A Shot Across The Bow
This all started with my suspension. I have had privileges at one of the local hospitals for 30 years but was suspended last year for not getting a flu shot. Maybe it reflects my lack of maturity but whenever someone says I MUST do something it gets my hackles up.I have read extensively about the flu shot and knew that it was neither that safe nor that effective. According to the independent Cochrane Analysis there is no evidence flu shots work for children, there is no evidence that hospitalizations are decreased. There is no evidence that the shot prevents transmission of the flu from healthcare workers to the general public. The hospital didn’t seem interested in the science and I am just guessing here but I think somehow their reimbursement from the federal government must be tied into this “quality measure.” If the hospital is so concerned about your health why do they have vending machines that dispense completely unhealthy junk?
According to the independent Cochrane Analysis there is no evidence flu shots work for children, there is no evidence that hospitalizations are decreased.
So then I started looking at the vaccine issue in general … What immediately worried me was my discovery that the first shot a baby gets on its first day of life is a shot against Hepatitis B. We test virtually all pregnant women for Hepatitis B so the only way a baby is going to get Hepatitis B is from needles or sexual activity. We are vaccinating these babies against a virus that they have less than a one in a million chance of getting as children. Hepatitis B is a major problem in the third world but its quite rare in children in America. Why would this be the very first shot they get?
Well, the suspension bothered me and finding out that kids are inundated with something like 49 doses of vaccines by 6 years old bothered me but I was also, as a believer in freedom over safety, bothered by the mandatory compulsory vaccine schedule. If the vaccines are so safe and effective why would it matter to you if my kids don’t get vaccinated and yours do? Why cant I send my kids to school without having given them the chickenpox vaccine? Again … your kids have had all their shots so why would my kids lack of shots affect your kids. Well, one of the reasons is that the shots don’t work that well for that long.
Now, my kids had all their shots and seem fine. I don’t have a personal dog in this hunt but my heart goes out to people who have had a child they think was injured by vaccines. The CDC says they have done extensive testing that proves there is no association between Autism and vaccines so that’s the end of it no? Real proof is not in yet because additional studies have been discouraged. Maybe our current vaccine schedule has something to do with Autism and maybe it doesn’t. Until we know conclusively we should be focused on the safety of the children. Speaking of CDC and autism if you actually dig in you will see that one of their most quoted researchers —Paul Thorsen— is actually a wanted federal criminal! I hate to say this but the CDC is not the vaunted independent bastion of science I thought it was. Dr. Paul Offit, vaccine champion who has said that kids could safely receive 1,000 vaccines in a day, developed a vaccine against diarrhea. This vaccine is given to all kids today in this country … even though practically no child has died of viral diarrhea in America in decades even well before this vaccine was developed. When it came time to vote on whether to include this vaccine in the vaccine schedule guess who voted in favor if it in clear violation of conflict of interest. That’s right … Paul Offit … who has made over 25 million dollars in the process personally. Also, the doctor who expanded the
recommendation from giving flu shots to just healthy adults to kids over 6 months of age, all adults and elderly, and included pregnant women was given 4 million dollars of stock options when she left the CDC and went to work for Merck … one of the largest vaccine manufacturers. The CDC is no ivory tower.
When someone asks questions about vaccines … or when someone shows hesitancy in having their kid get so many vaccines in one setting they are labeled a nut and an anti-vaxxer. Maybe they are just pro safety. Maybe they are just concerned about the children. I understand families are fired from certain pediatric offices if they want to deviate from the vaccine schedule.
Besides making money on the actual vaccines your doctor is also paid on what percentage of patients are compliant with the schedule.
Now, I am a doctor of adult medicine … I don’t see children. I have respect for the pediatricians but I can’t respect a practice where informed parents are fired for having questions about what’s being injected into their children. I think your pediatrician should be up to the challenge when you ask them questions like … Can you name 4 ingredients in that vial? Can you tell me doctor about the formaldehyde in that vial? Can you tell me about the thimerosal? Can you comment on the neurotoxic properties of Aluminum? Is it true doctor that if I gave the contents of that vial to my child by mouth instead of by shot I could have charges made against me? Is it true that in some states if you drop and break the multi dose flu vial you are supposed to call a HAZMAT team and evacuate the area?
Let’s not even focus on the thimerosal issue. Let’s look at aluminum. Aluminum is put into shots to make a stronger immune response. The problem is that Aluminum is toxic. According to the FDA the maximum amount of aluminum per kilogram of weight is 5 micrograms. Anything containing more than 25
micrograms is supposed to have a label warning that aluminum may be toxic to the nervous system and to the bones. For some reason vaccines don’t carry this warning. As I mentioned earlier 99 percent of babies are given the Hep B vaccine on day one of their life. Most kids weigh in at about 8 pounds. Doing the math shows that the maximum aluminum allowed should be 18 micrograms. Well the Hep B vaccine has 250 micrograms. More than 10 times what the FDA says is safe and we are injecting it into newborns! That’s just one shot! Add in the Hep A shot, the DTaP shot, HIB shot, Pneumococcal shot … all of which contain aluminum. There are textbooks written about aluminum toxicity so this is not some new or unproven concept.
We physicians got the same education about vaccines that we did about nutrition. -Very little. Here is the vaccine schedule. Vaccines are safe and effective. Make sure the kids stay on the schedule. Besides making money on the actual vaccines your doctor is also paid on what percentage of patients are compliant with the schedule. What incentive does that give for real informed consent? I too used to give all shots on the schedule. I prided myself on being one of the most immunizing doctors. After all, it was an easy way to judge my performance and I thought I was protecting people. But if people didn’t want a shot, if they didn’t want a mammogram or a colonoscopy or a stress test for that matter, that was up to them. As long as they made an informed decision I respected that. It’s their body and they literally can live or die by their decisions. They have that freedom … They have that choice. Why is this so different with vaccinations? Please don’t bring up the concept of Herd Immunity because that may hold true for populations that have had the actual infection but has not been demonstrated in populations that have been vaccinated. Getting the flu and recovering … as 99% percent of us do … gives you lifelong immunity from that flu and has been shown to be a positive thing for your immune system. The flu shot … not so much.
If people didn’t want a shot, if they didn’t want a mammogram or a colonoscopy or a stress test for that matter, that was up to them. As long as they made an informed decision I respected that. It’s their body and they literally can live or die by their decisions. They have that freedom … They have that choice. Why is this so different with vaccinations?
I can see you rolling your eyes … This loser doctor has lost his mind. Doesn’t he know about the many lives saved by vaccines? Doesn’t he know that smallpox and polio were eliminated by vaccinations? That’s the story you know but it’s not the real story and you can find out just by doing some elementary reading. You can’t just read the titles … The devil and the truth are in the details. Read the compelling work of Dr. Suzanne Humphries: Dissolving Illusions. Research smallpox and the town of Leicester in England. England had forced vaccination and in Leicester despite mandatory vaccinations they had epidemics of smallpox. When the people of this city won their freedom of choice vaccination went down from 95 percent to 5 percent. When the people there used isolation and quarantine the smallpox rate plummeted! As quoted in the World Health Statistics Annual 1973-1976 Volume 2: “There has been a steady decline of infectious disease in most developing countries, regardless of the percentage of immunization administered in these countries.”
Looking only at first world countries … America has the most aggressive vaccination schedule in the free world and yet we rank very low in childhood health. That doesn’t mean they are related but shouldn’t it be investigated? Shouldn’t studies be ongoing?
Let me close with a very chilling quote on this from our friends in the government. From the DHHS Federal Register volume 39 number 107 from June 1984 … which are about the final rules for polio vaccination campaigns in the USA: “Any possible doubts, WHETHER OR NOT WELL FOUNDED, about the safety of the vaccine cannot be allowed to exist in view of the need to ensure the vaccine will continue to be used to the maximum extent … ” Well founded doubts about vaccine safety should not get in the way of vaccination programs?!?!
Talking about vaccines is like talking about politics … people get all riled up. Can’t we have a civil conversation? Can’t we look at some statistics? Do you really think all the families with doubts about vaccine are nuts? Doing my research I found that the pro vaccine lobby was far more vicious than the anti vaccine lobby. Most of the anti vaccine lobby are not against all vaccines but they are against the aggressive, unproven, and ever expanding vaccine schedule. Did you know the most likely group NOT to vaccinate are affluent, well educated, white people. What’s that tell you? Let the science and the facts lead where they will. Did you know there are over 150 vaccines in development? How many of them will be mandatory for school, work etc.
People tell me not to write about this issue … I will somehow get into trouble … I will get my medical license pulled somehow. I love what I do especially since I switched to my current style of personalized practice but I can’t suppress these issues when I have researched them. There’s always UBER.
Until next article, if there is another article … get well … stay well.
