus gastroenteritis that required emergency department care.” And the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, ‘Vaccine-acquired Rotavirus Infection in Two Infants with Severe Combined Immunodeficiency’.
MMR – Vaccine science journal: “Transmission of mumps virus from mumps-vaccinated individuals to close contacts.” And – Lancet science journal, ‘Brother-to-sister transmission of measles after measles, mumps, and rubella immunisation.’
Chickenpox vaccine – Journal of Pediatrics, ‘Transmission of varicella-vaccine virus from a healthy 12-month-old child to his pregnant mother.’ And Pediatrics, ‘Chickenpox attributable to a vaccine virus contracted from a vaccinee with zoster.
A Global News article discusses the case of three-year-old Ian Sewell who was born with a rare liver disease and received a liver transplant when he was eight months old. It states: “Ian is one of several hundred B.C. children who have received transplants and are threatened by the [BC measles] outbreak. Also at risk are cancer patients, infants and many others with suppressed immune systems.” We ask, why has the health of so many children and adults faltered? Could one reason be the effect of successive and increasing burdens of vaccine toxins from one generation to the next? An article titled ‘The Toxins That Affected Your Great-Grandparents Could Be In Your Genes’ lends credence to this possibility; If it’s valid, there’s no question that vaccines should NOT be mandated!
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