In Hulett, Wyoming, 20 percent of the parents boycotted the school
district's
seventh grade and turned to home schooling rather than subject their
children to a state-mandated Hepatitis B vaccine. In Keene, New
Hampshire, Gerhard Bedding (vice president of New Hampshire Citizens for
Health Freedom) is organizing a state recall petition to remove the
legislative mandate that all New Hampshire public school students must
receive the Hepatitis B vaccine. In France, a national Hepatitis B
vaccination school program was halted after angry parents won a court
judgment against mandatory vaccination. In Vienna, Virginia, the
National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) is sending an urgent notice
of Hepatitis B vaccine adverse effects to every pediatrician in the US.
What is wrong with this supposedly-safe vaccine that 80% of US babies
now receive at birth?
Ask Martha Durham in Wilmington, Delaware. Her daughter Eliza became
highly agitated with a fever in the hospital immediately after getting
the Hepatitis B vaccine at birth. Martha's doctor accused her of being
a drug addict and diagnosed the baby as having withdrawals -- denying
any connection with the vaccine. Eliza survived but now has hearing
loss. Ask Debbie Parker in Porterville, California. Her son Matthew
died in her arms after getting the Hepatitis B vaccine and the local
Sheriff threatened her with murder charges -- denying any connection
with the vaccine. Ask vaccine researcher Dr. Bonnie Dunbar at Baylor
College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. Her brother has severe,
debilitating auto-immune neurological damage after a Hepatitis B
vaccination and Bonnie has moved into the forefront of medical research
regarding the adverse effects of the Hepatitis B vaccine. Ask Dr. Burton
A.
Waisbren at the Waisbren Clinic in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He has seen
enough cases of central nervous system damage from this vaccine to title
a paper "Universal Hepatitis B Vaccination: Is it a Sword of Damocles
Hanging Over the Head of the American People?" Ask me. My
five-week-old daughter Lyla Rose died hours after receiving the
Hepatitis B vaccine and the New York City medical examiner refused to
even mention her swollen brain or the vaccination in the autopsy report
-- telling me "vaccines do a lot of good things for people."
As a grieving father looking for answers, my preliminary
investigation
into the matter generated only scoffs from doctors and health
officials. However, my subsequent investigation has produced some
answers and many more questions that every parent and doctor should be
aware of:
Question: Who is at risk of Hepatitis B?
Answer: In the US, the Hepatitis B disease mainly infects intravenous
drug users, homosexuals, prostitutes and promiscuous heterosexuals.
Since the disease is transmitted by blood, through sex, dirty needles,
or infected mothers, the likelihood that a newborn baby from a
non-infected mother could contract Hepatitis B is virtually nil. In
1996, only 279 reported cases of Hepatitis B disease occurred in US
children under 14 years old, according to the "Morbidity and Mortality
Weekly Report, Summary of Notifiable Diseases, United States, 1996"
published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Only 54 of those cases
occurred in the 0-1 age group. With 3.9 million US births in 1996, the
observed incidence of Hepatitis B was therefore an infinitesimal 0.001
percent for babies less than 1 year old, according to the CDC's own
data.
Newborns are not mentioned in the risk groups on the CDC Hepatitis B
fact sheet.
Question: Then why are millions of US babies inoculated with the
Hepatitis B vaccine at birth?
Answer: An intrusive and incompetent government health care
bureaucracy
(led by the CDC) couldn't get junkies, gays, prostitutes, promiscuous
heterosexuals and Hepatitis B infected mothers to take the Hepatitis B
vaccine -- and has mandated that all babies must be vaccinated at birth
--
regardless of whether or not they are at risk.
Question: Can the Hepatitis B vaccine harm children?
Answer: The day of the autopsy, the coroner told me that Lyla's brain
was swollen. That is a classic adverse reaction to vaccination, which
can lead to death or permanent neurological damage. Reported adverse
effects to the Hepatitis B vaccine include: Sudden Infant Death Syndrome
(SIDS), multiple sclerosis, lupus, Guillain-Barre Syndrome and other
central demyelinating diseases including transverse myelitis and optic
neuritis; and immune system dysfunction including chronic arthritis.
Although the Hepatitis B vaccine is government-mandated at birth, it was
tested in very few newborns. Newborns have under-developed immune
systems, which are weaker than the adult immune system. The independent
National Vaccine Information Center in Vienna, Virginia receives new
reports every week of deaths, seizures and other auto-immune and brain
dysfunctions following Hepatitis B vaccination.
In response to the scientific community's concern over reports on
Hepatitis B vaccine-related infant deaths, the National Academy of
Science held a workshop last fall. Data presented from the Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) showed that there have been 19 reported
neonatal SIDS deaths since 1991 related to the Hepatitis B vaccine. But
that may only be part of the story.
Upon closer examination of government data, I found 54 reported SIDS
cases after Hepatitis B vaccination in an 17-month period from January
1996 to May 1997. That is almost 15 times the annual death rate that
the FDA study reports and might be related to the fact that the second
Hepatitis B booster shot (after which my daughter died) usually occurs
after four weeks of age -- beyond the definition used by their survey.
Furthermore, an analysis by the NVIC of the government's raw data for
1990-98 shows more than 17,000 reports of adverse reactions to this
vaccine. 5,748 of those reports were serious events that involved
life-threatening health problems, hospitalization or left the individual
disabled. Since the FDA reporting system never bothered to return the
NY City Medical Examiner's call after Lyla's death, the official
reported numbers probably vastly understate the number of injuries and
deaths caused by this vaccine.
Question: Can the Hepatitis B vaccine benefit newborns?
Answer: Only if the mother carries the disease. In the US, the risk
of
contracting Hepatitis B as a healthy infant born to a non-infected
mother is virtually nil, so vaccination has absolutely no benefit.
Furthermore, the vaccine manufacturers state that the duration of the
protective effect is unknown and the need for booster doses is not yet
defined. In other words, vaccination at birth may provide no protection
years later when the child grows up and could actually be exposed to the
disease through sexual contact.
Question: If babies don't benefit from the vaccine, then who does?
Answer: Vaccine manufacturers gain a lucrative, captive market when
bureaucrats and governments mandate vaccination. Merck and Smithkline
Beecham are the two US manufacturers of Hepatitis B vaccine. In late
August, Merck doubled the newborn dose (and price) of its Recombivax
Hepatitis B vaccine. So far, officials at the Centers for Disease
Control have dismissed those 17,000 reports of adverse reactions to the
Hepatitis B vaccine. But one has to wonder whether these same advocates
for "public health" would have a similar reaction to an outbreak of
17,000 cases of a life-threatening disease. With less than 300 reported
annual childhood cases of the disease (according to CDC data) and
thousands of reports of adverse reactions to the vaccine, the
risk/reward ratio for the Hepatitis B vaccine is clearly
disproportionate -- particularly for newborns.
The Centers for Disease Control, the Food and Drug Administration and
vaccine manufacturers may be delivering the 1990's version of
Thalidomide, in the name of children's health, to control a disease most
babies can't possibly get. Vaccinations in the name of public health
are needlessly causing harm to uninformed families. Parents should know
that the risk of death and severe neurological reactions is greater than
the risk of their newborn child contracting the Hepatitis B disease.
Parents must educate themselves on these important matters and cannot
rely on government (or even their gullible doctors) for answers. The
government has abused its authority by mandating this risky and useless
vaccine for helpless babies who can't object. Nothing will ever bring
my lovely daughter Lyla Rose back, but other needless deaths and
injuries can be prevented if this senseless Hepatitis B newborn
vaccination program is halted.
For further information, please see the National Vaccine
Information
Center Web site.
Michael Belkin is a former proprietary trading strategist with
Salomon
Brothers and is now president of his own investment firm Belkin
Limited. He lives in New York City with his family.