And After Vacation Came...

I don't really know if anyone still reads this blog, and I myself haven't had the stamina or heart to think about the topic for quite some time. I haven't added anything since July 7th, because after we got back from vacation, we sold our house, packed it all up, moved, found out we were pregnant, and this blog's author just has no energy for this right now.

I don't know when I will post again, but to all who have come across these pages as searching parents, I encourage you to keep researching. You'll know you've hit home when your blood pressure rises every time you think about the topic! There's just too much cash involved and not enough accountability. I truly believe the people in the system have good intentions (doctors, nurses, many public health officials), but the system matrix is broken. The stuff trickling down from the top rungs of public health authority and the drug industry has soured the whole lot, and we trusting parents are just along for the ride.

I started researching vaccines even though my public health background taught me all was normal and safe. I now find myself in an uncharted frontier, where I don't automatically trust what I read (on either side). But I also find I can never go back to thinking that vaccines are safe for everyone nor as necessary as we've been told. I certainly don't have all the answers, but I know a lot more than I used to. And when I am tempted to fear I am making wrong decisions, I just have to remember the God who is sovereign over my children's lives. My faith cannot ultimately be in my decisions or my information, but it must rest solely in the person of Christ.

"Those who know Your name will trust in You, for You, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek You." ~ Psalm 9:10

Vacation

(Or will it be more like this? ...)

Here's hoping Bertha sizzles out.

Question:

Why not get rid of "vaccine court" and bring paid lawyers back on the job for vaccine-injured childen?

(Currently, families who want to pursue legal recourse for vaccine injury must find a lawyer who will work for free for them for as long as it takes to win their case in the government's vaccine court. The government's lawyers are, of course, paid.)

It is just wrong that American citizens have to use this broken system to get justice.

But anyway, this post was originally going to be about HPV Vaccine. Read this: http://vaccineawakening.blogspot.com/2008/07/hpv-vaccine-victims-pile-up-15b-for.html

Also, check out this blog: http://www.jenjensfamily.blogspot.com/ The family wants to be clear that they are not pointing fingers at the HPV vaccine as causing their daughter's paralysis. But it seems to me, from looking at the sheer number of adverse events being reported to our public health authorities, that Jenny is definitely not alone. Lord, please heal her body. Please spare young girls from harm and bring justice to those whose carelessness is hurting others!

Related story:
HPV Vaccine Linked to Teen's Paralysis? (CBS News, 7/7/08)
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/07/earlyshow/health/main4236581.shtml

Added to Side Bar: Evidence of Harm

I would absolutely love, love, love to see David Kirby speak sometime. What a great American.

http://evidenceofharm.com/

A Fair Article

The angst I always feel before reading a vaccine article in the mainstream press dissipated after a few sentences here. I am glad Julie Deardorff is approaching this on the level: it's not supposed to be "parents vs. the medical community." This vaccine issue is about parents learning about real information and growing concerned that our medical authorities aren't being straight with us. We deserve better.

Here is Julie's artice as printed in the Chicago Tribune today:

The AAP gets tough on vaccine dissenters
The American Academy of Pediatrics is growing so concerned about the climbing rate of vaccine exemptions--and the possible affect on community health--that it recently formed a group called the "Immunization Alliance" to address the growing refusal of some parents to vaccinate.
In a letter sent to members, the AAP identified the following as problems:
"Parent-to-parent spread of myths."
"A public that does not understand the risk of vaccine-preventable diseases."
"Unbalanced Internet and media exposure."
"Decreased trust in the government and health care providers."
"Slow response to negative news coverage."
"Increasing calls for philosophical exemptions."
But here's a problem the AAP missed: The sheer number of recommended and mandated vaccines is freaking parents out. And new combo shots that contain a stew of four or five different vaccines aren't going to help matters.
In 1982, The Centers for Disease Control recommended 23 doses of 7 vaccines for children up to age 6.
Today, the CDC recommends that children get 48 doses of 12 vaccines by age 6. That's a lot. Toss in flu shots for all infants and children and it boosts the number of recommended vaccines for children to 69 doses of 16 vaccines by age 18.
The two new combo shots approved yesterday by a federal advisory panel don't change the schedule; they just reduce the number of individual shots. GlaxoSmithKline's four-in-one shot offers protection against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis and polio. Sanofi Pasteur's five-in-one shot is for diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio and illness due to Haemophilus influenzae type b, or HiB.
But parents who are already asking doctors to unbundle the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine because they want their child to have individual vaccines aren't likely to embrace a five-shot cocktail. The new shots are also likely to raise questions, concerns and storage issues.
And how does the AAP plan to handle it? The organization will not talk about choice or informed consent, issues that should be raised with any medical procedure that carries a risk.
Instead, the AAP suggests in a sample letter to pediatricians, that physicians tell parents who refuse to vaccinate that they have a "self-centered and unacceptable attitude" since your child is getting protection from others who have chosen to vaccinate.
And if you absolutely refuse to vaccinate your child despite your physician's efforts, you could be booted from your pediatrician's practice. The sample letter to doctors from the AAP recommends saying:
"We will ask you to find another health care provider who shares your views. We do not keep a list of such providers nor would we recommend any such physician."

Perceptions vs. Reality

My husband and I just finished reading a children's book, Chasing Vermeer, for a project he was working on. It sounds silly to read 5th-grade novels, but it's actually pretty fun. We did the same thing with some of the Narnia and Harry Potter books, taking turns reading them out loud.

Anyway, the book got me thinking about vaccines many times, because the characters often wonder if the things they see are real or not. It references a real life book written by a man named Charles Fort, who collected at least 294 newspaper articles documenting showers of living things (frogs falling from the sky and that sort of thing). (It turns out Fort still has a following today, though he died in 1932.) Fort wrote that it seemed the common practice of humans was to process unexplained events or facts through the conclusions we already held about life, rather than starting with the facts and drawing conclusions (I paraphrase; the book is currently at class with my hubbie, so I can't quote it).

One of the characters in the book, at one point, feels that he has fallen into a puzzle and cannot get out. I, too, have had days where it felt like that. I have often wondered if all the research I am doing is "real," or is the perception I had before (that vaccines are generally safe) the more accurate one?

I lay in bed the other night with a scene from Disney's Alice in Wonderland in my head: Alice in the dark forest, walking a path that is in the process of being completely erased by some strange, four-footed creature with a broom for a face. The creature makes its way around her, leaving her standing on one square of path with no clue as to how to get out of the forest.

It seems like a scary place to be, not knowing where you came from or where you should go. But then, I thought, maybe we need more moments like that in life. If we don't have the "Think This Way" path in front of us, then we are forced to examine information and forge our own path.

Now, I'm not saying that all areas of life are open for re-writing. I am pretty orthodox in my beliefs, especially regarding right and wrong. But are there certain things where our thinking has been shaped by an outside force that isn't necessarily trustworthy?

It is hard to get a firm intellectual grasp on vaccine safety now. The information is very controlled. I used to think that my doctor would always know exactly what was correct, but I am beginning to see that doctors only have so much time and are most likely reading the newsletters they receive from the American Academy of Pediatrics, the CDC, or whatever other medical organizations they belong to.

When my doctor, the CDC and the AAP say that serious reactions are rare, I can't take it at face value anymore. How rare? What are the numbers? Are those pre-market numbers or post-market? When will the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System ever contain accurate numbers? Where is the paper trail for vaccine injury, and why isn't it discussed in the press? Why is vaccine injury hidden from the public? Because medical "authorities" do not trust us to decide for ourselves? No wonder we have such misconceptions about vaccines.

Why haven't the multiple vaccines in the vaccine schedule ever been tested together? Why aren't many vaccines tested for carcinogenicity before going to market? Do vaccines even work that well? How well? Why are there so many accounts of measles outbreaks among the highly vaccinated? Are the public's (and the scientific community's) perceptions of vaccine effectiveness completely wrong? Is it true what Dr. Robert Mendelsohn wrote in 1984, that no vaccine can be credited with eliminating any disease? Is it true that these diseases were on their way out before the vaccines were invented? (I have read much about this and it is shocking!) It is so hard to believe that we are vaccinating for no good reason! But what if it is true? What if we gave alllllll the numbers to little Alice on her square to calculate? What path would she re-write, and would it amaze us?

The AAP recently wrote that parents who question vaccinating simply don't understand things. They are not experts. They are selfish. Their decisions are emotional. My question is, do I not deserve to know everything? Why should the AAP and CDC make my decision for me? Why do they get to tell me what reality is? Such control of information is not fit for America.

The other day I read a TIME magazine article (dated June 2nd) titled "How Safe Are Vaccines?" In the subheading, it noted that parents are concerned about autism and are declining shots. Then it said, "What the science says about the real risks - and what you should do about it." Of course, the "experts" at TIME told me to get the shots and stop worrying (in a nutshell). (And cited the same old, faulty autism/thimerosal studies the government has been using for years.) Well, I guess I am a hard sell for TIME and whoever else commiserated to write that article (Dr. Paul Offit was quoted as always); I have a brain of my own and plan to draw my own conclusions based on the science they weren't so eager to publish. The perceptions I have regarding vaccine safety just won't fit into that neat little model of theirs anymore.

Does that make me a renegade? A fool? Or maybe a "fearless thinker," as one of the Chasing Vermeer kids called Charles Fort? (ha ha - I really don't know much about this Fort guy and say that somewhat in jest ... I'm not sure I want to align myself with him!) I read a quote in TIME that I've pondered for a few days -- a mom, whose son almost died from a vaccine-preventable bacterial infection after they elected not to get his shots, said she was "angry" that people are out there spreading information that would cause parents not to vaccinate. I felt for her as a fellow mother, and would definitely be shaken up if that happened to my child. I am sorry they went through that. I pictured her face looking angrily at me if she knew who was behind this blog. It made me want to be really sure I am sticking to facts, but not apologizing for them. I just can't see how turning a blind eye to the risks of vaccine injury is the solution.

As someone wrote recently on another blog, parents who don't vaccinate "know they are playing Russian Roulette with their child's health." Yes, the decision is emotional. It is hard to know if there are shots we should decline. But there needs to be room in this country for more than one answer. We allow many freedoms and many "ways of being" in this nation. American society assumes that not everyone believes the same things. It needs to be just as politically correct here.

Washington 101 (Part 1)

I am constantly feeling like I want to DO something whenever I read about parental rights being threatened, vaccines harming children, or normal Americans being marginalized for questioning the untested vaccine schedule. Having a 14-month-old in the house, however, largely hinders me from doing much. Congressmen and lobbyists go on about their inside-the-beltway, day-to-day politics, and little moms from small-town America can easily be ignored.

But ... that doesn't mean we don't speak up anyway. A few years working in a lobbying organization in DC taught me a small bit, and I wanted to post a few more useful links.

1) Finding your officials is probably the easiest and most important first step. Once you know their names, you're well on your way. Congress.org allows you to type in your zip code and instantly see who your federal and state officials are. (There's a box on the left side of the page, and at the top right inside the navigation bar.)

2) Now that you have your representatives' names, just write down this phone number and keep it handy: Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121. When your call is answered, just say to the operator, "Senator _____'s office, please," or "Could you please direct me to Representative _______?" or something to that effect.

Sometimes this number gets very busy and it's hard to get through. You can try this number in addition: (202) 225-3121, and you can always use the House.gov or the Senate.gov Web sites to find additional phone numbers and email addresses for your legislators.

... Now, this may be elementary to most, but just as a refresher, every American has two Senators (no matter where you live in your state, your Senators are the same -- there are 2 for each of the 50 states) and one Representative in the House (different depending on your geographic location). All in all there are 535 members of Congress - 100 in the Senate and 435 in the House.

Tips on calling your Representatives/Senators:

- Don't be afraid to pick up the phone on the spur of the moment to voice your opinion. Your legislators work for you. I preach to myself when I say we need to make our voices heard. It literally could take only one or two minutes to call and speak three sentences while you're washing your dishes.

- The phone is probably being answered by a college-aged intern or an entry-level staff member (though sometimes the higher-ranked staff answer). This person may sound completely disinterested, but don't let that hinder you from saying all you want to say. Even if they only write down part of your comments or merely make a hash mark next to a topic showing that their boss got a call, your call is better than no call, and if asked for details later, they may recall some of what you said. Remember to be polite!

- This person also may not be able to explain the Rep./Senator's positions or answer "why" questions, such as, "So why did your boss vote in favor of such-and-such?" You can try, but don't be surprised if they keep mum.

- If you have lots of questions, ask if you can speak with the L.A. (legislative assistant) who works on (whatever issue). You might even be able to find a name before calling by going to the representative's Web site and looking up staff and issues. Some members provide this information. If your issue is vaccine safety, this topic may fall under something broader like "Health and Human Services." If you aren't sure, you can always just ask the person on the phone. ("Which L.A. can I speak to regarding ______?")

In-person visits can sometimes be scheduled in your vicinity when your federal Representative/Senator is home for a recess (such as in August). Or, you can call the local office and ask about meeting with staff regarding an issue anytime. Be sure to have clear talking points and handouts ready if you decide to pursue this route.

Next "Washington 101": How to Research Congressional Bills