In reading the posts on this thread over the last week, it is very clear to me that those who oppose freedom of choice when it comes to vaccination are much more interested in attacking individuals who are advocating for freedom of information on this subject then they are in participating in a respectful and educated exchange of ideas on this scientific issue.
They have said many things about me which are simply untrue and completely unverifiable but I am not concerned about that - they have been doing this for many years. But I am concerned about their misinformation about deaths from infectious diseases.
Australia, like the US, is currently in a record-breaking epidemic of whooping cough (pertussis). Like the US, Australia has a very high rate of vaccination. Mass vaccination started in Australia in 1953 and today, we have more cases of pertussis then we did before mass vaccination - despite more than 92% of our children aged under 4 being fully vaccinated. 75% of these kids were fully vaccinated, 14% were partially vaccinated and 11% were either unvaccinated or were too young to be vaccinated at the time of diagnosis.
If the vaccine were working and our vaccination rate were over 90%, you would expect that the majority of those getting the disease would be vaccinated even if the vaccine were at least partially effective just by the law of averages. But to have had a huge increase in the reports of pertussis along with a huge increase in our vaccination rate (in 1991, only 71% of eligible children were vaccinated with just under 350 cases reported nationwide vs our current 92% vaccination rate and almost 40,000 cases reported last year) indicates that the vaccine isn't working.
And the medical literature shows very clearly that it isn't working for one of 2 possible reasons (there could be more):
1- The bacteria has mutated - potentially due to the use of the pertussis vaccine (in much the same way that overuse of antibiotics selects for other strains of antibiotic-resistent bacteria). In Australia, 84% of the pertussis that is being diagnosed is caused by a different bacteria then the one in the shot. This 'newer' strain seems to be more virulent, leading to an increase in deaths amongst vulnerable infants. The same exact situation is occurring in the US. The unvaccinated are being blamed but the evidence is pointing to the fact that the vaccine may be responsible.
2- New research is emerging to show that those who receive the whooping cough vaccine may be up to 40 times more likely to contract a related illness whose symptoms are virtually identical to whooping cough. B. pertussis is the bacterium that causes whooping cough; b. parapertussis is a related bacterium. Those who are vaccinated against pertussis may be far more susceptible to infection with parapertussis and babies are just as likely to die or be hospitalised with this infection as they are with pertussis. Unless serotyping is done, the cases will most likely be recorded as whooping cough.
Lastly, I would like to make a comment on the death of Dana McCaffery. I never contacted her parents. When she died, the media immediately blamed the unvaccinated for her death. She was hospitalised one day, diagnosed the next and died a few days later. To the best of my knowledge at the time, the best test for whooping cough was a blood culture whose results take up to 10-14 days for a positive result. This is why I contacted the Public Health Unit (not the hospital, not the parents) and I was able to do so because Dana's parents had come public about their child's death.
I spoke with Paul Corben of the North Coast Public Health Unit and he informed me that Dana's case of whooping cough had been diagnosed by a newer quick test. I later researched and discovered that the quick test can give up to 100% false positive results and is not at all reliable which is why in at least one media report, I stated that Dana supposedly died of whooping cough. This is what those who oppose the AVN call harassment though they don't ever question those who abuse parents whose children (like my own) have either been seriously injured or died as a result of their vaccination.
It is time to take the fear and hatred out of this issue. If the vaccines work, then the vaccinated children and adults of this world should not be concerned about those of us who choose to abstain due to our own research. If vaccination cannot protect the individual, then they cannot protect at all.
Please excuse the length of this response, but I felt it was important to set the record straight. I know that i will be attacked by those who regularly follow my comments on any threads in any forums in order to denigrate me personally and as I said before, that is not my concern. I am simply commenting to say - let's stop worrying about the individuals and start worrying about the lack of science to show that vaccinations are either safe, effective or worth administering to every single man, woman and child in this world. As Barbara Loe Fisher from the National Vaccine Information Centre says - show us the science. That's all we ask as well. Show us the science, and give us the choice.
. I started really getting into vaccine research because soooo many people I interact with delay or don't vaccinate. I kept wondering if there was something I was missing (and still do sometimes! Then I redo a lot of research).
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