Vaccination Choices - Why Do They Matter?

By Louise Kuo Habakus

It takes a simple willingness to start challenging sacred assumptions:

I am not anti-vaccine, just as I would not be anti-plane if I were speaking out about aviation safety. It is a predictable tactic, to be labeled a term that brings certain calculated qualities to mind: fringe, angry, irresponsible. It is also unprofessional and abrogates the contract between government and citizen, legislator and voter, physician and patient. Parents have legitimate concerns. Rather than approaching us with respect, actively engaging in the dialogue, and answering the questions squarely, our government, industry and medical officials undermine the people asking the questions. They take away our choices to force our hand. They marginalize us for challenging their policies, in an attempt to make the debate go away. This debate is most assuredly not going away. Their actions are merely serving to widen the trust gap and will bring about the very thing they most dread: a steady, irrevocable erosion of public confidence in the national childhood vaccine program. Above all, parents want to protect their children. Backed into a corner, we are told that it is all or none. In the absence of solid answers to their questions, more parents will choose none.

what are vaccination choices?

In our country, we have some choices when it comes to vaccines. Although we are not routinely told about our choices, we deserve to know what they are and why they matter.

Recommended vs Mandated

The vaccines recommended by our federal government are just that; they are optional. Vaccines are mandated at the state level for daycare and school admission. But if you do not plan to put your children in daycare or school, then you are free to determine your child’s vaccination schedule with a philosophically-aligned physician. We forget that we have the right to fire our doctors. If yours pressures you to vaccinate or fails to address your concerns, get a new provider. Today, doctors are more willing to consider alternative schedules. Find one who will work with you.

State-Level Exemptions to Vaccination in the United States

There are three primary types of legal exemptions to mandatory exemptions for daycare and school attendance.

Click on this map to find out which exemptions are permitted in your state.

I am pro-vaccination choice and support the right of Americans to get all, some or no vaccines. The choice to be fully vaccinated is not a problem in this country. In fact, chances are that your shots are covered by private insurance or a government entitlement program. America loves its vaccines. We recommend and mandate more shots than any other country in the world. A sizable subset of them is mandated for daycare and school admission. When I talk about choices, I am also talking about the right to selectively vaccinate or not vaccinate at all.

Why do vaccination choices matter?

There are five main reasons that the personal and religious beliefs of every citizen must be considered legitimate grounds to receive an exemption from some or all vaccines:

1. "Scientific truth" is a moving target. And with vaccination, we aren't getting the fully story.

2. The absence of vaccination choices violates every American's right to informed consent.

3. The absence of choice creates a moral slippery slope with dangerous societal implications.

4. Mandatory government intrusion into our lives results in the loss of sacred basic freedoms.

5. If you harm someone, you must pay damages. But no one wants to foot this bill.

"Scientific Truth" Is A Moving Target

Vaccines are no exception. Some previously licensed vaccines, once deemed “safe,” were quietly removed from the market. These include the whole cell pertussis vaccine, the first rotavirus vaccine, the Sabin polio vaccine and ProQuad (MMRV). Vaccine formulations and protocols have changed over time, including the presence of certain ingredients, the size and number of doses, and the ages at which they are given. We know all too well, “that which is known” changes.

When it comes to vaccines, our public health officials tell us:

Vaccines are the cornerstone of sound public policy and a miracle of modern medicine.
Unvaccinated children run an unacceptably high risk of death and irreversible harm.
Unvaccinated children put society at risk because deadly diseases will return.

But how many of us know:

• Herd immunity is assumed by has never been proven?

This is the belief that a very high percentage of people must be vaccinated or deadly diseases will return. if non-compliance truly resulted in disease outbreaks, we should have rampant disease amongst adult segments of the populations today. Similarly, we also would have had extensive outbreaks when you and I were children. But we did not.

• Outbreaks regularly occur among the vaccinated?

This includes school populations in which 99%+ vaccination rates are documented. In the January 2008 confirmed New Jersey pertussis outbreak, all 30+ children were vaccinated. The reason given? Some were in the 7 to 9 age group, for which there is no licensed vaccine. If the six pertussis shots mandated by age eleven aren't enough, is the answer a seventh shot? Or should we ask if the vaccines are working as we originally hoped? The fact is that we don't fully understand how, when and why outbreaks occur as they do, in both vaccinated and unvaccinated communities. Some diseases, such as pertussis, are cyclical and occur irrespective of vaccination. Our officials recommend high immunization coverage because they have no other solutions. [If you want to read about the cyclical nature of pertussis, google "Generic protocol for estimating the burden of pertussis in young children, WHO."]

Parents are not told the risks of vaccination:

• The government vaccine injury compensation table provides eligibility guidelines for the children who are harmed and die from their vaccines. Nearly two billion dollars have been paid out to thousands of affected families. Vaccine package inserts disclose a shocking list of injuries and deaths which occur in temporal association with vaccination.

• Vaccine ingredients are toxic by design, to help provoke the body's immune system into creating antibodies against the pathogens in the vaccine. However, these substances have never been adequately safety tested, neither individually nor cumulatively, let alone for injection into newborns and young children. They include mercury and aluminum which are neurotoxic and extremely difficult to remove from our bodies.

• Our vaccine experts know less about vaccines than we assume:

  • There have never been any double-blind, placebo-controlled longitudinal studies performed comparing total health outcomes of the vaccinated to the unvaccinated.

  • "Fourteen studies have been conducted (which prove that) there is no association between autism and vaccines." Go to www.14studies.org and learn about the various ways these studies have been misrepresented by public health officials.

  • The risks of simultaneous injection on the first set of multiple vaccines (i.e., MMR, polio, DPT) were never studied before adding dozens of new shots to the schedule.

  • Existing and emerging scientific research studies link vaccination to autism, autoimmune and chronic disease including asthma, diabetes and anaphylaxis, among others.

  • Americans are not permitted to sue for injury and death from a government-recommended vaccine. Does liability protection of manufacturers motivate them to invent safer shots?

Parents are worried. New vaccines continue to be added to the schedule. Many children are sicker than ever. And our doctors and government won’t engage in an open dialogue with us.

• We vaccinate more than other developed countries. Many including Japan, the UK, Canada and New Zealand do not mandate vaccines. Japanese babies receive 15 shots by age two.

The vaccines do not seem to be working as we had hoped and intended. Someone needs to address these concerns and hold our experts accountable for the answers. Who should it be? The CDC, responsible for both vaccine promotion and safety? The beleaguered FDA, mired in failure and controversy? The pharmaceutical industry, fat and influential, loudly proclaiming that causation has not been established? The fifty state health departments, all CDC-funded, understaffed and busy enforcing state statutes mandating shots? Our nation’s pediatricians, inculcated that vaccines are safe, more reliant than ever upon well visits and the requisite vaccines to earn a living? Thus far, not a knight in shining armor among them. Parents are looking for real leadership which is all too rare a commodity today.

All Americans Are Entitled To Informed Consent

Informed consent is considered the highest standard in the ethical practice of modern medicine. It represents a legal condition in which an individual is presented with full disclosure of the risks and benefits of a medical intervention, personally weighs the tradeoffs and then makes the decision whether to proceed. The doctrine of informed consent is a critical aspect of the duty of care owed to the patient by the health practitioner.

Health care freedom is a fundamental human right. It was reasserted by the judges of the Nuremberg Tribunal after World War II. The first principle of the Nuremberg Code states: “The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. This means the person involved should have the legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice…”

Many Americans are unable to exercise “free power of [vaccination] choice” because thirty-two U.S. states do not offer a philosophical exemption to mandatory immunization. Vaccination is the only medical intervention forced upon us by our government. It is the only medical intervention for which there is no federal law requiring informed consent. We live in a country where our government compels many of us to do something that has the possibility to cause harm.

It's A Moral Slippery Slope

There are many more difficult questions with no easy answers. Here are some of them:

• Should you be forced to inject your child with something that could kill or maim?

  • Let's say vaccines prevent measles but cause autism. Measles versus autism. Who gets to decide which risks are taken with your children? Who bears the consequences?

  • Should government mandate vaccines with serious side effects for diseases which are not deadly, such as chicken pox? How about for sexually-transmitted diseases? HPV is not contracted by sitting next to someone in school who is infected.

  • Should we require vaccines for diseases which don't threaten children? Children are given the flu shot to protect the elderly. Only two kids died of the flu in New Jersey in four years, yet the state saw fit to mandate the shot for daycare and preschool. And all newborns are vaccinated for Hepatitis B, a sexually-transmitted disease they will most likely never get, because we are unable to reach the high-risk adult populations.

  • Who's getting protected and who's bearing the risk? As guardians of their young children, parents are major stakeholders in this debate. Don't parents deserve the right to choose?

• How many children should be sacrificed? Who decides on the acceptable limits?

  • Are ten tolerable? How about 1,000? 500,000? 500,001?

  • When so many children are chronically ill, should we err on the side of caution?

  • Why are we continuing to mandate more shots?

• Should we attempt to identify those who are vulnerable to injury so we can "save" them?

  • How do we define "vulnerable?" Do we limit it to the most severe injuries, such as brain damage and autism? Or do we include eczema, food allergies and ADHD?

  • Do we let these children get fewer shots?

  • If your child isn't deemed vulnerable, can you still get the kinder, gentler schedule?

  • What if the government says no and your child dies?

• How do you feel if our doctors and government fail to disclose the risks of vaccination because they are worried that large numbers of parents will lose confidence in vaccines and stop immunizing their children?

• Should pharmaceutical firms be entitled to billions in profits from government-mandated vaccines?

  • Should vaccine makers be allowed to spend huge amounts of money on lobbyists to convince politicians to pass industry-friendly laws?

  • Should the government protect manufacturers from injury lawsuits?

It’s no wonder that this subject is so tightly and carefully managed. What politician, appointed health official, doctor or CEO wants to answer these questions?

The High Price of Mandatory Government Intrusion

Benjamin Franklin warned us: “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Freedom is an academic concept to most Americans today, many of whom came of age during a peod of unprecedented privilege and prosperity. We regard our political system with a mixture of strident disdain and sheepish apathy. How removed we have become from the true American spirit of self-determination! Our ancestors did not look to our government to protect them. They made their own way. They fought hard and were willing to die for basic rights which were codified in the Constitution, including religious freedom, due process and the limits of government to make laws which abridge the privileges of citizens and deprive people of life, liberty or property.

During Bush’s two terms, government grew bigger than ever before. Obama plans to outspend Bush substantially. Let’s be clear. Big government meddles. Even with the best of intentions, human beings (and this includes politicians) still make mistakes. With poor execution, good ideas can fail miserably. In politics, the end result often bears no resemblance to the original objective. When we allow government to intrude in our lives, we must be prepared for the consequences. Do you want a politician in Washington, or your state capital, making medical decisions for your family, without a medical degree and without knowledge of your medical history?

There is a role for government involvement. Free market forces can create problems requiring overarching solutions that transcend existing infrastructure and/or industries. All of us would agree that clean air is a desirable public good. In this case, government intervention is needed because industries would not naturally set and restrict themselves to costly and onerous pollution standards. The promise of a disease-free society is also a compelling public good. But vaccines differ from pollution standards. Vaccines are not a panacea. They don’t always work. They have risks. And there are powerful interests which benefit from their widespread adoption. Today, we are seeing the need for government that is both intelligent and moral. It is easy to shake our heads while pointing at crooked and greedy officials. But we are all complicit. Through our passivity or our advocacy, we participate in the creation of our society. Corrupt politicians can be voted out of office, corrupt laws can be overturned, and corrupt companies can be challenged, boycotted and brought down when people care enough to learn the truth and become involved. Most people never give vaccines a moment’s thought. Will you?

Vaccine Court and Legal Recourse - Who Will Foot the Bill?

In two decades, 2260 families who filed petitions in federal “Vaccine Court" have been paid almost two billion dollars. Thousands had their claims denied. Today, some five thousand families in the Omnibus Autism Proceedings allege that vaccines caused their children’s autism. Many thousands more were shut out of the system because recognition of the injuries did not occur within the three-year statute of limitations. (Doctors typically don’t know how to diagnose vaccine injuries.)

In 2008, Vaccine Court awarded compensation to Hannah Poling for her vaccine-induced autism. One case. One little girl. A highly inconvenient ruling for the CDC, the AAP, our nation’s doctors, drug companies and the millions of parents who were offered the most sincere assurances that vaccines are both safe and effective. In the following days, CBS revealed that the parents of Madison Hiatt, a young girl with autism, were paid by the VICP in 2002. CBS also discovered eight more families of children with autism who had been quietly paid by the fund.

In February 2009, Vaccine Court ruled against parents in three highly followed “test cases” involving autism and the MMR vaccine. Just weeks later, the public learned of yet another child who was awarded a lump sum and ongoing care valued in excess of $1 million in 2007 because it was determined that the MMR vaccine had caused acute brain damage that led to his autism.

Vaccines are safe. Vaccines do not cause autism.

What’s going on here? Have we failed to ask the right questions? A vaccine injury ruling is made by linking medically-diagnosed conditions to the administration of one or several vaccines. An autism diagnosis is based solely upon the degree of behavioral, social and communication impairments. By definition, the circles never intersect. How will we uncover the relationship between vaccines and autism if we aren’t studying the populations who became ill after vaccination? If many vaccine-injured children also have an autism diagnosis, it may follow that many autistic children have symptoms of vaccine injury. Let’s find out.