Reprinted with permission from Issue #133/134,
August/September 1994,
of the Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients,
Telephone (360) 385-6021
Mandatory Bio-engineering
reviewed by Irene Alleger
Vaccines: Are They Really Safe & Effective?
by Neil Z. Miller
New Atlantean Press, POB 9638, Santa Fe, NM 87504
1992, Soft cover, 79 pp. $7.95
[Editor's note: As of September 1997 Minimum Price Books' price is $8.95]
More and more information is coming to light these days on the toxicities and immune-suppressing qualities of pharmaceutical drugs, yet there is almost no documented, scientific information on the possible dangers of immunization. The lack of interest and studies on the effects of these vaccines is similar to the lack of efficacy and safety of fluoridation, but with far greater consequences. As with fluoridation, there is an obvious effort to suppress any negative findings, and more importantly, as with fluoridation, children are the guinea pigs.
In the case of mandatory vaccination for all infants and children, the long-term effects for our species is ominous. Neil Miller presents a clear historical overview of the use of immunization, including the well-documented fact of many diseases declining steadily before vaccines were introduced, and the known history of inefficacy and many serious side-effects. There is evidence of a conspiracy of silence within organized medicine, and certainly the vaccine manufacturers, to obscure the truth and minimize the dangers.
The author wrote the book after his own son was born and he began to research the subject. What he found is every parent's nightmare: how to best protect your child when you have to depend on someone else's word. This little book is empowering for parents; they can weigh all the information, they can even follow up on the references, and then they can make an informed decision. About the government's "mandate" for all school children to be required to show documentation of the required vaccinations, the author says that "scare tactics, skewed statistics, and outright lies are often used to intimidate parents." However, most states provide waivers permitting parents to object to mandated vaccines on personal, religious, or philosophical grounds. A child may also be exempted if the parent can obtain a written statement from a doctor stating that the vaccine would be harmful to the child's health.
The first vaccine to be examined is the polio vaccine. Although the disease had already declined dramatically before the Salk vaccine was introduced, it was widely used. Even doctors and scientists on the staff of the National Institutes of Health during the 1950's were well aware that the Salk vaccine was ineffective and deadly. But the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, and pharmaceutical companies with a large investment in the vaccine, coerced the U.S. Public Health Service into signing a false proclamation claiming the vaccine was safe and 100% effective. The history of the Polio vaccine can serve as a model for the "scientific" rationale used today for mandatory immunization. Another little bit of manipulation is the practice of redefining a disease when it is contracted by an "immunized" person. In other words, if a person who is vaccinated contracts the disease, the disease is simply recorded under a different name. It turns out that the number of reported cases of polio following mass inoculations with the Salk vaccine was significantly greater than before mass inoculations, and may have more than doubled in the U.S. as a whole. In 1976, Dr. Jonas Salk testified that the vaccine was the "principle if not sole cause" of all reported polio cases in the U.S. since 1961.
For the diphtheria vaccine, the facts are equally alarming: about 50% of all people who contract the disease have been fully vaccinated. For measles: a significant decline in measles began long before the vaccine was introduced. In the U.S. and England, from 1915 to 1958, a greater than 95% decline in the measles death rate had already occurred. According to the WHO, chances are about 14 times greater that measles will be contracted by those vaccinated against the disease than by those who are "left alone."
Mumps is rarely harmful in childhood, and almost always confers lifelong immunity. Nobody really knows how long artificial immunity conferred by the vaccine really lasts. What is known is that children who escape the disease in childhood are often more likely to suffer more serious consequences if they contract it as adolescents or young adults. Adverse reactions to the mumps vaccine include rashes, itching, febrile seizures, unilateral nerve deafness, and in rare cases, encephalitis. A new mumps vaccine may be responsible for a recent increase in mumps-vaccine-induced encephalitis.
Whooping cough/pertussis: the diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccines are generally combined into a single formula (DPT). Both the diphtheria and tetanus vaccines are "stabilized" using formaldehyde - a known carcinogen. Each dose of DPT also contains thimerosal - a derivative of mercury - and aluminum phosphate. Mercury and aluminum are toxic in and of themselves. The United States has never conducted its own clinical tests to determine whether the pertussis vaccine is safe and effective. Instead, it relies on data collected by Great Britain during the 1950's. Even though 42 of these children had convulsions within 28 days, 80% of the babies were 14 months of age or older, and the tests were designed to measure efficacy, not safety, the U.S. health authorities use these results as evidence that the vaccine is safe to give to infants as young as six weeks. The vaccine may cause fever as high as 106 degrees, pain, swelling, diarrhea, projectile vomiting, high-pitched screaming, seizures, convulsions, brain damage, and SIDS. There is more and more evidence that links DPT to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. One study shows that of 103 children who died of SIDS, 70% had received the DPT vaccine within 3 weeks. Are these statistics acceptable?
Neil Miller also provides hard-to-find information on other immunizations such as flu shots (remember the 500 people in 1976 who were paralyzed with Guillain-Barre, 30 of whom died). Important information is given on claims for compensation. Many people are unaware that the government put in place a tax on vaccines for the sole purpose of covering claims for compensation of injury or death resulting from that vaccine. The public is also largely unaware that in less than two years, more than $82 million (by 1991) had been awarded for injuries and deaths caused by mandatory vaccines. Thousands of cases are still pending. When the evidence is so overwhelming that these vaccines are so dangerous, how can our government continue to mandate compulsory immunizations of all children in this country - seemingly immunized themselves, against health and sanity.
The facts surrounding the documented dangers of vaccines are hard to ignore, but what about the long-term effects of artificially caused (short-term) immunity, bypassing the maturation and function of the immune system? When natural immunity is bypassed and the immune system compelled to operate in unnatural ways, the question arises regarding its ability to protect the child throughout life. Even more serious concerns are presented by the author regarding possible genetic mutation.
Vaccines contain monkey kidney cell culture, chick embryo, and calf serum, foreign proteins - biological matter composed of animal cells. Injected directly into the bloodstream, they are able to change our genetic structure. With viruses the agents of transfer of genetic imprints from one host to another, the author suggests that the injection of foreign genetic material may have the immediate effect of permanently weakening the immune system. There has been a plethora of research articles on the virus-contaminated vaccines in the 1960's and 1970's related to the AIDS epidemic. Recently, the Lancet published an article noting that the oral polio vaccine, which was also used experimentally during the 1970's to treat recurrent herpes, was probably contaminated with a number of potentially dangerous retroviruses. Immoral, unethical, and illegal medical experimentation is still occurring: in 1990 a federal regulation was adopted which permits the FDA to inject American troops with unapproved experimental drugs or vaccines without their informed consent. (The Desert Storm Syndrome?)
Many researchers, such as Harris L. Coulter, PhD, believe the entire postwar American generation is suffering from what he calls "post-encephalitic syndrome," the name he gives to define a variety of vaccine-induced disabilities. "Juvenile delinquency, an unprecedented rise in violent crime among the young, drug abuse, and the collapse of the American school system unable to contend with the estimated 20 to 25% of students mentally and emotionally deficient, represent other conditions that may be attributed to vaccines."
The undisguised truth is that this situation of having dangerous and ineffective vaccines forced on our children, is only allowed to continue because many doctors refuse to report vaccine reactions to health authorities despite the legal requirement. According to Barbara Loe Fisher, executive vice-president of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), "the will and intent of Congress in enacting the National Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 is being subverted. This subversion is resulting in an appalling underreporting of vaccine reactions and deaths by both private and public health physicians. There is also a lack of record keeping and/or willingness on the part of the physicians to divulge the manufacturer's name and lot number when a reaction occurs."
There is currently a media blitz using creative propaganda on the merits of vaccinations, and scare tactics like "Vaccinate, before it's too late." I would suggest that all parents read this book, before it's too late.
Townsend Letter for Doctors & Patients, telephone (360) 385-6021
August/September 1994