Those who forget history - 12 years ago in Australia

[Guest guest]

http://avn.org.au/nocompulsoryvaccination/?p=476Just a bit of history – right on the cusp of the birth of the AVN.

This article describes how the Australian Childhood Immuisation

Register was created and why the government and the medical community

choose to ignore vaccine reactions, attack those who question the

safety of shots and downplay any risks which using scare tactics and

untruths to make people think that their children are at great risk

from these diseases – a risk that can only be alleviated by vaccination.by Meryl Dorey(This article was originally published in Living Now magazine)

Like most mothers, Jan Sinclair had hopes and dreams for her son Danny.

Those hopes were cruelly shattered however a few hours after Danny

received his routine four-month vaccinations.He immediately fell into a deep sleep from which he didn’t awaken

until 7:30 the next morning. When he did wake up, it was to begin a

massive grand-mal seizure that lasted for more than 2 hours and that

doctors could do nothing to stop. Today, Danny is permanently brain

damaged, partially paralysed, has uncontrolled seizures and will need

his mother to care for him for the rest of his life. He is a victim of

the vaccines that he was given in a vain attempt to keep him safe from

disease.

Genene Howell’s son, , received a first DPT (diphtheria,

pertussis & tetanus) and polio vaccine in the morning. For more

than 24 hours, he cried continually and ran a high fever. By midnight

the following night, he was dead. Genene’s doctor informed her that the

death was caused by the vaccination and they should make sure their

other children knew about it for future reference. Despite admitting

that the vaccine had killed this child, the doctor did not report this

death to the Public Health Unit.

Jan, Genene and the more than 250 families who have reported their

child’s death or adverse vaccine reaction to the Australian Vaccination

Network (AVN) are angry about the one-sided coverage of this issue.

They have learned the hard way that the propaganda being distributed by

the government and the medical community is not based on fact. They

know that the vast majority of children who are being affected by

vaccines are never counted in the official statistics and suspect that

the risks/benefits ratio used to coerce reluctant parents into

vaccinating their precious children are based more upon increasing

profits for the pharmaceutical companies and medical doctors than upon

scientific fact.

The Australian government has instituted a series of draconian measures

designed to force parents who have made an informed choice not to

vaccinate their children into changing their minds by penalising them

financially. There is a $4 billion deficit in the Medicare budget and

yet this government has managed to find $100 million a year to bribe

doctors to push, and push hard, to achieve a 90% vaccination rate among

their patients for a bounty of $2,500.

This madness was precipitated by the case of a couple, Greg Beattie and

Jacqui Butcher, who had taken their local council (Maroochy) to the

Human Rights and Equal Opportunies Commission because their healthy

unvaccinated children had been denied a place at a council-run child

care centre. The assertion that unvaccinated children could place

vaccinated children at risk was the council’s argument. Despite the

fact that the expert witnesses hired by the Maroochy Council showed no

evidence to prove this claim, whereas Greg Beattie brought reams of

medical journal articles to refute it, their case was lost. The

Commission did not have jurisdiction to decide a case such as this, but

it was still used as a precedent by some schools and childcare centres

to discriminate against children who were unvaccinated. A whooping

cough epidemic was ‘manufactured’ by the government and the fear

campaign began in earnest. One way or another, the Government intended

to increase the number of Australian children being vaccinated.

Within days of Greg and Jacqui losing their case, headlines appeared

about an whooping cough epidemic in Sydney including the deaths of 3

babies who were supposedly too young to have been vaccinated. This was

very convenient timing – especially since the epidemic may never have

taken place!

The CDI Bulletin (23/1/97) which tracks infectious disease reports,

shows that for the period 8/12/96-7/1/97, when there was supposedly an

epidemic ripping through Sydney, the entire state of NSW reported only

one case of whooping cough. The three deaths from whooping cough were

supposed to have occurred at the New Children’s Hospital but when an

AVN member contacted the infectious diseases ward, they were told there

had been no deaths from whooping cough. The final nail in the coffin

was the information from the Australian Bureau of Statistics which

showed that there was only one case of whooping cough from November 1,

1996 to January 1, 1997 and no deaths at all.

With the emotional press reports, people flocked to health centres and

doctor’s offices to get their children vaccinated through fear. AVN

received many phone calls from parents who had children killed or

injured by vaccines. They were angry about the biased reporting and

misleading information given to parents by both doctors and journalists.

This campaign was engineered specifically to engender fear and anger in

the community at large towards unvaccinated children and it was working

We started to hear horror stories of people who were no longer allowed

to visit family members because their children were unvaccinated; of

people being barred from play-groups and public meetings as a result of

their decision not to expose their children to the risks of vaccination.

The newspapers have been filled with angry letters and editorials about

this situation. The editor of the Tweed Daily News said that: “For a

child to die from a preventable disease in this day and age is not only

tragic, it is almost criminal”. The Sydney Morning Herald (21/1/97)

quoted Dr. Wooldridge, the Federal Minister for Health as

saying: “It’s more likely your child will die because of a meteorite

falling from space than die from immunisation”. The 1997 Australian of

the year, Doherty (a man who doesn’t even live in Australia) said

that allowing the ‘anti-vaccination’ lobby equal time to air its views

is akin to giving equal time to murderers.

Assurances by the Government and medical community that: “the benefits

of vaccination far outweigh the risks” are of little comfort to parents

whose child has been killed or injured after vaccination. Despite this,

the Government’s tactics had an effect on vaccinating and

non-vaccinating parents.

The latest proposals by the Australian Government are to penalise

parents who do not vaccinate their children by witholding a portion of

the baby bonus, and by not allowing them to collect the childcare

payments. These are both entitlements and should be untouchable.

Parents can register as conscientious objectors by signing a statutory

declaration and visiting a doctor to be counselled on the risks of not

vaccinating – without any mention of the risks of vaccination at great

expense to the taxpayer and a bonus to doctors ($25.00 medicare fee).

Less than a year ago, the Government said that: “information from the

Register will not be linked with other databases such as those from the

Department of Social Security, nor will there be financial or other

penalties for parents who choose not to immunise their children”.

(Implementation of the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register). It

has taken them less than 12 months to go back on their word.

All of this diatribe does nothing to address the legitimate concerns of

parents whose children are being placed at risk every day by vaccines.

A quick look at figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics will

show that the questions we are asking about vaccines must be considered

seriously. The majority of the decline in mortality from infectious

diseases occurred years before the introduction of vaccines — the death

rate from measles was down by more than 90% before the measles vaccine

was introduced in 1970. Scarlet Fever, which used to kill a great

number of children, has disappeared despite the fact that there has

never been any vaccine against it.

The vaccines are also extremely ineffective. For instance, the whooping

cough vaccine has just undergone clinical trials in Italy and Sweden

with alarming results, published in the New England Journal of Medicine

(8/2/96). These studies showed the vaccine to be only 36%-48%

effective, meaning that more than half of those who get this vaccine

will not receive any protection at all. In a recent outbreak of measles

in Western Sydney which was reported in the Medical Journal of

Australia, it was found that 79% of those who were affected had been

fully vaccinated against measles.

Vaccines cannot provide life-long immunity — only natural infection can

do that — so even those who get some protection from a vaccine will

only be protected for a short time, leaving them susceptible to many of

these childhood diseases as adults – when the risks from the diseases

can be much greater.

Vaccines contain many toxic substances which can severely affect and

even kill vulnerable children and adults. The Queensland Poisons

Control Centre has informed us that formaldehyde, which is contained in

every vaccine, is extremely toxic and there is no safe level for the

human body. Vaccines also contain mercury and aluminium compounds –

also known to be toxic and to cause allergic reactions. In fact,

vaccines have been linked with all kinds of auto immune disorders, such

as asthma, eczema, autism, ADD, ADHD, multiple sclerosis, lupus,

Guillain Barre paralysis, cancer and chronic fatigue. Vaccines have

also been linked with the development of epilepsy, permanent brain

damage and death.

As evidenced by the AVN’s vaccination reaction register, the great

majority of doctors never report adverse reactions when they occur so

we have not got an accurate idea of how safe vaccines are. On January

20, 1997, we reported more than 200 serious adverse vaccine reactions

and vaccine-related deaths to Dr. Wooldridge. To date, there has been

no response to our reports as the Government tightens its grip on

Australian families, making it even more difficult for us to make

informed choices for our children and ourselves.

It must be obvious that while questions exist about the safety and

effectiveness of vaccines, parents must be free to choose not to

vaccinate. Compulsory medical procedures are unconstitutional according

to Section 51 Part 23A of the Australian Constitution.

The decision to vaccinate must be made through conviction and not fear.

If we speak out together, we will ensure our freedom to choose and the

freedom of others to investigate remains. If we remain silent, our

children will be placed at risk.

Meryl Dorey is the President of The Vaccination Awareness Network, NSW.

Meryl Dorey,National PresidentThe Australian Vaccination Network, Inc.Investigate before you vaccinateEditor,Living Wisdom MagazineFamily, Health, EnvironmentPO Box 177BANGALOW NSW 2479AUSTRALIAhttp://www.avn.org.auhttp://www.living-wisdom.comPhone: 02 6687 1699 - FAX 02 6687 2032skype: ivmmagFreedom is not merely the opportunity to do as one pleases; neither is it merely the opportunity to choose between set alternatives. Freedom is, first of all, the chance to formulate the available choices, to argue over them -- and then, the opportunity to choose. - C. MillsThe authority of any governing institution must stop at its citizen's skin. - Gloria SteinemThe AVN is a Charity Authority Holder (CFN11694).We rely on the help and support of our members and subscribers to continue offering our services freely and without prejudice.Please consider helping us by subscribing to Living Wisdom and joining as an AVN member. Go to http://www.avn.org.au to subscribeWe also sell books and information packs. Go to http://avn.org.au/catalog/ for more details.