By Kent Heckenlively, Esq.

Has there ever been a book more needed than "Vaccine Injuries: Documented Adverse Reactions to Vaccines -2014-2015 Edition" by Louis Conte and Tony Lyons?  If so, I don't recall it.

For those of us who have witnessed vaccine injury in our children and then researched the medical literature and the so-called "Vaccine Court" it's clear that the government and the pharmaceutical industry is concealing a massive amount of information from the public.  With the health of the human race at risk from these vaccines is it too much to ask for our scientists and policy-makers to read this brisk 274 page account of the important issues in this debate.  I don't think so.

If people want to find the "facts" about this issue they could do no better than starting with this book.  The book opens with a brief history of vaccination, the legal justification for "mandatory" vaccination (or at least having to pay a fine if you refuse) as well as the early immunization campaigns which often involved contaminated products that injured many individuals.

The authors then move to more recent history, beginning with the hopes which were embodied in the National Childhood Vaccine Safety Act passed in 1986 which was supposed to deal with those rare, but often devastating vaccine reactions and get financial help to the afflicted families as soon as possible.  "Vaccine Injuries" raises the question of whether the promise of this program was betrayed by the pharmaceutical industry which used the program as a shield to move more vaccines onto the pediatric schedule.

From that point the authors move onto the Omnibus Autism Proceedings and actual settled claims in the vaccine program.  From 1989 until 2014 that program has paid out more than $2.8 billion dollars.  That's right, $2.8 billion dollars.  And the inevitable question which gets raised is what's the true number for vaccine damage?  Are only 10% of worthwhile vaccine cases compensated?  That's a $28 billion dollar hit to our economy, not to mention the damaged lives.  Is it 1%?  That's $280 billion dollars.  Or is it closer to 0.1%, which would mean somewhere around $2.8 trillion dollars.