The Health Forum

A place for open discussions – with no cover ups – about health issues

It now looks as if the H1N1 scam – using scare tactics to make billions of people get themselves vaccinated – has been a big failure. Few people were scared. Instead, they paid heed to websites, blogs and other non-mainstream sources of information that highlighted the dangers of vaccines as well as their ineffectiveness at preventing the flu. In the end, few people got themselves vaccinated.

A small group of people did fall for the scam, however. They include mainly the Health Ministers – except the Polish Health Minister Eva Kopacz – and other government officials who ordered billions of dollars worth of vaccines. Now they are stuck with huge stockpiles of vaccines that nobody wants. They are now trying desperately to sell off their unwanted stocks. But there have been few takers because most other governments have also bought huge stockpiles. And the few that hadn’t would be foolish to buy too much, considering the low vaccination rate reported in many countries – especially the European countries that are currently going through winter, the “flu season”.

And so, from the perspective of the big pharmaceutical companies, the H1N1 scam has been a great success. They already sold billions of dollars worth of vaccines; they already laughed their way to the bank.

But… their good fortunes may be short-lived after all.

France has been especially hard-hit by the scam. The French government ordered 94 million doses of vaccines, which works out to approximately 1.5 dose for every French citizen. But only 5 million doses have so far been used up, while another 10 percent of the purchase was said to have been donated to the World Health Organisation. Early in the new year, France reported that it was trying to sell its excess vaccine stocks to countries like Romania, Bulgaria, Qatar and Egypt. Both Romania and Bulgaria have since decided not to buy the vaccines from France, while Egypt and Qatar are reported to have bought a mere 2.2 million doses.

So that leaves France with still tens of millions of unused, unwanted vaccine doses. Now France has announced that it will cancel orders for 50 million doses that have not yet been delivered. A French government spokesman said on 3 January that it had already cancelled 9 million doses from Sanofi Pasteur, and was in talks about cancelling the remaining excess supply from other companies. The French government further said that it was “confident” about not having to pay compensation to the pharmaceutical companies for the cancellations.

France is not alone. Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland have also been trying to cancel their orders, cut back on deliveries or sell their excess vaccine stocks – with limited success. The Netherlands is reported to have sold 2 million of its 19 million excess vaccine doses while Germany is said to be still in negotiations to sell 2.2 million doses to Ukraine.

Now, the latest cancellation announcement by France has got the Big Pharma boys and their investors worried. Share prices of vaccine manufacturers Glaxo, Sanofi, Novartis have all dropped!

WHY DID THIS HAPPEN?

France, the biggest victim, still refuses to acknowledge that it had been scammed. It keeps harping on the fact that “experts” originally said two doses of vaccines were needed, but they later determined that one was enough. This still does not explain why, out of a population of 65 million, only 5 million vaccine doses were taken up.

The truth of the matter is that ordinary citizens realised that the flu vaccine is unsafe, ineffective and not necessary. Despite the low vaccination rate in France, latest reports say that H1n1 flu cases as well as H1n1 deaths in France have been on the decline!

Ordinary citizens have been able to see the H1N1 scam for what it is – an attempt by pharmaceutical companies to boost revenue by using scare tactics. Yet presidents, prime ministers, health ministers and other government officials, as well as top World Health Organisation officials – the people who are supposed to be the top brains – have fallen for it hook, line and sinker.

This is particularly disappointing in a country like Singapore, where government ministers praise themselves as being “world-class” and pay themselves obscene salaries equivalent to the combined salaries of their counterparts in about seven of the world’s leading industrialised nations. They, too, have fallen for the scam.

One exception is Poland’s Health Minister Eva Kopacz, who has shown both courage and wisdom in rejecting the H1N1 vaccine for the Polish people. Three cheers to her!

by Richard Seah

In a major victory for medical freedom, councillors in Big Island, Hawaii, have voted almost unanimously – by 7 to 1 – in support of a resolution that rejects mandatory vaccination and protects the rights of citizens to be exempted from vaccines.

The vote by the Big Island of Hawaii Council demonstrated the power of local community activists to rebuke “top down” policies advancing “mandatory” vaccinations during declared emergencies. It urges State and Federal legislators in Hawaii “to amend vaccine laws to include medical, religious, and philosophical exemptions from any vaccine program,” including those declared urgent by health officials.

The vote is said to reflect a nationwide trend of increasing public distrust of official proclamations of vaccination safety and efficacy. A solid majority of medical doctors, and nearly 70% of parents polled by Consumer Reports, feared the new vaccines and were determined not to recommend them. After exhaustive research conducted by Council researchers and attorneys, and many drafts, the Resolution stated:

“there is insufficient scientific evidence proving that vaccines are safe or effective, therefore it is not in the best interest of public health to recommend vaccinations without exemptions.

Whereas, in the wake of potential harm to the individual and the public from vaccinations, and the vacillating interpretation of ‘vaccine science, it is in the public’s best interest to amend the vaccine laws to include the right of medical, religious, and philosophical exemptions from any vaccination program.”

Council Vice Chair Naeole-Beason said:

“This is a victory for health freedom, common sense, and U.S. Constitutional entitlements. I am very proud of our Council who put public safety ahead of special interests.”

Dr. Leonard Horowitz, a Harvard-trained authority  in vaccinations and emerging diseases who advised the research committee. added: “This is a win for ‘We the People’.”

Not surprisingly, opposition to the resolution came from two medical doctors – Chiyome L Fukino, the Department of Health Director, and Sarah Y. Park, Chief of the State’s Disease Outbreak Control Division. They claimed that “a number of inaccuracies pertaining to immunization were cited in the Resolution . . . ,” but failed to show any or send anyone to the County meeting to defend their views.

Hawaii’s State and Federal lawmakers will vote on the Resolution next.

by Richard Seah

A new study published by the British Medical Journal (on 8 December 2009) has cast more doubts on the effectiveness of the flu drug, Tamiflu, as well as on its manufacturer, Roche Pharmaceuticals.

The study, led by Professor Chris del Mar of the Cochrane Collaboration, found no evidence that Tamiflu prevents serious complications, hospitalization, or death in people that have the flu. It further suggests that Roche, the Swiss company that manufactures and markets Tamiflu, may have misled governments and physicians by withholding vital information through not publishing critical studies that showed the drug to be ineffective.

But Roche maintains that it “has never concealed (or had the intention to conceal) any pertinent data.” And the company now says it will publish all the study data on a password-restricted website.

The latest findings come from a re-evaluation of an earlier 2006 study by Cochrane, which is a highly respected not-for-profit organisation that evaluates the effectiveness of various treatments. In that earlier study, Cochrane Collaboration generally agreed with claims by Roche that Tamiflu reduces:

• hospital admissions by 61%
• complications as bronchitis, pneumonia, and sinusitis by 67%
• and lower respiratory tract infections requiring antibiotics by 55%.

That 2006 Cochrane review was based largely on a paper that looked at 10 studies, all of them funded by Roche. But following concerns expressed by a Japanese doctor about the lack of medical evidence on Tamiflu’s effectiveness, the Cochrane team decided to re-examine the earlier study. In doing so, they found that only two of the 10 studies had ever been published in medical journals. Those two studies showed the drug had very little effect on complications compared to a placebo.

Meanwhile, attempts to trace the data from the remaining eight studies were not entirely successful. Said Prof Chris del Mar:

“The most important finding we found, which is a change from the previous review, was that we didn’t have enough data to know whether it reduces the complications of influenza.

There was a study written by professor Laurent Kaiser from Geneva in Switzerland, which was a summary of about 10 different trials that had been conducted by Roche Pharmaceuticals. When we actually put the data together and analysed them, we found that we couldn’t draw the conclusions that [professor] Kaiser had drawn. And so we felt very insecure about that. In fact we didn’t think it was proper to use those data.

“When we wrote to [professor] Kaiser and said ‘can you give us these data because we need to sort it all out properly’, he wrote back and said, ‘I’m very sorry I don’t have the data’. That’s a very weird thing to say. And he referred us to Roche. He said, ‘You’ll have to go and talk to the pharmaceutical company that funded it’.”

According to Professor Del Mar, Roche never gave out the data that the research team requested, but only some tables of data that were not what they needed.

Cochrane said Roche offered the data “under conditions we thought unacceptable, and what was offered to us was insufficient to analyze properly.” So now, Roche is accusing the Cochrane researchers of conducting an incomplete review, because those eight studies had been left out.

Prf Chris del Mar added:

“I can only speculate. It would be pure guesswork. But I do know that this is a drug which has made a lot of money based on the conclusions drawn from this and maybe they’re not keen for other scientists to scrutinise it in the way that the Cochrane Collaboration does.

“I do think that we need the data before we can draw conclusions and that’s why we’ve had to withdraw that conclusion that we had previously made. It’s something that makes me feel that we were rather naive as an organisation. I think this does call into question a lot of things about scientific debate and I am worried about it.”

Adding to the suspicion, two former employees of a large communications company, Adis International, have come forward with documents showing they had ghostwritten some of the published studies of Tamiflu. One of the ghostwriters revealed:

“The Tamiflu accounts had a list of key messages that you had to get in. It was run by the [Roche] marketing department and you were answerable to them. In the introduction . . . I had to say what a big problem influenza is. I’d also have to come to the conclusion that Tamiflu was the answer.”

All in, the latest Cochrane study evaluated 20 published trials. It concluded that drugs like Tamiflu are, at best, are modestly effective against flu symptoms in otherwise healthy adults and that there is a “paucity of good data” to support claims that such drugs can prevent complications from flu.

by Richard Seah

Among alternative, natural treatments for the flu, probably the most surprising are osteopathy and chiropractic. These are manipulation therapies where all the practitioner does is make some adjustments to re-align your bone structure. They are most commonly sought for aches and pain.

I made a surprising discovery back in 2005 when I had a bad flu (H1N1 wasn’t active then but the scare at that time was over the bird flu) and my osteopath friend remarked that I “didn’t trust him”.

I was taken aback. What did he mean? “You never come to me for treatment,” he said. “Don’t you know that osteopathy is very effective for treating the flu?”

Sorry, no. Although I knew the osteopath for 16 years, I never knew that osteopathy could treat the flu. I decided to give it a try. Within minutes, my breathing became deeper, my cough became shallower, I started feeling very much better.

Some weeks later, I was surfing the Internet when I found an article about osteopathy and the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918:

The mortality rate in US medical hospitals fell between 30 percent and 40 percent, with the exception of a rate of 68 percent in medical hospitals in New York City…

The American School of Osteopathy, now the Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine of A. T. Still University of Health Sciences, in Kirksville, MO, contacted all their alumni. This effort culminated in 2,445 osteopaths responding in treating 110,122 patients with influenza, with a resulting mortality of 0.25 percent. One of the few osteopathic medical hospitals, 400-bed Massachusettes Osteopathic Hospital, in Boston, also reported a mortality of 0.25 percent for that period.

I searched chiropractic, which is similar to osteopathy, and found this:

Chiropractors at the Palmer School of Chiropractic adjusted 1,635 cases, with only one death. Outside Davenport, chiropractors in Iowa cared for 4,735 cases with only six deaths – one out of 866. During the same epidemic, in Oklahoma, out of 3,490 flu patients under chiropractic care, there were only seven deaths. It was chiropractic’s success in caring for flu victims that led to the profession’s licensure in many states.

The idea that adjusting the body – particularly the spine – can fight the flu might seem far fetched. But not if you understand the basic tenet of osteopathy and chiropractic: “structure governs function”. It means that the structure of the body influences the function of the body and its many systems, including the immune system. By restoring the structure of the body to its optimal balance, all the various body functions – including immune function – will get better. And natural immunity is the most powerful weapon against the flu, more so than any man-made drug!

This idea is not new. About 2,400 years ago, Hippocrates said: “Look to the spine for the cause of disease.” Also, many Eastern forms of martial arts and health practices, including yoga, taiqi, qigong, karate, aikido, etc, emphasise the importance of keeping the spine straight.

Is it scientific? A “partial list” compiled by the World Chiropractic Alliance cites 109 scientific references linking osteopathic / chiropractic treatment to improved immune function.

Fixing the back is, of course, not the only way to boost immunity and fight the flu. I highlight it because it seems so unlikely, yet has an impressive track record.

As John Yeo pointed out in an earlier article, homeopathy, too, has a proven track record, with a mortality rate of only about 1 percent during the Spanish flu outbreak. There are lots and lots of other ways to build up immunity and prevent as well as fight the flu. It is not difficult to find them. We need only to look outside the box called “medical science”.

by Richard Seah

I am so upset. I was so excited to be pregnant after trying for a year. As soon as I found out I was pregnant, I joined this birth club and I was due June 25th. We have two healthy boys with no history of miscarriage. Everything was going great. Last Monday, I got the H1N1 vaccine thimerosal reduced (mercury reduced for pregnant women). On Tuesday morning, I started cramping and on Wednesday I started bleeding heavily. My hcg (a glycoprotein hormone produced in pregnancy) was 50 on Wednesday and I was almost 6 weeks along so it was low. They still thought that I might be pregnant but on Friday my hcg was down to 22. I am an emotional wreck. I feel like I had a healthy baby and I caused this by getting the H1N1 vaccine. My doctors pushed it. I researched online and there have been many miscarriages after the H1N1 vaccine but they haven’t been reported since it is hard to say what caused the miscarriages. I hope that I did not cause this. I wish everyone the best.

My heart goes out to you as i recently miscarried as well and was due in june. i had a healthy heart beat at 6wks. then at 7.5 wks my son got the h1n1 mist vaccine which has live vaccine in it. the nurse said to be careful b/c it could technically spread if he rubbed his nose and touched a surface etc. the next night i miscarried and 5 days later was diagnosed with h1n1. i work from home, kids are home, hadnt been anywhere during that time. so the chances that it is all related are very high. the flu mist vaccine warns for immunocompromised patients (which includes prego) to stay away from recipients of the flu mist for 21 days.

I got the flu vaccine (regular not H1N1) at 8 weeks pregnant. Three days later I miscarried. I am not going to get the H1N1.

I got both vaccines on Thursday. I was 9 weeks pregnant. I miscarried on Sunday. I was told by several doctors to get these vaccines. Now I wish I followed my gut feeling and not get them at ALL!

i work in a hospital like setting and was told ‘the benefits outweigh the risks” 1 a.m. I got the vaccine, 3 a.m. i started bleeding and craming, 3 p.m. miscarried. you decide

And so on. And so on. Lots of personal stories such as these have been appearing in blogs and online forums across the United States – and most probably in other countries as well. This lot was compiled by Organic Health.

The details vary. Some miscarried early in their pregnancy, some miscarried late and gave birth to still borns. Some miscarried within hours of receiving the H1N1 (or seasonal flu) vaccine. Some miscarried a few days later.

Yet the common themes are all too clear. ALL miscarried shortly after receiving vaccination. ALL were told by their doctors that the miscarriages had nothing to do with the vaccination. They were just “coincidences”.

Yet how do doctors know??? that the miscarriages were not linked to the vaccines when none of the vaccines had been tested on pregnant women. On what basis do doctors assert that the miscarriages were not caused by vaccination? Just because they learned in medical school that vaccines are safe?

As long as doctors dismiss such cases, they will never get investigated. And there are lots more cases that go unreported and unvoiced. With the victims just suffering in silence. It has been estimated that for every one reported case of adverse vaccine side effect, there are at least another 10 cases that go unreported.

And so any reports linking vaccines to miscarriages will forever be classified as “anecdotal”. They will always remain “unscientific”. Because science never got involved. Only the pig-headed refusal to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, there are too many “coincidences”.

Yet there is a point in reporting. Whether you miscarried or suffered any other adverse effect, whether or not your doctor believes it was caused by the vaccine, as long as you believe so, you are strongly encouraged to report it to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. Or tell us. Or anybody else.

TELL THE WORLD. In the past, if your doctor brushed you off, that was the end of the story. You go off and cry in bitterness but there was nothing much else you could do.  Today, with the Internet, YOUR STORIES WILL BE HEARD. By someone, somewhere. You could help save a few miscarriages. And a few lives!

by Richard Seah

Cases of anaphylaxis – severe allergic reactions – in Canada following H1N1 vaccination are much worse than originally reported.

Early reports said there were six cases. This was enough to raise alarm bells and to have vaccine manufacturer GlaxoSmithKilne recall a batch of vaccines associated with the cases. The batch contained 170,000 doses, of which about 150,000 doses had been administered. This meant that the incidence of anaphylaxis was 4 in 100,000, which is about 13 times the expected incidence of just 0.32 in 100,000.

Now, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) has confirmed that there were, in fact, 24 cases of anaphylaxis, including one death of a man in his 80s. This means the incidence rate is actually 16 in 100,000, or about 50 times higher than expected!

Not surprisingly, PHAC Head Dr. David Butler-Jones was quick to divert blame from the flu vaccine, but to point out that the person who died had other medical conditions. This has been the typical response of pro-vaccine doctors and government health officials whenever an adverse event follows vaccination.

“It’s important to remember that just because a medical event follows vaccination, it may not have been caused by the vaccination; it may have been caused by other factors, as unfortunate events continue to occur with or without vaccine,” Dr Butler-Jones told a news conference.

This is what Barbara Fisher, Co-founder & President of the US National Vaccine Information Center, has to say about such responses. Speaking in 2001 about the Prevnar PCV7 vaccine (for pneumonia) being approved in spite of several babies dying during the vaccine trials, she said: “What’s scientific about that? That every time something bad happens after vaccination it’s ‘coincidence’? That’s not science, that’s politics.”

Anaphylaxis develops quickly, usually within minutes of being exposed to a substance (most commonly food, insect stings and drugs/vaccines) that the person is allergic to. Symptoms include breathing difficulties, weak but rapid pulse, sudden drop in blood pressure, swollen lips / tongue / throat that makes breathing and swallowing difficult, hives. vomiting, anxiety, feelings of “impending doom”, etc. Immediate medical treatment is needed, failing which the person may lose consciousness and die.

Such severe allergic reactions are rare but have happened before. Some years back, when Australia rolled out its HPV vaccination programme (against cervical cancer), it also recorded a higher than normal anaphylaxis rate of 2.6 in 100,000.

However, nobody seems able to explain how anaphylaxis might be associated with ONE BATCH of vaccines but not others, which was apparently what happened in Canada. When asked about that by a Canadian newspaper, Dr John Treanor, a flu vaccine expert at the University of Rochester, New York said it is “a difficult question to answer”.

by James Ong

Reproduced below is the text of my letter to Dr. Hariharan, after learning, with great surprise, that only two vaccines are really compulsory.  I am aware that when parents are enrolling their children into Primary One, the schools do check that the children have completed their vaccinations according to the National Childhood Immunisation Programme.

So, it’s getting complicated.  MoH says eight of the ten vaccines are not mandatory but MoE has the right, it appears, to refuse school enrolment for any child who did not complete all his vaccinations.  Does this mean that parents who refuse any or most of the other eight vaccines for their child have to home-school their kids or find a private school willing to take them?  There seems to be no justice in all this.

Dear Dr. Hariharan,

Thank you so much for your reply to my emails, on behalf of the Health Minister.

I am quite relieved that the PCV-7 and many other childhood vaccines are not compulsory in Singapore. It has renewed my faith that the Ministry of Health honors parents’ right of medical freedom. As I have stated in my first email, the prevention (PCV-7) appears to be more dangerous than the disease itself, based on the clinical trials and US VAERS data.

At the same time however, I am concerned that many parents in Singapore are not aware of their rights. Parents are routinely “coerced” into vaccinating their children according to the immunization schedule. I believe the general public is of the impression that they have to vaccinate their children with all the vaccines in the Childhood Immunization Program or risk certain repercussions.

I would like to offer the following feedback and suggestons which I hope the MoH will look into seriously:

1. MoH should publicly clarify in the local newspapers and on its website and the HPB’s website that only two vaccines – measles and diphtheria – are compulsory by law; the rest are entirely voluntary.

2. Parents should be made aware that they have a legal right to delay or postpone even compulsory vaccinations like measles and diphtheria. This can be covered in the same announcement stated in point one above.

3. Doctors, nurses and hospitals should not “coerce” or unduly influence parents into vaccinating their children with non-compulsory vaccines. I was told that newborns are not permitted to leave the hospital until the BCG and Hep B jabs are given. As far as I am aware, parents are hardly ever consulted whether they would agree to have their children vaccinated. The vaccines are just routinely given as if they were a must.

4. MoH should ensure that there is no discrimination by publicly-run schools or kindergartens against children who have not been vaccinated with the non-compulsory vaccines. It is my understanding that the MoE requires all the recommended vaccinations to be completed before a child can be enrolled into Primary One. I hope that the MoH and MoE can work together to ensure that no child is discriminated against just because of incomplete adherence to the recommended childhood vaccination schedule.

5. Parents should be given all the facts regarding the risks vs. benefits of each vaccine and asked to sign a consent form before the vaccine is given.

6. After any vaccine is given, parents should be advised to observe their child for at least 30 days to see if there are any adverse reactions and notify the HSA immediately (with a hotline number given) by means of a formal reporting system and to seek medical help if necessary. This advisory should be in the form of a printed handout. An online notification system should also be developed as soon as possible to facilitate online reporting. Parents should also be advised as to their legal right to claim damages should there be a serious adverse reaction following vaccination. Who is responsible? The clinic, vaccine supplier or the MoH?

7. Since only the measles and diphtheria vaccines are compulsory, MoH should ensure that single vaccines for measles and diphtheria are available at all polyclinics and private clinics, to meet the demand by parents for these single vaccines. I feel that parents should not be forced to have their children vaccinated with 3-in-1s like MMR and DtaP just because there are no alternatives?

8. MoH should put in more effort to educate parents on how to build their children’s immunity, beyond just a balanced diet, sleep, exercise and personal hygiene. The officers responsible for infectious disease policy and control should read books like “Beyond Antibiotics” by Dr. Michael Schmidt and “Herbal Antibiotics” by Stephen Harrod Buhner and then teach the public how to prevent infectious diseases through all natural means possible and improve the chances of a speedy, uncomplicated recovery should their child succumb to the disease, by fortifying the immune system. This should apply to all the other diseases now covered by the Childhood Immunization Program – mumps, rubella, tetanus, polio, Hep B, etc.

9. MoH should evaluate the use of natural medicines for the treatment of infectious diseases in light of the growing resistance of many types of pathogenic bacteria to antibiotics and the threat of dengue fever, HFMD, chikungunya disease, H5N1 bird flu, H1N1 swine flu and SARS. It is an accepted medical fact that many antibiotics are fast becoming powerless against drug-resistant bacteria.

10. MoH should rename the “National Childhood Immunization Program” as the “National Childhood Vaccination Program” because vaccination is not synonymous with immunization. People should not be complacently led to believe that they are immune from a disease just because they have been vaccinated against it. Vaccines are not 100% effective and do not confer lifelong immunity. For instance, a child can still be infected with invasive pneumococcal disease caused by other strains of bacteria not covered in the PCV-7.

Further to the above, I would like to request MoH to provide answers to the following questions:

1. Why the oral polio vaccine is still being given when it has already been replaced in many countries by the injectable form which is safer. Oral polio vaccine was responsible for causing several cases of polio in the West.

2. Are there still any routine childhood vaccines that contain thimerosal or ethylmercury as preservatives (these have been banned in many Western countries)?

3. If all childhood vaccines are thimerosal- or ethylmercury-free now, when were they removed from childhood vaccines? MoH should provide a timetable showing the dates they were removed.

4. In view of almost universal coverage for the BCG, Hep B, MMR and DtaP vaccines, why are there still significant numbers of cases of tuberculosis, measles, hepatitis B, mumps, rubella and pertussis in Singapore each year?

Finally I wish to personally testify that I have not consumed a single antibiotic, antiviral or medical drug (except for an antifungal medication once for a bad foot fungal infection) over the last eight years. I am confident that thousands of Singaporeans who know how to support their immune system naturally also share the same experience. I am pleased to enclose herewith several papers showing the power of natural medicines such as elderberry, zinc, vitamin C, oregano, cumin, sage and cinnamon against viral and bacterial pathogens for your review. There is evidence that such natural medicines are also effective against HFMD, dengue fever, chikungunya disease, chicken pox and rubella.

Best regards,

I await Dr. Hariharan’s reply.  It looks like parents may have to address their concerns to the Ministry of Education as well.

by James Ong

The day following my second letter of appeal, Dr. Hariharan Subramony sent me a reply on behalf of the Minister for Health.  Reproduced below is the full content of the letter:

Dear Mr Ong

We refer to your email to Mr Khaw Boon Wan, Minister for Health, dated 19 Nov in which you raised various points on vaccine safety. We thank you for your feedback, and would like to provide the following information.

The National Childhood Immunisation Programme is a recommended schedule of vaccinations for infants and young children aimed at preventing dangerous diseases which may result in significant morbidity or mortality. These diseases include diptheria, measles, mumps, rubella, pertussis, tetanus, poliomyelitis, hepatitis B, tuberculosis and pneumococcal disease. The safety and efficacy of a vaccine is reviewed by MOH’s Expert Committee on Immunisation before a decision is made to include that vaccine in the NCIP.

With respect to this statement in your email : “…….there has been no response from your Ministry regarding the concerns raised about the decision to make pneumococcal vaccination compulsory for all children under the age of five”,

we would like to clarify that of the vaccinations included in the NCIP, only 2 (measles and diptheria) are compulsory. The remaining vaccinations, including pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV), are recommended, but are not compulsory by law.

Possible side-effects after PCV vaccination include reactions at the injection site (eg pain, redness, swelling) and fever. These are generally self-limiting. So far, no serious reactions have been causally linked to this vaccine. In Holland, authorities have banned a batch of Prevnar following the deaths of 3 babies who received Prevnar. However, a definite link between the use of Prevnar and the deaths has not been established, and other batches of Prevnar continue to be used in Holland. In Singapore, adverse reactions to vaccines are monitored by the Health Sciences Authority (HSA). If there is any evidence to suggest that a vaccine is unsafe, HSA and MOH will provide appropriate guidance.

Invasive pneumococcal disease is a serious disease. Between 2000 and 2008, there were a total of 157 deaths from invasive pneumococcal disease in Singapore, of whom 5 were under the age of 5 years. Neurologic sequelae may occur among those who survive. Vaccination against pneumococcal aims to minimise the mortality and morbidity associated with the disease. Nonetheless, no vaccine can be guaranteed to be 100% effective or to be totally free of side-effects. The decision whether or not to vaccinate a child with PCV should be made in consultation with a medical practitioner, and an understanding of the risks associated with the disease, and the potential risk of vaccine-related adverse reactions.

Regards

In Dr. Hariharan’s own words, no vaccine can be guaranteed to be 100% effective or to be totally free of side effects.  Parents beware!  What came as a real surprise to me and I am sure, to many parents as well, is that only two vaccines are compulsory by law – measles and diphtheria.  You will get fined if you do not vaccinate your child with these two vaccines.  The fine can be as high as $10,000 and could carry jail sentences as well.  The rest of the ten vaccines are only recommended.  I wonder how many parents are aware of this.  Isn’t it true that children are routinely vaccinated with all the prescribed vaccines according to schedule?  I doubt parents are ever told their rights and asked if they would like to postpone or refuse any vaccines for their children.  So I wrote another letter, this time addressed directly to Dr. Hariharan.  This will be in the next post.

by James Ong

Here is the second letter that I sent to the Minister for Health, Mr. Khaw Boon Wan, after having waited for seven days without reply:

Dear Minister Khaw,

I am rather concerned that despite my email of November 12 (sent a week ago), there has been no response from your Ministry regarding the concerns raised about the decision to make pneumococcal vaccination compulsory for all children under the age of five. As the safety of innocent babies are at stake here, I would expect the Ministry to respond swiftly to these queries.

A recent special report by Generation Rescue (USA) revealed that countries that have fewer mandatory vaccines have much lower rates of autism. It is pertinent that Iceland and Sweden, which lead the world in under-five mortality rates, have far fewer mandatory vaccines than the USA, UK, Australia and New Zealand (countries cited by the Ministry as partial support for the decision to introduce compulsory pneumococcal vaccinations here). A copy of the report is enclosed.

Also enclosed is a document of the findings by the US House of Representatives Subcommittee hearings on vaccines and their risks. There is strong evidence that vaccines are responsible for epidemic levels of autism in the USA and other developed countries.

Autism now affects roughly 1 in 600 children in Singapore today. It is the leading cause of disability among children here. Has the MoH ever considered that vaccinations could have contributed to this problem and conduct a thorough investigation into the causes?

As all vaccinations carry risk of injury (despite what the MoH says), parents should be given all the facts – the scientific studies relied upon, the declaration of any potential conflicts of interest among the panel of experts, risk-benefit analyses done, etc. In the USA, investigations have revealed that the experts that sit on immunization committees do, on occasion, have links with manufacturers of vaccines or stand to gain financially if the vaccines were approved for mass use, which may have influenced their decisions.

The Expert Committee presupposes that a vaccine such as Prevnar is the only weapon in preventing this disease. That is because they received their training only in conventional medicine. In truth, many knowledgeable parents know that if they breastfeed their babies for 6-12 months, feed their children with nutritious foods and fortify their diets with supplements (cod liver oil, multivitamins/minerals, probiotics, colostrum); do not send them to daycare centers at a young age, and exercise good hygiene and sanitation at home, their children are at a very low risk of contracting invasive pneumococcal infection. These parents should not be forced to vaccinate their children.

All parents do have a constitutional right of life and personal liberty and religious freedom to choose what is best for their children. The right to make an informed choice/refusal is a universally-accepted medical ethic.

I do look forward to hearing from your Ministry soon regarding this matter.

Meanwhile, I urge that healthcare policy makers watch this video documentary, Vaccine Nation, that dispels the myth that vaccines are safe or is the answer for control of infectious diseases:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6531447125053615129&ei=trAES5SNM5S8wgP82LmICg&q=Vaccine+Nation#

Another important video is “Vaccines: What the CDC Documents and Science Reveal” by Dr. Sherri J. Tenpenny. It is available from www.amazon.com.

Best regards,

You can get a copy of the Generation Rescue Special Report and Report of the US House of Representatives Subcommittee on Human Rights and Wellness Hearing (which lasted three years) by going to:

http://www.generationrescue.org/documents/SPECIAL%20REPORT%20AUTISM%202.pdf

http://www.generationrescue.org/pdf/burton.pdf

You will learn about the dangers of mercury in vaccines; yet children were routinely injected with thimerosal-laden vaccines until 2002, when most of the children’s vaccines became mercury-free.  Most flu vaccines still contain thimerosal.

by James Ong

In late October 2009, the Ministry of Health (MoH) announced that it had adopted the recommendation of the Expert Committee on Immunisation and included pneumococcal vaccination as the tenth vaccine in the National Childhood Immunisation Programme.  Parents can draw on their Medisave, Baby Bonus or Child Development Account to pay for the three shots of vaccines, which will cost them slightly over $500 in total.

As the announcement was silent on whether parents have the right to opt out of the vaccine, I was rather concerned that children are now to be given a total of 16 shots by the time they are two.  Vaccines have been implicated in the dramatic rise in autism and neurological and learning disorders seen in children around the world.  Further, vaccines have been known to cause severe adverse reactions, even death and permanent disability.

By the way, it should be borne in mind that the money in parents’ Medisave, Baby Bonus and Child Development Accounts are their money.  So, it is as if the MoH wants you to vaccinate your children but you have to pay for them!  This is the same scenario with the Hepatits B vaccine, which costs roughly the same amount.

I did some investigations on the incidence and severity of invasive pneumococcal disease (PD) in Singapore and the risks versus benefits of the current PCV-7 vaccine (the number 7 indicates that is meant to deal with only 7 strains of bacteria that causes invasive PD), which carries the trade name Prevnar.  What I found shocked me and you will find out why by reading the letter below.

I therefore wrote an appeal letter to the Minster for Health, Mr. Khaw Boon Wan, asking him to make the vaccine entirely voluntary.  Reproduced below is the letter in its entirety:

Dear Minister Khaw,

It is regrettable that the Ministry of Health has made pneumococcal vaccination compulsory for all children under the age of 5. This makes a total of 15 vaccine shots by the time a child is two.

Based on the Ministry of Health’s (MOH) own studies, the incidence of hospitalization for invasive pneumococcal infection is below 0.04 percent for children below five. For children aged 5-14, it is 0.0124 percent. Since 2000, there have been only seven deaths (less than one a year).

The only large-scale clinical trial on the Prevnar pneumococcus vaccine, involving some 17,000 children, resulted in at least 12 deaths. Side effects included seizures, irritability, high fevers, vomiting, swelling and anaphylactic shock.

Since the vaccine’s introduction in the US, there have been more than 28,000 adverse events reported, more than 12,000 of which were serious, including 558 deaths, 555 life-threatening situations and 238 permanent disabilities (as of November 11, 2009). Evidently, the prevention is more deadly than the disease!

Recently, 3 babies died in Holland within two weeks of receiving the Prevnar vaccine, causing the Dutch health authorities to ban the particular batch of vaccines used.

Moreover, Prevnar covers only seven types of bacteria. With vaccination, more people are now affected by about 80 other types of bacteria that cause pneumonia. There will be greater problems ahead.

Vaccines are being made compulsory by heath authorities because antibiotics are no longer effective, as the overuse of antibiotics (in medicine and farming) has led to bacteria developing antibiotic resistance. Conventional medicine is fast running out of options, yet doctors and the MOH do not explore safer, natural alternatives: breastfeeding, good diet, exercise, sunshine, fresh air, sleep, hygiene and sanitation (in homes and childcare centers), dietary supplements, herbs and aromatic essential oils.

According to the WHO and UNICEF, the best solution to infectious diseases is an adequate diet (for infants, that includes breastfeeding) with good sanitation and hygiene. In many third world countries, Vitamin A, zinc and iron supplements have achieved excellent results in combating infection.

I need to reiterate that all of the above assertions and statements are based on either reliable media reports or the scientific literature.

We need greater transparency. How were the members of the Expert Committee on Immunization selected? Have they any financial ties (present or previous) to pharmaceutical companies that manufacture vaccines, e.g. research grants, Board positions, etc? What are the studies they relied on? Have they considered why other industrialized countries have not made the vaccine compulsory? Will the ministry be setting up an independent agency to monitor adverse effects of the vaccine?

Children are gifts from the Divine, not the offspring of the State. Compulsory vaccinations deny parents their Divinely-given and fundamental human right to choose what is best for their children. This, I feel, is morally irresponsible, especially when the recommendations are based on shadowy science and the vaccine subjects their children to a measurable level of risk of serious injury or even death. The vaccine is freely available to the public and they can use their Baby Bonus or Medisave to pay for it. Why not just keep it that way?

Finally, I need to point out too that there is no universal consensus among scientists on the value of vaccinations in the prevention of infectious diseases. There is however overwhelming consensus that proper nutrition, clean drinking water, food safety, hygiene and sanitation have done more to prevent the spread of such diseases than vaccines. And for this, we have to thank our civil engineers, food safety and environmental health officers.

I therefore urge the Minister to call for a comprehensive review of the decision to make the pneumococcal vaccine compulsory.

Best regards,

I waited for a week and did not receive any reply from the Minister.  So I followed up with a second letter, as a chaser.  Please see the next post for the contents of the second letter.