Tuesday, April 30, 2019
Mattis ignored orders from Trump, White House on North Korea, Iran: report
Former Defense Secretary James Mattis declined to carry out orders from President Trump or otherwise limited his options in various attempts to prevent tensions with North Korea, Iran and Syria from escalating, The New Yorker reported Monday, the latest account of Trump’s own officials trying to check his worst instincts.
"The president thinks out loud. Do you treat it like an order? Or do you treat it as part of a longer conversation? We treated it as part of a longer conversation," a former senior national security official told The New Yorker.
"We prevented a lot of bad things from happening."
In 2017, following a series of North Korean ballistic missile tests, Trump ordered the Pentagon to begin removing the spouses and children of military personnel from South Korea, where the U.S. military has a base. An administration official told the magazine that "Mattis just ignored" the order.
In another instance in the fall of 2017, as White House officials were planning a private meeting at Camp David to develop military options for a possible conflict with North Korea, Mattis allegedly stopped the gathering from happening. He ignored a request from then-national security adviser H.R. McMaster to send officers and planners, according to a former senior administration official.
In first, Israel jails divorce-refuser on criminal charges
.timesofisrael
For the first time in its history, Israel will jail a divorce-refuser on criminal charges, at the prodding of the state-run rabbinical courts, and against the wishes of his former wife, who secured a private religious annulment of their marriage nearly a year ago.
The Jerusalem Magistrates’ Court ruled Tuesday that Meir Gorodetsky will be incarcerated for 15 months on charges of violating a court order, over his refusal — spanning over two decades — to abide by state rabbinical court orders to grant his wife a divorce. He was convicted on the charge earlier this month.
Little Evidence to Suggest Orthodox Jewish Community Affected by Measles Is Undervaccinated
.the epochtimes
Orthodox Jews have customs and beliefs very different from those of the mainstream, so when measles started to spread among them, the rest of the world jumped to the conclusion that this was because many of them eschew vaccination.
Stoked by fear of a disease that health officials could not stop, many media reports and even the New York mayor’s office have reinforced this narrative.
To date, city officials have reported 390 cases of measles in Brooklyn and Queens since the outbreak started in October, and media and government officials have implied that low vaccination rates are responsible.
To fix this apparent failure to vaccinate, Mayor Bill de Blasio mandated MMR vaccination in neighborhoods affected by the outbreak as well as in surrounding neighborhoods encompassed by four zip codes. This mandate overruled established New York law that gives parents the right to opt not to vaccinate their children based on religious reasons.
Furthermore, because of the belief that there is widespread abuse of the religious exemption among Jews, some New York state senators now are calling for an end to the exemption.
A record-breaking measles outbreak owes its existence to the anti-vaccination movement
salon
The report states that more than 500 of the people infected in 22 states were not vaccinated. Sixty-six people have been hospitalized. The biggest outbreaks have occurred in two communities in New York: Rockland County and Brooklyn, New York. Both have strong Orthodox Jewish communities, where misinformation about vaccinations has been spreading. Other cases that have been reported to the CDC have occurred in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Texas, Tennessee, and Washington.
Trump says measles vaccine ‘so important’; in the past, he warned about autism
.timesofisrael.
President Donald Trump on Friday urged Americans to get vaccinated as a measles outbreak spread across the country, reaching the highest number of cases in the country since 2000.
“Vaccinations are so important,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “They have to get their shots.”
The scale of the measles outbreak in the United States — with 695 recorded cases since January 1 — is dwarfed by the situation in Ukraine, which has some 25,000 patients and Madagascar with 46,000 cases of the disease.
But anti-vaccine sentiment, often fueled by disinformation, has sent immunization rates plummeting in so-called pockets.
This year’s US caseload, the highest since the disease was declared eliminated almost two decades ago, has been concentrated in three heavily Jewish areas in Brooklyn, Rockland County near New York, and near Detroit, and in a Russian-speaking community in Washington State.
Earlier this month New York’s mayor declared a public health emergency in heavily Orthodox Jewish parts of Brooklyn, ordering all residents to be vaccinated.
Massive combined inoculations to small children is the cause for big increase in autism,” Trump said on Twitter in 2012.
He reiterated that message while running for president in 2015.
“Autism has become an epidemic. Twenty-five years ago, 35 years ago, you look at the statistics, not even close. It has gotten totally out of control. I am totally in favor of vaccines. But I want smaller doses over a longer period of time,” Trump said during a presidential primary debate on CNN.
Global Spread
The anti-vaxxer movement, based on a scientifically debunked 1988 British report linking the MMR vaccine to autism, has surged in recent years with the rise of online conspiracy theories on social media.
Repeated studies, the most recent involving more than 650,000 children monitored for more than a decade, have shown that there is no such link.
An estimated 169 million children missed out on the vital first dose of the measles vaccine between 2010 and 2017, according to a UNICEF report.
The number of cases of the disease had risen 300 percent worldwide in the first three months of 2019 compared to the same period last year, the UN said.
Measles, mumps and rubella vaccines are seen in a cooler at the Rockland County Health Department in Pomona, New York, March 27, 2019 (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
The anti-vaxxer movement has adherents across the Western world but is particularly high profile in the United States.
The US outbreak has been blamed in part on unvaccinated visitors contracting the disease during visits to both Israel and Ukraine.
The New York outbreak has been traced to Orthodox Jews from Brooklynvisiting Israel, then spreading the highly infectious disease through synagogues, schools and apartment blocks to children whose parents had not had them inoculated.
In Clark County, Washington, the disease has spiked among the Russian-speaking community after a child brought the virus back from Ukraine in December and it spread to 74 other people, mostly children, through schools, supermarkets and a bowling alley.
Ukraine, which has experienced five years of simmering conflict with Russia on its eastern border region, has had at least 11 people die from the illness.
Measles is one of the world’s most contagious viruses. Spread by coughing or sneezing, the virus can linger in the air long after an infected person leaves a room.
Monday, April 29, 2019
יענקי ברגר ריצה עונש מאסר לאחר שהורשע בעבירות מס בתלמודי תורה שניהל
mobile.kikar
• הוא מספר ב'מונולוג חג' ל'כיכר' מה חיזק אותו בין כותלי הכלא, וגם מזהיר אותנו (כיכר TV פסח)
A report card for Trump's economy
cnn
President Donald Trump claims full credit for the strong economy and stock market.
In his telling, everything was set to tank when he moved into the White House and took over from President Barack Obama.
Assessing that argument requires giving Trump's current economy a sort of report card as well as comparing what he's done with what Obama did. Let's get started.
5 things to know about the US economy during Trump’s State of the Union
vox
During the State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Donald Trump tried to persuade Americans that the US economy is booming — and that it’s all thanks to him.
“In just over two years since the election, we have launched an unprecedented economic boom, a boom that has rarely been seen before. There has been nothing like it,” Trump said at the beginning of his speech. “An economic miracle is taking place in the United States.”
By the end of his speech, he’ll likely point to the low unemployment rate and robust job growth as evidence of his business skills. He’ll probably remind Americans that the US stock market had a great month in January — even though 2018 was the worst year for stocks in a decade. (He’ll also definitely leave out the fact that manufacturing jobs are far from “roaring back to life” as a result of his new trade deals.)
Here’s the truth: The US economy under Trump is doing just fine. The president has overseen a slow but steady economic expansion, albeit one that started under President Barack Obama.
There is one major problem, though — that growth has mostly benefited the wealthiest Americans, while average workers have barely seen their paychecks grow.
Taking that into account, it’s no surprise that many Americans are concerned. Nearly half —48 percent — of Americans say they believe economic conditions are worsening, up from 45 percent in December and 36 percent in November, according to a January poll by Gallup, a Washington, DC-based consulting firm.
Trump: Fox’s Napolitano Asked for Supreme Court Seat, Pardon for His Friend
President Donald Trump slammed Fox News legal analyst Andrew Napolitano on Saturday night, accusing the former judge of getting angry when the commander in chief refused to nominate him to the Supreme Court. Trump also claimed that he rejected a request to pardon one of Napolitano’s friends.
In a pair of tweets after his campaign rally in Wisconsin, Trump said that Napoitano had become “very hostile” toward his administration after he rejected his requests. “Ever since Andrew came to my office to ask that I appoint him to the U.S. Supreme Court, and I said NO, he has been very hostile! Also asked for pardon for his friend. A good ‘pal’ of low ratings Shepard Smith,” the president said, referring to another member of Fox News who has been more critical of Trump.
Measles Misinformation Gets an Immigration Twist
factcheck
The outbreak of measles in the U.S. and around the world is due largely to inadequate vaccination rates in some communities, not illegal immigration, as one popular meme on Facebook claims.
The meme shows a picture of a baby who appears to be infected with measles and says: “Thanks to a highly effective vaccination program the Measles virus was eliminated from the U.S. in 2000. Thanks to the immigrants who illegally cross the U.S. Mexican border, and the Democrats who refuse to stop them, the Measles virus has been declared a public health emergency in 2019.”
The first part of that claim is correct. Measles was eliminated in the United States in 2000 and it was eliminated across both North and South America in 2016.
Elimination means cases can still occur, but the disease isn’t being continuously spread for a year or more in a specific area.
The second part of the claim, however, is incorrect.
The virus has been brought into the U.S. by people who have traveled to places where there is an outbreak or where the disease is still common, such as parts of Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. From those travelers, the disease can then spread in U.S. communities that have unvaccinated people, according to the CDC.
For example, the New York City health department declared a public health emergency on April 9. That measles outbreak, which started in 2018 and spread in the Orthodox Jewish community, was brought on by travelers who had been in Israel, where a large outbreak is occurring, according to the Pan American Health Organization.
Does a ‘Leaked’ British Intelligence Document Prove Trump Wiretapping Claims?
truthorfiction
A faked letter has been used to bolster claims that the Obama administration sought to wiretap Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, using British intelligence services as a proxy.
Synagogue Shootings Shattered Our Illusion. America Is No Safe Haven For Jews
Forward
On Saturday, April 27, a few hours before the shooting at the Chabad in Poway, California, I walked from my hotel in Amsterdam—where my family has been on vacation—to a synagogue I found online. I arrived at a building with no external Jewish markings. The door was locked. When I tried to open it, a man with a walkie-talkie showed up and explained that he was from the community security service.
He asked me where I was going. I said I was going to shul. He asked me if I knew what day it was on the Jewish calendar. I said it was Shabbat and the last day of Passover. He asked me to describe a Shabbat service and the rituals Jews perform on Passover. Then he said, “Complete this sentence: Shema Yisrael….”
Finally convinced that I was indeed a would-be shul-goer, not a would-be terrorist, he explained, “It’s different here than in the US. There’s a lot of anti-Semitism.”
He mentioned that he had recently visited New York. I asked where he had davened there. He replied: Chabad.
I’ve gone to shul many times in Europe, usually to unmarked, locked, guarded buildings. And it has long reinforced my American chauvinism.
Europe’s synagogues remind me of Europe’s Jews: every bit as Jewish as their American brethren in private, but publicly more cagey and discreet.
During my time as a graduate student in Britain, a dispute broke out over the construction of an eruv—an enclosure created so observant Jews can carry on Shabbat—in part of London. Many of the fiercest opponents were British Jews themselves. They feared the eruv would mark their neighborhood as different, and thus bring unwelcome attention from the public at large.
Had you asked me back then why American and European Jews were different, I would have replied that it was because America and Europe were different. The United States, while deeply racist against blacks—long the quintessential American “other”—was far more welcoming of immigrants.
Even American conservatism, I told my European friends at the time, was surprisingly inclusive. Look at George W. Bush and his political advisor, Karl Rove, who were welcoming Jews, Muslims, Asians and Latinos into the Republican Party in a bid to create an ecumenical conservative coalition that could triumph in an increasingly racially and religiously diverse America.
In retrospect, my analysis was self-satisfied and naïve. The Chassidic tradition teaches that just as Jews should clean their homes of chametz (leavened material) in preparation for Passover, we should also cleanse ourselves of our inflated sense of self, and become modest and humble like matzah.
And humility requires admitting that I was wrong.
Sunday, April 28, 2019
'THAT WAS ACTUALLY MY SICK IDEA': PRESIDENT TRUMP ON SENDING IMMIGRANTS TO SANCTUARY CITIES
Newsweek
President Donald Trump held a rally in Green Bay Wisconsin, on Saturday night, mostly touting his work in office, calling out Democrats, name-shaming Democrats and spinning a rolodex of cliches often heard at his rallies.
However, when addressing immigration and trying to shore up the southern border with Mexico, the president recalled his recent banter that he would start sending immigrants who overstayed their visits at holding facilities to the so-called sanctuary cities.
“Last month alone, 100,000 illegal immigrants arrived at our borders, placing a massive strain on communities and schools and hospitals and public resources, like nobody has ever seen before,” Trump said to the crowd. “Now, we’re sending many of them through sanctuary cities, thank you very much.”
“I’m proud to tell you that was actually my sick idea,” the president said.
Just two weeks ago, President Trump said detention facilities had become overcrowded, and that he would bus immigrant to sanctuary cities, which are actually cities, counties and states with laws and regulations that shield undocumented immigrants from being detained, incarcerated or removed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The very problematic view ofTtrump as a Jew or strongly influenced by them
The New York Times Apologizes for Publishing a Cartoon With 'Anti-Semitic Tropes'
The New York Times has apologized for an anti-Semitic cartoon that appeared in the newspaper’s international edition.
It showed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a dachshund wearing a Star of David collar and leading a blind and skullcap-wearing U.S. President Donald Trump.
One dead, three injured, in San Diego synagogue shooting
Multiple people were injured Saturday in a shooting at the Chabad of Poway synagogue.
Poway is approximately 20 miles north of San Diego.
The attack occurred at just prior to 11:30 a.m. local time.
All four of the patients were sent to the Palomar Medical Center.
The Daily Beast reported that two children were among those wounded in the shooting. Poway Mayor Steve Vaus told CNN that at least one person was killed in the attack.
Vaus also said members of the congregation engaged the shooter to prevent further violence, and added that the community was targeted by "someone with hate in their heart."
"I can tell you that it was a hate crime, and that will not stand. This community will come together," he said.
Eyewitness reports said one of the injured is the congregation's Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, who was shot in his hand and lost two of his fingers.
According to the San Diego Sheriff's office, deputies investigated reports of a man with a gun, and a man was detained for questioning in connection with the shooting incident.
"We don't believe there are any other suspects," a spokesperson for San Diego police toldThe Daily Beast.
According to officials, the suspect is a 19-year-old adult white male from San Diego. Initially, he fled the scene, but later surrendered to police.
Wednesday, April 24, 2019
‘COUPLE OF FACEBOOK ADS’: JARED KUSHNER DOWNPLAYS RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE AS HE BLASTS INVESTIGATIONS
President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior White House adviser Jared Kushner downplayed Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election Tuesday, suggesting it amounted to “a couple of Facebook ads.”
“When you look at what Russia did, buying some Facebook ads to try to sow dissent, it's a terrible thing,” Kushner said at the TIME 100 Summit in New York. “But I think the investigations and all the speculation that's happened for the last two years has had a much harsher impact on our democracy than a couple of Facebook ads.”
Kushner said that he spent about $160,000 on Facebook every three hours during the campaign, “so if you look at the magnitude of what they did and what they accomplished, I think the ensuing investigations have been way more harmful to our country.”
Fox News host DISMANTLES Jared Kushner live on air
Free at Last: after a bitter ordeal of abuse, Gov't cover up, and persecution, Rinas Bas Chedva finally receives her formal exemption from service in the IDF, B"H
Free at Last: after a bitter ordeal of abuse, Gov't cover up, and persecution, Rinas Bas Chedva finally receives her formal exemption from service in the IDF, B"H.
Attached: report in this week's Jewish Press Dispatch column.
Thank you all for all of your help. We now see what we can accomplish, and therefore have all that much more obligation to use our limited resources to do what we can for increasing numbers of teenage boys and girls being persecuted for doing the right things.
A good Moed, and a good Yom Tov,
Rabbi Noson Shmuel Leiter,
Help Rescue Our Children
The Mueller Report Was My Tipping Point
Let’s start at the end of this story. This weekend, I read Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report twice, and realized that enough was enough—I needed to do something. I’ve worked on every Republican presidential transition team for the past 10 years and recently served as counsel to the Republican-led House Financial Services Committee. My permanent job is as a law professor at the George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School, which is not political, but where my colleagues have held many prime spots in Republican administrations.
If you think calling for the impeachment of a sitting Republican president would constitute career suicide for someone like me, you may end up being right. But I did exactly that this weekend, tweeting that it’s time to begin impeachment proceedings.
Tuesday, April 23, 2019
Monday, April 22, 2019
Trump approval drops 3 points to 2019 low after release of Mueller report: Reuters/Ipsos poll
The number of Americans who approve of President Donald Trump dropped by 3 percentage points to the lowest level of the year following the release of a special counsel report detailing Russian interference in the last U.S. presidential election, according to an exclusive Reuters/Ipsos public opinion poll
According to the poll, 37 percent of adults in the United States approved of Trump’s performance in office, down from 40 percent in a similar poll conducted on April 15 and matching the lowest level of the year. That is also down from 43 percent in a poll conducted shortly after U.S. Attorney General William Barr circulated a summary of the report in March.
R Refoel Szmerla Against Vaccinations: Vaccine-halachic-perspective
QUESTION non-vaccinated children are said to pose a risk to
other children and teachers, especially pregnant teachers, in the school they
attend. Do parents have the right to refuse vaccinating their school-age
children? May the principal refuse to let unvaccinated children attend school,
even when the parents of such children have produced a valid religious
exemption?
ANSWER:This הלאש is based on the
assumption that vaccines are as effective and safe as promoted by the
govemment, pharmaceutical companies and most pediatricians. Although there is
no doubt that vaccines are able to produce immunogenicity responses, thus confeחing some protection from disease, there is also no
doubt that vaccines may at times cause serious adverse events, neurological or
immunologic damage, and death. Therefore, we will have to investigate to what
degree are vaccines effective and to what degree they are safe, in order to
address this הלאש properly.
Nevertheless, I would like to preface
this presentation with a topic that requires no medical, scientific or
statistical knowledge, and yet, may well resolve our הלאש. I will then
address the issues of vaccination safety and effectiveness.
PREFACE:
· Halachic
rights.
· Legal
rights.
Vaccination
Safety:
· Short-term.
· Long
term.
Vaccination
Benefits: Is one allowed to
vaccinate?
What
about the pregnant teachers?
What
about immuno-compromised children?
1
Preface
Halachic rights
Although vaccines may offer substantial
benefits, they are not free of side-effects and risks. Even pharmaceutical
companies and the medical community concede that serious adverse reactions and
death may sometimes occur from vaccinations. This brings to mind the following:
A heart patient is failing, ל"ר, and
his doctor only gives him a few more weeks to live. The doctor offers the
patient the option of undergoing heart surgery that could give him a new lease
on life. The surgery is successful in 35% of cases, but in 65o/o of cases the patient does not survive the
operation. A doctor may recommend such an operation without hesitation, arguing
that the patient is dying anyway and that this surgery gives him some good
chances of survival. But the הכלה says
otherwise, for there is here a
ששח of החיצרד רומח רוסיא. Although ל"צז רזוע םייח ברה ןואגה held it is permitted to
undergo the surgery even if the chances of survival are less than the risks of
death, the םימכח תנשמ and
השמ תורגא held that unless the chances of survival and cure are over
50%, such an operation may not be permitted1 (the השמ תורגא concludes
that, "וילע ךומסל הצורש ימב תוחמל לכוי ימ
,ריתמ רזעיחאהש ןויכ"2). Even according to the view of
the רזעיחא, Hagaon Horav Elyashiv,
Shlita, requires a minimum of 30% chances of success in order to allow a risky
surgery3.
Even if the rate of survival is 50% or
more, although the patient may undergo the surgery, he is not always obligated
to do so. According to the ו"ל 'יס
ג"ח ד"וי( מ"גא), even though he is anyway in תושפנ תנכס, he is only obligated to undergo the surgery
where the chances of success are greater than the chances of failure.
But this is all in regards to someone
who is seriously ill. What about an individual who is perfectly healthy but is
offered to undergo a medical procedure for the benefit of someone else? For
example, if a person has suffered kidney
failure and dialysis is not really an option for him, can we obligate his
brother to donate a kidney in order to save his life? Can we obligate someone
to assume a small risk in order to save a dying person? Although the ימלשורי holds that one must undertake a risk to his life
in order to save someone else from certain death4, the ב"קס ו"כת
'יס מ"וח( ע"מס) writes that the
רבחמ and א"מרomitted this opinion
because the ילבב disagrees, and that this is
also the view of the ם"במר ,ף"יר and ש"אר. The ב"קס םש(
ת"פ) brings from ז"בדרה
ת"וש that if a יוג wants to
cut someone's finger or else he will kill another Jew, one is not obligated to
let himself be mutilated in order to save someone else's life, and this is the אנקסמ of other םיקסופ as
well5 (the ז"בדר is also ofthe opinion that if the mutilation
of one's finger presents life-threatening risks, one who would give in to the
teחorist's request should be considered a הטוש דיסח, even though he would be saving someone from
certain death. Others disagree with the ז"בדר on
this point)6• Consequently,
although one may donate
a
ע' שו"ת אחיעזר )יו"ד סי' י"ז אות ו'(,
אג"מ )יו"ד ח"ב סי' נ"ח, ח"ג סי' ל"ו, וחו"מ
ח"ב סי' ע"ד אות ה'(. וזה
דלא כמו שכתב ביו"ד ח"ב סי' נ"ח, וכנראה
שחזר בו ממה שכתב בתשובה זו; והלכה כמשנה אחרונה.
2 אג"מ יו"ד ח"ג סי' ל"ו, סד"ה
אבל.
3 מפי הרב יצחק זילברשטיין שליט"א, וכן כתב
בספרו שיעורי תורה לרופאים )ח"ג סי' קס"ט, עמ' 152 (.
the risk he will be undertaking must be smaller than the chances of ,ירושלמי 4
Even
according to the . success
5 ע' באור שמח
)פ"ז מרוצח ה"ח( ואגרות משה )יו"ד ח"ב סי' קע"ד אות ב'(.
6 ע' שו"ת הרדב"ז
)ח"ג סי' תרכ"ז ]אלף נ"ב[(.
2
|
3
|
kidney and save his brother's life, one is
surely not obligated to do so. Since there is a small risk involved in
donating an organ, by refusing to save his brother's life one would not
transgress the רוסיא of ךעיו םד לע דומעת אל. The םהרבא די1 is of the same opinion, and brings from the א"י 'לה
תושיאמ א"כפ( ם"במר) that even if only
physical pain is involved, a person may place his own personal comfort before
someone else's life! Although the ד"באר disagrees with the ם"במר on this last point2,
everyone agrees that where some level of danger is involved, a person may place
his personal safety before someone else's life3.
In theory, vaccination
is similar to this last scenario: the child is healthy, but doctors want to
inoculate him with a foreign substance that has the (small?) potential of
harming or killing him, in the hope of protecting him and others from
potential, future harm. May he refuse such a vaccination because of the ששח of serious adverse reaction (even if we will concede for the time-being
that such a ששח is small)? Yes. Can a קסופ be בייחמ him to get vaccinated? Absolutely not. הכלה יפ לע, no one can force an individual to take a risk, even if the benefits are
great and outweigh those risks.
Vaccination is yet
different, for in so doing, one does not take a risk to save someone from
actual danger, but only to protect himself and others from theoretical risk. In
such a case, ל"צז ךאברעיוא ןמלז המלש בר ןרמ ןואגה ruled that one is not
even permitted to undergo a medical procedure unless no real risk is involved
and only minimal discomfort is caused4. As it is medically
recognized, vaccination involves real and substantial risks, putting the רתיה for vaccination in great question. Additionally, we will see that,
contrary to common belief and many doctors' claims5, the risks from
vaccines might be much greater than their benefits, casting further doubts and
questions on the permissibility of vaccination practices.
In addition, some of
the vaccines required by the AAP do not provide any substantial benefit
whatsoever while at the same time carrying quite substantial risks. Consider
the Hepatitis B vaccine, for example: By the time a child turns one and half
years old, he is supposed to have received 4 doses of the vaccine, with the
first dose administered at birth. Hepatitis B can only be contracted sexually,
by sharing infected needles or through exposure to infected blood, so the need
for our children in our community (let alone the infants) to receive these
shots is practically nil. On the other hand, the vaccine carries real risks.
According to the vaccine manufacturer, a severe allergic reaction occurs in
each 1 million doses (which means, in 1 per 250,000 vaccinees), making the
risks of the vaccine much higher than the benefits. In addition to
1 יו"ד סי' קנ"ז סעיף א'.
2 ויש להביא ראיה מפורשת להרמב"ם מגמ' נדרים
)פ:( בשם התוספתא: "מעיין של בני העיר חייהן וחיי אחרים חייהן קודמיו לחיי
אחרים, בהמתם ובהמת אחרים בהמתם קודמת לבהמת אחרים, כביסתן וכביסת אחרים כביסתן
קודמת לכביסת אחרים, חיי אחרים וכביסתן חיי אחרים קודמיו לכביסתן, רבי יוסי אומר
כביסתן קודמת לחיי אחרים", ובגמ' מבואר דטעם רבי יוסי הוא שחסרון כביסת
הבגדים גורם צער לאדם לכן כביסתם קודמת לחיי אחרים ]ואף ת"ק מודה לזה אלא
שהוא סובר שחסרון כביסה אינו גורם צער, ע' ברש"•, תוס', ור"ן[, וזהו ממש
כדברי הרמב"ם. ובדעת הראב"ד צ"ל שפוסק כת"ק, וסובר שדעת
ת"ק היא שגם במקום צער חיי אחרים קודמים )וצ"ע איך פסק כת"ק והא
כללא הוא דהלכה כרבי יוסי מחבירו, ע' עירוביו מו:(.
ע' אה"ע סי' פ' סעיף
י"ב, ובח"מ וב"ש שם, וע' קובץ תשובות למרן הגאון רב אלישיב
שליט"א )ח"א סי' קכ"ד ד"ה ולעצם(.
4
ע' ספר נשמת אברהם יו"ד סי'
קנ"ז סק"ד בשם הגרש"ז אויערבאך זצ"ל.
ומטעם זה שאין המציאות כפי מה שאומרים הרבה
רופאים, כל פסק בעניו זה צריך בדיקה אם הרב שמע וידע טענת ב' הצדדים קודם שהורה
בדבר, או אולי שאל את פי רופא אחד ופסק על פיו, בלי לדעת שיש מחלוקת מציאות בדבר.
3
the other known risks associated with the
vaccine, a frum Lakewood pediatrician
testified that an infant he had inoculated with the Hepatitis B vaccine
contracted Hepatitis B as a result of the shot (the medical establishment still
maintains the vaccine does not cause the disease1). As scores of
doctors concede, vaccinating all infants and children against Hepatitis B makes
absolutely no sense and cannot be justified halachically. A frum pediatrician reported in his letter
(see document #1), "the AAP admits that the only reason we immunize
children against hepatitis B is because we have a captive audience. To
vaccinate an infant on his first day of lif e with a f oreign agent such as the
hepatitis B vaccine borders on malpractice. There is no medical reason for it.
We are putting individuals at risk to protect the population from a disease
that is purely a function of lifestyle." Since the Hepatitis B vaccine
provides no substantial benefits to the average child and carries definite
risks, there can be no question that inoculating all children with it is a
flagrant violation of the commandment of םכיתושפנל דאמ םתרמשנו, and goes against our religious beliefs. Consequently, supporting and
enforcing policies that try to force all vaccinations (including the Hepatitis
B vaccine) on our children is but the desecration of one of the תווצמ ofthe הרות.
Recently, a group of frum medical doctors in Lakewood wrote a
strong letter urging the local frum schools
not to accept any child whose parents refuse to have them vaccinated, on the
grounds that these children are posing a health hazard to the (pregnant) teachers
and the student body, and they tried to gamer the support and signatures of the
local Rabbonim. When this letter was shown to HaGaon HaRav Shmuel Kamenetzky, Shlita, he dismissed it with the wave of
his hand and said, "How can we coerce someone to vaccinate his child, when
vaccination carries a potential risk of causing death?" The reading of
that letter upset HaGaon HaRav Shlomo Miller, Shlita, as well; he immediately took his pen and wrote at the
bottom: "הרות תעד יפכ וניא הלעמל בותכש המ". HaGaon HaRav Shmuel
Kamenetzky, Shlita, stated that,
"Since it is universally recognized that vaccines can cause severe adverse
reactions and deaths, halachically no one can be forced to vaccinate his
children, and every parent retains the right to choose whether to vaccinate or
not vaccinate his children. Schools should accept non-vaccinated children
without discrimination." HaGaon HaRav Shlomo Miller, Shlita, ruled that, "Forcing someone to vaccinate his children
against his will when the school is not compelled to do so by law, is against Daas Torah."
It has been reported
that Maran Hagaon Rav Elyashiv, Shilta, told
a doctor that one must vaccinate his children. Let's assume that this report is
true, does it mean that Rav Elyashiv, Shlita,
is קלוח on Rav Shmuel Kamenetzky, Shlita, Hagaon Harav Shlomo Miller, Shlita and Hagaon Harav Shmuel Furst, Shlita? Not necessarily. As we all know, the correctness of a הבושת depends directly on the correctness of the information provided with the
הלאש,
and this is all the more true with םיקספ coming from Maran
HaGaon HaRav Elyashiv, Shlita. If a frum doctor convinced of the crucial
importance of mandatory universal vaccination came to Moran Harav Elyashiv, Shlita, and told him, "Vaccines are
very safe and very crucial to the population's health, yet some parents refuse
to vaccinate their children because of unfounded fears", in most
likelihood he will receive the reply that such parents are obligated to
vaccinate. Does this mean Rav
1 When he reported this to the federal agency, they were quick to say
-without any basis- that the child must have caught it e\sewhere, although he
assured them there had been no interaction of infected blood products or
infected needles with this baby whatsoever. As a result of this occurrence, he now
refuses to vaccinate people against Hepatitis B unless they are really at risk
or unless they specifically request it.
4
Elyashiv, Shlita, paskened that vaccines are safe and effective? Absolutely
not. Does it mean he would uphold his psak if aware there may be very
substantial and documented risks to vaccination, or even if only aware the
medical establishment itself recognizes there are some adverse-effects to
vaccines? Most probably not. There is no reason to believe that Maran HaGaon
HaRav Elyashiv, Shlita, would pasken
differently from all the Halachic sources we brought. Consequently, this
alleged psak is of very limited value for those objectively interested in the הרות לש
התימאל תמא, as the םישרפמ explain:
הרות
י"פע התימאל ,תואיצמ י"פע תמא.
Some have brought
proof to the permissibility and benefit of vaccines from the words of the לארשי תראפת praising the impact of small pox vaccination in saving thousands of
lives. However, this argument is completely inappropriate. No one has argued
against the smallpox vaccination at a time and place where smallpox was
decimating entire towns. However, today the risks from all the diseases we are
vaccinating for are far, far smaller, and the evidence for short-term and
long-terms adverse reactions is real, so the analysis of risks versus benefit
is very different from the time of the לארשי תראפת.
Some have expressed
the opinion that the הכלה must follow the
opinion of the majority of doctors, who support vaccination practices. However,
this is only true when the doctors' opinion is the result of personal research
and unbiased experience. Most doctors who support vaccination have never
personally researched the subject of vaccination properly. They simply accept
and repeat whatever they have been taught in medical school1 and,
therefore, cannot be counted as multiple voices. This is similar to what the די'יקo
ו"מ 'יס ד"וי( ך"ש) writes, that the הערכה of the רוט and וניבר םחורי like the ש"אר does not constitute a true הערכה, because the רוט and םחורי וניבר were םידימלת of the ש"אר and naturally rule in favor of his opinion2• If this is true of the רוט and םחורי וניבר who were הרות ילודג of their own right and
who did sometimes rule against the ש"אר when it appeared right in their eyes, it is all the more true in regards
to medical doctors who have not done any personal research on vaccinations and
just repeat the argument they have been taught. Unlike physicians of yesteryear
who gleaned most of their knowledge from experience and developed their own
educated opinions on medical matters, modem medical doctors rarely have the
opportunity to develop their own research on the benefits and side-effects of
new medications and procedures and rely blindly on the guidelines set forth by
the AMA and AAP. Therefore, their opinion cannot
1 lndeed, afrum pediatrician testified the
following (see document #1):
lt is important to realize that routine
vaccination is not universally recommended by all conventionally trained,
mainstream physicians. To say so is misleading. In my experience, the majority
of physicians who accept the current recommendations of the American Academy of
Pediatrics (AAP) and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) have never personally
researched the subject in-depth. They are just repeating an argument they have
heard without really expressing a well-researched, thought-out opinion. 1
myself, for many years, also accepted the basic recommendations and philosophy
of childhood vaccination. Once I began to entertain the possibility that there
may be serious concems with their safety and efficacy, 1 researched this topic
myself. 1 have come to the conclusion that there are indeed serious concerns
with the way vaccines are delivered, to whom and when they are delivered, and
what is delivered."
טימתשאד
ינפמ ונייה עירכה אל ע"ושבד ג"עאד 'כו לקהל קספ תודומח םחל רפסב .םירסוא
שי" םש ך"שה ל"זו 2 וניברו רוטה םהש םינורחאה םיעירכמה רחא ךליל ונל שיו
םירישכמהכ רקיעהד בתכש םחורי וניבר ירבד •"בהל היל ידימלת םה םחורי וניברו
רוטהד םושמ לקהל עירכה אל ה"פאו םחורי 'ר ירבד האר י"בה םגד
נ"דעפלו ,ל"כע םחורי
".םתערכהמ היאר ןיאו
ש"ארה תטישל דימת םיכשמנה ש"ארה
5
serve as an הערכה, even if they are the
majority3 (the opinion of a hundred sheep doesn't oveחide the
opinion of one shepherd). Additionally, as a result of most doctors' blind
trust in the AAP's claims, any adverse effect from the vaccine is
systematically dismissed as coincidental, as we will see. Therefore, most
doctors' opinion is the result of neither personal research nor unbiased
experience, and cannot be taken into account when trying to determinate the
majority of opinions.
Someone suggested
that, although halachically one cannot force parents to immunize their
children, schools may have the right not to accept non-immunized children for,
by doing so, they are not forcing the parents to vaccinate, rather they are
just telling them their children cannot come to school without vaccination.
However this, too, is against הר ות תעד: The ארמג says
in י"שר."?אמילגל היקבשלד היסבוכב היטקנל יאה" :):אק( אעיצמ אבב
explains
"הזמ לודג איצומ ךל ןיא וימד לע הלעמש ןויכ".
Halachically, creating a situation in which the parents have no other
altemative than giving in to vaccination policies is also a form of coerc1on.
Some doctors have
claimed that, "children who are not immunized are potential reservoirs of
the very organisms they were not immunized against and, therefore, are
potential םיפדור because they may expose others to grave
risk". Halachically, this claim is fundamentally incoחect: If ןבואר refuses to give a kidney to save his brother's life, can we call him a ףדור? Absolutely not. Halachically, children who are not vaccinated for
religious reasons - because their parents are concemed about the recognized (
and not so recognized) risks of vaccines - fall into the exact same category.
Furthermore, according to the above claim, the under-immunized children (due to
allergies or other health condition) should also be labeled as םיפדור and be kept out of school, for one is considered ףדור even if he is חיכוי ומא יעמב רבוע( וחוכ לעב ףדור). Additionally, there are still hundreds of diseases for which there is no
vaccine. Consequently, according to the above claim, every single individual
should be considered a ףדור, being a potential
caחier of the CMV virus, Epstein-Baח virus, various strains of meningitis not
covered by the meningitis vaccine, and many, many more deadly germs.
Accordingly, no one should go to shul, teach
in school or walk in the street, lest he be considered a ףדור for exposing others to the dozens of dangerous germs he might be
carrying. Obviously, although everyone is effectively the potential caחier of
hundreds of deadly germs at any given time, one cannot have the status of a ףדור for mingling with others unless it has been clearly established that he
actually caחies such a germ.
Even when a person
lives together with a family member afflicted with strep, meningitis, CMV, or
any other injurious pathogen, we do not require him to stop going to shul, to stores or to any other public
area, even though it would be quite reasonable to suspect him of being a caחier
of that germ; all the more so in our case, when the probabilities of an
unvaccinated child carrying the germs for one of the diseases for which there
is a vaccine are much, much more remote. Unless an individual actually
carries the pathogen of a highly contagious and dangerous disease (and even in
such
a case, whether this person would have the halachic status of ףדור should be left to
3 As an example, in a case of שפנ חוקיפ, if one graduate from Princeton University
and one graduate from Harvard University share one opinion, and a hundred
graduates from Columbia University have a conflicting opinion (based only on
what they were taught), it is טושפ that the hundred graduates from Columbia University only count as one
and that we should follow the opinion of the other two graduates.
6
םיקסופה ילודג), he does not have the
status of ףדור by mingling with other people. It is therefore not
surprising that, when he recently heard of the above attempt to label
unvaccinated children as םיפדור, Hagaon Horav Shlomo
Miller, Shlita, affirmed that this
claim is against הרות תעד.
What becomes manifest
from all the above is that refusing to vaccinate one's own children is
certainly permitted according to הכלה (if not mandated), and
no one has the right, halachically, to force someone else to vaccinate himself
or his children. These children may go to school like everyone else and do not
have the status of ףדור in any way.
In the spring of 2012
rabbi Kanarek from Beis Rivka Rochel in Lakewood asked Dr Shanick to write down
his reasons why schools should refuse unvaccinated children; they also asked
one of the non-vaccinating parents to write down his justifications, and they
sent both documents to Rav Eliezer Dunner of Bnei Brak who presented them to
Maran Hagaon Rav Chaim Kanyevsky Shlita, asking him to rule whether schools
should accept or refuse children who are not vaccinated. Rav Dunner Shlita
wrote back the following:
To whom it may concern
Concering
children whose parents don't allow them to be vaccinated, 1 asked א"טילש
יקסב ינק םייח ר"גה ןרמ if one has the right to stop them coming to school
or רדח because they might cause other children to become ill ו"n:
He answered that one cannot stop them from
coming to school or רדח.
1
understood from him that the ששח that these not-vaccinated children could cause
other children who were vaccinated to become ill is so remote that this ששח
cannot be taken into consideration as a reason to stop the notvaccinated
children from coming to school or רדח.
He
added that if there are parents of vaccinated children who are scared that
their children might become ill because of those children who are not
vaccinated, then they should keep their vaccinated children at home, but 1
understood from him that since the ששח is so remote,
that they don't have to be scared.
"בברכת "והסירות• מחלה מקרבך
ואת מספר ימיך אמלא
.אליעזר הלוי דינר
On the 291h of Tishrei 5774 (Oct.
301h 2014), many Poskim and gedolim signed the following letter:
The
Torah commands, וט ,ד םירבד( םכיתושפנל דאמ םתרמשנו). This Biblical commandment
requires one to be very vigilant in caring for one's life, and to refrain from
any action that may put his life or health in danger. The benefits and risks of
vaccination is a much-debated topic in medical and scientific circles. Although
one may follow the opinion of most doctors and choose to vaccinate his
children, the individual who has done his research has the obligation to act
according to his knowledge. If his research has led
7
him to understand that the risks of
vaccination are greater than its benefits, and particularly when his view is
supported by many medical doctors and
researchers, the commandment of םכיתושפנל דאמ
םתרמשנו obligates him to shield his children from
vaccines. This is even more so when a parent has reasons to believe that his
children are sensitive to vaccines. To act otherwise would be a transgression
of the above Biblical commandment.
Schools must honor the
request for religious exemption from such parents, for it is entirely
justified. Coercing parents to vaccinate against their will under the claim of
protecting the public is a display of lack of
ןוחטב, for the risk that the
unvaccinated children are posing to the public is statistically so small that
it is not the duty of a הב ןימאמ' to worry about it (see
the letter of Rav Chaim Kanievsky Shlita. The medical establishment, too, is of
the opinion that this risk is insignificant. This is the reason why schools are
obligated by law to accept religious exemptions as long as there is no outbreak
of preventable disease). Additionally, anyone coercing someone to vaccinate
against his better judgment becomes responsible before Hashem
for any adverse reaction - big or small - that could result from it, ו"ח.
This letter was signed
by (in chronological order): HaRav Shmuel Kamenetzky (R"Y of Philadelphia
Yeshiva), HaRav Shmuel Meir Katz (Possek in Lakewood), HaRav Eliezer Halevi
Dunner (Rav and Dayan in Bnei Brak), HaRav Arieh Malkiel Kotler (R"Y of
BMG, Lakewood), HaRav Binyamin Zev Halpem (Rav in Lakewood), HaRav Elyah Ber
Wachtfogel (R"Y of South Fallsburg Yeshiva), HaRav Asher Hashwal (Rav and
Dayan in Flatbush), HaRav Mattisyohu Salomon (Mishgiach of BMG, Lakewood) and
HaRav Aharon Schechter (R"Y of Chaim Berlin Yeshiva, Flatbush).
8
Legal rights
New Jersey State Law reads as follows:
8:57-4.1 This
subchapter shall apply to all children attending any public or private (
emphasis added) school, child-care center, nursery school, preschool or kindergarten
in New Jersey.
8:57-4.4 a) A child
shall be exempted from mandatory immunization if the parent or guardian objects
thereto in written statement submitted to the school, preschool, or child care
center, signed by the parent or guardian, explaining how the administration of
immunizing agents conflicts with the pupil's exercise of bona fide religious
tenets or practices. General philosophical or moral objection to immunization
shall not be sufficient for an exemption on religious grounds.
b) Religious
affiliated schools or childcare centers shall have the authority to withhold or
grant a religious exemption from the required immunizations for pupils entering
or attending their institutions without challenge from any secular health
authority ( emphasis added). (New Jersey Administrative Code Citation,
Amended on September 20, 2003).
This law states explicitly that children
shall be exempted from mandatory vaccines if the parents provide a signed
religious exemption statement.
The first paragraph
explicitly states that this law is binding for any public or private school:
Even a private school is required by law to accept religious exemptions. To
guarantee separation between church and state, the last paragraph gives
religious affiliated schools the authority to grant or withhold a religious
exemption without challenge from secular health authorities (the wording of
this clause and the fact that it is not granted to other private schools makes
it very clear that its purpose is only to uphold the principle of separation of
church and state ). In other words, only if a religious school adheres to
religious beliefs that require immunization can it withhold a religious
exemption. Furthermore, the law states explicitly that the school may establish
its policy regarding vaccination "without challenge from any secular
health authority." In other words, a religious school is free to bind
itself to the Daas Torah of the Gedolim mentioned previously (namely
HaGaon HaRav Shmuel Kamenetzky, Shlita, HaGaon
HaRav Shlomo Eliyohu Miller, Shlita, and
HaGaon HaRav Shmuel Furst, Shlita), and
no school doctor, school nurse, or health department official has the right to
challenge that decision.
Additionally, we have already demonstrated
that, הכלה י"פע, one cannot force someone else to vaccinate
his children and that non-immunized children may go to school with other
children, as they do not have the status of ףדור. Consequently, no
religious Jewish school may claim that its religious beliefs require
immunization and, hL State Law, all religious Jewish schools must accept
religious exemptions provided by parents.
In conclusion, it is
quite clear that one has every right -halachic and legal- to refuse vaccinating
his children ( even if the benefits of vaccination would be much greater than
its risks, as doctors and pharmaceutical companies would like us to believe),
and that no one has the right nor the authority to force him otherwise.
9
Consequently, I believe that our הלאש can be brought to a
clear conclusion without going any further.
Schools are concemed
about their moral responsibility towards the other people in schools, and
particularly towards pregnant teachers, who are said to be at risk from
exposure to non-vaccinated children who may carry disease-causing agents.
However, I have already explained that, halachically, neither are the parents
obligated to vaccinate their children, nor does a school have the authority to
force them to do so. What this means is that a school should solely concern
itself with its obligation to teach הרות to all children, and leave to Hashem a responsibility belonging to Him
alone ( childhood diseases are sent by Hashem and, as long as parents and
schools act according to הכלה, childhood sickness remains the responsibility and concem of Hashem
only). Additionally, one should realize that a school forcing vaccination upon
its pupils -when הכלה and State Law does not mandate it- automatically becomes morally and
Halachically responsible for all adverse effects of vaccination. 1
However, in order for
Rabbonim and laymen (including teachers and principals) to better understand
the decision of parents refusing vaccination, and in order to explain why and
how vaccination may violate the commandment of םכיתושפנל
דאמ םתרמשנו, we will need to look into the alleged safety
and effectiveness of vaccines. What will follow is a very short overview of the
evidence available on the subject. Dozen and dozen of serious books and
articles written by medical doctors and scientists have been written on the
subject (I have included a partial bibliography at the end of this document),
but I will keep my presentation short and bring only a very small fraction of
the material available.
When accepting to vaccinate his child, a
parent must sign a release form, stating that he or she understands and accepts
the responsibility and risks involved. In regards to parents concemed about the
vaccines safety but forced by the school to vaccinate their children, who would
sign the form and take responsibility? Surely not the parents, for they are
quite concemed about the vaccine possible harmful consequences: if not for the
school demands, they would not even think of vaccinating. Are the schools ready
to sign the form and accept responsibility for these children, should an
adverse reaction occur, ו"ח? Are the schools ready to pay for medical and
caring expenses or to physically care for these children, should neurological
damage or physical disability occur from the vaccines forced upon them?
10
Vaccines: are they safe?
As we have mentioned,
vaccination carries certain risk; but how great is this risk exactly? We must
consider two different risks: short-term adverse events occurring within hours
or days of the inoculation of the vaccines, and long-term adverse effects,
which may not be felt until years later.
Before I start, I must
mention that entire volumes have been written on these issues (for a partial
listing, see the Bibliography at the end of this document), but due to the need
of keeping this presentation short, the evidence and arguments I will bring are
only םיה ןמ הפיטכ of the information available to the unbiased
inquirer.
Pro-vaccination
doctors and pediatric associations are sometimes quick at dismissing such
information as one-sided, coincidental, anecdotal, etc., and quickly brandish
statements from the CDC, IOM (institute of medicine) and VSC (Vaccine Safety
Committee) that all such reports have been evaluated by scientists and proven
to be unfounded. If so, it remains quite strange that so many M.D.s, scientists
and independent researchers have concluded that the safety of vaccines is
doubtful, at best 1 ( see documents #1-2 for statement fromfrum M.D. sharing this opinion), and
many M.D. and members of the American Association of Pediatrics do not
vaccinate their children (see document #1, as well as the dozens of books
against vaccination policies written by M.D.s and pediatricians).
One must understand
the huge political and financial interests at stake in the issue of
vaccination. One should bear in mind that many of the studies mentioned by
doctors in support of vaccination effectiveness and safety were carried out by
the manufacturers, or for them. Their interests and investments in vaccines are
enormous, and generate a huge interest in making sure that the results will tum
out in their favor. 2 Indeed, pharmaceutical
1 As an example, the AAPS (American
Association of Physicians and Surgeons, a 4,000 member-strong organization) has
requested an immediate freeze on Hepatitis B vaccination to children until the
safety of the vaccine can be further eva\uated.
2 Vaccines represent a multi-billion
dollar-a-year venture for pharmaceutical companies, and they use all the
pressure, clout and bribing available to protect their profits, by sponsoring
many activities, research projects and/or publications of the AAP and other
organizations. Additionally, when a pharmaceutical company finally applies for
licensure of a vaccine after many years of research, the money invested in that
research and development is tremendous, often amounting to well over 50 million
dollars. It is not an easy ןויסב
to say at that point,
"Well, we thought it would be worth it, but in fact the benefits do not
justify the adverse effects, so \et's just forget about it". This kind of תועיגנ is found in ה"ס 'יסס ד"וי( ע"וש)
קזחומ היה כ"אא
ומצעל רכומו ומצעל טחושש חבט לכמ רשב ןיחקול ןיא והימ ,השגה דיג לע םינמאנ םיחבטה
.תורשכב Ifthis is true for a תווצמו הרות רמוש with a תורשכ תקזח, it is all the more so
for secular companies with millions of dollars at stake.
1 will give here one example: A consortium
of ten \aw firms led by the firm of Waters & Kraus has fi\ed \awsuits
a\leging that the mercury preservative in vaccines caused neurologica\ damage
resu\ting in autism in children. These lawsuits are based on a confidential
study conducted by CDC scientists who studied autism as a potential
neurological injury caused by mercury in vaccines. The attomeys contend that a
different version of the study was made public and cited by the Institute of
Medicine's report as inconclusive on the role of mercury in initiating autism symptoms.
The confidential version of the study demonstrates that an exposure of 62.5
micrograms of mercury in the first three months of life significantly increased
a child's risk of autism. Until recently, the recommended course of vaccines
wou\d expose an infant to over 75 micrograms of mercury in the first three
months of life children exposed to this \eve\ of mercury were more than twice
as likely to deve\op autism as children not exposed. (Waters & Kraus, Press release, October 17, 2001 ).
11
companies have been caught numerous times
with the crime of covering up the adverseeffects or poor effectiveness of the
drugs they were producing, and vaccines are not any different (see documents # 3-5).
We doctors need to
stop deceiving our patients into thinking that immunizations are
"free". Every medical intervention costs the body something, and we
have a legal and moral obligation to tel1 parents.
When a discuss
vaccines with parents, 1 talk to them about the benefits and the
risks. The official position of the American Academy of Pediatrics may be the
same as my personal position, but they are far too involved with the
pharmaceutical industry to actually do anything but pay lip service to an open
discussion. The CDC and the AAP are filled with doctors whose research,
speaking engagements and travel are often funded by the manufacturers of
vaccines. Many of these same doctors are paid consultants, and some later go to
work full-time for the pharmaceutical industry. They have called Jenny McCarthy
and me "dangerous" for alerting parents to the possible risks of
vaccination ... 1
In truth, vaccines are
different than drugs for, unlike other pharmaceutical drugs for which the
pharmaceutical companies are liable in case of severe adverse reactions, in
regards to vaccines the govemment has removed such liability from the producing
companies. This has effectively eliminated the only reason for pharmaceutical
companies to ensure the safety of their products:
While the vaccine
compensation act was a milestone for many parents and a public acknowledgment
of risks and damages associated with vaccines, in many ways the act safeguarded
vaccine manufacturers from liability. "The law was enacted to help prevent
vaccine manufacturers from being driven out of business by rising liability
costs .... But in practice the reform effectively removed one of the drug
industry's most compelling incentives to ensure that its products are as safe
as possible2."
(Immunizations: a
Thoughtful Parents Guide, p.93)
A perfect example of
this תועיגנ on the part of the establishment in regards to vaccines is the Hepatitis
B vaccine, which became mandatory for all children. As we have mentioned
earlier, a frum pediatrician reported
in his letter ( see document # 1) that, "the AAP admits that the only reason we immunize children
against hepatitis B is because we have a captive audience. To vaccinate an
infant on his first day of life with a foreign agent such as the hepatitis B
vaccine borders on malpractice. There is no medical reason for it. We are
putting individuals at risk to protect the population from a disease that is
purely a function of lifestyle." So why did the vaccine advisory committee
and the AAP make it mandatory for all children, if not to inject millions of
dollars in the coffers of the pharmaceutical companies, with whom the have
strong ties?
Additionally, it is
not easy for a doctor to say, "Well, I practiced medicine for 20 years in
the hope of helping people, but I must realize and acknowledge now that the
vaccines I inoculated into my patients did more harm than good." This
situation creates a subtle -but very powerful- תועיגנ on the part of doctors
to always justify vaccination practices. Likewise, it is very hard for doctor
to acknowledge that the AAP -on whom they rely totally for guidance- may not be
as reliable, due to its strong political and economic interests in vaccines.
This creates in doctors' mind a bias against any study or
1 Dr. Jay N. Gordon
(M.D., F.A.A.P., I.B.C.L.C., F.A.B.M.), in his Foreword to Mothers Warriors, by Jenny McCarthy.
2 Money Magazine, December 1996, p.25.
12
evidence challenging the AAP recommendations
on vaccination. Dr Robert Mendelsohn,M.D., a shomer shabbos physician in Chicago and one of the first
doctors to recognized the hidden dangers of vaccines, once said, "modem
medicine cannot survive without faith, because modem medicine is neither an art
nor a science. It is a religion. For a pediatrician to attack what has become
the 'bread and butter' (vaccines) of pediatric practice is equivalent to a
priest denying the infallibility of the pope."
However, I will try to
stay away from these sensitive and political issues. 1 Additionally,
I will try to mainly quote the studies and numbers originating from the CDC and
other official sources, in order to avoid further complicating the discussion.
Short-term effects
Clinical trials on the
(short-term) adverse effects of vaccines have recorded the rare incidence of
various serious events immediately following vaccination, including seizures,
SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome ), anaphylactic shock, etc. Additionally,
information inserts from vaccine-producing pharmaceutical companies wam us
that, "As with any vaccine, there is the possibility that broad use of the
vaccine could reveal adverse reactions not observed in clinical trials".
The licenses given by the FDA to the producing companies stipulate that
post-marketing monitoring of the vaccines must be done to provide further
information on the possible adverse-events from vaccines. To that end, the U.S.
govemment created VAERS (Vaccination Adverse-Event Reporting System), a
govemment-bureau in charge of collecting all the reportable2 adverse
events observed from all vaccines.
VAERS receives over
1,000 adverse-event reports per month; these are not reports about running
noses or slight rashes, but about unexplained death, MS, insulin dependent diabetes, encephalopathy,
Bell's palsy, syncope, and on, and on, and on.
VAERS has received
about 11,000 reports of adverse reactions to vaccinations annually, including
as many as 200 deaths and several times that number of permanent disabilities
(VAERS reports, VA 22161). VAERS officials report that 15% of adverse events
are serious ( emergency-room treatment, hospitalization, life-threatening
episode, permanent disability, death).
A 1994 U.S. poll found that, of 159 doctors surveyed, only 28 (18o/o) said they make a report to the govemment when a child suffers a serious
health problem following vaccination. 3 Additionally, not all
occurrences are recognized as adverse reactions to a vaccine, and therefore,
are not reported.
As a "responsible
parent", I made certain that my daughter had received her vaccines on
schedule. I wanted to be sure she would be protected from disease.
1 Likewise, because the pertussis vaccine is
notorious for its high incidence of severe adverse events, 1 have purposely avoided
talking about this particular vaccine in the fol\owing presentation, \est
peop\e claim that my arguments against this particular vaccine cannot be
generalized to others.
2 Reportable is a key
word over here. Doctors are mandated to report only those events included in
the restricted list of reportable events, and only when they are recognized as
such. Consequently, many reactions to vaccines still remain unreported, because
they do not appear on the list ofreportable events, or because the doctor refused
to see it as such.
3 Press release (January 27'h, 1999) from the
National Vaccine lnformation Center; The Vaccine Guide, p.37. The NVIC
a\so reports that in the state ofNew York, only one out of 40 doctor's offices
confirmed reporting a death or injury fo\lowing vaccination (2.5o/o). The NVIC
was co-founded by Barbara L. Fisher, author of A Shot in the Dark, who served on the National Vaccine Advisory
Committee.
13
Her first two immunizations were relatively
uneventful. She displayed the usual mild reactions most parents are warned
about at the doctor's office. She was cranky, had a low-grade fever and slept
fitfully. After the third vaccination, however, something different happened.
She began crying and could not be consoled. The crying continued for hours and
then she stopped. In fact my normally bright and responsive baby stopped
responding altogether. For an entire week, she remained unconscious.
Occasionally, a wail would escape her lips but she never actually woke up or
responded to outside stimuli. I called our doctor and told him what was
happening. He told me that her reaction could not possibly be associated with
the vaccine. When I insisted that she was perfectly normal, healthy and happy
before the vaccine, he became quite defensive and dismissed me as being a
"hysterical mother." He also informed me that it is impossible to
tel1 whether a six-month old baby is unconscious or merely sleepy and insisted
that I continue bringing my daughter in for further immunizations. There was no
mention of an adverse event report.
I decided to find a
new doctor and to learn as much about vaccines as I possibly could. My research
soon took the form of a Master's Thesis, at the University of Windsor, entitled
Biomedical Ethics: The Ethical
lmplications of Mass lmmunization (1998). During that time, I was afforded
a world of resources, expert guidance, and received many bursaries and
scholarships that made this research possible. With what I have learned I
solemnly believe that, if I had followed this first doctor's advise, my
daughter would now be neurologically damaged or dead. We were very lucky, my
daughter is now a healthy 14 year old. Unfortunately, not everyone is so lucky.
(Preface to lmmunization: History,
Ethics, Law and Health)
In 1990, Dr. Byron
Hyde ( of the Nightingale Research foundation) provided the LCDC with 61
adverse event reports to the Hepatitis B vaccine stemming from Quebec and
provided the assistant Deputy Minister of Health with an additional 5 reports
of adverse reactions. Among the reports were 2 deaths, blindness, deafness,
numerous cases of memory loss, chronic and debilitating arm pain and persistent
fatigue syndrome. Many of the adverse events were severe enough to prevent the
individuals involved from attending work or school. Both Dr. Phillipe Duclos
who was in charge of human adverse event reporting for Health and Welfare
Canada, and Merck Frosst in Montreal, manufacturer of the Hepatitis B vaccine,
state that there had been no previous reports of serious adverse events associated
with it. Similarly, when 2 nurses and one other physician submitted adverse
event reports to Merck Frosst, they were each told that he or she was the only
person to ever report a serious adverse reaction to the hepatitis B
immunization and that he or she must be mistaken. In September of 1991, one of
Merck's research scientists contacted the Nightingale Research Foundation and
reported that there were staff members who were disabled following mandatory
hepatitis B vaccination, including the nurse responsible for administering the
vaccine, who became partially paralyzed and lost the use of one arm.1
Lyla Rose Belkin was a
previously healthy baby, who died at five weeks of age, within 15-16 hours of
receiving her second hepatitis B vaccination. During the autopsy, Lyla was
found to have a swollen brain and the cause of death was initially reported as
SIDS. However, the coroner eventually conceded that the vaccine was involved.
When the coroner attempted to report Lyla's vaccine-related death to VAERS, her
call was never returned. One can hardly be
1 The Nightingdale
Research Foundation, The 396 Million Dollar Experiment. 1994. 14
assured that adverse events are rare when it is
quite evident that serious adverse events are excluded from official reports.
Michael Belkin, Lyla's
father, attended the National Academy of Sciences Workshop on the hepatitis B
vaccine, on 26 October 1998. During an FDA presentation, it was stated that
there have been only 19 hepatitis B vaccinerelated neonatal deaths since 1991.
Belkin, a financial and economic analyst who has been trained in statistics and
econometrics, reviewed raw VAERS data and found that there were 54
"SIDS" cases following hepatitis B vaccination in 1997 alone, and
17,000 hepatitis B-related adverse events reported.
More recently, afrum mother reported the following:
What would you say to
the mother of a 3 month old who gazed, focused, lifted her head and smiled - in
short, who met or exceeded every milestone - and imrnediately after the DPT
shot fell over in convulsions, high fever, and complete listlessness? And then
never snapped out of it? Who years later still cannot smile, focus, gaze or
lift her head, when she could ONE MINUTE before the vaccine? Her doctor said,
"coincidence." After that devastating event, we researched this and
found many, many, many children whose reactions to the vaccine were IMMEDIATE,
SUDDEN and DRAMATIC after the vaccine - and PERMANENT. And the doctors all say,
"coincidence." I probably wouldn't be so anti-vaccine if at least one
doctor - someone, somewhere - would ADMIT that my child was permanently
neurologically injured from a vaccine. But guess what - I'm still waiting. I
read an interview this pediatrician who administered this vaccine to my child
gave to a frum newspaper; he asserts,
"I have never had a patient who had an adverse reaction to a
vaccine." Sure - easy to say that vaccines win in the risks vs. benefit
war - just deny that a reaction exists, and the rest is easy! ! !
(Yeshiva World News, September 4, 2008)
The CDC evaluates the
number of reports received by VAERS as lOo/o
of the actual, real-world adverse reactions taking place. The FDA
evaluates it as 1 o/o of the reality1
••• Therefore, even if we were to stick to the more conservative estimates of
the CDC, there are about 10,000 short-term adverse effects to vaccines each
month! Talk about vaccine safety!
The increasing
incidence of allergic disorders in Western nations is now universally
recognized, with every third child in industrialized societies having an
allergic disorder2. In some areas, the incidence of asthma has
increased by 200% in the past 20 years. Another study showed a 46% increase in
the nationwide death rate from asthma between 1977 and 1991. 3 Many
studies have established a link between the rising incidence of allergies and
the ever increasing number of mandatory vaccines.
Dr. Michel Odent and
his Primal Health Research Center, London, conducted a study of long-term
breastfeeding. The study started out examining whether long-term breastfeeding
protects against eczema and asthma. But in the course of the investigation, the
researchers came up with an utterly unexpected finding: children immunized
against pertussis were six times more likely to have asthma than those who
hadn't been given the shot.4 In virtually every category -number
1 Former FDA
Commissioner David Kessler, 1993.
2 "The
Intemational Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood" The Lancet
(1998; 351) pp.1225-1232. 3 Philadelphia Inquirer (Dec. 8,
1994).
4 Journal ofthe American
Medical Association, 1994; 272 (8), pp.592-593.
15
of sick days, cases of earaches, admittance to hospital- the
unvaccinated children were healthier.
(What doctors don 't tell you, pp.159-160)
I, rnyself, have
witnessed this phenornenon rnany tirnes over: children who received
irnrnunization shots developed ear infections within 7-10 days, see document #
6. (too bad that it takes rnore than the standard 5 days of rnonitoring by
pharrnaceutical cornpanies ... ). True, ear infections are usually not
life-threatening (although I have heard of rnany םינבר who allow the use of
oral עקידצמח antibiotics on חספ for ear or throat
infection, on the basis that any infection is considered תושפנ תנכס), but these incidents (which are a lot rnore frequent than doctors are
willing to concede; no one wants to adrnit to have caused harrn) show us that
the irnrnune systern (allergy is an abnorrnal response of the irnrnune systern)
is substantially affected by vaccines and should rnake us wonder about how
rnany other irnrnune diseases like cancer, leukernia, lupus, MS, etc. are
related to vaccination ...
Likewise, there is
plenty of evidence and scientific studies linking SIDS (Sudden Infant Death
Syndrorne) to vaccination. Initial studies suggesting a causal relationship
between SIDS and vaccines were quickly followed by vaccine
rnanufacturer-sponsored studies, concluding that there is no relationship
between SIDS and vaccines. In the 1970s, Japan raised its vaccination age frorn
two rnonths to two years and incidence of SIDS in Japan dropped drarnatically.
In the study of 103 children who died of SIDS, Dr. Williarn Torch, of the
University of Nevada School of Medicine at Reno, found that rnore than two
thirds had been vaccinated with DPT prior to death. Of these, 6.4o/o died
within 12 hours of vaccination; 13o/o within 24 hours; 26% within 3 days, 37%,
61 % and 70% within one, two and three weeks respectively. He also found that
SIDS frequencies have a birnodal peak occuחence at two and four rnonths - the
sarne age when initial doses of DPT are adrninistered to infants. 1
The following excerpt is part of the testirnony of Mrs. D. Mary of
Massachusetts before the Cornrnittee on Labor and Hurnan Resources, regarding
vaccine injury cornpensation:
Our granddaughter Lee
Ann was just 8 weeks old when her mother took her to the doctor for her routine
checkup. That included, of course, her first DPT inoculation and oral polio
vaccine. In all her entire 8 weeks of life, this lovable, extremely alert baby
had never produced such a blood-curdling scream as she did at the moment the
shot was given. Neither had her mother ever before seen her back arch as it did
while she screamed. She was inconsolable. Four hours later she was dead.
"Crib death," the doctor said; 'SIDS'. "Could it be connected to
the shot?" her parents implored. "No." "But she just had
her first DPT shot this aftemoon. Could there possibly be any connection to
it?" "No, no connection at all," the emergency room doctor said
definitely. My husband and I hurried to the hospital the following moming after
her death to talk with the pathologist before the autopsy. We wanted to make
sure he was alerted to her DPT inoculation such a short time before her death -
just in case there was something else he could look for to make the connection.
He was unavailable to talk with us. We waited two and a half hours. Finally, we
got to talk to another doctor after the autopsy had been completed. He said it
was "SIDS".
In the months before
Lee Ann was bom, I regularly checked with a friend as to the state of her
grandchild's condition. He is nearly a year and half older than
1 "DPT Immunization: A potential cause ofthe SID Syndrome" Neurology
32(4), pt.2 (American Academy ofNeurology, 34'h Annual Meeting, April 25-May 151,
1982).
16
Lee Ann. On his first DPT shot, he passed
out cold for 15 minutes, right in the pediatrician's office. "Normal
reaction for some children," the pediatrician reassured. The parents were
scared, but they knew what a fine doctor they had. They trusted his judgment.
When it was time for the second shot they asked, "Are you sure it's all
right? Is it really necessary?" their pediatrician again reassured them.
He told them what awful it was to experience, as he had, one of his infant
patient bout with whooping cough. That baby had died. They gave him his second
DPT shot that day. He became brain damaged.
"How accurate are
our statistics on adverse reactions to vaccines when parents have been told,
and are still being told, "No connection to the shot, no connection at
all?" "What about the mother I have recently talked with, who has a 4
year-old brain-damaged son? On all three of his DPT shots, he had a convulsion
in the presence of the pediatrician. "No connection," the
pediatrician assured. I talked with a father in a town adjoining ours whose son
died at the age of 9 weeks, several months before our own granddaughter's
death. It was the day after his DPT inoculation. 'SIDS' is the statement on the
death certificate. "Are the statistics that the medical world loves to
quote to say, "There is no connection," really accurate, or are they
based on poor diagnoses and poor record-keeping?
( Vaccine Injury Compensation, Hearing Before the Committee on Labor
and Human Resources [981h Congress, 2"d session, May 3rd, 1984], pp.63-67)
At best, there is conflicting evidence on the connection between vaccines and
SIDS. Shouldn't we then eח on the side of caution and institute a meticulous
widespread monitoring of the vaccination status of all SIDS cases? Instead,
health authorities have chosen to eח on the side of denial rather than caution.
On Friday moming of
June 6, 2008, NJ radio held a talk show on the subject of vaccination. One
caller told the audience how his healthy child received the polio, DPT and MMR
vaccine on one day, and started developing neurological damage and
incontrollable movements within 24 hours. He consulted three different
physicians, who could not figure out what was wrong with him and who assured
him that this could not be related to the vaccines. There was no mention of
reporting it to VAERS. It was a pediatric neurologist who finally told him
that, in fact, the thimerosal, 1 pertussis vaccine and rubella
vaccine could, each one independently, cause such an adverse effect, and all
the more when they are given on the same day.
In regards to autism,
a report released by the Califomia Department of Developmental Services in 1999 revealed that autism has increased by 273% between 1987 and 1998. In Maryland, the
number of autistic children increased by 513o/o between 1993 and 1998 (Maryland Special Education Census Data; general
Maryland population increased just 7% during that time ). Closer to home, the incidence of autism in Brick
Township, NJ, in 1998 was 1 per 150 children. (April 2000 report from CDC).
Dr. Andrew Wakefield,
gastro-enterologist at the Royal Free Hospital, London, studied over 150 children with autism and intestinal disease. A
significant number of these children had elevated levels of IgG measles
antibodies compared to controls, and measles-specific antigens in cells of the
colon2. The onset of autism in these cases occuחed after
administration of the MMR vaccine. Wakefield's findings were later
1 Thimerosa\ is a mercury-based component of many vaccines and a known
neurotoxic compound; unlike common belief, many vaccines still contain mercury,
including the flu shot becoming mandatory for preschool children as of
September 101h, 2008.
17
verified and replicated by other
researchers.1 Unfortunately, great political pressure prompted some
of Wakefield co-authors to withdraw their support (this shows how difficult it
may be to truly clarify the facts).2 In another study, 91 children
with developmental disorder and bowel disease were compared to 70
developmentally normal controls, some of whom also had inflammatory bowel
disease, Crohn's disease, or ulcerative colitis. Among the children with
developmental disorder, 75 out of 91 (82o/o)
had persistent measles virus (presumably from the MMR vaccine) compared
to 5 out of 70 (7%) developmentally normal children. 3
Four leading British
authorities reviewed the Wakefield/Montgomery paper, and were strongly
supportive of its conclusions. 4 Professor Duncan Vere, former
member of the Committee on the Safety of Medicines, agreed that the periods for
the clinical tests were too short. He wrote that, "in almost every case,
observations periods were too short to include the time of onset of delayed
neurological or other adverse events." Peter Fletcher, former senior
professional medical officer for the Department of Health wrote, "being
extremely generous, evidence on safety of the MMR is very thin".5
2 The Lancet (1998; 351) pp.637-641; Gastroenterology
(1995; 108) pp.911-916. Testimony ofDr. A.J.
Wakefield before
Congressional Oversight Committee on Autism and Immunization, April 6, 2000.
1 Testimony of Dr. J. O'Leary before Congressional Oversight Committee on
Autism and Immunization, April 6, 2000; Digestive Disease Science (2000;
45-4) pp.723-729.
A \ot more needs to be said about the
"Wakefield case". However, it is much beyond the scope of this
document. An article on the whole affair entitled "On Second Looking Into
the Case of Dr. Andrew J. Wakefield", will give an excellent understanding
of the facts and fiction suחounding this issue ( The autismfile, issue 31, 2009. see also www.autismfile.com).
Recently, the General Medical Council (GMC) discredited Dr. Wakefield and
barred him from further practicing medicine in England. Although this verdict
has been widely published, many details have been kept hidden from the public:
the GMC panel made its decision based on Dr. Wakefield supposed failure (see
article mentioned above) to disclose financial links that could potentially
conflict with the a\leged treatment of the subjects. The panel specifica\ly
stated that their decision had nothing to do with his c\aim of a possible
vaccine-MMR-autism link. Secondly Dr. Kumar, who served as chairman of the GMC
panel and read the verdict, is a shareholder in a well-known pharmaceutical
company. The suit against Dr. Wakefield was triggered by Brian Deer who brought
complaint against him and misrepresented many facts. Sure enough, he had
received assistance from Medico-Legal Investigations (MLI), a private inquiry
company funded solely by the Association ofthe British Pharmaceutical industry.
Interestingly enough, during the course ofthe suit, parents of the children
included in the Wakefield study attempted to bring their case to court, to
force the GMC panel to a\low them to testify, but the judge refused. That
judge, Sir Nigel Davis, has a brother who was on the board of the same big
pharma company ...
3 Joumal of Clinical
Pathology: Molecular Pathology (2002; 55) pp.1-6.
4 Recently (Sept. 2008), a study
"dispelling the link between autism and the measles vaccine" has been
publicized in the news, with the conclusion that "we are certain that
there is no link between autism and the MMR." While one may wonder how one
study can entirely abolish the conclusion of another study ( יאהמ יאה הימלוא יאמ ,דח ידהל דח יוה), it is also interesting
to note, among other things, the size of this study: which analyzed the bowel
tissue of 25 children with autism and compared it to a control group of 13
individuals. If Dr Wakefield had worked with such a small sample, his evidence
would have been entirely disregarded as coincidental and not meaningful
statistically. But since this study produced results supporting vaccination
practices, it is branded as the ultimate scientific proof ...
In my opinion, with so much conflicting
evidence and studies, we should use our לכש
and consider the real
life evidence: with such a great percentage of parents convinced that their
healthy child became autistic right after and because of the inoculation of
vaccines (see below), there are definite reasons to be cautious and suspicious,
as in every אתיירואד קפס.
5 Harold F. Buttram,
M.D.; Feb. 6'h, 2001.
18
Last week (ח"סשת רייא) Mrs Z. Landau יחת', head of the Yad
Vo'ezer Institute of London, England, communicated to me that, of the 800
children with some form of autism that have passed through the דסומ, the parents of 1/3 of
them claim it was due to vaccination. In other words, in 33% of the children,
the behavioral problems started very shortly after their rounds of vaccination.
(If there was no causal relationship between the vaccines and autism, the onset
of autistic behavior should have been spread evenly over the entire year, with 15o/o chances ofbeing within
2 weeks of quarterly vaccines, less than 8% chances of being within 2 weeks of
bi-yearly vaccines, and less than 4% chances of being within 2 weeks of the
yearly vaccines ).
On the weekend of
October 2nd and 3'd, 1999, an autism conference was held in Cheחy Hill,
NJ. Over 1,000 people were in
attendance, the great majority of whom were parents of autistic children. At
one point in the meeting, when the chairman asked those in the audience who
believed that their child's autism was caused by vaccines to stand, a large
majority of the audience rose to their feet.1
ln an independent
study, in 50% of cases of autism, the onset of autistic features on a
previously normal child took place in a time-related fashion following the MMR
vaccine (Harold F. Buttram, M.D.; February 6, 2001).
Dr. Bernadine Healy is
the former head of the National lnstitute of Health, and the most well-known
medical voice yet to break with her colleagues on the vaccine-autism question.
ln an exclusive interview with CBS News, Healy said the question is still open.
"1 think that the public health
officials have been too quick to dismiss the hypothesis as irrational",
Healy said.
"But public
health officials have been saying they know, they've been implying to the
public there's enough evidence and they know it's not causal," Attkisson
said.
"1 think you
can't say that," Healy said. "You can't say that." Healy goes on
to say public health officials have intentionally avoided researching whether
subsets of children are "susceptible" to vaccine side-effects, afraid
the answer will scare the public. (CBS News, May 12, 2008).2
Using infant macaque
monkeys, University of Pittsburgh's Dr. Laura Hewitson, Ph.D., described how
vaccinated animals, when compared to unvaccinated animals, showed significant
neurodevelopment deficits and "significant associations between specific
aberrant social and non-social behaviors, isotope binding, and vaccine
exposure." Researchers also reported, "vaccinated animals exhibited progressively
severe chronic active inflammation whereas unexposed animals did not," and
found "many significant differences in the GI tissue gene expression
profiles between vaccinated and unvaccinated animals." Gastrointestinal
issues are a common symptom of children with regressive autism. National Autism
Association calls for the NIH to conduct large scale, non-epidemiological
studies into the biomedical symptoms surrounding young children and all
vaccines.
(National Autism Association, May 19th' 2008)
1 Harold E. Buttram,
M.D., Feb. 6'h, 2001.
2 Although Thimerosal (a
mercury-based compound used in vaccines and connected with the increase of
autism) has been progressively removed from vaccines since 1999, scientific
evidence shows that this might not be the only way the MMR vaccine may cause
autism, see Joumal ofNeuroimmunology (1996; 66, pp. 143-145), Clinica\
Immunology and Immunopatho\oy (1998; 89, pp.101-108), Joumal of American
Medical Association ( 1972; 222, pp. 805-807).
19
My interest in autism
was sparked by my experiences with the detoxification of children that were
damaged by the administration of vaccines. Many behavioral problems soon
disappeared when vaccines were detoxified, even when children came to me for
completely different reasons. In my practice, it tumed out that mood swings,
aggression, restlessness, attention disorder and ADHD often coחelated to the
many and early vaccinations in children. When some of my autistic patients
greatly improved after the detoxification of their vaccines, my interest had
been aroused and I became increasingly convinced that autism must tie in with
the administration of vaccines ... At a Chicago conference on autism in May of
2003, I presented 30 cases of behavioral disorders that had significantly improved
by the detoxification of the vaccines ( among these were 3 autistic
children)... I no longer consider it appropriate to label autism an incurable
disorder. The facts simply disprove this assumption.1
Today, Dr. Tinus
Smits, M.D., has cured over 300 children previously diagnosed with autistic
spectrum disorder, by using homeopathic remedies to detoxify their bodies from
vaccines. He has created the organization CEASE autism (CEASE stands for
"Complete Elimination of Autistic Spectrum Expression"), and gives
seminars to train homeopathic doctors and teach them how to effectively enable
autistic children to resume normal behavior and functioning. ( see
www.CEASE-autism.com).
Today, other
organizations, such as DAN! (Defeat Autism Now!), have reported similar results
as obtained by Dr. Smits. Evidence of a coחelation between the MMR vaccine and
autism has been accumulating from many angles and many countries, 2
and some parents have even been able to win court-cases making such claims. As
much as the U.S. govemment tries to minimize the risks of vaccines and dismiss
related lawsuits, many litigants have managed to prove their points beyond
reasonable doubt and obtain compensation from the federal govemment. The latest
case was just resolved weeks ago, when the federal court in Washington D.C.
sided with the parents of Hannah Poling who became autistic after her MMR shot.
They were lucky: her father being a neurologist and her mother a lawyer and a
nurse, they had the knowledge and resources to fight effectively. Still, the
govemment claims that, "the fact that the court has ruled in favor of the
Polings should not be held as a proof of a causal relation between the MMR and
the onset of autism."3 What else can we expect from them? They
know all too well how much trouble they are likely to face if this connection
becomes an accepted fact.
There is a lot more to
be said on the autism issue but, for the sake of brevity, I will move on.
However, I cannot move on without a word on the newest book of Dr. Paul Offit Autism s False Prophets (Columbia University Press, 2008). This book
has been branded by doctors as the final proof that the MMR vaccine is safe.
But what is the credibility of its author? Dr. Offit, chief of infectious
diseases at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia holds a 1.5 million dollar
research chair at Children's Hsopital, funded by Merck (the manufacturer of the
MMR vaccine). He also holds the patent on an antidiaחhea vaccine (Rotateq)
that he developed with Merck. He has steadfastly refused to
1 Autism, beyond Despair, by Tinus Smits, M.D. (see
www.timussmits.com).
2 See for example, Singh V. and V. Yang,
"Serologica\ Association of Meas\es Virus and Human Herpes Virus-6 with
BrainAutoantibodies inAutism", Clinical Immunology and Immunopathology,
1988; 88(1), pp. 105-108.
3 Hannah seems to have been suffering a rare
congenital ailment (1 per 1,000; not so, so rare ... ) affecting her
mitochondria, and the vaccine triggered a worsening in her condition, causing
her neurologica\ damage. But no one knows how many other conditions may worsen
from exposure to the vaccines.
20
say how much he made from the vaccine.
However, according to CHOP documents, Offit's share of a royalty sale for that
vaccine to Merck is somewhere between 29 and 50 million dollars ... רוציקב, he has at least 29 million reasons to defend the safety of vaccines, in
order to protect the commercial value of his patents, 1 and in order
to protect the research money he gets from Merck. If to prove the safety of the
MMR, one has to come to a book written by an employee of Merck, so to speak, it
speaks loads on the safety of the MMR. As a researcher wrote, "Offit has
zero credibility in matters of vaccine safety. Not only does he advance the
absurd suggestion that children could safely get 100,000 vaccines at a time, he
also opposes any studies of the comparative health of unvaccinated children
that could shed light on the extent and nature of vaccine-caused injuries,
leading to their prevention."2 Here is another quote from Dr
Offit: "If they were willing to look at all the studies that were done
with vaccines, they would find that they are, I think without question, the
safest, best-tested thing we put into our bodies. I think they have a better
safety record than vitamins."3 The vaccines' manufacturers and
the medical establishment have been unable to produce any long-term safety
study on vaccines (no one has ever found any saety study over 2 weeks for the
MMR, and that one was done bu the manufacturer himselt), but Dr. Offit, without
giving ANY reference, is convinced that all these studies could be found ...
And as far as his farce that vaccines are safer that vitamins, the federal
government has, so far, granted more than 1 billion dollars in compensation to
vaccine victims; I would love to see a list of vitamin victims under
professional supervision, like the vaccine victims, who were eligible for
compensation.
In 1986, U.S.
legislation mandated that the Institute of Medicine (IOM) conduct a scientific
review of the possible adverse consequences of vaccines. The Vaccine Safety
Committee was established, whose charge was "the evaluation of the weight
of scientific and medical evidence bearing on the question of whether a causal
relation exists between certain vaccines and specific serious adverse
events." They were to classify every type of reaction into one of five
categories:
1.
No evidence bearing on
a causal relation.
2.
The evidence is
inadequate to accept or reject a causal relation.
3.
The evidence favors
rejection of a causal relation.
4.
The evidence favors
acceptance of a causal relation.
5.
The evidence
establishes a causal relation.
The VSC applied most
stringent criteria to these reports and studies, and determined that most
conditions fit into category two (inadequate evidence to accept or reject a
causal relation; this means that the matter remains a קפס). The only conditions
1 Unlike most other patented products, the
market for mandated childhood vaccines is created not by consumer demand, but
by the recommendation of an appointed body ca\led the Advisory Committee on
Immunization Practices (ACIP). In a single vote, ACIP can create a commercial
market for a new vaccine that is worth hundreds of millions of dollars in a
matter of months. For example, after ACIP approved tha addition ofMerck's (and
Offit's) Rotateq vaccine to the childhood vaccination schedule, Merck's Rotateq
revenue rose from zero in the beginning of2006 to $655 million in fiscal year
2008. When one multiplies a price of close to $200 per three dose series of
Rotateq by a mandated market of four million children per year, it is not hard
to see the commercial value to Merck of favorable ACIP votes. From 1998 to
2003, Offit served as a member of ACIP.
2 Wendy Foumier, President ofthe NAA
(401-825-5828). 3 CBS "60 minutes" program, October 20,
2004.
21
that eamed a category-five rating
(establishment of a causal relation) were: anaphylaxis (sudden, potentially
life-threatening systemic allergic response) caused by several vaccines; polio
and death caused by the polio vaccine; thrombocytopenia ( a decrease in the
clotting-ability of the blood) caused by the measles vaccine; death caused by
the measles vaccine; acute arthritis caused by the rubella vaccine. The only
conditions that eamed a category-four rating (evidence favors a causal
relation) were: acute encephalopathy after DTP; shock and unusual shock-like
states after DTP; chronic arthritis after rubella vaccine; Guillain-Barre
syndrome after DT and polio vaccines.
All the other
thousands of reports from countries around the world, from distraught parents
whose otherwise healthy children died within hours of vaccination to physicians convinced that
vaccination resulted in meningitis or deafness or sudden onset of central
nervous system disorders (see documents # 7-11), proved inadequate to
convince the committee that any causal relation exists between these events and
the recently administered vaccines.1 The list of conditions that fit
category two (where evidence exists, but is judged inadequate to accept or
reject a causal relation) is embarrassingly long. That list includes conditions
with literally thousands of reported cases, conditions such as meningitis and
diabetes following mumps vaccine, and subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (a
condition which causes hardening of the brain and is invariably fatal) after
measles vaccine. Other types of reactions, such as deaths from the pertussis
vaccines, were also denied. These conclusions are now used as guidelines in the
awarding compensation to families of vaccine-injured children.
In the fall of 2000,
the NIH established a committee to investigate the relation between the MMR
vaccine and autism. Despite the findings of clinical studies showing the
association, the committee's report concluded that, "the evidence favors
rejection of a causal relationship at the population level between MMR vaccine
and autism (lnstitute of Medicine, 2001). Immediately upon release of the
report in April 2001, Chairman Dan Burton of the House Committee on Govemment
Reform blasted the analysis as a disservice to the American people. Burton
accused two of the report's reviewers of having ties to the pharmaceutical
industry, and raised concems that some of the information clearing the vaccine
came from Merck, the vaccine's manufacturer.
Yet, because the IOM
is seen as an official authority, a sign2 in my pediatrician's
office professes the following: "Do vaccines cause autism? The best
scientific evidence says no. Experts are instead focusing on genetic and
environmental factors."
The strict rules
goveming the analysis of causation resulted in the rejection of most clinical
case reports. If your healthy child developed sudden seizures and extreme
sleepiness within hours of receiving a measles vaccine and then experienced
persistent problems with speech and walking, ו"ח, you would attribute
the disease to the vaccine. You would have no doubt about it. All the more if the
same thing had happened to scores of other children. The Vaccines Safety
Committee, however, would view such a report with skepticism because your child
was not entered in a controlled study of adverse reactions. 3 They
have received dozens of such reports. Their conclusion reads:
1 See Adverse Events
Associated with Childhood Vaccines, Evidence Bearing on Causality,
Institute of Medicine, 1994.
2 This sign was most probably written and
provided to the doctor by the AAP.
3 We find the same clash between common sense
and medical criteria in regards to the definition of האופר הקודב: For ל"זח, any medication or therapy that has produced
clear results three times in a row may be classified as הקודב האופר, whereas for the medical world such results
are worthless unless they have
22
|
3
|
"Although there
are a number of reports of encephalitis or encephalopathy following vaccination
with measles vaccines of various strains, the rates quoted are impossible to
distinguish from background rates. Good case-control or controlled cohort
studies of these conditions in similar unvaccinated populations ... are lacking
... The evidence is inadequate to accept or reject a causal relation between
measles or mumps vaccine and encephalitis or encephalopathy".
("Adverse Events Associated with Childhood Vaccines: Evidence
Bearing on Causality, "p.129).
They compared the rate
of reported vaccine-related injuries with the rate of those 1nנuries in the
background population. But since the general population is highly vaccinated,
the frequency of the condition is obviously going to be similar in both groups,
resulting in the conclusion that the reported conditions are not to be
connected with the vaccine. 1 Smart ploy!2
The other essential criterion by the Vaccine
Safety Committee for acceptance of a reaction was as follows:
"The vaccine adverse event association should be plausible and
coherent with cuחent knowledge about the biology of the vaccine and the adverse
event". ("Adverse Events
Associated with Childhood Vaccines: Evidence Bearing on Causality, "p.22).
Simply put, what this
means is that if current science can't explain it, then we won't admit it. This
approach is consistent with the Greek philosophy (which is the foundation of
today's medical world), which denied anything the human mind does not presently
comprehend (תינוי תמכח).3 Based on this הריפכ and because our understanding of Hashem's complex world is so limited,
VSC was able to dismiss many reports as inconclusive, even when a perfectly
healthy child succumbed hours after vaccination to sudden convulsions or
"unexplained death."
Lack of a biological
explanation, however, may only show our limited knowledge of biological
mechanisms; not understanding an adverse reaction does not mean it is not real.
Note that, as the לייוו
•"רהמ said4, "הרות תעד ךפיה םיתב ילעב
תעד": Even according to the Vaccine Safety Committee,
who classified all these conditions in category two (inadequate evidence to
accept or reject a causal relation), there remains a קפס if these serious adverse events were related to the vaccines
or not. As we all know,
been produced in a controlled double-blind study. 1 See The Vaccine Guide, pp.38-44.
2 Following these
restricting guidelines, the IOM established an arbitrary time period during
which the reaction must occur: "Exposure can be defined within a rather
narrow time window; that is, the rate of occurrence of an adverse event within
2 weeks of vaccine administration can be compared with the rate of occurrence
of an adverse event several weeks or months thereafter." Consequently, the
vaccine injury table contained within Public Law 99-660, upon which
compensation awards are based, allows only a 3- day window for development of
encephalopathy (impairment of brain function) or residual seizure disorder
following the DPT vaccine. Who says that delayed reactions do not occur? The
committee, based on an arbitrary decision. This is despite the fact that
numerous studies have consistently shown that nervous system reactions to the
DPT vaccine occur after a latent period of up to two weeks following
vaccination (see The Vaccine Guide, pp.41-42).
וזה לך
לשון הרמב" ו בפרשת אחרי מות )ויקרא ט"ז ' ח'(: "ולא אוכל לפרש '
כי היינו צריכים לחסום פי המתחכמים בטבע, הנמשכים אחרי היוני אשר הכחיש כל דבר
זולתי המורגש לו והגיס דעתו לחשוב הוא ותלמידיו הרשעים כי כל עניו שלא השיג אליו
הוא בסברתו איננו אמת"(.
4
ע' סמ"ע )חו"מ סי' ג'
סק"יג( בשם מהר"י ווייל.
23
ארמוחל אתיירואד קפס. As we also know, ארוסיאמ אתנכס
ארימח. Add to this the fact that inocu]ation with
vaccines is done to healthy children for the sole purpose of avoiding future
theoretical problems, it becomes evident that being cautious in this matter and
choosing to opt out סמ vaccination is
validated by הכלה; whoever claims that vaccinations are perfectly
safe and logical and do not violate the ואל of דאמ םתרמשנו
םכיתושפנל,
היאר איבהל וילע.
To conclude, I wish to quote the words of a physician סמ
the subject:
Nothing written here
is intended to imply that immunizations, when used in judicious moderation, do
not at times serve a necessary purpose. However, simple observation throws
strong suspicion on childhood vaccines, in their present numbers and forms, as
posing one of the major causes of the increasing pattem of sickness, allergies,
autism, and other neurobehavioral problems now being seen in our youngsters ...
if we continue to enforce the vaccine programs as at present, one shudders to
think what future generations will think and write about us. Mistakes might be
forgiven, but not the enforcement of those mistakes (Harold E. Buttram, M.D.)
Without accurate
knowledge of the true adverse effects of the vaccines, it 1s impossible to
assert that their benefits outweigh their risks and that they are to be
classified as reasonable תולדתשה and not as קיזמ השעמ. As for my part, based on what I know and have seen, I don't believe that
there is a רתיה to vaccinate an healthy individual with a
substance known to cause severe adverse-effects. But even if the issue would
remain a קפס, I prefer the choice of ךלמה דוד:
"הלופא
לא םדא דיבו ,וימחר םיבר יכ 'ה דיב אנ הלפנ"
Additionally, I wish
to quote the words of a Lakewood mother whose child suffered extensive
neurological damage from vaccines many years ago and who, until today, needs to
provide him with full physical care (see document # 11):
1 f eel that the people whose responsibility it is to dress, f eed,
change, bathe and care for a child, should be the ones to decide whether to
take the chance on immunizing, or not. As long as the government, doctors,
schools, etc, cannot 100% guarantee that the vaccines have absolutely no
side-effects, it is those responsible for picking up the pieces who should have
the right to choose.
24
Long-term adverse
effects
Short-terrn
rnonitoring of the vaccines has dernonstrated that vaccines can sornetirnes
have devastating effects on the central nervous systern, the irnrnune systern
and rnany vital organs of the body. Seizures, encephalopathy, asthrna, and
'unexplained deaths' are just a few recognized drarnatic "side"
effects of vaccines. If vaccines can, at tirnes, cause such striking and sudden
darnages to the body, it is only logical that they rnay also, in rnany rnore
cases, produce sorne less obvious and drarnatic but equally profound and
darnaging effects on various rnetabolic systerns of the hurnan body. Detecting
such possible effects is irnpossible through passive observation alone, but
requires long-terrn studies rnonitoring two large groups of people, one
subjected to vaccination and one not, and cornparing their respective rate of
cancer, leukernia, MS, asthrna, lupus, heart attack, dernentia, leaming
disabilities, allergies, etc.
How long should such a
study last in order to provide reliable and satisfactory inforrnation? 1 year,
10 years, or 100 years? 1 think that 30-40 years would give a fairly good idea of whether vaccines
are safe even long-terrn (if no rnajor changes in the rate of disease were
detected in 30 years, it is unlikely that anything significantly different
would occur afterwards), but even a 10 year study rnay possibly be considered
sufficient to provide a reliable insight on the safety ( or lack of safety) of
the vaccines.
Does such a study exist? No.
Was such a study ever done for even five years? No.
Was it at least done for one year? Absolutely not!
lnforrnation inserts
frorn the vaccine-producing pharrnaceutical cornpanies tel1 us that in
phase-three studies (the studies used to obtain licensing of a product frorn
the FDA and required to establish the its safety), adverse effects of INFANDRIX
(DTaP vaccine) were rnonitored for up to 3, 8 and 15 days only; adverse effects
of the Hepatitis B vaccine were rnonitored for 5 days only. Considering this
inforrnation, VARIVAX (the chickenpox vaccine) is probably the safest vaccine
around, having been rnonitored for up to
42 days ...
In May 2001,
Congressman Dan Burton testified that, "there is a paucity of research
looking at long-term safety of any vaccine" (House of Representatives, 15
may 2001, page H2174).
Scientific evidence
does not support the safety of immunizations: safety studies on vaccinations
are limited to short time periods only: several days to several weeks. There
are NO (NONE!) long-term (months or years) safety studies on any vaccination or
immunization. There is limited but rapidly growing scientific evidence of
long-term adverse side-effects of vaccines that need much more study (Harold E.
Buttman, MD, Feb. 6 2001).
As astounding,
shocking, unbelievable and outrageous as it sounds, this is the deplorable
truth: no long-terrn studies exist on the safety of vaccines. When we see rnany
teחible diseases on the rise, cancer, ulcerated colitis, Crohn's disease,
chronic fatigue syndrorne and asthrna to narne but a few, and when we know the
severe reactionsvaccines rnay trigger, being ששוח
that vaccination plays a substantial role in the
increasing
25
incidence of such diseases is not the extrapolation of a deranged mind,
but the cautious analysis of רשיה לכש.
Critics of
vaccinations claim that the dramatic rise in ear infections, allergies and
asthma in children can be attributed at least in part to the damaging effects
of vaccines. The incidence of asthma has steadily increased since the
introduction of vaccines. From 1980-1989 self-reported asthma in the U.S.A.
increased 38%, and the death rate for asthma increased 46% (CDC, 1992). Several
clinical studies have confirmed an association between vaccination and asthma.
A team of New Zealand researchers followed 1,265 children bom in 1977. Of the
children who were vaccinated 23% had asthma episodes. A total of 23 children
did not receive the DPT vaccines, and none of them developed asthma (instead of
the expected 5-6 cases). In a similar study in GB, 243 children received the
vaccine and 26 of them (10.7%) later developed asthma, compared to only 4 of
the 203 children who had never received the DPT vaccine (2%). The DPT vaccine
increased the risk by 540%. Of the 91 children who had received no vaccine at
all, only one developed asthma (1.1%). In the U.S.A., a third study was
conducted based on the data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination
Survey of infants through adolescents aged 16. Data showed that children
vaccinated with DPT or tetanus were twice as likely to develop asthma compared
to unvaccinated
children.1 (The Vaccine Guide, pp.49-50).
Yes, most vaccines
have much less mercury, but wait until the evidence against aluminum in vaccines becomes common
knowledge. The study of research regarding aluminum's harm to human cells
already contains hundreds of articles. The most damning conclusions were
recently published by Dr Robert Sears, a very well-known and well-respected
pediatrician and the son and partner of Dr. William Sears, long regarded as
"America's Pediatrician." Using the numbers he gathered from the
FDA's own data and Web site, Dr. Sears points out the unbelievable difference
between the acknowledged toxic dose for a baby, 20 micrograms, and the amount
found in the hepatitis B vaccine given on the day of birth, 250 micrograms. At two months of age,
this same infant could receive immunizations containing as much as 1,875 micrograms of aluminum. This is
disgraceful and dangerous, and Dr. Sears goes on to say that his "instinct
was to assume that the issue had been properly researched, and that studies had
been done on healthy infants to determine their ability to rapidly excrete
aluminum." No studies have been done. None. He, and we, can conclude what
scientists have known for a long time: Evidence has existed for years that
aluminum in amounts this large is harmful to humans. We can only guess what
harm we might be causing to babies with
these huge overdoses of aluminum.
Like many of you and
like some of my colleagues, 1 am extremely concemed about what has caused the
tremendous increase in autism and related disorders over the past decade. The
presumption that doctors are much better at diagnosis is absurd and
unscientific. (1 know that I am not 400 or 800 percent smarter than 1 was years ago.) The truth is that we have to look
much harder at what happens when we directly and repeatedly inject toxic
material into babies, toddlers, and children. The benefits for most healthy
children are easily matched or outweighed by the risks of the immunization
schedule used by almost all pediatricians. 2
1 Joumal
ofManipulative and Physiological Therapeutics, 2000; 318(7192);
pp.1173-1176.
2 Dr. Jay N. Gordon
(M.D., F.A.A.P., I.B.C.L.C., F.A.B.M.), in his Foreword to Mothers Warriors, by Jenny McCarthy.
26
A new study jn the Journal of Human and Experimental Toxology (May
2011) found that countries that administer a higher number of vaccines during
the first year of life experjence higher infant mortality rates. The study
looked at the relationship between the aggressiveness of that country's
vaccination schedule and how it coחesponded to the jnfant mortaljty rate (IMR).
Analysis of the countries IMRs showed a statjstically significant relationship
between increasing the number of routinely administered infant vaccines durjng
the first year of life and the coחesponding infant mortaljty rate. Thjs study's
findings were in line with previous studies on infant mortality rate and
vaccinations. For example, in Japan where vaccines were eliminated for children
under the age of two in 1975, infant mortality rate subsequently plummeted to
the lowest level in the world. Is it just "coincidence" that the
infant mortality rate is twice as high in America compared to Sweden and Japan,
where half as many vaccines are given to very young babies? According to this
study, it is not.
Experienced with kinesiology,
and like practitioners using verbal muscle testing, I can attest that many
chronic and acute conditions are linked, time and again, to vaccines. Diseases
like allergies, asthma, ADD, etc. In many cases, we observe dramatic
improvements after performing various procedures enabling the body to detoxify
from the toxins of the vaccines (see document # 12 for a testimony ofDr. J. Scott1).
In one of the largest
randomized epidemiological trials ever conducted, the effect of the Haemophilus
vaccine on the development of insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) was
studied in Finland. This study involved over 240,000 children, with about half
of them receiving the Haemophilus vaccine and the other half not. Both groups
were monitored for over 8 years. The results demonstrated a rise in IDDM which
was specific for the vaccinated group; however, there was a consistent delay of
3,5 years between vaccination and onset
of IDDM.
(British Medical
Journal, 1999; 319, p. 1133)
Dr. Mayer Eisenstein,
M.D., J.D., M.P.H., is the medical director of the four Homefirst medical
centers in the greater Chicago metropolitan area catering for over 10,000
children whose parents refuse to vaccinate. He reports that SIDS and autism are
almost non-existent among these children (following the cuחent national rate of
1 case of autism per 166 children, he should have had at least 60 autistic
children among his patients ), ear infections represent only 1 % of the doctors' visits, and the incidence of
asthma is so dramatically lower than the state-wide rate (2 per 1,000 instead
of 120 per 1,000) that the HMO called him to verify the facts. At the end of
the conversation they told him they understand this might be due to the fact
that most of his patients are not vaccinated ...
I have only provided a
tiny sample of the concems about the long-term safety of vaccines. In any case,
one thing is for sure: Due to the absolute lack of comprehensive long-term
studies on the possible adverse effects of vaccines on the various metabolic systems
and functions of the human body2, no one can honestly affirm that
vaccines are safe.
1 Dr. J. Scott spent years
doing research at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, MD,
before joining the faculty of the University of California Medical School. With
a special interest on sleep research and biofeedback, he later trained in
kinesiology, and eventually developed Health Kinesiology, one of the most
comprehensive and powerful kinesiology systems in existence.
27
Pro-vaccination
doctors claim that, "vaccines are under constant surveillance and study by
govemment agencies to ensure their saf ety". This is, at least, the myth
created by govemment agencies and spread by the pediatricians who follow them
blindly. The surveillance system they are refeחing to is VAERS, which is a very
passive surveillance system, very biased and very flawed, as we have pointed
out throughout the above pages; and the events reported there represent only 1
to 10% of the actual short-term adverse effects. As for ongoing studies, they
are mostly contracted by govemment agencies and pharmaceutical companies, with
all the תועיגנ and biases this implies; and yet, many such
studies reveal serious concems with vaccination. Additionally, none of these
projects have studied the possible long-term risks of vaccines.
While it remains
anyone's right (maybe)1 to throw all caution to the wind and choose
to vaccinate his children, one is surely not obligated to do so. Maintaining
having the right to force someone to get vaccinated in order to (theoretically)
protect someone else, when proof of vaccine safety is utterly lacking, is
preposterous and outrageous .
.
ףידע השעת לאו בש ;יפט ךימס ידיד אמד אמליד יפט ךימס הידיד אמדד תיזח יאמ
In regards to the
responsibility of schools, one should not forget that if a school is deemed
responsible for what might happen to pregnant teachers through lack of the
children's immunization (השעת לאו בשב), so much more so is it
responsible for the adverse events resulting from immunizations it imposes upon
its students (השעו םוקב). In such a delicate situation, there is no
question that, הכלה י"פע, the appropriate approach should be ףידע השעת לאו בש.
What is the
counter-argument of doctors? Doctors counter that
even if a vaccine seems to cause more damage than good, it is still recommended
because without the vaccine, we would have real epidemics of that disease and a
tremendous amount of sick and dead people.
In order to analyze the validity of such claim, we will have to look
into the
alleged effectiveness of vaccines. However,
even if this claim was true, הכלה י"פע one may still refuse
to get the shots, given that vaccination carries substantial and lif ethreatening
risks.
2 The above-mentioned
Finnish study only studied the possible link between the Haemophilus vaccine
and IDDM; it did not look into the possible link between vaccines and other
diseases (if it did, who knows how many more harmful consequences would have
become apparent ... ). Additionally, the Finnish study did not prove the safety
of this vaccine at al\; on the contrary, it highlighted the causal re\ationship
between the vaccine and IDDM.
1 As explained earlier, although ל"קוצז רזוע םייח יבר ןואגה allowed one to undergo
a surgical procedure even if the chances of a cure are smaller than the risk of
succumbing to the procedure itself, this is only true when the individual is
gravely ill anyway. In the case of vaccination where the individuals are
presently perfectly healthy, a רתיה to vaccinate can be given only if the gains are clearly greater than the
risks. Since the long-term risks have never been properly evaluated, it is
difficult to understand how a קסופ could issue a clear רתיה
on vaccination
practices.
28
Vaccines: are they effective?
Doctors claim that
without the vaccines, childhood diseases would be rampant; we would have real
epidemics and great numbers of fatalities. The only reason these diseases are
so rare today is due to the merit of vaccines. However, careful analysis of
available data by independent scientists and statisticians has consistently
brought the conclusion that most diseases for which we are vaccinating today
were in sharp decline before vaccination
was introduced. As an example, the measles death-rate fell into rapid decline
from about 1915 onward, fifty years before the introduction of the vaccine.
Similarly, from 1923 to 1953 (before introduction of the Salk polio vaccine ), the
polio death rate in the U.S.A. and England had already declined on its own by
47 and 55%, respectively.1 Unlike the population in European
countries, people in the U.S.A. are not being vaccinated against tuberculosis
and yet, tuberculosis has practically disappeared from both continents at the
same time and same rate. Likewise,
typhoid and scarlet fever are diseases of the past, without the help of any
vaccine. This constitutes a strong support to the claim that the decline in
incidence of the "preventable diseases" may have little to do with
the vaccine programs.
Polio is virtually
nonexistent in the U.S.A. today. However, there is no credible scientific
evidence that the vaccine caused polio to disappear. From 1923 to 1953, before the Salk killed-virus vaccine was
introduced, the polio death rate in the U.S.A. and England had already declined
on its own by 47% and 55%, respectively. Statistics show a similar decline in
other European countries as well.2 And when the vaccine did become
available, many European countries questioned its effectiveness and refused to
systematically inoculate their citizens. Yet, polio epidemics also ended in
these countries.
The number of reported
cases of polio following mass
inoculations with the killed-virus was significantly greater than before mass inoculations, and may have
more than doubled in the U.S.A. as a whole. For example, Vermont reported 15
cases of polio during the one-year report period ending August 30, 1954 (before
mass inoculations), compared to 55 cases of polio during the one-year period
ending August 30, 1955 (after mass inoculations) - a 266% increase. Rhode
Island reported 22 and 122 cases for these two periods, a 454% increase. In New
Hampshire the figures were 38-129; in Connecticut, they were 144-276; and in
Massachusetts they were 273-2027 - a whopping 642% increase!3
1 lt should also be noted that when the polio vaccine was introduced the
standards for defining polio were modified. The new definition of a "polio
epidemic" required more cases to be reported (35 per 100,000 instead of
the customary 20 per 100,000). Paralytic polio was also redefined, making it
more difficult to confirm, and therefore tally, cases: Prior to the
introduction of the vaccine the patient had to exhibit paralytic symptoms for
24 hours only. Laboratory confirmation and tests to determine residua\
paralysis were not required. The new definition required the patient to exhibit
paralytic symptoms for at \east 60 days, and residual paralysis had to be
confirmed twice during the course of the disease. Finally, after the vaccine
was introduced, cases of aseptic meningitis ( an infectious disease often
difficult to distinguish from polio) were more often reported as a separate
disease from polio, whereas before the introduction of the vaccine these were
counted as polio cases. The vaccine reported effectiveness was therefore
intentionally skewed (see Hearings before the Committee סמ Interstate and Foreign
Commerce, House of Representatives, 87'h Congress, May 1962, pp.94-112). And
despite all the above, the decline of polio after the introduction ofthe
vaccine was not much different than before the vaccine ...
2 Intemational Mortality Statistics
(Washington, DC; Facts on File, 1981 ), pp.177-178. 3 Vaccines: Are
They Really Safe and Effective?, p.18.
29
Many medical textbooks
lead off with the boast that one of medicine's great achievements is the
eradication of smallpox through vaccination. However, if you actually examine
the epidemiological statistics, you discover that between 1871 and 1872, 18
years after compulsory vaccination was introduced, four years after a coercive
four-year effort to vaccinate all members of the population was in place (with
stiff penalties for offenders) and when 97.5% of the population had been
vaccinated, England experienced the worst smallpox epidemic of the century,
which claimed more than 44,000 lives. In fact, three times as many people died
from smallpox at that time as had in an earlier epidemic, when fewer people
were vaccinated. After 1871, the town of Leicester, England, refused
vaccination, largely because the high incidence of smallpox and death rates
during the 1870 epidemic convinced the population it didn't work. In the next
epidemic of 1892, Leicester relied solely on improved sanitation and
quarantines. The town only suffered 19 cases and 1 death per 100,000
population, compared with the town of Warrington, which had six times the number
of cases and 11 times the death rate of Leicester, even though 99 per cent of
its population had been vaccinated. 1
The World Health
Organization has pointed out that the key to eradication of the disease in many
parts of West and Central Africa was switching from mass immunization, which
was not working very well, to a campaign of surveillance, containing the
disease through isolation procedures.2
Sieחa Leone's
experience also demonstrates that vaccination wasn't responsible for the end of
smallpox. In the late sixties, Sieחa Leone had the highest rate of smallpox in
the world. In January 1968, the country began its eradication campaign, and
three of the four largest outbreaks were controlled by identifying and
isolating cases alone, without immunization. Fifteen months later, the area
recorded its last case of smallpox.3
The U.S. governrnent
is quick to note that during the plague years of polio, 20,000-30,000 cases per
year occuחed in America, compared to 20-30 cases a year today. Nevertheless,
Dr. Bemard Greenberg, head of the Department of Biostatistics at the University
of North Carolina School of Public Health, has gone on record to say that cases
of polio increased by 50% between
1957 and 1958, and by 80% from 1958 to 1959, after the introduction of mass
immunization. Nevertheless, in the midst of the polio panic of the 1950s, with
the pressure on to find a magic bullet, statistics were manipulated by health
authorities to give the opposite impression.4
According to the World Health Statistics Annual (
1973-1976, vol. 2), "There has been a steady decline of infectious
diseases (for example, smallpox, diphtheria, whooping cough and scarlet fever)
in most developing countries regardless of the percentage of immunizations
administered in these countries. Improved conditions are largely responsible as
well as improved nutrition, as the primary determinants in the decline in death
rates." Dr. Richard Moskowitz, a Harvard University graduate with a
medical degree from New York University and a long-time family-practice
physician, remarks, "There is a widespread agreement that the time period
since the common vaccines were introduced has seen a remarkable decline in the
incidence and severity of coחesponding natural
Campaign Against
Fraudulent Medical Research Newsletter, 1995; 2; pp.5-13, quoting statistics from
"London Bills ofMortality 1760-1834" and "Reports ofthe
Registrar General 1838-1896".
2 Bulletin ofthe
World Health Organization, 1975:52: pp.209-222.
3 British Medical
Joumal, 1975;310; p.62.
4 What Doctors Don't
Tel1 You, pp.123-124.
30
infections. But the customary assumption
that the decline is attributable to
the vaccines remains unproved, and continues to be questioned by eminent
authorities in the field." He goes on to say that the incidence and
severity of pertussis, for example, had already begun to decline precipitously
long before the introduction of the pertussis vaccine. He also quotes
epidemiologist C. C. Dauer, who in 1943 stated, "If mortality from
pertussis continues to decline at the same rate during the next 15 years, it
will be extremely difficult to show statistically that pertussis immunization
had any effect in reducing mortality from whooping cough."1
Additionally, once vaccination against a
certain disease has been introduced, doctors are less likely to diagnose
someone with that disease:
George B. Shaw made
the following statement regarding the reclassification of disease: During the
last considerable epidemic at the turn of the century, 1 was a member of the Health Committee of London Borough Council,
and I learned how the credit of vaccination is kept up by diagnosing all the
revaccinated cases of smallpox as pustular eczema, varioloid or what not,
except smallpox.2
According to
statistics from the Los Angeles County Health lndex, in July 1955 there were
273 reported cases of polio and 50 cases of aseptic meningitis, compared with
five cases of polio and 256 cases of aseptic meningitis a decade later (after
introduction of the vaccine). In the early part ofthe last century (when the
only vaccine available was the smallpox vaccine), over 3,000 deaths in England
were attributed to chickenpox, and only some 500 to smallpox, even though
authorities agree that chickenpox is only very rarely a fatal disease. 3
Martha, from Sheffield, England, recently experienced this sort of fast-shuffle
name-change with pertussis:
Not long ago, after
our two-year o\d developed fu\1-blown pertussis, 1 took her to our GP, prepared
to face a reprimand for neglecting to have her vaccinated. However, the doctor
diagnosed asthma and prescribed Ventolin. 1 was so unconvinced by this
diagnosis that I consulted another GP within the practice. To my amazement he
insisted that pertussis no longer exists due to mass vaccination, and confirmed
the diagnosis of asthma. 1 then pressed f or a sputum test to prove or disprove
the existence of pertussis. 1 later received a patronizing phone call,
following my doctor's discussion with our local consultant microbiologist.
"They do not test for pertussis because it does not exist," 1 was
told. 1 then asked, should the condition clear up in a few weeks, presumably
asthma would have been an unlikely diagnosis? To which he replied: "We now
have a new condition called viral asthma which is similar to pertussis." 4
1 Vaccinations: a
Thoughtful Parent's Guide, p.22.
2 Immunization:
History, Ethics, Law and Health, p.101. 3 Immunization,
pp. 27-28.
4 Sometimes, the opposite scenario happens:
One set of statistics frequently used to document vaccine efficacy is the
increase in pertussis incidence when vaccine administration is stopped or
decreased. This has occurred in Great Britain, Japan, and Sweden. Many critics,
however, charge that during times when the number of vaccine recipients
decreases, physician sensitivity to the disease increases, and every lingering
cough is then reported as pertussis, thereby inflating the actual number of
cases. Indeed, during pertussis outbreaks, any cough that continues for more
than 14 days can be labeled 'pertussis' without a confirmatory culture (CDC,
1990):
We should be skeptical
about the 'outbreaks' that are reported to have occurred.
Pertussis is actually
rather difficult to diagnose conclusively, as it requires special
31
He said they see many children with this
condition. He added, "Since they stopped testing for pertussis, there have
been no recorded cases in our area". 1 No comments ...
(See document # 13 f or similar
testimonies ).
Unfortunately, the govemment is hiding the
true facts and, instead, uses scaring tactics to urge the public to vaccinate
their children:
On October 14, 2005,
the major media outlets shrieked a report of "The first outbreak of polio
in the United States in 26 years, occuחing in an Amish community in central
Minnesota". The specter of hundreds of children in braces and iron lung
machines lining the halls of hospitals immediately danced through the air, and
directly into the minds of parents who have chosen to not vaccinate their
children.
However, first of all,
there wasn't an "outbreak of polio" at all. There was only the
discovery of an inactivated poliovirus in the stool of 5 children. None
experienced any type of polio symptoms or paralysis. Furthermore, the virus
that was identified was not "wild polio", but a virus found
exclusively in the oral polio vaccine (OPV), so it was definitely the
administration of the vaccine that somehow caused these children to caחy the
germ.2
The unasked question
is why was finding this strain front-page news? My suspicion is that it was
because it was an Amish child; a large number of the Amish choose to not
vaccinate their children. A confirmation would serve a dual purpose: to make an
"example" of the Amish and scare parents into believing polio still
being "in circulation," when in fact, it is not.3
I, myself, had a hard
time to believe that the govemment and news agencies were manipulating and
distorting the truth to this extend. I therefore got a copy of the report from
the Minnesota Department ofHealth,4 and was able to see with my own
eyes that Dr Tenpenny was absolutely correct. There had been no case of polio
among the Amish whatsoever, only the discovery of the presence of vaccine-derived
poliovirus in the stool of 5 Amish children. Although this whole episode proves
absolutely nothing about the risks of polio in an unvaccinated population or
the benefits of polio vaccination, nevertheless, govemment agencies and medical
establishments made heavy use of this incident to convince people of the need
to vaccinate, and pediatricians were quick to believe this govemment hoax
without researching it further. 5
cultures or antibody tests that many \aboratories
cannot perform and that many doctors, in the presence of suggestive symptoms,
rarely take the trouble to order. (Mothering, 1987; 34; pp.34-39.
1 What Doctors Don't
Tel1 You, p.125.
2 Although DNA analysis of the germ revealed
it had been circulating for about 2 years, the OPV has not been used in the US
since 2000, so its presence in 2005 in the stool of Amish children isolated
from foreigners remains a mystery. In most likelihood, someone in the Amish
community or its vicinity was inoculated with an o\d specimen ofOPV by
accident, instead ofthe newly recommended IPV.
3 Polio "Non-Outbreak" Among the Amish, by Dr. Sheחi
Tenpenny, DO, Dec. 2, 2005.
4 Vaccine-Derived Poliovirus Outbreak, Minnesota 2005, Minnesota
Department ofHealth.
5 Indeed, in an article entitled A
Jewish Perspective on the Controversial Issues Surrounding Immunization, a frum medica\ doctor writes " ... on
a small scale, we see what can happen when a population is not immunized by
\ooking at the high po\io rate in the Amish community." It is a tragedy
that distorted facts are being used as the basis for Halachic rulings and
guidance.
32
|
To better understand the real value of vaccines, let's look at the
statistics regarding pertussis, for exemple. Based on the following graph,
could you guess when the pertussis vaccine was introduced?
|
 |
|
|
180
|
|
|
160
|
|
|
14
0
|
|
1
|
120
|
|
..
|
100
|
|
0.
|
|
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i
|
80
|
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0
|
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60
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•o
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20
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d Slltes Pertussls MoOIJISY B11es ז l ח U
18J' ו oeוו M ו 1""4
. tu ו
eנtו זכ:tו~'"
oU,.1 ו ol ו \1ct/SUU
~ 41t11' tיl' ו Pwt t
l ו Trnn ~ SW.n- SיttנrU
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$ Kt)lonul .וeוו .
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ו t p \dt-1- \ tיחttא Jt, V ו Ptl'l , $,IO ו latt ,וח l t U
|
|
Pertussis vaccine
was introduced in the late 1940s, so the claim that the decline in pertussis
incidence is the result of vaccination is nothing but a myth.
Let us now look at
measles' statistics and try to guess when the vaccine was introduced.
|
|
-~-
él
|
|
160
~----------
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United States Me11Je1 Mortalitv B1tes
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111'7 MO ו t4t ו t
1 נ 1'4 .lמו 1נtו $w.n, 0,ו,tח 1t10U ו s V1c81St.utao •-•וe lil
י 1 Pwt t l ~ ColorfelT•n -וe tUnCed!bt r ol
נ tlSW. ו H.s 9 1 . ltf'6, IW1
|
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14 0
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120
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..
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Q.
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80
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2i
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Muåltt Vx:cúe ~~td196.)
|
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20
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0
0 å ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' '
' ' ' '
' ' ' ' ' : ' ' ' ' .~ ,v;' ;-;::é:;-;:;
;:; ' ' ' ;ëå ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' 1
~~ï~~~~~#~~~~~~~~~~~#~
|
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Ye1r
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|
The vaccine was first introduced in 1963 ! Here too, against common belief, the vaccine had
very little to do with the decrease of the disease. There were 13 .3 measles
deaths per 100,000 population in 1900. By 1955, eight years before the first
measles shot, the death rate had declined by 97.7%, to 0.3 death per 100,000.
In fact, the death rate from measles in the mid 1970s (post-vaccine) remained
exactly the same as in the early
|
|
33
|
1960s (pre-vaccine ).1
Additionally, according to Dr. Atkinson of the CDC, "measles transmission
has been clearly documented among vaccinated persons. In some large outbreaks
... over 95% of cases have a history of vaccination. 2 Of all
reported cases of measles in the U.S.A. in 1984, more than 58o/o of the
school-age children were adequately vaccinated. 3 More recent
outbreaks continue to occur throughout the country, sometimes among 100%
vaccinated populations.4
In regards to
diphtheria, a significant decline in the incidence of diphtheria began long
before the vaccine was discovered. In the U.S.A., from 1900 to 1930, years
before the vaccine was introduced, a greater than 90% decline in reported
deaths from diphtheria had already occurred. 5 Many researchers
attribute this decline to increased nutritional and sanitary awareness.
Scientific data supports this theory as well. In any case, the above statistics
clearly prove that these diseases were in sharp decline well before the
introduction of vaccine. And they disprove the claim that if we would abstain
from vaccinating the population we would see a resurgence of these diseases to
levels seen at the beginning of the century.
It is interesting to
note the dichotomy in the doctors' way of thinking: when healthy children die
within hours of receiving a vaccine, they are quick to say that the temporal
relation between the vaccine and the observed adverse event is just
coincidental. But when the incidence of a disease decreases following the
introduction of vaccination, they see it as an irrefutable proof that vaccines
are effective, even though other factors might have been at play ...
The premise of
vaccination rests on the assumption that injecting an individual with a
weakened live or killed virus will trick his body into developing antibodies to
the disease, as it does when it contracts the same pathogen naturally. But
modem medicine doesn't really know whether vaccines work for any length of
time. All the usual scientific studies can demonstrate is that vaccines may create
antibodies in the blood. This may have nothing to do with protecting an
individual from contracting the disease over the long (or even short) term. As
such, Merck, Inc. (producer of many childhood vaccines) reports:
Seroconversion was not always associated with protection ftom
breakthrough disease. Rather, the higher the titer, the greater the likelihood
of protection ... (Summary for Basis of
Approval of Varivax).
The best proof that
production of antibodies due to vaccination may not accurately reflect on the
immunity status of an individual is the fact that a large percentage of
outbreak cases occurs in fully immunized children and that, unlike the immunity
conferred by natural infection, immunity due to vaccines is in most cases not
permanent. Antibodies in the blood are not the only way the body recognizes and
defends itself from disease. For example, nasal antibody plays a significantly
more important role than serum antibody in prevention of influenza.
Additionally, vaccines via injection use an unnatural route of antigen
presentation. The normal route of entry of antigens is via
1 "The New Epidemiology ofMeasles and
/rubella", Hospital Practice (July 1980), p.49.
FDA Workshop to Review
wamings, use Instructions, and Precautionaå:y Inforrnation (on vaccines)_
(Sept. 18'h, 1992),
p.27.
3 20th Immunization
Conference Proceedings (May 6-9, 1985), p.21.
4 Morbidity and
Mortality Weekly Report (US Government, Dec. 29, 1989).
5 International
Mortality Statistics (Washington, DC: Facts on File, 1981 ), pp.177-178.
34
the mucous membranes of the GIT, respiratory
and genitourinary systems where IgA initiates the natural immune response; the
mucous membrane is where 80% of our immune system resides. In one report, for
instance, measles antibodies were found in the blood of only one of seven
vaccinated children who' d gone on to develop measles; they hadn't developed
antibodies from either the shot or the disease itself1• Similarly,
the Public Health Laboratory in London has discovered that a quarter of blood
donors between 20 and 29 had insufficient immunity to diphtheria, even though
most would have been vaccinated as babies. 2
When analyzing the
effectiveness of vaccines, one must obviously consider each vaccine separately,
for not all diseases have the same incidences of morbidity and mortality, and
not all vaccines have the same effectiveness. Presenting all the arguments
regarding the effectiveness of all the pediatric vaccines would take much too
many pages for this presentation (which was supposed to be short). I will,
therefore, select two or three examples, ïéáé
ïéáîäå.
Doctors are obligated
by law to inform parents of the risks and benefits of each vaccine. To that
end, when a doctor vaccinates a child, he gives parents a sheet presenting some
basic information about the disease for which the vaccine is being provided,
the reason why the vaccine is recommended, and the risks involved in receiving
the vaccine. This information sheet is convenient]y provided to the doctor by
the AAP, and all he has to do is make photocopies and distribute it freely to
his patients. Based on the information on this sheet, the parent can make an
"informed" decision and reach an "educated" consent to
subject his child to vaccination (how valid is the consent when the parents don
't want the vaccines and their risks, but are forced to do so because they will
not find a school for their children otherwise, or because they will not find a
doctor willing to treat their children?). In the course of our discussion, I will
take the opportunity to point out to the lack of honesty and accuracy in the
information related to parents through this sheet.
The mumps vaccine
Mumps is a relatively
innocuous disease when experienced in childhood. In rare cases, mumps has been
associated with viral meningitis, deafness (usually transient), orchitis
(inflammation of the testes) and oophoritis (inflammation of the ovaries).
Permanent sequelae are very rare. The vaccine is meant to protect adult males
(when contracting mumps, they could suffer steri]ity of one testes, on rare
occasion, and from both testes on extremely rare occasions) and to address the
few cases of meningitis associated with the disease.
Here is what The Vaccine Book has to say about it
(written by board-certified pediatrician Robert W. Sears, M.D., F.A.A.P., and a
strong supporter of vaccination practices ):
What is mumps? Mumps is a virus similar to measles. It causes fever, rash and swelling
of the saliva glands in the cheeks. Rarely, the virus infects intemal organs.
The swelling of the cheeks is usually the most telling sign of mumps, and a
blood test can be done to confirm the diagnosis. It is transmitted like the
common cold, and once you catch mumps you are protected for life.
1 Joumal of Pediatrics, 1973:82. pp.798-801.
2 The Lancet, 1995; 345, pp.963-965.
35
Is mumps serious? No. In fact, most kids who have mumps have some fever and a slight rash
but not enough for anyone to worry about or even make a diagnosis. For teens
and adults, however, mumps can be more serious. Males may have sore, swollen
testicles, and men or women can have arthritis, kidney problems, heart
problems, or nervous system dysfunction. Very rarely, the disease can make
adults (men and women) sterile.
Is mumps common? No. In the past decade, only about 250 cases have been reported each
year in the U.S.A. Early in the twentieth century, there were several hundred
thousand cases each year (Note: if this is true, then it supports the claims of
opponents to vaccination that most dreaded diseases were in sharp decline
before vaccination was introduced. Dr. Sears writes that early in the twentieth
century there were several hundred thousand cases each year, while the
information insert of the mumps vaccine tells us that [ only] 152,209 cases of mumps
were reported in 1968, just before the introduction of the vaccine. But let's
leave this point for now).
In the spring of 2006,
a mumps outbreak occuçed among Iowa college students and spread to several
suçounding states. More than 3,000 cases were eventually reported (according to
the CDC, 6,584 cases were reported then; see document # 14), the largest outbreak in over twenty years. About twenty
victims were hospitalized. Most of the infected people had been [ fully]
vaccinated during childhood, but immunity from the vaccine usually wears off by
adulthood, so this wasn't a case of vaccine failure. lt occuçed simply because
adults don't get booster shots for mumps; we're all too chicken!
This MD doesn't even
realize the lack of logic in his words, but he expects us to trust his judgment
that vaccination makes sense. Let's review what he wrote: mumps in children is
not a serious disease at all; the main purpose of vaccination is to protect the
adults, who are more seriously affected by mumps. Anyone who got mumps once is
protected for life. Immunity from the vaccine, on the other hand, wears off by
the time children reach adulthood. Adults usually don't get boosters. What all
this means is that by practicing mass vaccination of children, doctors are protecting
them temporarily from a minor disease but, at the same time, are preventing
them from developing permanent immunity to that very disease, making them more
susceptible to contract it in their adult years and to suffer more serious
damage. In short, the vaccine is achieving exactly the opposite of what it was
supposed to achieve. Is there any øúéä for this? Is there any
øúéä
for prescribing a medication that helps protect against the common cold,
but increases the risks of cancer by 400o/o?
Since the introduction
of the vaccine, mumps has apparently declined in prepubescent children;
however, there appears to have been an increase in postpubescent adolescents,
and adults é. This age-shift is very
significant in that postpubescent adolescents and adults are at greater risk
of complications than children. In one study, whose findings appear to coçelate
well with other studies, not only was there an increase in the number of mumps
cases following the introduction of mandatory mass mumps immunization, but the
average age of infection was above 14 years for 63 of the 68 cases reported.2
1 "Mumps Outbreak
in a Highly Vaccinated Population," The Journal of Pediatrics 119
no.2 (August 1991), p.187.
2 "Sustained Transmission of Mumps in a
Highly Vaccinated Population: Assessment of Vaccine Failure and Waning
Vaccine-induced Immunity," The Joumal oflnfectious Diseases 169
(January 1994), pp.77- 82.
36
One study focused on a
1991 (Jan.-June) outbreak, in Maury County, Tennessee, among high school and
junior high school students. Of the 68 cases investigated, 67 had been
previously vaccinated against mumps, and this was amongst a highly (98%)
vaccinated school-population1• Prior to the 1988 school immunization
requirement, mumps was uncommon in this area. During a period of 9 years (from
1971-1979 inclusively) only 85 mumps cases had been reported (about 10 cases a
year), and there were no cases reported at all during the 1980s. A few years
after the mandatory requirement came into effect, which increased immunization
uptake to 99.6% in Maury County, there was a resurgence of mumps.2
Despite the fact that herd immunity thresholds were exceeded, disease incidence
increased! (proving that mass vaccination increases the chances of being
infected with the disease.)3
The mumps vaccine
itself has been known to infect individuals with mumps (a fact that was
demonstrated during the clinical trials), and it can cause meningitis in
vaccine recipients. Considering the innocuous nature of the disease itself, the
apparent lack of safety and efficacy of this vaccine, and its ability to defer
the disease to older hosts, its continued use most assuredly counters the
requirements of the principles of beneficence and non-maleficence.
(Immunization:
History, Ethics, Law and Health, pp.113-114).
I ask again, is there
any øúéä in the world for vaccinating children against
mumps? Our discussion up to this point has not even broached the possible
dangerous adverse effects of this vaccine.
Now, this is what the
doctors' inforrnation sheet says about mumps (with my comments in bold
letters):
Why get vaccinated?
Mumps virus causes fever, headache, and swo\len glands.
Who cares? The vaccine causes the same symptoms, in quite high numbers;
this is not a reason to give the vaccine.
lt can lead to
deafness, meningitis (infection of the brain and spinal cord covering), painful
swelling of the testicles or ovaries, and rarely, death. Although this is true,
unlike when they write later the risk from the vaccine and include the
percentage, here they did not give the incidence of such adverse events and
made it sound as if deafness, meningitis, etc., are quite common effects of
mumps, when in reality
In order to test vaccine efficacy, 34
volunteers were revaccinated, 2 of which ( oddly enough) had contracted mumps
during the outbreak and had submitted serum samples post-infection. Serum
samples were taken prior to revaccination and of the 34 volunteers, 6 had high
anti-mumps antibody titres, 25 had intermediate titres and 3 were seronegative
(demonstrating no evidence of immunity; 10%). After 10 months, antibody titres
were found to be similar to those measured immediately before revaccination.
Revaccination did not improve protection against the disease for the majority
of recipients.
2 The increased
incidence of mumps following mass vaccination, and the resultant increase in
the average age of infection, have been documented by numerous researchers. See
for example The Joumal of Pediatrics (August 1991, pp.187-193).
3 Other vaccines have caused similar results.
For example, the compulsory use of diphtheria toxoid was followed by
significant increases in incidence rates. ln France, incidence increased by
30%, cases tripled in Switzerland, Hungary saw a 55% increase, and cases in
Germany increased from 40,000 per year to 250,000, most of whom were immunized.
In nearby Norway, which refused mass toxoid use, there were only 50 cases in
1943 while France had 47,000 cases (Trevor Gunn, Mass Immunization: A Point
in Question. 1992, p.16; Miller, Vaccines? p.24).
37
all these side-effects are fairly rare.
Telling only part of the truth is also a form of lying. ln fact, the mumps
vaccine also causes meningitis and, sometimes, death. And as far as preventing
infertility, the information insert of this vaccine tells us that "MMR
vaccine has not been evaluated for carcinogenic or mutagenic potential, or potential
to impair fertility"!!!
You or your child
could catch these diseases by being around someone who has them. They spread
from person to person through the air. Measles, Mumps, and Rubella vaccine (MMR
11) can prevent these diseases. Many more children would get them if we stopped
vaccinating.
Studies have shown that the vaccine may increase the incidence of mumps,
not decrease it (see above, 36).
Most children who get their MMR shots will not get these diseases.
In Switzerland, six years after the MMR
vaccine was introduced, the incidence of mumps shot up sharply, mostly among
the vaccinated. é Similarly, in Tennessee, a large outbreak
occurred among students, 98% of whom had been vaccinated. 2 Likewise
in the ongoing mumps outbreak of the NY-Monsey-Lakewood frum community, most cases
occurred in fully vaccinated individuals.
Besides, let's assume for a minute that most
children who get their MMR shots will not get mumps while children; but once
they reach adulthood and have lost the artificial immunity from the vaccine,
they may get it and suffer a lot more from it.
What are the risks from MMR vaccine?
A vaccine, like any
medicine, is capable of causing serious problems, such as severe allergic
reactions. The risk of MMR vaccine causing serious harm, or death, is extremely
small.
Getting MMR vaccine is much safer than getting any of these three
diseases.
Let's assume this to be true, that
between getting these diseases and getting the MMR vaccine, the MMR vaccine is
safer. But what are the chances of catching these diseases to begin with? On
the other hand, they want to give each person l shots of MMR. The question really is, what are the chances of getting
the disease and suffering
permanent damage from them ((àèåòéîã
àèåòéîã àèåòéî) versus the chances of suffering recognized
adverse effects from the shot (see numbers below), unrecognized short-term
side-effects (call VAERS for 1-10% of this incidence) and longer-term
side-effects (no one knows, for no one looked into it)? Additionally, MMR
vaccine has been shown to increase the chances of getting mumps, not the
opposite.
Mild problems: fever
(up to 1 person out of 6); mild rash (about 1 person out of 20); swelling of
glands in the neck (rare ).
Moderate problems:
seizure (jerking or staring) caused by fever (about 1 out of 3,000 doses. Since
each person is supposed to get 2 shots, they should rather write: 1 out of
1,500 persons); temporary pain and stiffness in the joints, mostly in
teenage or adult women (up to 1 out of 4 1 out of 2 persons); temporary
low platelet count, which can cause a bleeding disorder (about 1 out of 30,000
doses 1 out of 15,000 persons).
1 Scandinavian Joumal oflnfectious Diseases, 1996;28; pp.235-238.
2 Joumal oflnfectious Diseases, 1994; 169; pp77-82.
38
Severe problems:
serious allergic reaction (less than 1 out of a million doses ); several other
severe problems have been known to occur after a child gets MMR vaccine, but
this happens so rarely, experts cannot be sure whether they are caused
by vaccine or not. These include deafuess, longterm seizures, coma, or lowered
consciousness, permanent brain damage.
Does it say anywhere
that in order to be äðëñì ùùåç one has to be sure?
May one eat a particular food if he is not sure it is Kosher? May one eat a
particular food if he is not sure it is not poisonous? What if there is
evidence that it causes coma, seizures and permanent brain damage, but the
evidence is not decisive? This is exactly what we are talking about here. There
is evidence of a causal effect between the vaccine and these severe adverse
effects, but the evidence is not enough for a panel of (biased) scientists to
be sure!
Can we call this an
honest inforrnation sheet? Can we rely on the judgment of the AAP that mumps
vaccination is justified? Can a parent make an inforrned decision based on this
sheet?
As for the CDC, here is part of what they
write about the need for vaccination against mumps (see document # 14):
Before the mumps
vaccine was introduced, mumps was a major cause of deafness in children,
occurring in approximately 1 in 20,000 reported cases ... An estimated 212,000
cases of mumps occurred in the U.S.A. in 1964.
Based on this CDC
ratio of 1 case of deafness per 20,000 cases of mumps, the incidence of 212,000
cases of mumps a year would result in only 11 deafs per year. How, then, can
they honestly say that "before the mumps vaccine was introduced, mumps was
a major cause of deafness in children"???
This dishonesty is
nothing but an attempt to develop people's fear of childhood diseases, in order
to promote blind acceptance of vaccination practices. If the authorities are
manipulating the truth about the need for vaccines, how can we not suspect them
of manipulating the truth in regards to their safety and effectiveness, as
well?
After vaccine licensure in 1967, reports of
mumps decreased rapidly. In 1986 and 1987, there was a resurgence of mumps with
12,848 cases reported in 1987.
If the mumps vaccine
is as effective as they say, how do they explain such a high resurgence, 20
years after the introduction of the vaccine? Wouldn't the explanation of
vaccine-opponents be more plausible that, in reality, the vaccine is hardly
effective, and that the decrease observed after 1967 has nothing to do with
vaccination, but concurs with the overall decrease observable in the years
before vaccination, due to improved sanitation, improved nutrition and other
factors?
But I have gotten
sidetracked. The main point is that the mumps vaccine achieves exactly the
opposite of what it was supposed to: Even if the mumps vaccine would be
effective during childhood and completely safe, it leaves its recipients
unprotected from getting mumps in adulthood, when mumps is more severe and
could cause serious damage. Conversely, by not giving the mumps vaccine one
allows his child the possibility to contract mumps during childhood when it is
a very benign infection, and to develop natural immunity for life. Who would
not want to do that?
Note: Throughout the summer, fall and winter of 2009, there has been a mumps
outbreak in the tristate area, with about 1,000 cases reported by the end of
2009. Here are
39
some facts about this outbreak, as communicated by the epidemiologist of
Ocean County Board of Health on Nov. 28, 09:
As of the 281h of Nov., there have been 114
documented cases of mumps in Lakewood, almost exclusively in the frum community. Together with the Boro
Park, Monsey, Williamsbourg communities etc., there have been around 1000 cases
in the Northeast frum community. In
Lakewood, there is an average of 1 new documented case of mumps a day. It is
suspected that there are many instances of self-diagnosed and self-treated
cases of mumps that are not included in theses numbers.
As of the beginning of
November, there were 98 documented cases of mumps in Lakewood. Of all these
cases, there has been no known hospitalization. 1 person reported temporary
deafness, 1 person suffered from inflamed ovaries, and 13 people reported
inflamed testicles. All these symptoms were transient (temporary), but it is
known that an average of 10% of people suffering from inflamed testicles from
mumps may experience impaired fertility.1
In all the cases where
the vaccination status has been verified (89 cases ), 90% of them (81 cases)
had been vaccinated age-appropriately prior to infection and only 10% (8 cases)
had not been vaccinated. If all cases are taken into account ( even those in
which the vaccination status has not been verified), at least 82o/o of all documented cases had been
vaccinated prior to infection.
As one can see for
oneself, although the incidence of mumps among the nonvaccinated population is
relatively higher than among the vaccinated population, being vaccinated is far
from a guaranteed protection, and the doctors' claims that the MMR vaccine is
99% effective is obviously exaggerated. The non-vaccinating population
represents roughly 2% of the frum community.
Consequently, if there were 8 cases of mumps among the non-vaccinated, there
should have been 400 cases among the vaccinated. Instead there have been 80
cases, which represents a 80% protection, not 99% as doctors claim ( data from
pharmaceutical companies and the CDC shows that the vaccine produces antibodies
in 73-96% of vaccinees. Additionally, clinical evidence shows that presence of
antibodies does not necessarily equate with adequate immunity). Likewise, to
blame the outbreak on the non-vaccinated population "who constitute a
reservoir of disease caçiers" is simply preposterous, when so many
vaccinated people are also prone to the disease.2
All in all, the true
benefits of the mumps vaccine are really small, considering the fact that mumps
itself is usually a very benign disease, with occasional complications that are
usually benign and transient, and that the vaccine is not 100% effective.
Considering that even if all people were to be vaccinated, herd immunity
threshold would not be met, compelling someone to vaccinate against his will is
not logically justified. However, when considering also the potential risks of
serious side-effects and permanent damage from the MMR vaccine3 (
and there are scores of people here in Lakewood that can testify
1 One must keep in mind that even among men who did not contract mumps at
all, 5% of them experience impaired fertility. Additionally, impaired fertility
does not mean complete infertility. Mumps almost never affects both testic\es
and, as the \ate Dr. Mende\sohn used to say, one testic\e produces enough sperm
to popu\ate the planet ...
2 Additionally, the medical community concedes
that immunity from the vaccine lasts for a maximum of 10 years so, even among
the vaccinated, most adults are not immune.
3 The CDC concedes that seizure may occur fo\\owing the MMR vaccine, at
the rate of 1 in 3,000 doses, pain and stiffness in the joints in 1 out of 4
teenagers and adu\ts women, temporary \ow p\ate\et count (a life threatening
situation) in 1 out 30,000 doses, and deafness, long-term seizures, coma, and
permanent
40
to that, with documentation from hospitals, doctors, etc. ), compelling
people to vaccinate is not only logically unjustified, it is also içational and
halachically forbidden.
NJ law states that in
the event of an outbreak, the health commissioner has the authority to request
that all non-vaccinated students shall be excluded from school (from day 12 after exposure to day 25 after exposure) if they have been exposed
to someone in that school within two days of his becoming sick with mumps. But
if they get the vaccine they can be readmitted immediately.
When I asked Ocean
County Board of Health how long does it take for the vaccine to produce
sufficient immunity, 1 was told, two weeks. So I asked, why then could one be
readmitted to school immediately after receiving the vaccine, 1 was told,
"This is a very valid question. There is no medical basis for such a
decision. The only justification given is that once a person has taken at least
one shot of MMR and done whatever he can, we shouldn't penalize them and we
should allow them to retum to school," even though they are as susceptible
to contract the disease as before.
So the whole
insistence of keeping non-vaccinated children out of school is NOT to protect
the public and try to restrict the outbreak for, if so, even those receiving
the vaccine now would be required to stay out of school for another two weeks,
until they have developed adequate immunity. The real reason is only to get
people to comply with what doctors and pharmaceutical companies want, and so
that pharmaceutical companies will continue to rake in their billions from the
vaccine industry. THAT'S THE ONLY REASON. Call it despotism, communism,
govemment control of the public for the benefit of the few or whatever you want
to call it, but do not call it "health care."
The rubella vaccine
Rubella, like mumps,
is a benign illness in children that is not much worse than a case of flu.
However, it can be dangerous to a developing fetus if a pregnant woman
contracts the disease in the first trimester of pregnancy. In that case, her
baby carries a 20-50o/o chance of being
bom with CRS ( congenital rubella syndrome ), which can produce major birth
defects including blindness, deafness, limb defects, mental retardation or
miscaçiage.
How effective is the
rubella vaccine? Pharmaceutical companies claim that one single shot of the MMR
vaccine produces seroconversion (presence in the serum of antibodies to the
disease) in 99% of vaccinees. Maybe ( as explained earlier, any data produced
and provided by pharmaceutical companies is ãåùç). But, contrary to what
they profess, real-life experience shows that seroconversion may not guarantee
immunity to disease. In one study at the University of Pennsylvania on
adolescent girls given the vaccine, more than 1/3 lacked any evidence
whatsoever of immunity. 1 In a rubella epidemic in Casper, Wyoming,
91 of the 125 cases (73%) occuçed in vaccinated children. In another study, by
Dr. Beverley Allan of the Austin Hospital in Melboume, Australia, 80o/o of all army recruits who had been
vaccinated against rubella just four months earlier still contracted the
disease. 2 So, how effective do you think the rubella vaccine really
is???
brain damage in very
rare cases.
1 Dr. Stanley Plotkin, professor of
Pediatrics, University of Pennsylvania School ofMedicine. 2 Australian Journal ofMedical Technology 1973; 4; pp.26-27.
41
Additionally, because
viruses easily mutate, the vaccine may only protect against one strain of a
virus, and not any new ones. Indeed, an Italian study showed that 10% of girls
had been infected by a 'wild strain' of the virus, even within a few years of
being given their shot. 1 Furthermore, children with congenital
rubella syndrome have been bom to mothers who 'd received their full
vaccination quota against rubella. 2
In fact, it seems that
all vaccination accomplishes is to increase the incidence of the disease: a few years
after the countrywide measles and rubella vaccination campaign of 1994 where
all school children between the ages of 5 and 16 received the double shot, the
number of cases of rubella in Scotland climbed to a 13-year high. Most occuçed
in children and young adults aged between 15 and 34 who had been given
preschool shots and whose immunity to rubella had wom off. It appears therefore
that, thanks to vaccination, young women are most susceptible to rubella at the
point in their lives when the disease is dangerous to them. 3 A
similar pattem, where the illness suddenly became an adult one, occuçed in
Finland in 1982, following a mass immunization program. 4 In the
U.S.A., Rubella and CRS (Congenital Rubella Syndrome) became nationally
reportable in 19665. In 1966, 1967 and 1968, 11, 10 and 14 cases of
CRS were reported, respectively. 6 In 1969, the year the rubella
vaccine was licensed, 31 cases of CRS were reported. This number did not
decline in the following years despite widespread vaccination: in 1970 and
1971, CRS cases soared to 77 and 68 respectively, and remained quite high
(30-62 per year) for over a decade before they retumed to the pre-vaccine rates
(and in 1991, 41 cases occuçed). So, how effective is the rubella vaccine in
preventing or even reducing the incidence of rubella-related birth defects?
Additionally, what
actually happened is that rubella infections became less common in young
children, but appeared more frequently in older adolescents and adults7,
posing a greater health risk for women of reproductive age. In 1980, D. Cheçy,
a member of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, explained that,
"essentially, we have controlled the disease in persons 14 years of age or
younger but have given it a free hand in those 15 or older." Considering
the fact that naturally occuçing rubella epidemics in the pre-vaccine era
"produced immunity in about 80o/o of
1 The Lancet,
1990; 336; p.1071.
2 Acta Paediatrica,
1994; 83; pp.674-677.
3 Pediatric
Infectious Diseases Joumal, 1996; 15; pp. 687-692. 4 The
Lancet, 6 April 1996.
5 The fact that rubella and CRS became
reportable only in 1966 gives us an insight into the dishonesty of govemment
agencies in regards to vaccines: In its paper "What Would Happen If We
Stopped Vaccinations?" (2003), the CDC writes, "In 1964-1965, before
rubella immunization was used routinely in the U.S.A., there was an epidemic of
rubella that resulted in an estimated 20,000 infants bom with CRS." Why do
they give estimated numbers and not scientific data? Because there is no
scientific data for the years 1964-1965, only for 1966 and on. Why, then, don't
they give us the incidence of rubella for the pre-vaccine years of 1966, 67 and
68, for which we have reliable numbers? Because the incidence of CRS during
these years were so low (11, 10 and 14 cases a year), that these (scientific)
numbers would be held as proof that the vaccine is ineffective. Going back to a
year for which there is no reliable records and during which there was a known
epidemic enabled the CDC to propose an inflated estimated incidence that no one
will be able to disprove, and to create the false impression that the rubella
vaccine is both highly needed and highly effective (besides, if 1964-1965 were
years ofunusual high incidence of CRS, they could not be used as a basis to
honestly judge the vaccine's effectiveness). This intentional misleading ofthe
public is nothing but disgusting.
6 CDC, Summar:y ofnotifiable diseases,
U.S.A., 1995.
7 The Joumal oflnfectious Diseases (169, Jan. 1994),
pp.77-82.
42
the population by 20 years of age", it
becomes evident that, by vaccinating children against rubella, the immunization
strategy produced the opposite results of those anticipated. 1
To sum up, the risks
of contracting rubella are extremely small (less than 100 cases per year in the
entire U.S.A.); the vaccine's effectiveness is quite questionable, as many
people who contracted the disease were fully vaccinated; furthermore, there is
evidence that the vaccine increases the incidence of CRS, not the opposite. If,
additionally, we take into consideration the fact that many serious adverse
effects have been associated with this vaccine, it becomes obvious that
permitting the vaccination against rubella is at least problematic. Forcing
vaccination onto others is outrageous and içesponsible.
The same pattem can be found with other diseases:
In the late 1990s,
despite the fact that the UK had the triple MMR vaccine in place since 1988 and
enjoyed an extraordinary high coverage of vaccination among toddlers, cases of
measles went up by nearly 25%. (Report from the Office of Population Censuses
and Surveys, 1993).
Here is what the CDC has to say about
measles, and the reasons we must vaccinate:
More than 90o/o who
are not immune will get measles if they are exposed to the virus. Before
measles immunization was available, nearly everyone in the U.S.A. got measles.
An average of 450 measles-associated deaths were reported each year between
1953 and 1963. This represents less than 1 death per 2,000 cases, since close
to 1 million cases of measles were reported each year in the 1940s. Yet, the
CDC reports that today, as many as 3 of every 1,000 persons with measles will
die in the U.S.A., a 600% increase in the mortality rate!
How is this possible?
Simply because measles vaccination has caused a shift in the age of people
coming down with the disease. Instead of being exposed to the disease in
childhood, now children are being immunized with vaccines that do not confer
lifelong immunity, raising their risks of contracting the disease as adults
when mortality from it is higher.
In conclusion, until a
proper study about the effectiveness of vaccines is achieved in real-life
setting with a non-vaccinated control group, no one will really know the extent
to which vaccines are effective or ineffective.
The problems exposed
here with the mumps and rubella vaccine can be found in virtually all other
mandatory vaccines of children. Lack of long-term studies, evidence of severe
adverse-effects, lack of clinical evidence of effectiveness, and growing
evidence that the vaccines increase the incidence of the diseases or delay them
to a later stage in life when the disease is more dangerous for the individual.
There are many more issues to be addressed (see document # 15 for a short overview
of the main issues), but out of concem about äøåú ìåèéá, I rely on the fact that the material presented so far should be more
than sufficient for the íéðáø to take a decision on
this matter.
1 Canadian Medical Association Joumal,
(July 15'h, 1983), p.106. 43
To sum up what we have demonstrated:
Evidence of long-term vaccine safety is utterly lacking;
The 1-10% of
short-term adverse events from vaccines occur in sufficient numbers to prohibit
vaccination, unless their benefits are even greater, and proven beyond doubt;
Such benefits have not
been objectively observed nor proven; on the opposite, there is considerable
evidence that vaccines may cause more harm than good.
Since, as we have
seen, medical procedure on a healthy individual for his protection and that of
others may only be done if "no real risk is involved and only minimal
discomfort is caused"1, we may conclude that
current vaccination policies violate the biblical commandment of ãàî íúøîùðå
íëéúåùôðì, and should be forbidden.
Should someone choose
to deny the above evidence and claim that vaccination benefits outweigh its
risks, it remains that, since medical authorities and pharmaceutical companies
concede that vaccination does involve some risks, no one has the authority
to force other people to vaccinate their children.
1 ע'
ספר נשמת אברהם יו"ד סי' קנ"ז סק"ד בשם הגרש"ז אויערבאך
זצ"ל.
44
What will be with the
pregnant teachers?
Schools are concemed
about pregnant teachers being at risk of catching rubella during their first
trirnester, putting their unbom child at risk of Congenital Rubella Syndrorne.
As we have seen, the effectiveness of the rubella vaccine rnay not be what it
is clairned to be, nor its safety proven at all. However, even frorn the rnore
"conventional" point of view, I would like to put things into perspective:
1. Have these pregnant wornen been vaccinated?
If yes, why are they
so woחied, if the vaccine is as effective as the rnedical establishrnent
clairn:
Merck, Inc., the pharrnaceutical
rnanufacturer, states that "vaccinating
susceptible postpubertal females confers individual protection against
subsequently acquiring rubella infection during pregnancy, which in turn
prevents infection of the fetus and consequent congenital rubella injury"
(this is why rnany countries only vaccinate the wornen of reproductive age and
do not vaccinate children at all; yet, their incidence of CRS is not rnore
elevated than in the U.S.). If, on the other hand, these wornen haven't
subjected thernselves to vaccination, what right do they have to irnpose
vaccination on others when they thernselves have not done so?
2. Is the school going to force all
adults to vaccinate? What about the
dean of rny child's school, who conceded to
rne he has not received any vaccines in decades and has no basis for clairning
irnrnunity frorn a rubella vaccine he never received (the rubella vaccine
becarne available in the 70's, well after his graduation). What about all the
school's ernployees, who also have contact with the teachers? Let us not
underestirnate the possibility of adults being caחiers of the disease: The CDC
reports that "since 1996, greater than 50% of the reported rubella cases
have been arnong adults." What about the irnrnigrants helpers who clean
the school or help in the kitchen and are not vaccinated? Why are the doctor
and nurse targeting the children for vaccination when others are also
"posing a risk"? Is it because others' risk is rninirnal? The risk
frorn rny child is also rninirnal, and I, at least, have a valid legal, and
halachic exernption frorn vaccination.
3. Are the pregnant teachers
truly refraining frorn being in contact
with non-vaccinated people? Are they
refusing to hire cleaning help at horne when the help is unable to prove their
vaccinated status and serologic irnrnunity? Are they refusing to go into stores
and shopping rnalls where unvaccinated people abound? Are they refraining frorn
spending Shabbos or Yorn Tov by their parents, in-laws or grand-parents because
they have not been vaccinated (rernernber, the MMR vaccine was first
rnanufactured in the 70's, so anyone who graduated before that tirne never
received this vaccine; additionally, irnrnunity acquired through vaccination is
not perrnanent, which is why adults are told to receive boosters every five to
ten years, so any adult who did not
get boosters within the last ten years is as rnuch of a health hazard for
pregnant wornen as rny child)? Do they refrain frorn going to Chasunos, Bar
Mitzvos and other gatherings were older (and unvaccinated) people abound? Until
the answer to all these questions is yes,
45
they have no right to impose vaccination on others against their will,
when they themselves are not so stringent. 1
4. The issue today is not whether to
vaccinate all children or to
vaccinate no one, for it's a fact that most
people vaccinate their children. The issue is whether the very few children who
have submitted a religious exemption present a risk to the pregnant teachers.
What, indeed, are the chances of an unvaccinated child catching rubella and
then passing it on to others? In the past few years, less than 100 cases of
rubella have been reported each year in the U.S.A. (this is so, even though the
FDA estimates that less than lOo/o
of some inner cities populations have been vaccinated, see document #16; obviously, the risks of
catching rubella are very small, even when living among highly unvaccinated
population), so the chance of an unvaccinated child catching the disease is
extremely small. The chances of him infecting a pregnant teacher are smaller
yet (1 in five million?) and the chances of a fetus of a pregnant teacher being
affected with CRS because of this exposure are even smaller. Even the FDA, CDC
and AAP would agree that the risks of suffering serious damage from the rubella
vaccine are greater. Therefore, the moral responsibility of the school lies in
first worrying about the risk a child faces by getting vaccinated at the
school's request, a real risk stemming from a vaccine he would be getting right
now, before worrying about the risk pregnant women face from exposure to an
unvaccinated child, a risk which is hypothetical and unlikely.
5.
Merck, Inc., the manufacturer of
the MMR vaccine, informs us
that, "Excretion of small amounts of
the live attenuated rubella virus from the nose or throat has occuחed in the
majority of susceptible individuals 7 to 28 days after vaccination. There is no
confirmed evidence to indicate that such virus is transmitted to susceptible
persons who are in contact with the vaccinated individuals. Consequently,
transmission through close personal contact, while accepted as a theoretical
possibility, is not regarded as a significant risk." In other words, there
remains a possibility that a child recently inoculated with the MMR vaccine
could infect another child or a pregnant woman. Although they do not consider
it a "significant risk" (what does this mean, in absence of
substantial evidence either way ... ? Besides, Merck will surely downplay the
likelihood of such a occuחence, in order to protect its product and the
millions of dollars it invested in it), it might be more probable than the
risks of my healthy child being the caחier of a disease he has no one to catch
it from ( except the recently vaccinated children ... ). After all, recently
vaccinated children have a אתועיר, for they have been infected with the live virus, whereas there is no
reason to believe that non-vaccinated children have been infected with the
disease. Are we going to prevent recently vaccinated children with MMR from
attending school for 3 weeks (from 7 to 28 days after inoculation) in order to
ensure the safety of the unbom fetuses, or are we going to accept them into
school because they do not represent a "significant risk"? The
theoretical risk my child poses to pregnant women is also not significant; in
fact, it is an absolutely insignificant risk. Why
1 This remark is valid for the םינייד judging this case, as well: if the ןיד תיב is going to rule that unvaccinated children
may not come to school, lest they create a health hazard for pregnant teachers,
these םינייד (who most probably
never received the MMR vaccine or its booster within the past 10 years) will be
morally obligated by their own קספ to
avoid all public appearances, lest they create a potential danger for the
pregnant women they may meet ...
46
are doctors and nurses only tolerating the "non-significant
risks" they have created, and not others ... ?
6. Pharmaceutical companies concede that a small percentage of
vaccinees are not protected from rubella
through the vaccine. Clinical evidence, as we have mentioned previously, shows
that this percentage may be as high as 30% or more. As a result, in a school of
over 1,000 students, up to 300 students are likely to be potential carriers of
the disease, albeit receiving full vaccination. What difference does it really
make, therefore, if one more child is also not "protected"?
7. Just as children with a religious exemption are
exempted from
mandatory vaccination, so too, children
allergic to any component of the vaccines and children with deficient immune
systems are medically exempt from mandatory vaccination. Are these
medically-exempted children also facing exclusion from school out of concern
for the pregnant teachers? Of course not. Teachers are then told that these
children have a medical exemption, and since the risk of contracting a disease
from these unvaccinated children is very small, they should rely on their הב ןוחטב' that after having done our part, whatever happens is only םימשה ןמ
הריזג, from which one cannot escape. There is absolutely
no reason why the same approach cannot be applied to children with a religious
exemption.
8. Last but not least, teachers and religious
schools should be
reminded the halachic basis for תולדתשה, and the just balance between תולדתשה and תולדתשה
.ןוחטב in itself does not guarantee any protection,
rather it ensures that we have done what Hashem requires of us, thereby
granting us His protection. Therefore, תולדתשה is worth nothing
unless it is done according to הכלה. Since the long-term
safety of vaccines has been completely disregarded in spite of the alarming
rise of many chronic and acute neurologic, immunologic and behavioral
disorders, since the short-term adverse events from vaccines and clinical
observations have given rise to concem, since the effectiveness of vaccines is
seriously questionable, and since a person is not obligated, יפ לע הכלה, to vaccinate his children, forcing someone, against הכלה, to vaccinate his children is surely not a justified תולדתשה and will not protect from disease and birth defects.
47
What will be with the
immuno-compromised children?
Another approach
recently used by schools nurses to coerce parents to comply with vaccination
practices has been to claim that, since the school student body ( or parent
body) includes individuals on chemotherapy, anti-reject medication, etc., whose
immune systems are greatly compromised, it is the obligation of everyone around
them to insure that they may not carry germs that could be fatal for these
individuals.
However, this argument, too, is not justified:
Medical doctors want
us to believe that they are the effective guardians of humanity, and that once
we have received all the vaccines they promote, we are safe! However, the
reality is that current vaccines may only protect from a handful of bacteria,
whereas they are literally tens of thousands of pathogens that may plague a
person's health. Even if all children and adults within a school would be fully
vaccinated, they are still potential carriers of thousands upon thousands of
bacteria, viruses, fungi, etc. Take strep for example. There is no vaccine
against strep and strep infections are extremely common, so the chances for
someone to be the carrier of strep are much higher than the combined
probability of carrying the pathogens of mumps, measles, rubella, polio,
hepatitis B, pertussis, diphtheria or tuberculosis. Consequently, according to
the previously-mentioned argument, an immuno-compromised child should not be
permitted to be in their proximity. In fact, such a child should not be around anyone for that reason! Obviously, this is going too far. Not being immune to a
disease should not be confused with being infected with the disease, and an
unvaccinated child should surely not be perceived as a potential threat f or
those around him.
When not in school,
are these immuno-compromised individuals careful not to visit their parents and
grand-parents who were not properly vaccinated? Are their household members
careful not to go to any gathering of adults who, even if they were once
vaccinated, have long lost their vaccine-generated immunity? As long as these
individuals are not so stringent with themselves, they do not have the right to
impose such stringencies on others.
48
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