In my previous article on the vaccine controversy, which drew many comments, I made a very simple proposal. I proposed that the easiest way to find out if the vaccines were harming the children was to conduct a very straightforward survey: Ask the thousands of parents who have rejected inoculating their children if any of their children have become autistic; and ask those parents who have complied with the vaccination schedules if any of their children have become autistic or have suffered any other harmful effects.
Those readers who believe that the vaccines do produce harmful reactions agreed that such a survey should be made. The one reader who opposed the survey wrote sarcastically:
Yes, let’s randomly select several thousand children and administer placebo vaccines to them for the first five years of their lives. I think an organization like the John Birch Society, with its Cold War origins, could really get behind a cold-blooded research protocol fit for a Soviet Gulag.
Nobody is suggesting that several thousand children be given placebo vaccines. The survey I suggested consists of simply asking two sets of parents — those who have had their kids vaccinated and those who have not — if any of their children are autistic. One reader commented that the Amish, who reject vaccinating their children, don’t have autistic children. Another reader commented that they do.
So what is the truth? It would be easy enough to find out. But the powers that be are not interested in the truth.
Some years ago I got a call from a parent who thought that I might be able cure her 10-year-old daughter’s learning disability with my reading program. The town was willing to pay for her tutoring. I had done a good deal of tutoring of dyslexics who were able to become good phonetic readers. I even spent 10 years tutoring a severely retarded young adult who had learned nothing in school. We found that he was able to make it to only a second- or third-grade level, which according to his parents was far better than what he had gotten in the public school. And surprisingly, this young man knew his limitations and appreciated the fact that I taught him the alphabet and to read many words phonetically, and to write in a cursive script.
However, this new student was much more severely disabled. Her mother told me that she had been born quite normal and that it was after vaccinations with DPT (diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus) as an infant that she began to have seizures and was delayed in learning to speak and could not learn to read or do simple arithmetic. I spent about two years tutoring her, but to no avail. Whatever the vaccines had done to her brain, they had crippled her for life. Her parents, incidentally, were engaged in a lengthy process of trying to get the government to compensate them for costs of dealing with the damages done to their child by these vaccinations.
Of course, the government denied that it was the vaccinations that had caused the young girl’s problems. My tutoring ceased when the family decided to move to another state, and so I have not been able to find out if they’ve been able to come to an agreement with the government. But it was my experience with this young girl that made me aware of the vaccination controversy. And since I’ve known that our esteemed educators can cause dyslexia with their teaching methods, I have tended to believe that pediatricians, school health experts, and pharmaceutical companies can also harm kids and blame it all on other factors.
Sam Boykin, an anti-vaccine activist, wrote in an Internet article entitled “Shot in the Dark”:
There’s a bizarre yet common custom practiced among certain cultures that has come under criticism as being unnecessary and potentially life-threatening. The procedure starts when scientists prepare a concoction of bacteria and viruses that are manufactured using a host of materials including aborted fetal tissue, dead animal flesh and formaldehyde. Samples of this toxic material are collected and shipped to specially designated stations. Parents bring their young children to these facilities where this strange virulent mixture — by order of state and federal mandates and under threat of penalty — is injected directly into the child’s bloodstream.
Sounds pretty awful, but that is what happens when you subject your child to a vaccine schedule that requires that you pump into your child’s body all kinds of foreign substances without really knowing whether or not they are helpful or harmful. It’s a kind of Russian roulette.
Nevertheless, according to the Centers for Disease Control, if we were to discontinue their use the result would be widespread epidemics, illness and death. The CDC insists that those diseases that are almost completely eradicated or well under control such as polio, measles, and pertussis would experience a substantial resurgence, resulting in dramatic costs in terms of both human lives as well as doctor’s visits, hospitalizations, and missed work.
How do you argue with that? But then there is also the strong suspicion that infant inoculations are a cause of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). According to the Kids Health website:
A lack of answers is part of what makes sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) so frightening. SIDS is the leading cause of death among infants 1 month to 1 year old, and claims the lives of about 2,500 each year in the United States. It remains unpredictable despite years of research.
According to Boykin’s “Shot in the Dark” article, the pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine in particular has been singled out as being the main culprit in many SIDS deaths. It’s asserted by the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) that “hot lots” of this vaccine — those that appear to be associated with more injuries and death than others — have been responsible for thousands of cases.
A study by Viera Scheibner, Ph.D., called “Vaccination: 100 Years of Orthodox Research Shows That Vaccines Represent a Medical Assault on the Immune System,” found that peak incidences of SIDS occurred at the ages of two months and four months, precisely when the first two routine immunizations are given. In the mid-70s Japan raised their vaccination age from two months to two years after a rash of SIDS deaths and lawsuits from grieving parents; their incidence of SIDS dropped dramatically.
Reason magazine of July 1999 published this scary story on SIDS and vaccinations:
Lyla Rose Belkin was an alert and lively baby at five weeks old. Her parents, Michael and Lorna Belkin, say she had never been sick until she received a mandatory hepatitis B shot on September 16, 1998. “That night she became agitated and feisty,” her father recalls. “Then she fell asleep and never woke up.” Doctors told the Belkins that Lyla must have died from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, a catchall diagnosis.
Again, it ought to be easy enough to find out if only parents whose children were subjected to infant inoculations — often done in the hospital right after birth — have experienced SIDS, and whether parents who have not inoculated their children have experienced SIDS.
Apparently, neither the government nor the pharmaceutical firms are willing to sponsor such a survey. It will have to be done by private volunteers determined to do the investigating themselves. In the end, it may not be the mercury or aluminum in the vaccines that causes these horrors but the vaccine itself, with or without these chemical ingredients.
With so much pressure from schools, pediatricians, and government to inoculate newborn infants, it would be wise for a pregnant woman to start reading some books on the subject. One highly recommended book is A Shot in the Dark (almost the same title as Sam Boykin’s Internet article) by Harris L. Coulter and Barbara Loe Fisher. It will help you make your own decision on this important matter.
Another source of information is the previously-mentioned National Vaccine Information Center, which was founded in 1982 by parents whose children have suffered illness or death because of routine mandated vaccinations. It is considered the most powerful anti-vaccine organization in America. Knowledge is power, and as a parent you will be forced to make all kinds of crucial decisions for your child. It is better to be informed than not. Don’t play Russian roulette with your child’s life.
