Pediatric RN's Letter To President Obama
January 9, 2009,
Dear President Obama,
I would first like to state that, from the onset of your campaign, you have had my full support and trust. Rarely has an individual inspired such hope in the American people. Because of your wisdom, intelligence and ability to lead, many of us who had lost faith in our government will now stand with you as we face the tough challenges that lie ahead.
The health crisis that affects this current generation of children is one of those challenges and if not addressed effectively, this problem will greatly impact not only our economy, but take it’s emotional toll on families, the country and on future generations of Americans.
I have been a pediatric registered nurse for 32 years. During that time, I have watched as the number of children with chronic conditions such as ADHD, Autism, Asthma, Obesity, Allergies, etc have escalated dramatically.
Many of us in the medical and nursing professions read the studies every day implicating environmental toxicity and poor nutrition as culprits. Additionally, a growing segment of health professionals, as well as thousands of intelligent, caring, and observant parents, believe that childhood vaccines are partially to blame.
Most of us who hold this theory, do not believe that all vaccines are unsafe. However, the number of vaccines given to a child has doubled since the early 90’s. If you then look at the rising incidence of chronic childhood conditions during that same period of time, as well as listen closely to parent after parent report the decline of their previously healthy child after they received multiple vaccines in one doctor’s visit, or received them when their child was sick, it’s simply common sense to deduce that there is a connection.
After 10 years as serving as the organizer of the Defeat Autism Now! Conferences where thousands of parents and physicians gather to learn from the world’s leading experts on ways to improve the symptoms associated with autism (sometimes to the point of recovery), I came to the realization that more needed to be done to PREVENT these childhood conditions. To this end in September 2008, I launched the first Saving Our Kids, Healing Our Planet Green Expo. In this forum, we bring experts from the fields of nutrition, green living and pediatrics to conduct workshops and presentations for parents, teachers, physicians, children’s therapists etc.to learn effective solutions for minimizing or averting these preventable childhood conditions. Our intention is to bring these “green” expos around the country including urban areas where often times children are diagnosed late, services are minimal and chances for recovery or even improvement are limited or non existent.
Many intelligent parents and health care professionals share my perspective on the role the environment, suboptimal nutrition and vaccines are playing in these escalating epidemics and are waiting to be of service in helping funders of research and policy makers understand and reverse this health crisis.
I am at your service.
Respectfully,
Maureen H. McDonnell, RN
Saving Our Kids, Healing Our Planet Conference Coordinator
Dawn said, "most of us do not feel that vaccines are safe - period. It is sad to see so many people skating delicately around this issue. All vaccines harm - whether you see the effects immediately or years later - they all do damage. I am so tired of people worrying about stepping on politicians' toes."
There have been a few people lately saying that all vaccines are bad. I myself believe that for some vaccines the benefit outweighs the risk. For example, when small pox was epidemic, the vaccine was of value even though it had some risk.
It's o.k. with me if some have a different opinion, but just don't try to say that those of us who are speaking out for safer vaccines are only doing so out of fear. Some of us do believe that there is value in some vaccines, but that the current schedule has a lot of problems including too many too soon.
Dawn also said, "Now, I would definitely like to reach the new President and Congress with a very clear message - my body, my family, my choice." I am totally in agreement on that -- no forced vaccines.
Posted by: Twyla | January 24, 2009 at 01:58 AM
evelyn,
what i nightmare you and your daughter went through. can you imagine how many more poor people they have done this to? i'm sure you weren't the first or the last. i too never knew how many vaccines were in one injections. 3 shots with 9 vaccines? i never knew. now i do and i won't be fooled again. stay strong!
Posted by: jill r | January 20, 2009 at 10:53 PM
Evelyn, I am just blown away by your sad story. It reminds me of a night-marish scene in a movie where Dustin Hoffman is tied down and drilled by a creepy dentist. Oh MY GOD!! YOu live in the United States, not some fascist regime!!!! I salute you and your daughter for not having a heart attack during that in-humane and inexcusable action. I hope that hospital gets their ass sued over that kind of mal-treatment and the pediatrician. Hey, Dr. Jay, are you still out there? Did you hear this? Absolutely sickening...
Posted by: jen | January 20, 2009 at 09:12 PM
Dawn and Kathy,
AMEN!!! sisters. I too believe that
"vaccine safety" and "green vaccines" are oxymorons. I AM anti-vaccine and for good cause. Nothing good has come of vaccines. The difference between me and the "celebrities" within the autism communities is I am honest about it.
When these autism groups finally get their heads out of their butts and realize that "playing nice" isn't helping our kids worth a damn, then and ONLY then will they have my support.
I wrote a private e-mail to an individual at the beginning of this month. Here is part of that e-mail:
"The biggest reason I don't subscribe nor support the autism organizations who claim to speak for me and mine (and I don't JUST me autism speaks either) is because they have yet to understand that being civil isn't getting us anywhere. It's time to pull out all the stops. It's time (long
past IMHO) to do what EVER needs to be done in order to assure our children the same future that every other "neurotypical" person takes for granted."
BTW, I have coined a new phrase for those who think that vaccines are the equivalent of the holy grail: Pro-Poisoners!! It's my response to being referred to as anti-vaccine. Which for myself and my loved ones I certainly am! And proud to say so!!
Posted by: Deborah (www.debstake.wordpress.com) | January 20, 2009 at 08:07 PM
Evelyn
What a nightmarish scenario for your family! Are you in NY? I hear they are the stiffest about this stuff. I wouldn't live anywhere that got sticky with this situation. My daughters had no problems refusing, even referencing that their older brother had a mitochondrial disorder, which is a TRUE contraindication to vaccinations. They don't go to pediatricians either...because this is what they aim to do, report you. I would really get kids into naturopaths and quit the pediatric offices all together.
I hope that our community will pass laws that true contraindications can, and should be enlarged. Then, you don't have to fuss with this vaccine or that vaccine, this schedule or that schedule, this less toxic or more toxic vaccine. Just leave them where they are suppose to be, in the garbage.
Posted by: Kathy Blanco | January 20, 2009 at 06:28 PM
MY GRANDSON IS AUTISTIC DUE TO THE FACT THAT HE WAS FORCIBLY GIVEN 27 VACCINES WITHIN 6 MONTHS, UNDER THREAT OF LOSS OF CUSTODY. He was given NINE vaccines each at 3 separate events. It is a miracle that he even survived this. By the time that we got an attorney and the vaccines were stopped, it was too late to prevent the Autism, but thankfully not too late to save his life.
Thank God for Defeat Autism Now and Thank God for the Internet. Staying up researching until 3AM so many nights has been well worth the loss of sleep to get the ANSWERS.
The tactics that are employed by the medical system are HORRENDOUS. My grandson had ongoing intestinal inflammation, malabsorption, and allergies since birth. Two medical doctors who also practice natural medicine advised us not to get my daughter's son vaccinated until after age 2, and then only one vaccine at a time. At the hospital when my daughter refused the Hepatitis B, which is insanely given within 24 hours of birth, a male pediatrician entered her room and proceeded to scream abuses at her, but she still held her ground.
Later at age 6 months when he was hospitalized, the hospital staff doctors refused to recognize the previous doctors' diagnosis and demanded compliance with the vaccines under threat of loss of custody due to "Child Neglect" and "Medical Neglect". She was reported to Child Protective Services who then investigated me also based on the hospital doctors' claim that I had influenced my daughter to refuse the vaccines, and that I had influenced my daughter to give the baby nutritional products which were "not prescribed by a doctor", including vitamins and probiotics, which they claimed (unbelieveably) could have "killed him".
Due to these accusations, Child Protective Services was assigned to supervise my daughter and to insure that she left my house immediately. She had moved back in with me when she was pregnant and I was helping her to take care of her baby, and now she had to move in with her boyfriend's parents into a tiny bedroom, with no help from any of them regarding child care. She owned a business, but she had to hire another person to do her work because she had no one to help her care for her very sick child. She was forbidden to allow me to have any access to her son, again under threat of losing her son to placement in Foster Care. She was SCARED TO DEATH. I explained to her that she would lose ALL of her rights regarding medical treatment if her son was placed in Foster Care.
But she was still placed under the supervision of a hospital staff pediatrician, so she was in a continual battle to resist multiple vaccines. Every time that they administered the vaccines, they assured her that they were only giving two vaccines, one in each leg, which she witnessed. She adamantly voiced her objection to more than ONE, however she felt that it was a necessary compromise to agree to TWO vaccines in order to prevent the risk of loss of custody. Her son's health issues made us both afraid of him being in foster care for even one day.
After the case against us was finally dismissed, with assistance from our lawyer, my daughter was able to escape from the hospital staff pediatrician and return her son's care to his previous doctors. When she requested the medical records and I saw the Vaccine Record, I almost fainted when I recognized that this sick little infant was given NINE doses of vaccines each time, and not TWO. They had given him 4-5 multiple vaccine doses in each injection, knowing full well that my daughter would not realize this. They took full advantage of her youth and inexperience, and willfully deceived her to accomplish their own indoctrinated agenda. This was when I fully realized that it was a MIRACLE that this little baby was even still ALIVE, and I thank God for that.
It was his last doses of vaccines that finally pushed him over the cliff into major life threatening reactions and Autism. (Yes this was his LAST vaccines because over our dead bodies will he get any more) Although the damage was being done by the vaccines all along the way, it was difficult to determine because of his ongoing health issues that existed prior to the vaccines. However, he had developed a very high fever immediately after the second set, whereby my daughter called the Vaccine Hotline and was informed by a nurse, "Don't worry, this is normal". She did not accept that this was "normal" and on the next scheduled appointment for vaccines, she informed the doctor that her baby had not recovered fully from the previous vaccines, and that she did not want any more vaccines until he was no longer sick. The doctor treated her with contempt and refused to wait on the vaccines, knowing that he had the power over her due to Child Protective Services and the hospital's authority over her. When she objected further, he then told her that her baby was "only getting the Chicken Pox vaccine" and that it was "ridiculous to fear that it would hurt him". He also flaunted his authority over her when he loudly exclaimed, "You know that he has to get caught up on his vaccines!!!" She told me afterwards that she had an overpowering "sense of dread", but that her fears regarding losing custody overwhelmed her "gut feelings" to take her child out of there. She regrets not taking her child out of that doctor's office every single day now.
Thankfully, my daughter was able to move back in with me again after we escaped from the Nazi Medical System. And I am very grateful that I can help her to take care of my grandson again, and very thankful especially that this precious little boy is responding to the Defeat Autism Now related therapies. Today, 15 months later, he is night and day compared to the horrible condition he was in previously. He still has not recovered his speech, but we have hopes that he will after Chelation therapies. If that doesn't happen, then we will try Hyperbaric Oxygen therapy. And if that doesn't work we will keeping trying anything else that is safe.
NO there is no such thing as a "safe vaccine" or a "green vaccine". And HELL NO there is no such thing as safe multiple doses. But it is a grim reality that it will be a miracle of we can even achieve the "Lesser of the Two Evils"; that being a reduced vaccine schedule, and vaccines given in single dosage, with the heavy metals removed, including Aluminum which is also neurotoxic. If we could even prevent the vaccines until age 2, or even stop the doctors from giving vaccines to children who are sick already, that would be a miracle because it is already recognized in the medical system as being contraindicated, and yet they are still doing it all day long. They don't even follow the few policies that are already in place, and they still refuse to even remove the mercury from the flu vaccines.
Although many of us fully realize that vaccines should be eradicated altogether, until this happens, we will have to accept any positive steps accomplished in the right direction. In the meantime, we need to PROTECT OUR LEGAL RIGHTS. Our attorney informed us that this particular hospital now has a class action case filed against it regarding their track record of Forced Vaccines. They have used these Nazi tactics on many others besides us. Although lawsuits are one legal avenue, they are always after the fact and the damage is done. Parents need to protect their legal rights beforehand because "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."
To me the Vaccine Issues are like the case of Child Molesters. We can't get rid of all of them, but every child molester that is taken off the streets is one less danger to our beautiful innocent children.
Evelyn Grady
Posted by: Autism Grandma | January 20, 2009 at 05:11 PM
your letter is very thoughtful. Let's face it you do have to be poliet to be heard. I know only to well I'd like to be foaming at the mouth and ready to slap the heads off of anybody who doesn't want to help our children. And keep others from the same fate. Its a hard life. A long road that I chose to embark for my daughter's future. I thank you and pray to God everyday that people are listened too. Thanks to wonderful organizations as the Defeat Autism Now our children do have a chance. I'm praying for a chance for all children in this world not to have to be injured in any way. God bless you all. To all the parents who are willing to stand up for our kids a big thank you as well.
Posted by: NAK | January 20, 2009 at 09:57 AM
People stop PLEASE STOP apologizing for wanting your children to be safe! You do not have to try and appease anyone. The vaccine bastards should be in jail or hung by the neck till dead. Barack Obama is not going to deliver you and your family from vaccine hell it will be you and your prayers to the true living God AND your legal action and voting. Barack does not have the courage to buck the party line he is not that kind of man. Dawn and Kathy Blanco are correct. There are no prospective double blind randomized studies on vaccines no evidence based medicine that is the whole story please get that through your heads and stop trying to be friends with capitalistic bioterrorist that are willing to destroy your children and family to get money for an AIDS vaccine so they can have queer sex. Yeah it is just that sick and weird and until we start putting people in jail and voting people out of office and worse they will ignore you like whimpering children because they are psychotic, narcissistic and calloused people with an entirely different set of values.
Posted by: Willie | January 20, 2009 at 02:52 AM
Dawn & Kathy - I could not agree more!
There is no such thing as a safe vaccine. and there is no such thing as a green vaccine either.
Posted by: Michelle | January 20, 2009 at 12:09 AM
I have also been a Pediatric RN for the last 38 years and have seen a tremendous increase in the diagnosis of Autism and other neurological disorders. I am presently in home care and have sat with parents while they write their letters requesting exemption from vaccines for their school districts. Many have been in fear that their children will not be allowed to attend school. I firmly believe that any child with a neurological disorder already or prematurity should not be required to have their children vaccinated. Certainly not in the way that it is done with 5 or 6 vaccines in one doctor's visit, just to "catch up" because for whatever reason they are behind. Maureen, I certainly hope that your letter to soon to be President Obama will help to alleviate this terrible problem among our children.
Posted by: Marie Zuneska RN | January 19, 2009 at 09:01 PM
"During the U.S. Congressional Hearings on issues of Vaccine Safety, 1999-December, 2004, government health bureaucracies were not able to come up with a single safety study that would meet with current scientific standards, so that many adverse vaccine reactions are undoubtedly taking place without being recognized for their true nature. Now we have proof at last that this negligence was by purpose and design, so that the public would not become aware of the true dangers of vaccines."--Harold Buttram, MD --- Defeat Autism Now doctor, Pennsylvania
Ray Gallup
Posted by: Raymond Gallup | January 19, 2009 at 05:58 PM
Maureen,
Thank you for organizing my first DAN conference in May 2003, in Philadelphia. I have my children back. They have their scars but have lost their diagnosis. Keep up the good work.
Posted by: Holly M. | January 19, 2009 at 04:12 PM
I know of no vaccine that is safe if it can cause an adverse reaction. VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System at http://vaers.hhs.gov/ )
is full of thousands of adverse reactions to all kinds of vaccines.
There has been no President, Democrat or Republican who has not supported the CDC policy of vaccination and none to date who have been concerned about the safety issue regards to vaccination. Unfortunate but the facts. I would hope and pray that President Barack Obama would change that fact but being realistic and using logic, I don't think it will happen. If it does, I will be more than glad to have people remind me that I was wrong in my logical assessment.
Ray Gallup
Posted by: Raymond Gallup | January 19, 2009 at 03:03 PM
"Most of us who hold this theory, do not believe that all vaccines are unsafe".
It is a thoughtful letter, but most of us do not feel that vaccines are safe - period. It is sad to see so many people skating delicately around this issue. All vaccines harm - whether you see the effects immediately or years later - they all do damage. I am so tired of people worrying about stepping on politicians' toes. Who cares? Our lives and our future generations' lives are at stake.
Yes, Jenny McCarthy is a true hero and did what she had to do - tread lightly to get this movement going. It is up to us to drive the "ball" home!!
Now, I would definitely like to reach the new President and Congress with a very clear message - my body, my family, my choice....Don't like it? Then pack your bags and move to another country where you will be able to live under a dictatorship!!
Posted by: Dawn | January 19, 2009 at 03:00 PM
I applaud your bravery. However, I am of the camp, that there simply is no safe vaccine..the words "vaccinate safely", is a misnomer. It is a medical experiment on the masses/russian roullette, with untold damage and death and maimings. It is a trampling on our personal liberties and freedoms. Until they have the courage, (they won't) to study what affect it has on children, and predisposed children even after decades of vaccines, I cannot fot the life of me, understand the workable parent routine, where you still deal with the devils, and or, as I put it, would you still work with the drug pushers who give your kids cocaine and marijuana? Is this not any different from vaccine companies? There is no safe schedule, green vaccine, monovalent vaccine, ever. They are witches brews full of toxins and viruses that have every intention to damage the immune/neurological system beyond repair in many cases.
I easily exempted with a religious "excuse". Some states are really wanting for that to go away, but just try...it won't happen. Over my dead body. If they were to fight me on this, I would pull my child pronto from the public learning arena, and make other plans, at home teaching, or whatever it took.
I don't think Barack or even McCain have the power to stop or stem the tide of vaccinations at all costs, and who cares who gets damaged attitudes. Their vested interest is well established in pharmaceutical companies, as if they are God's of medicine/miraculous seekers of why people are so sick, NOT. The very government backs and funds NIH and CDC (giant wastes of money), with untold millions, that basically leaves the guessing game to you, the average american, why their children are so sick, damaged, and then in later years, why cancer still hasn't been solved, or AIDS, Or Alzheimers, or Lyme Disease, or other major autoimmune epidemics. They know the CAUSES of these diseases, give me a break..
I would love for the autism community to get some backbone for once, and just stand up and say no, no more. Not one more preach in a DAN meeting please, of SAFE VACCINE SCHEDULING, YUCK. We won't/or should as parents, go there, until you comply with our standards of what safe is? Even then, the science does not support their use. Not after what I have found out about the high levels of contaminations in those vaccines (try greening that), and or how it may be feeding not just our autism epidemic, but allergies, asthma, diabetes, obesity, neurological issues, later year cancers and autoimmune diseases of all types etc. And this is the only language THEY understand really, profits/perceptions of safety. If we told 10 families our tales, our very lives as living testaments what vaccines have done to our children, can you imagine that doubled or tripled untold million parents doubting the vaccine safety/supply/procedures and what that would do to their death industry? Maybe then and only then, these committees that stir up this ire in us, would stop and listen to us for once, instead of getting mixed messages that vaccines are "important" and "life saving". I get that the language has turned to zealoutry. I get it is a very scary decision...but once you make it, hold your ground. Decide how you as a parent can make your child super healthy, able to handle innocuous infections, and how to treat them with due care and diligence. Boning up on EFA's and how they are important, minerals, a gluten and cassein soy and corn free diet, a diet less of MSG or not at all. This supports them, as well as long term breastfeeding. I have no worries for the futures of such children. I however, have worries for parents in our community who still trust the white coats, still think the language of safely vaccinate or green a vaccine, is going to change this paridigm?
But, can you blame a parent, who has evidence that these viruses/toxins are circulating in their CNS/Gut/Immune system? When you see the diagrams of how thimerosol and aluminum disable neurons, make them excitotoxic, DISAPPEAR, confuse the immune system, seemingly forever etc. How viruses attack the myelin sheath mistakingly because it is of the same weighted protein as a chicken embryo causing molecular mimicry autoimmunity? This is just a no brainer after a while. The stuff is a toxic brew, meant for the mindless masses, not me, not my kids, not my grandkids, and hopefully for generations.
My testament that they are the trigger to autism, is evident in my next generation grandchildren who are NOT vaccinated, eat healthy etc. IF AUTISM IS GENETIC, I WOULD HAVE SEEN IT IN THE NEXT, RIGHT? THREE HEALTHY HAPPY, THRIVING, TALKING TODDLERS!! I had two children with autism, a boy and a girl (very unusual they say), and two NT girls. They saw what autism does to families, and refused these easily with the religious exempt, and MADE SURE, even in the hospital, that the baby was with them at all times, no tests performed on them, etc without their knowledge and consent. *(no immediate cord clamping either). How many of us sign waivers in the hospitals, but yet, are mistakingly given shots? My estimation is that number is quite high...believe me I know, I have friends that work in nurseries and shift changing nurses don't read the bottom line prints.
I hope I don't come off angry here, but, I have to take a stand in this life...and when you get to be my age, you will understand that being a sheeple to the medical system only brought me sorrow. Now, I am teaching others, and when I do, I see them as succesful parents, who thought through that certain "recommendations" in childhood, are in fact, dangerous to the health of our children.
I put no faith in politicians, pharmaceutical companies, etc. The only faith I have left is in a loving God, who listens to our prayers as parents, that this tide will turn. But with faith comes action. The only action that makes sense to me, is to shun the whole system, make them worry about their profit and bottom lines, and to have a generation of unvaccinated healthy chidlren, who have no autism, or other modern day illnesses. I am willing to go there, with no visits to any doctor ever again...other than a holistic health practitioner who thinks the way I do, that mother earth cures, and herbs and good diets and lifestyles/attitudes. The only thing they are good for, the white coats, is sewing on an arm, or stitching an injury or saving your life in a car accident or something. Even then, you have be careful, the blood supply is tainted with Babesia and other lovelies....
Posted by: Kathy Blanco | January 19, 2009 at 02:29 PM
I wish that more veteran nurses and (especially) teachers would come forward to describe the changes they've seen in children's health over the years. That they would attest to the fact that children today ARE different than they were in the past, in ways that can't be explained away as better diagnosis or bad parenting.
It would still be anecdotal, but maybe those accounts would be considered more objective and less biased than the reports by parents.
Posted by: meg | January 19, 2009 at 01:46 PM
Maureen, thank you for doing this. I am an educational assistant and see the same things that you are describing. Recently, the Canadadian Association of Speech/Language therapists have come together as a group and declared that classrooms, in many instances (i.e. those nightmarish "open-concept" classrooms) are too noisy and make learning difficult (of course they went into great detail to do with decibels etc.) and I was SO happy to see this finally happening. I had written to the Calgary Board of Ed with this concern but I am so glad that the Speech/Lang therapists are pushing for it now.
YOur experience and accreditation has to mean something in this fight for our kids. Good luck and thanks for your actions.
Posted by: jen | January 19, 2009 at 10:01 AM
Maureen, what a thoughtful letter. Your expertise is appreciated. When filing for an exemption from vaccins, and being terrified (for some reason), it was the RN at the health dept. that allowed me to leave with my head held high, and the affirmation that I was doing the right thing. After a quizzing on if I understood what I was doing, she very quietly leaned toward me and said, "someone has to protect these children, no one else is". She was an angel on that day. A parent wanting to vaccinate safely, and knowing my child would be out of the school system if that was done. Her few words to me, ffrom her position of great knowledge, meant so very much.
Thanks for sharing. When people in your position take on this subject, your thoughts, coming from the battle front, are so important.
Thank you,
Kathleen
Posted by: kathleen | January 19, 2009 at 08:36 AM
Maureen, thank you so much for sharing this first-hand observation. To me, the most important information on the rise, and probable cause, of the Sickest Generation comes from nurses, speech therapists, teachers and, of course, parents themselves (and few brave doctors like those in DAN). I share your hope that intelligent and independent-minded people, starting with our new president, will see this for what it is and take urgent action. We can't wait till we fix the economy, get out of Iraq, solve the health insurance problem, or anything else. This is job one. Best, Dan
Posted by: dan olmsted | January 19, 2009 at 05:46 AM