Guillain-Barre Syndrome after flu shot

Thanks for the link, Brian.

Funny, it's never the vaccine's fault. No, in this case, the man supposedly had a "rare disease" that was triggered by the flu shot. Oh, and a mystery study in 1976 said the chance of developing this was "one in a million." Where's the credibility? And what about all those girls getting Guillain-Barre from their Gardasil vaccines? And all the other vaccines with Guillain-Barre listed as a side effect? No, but it's not the vaccine. The benefits always outweigh the risks. You may be paralyzed or have chronic lifetime arthritis (another auto-immune disorder), but at least you might not get the flu or whatever.

Canadian Man Paralyzed for 5 Months After Flu Shot
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,443725,00.html

A Canadian man says a rare disease triggered by the flu shot left him paralyzed for five months, cbcnews.ca reported Wednesday.
Richard Ryan, 44, from New Westminster in British Columbia, said within two weeks of receiving his flu shot last year he was in the hospital with excruciating pain.
Although he initially thought the cause of his pain was a back injury, doctors isolated the problem as Guillain-Barre syndrome, an autoimmune disease that attacks the nervous system.
A 1976 study determined that the odds of developing the syndrome from the flu shot was 1-in-a million, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports on its Web site. The CDC said most people who develop the disease from the flu shot recover completely, while some have lasting nerve damage. In very rare cases, it may result in death.
In addition to pain, Ryan also suffered from numbness and breathing problems. He spent 10 weeks in the hospital, including three weeks in intensive care, cbcnews.ca reported. One year later he remains heavily medicated, unable to work, and has memory problems.
Despite Ryan's experience, Dr. Danuta Skowronski, an epidemiologist at the British Columbia Center for Disease Control, told cbcnews.ca the benefits of the flu vaccine still outweigh the risks for most people.

Parents Protest in New Jersey

[Suggested action item: Call New Jersey Assemblywoman Charlotte Vandervalk and thank her for standing up for informed consent and freedom of choice on vaccination: (201) 666-0881. Even if you don't live there, what happens in other states affects us all. Then call your local state representative and urge him or her to protect freedom of choice on vaccination in your state.]

From The Record:

Protesters rally at State House over state-mandated vaccines
Friday, October 17, 2008
BY ELISE YOUNG
TRENTON BUREAU

About 500 activists rallied outside the State House on Thursday, many with children who they said developed autism and other disorders after state-mandated immunizations.
"The shots just have to stop," said Lisa Driscoll of Maplewood, who brought her 4-year-old son Matt. "He's allergic to everything in the shots."
For years, activists across the country have protested compulsory vaccines for such diseases as chicken pox, flu, rubella and polio.
Some suspect that mercury-derived preservatives in some formulas trigger autism and other neurological ailments. Others say they're not opposed to vaccines in general, but they want to choose when and if their children will receive them.
But public-health officials say that children who have no immunity to common diseases are a risk to themselves and others.
The officials say that vaccination programs' achievements, such as the global eradication of deadly smallpox, far outweigh rare side effects. They say the federal government has identified no scientific link between the preservatives and autism.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in a program called Healthy People 2010, is aiming to immunize 95 percent of the country's kindergartners and first-graders against seven diseases.
In New Jersey — home to the country's highest rate of autism, with one in 94 children affected — the issue erupted late last year, when the state adopted a Public Health Council recommendation for additional vaccines. Starting last month, all infants and toddlers in public schools and day cares were required to get annual flu shots, and sixth-graders had to receive a meningitis vaccination and a booster for diphtheria/pertussis/tetanus, or DPT.
At the rally, Assemblywoman Charlotte Vandervalk, R-Westwood, told the crowd that forced immunizations violate the Nuremberg Code, the set of ethical standards created in the wake of Nazi experiments on humans.
"We have a right to informed consent," Vandervalk said. "This once was a closet fear that now has become a public outcry."
Vandervalk is the sponsor of a bill to allow parents a conscientious exemption from vaccinating their children. Parents would claim a "sincerely held or moral objection" on paperwork to be filed with local health departments.
An identical bill in the Senate is sponsored by Sen. Gerald Cardinale, R-Cresskill, with a half-dozen more North Jersey lawmakers as co-sponsors.
Nineteen states have such a provision, according to the New Jersey Coalition for Vaccination Choice. Right now, the only way New Jersey parents can avoid vaccinations — and stay within the law — is to claim a medical or religious waiver. Roughly 2,200 children have such exemptions.
At the rally, Christine Levin said she drove for two hours from Sparta with her six children, ages 12 years to 5 months. None of them is vaccinated, she said.
"With my first child, I took classes in natural childbirth and learned that at birth, children are given eye drops, a Vitamin K shot and a shot for hepatitis B," Levin said.
"Hepatitis B, for a newborn? That's something that drug addicts and prostitutes get, and the vaccine is only good for 10 years. So we're protecting 10-year-old prostitutes and drug users. I said no way. We'd rather take our chances getting an illness."
Many protesters said their main fear was that a vaccine, once injected, can't be removed.
"I want to have a choice," said Melanie Miller of Bernardsville, Somerset County, mother of 3-year-old Frances Miller. "I'm not going to put a vaccine in her body every year."
E-mail: younge@northjersey.com


It's interesting that the article says the federal government has not found a link "between the (vaccine) preservatives and autism." We keep hearing that, but I have to wonder how much top officials know and are simply covering up. In June 2005 there was a meeting of government officials, scientists and doctors that Rolling Stone magazine reported on in the article Deadly Immunity. I blogged about this back in May, when I first heard of it. Everyone should read the article - and if we find it hard to believe, I think we need to ask ourselves if Rolling Stone would completely fabricate this story, or if it is true. And since many citizens (including myself) have managed to get their hands on the actual transcripts from the meeting, it's hard to pretend it didn't happen. Yet that's kind of what the federal government is doing, because they have no answers they want to share with the public.

My second bone to pick is this: the federal vaccine court DID concede back in March that 9-year-old Hannah Poling's autism was caused by her vaccines "in the presence of her mitochondrial disorder." Then when parents started asking if the feds would start screening for mito disorders before vaccination, the CDC said that would be too "risky" and "raised ethical questions." ... Good grief, I'll raise an ethical question. How can they say this child actually developed autism from her vaccines because of a biological condition she had, then continue to tell Americans that vaccines are safe for everyone? Isn't every parent out there wondering, "What if MY child has a mitochondrial disorder?" If the government says there is a link, but doesn't think screening for the disorder is a priority, then how can I trust that my child's safety is my government's top priority? Well, I can't. And I can't trust that they are doing everything in their power to protect kids from vaccine injury either. This is where it all breaks down. The trust is gone, and I am now an independent researcher, severed from the faith I used to have in public health authority to tell me what's best for my kids.

With the economy trembling, a lot of Americans have been reminded that human corruption runs deep in the people governing our country and our financial institutions. The phrase "follow the money" just keeps coming to mind. Should it be any surprise that human corruption also exists in the public health field? In the pharmaceutical companies? Does it alarm you that pharmaceutical reps spend more time talking to your legislators on Capitol Hill than you do? Covering up mistakes, lying and greed are human problems, not sector problems. Public health authorities are certainly not immune to these sins.

(thanks, Jeff, for the article)

Sample Exemption Form

I found the following document on Dr. Sherri Tenpenny's Web site (under Vax Forms). I have been thinking about creating my own documents for each vaccine (ha, if I ever get to it!) stating my reasons for not choosing to use it (should we choose not to). But for anyone looking for a standard exemption document, I thought this was pretty straightforward and helpful. I appreciate that it states specifically that there are no guarantees 1) regarding the efficacy of a vaccine nor 2) regarding a safe outcome.

Thank you, once again, Dr. Tenpenny. Here is the document:


We, _________________________, hereby state that we have chosen not to vaccinate our child,_________________ because we are philosophically opposed to the concept of vaccines.

We maintain this is a responsible and ethically justifiable position for the following
reasons:
-vaccination is a medical intervention performed on a healthy child that has the ability to result in injury or death of that child;
-the fact that there can be no guarantee that the deliberate introduction of killed or live microorganisms into the body of a healthy child will not compromise the health or cause the death of that child, either immediately or in the future;
-no predictors have been identified by medical science that can give advance warning that injury or death may occur in any individual child;
-there are no guarantees that the vaccine will indeed protect the child from contracting a disease;
-there is an absence of adequate scientific knowledge regarding the way vaccines singly, or in combination, act in the human body at the cellular and molecular level.

Therefore, we believe that vaccination is a medical procedure that could reasonably be termed as experimental each time it is performed on a healthy child.

Our state law makes provisions for non-vaccination of children whose parents object to vaccines for religious or philosophical reasons. We accept full responsibility for the health of our child, and because of philosophical conviction, do not wish our child vaccinated. In the event of any infectious condition, our child would of course remain at home. We further understand that during the course of an outbreak of any so called "vaccine preventable disease" would occur at your facility, our child is subject to exclusion from your facility for the duration of the outbreak.
_____________________________ ____________
Signature Date
______________________________ ____________
Signature Date