Six mothers and one father were arrested yesterday morning while protesting a vote approving amendments to SB276, a controversial vaccination-related bill. Under the new law, school children who had received medical exemptions from vaccinations would be barred from attending public/private school.
SB276 was seen as a major attack on medical freedom as a 2015 California law, SB277, already eliminated personal and religious exemptions to vaccines.
Under SB276, people like Senator Richard Pan, who is funded by Big Pharma, and Sen. Ben Hueso (convicted for a DUI that could have got a child murdered) are allowed to interfere with the doctor-patient relationship.
I spent the day with the group of people, mostly women and all mothers, who are called “anti-vaxx.”
Here’s what I learned at a protest requiring children to take vaccines over their doctors’ objections:
The moms are not “anti-vaxx.”
The media narrative is that a bunch of crazy moms decided to stop vaccinating randomly. This is a lie.
Nearly every other mother I spoke to (and I spoke to at least 100) had vaccinated one of their children. Their child had an adverse reaction, and they obtained an exemption for that child. Many stopped vaccinating their other children.
One mother described the experience of protesting at the Capitol as degrading. “If we were men, they’d take us more seriously,” she told me on the flight back.
Everyone on Twitter – even single people who couldn’t name two brands of formula – has a strongly held opinion on vaccines.
I don’t know all that much about vaccinations, which is why I attended the event in California. Why not learn? When I was single, I sure wouldn’t have had any opinion at all.
When people start freaking out about vaccines, I ask them to name some brands of childrens’ toys. The fact is that most have no idea what’s in vaccines. They don’t even know who makes something as safe and widespread as baby formula.
Most people with strongly held opinions on vaccines couldn’t tell you how many shots a child is given before he or she turns 5 years old.
People who throw around the “anti-vaxx” slur also couldn’t tell you how the United States vaccine schedule has changed. Nor could they tell you what the vaccination schedule is in Japan.
I find it hilarious that my mostly pro-Trump readers SCREAM about “anti-vaxxers” when those MAGA types have received nearly all of their “knowledge” about vaccines from the “fake news media.”
- “Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the ‘wet streets cause rain’ stories. Paper’s full of them.” Michael Crichton.
Vaccine manufactures cannot be sued.
What? Yes, fact-check that one. The The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act
- Provides that no vaccine manufacturer shall be liable in a civil action for damages arising from a vaccine-related injury or death: (1) resulting from unavoidable side effects; or (2) solely due to the manufacturer’s failure to provide direct warnings. Provides that a manufacturer may be held liable where: (1) such manufacturer engaged in the fraudulent or intentional withholding of information; or (2) such manufacturer failed to exercise due care. Permits punitive damages in such civil actions under certain circumstances.
There is big money in vaccinations.
If you think BigPharma is doing you any favors, think again:
- The global vaccine market is expected to reach total revenues of 59.2 billion USD by 2020. This is nearly double the size of the market in 2014 ($32.2 billion), according to a survey from Zion Market Research. By 2020, the total market size for vaccines in the United States will generate $18 billion.
Read, Global Vaccine Market Revenue to Reach $59.2 Billion by 2020.
Even talking about vaccines get you labelled anti-vaxx.
By writing this article, I’ll become a target. People will call me anti-vaxx.
You’re not allowed to even ask questions like:
- If vaccine manufacturers can’t be held liable for their products, what incentives do they have? Vaccines are a highly profitable industry. Are we supposed to trust the same industry that gave us Vioxx and opioids with our children’s safety? If so, why? Explain your answer.
- Why does the CDC own patents for vaccines?
- Why aren’t vaccines sold as a non-profit product? If your answer is, “Because then there wouldn’t be any incentive for BigPharma to make new vaccines,” then doesn’t your claim that drug companies just really really really care about children fall apart?
- How can you be pro-choice and support women’s rights while calling mothers of sick children “crazy”?
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Mike Cernovich is the producer of Hoaxed Movie, which you can watch here.
Excellent explainer.
I knew nothing about it and because ppl are so emotionally charged… I was afraid to even ask ‘what’s it all about?
Thank you for your interest. My oldest son was brain injured by his 1yr shots. He had horrible reactions during/after his 2, 4, 6, 9, months shots including: projectile vomiting, facial palsy, yeast infections, ear infections, high pitched screaming and fevers that would last a week. I was told by our MD who was a family doctor at Kaiser in CA, that all those things were ‘normal after vaccines’. So I kept bringing him back.
By 14mo, my son was walking, talking, pointing, laughing, sleeping, interacting -met all milestones. After his 1yr visit where his doc listed him as normal, healthy, milestones met etc…he gave him, well the LVN gave him the shots:HIB,Flu,DTaP,HepB/Polio,MMR-VAR. That was 1 shot in each appendage with two on the same leg. He screamed, I was a mess, it was awful.
On the way home he screamed that high pitched scream that even a bottle wouldn’t help. Then he fell into a deep sleep that went all night. By 7am my husband went to check on him because Bryan was always awake laughing at Elmo on his TV-that he figured how to turn on from a universal remote I used in his room to watch TV while I fed him when he was a newborn at 3am. But this time there was no happy dance, no arms out “Dada Up Go”. Bryan just laid there. Jon called out Jen! I ran and met him in the hall I took his tiny body back to his crib to get a better look. He was soaked, his green pjs with feet were drenched in sweat-his curly brown hair was shiny like after a bath and he was limp. He was alive but quiet with his limp arms by his sides and fists clenched. As I changed him he felt like a hot potato, his temp was 104, then 105 we were going to the ER. He looked like he had a seizure but we never knew. His brain was swollen and his left side drooped from his forehead to his toes, he couldn’t walk, he dragged his body, his smile was crooked, his eye barely shut. He would cover it with his hand when he slept to try to close it. The ER nurse whispered-“did he just have shots?” “Yesterday”, I answered. She said quietly “you should report this to VAERS vaccine adverse events reporting system”. She handed me a handwritten note that had the number on it. I had no idea what she was talking about, I am a BSN-RN, why didn’t know there was a phone number to report vaccine injury? All I knew they were safe and effective. The ER doc said he would report to VAERS system but he didn’t. He and the staff did think it was due to his shots but never put that in the notes. After some time hospital sent us home with steroids, antibiotics and tylenol/advil to help his symptoms. Later, neurological specialists were sure the shots were the cause due to his type of injury and his previous reactions to his shots since birth. But I could have told them that.
Our son Bryan that we new for 14 months never really woke back up that day after his shots. He was a different person. Bryan had regressed, losing walking, talking until he grunted, slowly he stopped pointing, stopped hugging me, started shaking his fist in front of his face and his personality was different. His ear infections and yeast infections got worse, he was pooping 6-10 times per day something so awful and acidic I actually brought in a diaper so my doctor would believe me. That smell could clear a room. It was C.diff, a rare infection for a 1yr old, usually something I saw on the aids wards of the past, or in the very old that had compromised immune systems. He continued to be ill, year after year, doctors galore, tests, therapies you name it. My son is 12 now and doing somewhat better, after all our hard work and determination on Bryan/s part, he did get his language back but he has yet to cross a street safely by himself. He can ride a kid’s scooter but doesn’t obey STOP. He will live with us forever so my hubby and I can never die.
SB 277 & 276 has turned our world upside down. Putting the government smack in the middle of our doctors and personal rights.
Bryan’s baby brother Christopher, 8 is healthy and completely not vaccinated. Not because we thought that was cool, it was because our doctors (immune specialists- we left Kaiser 10yrs ago) told us to never vaccinate Bryan again or any siblings… ever. Bryan had reactions to them and since he had so many its hard to tell which ones are ‘safer’ so they said just in case, NONE.
Christopher has been the healthiest kid I have ever seen and I worked in Labor & Delivery with a midwife doing home births plus having Bryan I know what healthy and what not normal is.
Healthy is: No ear infections, no vomiting just some spit-up burps, no pooping up the back out of the diaper explosions, no infections at all. He did catch a cold at 3months when we all had the sniffles but I breastfed him, removed the snot from his nose and used a non toxic menthol on his chest. He got a fever that lasted for about 5 hours, I didn’t use tylenol, by then I knew Fevers are important and are natures way of removing the infection while keeping the good bugs/bacteria/fungus alive, he would be well in a day or two. Amazing what God’s immune system can do without pharma interfering.
Cut to mandates:
277 made us get ME’s which were given by a specialist that understood my oldest kids vaccine reactions, their IgG and IgA issues, our family history of auto immune diseases and even used a blood spot food/environment allergy test and both boys are allergic to gluten, nuts and latex. That explains some of the rashes and asthma in Bryan and Christopher gets an itchy nose around balloons. They both qualified for lifetime medical exemptions, it was not worth the risk of talking the shots.
Of course if you don’t vaccinate you are diligent with D3, A, healthy foods, water, hand washing and knowing when they start to look sick. But the only kids that got chicken pox in Christophers class that year were the ones that just got the VAR vaccine due to SB277. Chris finally got the pox last yr before 1st grade while visiting friends that had it too. ; ) We quarantined him and since my hubby and I had natural chicken pox as 6yr olds it was a good boost to our system to ward off shingles later in life. But that is beside the point.
276 will remove my kids MEs. Why? My oldest had brain swelling that caused brain damage that led to an autism diagnosis. Sen Pan said that anyone with autism will not qualify for an ME and even though my son would probably die after another round of shots, it’s up to a senator and the pharma lobbyists to decide his fate, not his doctors or parents.
My youngest’s ME is preventive. His is based on my oldest son’s brain swelling reaction, called family history. Although SB276 had broad base for MEs that included familial history. That is not considered in the scope if practice from the ACIP and CDC list of reasons to avoid shots, those include already having anaphylaxis or brain swelling from a shot. But even those agencies have stated that these are just guidelines, use your doctors discretion on what is safe etc… But, our doctor said those are the rules and because of 276 doctors can get in huge amounts of costly trouble writing any MEs. Nightmare.
Last month our MD told us he would be leaving CA, although he has never been found to write a ‘fake ME’ he is brought into investigations because of them. He also said he won’t have a CA license as of next yr so we need to get new MEs by then. Well, I have callled far and wide and NO PRACTICE is even examining for ME’s. I am told “We don’t give any medical exemptions no matter the previous injury, how serious it was, if you have a prior ME etc… it is our companies or practice’s POLICY.”
So we are stuck. We DID vaccinate, our child was perm injured for life so he cannot support himself. We will not risk that injury or worse on his brother or him. Even on some random luck we got an ME from a doc willing to jump thru the hoops, they would place our sons records in a county run database (oooh safe) and it would go thru a approve/deny process with county public health nurses and MDs that never met our son. Sounds expensive to tax payers, too many cooks in the kitchen. Imagine using the quality of services similar to the DMV to make important healthcare decisions. It’s the reason I pay extra to be able to do car license stuff thru private Auto Club. They know more, higher quality and things are more efficient.
So, we are forced to homeschool, even though no one has caught a single vaccine “preventable” infection from a single vaccine free child. Not a one. The freshly vaccinated are the ones we as nurses were taught to fear, we always ask to leave your newly vaccinated kids at home if visiting the hospital or the immune compromised. So how is it a classroom filled with newly shot up kids will protect the immune compromised? It’s safer cuz its at school and not a hospital room? Maybe it’s safer cuz some guy with a lab coat on channel 4 told us so.
That’s just as crazy as my vaccine free 8yr old, who has never infected one person with any vaccine childhood infection, is accused of spreading measles or pertussis without a single symptom of fever, rash. You can’t give someone an infection that you don’t have yourself.
But what will really blow your mind is the multiple scientific articles from reputable journals that show the DTaP actually makes the person who gets that vaccine an “a-symptomatic carrier” of the infection. So the vaccinated doesn’t get the cough, it just has pertussis living in her throat breathing on everyone around them.
What? My cough free, shot free kid can’t give you whooping cough, but a fully vaccinated person with the DTaP vaccine carries the infection around in it’s throat and breathing passages for a month or more, without the “warning” cough so the person doesn’t know to stay home & get better. She just “spreads and sheds” pertussis all over everyone, including babies so young/tiny their airways have issues clearing the mucus in the cough so it can be deadly? Wow. Weird, I thought Gramma without the vaccine was the wolf in the commercial, I guess it’s the vaccine that wears the big teeth and Grannies glasses…
So pharmaceutical companies AND our government lie to us about the vaccine program just like they did about opiates, vioxx and a bunch of other things I am sure most of you know or suspect.
Why on earth are my children the villains, I am a ‘crazy anti-vaxxer’ and big pharma is an angel from heaven when it comes to this liability free product? Same as the next thing: Money & Power.
Thanks for listening.
Thank you .Heartbreaking but beautifully written ! Simple facts. I shall pass your story on .So sorry for what has happened to you and your family .
Thank you for sharing
I want to pass some information along as it seems to be relevant to the events of the day. Particularly why no other media outlets covered such a far reaching and draconian piece of legislation. See bullet 10 below from this link:
https://www.ncsu.edu/free-speech/
Which types of speech are not protected by the First Amendment?
Broadly speaking, the First Amendment protects all types of speech, but exceptions do exist. Types of speech that are not protected by the First Amendment include the following:
• Incitements of violence or lawless action: There is no right to incite people to break the law, including to commit acts of violence. For an action to constitute incitement, the Supreme Court of the United States has determined that there must be a substantial likelihood of imminent illegal activity, and the speech must be directed to causing imminent illegal activity. For example, a speaker on campus who exhorts the audience to engage in acts of vandalism and destruction of property is not protected by the First Amendment if there is a substantial likelihood of imminent illegal activity.
• Fighting words: Speech that is personally or individually abusive and is likely to incite imminent physical retaliation.
• True threats: Statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals. The speaker does not have to act on his or her words (e.g., commit a violent act) in order to communicate a true threat. For example, if a group of students yelled at a student in a menacing way that would cause the student to fear a physical assault, such speech would not be protected.
• Obscenity: Speech or materials may be deemed obscene (and therefore unprotected) if the speech meets the following (extremely high) threshold: It (1) appeals to the “prurient” interest in sex, (2) is patently offensive by community standards and (3) lacks literary, scientific or artistic value.
• Defamation: An intentional and false statement about an individual that is publicly communicated in written (called “libel”) or spoken (called “slander”) form, causing injury to the individual.
• Harassment: Conduct based on a protected category that is so severe, pervasive and objectively offensive, and that so undermines and detracts from the victim’s educational experience, that the victim is effectively denied equal access to an institution’s resources and opportunities.
• False advertising: A knowingly untruthful or misleading statement about a product or service.
• Certain symbolic actions: But only if the actions are otherwise illegal, such as tagging, graffiti, littering or burning a cross on private property.
• Child pornography
• Interference with medical treatment: Speech that interferes with the treatment of patients.
• Invasion of privacy: An unjustifiable invasion of privacy or confidentiality not involving a matter of public concern.
• Material and substantial disruption: An action that materially and substantially disrupts the functioning of the university or that substantially interferes with the protected free expression rights of others.
Historically, the Supreme Court has defined these terms very narrowly, limiting the authority of the government and public officials to prohibit or prosecute speech, even if it appears to fall into one of these categories.
Godspeed a constitutional amendment to the Bill of Rights for healthcare freedom.
Thank you for being brave and objective enough to write a few facts and try to shed a little light on what vax injured families are going through.
We were pro-vax. My oldest 2 were mostly vaxxed (I felt chicken pox vax was silly and had read info on meningitis vax reactions that concerned me so we didn’t do those). My oldest had mild-moderate reactions: constant ear infections that nearly took his hearing and memory loss that began after a bad reaction to Prevnar. My younger son had a severe reaction that began in pediatrician office immediately following his shots; pediatrician said was normal and nurses shoved us out of office and locked door because his screaming was upsetting other patients. His reaction grew worse; pediatrician threatened CPS if we went to ER. Later that evening his heart stopped; luckily my best friend (an RN) resuscitated him. Next morning all his limbs were flaccid, eye contact and speech gone—it took years to recover those skills. Every doctor and specialist we’ve seen has stated more shots could kill him; yet they will not write medical exemption for fear of losing their license (this is in Ohio for over a decade before things became totally insane). We homeschool and provide services as best we can because he was bullied by students and staff in public school because they felt they could get away with it since he couldn’t speak (my sister and uncle worked at school and clued me in); he had regressed further in that setting. We have great difficulties obtaining medical care for his many medical needs now; his immune and GI systems tanked after his reaction. We have had our lives threatened by coworkers and people we once thought of as friends (not to mention the many random people online); yet our son had as many shots by time of his reaction as we had by age 18 and we are somehow considered safe to be around. Vax injured children are becoming one of our largest minorities and need to start being protected.
Really looking forward to Audacity Mike! Got excited about it when you mentioned it on a podcast. Any idea what the time frame would be for release?
Work in medical labs and hold two degrees in biology. Your article and facts are spot-on. I’m not
“anti-vaccine” as I have received a few shots (including hep B vaccines) over the years. I also was given the oral polio and smallpox shots in the early 1960’s. However, got those when I was too young to form IgG antibodies against those viruses – so why give them at such a young age if they’re not effective? Must be big Pharma profit! Same group that promoted soy formula over breast milk for kids born in the 50’s and 60’s. Remember that?
Why are some newborns getting vaccines? (hepatitis B). Sure, half of the shot given consists of passive antibody against the virus which will last a few months so that’s fine esp. if the mother has Hep B or she has no antibodies herself. However, newborns naturally get passive antibodies from mother’s placenta while in the womb and afterwards from her breast milk. Those protective antibodies last months until baby can form their own antibodies.
The problem is this: the remainder of the Hep B shot given is actually a vaccine meant to stimulate the child’s immune system and trigger both IgM and IgG responses. There’s only one problem: newborns can’t form IgG response (long-term protection) until they’re at least 5 months to 1 year of age (depending on the individual). They do form weak IgM antibodies (the initial antibody response) at the get-go but even the IgM response is very weak compared to that of an older child (>1 year of age). Is it a good idea to aggressively stimulate an immature immune system unnecessarily? That’s a question I have for immunologists. The adjuvants used in vaccines basically induce an “angry” response to the antigen in the vaccine to “encourage” the immune system to form antibodies. Could that be damaging to so young a child – a baby whose immune system can’t respond appropriately anyway?
I no longer get flu shots – stopped those years ago and must now undergo the punitive measure of wearing an N95 mask at the hospital ~6 months out of the year. I have not gotten the flu in years
(got it twice and shockingly, managed to live with no ill effect). Meanwhile, my vaccinated colleagues (more than a few) have gotten sick with – the flu.
Thanks for bringing this very serious issue to the forefront. BTW, the Japanese do not mandate vaccination so far as I know and they’re pretty tech-savvy and not a backwards nation. Plus their population is healthier.
As a parent of a vaccine injured child and the author of The Vaccine Court, Mike Cernovich brings together of why parents fight for their children and what they are facing with a very corrupt system. Bravo!!!
Thank you for Unbiased journalism when no one else will even listen to what has happened to our kids when we DID vaccinate. I can’t believe segregation is back and legal again in 2019!
I am a Trump supporter. I’ve been studying vaccines and their effects for 30 yrs. now. The DEEP STATE BIG PHARMA is using vaccines for evil reasons. Some vaccines are beneficial, but many are not. For one thing, there is Aborted Fetal DNA in vaccines changing the sex of children from the inside since they get so many vaccines in their growing years. I see the damage the vaccines do daily when I work with vaccines injured adults. The Deep State worships Moloch- FACT- and Moloch is male /female. Just like what you see today BOOMING… Transgenders are being created!!!!
Welcome to yet another deep rabbit hole. As an ex vaxxer I am called “anti vax” . It’s rather annoying but I’ve gotten rather used to being “that mom” as I advocate For my son in the public school un-special education system for students with disabilities. This is the First article I’ve read about SB276 that didn’t make me want to vomit. Thankx so much for covering such an important topic
Spot on!
Disappointed that you had to throw in an insult to pro-Trump voters. Do you really think that all of those for Trump are for vaccines? I’ve heard from two prominent conservatives that they believe it’s all leftists who are against vaccines. These views are ridiculous! Vaccine injury and therefore vaccine OPINION are BLIND to political views. Please leave that misinformation out next time.
Thank you! Thank you for being brave enough to ask these questions knowing that you will be targeted by doing so. We are not ANTI-Vaxxers. We are mostly EX-Vaxxers! We are PRO Medical Freedom! What you are seeing is an incremental removal of our rights. And we will fight this and win!
What to correct you on the “manufacturer may be held liable” part- that was struck down by the US Supreme Court- now they can’t be held liable AT ALL- not even in civil court.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-court-vaccine-ruling-parents-cant-sue-drug-makers-for-kids-health-problems/
“I find it hilarious that my mostly pro-Trump readers SCREAM about “anti-vaxxers” when those MAGA types have received nearly all of their “knowledge” about vaccines from the “fake news media.””
This is the most amusing part of this whole thing. You have Democratic politicians believing that only crazy right wingers who listen to Alex Jones disagree with forced vaccination, and so they push forced vaccination, not realizing that the vast majority of people who don’t get vaccinations live in the great liberal utopias of California, Oregon, and Washington on the LEFT coast.
The reason why it is mostly liberals not getting vaccinated is because the liberal brain doesn’t perceive the threat of disease. We know this from scientific studies on the subject of brain structure and political affiliation.
The vast majority of people on both sides of this issue failed high school biology and have never opened a biochemistry textbook in their lives. Due to our New Modern Mindlessness culture, that doesn’t stop them from speaking on the subject one way or the other.
Let’s get something straight, I am a libertarian minarchist who believes firmly in the sovereignty of the individual. What does or does not go in my body is my choice. I am also NOT, I repeat, NOT responsible for other people’s health or well being. If you have an auto-immune disorder, then that is YOUR problem, not mine. If you insist on making it my problem, then YOU are a TYRANT. Period. And I will fight to the death to oppose tyranny.
That said, I am fully vaccinated. I even got the Hep A vaccine recently because I was born before 1995 when vaccinating for Hep A became common, and because of the disgusting homeless situation in California we now have an epidemic of Hep A being spread in major cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco. I PROACTIVELY sought out this vaccination, even though no doctor I’ve ever talked to has ever asked me about it or prompted me to get vaccinated for this disease. I wouldn’t have even been aware of the issue had it not been for news reports about the Hep A epidemic in California.
I also got the Rabies vaccine recently, because as I correctly predicted some time back, people (liberals mostly) are no longer vaccinating their pets for Rabies, so Rabies will soon be making a comeback in cities when it had been banished to the countryside by proper pet vaccination.
I have had a blood test to confirm that I have anti-bodies to both Hep A and Rabies. The vaccines WORKED, and I have had no side effects. I believe that more people should be tested for anti-bodies, in fact this would be a valuable way that the medical profession could convince people that vaccines actually do something and aren’t just sugar water being injected into people’s arms to scam them.
If you study the literature on the subject and become informed of the health risks of various diseases, then you WILL come to the conclusion that the intelligent choice is to vaccinate. There is ONE EXCEPTION TO THIS: some families appear to be genetically susceptible to having adverse reactions to vaccines. If your family has a history of bad reactions to vaccines, then it’s probably a good idea to avoid vaccination. No matter what, it should always be YOUR RIGHT TO CHOOSE, even if you are choosing to be stupid.
What we need are further studies into WHY exactly some people have adverse reactions to vaccines, and others do not. If we could develop tests to determine who will likely have bad reactions to vaccines and who won’t, then we could dramatically reduce vaccine injury and give further reassurance to other people that it is okay for them to be vaccinated. It is the RISK involved that is turning people away from vaccines, which is a somewhat understandable reaction when you don’t PERCEIVE the threat of disease because the disease has all but vanished from your daily life and/or you have a disposition due to your brain structure to not perceive the threat regardless of its presence in your environment.
As far as certain weirdness like the laws prevent pharmaceutical companies from being sued, well, there ARE some good arguments for that. If it’s too prohibitively expensive for pharmaceutical companies to develop and sell vaccines because of our idiotically lawsuit obsessed culture and legal environment, then we lose out on important medicines that DO SAVE LIVES. On the other hand, this does create the need for additional scrutiny on pharmaceutical companies to ensure that they are adopting best practices and using the most up-to-date technology to produce vaccines. There are plenty of cases in recent years of bad pharmaceuticals causing death and injury, for example hormone injections produced on equipment contaminated with fungal mold growth.
Even things like thiomersal have their benefits. ANY amount of mercury is toxic to the body, true, however the reason why thiomersal began to be used in vaccines was to sterilize the vaccine and ensure that no bacteria contaminates from the production of the vaccine would be present. This was a problem historically with a number of vaccines that killed a lot of people because of contamination. THIOMERSAL SAVED LIVES by providing effective sterilization to create safer vaccines. Yes, we have better technology now so we don’t need thiomersal anymore, and that is why it has been phased out.
One last issue I would like to bring up is the concept of herd immunity. It’s important to recognize that SOME vaccines DO NOT PROVIDE HERD IMMUNITY, for example most TDaP vaccines (Tetanus, Diphtheria, and Pertussis) only contain a partial vaccine for Tetanus and not the whole bacterial organism. This vaccine ONLY provides immunity to the Pertussis toxoid (the causative agent of whooping cough) and NOT to the Pertussis bacterium itself. Thus, you can actually be a carrier for Pertussis bacteria and infect other people around you (similar to the case of Typhoid Mary) while being asymptomatic because your body deactivates and destroys the toxin that would make you sick. This is even explained in the vaccine insert if anybody bothers to read it, and it is also explained on Wikipedia entries concerning the subject. I have seen literally ZERO “EXPERTS” ever acknowledge this fact, and many use the TDaP vaccine as an example of providing herd immunity against Pertussis/whooping cough when it does no such thing.
The point is, this is a THREE DIMENSIONAL issue that requires some degree of education on the subject and a genuine effort to understand it. Like I said before, I firmly believe in the individual’s right to choose. That said, just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Yes, you can refuse vaccination, and if you have a family history of adverse reactions then that is probably the right choice. But for most of us, we SHOULD be getting our vaccinations, for our own benefit if not for others.
Here is a fairly good video on the subject that doesn’t bring up every important point here but does address many of them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBkVCpbNnkU
If one believes in vaccines and gets vaccinated then he has nothing to fear of those who choose to go unvaccinated. God gave us free will, freedom to choose, and no one has been anointed to override God’s gifts. Yes, I disagree with KMJ and Philip Teresi. No one has the right to deny me my free will.j
First and foremost, there is a distinct difference between what society colloquially refers to as being “Anti-Vaxx”, and having a child that should not be vaccinated for actual medical issues. Reading this article, you seem to be speaking with the latter group more so than the former, and given that, I do agree that there do need to be exceptions given for mandatory vaccinations to those who are likely to have an adverse reaction, those with compromised immune systems, (this one will get me labeled anti-vaxx as well) and those who deeply hold a religious objection to the practice.
That said, there are a significant amount of individuals who actively spread falsehoods regarding vaccination. There is significant proof that many formerly widespread diseases being eradicated or nearly so by the practice. There is also significant evidence indicating that we do *not* require 100% vaccination rates for them to be effective. Lastly, and this saddens me a great deal more than individuals who are falsely maligned for not vaccinating, there is mounting evidence in the form of disease outbreaks in communities where a significant portion of individuals elect not to vaccinate when they are not restricted from doing so due to reasons I have previously mentioned.
At this point, I would like to express my distress as to the numerous false equivalences you make in this article.
“When people start freaking out about vaccines, I ask them to name some brands of childrens’ toys. The fact is that most have no idea what’s in vaccines. They don’t even know who makes something as safe and widespread as baby formula.”
I have three children. Before my divorce, I step-parented two more from a young age. I could not name toy brands beyond those seemingly everyone knows, and I know precisely one name brand of formula. My lack of knowledge on those two fronts has nothing to do with the research I have done on vaccinations. And why should it? There is no correlation between those two things at all.
“Vaccine manufactures cannot be sued.
What? Yes, fact-check that one. The The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act
Provides that no vaccine manufacturer shall be liable in a civil action for damages arising from a vaccine-related injury or death: (1) resulting from unavoidable side effects; or (2) solely due to the manufacturer’s failure to provide direct warnings. Provides that a manufacturer may be held liable where: (1) such manufacturer engaged in the fraudulent or intentional withholding of information; or (2) such manufacturer failed to exercise due care. Permits punitive damages in such civil actions under certain circumstances.”
This is also a blatant falsehood. In fact, you included the exemption in declaring it to be false. Manufacturers may absolutely be held liable in cases of fraud or intentional withholding of information, or cases where they do not exercise due care. Either of those cases would permit a judge to award punitive damages to a plaintiff. Holding them liable in cases where they have done all due diligence and complied with all relevant regulations is pure insanity.
“You’re not allowed to even ask questions like:
If vaccine manufacturers can’t be held liable for their products, what incentives do they have? Vaccines are a highly profitable industry. Are we supposed to trust the same industry that gave us Vioxx and opioids with our children’s safety? If so, why? Explain your answer.
Why does the CDC own patents for vaccines?
Why aren’t vaccines sold as a non-profit product? If your answer is, “Because then there wouldn’t be any incentive for BigPharma to make new vaccines,” then doesn’t your claim that drug companies just really really really care about children fall apart?
How can you be pro-choice and support women’s rights while calling mothers of sick children “crazy”?”
There is a reason that these questions are looked down upon. Anyone asking them is either ignorant and should educate themselves prior to asking, or has chosen to be deliberately misleading in asking them.
First, profitability. Nowhere in this article do you mention actual bottom line profit; all of your numbers are top-line revenue figures. This is incredibly disingenuous, because top-line revenue is completely divorced from bottom-line profit. Before you can call revenue profit, you must account for R&D expenditures, salaries for those who develop the pharmaceutical in question, you must ensure you are able to bankroll the next pharmaceutical’s development. After that, you have to ensure enough liquidity for the eventuality that you erred in development and are held liable for injuries. None of these things are cheap. To use Merck as an example, they reported revenues of $42B for fiscal year 2018. Net income for that same year was $6B. $5B was returned to shareholders in the form of cash dividends. As an aside, most large cap stocks such as Merck are held in significant amounts by institutional investors; if you have a 401k or similar retirement savings account, there is a very high likelyhood you are a shareholder of Merck or some other similar company, and returning that much to investors is quite good for you.
Second; yes, the CDC holds patents. They do so in order to fund continuing operations.
Third; using Merck as an example again, their vaccinations accounted for ~$6B of $42B, or less than 15% of total revenues. If you want to limit that number to strictly human vaccinations, it’s $~6B of $37B; roughly 16%. As you can see, vaccines are not likely to represent a significant amount of pharmaceutical sales revenue; $960M of their $6B net income, and only 160M of their $1B left after distributions to shareholders. However, this is not even the most important reason for vaccines not being available as a not-for-profit item; it is plainly illegal for Merck, or any other publicly traded company to do so. Publicly traded companies have a legally binding fiduciary duty to owners (again, most likely including you or any one who has a retirement savings account) in terms of pursuing profitability and returning value to shareholders. Operating as not-for-profit in any aspect is a complete violation of that, and would leave them subject to sanction by the SEC. Ultimately you can distill all of this to “incentive to develop new pharmaceuticals”. However, your appeal to emotion is still invalid here; Merck as well as other companies are able to operate significant amounts of philanthropic efforts from the profits they enjoy.
Fourth; This is probably your most egregious fallacy in your article. Not only is it an appeal to emotion, but it is an appeal based on false equivalency. As I mentioned previously, there are most certainly irrational individuals who hold the position you posit here. However, because their position is also irrational or illogical, it is discarded as such. As with any disparate positions that do not have a correlative or causative relationship, you can hold a position in support of logical, well reasoned mandatory vaccination practices while being pro-choice and supporting women’s rights.
In conclusion, you would do well to educate yourself, as you claim so many are in need of. Make a logical, rational argument without resorting to emotional appeals, or false equivalence. In doing so, you’ll do mothers and fathers with legitimate reasons to avoid vaccinating their children a world of good.