It’s interesting how a discussion about vaccination can quickly become heated and sometimes even hostile. Would the same debate rage over an antibiotic or an antihypertensive medicine if there was evidence the drug was causing harm? When it became obvious that the anti-inflammatory drug, Vioxx, had injured thousands, it was removed from the market. We stop the use of drugs until they are proven safe. And we sue.
Not so with vaccines. A vaccine is promoted with fanfare until it is statistically proven to cause harm. The thousands of individuals who suffer from a serious side effect in proportion to the millions of vaccines that have been administered is not considered to be a mathematically significant. However, with nearly $3.5billion been paid to vaccine-injured persons through the federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, vaccine safety is not all that is it promoted to be.
Why the double standard?
Vaccination is built around a belief system. We believe vaccines are safe; we believe vaccines are important to health; we believe the stories we are told about vaccines being solely responsible for the elimination of smallpox and polio. And we really want to believe that our doctors – our pediatricians – have read all the available information on vaccines, pro and con, and are telling us the complete truth about vaccines.
However, belief is based on faith, not necessarily on fact. For example, we want to believe that vaccinating our children will keep them from getting sick with measles or chickenpox or pertussis. However, there is abundant of information documenting this is not so.
Why is there an almost desperate need to defend the current belief–and trust–in vaccines? The public’s view of common childhood illness is similar to the current perspective on terrorism: Random attacks that are potentially deadly. The media hawks this same perspective about infections…then pharma hypes it, doctors push it and educational institutions reinforce it. Everyone sells it, and everyone readily buys it. It’s the “just in case” or “better be safe than sorry” mentality.
After nearly 200 years of use, fear still sells vaccination.
What do we really know about vaccines? A review of the literature and the CDC documents reveals the following:
- Vaccine safety studies are relatively small and include only healthy children. However when a vaccine trial has been completed, the vaccine is approved and added to the pediatric schedule, vaccines are given to ALL children, regardless of the condition of their health, family history or genetics.
- Vaccine safety studies are short. Most clinical trials monitor for side effects a paltry 21 days, sometimes, only for 5 days. It can take months before immune or neurological complications appear. This arbitrary deadline, established by the FDA, precludes associating vaccines with chronic health disorders. “Safe” is a designation given based on limited information.
- 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 is given the new drug. The number of side effects that occur in each group is compared. However, the placebo used in vaccine research is not an inert substance; it is another vaccine with a “known side effect profile.” An inert substance – such as saline, or even B12 – does not cause a reaction; as substitute vaccine can. If both groups in a trial have the same number of reactions, the study reports that the vaccine “is as safe as a placebo.” This is a deceptive practice for both patients and practitioners.
- Vaccine-induced antibodies do not correlate with protection. In fact, the esteemed journal, Vaccine stated this clearly “…It is known that, in many instances, antigen-specific antibody titers do not correlate with protection.” The full reference can be found here: PMID: 11587808
Vaccination has been accepted as safe, effective and protective. The shots can be described as a medical sacred cow, by definition, “a medical procedure unreasonably immune to criticism.” A strong blowback happens when it is suggested that the cow should be sacrificed. It is heresy to suggest that the status quo is wrong.
When Copernicus insisted that the sun, not the earth, was the center of the solar system, it went against the philosophical and religious beliefs held by the powerful men and organizations of the time. When two other Italian scientists, Galileo and Bruno, embraced Copernican theory, they were deemed to be blasphemous. Bruno was tried before the Inquisition, condemned and burned at the stake in 1600. Thirty years later, Galileo was brought forward and in front of his “Betters,” was forced to renounce his beliefs under the threat of torture and death. Even after his confession, he was sentenced to imprisonment for the remainder of his days.
The more one investigates vaccination and studies the adverse effects, the more one becomes a Copernican heretic and speaking out against the status quo can have sobering consequences. I have personally invested more than 22,000 hours of personal time to expose the truth about vaccines. If the result of this inquiry and exposure is to be called a heretic, than I am in esteemed company.
A version of this article was originally posted on NewsWithViews.com