Changes Needed for US Vaccine Policy to Protect Human and Civil
Rights
June 10, 2014
Story at-a-glance
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It is a human right to exercise voluntary, informed
consent to medical risk taking, including taking risks
with pharmaceutical products like vaccines
-
In America, parents of minor children have the legal
right and responsibility to make medical risk decisions
for their children
-
In America today, some citizens are being discriminated
against and persecuted for following their conscience
and making vaccine choices that do not conform with
federal health policy
-
In May, the Colorado legislature became the first to
vote to preserve the personal belief exemption to
vaccination without modification
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A pro-education, pro-vaccine choice message sponsored by
the National Vaccine Information Center will be featured
in New York City through mid-July
By Barbara Loe Fisher
No matter who you are or where you live, it is difficult to be
part of a minority. It takes courage to follow your conscience. It
takes courage to stand up and speak out for what you know is right
when you are being targeted and sanctioned by those who claim it is
their right to bully and shun you for who you are or what you
believe.
This is especially true for those speaking out and standing up
for the right to make informed, voluntary choices about using
vaccines, a pharmaceutical product that carries a risk of harm and
failure that can be greater for some than others.1,
2,
3
Informed Consent to Medical Risk-Taking: A Human Right
The freedom to make voluntary decisions about what you are
willing to risk your life or the life of your child for is a human
and civil right.
It is a human right to exercise voluntary, informed consent to
medical risk taking,4,
5,
6 including taking risks with pharmaceutical products like
vaccines. In America, parents of minor children have the legal right
and responsibility to make medical risk decisions for their
children.7,
8,
9
Freedom of Thought, Speech, and Belief: A Civil Right
Under the US Constitution, Americans are guaranteed the civil
right to exercise freedom of thought, speech, and belief.10,
11,
12 The right to dissent and petition the government for
redress of grievances and hold beliefs that may differ from ones
held by the majority is protected because our nation’s founders
understood that minorities must be protected from oppression by the
majority.13
Targeted, Bullied, Shunned, and Sanctioned
In America today, some citizens are being discriminated against
and persecuted for following their conscience and making vaccine
choices that do not conform with federal health policy.
They are being targeted, bullied, shunned, and sanctioned.14,
15, Doctors16
and politically powerful special interest groups17,
18,
19,
20 associated with private drug companies21
and medical trade associations22
have joined with government health officials23,
24 and lobbying state legislators to eliminate or severely
restrict the legal right to exercise informed consent to vaccine
risk taking.25,
26,
27
Laws Passed Restricting Non-Medical Exemptions
In the past three years, laws have been passed in the states of
Washington,28
California,29
and Oregon30
requiring parents filing non-medical exemptions to either undergo
state mandated vaccine “education” or beg for signatures from
pediatricians already refusing to provide medical care to children
who do not get all 69 doses of 16 federally recommended vaccines
right on schedule.31
Colorado Preserves Personal Belief Exemption
But this year in Colorado, concerned citizens turned out in force
to publicly object to similar attempts by professional lobbyists to
restrict vaccine informed consent rights.32
On May 2, 2014, the Colorado legislature became the first to vote to
preserve the personal belief exemption to vaccination without
modification.33
NVIC’s Pro-Vaccine Choice Message in Times Square
The same day that legislators in Colorado voted to affirm freedom
of conscience in America, a pro-education, pro-vaccine choice
message sponsored by the National Vaccine Information Center was up
on the CBS Jumbotron in Times Square celebrating freedom of speech.34
The message is simple: “Vaccinations? Know the risks and
failures: Your Health. Your Family. Your Choice.” That 24-hour
message in the heart of Broadway on 42nd Street between 7th and 8th
Avenues in New York City is going to stay there through mid-July.
NVIC Publishes Vaccine Law Reform Guide
Today, the National Vaccine Information Center is launching a
national campaign to secure vaccine safety and informed consent
protections in state vaccine policies and laws.
We have published a fully referenced guide for legislators and
the public called Reforming Vaccine Policy and Law and you
can view or download it for free online on NVIC.org.35
I wrote this guide and it is anchored with more than 240 references
and explains in detail why laws should be passed in every state to
maximize vaccine safety.
Additionally, it is for those choosing to use vaccines while
protecting the legal right to get an education, hold a job, receive
health insurance and medical care, enter a hospital or nursing home,
and function in society without being forced to get every government
recommended vaccine. These legal rights are important to preserve
because, first, we are not all the same.36,
37 We do not all respond the same way to drugs or vaccines
just like we do not all respond the same way to infectious diseases.38
High Vaccination Rates and Vaccine Failures
Public health officials admit that for more than 30 years, the US
has had a 95 percent plus vaccination rate among children entering
kindergarten for at least seven vaccines, including pertussis.39,
40 Now, public health officials admit that children and
adults can be fully vaccinated and still get infected with and
transmit B. pertussis whooping cough to others without even knowing
it.41,
42 There have been recent reported outbreaks of mumps and
measles among fully vaccinated children and adults and the influenza
vaccine has a less than 60 percent rate of effectiveness in most
years.43,
44,
45,
46,
47
Pharma Shielded from Civil Liability
At the same time, the federal government has paid out nearly $3
billion to victims of vaccine injury since Congress passed the
National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986.48
That law banned most vaccine injury lawsuits against drug companies
selling vaccines and doctors giving them49
and, in 2011, the US Supreme Court went one step further and gave
vaccine manufacturers a complete product liability shield – even
when vaccines could have been made safer!50
This sealed a cruel fate for the two out of three vaccine victims
denied compensation under the federal vaccine injury compensation
program.51
Now drug companies can fast track and market new vaccines52
that may be more reactive and less effective than they should be
because there is no legal accountability for anyone who develops,
regulates, markets, gives, and promotes vaccine use.
Individual Susceptibility = Unequal Vaccine Risk Burden
During the past three decades, the Institute of Medicine has
published a series of reports pointing out the large gaps in vaccine
safety science53,
54 confirming that some people are genetically,
biologically, and environmentally more susceptible to suffering
brain inflammation and other types of serious vaccine reactions but
doctors often do not know who will be injured or die from
vaccination.55,
56 It has become very clear that one-size-fits-all vaccine
policies place a disproportionate and unequal risk burden on those
more vulnerable to vaccine harm.57
Have you or your child already discovered you are a member of
that vulnerable minority who is at increased risk for vaccine injury
or do you have a relative or friend who is? If so, then you
understand why a law that compels everyone to use a pharmaceutical
product which carries an unpredictable and greater risk of injury or
death for a minority of vulnerable individuals – most of whom do not
even know who they are – is not humane. There is nothing moral or
just about a government policy that facilitates a de facto selection
of certain individuals for sacrifice in the name of the public
health.
Every Life Is Important
Every life is important and it is time for all Americans to stand
up, speak out and take action to defend our human and civil rights
when it comes to vaccine risk taking. Join with NVIC and help us
secure vaccine safety informing, reporting and informed consent
provisions in all vaccine policies and laws to protect both those
who choose to use every government recommended vaccine and those who
don’t.
Please read the guide to
Reforming Vaccine Policy and Law. Check out the
referenced version and share it with your family, friends,
community leaders and state legislators. Sign up to become a user of
the free online NVIC Advocacy
Portal that will inform you about vaccine legislation moving in
your state.
What you choose to do, what we all choose to do right now will
determine what kind of America we leave to our children and
grandchildren. Because if the state can tag, track down, and force
individuals against their will to be injected with biological
products of known and unknown toxicity today, there will be no limit
on which individual freedoms the state can take away in the name of
the greater good tomorrow. It’s your health. Your family. Your
choice.
Protect Your Right to Informed Consent and Defend Vaccine Exemptions
With all the uncertainty surrounding the safety and efficacy of
vaccines, it's critical to protect your right to make independent
health choices and exercise voluntary informed consent to
vaccination. It is urgent that everyone in America stand up and
fight to protect and expand vaccine informed consent protections in
state public health and employment laws. The best way to do this is
to get personally involved with your state legislators and educating
the leaders in your community.
THINK GLOBALLY, ACT LOCALLY.
National vaccine policy recommendations are made at the federal
level but vaccine laws are made at the state level. It is at the
state level where your action to protect your vaccine choice rights
can have the greatest impact. It is critical for EVERYONE to get
involved now in standing up for the legal right to make voluntary
vaccine choices in America because those choices are being
threatened by lobbyists representing drug companies, medical trade
associations and public health officials, who are trying to persuade
legislators to strip all vaccine exemptions from public health laws.
Signing up for NVIC's free Advocacy Portal at
www.NVICAdvocacy.org gives
you immediate, easy access to your own state legislators on your
Smart Phone or computer so you can make your voice heard. You will
be kept up-to-date on the latest state bills threatening your
vaccine choice rights and get practical, useful information to help
you become an effective vaccine choice advocate in your own
community. Also, when national vaccine issues come up, you will have
the up-to-date information and call to action items you need at your
fingertips..
So please, as your first step,
sign up for the
NVIC Advocacy Portal.
Share Your Story with the Media and People You Know
If you or a family member has suffered a serious vaccine
reaction, injury or death, please talk about it. If we don't share
information and experiences with each other, everybody feels alone
and afraid to speak up. Write a letter to the editor if you have a
different perspective on a vaccine story that appears in your local
newspaper. Make a call in to a radio talk show that is only
presenting one side of the vaccine story.
I must be frank with you; you have to be brave because you might
be strongly criticized for daring to talk about the "other side" of
the vaccine story. Be prepared for it and have the courage to not
back down. Only by sharing our perspective and what we know to be
true about vaccination will the public conversation about
vaccination open up so people are not afraid to talk about it.
We cannot allow the drug companies and medical trade associations
funded by drug companies or public health officials promoting forced
use of a growing list of vaccines to dominate the conversation about
vaccination. The vaccine injured cannot be swept under the carpet
and treated like nothing more than "statistically acceptable
collateral damage" of national one-size-fits-all mandatory
vaccination policies that put way too many people at risk for injury
and death. We shouldn't be treating people like guinea pigs instead
of human beings.
Internet Resources Where You Can Learn More
I encourage you to visit the website of the non-profit charity,
the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), at
www.NVIC.org:
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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.
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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 and sanctions by doctors, employers,
school and health officials for making independent vaccine
choices.
Connect with Your Doctor or Find a New One That Will Listen and Care
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 stop the change in attitude of many parents about
vaccinations after they become truly educated about health and
vaccination.
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 a doctor, who treats you with
compassion and respect and is willing to work with you to do what is
right for your child.
Copyright 1997- 2014 Dr. Joseph Mercola. All Rights Reserved.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/06/10/nvic-vaccine-policy-law-reform.aspx
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