One of the most vital of these decisions is whether to vaccinate our children fully, partially or at all. All of these choices are valid but, since vaccines, like all medical procedures, can carry with them the possibility of serious injury or death, we need to be able to make our choice with the best available information.
Unlike medical treatments which are given to relieve the symptoms of illness, vaccination is given to healthy babies, children and adults. Therefore, the requirement to ensure safety is greater for vaccines then for any other medical product or procedure.
The medical community and government health authorities want to ensure that every child, and indeed, every adult, gets each vaccine on offer. But the ultimate decision is and must always remain with us – the child’s parents. After all, vaccination is not compulsory for school, pre-school or childcare in Australia and no parent will lose out on any government payment if they choose not to vaccinate.
By the time an Australian child is 12 months old, they will receive 23 vaccines and by the time they start school, that number will more than double. We owe it to our children to be fully informed about all aspects of vaccine safety and effectiveness. If we don’t investigate this issue fully, we may not be doing the best thing for our children or for ourselves.
The Australian Vaccination Network, Inc. (AVN) has been operating since 1994 with a mandate to provide scientifically-sourced information on this complex and difficult issue. We believe that everyone has the right to access all available data on vaccinations, immunisations, immunizations, inoculations – whatever you choose to call them. The government and the medical community provide you with one side of the story – the AVN gives you the other side. Taken together, this data will allow you to make the best possible decision for the health of your child.
The AVN – because every issue has two sides
“The government and the medical community provide you with one side of the story – the AVN gives you the other side.”
Actually, no.
The government and the medical community provide you with the pros and the cons. Vaccination is not a simple, black and white issue, and there is plenty of information about the risks and the benefits of vaccination in health department endorsed literature.
And actually yes. The AVN certainly provides information that is entirely anti-vaccination.
I disagree with you – completely. The government provides the pros and only the mildest cons possible. As you can see from the Childhood Immunisation Handbook for doctors which leaves out the vast majority of reactions and the Understanding Childhood Immunisation Handbook for parents which is virtually useless when it comes to information.
The AVN provides disease definitions from medical sources and also has links to government and pro-vaccination sites.
What government, medical community or pharmaceutical company website link to vaccine-safety websites?
If anyone is withholding information and not being pro choice – it is the mainstream medical community and the government – not the AVN.
I am a South Australian GP. I have been in practice now for 25 years. My own experience of vaccinating thousands of children has been pretty much adverse event free. There is a wealth of QUALITY data available, via conventional Govt. run websites. There is no doubt that if you look at these resources objectively there is only one choice, to immunize. The risk of immunization is tiny (especially the modern vaccines) the risk of not immunizing is huge.
And how much does the government pay you for each vaccine you administer?
We are fortunate in Australia to have a government that WILL pay for each these vaccines so that it is subsidised for you! Go to countries merely off our coast like Papua New Guinea where they don’t have these schedules and you can see the impact. I recently spent two months in the hospitals there and it is 100% clear that prevention is better than cure. The rate of meningitis, causing permanent brain damage or death, from preventable infectious diseases is incredibly high. Before trying to write an “informed” article on something like this, you should visit a paediatric ward in a country where they aren’t so fortunate to have a systematic immunisation schedule and observe the hundreds of children lying unconscious from preventable illnesses like pneumonia. I would just like to ask you, without vaccination, how else do you expect to prevent your child from acquiring these illnesses? Are you ever going to let them travel outside of Australia?
The reason your unvaccinated children are safe in Australia is because of a concept called ‘herd immunity’ – that is, when a significant proportion of a population are vaccinated, they offer indirect protection for people who are unvaccinated by making it less likely that they will come into contact with someone who is carrying the infection. The more people you discourage from vaccinating their children, the less effective vaccinations will be – so yes, you are being selfish by not vaccinating your children. Barry is right: the risk of immunisation is not even close to the risk of developing the diseases they’re trying to prevent. Vaccinations are not 100% effective in every individual but they’re better than no protection at all.
Good luck when they take their Gap Year and choose to leave the first world bubble.
Who cares. I certainly don’t.
Get on topic. unimmunised children are like Typhoid Mary. They carry the diseases into our schools and communities and infect anyone else who did not develop a full immunity from their vaccine.
I will support your right to choose, when you accept the financial and moral responsibility for making other people sick and perhaps even causing the death of someone through your “informed choice”.
Huge??? How many cases, in your 25 years of treating symptoms, have there been? My guess is the number would not be huge. The lives of those people who are not vaccinated are healthier than the patients you send to be vaccinated… yeah vaccinated. Of course the term certain doctors like to use, immunise is wrong. The patients are not immune to the disease.
‘there is only one choice, to immunise’ sounds like another GP on big pharma’s payroll
I agree Sian. Having been in a doctors office recently I saw a number of documents on the table concerning the pros and cons of vaccination, each written without any bias and somewhat more referenced medical information then the AVN. I hear in the comments by admin on here again and again about links to government and pro-vaccination sites but I’m yet to run across many. And those mentioned are quoted with AVN purpose chiefly in mind, with some quotes selectively chosen from articles that actually support vaccination but no link provided for readers to know better.
Make an informed choice- go to an intensive care neonatal unit or children’s ward to also see children struggling to survive with whooping cough… And how well their inmune systems can cope! Look at the medically refereed articles about what the vaccines contain, look at where else and how else the components can pass through our bodies in day to day life and in what quantities from other exposures. … And realise by not vaccinating you potentially allow a strain to gain more of a foothold risking other children as well. why is whooping cough more prevalent in an are with low vaccination rates? It is no coincidence.
Andrea – why don’t you take a look at the graphs of deaths from infectious diseases prior to vaccination? You will see that neither vaccination nor antibiotics played any role in the decline of these infectious diseases.
In addition, being fully vaccinated cannot possibly prevent you from being an asymptomatic (or symptomatic in the case of vaccine failure) carrier of a disease. The fully vaccinated are a large reservoir of contagion.
Lastly, if vaccinations can’t protect the individual – they can’t protect. Don’t blame the unvaccinated for the failure of vaccines to protect.
The only one being selfish is the parent of a fully vaccinated child blaming the unvaccinated for the disease that affects their unprotected offspring. Don’t expect others to take the risk for your child – especially when that risk does not come with the benefits of protection.
“The only one being selfish is the parent of a fully vaccinated child blaming the unvaccinated for the disease that affects their unprotected offspring.” how can a parent of a fully vaccinated child also have unprotected offspring. ugh. these are the people that fall for this crap. listen to yourselves, people!!
Sad that your “informed” decision failed to disclose that not everyone is protected by having an immunisation.
WOW, really have to disagree with this. “neither vaccination nor antibiotics played any role in the decline of these infectious diseases”. Ever heard of smallpox? Basically eradicated due to a world-wide vaccination initiative which saved thousands of lives. Penicillin has saved thousands of lives. Vaccination and antibiotics work.
Went on this site to see for myself what you were saying. Have only seen biased, unreferenced and unscientific information. Very disappointed.
Stephanie – do some research on the decline of smallpox. You will be surprised – the vaccine was the cause of some of the largest and deadliest outbreaks and it only started to decline as acceptance of vaccination declined. There are many good books written about this. I highly recommend one called Bodily Matters.
Nonsense. Smallpox was eradicated by methodically logging outbreaks village to village and vaccinating contacts. It was one of the greatest scientific triumphs of the 20th century, it didn’t just die out somehow or other. And true, vaccination did “decline” in fact stopped altogether, and it wasn’t because acceptance of the vaccine declined it was because the disease was eradicated.
Glad to see you here Dr Nicholson. Now, can you show me evidence that vaccination was the reason for the eradication of smallpox? Actually, can you prove to me that smallpox doesn’t exist any longer. And what was in the smallpox vaccine anyway? Would love to get more information from you on these issues. Thanks!
You say that smallpox declided naturally, but due to what? Smallpox had been around for roughly 3000 years at the least, and then in the space of about 200 years it disapeared. Why? And i would like to mention that that was with the start of the vaccination effort. Also, give me a reference of a confirmed smallpox case in the last 5 years, supported by scientific evidence and not just a conspirosy theroy, and then i will consider disbelieving the world health organisation, the american goverment, the australian goverment, and many seperate health professionals for saying that it is an eradicated disease.Also, smallpox is not the only disease to be vaccinated against, just hop on google and look at some before vaccination and after vaccination stats and i think that you will find that the disease rates dropped dramatically in almost all of them. What do you account that change to? Also, do not say that i should “go to the library”, like you have said so rudely to people who oppse your views, as i have done my research and i find very little to support that idea that other factors aside from vaccination has contributed to the lack of infectious diseases in our community. Finally, you seem to forget what would happen if vaccines were not around, in short, diseases would be rampant and billions, and i mean billions would die, including the children that you try to save. Your use of alternative, non-goverment remadies also suprises me, as no doubt they have been around a long time, but they do not seem to have done much for those who lived before vaccinations and or antibiotics, did they? Many millions died as a result of these actions which in some cases caused more harm to the patients than good. So, just to get this right, you basically want a return to the dark ages. Am i right in thinking that?
Bill gates would love to see the population decline to reduce carbon emissions. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaPBMg5JTgs yet he is the biggest sponsor of vaccines in africa, why?
Stephanie, I’m sorry the information you have mentioned in your post about smallpox is incorrect. Dr Sheri Tenpenny, a US Physician did her own research on vaccination after hearing about so many testimonials on vaccine damaged children. She decided to do her own research and the first place she looked at was the leading vaccine authority in the US, The Department of Centre of Disease Control and was quite shocked at what she discovered there. She learned that Polio and Smallpox vaccines were NEVER responsible for the eradication of these diseases. Also that vaccines have never been proven to be safe and when vaccines are said to be *effective* it doesn’t mean protective. So, therefore, the AVN is correct in what they are stating here. It’s a shame you refuse to open your mind to factual information and think critically of different views. Your loss I’m afraid. I think we need to think for ourselves more than ever today and question everything we are told. Not just this subject either.
links please.
Despite what you might think of me, I actually DO like to consider both sides of an argument. So go ahead and share the link for the research article you have mentioned (not a newspaper article but an article from a peer reviewed journal)
I’m not doing your homework for you. Do not assume I get my information from newspaper articles. Mainstream media cannot be relied upon or trusted to print the facts therefore prompting people like myself to seek more reliable sources of information and facts elsewhere. Dr Sherri Ten penny has written her own books and that is where I obtained some of my information about her. In my opinion, articles from medical journals cannot be entirely relied upon as ‘ghost writting’ and fraudelent studies are known to be common in this industry. Perhaps not always the gospel of information you’re after…I think its wise to obtain your research from several realiable sources before something becomes apart of your belief system. I think gut feeling also comes in to it somewhere as well… No offense intended before. Just my thoughts
the disease is never eradicated. what happens is people BECOME IMMUNE to the disease with vaccinations, therefore can no longer contract said disease, why do you think whooping cough, measles and such are coming back stronger and deadlier than ever? because there are carriers out there….
YOU’RE ALL WRONG!
It ISN’T a black and white issue, so there isn’t just ONE answer: yes or no. The answer lays somewhere in between…
Vaccinations ARE important. Any of you who deny this are ignorant, middle class, conservative hippies, who have no idea about the real world because you live in a modern society.
And any of you who think that medical science is God and should not be denied, are ignorant, middle class, conservative wack jobs, who have no idea about the world because you live in a modern society….
HOWEVER, not ALL vaccinations are important, and most certainly NOT for a newborn baby. If you are intelligent, and you get yourself and your partner tested, play it safe by not introducing the child to too many environments before their immune system has developed, then there shouldn’t be a problem to not vaccinate a newborn baby against everything!
Vaccines such as whooping cough ARE important for babies, as whether you want to admit it or not, there is very, very clear evidence and statistics that a lack of vaccination allows the illness to appropriate itself. My own family members did not vaccinate their baby and 3 year old, and they had whooping cough pass between them for 3 months! It wasn’t deadly for them, but it still could of been avoided to lessen the stress it caused.
And what about for babies who aren’t as strong as others?
It’s also a matter of lifestyle: why should a baby who lives in a normal environment, where both parents have previously been tested for Hep B, be administered the Hep B vaccine at birth???! There is NO reason, and only detrimental effects.
Use some common sense, ffs!
If your child has to go to day care as a baby, then vaccines are important for them because you don’t know who they are coming into contact with.
My baby isn’t going into daycare, and wont be even leaving the house for at least the first year of life. Any members who come and visit will be tested for certain things. So I don’t need newborn vaccinations.
When I have done more research and decided on an age (could be 6 months or 1 year) I WILL be getting immunised for Whooping cough.
The other vaccines I will either be receiving later (meningococcal) when my son’s immune system has developed for itself.
Some vaccines I won’t be doing at all, or until highschool (such as polio and hep b).
It disgusts me that you are all so obsessed with fighting the good fight and taking one of two sides, that you avoid thinking for yourselves and actually researching the issue outside of an organisation (be it the AVN or the medical institution) that may have an agenda.
Every forum I have gone onto is either pro-vaccination or anti. Do you really think it’s that simple?!
There is such a thing as the middle ground. Here, we don’t take sides, we look at both sides and TRY to make a balanced decision based on circumstances, because each circumstance will determine a baby’s future.
Here here, Atalya! Strongly agree – it’s a balance. I would like to partially vaccinate while infant and delay the others until approaching daycare or school age. And would prefer to do one vaccine at a time – not up to 7 or 8 in one day as is the common practice here… Whose baby (here in Australia) would naturally come into contact with this large a number of pathogens/diseases simultaneously in ONE DAY? In all seriousness, it’s quite excessive, for anyone’s immune system, let alone that of a 2 month infant. And why can’t we get solitary pertussis vaccs (without diphtheria & tetanus) here? There’s something very wrong about that. My personal opinion is that whooping cough prevention is super important for an infant, but diphtheria and tetanus can wait until they’re a bit older… But it’s either all or none. You want to see full vaccinations increase? Make single vaccines available…
Vaccines are certainly big business and provides untold billions in profits for powerful multi-national pharmaceutical companies (and either directly or indirectly for doctors, medical & drug regulators, medical journals & universities and medical lobbyists who fund politicians and influence government policy.)
But vaccines do not provide lifetime immunity – only catching the infection and developing natural anti-bodies provides lifetime immunity. Although disconcerting, many childhood infections such as chicken pox are perfectly natural, normal and even healthy (because they stimulate a robust immune system early in a child’s life & provide natural lifetime immunity). Just plenty of rest & liquids will assist the body’s natural immune response (fever, white blood cells etc) eliminate toxins to speed recovery.
Vaccination Dangers Can Kill You or Ruin Your Life by Dr. Russell Blaylock, a board-certified neurosurgeon;
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2004/05/12/vaccination-dangers.aspx
The latest research from the Institute of Medicine demands attention;
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/11/01/more-parents-waking-up-to-vaccine-dangers.aspx
This is the vaccination given to every child born in Australia (Hepatitis B vaccine) – on the very first day of their life!
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2002/10/12/hepatitis-b-vaccine-part-two.aspx
http://tv.naturalnews.com/v.asp?v=BAE7F6323813CFAFB8338173FB11D429
Mercury In Vaccines Was Replaced With Something Even MORE Toxic By Dr Mercola;
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/01/27/mercury-in-vaccines-was-replaced-with-something-even-more-toxic.aspx
Why does the US have a Third-World Infant Mortality Rate? In the Human & Experimental Toxicology study published September 2011, the researchers found “a high statistically significant correlation between increasing number of vaccine doses and increasing infant mortality rates.” http://hsionline.com/2011/12/15/plain-sight/
Why Current Thinking about Autism is Completely Wrong By Mark Hyman, MD;
http://www.healthiertalk.com/why-current-thinking-about-autism-completely-wrong-0916
Whopping cough – the latest research suggests the whooping cough vaccine itself might make sensitive individuals more vulnerable to the disease.
The primary agent of whooping cough infection is a bacterium called Bordetella pertussis. But another infectious agent thatalso causes whooping cough– Bordetella parapertussis–is becoming more common.
The new research reveals that the whooping cough vaccine (which contains only B. pertussis antigens) may actually impede immunity against B. parapertussis. In fact, it appears the vaccine prompts a significant increase in B. parapertussis;
http://www.nvic.org/NVIC-Vaccine-News/July-2010/Whooping-Cough-Outbreaks-Vaccine-Failures.aspx
These are just a sample of the latest research that you won’t find on any government or mainstream medical website. And this is why websites like avn.org.au are so vital for the health & welfare of our children.
Great Phil! Thanks for sharing with those that want to know the truth about these dangerous drugs.
Thanks Phil,
Oh well, at least there *is* info… No matter how passionate the writer is about it!
Although I do find that too many articles are written with passionate bias… If only more info was presented without so much journalistic gusto
Do you think tens of thousands of doctors studying 6 years in medical school then studying for years after and seeing real life cases are wrong?
In eventuallity people with opinions will need to decide in the end one of two things. Immunise or not immunise. There are pros and cons to immunisations. The mainstream evidence suggests that there is a clear benefit noted historically.
One must not always take a skeptical view and cynical approch to public health and healthy living. Infectious disease has always been a killer throughout history and life expectancies have risen from age 30… yes 30… to a healthy 80 with the advent of antibiotics. following the same principles of infectious disease treatment and prevention, immunisations are known to prevent widespread death and disease.
Of course there will be some or many that have adverse effects from the treatments. You need to consider whether you will take the risk or not. Bad luck if you get killed by the treatments. The risks are minimal and not widespread like infectious diseases.
I think there are more worrying things than vaccinations in life. I don’t see people staying home to avoid road death, not working to avoid back injuries and stress, and not meeting people to avoid infectious diseases.
Fearmongering in the general media and public has created this situation. It applies to the less educated and less knowledgeable. I dont think individuals should be forced to all go read the literature on pros and cons of immunisations. Most people dont even read their mobile phone contracts (because they can’t be bothered). Perhaps we should leave it to the professionals?
Hugh – I don’t care how many doctors believe this – show us the science. For decades, doctors thought they didn’t have to wash their hands between going to the morgue and delivering babies and tens of thousands of women and babies died as a result. They believed that thalidomide and DES were safe to administer to babies; that HRT was a great way to treat hot flushes; that mercury powder would cure teething in babies…the list goes on and on. Don’t defend the lack of science because of your personal fears. If you want to accept things on blind faith, that is your right. But don’t expect others to follow along with you. Most of us want to take responsibility for our health and for the health of our children who we are bound and determined to protect.
You should do some research on how much time a GP actually spends studying vaccines… it is a joke
No, Hugh, I DON’T think we should just “leave it to the professionals”…
Doctors are not all-knowing… As science progresses, so does our knowledge.
This is the reason we no longer apply mercury to our wounds (as an example)
And furthermore:
http://www.vegsource.com/news/2011/06/leading-cause-of-death-in-australia-doctors-prescribing-meds.html
So, no, I certainly don’t think we should flippantly hand over the responsibility for our health to someone else.
As someone who is studying medicine I’d just like to make a point. The reason I am going into medicine is because I want to help people. I want to do my best to stop people from getting sick and try to cure them when they do. That is the point of medicine. To decrease the impact of illness on peoples’ lives. Doctors have families too. So do pharmaceutical company CEOs. We all want to eradicate disease or for the cures to be available in case we one day wake up to find one of these horrible illnesses or diseases has come upon us or one of our family members.
The idea that medicine is inflicting harm on the community is insulting. It belittles the long and tireless work of people who have been researching vaccinations and cures for diseases for years. Some of these people only struggle through what seems like an impossible task because they are driven by the memory of someone who was lost to that particular disease. Suggesting that there is NO science to back these vaccinations is quite literally trivialising the life work of many well-educated and well-meaning people.
Do not put yourselves on a pedestal and suggest that you are the ones who “really care”. Disease affects EVERYONE including the people developing the vaccinations, the people selling them and the people injecting them. If you don’t agree with vaccination that is your choice. But please do not insult other people who are just doing their best to HELP the community by trying to trivialise their HARD WORK and POSITIVE IMPACT. If you’ve got a better idea to deal with infectious disease in our community than vaccinations then get off your computer and go and spend some time developing it and doing meticulous trials on it and then come back and argue with the people who have done these things.
Medicine is practiced by humans. It is a human trait to want to do the best for your family’s health. To have a family that is healthy and happy – that is what we all want. There is a reason your opinion is in the minority, because vaccinations are the best thing we’ve got available to us right now.
Above all else – please, stop trying to dehumanise people who are just doing their best to keep the ones they love alive.
Dear Frank,
Everyone who goes into medicine does it because they want to help people. And the IDEA that medicine is inflicting harm on the community is not insulting – it is fact. medicine is now the #1 cause of death in the US and it is #3 in Australia. If you are studying how to help people, make sure that you keep and open mind and question everything you are taught. That way, you will be a better doctor when you are finished. You sound like you are already a pretty good human being.
Thank you – I intend to. That is an interesting statistic – can you direct me to where it is from?
Hi Frank,
There are many references for the American statistic:
http://www.draxe.com/conventional-medicine-is-the-leading-cause-of-death/
http://www.rightdiagnosis.com/mistakes/common.htm
And a lot of the information from Australia can be found on the website of the Medical Error Action Group though there have been two federal government reports in recent years on iatrogenic issues and nosocomial infections.
Here is another link on the Australian situation. 11% of all deaths in Australia every year are due to medical error. – http://besthealth.com.au/drugs-and-medical-errors-killing-one-of-every-five-australians/
Some of the sources used by those websites were reasonable. So I’ll happily comment on them.
1. Nosocomial infections – Horrible? Yes. Are we doing our best to try to prevent them? Yes. Would these people be in hospital if they didn’t need to be? No. Nosocomial infections are not “medicine killing people”, they are infections killing people. They are catching these infections whilst in a health care setting, however I wonder how many more of these people would die if none of them went to hospital? You would be happy to know that the medical community see nosocomial infections as just as big an issue as you do and we are being VIGOROUSLY educated on how to reduce them and research is ongoing.
2. Drug interactions – Another difficult topic. And one that Doctors and the wider medical community are trying to eradicate. It’s called polypharmacy and we are studying its effects very closely. The major problem here is that with our ageing population, people are surviving to the point where they require numerous medications for their numerous conditions (diabetes, hypertension, congestive cardiac failure, hypercholesterolaemia etc). Managing these medications can become difficult. Particularly when patients are not totally compliant with instructions or do not visit the same GP all the time. Managing multiple medications is a very difficult task. And in patients with multiple morbidities, mistakes can be made. Again – this is a major topic of education at the moment and the medical community is doing it’s best to manage it. However the point remains – without these medications, most of these patients would have already succumbed to one of their many medical problems.
3. Medical Error – The unfortunate outcome of putting your health in the hands of other people – people make mistakes.
Finally, let’s be clear – how many more deaths would be occuring in Australia each year without medical intervention? It’s no big secret that there are problems with the health care system. I suggest sneaking into a lecture at a medical school in your region – we are being taught about these issues. No one is pretending they don’t exist, we are working to eradicate them.
Final point – everyone has to die of something, someday. Many of the people who die from drug interactions and nosocomial infections were being kept alive by medicine in the first place. If it didn’t work MOST OF THE TIME, we wouldn’t do it. That’s the basis of scientific evidence.
Hi Frank – I haven’t got a lot of time right now to go over all of this point by point though I do appreciate your doing so. What I am hearing – or my interpretation of what you have written – is that you admit that medicine is one of the leading causes of death but that is OK because people have to die anyway. That is not a proper attitude = especially for someone who is planning on being a doctor.
Yes, everyone has to die – but when the treatments that are meant to extend life instead shorten it, there is a problem and that problem needs to be admitted or it will never be corrected.
As for your question about how many people would die if doctors and hospitals weren’t around, we need look no further than israel to find out.
A doctor’s strike led to a 40% decline in the death rate and this has happened in many other places around the world.(www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article981.html) So while some people are definitely saved by Western medicine – car accident victims, burn victims, babies that require c-section births, etc. – the majority of medical and surgical procedures are – if not counter-productive – outright dangerous.
Traditional medicine has been used safety for – in some cases – thousands of years. Yet doctors say it doesn’t work. When people get better taking natural therapies – all medicine has to say is – placebo effect or coincidence. But when people get worse after drug based treatments or vaccination – we are told there is no connection. You can’t have it both ways.
That is not what I meant at all and I can see that we are not going to get anywhere with this.
To summarise: Doctors are people too, they are doing the best they can to help their families and yours. If my mum got sick I would want her to be treated with conventional medicine, not because I am a medical student, but because all of the information available to our society suggests that it is her best chance of survival.
No treatment = 80% mortality
Traditional medicine = 78% mortality
Medical treatment = 20% mortality
You do the maths. Even if the 20% mortality rate from medical treatment includes 3% for medical error or drug reactions, it’s still a hell of a lot better than not treating at all.
Thanks anyway, was interesting to hear where you are coming from.
I’m going to keep studying and hope that works out for me.
Cheers.
Good luck Frank. I wish you the very best with your studies and future career.
Death by Medicine
By Gary Null, PhD; Carolyn Dean MD, ND; Martin Feldman, MD; Debora Rasio, MD; and Dorothy Smith, PhD
Something is wrong when regulatory agencies pretend that vitamins and nutritional supplements are dangerous, yet ignore published statistics showing that government-sanctioned medicine is the real hazard.
Until recently, Life Extension could cite only isolated statistics to make its case about the dangers of conventional medicine. No one had ever analyzed and compiled all of the published literature dealing with injuries and deaths caused by government-protected medicine.
A group of researchers meticulously reviewed the statistical evidence and their findings are absolutely shocking.1-4 These researchers have authored the following article titled “Death by Medicine” that presents compelling evidence that today’s health care system frequently causes more harm than good.
This fully referenced report shows the number of people having in-hospital, adverse reactions to prescribed drugs to be 2.2 million annually. The number of unnecessary antibiotics prescribed for viral infections is 20 million per year. The number of unnecessary medical and surgical procedures performed is 7.5 million per year.
The number of people exposed to unnecessary hospitalization is 8.9 million per year.
The most stunning statistic, however, is that the total number of deaths caused by conventional medicine is nearly 800,000 per year. It is now evident that the American medical system is the leading cause of death and injury in the US. By contrast, the number of deaths attributable to heart disease in 2001 was 699,697, while the number of deaths attributable to cancer was 553,251…
Read the complete, and disturbing, report here and make up your mind;
http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2006/aug2006_report_death_01.htm
..Life Extension has decided to publish this article in its entirety to call attention to the failure of the American medical system. By exposing these gruesome statistics in painstaking detail, we provide a basis for competent and compassionate medical professionals to recognize the inadequacies of today’s system and at least attempt to institute meaningful reforms.
Natural medicine is under siege, as pharmaceutical company lobbyists urge lawmakers to deprive Americans of the benefits of dietary supplements and bioidentical hormones. Drug-company front groups have launched slanderous media campaigns to discredit the value of healthy lifestyles. The FDA continues to interfere with those who offer natural products that compete with prescription drugs.
These attacks against natural medicine obscure a lethal problem that until now was buried in thousands of pages of scientific text. In response to these baseless challenges to natural medicine, the Nutrition Institute of America commissioned an independent review of the quality of “government-approved” medicine. The startling findings from this meticulous study indicate that conventional medicine is the leading cause of death in the United States…
http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2006/aug2006_report_death_01.htm
Don’t waste your time here, Frank. You’d have a better chance getting the NRA to surrender their guns
LIKE!!!
Hi there
I’m not sure how old this info is, but as of the 1 July 2012 the government has taken away their monetary insentives for immunisations and have replaced it with a loss of family tax benefit income for any child found not up to date with their immunisations. Now , our family depends on this money from the government and as much as I was against vaccinating my child, the day cares also will not take a child into care if you cannot provide an up to date vaccination book. Where is our choice??
Hi Julie,
You have been misled by the Australian government. They do NOT want parents to know that if they register as conscientious objectors to vaccination, they won’t miss out on any entitlements – not the childcare allowance and not the Family Tax Benefit Part A. The government, the medical community and the media are colluding to withhold this information from parents. I was told by a staffer in Tanya Plibersek’s office (the Federal Minister for Health) that they won’t be telling parents about their right to be conscientious objectors because the government encourages vaccination. But this is immoral and unethical behaviour and it may force some less-informed parents to do something they may not feel is in their child’s best interests or that they feel is actually dangerous for their children. Is this the sort of government we want in Australia?
Hi Admin,
I have recently become concerned about the vilification of people who choose not to vaccinate their children in the mainstream media, I think the clincher for me was enduring several polls in the mainstream media (television, print and web) asking respondents whether or not vaccination should be “mandatory”. The vagueness of this word terrifies me, as a parent who has had my son suffer three reactions and myself have suffered two, one as a child and another as an adult to a flu vaccine, I definitely feel I should have a right to opt out of this program.
I feel that, and don’t take this as an attack, but, maybe you shouldn’t be making a whole lot of noise about this, or letting the media make a whole lot of noise, at the very least from reading the blog, the various levels of government have been making it clear to you they don’t want you to do this. The people who are willing to subject their kids to this, well, they are not your problem or mine, their kids health is not our problem, nobody is going to be successful in fighting this thing, the best we can hope for is to be left alone and retain the right to say no and protect our own children, QUIETLY (and definitely provide information to people who have the cause or insight to come looking). It is not going to be a noble defeat to have them take the conscientious objection form from us.
In my opinion, and I have not been around for as long as you have, but, the message these media stories of late and these polls are saying to me is “at LEAST this MASSIVE majority of Australians do not care if the government takes away your rights on this, indeed, they are now of the opinion that the government should stop you from “rorting” the system” and most of the media beat ups mention this website specifically. I am of the opinion that this government can and will take away the conscientious objection forms if they have reason to, and I KNOW that an Abbott government wouldn’t hesitate. They will find a way to do this, these are dangerous times to openly question anybody with more money or power than you, let alone the government, (ask Julian Assange or the researcher who linked mmr to autism). This is a time to be quiet and hope they leave you alone, this time will pass, and when they aren’t trying desperately to prop up a failing economic system, then might be the time to start asking questions and making some noise.
Sorry, but am getting increasingly anxious with the media and just thought I should say something seeing as how your site is mentioned a lot in the media attacks on people who choose not to vaccinate.
Tom
Hi Tom,
Do you really believe that if the AVN were to lower its profile, the people who are trying to take away your rights would go away? Do you believe that vaccination would be more likely to be compulsory were there no vocal group opposing it? Do you think that what is happening now is not a backlash because the AVN has been so successful in helping parents become aware of their rights and of the scientifically-based downside to vaccinations? If we were not successful, they would be happy to ignore us (they did for 15 years…) – it’s only because people are listening that they consider us to be a threat so the attacks are a sign of their fear of our success – not of our failure. And if they AVN weren’t here, vaccination would have been compulsory years ago because back in 1997, the government was trying to bring this in and it is only via our lobbying for the conscientious objection clause, that it did not become a reality.
And as for keeping quiet, well, this says it all, I think:
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out–
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out–
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out–
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me–and there was no one left to speak for me.
Martin Niemöller (1892-1984)
I have loved that quote (or some version of it or other) since high-school, but that is my point, the media beat up is laying the foundations for the general public to support taking the conscientious objection form away, nobody is “speaking out” for our rights but us, the media isn’t even attempting to present our side of the story, in a way the media is “immunising” the general public from even listening to what “anti-vaxxers” have to say now, the way they have so swiftly vilified us is really terrifying.
Are you saying the AVN is the reason we have the conscientious objection form? If this is true I was not aware of that, my first was born in 2009, so I didn’t know anything about conscientious objection until a few years ago. I could tell you some stories about our encounters with doctors and nurses after his first reaction when we were iffy about getting the next immunisation, hair-raising times, until centrelink threatened to cut off CCB (now we would just take him out of childcare rather than put him at risk, but at the time my wife was suffering postnatal depression and I was working full-time and she needed childcare days and it would have been very tough to afford it without CCB), then we found out about the conscientious objection form, so that was probably literally a lifesaver.
I don’t know, I guess I agree with you that they won’t just go away now, which is a pity. If and when they take away the conscientious objection form expect to see me on the news before I let my son suffer through it a fourth time. I think we have left the period when a small vocal group can change something (unless youre the ACL, maybe they can take on this issue, surely the bible says something vague that can be used against vaccination?), we are a minority, the government is currently ignoring a vast majority who want marriage equality, that fight for the rights of a minority has more than 80% of Australians supporting it, the media already has about 80% AGAINST us if the polls are to be believed. Probably you are right, you should have my personal email through the site if there is any practical way I can help, but I maintain the media is not going to be the place to win this fight from what I have seen the last few weeks.
Tom
Hi Tom,
I hear your frustration and fear but I have to tell you that I disagree with much of what you said (though I don’t want you to think this is in any way a judgement on yourself – I know why you feel that way and sometimes I feel it too).
1- The AVN lobbied for, helped write and got the Senators and MPs on side who eventually passed the conscientious objector clause back in the late 1990s.We did two weeks of very hard lobbying on a budget of less than $2,000
Couldn’t do that today, I think? We were told we couldn’t do it. We were just a bunch of mums who had never done ANYTHING with the government before but we didn’t listen to the naysayers. We knew that what we were doing was for the right reason and on the side of justice and because of that, we would prevail. In the end – we did. It is one of the AVN’s best achievements and one that tens of thousands of Australian families have benefitted from even if – like you – they had no idea that we were involved 
. The only regret I personally have it that we allowed the government to only exempt Christian Scientists from the requirement to see doctors in order to get the form signed. We were pushing for AVN members to also be exempted since by definition, they are already making informed choices on this issue – and history has shown that we should have pushed harder on that point since so many doctors become abusive towards those who disagree with them – and we warned the government that would happen.
2- You say that, “I think we have left the period when a small vocal group can change something,” but don’t you see – nothing could be further from the truth! We and many other small vocal groups ARE changing things – every day. And that is why there is such a huge backlash against us. If we were having no effect, SAVN would not exist, the Australian Skeptics would have to go back to picking on psychics and natural therapists and the government would have one less smoke-screen to use to deflect attention from the really horrible things they do every day. The fact that the AVN exists, that we have not been cowed, closed down or frightened away is a thorn in the side of pharmaceutical interests with their trillions of dollars and worldwide hit squads. I don’t know when or if they will finally get to us, but while we are here, I plan on standing up against these bastards and hope you will stand with me and with the AVN and our worldwide membership?
3- As for the polls in the media – never believe what those polls say. Did you look at the questions and the way in which they are phrased; did you know that SAVN and the skeptics can and do utilise bots to skew the results; do you truly believe that parents in Australia and around the world are not aware of the huge increase in childhood chronic diseases and why they are occurring? The internet is the way in which we bypass mainstream media and it is incredibly effective, immediate and open. That’s why the government in Australia and in most other countries that purport to be democratic are trying so hard to control and suppress this resource. Communist China has nothing on the Gillard government when it comes to censorship! But so far – and hopefully into the future – we still have the right to say what we need to say online. And the media is irrelevant to this battle. Most people are smart enough to recognise spin when they see it and reading a newspaper or listening to a mainstream media report is so full of spin, it can make you dizzy!
Yes, we could use your support and there are lots of practical things that can be done. Why don’t you contact me at meryl@avn.org.au or via the AVN’s office number – 02 6687 1699 during the week so we can discuss it? Thanks so much – Meryl
How Vaccine Policy & Law Threatens Parental Rights in America
This award winning documentary offers a fresh look at what’s behind the sharply polarized vaccine debate in the U.S., and offers the opportunity for a new, more rational discussion about how to create safer and more effective public health policies to help our children stay healthy.
Health officials insist vaccines are the best way to protect the health of individuals and the public. As a result, the number of doses of vaccines included in the childhood vaccination schedule has tripled over the past 30 years, increasing from 23 doses of seven different vaccines to 69 doses of 16 different vaccines. At the same time there has been a rise in the numbers of vaccinations given to children, we’ve also seen a significant rise in the numbers of children suffering with chronic disease and disabilities.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/10/30/the-greater-good.aspx?e_cid=20120930_SNL_Art_1
The article at the start of this chain of comments is factually incorrect. It states there are 23 vaccines by 12 months of age and this more than doubles by school age. This is not in line with the current Australian childhood immunisaiton schedule. It also doesn’t help to refer to what is happening in other countries such as the link to the american article in the post above which refers to 69 doses.
I have to say that I find this interesting. I jumped on here following a link that a friend posted on facebook and did some google searches. I would like to start by saying that I have more reason than most of you to be against vaccinations, having spent 115 days in hospital, 23 of which I was on a ventilator. I had to learn to walk again, and basically retrain my muscles. The reason for this was Guillain Barre Syndrome, one of the most common triggers for this is the flu vaccination.
I would like to stress at this point that it is not the only trigger, in fact pregnancy, food poisoning, gastro and the flu itself can lead to this. They do not know what caused this is my case.
Guillain Barre Syndrome is seen as one of the worst affects of immunisation, with most who receive a flu shot experiencing a day or two of flu like symptoms being a low affect of vaccinations. In saying this, I will be vaccinating my children, I encourage my friends and family to be vaccinated. Whilst I cannot receive a flu shot again, and am cautious after Guillain Barre Syndrome regarding what vaccinations, if any, I will take in the future I understand the big picture.
To look at me, aside from the scar from the tracheotomy there is no indication I have ever been sick. I walk like I did before I got sick.
In contrast, those that suffered with Polio spent their lives walking with a limp, loss of movement and anything but 100% body movement. Thousands of people die every year from the flu, and there are many benefits from vaccinations, and certainly considerably higher than the cost of not vaccinating.
As Frank has said earlier in this doctors and those in the medical industry have families and want to do the right thing. Too many people are involved, and what you need to remember is that there are dangers everywhere, to those that want to wrap their children in cotton wool rather than expose them to the world, a life that sheltered will not develop a healthy immune system, vaccinations are not the be all and end all, our immune system develops faster as a young child that it does at any other point in our lives, why not give it a booster? The gains are worth the cost, that is a very small percentage of people suffer and survive, as opposed to the diseases that killed thousands, and left many more with a lesser quality of life.
Having survived the consequences, I know that my body fought Guillain Barre Syndrome and recovered better than if I had incurred a bad flu, yes it was painful, but not worse than our ancestors survived and the human body is an incredible thing. Why not give it a helping hand to remove those things that kill us.
” …it was only after demonstration of its safety and efficacy in the US did we take it to Nigeria in 1960. I will never forget the mothers rushing in to get their children vaccinated. There was a saying among the mothers there, “Don’t count your children until the measles has
passed”. It was this experience that put a whole new perspective in my mind about the global application of the vaccine and its use in preventing children from dying.”
Nigerian women in the 1950′s are clearly smarter than the AVN 50 years later….
Vaccines in developing countries have done nothing to reduce the incidence of deaths from infectious diseases and you can’t eat vaccines, live in them or drink them (with the exception of the oral polio vaccine but there isn’t enough fluid in that dose to ease deaths from dehydration – a major cause of death in these areas). If the money spent on vaccinating people in developing countries were instead used to feed them, give them clean water and show them how to improve their own living conditions, the rates of morbidity and mortality from infectious diseases would decline precipitously – just like they did in Australia and the US – WITHOUT the need for vaccines.
Components of the smallpox vaccine
http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/smallpox/vaccination/aboutvaccine.asp
Note; the actual virus in the vaccine is vaccinia, or Cow Pox. It is not considered dangerous to humans.
Probability of death as a result of the smallpox vaccine = 1 in 1,000,000 (0.0000001%)
http://www.aafp.org/afp/2003/0901/p889.html
The percentage of the population who are allergic to peanuts = 1.3 in 100 (1.3%)
http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=15618
Percentage of people allergic to peanuts requiring hospitalization (following near-fatal episodes) following exposure = ~50% (or approximately 0.5% of the population).
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10200001
Australia has a population of 21,727,158 (as of 2012).
http://worldpopulationreview.com/population-of-australia/
If everyone in Australia were to be vaccinated with the smallpox vaccine, approximately 21 people may die.
If everyone in Australia were to be exposed to peanuts, approximately 100,000 people may die.
Peanuts are more dangerous than the smallpox vaccine.
Doc Sukita – if you are really a medical doctor, it’s time to do a bit more research into this issue. Vaccinia is NOT cowpox. In fact, it is a virus of unknown origin. All that is known is that it is related to poxiviruses and is definitely NOT benign – one of the reasons why the US government hesitated from recommending all first-responders be vaccinated with this shot during the post-September 11th crisis.
Your figures on potential deaths from smallpox vaccination are pulled from thin air. And it may interest you to know that there is a great deal of evidence linking the recent epidemic of peanut allergies with vaccine-associated atopy. So your analogy is not only incorrect, it is ironically so. Please read the Peanut Allergy Epidemic by Heather Fraser for further information,
No, I’m not a medical doctor – I have a PhD in microbiology. More specifically, anaerobic bacteria.
Regarding vaccinia, you may wish to read the following; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7294/
Similarly, if you check the information on what the antigen of the smallpox vaccine is, it is listed as Vaccinia. http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/smallpox/vaccination/aboutvaccine.asp
(In case you were interested, these are the other components of the vaccine in layman’s terms; Calf lymph – the solution the vaccine is produced in. Cow plasma, the juice that runs out of a rare steak when you cut into it (as cows are exsaguinated before consumption, there is little to no blood in the meat). Polymyxin B sulfate – antibiotic used for preservation. Dihydrostreptomycin sulfate – antibiotic used for preservation. Chlortetracycline hydrochlorite – antibiotic used for preservation. Neomycin sulfate – antibiotic used for preservation. Note; antibiotics are commonly used in animal husbandry. There are more antibiotics present (at higher doses) in a single serving of most chicken, pork, beef or milk. Glycerine – used as a carrier fluid. Commonly used in food, soaps, shampoos, conditioners and make up. Phenol – used as a preservative. Commonly found in epoxy resins, paint stripper and many medications. There is more phenol in a shot of malt whiskey than in a smallpox vaccination. http://www.whisky-news.com/En/reports/Peat_phenol_ppm.pdf)
Vaccinia is actually one of the most well characterised viruses largely because it was the first vaccine candidate in Western medicine. It’s also where the name “vaccine” comes from. If you are interested, I could explain how the cross-reactivity between the T-cell recognition of Vaccinia spp. and Variola spp.
Incidentally, regarding the total irradication of smallpox from the globe; while it is true that as the virus can only exist naturally in humans (ie, humans are the only natural disease reservoir), it has not in fact been totally removed from the globe. There are two known laboratories – one in the USA and the other in Russia – which have stocks of the virus stored. Neither country is prepared to destroy their stocks in fear that the other country will then have an advantage in biological warfare.
These are only the known stocks, of course, and does not include other countries that may have biological warfare capabilities.
But really, in the scheme of things smallpox isn’t really a big deal when it comes to the kinds of infections humans can suffer from. Given that it only infects humans, if there was an outbreak it would be relatively easy to contain. While I have been vaccinated against smallpox, I don’t really see a great need for the population at large to be immunologically protected against it.
The kinds of microorganisms that worry me are things like Clostridium tetani. C. tentani is commonly found in the soil (and, by commonly, I mean that it is one of the most easily cultured bacteria found in soil; I’m sure there are various fungi, but I’m biased in favour of bacteria). Any open wound, such as a cut or a scrape, is a point of infection for C. tentani. C. tentani, of course leads to tetanus, as I’m sure you know. The problem with tetanus (and again, this is from my perspective as a microbiologist – I’m not claiming to be a medical doctor) is that is it is an utterly agonising disease that it often fatal.
I’ll freely admit that I don’t get a flu vaccination every year (I’m not particularly at risk of contracting influenza – working in a PC2 lab will do that for you), but I always keep my tetanus vaccinations up to date. I’d rather not risk suffering muscle spasms so dramatic that they could break my spine . That’s just my opinion, though.
I think you may have misunderstood the main point that I was trying to make in my previous comment; I am in no way saying that vaccination is totally risk free. There is no medical procedure that is totally risk free. There is no alternative medical procedure that is totally risk free. However, there are things that the average person does every day that are statistically more dangerous than it is to be vaccinated.
In the interest of making an informed opinion, I think it’s fair to acknowledge the statistical dangers associated with vaccination as well as the statistical dangers of not recieving vaccination, which is all I have attempted to do. I do apologise if I have not made myself clear.
Also, you have to understand that I’m a microbiologist, not an immunologist. In many ways, I’m on the side of the pathogens, not those who are working on vaccines. The flip side of this is that because I’m working with fairly dangerous pathogens every day in the lab, I have to respect how they work and what they can do. The kinds of things that the pathogens from the most commonly used vaccines work, from my perspective, is just plain cool. I mean, think about it; something that is as small as a virion – so small that it is not even considered a life form – can invade a host cell, disrupt its DNA and force it to make more virus particles is mind-blowing.
I mean, the fact that all it could take is one virus particle to subvert the native immune system and cause uncontrolled cellular replication to such an extent that it kills the host, as the HPV virus does, is pretty amazing. And don’t get me started on Toxoplasma gondii – a protozoan that actually changes the behaviour of infected rats to make them actively seek out cats in order to pass the parasite onto a new host? That’s freaking awesome.