March 23, 2015

Dear Senator Tarte,

I have been a Registered Nurse in the field of Pediatrics for over 35 years.  I understand your proposal of SB 346 (requiring children in our state to receive all the vaccines in accordance with the CDC’s recommended schedule, and removing parental rights to a religious vaccine exemption) is intended to protect the public from communicable diseases.

However, as honorable and well-intentioned as your goal may be, I can assure you, if this bill is passed not only will the rights of  parents to decide which pharmaceutical substance can be injected into their children be eroded, there will be unintentional consequences to our children’s health.

Although many would have us believe reactions to vaccines are rare and when they do occur they are justifiable for the greater good, I strongly disagree.   Just as individual adults react differently to taking  specific medications, children, depending on their health status and their genetic predisposition, also react differently to vaccines especially when multiple doses are given simultaneously.  This of course is why over $3 Billion dollars has been awarded to families of children who have been damaged by vaccines.

I’m sure you are aware of that fact that 54% of the children in this country have one or more chronic illness.  Asthma rates have tripled in the past 30 years, 12% of our children have Type 2 Diabetes, 7 million suffer from allergies, ADHD affects 5 million children, 1 in 7 school aged children receive antipsychotic medication and unlike the 1-2 per 10,000 cases of autism per year back when I entered the field of pediatric nursing, we now have 1 in 68 children in this country with a diagnosis of autism.

Do you not find it interesting that during this same time period, the number of immunizations given to our children increased from 11 (administered before the age of 5), to the current number of 36-45?

I know Paul Offit, MD, who you made mention of during your press conference, has been quite successful in convincing a large sector of the public that this is mere coincidence and that vaccines and their toxic ingredients (such as formaldehyde, aluminum, glutamate, propylene glycol, live and attenuated viruses etc.) are perfectly safe to inject into the bodies of our babies.   But as someone with extensive experience in pediatrics, I can tell you these substances are not without risk and this debate is not as cut and dry or black and white as he would have you believe.

Of course we all want to protect our children against infectious diseases and no caring adult would wish to see a child suffer with an illness that could have been prevented.   If vaccines were completely effective and completely safe I would be the first one to be advocating and administering them.  But more often than not they are not effective (case in point: this year’s flu vaccine has been evaluated to be only 18%-23% effective and according to top scientists at Merck the manufacturers of the MMR, they falsified data for the FDA regarding the effectiveness of that vaccine.)   Additionally, it is well known that vaccines contain incredibly toxic ingredients as mentioned above which to be frank, I would not inject into a stray cat never mind a healthy newborn.

The recent hysteria over the Disney land measles outbreak was uncalled for and should not have resulted in this state by state campaign to erode parental rights to make medical decisions regarding a pharmaceutical substance being injected into their children.     As you accurately stated during your press conference, no one has died from the measles in the US in the last decade, yet there have been over 100 deaths directly related to the MMR vaccine.

Many of your constituents are intelligent, savvy individuals who have investigated this issue and dug deeply for the facts.  If you pursue this bill, you will have a battle on your hands that will cause great divisions in our state and one that you will most likely not win.

Like you and your pediatrician wife, I value children’s health and happiness above all else.  For that reason, I beg you to reconsider your stance on this bill so that instead of state legislators passing laws which will basically mandate all vaccines for all children, the parent’s remain the ones to make these important medical decisions.

Finally, common sense dictates that strengthening our children’s immune system to help them resist infection and or minimize symptoms associated with an illness should not center around an ever- expanding immunization schedule.  Rather, let our focus in the future be on optimal nutrition, exercise, avoiding toxic chemicals and the judicious use of vaccines as ways to keep our children healthy and strong!

Sincerely,

Maureen H. McDonnell, BS, RN