MONDAY
JANUARY 25
1999

Government-mandated Thalidomide for babies?

By Michael Belkin
© 1999 WorldNetDaily.com

In Hulett, Wyoming, 20 percent of the parents boycotted the school district's seventh grade and turned to home schooling rather than subject their children to a state-mandated Hepatitis B vaccine. In Keene, New Hampshire, Gerhard Bedding (vice president of New Hampshire Citizens for Health Freedom) is organizing a state recall petition to remove the legislative mandate that all New Hampshire public school students must receive the Hepatitis B vaccine. In France, a national Hepatitis B vaccination school program was halted after angry parents won a court judgment against mandatory vaccination. In Vienna, Virginia, the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) is sending an urgent notice of Hepatitis B vaccine adverse effects to every pediatrician in the US. What is wrong with this supposedly-safe vaccine that 80% of US babies now receive at birth?

Ask Martha Durham in Wilmington, Delaware. Her daughter Eliza became highly agitated with a fever in the hospital immediately after getting the Hepatitis B vaccine at birth. Martha's doctor accused her of being a drug addict and diagnosed the baby as having withdrawals -- denying any connection with the vaccine. Eliza survived but now has hearing loss. Ask Debbie Parker in Porterville, California. Her son Matthew died in her arms after getting the Hepatitis B vaccine and the local Sheriff threatened her with murder charges -- denying any connection with the vaccine. Ask vaccine researcher Dr. Bonnie Dunbar at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. Her brother has severe, debilitating auto-immune neurological damage after a Hepatitis B vaccination and Bonnie has moved into the forefront of medical research regarding the adverse effects of the Hepatitis B vaccine. Ask Dr. Burton A. Waisbren at the Waisbren Clinic in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He has seen enough cases of central nervous system damage from this vaccine to title a paper "Universal Hepatitis B Vaccination: Is it a Sword of Damocles Hanging Over the Head of the American People?" Ask me. My five-week-old daughter Lyla Rose died hours after receiving the Hepatitis B vaccine and the New York City medical examiner refused to even mention her swollen brain or the vaccination in the autopsy report -- telling me "vaccines do a lot of good things for people."

As a grieving father looking for answers, my preliminary investigation into the matter generated only scoffs from doctors and health officials. However, my subsequent investigation has produced some answers and many more questions that every parent and doctor should be aware of:

Question: Who is at risk of Hepatitis B?

Answer: In the US, the Hepatitis B disease mainly infects intravenous drug users, homosexuals, prostitutes and promiscuous heterosexuals. Since the disease is transmitted by blood, through sex, dirty needles, or infected mothers, the likelihood that a newborn baby from a non-infected mother could contract Hepatitis B is virtually nil. In 1996, only 279 reported cases of Hepatitis B disease occurred in US children under 14 years old, according to the "Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Summary of Notifiable Diseases, United States, 1996" published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Only 54 of those cases occurred in the 0-1 age group. With 3.9 million US births in 1996, the observed incidence of Hepatitis B was therefore an infinitesimal 0.001 percent for babies less than 1 year old, according to the CDC's own data. Newborns are not mentioned in the risk groups on the CDC Hepatitis B fact sheet.

Question: Then why are millions of US babies inoculated with the Hepatitis B vaccine at birth?

Answer: An intrusive and incompetent government health care bureaucracy (led by the CDC) couldn't get junkies, gays, prostitutes, promiscuous heterosexuals and Hepatitis B infected mothers to take the Hepatitis B vaccine -- and has mandated that all babies must be vaccinated at birth -- regardless of whether or not they are at risk.

Question: Can the Hepatitis B vaccine harm children?

Answer: The day of the autopsy, the coroner told me that Lyla's brain was swollen. That is a classic adverse reaction to vaccination, which can lead to death or permanent neurological damage. Reported adverse effects to the Hepatitis B vaccine include: Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), multiple sclerosis, lupus, Guillain-Barre Syndrome and other central demyelinating diseases including transverse myelitis and optic neuritis; and immune system dysfunction including chronic arthritis. Although the Hepatitis B vaccine is government-mandated at birth, it was tested in very few newborns. Newborns have under-developed immune systems, which are weaker than the adult immune system. The independent National Vaccine Information Center in Vienna, Virginia receives new reports every week of deaths, seizures and other auto-immune and brain dysfunctions following Hepatitis B vaccination.

In response to the scientific community's concern over reports on Hepatitis B vaccine-related infant deaths, the National Academy of Science held a workshop last fall. Data presented from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) showed that there have been 19 reported neonatal SIDS deaths since 1991 related to the Hepatitis B vaccine. But that may only be part of the story.

Upon closer examination of government data, I found 54 reported SIDS cases after Hepatitis B vaccination in an 17-month period from January 1996 to May 1997. That is almost 15 times the annual death rate that the FDA study reports and might be related to the fact that the second Hepatitis B booster shot (after which my daughter died) usually occurs after four weeks of age -- beyond the definition used by their survey. Furthermore, an analysis by the NVIC of the government's raw data for 1990-98 shows more than 17,000 reports of adverse reactions to this vaccine. 5,748 of those reports were serious events that involved life-threatening health problems, hospitalization or left the individual disabled. Since the FDA reporting system never bothered to return the NY City Medical Examiner's call after Lyla's death, the official reported numbers probably vastly understate the number of injuries and deaths caused by this vaccine.

Question: Can the Hepatitis B vaccine benefit newborns?

Answer: Only if the mother carries the disease. In the US, the risk of contracting Hepatitis B as a healthy infant born to a non-infected mother is virtually nil, so vaccination has absolutely no benefit. Furthermore, the vaccine manufacturers state that the duration of the protective effect is unknown and the need for booster doses is not yet defined. In other words, vaccination at birth may provide no protection years later when the child grows up and could actually be exposed to the disease through sexual contact.

Question: If babies don't benefit from the vaccine, then who does?

Answer: Vaccine manufacturers gain a lucrative, captive market when bureaucrats and governments mandate vaccination. Merck and Smithkline Beecham are the two US manufacturers of Hepatitis B vaccine. In late August, Merck doubled the newborn dose (and price) of its Recombivax Hepatitis B vaccine. So far, officials at the Centers for Disease Control have dismissed those 17,000 reports of adverse reactions to the Hepatitis B vaccine. But one has to wonder whether these same advocates for "public health" would have a similar reaction to an outbreak of 17,000 cases of a life-threatening disease. With less than 300 reported annual childhood cases of the disease (according to CDC data) and thousands of reports of adverse reactions to the vaccine, the risk/reward ratio for the Hepatitis B vaccine is clearly disproportionate -- particularly for newborns.

The Centers for Disease Control, the Food and Drug Administration and vaccine manufacturers may be delivering the 1990's version of Thalidomide, in the name of children's health, to control a disease most babies can't possibly get. Vaccinations in the name of public health are needlessly causing harm to uninformed families. Parents should know that the risk of death and severe neurological reactions is greater than the risk of their newborn child contracting the Hepatitis B disease. Parents must educate themselves on these important matters and cannot rely on government (or even their gullible doctors) for answers. The government has abused its authority by mandating this risky and useless vaccine for helpless babies who can't object. Nothing will ever bring my lovely daughter Lyla Rose back, but other needless deaths and injuries can be prevented if this senseless Hepatitis B newborn vaccination program is halted.

For further information, please see the National Vaccine Information Center Web site.

Michael Belkin is a former proprietary trading strategist with Salomon Brothers and is now president of his own investment firm Belkin Limited. He lives in New York City with his family.

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