Barbara Loe Fisher is a tireless advocate of both vaccine truth and choice and the Natural Solutions Foundation nominates her for our Hall of Fame. Barbara continues to examine carefully the vaccine industry, its products and its corruption. Her site, www.NVIC.org, is a mine of information and assistance on vaccine and vaccination issues. She is an ally and a resource of great value.
Barbara’s latest commentary on the corrupt – and corrupting – vaccine industry is a very important read.
In it she points out that vaccine safety and effectiveness have not been demonstrated by the studies published about them even in prestige journals. Those studies are of poor quality and show little that can be relied upon scientifically, but are, none the less, used as the evidence relied upon by vaccine courts to determine whether vaccines have harmed or killed anyone.
The Natural Solutions Foundation has filed a Citizens Petition with the Federal Trade Commission demanding hearings on whether vaccines are safe and/or effective and asking for a ban on any advertising or materials which suggest that they are either safe, effective or both until that fact is established.
And click here (http://drrimatruthreports.com/?p=2220) to read the latest news on the “accidental” Baxter International contamination scandal in which live, virulent Avian Flu H5N1 virus was somehow mixed with seasonal flu vaccine shipped to 18 countries. This mixture would allow re-assortment or mutation of the Avian Flu virus which currently is very ineffective in causing human disease. Such alteration of the virus could potentially allow it to become as deadly as the Avian Flu has been predicted to be when it causes the next “inevitable” pandemic. Of course, if it is mixed in with other flu viruses and injected “by accident”, the next pandemic really IS inevitable.
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Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
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Vaccine Studies: Under the Influence of Pharma
Barbara Loe Fisher
If you take more than a casual look at the way the mass vaccination system in the U.S. works, you see that pharmaceutical companies marketing vaccines have a lot of clout.
It was the pharmaceutical industry that told Congress in 1982 that they were going to leave the nation without vaccines if they didn’t get liability protection but have opposed making it less difficult for vaccine victims to obtain federal compensation in the U.S. Court of Claims under a 1986 law that gave them liability protection.
It is Pharma lobbyists, who bully the FDA into fast tracking vaccines like Gardasil and who sit at the CDC’s policymaking tables urging that new vaccines be recommended for use by all children so they can persuade state legislators to mandate vaccines like influenza vaccine.
How Big Pharma Influences Medical Journals
A recent study published in the British Medical Journal reveals the clout that Big Pharma has in the world of medicine journal publishing, specifically the publishing of scientific articles about vaccines. In a Cochrane Collaboration review and analysis of published influenza vaccine studies found that influenza vaccine studies sponsored by industry are treated more favorably by medical journals even when the studies are of poor quality.
This analysis confirms that drug companies marketing vaccines have a major influence on what gets published and is said about vaccines in medical journals. It is no wonder that there are almost no studies published in the medical literature that call into question vaccine safety.
The preferential treatment of Pharma-funded studies also explains why the risks of an inappropriately fast-tracked vaccine like Gardasil are underplayed in the medical literature and why a physician like Andrew Wakefield, M.D. who dared to publish a study in 1998 in a medical journal (The Lancet) calling for more scientific investigation into the possible link between MMR vaccine and regressive autism, has been mercilessly persecuted for more than a decade, by both Pharma-funded special interest groups, as well as public health officials maintaining close relationships with vaccine manufacturers.
Study Finds No Correlation Between Quality of Study and Publication
This recent review identified and assessed 274 published studies on influenza vaccines for their methodological quality and found no relationship between study quality, publication in prestige journals or their subsequent citation in other articles.
The researchers also found that most influenza vaccine studies are of poor quality but those with conclusions favorable to influenza vaccinations are of significantly lower methodological quality. The single most important factor determining where the studies were published or how much they were cited was sponsorship, with those partially or wholly funded by the pharmaceutical industry having higher visibility.
The authors commented: “The study shows that one of the levers for accessing prestige journals is the financial size of your sponsor. Pharma sponsors order many reprints of studies supporting their products, often with in house translations into many languages. They also purchase advertising space in the journal. Many publishers openly advertise these services on their website. It is time journals made a full disclosure of their sources of funding”.
The HPV Vaccine — Just One Example of Inappropriate Influence Endangering Public Health
Last month the National Vaccine Information Center (www.NVIC.org) called on the Obama Administration and Congress to investigate Gardasil vaccine risks. NVIC has long questioned the inappropriate influence of vaccine manufacturers in federal vaccine licensing and policymaking and state vaccine mandates.
In 2006, Merck’s Gardasil vaccine was fast tracked by the FDA at Merck’s request and in 2007 Merck lobbyists mounted an aggressive lobbying campaign to get Gardasil mandated by state legislators for all sixth grade girls, which would have assured the big drug company a predictable market.
The Pharma lobbying effort in 2007 to get all states to mandate Gardasil failed but every other vaccine produced by drug companies and licensed by the FDA in the past quarter century has been mandated. Those new mandates were added to state vaccine laws by legislators and public health officials at the urging of vaccine manufacturer lobbyists and Pharma funded organizations touting vaccine studies published in the medical literature.
Massive Increase in Number of Vaccines Given
In the past three decades, the numbers of doses of government recommended vaccines for children and medical organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics has tripled to 69 doses of 16 vaccines, with 48 doses of 14 vaccines targeted to children under age six.
Pharma lobbyists have persuaded most states to pass laws requiring two to three dozen doses of most of the 16 government recommended vaccines. Last year New Jersey became the first state to mandate influenza vaccine for children attending daycare and school.
In the past few years, Dr. Jefferson has authored several independent reviews of influenza studies published in the medical literature for the Cochrane Collaboration, which have been published in the British Medical Journal, questioning the quality of published scientific evidence for influenza vaccine effectiveness and safety for the elderly as well as children.
Clearly, if the makers and marketers of vaccines can influence the quality and quantity of the scientific evidence published in the medical literature proving that vaccines are safe and effective — evidence that is used by states to mandate vaccines and by the U.S. Court of Claims to deny compensation to vaccine injured children — then Congress was wrong in 1986 to protect the makers and marketers of vaccines from liability for injuries and deaths caused by those vaccines.
Government Vaccine Recommendations Based on Tainted Evidence
The U.S. Court of Claims vaccine injury compensation awards, and state vaccine mandates are justified on the strength of scientific published in medical journals. It is time for medical journals to disclose all financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry. It is time for studies questioning the safety and effectiveness of vaccines to receive a fair hearing in scientific journals rather than editors confining themselves to primarily publishing studies funded by the pharmaceutical industry maintaining that every vaccine is totally safe, effective and necessary.
Kudos to the British Medical Journal for having the integrity to publish Dr. Jefferson’s comprehensive analysis of pharmaceutical money influence on vaccine studies published in the medical literature. Hopefully, this will be a wake-up call for the scientific community, Congress and the public to put an end to the undue influence the pharmaceutical industry has on the science and policy of mass vaccination in the U.S.
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Barbara Loe Fisher is a strong and consistent voice in the vaccine debate: protect children, give parents the deciding vote on whether their children are vaccinated and tell the public the truth about vaccines and vaccine injury.
She writes well and compellingly about the many intertwined issues involved in vaccination and vaccination compulsion. The article that follows is an excellent review of the reasons that the US special Vaccine Injury Compensation program may now be considered a failure.
Vaccines are increasingly becoming mandatory for workers, students, children attending camp, home schooled children, college students, and more and more groups as well. The constitutional dangers and the physical dangers are enormous.
The Natural Solutions Foundation’s No-Forced-Vaccine Yahoo! Forum is a vigorous community of active and informed people sharing information and strategies for local and larger focus action.
Please visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/no-forced-vaccination/join to become a member of this active and informative group. And, remembering that compulsory vaccination as a public mandate is looming on the horizon, according to both the Health and Human Services and Homeland Security Departments, for every man, woman and child in the US — starting with those who want it (July 23 and 24, 2008, respectively), I urge you to take a moment to take the following actions:
1. Download a copy of the highly informative Vaccine Exemption Handbook, http://drrimatruthreports.com/index.php?page_id=699
2. Sign the Tiburon Declaration, http://drrimatruthreports.com/index.php?p=460, to join other health freedom advocates in making your opposition to forced vaccination and drugging clear
3. Forward this email to others on your list, tell them that this issue needs to concern them, too, and ask them to take the actions above and
4. Join the Distribution List for the Natural Solutions Foundation’s safe, secure and private Health Freedom eAlerts, http://drrimatruthreports.com/index.php?page_id=187.
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
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Why Vaccine Injured Kids are Rarely Compensated
by Barbara Loe Fisher
On Nov. 14, 1986, President Ronald Reagan signed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 into law, instituting first-time vaccine safety reforms in the U.S. vaccination system and creating the first no-fault federal vaccine injury compensation program alternative to a lawsuit against vaccine manufacturers and pediatricians. Twenty-two years later, on Nov. 18, 2008, I made a statement to the Advisory Commission on Childhood Vaccines (ACCV) and questioned whether the compensation program is fatally flawed and so broken that it should be repealed. Many parents are wondering whether it would be better to return to civil court without restrictions to sue vaccine manufacturers and doctors for injuries and deaths their children suffered after receiving federally recommended vaccines.
During its two-decade history, two out of three individuals applying for federal vaccine injury compensation have been turned away empty-handed even though to date $1.8 billion has been awarded to more than 2,200 plaintiff’s out of some 12,000 who have applied. Today, nearly 5,000 vaccine injury claims are sitting in limbo because they represent children, who suffered brain and immune system dysfunction after vaccination but have been diagnosed with regressive autism, which is not recognized by the program as a compensable event. There is $2.7 billion sitting in the Trust Fund which could have been awarded to vaccine victims.
At the time of the law’s creation in 1986, Congress said they were committed to setting up a fair, expedited, non-adversarial, less traumatic, less expensive no-fault compensation mechanism alternative to civil litigation. But Congress also acknowledged that any legislation providing liability protection must also be equally committed to preventing vaccine harm. The Act contains strong safety provisions, including first-time mandates for doctors to record and report serious health problems, hospitalizations, injuries and deaths after vaccination and give parents written benefit and risk information before a child is vaccinated.
But few of the safety provisions have been enforced and, as I testified in Congress in 1999 and again at the Nov. 18 ACCV meeting, there has been a betrayal of the promise that was made to parents about how the compensation program would be implemented. Obtaining compensation has become a highly adversarial, time-consuming, traumatic and expensive process for families of vaccine injured children and far too many vaccine victims have been denied compensation while vaccine makers and doctors have enjoyed liability protection and dozens of doses of nine new vaccines have been added to the childhood vaccine schedule.
I pointed out that federal court judges are beginning to look back at the legislative history of the Act, which so clearly affirms the intent of Congress when creating it. In recent court decisions, judges have agreed with parents and their attorneys that the compensation program has become far too difficult for plaintiffs. A recent state Supreme Court ruling also reiterated that Congress never intended to shield vaccine manufacturers from ALL liability for vaccine injuries and deaths when it could be demonstrated that a safer product could have been marketed.
In a Supreme Court of Georgia ruling on October 6, 2008 in American Home Products v. Ferrari, the justices unanimously held that the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act does not give a vaccine manufacturer blanket immunity from vaccine injury lawsuits if it can be proven that the company could have made a safer vaccine. Georgia Supreme Court Justice George Carley wrote that the 1986 law and “the congressional intent behind it shows that the Vaccine Act does not pre-empt all design defect claims.” He added that Congress did not “use language which indicates that use of the compensation system is mandatory” but only “an appealing alternative” to the courts.
Justice Carley wrote that there is no evidence that “FDA approval alone renders a vaccine unavoidably safe” and said “We hesitate to hold that a manufacturer is excused from making changes it knows will improve its product merely because an older, more dangerous version received FDA approval,” adding that to do so would have “the perverse effect” of granting complete immunity from liability to an entire industry and he concluded that “in the absence of any clear and manifest congressional purpose to achieve that result, we must reject such a far-reaching interpretation.”
During the ACCV meeting, longtime plaintiff’s attorney Sherry Drew gave a moving description of the suffering that families with vaccine injured children endure and, during public comment at the end of the meeting, Jim Moody, of SafeMinds, and Vicky Debold, RN, PhD joined me in urging the Committee to recommend to the new Secretary of DHHS that more vaccine injured children be compensated. This was echoed by outgoing parent ACCV member Tawny Buck, of Alaska, who has a DPT vaccine injured daughter and new ACCV parent member Sarah Hoiberg, of Florida, who has a DTaP vaccine injured daughter.
In the 1986 Vaccine Injury Act, the Institute of Medicine was directed to review the medical literature for scientific evidence that vaccines can cause injury and death, which resulted in landmark reports to Congress in 1991 and 1994 providing that evidence. IOM announced at the ACCV meeting that it has recently been contracted by the Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA) to assemble a Committee of scientific experts to review of the medical literature for evidence regarding the biological mechanisms for injury and death in association with varicella zoster (chicken pox), hepatitis B, meningococcal and HPV vaccine. There will be several public workshops during the Committee’s two-year study.
NVIC has been calling for basic science research into the biological mechanisms of vaccine injury and death for more than two decades. Without understanding how and why vaccines can cause brain and immune system dysfunction, there will be no way to develop pathological profiles to help scientifically confirm whether or not an individual has been injured or died from vaccination.
The truth about vaccine risks lies in the science, properly designed and conducted. The upcoming IOM review may be hampered by a lack of biological mechanism studies published in the medical literature but the review is also an opportunity to point the way to fill in those gaps in knowledge and the need for additional research that could become part of a national vaccine safety research agenda.
In the absence of scientific certainty, all children who regress into poor health after vaccination should be given a fair hearing in the federal vaccine injury compensation program and generously compensated when no other plausible cause can be found for what happened to them after vaccination. Congress intended the vaccine injury compensation program to be non-adversarial, fair, generous and humane. If it cannot function the way it was intended to function, then parents have every right to call for its repeal and a return to unrestricted lawsuits.
http://v.mercola.com/blogs/public_blog/Vaccine-Injury-Compensation–A-Failed-Experiment-in-Tort-Reform–72617.aspx