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BY SUPREME UNDERSTANDING AND DIVINEGOD B ALLAH Your immune system is your body’s armor when it comes to harmful germs and bacteria. The best way to prevent catching a cold is to have a healthy immune system. Here’s a few easy ways to do that: Get regular exercise, followed by good rest. Drink plenty of fluids, especially water. Wash your hands regularly. Get as much fresh air as you can steal. Minimize your stress. Yoga and Tai Chi are two great forms of relaxation on an ongoing basis. Once you’ve got a cold, there’s not much you can do but fortify your immunities to fight it off. Here’s some advice on that: Ever heard the saying “Feed a fever and starve a cold”? old wives’ tale, right? Well, research by Dutch scientists suggests that eating boosts the type of immune response needed to fight off the common cold virus, while fasting from food promotes a different type of immune reaction necessary to overcome the bacterial infections that trigger most fevers. So it seems like they just had it backwards. You should feed a cold, and starve a fever. No matter what you do, the key is WHAT you eat and drink. When you’re sick, drink plenty of liquids (especially those high in Vitamin C) and eat fresh fruits and vegetables, especially the colorful ones that are high in Vitamins A and C. If you want to starve that fever by only having soup, I recommend a spicy, garlicky vegetable broth over chicken and noodles. Unless the soup is full of garlic, ginger, hot pepper, and vegetables the chicken and noodles isn’t what’s helping anyway! Take some herbs, like those listed below (see Herbs = Medicine by Supreme Understanding). Garlic, ginger, and cayenne make a very effective tea. At the supermarket, you can also find a natural cold and flu remedy known as Airborne. You drop it in some water and it makes an orangey drink that helps quickly boost your immune system. If you can’t make it to the health food store or even the supermarket, here’s a ghetto remedy: A 99 cent bag of Lay’s Flaming Hot chips (the hot pepper opens up the sinuses) and a 20 oz. bottle of 100% orange juice (boosts the immune system). I can’t promise you any results, but it works for me. Herbs that Help Fight Colds and Flu Symptoms Astragalus Celery seed Eucalyptus German Chamomile Goldenseal Licorice root Peppermint Siberian Ginseng Wild yam Colds generally go away in about 7 to 10 days. Many holistic practitioners see the symptoms of a cold as the body’s natural way of eliminating a virus. However, if you have an underlying lung condition, like asthma or emphysema, and you see your conditions going from bad to worse…it’s time to see a doctor. (See “Healing and Treatment.”) Take the above measures to eliminate or prevent a cold. If your coughing and sneezing everywhere, get some fresh air and sun.

By Supreme Understanding The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation recently hosted a presentation on how ultrasonic frequencies could be used to sterilize men from a distance. Yes, you read that right. I can only imagine how they would use that…and who they’d use that against. Doesn’t sound like something “good guy” Bill Gates would be into? You have no idea. In addition to this sterilization program (which would use sharp blasts of ultrasound directed against a man’s scrotum to render him infertile as a sort of “temporary castration”), the foundation also funded a new “sweat-triggered vaccine delivery” program based on “nanoparticles that penetrate the skin through hair follicles and burst upon contact with human sweat to release vaccines.” According to Gates, he’s raising money to develop vaccine programs “designed to protect children in developing countries from various diseases, including tetanus.” But the Gates tetanus program bears striking resemblance to another tetanus program that sterilized thousands of women and caused abortions in many others in the Philippines. (As reported by the BBC in conjunction with the Philippine Department of Health and the Philippine Medical Association, women in child-bearing years were given a vaccine that was combined with a chemical known as Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG), an anti-pregnancy agent.). But why sterilize people? At a February 2010 TED conference, Gates talked about reducing CO2 emissions worldwide, by limiting population growth. He said: The world today has 6.8 billion people. That’s headed up to about nine billion. Now if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 percent! This “population elimination” idea may sound similar to the “conspiracy theories” about the spread of HIV in Africa (which led Nobel Peace Prize laureate and environmental activist Wangari Maathai to charge that “AIDS is a biological weapon manufactured by the developed world to wipe out the Black race” although he later denied such sentiments), but the connections between the spread of smallpox vaccines and HIV in Africa were just one of many cases where Western vaccines (or other medicine) brought hidden problems with them. As recently as 2004, pharmaceutical scientist Dr. Haruna Kaita was contracted by an Islamic body to check out polio vaccines being administered by the WHO in Nigeria. After extensive and repeated tests carried out using state-of-the-art facilities in India, a shocked Dr. Kaita reported that the vaccines were laced with contaminants, some toxic and some having “direct effect on human reproductive system.” But why sterilize people in poor countries? Sterilization, eugenics, and population control all go hand-in-hand. It’s all about controlling who is here in 100 years. And it’s been going on for quite some time. In 1798, Thomas Malthus published An Essay on the Principle of Population, describing his theory on how population growth will exceed earthly resources to provide food for all people. We now know that there is certainly enough food (and land) on the planet to feed everyone, and that hunger is a result of poverty and other forms of social inequity, not simply “too many people.” In fact, many European nations have 10 times more people than your average African nation with twice the land. Also, when you factor in the amount of resources it takes (fossil fuels, land, water, etc.) to feed people on a meat-heavy over-indulgent Western diet, that’s very different from what the rest of the world needs to survive. Soon after the US State Department published the Global 2000 Report for the President in 1980 advising that the world population must be reduced by 2 billion people by the year 2000, Thomas Ferguson of the State Department Office of Population Affairs, Latin American Desk, elaborated: There is a single theme behind all our work – we must reduce population levels. Either governments do it our way, through nice clean methods, or they will get the kinds of mess that we have in El Salvador, or in Iran or in Beirut. Population is a political problem. Once population is out of control, it requires authoritarian government, even fascism, to reduce it…Our program in El Salvador didn’t work. The infrastructure was not there to support it. There were just too goddamned many people…To really reduce population, quickly, you have to pull all the males into the fighting and you have to kill significant numbers of fertile age females…The quickest way to reduce population is through famine, like in Africa, or through disease like the Black Death. Does this put everything in perspective for you? Does it help you understand why Gates would fund something like the programs above? Does it change the way you see all those wonderful agencies doing “healthcare” in developing countries? (Not all, of course, because there are many smaller groups that have good intentions) Does it make you think about what similar agencies are doing (and have already done) with the Black and brown communities of THIS country? Does it make you take a fresh look at why they push birth control and abortion so hard in the hood, while putting fertility clinics and sperm banks in white neighborhoods? Does it make you wonder what this rush to “stop global warming” is really about, since they’re trying to “save the planet” while getting rid of most of the people on it? As we’ll explain in depth in Chemical Genocide, this new wave of environmentalism is NOT centered on the interests of Original people. In fact, most of its strongest advocates are all FOR wiping YOU off the planet. Here are a few more quotes to think about: “Malthus has been vindicated, reality is finally catching up with Malthus. The Third World is overpopulated, it’s an economic mess, and there’s no way they could get out of it with this fast-growing population. Our philosophy is: back to the village.” – Dr. Arne Schiotz, World Wildlife Fund Director of Conservation, 1984 “The biggest problems are the damn national sectors of these developing countries. These countries think that they have the right to develop their resources as they see fit. They want to become powers.” – Thomas Lovejoy, vice president, World Wildlife Fund U.S.A., 1984 “If we look at things causally, the bigger problem in the world is population. We must set a ceiling to human numbers. All development aid should be made dependent on the existence of strong family planning programs.” – Sir Peter Scott, chairman, World Wildlife Fund U.K., 1984 I used to get mad about those commercials pushing the plight of the polar bear, and after seeing the quotes above, I understand why. There’s more: “It will be impossible to feel that the world is in a satisfactory state until there is a certain degree of equality, and a certain acquiescence everywhere in the power of the World Government, and this will not be possible until the poorer nations of the world have become…more or less stationary in population…If there is not to be an endless succession of wars…this will probably have to be done, in many countries, as a result of governmental measures. This will require an extension of scientific technique into very intimate matters.” – Bertrand Russell, The Impact of Science on Society, 1952 “What would it take to accelerate fertility decline in the least developed countries?” – March 2009 U.N. Population Division policy brief “Frankly, I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of.” – U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg “It now remains for the U.S. government to set a sensible example to the world by offering a bonus or yearly pension to all obviously unfit parents who allow themselves to be sterilized by harmless and scientific means. In this way the moron and the diseased would have no posterity to inherit their unhappy condition. The number of the feeble-minded would decrease and a heavy burden would be lifted from the shoulders of the fit.” – Margaret Sanger, Founder of Planned Parenthood, 1926 “All children who are born, beyond what would be required to keep up the population to a desired level, must necessarily perish…Therefore…we should facilitate…the operations of nature in producing this mortality; and if we dread the too frequent visitation of the horrid form of famine, we should sedulously encourage the other forms of destruction, which we compel nature to use. Instead of recommending cleanliness to the poor, we should encourage contrary habits. In our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of the plague. In the country, we should build our villages near stagnant pools, and particularly encourage settlement in all marshy and unwholesome situations. But above all we should reprobate specific remedies for ravaging diseases; and restrain those benevolent, but much mistaken men, who have thought they are doing a service to mankind by protecting schemes for the total extirpation of particular disorders.” –Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population, 1798 And one more, in case you’re unclear as to whom these undesirable people are: “The white population of the world will soon cease to increase. The Asiatic races will be longer, and the negroes still longer, before their birth rate falls sufficiently to make their numbers stable without help of war and pestilence. Until that happens, the benefits aimed at by socialism can only be partially realized, and the less prolific (child-bearing) races will have to defend themselves by methods which are disgusting even if they are necessary.” – Bertrand Russell, The Impact of Science on Society, 1952 Be less trusting of what organizations, corporations, and even some doctors about what you should put in your body. What Can I Do About All This? You may have never heard of it, but the President’s Cancer Panel, which reports directly to the president – just released a new report on these chemical toxins we’ve been describing in this chapter. The landmark report[1] evaluates current scientific evidence and the positions of over 40 experts, and concludes that public health officials have “grossly underestimated” the role environmental contaminants may be playing in the 1.5 million Americans who are diagnosed with cancer each year. The report called for stricter regulations on chemicals and safer alternatives, especially noting that these toxins are most dangerous to young children and unborn babies. In this government-issued report, they actually admit that today’s babies are “pre-polluted” with over 300 different chemical contaminants found in the umbilical cord blood of newborn babies! Let me repeat: These were not weirdoes and conspiracy theorists. These are mainstream, highly-respected scientists (the head of the panel is a Black man!) saying this. I hope that’s not what you needed to hear to take us seriously, but if you did, there you go. So what do you do? Here are the President’s Cancer Panel’s recommendations (from pages 145-147 of the report) for what you can do to protect yourself and your family. Choose foods, house and garden products, play spaces, toys, medical tests, and medicines that will minimize your kids’ exposure to toxic chemicals. (This means eating organic as much as possible and buying products that you know to be free of BPA, phthalates and other endocrine disruptors.) Eat meat produced without antibiotics and added growth hormones. Avoid or minimize consumption of processed, charred, and well-done meats to reduce exposure to carcinogenic heterocyclic amines and polyaromatic hydrocarbons. If you’re pregnant or thinking about it: Both mothers and fathers should avoid exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals and known or suspected carcinogens prior to a child’s conception and throughout pregnancy and early life, when risk of damage is greatest. Take off your shoes when you enter your home, especially if you work with or around chemicals. (Wash work clothes separately from other laundry.) Filter your tap water. And continue to choose tap water over commercially bottled water. (See, “BPA Can Make You A New Man.”) Store food and water in containers made from stainless steel, glass, or BPA- and phthalate-free plastic. Don’t microwave in plastic, since chemicals can leach into food when it’s heated. (See, “Plastic Poisons.”) Stop using chemical fertilizers and pesticides on your garden to keep these chemicals from contaminating drinking water supplies. Properly dispose of medications, household chemicals, paints and other materials to minimize drinking water and soil contamination. Turn off lights and electrical devices when not in use to reduce your exposure to petroleum combustion by-products. Drive a fuel-efficient car, bike or walk when possible, or use public transportation to cut the amount of toxic auto exhaust in the air. Wear a headset when you use your cell phone, keep calls brief, and text instead of calling when possible to reduce your exposure to electromagnetic energy. Have your home’s radon levels tested periodically. Avoid second-hand smoke. (And don’t smoke yourself. Duh.) Talk to your doctor about the need for tests or procedures that involve radiation exposure and keep a record of all imaging or nuclear medicine tests received and if known, the estimated radiation dose for each test. Wear sunscreen and UV-protective clothing. (See “Skin Cancer is NOT Prejudiced”) Tell your Congressperson to support the Safe Chemicals Act of 2010, which would overhaul the riddled-with-loopholes Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976. Organize and educate people in your community about what’s happening. Add many of these steps to your daily routine. Convince the people in your household of how important this is. [1] http://deainfo.nci.nih.gov/advisory/pcp/pcp08-09rpt/PCP_Report_08-09_508.pdf

People of color have used holistic approaches (like the ones in this book) to heal their ailments for hundreds of thousands of years. And not just bug bites and stomach aches, either. I can show you records of Black and brown people doing brain surgery 6,000 years ago. Don’t believe me? As always, you can look it up (but we’ll go into full details in The Science of Self). But I’ve gotta give you both sides of the story. Even with our incredible collective knowledge of traditional healing, I wouldn’t advise you to go see the roots man when you’ve got a bullet wound or a serious life-threatening condition that requires immediate attention. Why? The following excerpt from The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees by James Mooney illustrates an important reality: SHAMANS AND WHITE PHYSICIANS Of late years, especially since the establishment of schools among them, the Cherokees are gradually beginning to lose confidence in the abilities of their own doctors and are becoming more disposed to accept treatment from white physicians. The shamans are naturally jealous of this infringement upon their authority and endeavor to prevent the spread of the heresy by asserting the convenient doctrine that the white man’s medicine is inevitably fatal to an Indian unless eradicated from the system by a continuous course of treatment for four years under the hands of a skillful shaman. The officers of the training school established by the Government a few years ago met with considerable difficulty on this account for some time, as the parents insisted on removing the children at the first appearance of illness in order that they might be treated by the shamans, until convinced by experience that the children received better attention at the school than could possibly be had in their own homes. In one instance, where a woman was attacked by a pulmonary complaint akin to consumption, her husband, a man of rather more than the usual amount of intelligence, was persuaded to call in the services of a competent white physician, who diagnosed the case and left a prescription. On a second visit, a few days later, he found that the family, dreading the consequences of this departure from old customs, had employed a shaman, who asserted that the trouble was caused by a sharpened stick which some enemy had caused to be imbedded in the woman’s side. He accordingly began a series of conjurations for the removal of the stick, while the white physician and his medicine were disregarded, and in due time the woman died. Two children soon followed her to the grave, from the contagion or the inherited seeds of the same disease, but here also the sharpened sticks were held responsible, and, notwithstanding the three deaths under such treatment, the husband and father, who was at one time a preacher still has faith in the assertions of the shaman. The appointment of a competent physician to look after the health of the Indians would go far to eradicate these false ideas and prevent much sickness and suffering; but, as the Government has made no such provision, the Indians, both on and off the reservation, excepting the children in the home school, are entirely without medical care. Did You Know? For thousands of years Indian villagers have used an extract from the Neem tree as an insecticide. So when a US company patented a process for producing the substance in 1994, India reacted with outrage. After spending millions of dollars in legal fees to successfully overturn the patent, India’s government is now creating a 30-million-page database of traditional knowledge to protect against “entrepreneurs” trying to patent the country’s ancient wisdom. The database, called the Traditional Knowledge Data Library, will help ensure that traditional remedies are not presented as new discoveries. This book was written in 1891, and Native Americans are still underserved by American healthcare. Not to mention that they’re still dying at record numbers. In fact, healthcare is so lacking in Native American, Black, and Hispanic communities in America to the point where we might as well be living in a third-world country (yet we never stop bragging about this golden land we live in, huh?). But let’s talk about the story above. What went wrong? Was the shaman clueless? A stick in her side? Sounds stupid right? Not really. You see, “consumption” was an old word for the disease we now call tuberculosis, which got its name from tubercles bacillus, a stick-shaped bacterial microorganism that attacks the lungs, the kidneys and other organs on the side of the human body. Chew on that for a minute. So what this says to me is that our traditional healers have some incredible knowledge from a remote past when we understood way more than we do now, especially considering that Europeans named tuberculosis “consumption” because they believed “something” was eating people up from the inside. Before that, they called it “King’s Evil” because they believed it could be cured by the touch of a king. But let’s be real. This knowledge we “once” had, we don’t all have it anymore. Some of these traditional healers are just traditional crooks. They make their living selling hope to people who are willing to believe them, and unwilling to consider a second opinion. Some of them haven’t been properly trained by anybody, and don’t have a medical degree, a naturopathy degree, or even a high school degree. But they’re getting paid. Some of these folks have even killed their “patients” through their bad advice, while some of us have killed ourselves trying to treat infectious diseases with roots and candles. I understand the fear many of us have about going in for a routine physical and then being told we have HIV (See “False Positives in HIV Testing”). But Western medical science has made a lot of progress in terms of diagnosis. And if you can find a doctor you trust, preferably one who is also familiar with traditional medicine, that’s a lot better than choosing someone who doesn’t have a proven track record of success with traditional healing. The key is finding someone with expertise in their field, who values your approach to health. If you’re trying to avoid pills and prescriptions, find a doctor who understands that and who can suggest alternatives. If you’re using a healthcare provider directory, I suggest checking out people who have Asian or African names. But just be warned. A so-called holistic doctor nearly killed my wife with her backwards approach to her hyperemesis gravidarum. (See “I’m Not a Doctor”) Again, the key is expertise. This lady was clueless. We saw it in our first conversation with her, but we weren’t smart enough to run when we should have. Now, our family’s approach to medicine and healing looks like the following: Whenever we aren’t super-sick, we strive to heal ourselves through our diet. Either we fast, eat foods that have the appropriate healing properties (See “The Health Benefits of Fruits and Vegetables), or we take the appropriate herbs (See “Herbs = Medicine”). In more serious cases, we consult with someone we know who is very knowledgeable in treating such cases holistically. If we decide that we most likely need an antibiotic, we go to the CVS Minute Clinic (it’s quicker and often cheaper than waiting for a doctor’s appointment) for a prescription. In the most serious cases, particularly when there is significant pain or need for immediate attention, we go see our doctors, who are all familiar with our family’s approach to health (meaning they’re not going to prescribe any medicines that aren’t absolutely necessary). In closing, there are traditional methods to cure just about anything. There are even traditional methods to treat bullet wounds. But, unfortunately, the roots man down the street probably doesn’t know how to do it right. So, don’t be dumb about your well-being – go to a doctor when you need to. On the other hand, if you don’t believe that traditional medicine – when done correctly – is all you really need, check out the following story about rapper MCA from the Beastie Boys, who was diagnosed with cancer in 2009, but beat it after going to India and following a traditional Tibetan approach: MCA (Adam Yauch), 45, now says that he is on the road to recovery and getting healthier and stronger daily…He reportedly feels that he is hopeful that he has beaten the cancer after undergoing successful surgery and visiting Tibetan doctors in Dharamsala (India). He has been reportedly taking medicine recommended by these practitioners of Tibetan medicine and eating a vegan/organic diet, which he said was helping…Welcoming Yauch’s interest in India and its institutions, acclaimed Hindu statesman Rajan Zed has wished him a speedy recovery. According to Zed, Tibetan medicine is an art, philosophy, and science combined, which provides a holistic approach to health maintenance, and it includes the key Buddhist principles of karma, ethics, and altruism. According to Tibetan medical theory, all things in the world are made up of the five proto-elements: chu (water), me (fire), nam-mkha (space), rlung (wind), sa (earth). Changing a patient’s lifestyle and/or diet is the first form of treatment in Tibetan medicine. Medicines are considered only if lifestyle-diet change fails to cure an ailment…Zed, who is president of the Universal Society of Hinduism, says that India also offers another herbal-based health care system known as ayurveda (life-knowledge) whose thesis is that disease is due to imbalance of three bodily humours – pitta (bile), kapha (phlegm) and vata (wind) – and balance can be recreated by changing person’s diet, thoughts and habits. Ayurveda covered complete wellbeing of the person – mental, physical, and spiritual. See the common denominators here? Among Original people (not just those in the East), we have traditionally recognized that health and illness prevention are accomplished through a healthy diet, a healthy mind, and a healthy lifestyle, even down to how we treat other people. This is why you hear about those “medicine men” in different societies telling people they need to “appease the gods” before they can get well. That’s just a corrupted form of the original science of “making yourself right with the universe” and “cleansing your mind and body.” Doing these things won’t cost any money on their own, but if the medicine man or healer tells you that you need “special” items, which only he can provide (and bless appropriately), then you’ve gotta spend money with him to get better. Hence, even the first instances of medical corruption (putting profit before the patient’s health) can be found amongst us. That should be expected, considering that we’ve been on the planet for millions of years, which is plenty of time for some of us to start becoming selfish. But this type of behavior isn’t a characteristic of the ENTIRE system, as you’ll find with Western medicine, which is almost entirely built on staying in business by keeping people sick and in need of more medicine and more diagnosis. Instead, you can still find plenty of examples of traditional healers who will teach you how to get your body (and mind) so ‘right’ that you’ll never have to visit them again. And ain’t that the kind of doctor you’d want to see? Always check credentials and background.

What is a Vaccine? “A vaccine is a medical preparation providing immunity from a vaccine specific disease….vaccines change the immune system by promoting the development of antibodies that can quickly and effectively attack a disease causing microorganism when it enters the body, preventing disease development.” – The Gale Encyclopedia of Science “Valence” is a term used to describe how many different viruses or strains of viruses the vaccine is designed to immunize against. For example, a trivalent influenza vaccine is designed to immunize against two strains of Influenza type A and one strain of Influenza type B. Live, attenuated vaccines, like the MMR, are very commonly used. They are vaccines that are alive and infectious but have been treated with a chemical (often formaldehyde) that is supposed to weaken them to the point that they do not actually because the disease against which they are immunizing. They can multiply and are more effective unlike killed/inactivated vaccines. Some vaccines, such as the DTaP vaccine, contain portions of the microorganism attached to a chemical that allows it to stimulate the immune system. What’s in a Vaccine? Formaldehyde, other animal viruses, cow blood, traces of human DNA, MSG, heavy metals like mercury and aluminum, disinfectants, antibiotics, sugar, gelatin, egg. The common disinfectant used in vaccines is both cancer causing and toxic. Shockingly, the chickenpox vaccine involved the use of a cell line that was started using tissue from human embryos obtained through illegal abortions in the 1960’s. Some research has been done implicating the SV 40 virus, a monkey virus, which was not removed from some vaccines during cleaning, in cancer cases. What are some diseases that we currently vaccinate against? r Measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) r Diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus (DPT) r Human papilloma virus (HPV) r Influenza r Chickenpox/Varicella r Polio r Hepatitis r Hib (Haemophilus influenza, type b) Why Vaccinate? r Some of these diseases can be fatal. It gives parents peace of mind by helping to shelter their children from preventable illness and potential death. Conditions in schools make it easier for children to transmit pathogens as do some crowded living situations. Babies have immature immune systems and it is seen that giving them some immunity protects them. In some countries, it is easier to contract illnesses with less access to effective medical care. Some diseases are worse when contracted as an adult. Rubella, for instance, isn’t a very serious illness on its own, but can lead to a disorder called congenital rubella syndrome (CRS) when contracted by a pregnant woman. CRS can lead to serious birth defects and sometimes death of the child. Chickenpox is also more serious in adults. Thus, it is better to intentionally expose children to vaccine preventable diseases. Some public assistance programs require recipients to vaccinate their children for full benefits. The Illness and the Vaccine With certain vaccines, the risks associated with being infected are similar to being injected with the vaccine. It seems that, as well as presenting the risks of a natural infection, vaccines also introduce other potential complications. Both the measles illness and measles vaccine are associated with brain inflammation, seizures, hearing loss, and the development of irritable bowel disorder. Specific only to measles vaccination is the risk of experiencing atypical measles infection. An atypical infection is a more severe case of measles striking only those that have been previously vaccinated. The risk of death is higher in atypical measles infections than in natural infections. Mumps and its vaccine share the potential of aseptic meningitis. The mumps vaccine alone is associated with the development of insulin dependent diabetes. Both rubella and its vaccine can lead to arthralgia or arthritis. There is a possibility that children who were vaccinated for chickenpox will develop shingles as an adult. Aviva Romm, in Vaccinations: A Thoughtful Parent’s Guide: How to Make Safe, Sensible Decisions about the Risks, Benefits, and Alternatives, suggests that the diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus (DPT) vaccine is associated with a significant number of frequently occurring adverse reactions. These reactions seem to outweigh the discomforts common to a natural infection. Pertussis and its vaccine may both cause encephalitis. Why not Vaccinate? It’s hard for anyone to tell how safe vaccines are, despite the soundness of the fundamental idea of how vaccines work. In the 1930s, a vaccine for the poliovirus was administered to patients and it caused the paralysis it was designed to prevent. More recently, the CDC changed their recommendation from the oral poliovirus vaccine to the inactivated polio vaccine after studies showed that all polio cases since 1980 were caused by the vaccine. Additionally, Curtis Cost, in his book Vaccines are Dangerous, has collected evidence that some of the illnesses that vaccines have been created for were declining prior to administration of the vaccines. A 1991 study published in the Lancet showed correlations between hepatitis B vaccines and central nervous system problems. Another study in the Lancet found that children who received a new measles vaccine died in significantly greater numbers from common childhood diseases than children who did not receive the vaccine. Another Lancet study found that people who were vaccinated were 3 times more likely to develop Crohn’s disease and more than twice as likely to develop ulcerative colitis. Current research is focusing on the H1N1 Vaccine and the seasonal influenza vaccine (also known as the “flu shot”), with most of the current concern focusing on the mercury content (and possible links to Alzheimer’s) and their role in weakening the immune system (rather than strengthening it). Did You Know? The Swine Flu Epidemic of 1976 inspired the vaccination of over 40 million people. A little known fact was that those vaccinations caused devastating side effects to over 4000 victims. Swine flu itself only killed one person. Harris Coulter, in his book Vaccines, Social Violence and Criminality: The Medical Assault on the American Brain says that much developmental impairment trace back to cases of encephalitis which, Coulter says, are primarily caused by the childhood vaccination programs in industrialized countries. Death and encephalitis have been reported as adverse effects of the MMR, DTP, polio and flu vaccines. Just how necessary are some vaccinations? In her 2010 article, “Using Fear and Prejudice to Attack Vaccine Exemptions,” Barbara Loe Fisher mentions polio-vaccinated children expose unvaccinated children to the poliovirus because they become infectious after receiving the vaccine. Sometimes reactions can also be fatal. The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, using your tax dollars, has given money to families of infants who have passed because of the pertussis vaccine. These deaths were originally classified as SIDS deaths. It has been a long time question of my own if vaccines are as necessary as the profits reaped by pharmaceutical companies as well as the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) which is responsible for purchasing and distributing a large number of childhood vaccines. According to Money magazine, a safer form of the pertussis vaccine, a cellular pertussis vaccine, was withheld from the public for years after it was licensed, for reasons of production costs.[1] There are risks associated with taking the vaccines such as allergic reactions and certain syndromes like Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS). GBS has symptoms of muscle weakness and paralysis that can cause respiratory dysfunction that may be fatal. Seemingly the symptoms are caused by nerves outside of the central nervous system losing their covering (myelin). A known risk for many vaccines is destruction of the covering of nerves. Myelin is necessary for normal brain and neurological function. The development of allergies and bowel problems are known to be increased when vaccines are given. Since breastfeeding gives newborns immunity passing it from mother to child in the breast milk it may not be necessary to immunize newborns. Breast milk also contains chemicals that protect babies from infections like Hib, pneumonia and other respiratory and intestinal infections along with promoting the maturation of the immune system. Some practitioners see that vaccinating prevents diseases that help the immune system mature thus vaccinations cripple the immune system later on in life. Some practitioners even see that aside from physiological maturity, mental maturity also occurs during an illness. Did You Know? Combination vaccines overwhelm the immune system – it is highly unlikely that a person would get measles, mumps, and rubella all at the same time. What do I do if I want to abstain from vaccination? There are 3 types of exemptions: Philosophical, Medical, and Religious. Look at the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) website (www.909shot.com) to investigate the type of vaccination exemptions your state allows and file one. There may still be issues with your child entering or remaining within the public school system. Go to the NVIC site for more information and resources and on how to obtain assistance. What if I want to vaccinate? Some pharmaceutical companies list age ranges for which the vaccine is intended. DPT shouldn’t be given to children over 7 years old. Find out the specifics of the vaccine product (drug name and manufacturer) your doctor will use and research it at the pharmaceutical company’s website or a site like rxlist.com or drugs.com Risk of anaphylaxis is a reality for all shots, so be sure that a chemical used to treat such a reaction, epinephrine, is present at the time of injection. If your child does suffer a bad reaction to a shot, be sure that it is reported to VAERS, after doing all you can to ensure your child’s safe recovery. It is also important to keep detailed records of any adverse events. Whether or not to vaccinate is a very serious issue for many families and, in my research, journalists, holistic practitioners and even medical doctors concur that being informed is crucial in making decisions about whether or not to vaccinate. Fear should not be your primary motivating factor. However, fear is instilled in the readers of much of the literature provided by the CDC, National Institutes of Health (NIH), the public school system and various initiatives whose objective is to increase vaccination. On the other end, fear is propagated by those who oppose vaccines leaving parents in a difficult position. Ultimately, the decisions are made for indecisive caregivers by mandates of the public school system, pressure by doctors, and persecution by vaccinating parents. Research is crucial to making a decision. Please start by reading some of the literature I’ve cited here. The most strategic starting point is a book I’ve consulted throughout this article, Vaccinations: A Thoughtful Parent’s Guide: How to Make Safe, Sensible Decisions about the Risks, Benefits, and Alternatives by Aviva Romm. She offers a wide scope of bare-bones information about vaccines and multiple considerations while not invoking the fear many writers do. Other books on the subject include A Shot in the Dark by Harris L. Coulter, The Parents’ Concise Guide to Childhood Vaccinations: From Newborns to Teens, Practical Medical and Natural Ways to Protect Your Child by Lauren Feder, and What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Children’s Vaccinations by Stephanie Cave. As a parent, you have a right to decide whether your children are vaccinated and when. Check out the following sites for more: njvaccinationchoice.org, www.cfic.us, and www.vaccinechoice.org Don’t be discouraged. Don’t feel alone. There are many parents all over the world that share this struggle. I’m one of them. Visit the National Vaccine Information Center website to find information on vaccines  your child has taken or is “required” to take. [1] Romm seems to think that the acellular version of the pertussis vaccine appears to be safer than whole cell pertussis in some populations because those populations vaccinate children later in life.