To the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug
Policy, and Human Resources
of the Committee on Government Reform
U.S. House of Representatives
RE: HEPATITIS B VACCINE HEARINGS
SCHOOL NURSE PERSPECTIVE
Submitted by Patti White, RN
May 17, 1999
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
This is a school nursing perspective for the congressional hearings to
be held on May 18, 1999 regarding the safety of the hepatitis B vaccine
that is being mandated for newborns and now older children in America.
We ask you to please consider the following information and submit it
into the congressional testimony. As nurses we continually see more and
more damaged children entering our schools, and we are very concerned
that a major portion of that damage may be due to the hepatitis B
vaccine's assault on the newborn neurological and immune system.
My name is Patti White, R.N. I am a registered professional nurse and
the district health services coordinator for a multi-school district. I
am writing on behalf of the school nurses in our district. We have very
grave concerns about the hepatitis B vaccine.
For the past three or four years our school district has noted a
significant increase in the number of children entering school with
developmental disorders, learning disabilities, attention deficit
disorders and/or serious chronic illness such as diabetes, asthma and
seizure disorders. Each of the past four years has been worse than the
year before. There is only one common thread we have been able to
identify in these children: they are the children who received the
first trial hepatitis B injections as newborns in the early 1990s.
As the hepatitis B compliance rate in newborns has gone up in our
community, so has the percentage of damaged children. This is very
alarming. Because of having so many damaged children we
have tried to find the long-term clinical trials that ruled this
vaccine "safe and effective". We discovered through an exhaustive
Medline search that the FDA based its decision to approve hepatitis B
vaccine for administration in the first hours of a newborn baby's life
upon clinical trials and upon post-marketing surveillance studies in
which patients and their doctors were asked to report any adverse
effects they noticed within 4-5 days after each injection [4 days for
SmithKline and 5 days for Merck].
The problems being reported in increasing numbers as occurring after
hepatitis B vaccination appear to be autoimmune and neurological in
origin. Such problems take weeks to months to produce noticeable
symptoms, and cannot be spotted in a 4-5 day observation period. These
are the only clinical studies that have been done by Merck or
SmithKline. There is not one long-term study that we could find.
The CDC and FDA have no idea what the long-term effects will be on the
newly developing neurological and immune systems of the infants who are
injected with this vaccine. They seem to only be concerned with denying
the connection between these damaged children and the hepatitis B shot
they received within a few hours of birth. The CDC even admits the lack
of study and states they do not even know how long the vaccine will be
effective. We found this amazing since the vaccine was developed
for a population at risk for hepatitis B: IV drug users, high-risk
medical professionals and those who are involved in high risk sexual
practices.
In 1950 (before mass immunizations began), the USA had the third lowest
infant mortality rate in the world. By 1986, the USA dropped to 17th
place. In 1995 the USA dropped to 23rd and now the USA has
dropped to the appalling position of 24th in the health of its
children. But the USA is now first in vaccine compliance through
government mandates.
The elementary grades are overwhelmed with children who have symptoms
of neurological and/or immune system damage: epilepsy, seizure
disorders, various kinds of palsies, autism, mental retardation,
learning disabilities, juvenile-onset diabetes, asthma, vision /hearing
loss, and a multitude of new conduct/behavior disorders.
We have come to believe the hepatitis B vaccine is an assault on a
newborns developing neurological and immune system. Vaccines are
supposed to be making us healthier, however, in twenty-five years of
nursing I have never seen so many damaged, sick kids. Something very,
very wrong is happening to our children. The census of ill children
treated in our health rooms each day has increased by 300% in only four
years.
In our last school nurse meeting we discussed whether the combination
of so many vaccines/viruses at one time (hepatitis B vaccine at the
same time of the DPT, OPV or MMR) is causing the infant's immune system
to be overwhelmed and unable to mount a sufficient defense response. We
are advocating clinical studies to determine: Is the combination of all
these viruses at one time an assault on an infant's immune and
neurological system that increases the chances for adverse reaction AND
what are the
long-term neurological and immune system responses to these vaccines.
We are all continuing to research this issue and will be happy to share
the many resources we have found with you. I hope you will do the same
as you open up this issue.
We have talked many times about the possible cause(s) of the continuing
increase in pervasive developmental disorders (PDD), such as autism.
From the literature we have found, we should expect a rate for PDD of
about 2-5 in 10,000. In our community the rate in 1st and 2nd grade is
about 1 in 150 and in kindergarten, 1 in 100.
As school nurses, we have had many parents calling and asking how they
can exempt their children from the hepatitis B vaccination (HPB). Many
of them have spent long hours in study and research perplexed over this
issue. For the past six months we have been studying documents,
books and research articles published by internationally respected
doctors and scientists that cause us grave concern. You must understand
that we began this study to reassure our parents and show them the
truth about how safe vaccines are.
Unfortunately, our sincere, honest, dedicated study has caused a
complete reversal of our once strongly held beliefs. Instead of being
able to reassure the parents, we have found ourselves being drawn
deeper and deeper into this unbelievable controversy over vaccines that
is raging among physicians, scientists, researchers, parents, and the
government. We pray you will have the courage to shine the light on
this controversy through these hepatitis B hearings.
My daughter's own experience with the hepatitis B vaccine made me much
more open-minded to the information we have been receiving from
parents, teachers and other nurses in our community. I personally have
had to research this on my own to determine if I have been enforcing a
policy that is actually harming more children than it will ever help. I
have spent countless hours reading books, vaccine-hearing testimony,
research papers, medical journal articles and Internet web-sites from
around the world. I did not come to my decision easily or lightly, I
assure you. Twenty-five years of total belief in something does not
shake that easily.
I have repeated the well-rehearsed refrain "Be Wise; Immunize"
thousands of times during those years and reassured countless parents
that they were doing the right thing by vaccinating their precious
children . . . even the ones who came to me with serious doubts and
reservations. I will now have to live with that.
We are all now faced with a moral dilemma: will we protect the "sacred
cow of conventional vaccine philosophy" or will we stand up and speak
out for the "health and well being of innocent children"? We
choose children. We wonder, which will our government choose?
Because the hepatitis B vaccine was developed for those at risk of
disease, including IV drug users and sexually promiscuous individuals,
efforts to require administration of the vaccine to most, if not all of
the U.S. population is very controversial. The increasing number of
adverse reaction reports connected with this vaccine exacerbates the
controversy. The controversy stems to a great extent from our lack of
understanding of the mechanisms of the immune response to the hepatitis
B surface antigen and lack of long term follow-up of individuals who
have received the vaccine. In a January 27, 1999 press release,
the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) released figures which
show that the number of hepatitis B vaccine-associated serious adverse
event and death reports in American children under the age of 14
outnumber the reported cases of hepatitis B disease.
During our research we discovered a copy of the grant proposal
submitted recently to the National Institute of Health by Dr. B. S.
Dunbar, who has worked in autoimmunity and vaccine development for over
twenty years and was honored two years ago by the National Institute of
Health. Dr. Dunbar is working with a team of veteran vaccine
researchers from all over the world. Their grant is requested for
the purpose of studying the hypothesis that: hepatitis B recombinant
vaccine does cause adverse autoimmune reactions in genetically
susceptible individuals. This study will also provide new insights into
the predictability of determining adverse side effects of the hepatitis
B vaccine in individuals at risk as related to their histocompatability
subtypes. Their study of auto-immune diseases/symptoms caused by the
hepatitis B vaccine include: lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis,
vascular disorders, Guillain Barre syndrome, demyelinating disorders
such as optic neuritis (blindness), Bell's palsy, demyelinating
neuropathy (multiple developmental disorders), multiple sclerosis,
diabetes mellitus and chronic fatigue syndrome to mention the most
common.
This group of internationally respected vaccine researchers headed up
by Dr. Dunbar also point out that, "The studies (for the approval of
HPB) were not designed to assess serious, rare adverse events; the
total number of recipients were too small; and the follow-up was too
short to detect rare or delayed, serious, adverse reactions." Finally
they point out that
"overall the number of examples of adverse neurologic outcomes
following receipt of hepatitis B vaccine are of concern, particularly
those resulting in demyelinating neurologic disease."
They continue, "In view of these observations. . . it is medically
crucial to evaluate the nature of the autoimmune reactions (i.e. risks)
associated with the hepatitis B vaccine and to determine if individuals
who will have these adverse reactions can be identified in advance of
receiving the vaccine". There are critical questions that must be
addressed to establish the risk/benefit of the current hepatitis B
vaccines in the United States. These questions are particularly
important in view of recent mandates to vaccinate all children
including newborn infants."
Many groups have called for a moratorium on hepatitis B vaccination
until some of these questions can be answered adequately. The NVIC
reported "Newborn babies are dying shortly after their shots and their
deaths are being written off as sudden infant death syndrome. Parents
should have the right to give their informed consent to vaccination and
Congress should give emergency, priority funding to independent
scientists, who can take an unbiased look at this vaccine, instead of
leaving the search for truth in the hands of government officials who
have already decided to force every child to get the vaccine". We agree
completely. The NVIC can be contacted at
http://www.909shot.com for further information.
Our own school district's confidential health statistics show at least
20% of our children (K-3) have significant neurological damage and/or
chronic illness. The last three years have shown an acceleration in the
numbers of children who are entering our schools with these
"developmental disorders". (Could these be the same infants who
received the first trial doses of hepatitis B as only a few hour-old
newborns?) As school nurses, working with these damaged children on a
daily basis, we pray this is not true. If it is, the ramification to
this generation of children is unthinkable!
Should we not pause, call for a moratorium on these poorly tested,
rapidly approved vaccines, and allow independent American physicians
and researchers to study them before blindly injecting an experimental
vaccine into an entire generation? (We have found the only ones
declaring the vaccine's safety are the ones who are making millions of
dollars from its sales, whose employment depends on it or the ones
being supported by the drug companies vast number of grants and
fundings. The independent researchers seem to be coming up with an
entirely different report.)
Vaccine producers have nothing to lose since our U.S. Congress has made
them immune from responsibility or liability for injuries caused from
their vaccines. The push is on for them to create more and more
vaccines. There are huge amounts of money being made by these people
who no longer worry about the consequences of their inadequate clinical
trials. The United States government has had to pay out nearly a
billion dollars in damages to families who can prove their children
have been damaged or killed by vaccines, and there are thousands more
cases pending.
We believe, as medical professionals, that we are doing a great
disservice to our country by forcing government mandated vaccines on
all children. Please research this and we pray you have the
courage to speak out and tell the nation what you find.
(The views expressed are my personal beliefs and observations and do
not necessarily reflect those of the school district.)
Patti White, RN
http://www.vaccinationnews.com/rally/testimonycongressschoolnurserehepbvaccine.htm
http://www.alternativeparenting.com/health/HepB.asp
==========================================
