THE NO-CHOICE CHOICE

The United States Supreme Court has now made it official in its ruling in Bruesewitz v. Wyeth LLC. Anybody looking for justice need not look at the courthouse. The Court has shut the door. There was no finding as to whether Hannah Bruesewitz was actually injured by the DPT vaccine. Rather, the majority opinion merely thought that the “compensation” available through the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program is so “generous” that the vaccine industry should enjoy a complete pass on accountability for the safety (or lack thereof) of its products.

Never mind that the proceedings in the NVICP lack the basic trappings of due process (right to discovery, fact finding by a jury of one’s peers, etc.). Never mind that the manner in which the government—our government—fights each and every claim eliminates the possibility of speedy compensation promised by the laws that created the program. And never mind the fact that taking the manufacturers out of the equation altogether provides no incentive to create safe products that are tested for safe interaction with other vaccines.

All in all, it’s all just another brick in the wall. The NVICP and the corresponding immunity granted to vaccine manufacturers serves the mandatory nature of the vaccine schedule, which feeds the profits of the manufacturers. And all the while that the public-health/pharmaceutical complex enjoys freedom from oversight based on vaccines being “unavoidably unsafe,” they keep feeding us the party line that vaccines and the vaccine schedule are “safe and effective” for every child.

If the truth will ever be revealed, and if justice ever comes for all victims of the arrogance of the public-health/pharmaceutical complex, we must first win the political battle. An uproar must arise that is so loud that it drowns out the talking points being fed our legislators by high-paid lobbyists.

These are perilous times for the basic human right of determining what goes into our bodies and our children’s bodies. That makes it the right time for Vaccine Epidemic: How Corporate Greed, Biased Science, and Coercive Government Threaten Our Human Rights, Our Health, and Our Children , edited by Louise Kuo Habakus, MA and Mary Holland, JD. It’s a project of the Center for Personal Rights, which grew out of last summer’s America Rally for Personal Rights.

The format of the book lends itself to either reading from beginning to end, or simply browsing what looks most interesting at the moment. It is a series of essays by different authors that look at every aspect of the debate. The emerging science is discussed, of course, but primarily in the context of the suppression of valuable research. Are there gut-wrenching tales of vaccine injuries? Yes, and those stories lay the context for the real issue.

The real issue is whether we, as a country, are willing to support the most basic right of self-determination: the right to decide what goes into our bodies and our children’s bodies. It’s all summed up in the book by James Turner, JD, in his chapter entitled “Due Process and the American Constitution:”

In a moral society, there can be no mandated vaccinations. In a moral society, citizens must be allowed to choose which vaccines they and their children receive and when. Without vaccination choice, society places both public and individual health at risk. Vaccination choice is a fundamental human right.

The choice we now have is illusory. It is, in fact, no choice at all. Children cannot go to school without being vaccinated per schedule. Our military cannot serve without having multiple vaccinations shot into their bodies (can anyone say “Gulf War Syndrome?”). Health-care workers are subject to enormous pressure to get mercury-containing flu shots. And most of the states who allow religious and philosophical exemptions will only recognize those exemptions as an all-or-nothing deal. Parents cannot make informed decisions on each individual inoculation.

Exemptions have truly been labeled the “no-choice choice.”

Yes, it’s time to make your voices heard. And this is a book that can help you find that voice. As a matter of fact, I suggest that you buy four copies of Vaccine Epidemic. Keep one yourself, read it, and pass it on. Send one copy to your elected Representative in Congress. And the other two go to the United States Senators from your state. And on those copies you’re sending to Congress, inscribe them yourselves. Personalize them to the recipients, and give them your story in a few sentences.

Maybe, too, you should point the political leaders to another quote from James Turner’s essay. Throughout his chapter, Mr. Turner recounts investigatory work he did on vaccine safety through the years. Back in the seventies, one of the people he turned to for education on the subject was Dr. J. Anthony Morris, who at the time was a senior vaccine regulatory researcher and a control officer for influenza vaccines at the NIH. He recently asked Dr. Morris, now 92-years-old, what message he would give the American people. The reply: “Tell them I do not take the flu shot.”

Sorta says it all.

Tune in to Injecting Sense: The Radio Edition, on Autism One Radio, on Monday, February 28, 2011, at 1 pm EST. My guest will be Mary Holland, JD, and we’ll be chatting about this book. After the show runs, it can also be heard in the archive.