Dur­ing the Nation­al Vac­cine Advi­so­ry Committee’s (NVAC) Feb­ru­ary meet­ing, Amer­i­can adults were put on notice by Big Broth­er that non-com­pli­ance with fed­er­al vac­cine rec­om­men­da­tions will not be tol­er­at­ed. Pub­lic health offi­cials have unveiled a new plan to launch a mas­sive nation­wide vac­ci­na­tion pro­mo­tion cam­paign involv­ing pri­vate busi­ness and non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tions to pres­sure all adults to com­ply with the adult vac­ci­na­tion sched­ule approved by the Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol (CDC). [1]

Adult Vac­cine Sched­ule, Page 1   Source.

NVAC has authored the Nation­al Adult Immu­niza­tion Plan (NAIP) and, once final­ized, the plan will be turned over to the Inter­a­gency Adult Immu­niza­tion Task Force (AIFT) to cre­ate an imple­men­ta­tion plan. Notably, this task force is com­posed of “vest­ed inter­est” stake­hold­ers and no con­sumer rep­re­sen­ta­tion for those groups con­cerned with vac­cine safe­ty and informed consent.

NVIC has sub­mit­ted our pub­lic com­ments and rec­om­men­da­tions for the NVAC’s draft Nation­al Adult Immu­niza­tion Plan. [2] Your oppor­tu­ni­ty to sub­mit your com­ments and con­cerns about this plan has been extend­ed to March 23rd. We encour­age all of our read­ers to par­tic­i­pate in the pub­lic com­ment process and sub­mit com­ments to the NVAC on the NAIP. Please for­ward this arti­cle to fam­i­ly and friends and encour­age them to sub­mit pub­lic com­ments, too.

What you need to know – the nutshell

Healthy-Peo­ple-2020

The basis of the NAIP rests on Healthy Peo­ple 2020 Goals, [3] many of which are arbi­trary. [4] The key fact the plan seems to lose sight of in using these goals as its foun­da­tion is …THEY ARE GOALS. These goals have no legal author­i­ty over your health­care deci­sions and are being used by gov­ern­ment offi­cials to shape pub­lic health pol­i­cy, which in turn is spurring legal man­dates to force you to com­ply with them. [5]

The adult immu­niza­tion plan also “incen­tivizes” doc­tors and oth­er vac­cine providers to con­vert patient data into Elec­tron­ic Health Record (EHR) for­mats that can then be shared across state and fed­er­al elec­tron­ic data­bas­es to track nation­al vac­cine cov­er­age rates and also track and iden­ti­fy who is and is not vac­ci­nat­ed. Many states already have elec­tron­ic vac­cine track­ing reg­istries (Immu­niza­tion Infor­ma­tion Sys­tems – IIS) in place, but do not share this infor­ma­tion due to laws pre­vent­ing the shar­ing of per­son­al med­ical infor­ma­tion and/or lim­it­ed vac­ci­na­tion data on adults. This is where finan­cial and oth­er types of incen­tives come in to con­vince vac­cine providers and state leg­is­la­tors to par­tic­i­pate in the gath­er­ing of this pri­vate med­ical infor­ma­tion on all adults.

Big Government is Partnering with Your Employer, Community & Religious Organizations

The NAIP states that it will take more than providers rais­ing aware­ness about the adult sched­ule and encour­ag­ing com­pli­ance to meet Healthy Peo­ple 2020 goals. So the NAIP con­tains objec­tives that fos­ter part­ner­ships with your employ­er and your com­mu­ni­ty and reli­gious orga­ni­za­tions to make you and all adults get every fed­er­al­ly rec­om­mend­ed vac­cine accord­ing to the gov­ern­ment-approved schedule.

The NAIP makes it clear that in the future, all Amer­i­can adults will be informed of the rec­om­mend­ed adult sched­ule at every pos­si­ble oppor­tu­ni­ty out­side the health­care provider domain. You will be encour­aged to com­ply with the adult sched­ule not only by your health­care provider, but also via com­mu­ni­ty-based part­ner­ships to ensure that you have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to roll up your sleeve at work, school, church and oth­er com­mu­ni­ty gatherings.

NVIC has always sup­port­ed aware­ness and access to pre­ven­ta­tive health­care options, includ­ing access to vac­cines for every­one who wants to use them. How­ev­er, there is a dif­fer­ence between aware­ness, access, rec­om­men­da­tions and man­dates. In the past, these types of gov­ern­ment vac­cine use plans do not just seek to increase aware­ness and access but also make rec­om­men­da­tions that fos­ter vac­cine man­dates with­out flex­i­ble med­ical, reli­gious and con­sci­en­tious belief exemp­tions that align with the informed con­sent ethic.

Tracking Vaccination Status Raises Privacy Concerns

Adults should exam­ine this plan care­ful­ly because the U.S. Con­sti­tu­tion guar­an­tees Amer­i­can cit­i­zens the right to pri­va­cy. [6] In that con­text, it is impor­tant to under­stand that the NAIP objec­tives include elec­tron­i­cal­ly har­ness­ing your per­son­al med­ical infor­ma­tion and that of all adults for the pur­pose of increas­ing adult vac­cine uptake in the U.S. by track­ing your vac­ci­na­tion sta­tus, with lit­tle regard for your pri­va­cy. [7]

There is no lan­guage in the plan that pro­vides for con­sumer pri­va­cy pro­tec­tions. This is a glar­ing omis­sion giv­en the acknowl­edged and known risks for patient data being hacked (secu­ri­ty breach­es) by mali­cious out­side enti­ties. [8] The plan does not include pro­vi­sions for rais­ing con­sumer aware­ness of their abil­i­ty to opt out of elec­tron­ic track­ing and patient data shar­ing schemes. [9] [10]

Closing Vaccine Safety Research Gaps Not Included in Plan

While the NAIP also sup­ports increased report­ing to the fed­er­al Vac­cine Adverse Event Report­ing Sys­tem (VAERS) and ongo­ing analy­sis of claims sub­mit­ted to the fed­er­al Vac­cine Injury Com­pen­sa­tion Pro­gram (VICP), it is hol­low sup­port. For this to be mean­ing­ful, stronger lan­guage is need­ed to sup­port clos­ing vac­cine safe­ty research gaps high­light­ed by the Insti­tute of Medicine’s (IOM) series of vac­cine safe­ty reports 11 to lessen the num­ber of VICP off-the-table com­pen­sa­tion claims.

These off-the-table claims are a direct result of the con­tin­ued expan­sion of the num­bers of gov­ern­ment rec­om­mend­ed adult (and child­hood) vac­cines with­out the accom­pa­ny­ing iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of vac­cine side effects and injury out­comes to expand the fed­er­al Vac­cine Injury Table (VIT) that gov­erns the award­ing of vac­cine injury com­pen­sa­tion. Off-the-table adult vac­cine injury claims now rep­re­sent the major­i­ty of claims12 filed with the VICP and the com­pen­sa­tion process has become high­ly adver­sar­i­al and costly.

As NVIC Pres­i­dent Bar­bara Loe Fish­er stat­ed at the U.S. Health Free­dom Con­gress last year when point­ing out that respons­es to vac­cines and infec­tious dis­eases are individual:

We do not all respond the same way to infec­tious dis­eases [13] and we do not all respond the same way to phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal prod­ucts like vac­cines. [14] [15] [16] [17] Pub­lic health laws that fail to respect bio­di­ver­si­ty and force every­one to be treat­ed the same are uneth­i­cal and dangerous.

The NAIP fails to acknowl­edge these facts.

Compliance at the Expense of Bodily Autonomy

Vac­cine man­dates are made at a state lev­el and the NAIP is a fed­er­al vac­cine use pro­mo­tion plan that is has no legal author­i­ty to turn gov­ern­ment vac­cine use rec­om­men­da­tions into vac­cine use mandates.

How­ev­er, much like the rec­om­men­da­tions made by NVAC a few years ago for health­care work­ers to receive annu­al flu shots, [18] these rec­om­men­da­tions are like­ly to result in future de fac­to vac­cine man­dates for adults, whether through employ­er require­ments, [19] or actu­al state laws. Giv­en the intro­duc­tion of leg­is­la­tion [20] this year in many states to remove non-med­ical vac­cine exemp­tions and restrict med­ical exemp­tions for school age chil­dren in an effort to force par­ents to com­ply with the CDC’s rec­om­mend­ed child­hood vac­cine sched­ule, there is lit­tle doubt that that the NVAC’s lat­est plan will result in sim­i­lar actions to force adults to use all fed­er­al­ly rec­om­mend­ed vaccines.

One only has to read sto­ries post­ed NVIC’s Cry For Vac­cine Free­dom Wall by health­care work­ers who have refused flu shots and are being fired from their jobs to under­stand the threat posed by the NAIP. Is your pro­fes­sion next? The short answer is yes.

Make no mis­take about this plan’s intent, if “aware­ness” efforts and “incen­tiviza­tion” of vac­cine pol­i­cy do not increase adult vac­cine uptake, the part­ner­ing with your employ­er and oth­er com­mu­ni­ty groups is meant to low­er the ham­mer and force you to com­ply. The elec­tron­ic track­ing sys­tems that are enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly being embraced by not only the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment but also state gov­ern­ments and employ­ers, with­out regard for your pri­va­cy, will be used to iden­ti­fy noncompliers.

Informed Con­sent Free­dom at RiskIf you haven’t read Dr. Suzanne Humphries’ book Dis­solv­ing Illu­sions, [21] you may not real­ize that his­to­ry is about to repeat itself. Gov­ern­ment enforced vac­ci­na­tion through iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and door-to-door efforts to make every­one com­ply, like was seen with small­pox vac­ci­na­tion cam­paigns a cen­tu­ry ago, is a real pos­si­bil­i­ty again in Amer­i­ca. Only this time it won’t just be about one vac­cine – it will be about a lot of vac­cines you will be forced to get.

The noose being tight­ened around the necks of our chil­dren is being thrown over the necks of adults as well. The tight­en­ing of that noose is grow­ing dai­ly in an attempt to stran­gle vac­cine free­dom of choice by erad­i­cat­ing the eth­i­cal prin­ci­ple of informed consent.

Adults and their chil­dren are being asked to accept a one-size-fits-all vac­cine sched­ule that does not allow for the abil­i­ty to delay or decline one or more vac­cines for reli­gious and con­sci­en­tious beliefs. This is very dan­ger­ous when the med­ical exemp­tion has been nar­rowed by gov­ern­ment so that almost no health con­di­tion qual­i­fies for a med­ical exemp­tion any­more. Fam­i­lies already per­son­al­ly impact­ed by vac­cine reac­tions, injuries and deaths will be faced with more loss, includ­ing their finan­cial sta­bil­i­ty if they are forced to be revaccinated.

The human right to pro­tect bod­i­ly integri­ty and auton­o­my – the core val­ue of the informed con­sent eth­ic – is at stake.

This bat­tle is not about an anti- or pro- vac­cine posi­tion. It is a bat­tle over free­dom, val­ues and beliefs. [22] What is at risk is your abil­i­ty as a par­ent and indi­vid­ual to decide what med­ical risks you are will­ing to accept and vac­ci­na­tion is the fore­front of this battle.

For over three decades NVIC has sup­port­ed informed con­sent pro­tec­tions in all U.S. vac­cine laws and poli­cies, which means that par­ents and indi­vid­u­als must receive full and accu­rate infor­ma­tion on vac­cine risks and ben­e­fits and retain the right to make vol­un­tary deci­sions to accept, delay or decline one or more vac­cines with­out being sanc­tioned for they deci­sion they make.

What You Can Do Today – Get Involved!

Your rights are being erod­ed and vac­cine exemp­tions are under aggres­sive attack in many states. NVIC will con­tin­ue to advo­cate for your free­dom as we have done for over 30 years, but this bat­tle will not be won with­out your voice and action.

Sub­mit your com­ments on the NAIP by March 23rd to the Nation­al Vac­cine Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee and for­ward this arti­cle to your friends and fam­i­ly. (NVIC NOTE 3/20/15: We have become aware that the NVAC’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive assigned to receive your com­ments email account is autore­spond­ing that she is out of the office until the 25th. NVIC has con­tact­ed the Nation­al Vac­cine Pro­gram Office and has been assured that com­ments sent by the 23rd are being col­lect­ed and for­ward­ed to the NVAC for their con­sid­er­a­tion. Please ignore the autore­spon­der – your com­ments are get­ting through and will be a part of the record. Many thanks to every­one for mak­ing us aware of this sit­u­a­tion and for send­ing in com­ments on the NAIP! Keep send­ing in those comments!)

Most impor­tant­ly, reg­is­ter and encour­age oth­ers to reg­is­ter on NVIC’s Advo­ca­cy Por­tal today and join with oth­er con­cerned Amer­i­cans to pro­tect informed con­sent rights. This resource is free and will keep you informed on leg­isla­tive actions under­way in your state, pro­vide guid­ance on what action to take, and con­nect you with your legislators.

There is no time to waste. Please do not wait for some­one else to do this…that some­one is you and you can make a difference!

Com­ment on this arti­cle at VaccineImpact.com

Ref­er­ences

1 CDC. Rec­om­mend­ed Adult Immu­niza­tion Sched­ule. Feb. 3, 2015.
2 NVAC. Draft Nation­al Adult Immu­niza­tion Plan. Feb. 5, 2014.
3 Healthy People.gov. Immu­niza­tion and Infec­tions Dis­eases.
4 A Per­spec­tive on the Devel­op­ment of the Healthy Peo­ple 2020 Frame­work for Improv­ing U.S. Pop­u­la­tion Health. Pub­lic Health Reviews. Vol. 35, No 1. 2013
5 CDC. Vac­cines and Immu­niza­tions. State Immu­niza­tion Laws for Health­care Work­ers and Patients. Nov. 19, 2014.
6 Cor­nell Uni­ver­si­ty Law School. U.S. Con­sti­tu­tion – First Amend­ment Table of Con­tents, Inva­sion of Pri­va­cy.
7 TEDx­Tra­ver­seCity 2014. Design­ing Tech­nol­o­gy to Restore Pri­va­cy. Deb­o­rah C. Peel, MD.
8 Fourth Annu­al Bench­mark Study on Patient Pri­va­cy & Data Secu­ri­ty, Ponemon Insti­tute, Mar 2014
9 Health infor­ma­tion exchanges intro­duce patient con­sent ques­tions. K. Ter­ry. Med­ical Eco­nom­ics. Jul. 8, 2014
10 CDC Immu­niza­tion Ser­vices Divi­sion Pre­sen­ta­tion on IIS & Health Peo­ple 2020 Goals to the Nation­al Vac­cine Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee, Sep. 2013
11 Nation­al Vac­cine Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee – White Paper on U.S. Vac­cine Safe­ty Sys­tem. Sep. 2011.
12 Report from the Depart­ment of Jus­tice. Advi­so­ry Com­mis­sion on Child­hood Vac­cines (ACCV) Cer­ti­fied Min­utes. Pg 8. Sep. 2014.
13 Hill AVS. Genet­ics and Genomics of Infec­tious Dis­ease Sus­cep­ti­bil­i­ty. British Med­ical Bul­letin 1999; 55(2): 401–413.
14 Kin­man TG, Van­de­briel RJ, Hoe­bee B. Genet­ic vari­a­tion in the response to vac­ci­na­tion. Com­mu­ni­ty Genet 2007; 10(4): 201–217.
15 Lemaire D, Bar­bosa T, Rihet P. Cop­ing with genet­ic diver­si­ty: the con­tri­bu­tion of pathogen and human genomics to mod­ern vac­ci­nol­o­gy. Braz J Med Biol Res 2012; 45(5): 376–385.
16 Insti­tute of Med­i­cine Com­mit­tee to Review Adverse Effects of Vac­cines. Adverse Effects of Vac­ci­na­tions: Evi­dence and Causal­i­ty. Eval­u­at­ing Bio­log­i­cal Mech­a­nisms of Adverse Events: Increased Sus­cep­ti­bil­i­ty. Wash­ing­ton, DC: The Nation­al Acad­e­mies Press 2012.
17 DHHS. Vac­cine Injury Com­pen­sa­tion Pro­gram Data and Sta­tis­tics. HRSA Updat­ed monthly.
18 Uni­ver­si­ty of Min­neso­ta. NVAC approves rec­om­men­da­tions on health work­er flu vac­ci­na­tion. Lisa Schnir­ring. CIDRAP News & Per­spec­tive. Feb. 8, 2012.
19 NVIC. Forc­ing Flu Shots on Health Care Work­ers: Who Is Next?. NVIC eNewslet­ter. Bar­bara Loe Fish­er. Sep. 29, 2010.
20 NVIC Advo­ca­cy. Action Alerts and Bills Mon­i­tored.
21 Humphries, S. MD. Bys­tri­anyk, R. Dis­solv­ing Illu­sions: Dis­ease, Vac­cines, and the For­got­ten His­to­ry. Jul. 27 2013.
22 NVIC. The Vac­cine Cul­ture War in Amer­i­ca: Are You Ready?. NVIC eNewslet­ter. Bar­bara Loe Fish­er. Mar. 8, 2015