Dr. Lawrence Palevsky is a board-certified pediatrician who
uses a holistic approach to children, wellness, and illness by
incorporating nutritional science, environmental medicine,
chiropractic, osteopathy, and other natural healing modalities
in his pediatric office in New York.
He has also worked in pediatric emergency medicine, pediatric
& neonatal intensive care medicine, and in-patient pediatric
medicine.
He is one of the leading pediatricians in the United States
that advocates a more conservative approach to using vaccines.
I first interviewed Dr. Palevsky
back in 2009 and am now happy to share our most recent
discussion, which covers some incredibly important information
for parents and pediatricians alike.
Questions We Should All be Asking…
Dr. Palevsky started out in the conventional medical field as
an ER physician, then went on to become an ICU doctor, working
in neonatal intensive care. As he gained experience, he realized
there were "questions that I didn't have answers for," which
drove his curiosity and pushed him to explore Chinese medicine,
Ayurvedic medicine, chiropractic, naturopathy, herbology, and
other philosophies and healing modalities to use with his
patients.
A major turning point came for him in 1991, when New York
state passed a law mandating that every newborn get a hepatitis
B vaccine. Dr. Palevsky continued:
"It was the first time that I saw vaccines being used
for a disease that really wasn't present in the newborn or
infant population. All the other vaccines that I had learned
about came on the heels of a massive wipeout of disease of
different populations. The vaccine was developed after the
disease had occurred, but this was one of those preemptive
strikes.
It made no sense to me that we were vaccinating a
population that really had little to no risk of having a
disease. I started to wonder what was really going on…"
Several years later, a patient's mother brought up the fact
that there was mercury in vaccines, which he wasn't aware of.
This, too, prompted Dr. Palevsky to wonder what else is in
vaccines, and as he started to explore package inserts, the
manufacturing process and the adverse effects of vaccines, he
realized there was much more information to learn than what he
had been taught in medical school (which was that vaccines are
safe and effective, end of story).
He said:
"I did not turn my back when I heard parent after
parent – in the dozens, in the hundreds, and then in the
thousands – start to say that their children were fine, then
they got vaccinated, and then something really bad happened
to them acutely or within days, weeks, or even months. Those
parents were told 100 percent of the time by the
conventional medical system, 'It's a coincidence. It
couldn't possibly be related to the vaccine.'
As a person who's curious about science and
questioning, it became obvious to me that there may not be a
coincidence here and that something more may be going on.
The literature is pretty supportive of the fact that
vaccines have much greater adverse outcomes on the genotype
of the body, the immune system of the body, the brain of the
body, and the intracellular functions of the body than we
are willing to tell the public about."
Proper Vaccine Safety Studies Have Not Been Conducted
Vaccine proponents have stated that there are over 20,000
studies that "prove" the safety of vaccines. But a closer
inspection of those studies would likely reveal otherwise. Dr.
Palevsky explained:
"…in order for us to really delve into those studies,
we have to look at who supported the studies. What was the
study design? What were the control groups? How big was the
actual number of kids or adults that was used in those
studies? I think we will see that in most of those studies,
the actual safety has never really been proven.
One of the reasons that I think we can fairly say
that is that the vaccine manufacturers and the conventional
medical organizations have not done studies that compare
vaccinated to unvaccinated children. In order for us to
really know if children who were vaccinated are having an
adverse effect from a vaccine, we have to use a placebo
group that's given an injection of maybe normal saline to
evaluate whether or not they developed the same symptoms
that children who were vaccinated may develop after they're
injected with the vaccine.
Those studies are not done. They're not done because
the conventional medical system says it's unethical to leave
kids unvaccinated for any length of time. But, most of the
vaccine safety studies that are being done last anywhere
between one and four weeks anyway. The kids are followed
within those one to four weeks. Then, they're not followed
in a very detailed way to recognize whether any of their
health outcomes could be related to the vaccine that they
got one to four weeks ago.
What ends up happening is they compare the incidence
rates of these vaccine reactions or these symptoms that kids
get after they're vaccinated to how often those symptoms are
seen in the general population, to check and see if this
vaccinated group is in any way getting an increased
incidence of these symptoms than the general population
would get. But the fact of the matter is that the general
population is vaccinated, so they're comparing a vaccinated
group with a vaccinated group."
On top of that, the studies are not nearly long enough to
show what the long-term implications of vaccinations might be.
"…they are not following children long enough to know
whether in three months, six months, three years, six years,
or 10 years, there could be some autoimmune antibody or some
immune challenge that happens to the body that lingers or
that just sits there as a genotypic effect. There's a change
in the genetics, there's a change in the DNA, that doesn't
necessarily manifest itself until years later because of
other stressors, perhaps even from another vaccine that
comes years later," Dr. Palevsky said.
None of those studies have been done, so I don't know
how you can say that vaccines are safe.
…We're not looking at the micro-molecular levels to
see, 'Okay, was there an autoimmune antibody produced? Were
there other inflammatory markers produced? Where did those
markers manifest? Did they stay in the body? Did they
manifest into clinical symptoms? How are they relevant?'
None of that science is being done. But we're just saying
that vaccines are safe, because we've been doing it for so
long. And anyone with a good scientific mind would say
that's not adequate."
The World Isn't Flat…
There are increasing reports of pediatricians ostracizing
patients that disagree with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention's (CDC) one-size-fits-all vaccination schedule.
Some pediatricians will even resist answering your vaccination
questions or concerns, or "fire" you as a patient and tell you
to seek care elsewhere.
While most pediatricians enter the profession because they
have an enduring love for children, many also firmly, and
somewhat blindly, believe that there's no room for questions or
disagreement regarding vaccinations. They, unfortunately, have
not followed the path that Dr. Palevsky, myself and many other
physicians have taken in seeking to look beneath the surface at
the deeper issues.
Dr. Palevsky continued:
"These adherents are the same people that said the
world was flat. This is the big problem, because the world
isn't flat. Science evolves. What parents are finding, some
physicians are finding, what a lot of scientists are finding
is that the science is changing, that science is growing.
It's growing to actually show things that we thought we knew
are no longer as valid. 'The world was flat' was a very hard
concept to accept, until 'The world was round.' I think
that's the same thing that we're dealing with here.
That's why parents are being fired from their
pediatrician's office: because the world is flat, and there
is no possibility that the world could be round. I feel for
these families, especially in areas where there are very few
physicians for them to go to and to have care for their
children."
A "Novel" Idea: You May be Better Off Getting Some Diseases in
Childhood
The issue of vaccines potentially causing adverse reactions
in the body is one issue. Another, often-overlooked, one is that
some of the diseases vaccines are used to prevent may actually
have a place in childhood – and may ultimately be beneficial for
the child's future health.
Dr. Palevsky explained:
"…many of the illnesses that we vaccinate against are
actually important illnesses for children so that their
immune systems, nervous systems, and brains mature. I
learned this back in the 1980s when I was a medical student
being taught by physicians who practiced pediatrics in New
York since the 1940s. What they said was that the kids in
their practice who would get their measles, mumps, chicken
pox, rubella, and flu illnesses, if they were left to their
own devices, not medicated, and just left to be supported
through their illness, after the illness was over, the
physician always saw a developmental growth spurt.
What it speaks to is an understanding of virology,
why viruses actually exist, and what they actually do in the
body. They're meant to actually help protect the host, to
clean the body out of waste, and to remove obstacles for
optimal cellular function. This is what we're supposed to
learn in medical school, but don't necessarily.
There are so many ways to support a child through
many of these childhood viral illnesses… Many of them or
most of them are actually pretty benign. They may not be
benign in areas of the world where there's poverty, poor
nutrition, poor sanitation, and war, which means that the
conditions are not viable for optimal healing. But in a
community of the United States where optimal healing is
pretty reachable and pretty obtainable, most of these
diseases are pretty benign."
The measles is a classic example, as in many cases it causes
fever, runny nose, cough and rash, but clears up in a few days
without serious consequences. In rare cases, however, measles
can lead to encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) that can be
serious and lead to deafness or retardation… and this was the
impetus for developing the measles vaccine. But as Dr. Palevsky
explained, what actually happened was that cases of encephalitis
increased dramatically after the vaccine was introduced:
"…When it was said that the reason the measles
vaccine was implemented in 1963 was to prevent against the
massive cases of encephalitis that occurred as a result of
slow viral re-ignition of a measles infection months or
years later, I went into CDC. I looked it up to see what was
the incidence of subacute sclerosing panencephalitis or
SSPE.
It showed that it was .0061 percent. There was .0061
percent incidence rate of encephalitis after measles
infection. Well, that's not a massive number of cases of
measles encephalitis.
But now, we have one in 88 children with autism, and
it is pretty well documented in the literature that one of
the hallmark pathologies in autism is brain encephalitis or
brain inflammation. One in 88 is 1.14 percent brain
inflammation or 1.14 percent encephalitis. We've now gone
from a .0061 percent encephalitis after measles infection to
a 1.14 percent encephalitis rate in children.
Now, I don't know how much measles vaccine plays a
role in that, but we have more cases of brain encephalitis
after vaccination than we had before we started the measles
vaccine. So, how successful are we in reducing some of the
bad side effects of the diseases?"
What to Do if Your Child Has a Viral Illness
If your child does get sick, your first inclination may be to
go the emergency room. This should be done immediately if your
child is:
Not alert, responsive or interactive
Has a change in mental status
Has a change in urine output
Not breathing
Skin color is gray or blue
Limp or lethargic
Under 3 months old with a fever
If these signs are not present, and your child is stable, Dr.
Palevsky suggests the following:
"…one of the most important things that a parent can
do is to stay with the child, so that they can monitor the
progression. This is because things can change immediately…
stay with the child. If the child is breastfeeding,
breastfeed the child. If the child is not breastfeeding,
hydrate. The best thing you can do for a child who's sick is
to hydrate with either room temperature water or broths. If
they eat chicken, a chicken broth. Again, nothing that's too
strenuous.
I believe in what's called a starvation diet for kids
when they're sick. Mostly because they're in such a state of
stress that blood flow to the gut is diminished during a
state of stress. Therefore, digestion is less efficient in
their bodies.
Really keeping the food to a minimum – almost
starvation. Really keeping it to broths, teas, soups, clear
liquids, and observe. You want to keep the hydration going,
open up the kidneys, allow for the flushing of fluids, and
put them in warm baths, which will help to relax them and
which will encourage bowel movements, which again is another
way to get rid of wastes. Most of the reason that kids get
sick is to move or get rid of wastes anyway.
The idea is to not put more waste in. You don't want
to overfeed them. You don't want to over-stimulate them. You
want to keep them in a room that's darker, that has less
noise, less sound, and less visual input. You want to really
lower the amount of information and activity that's feeding
the nervous system and that's feeding the digestive system.
And you watch. You continue to watch. You stay with the
child. Studies will show that if the parent actually holds
the child and breathes with the child, the child's breathing
pattern will synchronize with the parent, and healing will
occur faster.
…It's really a matter of supportive care, and this is
old school. I mean, this is the way in which the
pediatricians who taught me took care of their families in
the 40s and 50s. They would sit next to the bedside of kids
in their homes when the kids were sick. Obviously,
physicians can't do that as much, but the parents can. And
there are ways to stay in touch with the physician to make
sure that things are going properly.
But families in my practice will see shorter
durations of fever, shorter durations of illness, if they
don't interfere with the body's physiology to get rid of the
wastes from that illness, and if they don't overfeed the
children, and keep things quiet."
All 50 states have enacted vaccine laws that require proof
children have received certain vaccines in order to attend
daycare, middle school, high school and college. However, in
most states citizens currently have the legal right to opt
out of using vaccines.
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 17 states
allow a personal, philosophical or conscientious belief
exemption to vaccination.
The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) recently
completed a review of all state laws, so for more detailed
information, please see the NVIC
State Law & Vaccine Requirements page. However, also be
aware that vaccine exemptions are currently under attack in
every state because the wealthy and powerful Pharma/Medical
Industry lobby is trying to take them away, especially the
religious and philosophical or conscientious belief exemptions.
In the video above, Barbara Loe Fisher explains tips for opting
out using the religious exemption, and Dr. Palevsky shared his
advice as well:
"Every state in the United States has a medical
exemption on the books, but the physician actually has to be
willing to admit that what the child developed was related
to the actual vaccination. If the physician writes that
medical exemption, it may not exempt the child from other
vaccines, because the physician may not be willing or
capable of extrapolating that other vaccines might have
similar effects being that that one vaccine or that set of
vaccines had those effects.
It can be very difficult… Many times those exemptions
are being rejected, because somebody in the state – who
never saw the kid, who only has an opinion, and may not even
know the literature completely – is going to reject it.
…There are about 19 or 20 states in the United States
that have a philosophical exemption. What that philosophical
exemption means is that the family has a conscientious
belief that this is not a safe injection for my child… Then
there's the religious exemption. The religious exemption is
on the books in 48 states. West Virginia and Mississippi are
the two states in the union that do not have a religious
exemption as well as the philosophical exemption.
But the religious exemption is coming under
increasing attack in different states around the country,
because people are being challenged about their religious
exemption. They're being challenged about the sincerity and
the genuineness of their personal religious beliefs. The
parents in this country are not necessarily made aware that
they have a philosophical exemption in 19 or 20 states and a
religious exemption in 48 states to not get their kids
vaccinated.
Then what happens when people are told that they have
this option, they'll often say, 'But I'm not religious.' The
thing is that the religious exemption – as I understand it –
is not about belonging to a specific religion. It's more
about your beliefs between you and your higher power – God,
Buddha, Allah, you know, whatever higher power each person
has. It's a way for people to come to their spiritual
beliefs that the injection of these materials would be a
desecration of what their higher power has created. And it
is against their spiritual or religious belief to desecrate
that which their higher power has created.
That's really the lines upon which the religious
exemption should be used. Again, I've had families who
actually came to their religious exemption through an
understanding of the problems and the literature. They did
their soul searching and their spiritual searching and found
that, in fact, they now have this new belief that they
didn't have before. That's what's available for parents in
this country."
Joining the Critical Mass for Change
What we currently have is a one-sided policy; a single way of
thinking that makes constructive and meaningful debate virtually
impossible. Science is truly a field where you ask a question,
you find an answer, and you make an ongoing effort to eliminate
biases that could shed more light on the reality you are trying
to reveal. We are not seeing that with vaccines.
Because the proper safety studies simply have not been
performed, and there are many unanswered questions about
vaccines' impact on a growing number of serious health
conditions, you might be questioning their use yourself.
If so, you can have an open and honest conversation with your
physician about your concerns. In both my and Dr. Palevsky's
cases, it was a patient who first broached the topic that there
could be more to the story. And if enough people speak up, we
can reach a critical mass of the population that will prompt
real change.
If your physician is not open to change, resources for
finding a more supportive physician, and learning more about
vaccination choice in general, include:
Physicians practicing Chinese medicine, chiropractic,
naturopathy, osteopathy, and homeopathy
Inquire at your local health food store or talk to
like-minded parents
Think Globally, Act Locally
While it seems "old-fashioned," one of the most 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.
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.
I also 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.
Vaccine Freedom Wall: View or post descriptions
of harassment by doctors or state officials for making
independent vaccine choices.
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