By Dr. Mercola
In the vaccination debate, what happens all too often is not an open, scientifically based discussion but, rather, inappropriate name-calling and threats. It has been suggested by doctors and attorneys promoting forced vaccination policies that experienced and enlightened physicians who question vaccine safety be stripped of their medical licenses, that parents who oppose vaccine mandates be imprisoned and that online discussions of vaccine risks and failures be censored.
It’s also not unusual for doctors to criticize, belittle or refuse to see children whose parents question the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) one-size-fits-all approach to vaccination. Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, has taken this to another level entirely, going so far as to bully parents of vaccine-injured children and classify the nonprofit National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) as a “hate group.”
“[Anti-vaccine organizations] camouflage themselves as a political group, but I call them for what they really are: a hate group,” Hotez told Duke University’s The Chronicle. “They are a hate group that hates [our] family and hates [our] children.”1 Yet, as explained by Barbara Loe Fisher, NVIC president and cofounder:2
“In the 21st century, the term ‘hate group’ is most frequently used to describe groups of individuals associated with ‘hate crimes,’ which are defined by state laws and include threats, harassment or physical harm. Hate crimes are motivated by prejudice against someone’s race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, sexual orientation or physical or mental disability …
A child health advocacy group that points out vaccine science research gaps, criticizes paternalism in medical practice and challenges the use of utilitarianism as the moral foundation for public health policy does not qualify as a ‘hate group.'”
Hotez Bullies Parents of Vaccine-Injured Children
In a global health lecture at Duke University, Hotez called on scientists to “engage the public” to counter the “anti-vaccine movement,” which he blamed as a key cause of preventable deaths. He said the movement had been propelled by “anti-vaccine websites” like NVIC.org, which is, unquestionably, the best resource for accessing referenced information on U.S. vaccine policy and law and the safety and effectiveness of vaccines.
“The article reported that Hotez castigated politicians from the ‘peace, love, granola’ political left, who believe that ‘we have to be careful what we put into our kid’s bodies,’ and politicians from the political right, who tell doctors like him ‘you can’t tell us what to do with our kids,'” Fisher said, adding:3
“But Dr. Hotez reserved the bulk of his venom for parents of vaccine-injured children. Like a schoolyard bully who engages in name calling when he can’t come up with anything intelligent to say, he slapped the label ‘anti-vaccine’ onto parents of vaccine-injured children speaking about what happened to their children after vaccination.”
Hotez, by the way, is a vaccine developer, a former president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute and director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development. And this isn’t the first time he’s criticized those who favor vaccine choice and safety. He’s gone so far as to say that the movement calling for increased scientific study into vaccine efficacy and risks, and calling for protection of informed consent, should be “snuffed out,” i.e., crushed or killed. As noted by The Vaccine Reaction, published by NVIC:4
“In March [2017] … Scientific American published an article by Peter Hotez, M.D., of Texas Children’s Hospital, also inciting violence against people who do not agree with current government vaccine policies. Dr. Hotez stated: ‘An American anti-vaccine movement is building and we need to take steps now to snuff it out.‘”
In 2015, USA Today published a column by Alex Berezow advocating that “anti-vax” parents should be imprisoned. At the time that seemed to be a draconian proposal, but certainly less so compared to today’s calls by vaccine developers and forced vaccination proponents like Hotez, who use violent imagery to suggest violent suppression of people who object to one-size-fits-all vaccine policies and advocate for the human right to informed consent.
Further, Hotez also serves as a director on the board of The Immunization Partnership (TIP), a Texas-based coalition that supports the universal use of vaccines, electronic vaccine-tracking registries and mandatory vaccination laws.
“During the 2017 legislative session in Texas, TIP representatives directly gave testimony and lobbied for bills that would make it harder for families to decline vaccines or choose to vaccinate their children using a schedule that differs from the CDC’s recommended schedule,” the NVIC advocacy team explained last fall during Vaccine Awareness Week .
A ‘One-Size-Fits-All’ Vaccine Policy Isn’t Right for Everyone
No matter where you stand in the vaccination debate, most would agree that in the case of medical care, one size does not fit all. What works for your child (or yourself) may not work for your neighbor’s, but in the case of vaccinations they’re prescribed exactly the same for every child. Today we know, however, that some children, like those with mitochondrial disorders, are at increased risk from vaccinations. Others are as well.
For instance, Dr. Suzanne Humphries, author of “Dissolving Illusions: Disease, Vaccines, and the Forgotten History,” is a nephrologist who has committed the latter part of her medical career to exposing the truth of vaccinations. She was accustomed to giving vaccinations to her patients with kidney disease, including those on dialysis, until she realized that hospital patients were experiencing worsening kidney function and kidney failure after being vaccinated.
Initially Dr. Humphries thought these may have been anomalies or unfortunate coincidences, but as the number of cases continued to rise, even in those who were previously healthy with no known medical problems, the association became too great to ignore. She uncovered a link between the aluminum adjuvant and mercury in many vaccines and health damage.
For genetic or biological reasons that we don’t yet understand, some people appear predisposed to poor aluminum detoxification, so aluminum accumulates in their tissues and leads to myalgias, fatigue, cognitive deficiencies and other health problems. Aluminum is also known to be toxic to kidney patients on dialysis, which is why the water used for this process is carefully screened to be sure its aluminum free (as well as free of other toxins).
In addition to aluminum being toxic for some people who are chronically ill, there are also questions as to whether it’s safe to vaccinate babies with aluminum-containing vaccines. When aluminum, for instance, is injected into the body, it’s known to disrupt enzymes, cross the blood-brain barrier, bind to DNA and act as a gene disrupter and act as a cell signaling and membrane toxin. As Humphries said:
“We’re very careful as nephrologists when treating babies because the kidney functions of babies isn’t the same as adults — it’s vastly reduced. But when it comes to vaccines, this reduced kidney function in infants is always left out of the discussion.”
More Research Is Urgently Needed to Uncover Vaccine Safety or Lack Thereof
In 2013, a JAMA Pediatrics study evaluated aluminum levels in 2-month-old infants following the administration of three vaccines at once, which is given per usual according to the infant vaccine schedule. This exposes the child to 1,200 micrograms of aluminum. Urine and blood were collected, but no significant changes in levels of aluminum were seen after vaccination.5 The researchers described the finding as “reassuring,” but as Humphries noted, where did the aluminum go?
If it wasn’t excreted and blood levels didn’t rise, it means it was retained in tissues. Despite this, infants are routinely vaccinated without regard for their immature kidney function. According to Humphries, “Aluminum is also injected into many babies on the day of birth in the hepatitis B vaccine.
That’s 250 micrograms of aluminum at a time when kidney function is even lower than it is at 2 months.” The fact remains that studies are urgently needed to determine if vaccines are safe for sick people, babies and in many other special cases. Further, you can see, then, how vaccine mandates may turn out to be health disasters for some people.
“The doctors operating the mandatory vaccination system with an iron fist, who refuse to acknowledge or address the suffering of people for whom the risks of vaccination turned out to be 100 percent,” Fisher stated, “would do well to reflect upon the primary role they have played in the crisis of public trust in the safety of vaccines and doctors forcing everyone to use them.”6
Indeed, trying to get unbiased, truthful information about vaccines is not easy, and the cards are very much stacked against you receiving the truth, especially when those who dare to question vaccine safety are often ridiculed or threatened.
Yet burning questions exist, like why aren’t efforts being made to identify children who may be at increased risk of vaccine side effects in order to prevent any unnecessary harm? An individual’s response to a vaccine is actually influenced by many factors. For instance, an individual’s gut microbes may help determine their immune response to vaccines.
Infants that responded to the rotavirus vaccine had a higher diversity of microbes in their gut, as well as more microbes from the Proteobacteria group, than infants who did not mount the expected immune response.7
Epigenetic science, which now tells us that our genes are not our destiny, is another variable in vaccine safety, because no one knows how vaccines affect your genes (and it’s likely different in every person). Part of the problem is that once you start to epigenetically tinker with the infant immune system, you are basically depositing what Humphries refers to as “little cluster bombs” that will eventually “explode into a big problem.”
As an example, she cites a study by Nikolaj Orntoft, in which African girls were injected with a tetanus vaccine to see which genes might be upregulated or downregulated (basically “turned on” or “turned off”). What they found is that there’s really no way to predict which genes will be affected.
So not only will each individual have a unique response to any given vaccine based on their age, current health status and microbial makeup, but individuals are also epigenetically predisposed to respond differently in terms of the side effects we might develop.
Yet, doctors like Hotez, instead of opening up the playing field for legitimate questions into vaccine safety and efficacy, would rather engage in name-calling (NVIC and other vaccine choice organizations are “exporting … anti-vax garbage” to communities around the world, he said)8 and have parents who disagree with him “snuffed out.”
Protect Your Right to Informed Consent and Defend Vaccine Exemptions
With all the uncertainty surrounding the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, it’s critical to protect your right to make independent health choices and exercise voluntary informed consent to vaccination. It is urgent that everyone in the U.S. stand up and fight to protect and expand vaccine informed consent protections in state public health and employment laws. The best way to do this is to get personally involved with your state legislators and educating the leaders in your community.
When you ask your physician about vaccine safety, you will most likely get a canned answer, one assuring you vaccines are safe. At the very least, physicians should be explaining to parents that their children can get a blood titer test that measures the level of antibodies in their blood. If the levels are high enough, a person is considered “immune” to that particular disease and no further vaccinations or boosters should be necessary.
If your doctor is unwilling to discuss titers with you, find one who is. From my point of view, there can be little doubt that we need to review the safety and effectiveness of the current vaccination program in the U.S. This review needs to include methodologically sound investigative studies that are not compromised by conflicts of interest within industry and government. As Fisher stated in 2016 when criticizing vaccine orthodoxy and urging everyone to defend civil and human rights when it comes to vaccination:9
“Vaccine injury and death does not discriminate between races or social classes, except when people are kept ignorant, economically dependent and unable to make informed choices.
… While we still have freedom of speech, press, thought, conscience and religion in America, please exercise and defend those civil and human rights at every opportunity. If we all stand up for the freedom we have left today, we will not lose more of it tomorrow. Knowledge is the antidote to vaccine orthodoxy because knowledge is power.”
Protect Your Right to Informed Consent and Defend Vaccine Exemptions
With all the uncertainty surrounding the safety and efficacy of vaccines, it’s critical to protect your right to make independent health choices and exercise voluntary informed consent to vaccination. It is urgent that everyone in America stand up and fight to protect and expand vaccine informed consent protections in state public health and employment laws. The best way to do this is to get personally involved with your state legislators and educating the leaders in your community.
THINK GLOBALLY, ACT LOCALLY.
National vaccine policy recommendations are made at the federal level but vaccine laws are made at the state level. It is at the state level where your action to protect your vaccine choice rights can have the greatest impact.
It is critical for EVERYONE to get involved now in standing up for the legal right to make voluntary vaccine choices in America because those choices are being threatened by lobbyists representing drug companies, medical trade associations, and public health officials, who are trying to persuade legislators to strip all vaccine exemptions from public health laws.
Signing up for NVIC’s free Advocacy Portal at www.NVICAdvocacy.org gives you immediate, easy access to your own state legislators on your smart phone or computer so you can make your voice heard. You will be kept up-to-date on the latest state bills threatening your vaccine choice rights and get practical, useful information to help you become an effective vaccine choice advocate in your own community.
Also, when national vaccine issues come up, you will have the up-to-date information and call to action items you need at your fingertips. So please, as your first step, sign up for the NVIC Advocacy Portal.
Share Your Story With the Media and People You Know
If you or a family member has suffered a serious vaccine reaction, injury, or death, please talk about it. If we don’t share information and experiences with one another, everybody feels alone and afraid to speak up. Write a letter to the editor if you have a different perspective on a vaccine story that appears in your local newspaper. Make a call in to a radio talk show that is only presenting one side of the vaccine story.
I must be frank with you; you have to be brave because you might be strongly criticized for daring to talk about the “other side” of the vaccine story. Be prepared for it and have the courage to not back down. Only by sharing our perspective and what we know to be true about vaccination, will the public conversation about vaccination open up so people are not afraid to talk about it.
We cannot allow the drug companies and medical trade associations funded by drug companies or public health officials promoting forced use of a growing list of vaccines to dominate the conversation about vaccination.
The vaccine injured cannot be swept under the carpet and treated like nothing more than “statistically acceptable collateral damage” of national one-size-fits-all mandatory vaccination policies that put way too many people at risk for injury and death. We shouldn’t be treating people like guinea pigs instead of human beings.
Internet Resources Where You Can Learn More
I encourage you to visit the website of the non-profit charity, the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), at www.NVIC.org:
- NVIC Memorial for Vaccine Victims: View descriptions and photos of children and adults, who have suffered vaccine reactions, injuries, and deaths. If you or your child experiences an adverse vaccine event, please consider posting and sharing your story here.
- If You Vaccinate, Ask 8 Questions: Learn how to recognize vaccine reaction symptoms and prevent vaccine injuries.
- Vaccine Freedom Wall: View or post descriptions of harassment and sanctions by doctors, employers, and school and health officials for making independent vaccine choices.
- Vaccine Failure Wall: View or post descriptions about vaccines that have failed to work and protect the vaccinated from disease.
Connect With Your Doctor or Find a New One That Will Listen and Care
If your pediatrician or doctor refuses to provide medical care to you or your child unless you agree to get vaccines you don’t want, I strongly encourage you to have the courage to find another doctor. Harassment, intimidation, and refusal of medical care is becoming the modus operandi of the medical establishment in an effort to stop the change in attitude of many parents about vaccinations after they become truly educated about health and vaccination. However, there is hope.
At least 15 percent of young doctors recently polled admit that they’re starting to adopt a more individualized approach to vaccinations in direct response to the vaccine safety concerns of parents.
It is good news that there is a growing number of smart young doctors, who prefer to work as partners with parents in making personalized vaccine decisions for children, including delaying vaccinations or giving children fewer vaccines on the same day or continuing to provide medical care for those families, who decline use of one or more vaccines.
So take the time to locate a doctor, who treats you with compassion and respect, and is willing to work with you to do what is right for your child.
– Sources and References
Opinions expressed by contributors are their own.
Madison Area Lyme Support Group 