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VACCINE INJURED MARCH ON THE
NATION'S CAPITOL On Wednesday, July 20, 2005, more than 600 parents of vaccine injured children gathered on Capitol Hill for a Power of Truth march and rally to protest the continued use of mercury preservatives in vaccines given to children and pregnant women. NVIC joined with other parent organizations, physicians and legislators to demand that federal health agencies insure that drug companies remove mercury from flu and other vaccines. No More Lies - The hot summer day in the nation's Capitol began at 8:30 a.m. with parents and their vaccine injured autistic children, who had traveled from nearly every state, assembling several blocks from the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) on Independence Avenue. With homemade banners, signs and posters proclaiming their outrage at the mercury poisoning of their children, the parents wheeled babies in strollers and marched with older autistic children to DHHS chanting "No More Lies" until they arrived at the large DHHS building. There they stood and screamed "No More Lies" in unison for more than 15 minutes. At one point, the entire group of parents, many with tears streaming down their faces, moved about 20 feet toward the building as the assembled security guards kept silent watch.
The Mercury Has Got To Go - Then the determined band of protestors, with the Capitol police courteously stopping traffic for them, marched to the west side of the Capitol Building chanting "Hey, hey, ho, ho the mercury has got to go" until they arrived at the site where a two-hour rally was held. Speakers at the rally included Representatives Dan Burton (R-IN); Carolyn Maloney (D-NY); Diane Watson (D-CA); Walter Jones (R-NC); and Dave Weldon (R-FL) as well as Andrew Wakefield, M.D.; Boyd Haley, Ph.D., University of Kentucky; David Kirby, author of Evidence of Harm; Zachary Barsamian, a child recovering from vaccine-induced autism; Amy Carson, co-founder, Moms Against Mercury; NVIC president Barbara Loe Fisher; Unlocking Autism president Shelley Reynolds; Lujene Clark, No Mercury; Coy Barefoot, Dads Against Mercury; Wendy Fournier, National Autism Association; Lisa Sykes, Co-Med; and SafeMinds president Lyn Redwood with her son, Will. Nine-year old Hannah Goetz sang a song she wrote about her autistic brother, Hayden. The rally was co-sponsored by eleven organizations including Moms Against Mercury, National Autism Association, Dads Against Mercury, NoMercury; SafeMinds, A-CHAMP, CoMed, Unlocking Autism, Generation Rescue, Educate Before You Vaccinate, and NVIC. Angela Medlin and Amy Carson of Moms Against Mercury coordinated the event. National Media Coverage - NVIC issued a national press release before the rally and participated in radio and TV interviews. On the day of the event NVIC joined with SafeMinds and eight of the co-sponsoring organizations in a joint statement criticizing a CDC press conference held a day earlier which apparently was an attempt to neutralize press coverage of the march and rally. The joint statement said "We continue to be appalled by this blatant lack of transparency and attempts to manipulate the media." Nearly every major media outlet, including more than 250 local TV and radio news stations, CNN and USA Today, covered the march and rally.
Mothers and fathers of vaccine injured children, we have gathered here today to stand shoulder to shoulder with each other in a united call for our Government to tell the American people the truth about vaccine risks. And we are making history. Because we are standing up and giving notice that we are not going to allow our children, who have no voice and have no choice, to be written off as necessary sacrifices in a war on disease that has left far too many bodies on the field. We know that it doesn't have to be like this. We know that, if public health officials and drug companies would care more about protecting the life of every child than protecting a tragically broken mass vaccination system, so many of our healthy children would not continue to be hurt by vaccines that are supposed to keep them well. Those of us with grown DPT vaccine injured children, who launched the vaccine safety and informed consent movement nearly a quarter century ago, knew then that if the Government and Industry did not listen to our pleas, someday we would be here, looking out at the faces of a third generation of parents who have watched their healthy children regress after vaccination. Our nation cannot afford to allow another generation to face the vaccine risks that changed our children's lives and our lives forever. Public health officials, unwilling to properly regulate the pharmaceutical industry, have failed to do their job and clean up the vaccines they force our children to take. Drug companies, eager for larger markets, have not taken responsibility for the safety of the vaccines they sell for profit. Doctors, who give vaccines, have turned a blind eye to vaccine reactions, forgetting that their first duty to patients is to do no harm. Mothers and fathers raising children who will be the future of America have the right and the responsibility to ask Government and Industry this question: why, when we have given our children the many vaccines you told us would keep them well, why is it that now 1 in 6 American children are autistic or developmentally delayed? In the 25 years that the numbers of doses of vaccines you tell us to give our children has doubled, our nation has seen a doubling of learning disabilities, ADHD, and asthma; a tripling of diabetes; and a 200 to 7,000 percent increase in autism in every state. It doesn't matter what your published studies say. It doesn't matter what your press releases say. What matters is the real life experience of parents all over this country and all over the world. And that experience is, that we took our healthy, bright babies into a doctor's office for routine vaccinations and watched our precious children regress physically, mentally and emotionally and be left autistic, hyperactive, learning disabled, epileptic, asthmatic and suffering with other brain and immune system disorders. We trusted you and you betrayed our trust. And that is why we are here today. And that is why we are not going away until the last vaccine on the last shelf in the last doctor's office is mercury free. And we are not going away until you do the credible scientific research that will tell us why and how vaccines can injure and kill and who is at high risk. And we are not going away until we know we can trust that what you tell us about vaccines is the truth. The power of truth is on our side and we will not be silent until it is known. This is the legacy that we can leave to our children who have been hurt by vaccines and those who have yet to be born. It is a legacy that will be as grounded in scientific truth as it is in our abiding love for them. We will go from this place back to our homes and our families and do the hard work that needs to be done. And you will see us everywhere: in the schools and town halls; in the state legislatures and in the courts; in Congress and on the evening news and on your doorstep whenever you hold meetings behind closed doors. You will hear our voices raised in a great public witnessing of what has happened to our children after vaccination. Listen well. The world is watching. |
