This was testimony for Massachusetts and the potential removal of religious and philosphic exemptions. I had given a similar, longer testimony to legislators in New Brunswick, Canada in August 2019, which was more specific to Canada. This one was more specific to the US:
1. The elephant in the auditorium today is Pharma profits. Dare I say out loud that our children’s arms and bodies are the delivery system for transferring money from the citizens of the Commonwealth to the pharmaceutical industry?
The pharmaceutical industry has undertaken a very ambitious campaign to legislate away vaccine exemptions in the United States and Canada. France, Italy and Germany have rescinded vaccine exemptions too, suggesting the campaign is worldwide.
The pharmaceutical industry exerts enormous influence on government regulators, [1] their advisors,[2] professional medical organizations,[4] key opinion leaders[5] and medical journals[6] as well as the mass media and lawmakers.[7] This is not debatable [8]–there are dozens of studies proving it. Merck has a list on its website of over 1,000 candidates for state and federal offices to whom they gave money in 2018[9]. Merck also lists payments to hundreds of professional medical organizations, patient organizations, Pharma lobbying groups, and scores of Republican and Democratic PACs and committees.[10] Julie Gerberding, the former CDC Director, became president of Merck Vaccines as soon as she was allowed.[11] The last FDA Commissioner, Scott Gottlieb, just left for Pfizer.[12] The revolving door is slamming Americans.
The pharmaceutical industry does not play by the rules you and I must follow. Instead, the industry makes it a rule to break the law, regularly paying civil and criminal penalties in the billions of dollars. Big Pharma CEOs have not been sent to jail in decades and paying settlements for their illegal behaviors has become simply the cost of doing business.
This is an industry that has thrived by taking big risks–even when manufacturers knew in advance that their products killed. Merck paid out $4.85 billion to settle 27,000 Vioxx injury claims, after it was estimated the drug caused 38,000 deaths from heart attacks.[14] But annual sales had topped $2.5 billion/year, likely leading them to break even.
According to Public Citizen: “From 1991 through 2015, a total of 373 settlements were reached between the federal and state governments and pharmaceutical manufacturers, for a total of $35.7 billion.”
Pharma’s latest risky strategy is trying to rid the world of vaccine exemptions, to prevent vaccine opt-outs — before a new crop of vaccines, with inadequate safety and efficacy testing, [15] and for which they will have no liability once placed on the childhood schedule, are approved.
I doubt this is what you have been told. But the industry moves deliberately, one step at a time. First it got the 21st Century Cures Act passed, in November 2016. This Act:
- directed the FDA to more readily license vaccines, using “real world evidence” in place of randomized, controlled clinical trials.
- directed CDC to immediately place each newly licensed vaccine before its advisory committee, to be considered for inclusion in the childhood vaccine schedule. Inclusion in the schedule is the criterion needed to get a vaccine its waiver of manufacturer liability.
- directed that all vaccines recommended for use in pregnant women (currently influenza and Tdap, but many more are in the pipeline) were granted liability waivers.
Getting a vaccine approved for use during pregnancy is the newest Pharma gold rush. This despite evidence [16][17] (which CDC disputes) that flu vaccine is associated with a doubling of miscarriage rates, and evidence that anthrax vaccine increases the miscarriage rate.[18]Neither flu nor Tdap vaccines were tested and approved by FDA for use in pregnancy. According to the WHO[19]:
“…pre-licensing clinical trials of vaccines do not usually include pregnant and lactating women. Reports available also provide limited post-licensing data, as once again, pregnant women are usually not included in clinical trials. This in turn has limited the ability to make evidence-based decisions and provide optimal guidance on the use of vaccines in this population.”
Despite this, pregnant women are being told to receive both flu and Tdap vaccines during every pregnancy. Don’t you see something sick in this?
The year-long media blitz over measles didn’t only usher in bills to remove vaccine exemptions. It was also a bonanza for sales. Merck, which makes the only measles vaccines in the US, saw sales of its MMRV vaccine increase 58% in 2019.[20]
It has been claimed that vaccines are, by nature, extremely safe. Yet vaccines are usually injected, bypassing all the body’s natural barriers. Even minute contamination or inadequate microbial inactivation can maim or kill. Contaminated batches of vaccine do occur.[21]Usually contaminated lots are discarded, but in the case of anthrax, polio and other vaccines, millions of doses were used.[22][23]
Vaccines have caused many autoimmune disorders, from Guillain-Barre syndrome to narcolepsy. (Both were side effects of swine flu vaccines used in the 2009 pandemic.)
Vaccines appear safe because the immediate side effects are usually mild and temporary. Serious vaccine side effects often take weeks or months to surface, and by then it is difficult to know what caused them. Only when vaccinated individuals have rates of illness at least 10 times higher than the unvaccinated, is the side effect likely to be linked to the vaccine.
A 2009 European swine flu vaccine (GSK’s Pandemrix) caused over 1300 cases of severe narcolepsy, mostly in adolescents.[24] This vaccine was linked to narcolepsy because 15 times the usual number of narcolepsy cases suddenly appeared in clinics. Countries that bought the swine flu vaccines, through WHO, were required to waive manufacturer liability as a condition of purchase. Litigation by those injured continues to be active in the UK, where both the manufacturer and the UK government deny any responsibility for
injuries.
It should be apparent, but isn’t: government waivers of vaccine liability discourage manufacturers from ensuring that the vaccines they sell are as safe and effective as possible.
The removal of vaccine exemptions, combined with liability waivers for vaccine side effects and recently loosened standards for licensing vaccines, create a highly toxic mix.
2. There is no crisis (no epidemic of deaths or disabilities) from infectious diseases caused by lack of vaccinations, either in Massachusetts or the United States.
"... paying settlements for their illegal behaviors has become simply the cost of doing business."
ReplyDeleteA line that stands out.
Here is another:
ReplyDelete2. There is no crisis (no epidemic of deaths or disabilities) from infectious diseases caused by lack of vaccinations, either in Massachusetts or the United States.
There is no such crisis in Australia, either. The crisis is one of fear, and there is no vaccine for that.