By Elizabeth Willmott Harrop
15 April 2010

The pharmaceutical and political lobby have become savvy at persuading parents to vaccinate their children. Not by using scientific evidence, but by instilling fear and loathing of non-vaccinators into other parents. The main advantage of vaccination has become immunity from persecution.

Every time there is a measles outbreak in New Zealand, schools, parents and politicians, cheerleaded by the Immunisation Advisory Centre (IMAC) demand that non-vaccinated children be excluded from school. Why? Because they allegedly spread the disease. Yet IMAC freely admits that vaccination is not 100 per cent effective and studies have shown that vaccinated patients are highly susceptible to diseases they are supposedly vaccinated against. Examples:
 
1. Sweden abandoned the whooping cough vaccine in 1979 due to its ineffectiveness. Of over 5,000 cases in 1978, 84% had been vaccinated three times.
 (British Medical Journal 12 September 1981: Whooping cough in adults, B Trollfors, E Rabo 283:696-697)
 
2. “Although more than 95% of school-aged children in the US are vaccinated against measles, large measles outbreaks continue to occur in schools and most cases in this setting occur among previously vaccinated children."
 (Journal of the American Medical Association 21 November 1990: Risk Factors for Measles in a Previously Vaccinated Population and Cost-effectiveness of Revaccination Strategies, Eric E. Mast et al)

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The health benefits of vaccination simply do not stand up. Even the US government's National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), part of the US Department of Health and Human Services “lists and explains injuries/conditions that are presumed to be caused by vaccines” including anaphylactic shock, chronic arthritis and death.

Yet parents who do not wish to support pharmaceutical companies at the expense of their children's health are branded irresponsible.
 
International human rights law enshrines the right to health, for example, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), Article 24, states “States Parties recognize the right of the child to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health”.
 
This is not compatible with me vaccinating my child, due to the multiple side effects recognised not only by concerned parents but by government bodies. And if my child is kept out of school because she is not vaccinated, that violates her right to education (article 28 of the CRC).
 
The USA's VICP covers 12 vaccines and in the period 1989–2010 paid compensation to 2,428 vaccine victims totaling $1,840,643,000. During the 21 years October 1988 to November 2009, 13,192 claims have been filed, 1,019 of which concern the death of the victim. As of February 2009, there were over 5,600 cases filed with VICP, alleging a causal relationship between vaccinations and autism disorders.
 
Meanwhile in the UK, Carol Buxton received £85,000 government compensation after it was confirmed that the brain damage suffered by her daughter Hannah, 2, who later died after a violent fit, was linked to her MMR vaccine.
 
The vast majority of lives which have been saved have been in the developing world, and could equally have been saved through nutrition and sanitation.
 
Article 24 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989 concurs and states:
"1. ... the right of the child to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health and to facilities for the treatment of illness and rehabilitation of health...(c) To combat disease and malnutrition, including within the framework of primary health care, through, inter alia, the application of readily available technology and through the provision of adequate nutritious foods and clean drinking-water..."
 
Where the pro-vaccine lobby would say "Diseases can be effectively eliminated by the use of vaccinations" I would say "Diseases can be effectively eliminated by the use of adequate nutrition and sanitation and by providing a basic standard of living codified by the various UN human rights conventions".
 
It comes down to the priorities of the international community and individual governments. And the corporations which are in partnership with these.
 
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Links
 
Australian Vaccination Network www.avn.org.au
Immunisation Advisory Centre (IMAC) www.immune.org.nz
USA National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/