Industry Ignores Vaccine Injury.

These case reports are profoundly moving tales of devastating health problems suffered by children and adults injured by vaccines, of the anguish of families tasked 24/7 with seeking medical treatments and therapies… or making funeral arrangements.

Poland and Jacobson ask us to believe that the ailments reported as vaccine injuries to the NVICP instead simply arise spontaneously, only coincidental with vaccination – conditions such as encephalopathy, demyelination, autoimmunity, mitochondrial dysfunction, glutathione deficiency disorder, methylation disorder, chronic neuroinflammation, gastrointestinal disease, microgliosis, tics and seizure disorders, development of antibodies to myelin basic protein, and more disorders listed in peer-reviewed medical literature.

Read the doctors’ statement again: "[I]t is still unlikely that rare [vaccine] side effects can be studied adequately owing to the very, very low numbers of cases available for study."

So… just how many people must be injured by vaccines before Drs. Poland and Jacobson decide they deserve study and aid? How long should vaccine adverse events be allowed to continue unchecked? And who will care enough to investigate?

Contrast the “don’t look, don’t see” attitude with Dr. Poland’s past writings, and note the swift backpedaling:

            - His 2008 Vaccinomics paper promoted tailoring vaccines to accommodate "individual variability in disease risk immunologic response”;

            - His 2009 Adversomics paper encouraged study to predict adverse reactions to vaccines, and “design new vaccine approaches that minimize or eliminate serious vaccine-related reactions."

Vaccine consumers should be appalled that these researchers have conveniently excused themselves from the task of studying vaccine injury cases. The presumption of infallibility is shocking, and the abrogation of professional responsibility to the end users of their products is unethical.

It takes enormous gall to blame the victims of vaccine injuries and their families for suggesting closer scrutiny of vaccines and stakeholders by media, government and the public. And it’s malicious to malign good doctors who advise using the precautionary principle when a medical procedure raises questions and may be contraindicated.

Disclosure statements by vaccine researchers are revealing indeed, and vary from publication to publication. Some researchers, like Dr. Poland, have received money from dozens of businesses and agencies. With much to lose financially and professionally from admissions of culpability, vaccine developers are uniquely susceptible to denial. Among the financial disincentives preventing vaccine injury from being studied are the lifetime care costs for each neuroimmune-impaired child, which can exceed $5-$10 million.

Decode the doctors’ journal-speak and their attitude toward studying and preventing vaccine injury reads, “It’s not my job.” So while vaccine-injured children with chronic neuroimmune disorders fight for their very lives, vaccine developers fight only for their professional lives. Poland, the self-described vaccine “warrior," sees himself as one of the white knights of public health – but is unwilling to clean up after his horse.

Yet much remains unknown about the full health impact of vaccines. A 2011 study in Vaccineon a trivalent influenza vaccine states that "data on the maternal inflammatory response to vaccination is lacking and would better delineate the safety and clinical utility of immunization," that there is "considerable variability in magnitude of response," and "further research is needed to confirm that the mild inflammatory response elicited by vaccination is benign in pregnancy."

It’s obvious that treating every vaccine-injured child or adult is simply too overwhelming a task for Drs. Poland and Jacobson – hence their denial. It’s long past time to recruit and organize a well-funded independent consumer service agency to properly handle vaccine injuries, from diagnosis to treatment to prevention, and fair compensation for disabilities and financial losses.

In addition, people who’ve blocked honest dialogue about vaccine injuries should be given financial incentives compelling them to stop. People who’ve suffered adverse reactions to vaccines deserve as much funding and attention as victims of any preventable disease du jour. Field evidence abounds indicating that the pool of people unable to be safely vaccinated is far greater than public health policymakers realize.

As an altruistic chemist told me, there are none so blind as those who will not see. Before selective blindness about vaccine injuries bankrupts this country, the brightest and best stars in the vaccine research galaxy must shift from microscope to stethoscope and partner with physicians to learn how vaccines are causing adverse reactions in genetically susceptible infants, children and adults. No amount of ink, bandwidth and corporate cash can wish away that paradoxical reality.

Nancy Hokkanen is the parent of a child with autism who suffered adverse reactions to infant vaccines and has a case filed in the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program’s Omnibus Autism Proceeding. Since 2002 she has advocated for autism groups, and co-moderates a biomedical treatment listserv.