“All things are engaged in writing their history…. Not a foot steps into the snow, or along the ground, but prints in characters more or less lasting, a map of its march.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
The first time I ever met anyone with a nut allergy was a good friend in Maine. He was a former Marine and CIA something (he couldn’t really talk about it) who was the head of the English Department at the local campus of the University of Maine. We were at a church after Mass function, and he was avoiding the delicious homemade brownies provided by a parishioner, although I knew he had a sweet tooth that rivaled mine. I offered him one, and when he declined, I asked if he was fasting for a reason. He answered that it was not a spiritual endeavor, but that a brownie with walnuts in them could kill him as his throat would likely seize up, and he would fall on the floor. I agreed it was probably a good idea to skip the brownies. Since thankfully I suffered no tragic similar malady, I ate his too.
What was once relatively rare has become so common that children cannot bring even a peanut butter sandwich to school because they could be shared with other kids who could be done great harm. This is disappointing to me, because without peanut butter sandwiches, I probably would not have survived past ten. What has happened that so many are now brownie with nuts and peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwich deprived? Please refer to the statistics cited in Part One regarding the multiplication of vaccines and chronic diseases mandated for children. Children in the U.S. born after 1989 are afflicted with a chronic disease at a rate four times higher than those born before the new vaccine protocols kicked in. (54% vs. 12.8%).
Among the quadrupling chronic diseases are food allergies, and nut allergies among the most common and life threatening. [i] Their instances have tripled since 1997, and visits to the emergency room for children have increased 214% for anaphylactic[ii] reactions to food[iii]. Anaphylaxis health care claims have increased 377%. Is this correlation with the onset of the huge increases in mandated vaccines for infants and preschool children coincidental and due to other environmental causes? Perhaps, it is possible. It is also possible that it is not coincidence.
Autism is another epidemic that has become a devastating plague in the same time period – from one in 166 children in 2004 to 1 in 59 in 2018[iv]. Yes, some of that may be better diagnosis. Yes, there may be other environmental causes. Yes, there may be a genetic predisposition, just as with some of the other chronic conditions and allergies. As mentioned in the last post, the pharmacology industry is indemnified against any damage suits for vaccine induced injury, so any claim is decided by something set up by the Federal government: the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP).
While VICP will adjudicate any claims for vaccinations for flu or childhood disease, they will shred any that mention autism. Not to be considered. Because it has been “proven”[v] that there is no relationship between autism and vaccines. “Settled science” is a magic and meaningless phrase; it ends all reasoned discussion. So if you think your child has vaccine induced autism because its onset was immediately after a vaccination, and your child was on a normal developmental path prior to that, and there have been such instances, not only will the manufacturer be indemnified against damages by a Federal firewall, that firewall will not allow you to even present a case. Game, set, match, you are on your own. In the footnotes below, several are for pages in the Children’s Health Defense website; exploring that will give you far more information on the topic than a blog post. There are references to eighty-nine peer reviewed studies that correlate to one degree or another the onset of autism to vaccination or immunization injury, but they are ignored, rebutted, rebuked and derided by the vaccination industry, an industry that produces annual revenues of 1.6-billion-dollars. The “settled science” is theirs.
But the point of these statistics and facts is not to shut down childhood vaccination programs, but as with other hot topic science issues that have morphed into political or ideological issues, rather can we just consider two commonsense questions and not be threatened with being drawn and quartered as a science hating troglodyte?
“Yes, the world’s a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete.” Herman Melville, “Moby Dick”
Many states, most recently California, are enacting increasingly draconian laws to mandate infant vaccinations. They cite another desired outcome of the nanny state, “herd immunity,” a defined percentage of the immunized (an unfortunate and chilling metaphor). These laws use the coercive power of the state like refusal to admit students into schools if they haven’t checked all the vaccination boxes. There have been instances where the arm of the state named child protective services or the department of children and youth has stepped in to take children from the parents in order to get them vaccinated. Kids trust their parents when they jump off the dock into their arms, and they trust them to make the right decisions regarding their safety and well-being. Not the state, but their parents. Question one: given the still open questions of risk and the good possibility that genetic predisposition increases risk to harm from vaccinations, why should the state not allow a physician and her patient’s parents to determine the avoidance, timing or spacing of some or all vaccinations as medical exemptions if higher risk is determined for individual children?
If you are past sixty, the pressure put on to get flu and pneumonia shots is increasing. Every time I have acquiesced in this high profit agenda, I get sick, maybe not full flu sick, but headache, scratchy throated, muscle aching two day misery, only to learn afterwards that the strain of flu for which I was being inoculated missed the mark that year. Another strain of flu virus was making the rounds. With the “herd immunity” refrain in full sway, our physicians and pharmacies are driven to put on the pressure. I cannot go to buy Band-Aids or have a six-month checkup without being asked multiple times, “Have you had your flu shot yet?” Most of the time these shots are free, at least to me. Each time, I politely decline. Among the millions of dollars of settlements that are paid out by VICP, by far the largest share is for flu shot injuries[vi]. Question two: with an aging (and increasingly expensive population), can refusal to cover flu related illness and hospitalization by insurance carriers for any without documentation of a flu shot be far ahead of us with the terrifying partnership of the power of the state, big pharma and insurance companies?
Sometimes as Will Rogers reminded us, “Commonsense ain’t so common.”
“A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” Aldo Leopold
[i] Vaccines and food allergies. https://childrenshealthdefense.org/news/no-enigma-vaccines-and-the-food-allergy-epidemic/
[ii] Anaphylactic shock or anaphylaxis is a sudden onset allergic reaction that can close the throat and cause death or permanent damage. 35% of the attacks are experienced with the first exposure. One can kill you if not immediately diagnosed and treated. Nut allergies can cause this. So can vaccinations.
[iii] Increase in emergency room visits for anaphylaxis. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29663520
[iv] Increase in autism in children. https://www.autismspeaks.org/science-news/cdc-increases-estimate-autisms-prevalence-15-percent-1-59-children
[v] Except for 89 peer reviewed studies like this one. https://childrenshealthdefense.org/research_db/a-two-phase-study-evaluating-the-relationship-between-thimerosal-containing-vaccine-administration-and-the-risk-for-an-autism-spectrum-disorder-diagnosis-in-the-united-states/
[vi] Approximately 44% of the number of VICP settlements (VICP total injury pay outs are $4.2 billion with a B) in the history of the program since 1988 have been for flu shot injuries. https://www.hrsa.gov/sites/default/files/hrsa/vaccine-compensation/data/data-statistics-october-2019.pdf
Quo Vadis Blog 
A few random thoughts in response this essay and the last:
Science should be separated from scientific opinion. Science is the method by which we create models based on the best, most current information and evidence. It ain’t perfect, but it’s the best method we’ve got. Scientific opinion is… well, subjective at best, and, of course, it is easily bought and sold on the open market. Naomi Klein’s excellent The Merchants of Doubt details how big oil and big tobacco began campaigns of disinformation in the 60s, 70s, and 80s to create confusion about scientific consensus regarding the links between smoking and cancer, and the burning of fossil fuels and potentially catastrophic climate change. Was this the fault of science?
Eisenhower warned us, in his farewell address to the nation, of the imminent rise of what he called the military-industrial complex. (Turns out it was far more complex than even he imagined.) We paid him little attention. Freidman’s assertion in the early 70s, that a corporation’s only responsibility was to increase shareholder profitability, along with significant deregulation during the Reagan administration, gave rise to mega-corporations with no regard for corporate stewardship or loyalty to country. These, and other, factors were exacerbated by SCOTUS decisions opening the faucets for what has come to be called
Dark Money. Capitalism has turned to the Dark Side, and I doubt it will ever turn back. Too bad, but doubtless inevitable from the beginning.
Tech has convinced us to give up our privacy in exchange for endless squirts of dopamine. We give, they receive. We are targeted, and we giddily paint bullseyes on our own backs. We welcome techs piercing points more than Cupid’s.
It’s not just tech. It’s our food supply, too. Processed foods are killing us. Too much salt, sugar, and fat. Confusing labelling. Artificial sweeteners. Too large portions.
Society is in constant flux. Technology has accelerated change. We silly apes are trying to grasp these changes with brains still best suited for the savanna. Who do we trust? The scientists? The politicians? The corporatists? Ultimately, we must trust ourselves and make our solitary ways by judiciously seeking the best answers from multiple sources and making our own decisions. Not an easy task, but what are our choices?
I trust the process of science, but not necessarily the opinions. Science has delivered multitudinous benefits to humankind. We cannot through out the baby with the heavy water. Like all things, we must place our trust in those who earn it, and hope for the best outcomes. And with folks out there right now performing genetic engineering in the basements and garages with CRISPR kits purchased online, some of the potential outcomes are downright scary.
Like I said, random thoughts, typed as they came to me and unedited. I could rattle on, but only over a beer or two.
Be well.
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Always good to hear from you, AV. Would love to share a beer anytime. Are you going to revive your blog?
The difficulty is discerning the difference between proven science and scientific opinion. Much that has been published as “settled science” is ideologically bent or is trying the catch the wind pushed by grants. Follow the money. There is a documented crisis with scientists having difficulty repeating the experimental results of other published studies. This could be because the published results and statistics were manipulated to “prove” the original hypothesis that supports the “settled science.” Many studies (and subsequently academic departments) are funded by grants. Grants are given to those who are writing the proposals, and proposals that tickle the ears of the grant funding organizations with the money which many times have ideological, governmental or corporate supporting intentions, are the proposals that get funded. If you write a proposal that taps into one of those sweet spots, you get the money, your department and your net worth grows. Dissenters from the “settled science” remain undefended, underfunded and possibly unemployed. The effect of this stifles free roaming studies that go where the evidence leads, encourages sycophantic science and impoverishes new discoveries.
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