Were WA lawmakers deceived about measles last session? Part 1

During the 2019 Legislative Session while HB 1638 to remove the personal/philosophical exemption to Merck’s MMR vaccine was being hotly debated, were lawmakers and the public told that . . .

Households and churches were the predominant settings for transmission, associated with 36 (51%) and 18 (25%) of the 71 patients, respectively (Figure). Public exposures (i.e., church, school, and child care centers) most commonly occurred during the first 4 weeks of the outbreak, and decreased following communitywide implementation of CCPH-recommended outbreak control measures. Among the 30 patients identified after February 1, 26 (87%) were known contacts in quarantine and under active surveillance, decreasing public exposures by implementing effective social distancing strategies.

CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report

There is no evidence that any lawmaker was told by any Public Health official that 66 of the cases were known to have been caught in a small cultural community and their associated church, daycare center/school, and in the households of church members — and those 66 cases had likely weighed (or their parents had weighed) the risks and benefits of vaccination and exercised their legal and human right to say no to a pharmaceutical product, and for their children to experience measles in order to acquire lifetime immunity. (Two additional individuals had received one dose of the MMR at some point in their lives, but the vaccine suffers from primary and secondary failure.) Once exposed, all evidence shows they respectfully self-isolated to prevent spreading to the general community.

During session when fear was being spread — in January, February, March, and April — the containment of the measles was known by Public Health but not told to lawmakers who were being pressured to remove a Constitutional freedom.

Cases of measles in individuals who have chosen to be susceptible and who chose responsible behavior to prevent spreading to the general public do not constitute a public health emergency. This was was a safely contained “in-break” not an “outbreak.”

A pastor submitted this letter (redacted here to preserve the privacy of the church and its members) to legislators on March 29, the day the senate held a public hearing on the bill, and many individuals attempted to bring it to the attention of health committee members and other legislators . . .

. . . but its message was drowned out by public health personnel making the rounds of the offices, making last minute fear-provoking phone calls to health committee members, testifying in hearings and speaking at press conferences, and constant media messaging that measles was running rampant in the community.

Given the apparent deception of Public Health over 66 cases that were isolated and under control thanks to the respectfulness of the affected community, it must be considered that those 4 “unknown location of transmission” cases were likely related to that community as well.

There is no evidence that anybody was told by Public Health that after February 1, 26 cases were actually caught while in quarantine and virtually no risk to the general community or even their own community.

But instead of honest reporting, Public Health officials fanned fear with their press releases, and the media spread the misleading information.

On January 25, 2019, Governor Inslee declared a state of emergency in all counties in the state, saying:

“The measles virus is a highly contagious infectious disease that can be fatal in small children, and the existence of 26 confirmed cases in the state of Washington creates an extreme public health risk that may quickly spread to other counties”

Compare the data on the CDC chart, and read the letter from the pastor. Those in public health in Clark County knew the names and locations of each of those cases and it could be readily determined that the outbreak was an “in-break” in a specific community that was cooperating with public health directives.  Could there have been a less alarming, far less expensive way of informing and protecting the general public? Was it necessary to call in the military and spend more than a million dollars when the church community was behaving so responsibly, cooperating with the CDC and self-isolating?

Additionally — this is measles in the U.S. — not the plague in the dark ages or even the measles in an impoverished, malnourished nation. This is an infection that in a healthy child is mild and self-limiting, leaving the child with lifetime immunity–which the vaccine does not. In the 1950’s and ’60s everyone caught measles, often intentionally, and it was not feared. It is true that measles, like any infection, can be very dangerous to someone who is malnourished, lacking Vitamin A, living in unsanitary conditions. It is not the virus that is dangerous, but host susceptibility.

Clark County is not an impoverished malnourished community–it is a healthy community in the U.S.A. One of the parents posted a video of his child with measles happily playing Wii.

But instead of approaching these measles cases in a way that protected and calmed, as Public Health should do, Secretary of Health John Wiesman called an emergency meeting of legislators, striking such fear in them, that Representative Harris immediately drafted HB 1638 to remove the personal/philosophical exemption to vaccination — and in an extraordinary timing coincidence, the bill was filed on the very day the state of emergency was called. Throughout session, Secretary Weisman continued to raise the alarm, misrepresenting data before health care committees, even going to D.C. where he gave false testimony before a senate hearing, agreeing with a senator that a child had died in WA State of the measles in 2015–which never happened.

On February 28, 2019, The Columbian reported:

“Clark County Public Health has identified four new suspected cases of measles, according to a Thursday press release.”

Again, compare the date to the CDC chart and you will see three of those cases were in household settings (quarantine) and one in a school or daycare (the affected community). There were no cases caught by strangers outside the community at any public place named by the Clark County Health Department. They knew these were cases caught in the community, in quarantine, and they did not tell the public or lawmakers.

In April, Bernadette Pajer, co-president of Informed Choice WA, attempted to learn how many cases of measles were caught by strangers in public spaces, outside the affected community, if any. Her direct questions to a state epidemiologist were not answered and led to the necessity of doing a public records request on a public records request (which will be detailed in another post.) On April 25th, in a face-to-face meeting, Ms. Pajer repeatedly asked Secretary Wiesman how many cases were caught outside the isolated community, and he repeatedly refused to answer, saying only, “It doesn’t matter.”

It doesn’t matter? WA State citizens lost their right to a personal/philosophical exemption to Merck’s on-trial-for-fraud MMR vaccine because legislators were made to fear measles was spreading like wildfire in Clark County — when the entire time, non-vaccinated families in a small community were respectfully self-isolating and under quarantine.

This intentional deception to achieve the desired goal of passing legislation is unacceptable.

The conflict of interest in Public Health at the state and county levels reveals where the motivation to deceive originates. Key individuals in positions of authority belong to Pharma-associated organizations that have publicly stated their opposition to all non-medical exemptions and to the tightening of medical exemptions (see ASTHO, NACCHO, and AIM, see also Dr. Moss’s statement and this article in the BMJ). Key individuals have been presented with critical data on Merck’s MMR vaccine (and other vaccine products) and they have refused to pass this data on to lawmakers and the public.

This country is facing potential health problems with measles–but it is not due to those who choose not to vaccinate, it is because the 60-year mass vaccination campaign with an unsafe product that cannot provide lifetime immunity has destroyed natural herd immunity, leaving newborns and adults vulnerable for the first time in human history. THAT is what public health should be addressing. Those who choose not to vaccinate and who experience the measles naturally in childhood will be the only ones in the future safe from catching or spreading measles as adults. Prior to the measles vaccine, virtually everyone in the U.S. over the age of 15 had lifetime immunity and mothers had strong passive immunity to protect their infants for the first year of life. Vaccination campaigns destroyed that and Public Health is not honestly addressing it. Instead, they are attempting to use fear, social engineering, and the removal of rights to try inject their way out of the mess.

The withholding of such critical information about the Clark County measles cases, Merck’s MMR, and inaccurate vaccination rate data use, at a time when legislation was being debated is unethical, if not criminal.

No matter how lawmakers feel about vaccination exemptions, they deserved to hear the truth from public health officials whose salaries come from taxes paid by the citizens of this state.  In the absence of accurate data, lawmakers cannot make fully informed votes to best serve their constituents.

It’s time to get the pharmaceutical industry out of our public health agencies.

It’s time to separate Pharma and State.