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by Barbara Loe Fisher
I remember when I took my first-born baby to the pediatrician for his first checkup 40 years ago. Like most young Moms, I looked up to my pediatrician and completely trusted him. I did everything he told me to do, never questioning his expertise or doubting him, believing that he would never recommend or do anything that would put my baby in harm’s way.
Much has changed since 1978. Back then infants and children were getting half as many vaccines as they do today.1 Parents had no information at all about vaccine risks and failures. We just followed the doctor’s orders.
Today, the subject of vaccination is the most often discussed health topic in America. Not a day goes by without mothers and fathers being reminded that the health of the nation depends upon making sure their children get every one of the 69 doses of 16 CDC recommended vaccines exactly on schedule. 2 3 4
CDC Vaccine Schedule: A Commandment
These days, that CDC vaccine schedule is no longer being viewed simply as a recommendation, it is being treated as a commandment. We are told it is our patriotic civic duty to get our children vaccinated and ourselves, too. The implication is that we are committing treason if we don’t.5
These days, a well baby checkup can be a frightening and gut-wrenching experience for a new Mom bringing her baby to the pediatrician’s office. That is because, with the approval of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), many pediatricians have taken the hard-line position that they do not have to discuss vaccination with parents or, if they do, they can threaten them with dismissal from the practice for not obeying a direct order.6 7 8
Almost No Medical Contraindications to Vaccination
The National Vaccine Information Center is regularly contacted by mothers reporting that pediatricians are refusing to provide medical care to their babies if they decline or ask to delay even one of the two dozen doses of nine vaccines that CDC officials order pediatricians to give infants in the first year of life.9 10 This schedule includes a hepatitis B vaccination on the day of birth and eight more doses of vaccines given at the two-month well baby checkup.11 12 It is an early childhood vaccine schedule that, in 2013, the Institute of Medicine concluded has not been adequately studied for safety.13 14
Because public health officials have eliminated almost all medical contraindications to vaccination, pediatricians are insisting on re-vaccinating children who have had serious vaccine reactions, including convulsions.15 16 They are writing off vaccine reactions as unimportant, even after children regress further and further into chronic poor health following each series of vaccinations.17 18
Sacred Trust Between Pediatricians and Mothers Broken
Pediatricians’ offices have become ugly battlegrounds. Intelligent, well-informed and loving parents asking legitimate questions about vaccination are being belittled and treated with disrespect and contempt by too many pediatricians robotically implementing the CDC’s inflexible vaccine schedule in clear violation of the informed consent principle.
Don’t take my word for it, go to NVIC’s Cry for Vaccine Freedom Wall and read report after report of just how terrifying pediatric check-ups have become. The sacred trust between mothers and pediatricians fostered by mutual respect and shared decision-making has been broken. Sadly, the admiration and trust that mothers used to have for family pediatricians is melting away and being replaced by fear.
Doctors are not our masters. We pay them well to do a job, not to exploit and terrify us. Discrimination, coercion and force have no place in modern medicine or in public health policy.19 20 21 22 23 24
Injustice, Suffering and Social Reform
Every social reform movement in history has been shaped by injustice and suffering. Suffering is often the greatest catalyst for change, and change will come if we believe it is possible. Working to successfully reform vaccine policies and laws that cause suffering is not an impossible dream.25 It will be done if we believe it can be done.
It is time to let our elected representatives know that we want them to put legal boundaries on the authority that doctors and public health officials wield in our society.
Learn more about what you can do to protect your human right to informed consent to vaccination on NVIC.org and NVICAdvocacy.org 26 27
It’s your health. Your family. Your choice.
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