The 1986 Law That Changed Everything

Two years later, an industry exploded. New liability-free products hit the market at record speed, and it hasn't slowed. It's a business's dream of a deal, bringing a tsunami of profit. But who loses?

In the early 1980s, drug companies were under the crushing weight of litigation with one product line, vaccines. There were only a handful recommended for children at that time. But all that was about to change.

How Did We Get Here?
In 1986, between birth and 14 years old, there were 11 vaccines of 7 antigens on the childhood schedule over the course of a child’s life from birth to 18.
But today the childhood vaccine schedule has swollen to over 14 large pages of tiny print. It contains 90 doses in about 44 shots of 17 antigens for children from birth to 18 years old. Although COVID vaccines are not included each year on this chart after the 12-month recommendation.

A Successful Appeal to Congress. Cui Bono (who benefits?)
In 1986, the vaccine manufacturers approached Congress and told them that if something was not done to shield them from litigation, they could no longer produce vaccines. The cost of doing business was too much. The human suffering from the harm and damage being caused by their dangerous products was costing them dearly. Congress did not want to see the vaccine program end. After all, many believed that vaccines had saved millions of lives. So, the 99th Congress introduced and adopted the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986. President Ronald Reagan signed it into law on November 14th, 1996. It became effective in 1988, and now that they were immune from liability, the vaccine manufacturers immediately got to work creating many more vaccines that would be added to the childhood schedule.

The Arrogance of the Drop in the Bucket
Even with 90 shots on the schedule, I’ve always found the attitude of the pharmaceutical industry to be extremely arrogant. A quick Wikipedia search will have you scrolling through pages of hundreds of viruses that have been identified and named. We vaccinate for 17 of the hundreds of viruses and thousands of bacteria we know about. Microbiologists estimate that less than 1% of all microbial species have been identified! Are we truly so arrogant to believe we are making a positive impact on human health in this way?

Visual of the change of schedule depending on when you were born (from 2017).

Harm Done
Every childhood vaccine contains toxic excipients some of which are surfactant/detergents. These surfactants are designed in a way that ushers the vaccine contents across the protective blood-brain barrier. The images below highlight the excipients and the color key under the images shows how they are classified or how they act on the human body.

Color-coded CDC vaccine excipient table:
💗 Pink - Human cell line (aborted fetal tissue) 🧡 Orange - Animal derived
💛 Yellow - Toxic to humans 💚 Green - Allergy irritant 💙 Blue - Antibiotic
(This excipients list is from the CDC WEBSITE 2012. You can view the latest version in the title link above).

Mercury Out, Aluminum In
Many of the early vaccines on the schedule contained thimerosal as an adjuvant, which is about 50 % mercury. Mercury is listed as one of the deadliest substances known to man. Although the form of mercury used was believed to be eliminated by the body, this article states “our measurements are unable to determine the fate of the mercury after it leaves the blood”, but the evidence shows that it may accumulate in tissues and organs and can cause harm over time.
When there was an outcry from parents of children who had been harmed by the use of mercury in childhood vaccines, the manufacturers were finally forced to phase it out of childhood shots in the early 2000s (though it is still used in multi-dose influenza vaccines). This study shares “Recent studies suggest that chronic exposure, even to low concentration levels of mercury, can cause cardiovascular, reproductive, and developmental toxicity, neurotoxicity, nephrotoxicity, immunotoxicity, and carcinogenicity.” While discontinuing mercury in childhood vaccines was a good thing, it was simply replaced with another adjuvant that has many similar adverse effects, aluminum. Our bodies can handle a certain amount of these toxins, but there are limitations to how much before there is some breakdown in our health.

For a deeper look at the excipients in vaccines, see this recently re-published article by Marcella Piper-Terry, originally written by Megan Pond, Vaccine Ingredients: A Comprehensive Guide.

How much aluminum is “safe” for an infant? Above image shared from “think love healthy”.

Good Intentions, but “Unavoidably Unsafe”
When the 1986 Act was passed, Congress’ intent was to write some consumer protections into the law. They recognized that removing liability from manufacturers would leave the consumer vulnerable and wanted to provide them some shelter. They created the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, and the Court of Special Masters. In a 2011 court case Bruesewitz v. Wyeth LLC, 562 U.S. 223 (2011), the Supreme Court stated in a ruling that vaccines are “unavoidably unsafe.” They come with risk. The authors of the 1986 law knew this, and had written reporting requirements for healthcare providers, provisions for a secretary to conduct studies, and keep records of injuries, etc. The text summary of the bill looks as if efforts were to be made. However, since the bill was passed and signed into law, not a single follow-up study has ever been done on their safety. Rather, few providers even know about the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS), and the Vaccine Injury Program. Physicians are not taught to recognize vaccine-induced injuries. Training on vaccines in medical school is scant, and primarily focuses on a history of vaccines, the schedule, and how to persuade hesitant parents to be sure to do exactly as they’re instructed by the higher powers. Insurance companies are culpable as well, with a tiered reward and withholding of payouts to providers whose pediatric patient base isn’t fully vaccinated by a large percentage. This can amount to many thousands of dollars withheld from pediatric practices because of consumer hesitance. So, it is strong motivation for them to be unwilling to accept patients unless they are willing to take all the vaccines.
Although a handful of studies have looked at one ingredient at a time, or possibly one vaccine at a time, a study has never been done that looks at the health outcomes of the synergistic effects of all the vaccines given at the same time!

The Harvard Pilgrim Study was commissioned in 2006 by the CDC to analyze the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System to see how well it was working to collect harm and injury signals. The researchers discovered that only between 1-10% of vaccine injuries are reported at all, and the true number is much closer to less than 1%. The checks put into place to be a shield to children have proven to be flimsy and ineffective. A parent is the only true advocate for a child. Many of the best-intentioned physicians are blind to the adverse outcomes of vaccines. They are not given training to recognize the adverse outcomes, and often consider them to be coincidental.
When parents question vaccine safety, they usually aren’t given clear answers. Most often, their concerns are either brushed aside, or there is an appeal to authority, pointing up the control chain. The CDC, the FDA, and the WHO are pointed to as bulwarks of safety and consumer protection in medicine. But these organizations receive their bread and butter from the pharmaceutical industry and are far more beholden to this industry than to individual consumers.

Six Steps to Vaccine Safety
Vaccines are a drug class called Biologics. It is reasonable that they should at least be studied, tested and trialed with the same rigor we require of other drugs. Children’s Health Defense published an article that outlines these six steps to vaccine safety. While drugs are typically safety tested for 4-6 years, there are 6 vaccines on the schedule that were safety test between 2 and 30 days! Our children deserve better.
This is not to imply that everyone involved in this industry has bad intent or doesn’t care. But the checks of accountability that ensure some level of safety when it comes to other drugs simply aren’t present for childhood vaccines.

Informed Consent. Who Will Protect Our Children?
Who will protect our children while this industry protects their profits? There is a group that has compiled the reports from the VAERS website on a simple, easy-to-navigate website called openVAERS. It is sobering to take just a few minutes to read a handful of these reports for childhood vaccines under “search all reports”. Thousands of families have had their lives permanently altered because they were never given all the information needed to make informed decisions for their children’s health or shown a true risk vs benefit.
We as parents are the first and sometimes only line of defense to advocate for our children. They rely on us. The pharmaceutical industry can be relied upon to look out for their own interests. They are a business. There are few drugs more profitable than childhood vaccines. Our children’s lives and health should never be turned over to the whim of an industry or committees whose primary goal is profit, with conflicts of interest and little to no (or at best ineffective) built-in accountabilities.

You mom, dad, have been chosen and appointed to be the advocate for your precious children.

I wish you godspeed!

The Real BBC
(with gratitude to Liza C. for her editing prowess!)