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Vaccines: Are They Really Safe and Effective by Neil Z. Miller
Book Summary InformationAuthor: Neil Z. Miller Edition: Paperback Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published) Published: 2008-01-01 ISBN: 1881217302 Number of pages: 128 Publisher: New Atlantean Pr
Book Reviews of Vaccines: Are They Really Safe and EffectiveBook Review: Best book of its kind, highly recommended Summary: 4 StarsNote: vaccination and vaccine are pretty much interchangeable in the review below.
I've been reading a lot about vaccinations lately, spurred on by a paper on the subject I wrote for a class. There are so many books on vaccinations, so it was very difficult to figure out the best books to read in the relatively short time I had to do the research for the paper. I feel very lucky to have found this book in the library. If there was one book I'd want to own on the topic, if there was one book I'd recommend to parents or anyone else who wanted to get some very important information about vaccinations, this would be the book. I did not use the word "facts" in the last sentence deliberately, though this book contains many well-documented "facts" and is very carefully footnoted. I prefer the word information because from my research I am still quite puzzled as to what really are the (absolute) "facts" about vaccinations.
In any event, in a little more than 100 pages the author does a fantastic job of presenting his solid case against vaccinations. He explains very well multiple times the "fact" that the incident of many infectious diseases was way, way down before the advent of vaccines. He documents very well many of the dangers of vaccinations, how a small but significant number of people (usually children, of course) who are vaccinated actually get the disease, to say nothing of the children who are maimed or even die after taking vaccinations. Also, he doesn't speculate about, for example, whether the mercury preservative causes autism, he simply presents to the best information available. How the author is able to present so much information and statistics in so few pages amazes me.
For those who criticize the book for its lack of balance, I would say that the point of the book is to present as much anti-vaccination material as possible, because anyone who wants to have an informed opinion on the subject needs to consider the arguments of the anti-vaccination side very carefully. To the point, the book has 2 excellent forwards, both of which are written by MD's, and one of them states up front that he has always been very much in favor of vaccinations. If a reader wants a more balanced view, there are many books that are pro-vaccine, and you can always go to the CDC's website and read that there is absolutely nothing wrong with vaccines, no matter what evidence there is to the contrary.
Maybe we will never know the truth about how well vaccinations work, if for no other reason that the infinite varieties of people's biological systems will cause many different kinds of reactions to what vaccines and their (sometimes unfortunate) additives do. Maybe we can't know the answer to the most important question, which is whether vaccination = immunization; and if vaccinations really do work, then for how many people. Excellent books like this one at least challenge us to question authority, and then we can surely make more informed decisions.
Summary of Vaccines: Are They Really Safe and Effective"Vaccines: Are They Really Safe and Effective?" (the new, completely updated and revised edition, 2008) is a fully documented guide to immunizations. It includes 30 charts and graphs plus nearly 1,000 citations so that all of the information may be confirmed. This bestselling vaccine handbook (more than 150,000 copies sold) evaluates each vaccine for safety, efficacy, and long-term effects. It contains some of the most comprehensive, up-to-date, uncensored data available -- information that many doctors don't even know. It includes recent studies, numerous case histories detailing vaccine-induced damage to children, and pinpoints for parents exact conditions that may put their own children at high risk. It includes information on vaccine ingredients, natural versus artificial immunity, and provides data documenting correlations between MMR and autism, polio vaccines and cancer, the hepatitis B vaccine and multiple sclerosis, the Hib vaccine and diabetes, and much, much more. In addition, it outlines current vaccine laws and offers parental options to "mandatory" shots. Here are some highlights from this landmark book: Polio vaccines were contaminated with cancer-causing monkey viruses and administered to more that 100 million people. Sixty-two studies from 30 laboratories around the world have linked these tainted vaccines to dramatic increases in brain tumors, bone cancers, lung cancers and leukemia (pp. 20-22). During the 1980s and 1990s, more than half of all measles cases in the United States occurred in people who were adequately vaccinated (p. 29). Surveys in medical journals indicate that up to 87 percent of pediatricians and family practitioners do not believe the hepatitis B vaccine is needed by their newborn patients (p. 51). A recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association has linked the chickenpox vaccine to serious adverse events, including neurological disorders, immune system damage, and death (p. 54). A recent study in the British Medical Journal has linked the Haemophilus Influenzae Type B (Hib) vaccine to rising diabetes rates (p. 58). The new HPV ("cervical cancer" vaccine) for young women has been linked to serious and life-threatening disabilities, including Guillain-Barre syndrome (paralysis), seizures, heart disturbances, menstrual irregularities, genital warts and vaginal lesions (pp. 69-71). According to the FDA, thousands of children are damaged or killed by vaccines every year. Families of vaccine-damaged children were recently compensated more than $1 BILLION (p. 102). Parents, educators, and health professionals have very few sources of information permitting them to make informed choices regarding vaccines. But concerned parents are pleading for answers to their many questions. Doctors only tell them one side of the story; there is another side. "Vaccines: Are They Really Safe and Effective?" tells the other side and helps all concerned people to make wise and responsible decisions. Includes information on ALL recommended childhood shots PLUS smallpox, shingles, HPV and flu.
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