vaccines

[staceyv]

vaccines can be legally avoided

The medical establishment and the government would have you believe that the benefits of vaccinations far outweigh the risks. The following links have information that will surprise and probably scare you. Their intent is to alert you to the dark side of vaccinations so that you can make an informed choice.

I think vaccines reak havoc on the immune system.
It's not just a problem with people, either.

At the vet I worked for 6 years ago, the vaccine companies were sending information to the veterinarians about how vaccinating every year isn't necessary and was causing tumors, cancer and immune system dysfunction, etc. The vets basically tossed it in the trash and kept urging people to bring their pets in for their yearly vaccines.

I could go on and on about this, but this post would get too long for anyone to read. Let's just say think for yourself- question authority, and yes, it's all about money.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Don't dismiss the millions and millions of people that have died from diseases we don't consider a problem anymore. Even today, people are dying in droves from things like the flu, in some parts of the world.
I can remember very well the terror of Polio every summer. Had friends felled by it.

[jinx]

Right. But don't dismiss improvements in medicine, sanitation, hygiene, and nutrition. Or the effects, known and unknown, of vaccine ingredients on the body. First, do no harm.

Disease is a symptom. You can treat the symptom, but another disease will take its place.

"The pathogen is nothing. The terrain is everything."
Louis Pasteur

[jaguar]

I'd had more vaccinations than most, I spend more and more time in relatively inhospitable (medically) locations so the list includes HepA, B, Typhoid, Polio, Japanese Encephalitis, Rabies amongst others (at my arms at times have looked like a junkie) and plenty of courses of various antimalarials. As well as all the usual childhood ones. Has it done me any harm? Not that I'm aware of. Has any of them saved my ass? Possibly, I'll never know. That's the killer (ha. ha.) There's a fair chance I'd have caught malaria, I've had a few friends that have and it's not pretty. At the end of the day it is a risk calculation. As far as I'm concerned I'd rather take that risk than die of something that was completely preventable.

I have a pretty bulletproof immune system, partly the result I think of exposure to less-than-fantastic sanitation on a semi-regular basis.

[snobs]

i'm for them, and there is a new menigitis vaccine that is being recommended for teens:
http://www.medilexicon.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=25208

[Griff]

I don't have a big problem with vaccines although we truly don't know enough about them and their side effects (allergies?). I think it is unwise that we cocktail childhood vaccines because we don't trust parents to come back to their dr. Of course my entire family unit is taking a dose of chloriquine (sp?) tonight... If it turns out we've given autism to a generation of kids because we really do not know what we're doing the trial lawyers are going to have a field day. If it turns out "we" knew I am going to support the death penalty.

[xoxoxoBruce]

If it turns out "we" knew I am going to support the death penalty.

Usually "we knew" means someone made a risk analysis. The question for me is whether it was made against the disease or the profit/liability.

[jinx]

Call me a cynic, but I think its very obviously a financial issue. As this article explained, the use of thimerisol allows for a multi-dose vial which is cheaper than a single dose vial. That's the bottom line. There is no liability because of the 1986 law that created the NVICP (which paid out over a billion dollars in damages in taxpayer, not pharma co. money, in it's first 10 years).
DTP was cheaper to produce (by $9 a dose) than DTaP, and so its production/use was delayed in this country for decades despite the fact that the whole cell version contained toxins which caused brain damage and/or death in significant numbers. Same with OPV vs. IPV. OPV was the only cause of polio in this country for almost 20 years - but IPV costs nearly twice as much to produce.
Despite the costs, thimerisol has been [mostly/kinda/sorta] removed from vaccines, DTaP is the standard now, as is IPV... all with the assurance that there was nothing really wrong with the old versions. Yeah. Coughbullshitcough.

[russotto]

OPV is more effective than IPV, so it's not quite that simple.

[jinx]

S1873 and HR3970

This is lovely little bill, brought to us by Senator Richard Burr (R-NC), Chairman of the HELP Subcommittee on Bioterrorism and Public Health Preparedness creates a true partnership between the federal government and the pharmaceutical industry. Essentially it would strip Americans of the right to a trial by jury if harmed by an experimental or licensed drug or vaccine that they are forced by government to take, whenever federal health officials declare a public health emergency.

The bill establishes the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Agency (BARDA), as the single point of authority within the government for the advanced research and development of drugs and vaccines in response to bioterrorism and natural disease outbreaks such as the flu. BARDA will operate in secret, exempt from the Freedom of Information Act and the Federal Advisory Committee Act, insuring that no evidence of injuries or deaths caused by drugs and vaccines labeled as "countermeasures" will become public.
Nicknamed "Bioshield Two," the legislation is being pushed rapidly through Congress without time for voters to make their voices heard by their elected representatives. Co-sponsored by Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Mike Enzi (R-WY), and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg (R-NH), the legislation will eliminate both regulatory and legal safeguards applied to vaccines as well as take away the right of children and adults harmed by vaccines and drugs to present their case in front of a jury in a civil court of law.

This proposed legislation... is an unconstitutional attempt by some in Congress to give a taxpayer-funded handout to pharmaceutical companies for drugs and vaccines the government can force all citizens to use while absolving everyone connected from any responsibility for injuries and deaths which occur. It means that, if an American is injured by an experimental flu or anthrax vaccine he or she is mandated to take, that citizen will be banned from exercising the Constitutional right to a jury trial even if it is revealed that the vaccine maker engaged in criminal fraud and negligence in the manufacture of the vaccine

Originally Posted by George Bush

I'm also asking Congress to remove one of the greatest obstacles to domestic vaccine production: the growing burden of litigation. In the past three decades, the number of vaccine manufacturers in America has plummeted, as the industry has been flooded with lawsuits. Today, there is only one manufacturer in the United States that can produce influenza vaccine. That leaves our nation vulnerable in the event of a pandemic. We must increase the number of vaccine manufacturers in our country, and improve our domestic production capacity. So Congress must pass liability protection for the makers of life-saving vaccines.

Lawmakers said they agreed that drug manufacturers would need some protection from civil lawsuits, but Republicans and Democrats alike expressed concern that some of the legislation proposed so far gives consumers basically no recourse if harmed by a pandemic flu vaccine.

Keep in mind that liability protection for vaccine makers, the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Act passed way back in 1986.


"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace
alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an
endless series of hobgobblins, all of them imaginary" - H.L. Mencken

The bill establishes the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Agency (BARDA), as the single point of authority within the government for the advanced research and development of drugs and vaccines in response to bioterrorism and natural disease outbreaks such as the flu. BARDA will operate in secret, exempt from the Freedom of Information Act and the Federal Advisory Committee Act, insuring that no evidence of injuries or deaths caused by drugs and vaccines labeled as "countermeasures" will become public.

WHAT!?

Where did you get this info, Jinx? Can you give us a link? Un-fucking-believable! Such a step would be very bad science, horrendous medicine, and totalitarian government. I want to know more about this, so I can write the Colorado delgation in DC (for whatever good it will do)!

[jinx]

From here.

• [Struck out->]<code> `(f) INAPPLICABILITY OF CERTAIN ACTS- </code>[<-Struck out]

• • [Struck out->]<code> `(1) FACA- The Federal Advisory Committee Act (5 U.S.C. App.) shall not apply to the duties, activities, working groups, and advisory boards of the BARDA. </code>[<-Struck out]

• • [Struck out->]<code> `(2) FOIA- Information that relates to the activities, working groups, and advisory boards of the BARDA shall not be subject to disclosure under section 552 of title 5, United States Code, unless the Secretary or Director determines that such disclosure would pose no threat to national security. Such a determination shall not be subject to judicial review. </code>[<-Struck out]

Thanks, Jinx. I like this part, too:

[Struck out->] `(3) CERTAIN COST PRINCIPLES AND COST ACCOUNTING STANDARDS- Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the cost principles set forth under part 31 of title 48, Code of Federal Regulations, the cost accounting standards set forth under chapter 99 of title 48, Code of Federal Regulations, and the requirement for the submission of certified cost and pricing information under section 304A of the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949 (41 U.S.C. 254b), shall not apply to any contract, grant, cooperative agreement, or other transaction entered into under the Project BioShield Act of 2004 (Public Law 108-276).'. [<-Struck out]

So in other words, pharmaceutical and bio-tech companies can spend to their heart's content to the moon and beyond, be accountable to no one for the money they use, develop vaccines and drugs that no one knows about, experiment with these products on the rest of us, and not be responsible for whom they kill or injure in the process.

Saddam should have had it so good!

[Griff]

Anybody feel safer?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Doesn't "struck out" mean it's been removed from the bill?

Jinx, post 40 has 4 quotes. They don't sound like they come from the bill. Where do they come from....who is saying this...er, that?