Rense.com
Internet New Battleground
Vaccines Wars - How To
Gain Excemptions
By Theresa Tamkins - Reuters Health
http://www.reutershealth.com
http://www.mercola.com/2000/sept/10/internet_vaccines.htm
9-17-00
Note from bottom of this article -
"If you are interested in claiming a vaccination exemption and are not
sure how to go about doing so, I would recommend contacting Sharon
Kimmelman of Vaccination Alternatives, who has been providing this
excellent service since 1985. She charges a very modest amount,
considering all of the time that she spends and her incredible knowledge
and experience in this area. She can be reached at va...@juno.com or
(212) 873-5051."
When Christine Ewton's 18-month-old son Noah cried on and off for
two days after getting his hepatitis B vaccination it was the final straw.
Although her two oldest children, aged 16 and 13, had been fully
vaccinated, this Jacksonville, Florida mom made a decision--no more
vaccines for either Noah, or her 5-year-old.
"I had a sick feeling and I remember the doctor gave me the
information sheet on hepatitis B as they were giving him the shot and
I'm reading through it thinking--most at risk; homosexuals,
prostitutes--why are they giving this to an infant?" she said.
"It didn't make sense to me." And it wasn't just hepatitis B. She spent a
lot of time reading books and searching the Internet, combing
well-recognized sites, such as those from the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration
(FDA), and those with official-sounding names but murkier
backgrounds. What she found prompted her to make a decision.
No more shots of any kind for her children.
Ewton had a problem, however. Because vaccines are required before a
child can enter school, what could she do? Again the Internet was a
savior. She was quickly able to find a site that guided her through the
process for filing for a religious exemption for her son. "It was on the
Internet and it was very accurate because he's in kindergarten without
the boosters," she said.
Ewton is not alone. Many parents, it seems, are questioning vaccines,
although not all are choosing Ewton's route. According to 1994-1995
data from 40 states reported to the CDC, about 0.5% of parents in the
US file for vaccination exemptions, citing medical, religious or
philosophical reasons, although the number is as high as 2.5% in some
states.
However, it does seem that if they do have questions, an increasing
number of antivaccination websites are willing to give parents an
opportunity to chat with like-minded individuals, download information
and provide legal guidance on filing exemptions.
"I have noticed that there has been a tremendous increase in sites in
different parts of the world and it seems to be spreading quite
significantly," said Dr. Laeth Nasir, who published a recent study on the
subject. "When I looked initially I found about 50 sites, my impression
would be that that has probably doubled," said Nasir, an associate
professor of family medicine at the University of Nebraska Medical
Center in Omaha.
INCREASE IN VACCINES LEAVES PARENTS WARY
Vaccines have saved million of lives and prevented untold suffering that
could have been caused by polio, diphtheria, whooping cough
(pertussis), measles and mumps. While previous generations kept their
children home during outbreaks of common childhood illnesses, parents
today have no such fears.
So why are people seemingly more skittish about vaccination?
One possibility is an increasingly complex injection schedule and the
addition of new vaccines, said Nasir. In recent years, vaccines for
pneumococcus, haemophilus influenzae B, hepatitis B and chickenpox
have been added.
A vaccine for rotavirus--the most common cause of severe childhood
diarrhea--was added in 1998, then withdrawn from the market in 1999
after it was found, in rare cases, to cause intussusception, a type of
bowel obstruction. "It's my sense that there has been quite a bit of
change in the past 10 or 15 years in the vaccination schedule and I think
any time there is change, there is a feeling of instability," he said. "I
think with the rapid change of pace in everything people are just
naturally a little bit more suspicion," he said.
"Coincident with this there has been a decline in the people feeling that
its their civic duty to absorb some risk for the good of everybody, those
two things have happened in tandem and it's made sort of toxic mix."
Ewton remembers thinking that her 5-year old seemed to be getting
more shots than her teenaged children had received at the same age.
"That kind of concerned me that they kept adding more that my other
ones did fine without. But still you think, of course, they wouldn't do
anything that wasn't needed or necessary--you don't question it," she
said. It wasn't after the rotavirus vaccine was recalled that Ewton began
to troll the internet in earnest, looking for answers.
VACCINE INFORMATION: TRUTHS, HALF-TRUTHS AND MORE
But who can a parent trust? Ewton turns a jaundiced eye on all the
information she gets from the Internet, even well-respected websites,
including those from the CDC and FDA. She notes that the CDC has said
that about 100 people die every year of chickenpox. Thinking that those
numbers referred to children, she was surprised to find out that only 23
of those deaths were in individuals under the age of 19, while the
remainder were in adults.
"Seems like they can twist it for whatever picture they want to portray,"
she said. There's no question that the avalanche of material; available to
parents can be overwhelming, and that some sites can foster paranoia
and suspicion.
Nasir found 51 antivaccination websites in his study, and closely
examined 26 of the sites. Almost all of the sites made an effort to appear
unbiased about vaccination, he said. "There's a whole range of just
insane kind of stuff--vaccines are being put out by a group of people to
take over the world--to very sophisticated websites, and I think these are
the most dangerous ones really," Nasir said.
Fifteen of 26 sites advocated the use of alternative medicine over
vaccines to prevent or treat illness. Such theories are similar to
objections of antivaccination groups from as far back as the 19th
century, Nasir said.
"So if you hear that statistic and you don't understand the rest of it, it is
quite anxiety-provoking." Some websites say that doctors were at best
ignorant and at worst, purposely exaggerate the dangers of
vaccine-preventable illnesses to push parents into complying. Other say
that pharmaceutical companies were in cahoots with doctors and the
medical establishment to make money from vaccination. And a report
from the US House Committee on Government Reform released on
August 23 isn't helping the situation. The group lambasts FDA and the
CDC for allowing scientists with financial ties to industry to sit on their
respective vaccine advisory committees. "This report again confirms
what I have been reading on some of the controversial vaccine sites, that
money is the motivating factor behind the push for vaccines, especially
the recent ones," Ewton said. "It makes me sick to my stomach to think
that my child is so "statistically unimportant" that vaccines are approved
so casually with little regard to our children."
DO EXEMPTIONS PUT OTHERS AT RISK?
Even if none of the information on such sites is true, some parents feel
that even the commonly accepted--albeit relatively rare--vaccine risks,
such as prolonged crying bouts or fever, are unacceptable. Their theory
is that such vaccine-preventable illnesses are now so rare, that the risks
outweigh the benefits. Or, even if such illnesses do strike, modern
medicine can somehow combat the symptoms. However, there are no
effective drugs or treatments for many vaccine-preventable illnesses,
including polio and measles.
"In 1990, there was a major outbreak of measles in the US with about
55,000 cases and over 120 deaths," Schwartz said. "In an investigation
of measles cases in California that occur during that time, people who
were not vaccinated, the philosophical exempters, were significantly
more likely to become ill." He also notes that in communities with a
higher number of people with philosophical exemptions to vaccination,
children--even vaccinated ones--were more likely to get sick than those
in communities with few philosophical exemptions. Even children who
receive every recommended shot may not be 100% protected against an
illness.
Having as many people as possible in society vaccinated--limiting the
amount of illness circulating in society--can provide the additional
insurance against getting sick, Nasir said. "Certainly people who are
opting out for their own selfish reasons increases everybody's risk, and
that is something that people need to look at and decide what kind of
action they want to take," he said.
PUTTING PARENTS AT EASE
Regardless of the potential benefits to society, it is still every parent's
personal choice whether or not to vaccinate. Could the medical
community be doing more to convince parents that vaccination is just as
important now as when they were children? Vaccine experts may need
to think more carefully about how new vaccines are introduced, Nasir
said.
"Mainstream medicine is doing it in the best interest of science; every
time we get a new vaccine we twiddle things a bit to makes things a little
better, a little easier," he said. "But there is a downside; perhaps we'll
provoke anxiety that will counterbalance the good things we do."
Pharmaceutical companies are now working on combination vaccines to
at least reduce the number of shots youngsters need to have, Schwartz
said.
However, that could take time. "I'm a parent, I have a young child and
if the choice is between them getting another shot or them getting
pneumococcal meningitis or pneumococcal pneumonia, clearly getting
another shot is the best choice," he said. Overall, parents need to weigh
all the information and make an informed choice about vaccinating their
children Schwartz said.
"I think if a parent truly has a religious, medical or a philosophical
issue, then that's why the exemptions are there, but if they are being
encouraged to use that exemption because they are concerned about
vaccine safety I would encourage them to learns the truth about vaccine
safety issues," he said.
Reuters Health September 1, 2000 (http://www.reutershealth.com)
DR. MERCOLA'S COMMENT: The article does a nice job of
objectively summarizing the problems from a traditional perspective
that seems to be making more and more concessions in this issue. It is
fairly self-evident that the wealth of information available to the masses
on the Internet is one of the main reasons for this movement in the right
direction.
Expect a flood of articles in the next two weeks after the top vaccine
conference in the world, organized by the National Vaccine Information
Center, is finished. If abstracts are available, I hope to post them.
If you are interested in claiming a vaccination exemption and are not
sure how to go about doing so, I would recommend contacting Sharon
Kimmelman of Vaccination Alternatives, who has been providing this
excellent service since 1985. She charges a very modest amount,
considering all of the time that she spends and her incredible knowledge
and experience in this area. She can be reached at va...@juno.com or
(212) 873-5051.
When my schedule frees up I would like to do more to publicize this
issue, which is why I now own the following domains:
www.novaccines.com www.novaccination.com www.novaccine.com
Related Articles: Setting the Record Straight on Anti-Vaccination Stance
Vaccine Links Vaccines and Immune Suppression Link Between Autism
Increase And Vaccination Vaccines and Immunization References and
Research Citations
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