NVIC Vaccine E-NewsletterDecember 19, 2008


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Photo courtesy Christine Zichittella-Heeren



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New Yorker's Stand Up for Vaccine Exemptions

by Barbara Loe Fisher

In the harbor of New York City stands the
Statue of Liberty, a symbol of freedom that
has welcomed millions of immigrants for 112
years, half of the time that the United
States of America has been a nation. And on
the base of the statue is an inscription that
says in part ".....Give me your tired, your
poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe
free...."





I remembered that phrase when we were
driving from Washington, D.C. to New York
City and our van got caught up in the Sunday
afternoon Manhattan traffic that led us past
the Empire State Building on our way to Long
Island. Freedom was very much on my mind as
we headed for Stony Brook University to
participate in the December 15 Vaccine
Education Roundtable sponsored by New York
state Assemblymen Marc Alessi (D-1st Assembly
District) and Richard Gottfried (D-75th
Assembly District), who is Chair of the House
Health Committee.





Americans have always cherished the
freedom to breathe free; to speak, write and
dissent without fear of retribution; to
believe in God and worship freely without
being persecuted; to vote for whom we want to
represent us in government and know our vote
counts; to follow our conscience and stand up
for what is right. Although America is only
222 years old, which is very young compared
to other countries that have existed for
several thousands of years, during our short
history there is no other nation that has
defined and defended the freedom of citizens
to live in a society based on the principle
of equal rights and consent of the governed
any better than the United States of America.





These are troubled times for parents in
New York and New Jersey and other states.
Every day parents are facing more hostility
from pediatricians throwing them out of
doctor's offices for questioning vaccine
safety and are being harassed by government
officials determined to force their children
to get dozens of doses of state mandated
vaccines without voluntary, informed consent.
New York currently mandates more than two
dozen doses of 11 vaccines for school
attendance while New Jersey leads the nation
with nearly three dozen doses of 13 vaccines,
including annual influenza shots.





Religious exemptions are being pulled by
state officials after they throw parents into
rooms and grill them for hours about the
sincerity of their religious beliefs. Last
year in Maryland, state officials threatened
several thousand parents with jail time and
stiff fines for failing to show proof their
children had gotten hepatitis B and
chickenpox vaccinations.





It is in this climate of fear and crisis of
trust between parents, who want a more equal
role in making vaccination decisions for
their children, and pediatricians and public
health officials, who are determined to
strengthen their power to tell parents what
to do, that Assemblymen Alessi assembled a
panel representing both sides to discuss
whether or not a philosophical exemption to
vaccination should be added to New York's
vaccine laws. Currently New York only
provides for a medical and religious
exemption, even as 18 other states allow a
personal, philosophical or conscientious
belief exemption to vaccination.





After the Roundtable, Assemblyman
Gottfried expressed strong support for First
Amendment rights and told the audience of
parents, doctors and legislative staff that
he is sponsoring two bills to clarify rights
defined under existing religious and medical
exemptions so they cannot be violated by
state officials. After the Roundtable
concluded, he said "Important issues were
raised. I look forward to seeing additional
data from all sides, especially about the
impact of the personal objection laws in
other states. I will be reintroducing my
bills to strengthen the religious and medical
exemptions in the 2009 session. I urge
parents to contact their local assembly
members and state senators to urge them to
co-sponsor."





Assemblyman Alessi commented that "The
discussion framed the fact that there is
still a large debate on the issue. And
although some people in the medical community
are adamant that this debate is over, it has
only just begun. The amount of conflicting
evidence parents are presented with regarding
the effects of certain vaccines is
staggering. This forum opened the lines of
communication between experts in the debate
and provided concerned parents with the most
recent information on the safety of vaccines.
As a parent, I know how difficult it is to
make the right decisions regarding our
children's health, but if we are to make good
decisions, we need to be well informed and
continue to have discussions like this
roundtable."





At the beginning of the Roundtable, I
framed the vaccine safety and informed
consent debate and outlined how the informed
consent principle relates to
philosophical/conscientious belief exemption.
I reviewed the general health ranking of New
York (25th) compared to the 18 states which
have philosophical exemptions (six of the top
10 ranked states have philosophical
exemption) and noted that the U.S. uses more
vaccines than any nation in the world but
ranks 39th in infant mortality. Click here
(http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001dnwJjVVfQ9zgfHY8e_jjZofGWepEiSN_G7EtorLcNhVj7xmCSxki\
rziO0xGWSvzZ-bbZXsq0TqUMYXlIQjpJqvfICbRFeln5N1rRdrxG28hZVK1C3e3pMxED-Vkmda4ACcrq\
D9ulBot-uGIsd5HgyeH1C3JAoxcHmgTG5FJyk9I=)


to read my entire presentation with live
links to references (see text below).





Other panelists supporting philosophical
exemption to vaccination included New York
pediatrician Lawrence Palevsky, M.D. , who
called for an authentic dialogue that "moves
past what appears to a growing number of
citizens to be a one-sided, paternalistic,
and patronizing set of policies and language
with an unwillingness to engage in a real
discussion about the science of vaccines." He
challenged many of the myths and
misconceptions about the safety and
effectiveness of vaccine policies.





New York's John Gilmore, executive
director of Autism United, who has a vaccine
injured son with autism and said "without
trust, the proponents of forced vaccination
have nothing but authority and authority is
an unacceptable basis for any public policy
in a democratic society." He pointed out
operational flaws and conflicts of interest
in vaccine safety regulation and policymaking.



Louise Kuo Habakus, of the New Jersey
Coalition for Vaccination Choice, who has two
young sons recovering from vaccine injuries,
presented slides summarizing vaccine risks
and questioning whether vaccines can be
credited with major infectious disease
morbidity and mortality decreases in the 20th
century. She recounted her impression of the
day's events at www.ageofautism.com
(http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001dnwJjVVfQ9xgx6_wRS7lh7TxSNcnzFHoSfo95V0kXFxwtl3BTEpv\
-rpFMqRhg09qyge0AYrF2mNZ172bNV7UPRu5ENs3V81rVq8mR4muw_r7OGY6U9DGLA==).
(In
related events, New Jersey parents held
several open houses this week to educate New
Jersey legislators about the need to support

pending conscientious belief
exemption legislation
(http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001dnwJjVVfQ9zyHjm2CTBFhjWxhEg4nfz3Oee409X3LxSisDTkAjuk\
_8QL8pR819ZbtQwY5btX6wbuwarG8M_ZsmAjBpY0QB3HKOt7Vi-0DIhcraKIqIYN6vS5QkJGntttcz3r\
QzRyN5cISaGtnt6WtKfvJ2aNETIFtTAork4Sek1jyg4kPZ2lU7INdol6tHDDvyQinKy5QTpTCLkNGuEU\
qG_jUlx9gQ0j)
in
that state.)






Panelists defending current vaccine
policies and opposing philosophical
exemptions included New York pediatricians
Paul Lee, M.D. , who agreed vaccine safety
should be a high priority but disagreed that
the amount of mercury and aluminum in
vaccines posed a health risk; and longtime
vaccine policymaker and American Academy of
Pediatrics spokesperson Louis Z. Cooper,
M.D. , who agreed trust between pediatricians
and parents needs to be strengthened but
defended the safety of existing vaccine
policies; and Debra Blog, M.D. , medical
director of the Immunization Program, New
York State Department of Health, who showed
slides of children with infectious diseases
and strongly opposed adding philosophical
exemption to New York state vaccine laws.





Following panelist presentations there was
a spirited debate that lasted for more than
two hours as panelists argued and defended
their positions. NVIC's videographer, Chris
Fisher, will be making a video of the day's
events available on NVIC's website.





By the end of the day, I thought about how
long parents of vaccine injured children have
been asking pediatricians to become partners
with them in preventing vaccine injuries and
deaths. After nearly three decades, parents
and doctors inside and outside of government
could not be further apart. The failure of
pediatricians and public health officials to
take seriously the many cases of regression
into poor health after vaccination has become
the Number One public health problem in the
U.S. today.





There will be no resolution until every
state has embraced the informed consent ethic
and adopted conscientious or philosophical
exemption to vaccination in state vaccine
laws. At that point, Americans will be free
to vote with their feet and the vaccines the
public considers to be necessary, safe and
effective will be used and those they do not
consider to be necessary, safe and effective
will be driven off the market. And then, a
real time comparison of the long term health
of highly vaccinated, less vaccinated and
unvaccinated citizens will tell us a lot
about the safety and effectiveness of vaccine
policies in the last half of the 20th and
first half of the 21st centuries.




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


...

Left to right: Barbara Loe Fisher; John
Gilmore; Lawrence Palevsky, M.D. at Dec. 15,
2008 NY Vaccine Education Roundtable. (Photo
courtesy Christine Zichittella-Heeren)



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...

Left to right: Paul Lee, M.D., Louis
Cooper, M.D., Marc Alessi, Gottfried, Debra
Blog, M.D., Louise Kuo Habakus at Dec. 15,
2008 NY Vaccine Education Roundtable (Photo
courtesy Christine Zichittella-Heeren)



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Statement of Barbara Loe Fisher

Co-founder & President, National Vaccine
Information Center

December 15, 2008 at New York Stony Brook
University

Vaccine Education Roundtable

Assemblyman Alessi and NY State Legislators:



Thank you for holding this Vaccine
Education
Roundtable to discuss issues which impact on
Assembly Bill 5468 to insert philosophical
exemption
in New York vaccine laws. I appreciate the
invitation to
be part of this panel on behalf of New York
members
of the National Vaccine Information Center,
non-profit
organization founded in 1982 to prevent vaccine
injuries and deaths through public education and
defend the informed consent ethic.



Vaccination is a medical intervention
performed
on a healthy person which carries an inherent
risk of
injury or death. The risk of harm can be
greater for
some than others and there is no guarantee that
vaccination will, in fact, confer immunity.
With very few
predictors having been identified by medical
science
to give advance warning that harm or failure
to confer
immunity will occur, vaccination is a medical
procedure that could reasonably be termed as
experimental each time it is performed on a
healthy
individual.



Further, the FDA, CDC and vaccine makers
openly state that often the numbers of human
subjects used in pre-licensing studies are
too small
to detect all adverse events caused by a new
vaccine.
This makes government recommended use of newly
licensed vaccines by millions of children a
de facto
uncontrolled national scientific experiment.
In this
regard, the ethical principle of informed
consent to
vaccination attains even greater
significance.



Informed consent means that a patient or
guardian has the right to be fully informed
about the
benefits and risks of a medical procedure and be
allowed to make an informed, voluntary decision
about whether or not to take the risk.
Informed consent
is an important check and balance for the
relationship
between physicians and patients that encourages
physicians to obey the Hippocratic oath to
"first, do no
harm."



The affirmation of the informed
consent ethic in
the practice of modern medicine is rooted in a
rejection of the traditional paternalistic
medical model,
which places the patient or guardian in an
unequal,
powerless position with a physician and
facilitates
uninformed, involuntary risk taking. The
human right
for individuals to exercise informed consent to
participating in scientific experiments was
officially
acknowledged by the judges of the Nuremberg
Tribunal after World War II. Their ringing
endorsement
of individual inviolability and the right to
self
determination when taking medical risks has
became
an internationally accepted moral guidepost
for the
ethical practice of modern medicine. The
first principle
of the Nuremberg Code begins with:



"The voluntary consent of the human
subject is
absolutely essential. This means that the person
involved should have legal capacity to give
consent;
should be so situated as to be able to
exercise free
power of choice, without the intervention of any
element of force, fraud, deceit, duress,
overreaching
or other ulterior form of constraint or
coercion; and
should have sufficient knowledge and
comprehension
of the elements of the subject matter
involved as to
enable him to make an understanding and
enlightened decision."



In America, the closest we come to
upholding
the informed consent principle with regard to
vaccination is in the 18 states which allow
personal,
philosophical or conscientious belief
exemption to
vaccination. In the 2008 edition of America's
Health
Rankings, Vermont is ranked the number one
healthiest state. Vermont allows philosophical
exemption to vaccination. In fact, out of the
top ten
ranked healthiest states, six of them allow
philosophical exemption (Vermont, Minnesota,
Utah,
Idaho, Maine, Washington).



New York ranks 25th in health behind the
nation's most populous state, California. The
state of
California has twice as many residents as New
York,
as well as more foreign born residents and
those who
speak English as a second language. However, in
almost all other demographics, California is
nearly
identical to New York in ethnic diversity;
numbers of
children under age 18; median household income
and persons living below poverty.



California allows philosophical
exemption to
vaccination.



What is interesting is that in the top 10
healthiest states, four had among the lowest
vaccination rates for children ages 19 to 35
months:
Utah (37th) , Idaho (45th), Maine (40th) and
Washington (48th). California which is ahead
of New
York in overall health ranking, is 31st in
vaccination
coverage of 19 to 35 month olds while New
York is
number 9. The healthiest state, Vermont, is
29th in
vaccination coverage.



In fact, health is not primarily
measured by high
vaccination rates or an absence of infectious
disease.
High vaccination rates are not the most
important
measure of the overall health of citizens.
The 18
states allowing philosophical exemption to
vaccination have not compromised individual
or public
health when compared to other states.



This past September, the CDC announced
that
national childhood vaccination rates are at
near record
levels, with at least 90 percent of young
children
receiving all but one CDC recommended vaccine.
Less than 1 percent of children aged 19 to 35
months
remain completely unvaccinated.



Today, the U.S. government recommends
the
use of more vaccines than any other country
in the
world: 69 doses of 16 vaccines for girls; 66
doses of
15 vaccines for boys given between the day of
birth
and age 18. That is triple the numbers of
vaccinations
recommended by public health officials and
physician
organizations a quarter century ago, when 23
doses of
seven vaccines (DPT, MMR, OPV) were routinely
given.




But in comparison to other nations,
the overall
health of Americans has not improved since
2004 and
there are 27 countries that exceed the US in
healthy
life expectancy while the U.S. ranks 39th in
infant
mortality.



Today, 1 in every 143 babies born in
America
dies; 1 child in 450 becomes diabetic; 1 in 150
develops autism;1 in 9 suffers with asthma;
and 1 in
every 6 child is learning disabled.



The chronic disease and disability
epidemic
that has developed in the last quarter
century is killing
and injuring more children than any infectious
disease epidemic in the history of our nation,
including smallpox and polio. The social,
economic,
and human costs are enormous: nearly two billion
dollars has been paid to vaccine victims by
the federal
government in the Vaccine Injury Compensation
Program while three-quarters of the more than $2
trillion dollar annual price tag for health
care is spent
to care for the chronically ill and disabled.




The big question vaccine educated
parents are
asking is: why are so many of the most highly
vaccinated children in the world so sick,
suffering with
all kinds of chronic brain and immune system
dysfunction? Why are babies born in the richest
country in the world dying more often than
babies born
in poorer countries, who do not get
vaccinated at all or
who get far fewer vaccines?



It is a question that has not been
answered by
any scientific study conducted to date
because there
has never been a large, prospective study
comparing
the long term health of highly vaccinated
children to
unvaccinated children. In the absence of
definitive
answers, the right to freely exercise
medical, religious
and philosophical exemption to vaccination is a
human right that may well determine the
biological
integrity of this and future generations in
America.



Because vaccines are pharmaceutical
products
that carry significant risks greater for some
than
others; because doctors and public health
officials are
not infallible; because what is considered
scientific
truth today can be proven false tomorrow;
because
philosophical exemption to vaccination does not
negatively impact on the health of
individuals or
states; and because informed consent to
medical risk
taking is a human right, the National Vaccine
Information Center urges legislators to
affirm the
freedom of all New Yorkers to make informed,
voluntary vaccination decisions for
themselves and
their children by supporting philosophical
exemption
to vaccination.











~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~National Vaccine Information
CenterNVIC E-News is a free service of the non-profit
National Vaccine
Information Center and is supported through
donations
(http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001dnwJjVVfQ9xhmF03JAc3qfSrE9NNLNp4Ba5Srh_ukPt2u4GcbAF4\
gFtlF_PbNX7V4zO0oVoV1CLcvU57Q5NxdnyTwRMTT_WPJzOTPEYhNX9nioE6V4B-xpV1P6ThuEMvBvvZ\
ILCsKrpcP60qGcuF82rifrYu_EwN).



NVIC is funded through the financial support of its
members and does not receive any government
subsidies. Barbara Loe Fisher, President and Co-
founder.



Learn more about vaccines, diseases and how to
protect your informed consent rights www.nvic.org
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