By Dr. Mercola

In the middle of July, NBC News reported that :

“The U.S. is on course for a record year for whooping cough, health officials said this week. And while vaccinating kids is clearly the most important defense, health experts say adults may not realize they’re supposed to be getting regular shots, too.”

The article goes on to hype what are actually predictable pertussis (whooping cough) increases and promote the ineffective pertussis vaccine—basically giving the media their marching orders for this fall’s propaganda campaign, which centers on blaming increases in pertussis on parents who file non-medical exemptions for their kids, which is pure nonsense.

Surprise! Whooping Cough Spreads Mainly through Vaccinated Populations

In 2010, the largest outbreak of whooping cough in over 50 years occurred in California. Around that same time, a scare campaign was launched in the California by Pharma-funded medical trade associations, state health officials and national media, targeting people opting out of receiving pertussis vaccine, falsely accusing them of causing the outbreak.

However, research published in March of this year paints a very different picture than the one spread by the media .

In fact, the study showed that 81 percent of 2010 California whooping cough cases in people under the age of 18 occurred in those who were fully up to date on the whooping cough vaccine. Eleven percent had received at least one shot, but not the entire recommended series, and only eight percent of those stricken were unvaccinated.

According to the authors :

“This first detailed analysis of a recent North American pertussis outbreak found widespread disease among fully vaccinated older children. Starting approximately three years after prior vaccine dose, attack rates markedly increased, suggesting inadequate protection or durability from the acellular vaccine.” [Emphasis mine]

The pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine is included as a component in “combination” shots that include tetanus and diphtheria (DPT, DTaP, Tdap) and may also include polio, hepatitis B, and/or Haemophilus Influenza B (Hib). CDC data shows 84 percent of children under the age of three have received at least FOUR DTaP shots—which is the acellular pertussis vaccine that was approved in the United States in 1996—yet, despite this high vaccination rate, whooping cough still keeps circulating among both the vaccinated and unvaccinated.

So, as clearly evidenced in this study, the vaccine likely provides very little, if any, protection from the disease. In fact, the research suggests those who are fully vaccinated may in fact be more likely to get the disease than unvaccinated populations.

Why Do Pertussis Vaccines Fail Despite Claimed Efficacy?

Interestingly in a recent article published in the journal Pediatrics , author James D. Cherry, MD, reveals that estimates for pertussis vaccine efficacy have been significantly inflated due to the case definitions adopted by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1991, which required laboratory confirmation and 21 days or more of paroxysmal cough. All less severe cases were excluded.  He states:

“I was a member of the WHO committee and disagreed with the primary case definition because it was clear at that time that this definition would eliminate a substantial number of cases and therefore inflate reported efficacy values. Nevertheless, the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research of the Food and Drug Administration accepted this definition, and package inserts of the US-licensed DTaP vaccines reflect this

....For example, Infanrix... and Daptacel... have stated efficacies of 84% and 85% respectively. When less severe cough illness is included, however, the efficacies of these 2 vaccines decrease to 71% and 78% respectively. In addition, even these latter efficacies are likely inflated owing to investigator or parental compliance with the study protocol (observer bias).”

Dr. Cherry lists eight potential reasons for why the efficacy of pertussis vaccines are overestimated:

1. Overexpectation of efficacy because of case definition.
2. Inflated estimates of efficacy because of observer bias.
3. Other Bordetella sp are the cause of similar cough illnesses.
4. Lack of initial potency.
5. Decay in antibody over time.
6. Incomplete antigen package.
7. Incorrect balance of antigens in the vaccine.
8. Genetic changes in B pertussis

Whooping Cough is Cyclical Disease

B. pertussis whooping cough is a cyclical disease with natural increases that tend to occur every 4-5 years, no matter how high the vaccination rate is in a population using DPT/DTaP or Tdap vaccines on a widespread basis. Whole cell DPT vaccines used in the U.S. from the 1950’s until the late 1990’s were estimated to be 63 to 94 percent effective and studies showed that vaccine-acquired immunity fell to about 40 percent after seven years.

In the study cited above, the researchers noted the vaccine’s effectiveness was only 41 percent among 2- to 7-year-olds and a dismal 24 percent among those aged 8-12 .

With this shockingly low rate of DTaP vaccine effectiveness, the questionable solution public health officials have come up with is to declare that everybody has to get three primary shots and three follow-up booster shots in order to get long-lasting protection —and that’s provided the vaccine gives you any protection at all!

Why “Cocooning” Vaccines Does Not Work

Additionally, in a futile effort to address the outbreak, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)  started directing physicians, particularly pediatricians, to offer Tdap vaccine to parents and close family members of babies under age 2 months, who are too young to receive a pertussis-containing vaccine themselves. In a recent study on this topic the researchers concluded:

"... the parental cocoon program is inefficient and resource intensive for the prevention of serious outcomes in early infancy."

"Cocooning," is a controversial practice and is being promoted by the AAP and government health officials as a way of protecting babies from whooping cough and other infectious diseases like influenza by vaccinating their parents and other adult caregivers. However, there is little evidence to show that this works. In fact, research from Canada has demonstrated just the opposite. Published last year, this Canadian study investigated how many parents would need to be vaccinated in order to prevent infant hospitalizations and deaths from pertussis using the cocoon strategy , and the results were dismal. They found the number needed to vaccinate (NNV) for parental immunization was at least one million to prevent ONE infant death; approximately 100,000 for ICU admission; and >10,000 for hospitalization.

Also Confirmed: U.S. Varicella Vaccination Program is a Total Flop

In related vaccine news, a recent review of the US varicella (chickenpox) vaccination program published in May in the journal Vaccineconcluded the vaccine has:

• Not proven to be cost-effective
• Increased the incidence of shingles
• Failed to provide long-term protection from the disease it targets―chicken pox―and
• Is less effective than the natural immunity that existed in the general population before the vaccine

Here, vaccine efficacy is again questioned as the efficacy of the varicella vaccine was found to have declined well below 80 percent by of 2002. The information was gathered from a review of chicken pox and shingles statistics in the years since the vaccine was introduced. The researchers point out that although statistics showed shingles rates increased after the vaccine, "CDC authorities still claimed" that no increase had occurred.

The authors also state that the CDC not only ignored the natural boost in immunity to the community that occurred with wild chickenpox, as opposed to the vaccine, but also ignored the "rare serious events following varicella vaccination" as well as the increasing rates of shingles among adults:

"In the prelicensure era, 95% of adults experienced natural chickenpox (usually as children)—these cases were usually benign and resulted in long-term immunity. Varicella vaccination is less effective than the natural immunity that existed in prevaccine communities. Universal varicella vaccination has not proven to be cost-effective as increased herpes zoster [shingles] morbidity has disproportionately offset cost savings associated with reductions in varicella disease. Universal varicella vaccination has failed to provide long-term protection from VZV disease." [Emphasis mine]

Ridiculous Claims about Herd Immunity Achieved by HPV Vaccine

According to a report in the journal Pediatrics , which has been praised in major media like Discover Magazine , the quadravalent vaccine for HPV, Gardasil, appears to be protecting young people that haven’t even been vaccinated with it. Not only that, Gardasil has accomplished this amazing feat in just four years―long before most vaccines begin to show any sign of what’s known as “herd immunity.”

The study looked at rates of HPV infection in a small group of teens and young women at two primary care clinics, and found that infections from the cancer-causing HPV strain had declined. Apparently, they also observed that infections in women, who had not been vaccinated, had also declined. The team concluded the overall decline in both the vaccinated and unvaccinated must have been due to the vaccine! As per Discover Magazine, if the news pans out to be true in further research, it will be “pretty exciting.”  Indeed, if this is true it would be an outright miracle, considering the fact that this theory is beyond ludicrous.

Consider that claim in light of these facts:

• In the study, 59 percent of participants at two primary care clinics received the HPV vaccine
• According to 2008 survey statistics, an estimated 25 percent of American adolescents 13 to 17 years old had received at least one dose of the HPV vaccine, and a mere 11 percent had received all 3 doses
• By 2010 the vaccine uptake estimates had nearly doubled, with 48 percent of girls between the ages of 13 and 17 having received at least one dose of the HPV vaccine

It is typically taught that the vaccine acquired herd immunity threshold is anywhere between 80-95 percent of the population, depending on the disease. So, HOW could the HPV vaccine confer herd immunity when, on a nationwide basis,  less than half of teens and young women have received the vaccine (and the vast majority of those have only received one-third of the recommended number of doses)?

Whenever an outbreak of disease occurs, government health officials are always quick to point the finger at those who are unvaccinated, stating that it’s because of them that vaccine induced herd immunity was not achieved, thereby allowing the disease to flourish (although they rarely if ever offer an explanation for why so many vaccinated people get sick when they should theoretically be immune). For most diseases, vaccine-induced herd immunity cannot be achieved unless 80-95 percent of the population is vaccinated against the disease in question. So truly, for the HPV vaccine to suddenly confer herd immunity at less than 50 percent coverage would be nothing short of a miracle.

This “study” is nothing but marketing masquerading as science.

Discover magazine also didn’t mention the fact that at least five individuals on the seven-member team making these over-the-top claims are paid speakers and consultants for Merck, or have received research funds from Merck to develop this vaccine―meaning this wasn’t exactly an independent, outside group with no conflicting interests in the outcome. Please also note that the president of the Merck Vaccine Division, Julie Gerberding, is the former head of the CDC.

Discover also didn't mention that the rates of the rates of sexual activity—the primary way HPV is spread—had also declined during the years of the study period, which could indicate that the reason HPV infection rates went down was not "herd" immunity acquired from the vaccine, but rather that fewer young people were having sex.

What You Need to Know about "Herd Immunity"

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases describes vaccine-induced herd immunity, also labeled “community immunity” by public health doctors as follows :

“When a critical portion of a community is immunized against a contagious disease, most members of the community are protected against that disease because there is little opportunity for an outbreak. Even those who are not eligible for certain vaccines—such as infants, pregnant women, or immunocompromised individuals—get some protection because the spread of contagious disease is contained. This is known as "community immunity."

The problem is that there is in fact such a thing as natural herd immunity. But what they've done is they've taken this natural phenomenon and assumed that vaccines will work the same way. However, vaccines do not confer the same kind of immunity as experiencing the natural disease, and the science clearly shows that there's a big difference between naturally acquired herd immunity and vaccine-induced herd immunity. To learn more, I urge you to listen to the following video, in which Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), discusses the concept of herd immunity.

Download Interview Transcript

Barbara explains:

"The original concept of herd immunity is that when a population experiences the natural disease… natural immunity would be achieved – a robust, qualitatively superior natural herd immunity within the population, which would then protect other people from getting the disease in other age groups. It's the way infectious diseases work…

The vaccinologists have adopted this idea of vaccine induced herd immunity. The problem with it is that all vaccines only confer temporary protection… Pertussis vaccine is one the best examples… Pertussis vaccines have been used for about 50 to 60 years, and the organism has started to evolve to become vaccine resistant. I think this is not something that's really understood generally by the public: Vaccines do not confer the same type of immunity that natural exposure to the disease does."

Vaccine professionals would like you to believe they are the same, but they're qualitatively two entirely different types of immune responses.

"In most cases natural exposure to disease would give you a longer lasting, more robust, qualitatively superior immunity because it gives you both cell mediated immunity and humoral immunity," Barbara explains. "Humoral is the antibody production. The way you measure vaccine-induced immunity is by how high the antibody titers are. (How many antibodies you have, basically.)

But the problem is, the cell mediated immunity is very important as well. Most vaccines evade cell mediated immunity and go straight for the antibodies, which is only one part of immunity. That's been the big problem with the production of vaccines."

Vaccines are designed to trick your body's immune system into producing protective   antibodies needed to resist any future infection. However, your body is smarter than that. The artificial stimulation of your immune system produced by lab altered bacteria and viruses simply does not replicate the exact response that your immune system mounts when naturally encountering the infectious microorganism.

According to Barbara:

"The fact that manmade vaccines cannot replicate the body's natural experience with the disease is one of the key points of contention between those who insist that mankind cannot live without mass use of multiple vaccines and those who believe that mankind's biological integrity will be severely compromised by their continued use.

... [I]s it better to protect children against infectious disease early in life through temporary immunity from a vaccine, or are they better off contracting certain contagious infections in childhood and attaining permanent immunity? Do vaccine complications ultimately cause more chronic illness and death than infectious diseases do? These questions essentially pit trust in human intervention against trust in nature and the natural order, which existed long before vaccines were created by man."

Vaccines Causing Dangerous Mutations 

The fact that many vaccines are ineffective is becoming increasingly apparent. Merck has recently been slapped with two separate class action lawsuits contending they lied about the effectiveness of the mumps vaccine in their combination MMR shot, and fabricated efficacy studies to maintain the illusion for the past two decades that the vaccine is highly protective.

In Australia, dangerous new strains of whooping cough bacteria were reported in March 2012 . The vaccine, researchers said, was responsible. The reason for this is because, while whooping cough is primarily attributed to Bordetella pertussis infection, it is also caused by another closely related pathogen called B. parapertussis, which the vaccine does NOT protect against. Two years earlier, scientists at Penn State had already reported that the pertussis vaccine significantly enhanced the colonization of B. parapertussis, thereby promoting vaccine-resistant whooping cough outbreaks .

According to the authors:

“... [V]accination led to a 40-fold enhancement of B. parapertussis colonization in the lungs of mice. Though the mechanism behind this increased colonization was not specifically elucidated, it is speculated to involve specific immune responses skewed or dampened by the acellular vaccine, including cytokine and antibody production during infection. Despite this vaccine being hugely effective against B. pertussis, which was once the primary childhood killer, these data suggest that the vaccine may be contributing to the observed rise in whooping cough incidence over the last decade by promoting B. parapertussis infection.” [Emphasis mine]

Despite this, a spokeswoman for the Australian Department of Health and Ageing stated that "suboptimal vaccine coverage" was among the possible reasons for why whooping cough had increased sevenfold in Australia since 2007... But if the vaccine doesn’t work, and in fact promotes vaccine-resistant disease outbreaks, then why would increasing vaccine rates make a positive difference? This rationale is completely nonsensical as it stands to reason that increasing vaccine coverage would then actually lead to increasingly higher incidences of the disease...

In 2007, US health officials admitted that the pneumococcal vaccine had created superbugs that caused severe ear infections in children. Similarly bad news emerged about the hepatitis vaccine that same year, when immunologists discovered mutated vaccine-resistant viruses were causing disease . And in developing countries, even to this day, health officials are concerned that polio viruses in the vaccine may not only be mutating, but may be causing the very disease they are supposed to prevent .

Live Virus Vaccines Combine to Create Completely NEW Virus

A number of studies have been released in the past few months indicating that vaccine viruses can lead to dangerous mutations. For example, a veterinary vaccine study at the University of Melbourne (Australia) found that using two different vaccine viruses to combat the same disease in an animal population quite rapidly caused the viruses to combine (referred to as recombination), creating brand new and more virulent viruses.

According to Science Daily :

“The vaccines were used to control infectious laryngotracheitis (ILT), an acute respiratory disease occurring in chickens worldwide... The research found that when two different ILT vaccine strains were used in the same populations, they combined into two new strains... resulting in disease outbreaks.”

Previously, scientists believed this occurrence would be highly unlikely, but this research reveals a different truth. The implications of this finding could extend to other live attenuated vaccines, including those for humans.

According to the authors:

“Recombination between herpesviruses has been seen in vitro and in vivo under experimental conditions. This has raised safety concerns about using attenuated herpesvirus vaccines in human and veterinary medicine and adds to other known concerns associated with their use, including reversion to virulence and disease arising from recurrent reactivation of lifelong chronic infection.

... We show that independent recombination events between distinct attenuated vaccine strains resulted in virulent recombinant viruses that became the dominant strains responsible for widespread disease... These findings highlight the risks of using multiple different attenuated herpesvirus vaccines, or vectors, in the same populations.”

As reported by Science Daily :

"Comparisons of the vaccine strains and the new recombinant strains have shown that both the recombinant strains cause more severe disease, or replicate to a higher level than the parent vaccine strains that gave rise to them," Dr Lee said.  Professor Glenn Browning said recombination was a natural process that can occur when two viruses infect the same cell at the same time. "While recombination has been recognized as a potential risk associated with live virus vaccines for many years, the likelihood of it happening in viruses like this in the field has been thought to be so low that it was considered to be very unlikely to lead to significant problems," he said.

 "Our studies have shown that the risk of recombination between different vaccine strains in the field is significant as two different recombinant viruses arose within a year. We also demonstrated that the consequences of such recombination can be very severe, as the new viruses have been responsible for the deaths of thousands of Australian poultry." [Emphasis mine]

Get Informed Before You Vaccinate

Stories such as these underscore the importance to take control of your own health, and that of your children. It's simply not wise to blindly depend on the information coming from the vaccine makers' PR departments, or from federal health officials and agencies that are mired in conflicts of interest with industry...

No matter what vaccination choices you make for yourself or your family, there is a basic human right to be fully informed about all risks of medical interventions and pharmaceutical products, like vaccines, and have the freedom to refuse if you conclude the benefits do not outweigh the risks for you or your child. Unfortunately, the business partnership between government health agencies and vaccine manufacturers is too close and is getting out of hand. There is a lot of discrimination against Americans, who want to be free to exercise their human right to informed consent when it comes to making voluntary decisions about which vaccines they and their children use.

We cannot allow that to continue.

It's vitally important to know and exercise your legal rights and to understand your options when it comes to using vaccines and prescription drugs. For example, your doctor is legally obligated to provide you with the CDC Vaccine Information Statement (VIS) sheet and discuss the potential symptoms of side effects of the vaccination(s) you or your child receive BEFORE vaccination takes place. If someone giving a vaccine does not do this, it is a violation of federal law. Furthermore, the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 also requires doctors and other vaccine providers to:

• Keep a permanent record of all vaccines given and the manufacturer's name and lot number
• Write down serious health problems, hospitalizations, injuries and deaths that occur after vaccination in the patient's permanent medical record
• File an official report of all serious health problems, hospitalizations, injuries and deaths following vaccination to the federal Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS)

If a vaccine provider fails to inform, record or report, it is a violation of federal law. It's important to get all the facts before making your decision about vaccination; and to understand that you have the legal right to opt out of using a vaccine that you do not want you or your child to receive. At present, all 50 states allow a medical exemption to vaccination (medical exemptions must be approved by an M.D. or D.O.); 48 states allow a religious exemption to vaccination; and 18 states allow a personal, philosophical or conscientious belief exemption to vaccination.

However, vaccine exemptions are under attack in a number of states, and it's in everyone's best interest to protect the right to make informed, voluntary vaccination decisions.

What You Can Do to Make a Difference

While it seems "old-fashioned," the only truly effective actions you can take to protect the right to informed consent to vaccination and expand your rights under the law to make voluntary vaccine choices, is to get personally involved with your state legislators and the leaders in your community.

THINK GLOBALLY, ACT LOCALLY.

Mass vaccination policies are made at the federal level but vaccine laws are made at the state level, and it is at the state level where your action to protect your vaccine choice rights will have the greatest impact.

Signing up to be a user of NVIC's free online Advocacy Portal at www.NVICAdvocacy.org gives you access to practical, useful information to help you become an effective vaccine choice advocate in your own community. You will get real-time Action Alerts about what you can do if there are threats to vaccine exemptions in your state. With the click of a mouse or one touch on a Smartphone screen you will be put in touch with YOUR elected representatives so you can let them know how you feel and what you want them to do. Plus, when national vaccine issues come up, you will have all the information you need to make sure your voice is heard. So please, as your first step, sign up for the NVIC Advocacy Portal.

Right now, in California, the personal belief exemption is under attack by Pharma-funded medical trade organizations and public health officials trying to get a bill (AB 2109) passed that would require parents to get a medical doctor's signature to file an exemption for personal beliefs, including religious and conscientious beliefs. The bill has passed both the House and Senate health committees and there will be a public hearing in the Senate Appropriations Committee on Aug. 6 to discuss the financial impact on the state of California if the bill becomes law. Get all the details on NVIC’s Advocacy Portal.  Watch NVIC's 90-second public service message and learn more about what you can do if you are a California resident.

Internet Resources

To learn more about vaccines, I encourage you to visit the following web pages on the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) website at www.NVIC.org:

• NVIC Memorial for Vaccine Victims: View descriptions and photos of children and adults, who have suffered vaccine reactions, injuries and deaths. If you or your child experiences an adverse vaccine event, please consider posting and sharing your story here.
• If You Vaccinate, Ask 8 Questions: Learn how to recognize vaccine reaction symptoms and prevent vaccine injuries.
• Vaccine Freedom Wall: View or post descriptions of harassment by doctors or state officials for making independent vaccine choices.
• Vaccine Ingredient Calculator (VIC): Find out just how much aluminum, mercury and other ingredients are in the vaccines your doctor is recommending for you or your child.
• Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) on MedAlerts. Search the government's VAERS database to find out what kinds of vaccine reactions, injuries and deaths have been reported by patients and heath care workers giving vaccines.