General Issues

While public health authorities invariably contend that “vaccines are safe” and “vaccines save lives”, it is impossible for them to prove these statements. The most they can do is offer epidemiological data for specific cases which don’t necessarily reflect what happens in the population as a whole or truly represent cause and effect.
Today’s parents generally have little or no knowledge of historical infectious disease patterns and the true burden of those diseases when they occurred. Diseases which were once considered a childhood rite of passage which posed no serious threat are now described as “killers”.
On a daily basis, VRAN fields questions from new parents not knowing how to gauge vaccines or the possibility of harm from either an infectious disease or a vaccine. Says VRAN coordinator, Edda West, “How many mothers are out there worrying about how to make the best possible decisions for their children without enough information enabling them to make a choice they are confident and comfortable with? And how many mothers are estranged from their intuitive faculties, unable to trust their inner signals calling them to pay close attention to potential danger to their child?”