> Children and Parenting > Health and Environmental Concerns > vaccinations

Candace Cooper resigned last year from her position as a holistic nutrition counsellor with the Chiliwack, BC Sto:Lo First Nation. The reason was a dispute over the band’s vaccination program.

Cooper claims babies and young children were vaccinated by nurses in the band’s Aboriginal Head Start Program without parents receiving information about the risks and benefits. This is against the codes of practice of all licensed, certified and registered health professions, including nurses.

Nurses and supervisors in the Sto:Lo program are apparently overlooking the principle of “informed consent,” spelled out in the nurses’ own Practice Guidelines as well as in the BC Health Care Consent Act. This law states that the person consenting to a medical procedure must be given information about the “proposed care, risks and benefits and alternatives to proposed care” and be given “opportunity to ask questions and receive answers . . . ”

A recent Supreme Court of Canada decision upholds this right for all citizens capable of making their own decisions.

Warnings Mandatory

In BC, health units and doctors supply adverse vaccine reaction information to parents which includes such warnings as “ . . . the child may turn limp and pale . . . he may cry in a high pitched voice and keep on crying; he may be very sleepy and difficult to wake up.” The handouts warn about “a possibility of a shock-like allergic reaction (anaphylaxis) . . . hives, wheezy breathing or swelling . . . ” and “if this happens, particularly swelling around the throat, get to your family doctor or hospital emergency.”

They warn against vaccination completely if the child has a moderate or severe illness or previous shock reaction.

The Sto:Lo First Nation parents deserve the same warnings, even when nurses administer vaccines in homes. Program supervisor Brian Williams says he doesn’t know if nurses give out the warnings or not.

Cooper recounts how frightening it was for the moms in her program to not know why their babies were ill (at least one baby died). She claims “parents whose children had reactions like convulsions, stopped breathing, screaming, high fevers, hyperactivity, allergies or asthma after being vaccinated were never told why.” She suggests this may have been to ensure a high number of Head Start participants. Funding for the program is based on numbers and vaccines were made a condition of participation by Sto:Lo Health and Family Services managers. They no doubt believed they were following Head Start program guidelines, which direct that “all children are to be vaccinated in accordance with provincial standards.”

“Sto:Lo people were kept in the dark and never knew vaccines are not mandatory in Canada,” Cooper adds.

Two-thirds of the Sto:Lo Health and Family Services nursing and administrative staff have now left.

Adverse Reactions Go Unreported

Nurses’ monthly reports of complications from Sto:Lo and other vaccination programs are supposedly sent to Ottawa, where they are “investigated.” There is no confirmation of this. According to Health Canada spokesman Stephen Jeffery, adverse reactions are “subjective, entirely voluntary and grossly under-reported.”

Unlike previous generations, children today are given 29 doses of several disease serums by 12 months of age. Not too reassuring when last winter’s bad batch of Biochem Pharma flu shots in Quebec caused at least a tenfold increase in adverse reaction reports, according to Jeffery.

Many other publicly funded programs also imply vaccinations are mandatory. They are not. Parents can legally opt out, making informed decisions based on the truth about the dangers of vaccines.

I must stand by my position on the questionable vaccination program of the Sto:Lo First Nation and respond to the article in BC’s Province (January 22, 2001). The Province’s medical writer did not research my concerns with the Sto:Lo vaccination program. Instead, the article quotes two pro-vaccine sources, sending readers to a pro-vaccine Web site for “correct” information.

Pediatrics specialist Dr David Scheifele, says people like me are “a concern to public health officials” because we “disseminate false information with a patina of credibility to it.”

He warned that “the dreaded diseases of the past can return if immunizations drop” and suggests there is “no credible scientific evidence” of links between vaccines and disorders like autism, asthma, attention deficit disorder, diabetes and sudden infant death syndrome.

There is, however, plenty of scientific evidence of such links. The issue of safety and efficacy of vaccinations has spawned anti-vaccine groups worldwide. Over a billion dollars has been paid out to American families who have lost children to vaccines. Death is a possible side-effect!

Candace Cooper is a holistic nutritional educator of Cree descent.

For further information:

1. Australian Vaccination Network. Vaccination Roulette
2. Chaitow, L. Vaccination and Immunization: Dangers, Delusions and Alternatives
3. Coulter, Harris. DPT: A Shot in the Dark
4. Coulter, Harris. Vaccination, Social Violence and Criminality
5. Diodati, C. Immunization: History, Ethics, Law and Health
6. Mullins, Eustace. Murder by Injection
7. Neustaedter, R. The Immunization Decision
8. Rona, Zoltan. Natural Approaches to Vaccination
9. Schiebner, Viera. Vaccination
10. Vaccination Risk Awareness Network, website: vran.org, phone: (250) 355-2525
11. The Eagle Foundation: eaglefoundation.org, phone: (204) 233-3060
12. Other websites: garynull.com, iahf.com, freedomofchoice.com.

Source: alive #222, April 2001