August 05, 2009

CDC Media Plan Shocker - We Don't Have the Science - "Some claims against
vaccine cannot be disproved."

By Jim Moody, Esq.

An internal draft CDC Media Strategy, made public HERE for the first time,
concedes that CDC does not have sound science supporting vaccine safety and
must therefore resort to a program of misinformation and propaganda,
referring to critical parents and "safety first" advocacy organizations as
"anti-vaccine." If this is how CDC wants to conduct a meaningful debate
about vaccine safety and science, then I can only imagine that we all will
be holding the next major autism conference at GITMO. Rather than a "safety
first" program of sound science, CDC's solution to quelling the coming
vaccine rebellion is an aggressive public/private media war: "vaccinate or
die." http://www.rescuepost.com/files/jim-moody-post-swot-safety.pdf


CDC Brands Safety Advocates As "Anti-Vaccine."

In addition to conceding that fear-based propaganda will have to substitute
for basic science, the memo reveals how completely CDC has descended into a
military them-against-us mind set. Critics of vaccine safety are labeled
"anti-vaccine," as "hostile parents," or as "adversaries of vaccination,"
with no acknowledgment that criticism and inquiries can be in good faith,
can sincerely be interested in promoting vaccine safety as a sensible,
indeed necessary, scheme to protect the benefits to public health of mass
immunization. For example, CDC complains that "assaults against routine
vaccination are occurring in the United States and in many developed nations
worldwide," "the voice against vaccination is becoming more organized," and
"routine childhood vaccination is increasingly under fire." (emphasis
added). The "critics of vaccination" fall into a few "predictable"
categories:

- Religious Objectors
- Hostile parents and non-professionals who envision vaccines as more
harmful to individual children than good or believe in conspiracy theories
related to vaccination programs
- Proponents of alternative medicine and naturalists
- Health care professionals and scientists who doubt the benefits of
immunization and fear long-term effects of vaccination

It's just plain bizarre to brand as "hostile" parents and
"non-professionals" (i.e. those who are not members of the white-coated and
Nanny State elites) who are simply curious whether vaccines injured their
children or whether vaccines and the schedule are sufficiently safe to use
in an exercise of their ethical right to informed consent. As for
scientists who "fear effects of vaccination," give them a gold star for
being prescient. As the National Vaccine Advisory Committee has now
conceded, there is a crucial gap in safety science, fatal to any claim that
"vaccines are safe." NVAC unanimously approved HERE the report of the
Vaccine Safety Working Group on June 3, highlighting (see recommendation 7
(HERE) ) the lack of baseline data on the health of unvaccinated children
developed in a comprehensive program of retrospective and prospective
research.
http://www.ageofautism.com/2009/07/you-can-participate-tomorrow-iacc-to-consider\
-vaccine-research.html
/
http://www.hhs.gov/nvpo/nvac/documents/NVACVaccineSafetyWGReport041409.pdf

Barbara Loe Fisher once said of the false labeling of vaccine safety
advocates as "anti-vaccine:" "This article is a sophomoric attempt to label
the vaccine safety and informed consent movement as "anti-vaccine" in order
to deflect attention from the very real gaps in scientific knowledge about
the biological mechanisms of adverse responses to vaccination. Should the
Institute of Medicine be labeled anti-vaccine for repeatedly publishing
reports over the past decade calling for increased scientific research into
outstanding questions about vaccine safety?"

The "Problem" According to CDC - Vaccine Rebellion.

CDC actually correctly identifies the "threat" faced by its mass
vaccination program is that: "[T]he number of reported adverse events
associated with vaccination was greater than the number of reported cases of
vaccine-preventible disease. With the disappearance of a perceived threat
in the United States from these diseases, the safety of routine childhood
vaccination is increasingly under fire." What would be the rational
response to growing concerns over vaccine safety? Research to make them
safer? What CDC really fears is change, especially people asking too many
questions and a parent rebellion: "[W]ith the increase [sic] use of media
advocacy by small organized special interest groups to promote societal
change, the possibility of critics against vaccination gaining strength and
voice in public health policy decisions at local, state and national levels
warrants serious consideration. For example, in Japan and Sweden, the
anti-vaccine movement's message diffused from small organized groups to
mainstream popular acceptance, which led to changes in vaccination policy
and severe drops in vaccination levels and increased morbidity and mortality
from vaccine-preventable diseases."


So, Where's the Safety Science?

CDC makes a stunning admissions: "Some claims against vaccine cannot be
disproved." And: "CDC does not have complete adverse event surveillance
data on which to base health messages." But where can this little bit of
honesty be found on the Vaccine Information Statements [Your Baby's First
Vaccines: What You Need to Know, (HERE)] required by law to be given to
parents, which claim with all the earnest certainty of a government
bureaucrat. "Getting several vaccines at the same time will not harm your
baby," "More severe reactions can also occur, but this happens much less
often. Some of these reactions are so uncommon that experts can't tell
whether they are caused by vaccines or not," and "The risk of any vaccine
causing serious harm, or death, is extremely small. Getting a disease is
much more likely to harm a child than getting a vaccine." And, in a sample
flyer (HERE), CDC claims:

Vaccination is safe and effective. All vaccines are only given to children
after a long and careful review by scientists, doctors, and healthcare
professionals. Vaccines will involve some discomfort and may cause pain,
redness, or tenderness at the site of injection but this is minimal compared
to the pain, discomfort, and trauma of the diseases these vaccines prevent.
The most comprehensive scientific studies and reviews have not found a link
between vaccines and autism. Groups of experts, including the American
Academy of Pediatrics, the Institute of Medicine (IOM), the National
Institute of Health (NIH), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC) and other federal agencies also agree that vaccines are not
responsible for the number of children now recognized to have autism.

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/vis/downloads/vis-multi.pdf
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/events/NIIW/2009/downloads/pr_docs/fiveReasons-508.d\
oc


No honesty here about CDC's real doubts about vaccine safety. The CDC media
plan also concedes: "Issues of contamination (e.g. SV-40, stealth virus) are
compelling and our research is not complete enough to state with all
certainty that there is no risk." Yet, despite all this doubt, CDC still
links (HERE) (without disclosing his financial conflict of interest) to Paul
Offit's 2003 book, Vaccines: What You Should Know in the "Myths Busted"
section (HERE) of its vaccine safety webpage. And CDC claims on its "Some
Common Misconceptions" page (HERE): "Most vaccine adverse events are minor
and temporary, such as a sore arm or mild fever. These can often be
controlled by taking acetaminophen before or after vaccination. More serious
adverse events occur rarely (on the order of one per thousands to one per
millions of doses), and some are so rare that risk cannot be accurately
assessed." How "rarely" do these "more serious adverse events" occur.
Nobody knows, especially CDC. http://www.immunize.org/catg.d/4038myth.pdf
/ http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/spec-grps/parents.htm#question /
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/6mishome.htm

So the CDC's mantra "vaccines are safer than the diseases they prevent" is a
lie until all of the risks from vaccines can be determined by comparison to
the health status of unvaccinated children. Regarding this comparison, CDC
says (HERE):

Even one serious adverse event in a million doses of vaccine cannot be
justified if there is no benefit from the vaccination. If there were no
vaccines, there would be many more cases of disease, and along with the more
disease, there would be serious sequelae and more deaths. But looking at
risk alone is not enough - you must always look at both risks and benefits.
Comparing the risk from disease with the risk from the vaccines can give us
an idea of the benefits we get from vaccinating our children. . . . The fact
is that a child is far more likely to be seriously injured by one of these
diseases than by any vaccine. While any serious injury or death caused by
vaccines is too many, it is also clear that the benefits of vaccination
greatly outweigh the slight risk, and that many, many more injuries and
deaths would occur without vaccinations. In fact, to have a medical
intervention as effective as vaccination in preventing disease and not use
it would be unconscionable.
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/6mishome.htm

This comparison is a bald faced lie because the risks of vaccination,
especially for chronic adverse events, are unknown. Even if they were known
with some precision, the choice demanded by principles of ethics and
informed consent, must remain with the parents. And, this gets us back to
the real fear underlying the Government's policy of "deliberate ignorance,"
i.e. that any significant risk of chronic vaccine injury could induce a
vaccine rebellion so that their children are not sacrificed on an alter made
of herd immunity. Not surprisingly, Parents of Kids With Infectious
Diseases (HERE) merits a weblink from CDC's "What Risks Are Parents Taking
in Their Child's Healthcare" section, but groups such as Safeminds
[safeminds.org] and NVIC [nvic.org] are ignored. http://www.pkids.org/

CDC's media plan claims the "[f]ederal government has a critical role in
disease prevention through routine vaccination," but there's no commitment
to a "critical role" for a "safety first" agenda. CDC also states a
commitment to new vaccines: "The rapid pace in which new vaccines and new
combinations of vaccines are being introduced in the United States for
routine childhood vaccination will continue, increasing the anti-vaccine
rhetoric." But again, no commitment to understanding, much less improving,
safety.

DC admits: "Risk communication messages regarding vaccine adverse reactions
are difficult to develop." Yes, exactly, because they just don't know the
risks. How, then, can CDC claim as a "strength" of their media plan that
the "[b]enefits of vaccination far outweigh the risks?" This is, as J.B.
Handley would say so eloquently (see Paul Offit, Dr. Nancy Snyderman,
Alison Singer, and the Italian Study), is a "hungry lie." As the National
Vaccine Advisory Committee finally admitted with a unanimous vote on June 3,
one of the key gaps in our safety science (HERE) is baseline data on the
chronic health of unvaccinated kids. Perhaps what CDC really means is that
all chronic vaccine-caused injuries, including autism, are acceptable
collateral damage in the war against infectious disease? This is an even
bigger lie because it presupposes that such "collateral damage" cannot be
minimized or even eliminated by, e.g., screening, schedule changes,
eliminating known nasties such as heavy metals, re-designed vaccines,
greater reliance on anti-virals, etc.
http://www.ageofautism.com/2009/07/you-can-participate-tomorrow-iacc-to-consider\
-vaccine-research.html

Another CDC lie: "Parents today, overwhelmingly, want to vaccinate their
children against disease." No! Parents want healthy children. As doubts
grow about vaccine-caused disease, and the apparent threat from infectious
diseases is all but gone, the "healthy" choice is to avoid unknown vaccine
risks and rely on others' herd immunity.

CDC's Solution - a public/private propaganda campaign.

Instead of actually doing the science to accurately ascertain the risks of
vaccination, and make appropriate changes to the schedule, screening, etc.,
CDC proposes an aggressive public/private media campaign: "[C]ommunity
acceptance of vaccination demands that we take a stand to not only explain
the risks of complication due to natural disease, but also toward unfounded
arguments or [sic] adversaries of vaccination." [emphasis added].

CDC intends to rely in part on surrogates to carry its message: "Any
communications strategy must be supported by and employ our immunization
partners." Yet, ironically, CDC complains: "Some members of the
anti-vaccine movement are making a profit with their message of fear and
will not be dissuaded through debate and inclusion in the process." CDC's
Partners website lists eighteen partners and 19 immunization-related
websites. Most of these, doctors, nurses, industry "fronts" such as
Families Fighting Flu, make a profit from selling or injecting vaccines.
And, isn't Paul "Profit" making oodles of money from his interest in Rotateq
and at least expecting to profit from his unsupported yet unbridled message
of fear in Autism's False Prophets? (Amazon rank: Offit, 18,473;
Jepsen/Johnson/Wright, 10,305.) CDC claims that the "federal government
[is] not in position to discuss hidden motives for behaviors of anti-vaccine
groups." "Hidden" motives, come on! Advocacy for safer vaccines and
infrastructure reform is hardly a "hidden" motive, nor are such groups in
any way "anti-vaccine."

What Does CDC See as Threats?

Although CDC's admited lack of key safety science is deadly serious, the
humor in the media plan lies in the "threats" section. CDC begins;
"Detractors resort to incomplete reference, misquotes, and distortions to
promote their positions, making debate difficult at best." Let's see what
CDC says: About MMR (HERE): "In 2004, a report by the Institute of Medicine
(IOM) concluded that there is no link between autism and MMR vaccine, and
that there is no link between autism and vaccines that contain thimerosal as
a preservative." But actually, IOM covered its vulnerable ass by conceding:
"Absent biomarkers, well-defined risk factors, or large effect sizes, the
committee cannot rule out, based on the epidemiological evidence, the
possibility that vaccines contribute to autism in some small subset or very
unusual circumstances." That the IOM ISR Committee's "cannot rule out" a
finding simply cannot be reconciled with CDC's "no link" version of the
"truth." http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/updates/mmr_vaccine.htm

CDC's claim on its "Thimerosal" webpage (HERE) is another example of its
"distortion:" "There is no convincing scientific evidence of harm caused by
the low doses of thimerosal in vaccines, except for minor reactions like
redness and swelling at the injection site." After the revalations about
CDC's infamous VSD-based study of thimerosal were unearthed by Safeminds via
FOIA and extensively discussed in David Kirby's Evidence of Harm, the lead
author, Thomas Verstraeten, was forced to retract the "thimerosal is safe"
interpretation CDC sought from the 2003 publication in Pediatrics: "The
article does not state that we found evidence against an association, as a
negative study would. It does state, on the contrary, that additional study
is recommended, which is the conclusion to which a neutral study must come.
. . . A neutral study carries a very distinct message: the investigators
could neither confirm nor exclude an association, and therefore more study
is required. . . . The bottom line is and has always been the same: an
association between thimerosal and neurological outcomes could neither be
confirmed nor refuted, and therefore, more study is required." The article
itself amounted to scientific fraud because all the data manipulation to
conceal the "generation zero" results (which did show statistically
significant associations between thimerosal exposure and neurodevelopmental
delays) were not disclosed.
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/updates/thimerosal.htm

CDC ends its media plan by honestly identifying one threat to their
"vaccinate or die" media campaign: "We have close relationships and
involvement with vaccine manufacturers that can be distorted in counter
communication - we're supporting the drug manufacturers' business interests
at the expense of children."

Jim Moody chairs the government affairs committee of SafeMinds. He is the
founder of Citizens for a Competitive Economy. Jim is a practicing attorney
and is active in cause-related advocacy for children with autism.

===============

Entire article found at:
http://www.ageofautism.com/2009/08/cdc-media-plan-shocker-we-dont-have-the-scien\
ce-some-claims-against-vaccine-cannot-be-disproved-.html