Controversy brewing/Washington- Smallpox bad medicine - 60 Min. tomorrow nigh

[Guest guest]

Hi All,

Just a quick reminder to watch 60 minutes tomorrow night on the smallpox

(mandatory) vaccine issue! This whole thing seems to be heating up, more

below!

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[from NVIC this afternoon]

http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2002/tst120902.htm

Government Vaccines- Bad Policy, Bad Medicine

by Congressman Ron - TX

" Simply put, it is not ethical to give a medicine that will kill and maim

persons for no demonstrable benefit. Assuaging fears about vulnerability to

a potential disease is not a benefit any physician should accept. "

Dr. S. Sartin, MD

A controversy over vaccines, specifically the smallpox vaccine, is brewing

in Washington. The administration is considering ordering mass inoculations

for more than one million military personnel and civilian medical workers,

ostensibly to thwart a smallpox outbreak before it occurs. Yet dangerous

side-effects from the vaccine- ranging from mild flu symptoms to gangrene,

encephalitis, and even death- cause many to question the wisdom and need for

such inoculations.

As a medical doctor, I believe mandated smallpox vaccines are bad medicine.

The available vaccine poses significant risks, even though the more serious

complications affect only a statistically small number of people. As with

any medical treatment, these risks must always be balanced against the

perceived benefit. Remember, not a single case of smallpox has been

reported, despite the near-hysteria that characterized recent news reports.

Even if some individuals became infected, smallpox spreads only with very

close contact. Those in the surrounding community could then decide to

accept vaccines based on a much more tangible risk.

As a legislator, I believe mandated smallpox vaccines are very bad policy.

The point is not that smallpox vaccines are necessarily a bad idea, but

rather that intimately personal medical decisions should not be made by

government. The real issue is individual medical choice. No single person,

including the President of the United States, should ever be given the power

to make a medical decision for potentially millions of Americans. Freedom

over one's physical person is the most basic freedom of all, and people in a

free society should be sovereign over their own bodies. When we give

government the power to make medical decisions for us, we in essence accept

that the state owns our bodies.

The possibility that the federal government could order vaccines is real.

Provisions buried in the 500-page homeland security bill give federal health

bureaucrats virtually unchecked power to declare health emergencies.

Specifically, it gives the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human

Services- in my view one of the worst of all federal agencies- power to

declare actual or potential bioterrorist emergencies; to administer forced

" countermeasures, " including vaccines, to individuals or whole groups; and

to extend the emergency declaration indefinitely. These provisions mirror

those found in the Model Emergency Health Powers Act, a troubling proposal

that was rejected by most state legislatures last year. That Act would have

given state governors broad powers to suspend civil liberties and declare

health emergencies. Yet now we're giving virtually the same power to the

Secretary of HHS. Equally troubling is the immunity from civil suit granted

to vaccine manufacturers in the homeland security bill, which potentially

could leave individuals who get sick from a bad batch of vaccines without

legal recourse.

Politics and medicine don't mix. It is simply not the business of government

at any level to decide whether you choose to accept a smallpox vaccine or

any other medical treatment. Yet decades of federal intervention in health

care, including the impact of third-party HMOs created by federal

legislation, have weakened the doctor-patient relationship. A free market

system would allow doctors and patients to make their own decisions about

smallpox inoculations, without the federal government hoarding, mandating,

nor prohibiting the vaccine. Instead, we're moving quickly toward the day

when government controls not only what vaccines patients receive, but what

kind of health care they receive at all.

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