Far from being a relatively harmless vaccine ingredient, aluminium in vaccines has and is creating a long term legacy as it accumulates in our bodies. Its not just that vaccine recipients might experience pain at the injection site that can be relieved with a hot towel (actual advice), but that vaccine material persists at the injection site indefinitely – and aluminium is the culprit.
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Vaccine antigens are absorbed on to aluminium salts to 'promote and prolong an immune response' and a quick online search will certainly reassure you that it's 'perfectly safe' . That's the spiel anyway. Here is a summary of some historical and alarming research -

• It doesn't actually work - The mechanism of action is unclear and experimental studies show that the vaccine antigens (virus or bacteria) disappear within a few hours, despite adding aluminum to vaccines for the last 90 years.
• The amounts added far exceed any recommended safe level - by up to 1000 times.
• It is nearly 20 years since aluminium was 'put on trial' by some 70 scientists who gathered to discuss a mysterious muscle ailment - Macrophagic myofasciitis syndrome or MMS. It is diagnosed from muscle biopsies where injections have been given and they show aluminium hydroxide present. The symptoms include muscle and joint pain, fatigue and in some cases serious neurological diseases such as Multiple Sclerosis.
• Aluminium from vaccines has been found to be present at the injection site up to 8 years after the vaccine had been administered. (That study, like the MMS discussion, was conducted in 2000.)

In 2013 a British Medical Journal case study described a child with a persistent nodule or granuloma on the front of a thigh which was eventually excised to resolve the issue. (Granuloma - a mass of granulation tissue, typically produced in response to infection, inflammation, or the presence of a foreign substance).
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So injecting vaccines and then cutting out the residue is actually a thing. Alarmingly, as I delved further, the strategy to minimise the risk is to inject the vaccine in two lots in two separate limbs and effectively halve the impact.  I'm quite sure that would be problematic given that the current schedule calls for several aluminium containing vaccines to be administered at once, never mind the existing issue of how to hold down a child long enough to get the job done.

The case study shared the following enlightening observations -

• Intensely itching subcutaneous nodules (granulomas) may appear at the injection site for aluminium containing vaccines and persist for many years.
• The nodules can appear a remarkably long time after vaccination (months or even years).
• Most patients with vaccine-induced itching nodules have become contact allergic to aluminium.
• The condition is poorly recognised in Health Care which may lead to prolonged symptoms and unnecessary investigations.

Back in the late 90’s when the acellular whooping cough vaccine was first introduced onto the schedule there was a forum held at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Adelaide for the public to ask questions. We asked a couple –

"If a fully vaccinated child can still come down with whooping cough, how can we prevent the spread of this disease?"

The answer came from Anne Kemp, the then Head of the Immunisation Unit of the South Australian Health Department and she said something along the lines of –

“If you put every child on an island and surrounded it with a big wall and a moat then you might have some chance”. She sounded somewhat resigned to the less than ideal protection from both the whole cell vaccine (which was withdrawn and replaced because of side effects) and the new acellular version.

The second question proved to be the last coming from our section of the lecture theatre and it related to the discussion about adverse events associated with the vaccine. You know the drill, Panadol for the fever and a warm towel for soreness at the injection site but the question related to the revelation that occasionally babies go floppy after receiving the vaccine.

I asked – “What do you do if a baby goes floppy?  You can’t administer Panadol then can you?"

The answer again from the then Head of our Immunisation Unit was – “No you can’t but it can be reassuring to put your ear to their chest and hear the fluttering of their heart.”

The level of deception, the overwhelming dismissal of adverse events, whatever they are, and the complete lack of any mechanism to repair the damage done by vaccines is bad enough.  Now the heart wrenching experience of watching your baby become unresponsive or scream in a high pitch for days following vaccination MUST be repeated if you want your child to attend childcare or preschool.

That story is 20 years old and here is another one from Laurel Lainio who has been kind enough to let us share her story.

'Here's my story. I had my first child nearly 20 years ago. He was vaccinated at 2 & 4 months and both times, within 4-5 hours he was bleeding into his nappy with this horrible smelling, mucousy stuff. We had all these tests etc, including the doctors starting to talk about the possibility of leukaemia.

I went to the library and started looking up possible causes with regard to the vaccines and started reading some really scary stuff about the history of vaccines (remember the internet wasn't a big thing yet 20 years ago lol). So I went to my GP, who I LOVE (he's been my GP since I was 14) & started asking him about some of the info I had found. Considering he knew my family well, my sister’s autoimmune issues, the fact that MTHFR gene defects and allergies etc run through our family (I have a cousin who was most likely disabled by DTP when she was a toddler), he was a bit concerned that vaccinating my son further wasn't a good idea. But he couldn't answer most of the questions I had regarding vaccine history etc. so I went to the Child & Youth Health nurse. When I asked about the things that were concerning me, they basically got shitty with me and told me to just DO IT!  We're always told 'talk to your health care professional' but what do we do when the healthcare professional can't allay our concerns? Or doesn't know the answers to the questions we have?

Now 20 years ago, Conscientious Objection was a relatively easy thing to get. My mother had started researching the ingredients in vaccines due to my son's eczema that had suddenly sprung up. She was concerned about me vaccinating her grandson further and based on the fact that my doctor, who knew my family history well and SAW the amount of blood in my son's nappy, was dubious about me vaccinating him again, I didn't!

Over the years I've done more & more research, both on the vaccines AND the illnesses, and I have never come across a health care professional who could actually answer my concerns in a way that made me feel better about vaccinating! & believe me, I WANTED them to convince me! It's not nice, as a young Mum, feeling like you're different from others or having people angry with you for not doing what THEY thought is right. But I can't just go against my mother's instinct, especially when the research I have done backs up my instinct, just because someone tells me to. I couldn't put my child at risk when it just really feels so wrong to me. I don't think any parent should!

The main thing that concerns me about No Jab No Pay is that doctors are no longer allowed to make the sort of call that my doctor made 20 years ago. A GP who knows the family history and has an instinct themselves, from all their years of training & experience, that vaccination may not be safe for that specific child. They now have to go against their training, against their better judgement and vaccinate the child anyway. That kinda ruins the doctor/patient trust circle too because we now can't trust doctors to tell us if they think it's not a good thing for our child, or even just what the real risks are, because they've been threatened with losing their license etc.. 

Anyway that's my long rant done. I'm not trying to change anyone's mind, I just want people to understand WHY I have the concerns that I do and why I feel so strongly that the decision should be made between a doctor and a patient ONLY and that forcing and coercing the issue is not helping. '

 Laurel makes some great points about the consequences for the doctor/ patient  relationship.  At the end of the day despite admission at the highest level of our medical system that vaccines are flawed and unavoidably unsafe it is parents who are responsible for their choices and inflicted with the consequences.

It's human nature to protect your child and give them the best start to life you can."

​Our thanks goes to Laurel for sharing her story and thoughts.

KS

The title of this blog is borrowed from the recent Perspective, published in the Medical Journal of Australia, authored by three experts including Professor Peter McIntyre, Director of the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance, The Children's Hospital at Westmead, Sydney, NSW.

Commenting on the proposed national legislation to extend this to No Jab No Play, Professor Peter McIntyre, agreed that restricting childcare could be counterproductive.  “We know that a child missing out on early childhood education opportunities is really bad in terms of later education progression,” he told MJA InSight in an exclusive podcast.  

He said that the presence of unvaccinated children in childcare centres didn’t necessarily pose a huge risk to the immunised children.  “It’s a little bit of a myth that there are these terrible disease risks that other kids will be exposed to. Childcare in general is a fantastic way to get infections, but hopefully only a small amount of those would be vaccine preventable.”

MJA Insight Article HERE

Thanks Peter for your sensible commentary. You might want to expand on why children are sick at childcare but in essence I agree. The cleverly worded 'No Jab No Play' really undermines the breadth of services and experiences provided to children attending Early Learning Services. Services considered so valuable in the growth and development of children that the same government that seeks to exclude perfectly healthy children from preschool and Childcare also included Universal Access to Preschool as part of the Families Package in the 2015 Budget with funding through 2016 and 2017.

Yet the recent budget seeks to take penalties for families who do not meet vaccination requirements one step further- “Parents who don’t vaccinate their child/ren will be $14-a-week worse off per child, with $28 set to be wiped from their family tax benefits every fortnight.

The measure, which will start from July 2018, is expected to raise $15 million over four years, while sending a tough message to those who fail or refuse to immunise their children.  Social Services Minister Christian Porter and Health Minister Greg Hunt said last week that reducing fortnightly payments instead of withholding the end-of-year supplement would serve as a constant reminder to parents to vaccinate their children.”
http://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/federal-budget/the-winners-and-losers-of-budget-2017/news-story/92fabb65ade73ac3922bfaaae1c1720a
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No Jab No Play seeks to enforce exclusion policies, which have been in place for some time and the call for uniform national legislation was made in 1997.  It's always been a mystery to me as to why this hasn't been actioned until recently. 

In South Australia the Immunisation Unit of the Health Department told me many years ago that when a child has contracted a notifiable disease (and others in the child care centre /preschool who are unvaccinated are sent home for a period of time under the exclusion policy that has been in practice informally in most states since '97), they do not record, as a matter of priority, the vaccination status of the child with the disease. 

They stopped recording vaccine failures decades ago – that’s why every article you read about an incident or outbreak of a so-called ‘vaccine preventable disease’ fails to mention the vaccination status of those involved. The last records I have sighted are from the SA Health Department in the late 90"s. They recorded nearly 50% of the 1000 plus cases of whooping cough were in fully vaccinated children, 7% unvaccinated, and failed or chose not to record any status for the remaining 43%.
 
The Government expects to make $15 million when parents, despite all the penalties, still choose not to vaccinate? They are relying on it to be just as ineffective as NJNPay in forcing people to vaccinate their children to generate revenue.

It has been my experience in over 25 years of speaking to people that once they investigate vaccines by looking at real scientific published research and articles from people who analyse it, that they do not vaccinate and will never vaccinate.

Australian doctors know this and do not advocate punishing perfectly healthy children by refusing care. Mandatory or compulsory vaccine measures have recently been rejected in Sweden and by UK doctors who see it as harming their relationship with patients.

http://www.ageofautism.com/2017/05/sweden-votes-down-mandatory-vaccination.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-186604/Doctors-say-compulsory-vaccines.html

We gather to rally over the next two weeks because the politicians refuse to listen.
Please join us and bring loads of your friends.

​KS

Some families are separated and conflict is inevitable.  In the last couple of weeks I have had three conversations with very distressed mothers whose children face catch up vaccine schedules, (including through family court orders.)  It is circumstance that all enquiries were from women, obviously men and fathers are affected too, but not as frequently in my experience.

One father has just said that their child will be vaccinated (via email because he doesn't consider the mother worthy of a phone or direct conversation; emails can be sent at midnight.. ) The child is healthy and has had no vaccines to date without any quarrel between the parents but the NJNP legislation has prompted this situation because of the end of year Family Tax Benefit A supplement. The decision to not vaccinate was made and agreed to by both parents up to this point, the supplement will be completely phased out in the next 18 months anyway.

Considering the consent of only one parent is required for vaccines to be administered and the child spends 50% of their time with each parent, this can happen without the mother’s knowledge or consent.  Also considering in this instance the father is continually verbally and emotionally abusive to the mother, adding in an inflammatory and sanctioned issue such as vaccination makes for a very worrying time.  His abusive dialogue on this issue is sanctioned by politicians and the media.

Another father has decided that the subsidy for vacation care for his 2 boys is more important than the previous joint decision to not vaccinate and wants catch up schedules in place for a 6 year old and a 10 year old. This is despite the mother offering to negotiate different care arrangements over school holidays so that he can still have his allocated quota of parenting time and the boys will not need to attend care with its $ cost. This person will not have a verbal conversation with the mother in this shared parenting arrangement and will also only communicate via email. That is an awful lot of vaccines to catch up on for a relatively short term situation and it will include Gardasil HPV vaccine given at 10 - 14 years of age.

Finally to the Family Court and its orders to vaccinate a healthy child, prompted by the notion of overseas travel to somewhere with no mandatory vaccination requirements and the very public NJNP legislation with all its dialogue.
Now this is not unusual. In the Family Court it is a "given" that even though a joint decision was made while the parents were together to not vaccinate, one can change their mind and gain quite a bit of weight in the court, pitting the decision against the other parent to show negligent parenting and assist their case for joint custody and/or access arrangements. It diverts the courts focus from the day to day needs of the child and documented family violence issues.

The pressures are many and have increased immeasurably for separated families.  A compounding factor is that parents with sole responsibility can often be without any additional funds from child support, making finances very tight.

Family Court orders will dictate that the child be transferred between parents and households week by week, half of holidays, mother’s day, father’s day, Christmas, Easter, birthdays.  Intricate orders that last for years with no mention of any consideration for the changing needs of any child.  The fact that two of the three mothers have to communicate only by email because the father won't talk to them in person should be a red flag that things are not ideal.  There's a child being shifted between households!

So, if you have made a joint decision to not vaccinate please ensure that this is recorded in a written, signed, dated and even witnessed document.  Also if you find yourself in a similar position to those above:

• State that the child is now x years old and this has not been an issue that has been mentioned in that time years. The other parent had agreed and not taken issue up to this point.
• Document this where possible, eg doctors visit to discuss vaccination, any conversations or incidents that show it was a joint decision.
• Document the state of health of the child currently in relation to vaccination history, health and prescribing history; the number of incidences of colds, ear infection, diseases and conditions, prescription history (antibiotics, steroids etc).
• Express concern to the vaccine administrator about the number of vaccines to be administered in a catch up schedule and the accelerated time frame.
• Make it clear that any vaccines that will be administered are done so without your consent.
• Ask what happens if there is a debilitating adverse reaction requiring ongoing treatment and what compensation systems are in place. Also what treatment options are available and how successful are they?
• Ask for the product information, complete list of ingredients and the cumulative amount of each (particularly aluminium), and potential adverse reactions for all vaccines.
• Ask for evidence that the accelerated schedule provides adequate and long term seroconversion to provide protection
• Ask for evidence to show that the accelerated schedule is safe to administer. Ask to see safety studies that support the catch up schedule.
• State that given the history of good health of the child, any and all changes to this status quo will be monitored, documented and reported.

In the end, for some separated families this is just not about vaccines. It is about maintaining control despite separation and has nothing to do with the health of the child or children. Often there are compounding domestic violence issues that do not necessarily involve physical violence but manipulation, stress and emotional trauma.
Be kind to yourselves and get help and advice.

KS

Many people are so fearful of being judged that they don’t share their concerns about vaccination with anyone and are very private about the choices they make, whether it is to not vaccinate their children at all, delay vaccination or not consent to all vaccines on the schedule.
 
They can’t even ‘like’ information pages on Facebook or subscribe to public groups even though they would like to have the information and support networks, because it will show on their personal page and then their friends will know.
 
The judgements and name calling in the media, coupled with legislation and political commentary make it very daunting to be open with others when apparently you are affecting the health of the entire population; though of course you are not.  You can make a choice to not comply with the vaccination schedule, but you certainly can’t share it on Facebook.
 
It hasn’t always been this way! I have been having conversations about vaccination in my community for 22 years and have held a very public position because of my role with Vaccination Information Serving Australia, including television interviews and public information seminars and booths at expos and fairs.  I sole parented my 4 daughters and never hid that they were unvaccinated.  They were (and are) healthy and lovely and they thrived at school and sport.
 
In the last 10 to 15 years the South Australian Government awarded out organisation grants on two occasions to buy office equipment including a data projector and computer. I was awarded in my local electorate of Mayo for volunteering and also given a National Volunteering award for my work in providing information on vaccination. The Woman’s and Children’s Hospital midwives were keen to get the information booklet ‘Investigate Before You Vaccinate’ included in their new baby pack for parents!
 
I have only had 3 people react at me  - 2 at expos and 1 in my children’s school canteen who later apologised but I have had an infinite number of calm conversations with people in my community about health, organics, my children not ever needing antibiotics or Panadol, and sharing that they are unvaccinated.
 
VISA held a public forum at a local community centre when Meningococcal C Vaccine was first introduced and attracted people who were mostly in favour of vaccination but wanted to know more about this new vaccine.
There were 20 – 30 people grilling me about why I was questioning the vaccine.
 
I gave referenced information that indicated concerns and talked about the lack of information about side effects of vaccination in information that is given to parents but it wasn’t until I told the story of my eldest daughter sleeping 20 hours after being given whole cell pertussis vaccine at 3 months of age and not feeding the whole time that I really got their attention. (I will never forget because my breasts were so sore!) I told how I didn’t connect this as a vaccine reaction at the time – excessive somnolence, brain inflammation - because I was only told that she might have a mild fever and soreness at the injection site.  I wasn’t even aware that other side effects existed.
 
I explained that I continued to vaccinate without questioning anything until she was two and contracted measles from MMR vaccine. The doctor said she was reacting to a virus.  It wasn’t until someone gave me information that is freely available in the form of Product Manufacturers Information that I realised these were both vaccine reactions.  Suddenly everyone in the room had a story of a vaccine reaction, unnoticed and unreported. 
They made the connection. I had thrown all the facts in the world at them but the personal connection was like worlds colliding.
 
If you don’t speak worlds won’t collide and people won’t have the opportunity to connect and question outside of the dialogue that comes from the Government and the media.
 
Only speak when you feel is it right and are comfortable to do so.  Don’t speak when it is an argument because there is nothing to gain there, just a loss of your dignity and energy.  It is acceptable to say “you sound angry; I’m not comfortable at all with this” and even “Let’s save this for a less emotional time”. If you feel yourself getting upset or reacting in any situation its best to exit.
 
We need to be able to communicate and we have a right to do that without being judged. It’s really important to have calm conversations and respectful exchanges, especially in these volatile times.
 
KS