California's Vaccination Indoctrination

Across America the right of parents to decide whether or not to vaccinate their children is under attack [1]. Now California families are being targeted.

In February, Dr. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento) introduced a bill to herd parents into a doctor’s office for a lecture on vaccination before those parents would be allowed to exercise an exemption to mandated vaccinations [2].

The ostensible purpose of bills such as these is to provide parents “accurate” information about vaccines. Their real purpose is however to increase vaccination rates by propagandizing parents and making the exemption process more difficult. [3]

The bill’s press release reveals the type of misinformation parents can expect to receive at one of these mandated meetings:

AB 2109 Introduced as Public Health Experts Gather at Capitol to Help Prevent Repeat of California’s 2010 Epidemic

The implication is that exemption policy had something to do with the pertussis outbreak of 2010. This is simply false; there is no scientific evidence to support a connection.

A review emerging from the Infectious Disease Society of America confirmed: [4]

Pertussis Vaccine's Waning Immunity Caused California Epidemic. The…vaccine’s failure to deliver durable infection protection to children aged 7-10 years led to the 2010 California pertussis epidemic

Besides, according to the California State Department of Health, as of March 2010:

Vaccination coverage in California is at or near all-time high levels [5]

The AB2109 press release also reveals a troubling relationship between this bill and a shadowy organization called the California Immunization Coalition. The CIC is an entity comprised of every vaccine-related vested interest imaginable. [6] The group’s dedication is not to accurate information but rather unbridled vaccination. Their web address immunizeca.org says it all.

In 2011 they were the driving force behind Teen Vaccine Week: an “observance” where the group encouraged teachers to engage their students in herd immunity propaganda sessions, the playing of Vaccine Jeopardy (like the TV show) and vaccine-related scavenger hunts. [7]

Is this the group who will be tasked with deciding what’s “accurate?” Will they ensure that we get, as their president Jeff Goad, called it “the right” information? [8]

And why are they so anxious to get us into the doctor’s office to address a non-problem anyway? For years the vaccine promoters have been studying parents to find out what “communication” techniques and talking points to apply in order to make us more malleable to the vaccine proposition. [9]Noted spin doctors have been employed and have concluded that fostering vaccine demand “requires creating concern, anxiety, and worry.” [10]

But how do you create fear of mild illnesses while at the same time using accurate information? The answer is you don’t.

Besides, are doctors even providing accurate information in the first place? Based on my experience, the answer is no. For example Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine industry luminary, is, when discussing the risks posed by vaccine-preventable illnesses, often wildly off base. He claims that, in the pre-vaccine era (the late 50s and early 60s) measles-related deaths numbered 3,000. In reality, according to the CDC [11] and others, deaths numbered only ~450.

Then there’s Dr. Glenn D. Braunstein, of Cedars-Sinai who, in a 2010 Huffington Post piece, asserted that vaccination wiped out typhoid [12] when in reality a vaccine had nothing to do with its demise.[13]

Finally we have TV’s Dr. Nancy Snyderman. In February 2010 on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, she claimed:

Right now we have children dying in the United States of America from measles, mumps… [14]

In reality, no such deaths were occurring.

Is this the type of “reliable” information parents can expect to hear when dragged before the experts?

And since the purpose is to increase vaccine rates do you think doctors will tell parents that mortality from these illnesses was in virtual free fall long before the advent of vaccination? [15] It’s more likely parents will have to listen to the fallacious talking point that unvaccinated children “put the entire community at risk.” [16] This is of course laughably ridiculous. Here’s why.

The vast majority of people in America are protected by the vaccines they’ve already received. Besides, you cannot put someone at risk if you do not have an illness - and not vaccinating is not an illness. After all, do those of you who’ve declined this year’s flu shot believe that you, by simply existing, are putting friends, family and co-workers “at risk?” Of course not.

One would have to engage in a willful suspension of disbelief to imagine an accurate representation of the vaccine issue to emerge from a program designed by a consortium of vaccination-related vested interests. Yet despite a lack of popular demand for this type of legislation, we have, staring us in the face and threatening to become law, this egregious bill designed to strip parental rights simply because a few parents have chosen to exercise those rights.

And while not all of you may be worried about this specific issue, it’s important to remember that if parents lose the freedom to decide, without state involvement, what medical treatments their children will receive, what’s going to stop them from one day coming after you and the freedoms about which you care?


If you live in California, use the following link to contact your representative and demand your vaccine rights!
http://nvicadvocacy.org/members/Resources/CAOPPOSEAB2109RestrictingVaccineExemptions.aspx



One
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2012/02/28/20120228child-vaccine-proponents-urge-stronger-arizona-legislation.html

Two
http://asmdc.org/members/a05/newsroom/press-releases/item/2766-dr-pan-introduces-bill-to-provide-parents-immunization-information-to-prevent-outbreaks

Three
http://www.issaquahpress.com/2011/09/20/state-has-poor-record-for-student-immunizations-high-rate-of-exemptions/

Four
http://www.internalmedicinenews.com/news/conference-news/infectious-diseases-society-of-america-conference/single-article/acellular-pertussis-vaccine-s-waning-immunity-caused-california-epidemic/71de9826f4.html

Five
http://www.cdph.ca.gov/programs/immunize/Documents/HowisCA(03_10).pdf

Six
http://www.immunizeca.org/about/advisory-council

http://www.immunizeca.org/about/board-of-directors

Seven
http://www.cdph.ca.gov/programs/immunize/Pages/PreteenVaccineWeek.aspx

Eight
http://asmdc.org/members/a05/newsroom/press-releases/item/2766-dr-pan-introduces-bill-to-provide-parents-immunization-information-to-prevent-outbreaks

Nine
http://archive.hhs.gov/nvpo/pubs/vcwsummary.pdf

http://www.vdh.state.va.us/clinicians/pdf/vaccinations.pdf

Ten
http://www.iom.edu/~/media/Files/Activity%20Files/PublicHealth/MicrobialThreats/Nowak.pdf

Eleven
http://www.cdc.gov/measles/about/overview.html

Tweleve
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/glenn-d-braunstein-md/vaccinations-still-amazin_b_481523.html

Thirteen
According to the textbook Vaccines (4th edition pages 1060-61):

The highest incidence usually occurs where water supplies serving large populations are contaminated by fecal matter. This situation existed at the end of the 19th century in most large cities in the United States...causing the disease to be highly endemic in large cities. With the introduction of water treatment at the turn of the 20th century...the incidence of typhoid plummeted precipitously in the large cities of the united states

And according to Arthur Allen, a great friend of vaccination and the author of Vaccine: The controversial Story of Medicine's Greatest Lifesaver:

Nationwide, the typhoid death rate declined 99 percent from 1906 to 1936, with little vaccination. P 137

Fourteen
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036789/vp/35406458#35406458

Fifteen
http://insidevaccines.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/us-deaths-1900-1965.jpg

Sixteen
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/family-health/infectious-diseases/articles/2010/03/22/measles-outbreak-triggered-by-unvaccinated-child

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2012/02/28/20120228child-vaccine-proponents-urge-stronger-arizona-legislation.html









*Paul Offit’s assertion regarding the measles appears on page 56 of his book Vaccines

West Virginia Parents Take On the Machine

This is from We the Parents a group fighting for vaccine choice in West Virginia.


BREAKING NEWS!!!

WEST VIRGINIA SENATORS DENY PARENTS DUE PROCESS
Parents Ignored, Placated, and Insulted by West Virginia’s Legislature

Senator Ron Stollings, a medical doctor in the West Virginia Legislature, made several statements in a February 22, 2012 WOWKTV interview. He is quoted as saying, “states with vaccine exemptions have higher rates of diseases like measles, mumps and diphtheria.” He adds “kids who are not vaccinated could put kids at risk who are.” Both blanket statements are simply untrue and perpetuate unrealistic fears. Senator Stollings goes on to say, that he “is working on a study resolution that he and other senators plan to introduce in the Education Committee. The study would last a year and show both sides of the vaccination issue in hopes of ending the issue in the state.” Parents across the state were pleased with the reasonable efforts the Senate appeared to be taking, and were assured that the issue would be given attention throughout the year during Senate Interim Committee meetings. 

Although the need for non-medical exemptions regarding childhood immunization, as 48 other states provide, was brought to the legislative forefront in the in the form of Senate Bill 50 on the first day of the 2012 Legislative Session, many ranking Senate members drug out the legislative process in order to not deal with citizens’ demands. Senator Plymale, chair of the Senate Education Committee, where the bill began, refused to answer the emails, phone calls, or faxes from over 100 parents asking for help in ending mandated healthcare for our children. 
Only after over 200 parents rallied on the Capitol steps on February 22, 2012, demanding their voice be heard and demanding their Constitutional rights, did Senator Stollings promise a “study” in a quote to WOWKTV. However, Senator Stollings also ignored phone calls, emails, and faxes from parents for nearly two months. And in the end, all of the stall tactics worked. Although the Senate did vote for the issue to be studied during the interim sessions, the House received the “study resolution” late in the day of the last day of the 2012 Legislative Session and were not given an opportunity to vote on the measure. 

If Senator Stollings’ goal is to end the issue (of forced immunization) in the state, as he was quoted, he will not be pleased with the backlash which is brewing. Parents suffering as a result of current unconstitutional, antiquated law who were ignored, placated, and treated with complete disrespect are rallying vigorously and planning a larger grassroots movement in the coming months.

The grassroots movement, We the Parents, has enjoyed favorable press, especially on a national level, and will continue to get the word out on all levels. In addition, expect billboards, radio interviews, rallies, documentary viewings, and major media saturation on local levels specific to West Virginia counties. The movement includes parents, professionals, churches, veterans, and is growing by leaps and bounds, and they are committed to the goal of ensuring that Mountaineers are indeed always free. 

##########################
For more information, visit www.wetheparents.info or contact Lori Lee at (304) 532-5412 or email at info@blueroseholistics.com.

Exemptions under Attack

Vaccine exemptions under attack in Vermont. Check out our new Age of Autism post on the issue.

Vaccines: Eww, Seriously, So Gross!

Quitter

The vaccination brochure known as Forbes.com ran this silly piece on doctors firing patients declining vaccines. Since my comments have been in moderation (or whatever vaccination.com calls it) for twelve hours, I've decided to share them here:

Doctors can't "fire" patients because they didn't hire them. All doctors can do is quit. And as more doctors quit, more parents will realize they were unnecessary in the first place. Childhood is not an illness and as such should not be spent in the doctor's office. Yes, kids will no longer get unnecessary antibiotics for conditions for which those drugs are ineffective, but hey, that's just the price they'll have to pay. And I wonder, are these docs "firing" families in which the parents are not up to date as well? They too could “endanger” kids in the waiting room. Perhaps we'll have to wait for the adult-vaccine push to progress further to hear that talking point emerge.

So quit away. We'll learn to live without the unnecessary and overdone well-baby visits - a brilliant ritual in which the healthy are brought into contact with the ill and infirmed. And we'll learn to weigh and measure our kids without your help.

Little Miss Mandates

A couple of days ago, courtesy of some friends over at Facebook, I discovered a pro-vaccine rant posted at Salon.com written by a one Amanda Marcotte entitled The Superiority Complex of Vaccination Foes. Marcotte, a self-avowed, progressive (a collectivist ideology advancing the notion of an all-powerful state) attacks anyone having the temerity to challenge the wisdom of America’s absurd vaccination policy while at the same disparaging those believing in God. She begins:

 

Unlike with most anti-vaccination situations, the objections aren't coming from people whose faith in organic foods purchased at yuppie-tested enviroments are better disease prevention than vaccines, but from people returning to Old Faithful, the God card.

Oh those vaccine zealots. They imagine their precious little miracles to be threatened at every turn. Anyone who even desires a choice as to what medical treatments are administered to their healthy children is labeled anti-vaccine. As if vaccines were such a marvel, no rational person could ever oppose them. Sadly, for the public health communities and their statist supporters, vaccines are hardly miracles. They protect against largely mild illnesses* whose ability to cause death or serious injury was falling precipitously before the practice became widespread – this because contributory lifestyle factors almost always determine the progression of an illness.

As to her attacks on those worshiping God, perhaps it is because she thinks we should all really be worshiping the government and its minions in public health.

And finally notice how she employs the shopworn talking point about vaccine disinterest among yuppies (young urban professionals who ostensibly are well-educated) . She apparently favors a world like the one described by Orwell in the book 1984, in which obedience is the norm and “ignorance is strength.”

Continuing Marcotte states:

Obviously, this is not about children's rights. The children's rights are being violated by their parents, who believe their right to use their children as symbols to prove their piety trumps their children's right to health.

She seems painfully unaware that in free countries parents have the right to raise their children as they see fit - unless an action or non-action places those children at risk of serious harm. Not getting vaccinated in no way reaches that threshold. In fact, based on all the mistakes of the past involving vaccination, the procedure’s unknown effects on a child’s developing immune system and the acknowledged side effects many children must endure, one could successfully argue that it is the lifetime of vaccination from which the child needs to be protected.

Then pretending to possess an understanding of “rights,” she declares:

Of course, we live in an environment where conservatives are claiming that it's a violation of "religious liberty" if you can't force your beliefs on others. The degradation of understanding of what a right is and who has it is one that historians of early 21st century America will find fascinating, I'm sure.

Apparently, the only rights she recognizes are those allowing the state to initiate threats and violence against innocent individuals in order to further her collectivist agenda.

Progressive nuts such as Marcotte want the state to be in charge of our health because they want the state to be in charge of us. As such, the decision to medicate us is theirs, not our own. In a world where the government exists to care for us, there is nothing the mommy state cannot do. Sadly supporters of the failed collectivists and progressives ideologies such as Marcotte have little respect for real rights, especially the foundational one: the right to liberty. For them true rights are simply obstacles to the deluded notion that they could ever realize their utopian fantasies.
 

Rambling on she arrives at the topic of anti-vaccine “fanatics”:

What's interesting here is how revealing this whole situation is of the psychological baggage that leads a person to become an anti-vaccination fanatic.

Marcotte fails to comprehend the real fanatics are the public health do-gooders running around chasing a few cases of mild illnesses such as the measles in order to justify their feeding off the productive, taxpaying members of society. Their baggage requires them to deceive themselves with the delusionary notion that they, by preventing a few cases of the mumps or chickenpox are somehow heroic lifesavers and guardians of America’s children. Talk about psychological baggage.

She then appeals to egalitarianism (another far-left ideology in which the state has to force everyone to be equal and the identical by whatever means necessary) in her defense of America’s indefensible compulsory vaccination policy while using the childlike argument that if an injustice is already being perpetrated against another, it must be OK.

Whether it's because you think God loves you best or because you think your dedication to organic produce confers magical health benefits, the underlying sentiment of anti-vaccination believers is that they and theirs are special, and shouldn't be subject to the unclean health practices of the common folk. Vaccination is just too democratic a practice. Rich and poor, black and white, Christian or not: we all have to sit in the same chair while the same nurse pokes us with the same batch of drugs. They don't even have special needles for the better class of person getting a vaccination. Getting vaccinated is to health care like taking the bus is to transportation. The very act of it insinuates that your special snowflake of a child could become infected with germs that come from someone else's totally-not-special kid

It’s not surprising the author would deride those seeing themselves as individuals and not objects of state control.

The idea that each child is special (I don’t know where the snowflake part comes in but I’ve been seeing it used extensively in the “skeptical” community recently) is anathema to those who would have us live in a hive or in a herd. The dream of Marcotte and those like her has us living as a nation of medicated, homogenized, collectivized, indoctrinated, compliant sheep. To those of us who value freedom, Marcotte's dream is a nightmare and it's one that has been going on for far too long. Time to wake up, America.







*Or they protect against illnesses for which most of us are not at risk. For example hepatitis B.

A Few Shots Against Hypocrisy.

Today we have a guest post courtesy of Anonymous.

Legislators nationwide are voting to protect children against infectious illness by turning down expanded exemptions, blocking new exemptions and adding burdensome requirements to current exemptions. See South Dakota, Washington State, West Virginia, Arizona and Vermont.

There is even a model draft exemption law being passed around to legislators to save them the trouble of writing their own.

We think the legislators are absolutely right to act to protect children against infectious diseases, but they are overlooking a major disease vector: themselves. Legislators work in crowded conditions, especially state legislators. They conduct hearings in small hearing rooms filled with people, in old buildings with inadequate air circulation. They shake hands. They even kiss babies. Looking at all 50 state legislatures, millions of people visit these buildings every year including busloads of school children.

We propose that legislatures end the hypocrisy of mandating lots and lots of vaccines to babies and children while ignoring their own role as germ magnets and get on board with the CDC vaccine schedule for adults. Since the medical profession is okay with giving even premature babies several vaccines at once, there is no reason that an adult legislator couldn’t do the entire recommended schedule (taking into account gender and age) at one doctor visit.

No, we aren’t talking about volunteering for these vaccines. Vaccines for legislators should be mandatory. Whatever exemption laws are currently in place should apply, so if parents need to get a doctor to sign off on an exemption, the legislator should have to get a doctor to sign off on an exemption. The usual rules for medical exemptions will apply. First you get the vaccines. If you react badly, you tell your doctor. If you can convince your doctor that the vaccine caused the reaction (good luck) and if you can convince the doctor that the reaction was serious enough to preclude more vaccinations (good luck), and if you can convince the doctor to actually sign the medical exemption form and (in some states) the health department to sign off on the form, then you can be exempted from the vaccine which caused the reaction. Only, of course, since you got a whole pile of vaccines at one time neither your nor the doctor have any idea which vaccine did it. Tough.

Obviously these mandates should also apply to everyone working in state health departments, from the janitor to the chief. They should be applied to every doctor or pharmacist who testifies in favor of vaccine mandates. Everyone who testifies in favor of forced vaccination should be vaccinated. Obvious, right?

Lobbyists, too, need to get their shots. All that handshaking…

And governors.

And I’m sure that everyone at the Centers for Disease Control is up to date on every possible vaccination.

Get on it folks!

Reservations about Gardasil

We're incredibly excited to present our first post by a guest blogger.

Reservations about Gardasil by Tanya DeBuff Wallette:

 The mommy wars are still raging.  Parents judge each other so harshly that it seems no one wins when it comes to a variety of topics like giving birth the “right” way, breastfeeding, free-range parenting, television watching habits, proper age for things like earrings, cell phones, walking home alone, issues of discipline, etc., etc., etc., and, of course, vaccination.  A few months ago I wrote a guest post for The Feminist Breeder in which I expressed my surprise that many of my cohorts in the pro-choice movement, who vehemently defend any woman’s right to choose, seem very much anti-choice when it comes to vaccinations, both for children and adults.  I am all for choice when it comes to vaccines.  I’m not anti-vaccine, but I’m definitely a skeptic, and have decided from now on to research vaccines and do what I think is best on a case-by-case basis. 

            When it comes to the HPV vaccine case, I have made my decision.  My daughters and my son and any future children I may have will not receive the HPV vaccine while it is my decision to make.  When they are old enough they may choose for themselves.  I have a real problem with the vaccine, and it’s not because of the way the virus is spread.  I have two  main problems with Gardasil in particular (not having read too much about Cervarix, a less popular HPV vaccine by a different company). 

EFFICACY.  According to WebMD, the vaccine is proven to be effective for at least four years, and maybe longer.  Long-term effects are not known.  (How could they be?  The vaccine only came out six years ago!)  So, it might last for five years?  Six?  Gardasil is now recommended for females and males from about age 9 to 26.  So if a person received the series at 9 years of age, they’re going to be protected until they’re 14 or so.  Then what, a booster?  A series of boosters?  According to the American Cancer Society, cervical cancer occurs mostly in mid-life, usually under 50 years of age but rarely in those under 20 years of age.  Multiple booster shots would likely be necessary to keep immunity up.  The vaccine works to protect against those strains that are most likely to cause cancer ONLY if sexual activity hasn’t begun yet. 

So if my nine year-old hasn’t had sex (cripes, did I just have to type that?  Ack!), they’re protected against four strains for at least four years.  If my child has begun sexual activity by the time they receive the injections, and they have been exposed to one of the four strains, “catch-up” vaccines may be useful in protecting against the other three strains.  But then again, they may not.  The American Cancer Society says “the independent panel making the Society recommendations found that there was not enough proof that catch-up vaccination for all women age 19 to 26 would be beneficial.” 

While writing this I attempted to find an article or piece of information discussing this discrepancy.  Why vaccinate our children for something they are not likely to contract until middle age?  Wouldn’t it make more sense to wait if the protection lasts for only four years?  I found nothing in my search for discussion about Gardasil’s length of efficacy.  I’m not satisfied with the gap here.  If I were to seriously consider this vaccination, I would want to know how long my kids would be protected, and they would also deserve to know if they would need to continue to receive boosters throughout their lives. 

It’s generally agreed, at least, that Pap smears remain a necessity even if a woman has had the vaccination.  Pap screening can catch atypical cells and precancerous cells, and the rise in the percentage of women getting regular Paps has led to better detection of atypical and/or cancerous cells, which has led to fewer deaths from cervical cancer. 

But wait.  So women should get Paps regularly.  Obviously.  Now, here’s an argument I have come across a few times, or something along these lines:  “Pap smears are great, but lots of women don’t get regular Paps!  This vaccine is here to protect them.”  Still, no one’s denying that Paps are still necessary, even with the vaccine.  My question is this:  If these people see women as neglecting their health screening, or being too busy to get in to see their doctor, why do they think these same women could make it into the office three times in less than a year?  I mean, getting to the doctor is getting to the doctor is getting to the doctor.  This reasoning is faulty. 

And so was Governor Rick Perry’s when he attempted to mandate the HPV vaccine back in 2007.  Perry mentioned that he could overlook the government encroachment on parents’ rights because he erred “firmly on the side of protecting life.”  Does Perry…wait.  Does anyone think that the majority of parents out there aren’t doing their damndest to protect their child’s life?  I mean, sure, there are crappy parents out there, crappy guardians, crappy grandparents, who don’t care much what happens to their wards.  But I stand by this.  Most parents are doing what they think is best for their child.  And when we’re informed, we can do that.  Lots of parents conclude that Gardasil or Cervarix is right for their child—but not all parents, and that’s their right. If we all know all the information, we should be free to take our own paths, right?  Right?  And even when folks don’t know all the information (I didn’t research anything my doctor told me to do before a couple of years ago), they still want what’s best and safest for their kids.  I did then, when I followed the recommended vaccination schedule, and I do now, when I will not be fully vaccinating my youngest.

SIDE EFFECTS.  Look, there’s a lot of stuff out there about how many people have been injured by or had reactions to Gardasil, according to the VAERS reports.  I’m aware that there’s no way to verify that the reactions were definitively caused by the vaccine.  Correlation does not equal causation and all that.  However.  For me and my kids, any risk of serious reactions is too high, especially when the vaccine has higher reaction/injury reports (link) than other vaccines. 

Currently in California, the HPV vaccine is being offered to 12 year-olds without their parents’ knowledge or consent.  Now, if a person has talked to their child about the vaccine and decided it’s the right choice for them or the wrong choice for them, it’s probably no big deal.  The kid can say yes or no according to what they and their guardian have decided.  But lots of folks don’t have all the information and they’re trusting that the school administration would not do something to harm their children.  And I can pretty much guarantee that the school nurse is not giving the tweens information on the VAERS or length of efficacy. 

Another thing that surprises me about the pro-choice, environmentalist, eco-feminist crowd I mingle with online is that they don’t question the vaccine, and all vaccines.  We are people who question every single thing that goes into our kids’ bodies.  Some people don’t allow their kids to have sugar—others forbid sugar substitutes.  A lot of us try not to use unnatural food dyes.  We check to see if there’s BPA in our plastic.  So it makes perfect sense to me that this crowd in particular would wonder about each and every thing that is ingested by or injected into our children, especially vaccines. But again and again I’ve found that those who advocate for informed consent in almost every other issue, are not OK with me deciding not to vaccinate. 

Since when did doctors become so elevated?  Lots of comments on articles against the HPV vaccine mention that doctors surely have more knowledge than us moms, so we should trust them.    

Let me get this straight.  We often get second opinions when we’re not sure a doctor is right or when we feel more eyes are needed on the situation. We remain wary of C-section-happy doctors.  Why, then, should our trust be blind when it comes to vaccines?  As in all occupations, even those which require much schooling, there are bad doctors.  Ill-informed doctors.  Stubborn doctors.  Asshole doctors. 

I really love it when I find an article on vaccination that is reasonable and rational.  Sharon Begley wrote a great one at The Daily Beast, which actually argues for the HPV vaccine, but acknowledges the opposition’s concerns instead of writing skeptics or anti-vaxxers off as ignorant or selfish.  Over at Evil Slut Clique, you can find two separate blog posts with information about Gardasil.  Check those out, because that’s what a real conversation about the HPV vaccine looks like.  I just don’t have any use for articles that slam doors and hurl insults.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with asking questions about Gardasil and every vaccine and medication—actually, it seems just the opposite to me.  I find Gardasil’s statement on the website telling:  “Only a doctor or health care professional can decide if GARDASIL is right for you or your child.”

Tanya DeBuff Wallette recently graduated with a master's degree in creative writing.  She is a contributing writer at Bark, and she blogs as Bess at Alala Mamas.  She is a feminist, a newlywed, and a free-range parent who works at home as a medical transcriptionist and in between doing that, writing, and reading, she works on raising three young children

Get Squarepants! Just Don’t Give the Vaccination Schedule a Glance

This week I read an great article on the Age of Autism website describing Spongebob Squarepants’ fictional response to a recent study appearing in the AAP journal Pediatrics attacking him as a threat to children. The study’s authors somehow ascertained that, based on the how well a group of children did on a series of inconsequential tests, watching the program lessened a child’s ability to do well at school. Of course it wasn’t mentioned that these kids are likely better served by having their minds engaged through a creative cartoon like SBSQ than they are by being confined to a classroom where their imaginations are assailed by boredom, authority and routine.

That aside, I found it odd that watching a harmless cartoon could alter some aspect of a child’s behavior yet a complete alteration and reworking of a child’s immune system through the "miracle" of vaccination couldn't possibly have any negative consequences (even though diseases involving the immune system have exploded just as the vaccination schedule has.) It must be a coincidence and as such no investigation is warranted. As a matter of fact such investigations should be avoided and discouraged because if one of those studies served to cast a negative light on vaccination a panic leading to the deaths of millions would ensue. Confidence in vaccination must be protected at all costs, believe those in charge of the program. And what’s a few million cases of childhood diabetes, asthma, eczema, etc., when the alternative to those diseases is widespread death?

That argument might actually make some degree of sense were prophesies surrounding a devaccination of America true. But of course they’re not. The evidence that millions or even thousands of children would die if any loss of confidence in vaccination would occur does not exist. They are simply unsubstantiated pronouncements generated by those who are inextricably tied to the vaccine industry.

Seventy cases of the measles (a mild childhood illness) in a nation of over three hundred million is called the comeback of a childhood killer. And that’s because of, according to the vaccine establishment, falling rates of vaccination – a claim refuted by the fact that vaccination rates are at all time highs.

Of course those who’s existence is tied to vaccination have no regrets about disseminating false and misleading information when it is in defense of a vaccination program upon which their very existence is dependant. An example can be found in an article describing a few cases of measles in Indiana. This illness, pre-vaccine, was described by the Pan American Health organization as a "minor annoyance."
Fort Wayne’s Journal Gazette reported the state health commissioner’s belief that without him and his public health minions, the measles “could have approached the stuff of unrealistic movie plots.” Amazingly, the movie to which he compared the measles was the recently released Contagion, described in this way on Wikipedia:

Contagion follows the rapid progress of a lethal indirect contact transmission virus that kills within days. As the fast-moving pandemic grows, the worldwide medical community races to find a cure and control the panic that spreads faster than the virus itself. As the virus spreads around the world, ordinary people struggle to survive in a society coming apart.

Additionally, state health department spokeswoman Amy Bukarica was quoted a saying, in response to five cases of the measles, emergency meetings were held and their tone was “serious and urgent.”

Goshen Hospital released a statement stating the “outbreak” could have been “potentially catastrophic”

And finally, Elkhart County health officer Dr. Dan Nafziger concluded the health establishment’s parade of horribles by claiming “the state dodged a bullet.”

So it’s no wonder that studies examining a possible relationship between vaccines and the growing number of diseases affecting the very same immune system upon which those vaccines act have gone largely undone while at the same time Mr. Squarepants is raked over the coals. The difference is simple: the government and the scientific community isn’t in the "talking sponge as TV celebrity" business, it’s in the vaccination business.

The Impenetrable Ignorance of the The L.A. Times

The L.A Times is at it again. One of the most virulently pro-vaccine / anti-freedom media outlets in America has yet again used it's position of prominence to attack our right to decide what drugs can and cannot be administered to our children.

In an editorial published yesterday, the Times called for the creation of more hurdles and obstacles to impeded the ability our to raise their children as we, and not the LA Times, see fit.

The rationale for this attack is silly and tiresome talking point that, "children who go un-vaccinated are putting others at risk."

Sadly, the blockheads comprising the L.A. Times editorial board still do not, or do not want to understand, that unless you have an illness you CANNOT put someone else at risk of catching the illness you do not have. Being unvaccinated is not synonymous with being sick. It's really quite a simple concept yet, due to the Times obsession with vaccination, one that cannot penetrate the boards collective consciousness.

Demonstrating their imperviousness to logic, they conclude their piece with a call for more intrusion into the lives of parents by parroting another entity sharing their rickety justification for compulsory vaccination: the ethically conflicted vaccine promoters at the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania (a group receiving funding from both the Department of Health and Human services - the same department that runs the vaccine pushing CDC - and Paul Offit's Children's Hospital of Philadelphia) Here's how they put it:

States, including California, should be reexamining the personal belief exemption and tightening procedures. It should not be so easy for relatively few people to jeopardize the health of many others.

So while the establishment and their media dupes have the force of the state behind them, this editorial, and hundreds like it, demonstrate that it is we who have the intellectual basis to defend current exemptions and to someday overturn the very idea of a vaccination mandate from which those exemptions must be sought.