Why the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons is strongly opposed to mandatory vaccines

03/13/2019 / By Tracey Watson

With all the current hysteria about measles and the need for people to be vaccinated it can be easy to label those who choose not to allow their families to receive vaccines as law-breaking, selfish and uninformed conspiracy theorists. This narrative is pushed so strongly by the mainstream media that even those of us who have chosen not to vaccinate because of serious reservations about side effects or for ethical reasons might start to second guess our own decisions.

That is why a statement issued last month by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) is so reassuring. These are not conspiracy theorists; this is an organization that represents thousands of mainstream physicians in all specialties across the United States – educated, informed medical professionals who care enough about their patients to take a stand against the World Health Organization and others who have labeled vaccine skeptics as a “global health threat.”

The statement, which was submitted to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions February 26th, warns that the organization “strongly opposes federal interference in medical decisions, including mandated vaccines,” calling such interference “a serious intrusion into individual liberty, autonomy, and parental decisions about child-rearing.”

Too many unknown risks

The AAPS presents several arguments for its strong stance against forced vaccinations. For one thing, it insists that patients have the right to be fully informed of all the benefits and risks associated with any medical procedure, including vaccination, and then, after evaluating the facts, to decide for themselves — and their children — whether the benefits outweigh the risks. (Related: Kids got 11 vaccines in 1986 and 53 in 2017… why? The answer is all about Big Pharma profits.)

They also note that while protecting public health is important, the risks of cancer, death or crippling complications from vaccines cannot be ignored. To properly evaluate these risks far more rigorous scientific studies would be required:

There are no rigorous safety studies of sufficient power to rule out a much higher risk of complications, even one in 10,000, for vaccines. Such studies would require an adequate number of subjects, a long duration (years, not days), an unvaccinated control group (“placebo” must be truly inactive such as saline, not the adjuvant or everything-but-the-intended-antigen), and consideration of all adverse health events (including neurodevelopment disorders).

The AAPS also recognizes that vaccines carry serious risks, and that these risks are acknowledged by both the U.S. Supreme Court and Congress. While the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has paid out over $4 billion to vaccine injury victims, pharmaceutical companies are immune from prosecution, “so the incentive to develop safer products is much diminished. Manufacturers may even refuse to make available a product believed to be safer, such as monovalent measles vaccine in preference to MMR (measles-mumps-rubella). Consumer refusal is the only incentive to do better.”

Another serious issue they point out is that many vaccines that were declared safe in the past have turned out to be truly dangerous and have been pulled from the market – after inflicting serious damage, of course:

The smallpox vaccine is so dangerous that you can’t get it now, despite the weaponization of smallpox. Rabies vaccine is given only after a suspected exposure or to high-risk persons such as veterinarians. The whole-cell pertussis vaccine was withdrawn from the U.S. market, a decade later than from the Japanese market, because of reports of severe permanent brain damage. The acellular vaccine that replaced it is evidently safer, though somewhat less effective.

And the Mumps, Measles and Rubella (MMR) vaccine, still very much in use today, has resulted in many serious, documented complications, with experts warning that the safety studies on this vaccine – both pre- and post-marketing – were totally inadequate.

In addition, vaccines seem to increase the potency of many of the diseases they are supposed to protect against. For example, the AAPS warns:

Measles, when it does occur, is four to five times worse than in pre-vaccination times, according to Lancet Infectious Diseases, because of the changed age distribution: more adults, whose vaccine-based immunity waned, and more infants, who no longer receive passive immunity from their naturally immune mother to protect them during their most vulnerable period.

The fact is, there are serious risks associated with vaccinations. Many people will evaluate these risks and decide that the benefits make the risk worth taking. Others will decide that they are not willing to jeopardize their children’s health by allowing them to receive vaccines. Irrespective, mandatory vaccinations cannot be imposed when those imposing them can offer no guarantees regarding the safety or even the efficiency of these dangerous medical treatments.