Op-Ed by John Vibes

July 1, 2015

(ANTIMEDIA) Despite growing evidence that some vaccines are unsafe and ineffective, California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill into law that would force parents to vaccinate their children if they wish to enroll them in public school.

The new law strikes down California’s personal belief exemption for immunizations, which has previously allowed parents to avoid vaccinating their children if they think it is best for their family.

“The science is clear that vaccines dramatically protect children against a number of infectious and dangerous diseases. While it’s true that no medical intervention is without risk, the evidence shows that immunization powerfully benefits and protects the community,” Governor Brown said in a statement this week after signing the bill into law.

However, the issue is not so cut and dry and the science is actually not clear. The safety and effectiveness of vaccines is actually one of the most highly debated topics in the field of science, but as with most issues, politicians pick and choose the studies they want to accept and promote.

It was reported this week that a study published in BMC Medicine by researchers at Santa Fe Institute Omidyar indicated vaccinated children can still spread disease, and in many cases, become carriers who actually pass illnesses along to other people.

In the study, researchers Ben Althouse and Sam Scarpino pointed out that the “whooping cough” vaccine doesn’t necessarily prevent the spread of the disease. These findings were inconvenient for Althouse and Scarpino, who have continued to be supportive of vaccines—even after their own research has shown that they were ineffective.

A separate study conducted by former CIDD post-doctoral researcher Grainne Long, CIDD graduate student Alexia Karanikas, and professors Eric Harvill, Andrew Read, and Peter Hudson had similar results. The authors of this study went on to speculate that vaccination could actually increase the rate of infection.

According to the study:

“Vaccination led to a 40-fold enhancement of B. parapertussis colonization in the lungs of mice. Though the mechanism behind this increased colonization was not specifically elucidated, it is speculated to involve specific immune responses skewed or dampened by the acellular vaccine, including cytokine and antibody production during infection. Despite this vaccine being hugely effective against B. pertussis, which was once the primary childhood killer, these data suggest that the vaccine may be contributing to the observed rise in whooping cough incidence over the last decade by promoting B. parapertussis infection.”

Yet another study dating back to 2012 shows that the vaccine is only 41 percent effective among children aged 2 to 7 years, with a 24 percent effectiveness rating among children between the ages of 8 and 12.

Regardless of how you feel about vaccines, this is a personal choice that should be decided among families, not by politicians. Mandatory vaccinations can now be added to the long list of reasons not to send your children to public school.

As many of you who follow my regular work already know, I am an advocate of unschooling and homeschooling. I feel that the kind of schooling we have today is counterproductive and oppressive, so I don’t feel that children should be forced to go to public school to begin with. There may be many great teachers out there who care about what they do and have very good intentions, like the world famous educator John Taylor Gatto. But even he found the top-down structure of the school system and the curriculum provided to be very damaging to the minds of children.

He left public schools by writing his resignation letter in the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal, starting off the letter by saying that he “refused to continue hurting children.” He then went on to start an incredible career in writing, researching, and speaking out about the dangers of compulsory schooling.

This element is important because the public school system, combined with other forms of child abuse, has worked to create the kind of violent and angry culture that we see today. When you treat people like prisoners and second class citizens for the most vital developmental years of their lives, you are going to create confused, bitter, and deranged people. There is still value in group learning settings—and there is still value in teachers—but what we have today is arguably indoctrination, not education.

The new policy mandating that parents vaccinate their children if they want to enroll them in school is just a continuation of the oppressive culture that public schools have been perpetuating for over a century.

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John Vibes is an author, researcher and investigative journalist who takes a special interest in the counter-culture and the drug war. In addition to his writing and activist work he organizes a number of large events including the Free Your Mind Conference, which features top caliber speakers and whistle-blowers from all over the world. You can contact him and stay connected to his work at his Facebook page. You can find his 65 chapter Book entitled “Alchemy of the Timeless Renaissance” at bookpatch.com.