To activate and view hyperlinked references, please click once and then click any superscripted number below to access a hyperlinked reference, or scroll down to the bottom of the article to view all hyperlinked references.
Every July Americans celebrate the day in 1776 when we declared our independence from a monarchy and began to create a Constitutional Democratic Republic to secure liberty and justice for all. 1 Today, we are witnessing the erosion of core values that our constitutional democracy was founded upon. One example is a public campaign led by the medical establishment to demonize and discriminate against anyone opposing zero tolerance vaccine laws that violate human rights in the name of public health. 2
The 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act was historic acknowledgement by the US government that government licensed and mandated childhood vaccines can and do cause injury and death. 3 Four billion dollars in federal compensation has been paid to thousands of vaccine victims over the past three decades. 4
The 1905 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Jacobson v Massachusetts affirmed the authority of states to require healthy citizens to undergo smallpox vaccination during outbreaks of that deadly, high communicable disease. However, the Court also warned that vaccine mandates should not be implemented in a way that is “cruel and inhuman to the last degree.” 5 6
Public Confidence in Vaccine Safety Declines, Public Debate Is Censored
Today, all children in America are being required to get dozens of doses of vaccines, 7 whether or not the disease is deadly or high communicable, whether or not there is a disease outbreak, and whether or not a child is biologically at higher risk for being harmed by vaccination. 8 9 This is an inconvenient truth that nobody developing, licensing, recommending, administering or voting to mandate a growing list of vaccines wants to talk about. So, as more Americans have become aware of vaccine risks and failures, the government, industry and medical trade have enlisted the cooperation of mainstream media to censor the public conversation. 10 11 12
It hasn’t worked. Recent surveys reveal that 20 percent of Americans think vaccines may be unsafe and 45 percent are not sure. There has been almost a 10 percent decline in public confidence in vaccine safety over the past decade. 13
Medical Doctors Attack Anyone Questioning Vaccine Safety and Laws
Now the conversation about vaccination has taken an ugly turn. 14 Prominent medical doctors and professors at leading universities are publishing articles in academic journals and are being quoted in media reports attacking the intelligence, emotional and psychological stability, and moral values of anyone who dares to question vaccine safety or vaccine laws. 15 16 17 18 19
Men and women who become doctors are no more equal than anyone else in society and, yet, they are being given a free pass to track, profile, marginalize, coerce and call for segregation and criminal prosecution of fellow, citizens who disagree with them about vaccination. 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27
Constitutional Democracy Values Individual Life and LIberty
A constitutional democracy recognizes that the ultimate source of government authority is consent of the governed and that, although the majority rules, the natural rights of minorities are protected. 28 A constitutional democracy highly values the dignity and life of each individual. This core moral value is affirmed by laws that protect privacy, and freedom of thought, conscience and expression, and allow unsanctioned association between individuals without government coercion, which is the legal foundation for a civil and open society built on respect, tolerance and inclusion.
A constitutional democracy promotes fair and equal justice for all. So the authors of the Declaration of Independence rejected rule by an elitist ruling class of citizens who are considered to be more important and qualified to govern without the consent of those being governed. 29 The Bill of Rights in the US Constitution makes it clear that respect for the natural rights of individuals limits the power of the state. As Thomas Jefferson put it: “the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate would be oppression.” 30
Why, then, are we allowing an elite aristocracy of doctors and professors to bully people who disagree with them about laws that disempower parents and place an unequal vaccine risk burden on vulnerable children in the name of the public health? 31
Two Laws in America Require Citizens to Risk Their Lives
There are only two laws that require American citizens to risk their lives. The first is a federal law, the military draft, which requires all healthy male adults to risk their lives in a war declared by the government to protect national security. Adults objecting to a war for religious beliefs or conscience can obtain a conscientious objection exemption without being punished.32
The second is a state law requiring all healthy children to risk their lives in a war that doctors declared on microbes two centuries ago. However, unlike adults who are not punished for following their conscience and refusing to fight in a war to protect national security, parents can be punished for following their conscience and refusing to risk their children’s lives in a war to theoretically protect the public health. 33 34 State sanctions include segregation and loss of the unvaccinated child’s right to a school education or permitting pediatricians to deny medical care to children if their parents refuse one or more government recommended vaccinations. 35
Two different laws that require healthy Americans to risk injury or death: one conscripting adults in what government clearly defines as an emergency military action; and the other conscripting children in a mandatory vaccination program that is not defined as an emergency military action but is operated like one.
Vaccine Risks Not Being Shared Equally By All
How many Americans understand that when legislators vote for no exceptions vaccine laws like the one adopted in California in 2015, 36 they vote to enlist children as soldiers in a war in which vaccine risks are not being shared equally by all?
No two children are alike. Some children are genetically, biologically or environmentally more susceptible to being injured or killed by vaccines without warning. 37 38 To sweep this inconvenient truth under the rug so doctors don’t have to think about their moral duty to prevent vaccine injuries and deaths, the Centers for Disease Control and American Academy of Pediatrics have narrowed medical contraindications to vaccination so that now almost no health condition qualifies as a reason to grant a child a medical exemption. 39 40
Since Congress gave doctors a broad liability shield in 1987 similar to the one they gave to vaccine manufacturers in 1986 to protect them from most vaccine injury lawsuits, 41 doctors no longer have to worry about getting sued for being militant enforcers of vaccine policies and laws that punish children for the genes they were born with and leave too many of them disabled and chronically ill for the rest of their lives.
War On Microbes Conducted Like A Military Campaign
The medical establishment’s war on microbes, which has no end in sight, has always been conducted like a military campaign. The Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) traces its history back to the US Marine Hospital Service, whose doctors had the power to segregate by quarantine and prevent immigrants sick with infectious diseases from disembarking from ships entering U.S. ports. 42
Today, doctors employed by the U.S. Public Health Service wear military style uniforms, are expected to follow orders, and are promoted through a rank system similar to that of the U.S. Navy. 43 Supervised by a Surgeon General, who is technically a three star Admiral reporting to a four star Assistant Secretary of Health, the US Public Health Service is described as “an elite team of more than 6,700 full time, well trained, highly qualified public health professionals.” These health soldiers, along with other federal and state government health officials, work to maintain the public health.
Zero Tolerance Vaccine Laws Lead to Tyranny
But there should be limits placed on the authority that public health officials and their physician colleagues exercise in a constitutional democracy. They should not be given unchecked power to order parents to play vaccine roulette with their children’s lives and punish them for refusing to obey the order. 44
My father was a decorated World War II veteran, a career Army officer and military historian. History teaches us, he said, that military campaigns should only be used in true emergencies to protect national security because militarization of civilian institutions inevitably leads to an authoritarian government and tyranny.
So when I see doctors aggressively lobby for enforcement of zero tolerance, no mercy vaccine laws that fail to respect biodiversity and force parents to risk their children’s lives in a war they cannot refuse to fight without being punished, I remember what he said. I think about how there is no human right more fundamental than the freedom to think rationally and follow our conscience when making a decision about whether or not to risk our life or the life of our child for any reason.
Forced Vaccination Lobby Doubling Down in 2019
The forced vaccination lobby backed by industry and medical trade is already making plans to double down and target multiple states in 2019 for removal of religious and conscientious belief exemptions, while also placing further restrictions on medical exemptions to vaccination. 45
Will you stand up and defend vaccine freedom in America?
I hope you will. I hope you will join with the tens of thousands of Americans who are registered users of the NVIC Advocacy Portal, which is an online communications network at NVICAdvocacy.org. We monitor, analyze and report on vaccine legislation pending in every state and make it easy for you to stay electronically connected with your own legislators so you can make your voice heard.
Become a vaccine freedom advocate in your state and stand shoulder to shoulder with other Americans who care about protecting the core moral values and civil liberties defined in the Declaration of Independence and US Constitution.
It’s your health. Your family. Your choice.
References:
1 National Archives. America’s Founding Documents: Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights.
2 Fisher BL. The Vaccine Culture War in America: Are You Ready? National Vaccine Information Center Mar. 8, 2015.
3 Public Law 99-660. Title III – National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986. 42 USC 300aa. Nov. 14, 1986.
4 Health Resource Services Administration (HRSA). Vaccine Injury Compensation Data. June 4, 2018.
5 Jacobson v. Massachusetts. 197 U.S. 11(1905). Cornell University Law School.
6 Fisher BL. Forced Vaccination: The Tragic Legacy of Jacobson v. Massachusetts. National Vaccine Information Center Nov. 2, 2016.
7 NVIC. State Law and Vaccine Requirements. National Vaccine Information Center. 2018.
8 U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Recommended Immunization Schedules for Persons Aged 0 Through 18 Years, United States, 2018.
9 Fisher BL. Blackmail and the Medical Vaccine Exemption. National Vaccine Information Center May 18, 2015.
10 Carroll AE. Not Up for Debate: The Science Behind Vaccination. New York Times Sept. 17, 2015.
11 Hodge JG, Campos-Outcalt D. Legally Limiting Lies About Vaccines. Jurist (University of Pittsburgh) Nov. 17, 2015.
12 Caplan A. Revoke the license of any doctor who opposes vaccination. Washington Post Feb. 6, 2015.
13 TVR Staff. Nearly 20 Percent of Americans Think Vaccines May Be Unsafe, 45 Percent Are Not Sure. The Vaccine Reaction June 18, 2018.
14 Fisher BL. Class and Race Profiling in the Vaccine Culture War. National Vaccine Information Center July 17, 2017.
15 Poland GA, Jacobson RM. The age-old struggle against the antivaccinationists. N Engl J Med 2011; 364(2): 97-99.
16 American Psychological Association. Belief in Conspiracy Theories Associated with Vaccine Skepticism. APA Press Release Feb. 1, 2018.
17 Hornsey MJ, Harris EA, Fielding KS. The Psychological Roots of Anti-Vaccine Attitudes: A 24-Nation Investigation. Health Psychology 2018; 37(4): 307-315.
18 Hendrix KS, Sturm LA et al. Ethics and Childhood Vaccination Policy in the United States. Am J Public Health 2016; 106(2): 273-278.
19 Fentiman LC. When it comes to vaccines, rich parents get away with child neglect. Washington Post May 10, 2017.
20 Fisher BL. Parents Deserve To Know More Than School Vaccination Rates. National Vaccine Information Center Sept. 8, 2015.
21 Smith PJ, Chu SY, Barker LE. Children Who Have Received No Vaccines: Who Are They and Where Do They Live? Pediatrics 2004; 114(1): 187-195.
22 Fagone J. Will this Doctor Hurt Your Baby? Philadelphia Magazine June 2009.
23 Bakalar N. Rich, White and Refusing Vaccinations. New York Times Dec. 24, 2015.
24 Danziger PD, Diamond R. The Vaccination Double Standard. Slate July 25, 2016.
25 Lipinski J. Endangering the Herd: The Case for Suing Parents Who Don’t Vaccinate Their Kids or Criminally Charging Them. Slate Aug. 13, 2013.
26 Berezow A. Jail 'anti-vax" parents. USA Today Jan. 28, 2015.
27 Karlamangla S. California doctor critical of vaccines is punished for exempting 2-year-old boy from all childhood immunizations. Los Angeles Times June 29, 2018.
28 Center for Civic Education. Constitutional Democracy.
29 National Archives. America’s Founding Documents: Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights.
30 Jefferson T. Excerpt from First Presidential Inaugural Address (Mar. 4, 1801). Thomas Jefferson Foundation (Monticello).
31 Fisher BL. Baylor’s Doc Hotez Bullies Parents of Vaccine Injured Children. National Vaccine Information Center May 10, 2018
32 The National Peace Museum of Conscientious Objection and Anti-War Activism. The History of Conscientious Objection. 2006.
33 Fisher BL. The Moral Right to Conscientious, Philosophical and Personal Belief Exemption to Vaccination. National Vaccine Advisory Committee (NVAC), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Oral Presentation May 2, 1997.
34 National Vaccine Information Center. Cry for Vaccine Freedom Wall.
35 NVIC. State Vaccine Legislation in America 2015-2017. National Vaccine Information Center Oct. 25, 2017.
36 Richardson D. The Fallout from SB277: What Happens Next? National Vaccine Information Center Aug. 5, 2015.
37 Institute of Medicine Committee to Review Adverse Effects of Vaccines. Adverse Effects of Vaccines: Evidence and Causality. Evaluation of Biologic Mechanisms of Adverse Effects: Increased Susceptibility (p. 82). Washington, D.C. The National Academies Press 2012.
38 Health Resource Services Administration (HRSA). Vaccine Injury Compensation Data. June 4, 2018.
39 CDC. Vaccine Recommendations of the ACIP: Contraindications and Precautions. May 9, 2018.
40 American Academy of Pediatrics. Medical Versus Nonmedical Exemptions for Child Care and School Attendance. Pediatrics August 2016.
41 National Vaccine Information Center. NVIC Position Statement on the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act. May 2018.
42 DHHS. History of the Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service.
43 Collins C. The Public Health Service Commissioned Corps: Two Centuries and Counting. Defense Media Network Oct. 10, 2016.
44 Fisher BL. From Nuremberg to California: Why Informed Consent Matters in the 21st Century. National Vaccine Information Center Oct. 24, 2017.
45 Scutti S. Opting out of vaccines leaves these US ‘hot spots’ most vulnerable to outbreaks. CNN June 15, 2018.
Leave a comment
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked with an *