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Dear Producers and Sponsors of NBC's "ER":
We, the undersigned advocates of vaccine safety,
wish to make the following statement:
We are surprised and disappointed that a company
with the financial resources of NBC would be willing to play so fast and
loose with the facts about vaccine safety. That you would be willing to
risk any fraction of these resources, because of not using them to thoroughly
investigate this complex issue, for the dubious purpose of propounding
vaccine company financed propaganda/"research", seems the height
of folly and irresponsibility.
Had you done more than blindly accept the information
such conflicted research yields, you would have discovered that there
is considerable reason to question both the safety and benefits of vaccination.
You will have only yourselves to blame if one or
more of the many parents of vaccine-damaged children cites your promotion
of vaccination as the reason they decided to vaccinate. (Perhaps you are
unaware that the vaccine manufacturers found the burden of liability so
great that they sought and obtained relief from the U.S. government.)
We no more expected such a one-sided
view of the issue and the parents who responsibly question
vaccines, than we would have expected an episode of ER promoting smoking,
using cigarette company financed "research", and ridiculing
those who chose not to smoke.
An example of an unexamined "fact" you
presented to your viewers was the statement that 1 out of 500 measles
cases die. Perhaps your sources did not explain this to you, but the
US measles death rate used to be far lower prior to vaccination.
So if this statistic is correct, one should ask
what is the likely reason for this increased measles death rate.
The probable cause is that adults and infants, for
whom measles can be quite serious, now get the measles, rather than children,
for whom it is generally benign. (Please bear in mind that the greater
risk for adults and infants is not our opinion, but the opinion of many,
including Dr. Sam Katz, one of the developers of the measles vaccine.
In a chapter on measles vaccine in the Third Edition of "Vaccines",
he writes with two others: "The risk of serious complications and
death is increased in infants and adults." And later, "The highest
risk of death was in children younger than 1 year and adults.")*
This increased death
rate is most likely happening for one reason and one reason alone - because
children are being vaccinated.
Neither vaccination nor revaccination is a guarantee
that one will be protected from the measles and could well be a significant
problem in the future. (Again from Katz et al, "Boosting of antibody
titers appears to be transient, with several investigators finding decay
of antibody levels to the pre-revaccination level within months to years").
It is attested to by the outbreaks
among 100% vaccinated populations,
presenting as full-blown, mild or subclinical measles cases. Hence a parent
who was convinced by your one-sided portrayal of the issue might vaccinate
their child, and that child as an adult might get the measles and die
in future large outbreaks among the previously vaccinated. Had that child
been allowed to get the measles, he or she would not be at risk for measles
as an adult. Is that a responsibility you wanted to take on?
We believe that the only responsible goal is one
that promotes unbiased safety research and
the right to choose what is best for our children.
We believe that informed choice should be the cornerstone of a free society,
one in which the rights of individuals are honored and the imperfect nature
of science recognized. We hope you will find a way to rectify this terrible
wrong by fairly presenting the other side of this important story.
*It is interesting to note that in a 1990 article
on measles vaccine, written by Drs. Walter Orenstein, Director of the
National Immunization Program at the CDC, and Lauri Markowitz, one of
the co-authors of both the 1990 article and the Katz article and formerly
of the CDC, it was stated:
"From 1950 to 1959, an annual average of more
than 500,000 cases and 500 deaths were reported. However, the true number
of infections was estimated to be 10 times as high." In other words,
if only reported cases are considered, the death rate appears to be 1/1000.
If you factor in the number of unreported cases,
quite high during the era when measles was common, the death rate drops
to 1/10,000. In the more recent Katz "Vaccines" article, co-written
with Redd and Markowitz, it says that the death rate is 1 to 3 in 1000
cases, even though later in the article they say that there used to be,
"in the prevaccine era", around 500 deaths among 4,000,000 cases
(actually 1.25/10,000 cases).
Either they are exaggerating the current death rate,
or it has gone up.
We submit that if the
death rate has risen, measles vaccine is the cause,
having changed measles epidemiology so that high-risk groups now more
often get the measles.
Sandy Mintz
sandym@touchngo.com
If you would like to sign Sandy's petition please
send an e-mail to the address listed above.
__________
Dear NBC,
I was extremely disappointed in your ER segment
in which John Carter treats a young boy who eventually dies of measles.
Your story was so biased, and the characters'
attitudes and behaviors towards the mother who did not have her children
vaccinated, was so overtly hostile and condescending that I cannot help
but wonder what financial gains ER reaped from this storyline.
It was not surprising to see an advertisement for
Prevnar, the new pneumococcal vaccine, from the company that brought us
that wonderful Rotashield rotavirus vaccine (I am being sarcastic, in
case you can't tell).
Apparently the appearance of the ad was a "coincidence",
but when you consider that the company decided to run the ad after previewing
the episode, we must conclude that there is a serious conflict
of interest at work here, and that the interests of truth and
public information were sacrificed for the financial gain of NBC.
It is unconscionable that your story depicts doctors
displaying such overt hostility and condescension toward a parent who
is exercising her Constitutional right to exempt her children from vaccination.
ER often shows the doctors displaying amazing restraint and objectivity
when dealing with drug addicts, rapists and murderers. Remember the episode
which highlighted the relationship between Dr. Corday and the rapist/murderer?
Apparently these offenses pale in comparison to the dreaded "vaccine
exemptor".
In particular, I object to your characterization
of those objecting to vaccinations as "fringe lunatics", your
portrayal of the mother as naive and uninformed ("encephalitis...what's
that?"). I promise you that, on average, parents who exempt their
children from vaccines are much more informed about the risks and benefits
of vaccines than those parents who choose not to investigate these issues
and merely accept the recommendations of their pediatrician.
I also object to the blatant misinformation being
disseminated to such a large audience. If you are going to do a story
on vaccines and diseases, AT LEAST GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT!
The doctor's claim that the "immune
system is strengthened by vaccines" is
absolutely incorrect, there are studies showing the opposite.
John Carter's claim that there is NO connection
between MMR vaccine and autism is unfounded...the proper studies have
not been done to rule out such a connection, so how can this claim be
made? Even worse is the diatribe from one doctor which includes the claim
that if we stop vaccinating, horrible diseases like smallpox will return.
Excuse me? Do you people know ANYTHING about
vaccines? Did ANYONE do any research before
writing this show?
But perhaps the worst oversight was the claim from
Dr. Chen that measles kills 1 in 500 children. If you are going to cite
statistics, you need to be sure they are correct! From the following page
from the National
Immunization Program's website, the mortality rate
from measles is 1 in 3,000 children.
Given that in some areas 1
in 150 children are suffering from autism,
I think the parents' concerns are certainly warranted.
I have often been impressed with the manner in which ER tackles difficult
issues, often presenting controversial viewpoints. However, in this case
you clearly sold out to financial gain and
are merely serving as talking heads for the current party-line.
I suggest you research the many other sides of these
issues and consider doing a show about a vaccine-injured child. It would
be interesting to see all the characters learn about this possibility,
and about their own arrogance.
David Foster
dfoster@ucsd.edu
__________
Dear NBC,
I am a licensed physician, certified and RECERTIFIED
in the past 14 months in both Family Practice and EMERGENCY MEDICINE.
Your recent show on an episode of measles in my opinion was appalling
example of untruths, bias and ignorance, so prevalent in the
practice of medicine today, and heavily corrupted by commercial interests.
You could have presented a more honest show depicting
the epidemic of asthma (which is killing many kids) connected in the medical
literature to mass vaccinations and lack of the usual childhood diseases.
Typical
childhood illnesses have been shown to strengthen and mature the immune
system rather than leave it prey to low level destructive
activation and allergy. You might have ended on a truly heroic note by
treating that measles case with vitamin A which has been shown to abort
the disease.
Perhaps some of the hundreds of thousands of autistic
kids (secondary to vaccines) whom empathetic doctors like me must daily
wrench our guts over could have wandered into the ER and promoted a discussion
on where the autism epidemic is coming from. I do believe in karma and
the law of averages. I have little doubt that if you wait long enough,
a beloved child of your own production staff will have to live a life
of untreatable immune or psychological derangement, rather than be allowed
to develop normal immune resistance to diseases with little chance of
sequelae and a much easier ability to treat.
There
has never been a single study comparing the all-cause morbidity and mortality
in a group of multiple vaccinated children vs unvaccinated kids.
(all cause = communicable disease plus such ignored
things as asthma, atopic disease, allergies, autism, autoimmune disease,
cancer, missed school days, death, etc.).
Nor
has there ever been a study looking at all the toxic effects from the
mercury, formaldehyde, aluminum and other toxic preservatives in the vaccines.
Vaccines may indeed prevent some illness and save
a few lives, but at what horrible cost perhaps to MANY fold more (we will
not know until the research is done, but with shows like yours, we will
remain in the dark ages). Until this is done, vaccination is not science
but dogma. You have helped to perpetuate the dogma.
Robert Jay Rowen, MD
Alaska
Below is the automated response sent to those who emailed letters
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Thank you for your e-mail:
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