FW: Honey, I immunized the kids

[Guest guest]

Hi all,

Just come across this anti-anti-vaccination article in this Israeli

newpaper. It lays a lot of blame on the anti-vaccination movement.

kp

Ha'aretz , Israel

Monday, October 30, 2000

Honey, I immunized the kids

A growing number of parents are refusing to have their children immunized

against childhood diseases, for fear of complications, but most doctors say

failure to vaccinate is dangerous.

By Marit Slavin

Ophir was born 20 months ago, a normal healthy baby. He received a series of

vaccinations and checkups at a mother and baby clinic, just like most

newborns in Israel. But his mother Dana, who did not wish to disclose her

last name, told Ha'aretz that Ophir reacted badly to the triple vaccination

[diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (whooping cough)]. He ran a high fever and

was irritable for two days. At that time one of Dana's friends told her that

she doesn't immunize her children at all because of the serious

complications that can arise.In order to reduce the severity of the side

effects after Ophir's next booster shot, his parents bought a special new

formula of the vaccination against whooping cough, which is made out of the

outer membrane of the virus, instead of from the weakened virus, which is

present in the standard vaccination preparation. " This time Ophir reacted

with a high fever and we got the impression that he stopped babbling, so we

decided not to give him the third vaccination in the series, at the age of

six months [the last in the series of triple vaccinations] " said Dana. " All

the other vaccinations had already been given, unfortunately. "

Dana and her husband Gilad are part of a growing group of parents who are

refusing to immunize their children. In Western countries, primarily in the

United States, this trend has existed for about ten years. In most cases,

young parents are apparently relying on biased information that is not

always accurate, but which blends well with the " back to nature " trend.

Every year about 130,000 babies are born in Israel, and some 94 percent of

them are immunized. Israel has one of the highest immunization rates in the

world. Health Ministry figures show that of the 6 percent who are not

immunized, some are not because their parents refuse and the others are

immunized privately, not through the clinics. In recent years the ministry

has expanded the range of the immunization campaign via the increased

dissemination of educational information and by providing greater access to

vaccinations to communities such as the Bedouin and the ultra-Orthodox, who

had a lower rate of immunization.

Despite these efforts the rate of immunization in the general population has

still not risen beyond 94 percent. The ministry feels that this is due to

the growing trend against immunizations, although it has no clear evidence

to support this theory.

There is no legal way to force parents to immunize their children, or to

make acceptance to school conditional on immunization, as is the case in

some states in the United States. " One of the most painful things for anyone

who understands immunization is some parents' refusal to have their children

immunized, " says Dr. Shmuel Rishpon, head of the steering committee of the

Health Ministry's epidemiology department. " We are already feeling a drop in

immunizations in the field. Most of those who refuse to immunize [their

children] are relying on erroneous or distorted information. Those who don't

immunize are relying on those who do immunize [to keep the diseases at bay],

but if the rate of immunization drops below a certain level, the

non-immunized are liable to be at substantial risk. The parents are taking a

heavy responsibility for their children's fate. "

The institutionalized medical system is making every effort to inform all

parents and medical professionals of the importance of immunizations and to

disseminate information about new vaccinations. This past September the

Health Ministry began an information campaign to encourage immunization

against chicken pox. As part of the campaign, letters were sent to 2,500

pediatricians, 3,000 family physicians, 1,500 nurses and 1,500 pharmacists,

and brochures were distributed to clinics throughout the country. Letters

were also sent to 10,500 kindergarten and nursery school teachers, public

service announcements were aired on the radio and television, and the

information was published in the newspapers.

In the last few years several babies have died from diseases against which

they were not vaccinated. In August 1999 a two-week old baby from Rosh Pina

who had not been vaccinated died of infectious hepatitis. In September 1997,

a two-year-old died of meningitis in a hospital in Safed. The child had not

been immunized and was brought to the hospital already dead. In August 1996,

a 4-year-old girl from the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Mea She'arim, who

had received no vaccinations at all, died of diphtheria. Eight years

previously an 8-year-old boy, also from Mea She'arim, who had also not been

immunized, died of diphtheria.

Many articles appear in science journals scientifically examining the

reliability of the claims made against the safety of vaccination

preparations, but most of these articles never reach the worried parents.

The trend against immunizations is very worrisome to the health authorities,

foremost among them the World Health Organization (WHO), because if the

trend becomes widespread it is liable to endanger the lives of millions of

children and to cancel in one fell swoop the medical process that is

considered to have instigated the most spectacular reduction in disease and

mortality in the history of mankind.

One of the main opponents of the current system of immunization is Dr. Chaim

Rosental, a general practitioner who espouses the natural homeopathic

approach. In his booklet, " All you ever Wanted to Know about Immunizations

but they Didn't Dare to Tell You, " he presents the giving of vaccinations as

a conspiracy of the health authorities against the private citizen. " Every

country that considers itself to be developed from a health services point

of view will make sure that it immunizes its population to the maximum. Not

giving vaccinations is considered archaic and attributable to primitive

populations, " writes Rosental. " It is certainly probable that most

vaccinations (in the manner in which they are administered today - their

quantity and timing) cause more harm than good. Is it conceivable that there

should be considerations other than what is best for the child itself when

deciding whether or not to vaccinate? "

He says, " Logic says that if one takes children who are a few months old, at

which age their immune system and their nervous systems are not mature, and

inject them with 30 substances in their first year of life, some children

will react adversely. "

Prof. Marvin Shapira, head of the department of clinical microbiology and

infectious diseases at Hadassah University Hospital, Ein Karem feels

otherwise. " A baby is capable of reacting perfectly well to a protein-based

vaccination from day one, " he said, adding that vaccinations are given

specifically at a young age because the risk of a child becoming ill during

the first two years of his life are so high.

A newborn is coming from a sterile environment to a contaminated one that

surrounds him and perpetually exposes him to foreign proteins. The number of

proteins found in various combinations in the vaccination preparations is

infinitely smaller than the number of proteins that a baby encounters every

day. The baby is born with a mature immune system, but because he hasn't

encountered disease-causing substances in his mother's womb, he has no

immunity to infectious substances. Even so, for the first six months of his

life the baby has immunity proteins from his mother. During that time he

acquires immunities through contact with his surroundings. The vaccination

preparations, which contain a carefully checked amount of proteins, prevent

the baby from succumbing to childhood diseases that killed millions of

children up until about 50 years ago.

The children's disease at the center of the controversy is whooping cough.

Objections to this vaccination began in 1974, following the publication of

an article in The Lancet, a medical journal. The article reported the

possibility of reducing cerebral complications that developed after the

administration of the vaccination. In England, where The Lancet is

published, there was public panic and immunization fell from 100 percent to

70 percent. As a result, there was an epidemic of whooping cough in 1978,

with 100,000 cases of the illness and 137 deaths. The British National

Health Service subsequently decided to conduct a national survey, asking all

parents of children around 18 months old to report any instances of brain

damage and to indicate when their child had been immunized against whooping

cough. The organization examined the correlation between the vaccination and

cerebral complications among those children compared to healthy children of

the same age who had also received the vaccination. The conclusion reached

was that the whooping cough vaccination had not caused any long-range

neurological problems.

In spite of these findings, a suit was filed in Britain's supreme court, the

House of Lords, against the company that manufactures the preparation for

the whooping cough vaccination. The court ordered all the medical files of

all the children with brain damage to be opened and thoroughly examined to

determine if there was any connection to the vaccination. The court also

found there was no connection between long-term neurological problems and

the whooping cough vaccination.

" In Israel history wakes up late, " said Prof. Natan Brand of the department

of pediatric neurology at the Sheba Medical Center. " The risk possibly posed

by the vaccination against whooping cough is 1 in 360,000 cases. Some

130,000 children are vaccinated every year in Israel, so that at worst there

might be neurological complications once every two or three years. "

Rosental, on the other hand, advises many parents not to immunize their

children. He relates the case of a child brought to him after suffering from

chronic eye infections. " Since the phenomenon occurred immediately after he

was vaccinated, I came to the conclusion that [the vaccination] was the

cause. After a few months his mother phoned and said that her child needed a

vaccination against hepatitis B. I told her not to immunize him because he

was allergic to the vaccination. "

The mother had her son vaccinated anyway, and the day after the injection he

developed a serious eye infection. " It is logical that if one injects a

child with a foreign protein the immune system is traumatized and in

addition to developing antibodies there are undesirable reactions, " he

explains. Under the current system of immunization, Rosental recommends not

vaccinating children until they are one year of age, apart from the polio

vaccination, which is oral. When a child is a year old, a decision can be

made in accordance with each child's general health and environment. If a

child lives at a reasonable standard of living, Rosental advises against

immunization altogether.

" It is criminal not to immunize, " says Shapira. " The risk carried by the

vaccination is infinitesimal compared to the risk carried by the disease

itself. Whoever doesn't give vaccinations nowadays greatly endangers not

only the general population but ultimately his own children. "

There are many examples of this. In 1994 there was a diphtheria epidemic in

Russia due to a shortage of vaccines. The number of cases rose from 839 in

1989 to about 50,000 in 1994, with 1,700 deaths. The number of cases more

than doubled each year thereafter. Shapira relates that at that time an

8-year-old girl whose parents refused to immunize her was brought to his

clinic. Her parents visited Russia and " imported " diphtheria to Israel. The

girl caught the disease and died.

In Pennsylvania there is a law allowing parents not to immunize their

children for religious reasons. In 1990 there was an outbreak of measles in

Philadelphia, with 1,600 cases and 9 deaths. The epicenter of the outbreak

was among the religious group that refused to immunize its children, but

other children became ill also and two of them died. They were infants who

had not yet been vaccinated. " It is a mistake to say that childhood diseases

have been eradicated, " says Shapira. " They are always just beneath the

surface. As long as others are immunized and only your child isn't, the risk

that he will encounter someone who is not immunized is small. But if the

group of non-immunized [children] grows, there is an increased risk of a new

outbreak of childhood diseases. "

Immunization insurance

In 1989 the Victims of Vaccinations Law was passed in Israel. Under the law

the state insures anyone who receives a vaccination and anyone who comes in

contact with him against any harm caused by the vaccination. A committee of

experts including a judge and two medical specialists will be assigned to

decide if there is any relationship between a vaccination and any

complications suffered and to determine the extent of disability. The

findings of the committee will obligate the state to pay compensation

accordingly. In the past 11 years only six claims have been filed. Two of

them were rejected for procedural reasons and have not yet been heard, and

decisions in the others are still pending

© copyright 2000 Ha'aretz.

[Guest guest]

<The vaccination preparations, which contain a carefully checked amount of

proteins,

prevent the baby from succumbing to childhood diseases that killed millions

of children up until about 50 years ago.>

Funny how they don't mention the carefully checked amount of poison that is

also included.

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[Guest guest]

Funny how they don't mention that the incidence, and more importantly, the

severity of these diseases had declined significantly before the vaccines

were introduced. Sandy

Re: FW: Honey, I immunized the kids

> <The vaccination preparations, which contain a carefully checked amount of

> proteins,

>

> prevent the baby from succumbing to childhood diseases that killed

millions

> of children up until about 50 years ago.>

>

> Funny how they don't mention the carefully checked amount of poison that

is

> also included.

>

>

>

>

>

>

> _________________________________________________________________________

> Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

>

> Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at

> http://profiles.msn.com.

>

>

>

>

>