Barbara Loe Fisher Calls for an Independent Agency to Oversee Vaccine Safety
By Anne Dachel
I listened to an interesting conversation between Barbara Loe Fisher of the National Vaccine Information Center and family medicine osteopathic physician, Dr. Joseph Mercola, that was released July 10, 2012.
The topic was “Merck Accused of Lying about Vaccine Effectiveness” and the lawsuit against Merck charging that the company falsified mumps vaccine test results to make it look like the vaccine is more effective than it really is.
Dr. Mercola pointed out that this was the same company (Merck) that VOLUNTARILY removed Vioxx from the market after it had killed 60,000 people. He said that internal documents revealed that Merck knew about the deadly side effects of Vioxx.
Barbara reported on the lawsuit filed by two former Merck employees, who allege that Merck was dishonest in their testing methods because they wanted to protect their sole source U.S. market of mumps vaccine in the MMR shot. The legal brief in the lawsuit is very strong, according to her. The question of federal oversight is critical here, yet the Dept of Justice seems very disinterested.
Mercola noted that the Justice Dept had been made aware of this but has done nothing was just another "confirmation of the enormous collusion between the federal government and the regulatory agencies and large multi-national corporations like Merck."
Mercola pointed out that Dr. Julie Gerberding, former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is now head of the vaccine division at Merck and that the former head of the National Institute of Health is now CEO of Sanofi vaccines, calling it corruption and scandal. Barbara described the "public-private partnership" that now exists between the pharmaceutical industry and the regulatory agencies.
What really got my attention was something that Barbara Loe Fisher brought up during the discussion, namely that the NVIC has, for years, called for an INDEPENDENT, VACCINE SAFETY OVERSIGHT AGENCY—NOT CONNECTED WITH NIH, CDC, or any other federal agency. Instead, it would be truly independent, like a consumer protection agency.
I was intrigued by Barbara’s simple idea: if officials want to restore the rapidly eroding trust in the vaccine schedule, let’s have AN INDEPENDENT AGENCY with oversight authority. And by “independent,” I don’t mean people who have waivers because they also own stock in drug companies, or who made millions developing one of the vaccines on the mandated schedule, or anyone eyeing a future job in a drug company. I realize that eliminates thousands of possible candidates, but I’m sure others are available.
I asked Barbara about her idea and this is what she had to say:
Barbara, reports of unethical practices at the FDA are out from major news sources.
The Washington Post: “The Food and Drug Administration secretly monitored the personal e-mail of six employees after they warned Congress and the White House that the agency was approving medical devices that posed unacceptable risks to patients, according to a lawsuit filed this week.”
This hardly shores up any confidence in the claims by health officials that adding more and more vaccines to the childhood schedule is safe. Who’s overseeing the overseers? The most heated controversy in medicine today involves the claim by tens of thousands of parents that an unsafe, unchecked vaccine schedule left their children with autism.
Q: You have asked for an independent vaccine oversight agency for several years now, what has been the response from health officials?
A: Since the mid 1990's, NVIC has called for vaccine safety research to be made a national priority. We've advocated that independent researchers without financial or ideological conflicts of interest be funded to address gaps in vaccine safety science. From our experience with children, who died and were brain injured by DPT vaccine in the 1980's and early 90's, we knew that the only way to prevent vaccine injuries and deaths was to better understand biological mechanisms, identify high risk factors and evaluate whether there are long term health outcome differences between those children, who receive government recommended and mandated vaccines, and those, who do not. However, for two decades public health agencies have stubbornly refused to acknowledge vaccine risks or support this kind of research and vaccine safety science gaps have remained.
In April 2008, during my presentation at a National Vaccine Advisory Committee (NVAC) meeting, I suggested that an independent vaccine safety oversight agency should be established along the lines of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). The NTSB independently investigates plane crashes and is separate from the Federal Aviation Administration, which is the federal agency responsible for regulation of the airline industry. The idea for an NTSB-like agency - or one that is at least independent from DHHS - to provide oversight on vaccine safety has been talked about privately for years by several advocacy organizations but has not been publicly discussed.
This time, with the help of Keystone Center (a professional public engagement facilitator), the idea of an independent vaccine safety oversight mechanism was discussed, among other options, at an April 2010 NVAC sponsored meeting of vaccine stakeholder representatives in Salt Lake City. It was also publicly discussed in subsequent April 2011 NVAC meetings in Washington, DC. and, additionally, NVIC submitted written comments as did other advocacy groups asking for more independent, transparent vaccine safety oversight by government.
However, in February 2012, when DHHS published the final “white paper” on “The U.S. Vaccine Safety System,” the idea of independent oversight on the federal health agencies responsible for vaccine development, regulation, policymaking and promotion was rejected in favor of protecting the status quo.
Q: What type of person do you envision in this agency?
A: The person to head up this agency would have to be someone like the late Bernadine Healy, M.D., the first woman to become head of NIH, who was intellectually honest, professionally credentialed, courageous and committed to pursuing truth even if it might turn out to be inconvenient. An advisory committee composed of a mix of health care professionals and consumers without financial ties to vaccine manufacturers or federal health agencies, who are nominated by a potential advisory committee member’s Senator or Representative and appointed by the President, could provide additional oversight on the vaccine safety oversight agency's operation.
Q: What authority would this group have?
A: The agency would have to report directly to the President and the public without interference from DHHS. Potential agency responsibilities, some of which I suggested at the Salt Lake City meeting, are: oversight of the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) jointly operated by FDA and CDC; oversight of investigations of vaccine safety signals generated by VAERS; oversight of vaccine risk investigations conducted by DHHS (such as Vaccine Safety Datalink studies); participation in the setting of priorities for funding of major vaccine safety studies and oversight to ensure methodological, operational and ethical standards are met; inquiry into and analysis of emerging vaccine safety issues of concern to the public.
The vaccine safety oversight agency would have the legal authority to (1) independently investigate identified vaccine safety signals that affect the public health and safety and involve federal health agencies and/or pharmaceutical companies doing business with federal health agencies; (2) make recommendations to the President; publish reports released to the public.
Q: What will happen without such an agency?
A: Public opinion polls have indicated that parents place vaccine and prescription drug safety at the top of their list of health concerns for their children. The cozy financial relationship that Congress has allowed DHHS to have with pharmaceutical companies marketing vaccines after Congress gave a liability shield to those companies in 1986, means that there is no independent oversight on vaccine safety in the U.S.
This very lucrative “public-private” business relationship has grown significantly since Bioshield/Pandemic Preparedness legislation was passed by Congress in 2004 and 2005. This kind of “one hand washes the other” type of relationship is inappropriate on so many levels because there is no public accountability by drug companies making huge profits and government health officials helping them do it by fast tracking new vaccines to licensure and pushing vaccine use mandates.
The global communications revolution that has put computers and cell phones into the hands of people around the world means that parents have much more information at their fingertips than they had in previous decades. People are sharing information and becoming educated about vaccination and health and they know it is a conflict of interest for the same government health officials to be charged with the job of developing new vaccines, regulating drug companies marketing vaccines, making vaccine policy recommendations and promoting vaccine mandates, to also be charged with the responsibility of monitoring vaccine safety. Without an independent vaccine safety oversight agency that actively engages and involves the public, the public is going to continue to justifiably lose faith in the integrity of the vaccination system.
Q: Is this a reasonable request?
A: Yes, it is an entirely reasonable and necessary request to protect the public health and safety.
Q: What other changes need to be made in how we test, approve, and mandate vaccines?
A: 1) For starters, Congress should repeal the portion of the 1997 FDA Modernization Act (FDAMA) that allows drug companies to pay the FDA to “fast-track” licensing of new vaccines. That law was originally only supposed to include drugs but, toward the end of the legislative process, drug company lobbyists on Capitol Hill got vaccines thrown into the law.
Second, the FDA should raise the licensing standards for new vaccines and require drug companies pre-licensure to:
- conduct vaccine trials with true (inactive) placebos given to the control group;
- test the new vaccine in the indicated vaccine use age group without other vaccines being given simultaneously;
- compare the new vaccine being given singly against a group of children given the new vaccine simultaneously with every other vaccine licensed and recommended for that age group;
- include groups of individuals in pre-licensure trials that reflect the diversity of the population for which the vaccine will be recommended and mandated OR include labeling information that indicates the vaccine has NOT been studied in individuals, who are (1) acutely ill with a coinciding viral or bacterial infection; (2) using antibiotics or other prescription medications; (3) have a personal or family history of vaccine reactions, injuries and death; (4) are chronically ill or disabled with a personal or family history of immune and brain dysfunction, severe allergies or neurodevelopmental disorders; (5) babies born prematurely or weighing under six pounds;
- Use disease endpoints for demonstration of effectiveness instead of being allowed to use “surrogate endpoints” that may or may not reflect the true effectiveness of the vaccine in preventing disease;
- In labeling, clearly describe the manufacturing techniques used to prepare the vaccine and the biological mechanisms affecting body systems for each vaccine ingredient and residual component (such as potential adventitious agents, including genetically modified animal and human DNA).
There are many improvements that need to be made in post-marketing surveillance of existing and new vaccines by the FDA and CDC. There is an urgent need for much better follow-up of vaccine injury and death reports by health officials, who do not unscientifically and dangerously assume “coincidence” rather than assuming potential causation in the absence of a better explanation. A person is less likely to assume “coincidence” if his or her sole job is to monitor vaccines for safety rather than also be charged with developing, regulating and promoting vaccine mandates.
As far as vaccine mandates go, the National Vaccine Information Center has been on the record since 1982 as opposing forced vaccine use in the U.S. because we defend the ethical principle of informed consent to medical risk taking. The human right to voluntarily decide what you are willing to risk your life and your child’s life for when it comes to medical interventions and use of pharmaceutical products, like vaccines, must be protected at all costs. Every state public health law should provide non-medical vaccine exemptions, including the religious and conscientious belief exemption, without restrictions or sanctions imposed on anyone taking vaccine exemptions.
The freedom to make voluntary vaccine choices in America serves as a counterweight to the unlimited profit-making by multi-national pharmaceutical corporations exploiting the lucrative, liability-free vaccine mandates that exist in ours, the third largest nation in the world. Freedom of choice also places limits on the power of doctors, who are employed by government health agencies, to force citizens to use an unlimited number of vaccines without any accountability for the potential harm those vaccines are doing to children and adults, who are never counted in the vaccine benefit-risk analyses published by government health agencies promoting “no exceptions” vaccine mandates.
I urge every parent, who wants to protect the legal right to make vaccine choices, to become a user of NVIC’s free online Advocacy Portal http://www.nvicadvocacy.org/and get involved in defending non-medical vaccine exemptions in state public health laws.
I admire Ms. Fischer but I have to disagree with her.
We don't need another government agency that is inevitably going to be corrupted by pharma companies. We need two simple things to remedy the situation:
1) remove the unprecedented liability protection for vaccine makers and healthcare providers who administer them,
2) remove vaccine mandates.
Posted by: Cassandra | August 04, 2012 at 10:05 AM
"I think the only mistake Barbara made was believing government can help what government and its industry cronies already screwed up. (if it was a screw up) Looking back now it would have been better to call pharma's bluff. Let them pull out of the market. Wouldn't it have been jaw dropping if chronic disease rates fell dramatically? And maybe people and thinking doctors would have sought better means of securing the health of children."
EXACTLY. All of it. And oh, wouldn't it have been GREAT if pharma's bluff had been called. But actually, that was just another big pharma ploy. They managed to craft this vaccine court legislation, under the GUISE that it was a good thing. After this piece of legislation was enacted, the DOD IMMEDIATELY goes in and not only do they add a slew of new vaccines to the already overly-burdened vaccine schedule for infants, but they then RESTRICT the table of known effects and time-frames, post-vaccination.
Anyone see a pattern there?
A few select 'elite' in our medical cartel know EXACTLY what is going on here, and they're not doing a darn thing to stop it.
A physician I greatly admire once stated (and I'm paraphrasing) that he doesn't really believe there is a 'conspiracy theory' behind the pharmaceutical industry. In other words, he stated he feels that most of the cover-up is due to sheer human incompetence.
That is the only area in which I would disagree with him. Sure, human incompetence exists and CAN account for some of this, but there isn't this much incompetence in the world. Highly intelligent individuals work in our CDC, the FDA, the NIH, etc. They are not THAT incompetent.
IMHO,for anyone to really believe that this much cover-up (vis-a-vis death and damage caused by vaccines), is caused ONLY by human incompetence, is in denial. It's hard for most of us, I would think, to comprehend how any one individual (or group of individuals) would want to actually harm a newborn infant, child, woman or adult. But when studies come out, time after time, documenting the damage drugs and vaccines have caused to so many and not one shred of evidence exists as to how these powers that be have HONESTLY tried to confront this situation and stop it, it does give you pause.
I didn't reach that point in time with this realization, easily. I didn't want to face it. But I have. I finally realized I had to take my blinders off and really take a hard look at what is going on.
And when I finally allowed myself to own the TRUTH re: the above, I keeled over on our stairway here at home and cried my eyes out.
That realization and how hard it impacted me emotionally is why I so very much admire the physicians who are finally realizing this as well. I don't think most physicians and all those in our healthcare industry, are evil by nature. They, too, have trusted our medical cartel; they've trusted this cartel to teach them well in medical school; they trusted these people, to teach them the truth. When it finally dawns on some of these folks that they've not been taught the entire truth about these issues, it's as if they're finally seeing a part of their world in a different shade of light.
That's a very daunting thing - to finally KNOW that at least a part of the world you've lived in, isn't the world you once believed it to be.
We live in a world of illusion - of perspective. When that illusion is unveiled, it is a very, very daunting thing.
Posted by: Bayareamom | July 28, 2012 at 04:23 PM
@Barry
Thanks for the link. Always enjoy your posts.
Posted by: Adam M | July 28, 2012 at 03:05 PM
@ bayeareamom,
Thanks for the great summary, it was spot on. One of the things you said was " ... So I asked myself way back in 1994 just why it was that the powers that be will absolutely not perform a vaccinated vs. unvaccinated children study. Seriously, they could end this controversy once and for all with just that one simple study, yet they won't do it...."
You are 100 % correct when you say this simple study would end the debate forever. Which unfortunately, is exactly why the study isn't being done. Or at least its the reason we're being told that it hasn't, and should never be done.
One thing I stumbled upon a few years back, was the following document.
http://www.drcarley.com/Science_of_vaccine_damage.pdf
It's called "The Science of Vaccine Damage", and it reported on the results of studies that were done by a team at Purdue University. This team conducted studies to determine "... if vaccines can cause changes in the immune system of dogs that might lead to life- threatening immune-mediated diseases...".
Basically, this Purdue Team conducted studies to compare health outcomes of vaccinated vs completely un-vaccinated dogs.
Its well worth the read if you haven't already seen it.
Posted by: Barry | July 28, 2012 at 12:11 PM
@ CureNow
I think the only mistake Barbara made was believing government can help what government and its industry cronies already screwed up. (if it was a screw up) Looking back now it would have been better to call pharma's bluff. Let them pull out of the market. Wouldn't it have been jaw dropping if chronic disease rates fell dramatically? And maybe people and thinking doctors would have sought better means of securing the health of children
Posted by: Adam M | July 28, 2012 at 10:00 AM
And at this time -- I still thought as did all AMericans that our government came from the people (US) and since we were a good people - with Judo-Christian valves
with beliefs; and we picked the very best from amongest us to send to Washington:
God is love
Do unto your neighbor as you would do unto yourselves
All men are created equal.
All men if equal has enough intellingence to own his own mistakes as well as his own successes.
That sort of stuff.
,So our government was good because it was made up of good people.
Did anyone go to jail for seeing what levels of radiation did what at Cinncinnati hospital on eastern Kentucky breast cancer patients?
Did anyone go to jail when we ound out they fed radiation in cereal to mental disabled children?
But they are real good at making official - We are sorry-- afer all the victims and their families are long dead.
Posted by: Benedetta | July 28, 2012 at 08:24 AM
Bayareamon;
Thanks for that information.
I know that Barbara tried to keep it polite and calm as Blaxill said he had to keep calm in the IACC meeting, even though it was hard.
I remember seeing her on television a few short clips - with some people swarming around her in suits that we assumed was some type of government officials/ pharma representives.
Getting the speicial treatment when someone wants something from you and is being super nice to get it.
But it was people that wanted her cooperation - to make what they were trying to do - look like they were honorable men with only the best intentions - instead of the sharks they were.
Posted by: Benedetta | July 28, 2012 at 08:11 AM
@ CureNow
"It's because of Fisher's and the NVIC's Act that parents and injured parties can't sue in a state or federal court to begin with."
Again .. that is simply not true. Parents and injured parties can't sue in a state or federal court BECAUSE THE SUPREME COURT HAS DENIED THEM THEIR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO DO SO.
Again .. if you want to blame someone for denying parents their Constitutional Right to seek justice in state or federal courts .. DON'T BLAME BARBARA LOE FISHER .. PUT THE BLAME SQUARELY WHERE IT BELONGS .. ON THE SUPREME COURT.
Posted by: Bob Moffitt | July 28, 2012 at 06:41 AM
CureNow stated above, "However, the only reason we have a vaccine court in the first place is because of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act crafted by Fisher and the NVIC."
Cure - With all due respect, have you READ Barbara's statement about this (I've provided the link in an earlier comment).
Here, in part, is what she states:
"In 1982, NVIC, then known as Dissatisfied Parents Together, was approached by Congress and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) to participate in the development of legislation which would provide just and comprehensive financial assistance to vaccine injured children and their families..."
AND -
..."Parents of vaccine injured children, who were asked to give their support to the development and passage of the law, were assured repeatedly during the several year process that the guiding spirit behind the law was to provide an alternative mechanism to a lawsuit that would even the playing field for vaccine victims in that there would be a presumption that the vaccine caused the child’s injury or death if no other cause could be found. The emphasis was on presumption and there was recognition that this presumption, in the absence of scientific data and certainty, would be in the plaintiff’s favor even if the end result would be that a few children would be compensated who were not, in fact, vaccine injured..."
There were many, many others who were invited by the United States Congress TO PARTICIPATE in the drafting of this legislation.
Barbara Loe Fisher, on behalf of her group, was just ONE of those participants. If memory serves, the attorney who participated with Barbara during these legislative discussions, was an attorney who lost his daughter, to vaccines.
Given all that Barbara states that occurred AFTER this legislation was drafted, I can safely assert she would have needed a crystal ball to see what was going to happen next.
Posted by: Bayareamom | July 27, 2012 at 11:02 PM
Barry stated, "You just hit the nail on the head. There is no such thing as health care, it's sick care. True health can only come from a healthy immune system, which is exactly why vaccines were designed to sabotage them..."
BINGO. This is also what Dr. Sherri Tenpenny has stated repeatedly throughout her many lectures over the years.
So - take the above and start connecting the dots as to the question recently proffered by an Editor of AOA as to whether or not one feels that evil components lie behind/within our medical institutions.
So I asked myself way back in 1994 just why it was that the powers that be will absolutely not perform a vaccinated vs. unvaccinated children study. Seriously, they could end this controversy once and for all with just that one simple study, yet they won't do it.
What have various whistle-blowers, i.e., research scientists, virologists, etc., who have worked in government agencies, stated throughout the years? They've dared to come forward and speak about the lack of ethics and downright fraud in various research projects, etc.
There is a plethora of scientific/credible research in peer-reviewed medical journals which have found that vaccines CAN and DO cause harm to the immune systems of not only humans, but in animal control models as well. I KNOW this to be fact, because I've planted my rear end in numerous libraries throughout the years AND I'VE READ THOSE STUDIES. They're there. If I can find these studies, how come these folks in our medical institutions don't seem to know about them (or acknowledge them)?
The lack of transparency w/in our medical community knows no boundaries; this is a world wide ethics issue within the pharma/medical industry complex. Now, more than ever before, Big Pharma OWNS our mainstream media. In actuality, Big Pharma has BECOME A PART OF our military/government industrial complex. It's grown into this huge beast with tentacles inserted into the very fabric of our lives. In short, the medical cartel OWNS and has locked up every pathway to our own medical freedom. That's not just some sort of conspiracy theory - this is a fact.
It is so patently obvious to those of us - who have borne witness to our children's demise AFTER vaccination - that vaccines CAN KILL and/or cause severe immune system damage, yet when Congressional hearings take place regarding this issue - heck meeting after meeting occurs because of this issue, we should be seeing the good men and women within the halls of the CDC, the FDA, the NIH, etc., screaming at the top of their lungs that SOMETHING needs to be done! Our children's lives are at stake, here.
Instead, there is...NOTHING. Just a bunch of bureaucrats who claim to be doing everything they can, night and day, to get to the bottom of this issue.
Anybody here really believe that? I don't.
These are the sorts of questions I HAD to ask myself years ago, shortly after our son experienced his horrific reactions.
So after years and years of mind numbing, back breaking research (my back aches after doing some of this), I finally realized, with dreadful certainty, that I was onto something much bigger than I had initially, embarked upon. That is, the deeper within my vaccine research I went, the more onion layers I uncovered. And I didn't like at all, what I was seeing or feeling.
Do I BELIEVE that evil exists within these medical institutions? Well - does evil truly exist? IMHO - yup. It does. Does it therefore exist within these institutions?
Yes. I do believe that it does.
How far you want to go down that rabbit hole, is entirely up to you.
Posted by: Bayareamom | July 27, 2012 at 10:42 PM
...... You can't make money off of the healthy! I believe vaccines exists to make us sick, some sooner, some later, everyone is different! I do NOT believe in vaccines at all! They are full of toxic ingredients that are being injected into our bodies, after my child fell apart 20 min after 3 shots I knew something horrible had happened and that I would never see that child again as she was before the shots, static encephalopathy with autistic like features is her diagnosis, petit-mal seizures, inflammatory bowel disease, PANDAS, lyme co-infections, viral blood disorders, brain and bowel inflammation, etc., ect., Her family is financially, physically and emotionally SPENT! Damn to hell the mainstream medical institutions, pharma, pediatricians, autism speaks, and all the other institutions involved in protecting the evil that is being done on young human beings!!!....
********************
You just hit the nail on the head. There is no such thing as health care, it's sick care.
True health can only come from a healthy immune system, which is exactly why vaccines were designed to sabotage them.
The drug companies who make vaccines, only make money from people who are sick. If vaccines honestly prevented sickness...... does it really make sense for drug combines to be selling them???
Thats like GE selling shatter proof light bulbs that never burn out.
Posted by: Barry | July 27, 2012 at 06:30 PM
I've found the NVIC's Statement before the House Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, entitled, "Compensating Vaccine Injuries: Are Reforms Needed?" - Dated September 28, 1999
Link: http://www.nvic.org/injury-compensation/congresstestimony.aspx
SNIP:
..."We maintain that the spirit and intent of the law, as Congress and the public envisioned it, has not been fulfilled. In our view, the principal reason for this failure of implementation is because the Department of Health and Human Service, which was on record as opposing the passage of this legislation (as was the Department of Justice), was given too much discretionary authority in the law to change the rules for compensation after the law was passed. Through the wielding of this discretionary authority, both federal agencies have worked together to weaken the ability of vaccine injured claimants to obtain compensation. The net result has been the creation of an uneven playing field that has often turned what was supposed to be a fairer, expedited, less traumatic, less expensive, no-fault alternative to a lawsuit against vaccine manufacturers and administering physicians into a highly adversarial, lengthy, traumatic and unfair imitation of a lawsuit conducted in front of a Special Master instead of a judge and jury."
"Parents of vaccine injured children, who were asked to give their support to the development and passage of the law, were assured repeatedly during the several year process that the guiding spirit behind the law was to provide an alternative mechanism to a lawsuit that would even the playing field for vaccine victims in that there would be a presumption that the vaccine caused the child’s injury or death if no other cause could be found. The emphasis was on presumption and there was recognition that this presumption, in the absence of scientific data and certainty, would be in the plaintiff’s favor even if the end result would be that a few children would be compensated who were not, in fact, vaccine injured..."
Posted by: Bayareamom | July 27, 2012 at 04:38 PM
Bob Moffit,
"With all due respect .. if I remember correctly .. it is a SUPREME COURT DECISION that denies parents their Constitutional Right to sue in State and Federal Courts should their claims be denied first in the Vaccine Court"
That is absolutely true. You're right. However, the only reason we have a vaccine court in the first place is because of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act crafted by Fisher and the NVIC. It's because of Fisher's and the NVIC's Act that parents and injured parties can't sue in a state or federal court to begin with. The Supreme Court's action only comes into play because of the existence of the vaccine court. If there were no Act that set up the vaccine court, parents and victims COULD sue in state and federal courts without the Supreme Court even having to be involved. But the Childhood Vaccine Injury Act crafted by Fisher and the NVIC changed all that... now it's no-fault litigation heavily stacked against the plaintiffs in a court with no jury and nowhere for plaintiffs to go after their claims are denied. So again... thanks, Ms. Fisher!
Posted by: CureNOW | July 27, 2012 at 03:44 PM
No Vac,
Private schools most often DO require vaccinations prior to entry, just as with public school institutions. Here in California, it has been the PRIVATE school sector who have been the most egregious in denying parents the right to use their California State exemptions.
It is simply up to parents to educate themselves; parents need to do their own 'due diligence' when it comes to their right to just say no to vaccines. It may sound trite, but it's true - knowledge is power.
Also, while I understand some of the frustration I am reading as to Barbara's input on the legislation issue, it is absolutely not fair to blame Barbara or Jeff for the absolute fiasco that has become the 'vaccine court.' There were many factors at play here. I tried to find the link to the article wherein Barbara explains, in great detail, how all of that came about, but I can't find it.
There are MANY reasons this system is broken, but to blame it entirely on Barbara and the NVIC is unfair. Big Pharma was threatening to PULL OUT of the vaccine industry and as Barbara has stated, this vaccine court was the ONLY line item they were given, to work with. Barbara and Jeff were absolutely assured that this process would be a fair and a just one.
I'll try to find that link to Barbara's statement about this, but in the meantime if anyone else can find it, I'd really appreciate the link. Thanks.
Posted by: Bayareamom | July 27, 2012 at 02:58 PM
@ CureNow
"This legislation, crafted and supported by Ms. Fisher and the NVIC, has taken the vital power to sue away from the victims (again, long before any tweaking). Autism parents and other vaccine injury victims have even LESS recourse to seek redress and renumeration than they did before this asinine legislation came into play."
With all due respect .. if I remember correctly .. it is a SUPREME COURT DECISION that denies parents their Constitutional Right to sue in State and Federal Courts should their claims be denied first in the Vaccine Court.
My friend, if you are going to blame anyone that "vaccine injury victims have even LESS recourse to seek redress and renumeration than they did before this assinine legislation came into play .. PUT THE BLAME WHERE IT BLONGS .. ON THE SUPREME COURT.
Posted by: Bob Moffitt | July 27, 2012 at 02:25 PM
You can't make money off of the healthy! I believe vaccines exists to make us sick, some sooner, some later, everyone is different! I do NOT believe in vaccines at all! They are full of toxic ingredients that are being injected into our bodies, after my child fell apart 20 min after 3 shots I knew something horrible had happened and that I would never see that child again as she was before the shots, static encephalopathy with autistic like features is her diagnosis, petit-mal seizures, inflammatory bowel disease, PANDAS, lyme co-infections, viral blood disorders, brain and bowel inflammation, etc., ect., Her family is financially, physically and emotionally SPENT! Damn to hell the mainstream medical institutions, pharma, pediatricians, autism speaks, and all the other institutions involved in protecting the evil that is being done on young human beings!!!
Posted by: CS | July 27, 2012 at 12:52 PM
Mandatory vaccinations have two main goals, IMO: to fill up the pockets of big pharma with billions of $ and to end the public education system in the US. The well to do intelligent parents will send their kids to private schools to avoid toxic vaccinations, but poorer and less informed parents will waste their children in public schools.
I am afraid that with the newly developing media propaganda claiming that autistic children are violent, the establishment will attempt soon to euthanize most of these children for the "greater good" or course, as did the Nazi Germans did in their death camps.
Posted by: no vac | July 27, 2012 at 09:45 AM
Adam M and Jim Thompson,
"...executive agencies or federal courts would later interpret it to foreclose access to a civil court remedy for design defect." This partial quote sums up exactly what happened to the legislation and it's absolutely true. No question. Government agencies messed with it until it was practically unrecognizable and could be used AGAINST the very folks it was meant to serve. However, there would not have been anything to mess with and use against victims at all if that crap piece of legislation were never written in the first place. And it WAS a crap piece of legislation to begin with, long before tables were tweaked..
."Ronald Reagan himself was troubled by the vaccine compensation bill and was quoted as saying, 'Although the goal of compensating those persons is a worthy one, the program has…serious deficiencies.' The Reagan administration seemed to be particularly concerned with two issues: who was going to pay for the compensation required for vaccine injury, and the precedent of the federal government indemnifying private companies from liability." --From 'Henry Waxman, Father of the Autism Epidemic, published in AoA, 2008
Even Ronald Reagan, who was likely already suffering from Alzheimer's, could see that this legislation was problematic from the get-go. Again, the tables were tweaked, loopholes were jumped through, I get that. But did they really think government personnel WOULDN'T tweak it for the very companies that donate huge sums to election campaigns? How naive! Still, it never should have even come to that because long before it was passed, long before the first tweak, did the NVIC not have lawyers look over the initial draft and warn them about the precedent being set for "federal government indemnifying private companies from liability"? That is the crux of the problem right there. This legislation, crafted and supported by Ms. Fisher and the NVIC, has taken the vital power to sue away from the victims (again, long before any tweaking). Autism parents and other vaccine injury victims have even LESS recourse to seek redress and renumeration than they did before this asinine legislation came into play. I hope we remember that whenever the issue of funding for long-term care is raised.
Posted by: CureNOW | July 27, 2012 at 09:41 AM
RE: CureNOW
http://autismmedia.org/fisher2aq.html
http://autismmedia.org/fisher3aq.html
Posted by: Adam M | July 27, 2012 at 06:17 AM
There's NO SUCH THING as an 'independent' watchdog. We have a plethora of them in the UK, including various 'ombudsmen', supposed to help the ordinary people cope with public services injustices. They are all nothing more than very expensive 'talking shops', in thrall to government and corporate vested interests.
One of these 'regulatory bodies' is the GMC, which dragged Andrew Wakefield and his clinician colleagues Profs Walker-Smith and Murch, before an 'independent' panel whose chairman had undeclared shares in MMR vaccine manufacturers GSK. The GMC is funded by doctors' mandatory subscriptions and is supposed to protect public safety being compromised as a result of doctors' criminality or incompetence. Guess what!! Doctors who kill patients with their mistakes are 'let off' but 'whistleblowers' are persecuted.
Technically, the GMC had no reason to investigate Dr Wakefield at all. After all, he was laboratory based with his team, and his Royal Free contract precluded any clinical contact with patients, so he could hardly represent a danger to them. The GMC built a convoluted case involving two excellent and dedicated clinicians in order to destroy Dr Wakefield.
Justice Mitting, who exonerated Professor Walker-Smith after his High Court appeal, had some scathing comments to make about the GMC's 'inadequate and superficial' examination of the evidence and more or less ordered the GMC to change their proceedures. The GMC has now stated publicly that they will hand over their disciplinary hearings to a completely independent body.
Now where have I heard that before?
Posted by: Jenny Allan | July 27, 2012 at 05:00 AM
CureNow:
According to this Petition to the Supreme Court, see http://www.nvic.org/CMSTemplates/NVIC/pdf/NVIC-amicus-as-filed-090809.pdf , “Parent advocates Schwartz, Fisher and Williams did not, and would not, have supported the Act if they thought that executive agencies or federal courts would later interpret it to foreclose access to a civil court remedy for design defect.”
Posted by: Jim Thompson | July 27, 2012 at 03:46 AM
We don't need oversight, we need freedom.
The ONLY reason school children are close to 100% vaccinated is because of the "mandatory" entry requirements. Adults choose to vaccinate themselves somewhere between 20% to 40% of the time. If adults vaccinated their children as often as they vaccinated themselves, children in school would not be as sick from immune system damage. Eventually, the manufacturers would get out of the market because more and more people would freely choose NOT to vaccinate. If 60% to 80% of school children went unvaccinated, there would be a visible and distinct difference in the health of each group. It would become more and more attractive to leave the immune system in tact. It would catch on, and WE would put THEM out of business. Voila, no oversight.
Posted by: Cynthia Cournoyer | July 26, 2012 at 10:01 PM
Barbara Loe Fisher and her organization, the NVIC, helped Congress to craft the very legislation that created the first no-fault federal vaccine injury compensation program which serves as an alternative to a lawsuit against vaccine manufacturers and pediatricians. In other words, she helped write the very legislation that makes it nearly impossible for any of us to successfully sue and be compensated for the vaccine injury our children suffer. Think about that. Our children will require care, very expensive care, as they grow into adulthood and long after we are gone. Now, thanks to this legislation, the companies that SHOULD be paying for the destruction caused by their vaccines are virtually untouchable. That is, there will be no money forthcoming to ensure the safety and well-being of our kids. Thanks, Ms. Fisher! To see her lauded in Autism circles sickens me.
Posted by: CureNOW | July 26, 2012 at 09:44 PM
Jake,
Completely agree with you as to simply shelving the entire vaccination program (although that's a highly unlikely scenario). I think ALL states should allow all three exemptions, with no restrictions. People that want to use vaccines as a means of healthcare measure should feel free to do so; those that do not want to use vaccines...won't. In other words, uphold the pro-choice, informed consent ethic.
Creating yet another vaccine safety agency simply encourages more of the same type corruption we've seen with all other agencies. Inevitably, said agency could have the POTENTIAL to become just as corrupted as with any other type agency.
Your last statement: ..."IMHO, any involvement our government has with vaccines should be focused on one thing - vaccine safety!"
...right on the mark (IMHO).
Posted by: Bayareamom | July 26, 2012 at 05:56 PM
"Barbara reported on the lawsuit filed by two former Merck employees, who allege that Merck was dishonest in their testing methods because they wanted to protect their sole source U.S. market of mumps vaccine in the MMR shot. The legal brief in the lawsuit is very strong, according to her. The question of federal oversight is critical here, yet the Dept of Justice seems very disinterested."
I consider the deliberate "disinterest" of the US Department of Justice to pursue MANY allegations of corruption within the pharmaceutical industry .. over decades .. a dereliction of their sworn oath of office.
The fact that it doesn't matter WHO in the Oval Office appointed the Attorney General during those decades .. only makes the widespread and growing public perception of a "corrupt culture" between federal regulatory agencies and the pharmaceutical industy .. even greater.
After all .. how is it possible the highest levels of Merck's pharmaceutical corporation who KNEW BUT CONCEALED the potentially dangerous consequences of Vioxx .. which is said to have killed between 50 and 60 THOUSAND innocent victims .. as well as .. the latest Merck conspiracy to conceal the diminished efficiency of their mumps vaccine were not prosecuted as .... CRIMES AGAINST THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES.
If 50 to 60 THOUSAND INNOCENT DEATHS IS NOT ENOUGH TO WARRANT PROSECUTION .. WHAT THE HELL WILL IT TAKE?
Posted by: Bob Moffitt | July 26, 2012 at 02:29 PM
I'm afraid all the people who care about this criminal conspiracy will be eliminated before an independent oversight committee is formed..... and the ones who are left will be so disabled and/or drugged, it will no longer be a society of rich and poor but one of rich, powerful, healthy producers vs. poor, unable to advocate for themselves, consumers.
Posted by: Sue Keller | July 26, 2012 at 02:14 PM
Sure it is a reasonable request
Since when has any those geniuses down at the CDC, NIH, FDA been reasonable?
OHHH - can't touch those vaccines - just to say it would mean a spontaneous epidemic.
Posted by: Benedetta | July 26, 2012 at 12:48 PM
I think this is one of the most important stories I've ever written.
In 2006, I went to Washington DC with lots of parents of vaccine injured children. We were trying to alert Congress to the autism epidemic and the controversial link to vaccines. I remember going to my representative's office, WI Rep David Obey, a leading Democrat in the U.S. House. It was my second visit there. I had two others with me, one of them was a physician. We laid it all out--all the mounting evidence. The response was, "What do you expect Congress to do? Congressmen don't like problems without solutions." She wanted something SPECIFIC that could be done to address the issue, but I had no answer at the time.
HERE IS THE SOLUTION. With the growing fear among parents that vaccines are actually harming more and more kids, things are only going to get worse for health officials. All the studies showing that vaccines are safe from the people who run the vaccine program haven't done a thing to convince parents. Reports from pediatricians bemoaning the need to constantly defend the vaccines they give children show that this problem is widespread. Everyone involved should want to have this oversight agency. The CDC, the AAP, and the vaccine makers should all be backing this. IF THEY'VE GOT THE EXHAUSTIVE TEST RESULTS AND THE DETAILED STUDIES, THE PEOPLE IN AN INDEPENDENT OVERSIGHT AGENCY WOULD BE ABLE TO DECLARE VACCINES SAFE. THEY WOULD BE CONVINCING.
There is clearly a crisis of confidence in the mandated vaccine schedule. I haven't heard of any other solution being proposed.
Anne Dachel
Posted by: Anne McElroy Dachel | July 26, 2012 at 12:18 PM
Seriously, they will never allow this becuase the vaccines would fail over and over again. They don't care about the public, only lining their pockets. Everyoen can see the huge conflict of interest here, yet nothing is done. who has the most money wins everything it seems. Thank you NVIC for standing up for we the people. is there any way we could start a petition for this to get to the legislature?
Posted by: tara | July 26, 2012 at 11:29 AM
This is LONG overdue. If we can get an independent agency involved, I think we'll see the majority of these vaccines deemed unsafe & off the market. Way to go Barbara, keep up the good work!
Posted by: Lori Harvey | July 26, 2012 at 09:31 AM
Just ban vaccines I don`t know of one that is safe and has been tested without bias..
Great article thanks
Angus
Posted by: Angus Files | July 26, 2012 at 06:59 AM
From Australia today:-
http://www.theage.com.au/national/the-50year-global-coverup-20120725-22r5c.html
A Big Pharma cover up for over 50 years. They knew thalidomide caused birth defects for 2 years but kept pushing the drug. A very interesting read.
Posted by: Aussie Dad | July 26, 2012 at 06:10 AM