[NVIC] A Shot in the Arm on CBS Sunday Morning

[Guest guest]

April 2, 2007

National Vaccine Information Center

A young boy on the beach was throwing the washed-up starfish back into

the ocean. A stranger passing by told him not to bother, because it would

not make any difference, there were thousands of beaches and millions of

starfish, and it would not be possible to save all of them. The boy reached

down, picked up a starfish, threw it back into the ocean and said, smiling

softly, “ I made a difference for that one!”

" We have one of the most highly vaccinated child populations in the world

and yet we have children who are increasingly chronically ill and

disabled, " Founder of the National Vaccine Information Center Barbara Loe

Fisher said at the rally. " One in 150 children in America is autistic, one

in six is learning- disabled. " Fisher, author of " A Shot in the Dark, " is

one of many Americans who think there's a connection even though the

medical establishment says no. " What we have to do is not discount the

reports of parents that they are taking healthy, bright children in to

their pediatricians to be vaccinated, with now, by age 6, 48 doses of 14

vaccines that the government recommends, and many of them are taking home

children that then they watch regress, " Fisher said. Fisher says her son,

Christian, suffered brain damage within hours of getting his fourth DPT —

diphtheria, pertussus and tetanus — vaccination. Thanks in large part to

her pressure, the manufacturer of the DPT vaccine made it safer and

Congress was forced to pass the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act which

included money for compensation — proof to Fisher that parents should be

wary. " The idea that some can be sacrificed in service to the rest is very

dangerous, " Fisher said. " - CBS Sunday Morning News, April 1, 2007

Barbara Loe Fisher Commentary:

This past Sunday, April 1, on CBS Sunday Morning News veteran CBS

correspondent Martha Teichner produced a 10 minute segment entitled " A Shot

in the Arm, " which featured interviews with a vaccine researcher from

University of Tennessee, a World Health Organization official, the author

of a new book that contains vitriolic attacks on modern day vaccine safety

critics, a mother and father of with an MMR vaccine injured autistic boy

seeking vaccine injury compensation, and me. Martha Teichner, who has won

four Emmy Awards and other journalism awards during her distinguished 30

year career at CBS, and her producer, Sacca, took great care to

examine all sides of the vaccine benefit and risk controversy and place it

in an historic context. Although some parents may feel that there was too

much time devoted to extolling the benefits of vaccines, others were left

wanting more to be said about the risks of vaccines.

Shortly after the segment aired at 9 a.m. EST, the CBS message boards

began to receive comments from parents expressing strong opinions. One

viewer wrote " The truth is autism is a genetic defect and parents cannot

accept that they themselves are the cause of their child's autism...so much

easier to blame everyone else...when you decide to create a child your

defective genes are to blame and no one else. "

Another viewer complained " We are disappointed that CBS implicitly

legitimized the claims that vaccines are associated with autism. Although

there are some known, proven risks to vaccines, autism is not among these

risks. Several recent studies have shown that children who receive vaccines

are at no higher risk for developing autism than those that do not. "

But then there were viewers who saw it another way. One parent wrote " We

have two kids in our extended family (one on my side and one on husband's

side) that became severely autistic within days after their vaccinations.

Both were healthy up to the day of vaccination. Both are boys. Should I be

weighing out pro's and con's of having my child vaccinated? Should I be

bullied by the doctors ? Should I play Russian Roulettte with my child's

life? I think not! I don't need science, literature, statistics, an

article, medical journal, the government, a doctor or anyone else to tell

me what I can see with my own two eyes ! As a medical professional myself,

I think every parent should spend a day with an autistic child (God knows

they are not hard to find these days) before they consider a vaccination

for their own child. "

And another parent wrote " It is all very well for some in an ivory tower

living on a grant from drug pharma to blather on and on, but real Americans

have to deal with a Merck vaccine that deafens children. How does that

intellectual advise explaining to a 7 year-old why he is suddenly totally

and irreversibly deaf as a result of state required, Merck-pushed MMR

vaccine? How does one communicate practically within several weeks from

regular voice to absolutely nothing?

The segment was even viewed differently by those who were interviewed for

the story. I thanked Martha Teichner and her producer for treating everyone

featured on the segment with respect and producing an intelligent and

thoughtful analysis of a multi-faceted debate. However, the author whose

book attacking vaccine critics was featured prominently in the segment was

unhappy with the fact they " presented the claims of the parents of the

autistic boy and of Barbara Loe Fisher without giving anyone a chance to

rebut them. " On his blog he states that he wrote a letter to CBS

complaining that " neither I nor any of the doctors or scientists were given

a chance to refute the autism theory. You say that the " medical

establishment " doesn't believe it, but that's a distortion. It is the

SCIENCE that doesn't support the theory. I realize you probably didn't have

time to do the research to understand this yourselves, but you should have

allowed a scientist, or me, to say it. "

Those, whose mission in life is to act as a kind of vaccine thought patrol,

cannot stand it when a journalist honestly examines the benefits and risks

of vaccines and does not tell the reader or viewer what to think and what

to do. These bully boys prefer to have vaccine casualties kept in a dark

closet away from the eyes of the public, where they don't make people

confront difficult scientific, political, economic and moral issues.

CBS Sunday Morning News will be taking comments on this story for the next

48 hours. For those who would like to go on the record about what you

think, go to http://www.cbsnews.com/sto

ries/2007/04/01/sunday/main2635032.shtml and post your comments.

BC

Barbara Loe Fisher with her son soon after his 4th DPT shot

----------

www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/01/sunday/main2635032.shtml

Vaccinations Not Immune From Critics

Despite Societal Benefits, Vaccines Are Stirring Concern About Alleged

Side Effects

CBS NEWS

NEW YORK, April 1, 2007

CBS) Eleanor and Mark Tremblay have trouble looking at their son, Oliver,

who is eight years old and severely autistic, without saying to themselves,

" if only.... "

As they play the videos showing how Ollie was before, they think, if only

they could just rewind their lives; if only they could skip that shot: the

measles, mumps and rubella vaccinations they believe caused their son's

autism, although there is no conclusive evidence.

Dr. Dale, a professor of medicine at the University of Tennessee's

health science center in Memphis, has spent more than 30 years working to

perfect a vaccine to prevent streptococcus, the infection that causes strep

throat and, in its more virulent forms, so-called flesh-eating disease and

rheumatic fever.

" There is risk with vaccines, but the benefits far, far outweigh the

risks, " Dr. Dale told Sunday Morning correspondent Martha Teichner. " If we

can reduce the incidence of acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart

disease by half in the world, that's where the real personal payoff would

come. "

On one side you have Dr. Dale, determined to save millions of children —

and on the other, the Tremblays, heartbroken over the fate of one boy.

Between them you have the story of vaccines: The greater good versus the

risk, no matter how small, to the individual.

It's a debate that began in this country nearly three hundred years ago

over smallpox.

" It was a disease that would sweep through cities and infect, you know,

tens of thousands of people at a time, and it would kill 20, 30, 50 percent

of them, " said journalist Arthur , the author of " Vaccine, the

Controversial Story of Medicine's Greatest Lifesaver. "

" The first form of smallpox vaccine came from China and India where it was

used for centuries and it entered the U.S. in 1721. Cotton Mather actually

brought it to the United States. "

Mather was a hellfire and brimstone Puritan preacher from Boston. His house

was firebombed when he urged Bostonians to try scratching live smallpox

infection into their skin.

In 1796, British country doctor Jenner confirmed that milkmaids,

exposed to a much milder cowpox virus, were immune to smallpox. Millions of

people finally dared to be vaccinated with Jenner's cowpox serum. The term

vaccinate comes from the Latin word for cow, vacca.

" Confidence in vaccines and mistrust in vaccines goes in waves, "

said. " And also, another element is really the seriousness of the disease.

I mean, when the polio vaccine came out in 1955, it came into a country

that was petrified of polio. "

The conquest of polio became a national crusade.

" Millions of Americans participated in the March of Dimes, " said.

" They literally sent their dimes to the White House. "

In 1955, the announcement was made that Jonas Salk's polio vaccine worked.

The fact that 200 people were paralyzed after getting the shot and ten

died, was overlooked.

" Jonas Salk, you know, was a god, " said. " Church bells were ringing

around the country. People were embracing in the street. It was a moment of

unmitigated jubilation around the country. "

Now they're protesting. Last month, there was a rally in Washington against

the new human papilloma virus vaccine to prevent cervical cancer.

" We have one of the most highly vaccinated child populations in the world

and yet we have children who are increasingly chronically ill and

disabled, " Founder of the National Vaccine Information Center Barbara Loe

Fisher said at the rally. " One in 150 children in America is autistic, one

in six is learning-disabled. "

Fisher, author of " A Shot in the Dark, " is one of many Americans who think

there's a connection even though the medical establishment says no.

" What we have to do is not discount the reports of parents that they are

taking healthy, bright children in to their pediatricians to be vaccinated,

with now, by age 6, 48 doses of 14 vaccines that the government recommends,

and many of them are taking home children that then they watch regress, "

Fisher said.

Fisher says her son, , suffered brain damage within hours of

getting his fourth DPT — diphtheria, pertussus and tetanus — vaccination.

Thanks in large part to her pressure, the manufacturer of the DPT vaccine

made it safer and Congress was forced to pass the National Childhood

Vaccine Injury Act which included money for compensation — proof to Fisher

that parents should be wary.

" The idea that some can be sacrificed in service to the rest is very

dangerous, " Fisher said.

Nobody actually knows how many vaccine injuries occur but 17,000 were

voluntarily reported in the U.S. last year. The true number is believed to

be much higher — but how to weigh that against the benefit of vaccination?

" We forget about the paralysis that plagued our towns years ago, " Dr. Jon

Andrus said. " We forget that our mothers said, " Don't go to the pool for

more than two hours, because you'll get polio. We forget about what measles

have done. We forget that children in Africa die of diarrhea and pneumonia. "

Dr. Andrus has spent nearly 15 years running immunization programs around

the globe for the World Health Organization. One of his proudest moments

was his involvement in India's polio eradication campaign — 125 million

children were vaccinated in one day.

" We live in a global community, " Andrus said. " We would not want our

children left unprotected as long as virus is circulating throughout the

world. Polio is a very good example; the last three outbreaks of polio in

the U.S. were all due to importations. "

Even though Mark and Eleanor Tremblay blame vaccines for their son, Ollie's

autism, they said they are not against vaccines. They just wish they'd

known what to ask about the risk.

" Well, we just did, you know, what parents are supposed to do, what the

pediatrician tells you to do, " Eleanor Tremblay said.

The Tremblays are among more than 4,700 families who are suing the federal

government claiming that the mercury preservative in certain vaccines

caused their children's autism. The trial, set to begin in June, is likely

to have enormous implications, no matter what the outcome.

" We're definitely the unlucky ones, " Eleanor Tremblay said. " Without a

doubt. "

" We're not alone, though, " Mark Tremblay said.

Not alone in the search for an answer to the question, if children are

soldiers in the war against infectious diseases, was their child a

casualty? A victim of friendly fire?

*************************************************************

National Vaccine Information Center

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