In response to last month’s Tidbits, I got this letter from Claire:
“Enjoyed reading your interview about vaccinations in the ezine [Tidbits 52]. Ironic, then, to see a misleading, fear mongering article about vaccinating in the news tonight!” Click below:
https://www.popsugar.com/moms/Why-Kids-Should-Get-Vaccinated-44361877
I read the article, and I thought to myself, “Who better to handle this than Dr. Richard Moskowitz himself, author of Vaccines: A Reappraisal, our interviewee from last month. So, here’s the article that shames parents who choose not to vaccinate, followed by Richard Moskowitz interspersing his comments and setting the record straight:
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This Woman Gives Us Reason #5,793 That Vaccinating Your Kids Is a Nonnegotiable
Alecia Rankin has a pretty important message for parents who are still refusing to get their children vaccinated: just do it. After her 7-week-old niece was rushed to the hospital with a life-threatening case of Hib — or Haemophilus influenzae — Alecia decided to speak out by posting a very important PSA to Facebook saying why every parent should vaccinate, even if it’s “their choice”:
Reason #1736493983283763 to vaccinate your kids? My 7-week-old niece has [the] Hib flu. [It’s] so rare that her doctor hasn’t seen it in her career because this bacteria caused by the Hib flu was all but eradicated by vaccines. Babies get [the vaccine] at 2 months old, which she hasn’t [turned] yet. So before you decide not to vaccinate your children because “it’s your choice” and “those who are vaccinated won’t be affected” remember that babies can get sick before they have the chance to get their vaccine.
If that doesn’t convince you to vaccinate, the terrifying ordeal the family went through certainly will. Alecia told POPSUGAR just how quickly things escalated for her niece. “My sister took her to the doctor because she was spitting up a lot, had diarrhea, and a fever,” she explained. “After a full [blood] workup, the doctors told her it was viral and sent her home. She continued to get worse and began vomiting. The fever wouldn’t stay down, so they took her back.”
Unfortunately, that was only the tip of the iceberg for her niece. “We were told it was life-threatening if not treated,” Alecia said. “She ended up with an IV in her [hand] and in her head, which both came out. Due to dehydration, they had to stick her with a needle eight times to try to [find] a vein in her arm. And eventually, she had to have a PICC line (an intravenous catheter used in long-term cases) put in because the IV in her head and hand stopped working. The spinal tap had to be done without anesthesia. No baby or child should have to deal with all of that.”
Damn straight, no child should ever have to deal with that. When all was said and done, her baby niece had to spend 10 whole days in the hospital for something that could’ve been avoided entirely if every parent vaccinated their kids.
Thankfully, Alecia’s niece is finally recovering at home, but that doesn’t mean her opinion on vaccines has wavered. “I hope [kids who aren’t vaccinated] don’t catch one of these horrible diseases one day. The number of prayers and well wishes have been overwhelming and great to see.”
***
OK, so, I actually had to read this thing over and over again to finally get the point of this story which is that people who don’t vaccinate are keeping this virus going and that’s why Alecia’s poor niece got it! So, this is all my fault, apparently, and yours too, Dr. Moskowitz!
Elaine:
First of all, before I consider her arguments, I’d like to express my sympathy for Alecia and her family, who have had a truly horrifying experience.
It is people like Alecia that my book was intended for. The thousands upon thousands of parents who honestly believe that their children, friends, or loved ones were killed or maimed for life by vaccines, have to live with that for the rest of their lives and hardly need my reasoning to convince them. It’s that still larger group of parents, doctors, scientists, and their friends who eagerly or reluctantly vaccinate their kids without a second thought, and perhaps even resent those who are getting off scot-free, seemingly at their expense, that I need to reason with; and I’d be foolish indeed to imagine that my task will be an easy one.
— Dr. M.
Below is the article once again but with Richard’s remarks included:
Why Everybody Must Vaccinate
“Alecia Rankin has a pretty important message for parents who are still refusing to get their children vaccinated: just do it. After her 7-week-old niece was rushed to the hospital with a life-threatening case of Hib — or Haemophilus influenzae — Alecia decided to speak out by posting a very important PSA to Facebook saying why every parent should vaccinate, even if it’s “their choice”:
“My 7-week-old niece has [the] Hib flu. [It’s] so rare that her doctor hasn’t seen it in her career because this bacteria causing the Hib flu was all but eradicated by vaccines . . . “
Dr. M–The HiB bacterium has by no means been eradicated, nor should it be. HiB is simply a particular strain of bacteria that are normal inhabitants of the healthy throat and have been for a very long time. As such, they perform many valuable functions for us, notably policing the area by keeping out foreign pathogens. What the vaccine has done is simply to promote the growth of new mutant strains, such as Haemophilus influenzae A, which has already been associated with some of the newer outbreaks, and may indeed have been responsible for the illness that threatened the life of Alecia’s niece.
Much the same has happened with the Pneumococcus, a strain of Group A Streptococcus that is also part of our normal flora, where the vaccine did at first reduce the incidence of ear infections, for example, and other invasive diseases, but has similarly favored the growth of other resistant strains to take their places, and thereby also altered the composition of our normal flora that will take decades to properly understand.
A related development is the resurgence of whooping cough, which was fast disappearing even before the Pertussis vaccine was introduced, but since then has come back in a major way, due in no small part to resistant strains selected for by the vaccine. So before we conclude that the HiB vaccine has been ‘successful,’ we need to look at the whole ecosystem of related organisms, not just the particular strain that it was directed against.
Likewise the flu vaccine. Even if it were completely successful in combating the particular strain it is directed against, the flu virus is so mutable that by the time of the actual outbreak, it will often no longer be protective, not to mention the fact that a large proportion of the illnesses we all know as “the flu” is actually caused by other viruses that are wholly unrelated to the group that has given them its name. So again we need to pay careful attention to what we mean by “success.”
“Babies get [the vaccine] at 2 months old, which she hasn’t [turned] yet. So before you decide not to vaccinate your children because “it’s your choice” and “those who are vaccinated won’t be affected” remember that babies can get sick before they have the chance to get their vaccine . . .”
Dr. M— I totally agree with Alecia’s basic point, that life-threatening infections in newborn infants are so unusual as to demand further investigation. Most newborns are well protected against serious infections by nursing, by maternal antibodies present in the milk; so I’m guessing that this little girl was bottle-fed, and perhaps also that her mother was herself vaccinated against HiB and therefore didn’t produce antibodies against it in sufficient quantity to protect her baby. I say this not at all to blame her, but simply to point out that the so-called “immunity” conferred by vaccination is a poor substitute for “the real thing”–the lifelong immunity resulting from coming down with, and recovering from, the natural infection that we are choosing to vaccinate against instead.
As I’ve cited in my book, many scientific studies have further shown that natural immunity also protects us against developing a variety of chronic diseases later in life, and that those who have been vaccinated are much more likely to develop those same diseases. In other words, the vaccination process is not only much less effective than we are taught to believe, but also carries with it serious risks of chronic disease and even death that our enthusiasm for the idea has unfortunately lost sight of.
“If that doesn’t convince you to vaccinate, the terrifying ordeal the family went through certainly will. Alecia told POPSUGAR just how quickly things escalated for her niece:
“My sister took her to the doctor because she was spitting up a lot, had diarrhea, and a fever,” she explained. “After a full [blood] workup, the doctors told her it was viral and sent her home. She continued to get worse and began vomiting. The fever wouldn’t stay down, so they took her back . . .”
“Unfortunately, that was only the tip of the iceberg for her niece.
“We were told it was life-threatening if not treated,” Alecia said. “She ended up with an IV in her [hand] and in her head, which both came out. Due to dehydration, they had to stick her with a needle eight times to try to [find] a vein in her arm. And eventually, she had to have a PICC line (an intravenous catheter used in long-term cases) put in because the IV in her head and hand stopped working. The spinal tap had to be done without anesthesia. No baby or child should have to deal with that . . .”
Dr. M–The baby’s illness is a good example of just how confusing and often terrifying neonatal medicine can be. As so often happens, her own doctors sent her home, understandably downplaying the importance of her very ordinary symptoms and thus missing the seriousness of her illness until it worsened and they had to readmit her.
“Damn straight, no child should ever have to deal with that. When all was said and done, her baby niece had to spend 10 whole days in the hospital for something that could’ve been avoided entirely if every parent vaccinated their kids.
“Thankfully, Alecia’s niece is finally recovering at home, but that doesn’t mean her opinion on vaccines has wavered:
“I hope [kids who aren’t vaccinated] don’t catch one of these horrible diseases one day. The number of prayers and well wishers have been overwhelming and great to see . . .”
Dr. M–Agonizing for the family, to be sure, but 10 days in the hospital, and even having to endure a spinal tap without anesthesia, but still ending up in complete recovery, is a kinder fate than the deaths and lifelong injuries and handicaps that thousands upon thousands of the families I have seen or known about with vaccine injuries, have no choice but to endure every day for the rest of their lives.
Richard, if I could interject here… ironically, it seems the advent of the Hib vaccine coincides with a spike in autism, according to a study in the journal Medical Hypotheses; the Hib vaccine may explain the rapid rise in this disorder!
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21993250
So, as you say, Richard, maybe you’re better off having 10 agonizing days in the hospital and be fine after that and perfectly normal, rather than suffer a lifetime of abnormal brain function by electing for the Hib vaccine. Also, I have to tell you, what strikes me about this story is the utter incompetence and cluelessness of the hospital! Because it was a viral illness, they didn’t know what to do! No treatment for viruses! So they sent the child home. “Oh, what did you say was wrong? Fever? Diarrhea? Well, we’d like to help you but, it’s a virus! You see, we have no cure for viruses! So, run along, she’ll be fine. What, exactly, did you expect from us anyway?”
Then the parents have to bring the child back in desperation, and the doctors apparently torture it trying to find a vein! With no treatment for viruses, heaven only knows what the child’s “therapy” could have been other than simple re-hydration. And you were right to say the baby was probably not breast-fed, that was my first thought too; and then of course, needless to say, not knowing homeopathy puts the doctors at a distinct disadvantage! Where they don’t know what to do for a virus, homeopathy excels! I would suggest to anyone reading this who isn’t sure what homeopathy is, read my article, “Homeopathy And Children” so you can learn to avoid the hospital horror scene like the article above describes so well:
And now back to Richard in the studio.
Dr. M–Having practiced family medicine for the past 50 years and taken care of more than my share of vaccine-injured children and adults, I can say with complete assurance that the vast majority of people who are convinced that vaccines were responsible for these tragic outcomes are neither lying, nor ignorant, nor stupid.
I would like to add a brief footnote to Alecia’s assumption, which is so commonly met with, that her niece’s illness would have been prevented if everyone had been vaccinated. I have already shown that this is by no means likely, that all vaccines tend to give rise to resistant strains, and that their apparent “success” needs to be re-examined in this light. Thus vaccinated individuals are still very much at risk of developing the natural disease or something more or less indistinguishable from it.
As a matter of fact, when the various natural diseases do break out, the vast majority of cases, typically well over 90%, are vaccinated, and scientific studies have recently shown that it is the vaccinated kids who spread the infection, not the unvaccinated who have generally been blamed for it.
So to Alecia, and to all those who share her opinion, I’m sorry to have to say that, if the vaccine really worked as well as we are encouraged to believe, then the unvaccinated kids would be a danger only to themselves.
Richard, thank you for coming back again on the spur of the moment to make important clarifications about our simplistic assumptions about vaccines. And now, as a reminder to everyone, this is Richard’s book, you can buy it at Amazon.com
Bye, see you next time!
_________________________________________
Elaine Lewis, D.Hom., C.Hom.
Elaine takes online cases! Write to her at [email protected]
Visit her website: www.ElaineLewis.hpathy.com
Richard, thanks for your expertise. I had no idea the Hib bacteria was a normal part of the body and I had no idea that vaccines allow innocent strains of bacteria to be over-taken by much more harmful ones. As I said, we’re so uneducated about this subject, we expound on things we know nothing about!!
I really like the way you started with that mother’s statement and then interspersed your and Dr. Moskowit’z comments. It was done respectfully and intelligently. That’s the only way to teach. And I love your passion about whatever you write.
Thanks, Alan; that was the aunt speaking. I was so confused by her article, I had to keep reading it until finally I figured out that her complaint was that people who aren’t vaccinating their kids, are keeping diseases in circulation, that would otherwise be extinct! And that’s why her niece got Hib, because, in her convoluted reasoning, vaccinating takes pathogens out of the environment. If a pathogen is in the environment, it’s because healthy kids who don’t have the disease but haven’t been vaccinated against it, are keeping the pathogen circulating! Just explaining that made me dizzy! What it proves is that people know nothing about this subject! You know what I bet, Alan? I’ll bet that at 2 months, they got the Hib vaccine anyway, even though the baby now had life-time immunity! And I’ll bet the doctor was only too happy to accommodate.