It’s interesting how a discussion about vaccination can quickly become heated and sometimes even hostile. Would the same debate about an antibiotic or an antihypertensive drug ensue if there was evidence that the drug was causing harm? When it becomes obvious that thousands have been injured by a drug like Vioxx, it is withdrawn from the market. We stop the use of drugs until they are proven safe. And we sue.
Not so with vaccines. Vaccines are promoted with great fanfare until they are statistically proven to harm large numbers of people. The thousands of people who experience reactions to the vaccine in proportion to the millions who have been vaccinated is not considered a mathematically significant statistic. However, the more than a billion dollars that have been paid to vaccine-injured people shows that safety is not all that is hyped. Why the double standards?
Vaccination is based on a “belief system”. We believe that vaccines are safe; we believe that vaccines are important for health; we believe the stories that vaccines are solely responsible for the elimination of smallpox and polio. And we really want to believe that our doctors have read all the available information about vaccines, for and against, and are telling us the whole truth about vaccines.
However, the belief is based on faith, not necessarily on facts. For example, we want to believe that vaccinating our children will prevent them from getting measles or chicken pox. However, there is a plethora of information documenting that this is not necessarily the case.
Why is there an almost desperate need to defend the current belief and confidence in vaccines? The public’s view of disease appears to be similar to our current view of terrorism: random attacks that are life-threatening. The media touts this view of childhood diseases and the need for vaccines. Pharma sells it, doctors promote it, and educational institutions reinforce it. They keep selling it because they are more willing to buy it, hands down. There is a “just in case” or “better safe than sorry” mentality when it comes to vaccines and childhood illnesses.* After nearly 200 years of use, fear still sells vaccines.
What do we really know about vaccines? A review of the literature and CDC documents reveals the following:
1. Vaccine safety studies are relatively small and include only healthy children. However, when a vaccine trial has been completed, the vaccines are given to ALL children, regardless of health status, family history, or genetics.
two. Vaccine safety studies are brief. Most clinical trials monitor side effects for a measly 21 days, sometimes as little as 5 days. It can take months for immune system complications to appear. This arbitrary timeframe, set by the FDA, prevents vaccines from being associated with chronic health conditions. “Safe” is a designation given based on limited information.
3. Vaccine safety studies do not use a true placebo.One of the gold standards in medical research is the “placebo-controlled” trial. An inactive substance, such as a sugar pill, is given as a placebo to one group of participants, while the treatment group receives the new drug. The data is analyzed to compare the number of side effects that occurred in those who received the drug compared to the number of side effects that occurred in those who received the placebo. However, the “placebo” used in vaccine research is not an inert substance like sterile water; It’s another vaccine. Inert, sterile water does not cause a reaction; as a substitute vaccine can. If both groups of babies in a trial have the same number of reactions, the study reports that the vaccine “is as safe as a placebo.” This is a tricky science.
Four. Vaccine-induced antibodies do not correlate with protection. In fact, the esteemed journal Vaccine stated this clearly: “… Antigen-specific antibody titers are known to not correlate with protection in many cases.” The full reference can be found at PMID: 11587808
Vaccination has been accepted as safe, effective and protective. Injections can be described as a medical treatment. “Sacred cows,” by definition, “a medical procedure unreasonably immune from criticism.” The strong response is the reaction to a suggestion that the “cow” should be “culled”. It is heresy to suggest that the status quo is wrong.
When Copernicus insisted that the sun, and not the earth, was the center of the solar system, he went against the philosophical and religious beliefs held during medieval times. When two other Italian scientists of the time, Galileo and Bruno, embraced the Copernican theory, their comments were considered blasphemous. Bruno was tried before the Inquisition, convicted and burned at the stake in 1600. Thirty years later, Galileo was brought before the “Best” of him, forced to renounce his beliefs under the threat of torture and death. Even after his confession, he was sentenced to prison for the rest of his days.
The more vaccination is investigated and the adverse effects that have been attributed to vaccines are studied, the more it becomes a Copernican heretic, denouncing the status quo can have deadly consequences. I have personally invested over 8,000 hours in revealing the truth about vaccines. If the result of this investigation and exposure is called heretical, then I am in wonderful company.
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*My thanks to Judy Converse for these ideas.