A reporter contacted Vaccine Choice Canada last week and asked some very astute questions. She asked questions that raised the level of conversation about vaccine consent from the low level “anti-vaxx”/”pro-vaxx”, black and white duality thinking to a level that invited some perspective and a deeper understanding of the vaccine/informed consent issue.
She asked questions like: 1. Why do you think this issue is so divisive? 2. Are both sides on this issue being treated fairly? and 3. Can people who support vaccinations and people who don’t find common ground?
Given the current climate of journalism, these questions were refreshing and gave reason to be hopeful that the mainstream media can be part of the solution should they choose to be. Below are my answers.
1. Why do you think this issue is so divisive?
This issue is so divisive because the media and the medical industry have made it so. Rather than support the right to informed consent and therapeutic choice, the media and medical lobby has presented a distorted, dishonest and fraudulent perspective of the safety, effectiveness and necessity of vaccinations.
The media and medical industry routinely use fear mongering to create hysteria, and then make false statements that are not supported by the science. The media presentation of the risk associated with natural measles infection is the best example of this artificially hyped hysteria. In developed nations such as Canada measles is a benign and beneficial illness in healthy children, except in very rare circumstances where there is inadequate nutrition, specifically vitamin A.
Before the introduction of the measles vaccine in the late 1960’s, measles was a routine part of childhood. Natural measles exposure provided lifelong immunity, protected infants due to maternal immunity transfer, and provided other immune and development benefits. The death rate in Canada from measles prior to the introduction of the measles vaccine was exceedingly rare.
Neil Rau, an infectious disease specialist, and Dr. Richard Schabas, MD, Ontario’s former Chief Medical Officer, stated in their October 2018 article in the Globe and Mail – Stop the Hysteria Over Measles Outbreaks that the media fueled hysteria is unwarranted – “The borderline hysteria fueled by the media and public health that greets a few cases is unwarranted . . . Our current levels are more than adequate to achieve herd immunity.” They also stated, “At current rates, Canada can expect to see a death from acute measles about once every hundred years or so.”
The media presents a measles infection as if it is akin to the Black Plague, which is pure distortion. This distortion impacts the public who believe the media is providing fair, honest and accurate information. Unfortunately, the media, as pertains to the issue of vaccine safety, effectiveness and necessity is anything but fair, honest, or accurate.
What is interesting is that the vaccination rate for all vaccines given to children in the 1980’s was only 50 – 60%. There was no measles epidemic, no crisis of measles deaths, nor scores of articles in the mainstream media creating hysteria and advocating for the loss of our right to informed consent. There is no medical justification to advocate for the elimination of informed consent and basic human rights in Canada.
The demonstrable truth is that what the vaccine industry, government regulators, and mainstream media say science says about vaccine safety and effectiveness and what science actually tells us are two completely different and contradictory things. There is compelling evidence, much of it developed in the last ten years, that the injection of vaccine ingredients is contributing to the significant and permanent injury, even death of our infants and children. Good products, backed by solid evidence of safety and effectiveness, do not require coercion and misrepresentation.
2. Are both sides of this issue treated fairly in your opinion?
Not in the least. Given the distortion in the mainstream media, and the failure of the medical industry to honour the medical ethic of informed consent, most of the public is uninformed or misinformed on the safety, effectiveness and necessity of vaccination. And given the modeling in the media to discredit, marginalize, shame, demean, demonize and dismiss the concerns of parents whose children have been injured and killed by vaccines it is not surprising that most people hold uninformed or misinformed opinions and judgements about vaccine safety and effectiveness and are unable to respect differing points of view.
Two examples of the harmful and dishonest reporting in the mainstream media are:
It’s Time to Stop Being Nice to Anti-Vaxxers. Tim Collins, Sooke News Mirror (February 23, 2019)
Refusing to Vaccinate Means You’re Choosing Death Over Autism Spectrum Disorder. Kathleen Potter, Vancouver Sun (February 24, 2019)
Those who have been negatively affected by vaccines have been removed from the public square and are being denied a voice. Censorship is active in Canada when the topic is vaccine safety, effectiveness or necessity. Witness the efforts by the Globe and Mail to prevent pro-vaccine choice advocate Del Bigtree from speaking at the Total Health Show in Toronto in April and the media’s role in censoring the billboard campaign sponsored by Vaccine Choice Canada.
It is the rare exception that a mainstream media will honestly report the experience of those who have been injured by vaccines. Our voices are not represented in the public domain. This is inherently unfair and incredibly dangerous to society. Additionally, Canada is the only G7 Nation without a national vaccine injury compensation program. Those injured by vaccines in Canada are being discriminated against. We wouldn’t tolerate treating cancer or AIDS patients the way the media encourages Canadians to treat families who have experienced vaccine injury or death.
3. Can people who support vaccinations and people who don’t find common ground?
Absolutely. If proper dialogue were permitted and encouraged, people could educate one another and ultimately, if need be, agree to disagree. The challenge is that due to the fear mongering and deception by the media, public health and the medical cartel most people have an irrational fear of natural infections such as measles, mumps and chicken pox. This irrational fear has been projected on to parents and their children if they choose to vaccinate selectively or not at all. The consequence is that the public is behaving badly based on manufactured fear, rather than scientific evidence.
The solution is to honour our right to freedom of speech. The concept of free speech was established PRECISELY to protect speech that we don’t like. Freedom of speech is not needed to protect popular, safe and acceptable ideas – these can flow readily and easily. It is intended to protect difficult, controversial, uncomfortable and unconventional speech – speech that ruffles feathers and rattles those in power and challenges previously held beliefs and cultural norms. Even speech considered ‘WRONG’ should be brought into the light where it can be challenged. It is NOT acceptable to have some free speech, some of the time, for some people, in some situations. This is not free speech.
If we continue to do nothing while our free speech is being denigrated, one of the most important pillars of our liberal democracy will be eliminated and all of us, regardless of our personal views on the vaccine topic, will suffer. If free speech were encouraged and nurtured, the perceived division could be addressed and resolved. The role of a free and independent media is to foster free speech. If the mainstream media were again willing to adopt this principle, we could end this craziness today.
There is little value in insuring the survival of our children
if our rights and freedoms do not survive with them.
Ted Kuntz, Parent of a vaccine injured child now deceased
VP – Vaccine Choice Canada
www.vaccinechoicecanada.com
For printable PDF click here.