from Portland Tribune, Mar 8, 2012
MY VIEW • Parents, others worry that the next bad drug is being used now •
Peter Latham once said, “Truth in all its kinds is most difficult to win and truth in medicine is the most difficult of all.”
For just a moment, can all those in and out of medicine who consider themselves knowledgeable and informed say to themselves, “so true.”
Problems that plague medicine, medical science and research have created an enter-at-your-own-risk system to health and well being. Dysfunctional peer-review, dangerous and unnecessary interventions, ghost writing, conflicts of interest, the revolving door between industry and regulation, clinical trials designed by marketing departments, medical journals that serve their pharmaceutical industry advertisers and statistical manipulations all contribute to dangerous problems for the consumer.
Yet parents are asked, in spite of all the above, to believe that the mass vaccination program is immune from medicine’s plague. The grab ‘em and stab ‘em, as one physician puts it, the one-size-fits-all approach to vaccinating every child in this country with 49 doses of 14 vaccines before the age of 6 is not pristine or pure as fallen snow.
When a parent questions the methodology of a vaccination study published in a peer-reviewed medical journal, touted in the media as safe and effective, the pejoratives of “anti-vaccine” or “anti-science” darts fly.
Why should anyone accept these studies after they compare adverse reactions for a new vaccine vs. placebo and buried in the study is the fact that the “placebo,” usually a biologically inert substance, is another experimental vaccine?
Were similar characterizations applied to those who questioned the safety of Vioxx, Avandia, PhenPhen or HRT? Are those questioning repeated concussions in football, anti-football? Are those who recognize there are problems for some with yoga, anti-yoga? In spite of the Hippocratic oath, to do no harm, the next Vioxx is likely, already being prescribed by physicians.
One in four parents think vaccines cause autism, and aren’t buying the scientifically irrelevant, methodologically flawed studies. Riddled with conflicts of interest, studies supposedly exonerating the vaccination connection to neurological, behavioral, immune and gastrointestinal disorders don’t match what parents see in real life.
Fifty-four percent of parents are worried about serious adverse effects caused by vaccines. At the same time, an interesting comment was made at a recent international vaccination conference: “By recognizing that the two groups that know the most about immunization are the policy makers on the one hand and the anti-vaccination [there’s that pejorative again] lobby on the other ...” First, there is no lobby. Second, there is only a growing number of educated, scientifically literate parents who know the most about the science and politics of vaccines. They also know the most about their children.
These parents are dedicated to the safety of their children and are entrusted to above all else, “first do no harm.” They aren’t going to allow their children to be “Vioxxed” or “Gardasized” by Merck or by mass vaccination products and policies which pose a reckless disregard for the long-term health of each and every child.
The parents aren’t the problem. The problem is the problem. It’s not the parents.
For example, blaming parents and unvaccinated children for the recurrent cyclical nature of bordetella pertussis (whooping cough) infections is scientifically unsupportable. The more likely explanation can be attributable to 1) the temporary short-term immunity of as little as three years, for the pertussis vaccine, 2) studies suggesting the occurrence of the natural evolution of b. pertussis and 3) the misapplied concept of herd immunity because of the first two reasons.
For evidence that this is happening, look to the story that received national attention. The 2010 Southern California outbreak of whooping cough found, “the bulk of the outbreak was in vaccinated and fully vaccinated up-to-date children.”
Research in the Netherlands suggests that b. pertussis is in a process of evolution, adapting to the pertussis vaccination.
When public health officials or pediatricians pressure parents for their children to join “the herd,” many parents see a herd with increasing numbers of children afflicted with chronic disease, children with a multitude of learning disabilities, severe neurological and behavioral disorders, immune system impairment, and chronic and novel inflammatory gastrointestinal disease in staggering numbers unseen 20 years ago.
School budgets are collapsing under the weight of services for special education. By no stretch of the imagination is “the herd” healthy.
For more than a decade, parents have been asking for genuine independently conducted health outcome studies comparing the vaccinated vs. the unvaccinated which, to date, has fallen on deaf ears. There is not one single study demonstrating that the current recommended vaccination schedule is safe for all children.
Until such studies are conducted, free of the multitude of corrupting influences in science, parents will be well advised to do their own thorough research on all vaccines that the U.S. Supreme Court has described as “unavoidably unsafe.”
Michael Framson of Medford does volunteer work in Oregon for the National Vaccine
Information Center.
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