Today Show: Today’s Health | Are Vaccines A Choice?

Not sure if anyone was watching the Today Show this morning, they ran a news story and then Matt Lauer proceeded to interview “Chief medical editor”, Dr. Nancy Snyderman. Needless to say, we have an opinion in this matter and the right to voice our opinion as the parents of a Vaccine Injured child. Let us start off and mention that this interview was completely bias and felt like a commercial for the CDC & FDA. The interview was all about a doctor and her views, there was no one there to argue the case against vaccinations and the risks involved with vaccinating your child.

So here are the facts as the Today Show reported before the interview started:

“Autism affects 1 out of 150 Children” Dr. Bob Sears

“Vaccines are not 100% effective” Dr. Mark Sawyer

Dr. Mark Sawyer said, “…parents should spend a day in my life (at the hospital)” when referring to children that were hospitalized with infectious diseases.

Our response to that is to spend the rest of your life in our life. We spent 1 month in the hospital with our daughter the day after receiving her vaccinations. And Infectious Disease was unable to find any childhood disease that caused my daughters injury. Our daughter was perfectly healthy, she now has a Brain Injury that requires one on one education, is on medication to prevent seizures, and will need an attendant to care for her as she gets older for the rest of her life. If this is the injury that can occur from these “safe” childhood vaccines, then we as a parents should have the right to make this decision for our children.

If we choose not to vaccinate our child, the only other child we are putting at risk is other children whose parents have decided not to vaccinate. If our unvaccinated child infects a vaccinated child, what does that say about the effectiveness of that vaccination that child received…

Now onto the interview:

Dr. Nancy Snyderman states that “The vaccine programs in the 60’s almost wiped it (Measles) out from the United States.”

The Vaccine Program in the 80’s was 10 shots before the age of 6, now it is 36 shots before the age of 6. The fact is, the vaccine program in place now is not nearly close to the vaccine program of the 60’s, and to make a correlation or reference between the two is just ridiculous.

Dr. Nancy Snyderman asks, ”Is your decision not to vaccinate your child more important than population’s health at large?”

Parents who have vaccine injured children have a different perspective on this, we are living this reality and we want parents to know, you do have a decision, educate yourself and make an informed decision.

Matt Lauer finally asks, “Are we doing enough research to find out whether or not these side effects are possible?” Dr. Nancy Snyderman replies, “You’re asking me if vaccinations are safe.” “Yes, vaccinations are safe.” She continues, “Now will there always be a case or two where you say wait a minute, my child was fine before the vaccination, could the vaccination itself have made my child ill…” and then mentions,”there will always be an exception to the rule” and that there is a scale “that ways so heavily to the safety of the vaccinations.”

If our child is going to be put on a scale, especially a government scale, we will make the decision as informed parents. 1 out of 150 diagnosed with Autism… Think about this, 1 in 150...

(Government statistics suggest the rate of autism is on the rise at 10-17 percent annually…)

The fact of the matter is that these vaccines are not safe; they need to be cleaned up. They need to do more research and need to stop denying the fact that these vaccines do cause injuries. They are more concerned about covering up the truth for fear of a widespread pandemic rather than addressing the real issue and fixing the problem.

There appears to be this misconception that parents of vaccine injured children are speaking out to cause commotion. What happened to our daughter is done and is in the past. We are speaking out because we care and do not want to see other children injured and see other families go through what we have gone through and what we continue to go through. The part that is frustrating for parents of vaccine injured children is when we are subjected to hearing Dr.'s speak out and say "Vaccines are safe", that "Vaccines do not cause injuries", or that "The benefits of vaccinating far outweigh the risk of not vaccinating".

Happy Resurrection Sunday!

Happy Easter from the Hoiberg Family!

We hope everyone is having a great Easter and getting to spend quality time with family. We have had a busy Resurrection weekend so far. We went over to the grandparents and made Easter Bread all afternoon. We've posted some pictures in our Picasa Web Album; we also have some pictures from this morning before we left for church with everyone dressed up in their Easter outfits. (You can view the pictures by clicking on the picture below.)

(From left to right: Caitlyn, Sarah, & Laura)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

Happy St. Patrick's Day from the Hoiberg Family

(From left to right: Laura & Caitlyn)

Birthday celebrations this past weekend

We went boating with our friends Jessie & Shippee this past Saturday and made a trip down to the Jacksonville Landing for lunch and Birthday celebrating. (The Photo Albums can be accessed by clicking on the photos below or by visiting our Picasa Web Album.)

(From left to right: Sarah, Chris, Jessie, & Shippee)

Afterwards we had a nice ride back and took some nice photos.

(Sarah with the Jacksonville Landing in the backdrop)

"Caitlyn's Story" added to the Blog

I've added new content to the Blog today. Scroll down to the bottom of the Blog and you will find "Caitlyn's Story". It is a detailed description of the hours prior to Caitlyn Hoiberg's reaction to the DTaP vaccine and events that followed then after.

The Florida Times-Union Visit

This past Monday The Florida Times-Union came out to our house to interview us regarding Caitlyn's case that was tried in Vaccine Court by our attorney Alan Pickert. Don Burk from The Florida Times Union took this photo of us all in the backyard. Many thanks to Don, Paul, & Amanda for coming out to document our story and get it out there for everyone else to hear.

(From left to right: Laura, Alan, Sarah, Caitlyn, & Chris)

Vaccine award brings parents slight solace

The Florida Times-Union story by Paul Pinkham

-This interview was filmed at our home

• View Article
• View Video - by Amanda Warford
• View Pictures - by Don Burk

March 11th, 2008

Local Family Warns about Dangers of Childhood Vaccines

First Coast News story by Patty Crosby
-This interview was filmed at Terrell Hogan

• View Video
• View Article

November 13th, 2007

Here's a picture we took that afternoon after the interview @ Terrell Hogan.

(From left to right: Laura, Sarah, Alan, Caitlyn, Chris)

Judge Says Vaccine Hurt Local Girl

CBS 47 / FOX 30 story by Ali Gorman
-This interview was filmed at a park in San Marco

• View Video
• View Article

November 13th, 2007

Here's a photo that was taken during our interview.

(from left to right: Chris & Sarah)