What does the CDC say about not vaccinating?

Taken from a PDF document found on this page under "What if you don't immunize your child?":

We strongly encourage you to immunize your child, but ultimately the decision is yours. Please discuss any concerns you have with a trusted healthcare provider or call the immunization coordinator at your local or state health department. Your final decision affects not only the health of your child, but also the rest of your family, the health of your child’s friends and their families, classmates, neighbors, and community.

Without immunizations, your child can infect others.

• Children who are not immunized can transmit vaccine-preventable diseases throughout the community. Unvaccinated people can pass diseases on to babies who are too young to be fully immunized.
• Unvaccinated people pose a threat to children and adults who can’t be immunized for medical reasons. This includes people with leukemia and other cancers, HIV/AIDS and other immune system problems, and persons receiving chemotherapy, radiation therapy, or large doses of corticosteroids.
• Unvaccinated people can infect the small percentage of children whose immunizations did not “take.”

Reading this brochure puzzles me and even insults my intelligence in a few ways. First of all, they use the label "unvaccinated people," when what they really mean is "sick people." Being "unvaccinated" does not make a person the carrier of a disease! Being sick does. An unvaccinated person is not the same as a sick person! And vaccinated people can get sick too, because vaccines do not necessarily confer immunity.

In fact, many times it is the vaccine itself that makes that person sick. While our society believes that smallpox and polio were eradicated by vaccines, if you look at the actual numbers, people got sick from these inoculations, with disease rates increasing after mass vaccination programs started. Many sources (doctors and historical records) say that these diseases declined naturally, having been on their way out before vaccination even began.

Which brings me to the second thing, and that is that when we are vaccinated, it is possible to "shed" the germs from the vaccine (I've read about this in vaccine package inserts and various articles). So really, those dangerous "unvaccinated" people are sometimes the ones at risk of catching disease from the vaccinated ones, not the other way around.

Third, this brochure uses the word "immunize" to mean "vaccinate." Technically, the terms are not interchangeable, even though the vast majority of medical texts use them like this. The word "immunize" literally means to make immune. Vaccines are an attempt at making us immune, but they do not guarantee immunity. Even this brochure hints at that when it says, "Unvaccinated people can infect the small percentage of children whose immunizations did not 'take.'"

I am sure there are truths in this brochure as well, but I am somewhat distracted by the way it misleads. Here, the reader is led to believe that unvaccinated people are dirty and can't be around the rest of society because of the risk they pose. It's things like this that make me now question almost everything the CDC says. It shouldn't be like this! I'm just a layperson, and I shouldn't have to question public health expertise like this. I just want the truth. I just want to know what real health problems have resulted from vaccination, and I want real numbers. I'm tired of feeling like I have to figure this out for myself.

Oh, so you'll see I added the CDC Vaccination home page to my sidebar. This is for research purposes for anyone who wants to see what they have to say. But personally, I can't help it if I read their site with the proverbial grain of salt.

Oh yea, and I still haven't heard back from them regarding my phone message about Prevnar (I called about a month ago to ask why Prevnar vaccine is not tested for carcinogenicity, mutagenic effects or impairment of fertility). Since then, I've found a few other vaccine inserts that state the same thing - they aren't tested for these things before they're mandated for our kids. And the CDC has yet to tell me why not. If you want to call them, I'll tell you that number again: 404-639-8256. Have at it, and let me know if you get any answers.

Polio Survivor Writes on the Runaway Truck of Vaccine Policy

There's so much good stuff over at Age of Autism. Hope it's OK I just grabbed this story from there.

"Polio Survivor on Immunization"

BY ANNE VAN RENSSELAER

Mother Nature cleverly designs any gene pool to include pioneers, renegades, warriors and stay-at-homes, whether she's working on animal forms, germs, or algae. So in any pool of a species, there are certain individuals best suited to meet particular challenges.When we started immunizing against smallpox, we set loose a grand and persistent fantasy that we could eradicate diseases, but germs and Mother Nature are busy doing push-ups in the parking lot while we're sitting in the doctor's waiting room with our babies, waiting to be Nature-proofed.
Have you noticed how often you've read about a newly-discovered strain of measles or mumps or anything else? How many of these are produced inadvertently by laboratory buccaneers? We can't keep up our defense fast enough, and our efforts only drive the pathogens' adaptive changes on; we're forcing the production of "designer genes" in germs that used to be innocuous, by making designer drugs, designer germicides. Are any of our scientists cynical enough to think that triggering a pathogen mutation is "no biggie,"since they can come up with a new antibiotic or vaccine in response, so the cash cow never dies?
Ma Nature keeps letting us know she will not be bested in this game, but like the classic sucker, we keep signing on for a new round.
When I had polio during the epidemic of 1952-3, only 1 in 4,000 kids in America got sick with it; a tiny percentage of us were paralyzed (only 1%, according to some), but mass hysteria ruled. Did humanity jump too hard, too fast, on the vaccine bandwagon? And as we hopped on board that bandwagon to "save" one in 4,000 from one illness, did that commit us to later blindly shove one in 150 of our babies over the side, to fall by the wayside with autism disorders?
So when conservative medical opinion fondles its beard and mumbles about "Herd Immunity," I find myself muttering, "Yeah, right. Big Pharma stands in line at the patent office, while Ma Nature whistles as she tinkers in her Laboratory." At best, we can accomplish an apparent herd immunity, a momentary herd immunity, but there is no such stasis.
So, as you watch the glorious bandwagon of western medical progress come trundling by, step back a few paces and take a longer, larger view, and see if you can't see a trail of little bodies, blighted lives, broken, exhausted families, behind the great vehicle as it rumbles on. If you're quick, you might even be able to catch some as they fall, mid-air, and take them to a safe place.
I wrote some of that a few days ago, and posted it as a comment on a friend's blog. My son commented in his typically dry way, "My friend Alex just recovered from MRSA which stands for Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus. I find it difficult to believe that there was MRSA before the advent of Methicillin."
And my daughter sent me an email reporting an article in The Independent (April 14) in the UK: "INCREASE IN SEVERE PNEUMONIA IN CHILDREN MAY BE CAUSED BY VACCINE" http://tinyurl.com/69skyx Written by the paper's health editor, it describes how Prevnar, a vaccine against seven of the ninety or so streptococcal germs known to cause pneumonia, is suspected of creating new problems: "When one (germ) is eliminated, it creates an opportunity for another to take its place.
In the US, where Prevnar was introduced in 2000, researchers have reported an emergence of "sero-replacement" disease—types of pneumonia not covered by the vaccine." Serotype 1 pneumonia, the strain of greatest concern, develops rapidly, ending in surgery to clean out pus and septic fluid gathered in the pleural cavity between the chest wall and lungs."Linda Glennie, head of research at the Meningitis Research Foundation, which is funding the surveillance programme with the HPA (Health Protection Agency, UK), said the challenge was to keep one step ahead of Nature." You said a mouthful, Linda Glennie. We can't even keep up with Nature's artful dodging, so how are we going to keep one step ahead, is what I want to know?
P.S. If someone knows how to let Bill and Melinda Gates in on this little insight about who's in charge (them or Nature), the future might be a better place for children everywhere.

Calling the CDC

The other day I placed a call to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) by using the number given on their Web site (800-311-3435). I wanted to talk to somebody about the fact that Prevnar and other vaccines have never been tested for carcinogenic effects, mutagenic effects or fertility impairment (as the manufacturer's insert states).

I was hoping they could tell me why this is acceptable to the CDC, that the vaccines they recommend we administer to our children are not tested for such things. I am genuinely curious and am not trying to be incendiary. Though, it does seem to me that these things ought to be tested...maybe I'm missing something, but I want to know this before it's shot into my child.

The woman I reached obviously worked in some sort of call center and was not going to be able to answer detailed questions that required more than a script to reply. She repeated part of my question back to me to verify what I was asking, but didn't really get the whole thing. I repeated the question (Why is it OK with the CDC that certain vaccines are not tested for carcinogenic effects or fertility impairment?) and was put on hold.

She tried no less than three times to refer me to the vaccine manufacturer, but I told her I really wanted the CDC to tell me why. I asked if there was someone else I could talk to, but, according to her, it was not OK to give me any names of any CDC employees nor to give me a different phone number. Apparently, I had reached a general information line (CDC-INFO), and unless I had someone's specific name, I would continue to reach this line whenever I called. How convenient for the CDC.

After I persisted, she put me on hold again and came back to read me a paragraph about the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). This was mostly useless, but one thing that stood out to me was that she actually stated that vaccine manufacturers/CDC can't know everything about a vaccine's safety until it goes to market. Great. So we really are one big science experiment! (I'm only kidding.... partly. Let's remember the long history of medical mistakes such as treating acne with X-rays and pregnant women with thalidomide. So please forgive me if I'm skeptical.)

At the end of the call I had no answer to my question, but did get a phone number for the manufacturer of Prevnar (Wyeth -- 800-572-8221) and a phone number for VAERS (800-822-7967). And a very strange sensation that I had just been subdued by the giant wall of government bureaucracy.

After a little more digging, I found a REAL phone number for the Immunization Safety Office within CDC (404-639-8256). I left a voicemail two days ago and am not sure if I will ever hear back. I'll let you know.

I also called the National Vaccine Information Center this morning to ask them some questions about pending legislation by Rep. Dave Weldon (R-Florida) and what we as simple parents can do to tell our government officials we want safer government policies. I am awaiting a call back, but will post that info when I get it.