From: meryl1@Decemberxx.com.au (Meryl)
Newsgroups: misc.health.alternative
Subject: Need help to ensure free health choice
Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2001 23:46:18 GMT
Message-ID: <3b6b37c1.69430574@news.optusnet.com.au>

Hello all,

I am writing to you to ask for your help in supporting an AVN initiative to lobby for changes to federal legislation in regards to parent's right to not be discriminated against when exercising their legal right to not vaccinate or to vaccinate selectively. Another very important issue that we want to raise is the lack of adverse reaction reporting. To this end, the AVN will be sending representatives to Canberra to lobby Federal Parliamentarians for the following changes/additions to legislation: As you are probably aware, recent moves by the Federal Government have meant that many families have been discriminated against as a result of exercising their legal right to not vaccinate their children or themselves.

The government linked full vaccination with receipt of certain government entitlements. In order to get these payments, parents of unvaccinated or partially vaccinated children must go to an immunisation provider (doctor or clinic nurse) to be counselled on the benefits and risks. The doctor should then sign a form to verify that these people are conscientious objectors to vaccination. Many parents are finding it impossible to get doctors to sign these forms and have visited as many as 23 doctors before finding one who was willing. Aside from the trauma of having to front up to so many doctors, the cost to the Australian taxpayer from having to fund these visits would have to be enormous.

In addition, in common with reporting of reactions from all medical drugs, vaccine reactions are grossly under-reported. On our last lobbying trip to Canberra, the AVN was told by representatives of both ADRAC (the Adverse Drug Reactions Advisory Committee) and SAEFVSS (The Serious Adverse Events Following Vaccination Surveillance Scheme) that less than 10% of vaccine reactions are ever reported. Despite this knowledge, the government continues to claim that vaccines are safe and that the benefits far outweigh the risks.

The AVN feels that on this issue, the court is still out. We need real statistics, not government spin, to prove the safety and efficacy of vaccines. The only way to do this is to require doctors, who are already paid huge bonuses for vaccination ($6 for reporting vaccinations to the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register {ACIR}, $18.50 on top of their Medicare rebate for administering a vaccination on time, and a percentage bonus if they get 80% or 90% of their patient's children vaccinated), to report the reactions recognised by the NH&MRC (National Health & Medical Research Council) in the 7th Edition of the Vaccination Handbook.

Neither parents nor complimentary health professionals are allowed to report vaccine reactions. The AVN has many hundreds of reaction reports on its database and has been trying to get them added to the official statistics without success. The Government says that doctors must report vaccines reactions while doctors will not report. Legislation needs to be introduced to redress this situation. For this reason, the AVN is planning a lobbying trip to Canberra in August of this year.

Our last lobbying effort 2 years ago was very successful. We managed to get amendments enacted to allow parents to conscientiously object to vaccination and to redefine the term conscientious objector. The government's original definition was so strict that it would have been nearly impossible for anyone to have been considered a conscientious objector.

We hope that this trip will be at least as successful as the last. Our goals in going to Canberra this time will be as follows:

1. To introduce Federal legislation stating that anyone who is being asked to submit to a vaccination be provided with the manufacturer's package insert in advance so that they can read, understand and ask questions of the health care provider in order to be given their right to fully informed choice.
2. That Federal legislation be introduced to mandate reporting of the adverse reactions as required by the N&MRC in the 7th Edition of the Australian Immunisation Handbook. According to the handbook, the following adverse events should be reported. There is no time limit set for these events as according to the handbook, they may occur many years afterwards:
   · · Abscess
   · · Acute flaccid paralysis
   · · Allergic reactions
   · · Anaphylactoid reaction (acute hypersensitivity reaction)
   · · Anaphylaxis
   · · Arthralgia
   · · Arthritis
   · · Brachial neuritis
   · · Death
   · · Disseminated BCG
   · · Encephalopathy
   · · Encephalitis
   · · Fever - over 40.5 C
   · · Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS)
   · · Hypotensive – hyporesponsive episode (Shock, Collapse)
   · · Local reaction (severe)
   · · Lymphadenitis (includes suppurative lymphadenitis)
   · · Meningitis – diagnosis must be made by a physician
   · · Orchitis
   · · Osteitis
   · · Osteomyelitis
   · · Parotitis
   · · Rash (severe or unusual)
   · · Screaming (persistent)
   · · Seizure
   · · Sepsis
   · · Subacute Sclerosing Panencephalitis
   · · Thrombocytopenia
   · · Toxic-shock syndrome
   · · Vaccine associated paralytic poliomyelitis
   · · Other severe or unusual events The legislation must state that if doctors fail to report these events, then there will be penalties.
3. That parents be allowed to report their own child's reaction should the doctor refuse to. Currently, only medical professionals with a provider number are entitled to report reactions, which has caused a Catch-22 situation whereby the government can safely state that vaccines cause very few reactions because the majority of the reactions have never been reported 4- 4- That the Child Care Payments Act 2000 be amended to state that parents need not present to a doctor in order to get a conscientious objector form signed. Parents must be allowed to declare themselves conscientious objectors by simply signing a statutory declaration form.

The next email from me will explain how you can help us in our efforts to get this legislation passed. If you have gone through a lobbying process previously and have some ideas or information that you think may be helpful, please write back and let me know. Together we can move mountains!

All the best,
Meryl

Meryl W. Dorey,
President
The Australian Vaccination Network, Inc.