Press "Enter" to skip to content

Mendocino County Today: Tuesday, April 22, 2014

* * *

THIS JUST IN. The Buddy Eller Center in Ukiah closes its doors tomorrow. For good. Funding has mostly evaporated. This means a lot more homeless people on the streets of Ukiah.

A READER CLARIFIES: "Your informant may have heard that Jackie Williams, Ford St. Ex. Director would announce today that she was recommending closing the BEC and jumped to the conclusion they were closing today. See the attachment for the full story which makes it clear the recommended closing date is July 31st. Closure will displace about 55 people, many of whom will go back to mommy and daddy, or to Lake County, or to their friend or sister's couch. The hard core homeless and the people you see in the Wal Mart parking lot are the least likely to go to a shelter. Still, the BEC was and hopefully will continue to be, a great resource to give people a chance to have a time out, sort things out and get in touch with services. It will be a big loss if it really does close."

Ford Street Project
April 21, 2014

After loosing [sic] federal shelter funding  for the Buddy Eller Shelter  in March 2013,  Ford Street has been trying to cover a monthly budget shortfall of $9000.  Several community agencies  and contributors have pledged a total of $90,500.  Even with these generous  donations from our supporters, we will end our fiscal year with a  $62,500 budget shortfall.  This is not sustainable.

On April 29, the Ford Street Board of Directors will review my recommendation to  close the Buddy Eller Shelter, effective July 31, 2014. At the same time we will begin  work to redesign a more affordable solution that is more in line with our mission of helping clients achieve self-sufficiency.

After  ten years of experience in providing emergency shelter services, we believe Ford Street  needs to  provide more supportive services to homeless families, as well as offering  support designed to promote improved self-sufficiency.  Our vocational program is continuing to grow  and we foresee utilizing  the vocational program as a part of our shelter services in the future.  We plan to relocate the shelter  and  serve fewer clients. We are investigating the possibility of offering family shelter services, and under twenty beds for homeless  individuals at our  139 Ford Street location.  We are in discussion with the Department of Social Services  to indentify [sic] possible options and solutions before we finalize our plans for the future.

Jacqueline Williams
Executive Director

* * *

ISN'T IT past time for our Board of Supervisors to at least discuss an advisory measure similar to that adopted by the Humboldt County supes? They voted unanimously to ask pot supply businesses not to sell rat poison and other chemicals heavily used in marijuana production. Spare Time Supply in Willits, for instance, employer of Third District Supe's candidate Holly Madrigal, has a rat on its business logo! These poisons stay in the environment for a long time, as a HumCo professor's wildlife studies established. His research was rewarded by, we assume, an irate grower who tossed poisoned meat into the professor's yard where his dog ate and died. The Love Drug brigades can and do play rough. Let's hope in the nicey-nice candidate's nights ahead, 3rd District voters ask the candidates about the damage guerilla growers do to what's left of the natural world.

* * *

CANDIDATE NIGHTS, and local elections generally, are pretty much like class elections in the Third Grade. “I'm voting for Suzy because she's nice.” At candidate's nights — no more than one or two — questions are carefully screened to spare the candidates uncomfortable inquiry. You pass your questions to the person in charge, inevitably a middle-of-the-road extremist affiliated with the Democratic Party, who simply discards any question he or she regards as “inappropriate.” The questions that get asked are of this type, “We know you're a Nice Person, but exactly how nice are you? And do you like kids and cats?” The answer comes back, “Shucks. I just want to serve, and I like cats, dogs and kids, not necessarily in that order.” There's never any mention of the lucrative pay and fringes that come with the Supe's job because our candidates are above, way above, such base considerations. As the election nears, the candidates take out newspaper ads with, just like in the Third Grade, long lists of the names of their supporters. The idea is that you line up with the people you see on the list. The issues are seldom addressed because adult give and take is “divisive” and maybe even, gasp! “negative.” The candidates are militantly for “bringing us together.” If there's a difference between 3rd District candidates Madrigal and Woodhouse, and the 3rd District race is between the two of them, it is non-detectable.

* * *

WE'RE GUILTY of the name-ism we complain about. If we see that Wes Chesbro, or any other career officeholder of the Chesbro type (and they all are) is supporting a local candidate, we do what we can to defeat that candidate. Why? Because we think the Democratic Party, in all its manifestations, is a major Enemy of the People. The Republicans used to be worse but lately they're simply co-equals; in any case, Republicans are politically irrelevant on the Northcoast. If we don't see Chesbro himself grinning his cat's meow grin with this candidate or the other, we look for one of his in-county surrogates — Jim Mastin; Joe Wildman; Val Muchowski; Rachel Binah; Supervisor Hamburg; the Superior Court; any person occupying a good paying public job in Ukiah........ Ladies and Gentlemen introducing Mendocino County's Flab Glab Lib Lab Axis. It runs Mendocino County. If you are an everyday working person, or even a One Percenter with a civilized aesthetic, The Axis is your mortal enemy.

* * *

WATER WARS, Mendo Division. The village of Mendocino is in a tiz. Unidentified persons have called a public meeting at the Rec Center for Thursday (April 24th) at 7:15 because “Mendocino City Community Services District wants all property owners to apply for a groundwater permit and put a meter on their well."

THE FLIER CONTINUES: “Do you want to be required to check a meter and report your water use each month to MCCSD? Do you want to give MCCSD permission to enter your property without notice? Do you want to have your water use restricted? Do you want to pay for the meter, the inspections and the enforcement of these requirements and restrictions?"

AND CONCLUDES with a doubly indignant howl, “Help the MCCSD Board of Directors make the right decision and rescind the mandatory groundwater permit before you are fined $100 a day for non-compliance!"

WELL, GEE, you've got a bunch of people and tourist businesses clustered on top of a finite aquifer, don't you have to have an orderly distribution of the available water, water likely to become quite scarce indeed late this summer?

* * *

SAN FRANCISCO, according to its own figures, is putting out $458,000 per day to house and help homeless people, which works out to $34 a day per homeless person, whether they are on the streets, in a shelter or in “supportive” housing. That's more than children's programs, public works and parks and recreation. Nearly half the homeless money, $81.5 million, goes for rent subsidies and programs to assist the 6,355 people living in that “permanent supportive housing.” Despite all, roughly 7,000 people remain unhoused because there's always a fresh supply of homeless no matter how much housing might be made available. As rich as Frisco is, and given the City's historical reluctance to compel the rich to pay their fair share of the social load, there will continue to be lots of people — drunks, drug addicts, the mentally ill, and the pit bull people — living on the streets. It's a national political failure not to seriously address homelessness, but given the political givens, which apply also here in Mendocino County, all of the above will be on the streets for years to come.

LOCALLY, the Mendocino County Superior Court continues to process habitual drunks and roaming public nuisances to a few days in the County Jail, after which the roaming public nuisances are again free to roam. How about a County farm? Humboldt County has one, and they have a lot more roaming nuisances than we do. Why not here?

* * *

DARLENE KUNY -- Nov. 10, 1944 - April 17, 2014 -- Graveside services for Darlene Kuny will be held at 12 noon on Saturday, April 26th, 2014 at Evergreen Cemetery in Boonville. Darlene passed away at the age of 69 on Thursday, April 17th, 2014. She was born on November 10, 1944 in Oklahoma, but was raised in Mendocino County by her loving parents Marion and Edith Fullbright. Darlene devoted her life to protecting and caring for her loved ones, especially her daughter, Tia. Darlene was married to Fred "Fritz" Kuny for 18½ years until his passing in April of 2011. Darlene is survived by several siblings and her children Tia Trumble, Jonnie and Dana Mize, Gary Villa, Pam Mason, Lloyd Mason Jr., and Lowell Mason. She is also survived by numerous grandchildren, including Fred Fitch, Ashley Fitch, Joanna and Eric Huey and one great grandchild, Miguel Huey. The family thanks everyone who was a positive member of Darlene's life, especially Jan Wasson-Smith, Geraldine Rose, Susan Juster, and other long-time friends and extended family. Instead of purchasing flowers, donations to the A.V. Health Center or the Phoenix Certified Hospice of Mendocino County would be greatly appreciated. Eversole Mortuary is in charge of arrangements.

* * *

THE ANGUISH OF UNCERTAINTY

When the Malaysian airliner vanished from the skies last month, the world’s heart ached for the families – not only for their terrible losses, but because the early investigation was badly mishandled and the authorities kept them in the dark for far too long.

We can relate. The family and friends of Susan Keegan, a victim of homicide, understand all too well that uncertainty, and the agony of delay, can be almost as harsh as loss itself. And we are not alone – in California, more than 1,000 homicides go unsolved every year, according to Safe California (www.safecalifornia.org). One thousand families – in one state, in one year -- who carry the memories of the betrayed in their heart, and who never have their day in court. One thousand communities that never learn what happened in their own backyards.

When it comes to homicide, Mendocino County actually beats the averages in California. Statewide, half the homicide cases (from 2000 to 2009) have never been solved, but only 25% of those in Mendocino remain open. District Attorney David Eyster has the resources to meet, or surpass, that track record.

Let’s hope the Keegan case doesn’t worsen the county’s performance.

Already, the Keegan home has twice been searched, under separate warrants. DNA samples have been collected, and forensics and legal experts from outside Mendocino County have been paid as consultants to help develop the case. Most of the county’s law enforcement team, in both the DA’s office and the Sheriff’s office, have met repeatedly to review the evidence. Apparently, they agree on the facts, because they formally designated Susan’s death a homicide in August 2012. That’s how her death certificate reads.

So what has happened since then? Despite the DA’s silence, we have every reason to believe he is a guiding force behind a continuing investigation. His office tells us the case remains active. We know the Sheriff’s staff has been castigated for its mishandling of the evidence that tragic morning after Susan’s death. We know Susan’s husband has engaged a leading criminal defense attorney, who has apparently advised his client not to cooperate with the authorities. We know there is only one suspect.

But we don’t know why the DA’s office has taken 3-1/2 years to make an arrest – an arrest that everyone still expects to come. We don’t know why friends and family, whose anguish is undiminished, are still asked to wait.

Not every case gets handed to prosecutors clean, easy, and nicely wrapped with a bow. The Ukiah community nonetheless needs its law enforcers to get justice done. A civilized society insists on it.

It is time, DA Eyster. It is long past time.

(Courtesy, Justice4Susan.com)

* * *

ON APRIL 19, 2014 at about 8:05pm Mendocino County Sheriff's Deputies responded to the 8800 Block of Valley View Dr. Hopland, regarding a physical domestic altercation. Deputies contacted the victim and her husband suspect John Sullivan, 41, of Hopland, at their residence. The victim reported Sullivan had a delusional mental episode which resulted in Sullivan attacking the victim and physically assaulting her. The victim also reported Sullivan had threated to kill her during another domestic incident earlier in the day. Deputies observed an injury on the victim’s foot allegedly caused by Sullivan’s physical assault. Deputies arrested Sullivan for felony domestic battery (273.5 PC) and criminal threats (422 PC.). Sullivan was then incarcerated at the Mendocino County jail for Felony Domestic Battery and Criminal Threats and to be held in lieu of $25,000 bail. (Sheriff’s Press Release)

* * *

ON APRIL 19, 2014 at about 12:56am Mendocino County Sheriff's responded to the 6000 block of N. State St. in Ukiah, California regarding a domestic disturbance report. Deputies contacted the victim and suspect at their apartment. The female victim told deputies she and suspect Dilan Gregory had been involved in a domestic argument. The victim advised the argument escalated which resulted in Gregory becoming physically assaultive towards the victim. Deputies observed visible injuries to the victim's face and neck allegedly caused by Gregory's physical assaults. Deputies subsequently arrested Gregory for felony domestic violence battery. Gregory was incarcerated at the Mendocino County Jail where he was to be held in lieu of $25,000.00 bail. (Sheriff’s Press Release)

* * *

CULTURE CLASH

by Jean Swearingen

A.R. Gurney’s 1982 play The Dining Room opened last (Easter) weekend to small but enthusiastic audiences at the Willits Community Theatre, 37 West Van Lane. The action, which takes place at various times between 1930 (the year Gurney was born) and 1980, is all centered around a lavish dining room in a large house in an upper class New England neighborhood, populated by several generations of different WASP families. The six actors (three men and three women) portray a variety of characters of different ages, temperaments, and life situations — the greatest acting challenge that this actor (one of the six) has ever faced in my almost half-century of performing onstage.

Prior to this production, I had been exposed to Gurney’s work through my attendance at two of his other plays — The Cocktail Hour and Sylvia — at the B Street Theatre in Sacramento, the theatre that was founded by Timothy Busfield and his brother Buck. Through his plays, Gurney poses sometimes humorous, sometimes poignant commentaries on upper middle class American family life; in The Dining Room, although my own family situations (my family of origin, the one into which I married, and the one that my husband and I created together) were nowhere near the socio-economic status of the families depicted in the play, I have had a relatively easy time forging a connection with my ten characters, based on the universality of the human condition.

What is particularly challenging for me, aside from some almost instantaneous exits and entrances from one character to the next in successive scenes, is the discrepancy between the economic affluence of the characters in the play as contrasted with my own current financial challenges during this period of concerted job-seeking efforts. As my family (both immediate and extended) placed a very high value on education, I grew up with the notion that advanced college degrees would secure my financial future — that there would never come a time in my life when I would be without full-time gainful employment unless it was by choice. What I am now learning, in my sixties, with very little technological training of any sort, is how far behind the curve I am in terms of employability in the current job market.

Being “old money,” the majority of the characters in the play, employed or not, would never have found themselves in my current financial situation — particularly those living in the earlier decades. The only contrast lies in the lives of the domestic staff members of the households, trapped in their roles by the lack of education, “breeding,” and economic and social opportunities afforded the family members of their employers. Through his creation of these characters, and the dialogue that they share with each other, Gurney very effectively showcases class distinction in American culture throughout the fifty-year time span during which the action of the play takes place. Whether the characters’ interactions with each other make audience members laugh, cry, or just nod their heads in agreement, they will be hard-pressed not to react on some level.

Since moving back to Mendocino County in mid-December of 2012, I have yet to become “settled” in any way that would contribute to more of a sense of permanence, despite living and working in Ukiah. Doing this play in Willits feels to me like a step in that direction; theatre has always afforded me with a sense of belonging that few social opportunities have been able to provide for me. The cast and crew are phenomenal to work with — very professional and dedicated — which is crucial in a production with the degree of emotional intensity that this one entails. Whether or not this foray into local live theatre will eventually lead me to other social and employment opportunities, I suppose only time will tell.

While I was living in Davis during the summer of 1974, having just completed the elementary credential program at the University of California, a fellow classmate, friend, and lover of mine accepted a teaching position with Willits Unified. He resigned from the position several months later, but as it has now been exactly forty years, I can’t help but wonder from time to time if my next move may be to complete what he started and consequently abandoned. A certain amount of that, of course, is within my control. Destiny can only point us in a certain direction; it is incumbent upon us at that point to take the next step in following through with what we perceive as our life plans.

I don’t know what “process” other actors utilize in preparing for their various roles; I can only speak about my own. Many of the situations in The Dining Room are reminiscent of events in my own life, and, as such, I drew a tremendous amount of strength, courage, and fortitude from these characters in their struggles to resolve the dilemmas in their lives. Throughout the weeks of preparation for performances, they became increasingly more “real” to me, to the extent that, while onstage, I completely lost my own identity in theirs. It is, and has always been for me, a thoroughly gratifying experience, and for that, I am tremendously grateful to Gurney, our director, Maria Monti (whose day job is teaching drama at Ukiah High School), and my fellow actors.

The Dining Room plays for two more weekends. Performances are Thursday (4/24 and 5/1) at 7 p.m., Friday (4/25 and 5/2) and Saturday (4/26 and 5/3) at 8 p.m., and Sunday (4/27 and 5/4) at 2 p.m. Tickets ($10 for Thursday and Sunday and $15 for Friday and Saturday) can be purchased by calling the theatre at 459-0895.

* * *

WHY I DO NOT VACCINATE MY CHILD

Editor,

This is in response to last week’s article by Mr. Heilig entitled “Vaccinate!”

In his article for making a case that we must obey with blind obedience what our government regulatory officials and Western medicine men and women dictate to what we must do to protect the health of our children, I found his arguments baseless and full of ad hominen attacks against the growing many of us who question the health and safety of ever more and more vaccinations, especially to our children.

Many of us feel there are many excellent, well researched reasons for our fears and founded concerns about the motives and objectives behind the mass increase in inoculations being foisted upon our society by the solely-for-profit Big Medicine.

It needs to also be made clear that the United States ranks first, by a very wide margin, in costs of our privatized healthcare system, yet ranks 64th in healthcare efficiency as ranked by the World Health Institute in 2013. This fact alone should lead all to exercise caution and do their own research.

My background is as a research analyst and trend forecaster for over two decades working on Wall Street as well as owning a small investment banking boutique. My family has been in the medical for two generations now. My father was a medical physician for 30 years practicing in Marin County (why are they still practicing?), a sister who is a registered surgical nurse in Oregon and a brother who has been a dentist for 25 years. Though this does not make me an expert by definition, I do have knowledge and abilities to research for myself as well as consult my family of professionals as well as their colleagues, which I have done extensively.

I moved my family to Anderson Valley because I learned from independent research how our food was being compromised by bio-engineering. (While working for the former investment bank, Robertson, Stephens, we brought the company Calgene public with hits grand failure of releasing the first GMO product called “Flavor Savr” tomato in the mid-1990’s.) My colleagues who were working in the financial markets with the GMO companies were telling me back then how health studies were being manipulated and fabricated to get FDA approvals and bio-engineered food to markets for future profits.

I also very clearly understood that Wall Street has one concern and one concern only. Maximize profits for shareholder value aka make as much money as possible as long as the potential costs (fines, etc.) do not outspend profit potential.

Back in 2006, when my son was six months old, we took him to one of the top pediatricians in Marin County, as recommended by my father. He was given a cocktail of three vaccinations and put on a regular vaccination schedule every six months without question.

Before the meeting with the doctor I got on the internet (yes Mr. Heilig the internet can be a very useful information source) and read some very disturbing news about Thimerosal. Thimerosal is a mercury based preservative widely used in vaccines. Many pediatricians have discontinued Thimerosal for use on children in inoculations simply because you would be hard pressed to find any physician admit that putting mercury in our bodies is a good thing. (Many adults, including myself, as advised by my dentist, have had removed our mercury laden amalgam fillings due to the neurotoxic effects as well.)

The doctor assured us that Thimerosal had been taken out of the vaccinations where she practiced a few years back. I then asked her what the drug manufactures replaced it with and she replied that she did not know (aluminum).

So the next time we went for his scheduled vaccination I decided to learn all I could about what was used in vaccinations. I learned that there is the actual virus that the medicine men are trying to prevent attached to either human or animal cells and put into the vaccines as standard practice. The hope is that the body will accept the limited virus as our immune system builds resistance and shield against the stronger dose of the virus later.

This is similar to the Western medical practice of using poison, (radiation), to eradicate poison, (cancer), in our systems.

As I researched more I was simply horrified to discover the list of ingredients listed by the manufactures in vaccines. I then called several pediatrician friends of our family to ask them if they were aware of the ingredients listed on the vaccine inserts and few were. When I presented the list to the doctor she said that she had no idea of all the 49 ingredients listed were included in the vaccinations, which she was happily about to inject, in three cocktails, into my 1 year old son.

She said she was told by her drug representative that it was safe and approved by the FDA.

According to the website http://vaccines.procon.org/ some of the following ingredients that are listed by the manufactures themselves in the inserts that come with the vaccines are:

Tdap Vaccine (tetanus, diphtheria, & pertussis or whooping cough): formaldehyde, aluminum phosphate, modified Mueller-Miller casamino acid medium without beef heart infusion, ammonium sulfate, Thermosil.

Influenza Vaccine (Common Flu): embryonated chicken eggs, sodium phosphate-buffered isotonic sodium chloride solution, sodium deoxycholate, formaldehyde, thimerosol (multi-dose vials only), monobasic sodium phosphate, dibasic sodium phosphate, monobasic potassium phosphate, potassium chloride, calcium chloride, sodium taurodeoxycholate, neomycin sulfate, polymyxin B, ovalbumin, mercury, sodium, chloride, beta-propiolacton

Measles, Mumps and Rubella: recombinant human albumin, fetal bovine serum, other buffer and media ingredients, neomycin. Chick embryo cell culture, WI-38 human diploid lung fibroblasts.

Two main human cell strains have been used to develop currently available vaccines, in each case with the original fetal cells in question obtained in the 1960s. The WI-38 cell strain was developed in 1961 in the United States, and the MRC-5 cell strain (also started with fetal lung cells) was developed in 1965 in the United Kingdom. No new or additional fetal cells are required in order to sustain the two cell strains.

The vaccines below were developed using either the WI-38 or the MRC-5 cell strains.

Hepatitis A vaccines [VAQTA/Merck, Havrix/GlaxoSmithKline, and part of Twinrix/GlaxoSmithKline]

Rubella vaccine [MERUVAX II/Merck, part of MMR II/Merck, and ProQuad/Merck]

Varicella (chickenpox) vaccine [Varivax/Merck, and part of ProQuad/Merck]

Zoster (shingles) vaccine [Zostavax/Merck]

Adenovirus Type 4 and Type 7 oral vaccine [Barr Labs] *

Rabies vaccine [IMOVAX/Sanofi Pasteur] *

* Vaccine not routinely given

Several vaccines currently available in the United States were developed using animal cell lines, primarily using cells from African green monkeys. These include vaccines against Japanese encephalitis, rotavirus, polio, and smallpox. Of these, only rotavirus and polio vaccines are routinely given.

Mr Heilig makes reference that there is not strong science supporting us “anti-vaccinators”. I could not disagree with him more.

Perhaps the highest scientific authority saying vaccines are contaminated is Garth Nicolson. He is a cell biologist and editor of the Journal of Clinical and Experimental Metastasis, and the Journal of Cellular Biochemistry. He is one of the most cited scientists in the world, having published over 600 medical and scientific peer-reviewed papers, edited over 14 books, and served on the editorial boards of 28 medical and scientific journals. He is not just saying that vaccines are contaminated with mycoplasma but is warning the US that they are. Nicolson goes further and says that we are all being damaged by them and contracting chronic degenerative diseases that.

To the list you may also Google hundreds and hundreds of medical doctors and scientists who have come out against vaccines including: Dr. Sherry Tenpenny, Dr. Mercola, Dr. Russell Blaylock and many others. Simply Google, “Doctors against Vaccines” and you can read each of their essays on this important subject. You can also find very informative information from Robert Kennedy Jr. on his alleged cover-ups of the rates of autism in children caused by vaccinations.

Additionally, vaccinating all is very big business in the medical community. Additionally, our western medicine system of take a pill, inject, cut it out and radiate does not promote or consider the age old practice of preventative care like eating healthy food, regular exercise and living in an around nature as additional ways to build up a child’s immune systems.

Please consider the following facts:

If you follow the Center for Disease Controls recommended vaccination schedule, your children will receive 49 doses of 14 vaccines by the time he or she is 6 years of age. By the age of 18, the CDC recommends that children have gotten a whopping total of 69 doses of 16 vaccines.

Vaccine companies over the last eight years have outperformed all other medical companies in annualized profits with a stellar return of 32% annually.

In 2009, during the H1N1 scare where more people in the U.S. died of the common cold, the National Institute of Health granted complete immunity from prosecution for vaccine makers.

From 2010 to 2013 Medical drug manufactures paid out an all-time record $16 Billion in fines for drugs that killed, maimed and injured consumers (but no vaccine companies since they had immunity from prosecution.) Drug manufactures know that they only will have to pay fines if their medicine proves to be unsafe, so it is factored into as a cost of doing business.

In 2012 Kaiser Permanente of San Rafael reported that 91% of the cases for Whooping Cough, the same vaccine being required, and soon mandatory, to enter 7th grade public schools, HAD been vaccinated for Whooping Cough.

If more than 10% of students in public schools opt out of being inoculated, then Federal funds are cut from the schools.

According to WebMD, In 2008, 39 percent of parents became educated about vaccinations and refused or delayed vaccines for their children. This compares to just 22 percent in 2003. No further comparisons have been done since then. The Marin IJ reported in 2013 that families that opted out of vaccinations for their children had the highest degrees of formal education.

The CDC has admitted, according to their own website, that more than 98 million Americans received one or more doses of polio vaccine within an 8-year span when a proportion of the vaccine was contaminated with a cancer causing polyomavirus called SV40. It has been estimated that 10-30 million Americans could have received an SV40 contaminated dose of the vaccine.

Over the past decades, at least seven high-ranking employees in the FDA have an employment history with the Monsanto Company. At the forefront of this controversy is Michael R. Taylor, currently the deputy commissioner of the Office of Foods. He was also the deputy commissioner for Policy within the FDA in the mid ’90s. However, between that position and his current FDA position, Mr. Taylor was employed by Monsanto as Vice President of Public Policy.

The National Institutes of Health has a $30.5 billion annual budget on medical research. The Centers for Disease Control has a $11 billion annual budget on medical research but neither has found the time or money to do research on vaccinated vs. unvaccinated children’s health.

Now if this isn’t enough to make parents stop and think for a moment about letting your child be jabbed and poked with endless needles, one only needs to go the FDA.gov website itself to learn more about what they state are the adverse risks in vaccinations. (I don’t think even Mr. Heilig would call the FDA “conspiracists”).

According to the FDA.gov website on the header “Vaccines, Blood and Biologics”, then click on “Vaccines for Use in Children and Adults” and under “Vaccines Licensed for Immunization and Distribution in the US with Supporting Documents” is listed the following warnings about using HPV Gardasil:

6.2. “The following adverse events have been spontaneously reported during post-approval use of GARDASIL. Because these events were reported voluntarily from a population of uncertain size, it is not possible to reliably estimate their frequency or to establish a causal relationship to vaccine exposure.

General disorders and administration site conditions: Asthenia, chills, death, fatigue, malaise.

Immune system disorders: Autoimmune diseases, hypersensitivity reactions including anaphylactic/anaphylactoid reactions, bronchospasm, and urticaria.

Musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders: Arthralgia, myalgia.

Nervous system disorders: Acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, dizziness, Guillain-Barré syndrome, headache, motor neuron disease, paralysis, seizures, syncope (including syncope associated with tonic-clonic movements and other seizure-like activity) sometimes resulting in falling with injury, transverse myelitis

Infections and infestations: cellulitis.

Vascular disorders: Deep venous thrombosis.

“DEATH! Paralysis, Seizure”… “From a voluntary population of uncertain size”. And we should vaccinate our children without question?? Really???

In 2006 we had the SARS virus scare. In 2007 we had the Swine Flu Scare. In 2008, the Bird Flu scare followed by the great H1N1 scare in 2009 that began in a corporate animal farm in Mexico and was supposed to kill tens of thousands in the U.S alone according to the Obama Administrations officials.

That was followed by HPV vaccines for girls or else they might get cancer 2010, then the 2011 Whooping Cough scare. Now in 2014, it is the return of the super H1N1 again. And the entire time Big Pharma is making Big Bank.

It is now California law, as of 2104, that anyone who wishes to opt out of vaccinating their children, who would be attending 7th grade public schools, must go see a doctor who is supposed to explain the risks to themselves and others as to not getting vaccinated. New York City is now mandatorily requiring all pre-school and day care centers to have children vaccinated or they cannot attend.

Most of us Baby Boomers remember that we were supposed to get sick when we were children. We got the mumps and chicken pox and our temperatures rose as our bodies naturally built up and developed its immune systems as we grew. Playing in dirt helped fight germs and as my mother would quote the original western doctor, Hippocrates, “Let food be thy medicine”.

Very soon, most likely within a couple of years from now, those of us who choose to build our children’s developing immune systems with preventative care will not have access to public schools at all when vaccines become mandatory for all children.

There are a lot of us who feel this way and the numbers are growing. To label us as being fearful or ignorant is an insult to those who wish to raise our children as healthily and naturally as possible. We simply want the God-given right to protect our children and raise them the best possible way we feel possible in our ever growing toxic, heavily medicated America.

“Most people can readily accept the fact that at times certain laws are necessary for the public good that some of us strongly disagree with, but the issue in this case involves the wholesale introduction of foreign proteins or even live viruses into the bloodstream of entire populations. For that reason alone, the public is surely entitled to convincing proof, beyond any reasonable doubt, that artificial immunization is in fact a safe and effective procedure in no way injurious to health, and that the threat of the corresponding natural disease remains sufficiently clear and urgent to warrant vaccinating everyone, even against their will if necessary.

“Unfortunately, convincing proof of safety and efficacy has never been given; and, even if it could be, continuing to employ vaccines that are no longer prevalent or no longer dangerous hardly qualifies as an emergency. Finally, even if such an emergency did exist and artificial immunization could be shown to be an appropriate response to it, the decision to vaccinate would remain essentially a political one, involving issues of public health and safety that are far too important to be settled by any purely scientific or technical criteria, or indeed by any criteria less authoritative than the clearly articulated sense of the community that is about to be subjected to it.” ~~ Richard Moskowitz, M. D., Journal of the American Institute of Health, March 1983

I hope this article helps and encourages others to do their own research and think and act for the best interests of their children and families. We are their first line of defense against all. All the sources quoted here can be found on my blog, “Tabublog.com” under “Vaccination Nation”.

Jamie Lee, Philo

Dear Mr. Lee:

Thank you for writing, and for your article “Why I Do Not Vaccinate My Child,” which I did read. And thank you for candidly admitting that you have no training in this arena. Let me assure you I am no fan of what you call “Big Medicine” and agree that our nation's health system and outcomes could and should be much better than they are. But that, along with much else in your piece (GMOs?), is barely relevant here, and as for most of the rest of your assertions, I can only say that your quoting one 911 “truther” (Nicholson), referring to some other fringe doctors who are most known for trying to sell stuff, and ending with a 1983 article from a homeopath writing in a nonexistent “Journal of the American Institute of Health” is indicative of your selective and unscientific approach and does not help your cause.

You also have a few sentences in your piece that seem to end in a middle of a thought, but I think your message is clear enough: In a nutshell, what you are saying is this: “I know more than the millions of doctors who have vaccinated their own children, the hordes of independent scientists who have studied vaccines and the hundreds of millions of people who have been vaccinated worldwide and have concluded that vaccines are both safe and effective. They are wrong and I, and a few other people like Jenny McCarthy are right. There is a vast conspiracy of denial about this, which I know because— well, because I say so.”

From your words, it is clear you won't be convinced by any amount of evidence. Other readers might consult the website of the American Academy of Pediatrics — and note that many if not most pediatricians do not make any money from vaccines, and some even lose on the deal due to the poor insurance reimbursement. But they provide them because they know it is the right and healthy thing to do.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing — to both your own children and others.

Steve Heilig, San Francisco

* * *

WE WERE TALKING here in the office, high above downtown Boonville, about vaccination. I said I dimly remembered from high school chemistry that some of the chemicals listed by non-vaccinators as harmful are in fact non-harmful. The Major, who has a college degree in chemistry, confirmed that the chemistry alleged this week by Mr. Lee is, ah, faulty. Taking it up a notch, I think the parents of non-vaccinators should be arrested and charged with child endangerment. If they cling to voodoo-ism, their children should be adopted out. Ditto for the local nutballs who permit their young children to smoke marijuana.

4 Comments

  1. michael turner April 22, 2014

    I read Mr. Lee’s letter as far as his first sentence. He didn’t get far into his argument before resorting to phrases like “blind obedience” and “Western medicine”. I’ve been reading these sort of tracts in health food stores for 50 years and the tone and phrasing never changes.

  2. Bill Pilgrim April 22, 2014

    The truth lies somewhere in between. My own research finds that barraging a toddler with powerful immuno-cocktails can overwhelm their little systems. Except for diseases that are prevalent in our society, why not start a little later, say, after 5 yrs. old, with a gradual application?

  3. Jim Armstrong April 22, 2014

    Proscecuting parents for questioning our current vaccination policies and threatening to place their children for adoption is not the best plan you have ever laid before AVA readers.

    I get immunizations when it seems prudent. Running a small ranch often involves cuts and punctures in the presence of manure and other sources of tetanus. Go to get a shot for that and you also get shot for whooping cough (pertussis) and diphtheria. There have been no confirmed cases of diphtheria in the US since 2003.

    Babies are born with immune systems already working and learning. The lungs filter air and only allow oxygen through cell walls. The digestive system likewise is very protective and both use antibodies developed over nine months.
    The first and subsequent vaccination shots are needled right past those defenses and look out kid.

    I do not have answers to the issues raised in the article and response, but jailing, or worse, parents whos approach vaccinations with caution sounds like the drug policies that have done little but harm.

  4. Jim Updegraff April 22, 2014

    I will repeat what I said April 20 in response to Mr. Heilig column.

    “Why isn’t a willful failure to have your children vaccinated considered child endangerment and a matter of concern to the county child protective service?’

    I would further say I include the ‘religious exemptment’ in my above comment.

    Jim Updegraff

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

-