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July 28, 1999
A scandal in mandatory
mass vaccinations of infants is beginning to surface. Vaccine-caused
injuries have just forced the Clinton bureaucrats to make four sensational
announcements that bugle temporary retreat from their plans to force all
American children to submit to government-dictated medical treatment.
On July 15, the Centers
for Disease Control (CDC) and the American Academy of Pediatrics
(AAP) halted the use of the oral rotavirus vaccine, which is given to
infants to prevent one of the major causes of diarrhea, after reports that
the vaccine caused a bowel obstruction in some infants that required
surgery to repair.
The bowel obstruction,
called intussusception, results when one portion of the bowel slides
inward, like a telescope, into another part of the bowel and causes
blockage. A previously healthy infant suddenly screams in paroxysms of pain.
In its initial trial,
the rotavirus vaccine appeared to cause intussusception at 30 times the
average rate, but the government pretended that those injuries were
insignificant. Instead of testing further, the CDC and the vaccine
manufacturer subjected babies to more than a million doses of this
unnecessary, expensive, and inadequately tested vaccine.
While the risk of
intussusception may have been mentioned on the package insert, it was not
on the vaccine information statement given to parents. The arbitrariness of
government vaccine mandates is shown by the fact that, for the previous
year, CDC was demanding that the vaccine be given to all infants, and now
suddenly a CDC spokesman is saying, "No one should now be giving
rotavirus vaccine to anyone."
The second sensational
vaccine announcement came on July 9, when the U.S. Public Health Service
(PHS) and the AAP issued a joint statement cancelling their previous
recommendation to inject all newborns while they are still in the hospital
with the hepatitis B vaccine. PHS and AAP now recommend that vaccination of
newborns be limited to those who are at risk of getting hepatitis B from
their infected mothers.
Their remarkable
backtracking from the universal mandate for newborns must have resulted
from the widespread publicity given to the many cases of vaccine damage
causing lifetime injury or death reported on ABC's 20/20 and at the May 18
hearing conducted by the U.S. House Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug
Policy and Human Resources. PHS and AAP continue to recommend the hepatitis
B vaccine for infants at 2 to 6 months of age, even though few of them are
at risk.
Meanwhile, 42 states
require the hepatitis B vaccine for schoolchildren, although teachers and
health care workers are not required to receive it. The legislator who
sponsored the hepatitis B mandate in Ohio admitted that he did so at the
request of a vaccine manufacturer lobbyist, while Governor Christine
Whitman is trying to impose a New Jersey requirement administratively
without legislation.
In another announcement
the same day, PHS-AAP issued a joint statement that revealed the risk to
children of vaccines containing mercury and called on the FDA to
"assess the risk of all mercury-containing food and drugs." A
mercury product called thimerosal is used as a preservative in many
vaccines, even though the FDA last year banned its use in over-the-counter
products for safety reasons.
Under the current CDC
schedule, most infants receive a total of 15 doses of mercury-containing
vaccines by the time they are six months old, many given simultaneously.
The fact that the FDA has prohibited the use of thimerosal for most
products, but continues to allow its use for vaccines, sounds like
political corruption in the vaccine approval process.
The National Vaccine
Information Center has been criticizing the use of mercury in vaccines for
many years. Contact lens solution bottles routinely advertise that they
contain "no thimerosal," yet any damage to adults from contact
lens solutions must be minuscule compared to the same product ingested or
injected into infants.
The fourth announcement
came on June 17, when government officials voted to withdraw their
recommendation for the use of the live poliovirus vaccine, and to recommend
the "exclusive" use of the inactivated poliovirus vaccine. Since
1979, the only polio cases in the United States have been caused by the
live vaccine because, taken by mouth, it travels through the child's body
and can cause polio in a parent changing the diaper.
The unjustified delay
in converting to the safer polio vaccine is due to mandatory vaccination
laws that require the public to use a certain product. The government still
demands that babies be given four doses of polio vaccine, even though,
according to Surgeon General David Satcher, M.D., "The Western
Hemisphere was certified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as polio
free in 1994, and no case of polio has been reported in this region since
1991."
We are long overdue for
a Congressional investigation into the validity of research and licensing
standards for vaccines, the results of clinical trials (if any), the
motivations of the vaccine policymakers, and the lobbying activities of the
cash-rich pharmaceutical corporations whose profits depend on universal
mandates rather than on sales to those at risk for various diseases.
Phyllis Schlafly column
7-28-99
ALL
INFORMATION, DATA, AND MATERIAL CONTAINED, PRESENTED, OR PROVIDED HERE IS
FOR GENERAL INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED AS
REFLECTING THE KNOWLEDGE OR OPINIONS OF THE PUBLISHER, AND IS NOT TO BE
CONSTRUED OR INTENDED AS PROVIDING MEDICAL OR LEGAL ADVICE. THE
DECISION WHETHER OR NOT TO VACCINATE IS AN IMPORTANT AND COMPLEX ISSUE AND
SHOULD BE MADE BY YOU, AND YOU ALONE, IN CONSULTATION WITH YOUR HEALTH CARE
PROVIDER.
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