[Info] The National Vaccine Information Center

[RobinN]

http://www.nvic.org/

Founded in 1982, the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) is a national charitable, non-profit educational organization. NVIC launched the vaccine safety and informed consent movement in America in the early 1980s and its three decade mission has been to prevent vaccine injuries and deaths through public education and protect the informed consent ethic in medicine. NVIC monitors vaccine reactions, research, development, regulation, policy-making and legislation and works to protect vaccine exemptions in state health laws.

http://www.nvic.org/informed-consent.aspx

While we continue to represent many families of children and adults who have suffered reactions to DPT, MMR, Hib, hepatitis B and polio vaccines and receive calls every week from parents whose children are suffering vaccine reactions, a great many of our active supporters are health care consumers and health care providers who want to make informed health care choices, including vaccination choices, for themselves and their children.

Many parents, who support our work, are not philosophically opposed to the concept of vaccination and do not object to every vaccine. However, they are philosophically opposed to government health officials having the power to intimidate, threaten, and coerce them into violating their deeply held conscientious beliefs in the event they conclude that either vaccination in general or, more commonly, a particular vaccine is not appropriate for their children.

 

[epileric]

Actually the National Vaccine info Ctr. is really an anti-vaccination organization that have nothing to do with accurate vaccine information.

Michael Specter has described the NVIC as:

"... an organization that, based on its name, certainly sounds like a federal agency. Actually, it's just the opposite: the NVIC is the most powerful anti-vaccine organization in America, and its relationship with the U.S. government consists almost entirely of opposing federal efforts aimed at vaccinating children."[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Vaccine_Information_Center

The NVIC, in case you're not familiar with it, is one of the oldest and (prior to the emergence of Generation Rescue) most vociferous anti-vaccine groups, having been formed in 1982 by that grande dame of the anti-vaccine movement, Barbara Loe Fisher, who announces it

Dr. Bob Sears: Stealth anti-vaccinationist?

Throughout his book Dr. Sears highlights common parental concerns about vaccines. He follows these not with fact-based discussions, but with subtle (and often not so subtle) words of reinforcement. For example, Dr. Sears often downplays the potential danger of vaccine preventable diseases, or the risk of infection for the unimmunized child. Although the book is rife with such misinformation, I will limit my discussion to just a few examples to give a sense of the distortions involved.

Cashing In On Fear: The Danger of Dr. Sears

 

[RobinN]

Michael Spector is an American journalist who has been a staff writer, focusing on science and technology, and global public health at The New Yorker since September 1998. He has also written for The Washington Post and

Specter blithely ignores the political economy of science as it is practiced. That oversight severely limits the value of his book.
****
Scientific output is messy and full of contradictions. And that brings me back to my broader critique of this book: that Specter defends an ideal, objective science that doesn't exist in this world.

http://www.grist.org/article/2009-10-31-michael-specter-denialism-organic-GMO

Advisers on Vaccines Often Have Conflicts, Report Says
Tauzin switches sides from drug industry overseer to lobbyist
Former CDC head lands vaccine job at Merck

 

[epileric]

Michael Spector is an American journalist who has been a staff writer, focusing on science and technology, and global public health at The New Yorker since September 1998. He has also written for The Washington Post and


http://www.grist.org/article/2009-10-31-michael-specter-denialism-organic-GMO

Actually I would think a staff writer focusing on science & technology & global public health for over 13 years might have more of a clue than a lot of people. I can't expect everyone to agree but I don't expect a farmer who has a lot to gain to be too objective.
Advisers on Vaccines Often Have Conflicts, Report Says
Tauzin switches sides from drug industry overseer to lobbyist
Former CDC head lands vaccine job at Merck

I have no idea what your other links have to do with NVIC being an anti-vaccination organization unless you're trying to claim that vaccines are a conspiracy which is rather off topic.

 

[Cint]

I have no idea what your other links have to do with NVIC being an anti-vaccination organization unless you're trying to claim that vaccines are a conspiracy which is rather off topic.

That's the message I'm getting. So, in comparison, look at this website:
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/downloads/f_vacsafe.pdf

 

[RobinN]

The other links are to show the political connection to the Pharma industry.

 

[epileric]

The other links are to show the political connection to the Pharma industry.

The story in the first link is very vague. It says it shows "Potential" conflicts, I'd like to know how many really are conflicts. It also doesn't state what the conflicts concern.

The report found that 64 percent of the advisers had potential conflicts of interest

It also talks about peoples fears of professionals recommending unsafe medical products but makes no mention of there being any evidence of such.

worries have grown that experts may be recommending medical products — even ones they know to be unsafe — in part because manufacturers are paying them.

The story also says that it was the report from the Inspector general of Dept. of health & Human services that discovered these problems. Since the Dept. of Health & Human Services is another govt. department and since it tightened the rules, doesn't that show that the government is being responsible for itself rather than there being a vaccine connection?

The 2nd two articles showing that a CDC ex-head & a drug overseer both switched jobs to the pharmaceutical industry doesn’t necessarily show control of “big pharma” either.


The First person who switched 7 years ago worked for a pharmaceutical regulating body. Now who would be most likely to have an opinion about the pharmaceutical industry but someone in such a position? Just because his opinion contradicts mine or yours doesn’t mean there’s a conspiracy.

The other person switched 3 years ago and the article states that her area of expertise is infectious diseases & vaccines. Now isn’t that excellent training for someone to work for a pharmaceutical company making that one of the most likely places for her to work?

Both quit before switching so there is no conflict & both were very open & honest about what they were doing. Wouldn’t they be more secretive if there was some sort of conspiracy?

I’m not saying that the pharmaceutical industry doesn’t have its slimy lobbyists & I feel they have more control over laws than I would like (as do most industries) but so far all this has shown me is that people tend to get jobs in areas they are familiar with and trained in. This is a far cry from proving that vaccines are a Big Pharma conspiracy. Personally I see more of a conspiracy in the NVIC as they present themselves as medically objective, informed and helpful when they are none of those.

 

[RobinN]

Your opinion.

NVIC works to raise government standards for vaccine licensure and policymaking. In 1996, NVIC realized a major goal when, after 14 years of public advocacy, the FDA finally licensed a purified pertussis vaccine (DTaP vaccine) for American babies. In 1999, the live virus polio vaccine (OPV) was replaced by the inactivated polio vaccine and vaccine strain paralytic polio cases were eliminated in America.

In 1989, the organization held an International Scientific Workshop attended by pediatric neurologists, epidemiologists, neuroimmunologists, molecular biologists, bacteriologists and neuropathologists to evaluate the neurological complications of pertussis and the whole cell pertussis vaccine. In 1997, NVIC held the First International Public Confernce on Vaccination, which brought together more than 500 doctors, scientists, health officials, lawyers, ethicists, journalists and parents from 34 states and five countries to the U.S. Capitol to present new scientific data about vaccines and diseases and discuss the biological mechanism of vaccine-induced injury, death and chronic illness.

Today, our children are being given three times as many vaccinations as they got in the early 1980’s.

If vaccines are safe and effective for everyone, then those, who choose to get vaccinated, should have nothing to fear from those, who choose not to get vaccinated. If vaccines are not safe and effective for everyone, then it is unethical to require anyone to get vaccinated without their voluntary, informed consent.

 

[epileric]

Your opinion.

Not my opinion, it's just the facts. Besides, I'm sure if I contradicted anything in those articles you'd have quoted it. I Think anyone that thinks objectively about it without jumping to conclusions or reading things into your stories that aren't there will realize that what I said was factual and that there's no reason to assume conspiracies because someone changed jobs, especially just 2 people in 7 years.

Today, our children are being given three times as many vaccinations as they got in the early 1980’s.

That is completely untrue! despite having seen it on anti-vaccination websites I've never seen any indication on a MEDICAL website nor have I or anyone I've discussed this with had an increase in their vaccinations (or their kids). I checked the vaccine schedule on NVIC & it was extremely exaggerated from what doctors tell me to take. Compare the schedule from 1985 and 2011. They're almost exactly the same.

I do have to tell you though that if there were a more effective and scientifically tested vaccine that needed a few more boosters than before I would see no problem, however you see conspiracy there despite feeling perfectly comfortable being told to take supplements at double to triple their suggested use by people who sell them. I find that strange.

If vaccines are safe and effective for everyone, then those, who choose to get vaccinated, should have nothing to fear from those, who choose not to get vaccinated. If vaccines are not safe and effective for everyone, then it is unethical to require anyone to get vaccinated without their voluntary, informed consent.

First of all, they are not 100% effective nor have I ever heard a medical professional claim as much though they are extremely safe.

Secondly, when you talk like that you imply that Infants, people with compromised immune systems & people on certain medications who cannot take live vaccinations do not have the right to be as safe from disease as everyone else. Is that not extremely thoughtless & self-centred?

 

[RobinN]

Yet it is okay for those with compromised immune systems to be FORCED to have vaccines when they desire not to?

 

[epileric]

Yet it is okay for those with compromised immune systems to be FORCED to have vaccines when they desire not to?

I Know of nothing forcing people with compromised immune systems being forced to have vaccines, for that matter I do know people with compromised immune systems that don't take live vaccines & are NOT forced to.

 

[RobinN]

A young family doesn't always know if a child is immune compromised. One doesn't know about opting out of a vaccine. Being forced to have vaccines to attend school. The damage is done. You don't have children so you don't know how slowly some of these symptoms can appear.

It should be a parents choice.

 

[Cint]

A young family doesn't always know if a child is immune compromised. One doesn't know about opting out of a vaccine. Being forced to have vaccines to attend school. The damage is done. You don't have children so you don't know how slowly some of these symptoms can appear.

It should be a parents choice.

I have children and I definitely choose to have mine vaccinated, especially my son, whose immune was compromised. There was NO damage done to him because of the vaccinations. I'm sure the vaccinations helped fight off what could have been a devastating illness.

 

[knothing]

My kids got vaccinated and have no issues. The vaccines are not perfect because they got chicken pox(2 yrs after the vaccine) but what the vaccine helped eliminate was the severity of the disease. I had chicken pox and it was horrible and I was so relieved that the vaccine reduced the illness to that of a minor cold.

I would suggest saving up enough money to travel to a third-world country that has a low vaccination rate and see what it really looks like not to prevent what can be preventable here. Try telling someone who's child is dying from measles about how you think taking a shot to prevent that would just not be good for anyone. It is easy to perceive getting a vaccine as dangerous when not really faced with the reality of seeing what happens to those that get the disease.

 

[RobinN]

My children are immune compromised, and I didn't realize this until I began the research I did for my daughters seizure disorder. My daughter had set backs after she was vaccinated with multiple vaccines. The first of which she stopped speaking. I did not even know that one could ask to have them administered one at a time.

"When the Amish are simply left alone, to live free of chemical toxins found in our medicines and foods, they are not plagued with diseases, learning disabilities, or autism." < no vaccines

Perhaps those third world countries need more lifestyle options than vaccines.

 

[epileric]

A young family doesn't always know if a child is immune compromised.

But you said FORCED in big capitals. I don't define that as forced.

"When the Amish are simply left alone, to live free of chemical toxins found in our medicines and foods, they are not plagued with diseases, learning disabilities, or autism."

Actually the studies have shown that the Amish are just as plagued as the rest of us with various diseases.

Conclusions:

Preliminary data have identified the presence of ASD in the Amish community at a rate of approximately 1 in 271 children using standard ASD screening and diagnostic tools although some modifications may be in order. Further studies are underway to address the cultural norms and customs that may be playing a role in the reporting style of caregivers, as observed by the ADI. Accurate determination of the ASD phenotype in the Amish is a first step in the design of genetic studies of ASD in this population.

http://imfar.confex.com/imfar/2010/webprogram/Paper7336.html

 

[knothing]

Amish and Mennonites exhibit certain rare diseases uncommon in other populations. These include Ellis-van Creveld syndrome (a type of dwarfism), glutaric aciduria, Crigler-Najjar syndrome, and maple syrup urine disease. Some illnesses are so uncommon that they are unique to these communities (such as Troyer Syndrome or Amish lethal microcephaly), or rarely seen elsewhere.

Some groups of Amish may exhibit diseases more likely to be seen in the general public, but at a higher rate. These include cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy and deafness in some communities.

Amish suffer genetic problems for a few reasons:
Small founding groups-individual Amish communities typically originate from relatively few families. Almost all of the Amish in Lancaster County, for example, originated from a few dozen 18th-century immigrant families.
Genetic isolation-converts to the Amish have been rare, and Amish only marry other Amish. This practice of endogamy, with few new bloodlines entering the population, has led to limited variation of genes.

The grass isn't always as green on the other side.

Perhaps those third world countries need more lifestyle options than vaccines.

Well apply the got to the third world country thought and instead of telling someone who's child is dying of measles the concept of 'lifestyle choices' vs a vaccine.

 

[knothing]

http://amishamerica.com/do-amish-have-genetic-disorders/

sorry forgot the link