Why I no longer participate in the US Immunization Program

Today, the Johns Hopkins Journal, Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics, has published their issue entitled, "Narrative Symposium: To Vaccinate or Not? Parents' Stories."

The journal description of this edition: "This narrative symposium, "To Vaccinate or Not? Parents' Stories", is comprised of personal stories from 12 parents on their decisions about whether or not to vaccinate their children.They offer a first hand look at the debated issues of vaccination. As the narrative symposium editors said, "The goal of this symposium is to aid in a more constructive conversation between pro-vaccination/anti-vaccination groups."

Included in the narriatves is a letter from me, reprinted here in full with permission from Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics.

Families are under no obligation to put their children at risk by participating in the corrupt current US National Immunization Program

Ginger Taylor

Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics, vol. 6 no. 3, 2016, pp. 181-185. Project MUSE, muse.jhu.edu/article/646617.

Copyright © 2016 The Johns Hopkins University Press. This article first appeared in Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics, Volume 6, Issue 3, in the US, YEAR 2017, pages 181-185.

My name is Ginger Taylor, and I hold an MS in Clinical Counseling from Johns Hopkins University. I am the mother of a 14–year–old vaccine injured child with an autism diagnosis, and our family no longer participates in the vastly corrupt and broken US National Immunization Program. Because of my experiences, I have become a state and national leader on vaccine safety and vaccine choice issues, co–founding The Canary Party, and The Maine Coalition for Vaccine Choice.

I have two sons, born in 2000 and 2002, and vaccinated them roughly according the the recommended schedule. My second son suffered what we now recognize as an adverse vaccine reaction to his first dose of the Hep B vaccine, but it was not recognized as such by either myself or his pediatricians at the time, so he continued to be vaccinated according to the CDC recommended schedule. Following his 18 month appointment, he suffered a severe neurological regression, displayed symptoms of GI distress, showed signs of an autoimmune condition, and was diagnosed with autism six months later.

His was a text book case of vaccine induced encephalopathy, per the Health and Human Services (HHS), Human Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Vaccine Injury Table established by the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), displaying symptoms including:

(1) A significant change in mental status that is not medication related; specifically a confusional state, or a delirium, or a psychosis;

(2) A significantly decreased level of consciousness, which is independent of a seizure and cannot be attributed to the effects of medication; including:

1. Decreased or absent response to environment (responds, if at all, only to loud voice or painful stimuli);
2. Decreased or absent eye contact (does not fix gaze upon family members or other individuals); or
3. Inconsistent or absent responses to external stimuli (does not recognize familiar people or things). Please see http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/vaccineinjurytable.pdf for more info.

Despite this, and despite my repeated attempts to have my son's pediatrician investigate his condition as a vaccine reaction, no such inquiry was undertaken, and these symptoms were used instead to give him a diagnosis of autism. I would not read the VICP Vaccine Injury Table to learn that his were the symptoms of a well established vaccine injury for several years, and until after the three year statute of limitations had expired for me to file for compensation for his disability.

After being abandoned by the mainstream medical system, we sought expensive, out of pocket, alternative medical care, which proved very fruitful for our son. Although we lost our home over the choice, we still would make the same decision, as it dramatically increased his health and functioning. We are pleased to report that, while he still has full syndrome autism, he has gone from severe to a much higher functioning level. Most importantly, he is a very happy child.

Despite our earnest attempts, 12 years and four pediatricians later, we still cannot simply get him evaluated for this HHS established vaccine injury. Last year I filed a complaint against my own pediatrician with the state medical board, reporting that after multiple requests to evaluate my son for the condition, he had simply ignored my appeals as my previous pediatricians had. I asked the board to rule on whether or not my son had the right to an evaluation per an established standard of care, noting that if I had taken him to the doctor and reported that I believed he had a broken leg, their failure to assess him would constitute medical neglect.

The board investigated the matter, but their ruling did not address the question of what the duty of the doctor is to a patient reporting vaccine adverse reactions, and simply gave a non sequitur response to close the case. Their action was a de facto ruling that no doctor has an obligation to investigate suspected vaccine injuries, and evidence that the medical establishment's response to vaccine adverse reactions is systematized medical negligence.

Our experience is identical to that of untold thousands of parents, who learn the hard way that once your child is injured by a vaccine, you are on your own. The system has chosen to respond to those families with neglect, insults, coercion and even Child Protective Service intervention, rather than to reform the program to put measures in place to protect children and families from harm and fraud, as is the case with every other medical product in this country.

The 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, and the Supreme Court ruling Bruesewitz v Wyeth that sided with the pharmaceutical industry, removed the 7th amendment rights of individuals to sue in cases of vaccine injury and death. Please see https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/09-152.pdf for more info. Vaccine injury claims were moved to the HHS Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. As a result of this freedom from legal accountability, systematic corruption has taken hold in the US vaccine program as we see that:

• The CDC recommended Childhood Vaccine schedule ramped up from 24 to a minimum of 69 doses with no safety testing of the schedule as a whole. Please see http://maineinformedconsent.org/images/1983v2015.gif for more info.
• The federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program rejects the majority of claims made by families regardless of merit.
• States and families pay for vaccine injury cases that are the responsibility of the federal government.
• HHS has become a vaccine patent holder, while approving, regulating and recommending vaccines, and while adjudicating vaccine injury cases, without disclosing its serious conflicts of interests to consumers. Please see http://www.ageofautism.com/2010/05/a-license-to-kill-part-1-how-a-publicprivate-partnership-made-the-government-mercks-gardasil-partner.html for more info.
• Corruption in safety, efficacy and injury response is proliferating as demonstrated by:
  • The current Congressional investigation into the #CDCwhistleblower Scandal, triggered when senior CDC vaccine scientist William Thompson admitted publicly that he and his research team had actively hidden vaccine autism links from the public. Please see http://healthchoice.org/outline-of-significant-developments-in-the-recent-revelations-on-vaccine-safety-research-corruption/ for more info.
  • The Department of Justice indictment of CDC vaccine autism researcher Poul Thorsen on 21 counts of fraud and money laundering for embezzling more than a million dollars from CDC and his university, whose research CDC is still using to support vaccine safety claims despite the fact that he is currently a fugitive Please see https://www.justice.gov/archive/usao/gan/press/2011/04-13-11.html, https://oig.hhs.gov/fraud/fugitives/profiles.asp#thorsen and https://www.amazon.com/Master-Manipulator-Explosive-Embezzlement-Government/dp/151070843X for more info.
  • The current mumps outbreak coupled with the US v. Merck Whistleblower Lawsuit underway in federal court in which Merck's own scientists are suing the company for turning in fraudulent mumps vaccine efficacy data to the FDA in 2000 to gain re–approval for the MMR II (the only measles, mumps or rubella vaccines licensed in the US.) Please see http://sanevax.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Merck-mumps-suit.pdf and http://www.reuters.com/article/health-vaccine-idUSL1N0YQ0W820150604 for more info.
  • The current lawsuit by the Utah Whistleblower, Judith Zimmerman, Ph. D, states that she was wrongfully terminated for insisting that CDC follow ethic rules in, and publish accurate data on, the tracking of autism cases in the state of Utah. The accuracy of such data is vital in determining wither or not there is an autism epidemic temporally associated with vaccine policy and uptake changes. Please see http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/2f23qa336/utah-district-court/zimmerman-v-university-of-utah/ and http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865657990/Wrongful-termination-lawsuit-puts-spotlight-on-Utah-autism-rates.html for more info.
  • False vaccine safety claims made by CDC, who report to the public that, “Vaccines do not cause autism,” and that, “There is no link between vaccines and autism.” Please see http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/autism.html for more info. This despite the fact that the vast majority of the applicable research finds multiple links between vaccines and autism, and demonstrates the mechanisms by which vaccines and their ingredients can and do cause autism.

Mainstream research has found that vaccines and their ingredients can cause the underlying medical conditions that committed physicians and researchers are commonly finding in children who have been given an autism diagnosis. These conditions include gastrointestinal damage, immune system impairment, chronic infections, mitochondrial disorders, autoimmune conditions, neurological regression, glial cell activation, brain inflammation, seizures, synaptic dysfunction, dendritic cell dysfunction, mercury poisoning, aluminum toxicity, gene activation and alteration, glutathione depletion, impaired methylation, oxidative stress, impaired thioredoxin regulation, mineral deficiencies, impairment of the opioid system, endocrine dysfunction, cellular apoptosis, and other disorders. Please see https://www.scribd.com/doc/220807175/127-Research-Papers-Supporting-the-Vaccine-Autism-Link for more info.

• False vaccine safety claims made by the medical industry, such as those offered in my home state by MaineHealth both on their web site and on Maine Public Radio. Please see http://adventuresinautism.blogspot.com/2014/12/mainehealthmaine-vax-kids-makes-false.html for more info. Our unsuccessful attempts to have false claims that reference non-existent vaccinated vs. unvaccinated research removed and retracted, demonstrate that open fraud in vaccination is tolerated by every level of the medical and legal establishment. Please see http://mainevaxchoice.org/2015/11/24/mcvc-files-a-false-claims-complainst-against-mainehealth/ for more info.
• The US Government Accounting Office, Stanford Law, George Washington University Law School and The Associated Press investigations into the failures of the VICP to properly compensate families of vaccine victims according to the intent of the 1986 National Childhood Injury Act. Please see http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-15-142, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2623756, http://scholarship.law.gwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1860&context=faculty_publications and https://web.archive.org/web/20150227064246/http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2014/12/22/us/politics/ap-us-vaccine-court.html for more info.
• Research showing that, although the federal government will not officially establish the vaccine/autism link, the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has been quietly paying autism cases since 1991. Please see http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/pelr/vol28/iss2/6/ for more info.
• Public health officials, as a matter of open and international policy, refuse to engage with vaccine injury families to respond to the needs, concerns, complaints and accusations of this population, instead classifying them as “vaccine deniers,” teaching others to do the same, while leading public campaigns to vilify them and rob them of their right to bodily integrity. Please see http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/315761/Best-practice-guidance-respond-vocal-vaccine-deniers-public.pdf for more info.
• Parents report being routinely bullied in pediatricians' offices for refusing one or more vaccines by physicians and nurses who know vastly less about vaccination and its risks than the family being bullied does, and who cannot give accurate answers to parental questions. Often these families are coerced into signing statements saying that they are violating medical recommendations, putting their child and the public at risk, and are occasionally threatened with Child Protective Service intervention.

In 2015, in response to the national push to remove the rights of parents of schoolchildren to opt out of one or more vaccines, the Maine Coalition for Vaccine Choice worked with legislators to put the focus on the true problem in child health, the unaddressed vaccine injury epidemic, by introducing the Maine Vaccine Consumer Protection Act. Please see http://mainevaxchoice.org/2015/01/02/maine-parents-introduce-the-maine-vaccine-consumer-protection-act/ for more info. The legislation was designed in part to force medical providers to know and use the VICP and the vaccine adverse events information on the package insert, and to investigate and treat vaccine injuries per a standard of care. Please see http://www.vaccinesafety.edu/package_inserts.htm for more info.

In response to the bill, 21 medical individuals and entities submitted opposing testimony, however only one demonstrated that they actually knew what the VICP was. Please see http://mainevaxchoice.org/2015/05/21/maine-doctors-submit-testimony-showing-that-they-are-not-qualified-to-advise-patients-on-vaccination/ for more info. Some did not reference the program at all, and some confused the VICP, which is meant to care for vaccine injury patients, with the Vaccine Adverse Reporting System (VAERS), which was not referenced in the bill. Please see https://vaers.hhs.gov for more info.

The President of the Maine Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (Maine AAP) could not even correctly name or describe the program, submitting testimony that, “The Federal Vaccine Injury Program provides appropriate venue for reporting and tracking vaccine related side effects.”

The Maine Hospital Association testified on vaccine package inserts that “People don’t receive vaccines like they do other prescriptions… not sure there is a package here.”

The representative of the Maine Medical Association (MMA, the Maine Chapter of the American Medical Association) gave a long speech claiming that physicians are constantly trained in this area, but when asked about VICP rulings replied, “I don’t know. I’ve never been involved in that system.” Please see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYlguoqggSo&feature=youtu.be for more information.

The Maine Coalition for Vaccine Choice sent a long list of questions to the Maine AAP, the MMA and the Maine Immunization Program in response the public hearings to follow up on their statements, including questions on the education of physicians on vaccine injury. Our submissions were acknowledged, but all organizations declined to answer. Please see, http://mainevaxchoice.org/2015/06/04/questions-for-the-maine-chapter-of-the-american-academy-of-pediatrics/, http://mainevaxchoice.org/2015/06/04/questions-for-the-maine-medical-association/ and http://mainevaxchoice.org/2015/05/25/questions-for-the-maine-immunization-program for more info.

The great irony in this is that the AMA and the AAP were two of dozens of medical organizations that lobbied for, and submitted friend of the court briefs in support of, the 1986 law removing their liability for vaccine injury, and replacing it with the VICP. Then doctors collectively decided to ignore the VICP. For thirty years. Please see http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/publishing/preview/publiced_preview_briefs_pdfs_09_10_09_152_RespondentAmCuAAPand21PhysandPubHealthOrgs.authcheckdam.pdf for more info.

Mainstream medicine is in a state of willful ignorance over vaccine injury. Their response to the vast vaccine injury problem is denialism; systematized medical negligence of a growing segment of the population; attacking those with injured loved ones as unscientific, dangerous, “vaccine deniers”; and advocating that they be coerced into continuing in the program, at the cost of a child's education (approximately $50,000 per child.)
Why would any sane, conscientious parent, knowing the depths of the corruption in the US National Immunization Program, simply take CDC safety and efficacy claims at face value, and unquestioningly follow the recommended schedule?

There is just no evidence that public health officials, mainstream medical providers or most researchers take vaccine safety seriously.

Finally, the editors of this journal have asked an important question, and I wish to answer it as frankly as I can:

"Is there anything that you think might help to resolve the controversy surrounding vaccinations?"

The controversy surrounding vaccinations will never be resolved until the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act is repealed, and until families 7th amendment rights to have their complaints heard in civil court, under established legal procedure and ruled on by a jury, is restored.

Until there is a way to force public health officials, vaccine industry representatives and medical professionals to testify under oath, and under penalty of perjury, to either defend or retract their fraudulent claims, to pay for the damages done to children (including my child) for their institutionalized abuse and negligence, I will never consent to another member of my family participating in the vaccine program under any circumstances.