Dear Dr. Summers, in regard to your recent Washington Post article, I would like to offer a response on behalf of thousands of American parents. Firstly, I apologize for all of the negative and angry comments you have received. Sometimes passion overrides manners, and this issue is a sad and often embarrassing example of that!
Secondly, anti-vaccine parents are acutely aware of the countless studies purporting the safety of vaccines. We have spent hundreds of thousands of hours researching this issue, perplexed by what seems like such an obvious chain of events. We gave birth to healthy children, we trusted the advice of a pediatrician and allowed our children to receive a plethora of worrisome viral particles, foreign DNA, known toxic chemicals, immunity stimulants, and antibiotics - all with reassuring claims that this mixture was "safe", that it would prevent the death of our child, that denying these injections was a blatant act of us as parents sentencing our child to suffering and likely demise, and that it was being done for the "greater good". Most of us took our child home (some unfortunate parents witnessed seizures, fainting, and other reactions following this cocktail right there in a doctor's office), cared for them as usual, and within hours or days realized something was dreadfully wrong. My son, for instance, was a quiet, content, smiley two year old with a vocabulary of 8 clear words, and a comprehension that far surpassed his reserved nature. We got all of the recommended vaccines for a child that age in 1998, and went home to try and comfort a silently distressed, feverish boy. Over the next couple of days as we snuggled silently, I consulted the doctor's office with concern, but they assured me this was all "normal" and I did my best to nurture him. By the third day, he no longer needed to be held, his fever was gone, he was eager to play with his brothers, but there was no sound. He did not giggle, he did not offer any toddler babble in protest of a sibling disrupting his concentrated play, and when he fell and bumped his head, collapsing in shock, I scooped him up - his mouth agape and distress on his face, but no cries left his frightened little body. All air was forced out in pain as he went limp in my arms, pale, breathless, and I frantically shook him as I shouted his name. After a few agonizing seconds, he inhaled with an enormous gasp and flailed about as if fighting a forced drowning. He did not speak out loud or cry again for two years, as we worked relentlessly to "get our boy back" and encourage him to speak out loud. He would whisper, and only to me. There was no question in my mind that the round of vaccines had shocked his little system in a severe way. No other explanation made sense for such a sudden and drastic change. This account is of course anecdotal, but as I'm sure you're aware - Robert F. Kennedy, Jr received in excess of 6,000 such stories, after asking parents to share their experiences that led them to oppose vaccines. If doctors continue to look only at medical literature, but fail to listen to their patients, to the parents who know their children, then their medical training has failed them. Practicing medicine requires much more than factual knowledge. It means you must evaluate every case with the basic understanding that no two people are alike, and no two people have an identical response to any remedy, substance or treatment under the sun. Many parents have accused you of failing to offer citations of the studies you believe prove the safety of vaccines, and I think it is important to maintain respect toward professionals such as yourself when we have these conversations. I think most people would agree - we need to be having these conversations!! I combed through your Washington Post submission, in hopes of bringing clarity to both opponents in this battle. I would like to address the pertinent links: This one offers facts about ethylmercury, and states "Thimerosal has been shown to be safe when used in vaccines." Fabulous! It also states, "There are some side effects of thimerosal in vaccines...The most common side-effects are minor reactions like redness and swelling at the injection site. Although rare, some people may be allergic to thimerosal." I think what you see in that information from the CDC is that "thimerosal is safe!". What parents of vaccine injured children see is "my child is one of the rare ones with an allergy to thimerosal, and the reaction was severe and life-altering". This then ceases to be a battle between who is right and who is wrong. It is an issue that requires an appropriate bedside manner from all parties involved. The next link describes a pattern where children with older siblings did not exhibit an increased risk of developing ASD symptoms whether or not they had been given any number of MMR injections. Proponents of vacccines will understandably say "See - no additional risk. The MMR is exonerated of any suspicion in ASD cases!" Parents of autistic children, however, will scrutinize this information. The study itself states, "It is possible, for example, that this pattern is driven by selective parental decision making around MMR immunization, ie, parents who notice social or communication delays in their children decide to forestall vaccination. Because as a group children with recognized delays are likely to be at higher risk of ASD, such selectivity could result in a tendency for some higher-risk children to be unexposed." These parents will view that as confirmation that they had an intuitive hesitation, chose not to risk the MMR with their child(ren), so therefore the numbers reflected that. They will also carefully read the criteria involved in that particular study. Let's examine - the children researched were:
As we examine an additional link, we find a consensus that thimerosal-containing vaccines do not appear to pose a greater risk of ASD than vaccines without it. Children born in Denmark from January 1, 1990, until December 31, 1996 were the subject of this study. One interesting criteria that might be overlooked is that, when including children with an official ASD diagnosis, from "1991-1994, only inpatients were included in the Danish Psychiatric Central Register. From 1995, both inpatients and outpatients were included." This means that in order to qualify as a child with autism in this study, the majority of them needed to be hospitalized. Additionally, when I looked into the sources cited in that study, it was determined by R Ball, LK, Ball and RD Pratt (via PubMed) that "Delayed-type hypersensitivity reactions from thimerosal exposure are well-recognized." And, "Limited data on toxicity from low-dose exposures to ethylmercury are available, but toxicity may be similar to that of methylmercury. Chronic, low-dose methylmercury exposure may cause subtle neurologic abnormalities." Parents living with ASD children would most certainly see this as confirmation that mercury damage is possible! Your next link supporting vaccine safety clearly states that, "The paper attempts to show is that the comparative safety evaluation of vaccine schedules is complex and multifaceted, and that a wide variety of study designs and statistical methods are available to a scientist who wishes to conduct such studies." Seriously? You linked to a study that says scientists seeking an understanding of vaccine safety can perform or read more studies? It concludes with, "The comparative safety evaluation of different vaccine schedules is a complex and multifaceted task, and all aspects of the vaccine schedule are currently under-studied with regards to potential adverse events." (emphasis mine) Dr. Summers, do you see why anti-vaccine parents are shocked by the perpetuated belief that "vaccines are safe"? We are essentially told that further research is a possibility. The next link again includes information from a 2013 study with specific criteria, "Children were excluded who had any (of) the following conditions with known links to ASD traits: fragile X syndrome, tuberous sclerosis, Rett syndrome, congenital rubella syndrome, or Angelman syndrome." Does this mean that more autistic children were in the desired age range, birth dates, given the specified vaccines, paid premiums to the same health care plan for the required number of years, but because they had additional ailments, were left out of this study? The report concludes with the statement that, "It can be argued that ASD with regression, in which children usually lose developmental skills during the second year of life, could be related to exposures in infancy, including vaccines; however, we found no association between exposure to antigens from vaccines during infancy and the development of ASD with regression." So, that news is fabulous. We know that the old DTP vaccine contained whole-cell pertussis, and had well-known negative side effects. We also know that we are now offered the attenuated version of pertussis bacteria. The bacteria is "deactivated" with aluminum or formaldehyde. Scientists and researching parents will tell you that any substance "paralyzed" with formaldehyde or aluminum can become re-activated once the body has assimilated those elements. This effect is noted in medical literature here, here, and also here. This means the current DTaP combos are still potentially dangerous. This study you cited describes how children used to be injected with many more antigens than today - due to the active pertussis and typhoid viral particles used. While we are thankful the antigens have dramatically been reduced, anti-vaccine parents have renewed concerns that the adjuvants are harming our kids. In order to make the vaccine "effective", we need an irritant, immune-stimulating component. Enter in aluminum, which has become the new thimerosal. Vaccines need to be preserved, bodies need to be encouraged, "Come on now, fight these (measles, mumps, tetanus, etc)!", and aluminum is the biggest turbo boost for getting that job done. More studies are surfacing every month about the harmful effects of aluminum, and it is no secret that we are injecting it into our fresh babies. This makes it very hard to swallow the claim that "vaccines are safe". Next in line is the mention of a study of early brain development of infants at high risk of developing ASD. The researchers stated, "We first reported increased brain volume in adolescents and adults with ASD over twenty years ago." I'm sorry to tell you that this link doesn't help your cause. If this knowledge has been available for more than 20 years, why aren't we scrutinizing this characteristic more closely? Yes, infant head circumference is measured at pediatric visits, but if it lands on the higher end of "average", is there further testing done? Does that prompt a doctor to order a blood test for the MTHFR gene? Will the child's pediatrician ask questions about the child's development, siblings, skin, food intolerances, or any other attributes that might lead to a diagnosis of ASD? These are the things parents are wondering, and are the same things that make them hesitant to inject suspicious particles into their child. You are correct when you write, in regard the fetal brain harm, "These findings are clearly inconsistent with vaccines as a cause of autism." Parents opposed to vaccines would agree that brain damage in their pre-born child doesn't implicate vaccines, but it also doesn't dismiss the very real risk that - in some cases - vaccines may be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Now that we've addressed most of the links you offered that defend the necessity of vaccines, I would like to respectfully ask that you share some of your experiences with administering vaccines to your patients. Do their parents come to you with concerns about their child's developmental regression, skin disorders, behavioral changes, or unexplainable allergies? If so, please examine what may have triggered a response like that in their tender bodies, and if vaccines - with their over-stimulation of immature immune systems - have something to do with why so many children today are suffering. Please?
2 Comments
2/19/2017 05:57:54 am
Fantastic article. I'm more simplistic. When told that vaccines are safe, the average parent will assume that no harm can come to her child. The moment I realized a vaccine could permanently disable or kill a child, unpredictably, was the moment it became obvious that I had to advise my children to stop vaccinating my grandchildren, while they research the paradigm. The next obvious step is to look at the history of the supposedly vaccine preventable illnesses, which you ultimately discover are benign, rather than deadly; are curative, rather than destructive. At that point the vaccination paradigm's revealed for the deception it is.
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Jodie
2/20/2017 11:57:11 am
Thank you, Shawn!!
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