homeopathic “remedies.” Although some homeopaths, most notably in the United Kingdom, are honest enough to acknowledge the need for vaccination, U.S. homeopaths and their advocates tend to be aggressively antivaccine (5). Many homeopaths sell worthless “homeopathic vaccinations,” which contain nothing that would protect a child from any infectious disease.
|
|
Anti-vaccine groups -- who are they?
|
|
A number of groups opposing vaccination have sprung up in recent years. The Internet has allowed these groups to reach and influence many more parents much faster than would have been possible previously. Antivaccine groups tend to have innocuoussounding names, often including phrases such as “vaccine information,” “vaccine awareness,” or “health freedom.” They are inclined to portray themselves as “pro-choice” on the subject of vaccines, but a closer look will reveal that despite this positioning, groups give out predominately or exclusively negative information on vaccines.
|
|
These groups primarily concern themselves with influencing or convincing parents not to vaccinate, suggesting to parents that a whole host of diseases and disabilities are due to vaccines, encouraging parents to report illnesses in children as “vaccine reactions,” and lobbying for changes in immunization laws that would allow unimmunized children to attend school. A number of antivaccine groups have distinct obvious connections to homeopathy and/or chiropractic.
|
|
One of the most active and prominent antivaccine groups calls itself the “National Vaccine Information Center” (NVIC). NVIC is operated by Barbara Loe Fisher and has an office in Vienna, Virginia. In the 1980’s, Fisher coauthored a book with Harris Coulter, one of the nation’s most outspoken advocates of homeopathy, called DPT: A Shot in the Dark. This book, which criticized the older whole cell pertussis vaccine launched Fisher’s ‘career’ as an antivaccine advocate.
|
|
According to Kathy Williams, Ms. Fisher’s codirector of NVIC, both she and Fisher were introduced to homeopathy by Harris Coulter in the 1980’s and continue to receive and believe in homeopathic “treatment.” Both also believe that homeopathy can successfully treat “vaccine injuries” and claim that their own children suffered vaccine side-effects, but were helped by homeopathy (6). Neither Fisher nor her coauthor, Coulter have any medical or scientific training, yet they feel qualified to make scientific and medical pronouncements against vaccines. While billing itself as a “pro-choice” group giving “helpful information” on immunization to parents, one would look in vain for any of that information to include the lifesaving value of vaccination.
|
|
Books, tapes and pamphlets available for sale through NYIC are uniformly antivaccine. NYIC’s offerings are written by opponents of all vaccination, including at least one doctor who, according to NVIC, had her license to practice medicine suspended in Canada (7). On the same page that NVIC sells the anti-vaccine books, tapes, etc., they deny responsibility for the “authors’ views and the accuracy of the facts contained in their books.”
|
|
|
|
|