Community, Diversity, Sustainability and other Overused Words

Vaxxed Bus Rolls Into Santa Monica It is hard to watch. But even harder to live through

What if vaccines cause autoimmune diseases such as fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, asthma, peanut allergies, narcolepsy, ADD, ADHD, autism?

The Vaxxed bus rolls into town. It parks outside of the Laemmle Theater, in downtown Santa Monica. On the outside of the bus, there are nearly 10,000 names. All painstakingly written by hand, a lot of hands. Inside are the echoes of their voices, their tears, their sorrow. Polly Tommey has heard them all. Day after day, week after week, she works from early in the morning, sometimes until midnight, to try and accommodate the crowds. Because, she says, they are desperate for someone to hear their truth, their life. Their stories are different, yet similar, told in pictures, videos, and sometimes by the children themselves. If they can talk. But more typical is the vacant look in the eyes, the eyes that won't connect, the connection that is the essence of humanity.

There is the story of the triplets. Pictures of them laughing, smiling, holding hands, looking into each other's eyes. Then the pictures of them after they received vaccines. One by one, they shut down. 10:00, 12:00, 2:00. Their parents tell of the light going out of their eyes, their heads drooping, the inability to connect with life, the way they once could. There are videos of grown men in diapers, with pacifiers. Children who do little else but rock and bang their heads. Teens who were once soccer players and cheerleaders and motorcycle riders, now paralyzed, describing a fire racing through them after receiving the Gardasil vaccine. And the weary, sorrowful faces of their parents, now thrust into the role of caretakers.

It is hard to watch. But even harder to live through. Day and night, the filmmakers listen. Because, Polly says, they have no one else to tell their story to. They can petition to the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund, which to date has paid out billions of dollars. But it is little solace for all the lives lost or ruined, and does little to assuage the guilt of the parents who believed they were doing the right thing.

Polly Tommey experienced this herself, when, she says, her son was injured by a vaccine. It was his brother who decided they should make a movie. It was called Vaxxed, and it was set to premier at the Tribeca Film Festival.. At the last minute, it was pulled. Banned. And subsequently, it was banned in many other places; Amazon, Facebook ads, even being sold in big box stores. In a free society, you can watch movies made about anything and everything you can think of, unless it pertains to vaccine injuries.

Today's event is the screening of the follow-up movie, "Vaxxed 2, the People's Truth." This film contains not only the people's stories, but comments by doctors, scientists, immunologists, nephrologists, biologists, virologists, and epidemiologists; respected people with advanced degrees and years of working in their respective fields. No one you could, with a straight face, call them fringe lunatics. There are charts and graphs of disease outbreaks, and dollar amounts of money to be made in selling vaccines--$50 million a year, and $50 billion selling treatments for the side effects.

The big draw of the evening is the executive producer of Vaxxed 2, Robert Kennedy, Jr. His credentials are impressive: Chairman of the Board and Chief Legal Counsel for Children's Health Defense, President of Waterkeeper Alliance, and counsel to Morgan and Morgan, a nationwide personal injury practice. He was previously chief prosecuting attorney for the Hudson RIverkeeper, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Counsel, and a clinical professor and attorney at Pace University School of Law's Environmental Litigation Clinic. He has authored numerous books, including the best-selling "Crimes against Nature." Time magazine has named him one of their "Heroes for the Planet" for his successful prosecution of environmental polluters. Interviews with him over the course of three days took place in several cities and airports, as he tirelessly crisscrosses the globe to fulfill his father's mantra: "The purpose of life is to contribute in some way to making things better."

He does not consider himself "Anti-Vax", but he thinks there needs to be more discussion, more double-blind studies, and more legal liability. He says that children born in the "Vaccine Generation", roughly 1989, have a chronic disease rate of 54% vs. 12 % of those born before, according to Health and Human Services. There are more than 300 diseases listed as possible side effects, in inserts from the vaccine companies themselves. They include autoimmune diseases such as fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, asthma, peanut allergies, narcolepsy, ADD, ADHD, autism. language delays, and more. He quotes a rabbi who says "Correlation is not causation under Jewish law. But if correlation happens three times, causation is assumed. And we have hundreds of thousands of stories now from parents who say their children were injured by vaccines. How are we not listening to them? These should be case studies, these should be science. "

And then there is the censorship of news stories concerning vaccine safety. "We are supposed to be a democracy that respects free speech and the ferment of debate, to produce ultimate empirical truths. Yet even the liberal media, who is supposed to be the antidotes of corporate takeover of our press, have appointed themselves the gatekeepers of keeping dangerous thoughts away from the American people. It's Kafkaesque. It's Orwellian. The anger that you can provoke just by bringing up this issue, and all we're doing is bringing up legitimate questions. "

Which is why, Polly Toomey decided to take a "rogue grassroots approach." To date they have driven the Vaxxed bus more than 50,000 miles, across the U.S. and the globe. They travel on a wing and a prayer, with people bringing them food, new tires for the bus, and performing mechanical repairs for free. They air their stories live on Periscope and "We are Vaxxed"on Facebook live. There are speeches, and conferences, and of course, the movies. The slogan on the bus is "Where there is Risk, there must be choice." But at this screening, many audience members believed they weren't given that choice. They too, stood up when asked if their children had been injured by vaccines, or if they knew anyone who had been. They had stories of vaccinating first born children, who became ill, or who died of what the doctors called "SIDS", sudden infant death syndrome, but which Polly calls "VIDS", vaccine infant death syndrome. And stories of not vaccinating subsequent children, who are healthy. Polly calls them "controlled studies." Mr. Kennedy quotes documents that acknowledge vaccine injuries to children by the CDC, but that "Typically, 17 of 22 ads running on the nightly news are for pharmaceuticals." This, he says, dictates the contents. He likens the large scale cover-up to the pedophilia crimes that continued for many years in the Catholic church, in which children were treated as collateral damage. "Ironically", he says, "Jesus Christ's primary mandate was protection of children. He said that to whomever harmed a single hair on their head, it would be better they have a great millstone tied around their neck and be drowned in the depth of the sea."

 
 

Reader Comments(20)

Hawkded writes:

Thank you for unbiased reporting and giving the vaccine injured a voice. Vaccine injuries are bk ot rare and this needs to h ed address yo m as ke them safer for who wants this type of health care. In response to the nurse that common and here is world howth organization what they're talking about and it's showing that we should not be trusting them cause they are concerned about everything that the vaccine risk aware groups have been saying. Start at the 37 minute mark. https://youtu.be/82KJGSLT2e4

Mommadoc writes:

Thank you, Santa Monica Observer for a fair and accurate report on this event and this issue. Did you know that the WHO Vaccine Summit took place in Dec 2019, and that top doctors and researchers attending admitted on camera that there have never been proper safety studies conducted on vaccines? This is important information for Santa Monica and the world to know.

Pajer writes:

Thank your for covering this with such respect. I know it takes courage in this environment. This is what real journalism is -- giving the opportunity for real voices to be heard and respected. We need ethical media and brave journalists, like this, to report what is really happening. Again, thank you.

KayW writes:

As the parent of a vaccine-injured child, I want to thank Janet McLaughlin for approaching the topic of vaccine injury with an open mind and an open heart. I hope your writing will open many readers’ eyes to the harsh reality, and the heartbreak, of vaccine injury. I also want to thank the editor(s) at smobserved who made the decision to allow this article to go to press, instead of falling in line with the current media practice of censoring anything outside the official positive narrative about vaccination. Thank you for your service to *the whole truth.*

EducatedMother writes:

THANK YOU Santa Monica Observed!! You did what journalism is meant to do -- report unbiased truth!! In the light of drs at the recent WHO conference being caught on camera admitting that there is no testing of vaccines, and there are injuries, your reporter, Janet McLaughlin, did a stellar job of presenting the concerns of parents based on their real life experiences. May other media hang their heads in shame for allowing journalism to go down the toilet of being bought by pharmaceutical companies' agendas!!

Human writes:

@school nurse, You claim that the science has proven that vaccines don't cause those diseases. Here are several links to scientific research that disproves your claim. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25329096 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/29021840/ https://neurosciencenews.com/immune-cells-autism-15086/ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/7558011_A_case-control_study_of_serious_autoimmune_adverse_events_following_hepatitis_B_immunization https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2880343/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28059022 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5256113/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK190017/ Belief in vaccines by those in the medical community needs to be replaced by analysis of the possible risks and benefits of vaccination as compared to the possible risks and benefits of not vaccinating. Overemphasizing the harms caused by diseases while denying the risks of vaccines does a disservice to the public.

CliftonFromCA writes:

When 2 sets of doctors and scientists have differing points of view: **One side** benefiting financially from pushing a for-profit product of one of the largest and most powerful industries on earth. A product that is free from the market corrections of litigation. **While the other side** warns of vaccine risk that puts their own job on the line. I choose to follow the side of caution. I choose to read the science for myself, to see that the science showing vaccines work is from small and flawed studies, full of logical fallacy, run by the very industry seeking to make profit. Corporations seeking Profit over People. Thank you for your objective reporting.

Parent435 writes:

Astonishing to see an accurate report that hasn’t been censored . The latest WHO videos on lack of vaccine safety may be the impetus to allow the facts and faces of vaccine injuries to be made public .

WriterMom writes:

As a mother of a vaccine-injured child and a journalist, I applaud your non-bias. Thank you for telling the other side. You are a rare breed in the media. I signed that bus for my son, and telling his story on camera was very difficult, but I understand how important it is to speak up. Vaccine-injury denial is something we deal with every day, and it's not right.

Intrigued writes:

Well, this is pretty concerning! I've never even heard of Vaxxed 1 but I guess I will start there.

Grateful writes:

This fair and balanced article was refreshing to read. Thank you. Where there is risk there must be choice. Thank you for writing the facts.

schoolnurse writes:

It’s a shame you’re helping to give voice to dangerous information that WHO considers one of the ten greatest threats to public health. Science shows vaccines absolutely do not cause these diseases, yet you’ve just published a headline to sow doubt.

Mother1234 writes:

Thank you for writing a fair story. This topic needs to be discussed. Vaccine injury is real and needs to be addressed by our legislators that felt the need to make vaccines mandatory in CA.

Lynae writes:

Thank you for the fantastic article. So refreshing to finally read a fair and truthful article about this topic after so much negative, false, and unfair reporting in other outlets.

Momma4 writes:

Thank you for reporting in a fair and balanced way. My children had side effects to vaccines and the denial and disparaging remarks from media and others has been awful. It is so refreshing to hear balanced reporting. We know vaccines have side effects and cause harm - the only question is how much to how many.

pascali29 writes:

Thank you for covering this! The censorship of the real injuries has got to stop. The more news outlets speak out on behalf of people, the more awareness brought to this silenced epidemic - the more we have a chance to HAVE an open conversation about the safety guidelines and research needed about these pharmaceutical products that we truly mindlessly at this point inject in our kids.

Amagi writes:

Thank you for your fairness in this article. Those who question the pharmaceutical industry are relentlessly attacked as lunatics by the media.

DC3 writes:

I'm very surprised that the Santa Monica Observer or any media would write such an objective article on this important topic. Thank you for helping raise awareness without the usual baseless attacks and snarky judgments that always come from the press when confronted with these serious questions.

Concerned writes:

The pharmaceutical industry does not have real oversight or studies for vaccines, so the public become their guinea pigs. Not a recipe for success.

VaxInjuredMom writes:

Thank you so much for writing about this topic! Our Injury stories fall on deaf ears. The censorship and gaslighting is exhausting. But I will never back down from telling my story of injury. I am one of many, that has an autoimmune disorder triggered by vaccines. I then watched in horror, neurological changes and delays happen in my first two children. My story is not unique, but my message is profoundly important. Please know the actual risks before ever consenting to a vaccine. They are dangerous, and the real risk is being hidden.