Pages

3.27.2012

The Greater Good



The other day a dear chiropractor friend of mine slipped me a film entitled “The Greater Good” and told me to watch it. I went home, fully intending to be bored into oblivion by a tyrannical or severely biased anti-vaccination documentary. I was pleasantly and completely wrong! 


“The Greater Good” is a well-balanced documentary that follows three families through situations involving 'adverse reactions' from vaccinations. It is interspersed with interviews from numerous medical professionals including vaccine developers, pharmaceutical reps, psychologists, behavioral therapists, and pediatricians.

Although the families stories definitely called to the intrinsically emotional mother in me, the information supplied called to my deeper intellect.

My daughter, Briaunna, also reviewed the movie. This is what she had to say: 
The movie was about vaccinations and how they can affect you, good and bad. My initial reaction was anger and pain for the people who were harmed by the vaccines. Helpless children who get vaccinated with, basically, poison. I liked how people are learning more about vaccines… even though many of them have to learn the hard way in order to teach others. I also like how people are learning the true risks of vaccines. 

Did you know that vaccination does not account for the impressive declines in mortality seen in the first half of the century? It was other medical advancements, including learning to just wash your hands (microbiology).

Lately, people have been giving vaccinations to newborns, which really upsets me because I am a baby freak. Also, parents are required to give 69 doses of 16 different vaccines to children. They also put aluminum and mercury in all of the vaccines. Any form of mercury in the body is toxic and can cause damage. 

Did you know that, after 2010, 85 deaths have been reported, all after taking the Gardasil shot?
The only other thought I have is that the government has gotten too much power over us. They say that if you haven’t given your children all of the required shots, you have to go to court and get your shots…. “Or else”. They think that you will endanger your child’s life if you don’t get them vaccinated, which, of course, is all in the way that you look at it. I see more risk to their lives from taking a vaccination, but that’s just me.. and my right to not get vaccines for me or my babies.
The movie covers the historicity of vaccinations, and give us a rare look into the hearts of those who developed them.

At the same time, we hear from the lawyers who defend those families who have been harmed by vaccinations. 

When asked if they believed the business of vaccinations is involved in conspiracy, one astutely replies, "A conspiracy? Yes! But a conspiracy to do good." So much so, that the risks of vaccinations are minimized through government involvement and media bias in order to promote the 'good' that vaccinations provide to the majority.

"The Greater Good" takes a critical look at the government's involvement in implementing and mandating state-wide vaccinations, as well as how individual states are trumping parental and individual rights.
"If the state can force you to put your life on the line, or your child's life on the line, for any medical intervention, then the state has too much power"
Additionally, the movie takes on the very real, very publicly acknowledged fact that many members of our government council also hold shares in the very pharmaceutical companies that create the vaccines which the state promotes. It is as true as it gets: conflict of interest is: when my politicians have a vested financial interest in vaccination pharmaceutical companies. Or, as the movie states:
"the fox watching the chicken coop"
We are given the stats on individual state's exemptions and the bias in media exposure. We are shown the process to bring a vaccine to the public and how 'fast tracking' a vaccination intended for children was foolish. We are given real risks associated with vaccinations, and given a more in-depth look at the studies used to 'prove' the safety and efficacy of vaccination. 

I was, at times, outraged, and other times saddened... I felt I learned so much, even after having done, what I thought, was thorough research on vaccinations... but there were things that still had me dumbstruck and amazed. Just one example: the placebo used in many of these 'safety and efficacy" studies is aluminum, mercury, or a combination of the two!

Some great quotes from the movie that I hope will pique your interest:
"We know that mercury (thimersal) causes neuro-toxicity, there's no controversy about that. Does it cause autism? It contributes to the damage that leads to autism." - John Green III, MD
"There are studies comparing the hair of autistic and non-autistic children. There is much more mercury in the hair of non-autistic children, showing us, at least in part, that there is some genetic precursor that makes some children more succeptible to autism."
 Would I recommend this movie? A resounding yes! Would my daughter? Well, let's just say she is already inviting her tweenage friends over for a 'movie night' at our place - her idea. I recommend this movie to every family who have children, or who will have children, of vaccination age. 

"The Greater Good" does a wonderful job of promoting this one moral: it is not about having you vaccinate or not vaccinate. It is about ensuring that families know the risks, that the studies regarding vaccinations are fair and accurate, and ensuring that vaccines are made to be and required to be as safe as possible.

3 comments:

  1. Thank you so much for your review! Very well done.

    I am the mom of a fearfully & wonderfully made, yet also vaccine injured child. It is my prayers that every parent will watch this film and make an informed decision about vaccinations.

    I struggle daily with my lack of informed consent. I choose daily to forgive myself for not doing my own research and merely listening to the advice of my pediatrician. But with two more vax free and completely healthy children, I can say that when we know better we do better.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Emily30/3/12

    I haven't seen this film. In Washington State, where I live, we have the highest rate in the US of exemptions for kids entering school (meaning that parents have gotten exemptions for 1 or more vaccines that are required to enter school), about 6%. This rate has more than doubled in the past 10 years. We are also seeing an upsurge of pertussis cases, which I just heard about again recently. I wish I had time to do more research on the trends, but links are below on some sources and maps showing vax coverage and also pertussis cases.

    Definitely, we should require vaccines to be as safe as possible. And sure, knowing the risks and being informed is good. But unvaccinated older kids aren't the ones most at risk for being seriously injured or killed by pertussis (just one example) - babies are. So one family's decision not to vaccinate isn't just about their kids, it's about someone else's baby. Washington and California have both had pertussis deaths increasing lately. I wonder how great no vaccines will seem if lots of kids start getting serious diseases. Not to minimize the bad reactions that some people may have to vaccines - but is the answer to say no to all vaccines? I'm certainly no fan of big pharma and big corporations in general. I guess we'll see how the trends continue. Thanks for the thought-provoking post.

    http://www.doh.wa.gov/cfh/Immunize/documents/pertupdate.pdf

    http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6021a4.htm?s_cid=mm6021a4_w#Tab3

    http://www.ghc.org/foundation/ourWork/immunizationCampaign.jhtml

    (I recognize these are public health and therefore pro-vaccine entities, but they have the data)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Emily, the pertussis vaccine does not prevent spread, only symptoms. Therefore, it is actually the children that are vaccinated that are the biggest risk to unvaccinated children. Why? because my child, who is not vaccinated will exhibit clear symptoms of whooping cough were he to be infected. However, my older children (who were vaccinated) could carry that bacteria home and spread it to many people and never show themselves to be carriers. A unprotected little baby is at constant risk around vaccinated people, because they all could be potential carriers. That is a fact. Pertussis cases are rising and deaths are also rising, but it has nothing to do with unvaccinated children. It has to do with primary and secondary failure of the vaccine, coupled with the fact that the pertussis vaccine in particular does NOT PREVENT SPREAD, and a recent study shows that para-pertussis rates are now rising in vaccinated children. The pertussis vaccine doesn't work and eventually the CDC is going to have to admit the overwhelming failure has nothing to do with unvaccinated children.

    To claim different is pure ignorance, because all of the empirical evidence shows the truth, and many researchers have been raising the red flag on this for MANY years.

    ReplyDelete

feel free to post relevant comments, even friendly debate, but note: if you post anonymously, I may not publish you - grow some ovaries and let's have a cuppa.