On Religious Liberty

This fight is going on in a number of states in the Union. This article appeared in a Florida newspaper on Monday. 

Preserve religious freedom in vaccinations | Opinion

By ANDREA DEMICHAEL

SPECIAL TO THE SUN SENTINEL

MAY 13, 2019 | 1:37 PM 

 If someone wants to vaccinate so be it, but the government should not mandate a medical treatment, period, writes Andrea DeMichael, a co-founder of the Florida Freedom Alliance. Her organization argues that, instead of working toward mandating a vaccine, which clearly has efficacy questions, we should look at repealing the 1986 Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, which protects vaccine companies, not Floridians. (Vernon Bryant / AP)

The Florida Freedom Alliance would like to clarify some facts and implied points raised in an April 16 Sun Sentinel column that called for ending Florida’s vaccine exemptions.

The problem with the national conversation is that people seemingly must be either for or against with no reasonable middle ground. The government and pharmaceutical industry will not accept that people have concerns about efficacy and safety, and want it proven.

If vaccines are so safe, then why has $4 billion been paid out to vaccine-injured families by the government’s “special court”? And the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that less than 1 percent of adverse reactions to vaccines are even reported.

Andrea DeMichael, a co-founder of the Florida Freedom Alliance. (Handout)

The government and the press are not disclosing certain facts. In measles cases, it seems very informative to disclose whether “outbreaks” are coming from vaccine-induced strains or wild virus strains. This is a huge fact to conceal and is incredibly disingenuous.

For example, 38 percent of the cases during the 2015 Disneyland measles outbreak were caused by the MMR vaccine itself, according to the Journal of Clinical Microbiology. This is really about honesty from our government and our press.

If someone wants to vaccinate so be it, but the government should not mandate a medical treatment, period. And we need a press corps willing to find out all facets of the truth and report it verbatim without casting judgment.

Let’s put some numbers to this debate. Many news sources have repeatedly stated that this virus was eradicated and has come “roaring back.” There are 695 people in the U.S. who have had measles and who will have lifelong immunity once they recover. Let us reiterate that these are people who have had measles, not deaths from the measles.

Florida supposedly has only two measles cases out of a population of 21.3 million people. There are only two cases in the state of Florida. Furthermore, if the vaccines are 93-97 percent effective, then who is tracking down the 3-7 percent of people who received the vaccines but for whom it did not work? Let’s put a number to that. That would be at least 639,000 people and up to 1.5 million people in the State of Florida, whose vaccines didn’t work.

Why are you lambasting the 25,000 people for exercising religious freedoms when you have a much bigger threat on your hands from the inefficiency of the vaccine itself?

According to Pew Research, 76 percent of Floridians are religious, which is more than 16 million people. As a proportion, 25,000 seems very low. More importantly, freedom of religion is an integral part of our governance. Therefore, there can be no questioning of sincere religious belief on the part of the government. Such an attempt would violate the First Amendment and break our governance structure, which has seemingly worked quite well for a few hundred years.

There are valid reasons for the loss of public faith in the vaccine product. For example, you will find out that no vaccine manufacturer is held liable for its products, due to the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act. This has turned vaccine products into a cash cow for the manufacturers with very little liability. This has also allowed for very large marketing budgets aimed at doctors, media outlets and elected officials. If these manufacturers actually were held liable for their products, there would have to be more public trust.

Now a point about herd immunity. It was originally coined in 1933 by a researcher named A.W. Hedrich, who had been studying U.S. measles patterns from 1900–1931, before any measles vaccine was ever invented. He observed that epidemics of the illness only occurred when less than 68 percent of children had developed a natural immunity to it. So, the herd immunity theory was about natural disease processes. Later on, vaccinologists adopted the phrase and increased the figure from 68 percent to 95 percent with little to no scientific justification. Essentially, they took Hedrich’s study and manipulated it to promote vaccine products. Sound familiar?

Contracting the natural measles virus provides lifelong immunity, whereas the vaccine immunity, when it works, wanes. So, the CDC is already recommending second and third booster shots for some people. Are you seeing a pattern here?

So, instead of working toward mandating a vaccine, which clearly has efficacy questions, we should look at repealing the 1986 Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, which protects vaccine companies, not Floridians.

Several legislative offices have informed our organization that they have received more phone calls and emails in opposition to the immunization tracking bills than any other bill making its way through our state government.

The people are making their sentiments known. The question is, “who is listening and who is getting paid by the vaccine manufacturers?”

Andrea DeMichael is an attorney and a co-founder of the Florida Freedom Alliance. The organization was founded to protect the fundamental rights we have as American citizens and human beings. The goal is to unite similar organizations fighting for individual freedoms.