“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge…”  Hosea 4:6

Lack of knowledge is one thing. Being constantly bombarded with false information is quite another. When I was Chief Resident in pediatrics at the Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, Dr. Carol J. Baker was moving up in the infectious disease department at Baylor, and is now Professor of Pediatrics, Molecular Virology and Microbiology. At the meeting of the National Meningitis Association in Atlanta in May, 2016 the topic was, “Achieving Childhood Vaccine Success in the U.S.”

Topics of discussion were parents who opt out of vaccine requirements, physicians who stray from the recommended schedule, and the role of the media in creating or removing barriers to vaccination. [italics mine] Dr. Baker, in her talk, pointed out that “it’s the well-educated who are the vaccine refusers.” Incredibly, she went on to say, “Let’s just get rid of all the whites in the United States”. (apparently, she has not volunteered to be one of the first to go) She describes it as a “war” against those who question or refuse vaccines.

One who responded to her talk asked if perhaps the insurance companies could refuse to insure any family that declined to vaccinate its children. That’s where we are today. Doctors are told by the CDC and pharmaceutical reps that “all vaccines are safe and effective”. Doctors do not have time to memorize the lists of all vaccine ingredients and their attendant risks. But, are there risks to having your child vaccinated? Of course there are. Life itself is risky, but we can limit risks. The problem is that currently there is no informed consent of parents regarding vaccines, because doctors themselves are not informed.

In 2011 there was a  DPT vaccine injury case (Bruesewitz vs. Wyeth) in which the  Supreme Court majority declared that “vaccines are unavoidably unsafe” (let that sink in) and that “there shall be no more lawsuits against any vaccine company.”  That’s right, if a vaccine kills or injures your child, you cannot hold the manufacturer responsible. Right after this decision the number of required vaccines mushroomed.

Due to the number of lawsuits, however, the government did create a Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, so even though no parent can sue in civil court, there is a federal “vaccine court”. Parents have a 3-year window in which to file a suit, and even though two-thirds of the complaints are dismissed, so far the government has paid over $3.6 billion to parents of vaccine-injured children. Are there risks to vaccines? Yes.

A typical serious reaction to a vaccine would be in a young child who is developing normally, who then gets a shot such as the MMR at 15 months of age, and shortly thereafter loses the ability to speak, loses muscle tone, and generally regresses in development. There is also the  Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. (VAERS) Both doctors and parents are expected to report problems thought to be  reactions to vaccines, and the program is way under-utilized.   

Last time we advised against letting your baby get the hepatitis B shot (on the first day of life!) because of the amount of toxic aluminum in it. Pregnant mothers are also given a flu shot routinely, and this one contains thimerosal (mercury) which is another substance known to be toxic to the nervous system. We have had an explosion in the numbers of children with autism and other neurologic  disorders (in the 1970’s the autism rate was 1 in 15,000 and now it’s 1 in 43 (projected to be 1 in 2 in 16 more years.)  Some kids have developed autism and have never been vaccinated, but they are rare, and no studies have ever been done on the effects of the accumulation of toxins in vaccines over time. Using the CDC vaccine schedule a child by the age of 18 months has been given 26 doses of vaccines.

In many cases a pediatrician who is confronted with parents who decline to vaccinate, or even have questions, will tell them “you are no longer welcome in my practice”. A pediatric colleague in Oregon, Dr. Paul Thomas, has written a book called, “The Vaccine-Friendly Plan”, which I fully agree with. (I’ll refer to it henceforth as the V-FP) He has a large practice and has parents who choose to fully vaccinate their children, others who follow his “vaccine-friendly” plan (of omitting some and delaying many), and still others who choose to avoid all immunizations.

Even for those who choose to use the V-FP, he makes sure there is no family history of autism, severe neurologic disorders, or autoimmune problems (includes multiple sclerosis, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, Alzheimers, some thyroiditis, and some intestinal forms of colitis and Crohn’s) If there is, he recommends no vaccines. When he looked back at a study of over a thousand of his patients, he found that the healthiest children of all were those who were un-vaccinated.  He is right in saying that we need formal, long term well-controlled studies of kids who are (1) not vaccinated, (2) selectively vaccinated, and (3) fully vaccinated.

In our next installment we will look at the vaccine-friendly plan. We will see why many of the vaccines are not necessary early on and may be delayed, and why others should be skipped altogether. Which vaccines should we give our kids, and when??

Blessings,

Dr. J