Many vaccines are developed through a partnership between the government and the pharmaceutical industry. Once approved, the government often does not reexamine the safety of vaccines or their long-term safety records. The Institute of Medicine is currently the only independent organization that the CDC allows to review Adverse Event Reports (AERs) to determine public health risk—the reports from people who have had a serious adverse reaction to a vaccine, including high fevers, allergic reactions, febrile seizures, and deaths. The government’s vaccine database shows that, on average, there are 17,233 serious AERs for vaccines every year, including 163 deaths. Surely this must be enough to warrant an independent review, especially if state legislators are pushing to limit exemptions!

Furthermore, there is mounting evidence that many vaccines are unsafe due to harmful ingredients, such as aluminum, mercury, and formaldehyde. The American Journal of Pediatrics has issued a position paper to warn against aluminum toxicity and its effects on infants’ nervous systems and cellular development. A 2011 study published in Current Medical Chemistry reports that infants under the age of six months receive up to 50 times more aluminum than the FDA currently regards as safe. Mercury, which was banned from all childhood vaccines in 2001 for safety concerns, is still used in the seasonal flu vaccine and is now recommended for pregnant women. Other ingredients, such as formaldehyde, are recognized by the Environmental Protection Agency as probable carcinogens, but have not been studied to be proven safe. No study has ever been conducted to observe how all vaccine ingredients, injected into children following the CDC’s recommended timetable, may interact or have an effect on developing bodies.

It is irresponsible for the FDA and CDC to freely permit mass vaccination without careful analysis of side affects and serious adverse events, especially if states are going to continue to remove or restrict parents’ right to choose what’s best for their child. It is vital that an independent, nongovernmental body carefully study the short and long-term impact of vaccines, particularly those mandated for K-12 and college students.

Tell the FDA and CDC to ask for an independent study by the Institute of Medicine on all vaccine risks.