CONCERN, ANXIETY, AND WORRY: GETTING PLAYED BY THE CDC (AND OTHERS)
By J.B. Handley
“The belief that you can inform and warn people, and get them to take appropriate actions or precautions with respect to a health threat or risk without actually making them anxious or concerned. This is not possible…This is like breaking up with your boyfriend without hurting his feelings. It can’t be done.”
- Glen Nowak, Director of Communications, Centers for Disease Control, Presentation at the 2004 Vaccine Summit
Man, did I get played by the CDC. It was the winter of 2003. You couldn’t turn on the T.V. without reading about another child dying from the flu: it’s a particularly bad strain, children are at high risk, flu shot supply is strained, get your child vaccinated while you still can!
And, we were listening closely. For my oldest son, turning 4 and healthy, we weren’t too worried. But for my younger son, our baby Jamison, at 15 months old, we were very concerned. He was sick all the time. This could be a real problem for him. They are talking about death here, and Jamison seems to qualify as high risk.
Vaccine supplies were really, really tight. I spent a whole day at work just trying to find shots, called every doctor friend I knew. We finally pulled some strings, found a doctor with just a handful of extra shots. We made the simple decision: I wouldn’t get a shot, my wife and older son would get one shot each, but we’d give Jamison the shot and the booster. He was, after all, at risk.
The first shot was in December. Our Christmas videos that year show a very-NT Jamison -- excited about Santa’s arrival and closely tied to his older brother. The booster was in January.
By March, Jamison was gone.
Mr. Nowak’s presentation offers a “recipe” for generating demand for both flu vaccine and all vaccines, a 7-step process he encourages health authorities to go through. He notes:
“Vaccination demand, particularly among people who don’t routinely receive an annual influenza vaccination, is related to heightened concern, anxiety, and worry.”
Mr. Nowak even counts the number of mentions of things like “Flu kills 36,000 per year.” (He notes it was mentioned 200 times between Sep 21-27, 2003.) Pictures of children who have died can be particularly motivating, he notes.
Our own press seems to play along, simply regurgitating what our health authorities tell them. Where’s the skepticism? Interestingly, the British Medical Journal was very critical of these scare tactics employed by CDC. In THIS article, they noted:
“US data on influenza deaths are a mess. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) acknowledges a difference between flu death and flu associated death yet uses the terms interchangeably. Additionally, there are significant statistical incompatibilities between official estimates and national vital statistics data. Compounding these problems is a marketing of fear - a CDC communications strategy in which medical experts "predict dire outcomes" during flu seasons.”
A separate British Medical Journal article questioned whether or not the flu vaccine even works:
"Evidence from systematic reviews shows that inactivated vaccines [flu vaccines] have little or no effect on the effects measured. Little comparative evidence exists on the safety of these vaccines. Reasons for the current gap between policy and evidence are unclear, but given the huge resources involved, a re-evaluation should be urgently undertaken... The optimistic and confident tone of some predictions of viral circulation and of the impact of inactivated vaccines, which are at odds with the evidence, is striking."
I’ll pull one snippet out of that excerpt that I’m particularly struck by: “Little comparative evidence exists on the safety of these vaccines.”
Safety? Comparative evidence?
Ask Glen Nowak – those are NOT part of the Playbook.
JB Handley is Co-founder of Generation Rescue.
Anxiety is a situation where which result in reflexive choices .While going through the phrases i got good information regarding anxiety.
In text it is well explained about anxiety and relating it with real world happenings.
http://typesofanxiety.com/
Posted by: David | February 07, 2008 at 07:19 AM
Prof. Tony Morris, former US FDA Chief Vaccine Control Officer and research virologist, warned against the swine flu vaccine, was summarily dismissed, but of course was correct in his assessment . (For more on Morris, go to http://www.whale.to/vaccines/morris_h.html)
They are now saying infants and young children are getting seriously ill from the flu in an effort scare parents into vaccinating their young children. If they are getting as sick as we are being told, and given their "truthiness" track record, one might reasonably question any such claims, it begs the question - why are children, who never used to get seriously sick from the flu, now doing so?
Hmmm. I wonder.
Posted by: Sandy Gottstein | January 31, 2008 at 05:18 PM
On the Evidence of Harm listserv, another parent reported that while watching TV she had heard Regis Philbin state that his arm hurt 8 weeks after getting his flu shot. He said that it still hurt so bad, he should not be at work. Even made half a joke about getting workman's comp. And what help can he expect from the CDC?
Yeah. Nothing. Except if he reports it, he will be treated to skepticism, then ignored. THAT is what's sick.
Posted by: nhokkanen | January 31, 2008 at 12:42 PM
"The first shot was in December. Our Christmas videos that year show a very-NT Jamison -- excited about Santa’s arrival and closely tied to his older brother. The booster was in January.
By March, Jamison was gone."
Reading this broke my heart.
JB – I’ve often prayed for parents like you— with children born after 1999 (the FDA Modernization Act had already totaled the mercury and health authorities had issued the joint statement); the additional heartache that you all must bear knowing that they KNEW and did nothing to protect your children.
My son was born in 1992.
Sure, SOME people knew by then (Merck 1991 memo) but the vast majority of health officials did not know.
We (pre-1999) parents may have “escaped” that additional heartache, but WE bear the unique heartache in knowing that “our ranks grow” ONLY because our efforts and voices continue to go unheeded – and as a result, another child like Jamison, is needlessly injured.
Posted by: Kelli Ann Davis | January 31, 2008 at 11:46 AM
"A separate British Medical Journal article questioned whether or not the flu vaccine even works:"
Hey British Medical Journal, all you had to do is come to my house and ask. I would have told you in no uncertain terms that my developmentally delayed child until that flu shot around his 4th birthday unequivocally first lost his speech, and then following the booster a month later, plunged into autism. What the mercury in those flu shots did was this - it set off an auto-immune response, the one that causes the cells of the body to auto-destruct. Apparently, as I treat my child with *alternative* medicine (I have had way more than enough of your brand of medicine, thank you very much!!) I find that my son is bringing up infections that came from the combo vaccines that your system of medicine unhesitatingly injects into young infants.
And guess what, countless other parents have similar stories and have reported similar infections. They are all over the country. What will you try to do next, gag them? I know you are trying very hard, I heard Quackwatch is now hounding a WA state alternative doctor. I would like to see a TV show on that, how Big Pharma tries to gag parents, gag TV networks, then gag alternative medicine doctors. Now that would be a surefire way to get high media ratings for a TV network, this Eli Stone show is just the tip of the iceberg.
Posted by: Wise Counsel | January 31, 2008 at 10:30 AM
Has anyone seen this one?
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/95711.php
Posted by: Jeanne | January 31, 2008 at 10:28 AM