In today’s world, vaccines are frequent occurrences. Most children are required to get around fifty shots by the age of ten, and people of all ages receive annual flu shots. But what about the “rebels” in society, the people who refuse to get vaccinated for seemingly selfish, unethical, and unscientific reasons? Aren’t they putting themselves and others in danger while breaking laws?

Our Declaration of Independence speaks of the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In today’s world, those rights are being violated, not because these rights are no longer applicable to current society, but because the government feels they need to take the responsibility to make certain decisions for us. Presently, people are just letting this seizure of rights slide by, claiming that since the government knows best, we should do what they say, regardless of the risks to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The FDA[1] and CDC[2], which are government organizations, have created policies and regulations that they expect us to follow, such as taking vaccines. But are these regulations backed up with sufficient research and data on efficacy/safety to constitute harsh requirements such as requiring all children who attend public schools or all adult government workers to be vaccinated?

It comes down to one question: if there is a risk to health, life, and liberty in a medical procedure or device, should there be a personal choice?

In February 2018, there was an ACIP[3] meeting at the CDC, to determine whether or not to add a HepB (Hepatitis B) vaccine to the adult schedule. During that meeting, the committee members explicitly stated that “Information gaps remain [in the study]. There was indirectness since there was no study looking at HepB infection as an outcome, there are no real-world cohort data, and long-term protective immunity is unknown.”[4]

The reason ACIP doesn’t know about long-term protective immunity is that they rely on postmarketing data. If you read the ACIP meeting notes for approval on the HepB[5] vaccine, which was passed with a 100% vote in February 2018, you will see quickly that vaccines do not “all go through substantial safety and efficacy trials” before hitting the market. This is where postmarketing testing comes into play. Postmarketing can be defined as “a study commitment that is required of or agreed to by a sponsor that is conducted after the FDA has approved a product for marketing. The FDA uses postmarketing study commitments to gather additional information about a product's safety, efficacy, or optimal use. Agreements with sponsors to conduct postmarketing studies can be reached either before or after the FDA has approved a sponsor to market a product.”[6] The general public unknowingly becomes the guinea pigs for the next level of testing, but they are still told that “all vaccines are safe and effective.” This is especially concerning for research on pregnant women taking vaccines, which nearly always relies on postmarketing data.

With regards to postmarketing data concerns for childhood vaccines, the HepB vaccination for children is a prime example. According to the FDA, “in three clinical studies, 434 doses of RECOMBIVAX HB, 5 mcg, were administered to 147 healthy infants and children (up to 10 years of age) who were monitored for 5 days after each dose.”[7] In a clinical trial, should we consider five days a sufficient amount of time to monitor and follow up on young patients, including newborns, to check for additional reactions that occurred as a possible result of the vaccine? This lack of case study data leaves gaping holes in the research on this vaccine. By allowing ACIP recommendation mandates without sufficient data, are we inadvertently leading many to unnecessary vaccine injuries, complications, and even death?

Another potential risk of vaccines is with regard to the safety of simultaneous administration of adjuvanted vaccines. An adjuvanted vaccine is a vaccine with an ingredient, such as aluminum, that helps create a stronger immune response in people receiving the vaccine. In that same ACIP meeting in 2018, Dr. Walter, who is a member of the CDC ACIP committee asked if there were any comments regarding the use of this vaccine alongside other adjuvanted vaccines.[8] Dr. Schillie, another member of the CDC ACIP committee, responded, “there is no data to make a recommendation one way or the other.” In response to this, Dr. Cohn, another ACIP committee member, pointed out that, “while preclinical studies were not conducted using these vaccines simultaneously, the general approach to immunizations is that they can be given at the same time in different limbs.” This is questionable considering that if you inject adjuvanted vaccines into different areas of a person’s vascular system, inevitably, the blood containing those vaccine ingredients will all mix together because it is flowing in the same blood vessels. This issue of lacking data regarding multiple adjuvanted vaccines given simultaneously is a concern with the childhood schedule where they recommend young and developing children to take multiple adjuvanted vaccines simultaneously. This currently happens at every childhood doctor’s appointment. For example, at a baby’s two and four-month childhood doctor appointments when the pneumococcal, rotavirus, DTaP + HepB + IVP (polio), and Haemophilus (Hib) vaccines are all injected on the same day.[9] We must ask if these decisions could result in chronic health issues, allergies, neurological disorders, or even fatal side effects, like SIDS.[10] [11]

The fact is that when you carefully study vaccine inserts you will read a list of minor side effects such as a fever, rash, cough, sore injection site, redness, swelling, muscle aches, runny nose, sore throat, and headache.[12] These side effects, while unpleasant, won’t cause you great harm and should disappear within a few days. However, there are some very dangerous and detrimental side effects that can cause permanent damage and leave a person damaged for life. Those include, but aren’t limited to, neurological damage, brain damage, anaphylactic reactions, development of allergies, seizures, blood clots, strokes, heart attacks, autism, permanent disability, and even death.[13] [14] [15] These potential side effects should cause us to carefully consider the associated risks of vaccinating against diseases that usually won’t kill a healthy person and will actually strengthen their immune system and benefit them.

If vaccine administration can result in severe harm, and if risks aren’t being properly assessed we need to reexamine the power the government has over our healthcare choices. Even Dr. Benjamin Rush, one of the founding fathers, stated, “unless we put Medical Freedom into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize into an undercover dictatorship…to restrict the art of healing to one class of men and deny equal privilege to others, will be to constitute the Bastille of Medical Science. All such laws are un-American and despotic and have no place in a Republic…. The Constitution of this Republic should make special privilege(s) for Medical Freedom as well as Religious Freedom.” Two hundred years ago, he understood the importance of medical freedom which still applies to us today. It is unconstitutional to mandate and enforce vaccinations on anybody and force them to take on a risk to their life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. If we do not have the choice over what medical treatments we receive, and which ones we don’t, not only does that present a serious risk to our bodies, but to the very fabric of our country.

Therefore, Americans must assert their right to reject any vaccination, medication, or medical procedure they believe would be deleterious to their health and life. We must band together and elect government officials who will take a stand for medical freedoms.

[1] Food and Drug Administration
[2] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
[3] Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices
[4] cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/min-archive/min-2018-02-508.pdf page 19
[5] Hepatitis B
[6] fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/biologics-post-market-activities/postmarketing-clinical-trials
[7] fda.gov/files/vaccines%2C%20blood%20%26%20biologics/published/package-insert-recombivax-hb.pdf page 4
[8] cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/min-archive/min-2018-02-508.pdf page 24
[9] cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/hcp/imz/child-adolescent.html#appendix-hepb
[10] Sudden Infant Death Syndrome
[11] oatext.com/post-vaccination-inflammatory-syndrome-a-new-syndrome.php
[12] cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/side-effects.htm
[13] oatext.com/post-vaccination-inflammatory-syndrome-a-new-syndrome.php
[14] cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/side-effects.htm
[15] cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/ensuringsafety/sideeffects/