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The epidemic in Washington is not an outbreak of any particular illness or disease, but an outbreak in parents becoming educated about the adverse events associated with vaccine administration. Washington leads the nation in the percentage of parents who opt out of vaccinations for their children. During the 2009-2010 school year, more than six percent of Washington kindergarteners were missing one or more immunizations that were recommended by the Center for Disease Control (CDC).

A new Washington state law hopes to end the parents’ right to opt out of these vaccines, or at least make it more difficult. The new law requires parents to meet with a medical provider, obtain a signed letter confirming that such a consultation took place and provide the note to the respective child-care centers or schools.

The increase in parents opting out of certain childhood vaccines for their children has given rise to a new socio-economic dynamic. Dr. Jack Stephens, a pediatrician, confirmed this by stating that "it used to be the unimmunized child was the child of an economically disadvantaged family with poor access to health care" whereas now "it’s usually the well-educated parents of higher social status who do their own independent research and tell you what they’re willing to do."

While the reasons for opting out of a given vaccine differs from family to family, nationally more than 75% of parents have questions or concerns about the vaccines that will be given to their children. The number of vaccines that are recommended by the CDC for children is now at 16 and more than 10 million vaccines are given annually to children under a year old.

Concerns about vaccine safety came to fruition in the 1990s fueled by the debate over whether the MMR vaccine could cause autism. While some medical journals denied such an association or causation, the questions about vaccine safety still remained. Individuals are becoming increasingly familiar with the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (a federal government program used to compensate individuals who suffer adverse events from vaccines while providing immunity to the vaccine manufacturers) and such a program, many people think, is proof that vaccines can have unwanted and often serious side effects.

Since 1989, nearly $2 billion has been paid to individuals who have suffered adverse events from vaccines.

For the article please see: http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/WA-leads-nation-in-parents-opting-out-of-vaccines-1676690.php

14 Comments

  1. Gravatar for AutismNewsBeat
    AutismNewsBeat

    "Concerns about vaccine safety came to fruition in the 1990s fueled by the debate over whether the MMR vaccine could cause autism."

    The modern version of the anti-vaccine movement dates to the early 1980s, sparked by concerns over the safety of the DTP vaccine. Wakefield's study didn't come along until 1998, and the first vaccine court cases alleging autism as a vaccine-related injury came in 1999 (one case filed that year, IIRC).

    "Since 1989, nearly $2 billion has been paid to individuals who have suffered adverse events from vaccines."

    No cause and effect can be determined from the court's actions. The court compensates table injuries, and the standard of proof is much lower than what is found in civil court. This has resulted in hundred of millions being paid out for alleged injuries that were later determined to be unconnected to the vaccine. Seizure disorders were dropped as a table injury relating to DTP in 1994, and there is zero evidence DTP causes encephalopathy.

  2. Gravatar for Thetruthisoutthere
    Thetruthisoutthere

    There were other doctors who came to the same conclusion as Dr. Wakefield before Wakefield`s work was posted in the same journal (that was later debunked), owned by the father of the man who was on the board of the same pharma that produced the vaccines. Conflict of interest don`t apply in the medical industry?

  3. Gravatar for AutismNewsBeat
    AutismNewsBeat

    Mr. Wakefield's "conclusion" was that vaccine strain measles virus caused a novel disease which he called "autistic enterocolitis." He further hypothesized that AE caused "leaky gut" which allowed the virus to enter the bloodstream and pass the blood brain barrier, causing symptoms of autism. Wakefield's results have never been replicated. Furthermore, Wakefield publicly welcomed the GMC investigation, then didn't call a single witness in his defense during the hearings.

  4. Gravatar for DixieDiva
    DixieDiva

    The Tripedia label lists autism as a potential post marketing adverse effect on page 11:

    "Adverse events reported during post-approval use of Tripedia vaccine include idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, SIDS, anaphylactic reaction, cellulitis, autism,"....etc

    calling this a "coincidence" is simply ridiculous and beyond insulting.

    read it for yourself along with the other vaccine labels that cause illness far worse than the one you want to "prevent" some of which (live virus) renders kids contagious which again, makes NO sense if you aim to "prevent" the spread of any illness:

    http://www.fda.gov/downloads/BiologicsBloodVaccines/Vaccines/ApprovedProducts/UCM101580.pdf

    Also construing the Murdoch/Brian Deer media spin witch hunt of Wakefield has nothing to do this.

    More studies are being done that implicate environment which in turn implicates vaccines, much to the chagrin of the vaccine toxic poison illness spreading promoters.

  5. Gravatar for DixieDiva
    DixieDiva

    How any "Special Master" in the vaccine Omnibus cases could rule any doubt with this clear admission from the Sanofi Pasteur Inc. vaccine maker is beyond me. What kind of "expert" can refute the post marketing adverse events reported (significant enough for a mention on the label) and still claim there is no causal link?

    Makes no sense. At all.

  6. Gravatar for DixieDiva
    DixieDiva

    I should have said no "scientific" causal link or "evidence."

    How much "evidence" do they need with a Mt Everest of injured kids and an "epidemic" of autism?

  7. Gravatar for AutismNewsBeat
    AutismNewsBeat

    Again, there is a difference between reports of adverse events and scientifically proven cause and effect. Those reports come to us from VAERS, a database of voluntary reports where the word "after" means up to 8 months following administration of a vaccine. If you compare the background rates of SIDS, autism, etc., to the rates of children recently (however defined) vaccinated, you will find no appreciable difference.

  8. Gravatar for VaxInjuredMom
    VaxInjuredMom

    AutismNewsBeat - Have you actually participated in a VICP case? Do you seriously believe, based on evidence of course, that the standard of proof is lower in the VICP?

    I am hear to tell you that the program is adversarial. We filed our petition and the court spent 8 countless years offering alternative theories that were debunked time and time again by medical experts. After they finally earned enough money in interest by putting us off for 8 years, they settled our claim.

    Oh, by the way, my child's DX include encephalopathy, epilepsy and PDD-NOS.

  9. Gravatar for Angela Warner
    Angela Warner

    @AutismNewsBeat. It is simply amazing to me that you find the time to post as many comments as you do on so many various blogs. Obviously, you are not the parent of a special needs child(ren). I happened across this blog, while taking a short break from my caregiving, on a friends wall on FB.

    I truly find it disgusting that you continually push the vaccine issue, instead of looking at this column for what it is, and that is the stripping of parental rights. I live in WA state and I know first hand what has happened here. The testimony of parents had little to do with autism, which is how everyone seems to want to frame this, and more to do with the stripping of parental rights. Beyond that it had to do with the separation of church and state and the clear violations of those constitutional rights, which the current law imposes upon.

    I have four kids, three of them vaccine injured. Two of them developed autism due to their vaccine injuries, and two also developed a surgically treatable neurological disorder, which I believe (as does my husband and others who are seeing the same thing in their vaccine injured child(ren)), that this was also a vaccine injury. My youngest child is vaccine free and the healthiest of all four kids.

    I am sick to death of people like you, constantly wanting to pick a fight or "correct" someone when they may not have the dates exactly perfect regarding an issue. This had nothing to do with autism and EVERYTHING to do with our parental rights being stripped, and separation of church and state. Please name for me one other medical intervention required/mandated for my child to attend public school??? You CAN NOT, because there aren't any.

    I don't blame anyone but myself for allowing my kids to be vaccinated. I am their parent, and I made the decision. Having said that, I won't allow any one else to mandate what I will and won't do regarding my children's healthcare, EVER. God entrusted both their father and me to bring them into this world and provide for them in all ways, until such time as they are able to do so themselves.

    If I had refused the surgery to prevent them from shitting and pissing their pants due to the other neurological disorder they developed, the school couldn't have done a dang thing about it. Provide them with an education, as you do not have the right to impose a medical procedure on my children in order for them to attend public school. I would rather have dealt with measles, mumps, and rubella. I've already dealt with pertussis with three kids who were up to date on their vaccines (youngest not born yet), and I've also dealt with chickenpox in the younger two, and YES they were intentionally exposed. No big deal. BTW... I was vaccinated for MMR when the vaccine first went to market. I had the measles in 1984, when I was 14, and it was a full blown case. It was sucky, I missed a week of hanging out with my friends at school. Nothing more and nothing less.

    What you fail to realize, is that by vaccinating the way we are, not only are we messing with the immune system in a way mother nature never intended, we are messing with the immune and neurological systems of future offspring. And just so YOU know, it's not only vaccine's... it's truly environmental.

    At the risk of sounding inflammatory, and honestly, I don't care, until you can digest this, and become an educated parent who has children with multiple special needs, AND recover them from all because of diligently educating herself and continues to pay it back to whomever may benefit from our experiences, YOU can stick it where the sun DOES NOT SHINE. I DO NOT see YOU doing that. All I see you do is blast those who do not want to vaccinate.

    You must be getting some money from pharma. Either that or you are a socially mal-adjusted person that does not have an understanding of human and/or constitutional rights. I digress.

  10. Gravatar for AutismNewsBeat
    AutismNewsBeat

    "Obviously, you are not the parent of a special needs child."

    I have a 15-year-old son with autistic disorder. Obviously you are a bitter, angry person who has already decided what is true, regardless of the evidence.

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