Friday, October 12, 2012

The Crime of Vaccinations For Profit

When I was a child, we were vaccinated for small pox and polio, which were world-changing humanitarian miracles of science.

Now the corporate controlled media promote fear of pandemics and then help profiteering pharmaceutical companies sell their vaccines on contract to the government so that Public Health will vaccinate everyone at the taxpayer's expense. The vaccines used have been fast-tracked through the FDA investigation period, which department was defunded in the Bush era. It now has to rely on the corporation's own research to make safety decisions in the public best interest. Vaccinate against the perceived epidemic vs. the inadequately researched vaccine?

A School Nurse is a Public Health Nurse, by definition. Therefore, as a School Nurse, I represent the government when working in a public school. If the government is recommending full vaccination programs like the Tdap program for 7th grade in California, then it is my role to promote Tdap vaccinations for all 7th grade students.

I have traveled all over the world and was very thankful that I had taken various vaccinations like cholera. If only there was a vaccination for Hep A back then! But when Corporations have taken over the Government, and the FDA is defunded, and drugs are Fast-Tracked based on skewed Corporate provided research rather than an independent research, then I distrust everything that the Government is doing right now. Public Health vaccination programs may have once been a world changing public health miracle, but right now it has become a For Profit nightmare.

On Wednesday night at meditation group, one bright sexy young man asked, "When considering Right Livelihood, what if you work for a company that may not be totally virtuous?"  

After the group ended, I approached him up close and saw the gleam in his eye and his scent.  He sat in a chair, and I felt uncomfortable looking down on him, so naturally, I kneeled at his feet, Vajrasan.  I looked up at his young Italian-like face, his bulging biceps, his hopeful smile, the monk passing behind me in ochre robes, and felt the quickening of kundalini.  I remembered the 12 Dependent Originations and the place where the chain can be broken, the Uppadana.  Therein is where the Judeo-Christian lies Free Choice.  And there is lies the ethical question of what to do.  I choose to bathe myself in the wonder of it all, and remain as reserved and neutral on the surface as possible.  I focused on what he was saying, listening.  Every word he said bathed me in ever increasing pleasure.  I was awed at the natural response of my body to the sights, sounds, scents, and Buddhist concepts spouting from a male human.  

I told him that ultimately, it is what your hand does, and the intention behind it.  I should have added that the results may not be what you intended, but there is no karma if you had the best intentions.  Just do your best, and then you won't have regrets.  

I relayed my own ethical issues as a nurse.  I said that I always faced this conflict while I worked in the hospitals.  The hospital was run for profit, yet the role of a Nurse is generally considered beneficent.  Even the monk had mentioned "making compromises..." in his answer.  I said that sometimes you must be a paragon of Virtue in the midst of a quagmire.  

The young yogi seemed to like that answer because he lit up and began waving his arms frantically up and down bulging his huge biceps over and over.  Unfortunately, I was so shocked by the response of my body to the sight of his biceps and shoulders that I missed what he said! 

I digress....  
Fortunately for everyone, no one can give a vaccine without a signed permission. Public schools have to require vaccinations for enrollment, but also provide an opt-out by signing a Waiver. This is what saves me ethically. I frame vaccinations as an ethical choice for parents. Other School Nurses feel it is their obligation to coerce parents into compliance and downplay the waiver option. But I disagree.

And for our school Secretary, the one responsible for collecting the vaccination records to keep the school in compliance with State mandates, and with the school's Charter renewal depended upon it, having reluctant parents signing waivers is a school saver and a job saver. But now the Government with the support of the California School Nurse Organization (CSNO) has signed into law a new mandated obstacle to a parent signing a Personal Belief Waiver. Governor Brown just signed the Communicable disease: Immunization Exemption, AB 2109. This requires that a medical professional advise the parent of the risks and benefits of the vaccinations before they sign a Personal Beliefs Waiver.  It takes effect in 2014. 

The CSNO was in favor of it, because they are always trying to legitimize School Nurses. They succeeded in lobbying Sacramento into including School Nurses as one of those medical professionals. Therefore, it was a victory toward the legitimizing the School Nurse Profession. Considering the suspicious nature of placing obstacles in the way of pharmaceutical profiteers sucking off the taxpayer tit is just the price you pay when you play the game of politics. Its always give a little, and take a little. 

I mention this also in light of GMO's and CA Proposition 37.  Many of the vaccines are or come from GMOs, including the Tdap.  The "ap" stands for Acellular Pertussis.  In the old days, they used actual attenuated Pertussis cells for the vaccine.  But now, they use recombinant DNA technologies to clone the PT gene, express it in bacteria, identify the amino acids that are important for the enzymatic activity and toxicity and mutated PT gene  to produce an inactive protein. This genetically modified PT was non toxic, highly immunogenic and able to protect mice without documented harm.  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8768791.  Labeling Tdap as containing GMO's, will not be in the best interest of the pharmaceutical profiteers.  They will do anything to prevent a decline in their profits from lies, to marginalization, to planting evidence, to "accidental deaths."  

Last night, at the Resilient Livelihood working group meeting, Ron Cole said that the Requisites of life should all be free, food, housing, education, and health care.  If so, there would be a thriving economy based on tons of money to spend on the wants and desires.  I agree with him wholeheartedly regarding education and health care, but being a landlord by profession, I was surprised that he, himself depending on rentals for his income, would include housing in the list.  I believe, that once properly regulated, there can be a mixed economy including Private Enterprise, Cooperatives, and Collectives.  I think like in the example of free healthcare for the indigent, that there would also be free housing for the indigent.  I can't imagine giving up my private property to the government in order to provide universal free housing at government's expense.  Anyway, as long as the Constitution protects the Right of Private Property, then they can't take it away from me except by exercising Eminent Domain.  So I'm safe for now.  

And I can't imagine for the farmers who toil to provide everyone with food, that his labor should be given away for free.  Perhaps Ron meant that the Government would use tax dollars to pay farmers to produce food.  Does that mean all farmers or just some farmers?  Does that mean all grocery stores would also be on the government's doll?  Or does it mean that the Food Bank, Free Community Dining Rooms, and the School Free Lunch programs would get supported with tax dollars, and would receive fresh fruits and vegetables from designated government-supported farmers every day?  That doesn't sound too bad! 

And even further, I take JuicePlus+, which is a mix of 17 different fruit juices known for their beneficial phytoenzymes, and my immune system has never been stronger.  To me that means that Food is Medicine.  And when you eat the right foods, your own immune system is strong enough to fight invasive pathogens without vaccines.  

But the Corporations have taken over the food industry and strips the nutrients out of food, and worse, invent new and "improved" foods with dire unintended consequences.  From the hydrogenation of vegetable oils leading to an epidemic of cardio-vascular disease, to the epidemic of Childhood Obesity & Diabetes, to the dramatic increase in Autism with Leaky Gut Syndrome, to the btCorn fed to all the livestock resulting in the bt gene being found in the cord bloods of newborns, the for-profit Corporate food industry is not in the best interests of the People.  In other words, if people ate healthy, they wouldn't need all these vaccines anyway!  Healthy nutrition is part of the standard curriculum of the Waldorf School where I work.  Many of the families in this school are also suspicious of the government these days and want to do the best, most natural thing to protect their children's health, by signing the Personal Belief Waiver, and I respect their courage to make a difficult choice.