WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The non-profit National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) is renewing its call for oversight of vaccine safety to be removed from the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), which is responsible for vaccine development, regulation, policymaking, promotion and serves as a legal respondent and administrator for the federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP). NVIC’s call comes after a senior scientist at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued a public statement on Aug. 27, 2014 admitting that he and other CDC officials, including the current CDC Director of Immunization Safety, published an MMR vaccine safety study in 2004 that “omitted statistically significant information” and “relevant findings” and that “the final study protocol was not followed.”
“The latest statements made by a CDC senior scientist confirming that vaccine risk data was withheld from the public is more evidence that parents’ concerns about vaccine safety are legitimate,” said Barbara Loe Fisher, NVIC co-founder and president. “It is a conflict of interest for DHHS to be in charge of vaccine safety and also license vaccines, and take money from drug companies to fast track vaccines, and partner with drug companies to develop and share profits from vaccine sales, and make national vaccine policies that get turned into state vaccine laws, while also deciding which children will and will not get a vaccine injury compensation award. That is too much power for one federal agency,” she said.
Since the first vaccines for smallpox and rabies, vaccination has been known to cause brain inflammation and chronic brain dysfunction (encephalopathy). In 1991 and 1994, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) acknowledged that vaccination can cause brain inflammation and encephalopathy and, in 2012 and 2013, affirmed that some individuals are more susceptible to suffering brain injury from vaccination and that there are significant knowledge gaps in vaccine safety science. Symptoms of brain injury include developmental delays and disabilities.
“DHHS has a long history of limiting transparency and being less than honest with the American people about what it does and does not know about which individuals are at greater risk for suffering vaccine reactions,” said Fisher. “Last July, a RAND Corporation-conducted vaccine risk assessment study commissioned and funded by DHHS proclaimed that vaccines are ‘very safe’ but what was not made clear to the public is that the study was designed and peer reviewed by high-level CDC officials, including the CDC’s Director of Immunization Safety.”
In 2011, NVIC called for the creation of an independent vaccine safety monitoring agency modeled after the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) and has also called for independent vaccine research into health outcome differences between children who are and are not vaccinated according to the federally recommended vaccine schedule. Since its founding in 1982, NVIC has advocated for informed consent protections in U.S. vaccine policies and laws, including flexible medical, religious and conscientious belief exemptions.
“Congress needs to act now to eliminate conflicts of interest within the nation’s vaccination system. The health of our children is at stake,” said Fisher.
NVIC is a non-profit charity founded in 1982 and is dedicated to preventing vaccine injuries and deaths through public education and protecting the informed consent ethic. NVIC encourages well-informed vaccine decision-making and does not advocate for or against vaccination or make vaccine use recommendations. For more information, visit NVIC.org.
