July 2016
A bit about myself; I’m a 35 year old, stay-at-home mum. I am currently furthering my studies in Naturopathy, with a focus on Advanced Holistic Nutrition. I live in White River and my husband commutes to our farms in Northern Mozambique. My kids are at school here in White River.
My son is 9 years old and my daughter is 6. My son was vaccinated and suffered from an adverse reaction to the vaccines he received. My daughter has never been vaccinated.
I have spent an average of at least four hours a day, since the 26th of March 2007, researching vaccines, their ingredients, their side effects, the diseases they are supposed to prevent and alternative prevention and treatment for these diseases.
On the 26th of March 2007, I took my perfect, first born, baby boy for his 6-week check up with the paediatrician. My husband had gone back to work in Mozambique and I was apprehensive about taking my baby for his shots on my own, but I thought, “You’re a Mum now! Time to be a grown up now and face all aspects of Motherhood!”
The paediatrician sang my praises for being such a “good Mum”. My baby was perfectly alert and surprisingly, already holding his head up. “What a strong boy!” she said. He had gained weight beautifully and seemed so happy and content.
Once we were done at the paediatrician, we were sent across the passage to the nurse for his vaccines. I was at first unsure of the nurse administering the vaccines. I had expected the pediatrician to do it. My inner voice was already second-guessing, but I ignored it.
That morning, my baby received the OPV (Mérieux – Polio), DTacP-Hib (Actacel Acellular – 4 vaccines in one; Diptheria, Tetanus, Acellular Pertussis and Haemophilus Influenza type b), Hepatitis B (Herberbiovac HB), Prevenar (Pneumonia, otitis media, meningitis caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae) and Rotarix (Rotavirus).
He received a total of 8 vaccines. He was hysterical and inconsolable. My previously easy-to-breastfeed baby refused to nurse. I felt like I had made a terrible mistake. On my way out of the nurse’s office, she suggested that I give him some Calpol straight away and more later that night “because they often get little fevers from their shots. It’s nothing to be worried about.”
He cried in the car the whole way home and I kept saying to myself, “The worst is over. He’ll be fine once we’re home.”
He eventually passed out from screaming a few minutes before we arrived home. I carried him upstairs to our apartment in Sandton, Johannesburg and put him in bed to sleep off his ordeal. He slept for 3 hours. I kept going in to check on him and started worrying whether is was ok. When he woke up, I realised, he was not. He woke with a jolt and screamed with his back arched as though he was trying to get out of his body. The scream was like nothing I had heard before. It was high-pitched and shrill and he was clearly in a huge amount of discomfort. He screamed and screamed and nothing seemed to comfort him. I tried to breastfeed him, but he would only suckle for a few moments and then start screaming again. I thought he might calm down if I put him in the bath, so I got the bath ready for him, but when I took off his clothes, I got the fright of my life. His skin had gone a strange purple colour with vein-like mottles all over. He was puffy and swollen and still screaming. I got in the bath with him and tried to nurse him again. By now, I was sobbing. I was totally alone with my baby who looked like there was something very wrong with him and I had no idea what to do. I managed to calm him (and myself) down enough for him to have a decent feed and doze off again. We got out the bath and I gently dressed him, trying not to wake him up again, but he jolted awake and started screaming again. I held him close to me and noticed that he was feeling hot. The thermometer read 38,8 degrees Celcius. I gave him some Calpol, remembering what the nurse had said and believing it would help. He vomited it up and continued to projectile vomit. I was running on autopilot, trying to comfort him, trying to clean up puke, trying to think who to phone at 10pm at night or whether I should get to the ER or how I would drive to the ER on my own with a screaming, vomiting baby. When I took his temperature again it was 40,1 and then he started quivering. His eyes rolled back and he shook. I thought my baby was dying. I held him close, not knowing what to think. My brain felt like a marshmallow and I was exhausted. He eventually fell asleep and I stayed up all night holding him, making sure he was breathing.
I know now that he was having a febrile seizure, a known side-effect of the DTacP-Hib vaccine.
My son did not hold his head up without support after that until he was four months old. He developed sleep apnea, so I had to often wake him when he stopped breathing in his sleep. He was constantly ill for the first three years of his life. He has been through 3 homeopathic vaccine detoxes and thankfully has better immunity now.
He has caught measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox and rotavirus (even though this was one he was vaccinated for) and had no complications. He was treated with homeopathy, herbal remedies and high doses of vitamin C (My standard protocol if anyone in the family gets sick). I kept him at home when he was sick to prevent others from getting sick. All of these above illnesses were easy to manage and he recovered quickly. I would honestly take all of those illnesses again over the adverse reactions to the vaccines!
A natural/alternative lifestyle works for me and my family. Every pharmaceutical drug carries risks and they do not treat the cause of disease. I focus on building healthy immune systems through foods and supplements that heal and optimise the body’s systems.
I started VASA (Vaccine Awareness South Africa) in August 2012, when it became clear to me that South African parents needed information regarding the laws here and the South African Vaccine Schedule.
The Facebook group (www.facebook.com/groups/vaccineawarenessvasa) currently has over 7000 members and I receive daily notes and letters from parents who are so grateful they have found the group. We provide support to parents who are new to questioning vaccines, parents who are dealing with adverse reactions to vaccines and vaccine-injured children.
Risks of Vaccination:
Legally, vaccines are classified as “Unavoidably Unsafe”.
In the USA, there is a vaccine court that deals with compensating parents with Vaccine Injured Children. To date, they have paid out $3 Billion. In South Africa, we do not have a compensation program in place. If your child is injured as a result of vaccination, it is assumed that you as the parent vaccinated your child with informed consent. Meaning that you informed yourself of the ingredients, potential side effects and that you have taken into consideration family history and previous adverse reactions to vaccines. Hence, you as the parent are liable for any damages. The cost of raising a vaccine-injured child has been estimated to be three times more than raising an average child.
None of the vaccines on the current schedule have ever been evaluated for mutagenicity, carcinogenicity or impairment of fertility.
The safety studies on vaccines are questionable. Vaccines are not tested against a saline-based placebo. They are tested against either a different vaccine, or a solution that contains the same ingredients (Aluminium, formaldehyde, polysorbate 80, MSG, neomycin etc.) minus the virus.
When these tests then show similar adverse effects between the vaccine and the “placebo”, the vaccine is deemed “safe”. That doesn’t make the vaccine safe; the adverse effects are similar because they contain the same toxic ingredients!
No double-blind placebo studies have ever been done with vaccines and there has never been a study looking at the safety of the entire vaccine schedule.
Vaccines have never been tested on babies, so we cannot assume that they are safe for babies.
The vaccine industry makes an annual profit of $35 Billion (forecasted to be $41 Billion in 2016).
Doctors are provided with marketing material (not true data) from the pharmaceutical reps and they are expected to implement. It is not tolerated for doctors to question vaccines. Several cases have recently come to light where data has been manipulated by the pharmaceutical industry (1.Risperdal: Johnson & Johnson settled for $2.2 Billion for “improper marketing”, 2.Glaxosmithkline paid out $3 Billion in fines for Paxil and 6 other drugs and 3.the Merck Mumps vaccine was originally approved by the FDA in the late 60’s with an efficacy rate of 95%. When researchers could not confirm that efficacy rate, they were instructed to falsify data to reflect that efficacy.)
Like prescription drugs, vaccines are pharmaceutical products that carry two risks: a risk the product will not work and a risk the product will cause harm.
There is a wide spectrum of vaccine complications, which have been identified and acknowledged in the medical literature and by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), National Academy of Sciences, including:
- Brain Inflammation/Acute Encephalopathy
- Chronic Nervous System Dysfunction
- Anaphylaxis
- Febrile Seizures
- Guillain Barre Syndrome (GBS)
- Brachial Neuritis;
- Acute and Chronic Arthritis
- Thrombocytopenia
- Smallpox, polio, measles and varicella zoster vaccine strain infection
- Death (smallpox, polio and measles vaccine)
- Shock and “unusual shock-like state”
- Protracted, inconsolable crying
- Syncope
- Deltoid Bursitis
We are told that adverse reactions are “rare” but it is estimated that less than 10% of adverse reactions are ever reported.
In 1979 in South Africa, 12 vaccines were administered from birth to 6 years (21 or 23 doses; 9 or 11 pathogens)
Today we see 21 vaccines from birth to 6 years (45 doses; 16 pathogens), excluding prenatal Tetanus and prenatal flu shots. Flu shots once per year from 6 months old adds 6 more shots. Plus the new HPV vaccine and additional boosters. There are far too many vaccines on the current schedule.
I believe that the number of people in South Africa who currently refuse vaccines for their families is very small, but there definitely is a growing awareness and we are seeing an average of 10 new members on VASA every day. They may not all refuse vaccines, but they’re certainly questioning vaccines.
People who believe that unvaccinated children are putting other children at risk of catching disease are not taking into consideration that if the vaccines were effective in preventing disease in the first place, there would be no concern. Secondly, we are all capable of spreading disease, vaccinated or not. The real issue is parents not keeping their sick children at home. Vaccinated or not.
In 2012 The NICD in South Africa tested 4086 specimens from suspected measles cases. Of those collected, 31% (1288/4086) were rubella IgM positive and ONLY 0.7% (28/4086) were measles IgM positive (11 of which were vaccine-related, meaning the vaccine virus was present). This shows firstly how over-diagnosed measles actually is as well as the fact that the vaccinated can still contract measles and the vaccine itself can cause measles.
There was a lot of hype and propaganda around the measles “outbreak” in the US last year. There have been zero measles related deaths in the US in the last 10 years, but there have been over 100 deaths reported as a result of the measles vaccine.
When we were kids, measles was not a big deal. What has changed? Yes, measles can be dangerous for the immune-compromised, but studies have shown that simply supplementing with Vit A reduces risk of mortality and pneumonia-specific mortality in children under the age of two years.
Vaccines can shed. This occurs when the live virus from a vaccine is transmitted or spread to someone else. The shedding of the live virus can spread to an unvaccinated person, which can cause some serious issues for them.
As shedding occurs, the virus has the capability to be spread to even more people. It will run its course like any other virus, which is actually quite the opposite of what the vaccine program set out to do. Instead of reducing communicable diseases, they actually proliferate them. Live vaccines can spread diseases instead of eradicating them through viral shedding.
Viral shedding might have less of an impact if more facts about vaccines were properly presented and then adhered to. Not only do the package inserts state this, but common sense dictates that if you’ve been injected with a live virus, you should avoid immune-compromised individuals for the duration of incubation. This means avoid contact with the elderly, the very sick and children for 3-6 weeks time post vaccination.
Health professionals have the “Vaccine success stories” drilled into them when studying medicine (The pharmaceutical industry publishes their text books!). What most of those professionals fail to do is look a little further back into history. All of these communicable diseases were already declining due to better food and clean drinking water. Improved sanitation, less overcrowded and better living conditions also contribute.
There is a huge misconception that children who are not vaccinated, cannot attend school. This is simply not true.
Paragraph 16 of the NATIONAL EDUCATION POLICY ACT, 1996
(ACT NO. 27 OF 1996) ADMISSION POLICY FOR ORDINARY PUBLIC SCHOOLS states that on application for admission, a parent must show proof that the learner has been immunised against the following communicable diseases: polio, measles, tuberculosis, diphtheria, tetanus and hepatitis B. Paragraph 16 states that if a parent is unable to show proof of immunisation, the principal must advise the parent on having the learner immunised as part of the free primary health care programme. Even though parents must be advised on immunizing, this is not a condition for admission.
Parents are still within their rights to decline all vaccinations for their children.
Section 9 (3) and (4) under the Bill of Rights on Equality states:
“Neither “the State” nor “any person” may “unfairly discriminate, directly or indirectly, against anyone on one or more grounds” including “religion”, “conscience” and “belief”. The ISASA (Independent Schools Association of Southern Africa) adheres to South Africa’s Constitution and Bill of Rights.
