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With Vaccines Like This, Why Be Afraid of Extremist Groups?
How close were we to a deadly pandemic in January of this year?
According to several published sources, we were teetering on the brink. That’s because seasonal flu vaccines manufactured by US-based pharmaceutical company Baxter International had been contaminated with the deadly avian flu virus called H5N1.1 The contaminated vaccine made by a Baxter facility in Orth-Donau, Austria was shipped to numerous distributors in Austria, Germany, Slowenia, and the Czech Republic.
Were it not for the good sense of a lab in the Czech Republic that inoculated ferrets with the serum to check its safety, we might now be facing a global pandemic of avian flu — of which there is a 60% mortality rate.2 The fact that the ferrets died soon after they were given the vaccine raised a red flag to scientists and government authorities. Ferrets do not die when exposed to seasonal flu viruses.
What makes this situation even more chilling is that the avian flu virus by itself does not easily infect people. But when mixed with an easily transmissible strain like the seasonal flu virus, the hybrid strain can be just as contagious.
How could Baxter have let this happen? Was it intentional as some people believe? Even the respected Dr. Mercola has his suspicions.4 A pandemic would certainly trigger a worldwide demand for the avian flu vaccine. Baxter happens to be one of only six international companies licensed to develop flu vaccines. If a pandemic occurred…well , you can do the math in terms of profits to be made.
The other possibility is that Baxter was not following its own stringent biosafety protocol to prevent cross-contamination of infectious materials. This protocol, called Biosafety Level 3 (BSL3), if followed, makes it virtually impossible for a situation like this to occur.2
A Growing Movement Against Mandatory Vaccines
I used to think that only people with ultra-conservative religious beliefs or anti-establishment opinions home-schooled their kids. But after reading an October 2008 article in USA Today,1 I learned differently. Debra and Curtis Barnes are part of a growing number of Americans who home-school their three children solely to avoid having them vaccinated.
Debra Curtis is hardly a fringe member of society. She has a busy chiropractic practice in Mississippi and is president of the Mississippi Vaccination Information Center, a group of 159 concerned parents who believe that mandatory vaccinations for school-age children are a dangerous over-reach by state governments.
This group is not alone in their concerns. Surprisingly perhaps, they have the support of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), whose thousands of members are not anti-vaccine, but believe that the government and individual school districts do not have the right to mandate vaccines without parental informed consent. The AAPS factsheet says that “42 states have mandatory vaccine policies, and many children are required 22 shots by first grade.”2
New Jersey has the highest requirement of mandatory childhood vaccines in the US— 35 doses of 13 different vaccines,3 most of them administered to children between the ages of 1 and 7. Parents must comply with the vaccine schedule if their children will be attending school or daycare unless they have received a religious or medical exemption.
Perhaps not surprisingly, New Jersey also has the highest rate of autism among 14 states that were analyzed in 2007 by the CDC4 — 10.6 cases of autism per 1,000 children (or 1 in 94), compared to an average of 6.6 per 1,000 (1 in 152) children overall.5
Like the AAPS and the parents of many home-schooled children, citizen groups all over the country are speaking out against the ever increasing number of government-mandated vaccines and mobilizing to do something about it.
The New Jersey Coalition for Vaccination Choice (NJCVC), an expanding group of parents, physicians, holistic organizations, autism support groups, and other concerned citizens is currently lobbying for a Conscientious Belief Exemption that will allow parents to refuse mandatory immunizations for their children on the basis of sincerely held moral objections.
Do Flu Shots Really Work?
Every fall, hundreds of patients ask us if they should get vaccinated with a flu shot. As with any medical treatment, the risks and benefits always need to be fully considered. Every year I scour the literature for any reports of harm from flu vaccines and also to look at whether the data show that they were effective in preventing the flu.
Let’s start with the risks. The manufacturers of flu vaccines combine three strains of inactivated (dead) flu viruses, along with preservatives. Most of the controversy surrounding vaccines has to do with whether the preservatives are safe. In some cases, they clearly are not. Mercury as part of the preservative thimerosol has received the most attention since it is a known neurotoxin, and it is still in some vaccines.1 At the very least, I recommend requesting thimerosol-free vaccines.
The Natural Way to Fight Deadly Super Bugs
As a drug chemist, I used to fear going to work. I risked numerous health hazards — like being exposed to a cancer-causing substance or even losing my wedding ring in a chemical drain. Cancer is bad, but having your wife think you are being careless about your marriage is worse. Unknown to her, I was washing off DNA-twisting molecules that burned my skin and eyes while people vacuumed the air from my lungs. My ring fell off somewhere between stripping off my clothes, pulling the lab’s evacuation button, and yanking the emergency shower cord. I naively assumed that these were necessary risks for making so-called life saving drugs. I was wrong.
