NVIC's Guide to Reforming Vaccine Policy & Law is an illustrated 55-page guide published in 2014 and updated in 2022 by the non-profit National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC). This invaluable guide gives an overview of why vaccine safety and informed consent protections should be secured in all U.S. vaccine policies and laws. Authored by NVIC co-founder and president Barbara Loe Fisher, the guide is anchored online with more than 350 references and explains in clear language why we should all be concerned about the erosion of parental, civil and human rights when it comes to vaccine mandates that affect our right to:
- get an education;
- hold a job;
- receive health insurance and medical care;
- enter a hospital or nursing home; and
- function in society.
At a time when doctors and politically powerful special interest groups associated with private drug companies and medical trade associations have joined with government health officials and are lobbying state legislators to eliminate or severely restrict the legal right to exercise informed consent to vaccine risk-taking, this fully referenced guide provides valuable information to concerned families, health care professionals, legislators, community leaders and the general public.
Protect Freedom of Thought, Speech and Belief
In America today, some citizens are being discriminated against and persecuted for following their conscience and making vaccine choices that do not conform with federal vaccine policy that directs doctors to give infants and children 72 doses of 17 vaccines starting on the day of birth. Adults are also being targeted for use of a growing number of federally recommended vaccines.
One-size-fits-all vaccine policies that do not respect the genetic, biologically and environmental differences among us place a disproportionate and unequal risk burden on those more vulnerable to vaccine harm.
It is a human right to exercise voluntary, informed consent to medical risk taking, including taking risks with pharmaceutical products like vaccines. Under the U.S. Constitution, Americans are guaranteed the civil right to exercise freedom of thought, speech and belief. The right to dissent and petition the government for redress of grievances and hold beliefs that may differ from ones held by the majority is protected because our nation’s founders understood that minorities must be protected from oppression by the majority.
Vaccine Science Gaps About Vaccine Risks and Failures
People are not all the same and we do not all respond the same way to drugs or vaccines, just like we do not all respond the same way to infectious diseases. During the past three decades the Institute of Medicine has published a series of reports pointing out the large gaps in vaccine safety science and has confirmed that some people are genetically, biologically and environmentally more susceptible to suffering brain inflammation and other types of serious vaccine reactions but doctors often do not know who will be injured or die from vaccination.
At the same time, public health officials admit that children and adults can be fully vaccinated and still get infected with and transmit infectious diseases, such as pertussis, sometimes without even knowing it. There have been recent reported outbreaks of pertussis, measles and mumps and many of those affected have been fully vaccinated.
Over $4 Billion Paid to Vaccine Victims
The federal government has paid out over $4 billion dollars to victims of vaccine injury since Congress passed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986. That law banned most vaccine injury lawsuits against drug companies selling vaccines and doctors giving them. In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court gave vaccine manufacturers a complete product liability shield – even when vaccines could have been made safer.
Today, there is no legal accountability in civil courts for anyone who develops, regulates, markets, gives and promotes the use of vaccines in America.
Vaccine Safety Reforms Urgently Needed
There is a lot that can be done to improve the safety of the vaccine system in the U.S. and it can start with codifying the informing, recording, reporting and informed consent provisions outlined in the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 into state law while securing flexible medical, religious and conscientious belief exemptions in vaccine policies affecting education, employment, medical care and other social systems.
Learn how you can help make vaccine safety and informed consent a priority in the U.S. and protect your right to know and freedom to choose.
Download A Free Copy of the Guide or Make a Donation and Receive a Print Copy
A non-profit charity that is operated by consumers, the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) is an independent clearinghouse for information on vaccines and infectious diseases and does not make vaccine use recommendations or advocate for or against the use of vaccines. Since our founding in 1982, NVIC has worked to prevent vaccine injuries and deaths through public education and defend the ethical principle of informed consent to medical risk-taking by advocating for the inclusion of vaccine safety and informed consent protections in vaccine policies and laws.
