By Dr. Mercola

The featured article in the latest newsletter from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) gets straight to the point with its headline:¹ Back to School – Is the Child Sitting Next to Yours Immunized?

The article goes on to berate vaccine exemption options and parents who use personal belief exemptions to opt-out of vaccines for their children. It stops short of ordering parents to march into their children's classrooms and demand to know who's vaccinated and who's not (health privacy laws prevent that anyway).

It peppers you with enough scare tactics – along with links to information on vaccine exemptions and states that allow personal belief exemptions – to leave readers convinced they need to do something to stop vaccine exemptions.

All across the United States, people are fighting for their right to choose not to be injected with vaccines against their will, and this is just the latest tactic in a coordinated effort aimed at eliminating all vaccine exemptions.

The Gates Foundation is even funding surveillance of anti-vaccine groups. Seth C. Kalichman, professor at the Department of Psychology, University of Connecticut recently received a $100,000 grant to establish an Anti-Vaccine Surveillance and Alert System.

The intention is to "establish an internet-based global monitoring and rapid alert system for finding, analyzing, and counteracting misinformation communication campaigns regarding vaccines to support global immunization efforts," GreenMedInfo.com reports.²

My strong guess is that some of the best sources for truthful information like NVIC.org and this web site have already been targeted by the Gates Foundation.

In light of that, it's not surprising that vaccine groups are trying to turn citizens against each other in an effort to squelch opposition and free will on this matter. According to CHOP:

"...these decisions, often referred to as personal belief exemptions, have been traced to recent cases of pertussis, measles and mumps in several states. Currently, 20 states allow personal belief exemptions.

Many people do not realize that these choices put not only their own children at risk, but also those around them because the more people in a community who are immune to a disease, the lower the chance that the disease will spread throughout the community. This is called herd immunity. So, even those who may not be immune will have a decreased chance of getting the disease."

First of all, there are only 18 states – not 20 – that allow personal belief, philosophical or conscientious belief exemptions to vaccination, in addition to 48 states that allow religious belief exemptions. To find out which non-medical vacine exemptions are allowed in your state laws, look at a map of states and get a copy of your state vaccine requirements on NVIC's website at: www.nvic.org/Vaccine-Laws/state-vaccine-requirements.aspx

Unvaccinated Population Falsely Blamed for Ineffective Vaccines

Recent disease outbreaks were traced back to personal belief exemptions... Really?

That's just not reality, and if you take the time to look into the truthfulness of that statement, you'll see it simply does not hold up. Many outbreaks of pertussis (whooping cough), measles, and mumps have occurred primarily in people who were vaccinated, and no one seems to be able to fully explain how that is the fault of those who are unvaccinated...

If the vaccine theory was correct, these people should have been protected because they were vaccinated. Published studies into the outbreaks have revealed that a lot of the blame should be placed on ineffective vaccines – not on the unvaccinated minority.

Consider the following findings about the last two whooping cough (pertussis) outbreaks.

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 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 year³ shows 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]

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 protection⁴ – and that's provided the vaccine gives you any protection at all!

The Washington State Secretary of Health also declared a pertussis epidemic on April 3, 2012, in response to a 1,300 percent increase in pertussis cases compared to 2011.⁵ Scientists are now considering adding a seventh inoculation⁶, in order to boost protection against whooping cough.

According to a recent article and video by KPBS:⁷

"New research confirms the whooping cough vaccine is failing at a higher rate than expected, and scientists are considering adding a seventh dose to the national immunization schedule published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Two recent studies⁸ have found the majority of people getting sick are up to date with their immunizations."

Mumps and Measles Vaccines are Also Failing

• Mumps: In 2010, more than 1,000 people in New Jersey and New York were also sickened with mumps. In the US, children typically receive their mumps vaccination as part of the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) vaccine. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advises children to receive their first dose between 12 and 18 months, and their second between the ages of 4 and 6.

  This vaccine is supposed to improve immunity to measles, mumps and rubella… yet 77 percent of the 1,000+ who came down with mumps were vaccinated. Similarly, in 2006, when mumps infected more than 6,500 people in the United States, cases occurred primarily among college students who had received two doses of MMR vaccine. At that time, just about the only people who were truly immune to mumps were older Americans who had recovered from mumps as children, and therefore had received natural, lifelong immunity.

• Measles – The 1989 measles epidemic in the region of Quebec was largely attributed to incomplete vaccination coverage – until a study⁹ into the outbreak disclosed that the outbreak occurred in a population that had 99 percent vaccination coverage. The researchers concluded that: "Incomplete vaccination coverage is not a valid explanation for the Quebec City measles outbreak."

Conflicts of Interest – Not Science – Influence Most Vaccine Recommendations

The CHOP newsletter is delivered by email periodically to anyone who signs up for it, and almost always contains advice on getting all children vaccinated. The Vaccine Education Center¹⁰ at CHOP says it's funded by endowed chairs and "does not receive support from pharmaceutical companies."

But it neglects to mention that the hospital indirectly benefits from drug company money that helps fund endowed chairs like Merck's Maurice R. Hilleman Professor of Vaccinology, which is currently held by Paul Offit¹¹, who not only is very public about his belief that infants could theoretically safely handle 10,000 vaccines all at once; he also openly opposes personal belief vaccine exemptions.¹² Rarely is it mentioned that Offit has a financial stake in the vaccine industry, as he invented one of the vaccines CHOP promotes. He's also served on the scientific advisory board of Merck.

Offit's personal beliefs about forcing people to involuntarily use vaccines, which violates the informed consent ethic in medicine, along with the inaccurate statements he makes about vaccine safety, which are not backed by solid scientific evidence, are echoed throughout CHOP's pro-forced vaccination propaganda. For example, one of their Q&A brochures¹³ answers the question: Can too many vaccines overwhelm an infant's immune system? with the following statement:

"No. Compared to the immunological challenges that infants handle every day, the challenge from the immunological components in vaccines is minuscule. Babies begin dealing with immunological challenges at birth. The mother's womb is a sterile environment, free from viruses, bacteria, parasites and fungi. But after babies pass through the birth canal and enter the world, they are immediately colonized with trillions of bacteria, which means that they carry the bacteria on their bodies but aren't infected by them. These bacteria live on the skin, nose, throat and intestines. To make sure that colonizing bacteria don't invade the bloodstream and cause harm, babies constantly make antibodies against them.

...Given that infants are colonized with trillions of bacteria, that each bacterium contains between 2,000 and 6,000 immunological components and that infants are infected with numerous viruses, the challenge from the 150 immunological components in vaccines is minuscule compared to what infants manage every day."

This is an astounding comparison and shockingly ignorant of foundational physiology.

Not only do these ignorant statements dismiss and disparage the role of beneficial gut bacteria – which we now know are absolutely essential and vital for human health and well-being – and characterize normal gut bacteria as potentially harmful, but there is a false characterization of the immunological challenge posed by multiple vaccines, each of which can contain either live or killed viruses and a number of different adjuvants and chemicals, injected into the tiny body of an infant. CHOP even takes Offit's ridiculous claim that infants can safely handle 10,000 vaccines at one time to brand new heights, stating that:¹⁴

"The purpose of vaccines is to prompt a child's body to make antibodies, which work by preventing bacteria and viruses from reproducing themselves and causing disease. So, how many different antibodies can babies make?

The best answer to this question came from a Nobel Prize-winning immunologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology named Susumu Tonegawa, who first figured out how people make antibodies. Tonegawa discovered that antibodies are made by rearranging and recombining many different genes, and found that people can make about 10 billion different antibodies.

Given the number of antibody-producing cells in a child's bloodstream, and the number of immunological components contained in vaccines, it is reasonable to conclude that babies could effectively make antibodies to about 100,000 vaccines at one time." [Emphasis mine]

The Difference Between Natural and Vaccine-Induced Immunity

Many still believe vaccines provide identical immunity to that obtained when you are naturally exposed to an infection, This widespread misconception needs to be corrected.

The presumed result of a vaccination is to help you build immunity to potentially harmful organisms that cause disease. What many fail to appreciate is that your body's immune system is already designed to do this in response to naturally-occurring infectious agents that you are constantly exposed to throughout life. One major difference between vaccine-induced immunity and natural immunity stems from how you're exposed to these organisms.

Most organisms that cause infection enter your body through the mucous membranes of your nose, mouth, lungs or your digestive tract.

These mucous membranes have their own immune system, called the secretory IgA immune system. It is a different system from the one activated when a vaccine is injected into your body. Your IgA immune system is your body's first line of defense and its job is to address the infectious microorganism at their entry points, thus reducing or even eliminating the need for activation of your body's entire immune system.

However, when a laboratory altered or created infectious microorganism is injected into your body with a vaccine and, especially when combined with an immune adjuvant, such as aluminum, your IgA immune system is bypassed, stimulating your immune system to mount a very strong inflammatory response.

Vaccines can also trigger such a strong inflammatory response that the inflammation becomes chronic and leads to chronic illness or disability. (People with a personal or family history of severe allergy or autoimmunity should be cautious about vaccination because they already have a genetic predisposition to inflammatory responses that do not resolve and can lead to chronic health problems.)

Injecting these lab-altered microorganisms into your body in an attempt to provoke an atypical, temporary immunity is clearly not the same way your body develops naturally-acquired immunity. Your immune system simply was not designed to be injected with lab altered disease-causing organisms in this manner. While I am a great fan and avocate of technology it is very clear to me that this is one reason why vaccines almost always only provide a much more temporary immunity compared to naturally acquired immunity.

Additionally, this plays a large role in why vaccines have the potential to do serious damage to your health.

Since vaccines bypass your natural first-line defense (your lgA immune system), they are clearly inferior to natural immunity and fail to provide the same kind of long lasting protection from future disease as they provide typically inferior immunity compared to that your body would acquire by experiencing and healing from the natural disease. In the case of mumps, for instance, immunity is typically permanent for those who contract the disease during childhood.

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."

Why We Must Defend Vaccine Exemptions

The religious exemption to vaccination is now under heavy attack across the country. In the video below, Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), discusses this important exemption, and why it's so vital we defend our right to opt out of vaccinations for medical, religious, or conscientious belief reasons.

All Americans need to know their options for legally opting-out of vaccinations, and you also need to know why it's so important to protect this legal option, whether you choose to use every federally recommended vaccine for yourself and your children or not.

Download Interview Transcript

Get Informed Before You Vaccinate

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 and have the ability to refuse to allow substances you consider to be harmful, toxic or poisonous to be forced upon you.

Unfortunately, the partnership between government health agencies and vaccine manufacturers is getting closer and closer. There is some seroius discrimination against Americans, who want to be free to exercise their human right to informed consent to medical risk-taking when it comes to making voluntary decisions about which vaccines they and their children use. We cannot allow that happen!

It's vitally important to know your legal rights and 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 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. But as mentioned earlier, 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.

Contact Your Elected Officials

It is so important for you to reach out and make sure your concerns get on the radar screen of the leaders and opinion makers in your community, especially the politicians you elect and are directly involved in making vaccine laws in your state. These are your elected representatives, so you have a right and a responsibility to let them know what's really happening in your life and the lives of people you know when it comes to vaccine mandates. Be sure to share the "real life" experiences that you or people you know have had with vaccination.

Internet Resources

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.
• 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.

Find a Doctor Who will Listen to Your Concerns

If your pediatrician or doctor refuses to provide medical care to you or your child unless you agree to get vaccines you don't want, I strongly encourage you to have the courage to find another doctor. Harassment, intimidation, and refusal of medical care is becoming the modus operandi of the medical establishment in an effort to punish those patients and parents, who become truly educated about health and vaccination and want to make vaccine choices instead of being forced to follow risky one-size-fits-all vaccine policies.

If you are treated with disrespect or are harassed in any way by a doctor (or government official), do not engage in an unproductive argument. You may want to contact an attorney, your elected state representatives or local media if you or your child are threatened.

However, there is hope.

At least 15 percent of young doctors recently polled admit that they're starting to adopt a more individualized approach to vaccinations in direct response to the vaccine safety concerns of parents. It is good news that there is a growing number of smart young doctors, who prefer to work as partners with parents in making personalized vaccine decisions for children, including delaying vaccinations or giving children fewer vaccines on the same day or continuing to provide medical care for those families, who decline use of one or more vaccines.

So take the time to locate and connect with a doctor, who treats you with compassion and respect and is willing to work with you to do what is right for your child.