Imagine if your 11-year-old child could receive medical procedures without your knowledge or approval. What exactly is DC Bill 23-171, the Minor Consent to Vaccination Act, and why are we so concerned with stopping this legislation?
Rolf Hazlehurst is a senior attorney with Children’s Health Defense and has been actively engaged in the practice of law since 1995. This week, Rolf gives us a history of vaccine law policy and explains why DC Bill 23-171 puts children at serious risk. Learn more about the details of this dangerous legislation, and what you can do to stop it from becoming law.
For nearly 100 years, consistent Supreme Court precedent has held that parents have both the duty and the right to direct the care, custody, and control of their minor children. But Bill 23-171, proposed by Councilman Cheh and cosponsored by a majority of the council, would defy that precedent, stripping parents not only of the authority to make a decision, but even to know about the decision being made.
Every few months, Jennifer Crystal devotes a column to answering your questions. Do you have a question for Jennifer? If so, email her at lymewarriorjennifercrystal@gmail.com.
Do steroids make Lyme disease worse?
Yes. I learned this the hard way. Twice before I was accurately diagnosed with Lyme disease, I was prescribed steroids. The first time was in 2002, five years after my tick bite, and three years before I started treatment for Lyme disease, babesiosis, and ehrlichiosis. I was prescribed steroids to treat systemic hives that, unbeknownst to me or my dermatologist at the time, were caused by Lyme. After being on that round of steroids, I was stricken with my usual on-and-off flu for several weeks.
I was prescribed steroids again in 2003 when I had a bad case of mononucleosis. Ironically, I begged my primary care physician for that prescription, so that I could speed up my recovery and get on to my summer job as a camp counselor. The steroids did clear up my sore throat and swollen glands very quickly, and while I was on them, I felt like I had energy. I went to camp, which was a mistake. My energy levels soon crashed, and the mono slipped into chronic Epstein-Barr virus. Two bedridden years later, I discovered that the Epstein-Barr was not improving because I had underlying tick-borne infections. Those infections probably would have come to the forefront anyway while I had mono, but the steroids certainly didn’t help.
Why do steroids impact Lyme disease patients so negatively? In his blog post “Steroid Use Can Lead to Long-Term Treatment Failure for Lyme Disease Patients”, Daniel Cameron, MD explains, “An association of steroid use with an increased failure rate or worsening of disease is understandable in view of the well-known effects of these agents on the inflammatory and immune responses.” Dr. Cameron points to several studies that tie steroid use to Lyme disease treatment failure.
My Lyme Literate Medical Doctor (LLMD) has told me that the response to oral steroids is different than inhaled steroids. I have been on inhaled steroids for sinusitis (nasal spray) and for post-COVID-19 lung inflammation (inhaler) and have not had any issues with those, but of course the best thing is to always check with your LLMD about the way your own body might respond to any medications.
I have babesiosis and am starting to get back into exercise. Should I go until I feel air hunger, push beyond it, or stop before I feel it?
This question comes in response to my post “What is Air Hunger, Anyway?”, which describes a common symptom of babesiosis. Babesia is a parasite that eats the oxygen in the red blood cells, making the body feel hungry for oxygen. For me, that feels like molasses weighing my body down. Sometimes it feels like my arms and limbs are “gasping,” my cells craving air the way your stomach might grumble for food when you’re starving. I feel lightheaded, and experience low blood sugar reactions. I often get a headache.
These symptoms usually come on post-exertion. I started physical therapy while I was still in treatment for Lyme disease and babesiosis, and that was a bad idea; thirty seconds on a stationary bike caused such bad air hunger that I was in bed for a week. While trainers will often tell a healthy individual to press through fatigue and push their bodies just a little further with each workout, this advice is detrimental for a babesiosis patient. Even now that I am in remission, pushing doesn’t make me stronger; it sets me back. I have learned that I need to stop and rest before I feel air hunger. I need to pace myself. Even if I’m not yet tired, it’s better to take breaks, or even call it a day, so that my body is able to keep going the next day. With babesiosis, slow and steady definitely wins the race.
Will you give an update once you get the COVID-19 vaccine?
Yes! I have written four blog posts about my experience with COVID-19, which I had from March to June 2020. As I explained in my post “I Have Lyme Disease. Should I Get the COVID-19 Vaccine?”, the decision whether to get the vaccine is a personal choice that depends on risk-benefit analysis for each patient. Considerations should include where you are in Lyme treatment, how your immune system is doing, etc. For me personally, my doctors and I have determined that the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the risks, so I will be getting the vaccine once I become eligible. I anticipate some kind of immune response, and hope it will not last too long, but I will write an updated post after receiving both doses of the shot.
GLA is offering a free webinar, “COVID-19 Vaccines and Lyme Patients: What You Need to Know” on March 3rd at 6:00 p.m. You can register here.
Jennifer Crystal is a writer and educator in Boston. Her memoir about her medical journey is forthcoming. Contact her at lymewarriorjennifercrystal@gmail.com.
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**Comment**
A few points for consideration:
There are many types of steroids including: anabolic(building up) steroids and catabolic (immune suppressive – often called corticosteroids). Only the catabolic steroids are of concern to the Lyme/MSIDS patient due to their ability to depress the immune system, and even then they can be used in specific cases, but according to experts, always in tandem with antimicrobials so infections are kept at bay and not allowed to proliferate. So saying “steroids” are bad is like saying all plants are bad when there are certainly poisonous ones to avoid but many other plants that are healthy.
Since Lyme/MSIDS is parasitic in nature, hosting off of us and depriving us of many nutrients, minerals, and yes – hormones – supplementing with the things we are deprived of will build our bodies up and make us tougher targets for disease and actually helps us fight disease. The body is a complicated machine and there are many issues involved in health. Again, what’s good for one patient may not be good for another. My husband and I have been on steroids for years including vitamin D (yes, it’s a hormone), testosterone, various thyroid hormones, and I’ve been on 7-Keto DHEA as well as progesterone – all of which have helped us immensely. Steroids are hormones that our bodies make and need. Also, there are times a person requires synthetic steroids (not bioidentical). My daughter is one such case as she has severe endometriosis. The reason this is important is similarly to there being a concerted effort by mainstream medicine in denying persistent Lyme/MSIDS and long-term antibiotics as a treatment, there is a concerted effort to vilify steroids. From everything I’ve experienced and learned from experts, steroids could replace many expensive pharmacuticals – making them a competitor to pharmaceuticals, and THAT is the reason they are vilified. They work and are cheap.
Oversimplifying the exercise question is similar to oversimplifying the steroid question. There are a million ways to exercise – one of which is right in your bed! Pick a type of exercise that you can do without making yourself feel worse. Do something you enjoy and will continue. This could be simple stretches on the floor. Lifting canned goods a few repetitions, or doing Yoga. Some love to swim and feel refreshed afterward. Some love riding their bike or taking a walk. If you are exhausted after walking to your mailbox, well, start there and feel good about it! One must be creative and open-minded with Lyme/MSIDS. Your body does need to move but move it in a way that builds you up – rather than tears you down. Start small and see where it can go. No guilt!
From everything I’ve read and studied, there is a prolific and checkered history of public ‘authorities’ hiding the truth about vaccines risks, and the fact they are not safe for everyone. Mainstream medicine is guilty of trying to put everyone into the same box when individual health matters greatly. This is one reason Lyme/MSIDS is in the state it’s in. It doesn’t fit the one-germ, one-drug allopathic germ theory. I believe strongly in the right to choose and taking your individual health into account as well as the risks present for you. So far I’m not seeing anything convincing, productive, or worth the risk about this experimental, fast-tracked COVID injection, that isn’t a vaccine and that doesn’t stop transmission or prevent infection. There are numerous issues that have yet to be addressed and the media/’authorities‘ are doing all within their power to downplay serious reactions and deaths. Antibody dependent enhancement (ADE) is very real, and there are many testing positive and getting sick after the injection. This “must see” video reveals those getting this injection are getting far more than they bargained for. (Dr. Lee Merrit is past president of the Association of American Physicians & Surgeons)
Lastly, every single Lyme/MSIDS patient I’ve worked with has suffered a relapse after getting vaccinated.
The Cleveland Clinic Study is now published as peer-reviewed science. It shows that the more doses of the COVID shots you get, the higher your risk of contracting COVID.
“Risk of COVID-19… increased with time since most recent prior COVID-19 episode and with the number of vaccine doses previously received.’
Which means the argument for “vaccine” mandates is destroyed.
DID YOU CATCH COVID-19 AFTER GETTING THE INJECTION?
More than two months in and the Covid injection still has not proven to stop infection or transmission of SARS-CoV2, which could explain what mainstream media is calling “breakthrough cases,” a phenomenon where people are testing positive for #Covid19 within a few days or weeks after getting the Covid shot.
Experts say you should continue to act as if you never got vaccinated.
The question to ponder of course, is why get the injection at all?
Del Bigtree’s question to Dr. Fauci is:
“How do we achieve herd immunity from a product that does not stop infection or transmission?”
Great question that deserves an answer.
As you can see here, many are testing positive for COVID and becoming ill after the injection, but we are continually told it isn’t due to the injection.
Some experts are also calling for a halt to the injections after a multitude of deaths.
Those trying to downplay “breakthrough cases” state people should just, “Stop Stressing Post-Vax Risk of Spreading Coronavirus.” I encourage you to read the article for yourself but the take home is this particular doctor, and others like him, don’t want anything to stop people from getting vaccinated.
Besides not stopping transmission and infection, experts have warned about this injection increasing HIV risk.
The belief that everyone, regardless of risk,should be vaccinated “for the greater good” overlooks the many subsets of people who for various reasons shouldn’t be vaccinated – particularly with this experimental, fast-tracked injection that does very little, if anything at all, with warnings and reports of serious adverse reactions and deaths occurring daily.
Do your own reading and don’t be coerced into doing something you very well may regret later.
For those who believe that the injection will help things return to “normal,” Dr. Fauci states Americans will be wearing masks in 2022.
America’s Frontline Doctors Unveil ‘Vaccine Bill of Rights’
January 18, 2021
Los Angeles, CA – Today America’s Frontline Doctors (AFLDS) released the nonprofit, non-partisan organization’s latest medical-advocacy project, the COVID-19 Vaccine Bill of Rights (VBOR). The measure, presented as a memorializing resolution, can be passed by any of the 50 state legislatures and immediately adopted. The Vaccine Bill of Rights prohibits “vaccine passports,” “digital health IDs,” and other mandates currently supported by certain public as well as private entities. The VBOR lays out six provisions which provide a legal and ethical framework to protect patients who choose to opt out of the largest experimental vaccination program in US history. Read the draft legislation enacting the Vaccine Bill of Rights here.
The Vaccine Bill of Rights contains six general categories of protections for individuals against overweening government and attempted interventions by private businesses and organizations. AFLDS is encouraging lawmakers to adopt a minimum of four out of the six provisions contained in the VBOR, depending on the circumstances of their state and policy prerogatives. These provisions are:
No persons will be mandated, coerced, forced or pressured to take a COVID-19 vaccine.
No physician or nurse shall be asked by their employer to promote a COVID-19 vaccine.
All persons reserve the right, at all times, to determine what is in their own best medical interest without threat to their livelihood or freedom of movement.
All persons must be given access to independent information to help them determine what is in their own best medical interest, including the risk of death based upon age/condition from contracting COVID-19 naturally. This information must include information from sources that are independent of a conflict of interest such as a government, political or commercial entity. Such information can be included but cannot be the sole source of information.
The elderly are additionally entitled to a knowledgeable, independent advocate with medical training to help them determine their own medical interest.
Private businesses operating within the jurisdiction have no legal authority to require or mandate or coerce medication or experimental medication for any persons.
Said AFLDS, “Mandates, ‘passports’ or any effort to intimidate Americans into taking a vaccine for a virus with a 99.7% survival rate not only is damaging to individual liberty it also contradicts safe medical practice. Yet state governments, along with powerful private interests, are moving in the direction of requiring inoculations for large segments of our society as a condition to return to a ‘normal’ life. This is wrong. As part of the AFLDS commitment to science-based information exchange, transparency, and accountability, our organization developed this Vaccine Bill of Rights so that state legislatures can re-affirm their commitments to individual rights of conscience, assembly, and movement. America’s Frontline Doctors encourages our representatives to immediately pass this critical measure, direct public health officials to comply, and preserve the freedom of their constituents.”
The document will be distributed to legislative clerks as well as the majority and minority leadership of all 50 state legislatures. Read the entire COVID-19 Vaccine Bill of Rights here.
As your constituent, I support a COVID-19 Vaccine Bill of Rights to protect myself from unconstitutional experimental vaccine mandates.
Please immediately sponsor and pass the COVID-19 Vaccine Bill of Rights memorializing resolution to re-affirm your commitment to individual rights of conscience, assembly, and movement. The Vaccine Bill of Rights contains six general categories of protections for individuals against government overreach and attempted interventions by private businesses and organizations. These are:
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No persons will be mandated, coerced, forced or pressured to take a COVID-19 vaccine.
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No physician or nurse shall be asked by their employer to promote a COVID-19 vaccine.
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All persons reserve the right, at all times, to determine what is in their own best medical interest without threat to their livelihood or freedom of movement.
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All persons must be given access to independent information to help them determine what is in their own best medical interest, including the risk of death based upon age/condition from contracting COVID-19 naturally. This information must include information from sources that are independent of a conflict of interest such as a government, political or commercial entity. Such information can be included but cannot be the sole source of information.
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The elderly are additionally entitled to a knowledgeable, independent advocate with medical training to help them determine their own medical interest.
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Private businesses operating within the jurisdiction have no legal authority to require or mandate or coerce medication or experimental medication for any persons.
As your constituent, my state representative’s commitment to individual liberty and medical ethics is very important to me. Intimidating Americans into taking a vaccine for a virus with a 99.7% survival rate not only is damaging to individual liberty, it also contradicts safe medical practice. I need to know where you stand. I urge you to sponsor the Vaccine Bill of Rights today and oppose unconstitutional and scientifically dubious COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
Further, my husband and I have fought a 10 year battle against Lyme disease and the many coinfections that often come with it, helping hundreds of others obtain help. All of us have compromised immune systems – and there’s a lot of us. A prominent Lyme literate doctor in Wisconsin states that 80% of his autistic and PANS/PANDAS patients also struggle with tick-borne illness, further adding to this number of vulnerable people. The last thing any of us need is a fast-tracked, experimental injection that doesn’t even fit the legal definition of a “vaccine,” or prevent infection or transmission.
Pathologist: FDA ‘Misled the Public’ on Pfizer Vaccine Efficacy
In an amended reply to the FDA’s rejection of his concerns about Pfizer’s clinical trials, Dr. Sin Hang Lee says the FDA is glossing over potential risks of an mRNA vaccine while concealing its true efficacy.
“Until an accurate count of COVID-19 cases in the vaccinated and placebo groups has been determined for vaccine efficacy evaluation, we are asking the FDA to stay its decision regarding the emergency use authorization for this vaccine.”
Lee’s request was rejected by the FDA on Dec. 11, the same day the agency approved Pfizer’s vaccine for emergency use. On Feb. 8, Lee filed an amended reply.
In the petition and stay, Lee requested the FDA amend the study design for the late-stage trial of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine. Specifically, Lee requests:
“Before an EUA or unrestricted license is issued for the Pfizer vaccine, or for other vaccines for which PCR results are the primary evidence of infection, all “endpoints” or COVID-19 cases used to determine vaccine efficacy in the Phase 3 or 2/3 trials should have their infection status confirmed by Sanger sequencing, given the high cycle thresholds used in some trials. High cycle thresholds, or Ct values, in RT-qPCR test results have been widely acknowledged to lead to false positives … All RT-qPCR-positive test results used to categorize patient as “COVID-19 cases” and used to qualify the trial’s endpoints should be verified by Sanger sequencing to confirm that the tested samples in fact contain a unique SARS-CoV-2 genomic RNA.”
The petition makes these requests because the phase 2/3 clinical trial of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine uses a presumptive RT-qPCR (“PCR”) diagnostic test, which is known to generate high rates of false-positive results.
In addition, the Pfizer vaccine trial primarily uses a PCR test that employs cycle thresholds up to 44.9 to identify COVID-19 “cases” despite the fact that “positive” results that require cycle thresholds greater than 30 to 35 are usually false positives, according to Lee.
Lee offered to re-test the residues of tested samples in his laboratory if Pfizer is unable to do so in order to confirm Pfizer’s stated vaccine efficacy rate of 95%.
Lee’s Sanger sequencing-based method for molecular diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 was published in International Journal of Geriatrics and Rehabilitation.
On Dec. 11, 2020, the same day the FDA granted Pfizer Emergency Use Authorization for its COVID-19 vaccine, the FDA responded to Lee’s petition and request for stay. The agency “conclude[d] that the petitions do not contain facts demonstrating any reasonable grounds for the requested action” and denied the petitions.
The FDA, among other things, stated that “PCR testing does not need to be followed by Sanger or other sequencing for purposes of clinical diagnosis. Currently, reverse real-time PCR (RT-PCR) tests can both amplify and confirm the identity of viral genetic material in a single reaction, without a separate sequencing step.”
On Feb. 8, Lee, through ICAN’s counsel, submitted a detailed and thoroughly cited reply to the FDA’s denial of his petition and stay. This reply points out the inaccuracies, contradictions and omissions in the FDA’s denial of the petition.
Lee wrote that the FDA’s letter denying the petition and stay
“shows that the FDA has not conducted an adequate evaluation of the Pfizer vaccine’s efficacy, especially concerning issues about the accuracy of RT-qPCR testing of SARS-CoV-2 in clinical specimens.”
Lee’s detailed response, which can be read in full here, goes on to say:
“The FDA has misled the public. The key misleading statements are analyzed below point-by-point according to the sequence of their presentation in the Letter but under the following four categories for the convenience of the readers:
“A. Cherry-picking to eviscerate the guidance for issuance of an EUA for a COVID-19 vaccine.
B. Knowingly promoting inaccurate PCR tests for SARS-CoV-2.
C. Finding excuses for using PCR tests with high false-positive rates for this vaccine trial.
D. Glossing over potential risks of an mRNA vaccine while concealing its true efficacy.”
Lee, ICAN and others are weighing possible future actions.
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**Comment**
You may recognize Dr.Lee due to the following posts:
https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/09/29/shocking-flaws-in-gardasil-trial-design-prevents-safety-assessment/Lee confirmed the presence of HPV-16 L1 gene DNA in the girl’s post-mortem blood and spleen tissue — the same DNA fragments found in the vaccine. According to Lee, the fragments were protected from degradation by binding to the aluminum adjuvant used in the vaccine. He suggested their presence might offer a plausible explanation for the high immunogenicity of Gardasil, meaning that the vaccine tends to provoke an exaggerated immune response. He pointed out that the rate of anaphylaxis in girls receiving Gardasil is far higher than normal — reportedly five to 20 times higher than any other school-based vaccination program. Also, According to Lee, vaccines target 70% of HPV strains (though new version targets more strains), and if vaccines were 100% effective, ONE death would be prevented out of 100,000 vaccinated women; 1.3 with newer versions. Cost to vaccinate 1 girl is about $700. $350 for vaccine & $350 for doctor visit. Cost to vaccinate 100,000 girls is approximately $70 million.
Dr. Sin Hang Lee is one of the true-blue researchers left who call a spade a spade.
(Natural News) Around the world, medical authorities are seeing a spike in elderly deaths, after covid-19 vaccination. Gibraltar, a nation located at the southern tip of Spain, is suffering from an unexplained surge in elderly deaths. In the second week of January, a subset of the elderly population suddenly started to die off. The new wave of unexplained elderly deaths is occurring at nearly three times the magnitude of covid-19 deaths that were recorded during 2020.
The new, unexplained surge in elderly deaths is occurring approximately forty times faster when compared to the overall timeline of covid-19 deaths that occurred since a pandemic was first declared. This surge in elderly deaths occurred after 5,847 doses of experimental mRNA injections were administered to the citizens of Gibraltar. In just one week, 17 percent of the country’s population had been inoculated with the first dose of Pfizer’s mRNA experiment.
Before the vaccine experiment began, the covid-19 related death toll accounted for ten people. After the vaccine rollout, the total number of deaths had skyrocketed to forty-five people. In the first eight days of the vaccination program, thirty-five seniors suddenly passed away. (See link for article)
Madison Area Lyme Support Group 