Once I was an undercover non vaccine giver. That is, when my children were born I was non-compliant with the standard recommendations for that time by my doctor, the CDC, and society at large. As a strong follower of Jesus Christ I wonder at my determined rebellion in this regard. Two other factors make this strong bold stance even more unusual.
Firstly, my father was a career employee of the CDC and spent his life researching, understanding and developing ways to work with viruses. He was part of the emerging science of virology in its earliest days, having started at the CDC in about 1965. He was a fantastic man. He feared and honored God and it was his recommendation to me personally that while there might be a very small chance of a vaccine injury to the individual child, the overall benefit to public health made the vaccination program worth that small risk. We had many non-heated debates over the years and he respected my opinions and my choices. We would share papers with each other that supported our respective viewpoints. This was before the internet when access to information was much more difficult. Mothering Magazine with its very well referenced articles was a lifeline.
My father passed away in 2003 at the age of 68, suddenly and unexpectedly while enjoying great health. I have so many questions I would love to discuss with him now. I think if he evaluated all the current scientific information, he would be forced to conclude that the position he held earlier had been wrong and that he had been misled and misdirected. If he were able to read the transcripts of the Simpsonwood Conference 2000 where the most significant role-players from all government agencies along with pharmaceutical vaccine manufacturers’ representatives met to discuss the problems they were having with their data, I feel certain he would be alerted to ask a lot harder questions than those attending the meeting asked. I feel confident that had he been aware of the discussions at that important meeting where they all agreed “there is a strong signal between thimerosal vaccines and autism,” but the main thing we must do is figure out how to save our vaccine program and not let the public lose confidence in our recommendations, he would surely have been alarmed at their questionable plan to “massage the data” so it would deliver a different conclusion.
The second fact that seems odd in my determined rebellion against established authority in the choices I made regarding vaccinating my children, is the fact that I had become a wholehearted 100% surrendered follower of Jesus Christ. Now, rebellion would have been my normal mode in my late teens because at that stage I was wholeheartedly rebelling against most of the wise advice I had been blessed with throughout my childhood. But God, in His grace and mercy, did not leave me in my rebelliousness which resulted in self destructive actions and heartache. He rescued me and allowed me to see that the only way I would find happiness and fulfillment in my life was to understand the Creator’s design, and seek to live in harmony with Him. He revealed Jesus to me and I began my genuine relationship with my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
In every single area of my life I seek the wisdom and counsel of Jesus. I’m not saying I am perfect, but having once been deceived into thinking right was wrong and wrong was right, I now question everything with vehemence. Married to a marvelous man, expecting our first child, I basked in the fullness of God’s grace and sought to seek His wisdom in every single decision I made. I read about the benefits of a natural whole foods diet, natural childbirth, breastfeeding, etc. and sought to implement every truth I discovered into my life. I was hungry for Jesus and I was hungry for His truth. While studying the values of breastfeeding based on the knowledge and understanding available in 1982, I was astounded by the immunological aspects of breast milk – all part of our Creator’s magnificent design.
This caused me to question and ultimately reject the idea of injecting toxic ingredients into my baby who was designed to receive all the protection he needed from my breast milk. I didn’t throw out the idea of vaccines altogether, but I firmly decided they had no business being injected into my precious exclusively breastfed infant. From that choice I continued to research and read everything I could find based on true science, not just opinion pieces, on the risk of various diseases and the risk/benefit ratio of injecting toxic ingredients into my children with the idea of ‘protecting them from something terrible.’
I was not outspoken beyond my family about my choices. It was a time where very few people had enough confidence to speak out against vaccinations.
In 1986 the US government passed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act because they had concluded that vaccines were unavoidably unsafe and they wanted to find a way to compensate families that experienced vaccine injury without endangering the vaccine program. The vaccine manufacturers had threatened to stop making vaccines because all the claims for injury were negatively impacting their profit margins. The US gov considered vaccines essential, thus establishing this protection against liability for the corporations.
Since 1986 the vaccine manufacturers have had to face zero liability for the products they make – no matter the cost to human life through death or suffering. Vaccine manufacturers have been shielded from any harm their products might cause for nearly 30 years. There is no other product in the US market that is protected from all liability. This action has also caused the most amazing surge in development of more vaccines and more players getting into the game – they have a free pass! NO LIABILITY. Why not? In the last thirty years the childhood vaccine schedule has tripled. Most parents today have no idea of this increase. They think – I got shots, my baby will get shots. They have no idea how many more toxic ingredients their baby is going to be exposed to.
The result is that to date you can read the data on payouts for vaccine injuries which amount to over $3.1 Billion dollars.[1] Some of this money has gone to families. Much to lawyers, as the system that was intended to be a simple way for injured families to get redress, has turned into a complicated machine requiring amazing resolve and years before you ever get an admission of injury and compensation. There are many interesting facts associated with this system. One is that only about 25% of claims are given monetary payouts. So 75% of parents whose child has died or been severely injured through vaccines – so much so that they are willing to spend years trying to prove it – are turned away because they are thought to be ‘frauds’?[2]
Another interesting fact is that 90% of the vaccine injuries are never reported and no claim is filed. There are many reasons proposed for this sad fact. One is that most families have no idea of the existence of such a claim mechanism and often find out after the 2 year cut-off time. Another reason is doctors will routinely disregard obvious vaccine injury. They have been trained and taught that vaccine injury does not exist, so they cannot see it when it is right in front of them. It often takes parents years to realize that the strange onset of illness immediately following their child’s shots were actually a reaction to the shots.
Vaccines are unavoidably unsafe, acknowledged by the US Supreme Court, yet most doctors continue to maintain that not vaccinating your child is one of the most dangerous things you could do. I wonder about this. I ended up having to give some vaccines to some of my children mainly because we moved from one country to another and there was a vaccine requirement to get in. My two boys were much older, so I didn’t feel too awful about giving just a few vaccines, but knowing what I know now, I would never give any baby any. It is amazing how strongly parents can be pressured into giving vaccines. Fear is usually the main motivating factor.
I have mothered five children over 31 years. We have experienced chicken pox, mumps, whooping cough and rotavirus among the usual childhood illnesses of coughs and colds, etc. All of my children were breastfed exclusively for six months and continued breastfeeding until at least the age of two. None of these illnesses were life threatening. As I have read numerous accounts of children who have significant brain dysfunction and illness as a result of vaccine injury, I decided I can no longer be an Undercover Vaccine Refuser. My desire is to encourage and completely support parents who choose health through respect for their design rather than relying on some sort of false sense of health through a toxic vaccine injection. There are currently thousands of families who are learning how to heal autism and other vaccine injuries through understanding the damage that has been caused and using a bio-medical approach to healing. Healing is possible, but avoiding injury is even better.
It is tragic that more doctors won’t take the time to dig deeply into the science to find the truth. There is a huge industry providing vaccines. The Department of Health and Human Services is itself a patent holder of some vaccines! Those who benefit and prosper from the distribution of vaccines hold on to their viewpoint at the cost of children’s health. This is such a huge system, it has been in place for so long, and there are so many whose livelihood is directly tied to the maintenance of the current system, that very few are willing to take a risk and re-think the impact of vaccines on health and our understanding of the immune system.
It’s time for parents to think and learn for themselves. We have to help and support parents to make wise decisions for their family. Don’t trust everything you are told. Ask a lot of questions.
How are you making sure your journey leads to health?
Author: Becky Hastings, wife, mother, grandmother, passionate follower of Jesus and truth. As a breastfeeding counselor for over 23 years Becky is devoted to helping parents make wise decisions for the long-term health and wellbeing of their babies. As a member of a Vaccine Safety Education Coalition, Becky writes and speaks on the topic of vaccine safety.
[1] Official US Government website on National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program – HRSA