Vandervalk: Vaccines - shots in the dark?
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
BY CHARLOTTE VANDERVALK
The lack of safety studies has been at the core of what has been terrifying many parents who have been researching the issue of compulsory vaccinations for children.
AHMED SOLIMAN'S column ("Don't let parents opt out of children's inoculations," Other Views, June 12) decries the parents who oppose compulsory vaccinations.
He laments the suffering of a family whose child did not have the benefit of a particular vaccine. Does he also lament the suffering of the more than 4,800 families who are now in the process of suing in a special federal court because they believe their children were seriously damaged by a vaccine?
Does he lament the many deaths caused by vaccines? Does he know that the compensation for a dead child in such instances has been established at $250,000?
Does he know that in New Jersey there are 60 doses of vaccines mandated by the state Department of Health by the time a child is 6 years old?
It must be pointed out that appropriate safety studies have not been done — no double-blind studies and no studies about the safety of combining several vaccines into a multiple dose.
The lack of safety studies has been at the core of what has been terrifying many parents who have been researching this issue.
Unfortunately, it is the extent to which children have been damaged that is driving this concern.
The public and the media are rightly concerned about pollutants in our waterways, on our recreation fields and in the environment in general. Some of these same pollutants are being injected directly into the bloodstreams of our babies by way of vaccines, in quantities larger than permitted by federal law for our environment.
If you check the package inserts of vaccines, which are written by the vaccine manufacturers, you will find aluminum, mercury, formaldehyde, latex rubber and a variety of potentially cancer-causing chemicals.
These package inserts also warn of serious side affects, such as encephalitis, myelitis, seizure, Guillain-Barre syndrome, multiple sclerosis, even sudden death.
Unvaccinated and risk
Do unvaccinated people cause a risk to the rest of society? No. Just look at the older generation of Americans who grew up prior to vaccine proliferation. We are not spreading epidemics.
On the contrary, some vaccines are made from live viruses, and they can spread the disease to those in close contact with the vaccinated person. There are 19 states that allow a type of philosophical exemption, and their residents have not had epidemics.
There has been a recent report of eight cases of measles in California, to which a mother responded in the press, "I'll take measles any day over autism."
Look at the Amish people in Pennsylvania. They do not vaccinate, and they do not have any outbreak of autism. Most European countries as well as Canada, Australia and Japan have rescinded their vaccination requirements.
In 1975, Japan stopped vaccinating babies under 2 years old, and it went to the top of the charts worldwide for low infant mortality. It had previously ranked somewhere in the middle.
Manufacturers have been exempted from liability in producing vaccines. Therefore, when a court decides a child has been seriously damaged by a vaccine, it is the taxpayers who will foot the bill.
New Jersey allows both a religious exemption and a medical exemption; however, the medical exemption is worthless. I have seen firsthand how a doctor's letter explaining the medical risk to a particular child was overruled by officials. That family is moving to Pennsylvania.
The American Association of Physicians and Surgeons has called for a halt to mandated vaccines until appropriate safety studies are done. In the meantime, parents should have the right to decide about vaccines for their children.
Charlotte Vandervalk, R-Westwood, is an assemblywoman serving the 39th Legislative District. Send comments about this column to oped@northjersey.com.
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