Vaccination Decisions--part 4:

Questioning Vaccines in the Hospital

opinion by Doug Collins

Numbered references appear at the end of this article. Health information in the WA Free Press should not be construed as medical advice. Always make your own choice regarding medical treatment by seeking multiple sources of information and consulting with your personal physician.

Throughout the past hundred years, many capitalists, communists, and other followers of aggressive ideologies have employed technology in a combative, military manner, a manner which has not been limited to the battlefield. This has resulted in rapid development of chemical, nuclear, and bioscience applications, which for decades have proceeded with hardly a limit, touching every corner of our industrialized lives. Mega-weapons were created to "wipe-out" the enemy. Similarly, in the home, chemical cleaners became the modern agents to "fight" or "kill" dirt and germs. In the hospital, mass-vaccination became the biotech tool to "eradicate" diseases.

But our culture is currently undergoing a shift, in which many people are discovering that natural dirt and germs aren't all bad, and that synthetic chemicals aren't all good. Such simple practices as using baking soda to clean your counter, rather than chemically disinfectant scouring powder, is a simple example of how many people are attempting to lead their lives in less conflict with nature.

Scores of well-publicized scientific studies have recently shown that our commercially-induced fear of germs has worked to our disadvantage. These studies have shown that humans have a natural beneficial relationship with many bacteria and viruses (1). Antibacterial soaps, household chemicals, and spotless homes can disrupt our natural relationship with germs, resulting in less-than-optimum health, such as a higher chance of allergies and asthma.

Similarly, many scientific studies have also pointed to serious health concerns with mass-vaccination policies, as well as possible immune benefits of contracting traditional childhood diseases such as measles (2). But if you ask a typical MD about vaccinations, he/she will usually tell you to consult information from the federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC), which is a bit like the pope in the priesthood of American medicine. What most MDs don't know--and therefore can't tell you--is that the majority of members on the CDC's vaccine advisory board, the people who determine the vaccine policies, have received pay from the large pharmaceutical companies which manufacture vaccines, and that officially sanctioned research on vaccine safety is funded by the same companies (3). This conflict of interest has created lax safety standards that make it impossible to compare the risks and benefits of vaccinations (4).

Few family-practice doctors personally research the risks and benefits of vaccines past the tainted recommendations of the CDC, and of those who do, few are willing to take a questioning public stance.

Mass-vaccination has become the dogma of institutional medicine, and non-conformists in any occupation can risk losing their jobs. Despite these barriers, there are some mainstream MDs, such as Dr. Harold Buttram, who have become outspoken critics of vaccination policy, as well as many notable Osteopathic medical doctors, such as Drs. Joseph Mercola, Randall Neustaedter, and Sherri Tenpenny.

Although your personal doctor is not likely to be very informed about the large body of research evidence that points to concern over vaccination, there is no reason that you can't be. In a couple months of spare-time independent study, you can probably become better informed than most MDs about the the large body of research on the risks of vaccines (5). In fact, doing so is an essential part of the traditional ethics of medicine: namely, "informed consent", the idea that patients should be fully informed about a treatment and its risks before they consent to take it.

Until a couple years ago, I had personally never even thought about questioning vaccinations, and never saw a need to inform myself about them. I always just got shots whenever the doctor said I should. But recently, as a new parent, I was a bit concerned that the nurse wanted to give my baby a hepatitis B shot only hours after his birth. "No," I said, "We've got to learn more about this first." After reading the hospital's list of vaccinations, I became even more concerned. There are many more vaccines now than when I was a child (this is not necessarily obvious, because nowadays multiple vaccines are usually combined into a single injection).

Initially, my gut feeling was that giving a child seven vaccines at two months of age was a mighty strange thing to do. After months of researching more about the diseases and vaccines, from official sources such as the CDC (www.cdc.gov), independent sources such as the National Vaccine Information Center (www.909shot.com), and manufacturer safety data sheets for the vaccines, I saw that my gut feeling had merit. There is a great deal that is questionable about our public health policies of mass-vaccination and about the safety of the vaccinations themselves.

My feeling was sadly bolstered by a conversation at a party, where I met the father of a three-month old. I asked him what vaccinations his baby had gotten. "We got the full two-month set of shots," he said, "and our baby hasn't been the same since." He complained that his daughter lost responsiveness and energy immediately following the shots, and hadn't regained it. As Barbara Loe Fisher, a founder of the National Vaccine Information Center points out, most doctors do not report such symptoms to the CDC, and therefore such side-effects are under-represented in statistics.

Dealing with my own baby's pediatrician and hospital was a bit shocking. When I told the pediatrician about my reluctance to vaccinate my child, he said, "Have you been reading vaccination criticism on the internet? Let me tell you, their stuff is full of lies." I was taken aback. Why, after all, would anyone have a motive to lie in criticizing vaccinations? On the other hand, there is obviously a huge financial motive on the part of pharmaceutical companies to promote profitable mass-vaccinations.

When I asked the nurses at the hospital immunization clinic for copies of the manufacturer data sheets on the immunizations, one of them took me aside and said, "You know, we get some parents in here that only want to give their child one shot at a time. That's really bad for the child because then the child cries every time they come here, and then it's hard to give them the shot. It's really better just to give all the shots at once." I didn't argue, but just smiled. The nurse was simply thinking about what was easier for her and the child in the short term, rather than what might be ultimately healthier for the child.

The next time I took my baby to the pediatrician, he asked me to sign a refusal form stating that I did not wish to have vaccinations for my baby. The form had some fine print, so I said I'd take it home and read it. I'm glad I did, because the form would have granted my HMO the right to waive my health coverage if my child caught one of the diseases (see illustration). In other words, if I signed the form, and if--for example--my child later needed any treatment for rare side-effects of measles, I might have to self-pay all the costs of his care. That would be extremely unfair, as any of the many documented side-effects of vaccinations would be covered without question under the health plan. The lesson here is: don't sign any such affidavits. You don't have to, and you're probably only signing away your insurance rights if you do.

My pediatrician now doesn't bother me much about vaccinations, except in a good-natured way. After having a couple informed arguments about the issue, it seems we now have a mutual respect for each other's stances. I know now that vaccinations are not themselves the main problem; the main problem is a governmental regulatory system that is influenced by business interests. I think my pediatrician now realizes that people have rational concerns about this system.

I can achieve this mutual respect with my pediatrician only because in Washington State we are fairly lucky that parents have a choice over whether or not to vaccinate children, and that schools must admit nonvaccinated children by granting waivers to parents who are opposed to vaccinations. In some other states with draconian vaccination laws, doctors have been known to report parents to the police for neglect if the parents refuse vaccination. Don't be surprised if, in the future, some medical/pharmaceutical lobbyists attempt to pass the same sort of laws here.

References

(1) "Hygiene Hypothesis Gains Support in the United States and Europe", Timothy Begany, Respiratory Reviews, January 2003, www.respiratoryreviews.com/jan03/rr_jan03_hygiene.html

(2) For a brief overview of many scientific studies showing negative public health consequences of vaccination, see two articles by Dr Harold Buttram, MD published in the Washington Free Press: "Vaccines: Think Again" Nov 2002, and "Haphazard Health" Jan 2003 .

(3) "The Vaccine Conflict" by Mark Benjamin, United Press International investigation published in Washington Free Press, Jan 2004,

(4) "Vaccination Decisions--part one: Is it possible to assess vaccine safety?" by Doug Collins, Washington Free Press, Sept 2003.

(5) One excellent resource containing comprehensive references to medical studies and alternatives to vaccination is the book The Vaccine Guide by Dr. Randall Neustaedter.