By Jefferey Jaxen

It was founder of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) and author Barbara Loe Fisher who recently used the term ‘vaccine culture war.’ In retrospect, 2019 will be looked upon as the year the culture war went hot. The American public has been treated to a pharmaceutically-focused shock and awe legislative push to remove the barriers between their families and for-profit products with incomplete safety studies. It was in late November of 2018 when Director of the Graduate Legal Skills Program at New York University School of Law Mary Holland, JD predicted “I do think that spring 2019 is going to be a major new assault [of vaccine bills].” 

The Democratic-leaning blitzkrieg of bills has ridden on a cover story that has been flimsy at best. An increase in measles cases has been used as the excuse by government to move against religious rights, censor speech and open debate, launch emergency orders mandating vaccination under threat of jail, do away with informed consent, trample parental rights and consent, give the medical judgment of doctors over to the control of state bureaucrats, and coercively mandate the full schedule of all available vaccines in perpetuity.

The government’s overzealous reaction has led many to also point out their hypocrisy. 

Acute flaccid myelitis (AFM) can be a serious viral condition affecting the nervous system with  children comprising over 90% of cases. Damage to the spinal cord in AFM patients can occur in days or weeks and leave those affected with lifelong disability. According to the US Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), so far in 2019 there have been a total of 228 confirmed cases within a broken reporting system likely to have missed the bigger picture and true totals. The CDC says “we don’t know why” a certain number of people develop AFM. Yet the agency has done little to educate doctors on how to handle, properly spot, or treat the condition never mind attempting to keep the public fully informed.  

The NY Post recently ran the report titled A deadly infection is sweeping some NY hospitals – but health officials won’t say where. The NY Post found “over half of the nearly 600 cases nationwide…in New York City” with New Jersey hospitals also seeing more than 100 cases of the infection called Candida auris. According to the NY Post, “A staggering 45 percent of patients who get it die within 90 days.” Juxtaposing the measles fear-mongering of 2019, hospitals, state health departments and the CDC are keeping the public from knowing which hospitals harbor Candida auris because of fear the information could discourage patients from getting care.

Meanwhile, measles hysteria media coverage and talking points used by bill authors during legislative sessions stretch and bend statistics to hype a once common childhood illness. Author Jeremy Hammond points out “[The] claim measles kills 1-2 children for every 1000 that get it is a lie. This is the pre-vaccine era rate of deaths per reported cases, but ~90% of cases weren’t reported. So more like one death per 10,000 cases.”  The Sacramento Bee went one step further to foster its media-generated fear around measles by just plain lying about the science and claiming measles causes to autism. Balance about primary and secondary vaccine failure of the MMR vaccine, its lack of true placebo-based safety trials and other facts appear to be the only conversations that are prohibited by ‘the fear’ crowd.

In New York, set against the backdrop of forced vaccine mandates in certain zip codes, 13 currently active bills are moving in the state with a bill attempting to mandate reporting of vaccination to a registry without consent, a bill to allow children 14 and older to be vaccinated without parental consent, a bill to eliminate religious exemptions to vaccination, a bill to allow health care practitioners to administer HPV and hepatitis B vaccines to minors without parental consent, a bill to mandate the highly controversial HPV vaccine, and a bill to allow forced vaccination and medical treatment under certain circumstances.

It was in February that a meeting at the Colorado capitol happened with Rep. Kyle Mullica.  NVIC Executive Director, Theresa Wrangham along with members of Colorado Health Choice Alliance and Del Bigtree headed up a discussion panel in which several parents made comments as well. After hearing concerns, gaps in vaccine science and other pressing issues, Mullica sponsored HB 1312 forcing the submissions of vaccine exemptions to go through the Colorado Department of Public Health, restrict medical exemption, and adopt the entire vaccine schedule as mandated by the pharmaceutically-conflicted Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).

Former senator Kevin Lundberg, who was present at the hearing, wrote “The response to this bill was historic. Never before have I seen over 500 people signing up to testify on a single bill. Some estimated that over 1000 came to the hearing.” Lundberg continued, “Unfortunately what I am hearing today from the medical experts is their same old tired line.”

In Maine, LD 798 is aiming to eliminate religious and philosophical exemptions to vaccination in the state. Emails acquired under California’s public information law have provided a window into the one-sided vaccine reporting that has infected most of the American media landscape. Email exchanges between Portland Press Herald reporter Joe Lawlor and UC Hastings professor Dorit Reiss reveal Lawlor using bigoted epithets to describe Maine parents wanting to protect their parental rights. In one email exchange, Reiss provides Lawlor pre-emptive talking points for upcoming legislation. In another email, Lawlor asks Reiss for information to “debunk” comments sent to him by a person advocating for vaccine choice.

In Oregon, HB 3063 aims to eliminate all non-medical exemptions to vaccinations for students in the state. Before his bill was even available, Oregon Rep. Mitch Greenlick’s comments began appearing in the media extolled it. Greenlick stated, “There’s a growing number of people who believe vaccinations are harmful…It’s roughly the same number of people who believe the earth’s flat.” Despite last minute changes to hearing times to stifle protest and attendance, the bill has faced continual pushback seeing capacity committee rooms and packed hallways of Oregon families opposing HB 3063.

Testifying against the bill and on record was Oregon pediatrician Paul Thomas chronicling shocking numbers he recently discovered. In the absence and refusal by US government agencies tasked with vaccine safety to conduct a vaccinated versus unvaccinated study comparing health outcomes, Dr. Thomas commissioned an independent quality assurance project to conduct a study using his eleven-year patient database of nearly 3,500 patients born into his practice. There were 715 patients who were fully unvaccinated. In that group, there was only one case of autism identified. 2,645 patients were found to be partially vaccinated meaning slower and less aggressive than what the CDC recommends. Dr. Thomas states they received “anywhere between 7 or 8 vaccines up to about 16 or 18…” compared to most kids that age “receiving anywhere between 25 to 40 following the CDC’s schedule.” Of those 2,645 partially vaccinated, 6 cases of autism were identified giving a rate of 1 in 440.

There are currently 56 active bills which seek to protect and expand vaccine exemptions and informed consent across America. One example of such model legislation is SB 2350 in Texas which aims to prohibit the administration of certain vaccines. Which ones are those? Here is the bill in its entirety:

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