A 1985 federal report prepared for the U.S. Institute of Medicine concluded that, if American children receive pertussis vaccinations as recommended, 22 to 36 of those infants will suffer permanent brain damage from the vaccine each year.
This vaccine is intended to prevent whooping cough, though in a recent outbreak in Cincinnati more vaccinated children came down with the disease than those who'd received no shots.
Donna Burns' son Ryan had been normal until his pertussis shots. Then he developed high fever and swelling of the head and brain, leading to permanent partial disability. She says more than 18,000 permanent damage claims have been filed under the federal Vaccine Compensation Act.
In most states children can be given such shots only after the parent or guardian has provided written "informed consent." But our government masters take a somewhat creative view of "informed consent," blackmailing parents into "requesting" vaccinations by threatening to exclude kids from government schools if they abstain.
Being dragooned into inoculation, we are regularly told, is for the children's good.
Was this true in the case of little Kameron Justin Demery, aged 2 and described by his mother, Jacqueline Bishop, as "a mellow, laid-back" kid?
According to reporting by Cheryl Romo in the Los Angeles Daily Journal, which covers legal matters for Southern California's attorneys, Kameron and his twin sister Karissa appeared to be doing fine until just after Christmas 1995. That was when Karissa was taken to the hospital emergency room suffering with bronchitis.
The first thing hospital officials requested were the children's immunization records. But Bishop had been persuaded by her own mother, a licensed vocational nurse, not to immunize the twins.
The next day, she received a call from a social worker with the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services. She ended up getting into an argument with the bureaucrat. Next came an unannounced inspection of her Long Beach home. This resulted in a state finding of "dirty home" being added to the initial report of "medical neglect" (failure to immunize.)
Jacqueline Bishop noted, "It was after Christmas and everything was a mess."
Mary Ann Bishop, the twins' maternal grandmother, relates, "My daughter called me and said, 'They are threatening me if I don't get their shots.' ... I told her 'This is a free country.' "
Is it?
Jacqueline Bishop immediately made a doctor's appointment to have the twins immunized. Too late. Within days came the late-night government raid in which the twins and their 7-year-old brother were seized.
Because the mother resisted when officials tok her children away, the social worker reported Bishop might have a drug problem. The mother agreed to enter a rehabilitation program because she was told it was the only way her children would ever be allowed to come home.
"I didn't have a drug problem," she explained to Romo of the Journal. "But I would have done anything to get my kids back."
The twins, Kameron and Karissa, were placed in the foster care of David and Evelyn Miller, even though the Millers had previously had all foster children in their care removed because of "excessive discipline." But the Millers had subsequently been given a state foster care license.
Jacqueline Bishop and her mother were allowed to visit the twins during 1996 for only one supervised hour per week. That was in the Millers' mobile home where there resided four adults, five grandchildren and three foster children. The Bishops said the children "moved like robots" and had nearly stopped talking. Asked why the children had bruises, they were told the children had hit each other. The same explanation was offered when Kameron turned up with a black eye, and when Karissa's arm was broken.
The incidents were reported to social workers and ignored. On Oct. 14, 1996, Karissa watched as her brother Kameron was beaten to death by Evelyn Miller, who reported his fatal injuries were caused by a fall from a chair.
Doctors testified he had been struck six times in the head with a blunt object, most likely Evelyn Miller's cane. She is now serving a sentence of 15 years-to-life for murder.
Kameron's mother sued. Los Angeles County finally settled the Bishops' lawsuit out of court for $200,000.
After Kameron's death, Jacqueline Bishop recalls being "startled" that she was suddenly allowed to bring her daughter home as often as she liked, even over the weekend. Finally, on Valentine's Day 1997, the Juvenile Court ordered Karissa returned to her mother permanently.
The Journal does not report whether Karissa ever got her shots.
But you've got to understand: It's all done to protect the children.
Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. His book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available at $24.95 postpaid by dialing 1-800-244-2224; or via web site http://www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html.
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