I REALLY wish that you could hear what I have to say from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during a debate with an educated vaccine proponent you really respect, but since no one is willing to debate him, I am lending my voice to this profoundly unpopular perspective. Frankly, I never thought I’d have to summon courage to publicly support informed choice, but seeing as New Jersey legislators have proposed the trading away of religious freedoms, parental rights and bodily sovereignty in the name of public health, a more thorough review of A3818, the bill that would remove religious exemptions, and the public health threats we are currently facing seems necessary.

The Bill

New Jersey’s A3818 was initially introduced by Assemblyman Conaway as a bill to tighten religious exemptions to vaccinations, by requiring parents to explain how the administration of a vaccine would conflict with “bona fide” religious tenets. The bill passed the Assembly Health Committee in April, 2018 (during Spring Break and over three religious holidays and prohibiting participation from much of the religious community), however serious objections were raised around allowing to government agencies to make determinations about “bona fide” religious beliefs.  So, on January 31, 2019, Assemblyman Conaway put forth a floor amendment that gutted A3818 to remove religious exemptions entirely, effectively changing the meaning of entire bill.  In this way, he bypassed committee discussion and public input making a mockery of due process.  Regardless, there are many people who support this legislation fearing further infectious disease outbreaks caused by what they believe would be a lapse in herd immunity and the spread of disease by unvaccinated children. 

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The Public Health Threats

There are three primary things to consider with regards to NJ public health: 1) the threat posed by the 2.4% of New Jersey residents who currently claim a religious exemption from vaccines, and 2) the threat posed by the diseases and 3) the effectiveness of a stricter mandate.  So let’s investigate.

Health officials will often argue that religious exemptions threaten herd immunity, a theory based on Dr. Arther Hedrich’s observation that once 68% of children were exposed to the wild measles virus, outbreaks appeared to be suppressed. Early vaccine scientists applied this theoretical construct to its products, believing they offered the same lifetime immunity that the natural exposure provided, but we have since learned that vaccines provide limited and varying immune response. Over 60 years of compulsory vaccines have yet to demonstrate herd immunity for any childhood disease, because, much like other medicine or peanuts or even strawberries, different people respond differently. Outbreaks continue to occur, some in fully vaccinated populations.

New Jersey has a high vaccination rate with 96.5% of NJ sixth graders fully vaccinated in 2018, which should put some people at ease. Furthermore, if unvaccinated children are healthy, they cannot spread disease.  If they have an infectious disease, they are required to stay home like every other sick child.  If there is an outbreak of measles or mumps, current laws already require unvaccinated children to be removed from school for a prolonged period of time. Those recently vaccinated people who can shed live virus for up to 21 days walk among us throughout every outbreak. Unvaccinated populations are typically blamed while details about vaccine-status and strains are ignored and suppressed.

Will a more restrictive mandate be effective?

In California, SB277 removed religious and philosophical exemptions in the wake the 2015 Disney outbreak.  Children were forced to get up to date and California kindergarteners saw a 17% spike in autism the following year (as opposed to 7% in the general population). It was later determined that 38% of the measles strains from that outbreak were vaccine-strains, meaning that those infections were the direct result of the MMR vaccine or the result of vaccine shedding.  We now have the technology to quickly differentiate wild from vaccine strains during outbreaks, which begs the question, why don’t we? 

A growing frequency of mumps outbreaks among vaccinated populations on college campuses, and currently on a US Naval ship, is prompting the CDC to consider adding a third dose of MMR to the schedule, but vaccine-maker Merck has been sued by its own former scientists alleging it added rabbit antibodies to blood samples in an attempt to meet “efficacy” levels in its mumps component.

How threatening is measles really?

The scary measles statistics that are commonly reported are conflated numbers that include populations of very sick people and people from underdeveloped countries who do not have indoor plumbing, clean water, adequate nutrition and basic medicine.  Once you shift your focus to the United States, you will find that infectious disease deaths declined nearly 90% before vaccines were even introduced. 

Between 1959 and 1962, prior to the introduction of the measles vaccine, there was a one in 10,000 or .01% chance of a child dying from measles.  The remainder of those people had lifelong immunity and reduced risks of cancer and heart disease.

The last measles death in this country was in 2015 according to the CDC. The last time a child died of measles was in 2003. Today, a person is 100 times more likely to die by lightening strike than by measles.

In healthy people, measles is a simple albeit contagious inconvenience.A healthy immune system can handle adversity.  And, for healthy people, the occasional natural exposure to a mild infectious disease is how immune systems get exercise and grow stronger. Healthy people don’t respond to viruses and bacteria in the same way that immune-compromised people do – their fevers and sweating, even their diarrhea and vomiting, are ways their bodies effectively clear pathogens.  It is those with weak or impaired immune systems that may be vulnerable, and in that case, viruses vaccines and shedding can ALL pose more serious risks. This is why people undergoing cancer treatments are told not to be around people who have been recently vaccinated and why people who are sick generally delay vaccines.

Vaccine Injuries

Vaccine injuries are REAL. Despite the fact that parents who claim to have witnessed regression or serious adverse reactions following vaccinations are regularly dismissed and sent home, every vaccine insert acknowledges risks.  Over 7745 adverse events have already been reported to the VAERS reporting system in the first 2 months of 2019 and former FDA Commisioner David Kessler has suggested that only 1% of injuries are even reported. 


The Bigger Picture

No one is threatening to remove the rights of those who want to be vaccinated. Informed consent means the right to choose. Since 1986, when Congress passed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act and gave vaccine-makers liability protection, the childhood vaccination schedule has tripled creating a multi-billion dollar industry with the most powerful lobby in the world. Conflicts of interests abound throughout government agencies and the CDC and NIH earn millions off their own vaccine patents.


So it is not difficult to see where the forfeiting of one of our inalienable rights could lead. Many politicians, including our own Assemblyman Conaway, have made their agendas very explicit – vaccine compliance is the goal.  Public health is merely the excuse to used to push it. We need only look to the opposite coast, where Senator Pan, has just proposed SB276, the follow up to his SB277 bill that removed religious exemptions. When he proposed that bill, he reassured constituents and fellow legislators that there would still be a “robust” medical exemption to protect those who doctors felt might be seriously harmed by vaccines, but once his bill passed, he quickly went after doctors who he felt were too liberal with their assessments. SB276 now threatens to override the doctor-patient relationship and leave medical exemption determinations in the hands of an elected Board of Health. And if you want to know what comes next, simply read the WHO 2020 global agenda (and perhaps the anticipated revenues reported on FiercePharma.com).

We have been here before, mandating vaccines over smallpox fears in 1905 with Jacobson v. Massachusetts. That case paved the way for the Eugenics Crusade in the 1920s. By 1932, 29 States had used that legal precedent to justify the mandatory sterilization of those who were “manifestly unfit from continuing their kind.”  Hitler later borrowed from our medical mandate playbook and the rest is tragic history. We made a “Never Again” promise and sealed it with the Nuremburg Code.  Let’s just explore every angle before we do anything to jeopardize that promise.