| Profits, Not Science,
Motivate Vaccine Mandates
The Advisory
Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), a group of individuals
hand-picked by members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC), recommends which vaccines are administered to American children.
Working mainly in secret, ACIP members frequently have financial
links to vaccine manufacturers. Dependent on federal CDC funding,
administrators of state vaccination programs follow CDC directives
by influencing state legislators to mandate new vaccines. Federal
vaccine funds can be denied to states that do not "vigorously
enforce" mandatory vaccination laws.
Conversely, the CDC offers financial bounties to state departments
of health for each "fully vaccinated" child. In a recent
year, the Ohio Department of Health received $1 million in such
CDC bonus payments.
At CDC national immunization conferences, Merck and other vaccine
manufacturers wine and dine thousands of attendees who make their
living promoting and administering vaccines.
Are physicians beholden?
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), a major supporter of
mandatory chicken pox and other vaccine mandates across the country,
shares incestuous financial ties with Merck. When constructing
its new headquarters in suburban Chicago, the AAP solicited funds
from Merck, and received $100,000 for its building campaign.
Vaccines represent an economic boon for pediatricians. Profitable
well-baby visits are timed to coincide with vaccination schedules
established by the AAP and the CDC.
Traveling circus?
As a front for Merck's campaign to enact a chicken pox vaccine
mandate, the company established and bankrolled the Illinois Children's
Health Coalition. Upon investigation, this group was found to
be no more than a public relations gimmick. Merck's similar campaign
moved to Ohio with the introduction of a senate bill (SB 254).
The senator (Grace Drake, R-Solon) who presides over the committee
(Health and Human Services) hearings for SB 254 accepted significant
campaign contributions from Merck. (Sen. Drake, at the request
of a Merck lobbyist, had sponsored a bill in the previous year
to mandate hepatitis B vaccine for Ohio kindergartners. To hide
the legislation from the public, the mandate language was buried
in a hazardous waste bill. The other hepatitis B vaccine manufacturer,
SmithKline Beecham, lobbied the House Health Committee. In previous
years, Sen. Drake opposed legislation to restore vaccine informed
consent to Ohio parents. Despite a 94-3 vote in the Ohio House
favoring informed consent, Sen. Drake refused to hold hearings
on the bill [effectively killing the bill] after its assignment
to her committee).
Further, Merck consultant, vaccine patent holder and ACIP member
Dr. Paul Offit of Philadelphia spoke at a recent American Legislative
Exchange Councils meeting in Nashville. State lawmakers from around
the country were treated to a well-rehearsed performance extolling
the virtues of mandatory vaccination. Similar productions were
staged during hepatitis B vaccine hearings in Ohio and Washington,
D.C.
Who should make decisions about the vaccines & children—parents,
doctors, legislators or vaccine manufacturers?
That is the issue. Special interests continue to push for mandatory
vaccines for schoolchildren. Recently, in Ohio, it was the chicken
pox vaccine (varicella). If the bill passes, chicken pox vaccine,
manufactured in human fetal tissue, will be the ninth in the cocktail
mix of vaccines required for school attendance.
In Ohio, at the urging of vaccine manufacturer Merck, Sen. Bruce
Johnson introduced SB 254, which mandates the vaccine for schoolchildren
in grades K-12. Ohio marks only one of Merck's latest efforts
to require chicken pox vaccine in every state—a plan that
would guarantee Merck annual sales of nearly $7 million for each
new class of kindergartners in Ohio alone.
The fine print and informed consent.
Chicken pox vaccine is produced in lung tissue obtained from
two surgically aborted human fetuses (Exp. Cell Res. 37:614-636,
1965; Nature 227:168-170, 1970). Merck's own literature states
the vaccine contains "residual components" of fetal
lung cells. Informed consent, a basic tenet of ethical medical
practice, dictates that citizens should have a choice whether
or not they are injected with another person's body cells. [Or
anything else.]
Benefit lacking.
From the medical and health-care cost perspectives, chicken pox
vaccine is a loser. Two studies, one funded by Merck, found that
only if lost wages are included for a parent to stay home with
a sick child is there cost advantage to using chicken pox vaccine
(JAMA 271: 375-381, 1994; J. Ped. 124(6): 869-874, 1994).
While providing lifelong immunity, chicken pox disease [not vaccine]
carries a very low risk of complications and death. Writing in
the British medical journal, the Lancet (343: 1363, 1994), a voice
of reason, Dr. Arthur Lavin, Department of Pediatrics, St. Luke's
Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio, presented concerns that "argue
strongly against the licensure of varicella vaccine for healthy
children." Lavin asserted: "[Chicken pox] is not major
in the sense of disease mortality or morbidity. Therefore, if
healthy children were fully vaccinated it is unclear in what significant
way the health of the children or the economic health of their
families would be improved."
The vaccine industry has corrupted government policy. It's about
time lawmakers say "no" to drug company lobbyists and
"yes" to informed consent. ?
Kristine M. Severyn, Ph.D., is director of the Vaccine Policy
Institute, 251 Ridgeway Dr., Dayton, OH 45459, 937-435-4750.
* A
full list of h1n1 vaccine ingredients, alerts and warnings.
Reference Sources: www.wellbeingjournal.com
November 3, 2009
 ...............................................................................................................
|
