Fwd: VACCINE SAFETY - VERY INFORMATIVE VIDEO -PLEASE FORWARD

[Guest guest]

VACCINE SAFETY - VERY INFORMATIVE VIDEO -PLEASE

FORWARD

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6K6ayrThjM

Safe Minds Special Weekend Edition

Please forward to all who may be interested.

This video has been some months in the making and its release today is

highly appropriate given the new allegations regarding Dr.

Wakefield, which we believe to be calculated primarily to  attempt to

end the debate over vaccines and autism, rather than having any merit. 

Please watch the video and then read the commentary below:

 

Click above to watch or visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6K6ayrThjM

SafeMinds Commentary

This past spring, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen

Sebelius was interviewed by Reader's Digest.  In her interview, she

stated that people who question vaccine safety should not be given

equal weight by the press, compared to public health officials.  Since

the vaccine/autism controversy is back in the news this week, we

thought that it was important to help the press understand that they

need to do their homework on this issue.  The health of 4 million

infants a year in the United States and millions more worldwide is

riding on the ability of our press to finally delve into this issue and

think critically about it.  Vaccines are a multi-billion dollar

industry internationally and for many pharmaceutical companies, it is

the fastest -growing segment of their business.  Even the Centers for

Disease Control (CDC) make money from licensing of vaccines.  There is

also a swiftly revolving door between the CDC, the FDA and the vaccine

manufacturers in terms of recruiting.  For example, former CDC

director, Gerberding, is now the head of Merck's vaccine

division.  Truly unconflicted research in this area is rare and

SafeMinds has information obtained through FOIA requests indicating

that the CDC has massaged data to its own benefit in the past.  We

would truly like to see all journalists investigate this debate and not

just follow the party line.

SafeMinds has been mischaracterized as an anti-vaccine group.  We are

actually a group of concerned citizens who know too much to stay

quiet.  The truth is that we actually read the research (not just the

abstracts and not just the big journals) and look at the details.  The

associations between autism and mercury and autism and vaccines are

still open questions.  The majority of the studies that claim to

" prove " that autism is not associated with Thimerosal or MMR (the

entire rest of the childhood schedule has never even been looked at in

this regard) have significant conflicts of interest, havesignificant

flaws in their methods and/or do not answer the whole question.  On the

other side of this debate, and rarely mentioned by the press, are the

biological studies that continue to be published supporting these

associations.

Ultimately, public health needs to be about both protection from

infectious diseases and protection from chronic health conditions.   In

order to have informed consent and the greatest possible safety for our

children, we must weigh both the risks and the benefits of any medical

intervention, including vaccines.  At this point, we largely know the

benefits of vaccines, but the research on their potential risks is

grossly inadequate.  SafeMinds has been asking for more than 5 years

that the government perform a large study of fully-vaccinated children

compared to unvaccinated controls to assess their total health and to

compare autism rates in the two populations.  The standard response to

our request has been silence or the argument that to leave children

unvaccinated is " unethical. " We feel it is more unethical to inject 4

million infants a year in this country with a vaccine schedule that has

not been subjected to a placebo-controlled clinical trial.  This

assumption of safety is analogous to arguing that because 10 individual

drugs are safe for children, it is therefore safe to give a child all

10 at once.  In addition, the safety and efficacy testing of a new

vaccine is often performed only in comparison to a previously approved

vaccine, not to a true placebo.  Regarding long-term outcomes, the use

of hormone-replacement therapy comes to mind as an example of why it is

critical not to assume safety of any widespread treatment without

actually following patients over decades.  There is currently no

enforced requirement that pediatricians report adverse vaccine

reactions and manufacturers bear no financial liability for the safety

of vaccines.Vaccine injuries are handled through the Vaccine Injury

Compensation Program (VICP) which is grossly dysfunctional.  Long-term

safety studies of vaccines for outcomes other than infectious disease

have not been completed.  Until these situations are resolved, it is

truly impossible for an accurate risk/benefit analysis of vaccines to

be made.

Please consider educating your readers, your viewers, your families,

your friends, your doctors and your legislators about what is going on

and please forward this e-mail widely.  

Ultimately, we all want the healthiest children possible.