Hepatitis B vaccination has been recommended by federal health officials since 1991 for all infants and children.

There are now hepatitis B vaccine mandates for children to attend daycare or school in 47 states, despite strong evidence that the health risks of doing this outweighs the benefit for your child.

Three hepatitis B shots are part of the standard government-recommended childhood vaccination schedule, with the first dose given at 12 hours of age in the newborn nursery of most hospitals.

But hepatitis B is a primarily blood-transmitted disease associated with risky lifestyle choices such as unprotected sex with multiple partners and intravenous drug use involving sharing needles—it is NOT primarily a "children's disease."

As Dr. Jane Orient of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) so eloquently testified to Congress:

"With hepatitis B vaccine, the case for mandatory immunization with few exemptions is far less persuasive than with smallpox or polio vaccines, which protected against highly lethal or disabling, relatively common, and easily transmissible diseases...

"For most children, the risk of a serious vaccine reaction may be 100 times greater than the risk of hepatitis B."

There are more reports of serious adverse reactions in children than there are cases of childhood hepatitis B reported in America and, despite what you may hear in the media, reactions can be serious.

Just this month, China Daily reported 44 children became sick and were taken to the hospital after receiving injections from a "bad batch" of hepatitis B vaccine. After examining the side effects of this vaccine, you might wonder if every batch is a "bad batch."

In 2008, French authorities launched a criminal investigation of two vaccine company managers (from GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi Pasteur) for failing to disclose dangerous side effects of their hepatitis B vaccines. 

When babies die after hep B vaccinations, most of the time their deaths are automatically attributed to SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) without investigation into whether the vaccine caused the baby's sudden death.

When a baby's death is listed as "SIDS," rarely does anyone ask about the deceased infant's vaccination history to find out whether there were symptoms of vaccine reactions before death.

Hepatitis B vaccine as a contributing cause of "sudden infant death" cannot be automatically ruled out if a baby dies suddenly after getting a hepatitis B shot, especially if there were symptoms of a potential vaccine reaction before death such as:

• high pitched screaming or prolonged crying for many hours or days
• collapse/shock (pale skin, blue lips, unresponsiveness)
• excessive sleepiness (failure to feed, baby cannot be easily awakened)
• fever, diarrhea or vomiting
• hives, rashes or swelling of the body
• convulsions (jerking of fingers, hands, arms, legs)
• other serious change in mental, emotional or physical behavior

Is Your Baby Really at Risk for Hepatitis B?

There are two primary circumstances in which your baby would be at significant risk for contracting hepatitis B and both are quite rare in the U.S.:

1. If you are pregnant and are a carrier for the hepatitis B virus, your baby could be at risk for being infected during childbirth. However, you can easily find out if you are hepatitis B positive by getting tested while pregnant.
2. Your infant could be at risk for hepatitis B infection by receiving a blood transfusion using hepatitis B infected blood. In America, all blood products are required to receive proper screening for hepatitis B virus and other pathogens prior to use. There is no way to achieve 100 percent safety with blood transfusions, however.

Universal hepatitis B vaccination might be a good idea IF the vaccines gave lifelong immunity and were very safe but they are not.

Hepatitis B Infection, in a Nutshell

Hepatitis B is a viral infection that affects your liver, and spreads through direct contact with the body fluids (particularly blood and semen) of an infected person.

The symptoms are similar to the flu—weakness, muscle and joint pain, loss of appetite, nausea and vomiting, low grade fever, diarrhea, and in some cases, a swollen liver and jaundice (yellowing of your skin and eyes).

In many cases, carriers of the hepatitis B virus exhibit few or no symptoms. Most infected people don't require hospital care and the majority recover without complications and are left with natural, lifelong immunity.

If the infection becomes chronic, however, it can be very serious. Twenty percent of chronic cases eventually progress to liver damage, and potentially even cancer, resulting in about 4,500 deaths annually in the United States.

There is some debate about the prevalence of hepatitis B in American adults.

As of 2005, there were 5,119 cases of hepatitis B reported in the U.S. However, U.S. authorities estimate more than one million Americans have chronic hepatitis B infections.

Other authorities say true carriers of the virus represent less than one tenth of 1 percent of the population in North American, Europe and Australia, which amounts to about 300,000 people in the U.S.

So the range seems to be somewhere between 300,000 people and 1.25 million people in the U.S. who are carriers of the hepatitis B virus.

Adverse Reactions to Vaccines Far Outnumber Hepatitis B Infections

According to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), operated jointly by the CDC and FDA, there were 36,788 officially reported adverse reactions to hepatitis B vaccines between 1992 and 2005. Of these, 14,800 were serious enough to cause hospitalization, life-threatening health events or permanent disabilities.

And 781 people were reported to have DIED following hepatitis B vaccination.

Vaccine adverse events are substantially underreported—some estimate by as much as 90 percent—even though the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 mandated that all doctors and other vaccine providers report serious health problems, including hospitalizations, injuries and deaths following vaccination. The 1986 Act did not include sanctions for failing to report to VAERS and so most vaccine providers do not file a report. Many vaccine reactions are not even recognized by medical personnel as vaccine-related.

Historically, hepatitis B very rarely has infected children in America. In the U.S., less than 1 percent of all reported hepatitis B cases are in children under age 15.

Before the hepatitis B vaccine was mandated in the U.S., how many cases of hepatitis B were reported in children compared to the number of reported health problems following hepatitis B vaccination?

To answer that, let's look at the figures for 1996 included in a special report and press release published in 1999 by the National Vaccine Information Center:

• In 1996, 872 vaccine adverse events were reported in children under the age of 14 who had just received the hepatitis B vaccine, or a combination vaccine with hep B as one component
• 48 children died following hepatitis B vaccination
• In 1996, only 279 total cases of hepatitis B were reported in children under the age of 14 during that entire year

Are public health policies directing children to get three doses of hepatitis B vaccine creating more health problems than they are preventing?

List of Medical Conditions Now Linked with Hepatitis B Vaccines is Disturbingly Long

What sorts of reactions have people had to the hepatitis B vaccine?

Common reactions include the following symptoms: fatigue, muscle weakness, fever, headache, irritability, and joint pain. But there have been reports of disabling neurological and immunological disorders that have developed following hepatitis B vaccinations as well.

You can find many of these tragic cases presented in peer reviewed medical journals over the past twenty years. (For scientific references, go to this page.)

The array of serious health problems people have reported experiencing after hep B vaccinations is quite shocking:

• Multiple sclerosis (MS)
• Guillain Barre syndrome
• Bell's Palsy
• Diabetes
• Rheumatoid arthritis
• Lupus
• Idiopathic Thrombocytopenia purpura
• Convulsions, and brain disorders such as encephalitis (brain swelling) and brain demyelination
• Immune dysfunction
• Visual and hearing impairments, including optic neuritis
• Pancreatitis

According to a study in the United Kingdom, hepatitis B vaccines may increase risks for developing multiple sclerosis (MS) by a factor of three. Researchers discovered that people showed a three-fold increase in the incidence of MS within three years of being vaccinated. They weren't able to determine if the vaccine triggers the disease in those already susceptible, or if it speeds up the onset.

In addition to MS, studies also reveal a link between hepatitis B vaccines and the development of type 1 diabetes (insulin-dependent). In New Zealand, the incidence of type 1 diabetes rose 60 percent among children following a mass hepatitis B immunization campaign.

J. Barthelow Classen, MD, a researcher investigating vaccination and diabtes, estimates that the U.S. has 10,000 new cases of diabetes each year, costing $1 million in lost productivity and medical expenses, as a direct result of hepatitis B vaccination.

According to Burton A. Waisbren, MD, a cell biologist and infectious disease specialist, "Some babies who have little or no chance of getting hepatitis B will suffer unnecessary damage to their nervous system" after getting hepatitis B shots.

A study published September 2009 in Annals of Epidemiology found that giving hepatitis B vaccine to infant boys more than tripled their risk for an autism spectrum disorder. This was doubly concerning because an earlier study by the same researcher group, using a different database, found the same results.

Yet another study, this one published in the journal Neurology in 2009, revealed that children who received a particular hepatitis B vaccine were more likely to develop "central nervous system inflammatory demyelination" than children who did not receive the vaccine.

Given all of these serious risks, why did public health officials recommend that every infant be vaccinated against hepatitis B in the first place?

And why did state legislators pass laws requiring the vaccine's use by children?

Your Baby is an Easy Target!

If infants and children rarely acquire hepatitis B, then why must they be vaccinated at birth?

The rationale for this national vaccine policy is fundamentally flawed.

The policy was, in part, based on the fact that adults, who are at high-risk for being infected with hepatitis B (namely, mostly those who are IV drug users or are engaging in unprotected sex with multiple partners, or prostitutes) are difficult to reach and do not get vaccinated.  Infants and children are a much easier population to control, and easier to access.

The thinking was that hepatitis B could be prevented in the U.S. with mass use of hep B vaccine by all infants and children so they would be protected from birth and early childhood.  However, a policy that attempts to prevent an infectious disease in adolescents and adults by vaccinating infants and young children assumes the vaccine provides long lasting protection.

 Science has proven this is simply not the case for hepatitis B vaccine.

Of course, like a runaway train—or should I say, runaway GRAVY train—the hep B vaccine quickly became a huge moneymaker for vaccine manufacturers assured of a stable, predictable market. Hepatitis B vaccine mandates for children in almost every state has kept that market profitable ever since.

But does the hepatitis B vaccine even work the way it's supposed to?

Hepatitis B Immunity Fades After Just a Few Years

Hepatitis B vaccine requires three doses for "seroprotection" (vaccine induced antibodies measured in the blood).  However, all vaccines only confer temporary, partial immunity and the length of time you are protected from hepatitis B after receiving the vaccine series has gotten shorter and shorter as studies have revealed antibody levels decline much more rapidly than vaccine developers and policymakers expected.

Consider these findings:

• In a study involving dental healthcare workers published in the New England Journal of Medicine, it was demonstrated that within just 5 years after vaccination, antibody levels had sharply declined or no longer existed in 42 percent of hepatitis B vaccine recipients.
• A study in the American Journal of Public Health reported a significant antibody loss in 36 percent of healthcare personnel after just 3 years.
• Still other studies have found more than 60 percent of vaccine recipients are no longer protected from hepatitis B after 5 years, and one found that HALF of vaccinated people were not protected after 4 years!

So, if seroprotection is gone in less than 5 years, your baby is being subjected to ALL of the risks of the hepatitis B vaccine with NONE of the promised benefit.

Antibodies will have disappeared long before your child is old enough to potentially make lifestyle choices that could place them at higher risk for hepatitis B infection.

Your Baby Does NOT Respond Like You to Vaccination

Neonates are hit with their first hepatitis B injection within 12 hours of birth. Even premature infants are hit with hep B vaccine while in Neonatal Intensive Care Nurseries!

What does this do to your infant's immature, developing brain and immune system?

Russell L. Blaylock, MD, board-certified neurosurgeon and vaccine expert, has written an extensive article about the danger of excessive vaccination during brain development.

He explains that your baby's immune system is very complex, and at birth is incompletely formed. Studies in both humans and animals have shown that immune reactions to vaccinations differ depending on age—so, your baby will have a very different reaction to a vaccine than you will.

This has been shown to be true for hepatitis B vaccine.

How Vaccines Damage Your Infant's Developing Brain and Immune System

A 2004 study looked at the immune reaction in newborns up to the age of one year who had received the hep B vaccine to see if their immune reaction differed from adults getting the same vaccine. What they found was that infants, even after age one year, did react differently. Their antibody levels were substantially higher than adults (3-fold higher), and it remained higher throughout the study.  

In essence, they found that babies responded to the vaccine by having an intense, persistent and completely abnormal immune response.

To simplify this very complicated topic, this abnormal immune response to hepatitis B vaccination could ultimately result in your child developing permanent brain and immune system dysfunction.

According to Blaylock:

"The human being has an unusual brain development in that there is a prolonged period of maturation and neuroanatomical pathway development occurring years after birth.

The most rapid brain development occurs during the last trimester of intrauterine life and two years after birth – what is referred to as the brain growth spurt. It is the areas regulating higher brain functions, such as emotions, emotional control, thinking, complex memory and language function that is last to develop.

What this means is, during the first two years of life, your child's brain is undergoing rapid and very critical development, and the more advanced cognitive portions of the brain continue their development even later – much later."

Add to this the potentially damaging effects of hepatitis B vaccine ingredients, including aluminum adjuvant, yeast protein, formaldehyde and other chemicals, and you have a noxious cocktail that could have permanent negative effects on your child's health and development.

A syndrome that has recently been linked with hepatitis B and tetanus vaccines is called "macrophagic myofasciitis"—a reaction to the aluminum adjuvant in vaccines. Victims of this syndrome suffer severe muscle and joint pain and weakness.

It is known that aluminum accumulates in your brain and results in neurodegeneration, leading to diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. But aluminum also activates microglia, which can result in brain inflammation.

According to Blaylock, these neurologically damaging processes may also be contributing heavily to today's exploding autism rates.

Government's "Shoot First, Ask Questions Later" Approach

Before we began giving hepatitis B shots to infants within their first 12 hours of life, the U.S. had one of the lowest hepatitis B infection rates in the world (unlike in Asia and Africa). Less than one half of one percent of all mothers giving birth were hepatitis B positive.

Current U.S. policy mandating that infants and children receive hepatitis B vaccine is based on an exaggerated perception of the prevalence of hepatitis B both before and after the vaccine was recommended for all children in 1991.

The pre-licensure "safety studies" for hepatitis B vaccine were woefully inadequate, consisting of only a few thousand babies, born to infected women, who were given the vaccine and monitored for less than a week.

The "long-term" vaccine studies in America," boil down to a national, uncontrolled experiment being conducted on innocent babies, who are getting bombarded with one vaccine after another throughout childhood, starting with a hepatitis B shot at birth.

It certainly isn't the first time American children and adults have been used by doctors and scientists as guinea pigs!

So what's the bottom line when it comes to hepatitis B vaccination?

Your newborn infant is being deliberately exposed to life-threatening health risks from a vaccine to theoretically prevent infection with a virus that he or she has almost ZERO percent chance of being exposed to in childhood!

This is bad policy based on bad science, and it's time to make some changes before damage to the health of future generations is beyond repair.

What You Can Do

All of this information is meaningless unless you can take some sort of action that will move you, your family and your community toward better health. So, here is a list of what you, as a consumer, can do:

1. Educate yourself, your family, and your community by circulating this newsletter among your friends, neighbors, doctors, lawyers, teachers, school principles, nurses, local newspaper, TV and radio stations. Send a copy of this newsletter with a personal note to your elected representatives.
2. The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) provides information for consumers about vaccines and diseases and works to protect vaccine choices. Register today for the NVIC Advocacy Portal, an online interactive database and communication system that will help YOU protect vaccine exemptions in YOUR state.
3. Report vaccine reactions to the federal government (VAERS) and to the NVIC Vaccine Reaction Registry by visiting the NVIC website. This reporting is EXTREMELY important and necessary if we are to accelerate change.
4. If you are pregnant, get tested for hepatitis B disease. If you are infected, your baby is a candidate for vaccination, and you should explore all sides of the issue with your physician.
5. Stand up for your informed consent rights. If you are opposed to the hepatitis B vaccine for your baby at birth, you can amend the "consent for medical treatment" forms you sign upon entering the hospital before giving birth by writing on the form that you do not give consent for your baby's hepatitis B vaccination in the newborn nursery.
6. Vaccine exemptions: Although hepatitis B vaccines may be "mandated" for your child to attend school, each state offers different legal exemptions (medical, religious, and philosophical). Research your state's specific vaccine requirements and find out what kind of exemption to vaccination you are allowed to exercise in your state.

My Appeal to You

Don't sit this one out! We need to take action NOW.

 Tell your friends and your family. Tell everyone. With a little bit of effort, we can make big strides toward preserving our freedom to make voluntary health decisions affecting our future, especially our children's future.

One of the top goals for NVIC is preserving your freedom of choice about when to use vaccines. This non-profit charity has been fighting for your right to make informed VOLUNTARY vaccine choices since 1982.

Mercola.com and NVIC are dedicating Nov. 1-7, 2010 Vaccine Awareness Week in a joint effort to raise public awareness about important vaccine issues. Vaccine Awareness Week will feature a series of articles and interviews on vaccine topics of interest to Mercola.com newsletter subscribers and NVIC Vaccine E-newsletter readers.

During this Vaccine Awareness Week, NVIC is launching the online NVIC Advocacy Portal that will give you the tools you need to take action to protect legal medical, religious and conscientious belief exemptions to vaccination in YOUR state.

Your Donations to the NVIC help fund efforts that raise vaccine awareness, including the following excellent vaccine resources:

• State Vaccine Requirements
• Influenza Mini Guide Ebook
• Special Report: Influenza Vaccine Mandates Ineffective & Unwise
• Are You Over Vaccinating Your Child?
• Vaccine Ingredients Calculator
• How to Legally Avoid Immunizations

Stay tuned to this newsletter for more updates, or follow the National Vaccine Information Center on Facebook. Together we CAN make a difference!