The letters are flooding in!
I have many more letters but I haven't yet gotten to them all so if your letter has still not appeared on the blog, please don't despair - it will! I'm just trying to get this done so I can get on to something else and I really, really wanted to share these with you before I go any further. Please read these brilliant, heart-felt letters and if you haven't done so yet, please do write in to:
Change.org - mail@change.org
Herald Sun - hsletters@heraldsun.com.au
Minister Plibersek - tanya.plibersek.mp@aph.gov.au
Dear Editor,
I was disgusted to read such a biased and poisonous article such as the one Suzie O'Brien did on mandatory vaccination and the AVN in a newspaper that is supposed to be about fair and accurate reporting!!!
Did Suzie even bother to talk to families that have been devastated by vaccine injuries before deciding that they don't even have the right to choose whether their children be vaccinated or not? Or are those children not even worth a mention?
I guess in Suzie's world it's all right for children to be killed or be brain damaged by vaccines as long as they do their duty to the precious herd!!!
How would she feel if her child was injured by vaccines and some supposed journalist decided that they had the right to dismiss it as just a coincidence and then to demand that they should just keep vaccinating all children regardless of whether they were physically or genetically at risk of death or injury!
I am a mother of 8 children; 6 of whom were vaccinated and as a result, 3 were diagnosed as ASD, 1 with ADHD, 1 with a severe language disorder and 1 with severe mood swings and food allergies. They also suffer from numerous gastrointestinal and autoimmune disorders while their two youngest unvaccinated siblings have none of these disorders. Coincidence? Well, the genetic testing that we did showed no abnormalities, and the only difference between them and their siblings is their vaccination status, so I guess not!!
But if Suzie got her way, people like me and my two youngest children should be shunned and demonised as possible disease reservoirs.
Shame on Suzie O'Brien for writing an article/blog that is little else but a rant on something she obviously knows very little about.
Kind regards
TD
To All Paties Concerned (Herald Sun, change.org and Tanya Plibersek),
I am writing as a concerned parent in response to your article “Kids Need Jabs”.
I am not writing to say whether vaccinating or not vaccinating your child is right or wrong. But rather to ask, why are we as a civilised country unable to have a fair, equal and objective debate about this issue?
I have a 2 year old son and a baby on the way. When it came to deciding whether to vaccinate my first child, I undertook the issue as though it were a paper I was writing for University. You see it is my role as a parent (my responsibility) to make countless decisions on my child’s behalf in order to protect him and insure that he is healthy and safe. I know that I have researched this topic more then any other parent I know!
The point I’d like to make is that as a regular “joe blogs” parent who has put considerable thought, effort and research into the matter, for me so far, not to vaccinate wins out.
You see, every time I read anti-vaccine paraphernalia, I am presented with research, facts and information. Whenever I seek out pro-vaccine information I am presented with an emotionally loaded response, using fear tactics, guilt trips and personal attacks. Information and statistics are presented in a biased way.
To make the choice not to vaccinate my child has been the hardest decision of my life to date. It is something that I continually agonise over. As a parent I am trying to do the best by my child, to protect my child. I would never consciously put my child in harms way. You see I love my child just as much as the parent next door and because of this, I continually try to seek out information that will convince me to vaccinate my child. I am screaming out for it.
But again, I read your article, the title sounded promising. I thought here we go, I may receive new information, new facts. I may just be convinced. But your article too, unfortunately was heavily one sided and biased and loaded again with fear tactics and personal attacks: “parents don’t be fooled”, “ideological beliefs”, “deny basic rights”,” do not mix with us”, “don’t be allowed to attend state funded schools or pre-schools”.
You say that the AVN is anti-vaccine. I see it as offering the opposite side of the argument. As you say, doctors offer one side and fortunately for us in our modern society we are able to seek out the opposite side to important issues and debates.
On the issue of making vaccination mandatory: what a sad direction for our society to head!
Children are maimed and killed every year by dog attacks. Should we ban all families with young children from owning dogs? Or should we also ban all people living within 100 meters of a young child from having dogs?
Children are devastatingly injured in backyard pool accidents and too, die at times. Let’s ban all pools. Better yet, let’s assume that any family with a young child that has a pool is neglectful, is knowingly putting their children in harm’s way. That parent is ignorant and choosing to have a pool because of ideological beliefs. If you have a pool then don’t mix with the rest of us, my child may swim in it and my child may die.
You know, I have never heard the AVN or any other parent who doesn’t vaccinate their child abuse or guilt trip those that do vaccinate. It is not my place to impose my research and information on my friends or family who have children. I know that each of my friends with children make the best decisions they can out of love and the responsibility to protect their children. Fortunately for me, my family, my friends and my GP know that I am doing exactly the same thing.
As a parent I want to make “informed” decisions regarding my child’s welfare. I continue to seek out information on both sides of this debate. It is not easy to be in a minority or to be personally attacked by strangers. I continue to remain open to the possibility of one day vaccinating my children, especially as we have another on the way.
This is my child you are talking about, my precious. The one that I would die for! I am not going to put my child in harm’s way because of force, intimidation and bullying.
Please, give me information, give me research and give me facts. Convince me to vaccinate my children. I want to, I really do!
Yours Sincerely,
CC
To the Herald Sun:
Hi,
I refer to the article on January 31, 2012 entitled “Kids Need Jabs”.
I would like someone to explain to me what “personal agenda” the AVN has in this matter. I can’t imagine they’re making money from it, so I’m puzzled.
My children range from 35 down to 29, and I was allowed to make the choice to not give them the whooping cough jab, as a very close relative is severely epileptic, and has been since she was 7 months old. My doctor advised against the whooping cough vaccine.
If vaccination is made compulsory, would I have been forced to go ahead with it if my children wanted to go to school, or whatever other penalties might have been applied?
I believe very strongly in informed choice. It’s all very well to say medical opinion is united in this. Medical opinion has been united in quite a few matters in the past that, with time, proved to be incorrect - e.g. Thalidomide. There are steps parents can take to protect their children if vaccination is not chosen. For example, keeping small babies at home for a few months after birth would be a very good idea, for many reasons, whooping cough being one. Noone should be able to tell parents that a foreign substance must be put into their children’s bodies.
In my opinion, there are far too many vaccinations being given to young children. I think parents should weigh up the risks of their children suffering serious effects from, say, flu, against the possible downside of the vaccination.
Regards
MS
Dear Editor,
It is with utter disgust I read the article mentioned above.
How inaccurate and hateful was this piece of journalism? It shows the Herald Sun to be a useless tabloid paper.
It made me very angry. If to not vaccinate is to be considered so deleterious to the health of our children, then please start an energetic campaign to remove ALL other forms of unhealthy products from our lives, such as ALL fast food outlets, all lollies, all forms of boxed cereals, all products containing sugar, solvent extracted, heat treated vegetable oils, all processed and highly refined foods, television, etc.
My child is not vaccinated and this had nothing to do with the AVN. I only came across this organisation a short time ago. I have always been aware of possible dangers of pharmaceutical medications and considered my child to be too precious to risk any possible side effect of a medication that he didn't need.
I am greatly concerned that you would have the government discriminate against me to the point of not allowing my child an education simply because his mother cared about his health.
Remember that there are detailed anti-discrimination laws in Australia.
Yours sincerely,
JE – RN, RM
Dear Susie,
You apparently consider yourself so well informed about vaccination's risk-to-benefit ratios that you can claim that the facts override fundamental human rights to which Australia is a signatory. You treat as inconsequential all research by your correspondents, and even their right to choose to refuse medical treatment for themselves and their children, in light of the absoluteness of your own convictions. Intriguingly, those convictions clearly have no basis in respect for human dignity and hard-won freedoms but only in scientific findings.
Nevertheless, the most straightforward way to show that you're not just another wilfully ignorant bigot on the vaccination money train would be to produce references to the "thousands and thousands of peer-reviewed medical journals showing that vaccination is best" with which you claim to be personally familiar.
To date, the vaccination "debate" has been entirely one-sided, the only relevant evidence entering into it being evidence of vaccination's irrelevance to the demise of historical epidemics; its provocation of several major epidemics; its failure, even at unprecedented rates of takeup, to prevent record morbidity (Australia's current pertussis epidemic being a perfect case in point); and its increasingly better-understood hazards, chiefly understood in terms of immune-system compromise.
"Thousands and thousands" of vaccination apologists claim that such evidence as you are familiar with is incontrovertible. Strangely, though, when challenged to produce it, all have responded with nothing more substantial than insults to intelligence. So your production of even one of the "thousands and thousands" of articles you are personally familiar with would create a turning point in the vaccination "debate".
Please take that as an invitation to begin discussing the matter intelligently and with a modicum of respect for the efforts of well-educated, intelligent people to research the "thousands and thousands" of articles from which you draw your own obviously different conclusions, by producing something more substantial than your own opinions and the opinions that they echo.
Cheers!
JH
Dear Editor,
Your aim is that you want children to be fit, healthy etc?
Okay.
Let's look at some consistency.
In your reply below you say
***Adults can make up their own mind but shouldn’t push their views on their kids. Susie O’Brien Tue 31 Jan 12 (10:11am)***
No-no. You can have that kind of hypocritical doublethink.
If you are advocating mandatory vaccination where children are not able, or allowed to make a choice for themselves, then you cannot exempt yourself from that, and allow yourself the luxury of choice. If you want vaccines to be mandatory for children, they should be mandatory for you as well.
And if your concern is real "health" then let's extend the "mandatory" capacity to include the following things to be made mandatory forALL prospective parents and their families:
1) Absolutely no refined foods or sugar; alcohol, smoking, antibiotics, acetaminophen or anti-acids are acceptable medical recommendations during pregnancy. (There is a huge body of medical literature which shows all those things epigenetically cause life long difficulties in babies whose mothers "do" those things.) And that list could be extended to include other things, but lets keep this simple.
2) A law should be made against needless labour and delivery interference, and elective caesarians must be banned. (There is a huge body of medical literature which shows that all those things epigenetically cause life long difficulties in babies, and that elective caesarians seriously impair the immune system of a baby)
3) Breastfeeding should be made mandatory for those who can functionally breastfeed, and a breastmilk bank should be enacted into law, so that those who can't breastfeed are referred to the breastmilk bank. (There is a huge body of medical literature showing that the long term stem cells in breastmilk, and the vast immunological properties of breastmilk can prevent allergies, chronic disease, and would vastly reduce the burden of type 2 diabetes in those babies) Australian authors have already written medical articles showing that parents who elect to formula feed "cost" Australia millions of dollars a year in "preventable illnesses. Yes, I have those articles.
4) No children should be allowed access to junk food of any kind, and any child who is made a couch potato and becomes obese (which is one of the biggest health hazards for children today) should be sent along to a "fat" camp along with the whole of the rest of the family.
5) Exercise and weight control of parents and children, should be mandatory - and medically managed. (For 4 and 5, there is a huge body of medical literature which proves that these problems are the biggest contributors to both acute and chronic health in the west today, AND if pregnant mothers are obese, their bodies work differently and those risks are passed, epigenetically onto their babies.)
6) There is also a huge body of medical literature now looking at the adverse impact of the following on both children, and adults - violent parents/violent films/television/ a syndrome that paediatricians label as "nature deficit"/bullying (When does a blog stop being opinion, and descend into bullying, Suzie?) . And so far, from the medical literature.... news is all bad.
Okay, so if you want vaccination to be mandatory, I will go along with that, SO LONG AS all the above, which is well established in the medical literature as the foundation of good health, is made mandatory FIRST.
Okay.
PS, I have ALL the full text medical articles of the subjects which I raise in my house.
HB
To the Herald Sun
Hi,
Just wondering where you people get off writing a one-sided report again. Oh. that's right - because that's all you can do. You can't write the real facts because then that will have us, the public, thinking more for ourselves. Well guess what? We do anyway. Can totally see through the dumbing down that is placed upon us nowadays and this article is sooo just that. Dumbing down the public again.
Why don't you do your real job of writing real facts? Oh that's right because you can't – you’re controlled too.
I will ensure my list of friends and colleagues are aware of the same propaganda going on again.
Are you ok for your child or children to be dictated to by the politicians who are also puppets on a string? Do we have any rights nowadays? The people who write to you in disgust of your article are all people who have done the research. These are people who have some infliction on their lives from vaccines. Do we have any rights to have these reported? Nooo.
We are not about anti vaccine - we are about getting more information on the vaccines. Why can't they do testing prior to inflicting susceptible children? Testing children before giving vaccines so there are no injuries? Have you seen these injuries? Do you know how people are affected?
My agenda today, while we still can access the internet, is to ensure we all have a voice and a right, for now, to express this.
Why is my family's personal and significant reasons not to vaccinate our children being linked to our legal entitlements as tax paying citizens? We made an informed and measured choice based on justifiable and tangible reasons and did huge amounts of research before making this decision. Our decision was based on reasons specific to us and on data and information collected from both sides of the argument. Our children's health and well being is our primary and central concern as parents and the decision was not taken lightly. In the second instance, by doing so we were exercising our constitutional and democratic rights as Australian citizens to make an informed and legal choice about our children's health. To condemn us for that and to deny us our hard-earned entitlements that OUR taxes have paid for is absolutely outrageous and I will fight this down to the line.
Regards
FW
Medowie, NSW
Att: Tanya Plibersek: tanya.plibersek.mp@aph.gov.au
It is evident that those supporting compulsory vaccination or the closure of the AVN do not have children who have suffered and continue to suffer as a result of vaccinations.
Were they to live in a day to day situation with a child physically and mentally ill AFTER receiving vaccination(s) they would undoubtedly change their mind.
Take one family for example known personally to me where the first 7 children were all vaccinated on schedule and are all on the autism spectrum to varying degrees .. the last 2 children born who were the only ones not to be vaccinated are healthy NT (neurotypical) children reaching all of their
normal milestones in development and neither one has ever been sick .. does this not demonstrate something of significance to you?
The first 7 will be a drain on the finances of future governments as they will be unable to earn a living, or provide for themselves in any way .. more vaccinations lead to more children in this situation and I would respectfully suggest your government spends time and money in finding ways to take
care of the tsunami of autistic children in this country who will outlive their parents and will have no-where of safety to end their days ....
I could give you countless examples of children and families whose lives have been decimated due to vaccination.
It is the parent’s right to chose whether to vaccinate or not and it is not ethical or moral for anyone to decide for them.
There are plenty of MPs who have been wise enough not to vaccinate their own children and thousands of physicians who know only too well the dangers and who do not vaccinate their offspring. Does this tell you something?
The AVN gives a valuable service in that it fairly informs parents enabling them to make personal CHOICES plus parents world-wide are very aware now of the dangers associated with vaccination and the litany of sicknesses that proliferate from them in all walks of life
Think of how you would feel if forced into "anything" you did not wish to do and let your conscience be your guide
Regards
JB
To Whom It May Concern (Herald Sun),
I was disgusted when I read this article on Why All Aussie Kids Should Be Vaccinated. Our family pays tax and I am now wondering if, because our children aren’t vaccinated, could we get an exemption from the Tax Department?? Maybe Susie will look into this?
I do not class myself as ignorant and am greatly offended that she believes that it is alright to say such hypocritical things. I have researched my choices in what to do regarding vaccination with MY children that I carried for 9 months and gave birth to.
Furthermore I am offended on behalf of the AVN. How can she state that they are anti-vaccination? Has she had to research this or been on their website?. Like homebirthers (is that even a word?), how many people can this woman offend with one article?
I carried my children and gave birth to them so what right does this woman have to tell me I am putting the safety of MY children below my “Ideological Beliefs”? How dare someone who has never met me or MY children have the right to voice a very biased view on what she believes is right?
I believe that the only thing that should be shut down is a woman who thinks that her option has a right to be voiced and not bothering at all to even try to look on the other side of this debate. I feel disgusted calling myself an Australian when people like this want to take away our right to choose as parents. And as far as I am concerned I could not care less about the $2100 of family benefits. My family’s wellbeing is more important than money. Our judgement comes from God not some biased uninformed person.
So much for a free and democratic society.
Regards,
LC
Dear Editor,
Reading Susan O’Brien’s ‘Article’ sent chills down my spine as it was more akin to the ranting speeches made by Adolf Hitler demonizing the Jewish race than an well researched piece of journalism.
It is obvious that Ms O’Brien’s knowledge of the vaccination issue is so woeful it is appalling, and the fact that she has been allowed to use The Herald Sun as her personal mouthpiece to push her own agenda is evidence that this paper’s “dedication to accurate, fair and fearless publication of news and commentary” is nothing more than empty rhetoric.
Ms O’Brien states: “It’s a fight between a handful of uninformed quacks with a personal agenda….”
If Ms O’Brien had bothered to do any research at all, she would find that the so called “uninformed quacks” include – but are not limited to - hundreds of doctors who felt it necessary to establish The International Medical Council on Vaccination, as they are opposed to vaccination due to the thousands of hours of personal research they have done. She would also have come across Robert S. Mendelsohn, MD, a highly respected and awarded pediatrics practitioner who from almost four decades of treating children came to believe that “The greatest threat of childhood diseases lies in the dangerous and ineffectual efforts made to prevent them through mass immunisation.”
Ms O’Brien couldn’t have helped but to stumble across the Homefirst Health Services established in Chicago, USA in 1973. These doctors fully inform their patients on both sides of the vaccination story. These clinics have an Autism rate of 1:30 000 (that is not a typo) as opposed to the current global rate of more than 1:100 in the fully vaccinated population. There are many more medically backed credible organisations out there, but Ms O’Brien hasn’t mentioned one of them.
Ultimately, it is obvious that Ms O’Brien has done no valid research into this complex and controversial topic, as if she had - even if she still believed that vaccines are safe and effective - then at the very least she would be tolerant and respectful of a person’s personal right to choose. Her attitude instead is reminiscent of the Nazi’s blind allegiance to a bigot filled with hate and I believe that she should go back to journalism school and learn what factual and unbiased reporting is. Until then The Herald Sun should vet their journalists more closely and the utter rubbish they submit if it wants to have any ongoing credibility in this community.
Yours faithfully,
SK
Dear Suzanne and the Change.org team,
Wow! You have been played big timeL.
I am so saddened, shocked and disappointed that you would allow ‘Stop the AVN’ to abuse your site and your public goodwill so blatantly.
You are now complicit to a long running, unjust and sordid cyber-bullying campaign that has no foundation in fact or indeed common decency.
The basis of your petition is in fact: “negative, destructive and has no scientific basis”.
You have stated that: “Mass immunisation is the most important public health strategy ever launched in Australia. Many don’t remember the days when polio epidemics killed over 1,000 people and left tens of thousands more paralysed [8]. That’s because thanks to vaccination, it’s been all but eradicated — along with smallpox, diptheria, measles and whooping cough.”
However, reading and researching many medical journals and respected publications will tell you that:
One: Prior to the Polio epidemic of last century, the then treatmentof the disease led to the deaths and prolonged paralysis. It was the treatment pioneered by Sister Kenny of the Darling Downs that, when finally adopted (although reluctantly by the medical profession because after all, “what would a woman and a nurse know that we male doctors don’t?”), led to thousands of patients full recovery.
Two: When the first Polio vaccine was introduced – the Salk vaccine – not only were people still contracting the disease but they were being left paralysed in whatever limb they received the injection! - The reason that the Polio vaccine is an oral vaccine. Have you even wondered why this is the only vaccine not given as an injection?
Interestingly, Professor Sabin, the developer of the oral Polio vaccine has stated publicly that neither his vaccine or the Salk vaccine has done anything to reduce the incidence of Polio worldwide!
Three: When the mass vaccination program for Polio was rolled out, the parameters for diagnosing Polio were changed at the same time ;-)
Previously, patients only had to have shown signs of paralysis for 24 hours before begin recorded as a Polio statistic, when the vaccine was introduced the patient had to have shown paralysis of more than 30 days!!
Under Sister Kenny’s now world renowned treatment, very few patients – when treated correctly – showed signs for more than a few days to a week. So the vaccine got all the credit.
Four: When the world was in the grip of the epidemic, most cities were not yet sewered – or fully sewered. Most people still had outhouses and were not educated on the importance of washing their hands after going to the toilet or before preparing food and eating. The carers of day care centers, kindergartens and schools had to be trained to teach the children to wash their hands after going to the toilet, before eating and they themselves had to be trained to wash their own hands after changing nappies and to keep the dirty nappies covered up!!
There are hundreds, if not thousands of GPs, MDs, and scientists worldwide in the upper echelons of their professions who do not support vaccination.
Most of them used too – wholeheartedly, but due to decades of treating their patients they have seen first-hand the damage and ineffectiveness of vaccines.
There is far more to this issue than we are publically told.
Vaccines are not 100% effective, nor 100% safe.
The “herd Immunity” is not an valid argument as we are told that it takes 95% of the population to be vaccinated for a disease to be wiped out, yet less than 10% of the world’s population was vaccinated against Small Pox and as you stated above – it was supposedly eradicated due to vaccination – yet the maths don’t add up….?
Also, Scarlet Fever is a disease of the past, but we have never had mass vaccination for Scarlet Fever, so how did it just disappear?
Children are being left damaged by vaccines and women are dying from the Cervical Cancer vaccine, but that is not being reported openly.
People have the right to know and choose for themselves.
Your petition needs to be withdrawn and done so immediately.
You have lost all credibility with me.
SK
To the Editor:
I am an intelligent, responsible and skeptical adult who made my own enquiry with local and state health departments, medical journals, books, drug companies and local hospitals about vaccine safety and effectiveness. On what authority do you assume all new parents are mindless sponges incapable of adult decisions? We alone made quiet and deliberate enquiry and arrived at our own, educated conclusions. Why the fixation with 'AVN'? There are dozens more throughout Australia and hundreds the world over, and not one of them 'preyed' on me. I scrutinised them! Do you know that vaccine safety and effectiveness has been questioned and debated since it was first introduced over 100 years ago? A vaccine is a man made 'product' with inherent risks like all other pharmaceutical drugs. How can one rationally compare seatbelts (an external, tangible device) to something that is injected or swallowed? Yes, one can take the seatbelt off if it is causing damage, but can one remove all traces of a vaccine? The vaccine manufacturers readily list mild to fatal adverse reactions in their vial inserts. You can download this from all the vaccine manufacturers websites. A vaccine does not guarantee protection from a disease - it never has! Fully vaccinated people contract these diseases every other day - some even die. Vaccination provides peace of mind for many, but for conscientious objectors and those who cannot be vaccinated, there is no reason to debate it at all - vaccination is not a moral issue - just medical. Your knowledge of this topic (and homebirth) is poor and presents as fear based opinion, not to mention just childish responses. I am astounded it was approved by such a well respected newspaper.
http://www.healthyskepticism.org/global/quotes/list/science
RI