While the belief that vaccine injury is rare is a well-intended belief, a report by the National Institute of Health (NIH) demonstrates that this belief is not well grounded. Please oppose any bill that attempts to abolish the personal and religious exemptions.
This 2007 NIH study showed that 90-99% of vaccine injuries and deaths go unreported to Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) which means true patterns of vaccine injury are hard to predict. While adverse events reporting is required it is not well enforced. Even for this study the first thing the NIH did was create a new system “to improve underreporting and incomplete reporting that prevails in spontaneous systems.” http://goo.gl/FxN9Hz
The five-month study also found that, out of 5,914 follow-up contacts with patients from a group of 14,466 patients whom received vaccinations, 11.6% (686) had adverse events but only 3.4% (23) of these cases were reported to VAERS as required. A follow-up questionnaire related to the under-reporting of adverse vaccine events to VAERS revealed that only 12% of the doctors believed the adverse advents were vaccine related and most said “unnecessary and too busy” to report.
The vaccine court has paid over 3.1 billion dollars to families affected by vaccine injury. http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/AO2015Stats_0.pdf While the payout may sound high, it only represents 5-10% of the actual reported injuries as there must be indisputable documented evidence, which is nearly impossible to obtain due to a lack of awareness of vaccine injury, to win in vaccine court. http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/vicpmonthlyoctober15.pdf
This suggests that not only are doctors failing to report adverse events to VAERS, but that the prevailing attitude is that adverse events simply do not occur. Without a willingness to recognize and report adverse events, VAERS cannot be relied upon to accurately reflect the adverse events that do occur.
Are you concerned that the CDC and FDA rely on this data to determine adverse events following vaccination?
