Forced Flu Vaccination and Freedom

October 23, 2008

NVIC Vaccine E-Newsletter

October 22, 2008

by Barbara Loe Fisher

www.vaccineawakening.blogspot.comwww.NVIC.orgwww.StandUpBeCounted.org

It is no wonder parents in New Jersey are protesting in the streets in opposition to a mandate by the state health department that all children entering daycare and school have to get an annual flu shot. The mandating of the notoriously ineffective and risky influenza vaccine is turning out to be one vaccine too many for parents. Rightfully, they are calling for scientific evidence that obeying CDC officials and giving children 69 doses of 16 vaccines from birth to age 18 will keep them healthy while demanding the right to make informed, voluntary choices about vaccination. October 2008 has been a busy month for those who want to force all Americans - especially children - to get a flu shot every year. It doesn't matter if scientific studies have failed to prove that influenza vaccine is effective in children or many adults. It doesn't matter that flu vaccines during the past few years have been essentially worthless because they have not matched circulating strains of Type A and B influenza viruses. And apparently it also doesn't matter if the mortality statistic the flu police cling to - "36,000 annual deaths from influenza" - is scientifically correct or just hype, especially in light of the fact that only about 20 percent of all flu-like illness is actually caused by "influenza." Bottom line: the flu you thought you caught last year might not actually be "influenza" and, even if it was, the chances that you got a strain of influenza actually contained in the flu vaccine out on the market was slim to none. But that isn't stopping the pro-forced vaccinators from pushing mandatory flu vaccination on all health care workers, who have an historically low uptake (about 40 percent) when it comes to getting an annual flu shot. So if you are a nurse, doctor, social worker, minister or any other professional who interfaces with "patients" in a medical setting, you are going to be rolling up your sleeve every year and getting that flu shot or you could be forced to divulge your vaccination status to patients, wear a mask or be denied contact with patients.And what about influenza vaccine injury victims? A quick look at the federal Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) influenza vaccine reaction reports that now number between 24,000 and 34,000 (depending upon if the flu vaccine was given alone or not), illustrate the disturbing similarity of the report descriptions: inflammation of the brain; Guillain-Barre syndrome; chronic joint and limb pain and numbness, chronic fatigue, and permanent neurological damage.On NVIC's Memorial for Vaccine Victims, there is a report of two children in the same family who regressed after influenza vaccination. Born in 2003, their mother reports that her baby son got a flu shot at seven months and her baby daughter at one year old. They both had behavior changes and regressed developmentally. Their mother said:"Both stopped sleeping, lost the few words they had at seven months and our daughter developed night terrors. Our son lost eye contact after each vax round, finally truly regressing at three after milk was added to their diet. He was diagnosed with autism; our daughter was diagnosed with "benign" language delay." Although their Mom reports that diet changes (gluten/casein/soy free diets) helped them partially recover, she said they still show "all the immune suppression and inflammation of efflux disorder and will have to be treated."At the end of her report she includes the following quote by Rabelais: "Science without conscience is but the ruin of the soul."Yes, indeed.________

"New Jersey is the first state in the nation to require a flu shot for all children before they enroll in preschools and daycare centers.....But the mandate has infuriated many parents, hundreds of whom gathered in protest Thursday outside the statehouse in Trenton. Parents have formed advocacy groups and enlisted support online for fellow residents to sign their petition against the law. They've banned together to demand what they see as their right to choose what is injected in the bodies of their children. "I have a really big problem with mandatory flu shots in this country," said Louis Kuo-Habukus, a mother of three from New Jersey. "We need to have a choice." Parents flooded the statehouse, carrying signs with slogans like "Parent Power" and "My Child, My Choice," and chanting "No American should be forced to play vaccine roulette with their child." They rallied for support of a "conscientious objectors" clause, which they want added to the bill. It would grant exemptions for children and parents who have a moral objection to the vaccination." - Sharyn Alfonsi, ABC News and ABC World News Tonight (October 16, 2008)"Parental informed consent is "a civil right, a human right to be free to make intelligent, rational decisions about using pharmaceutical products that risk their children's lives," Fisher told the Holistic Moms Network fifth annual Natural Living Conference. "What the entire debate comes down to is freedom" of choice, said Fisher, a mother, and president of the National Vaccine Information Center. Fisher co-founded the non-profit grass-roots group in Washington in 1982. Health officials and physicians in the past three decades have tripled the number of shots that children are required to have, without adequately studying the possible long-term effects, Fisher charged....From birth to age 18, children currently receive 69 doses of 16 vaccines, including annual flu shots, she said. In 1982, 23 doses of seven vaccines were required, she said. "Today, twice as many children are chronically ill and disabled than in the 1970s and 1980s, when half as many vaccines were given," Fisher said." - Bob Groves, Bergen County Record (NJ), (October 19, 2008) http://www.northjersey.com/news/health/312 44264.html"In the face of chronic low influenza vaccination rates among healthcare workers, the leading US society of infection control professionals says it's time to require medically eligible workers to either get the immunization or sign a form saying they understand the risks to patients if they skip it. "As part of a comprehensive strategy, we recommend that influenza vaccine be required annually for all healthcare personnel with direct patient care," the Associat ion for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) said in a policy statement released yesterday. "Organizations should adopt a system in which an informed declination is obtained from employees that decline for other than medical reasons," the statement continues. "This information should be utilized by the facility to develop improvement strategies for the following vaccine season." - Robert Roos, CIDRAP News (October 10, 2008) "Over the past two flu seasons, vaccinating children five and younger did not reduce the number of child hospitalizations or doctor's visits linked to influenza, according to results of a new study....In the study, a team led by Dr. Peter G. Szilagyi, from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry and Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, N.Y., looked at 414 children aged five and younger who developed flu in the 2003-2004 or 2004-2005 flu seasons......after they adjusted for flu risk factors -- such as a child's location, sex, insurance status, chronic health conditions or timing of the vaccine -- the effectiveness of the vaccine could no longer be shown. The effectiveness of the flu shot ranged from 7 percent to 52 percent for 6- to 59-month-old children who had been fully vaccinated, the researchers found. The less- than-perfect match between the strain of flu in the vaccine during the two seasons studied and the flu that was actually circulating may have contributed substantially to the poor effectiveness of the vaccine, Szilagyi's team speculated. In 2003 to 2004, 99 percent of circulating flu was influenza A, but only 11 percent of the influenza A strain in the United States was similar to the strains included in the vaccine." - Health Day News (October 6, 2008) http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ne ws/fullstory_70107.html

N.J. Mandatory Flu Shots for Preschoolers Cause OutrageFirst Preschool Flu Vaccination Rule Shocks Parents

by Sharyn AlfonsiABC NewsOctober 17, 2008 http://www.abcnews.go.com/He alth/ColdandFluNews/story?id=6051917 & page=1

Health advocate, Gary Null, center foreground, addresses a large crowd in front of the statehouse in Trenton, NJ. during a rally for vaccination choice. (Mel Evans/AP Photo)

New Jersey's Public Health Council stopped complaining last year about parents who don't vaccinate their children and took action. Now, New Jersey is the first state in the nation to require a flu shot for all children before they enroll in preschools and daycare centers.The compulsory vaccination for preschoolers is intended to promote public health, a move based on a recommendation from the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which identified children under age 5 as a group particularly in need of vaccinations.But the mandate has infuriated many parents, hundreds of whom gathered in protest Thursday outside the statehouse in Trenton.Parents have formed advocacy groups and enlisted support online for fellow residents to sign their petition against the law. They've banned together to demand what they see as their right to choose what is injected in the bodies of their children.Click here to watch October 17, 2008 "World News with Charles Gibson" report "I have a really big problem with mandatory flu shots in this country," said Louis Kuo-Habukus, a mother of three from New Jersey. "We need to have a choice."Parents flooded the statehouse, carrying signs with slogans like "Parent Power" and "My Child, My Choice," and chanting "No American should be forced to play vaccine roulette with their child."They rallied for support of a "conscientious objectors" clause, which they want added to the bill. It would grant exemptions for children and parents who have a moral objection to the vaccination.Existing state law provides for medical and religious exemptions to mandatory vaccinations, but parents say that requests are not frequently granted by authorities. They also point to legislation that offers a similar conscientious belief exemption from vaccines in 19 other states.But New Jersey officials oppose any laws allowing parents to opt out of the vaccine."If we allow parents to pick and choose what vaccines to give kids, we will potentially run the risk of weakening the public health of the entire community," said Dr. Tina Tan of the New Jersey State Department of Health.By not getting your toddler vaccinated, the state argues, you risk the spread of disease."Vaccines not only protect the child being vaccinated but also the general community and the most vulnerable individuals within the community," the New Jersey Health Department said in a statement.The state cited evidence from medical studies, which found that those who opted out from measles and pertussis vaccines were 22 times more likely to get the measles and six times as likely to get pertussis.The flu kills about 86 children, from infants to teens, each year, according to the CDC.The state is backed by the CDC, which insists that the flu vaccine is safe. Still, some parents believe that vaccines are overused and not sufficiently proven to be effective or safe.Suspicions linger that compounds within vaccines are responsible for autism and other disorders when given to children early in life.Children 6-months to 5-years-old enrolled in a daycare or preschool have until Dec. 31, 2008, to receive both the flu and pneumococcal vaccine. New Jersey requires the most childhood shots for day-care and school admission among all states in the nation.

Parents asked to study perils of vaccinations

by Bob GrovesBergen County Record (New Jersey)October 19, 2008 http://www.northjersey.com/news/health/312 44264.html

MAHWAH - Americans have a basic right to decide whether their children should be vaccinated, Barbara Loe Fisher, a veteran crusader against government- mandated immunizations, said Saturday.Parental informed consent is "a civil right, a human right to be free to make intelligent, rational decisions about using pharmaceutical products that risk their children's lives," Fisher told the Holistic Moms Network fifth annual Natural Living Conference."What the entire debate comes down to is freedom" of choice, said Fisher, a mother, and president of the National Vaccine Information Center. Fisher co-founded the non-profit grass-roots group in Washington in 1982.More than 300 people, many of them young women with infants and toddlers, attended the conference at a Mahwah hotel, co-sponsored by mothering Natural Family Living Magazine, and Organic Valley Family of Farms. The event included workshops on parenting, ecological activism, managing stress and healthy home greening. Vendors exhibited organic food, holistic health and "eco-friendly" products.Fisher's group successfully lobbied Congress in 1986 to pass the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, "that confirmed for the first time that vaccines can injure and kill," she said. The law created a compensation fund which, to date, has paid out $2 billion to vaccine victims, she said.Still, health officials and physicians in the past three decades have tripled the number of shots that children are required to have, without adequately studying the possible long-term effects, Fisher charged."So nobody knows the true background rates in an unvaccinated child population for seizures, learning disabilities, ADHD [attention-deficit hyperactivity disorders], asthma, autism, diabetes, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, peanut allergies, bipolar disorder and much more," she said.From birth to age 18, children currently receive 69 doses of 16 vaccines, including annual flu shots, she said. In 1982, 23 doses of seven vaccines were required, she said."Today, twice as many children are chronically ill and disabled than in the 1970s and 1980s, when half as many vaccines were given," Fisher said.Drug companies and federal health agencies repeatedly have said that vaccines are adequately tested in clinical trials before they are approved for use. Industry and government interests were not represented at the conference.Fisher began her activism in 1982 after her then- 2-year-old son, Christian, suffered a severe neurological reaction within hours of receiving his fourth DPT [diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus] inoculation. He had numerous infections, personality disorders and, by age 6, was diagnosed with multiple learning disabilities and attention deficit, she said, and was placed in class for the learning disabled throughout his public school education.Christian, now 30, recovered, attended art school in Seattle and was present with a video camera, recording the conference for his mother's organization. "Things started to snap into focus by my early 20s," he said.Fisher said she wanted to empower mothers because they "are most often on the front lines when it comes to raising a child on a day-to-day basis."Fisher's lecture was "fantastic, enlightening, very inspiring," said Cynthia, a 36-year-old social worker and mother of four children in Summit, in Union County. Cynthia, who asked that her last name not be published, cradled her 4-month-old son, Douglas, in a blue sling. Her oldest child is 4 years old."When you first have a baby and go to a pediatrician, they just inject," she said. "They don't talk to you, they just do it. I feel much more informed now," said Cynthia, whose older children received all their shots. Now, she will not get additional shots for Douglas "until I am entirely educated," she said.E-mail: groves

Candice O'Grady, above, holding 7-month-old daughter Violet Perez at the Holistic Moms Network conference Saturday in Mahwah

Donna Iachini with nephew Joaquin Duratz.

APIC seeks mandate for flu shots in health workers

Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy (CIDRAP) October 10, 2008http://www.cidrap. umn.edu/cidrap/content/influenza/general/news/oct100 8apic.html

Oct 10, 2008 (CIDRAP News) - In the face of chronic low influenza vaccination rates among healthcare workers, the leading US society of infection control professionals says it's time to require medically eligible workers to either get the immunization or sign a form saying they understand the risks to patients if they skip it."As part of a comprehensive strategy, we recommend that influenza vaccine be required annually for all healthcare personnel with direct patient care," the Associat ion for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) said in a policy statement released yesterday."Organizations should adopt a system in which an informed declination is obtained from employees that decline for other than medical reasons," the statement continues. "This information should be utilized by the facility to develop improvement strategies for the following vaccine season."APIC urges vaccination for all medical and nonmedical personnel in contact with patients or patient samples, including physicians, nurses, physical therapists, dieticians, religious workers, and cleaning, kitchen, and laboratory personnel.Voluntary programs haven't workedRecent national survey data show that only 42% of healthcare workers receive an annual flu shot, and the rate has not risen significantly in the past decade, the APIC statement notes. Long-standing recommendations from APIC, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other national organizations have made little difference."Voluntary efforts are clearly not effective-it's time for hospitals and other healthcare facilities to require influenza immunization," said Linda R. Greene, RN, MPS, CIC, lead author of APIC's position statement, in a press release.The policy statement notes that health workers can transmit the flu virus to others before they have any symptoms. Further, it says multiple studies show that 70% of health workers continue to work even when sick with the flu.A multifaceted approachAPIC has strongly advocated flu shots for healthcare workers for years, along with a variety of strategies to promote them, but this is the first time the organization has used the word "require," Greene told CIDRAP News in an interview.She said the declination form is the major new element in APIC's recommendation, but emphasized that it should be just part of a broad strategy for encouraging immunization."This isn't just a declination that says, 'I don't want to get it and here's the reason.' It's an informed declination, where the employee really understands that by refusing to get the vaccine for other than medical reasons, they're not only putting their patients at risk, but also themselves and their family and the community as a whole," said Greene, who is director of infection prevention for Rochester General Health Systems in Rochester, N.Y."This is the idea of active declination-it's not just a form that's floating around and you're supposed to sign it sometime; you actually have a conversation about why this is important for you," she added.But other measures must be linked with informed declination, she said.There is only limited evidence on how well declination forms work, she said. "But what we see is that declination alone, if you're not going to employ the other measures, has not necessarily been particularly effective," yielding only modest increases in immunization rates.For example, her institution used a declination approach last year, but it was not coupled with "a tremendously proactive statement about putting patients at risk." The result was that the immunization rate increased about 10%, she said.Getting administrators' buy-inGreene hopes for much better results with a more comprehensive approach this year. "This year our approach is very robust. The administration is encouraging it, the CEO sent a letter to employees, we're going to post our [immunization] rates weekly. Managers must ensure that employees who didn't get the vaccine are told of the risks to patients."Our goal is at least 75% and hopefully higher; but what we're seeing already is tremendous interest."Greene said a key part of promoting flu immunization is enlisting the support of a facility's administration and other departments, so "it's not just sitting in occupational health." Administrators can promote the effort by using the flu immunization rate as an important indicator of safety and quality for the facility, she said.In New York state, informed declination has been used successfully with hepatitis B vaccine for healthcare workers, Greene said. "We've found that we have a very, very high acceptance rate for the hepatitis vaccine." The vaccine is offered to direct-care workers when they are hired, and they see it as a benefit for protecting themselves, she added.Some institutions now require workers to get a flu shot as a condition for being hired, but APIC decided not go that far in its recommendation, Greene said.Taking a stronger stanceAs for the timing of the new policy, Greene said a combination of factors was at work. They included many new studies about flu and flu immunization in recent years. Also, some other professional societies had taken much stronger positions on the issue than APIC had."Some of my colleagues here said it would really help us if APIC had a much stronger statement," she said. At the same time, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations has challenged facilities to exceed the 42% immunization rate."I think we're going to see some results," Greene said. "I think we'll be surprised and pleased to see that vaccine rates will increase and continue to increase."

Kids' Flu Shot Largely Ineffective Over Past Few YearsStudy finds it didn't keep them from hospitals, doctors' offices

Health Day NewsOctober 6, 2008 http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ne ws/fullstory_70107.html

MONDAY, Oct. 6 (HealthDay News) -- Over the past two flu seasons, vaccinating children five and younger did not reduce the number of child hospitalizations or doctor's visits linked to influenza, according to results of a new study.Given the poor match between the flu vaccine and circulating strains during the last two years, "this finding is not surprising," said Dr. Robert Belshe, a professor of medicine and pediatrics and director of the Center for Vaccine Development at the Saint Louis University Medical Center, who was not involved in the study."We know that the inactivated vaccine -- the flu shot -- doesn't work real well in children, particularly when the virus has evolved and drifted away from the type that is put in the vaccine," he said.In contrast, the live attenuated vaccine given as a nasal spray is far more effective, Belshe contended. "A recent study showed that it is 50 percent more effective at protecting against flu, including these drifted viruses that don't match," he said.Another study, this time in the October issue of Pediatrics, found that deaths caused by flu-linked staph infection are climbing among U.S. children, so the flu shot may still be important.In June 2006, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended for the first time that all children 6 months of age or older receive annual flu shots.The new report was published in the October issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.In the study, a team led by Dr. Peter G. Szilagyi, from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry and Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, N.Y., looked at 414 children aged five and younger who developed flu in the 2003-2004 or 2004-2005 flu seasons.Among these children, 245 were seen in hospitals or emergency departments, and 169 were cared for in a doctor's office or clinic. The researchers compared the vaccination status of these children with more than 5,000 children from the same area who did not get the flu.Szilagyi's group found that children who got the flu were less likely to have been vaccinated, compared with children who didn't get sick.However, after they adjusted for flu risk factors -- such as a child's location, sex, insurance status, chronic health conditions or timing of the vaccine -- the effectiveness of the vaccine could no longer be shown. The effectiveness of the flu shot ranged from 7 percent to 52 percent for 6- to 59-month-old children who had been fully vaccinated, the researchers found.The less-than-perfect match between the strain of flu in the vaccine during the two seasons studied and the flu that was actually circulating may have contributed substantially to the poor effectiveness of the vaccine, Szilagyi's team speculated.In 2003 to 2004, 99 percent of circulating flu was influenza A, but only 11 percent of the influenza A strain in the United States was similar to the strains included in the vaccine."The 2004-2005 season was less severe, and the vaccine was a better match to circulating strains than in 2003-2004, but still only 36 percent of virus isolates were antigenically similar to vaccine strains," the authors noted.From September 2007 to April 2008, the CDC reported a total of 72 deaths from flu among children with many more hospitalized.Belshe said that, for children over two, the nasal flu vaccine should be used instead of an injection. "It is recommended for children and adults, aged 2 to 49 who do not have asthma or recurrent wheezing -- that's about 80 percent of children," he said.For younger children, "you're stuck with a flu shot - - no pun intended," Belshe said. "The flu shots should still be used. It probably modifies the severity of the illness, even though it doesn't protect completely against the illness itself -- it is important to take," he said.Dr. William Schaffner, department chairman of the division of infectious disease and professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University, noted that to be fully protected, young children need two doses of flu vaccine, which many don't get."Adults have had much more experience with both influenza and influenza vaccine," Schaffner added. "The likelihood that the vaccine is going to give you a boost in immunity is stronger in adults than it is in children," he said.Schaffner noted that over the past 20 years, the match between the vaccine and the circulating flu virus has generally been good."In about four-fifths of the time, the experts have been pretty much on target, including the appropriate material in the vaccine. Occasionally, because the flu is fickle, it outfoxes those of us who select what's going to be in the vaccine," Schaffner said.As for the coming flu season, the CDC in September announced that it was "optimistic" that the vaccine created this time around will be a closer match to circulating viruses."It's not a great vaccine, [but] it's a good vaccine. The best tool we have is the influenza vaccine -- recognizing that every once in a while, getting your influenza vaccine is not going to give you perfect protection," he said.And any protection may be vital, according to the study in Pediatrics. In that work, researchers at the CDC analyzed data on pediatric flu deaths from the 2004- 2005 season through to the 2006-2007 season.They found that the number of kids who died of the flu over the three seasons rose from 47 and 46 in the first two years, to 73 in the 2006-2007 season. Many of the deaths were attributed to tough-to-treat staph infections. More than half of the children who died were between 5 and 17 years of age and had previously been healthy, the team noted.The overall risk to an individual child is still very low, "but it's an important message to say even healthy children develop complications and die almost before anything much can be done for them," one vaccine specialist, the Mayo Clinic's Dr. Gregory Poland, told the Associated Press.Schaffner stressed that vaccination is still important, but he agreed with Belshe that the nasal spray vaccine is better for children."The nasal spray vaccine provides broader protection against influenza virus variants than does the injectable vaccine," Schaffner said. "There are many of us who would like to see more children vaccinated and more nasal spray vaccine used. Any vaccine is better than none. Nasal spray vaccine should be used more frequently."

National Vaccine Information Center

NVIC E-News is a free service of the National Vaccine Information Center and is supported through donations.NVIC is funded through the financial support of its members and does not receive any government subsidies. Barbara Loe Fisher, President and Co- founder.Learn more about vaccines, diseases and how to protect your informed consent rights www.nvic.org

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