For some time now, members of the government and the medical industry have tried to explain away the phenomenon of parental refusal to vaccinate. Despite the government’s own studies, such as Rogers and Pilgrim; 1993, which shows that “Older, highly educated parents form the basis of the [sic] anti-immunisation lobby”, parents continue to be accused of being ignorant, uncaring and stupid for refusing vaccines which the medical community claim will keep their children healthy.

In an effort to set the record straight, the AVN, which is contacted by more than 10,000 Australian parents each year who question this procedure, would like to give you the 10 most common reasons why the parents who contact us have chosen not to vaccinate.

1 - Vaccines have never been tested.

The gold standard of medical science is the double blind crossover placebo study. This test has never been performed on any vaccine currently licensed in Australia. In an astounding leap of logic, contrary to all rules of science, vaccines are assumed to be safe and effective and therefore, it is considered to be unethical to withhold vaccinations for the purposes of testing them.

2 - Vaccines contain toxic additives and heavy metals.

The list of vaccine ingredients includes toxins such as formaldehyde, a substance which the Queensland Poisons Control Centre has said was “unsafe at any level if injected into the human body”; carbolic acid, also a strong poison which was implicated in deaths and serious injuries in a recent Sydney hospital mishap; aluminium which is linked with the development of Alzheimer’s disease and allergies; and Thiomersal, a mercury-based preservative which is a known neurotoxin and whose inclusion in vaccination sparked a series of Congressional hearings which saw the US Government and the AAP (American Academy of Paediatrics) call for its immediate withdrawal from any vaccine product and which was withdrawn over two years ago in the USA from any over-the-counter medicines . It was also withdrawn from the American Hepatatis B vaccines, Engerix and HB Vax II, though their Australian counterparts which are still being injected into children here today, are only just being made mercury free or mercury reduced (though the old, mercury-laced stocks will be used up rather than being withdrawn from use).

3 - Vaccines are contaminated with human and animal viruses and bacteria

All childhood vaccines, apart from the Hepatitis B (which is genetically engineered and carries with it a different set of problems,) are cultured on either animal tissue, a broth of animal and/or human blood and blood products or the cell lines from aborted human foetuses. None of these culturing methods is able to guarantee an uncontaminated vaccine. In fact, it is well known that many foreign viruses and bacteria can and do contaminate vaccines. Almost none of these contaminants have been studied. The few which have been leave many parents concerned about the long-term effects of injecting these substances into their children. For instance, SV 40 (simian or monkey virus 40 – just one of 60 monkey viruses known to contaminate the polio vaccines) has been linked with cancers in humans; there is a chicken retrovirus which contaminates the measles and mumps vaccines called Reverse Transcriptase. This substance, an ancient non-human DNA code, is thought to switch on the HIV virus and cause it to become AIDS in humans; AIDS itself has been linked with a virus called SIV (Simian Immunodeficiency Virus) which contaminated both the polio and smallpox vaccines; the current MMR (measles mumps rubella) and other vaccines which contain bovine (cow) blood products are thought to be able to spread the human and always fatal form of mad cow disease, Creutzfeld-Jacobs disease, more readily than eating contaminated meat.

4 - Vaccines can cause serious immediate side effects.

As long as there have been vaccines, there have been reports of serious side effects following their administration. These side effects include (but are not limited to) convulsions and epilepsy, permanent brain damage, anaphylactic (life threatening allergic) reactions, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), retinal and brain haemorrhages (now being confused with Shaken Baby Syndrome) and death.

5 - Vaccines can cause serious long-term side effects.

According to medical reports, children are now less healthy than they have ever been before. More than 40% of all children now suffer from chronic conditions , something that was unheard of prior to mass vaccination. Vaccines have been associated with such conditions as Asthma, Eczema, Food Allergies, Chronic Ear Infections, Insulin Dependent Diabetes, Arthritis, Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis, Autism, Attention Deficit Disorder, Ulcerative Colitis, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Hyperactivity, Schizophrenia, Multiple Sclerosis, Cancer and a raft of other chronic and auto-immune conditions which are experiencing dramatic rises in incidence.

6 - Vaccines do not necessarily protect against infectious diseases.

For many years, parents were told that once a child was fully vaccinated, they would be protected for life. That has now turned into a series of life-long boosters that are still not able to protect either children or adults from infectious diseases. For the very real risk of both short and long-term side effects from vaccines, parents are asked to allow their children to be given vaccines that at best, will provide a temporary sensitisation to illnesses and at worst, can make their children more susceptible to both opportunistic and infectious illness. As evidenced by the recent whooping cough outbreak in SA, the only Australian state which actually records vaccination status in cases of infectious illness, 87% of all those who contracted whooping cough and whose vaccination status was known were fully and appropriately vaccinated. In fact, Australian government statistics have shown that the majority of outbreaks in Australia occur in those who have been either fully vaccinated or were too young to be fully vaccinated.

7 - Doctors, as paid salesmen for vaccine products, are no longer considered to be trustworthy arbiters of their safety and effectiveness.

Doctors are currently receiving several payments from the government to push vaccines. These include $6 for reporting vaccinations to the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register (ACIR), a national database which tracks vaccination status in our children and which has been called “a back-door Australia Card”; $18.50 on top of their Medicare rebate for vaccinating a child on time; and a bulk payment at the end of each year based upon them having a practice vaccination rate in excess of 80%. These payments can add up to many tens of thousands of dollars in a busy inner-city practice.

As a result of this grossly unethical situation, doctors can no longer be thought of as objective when it comes to this issue. Parents no longer trust that their doctors will recommend that they vaccinate simply because it is the best thing for their child rather than the best thing for the doctor’s bottom line.

8 - Pharmaceutical companies have paid for almost all vaccine research to date.

Just as the tobacco companies paid for corrupt and incorrect research which purported to show that tobacco and tobacco products were safe for human consumption, so too the pharmaceutical companies have paid for and produced almost all of the research into vaccines. While the Australian government continues to spend literally hundreds of millions of dollars a year in promoting and implementing vaccination campaigns (an example is the $292 million earmarked for vaccination against Meningococcal this year alone!) and little or no money on independent research, parents will continue to mistrust the research that has been performed by vested interests. After all, companies are by their very definition commercial concerns which are motivated by profit. There is nothing that would make a pharmaceutical company intrinsically more ethical and therefore more trustworthy than a tobacco company.
In addition, it is a little-known fact that the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), the government body which licenses and registers vaccines and other medical products, does not perform any tests whatsoever to verify pharmaceutical company claims of safety or effectiveness.

9 - Doctors and health professionals rarely if ever report vaccine reactions.

In discussions with representatives of both ADRAC (The Adverse Drug Reactions Advisory Committee) and the SAEFVSS (Serious Adverse Events Following Vaccination Surveillance Scheme), the two government bodies charged with keeping track of reactions to vaccines and other drugs, the AVN’s representatives were informed that less than 10% of all adverse reactions are ever reported. This means that the government’s claims of vaccine safety are admittedly 90% incorrect. In addition, the AVN’s adverse reactions database currently contains details on more than 800 serious adverse vaccine reactions. Not one of these reactions was ever reported by the doctors or health professionals involved. Parents cannot rely on data with that wide a margin of error when they are dealing with the health and well-being of their children.&

10 - Some childhood illnesses have beneficial aspects and therefore, prevention may not necessarily be in the best interests of the child.

Measles, for example, has been used in Scandinavian countries to successfully treat such autoimmune conditions as eczema and many studies have performed which show that children who do not contract measles naturally as a child are more likely to suffer from certain cancers later in life. In addition, recent studies have shown that contracting the common childhood illnesses help to prime and strengthen the immune system in a way that vaccinations just cannot do. This priming means that children are much less likely to suffer from the now common allergic and autoimmune conditions that plague them today. Conditions such as asthma, diabetes and cancer. In addition, vaccinated mothers cannot confer passive immunity to their children even if they have contracted the wild form of the disease. This immunity used to protect all children during their vulnerable first months and years. Now, a vaccinated mother will give birth to a child who will be susceptible to these infections when, prior to vaccines, they would normally have been immune.

Vaccination is a medical procedure. It should never, ever be mandated. Nor should there ever be any coercion, financial or social penalties for those parents who have chosen, as is their right under the law, not to take the above risks on behalf of their children.

Unvaccinated children continue to be among the healthiest children in our society. They are no more the carriers of disease than any other healthy person. It is the government’s responsibility to do the necessary research to ensure that procedures they are recommending for all Australian families are as safe and effective as they possibly can be. It is also their responsibility to keep vested interests honest. On both counts, this government has failed in its duty of care to our most vulnerable resource – our children.

References:

1. - C. Wilson; Chronic Exposure and Human Health (1993), McFarland & Company taken from Our Toxic Times Feb 1997 pgs 18 & 19
2.  New Scientist, 2/11/96 "Dirty Secrets"
3.  Aluminium phosphate but not calcium phosphate stimulates the specific IgE response in guinea pigs to tetanus toxoid.; Allergy 1978 Jun;33(3):155-9
4.  Studies on the toxicities of aluminium hydroxide and calcium phosphate as immunological adjuvants for vaccines.; Vaccine 1993;11(9):914-8
5.  Staying Below the Limit-Manufacturers to Remove Mercury Used in Vaccines; By Lauran Neergaard; The Associated Press; July 8, 1999.
6. Federal Register: April 22, 1998 (Volume 63, Number 77)
7.  Hepatitis B Immunization Linked to Autoimmune Rheumatic Diseases Two abstracts being presented at the 62nd Annual Meeting of the American College of Rheumatology (held November 8-12, 1998, in San Diego, California)
8.  First central nervous system demyelination and hepatitis B vaccination: a pilot case control study; REVUE NEUROLOGIQUE (Paris) 2000;156(3):242-246
9.  Simian virus-40 linked to human giant cell tumors; Genes Chromosomes Cancer 2000;28:23-30.
10.  SV-40 and Polio Vaccine; http://www.ccid.org/ASV40.html
11. Washington Post ; December 9, 1995; Unexpected Protein Found in Measles-Mumps Vaccine
12.  Aids: the big mistake?; May 28, 2000, The Sunday Times
13. Children ‘face BSE risk from infected jabs’ Daily Express March 30, 2000
14.  Vaccines not containing human albumin and vaccines to avoid the risk of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, European Journal of Pediatrics; Volume 159 Issue 3 (2000) pp 222-222
15.  Vaccine Information Statement (VIS) http://www.cdc.gov/nip/publications/VIS/default.htm  “As with every medicine, vaccines carry a small risk of serious harm, such as severe allergic reaction or even death. Seizure (jerking or staring)------------6 of every 10,000 doses (or 1 in 333 fully vaccinated children)”
16.  Pediatrics 1997 Nov;100(5):767-71 MMR2 immunization at 4 to 5 years and 10 to 12 years of age: a comparison of adverse clinical events after immunization in the Vaccine Safety Datalink project. The Vaccine Safety Datalink Team.
17.  Immunological aspects of demyelinating diseases. [Review] [171 refs] Annual Review of Immunology. 10:153-87, 1992.
18.  J Okla State Med Assoc 1996 Apr;89(4):135-8; Perverse reactions to pertussis vaccine by government medical agencies; Sepkowitz S
19.  Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology 1999 Feb;103(2 Pt 1):321-5; A clinical analysis of gelatin allergy and determination of its causal relationship to the previous administration of gelatin-containing acellular pertussis vaccine combined with diphtheria and tetanus toxoids.; Nakayama T, Aizawa C, Kuno-Sakai H
20.  Baraff, LJ, Ablon, WJ, Weiss, RC; Possible temporal association between diphtheria-tetanus toxoid pertussis vaccination and sudden infant death syndrome; Pediatric Infections Diseases; Jan-Feb 1983; 2 (1) 7-11.
21.  Characteristics of DPT Postvaccinal Deaths and DPT-caused Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS): A Review William C. Torch, Reno, NV, Neurology 36 (Suppl 1) April 1986
22.  Give us this day our daily germs; Graham A.W. RookA and John L. Stanford; Immunology Today 1998, 19:113-116
23.  Lancet, June 29, 1996