BBC

SHAME on the BBC six o’clock news journalist who said the BBC couldn’t show breastfeeding on the six o’clock news… when one of our protestors at yesterday’s rally was sitting down peacefully breastfeeding her baby.

Why couldn’t he show it? Because it is more offensive/violent/indecent than, say, a soldier returning from war with his legs blown off, a plane crash, a baby’s face bitten off by a dog? Because it is less suitable for the cultural mindset than say, seeing Myleene Klass in a skimpy bikini? Because it might permanently scar a five year old who was watching the news? Or was this his personal prejudice surfacing? I’ll bet if it was Myleene sitting there breastfeeding he wouldn’t have had a problem!!!!

Shame on the BBC for not educating its journalists that such attitudes are discriminatory, and only serve to perpetuate the cultural ignorance. That’s the second discriminatory and ignorant comment from a BBC journalist this week in regard to breastfeeding! Is it the Boycotting Breastfeeding Company????

One thing IS certain ~ if educated people are so darn ignorant about the necessity and beauty of breastfeeding, then what hope to do we have to get through to a culture which thinks breastfeeding is Unnatural? AKA, people like Katie Price/Jordan?

Gorgeous families travelled from far and wide to attend yesterday's breastfeeding rally in parliament square ~ amplifying the saying Actions speak louder than words. I was moved to see how many people turned up and were prepared to endure the ‘hell’ that is London.

The official line was that I could not use amplification to talk out as ‘parliament was sitting, and it would disturb them’. What? Above all that bloody traffic? What cobblers! And of course, they don’t WANT to hear what we’ve got to say, do they?

I was touched by the two kindly police officers on duty. We only had permission to gather on the concrete pavement, but they ‘allowed’ us to sit and picnic on the grass ~ clearly we weren’t a violent bunch. It’s a shame some MPs didn’t bother to come out and see that for themselves, or to even learn something from breastfeeding families. And they even allowed us to put up our placards (which you can’t do!!) There are all sorts of rules about what you can and can’t do near parliament…it’s ridiculous, to say the least.

One lady coming for the event was breastfeeding on a train that morning, only to have a woman say ‘aggh, breastfeeding. On a train.’ This is exactly the sort of attitude the government should be working to change. If they want women to feel confident breastfeeding in public, as they claim, then they need to get the messages out to everyone ~ have it right up there with “Coke, the real thing”, or Macdonalds or Weight Watchers adverts. There have to be breastfeeding billboards throughout the country. We need images everywhere so it seeps into the cultural mindset that feeding our babies, at the breast, is natural and normal. We need “Breastfeeding Welcome” signs everywhere we go in public. We need, in short, to start respecting our children’s needs.

Perhaps if the government was transparent about the short and longterm health costs (that is, in MONEY terms) of not breastfeeding, people might start to take notice. Perhaps if people had to cover their own health costs when choosing not to breastfeed, then we might see a seachange. Perhaps, if parents were adequately educated as to the RISKS of not breastfeeding (risks which might take years to surface or be considered noticeable enough to warrant attention), they might make better informed choices or seek out better support than is currently offered in many maternity centres.

I met another woman yesterday who said she was the only woman out of her 19 friends who breastfed. Indeed, when she gave birth all the staff in the maternity ward said ‘we don’t encourage breastfeeding any more’ WHAT? How can this be when a government spokesperson tells me that they’re doing everything they can to support breastfeeding?

If our government really wants to put OUR money to good use, then they should stop faffing with silly little laws which only serve to confuse the masses. Let’s face it, if most breastfeeding woman aren’t aware of their legal rights, then the average Joe Blow on the streets certainly won’t be. What came out of yesterday’s rally most strongly, for me, was the need to educate the MASSES. The government must create wall to wall advertising for television which gets through to even the lowest common denominator mind ~ information which tells every person in this country that breastfeeding is the only milk suitable for optimal infant nutrition, and that woman are free to breastfeed their child, of whatever age, anytime, anywhere.

How ironic to sit in the tube and on the 4.5 hour train ride home late last night (early this morning!) to see people totally absorbed in their newspapers dealing, once again, with knife crime. Why don’t we have articles in newspapers on full-term breastfeeding as a crime preventative? Oh, that’s right, we couldn’t promote breastfeeding positively or we wouldn’t get big bucks in from the fake milk companies.

This government, if it really does believe breast is best, should WALK THE TALK and ban all advertising of fake milk for infants and make it only available by prescription…and not one given by a standard doctor, because, let’s face it, how many of them even know the first thing about breastfeeding? They’re amongst the most likely of health care professionals to advise a woman onto the bottle.

Yesterday our families sang a breastfeeding song which will be available on YouTube shortly (written by Alison Blenkinsop), with a short commentary from me at the beginning. I’ll put a link on my blog as soon as Will, our cameraman, edits a piece down for us.

We presented the petition to Downing Street as well as the open letter to Harriet Harman. But let’s not stop there. Write to her, write to the Health Minister, write to your local MP (that’s what he/she is there for), write to the PM ~ make them earn the money you pay on taxes. Many of us limp from week to week juggling our bills and feeding our kids ~ these people live in very comfortable circumstances because of YOU. Your family contributes to their cushy lifestyle. They work in these jobs to work for YOU.

Ask them to explain the ‘sense’ of the breastfeeding aspect of the Equality Bill?

Ask them, why, if we’re already protected under the Sexual Discrimination Act 1975, they would bring in something else which will confuse people? Ask them questions unique to your situation so they don’t send off some standard reply.

Ask them why, if maternity is nine months, they are using 6 months as their maternity cut off point in the Equality Bill.

Ask them why they don’t actively put money into advertising to the whole country about the necessity of breast milk and breastfeeding?

Ask them if they’re aware that fully breastfed children don’t grow up resorting to knife crime or depression? Ask them if they can find you a single criminal or someone suffering with major mental health diseases who had the benefit of full term breastfeeding.

Ask them why they say ‘breast is best for babies’ but refuse to come out and say ‘breast is best for children’? Why do they continue with the six month line?

Ask them who their lactation experts are in government? Who do they rely on for information?

Ask them why they didn’t speak up immediately a couple of months back when the papers ran articles about women being charged with indecency if they breastfed in public after the child was 6 months old? Ask them why not one single person from government bothered to stand up and publicly declare that this would NEVER happen?

Ask them why a bunch of cross party MPs would bother tabling an Early Day Motion against this 6 month mark in the Equality Bill, if it wasn't something to be concerned about?

And, finally, be sure to ask them why it should fall upon a woman to have to take legal action against someone for discriminating against her breastfeeding in public? As we all know, the law is a very messy arena with holes left, right and centre. The best answer we could get out of the government’s legal team regarding a woman’s protection under the Sexual Discrimination Act 1975 (which apparently provides FULL protection), is that, in such a case the judge *should* rule in her favour. Should? SHOULD????? Seems like building a house on sand, to my mind. Would you go to court on a 'should'?

You families have been incredibly proactive these past few weeks. Let’s not stop raising awareness now ~ keep talking, write letters to newspapers, to MPs, to friends. Don’t let our minority status (that is, being less than 1 in 5 who breastfeed after 6 months) get us pushed under the sand; hidden away in the government’s ‘pain in the arse’ basket. Get yourself, and all breastfed children, put into the ‘URGENT basket’.

The bottom line is, regardless of the lack of support from government, your baby has essential and fundamental human rights which NO ONE can deny. Our government might not deal in absolutes, but the European Court of Human Rights WOULD rule in the favour of a breastfeeding mother and child.

On a very positive note, I was thrilled to meet so many new faces yesterday, and to finally put faces to names. And again, I’m honoured, especially in these uncertain economic times, that so many of you bought expensive train tickets to come to the meeting. Some of you travelled a very long way.

It was lovely to sit and chat with lovely, like-minded families, and how ironic, I felt, that afterwards when some of us gathered by the River Thames, it was in a little park by the government's defence dept. At least they didn't rush out and get all defensive about our singing breastfeeding songs! The way some people have responded to us, you'd think we were a threat to the country. Hmmm, maybe we are? We're a threat to the status quo which thinks it's fine to raise babies on counterfeit milk.


THANK YOU

WAHM ~ what it means to me to be a work-at-home-mother

I knew that I wanted to be a writer long before I had children. In fact, I was a child myself when I made that decision. I was blessed to have a mother who stayed at home with her children for my entire childhood. It’s a gift which will stay with me for my lifetime. It’s something that I now consider so priceless I’m in awe of the life path she chose.

My mother was (still is!!) amazing. She ‘worked’ from dawn to way beyond dusk each day...not in a paid profession, but as a mother. She spent hours making us a beautiful home and a massive edible garden, growing a huge number of trees so we could be self-sufficient. We had olives, avocados, paypaya,figs, carob trees and all the fruit trees imaginable. My youngest brother’s placenta was buried under the pear tree, and boy, did that tree yield some incredible fruit!

She always learnt new skills and was able to build us amazing structures in the garden from wood; she made us a flying fox, and lovely doll houses, castles and so on. One of the things I most love about my childhood is that my mum actually WANTED to be with us…she played with us. We felt this genuine affection and care. I remember once we were all playing hide and seek in the garden (and the garden was a few acres so the ‘seeking’ bit of the game could take a while) and we just couldn’t find her anywhere! Turned out that she was under the upside down wheelbarrow! I remember at the time thinking my mum was a genius. Move over Einstein.

My mother sewed me gorgeous dresses and dolls. And yet, while blessing our lives with her talents and skills she also fulfilled her own needs by studying various philosophies and esoteric traditions. My mum would rise at about 4am and do yoga on the lawn, then meditate and squeeze fresh orange juice for all of us when we woke up. Our house was always clean and tidy. I don’t think she ever watched a daytime soap. In fact, she never just ‘sat’ in front of tv when it was on...nope, the ironing board was out, or clothes were mended.

My mum managed to do all this and look after a 700 acre property single-handedly. Having land in the Australian bush is no easy job. Bore pumps break down, horses get hurt, droughts cause damage, etc.

She was, in essence, a single mum who raised eight children. My dad worked overseas for months at a time…and was only ever home briefly. To me, she was a superwoman. From my mum I learnt that women can do ANYTHING.

I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I wanted to stay with my children too when I became a mother. In my childhood mind I figured that being a writer would enable me to ‘work’ and still be with my children especially if I ended up becoming a single mum or my husband died. The reality, as I’ve since found out, is that you can’t write when your children are around. Writing involves being able to follow through on a train of thought without being interrupted by “can I have this…can I have that…can we…” Writing, for me, is something to do when the house is clean, the children are asleep and there are NO distractions.

Bethany was six and Eliza was four when I began editing The Mother magazine. I’d written some children’s stories before that time and Cycle to the Moon (at night while they lay sleeping) but I had spent their early years as a stay at home mum ~ and unlike many mothers who claim they had to go back to work because motherhood was boring, I simply never found that. I thoroughly enjoyed their company and the little lasses always kept me on my toes…there was simply no room for boredom. We’ve always spent a lot of time going out for walks, first when we lived in New Zealand and Australia (where the weather is far friendlier!!) and for the past nine years here in the north of England.

I’d been lent a copy of Compleat Mother, a natural birth, pregnancy and breastfeeding magazine published out of Canada, which felt like ‘coming home’. It gave me a real sense of community when I first came to the UK. When the founder, Catherine Young, died of breast cancer, I felt moved to start a magazine to continue the light she’d held for many years. I’m pleased to say Compleat Mother is still going strong to this day.

The Mother magazine is an entity in its own right with a broader base of articles (covering health, education, finance, ecology, global citizenship, etc) but our ethos is similar.

Being a work at home mother is a completely different kettle of fish to being a stay at home mother. I simply couldn’t do what I’m doing now if I had little kids. I WOULDN’T do what I’m doing now if I had a baby or toddler. I feel it would be cruel to the mother-child bond. A blog reader asked me the other day why I never had more children. I get an enormous amount of satisfaction in ‘producing’ a magazine every two months…it’s like a little birth each time and I never fail to be excited when I pick another copy hot off the press. If I was to have another child I would no longer ‘work’ …whether on this magazine or writing books, doing talks, etc., while the child was young. Clearly I wouldn’t sit on the sofa all day (unless I was breastfeeding continuum-raised triplets!) ~ my in-arms baby would learn about my ‘work’ life from being with me in the garden or around the home or village or in town.

But my life as a magazine editor involves putting myself into the ‘artificial’ and unhealthy electromagnetic world of a computer onto a daily and regular basis. Although we don’t have broadband (and are probably the only house in the UK to still have dial up LOL and I certainly would never have wi-fi, the exposure of the computer isn’t something I’d inflict on a baby or child. As anyone who’s read The Drinks Are On Me will know, I’m very concerned about the rise in the number of women who NAK (nurse at keyboard) for this reason.

My girls are of an age where they disappear for hours on end doing their own projects and activities and playing with their friends in the village. It’s in those times that I ‘work’, or, more often than not, I wait until they’re asleep at night (that’s getting trickier now they’re older and protest at their ‘early’ bed time of 9pm ~ “but the sun hasn’t even set!”).

Life’s infinitely easier now that I’m no longer dealing with administration, publishing, mail outs etc…and for that I’m enormously grateful to The Art of Change for being partners in the business.

Working from home means I can spend all day in my PJs if I want (I don’t!). It means I can have a cup of fennel tea or piece of fruit when my body wants it, rather than a boss imposing eating and drinking times on me. It means I can hang the washing out when the sun makes an appearance. Working from home means that I can check emails while Eliza is cooking (she doesn’t like anyone in the kitchen while she’s creating) or Bethany is playing the violin or piano. It means I’m with my growing daughters full-time and we can enjoy long walks along the fields by the fell (hills) or dip into the woodland or picnic at the local stone circle. It means I can create my own working hours.

It also means my children don’t have to miss out on being able to ask me questions when the urge arises, or if they have other needs to be met.

Working from home means that my family and I can find a great work/life balance that works for all of us. My husband now works from home with me which means after all these years I have the space and time to actually write (and not just edit other people’s writing) as the girls have another parent available for when I’m not, and the same goes for when I need to pop away for a lecture/workshop.

I don’t regret the choices I made, and nor does my husband. I don’t pine for a career I could have had if I’d stayed in the media after giving birth. Actually, becoming a mother has completely opened my eyes to what a manipulative and bullying industry it can be.

I love the work I do and being in ‘ethical media’, but the bottom line is that my children come first. They know this. Both girls fully support me in my life’s work and recognise the importance of showing women and men how to empower themselves. Neither of them want me to stop what I am doing. For all the hours I spend on The Mother magazine and related projects, I think of myself first and foremost as a stay at home mother, rather than a working mother.

Every mother is a working mother, whether she chooses a career or not.

Namaste

~ Veronika ~

OPEN EYE CAMPAIGN

SAVE CHILDHOOD

Please save our toddlers ~ they need YOU.

For six years The Mother magazine has been campaigning for a return to Slow Childhood. What do I mean by that? Slow Childhood is where children are respected and allowed to meet their developmental milestones according to Nature’s Timetable, rather than some human-devised concept.

Yesterday I was one of signatories to the Open Eye campaign, officially launched in The Times. Spearheaded by no less than The Mother columnist Dr Richard House, it aims to cause a (to quote the good Doctor) “legitimation crisis around this legislation of such magnitude that the government will find it impossible to implement it.”

That’s my boy! Go get ‘em, Richard.

The government MUST be tackled on this piece of legislation as the consequences, once implemented, are absolutely dire to the well-being of our children.

My editorial in issue 26 of The Magazine urges concerned parents and professionals to join our campaign and stop the government’s proposed Early Years Foundation Stage (for 3 and 4 year olds) being implemented in September 2008.

It is, in actual fact, a curriculum for ALL children

from birth to five years of age.

It’s Big Brother gone Psycho.

These compulsory measures which include chubby-handed 3 and 4 year olds barely out of nappies being required to read and write sentences (even if they don’t understand them!) will lead to a whole host of behavioural and educational problems. The anxiety induced in these little children will crush any enthusiasm for learning, if not for life itself.

Our campaign letter states that “An overly formal, academic and/or cognitively based ‘curriculum’, however carefully camouflaged, distorts this learning experience.”

The legislation will cover all children, whether in state, private or voluntary sectors ~ it will include Steiner schools and registered childminders! It will put many experts in child development in the position of having to contradict their own understanding of child development.

Dr Richard House reckons there is a strong case for mounting a legal challenge under the human rights legislation. All I can say is watch the government come undone over this one!

The whole document is authoritarian and prescriptive with 72 early learning goals…ironically, some of them include things that many adults haven’t even achieved! (and are unlikely to achieve.) It's enough to make a girl go grey overnight.

Anyone who knows the first thing about holistic child development will see that the shabbily camouflaged curriculum is seriously flawed, though it would be more accurate to call it legally-enforced child abuse. It completely IGNORES a child’s neurological and psychological needs, treating them as nothing more than information gadgets, mini-computers, sponges to the governments' every diktat.

It’s a bureaucratic controlling

of toddlers’ lives

which is completely counter

to more than twenty solid years of research

into how children learn ~

and what most people instinctively know.

The government’s plan is to insert a POLITICAL KNIFE into the very heart of family life and destroy the close, loving family bonds which all young children need in order to grow, thrive and learn. It makes the assumption that all children are the same. As any parent knows, no two children are the same, not even within the same family.

If the government looked at other countries as an example of what works for children, they would never have come up with such an insane programme. Whatever it is they hope to achieve with our toddlers simply can not happen in the controlled environments they wish to create. They want all children from birth to five years of age to have the SAME day to day experiences. I also suspect it is being driven by a desire to get mothers out of the home and into paid employment. After all, what could a mother possibly teach her toddler?

Beverley Hughes, The Children’s Minister, claims that this plan was widely consulted on (it WASN’T ~ it was a controlled consultation) and that it has the backing of the vast majority of early years specialists. However, she has shown no evidence for this statement. I’d like to see it.

She claims it is a play-based approach to learning and children will be observed to make sure they’re developing ‘normally’, but who decides what is normal? Her claims that early years education has a positive impact on learning is a misrepresentation of information.

Her use of the term play-based is incorrect as the documentation clearly states (repeatedly) that it is of ‘structured’ or ‘adult directed play’. This sort of ‘play’ (for lack of a better word), is a way for adults to control and create the outcomes they perceive the children should be reaching for. This is counter to how children learn and is in complete ignorance of free play.

The Government’s outline is very clear in its goal to ensure that all childhood experiences are the same. Only a parent will fully understand a child’s emotional and developmental needs. This shouldn’t be judged by a ‘national performance target’.

Ed Balls, The Children’s Secretary, needs to be given a copy of the EYFS document so he can see just how hot the water is for the government.

We MUST let the children play. This is absolutely VITAL for their well-being and enjoyment of life. I can promise you, if we don’t, it won’t just be teenage ‘hoodies’ that adults are scared of.

You can download the British Government’s EYFS documentation in full at: http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/eyfs/site/resource/pdfs.htm

‘EYE’ standing for ‘Early Years Education’ - which, we maintain, needs to be kept open and free from overweening, infantilising government intrusion, however consciously well-intentioned it might be.

I hope to post a website for the campaign on this blog in a few days time..
In the meantime, if you want to find out more,

You can contact OPEN-EYE with your experience and views at: r.house@roehampton.ac.uk or
richardahouse@hotmail.com

Vaccination Awareness

Today’s blog is written by a guest blogger, Joanna Karpasea-Jones.
She is a neuro-psychological immunologist and the author of Breast Milk ~ a natural immunization.

This is specifically for those readers who don’t read her columns in The Mother magazine and want answers to an earlier blog of mine on vaccination.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, a lot of people lived in poverty without proper food, housing or sanitation. This meant that larger numbers of people died at those times from infectious diseases. The same is true in war times.

We no longer die in such great numbers because of the marvellous invention of the indoor flushing toilet, adequate food for everyone (for the first time in history), heating, decent housing and contraception. Contraception has ensured that most women only have 2 or 3 children, as opposed to 15 or 20, and so she is more able to bear a healthy child if she can take care of herself and her child, and not subject herself to numerous pregnancies. Alcohol abuse is also a causative factor in diphtheria, as is underlying disease.

It stated in ‘Medical World’, 1931, p.627, that ‘"…shows an interesting and conclusive fashion the definitive effect of school buildings, their construction and sanitation, on the spread of diphtheria. The highest incidence was observed in those schools where sanitation is most deficient and ventilation and lighting the least satisfactory. The brightest and airiest school showed the lowest incidence, and the incidence throughout all the schools placed them in exact order of sanitary virtue. Moreover, the incidence indicated the schools where malnutrition in the children is most conspicuous."

As we can see from the above, over-crowding and malnutrition played a key role.
By the time vaccinations were introduced, most of these killer infectious diseases had become more benign.

The vaccine is also known not to be effective in many cases, and may actually cause the spread of the disease.

According to Minutes of the 15th Session (November 20-21, 1975) of the Panel of Review of Bacterial Vaccines and Toxoids with Standards and Potency (data presented by the US Bureau of Biologics, and the FDA):‘For several reasons, diphtheria toxoid, fluid or absorbed, is not as effective an immunizing agent as might be anticipated. Clinical (symptomatic) diphtheria may occur . . . in immunized individuals--even those whose immunization is reported as complete by recommended regimes . . . the permanence of immunity induced by the toxoid . . . is open to question.’Medics have always known this vaccine doesn’t work and have been writing about it since it was invented. For instance, in the ‘Practitioner’, April 1896, it was written ‘that the serum did not, to any appreciable degree, prevent the extension of the disease to the larynx; all the severe cases died, and the good result in the lighter ones was attributable to the mild type of the epidemic." The doctor also states that, at the Hospital of Bligdam, Copenhagen, "the mortality from diphtheria remains the same after, as it was before.’Dr. Joseph Winters published a book, ‘Clinical Observations upon the Use of Anti-Toxin in Diphtheria’, in which he stated: ‘percentage of mortality is not only misleading, but is absolutely worthless unless accompanied by the actual number of cases reported and the actual number of deaths." He also declares that "the serum has an injurious effect, and will certainly be abandoned."Also, the famous Dr. Hadwen wrote in his booklet, ‘The Anti-Toxin Treatment of Diphtheria: In Theory and Practice’, that in 1895 in Berlin the mortality rate from diphtheria was 15.7% (before any vaccination). By 1900 (after vaccination) this figure had risen to 17.2%. According to Metropolitan Asylums Board Annual Reports, 1895-1910, the death rate from Diphtheria in 1910 was 9.80% in those who had received anti-toxin and only 2.99% in those who had not received it. In more recent years there have also been numerous studies of ‘failure’ of DPT vaccine to ‘immunize’ against the diseases it was designed to prevent. As an example, here are some studies:Journal of Infectious Diseases, vol. 179, April 1999; 915-923. "Temporal trends in the population structure of bordetella pertussis during 1949-1996 in a highly vaccinated population "Despite the introduction of large-scale pertussis vaccination in 1953 and high vaccination coverage, pertussis is still an endemic disease in The Netherlands, with epidemic outbreaks occurring every 3-5 years." One factor that might contribute to this is the ability of pertussis strains to adapt to vaccine-induced immunity, causing new strains of pertussis to re-emerge in this well-vaccinated population.Vaccination against whooping-cough. Efficacy versus risks (The Lancet, vol. 1, January 29, 1977, pp. 234-7): Calculations based on the mortality of whooping-cough before 1957 predict accurately the subsequent decline and the present low mortality… Incidence [is] unaffected either by small-scale vaccination beginning about 1948 or by nationwide vaccination beginning in 1957… No protection is demonstrable in infants."

The Lancet Volume 353, Number 9150 30 January 1999 Risk of diphtheria among schoolchildren in the Russian Federation in relation to time since last vaccination Quote:In 1993, the Russian Federation reported 15229 cases of diphtheria, a 25-fold increase over the 603 cases reported in 1989.1 The incidence rate among children 7-10 years of age (15·7 per 100000) was twice that of adults aged 18 years or over (7·9 per 100000).

81% of the affected children aged 7-10 years had been vaccinated with at least a primary series of diphtheria toxoid, and most had received the first booster recommended to be given 12 months after completion of the primary series.

Shimoni, Zvi; Dobrousin, Anatoly; Cohen, Jonathan; et al. "Tetanus in an Immunised Patient" British Medical Journal Online (10/16/99) Vol. 319, No. 7216, P. 1049;Israeli researchers present the case of a 34-year-old construction worker who was hospitalized after having a reported epileptic fit and experiencing flu-like symptoms. The patient had a low-grade fever, but was alert and coherent. Any attempts to speak or get up on the second day resulted in attacks of risus sardonicus, opisthotonus, and trismus. The patient was diagnosed with tetanus and given 2000 U of human tetanus immunoglobulin. Further treatment was provided, and after 15 days, the patient had stopped taking diazepam and ventilatory support was withdrawn. The man had been fully immunized against tetanus, and had received booster shots five and two years before being hospitalized.

Another reason for the fall in infectious disease rates is that diseases are classified according to vaccine status. For instance, tonsillitis and mild Diphtheria have identical symptoms: severe sore throat, swollen glands in the neck, bright red tonsils and a green/yellowish or grey discharge at the back of the throat.

With severe Diphtheria, this discoloured film is impossible to remove and it may block off the airway and cause respiratory problems. Essentially, in milder cases there is no difference between tonsillitis and Diphtheria and vaccinated patients would simply be recorded as tonsillitis. Also, doctors do not test for Diphtheria anymore so they wouldn’t know whether it was present or not, and most doctors do not know what symptoms to look for to diagnose it, so all of this would skew statistics.

TUBERCULOSIS

This is also a sanitation disease and can be caused by vaccination polluting the internal system.The vaccine doesn’t work and never has and the world’s only ever double-blind controlled trial on vaccination (BCG) in the early 1970s which proved it didn’t work. However, it took almost 30 years of administering useless vaccine to people before they stopped its use.The study stated: ‘The efficacy of the TB vaccine is 0%’ (Bulletin of the WHO, Tuberculosis Prevention Trial, 57 (5); 819-827, 1979).

Here are some other studies showing that TB vaccine causes the disease:Foster DR. Miliary tuberculosis following intravesical BCG treatment. Br J Radiol. 1997 Apr;70(832):429. No abstract available. PMID: 9166085 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]Foster DR. Miliary tuberculosis: a complication of intravesical BCG treatment. Australas Radiol. 1998 May;42(2):167-8. No abstract available. PMID: 9599839 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]Marrak H, et al.[A case of tuberculous lupus complicating BCG vaccination]. Tunis Med. 1991 Nov;69(11):651-4. French. No abstract available.PMID: 1808776; UI: 92230052.Magnon R, et al. [See Related Articles] Disseminated cutaneous granulomas from BCG therapy. Arch Dermatol. 1980 Mar;116(3):355. No abstract available.PMID: 7369757; UI: 80174030.Vittori F, et al. [Tuberculosis lupus after BCG vaccination. A rare complication of the vaccination].
Arch Pediatr. 1996 May;3(5):457-9. French. PMID: 8763716; UI: 96297887.According to Dr. Surinder Bakhshi, Consultant in Communicable Diseases:‘BCG, the most used vaccine in the world since it was introduced more than 50 years ago, has made no difference to TB in countries which rely solely on it to halt its spread. It has never been claimed to prevent TB, but even the evidence of its protectiveness is patchy and historical. And there have been no studies of its effectiveness in the past three decades.It may leave an ugly scar and, indeed, do more harm than good. Further, as TB, with rare exceptions, is largely a disease of the elderly in the Western world, vaccinating children doesn’t make sense.
TB in Britain is a legacy of its empire. As long as people from third world countries come and settle here, there cannot be a let-up in its spread.People who come from high prevalence countries will continue to harbour TB germs in their bodies until they die.
The World Health Organisation has set its face against vaccination and routine screening. It advocates effective disease management — early diagnosis and supervised treatment — to contain it and avoid its spread to the host community. Vaccination wastes resources, gives false hope and distracts attention from what needs to be done.’(Letter, the Sunday Times, 15 April 2001).

Isolation worked in the old days and its still one of the most effective means of preventing disease.

Other diseases like Scarlet Fever and Typhus disappeared to virtually zero without vaccination.

Measles is a disease which is mild in most cases. The figures the DOH use are from the third world, not of Western children. They also include children who have pre-existing conditions, those who are malnourished and those whose measles was treated with anti-pyretics (which is known to cause measles side-effects.

In 1967, Christine Miller from the National Institute for Medical Research, London, published a paper on measles, stating: ‘Measles is now the commonest infectious disease of childhood in the UK. It occurs in epidemics in which the total number of cases usually exceeds half a million...there is no doubt that most cases in England today are mild, only last for a short period, are not followed by complications and are rarely fatal.’

Also in the Practitioner, November 1967: ‘some physicians consider that measles is so mild a complaint that a major effort at prevention is not justified.’

After the measles vaccine was introduced in 1968, followed by the MMR in 1988, the disease suddenly became more serious. According to the BMA Complete Family Medical Encyclopaedia, 1995: ‘measles is a potentially dangerous viral illness...prevention of measles is important because it can have rare but serious complications...it is sometimes fatal in children with impaired immunity.’

Clearly, you can see vaccine marketing techniques at play here.

According to the DOH, in their book ‘Immunisation Against Infectious Diseases’,‘Before 1988 (when the MMR was introduced) more than half the acute measles deaths occurred in previously healthy children who had not been immunised.’ They quote the study C L MILLER. Deaths from measles in England and Wales, 1970-83. British Medical Journal, Vol 290, 9 February 1985, but if you actually read this study (which they are relying on parents not doing), you will find it actually says:
‘No attempt was made to establish further clinical details, vaccination history, or social class.’ - i.e. they didn’t know the vaccine status of the individuals. And: ‘90% of deaths in those previously normal occurred in those over the age of 15 months, when the vaccines are usually given’. These children were probably vaccinated prior to dying of measles as they were of vaccination age.

Nearly half the children who died were ‘grossly physically or mentally abnormal or both. The pre-existing conditions in the 126 previously abnormal individuals included cerebral palsy (24), mental retardation (20), Down's syndrome (19) and various congenital abnormalities (22). There were nine children with immune deficiency or immunosuppression, and 19 aged 2-8 with lymphatic leukaemia, a number of them in remission.’

In normal healthy children whose measles has not been treated with anti-pyretics, and whom are well nourished, I would say measles is a good thing.

Diseases of childhood are there for a reason. They release toxins from the body, they mature the child’s developing immune system, which is why they occur in childhood.
According to Jayne Donegan, a medical GP, “our immune system had matured and developed purely because of catching the diseases we are trying to eradicate.

In my opinion, normal childhood diseases are basically good for us. They teach our immune system what is "us" and what is foreign.

All our childhood diseases were killers when they first came along. They wiped out thousands because we had no natural immunity against them. Diseases infect us and, in turn, strengthen our immune system.

I vaccinated both my children with the MMR jab, but this was before I started my research into the problems associated with it.”

Often, when a child has had a childhood disease such as Chickenpox or Measles, they will pass more developmental milestones such as suddenly beginning to read, or learning new words, and any existing problems seem to reverse after a bout of measles (for instance, asthmatics suddenly recover).

My own daughter had measles as a toddler and was not ill again for more than a year afterwards, not even with a cold. I believe this was because measles was a strengthening milestone for her.

In the case of tetanus, unlike other childhood diseases, it isn’t possible to gain natural immunity to tetanus. If you’ve had it once, you can have it again. The body does not produce antibodies to Clostridium Tetani. Vaccination is the act of injecting a viral or bacterial substance into the body to make it produce antibodies to that disease. However, since no natural antibodies can be made, then there is no possible way that artificial antibodies could be made either. If the disease cannot give you protection, then how can a vaccine? It is likely that any raised antibody level seen after vaccination is the result of adjuvants (toxic heavy metals which are added to increase the body’s antibody response). In the case of tetanus vaccine, this substance is aluminium.

Antibodies themselves are not an indication of immunity – this is just one function, which is vastly different from whole body immunity.

According to Vieira et al: ‘This minimal protective antibody level is an arbitrary one and is not a guarantee of security for the individual patient.’ (Vieira, B.l.; Dunne, J.W.; Summers, Q.; Cephalic tetanus in an immunized patient. Med J Austr. 1986; 145: 156-7).

Herd Immunity Theory
The herd immunity theory was originally coined in 1933 by a researcher called Hedrich. He had been studying measles patterns in the US between 1900-1931 (years before any vaccine was ever invented for measles) and he observed that epidemics of the illness only occurred when less than 68% of children had developed a natural immunity to it. This was based upon the principle that children build their own immunity after suffering with or being exposed to the disease. So the herd immunity theory was, in fact, about natural disease processes and nothing to do with vaccination. If 68% of the population were allowed to build their own natural defences, there would be no raging epidemic.

Later on, vaccinologists adopted the phrase and increased the figure from 68% to 95% with no scientific justification as to why, and then stated that there had to be 95% vaccine coverage to achieve immunity. Essentially, they took Hedrich’s study and manipulated it to promote their vaccination programmes.

If vaccination really immunises, then your vaccinated child will be immunised and therefore protected against any disease an unvaccinated child gets. If he isn’t, his shots didn’t work.
It is widely known that even those antibodies caused by tetanus vaccine adjuvants will wane or disappear completely within 5 to 10 years. That is why children have a pre-school ‘booster’ at 4 years old, despite being vaccinated 3 or more times as a baby, and why it is repeated again at 15, and in some countries, at 12. It is estimated that over 50% of the adult population is not up to date on their tetanus vaccination and therefore, unvaccinated. If it was truly vaccination that was keeping tetanus rates low, then why are there not dozens more cases of tetanus with all these adults running around? It certainly isn’t in line with their herd immunity theory, where they assert 95% of people have to be ‘immunised’ or it won’t work.

Here are a number of studies of disease occurring in the vaccinated:
Bentsi-Enchill AD, et al. Estimates of the effectiveness of a whole-cell pertussis vaccine from an outbreak in an immunized population. Vaccine. 1997 Feb;15(3):301-6. PMID: 9139490; UI: 97227584.
D. C. Christie, et al., "The 1993 Epidemic of Pertussis in Cincinnati: Resurgence of Disease in a Highly Immunized Population of Children," New England Journal of Medicine (July 7, 1994), pp. 16-20.MMWR November 05, 1993 / 42(43);840-841,847 Diphtheria Outbreak -- Russian Federation, 1990-1993 Despite high levels of vaccination coverage against diphtheria, an ongoing outbreak of diphtheria has affected parts of the Russian Federation since 1990 (1); as of August 31, 1993, 12,865 cases had been reported. This report summarizes epidemiologic information about this outbreak for January 1990- August 1993, and is based on reports from public health officials in the Russian Federation.

Shimoni, Zvi; Dobrousin, Anatoly; Cohen, Jonathan; et al. "Tetanus in an Immunised Patient" British Medical Journal Online (10/16/99) Vol. 319, No. 7216, P. 1049;
Rev. Soc. Bras. Med. Trop., vol. 28, no. 4, Oct-Dec 1995, pp. 339-43 "Clinical and epidemiological findings during a measles outbreak occurring in a population with a high vaccination coverage" : "The history of previous vaccination [in very early childhood] did not diminish the number of complications of the cases studied. The results of this work show changes in age distribution of measles leading to sizeable outbreaks among teenagers and young adults."Clin. Invest. Med., vol. 11, no. 4, August 1988, pp. 304-9: "Measles serodiagnosis during an outbreak in a vaccinated community" ( from a group of 30 measles-sufferers displaying IgM antibodies during the acute phase of illness, 17 had been vaccinated for measles. All 17 experienced measles again, showing IgM antibodies indicating acute infection. "A history of prior vaccination is not always associated with immunity nor with the presence of specific antibodies."Aaby P, et al. (1990) Measles incidence, vaccine efficacy, and mortality in two urban African areas with high vaccination coverage. J Infect Dis. 1990 Nov;162(5):1043-8. PMID: 2230232; UI: 91037153.

Boulianne N, et al.(1991) [Major measles epidemic in the region of Quebec despite a 99% vaccine coverage]. Can J Public Health. 1991 May-Jun;82(3):189-90. French. PMID: 1884314; UI: 91356447.

All vaccination does is alter the expression of diseases and weaken our immune systems because we don’t have as much opportunity to experience the wild disease. Whilst we have less infectious (self-limiting) illness, we have more chronic (long-term) illness.

1 in 3 people now have cancer. This figure is INSANE. Back in the 18th century, cancer was virtually unheard of. Meningitis was extremely rare, now many more children get it. So many people are puffing on ventolin inhalers, with allergies to nuts and strawberries and everything else. Many people have weird skin conditions, and there are dozens more auto-immune diseases than there were before vaccination, like HIV, Lupus, MS.

According to Oxford University, 1 in 58 children is autistic and there are more with ADHD. These are poisoning and brain damage conditions. This amounts to 2% of the population that are now brain damaged by this!

Vaccination has turned us into a nation of weaklings that cannot cope with anything. That is why scientists are trying to invent a ‘dirt’ vaccine to strengthen children’s immune systems.
With regard to the tribes people dying of diseases, they were white man diseases and we went in, invaded their home and their way of life (that they had been living for hundreds of years quite happily) and exposed them to our diseases, which obviously they had not encountered before.

With continued exposure, the disease would become less severe and the tribes people would not die in great numbers, as is the course of all disease if we are allowed to develop natural immunity. Personally I also feel that we in western society had no right to interfere in the way of life of the tribes people and we ought to be ashamed of this aspect of our history.
My website is www.novelbookshop.com and I am in the process of making a new website for Vaccination Awareness Network UK. I can take requests for subjects that people wish me to write about on my site as it has a selection of free to view vaccination articles.