- Why are American infants and schoolchildren
being forced to submit to hepatitis B vaccinations even though the French
Health Ministry has stopped giving them because of evidence they can cause
neurological disorders and multiple sclerosis? Has America become a nation
where bureaucrats can force controversial medical procedures on children
without informed choice by parent or child?
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- If you think such things only happen
in Communist China, think again. Big Brother is on the march and his weapon
is a hypodermic needle carrying the vaccine for hepatitis B.
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- ""Force'' is not too strong
a word. Across the country, newborn babies are being injected with hepatitis
B vaccine only hours after birth (even when their mothers test negative
for hepatitis B), and children are told they must present proof of having
received three hepatitis B shots before they can be admitted to daycare,
kindergarten, fifth grade, high school, or college.
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- I first became interested in the hepatitis
B vaccine when, in connection with the birth of two new grandchildren,
I learned that hospitals are routinely injecting newborns with the vaccine
during their first 24 hours of life. A series of inquiries produced no
convincing medical reason or scientific evidence for this procedure.
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- My new grandchildren were not at risk
for hepatitis B, which is primarily an adult disease transmitted through
bodily fluids. Those most at risk are the highly promiscuous (heterosexual
or homosexual), needle-sharing drug addicts, health care and custodial
workers exposed to blood, and babies born to already-infected mothers.
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- According to a Centers for Disease Control
(CDC) report, there were only 10,637 cases of hepatitis B in the United
States in 1996, including only 279 cases in children under the age of 14.
Hepatitis B is not fatal for most who contract it, is not epidemic except
among those high-risk groups, and bears no relation to hepatitis A (the
disease sometimes picked up in restaurants when food-handlers don't wash
their hands).
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- For the problem of 279 children who have
hepatitis B, millions of U.S. children are being forced to submit to vaccination
consisting of three hepatitis B shots! Where does such an intrusive and
expensive rule originate, and how can it be enforced nationally since immunizations
are a state, not a federal, matter?
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- The federal medical police have figured
out how to override state authority (and even pediatricians who might otherwise
act in the interest of their patients), and develop an intricate system
outside of the spotlight of public scrutiny and without accountability.
CDC endorses a given vaccine, the state legislatures delegate the decision-making
power to state public health departments, the unaccountable bureaucrats
make regulations that conform to CDC instructions and have the impact of
law, and the drug manufacturers spend millions to advertise their products.
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- The CDC uses carrot and stick to force
states to obey federal mandates. The CDC has doled out hundreds of millions
of taxpayer dollars to reward state health departments for promoting mass
vaccinations, and has the power to withhold money grants if state health
officials don't show proof of designated vaccination rates.
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- The 1993 Comprehensive Childhood Immunization
Act, signed by President Clinton, gave the Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS) $400 million to award to states to set up state vaccine
registries to tag and track children so that Big Brother can hunt them
down and compel vaccinations. States receive either $50, $75 or $100 per
child who is fully vaccinated with all federally recommended vaccines,
including hepatitis B.
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- When I entered public school, the only
vaccination required was for smallpox, and that's the only immunization
I ever had. Most states now require children to be injected with about
33 doses of 9 or 10 different viral and bacterial vaccines in order to
enter public school, including three doses of hepatitis B vaccine.
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- In 1995, HHS Secretary Donna Shalala
gave the states the power to appropriate newborn babies' social security
numbers in order to set up vaccine tracking registries. The CDC plans to
network all the state vaccine tracking registries in order to create a
de facto centralized electronic database containing every child's, and
ultimately every American's, medical records.
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- More than 22,000 reports of hospitalizations
and injuries, including 300 deaths, following hepatitis B vaccination have
been reported since 1990 to the U.S. government's Vaccine Adverse Event
Reporting System. There have been no controlled studies to evaluate these
reports, there is no adequate proof of the vaccine's long-term safety,
little is known about its effect on a newborn baby's immune system, and
the disclaimers that the drug manufacturers put on the hepatitis B vaccine
package are downright disturbing.
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- The hepatitis B vaccine may give only
a temporary immunity, and it is not clear when booster shots will be required.
Some of those who receive the hepatitis B vaccine may thereafter test positive
for hepatitis B because many routine blood tests are not sophisticated
enough to differentiate between prior vaccination and the disease.
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- Freedom in America should include allowing
parents to make their own informed choice about injecting their babies
with a potentially dangerous vaccine. More information is available from
the National Vaccine Information Center (1-800-909-SHOT and http://www.909shot.com).
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- Phyllis Schlafly Column 10-21-98
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