Posted on 07/07/2002 3:14:48 PM PDT by PatriotReporter
Many vaccines that we routinely inject into infants are doing more harm than the diseases against which we are trying to protect. When confronted with the facts, "health officials" always shrug, it seems, and have no answer. It's part of the lunacy that has become modern medicine.
There IS a sticky problem with one of the smallpox vaccines, though. I don't recall what the name of the particular vaccine is, but there have been cases of babies dying after contracting a disease carried by recently vaccinated adults (must be a live-virus vaccine). Similar cases are known involving the polio vaccine.
Nonetheless, debate could go on for ever, and vaccines should not be mandatory, nor witheld. I think people should always seek out solid information about any vaccine they get, or their children get, though.
There are several vaccine monopolies which the Clinton era permitted in our nation. Most notably, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals obtained patent rights to produce Rotashield and Prevnar. Both vaccines were added to the ACIP recommendation list in record time. It took ACIP 20 years to decide to immunize American children for Chicken Pox (because the manufacturer and researchers were Japanese?????). It took about probably just over 20 months for Rotashield and Prevnar to make it through the approval process!
Rotashield didn't last very long on the open market. Studies began to show that intussusception was occurring in babies who received the vaccine (which was for a very common and horrible stomach virus called Rotavirus). Wyeth recalled and then terminated the vaccine production.
Prevnar is a different story. Wyeth has a total monopoly on this vaccine and it is the most expensive product on the ACIP list of recommended vaccines.
ACIP makes "recommendations". However, for most physicians these ACIP "recommendations" are "mandates". This is due to the prior court precedence that a physician is responsible for malpractice if a person contracts a vaccine preventable disease. Several courts found that a physician was liable for pain, damage, and suffering for not giving a child a "recommended" vaccine... even when the parent refuses the vaccination. There are some physicians who have addressed this issue by having parents sign legal waivers which clarify that the physician has made several attempts to vaccinate and the parent refuses.
So, although ACIP does not "mandate" mass vaccination, there is a defacto standard of care in any decision from ACIP. ACIP is composed of physicians who are nominated to serve on the committee from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Family Practice. Ironically, there is no membershp from the American College of Internal Medicine. Also interestingly, the AAP gets millions of dollars of donations from (you guessed it!) vaccine manufacturers.
I am not familiar with Dynport's prior track record. Until you posted this message, I hadn't been able to identify the various vaccine production channels in our nation. I have been attempting to identify those factories for some time. Wyeth used to have the prior smallpox vaccine called DryVax.
Given Wyeth's recent poor track record, I am not disatisfied with the Phase 1 trials just being started on the DynPort smallpox vaccine.
I'm interested in seeing existing stockpiles of vaccine distributed now. Delays are not appropriate, especially if the rumors of likely conflict in Iraq are true.
LOL! I know just enough about this business to know that there are too many important details in vaccine manufacturing (out of which any number of wild claims could be generated) for me to have a fully formed opinion (I do have suspicions). With regard to anything as serious as smallpox, I just don't like government funded monopolies any more than I like putting my retirement into a single investment. I have more too much faith in Murphy's Law and too much experience with manufacturing to Mil-Spec to think that it's a smart policy.
If there is "population reduction" conspiracy, (as there might well be among the Popular Front CommunoFascist UN/Club of Rome monsters such as Maurice Strong), well, I do wish I could innoculate a cow or two. Other than that, one's choices are indeed limited.
I wonder how much of this "debate" is being fueled by the inevitable malpractice/lawsuits that would result in the event of mass vaccinations.
I wonder how much of this "debate" is being fueled by the inevitable malpractice/lawsuits that would result in the event of mass vaccinations.
If the federal government orders a mandatory mass vaccination, I don't think that any physicians should held liable for any side effects of the vaccine. The federal government should be required to be liable.
The 1 in 3 probability of death is for the wild varieties of smallpox that are extinct. If smallpox were to be used as a biological weapon by terrorists, it probably would be based on the variety of smallpox isolated by the Soviets in India in 1967. This variety evolved in the crowded evironment on India, and the Soviets had a stockpile of twenty tons of it. It had a 50% mortality rate.
See, I don't even agree with that. It may sound heartless, but "stuff" happens. We have to weigh the greater good of everyone, and I don't think the federal government should be held liable. When the Polio vaccine was first fielded, there were several citizens who contracted Polio from the vaccination, all manufactured by the Cutter company, I think. It was a big controversy at the time -- but the success of the vaccine has made (I hope) polio a forgotten disease. Just to think of the once common diseases we have eradicated is incredible. Smallpox, whooping cough, Tetanus, Syphylis, Gonnorhea (both incurable before the advent of pennicillin, the AIDS of the day) German Measles... 20 million people died as a result of the Flu just after world war I, fer cryin' out loud!
What really steams me, is after years of hard work and dedication, we throw away a lot of our natural immunity to this by (yes) letting illegal immigrants in the country with no idea of their disease status is, politically "correct" treatment of certain disease carriers, etc. etc.
No, that should be decided by people a lot smarter than I am. I just hope that politics doesn't get involved.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.