Imagine getting a routine flu shot — one that our government has spent billions trying to convince you is safe.
Before long, you start to lose feeling in your arms and legs. Within days you’re left paralyzed and on a ventilator, unable to breathe on your own.
That’s exactly what happened to dozens of people who have been handed millions over the past several months by the federal National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), which pays settlements to vaccine victims.
There’s a good chance you haven’t heard a thing about it — which is exactly what our government wants. Because the feds have quietly erased information from the VICP website about vaccine injury settlements over the past 15 months.
The fact that our government is censoring vital information about the health risks of vaccines is frightening enough — but the reason why may be worse.
Because before the VICP website went dark, vaccine injury cases were skyrocketing. And it turns out our government may be concealing an outbreak of a dangerous condition linked to one of the most popular vaccines on the planet.
Missing in action
The feds may be trying to hide information. But when the data on the VICP website was erased a few months ago, they should have known that they can’t hide the truth.
Over the last year and a half, the number of victims compensated for flu-shot injuries was more than twice the number paid during the previous eight years. And a shocking number of those cases involved patients who developed a devastating condition called Guillain-Barre syndrome, or GBS.
GBS attacks part of the peripheral nervous system, and leaves many of its victims paralyzed and unable to breathe independently.
We’ve been told by the National Institutes of Health that GBS is an extremely rare vaccine side effect. Supposedly, only around one person in 100,000 will ever develop GBS.
But the VICP data told a very different story. Compensation for a whopping 50 cases — two of them fatal — was paid out by the VICP between mid-November, 2014 and mid-February of 2015. One of those multi-million dollar settlements involved Sarah Behie, a 20-year-old nurse’s aide who was left paralyzed and living in nursing homes after a flu shot gave her GBS.
Nearly 90 percent of GBS cases settled by the VICP program were linked to flu shots, and those claims were among 117 paid out for vaccine injuries or deaths during those three brief months.
And, of course, it was shortly after this uptick in claims that the VICP removed current data from its website and stopped updating it monthly, as it had in the past.
It’s the kind of secrecy you’d expect out of the CIA, not a federal program that’s supposed to protect our health. And the move seems more designed to protect Uncle Sam’s pocketbook… and reputation… than your health.
You see, in 1986 Congress passed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act. It shielded vaccine makers from lawsuits and set up the VICP to rule on claims for injuries and deaths resulting from vaccinations.
And since VICP started officially operating in 1989, it’s paid roughly 4,000 claims to the tune of an estimated $3 billion.
What those payments mean is something that both health officials and drug companies have tried to downplay and even deny. That vaccinations have definite and often serious health risks.
In fact, federal health officials are so intent on hiding the health problems associated with vaccines (especially government darlings like the flu vaccine) that they make life hell for people who try to submit claims through VICP.
“The government bitterly contests these cases,” said David Carney, Sarah Behie’s attorney. The process takes years and many people give up, which is exactly what our government wants.
The feds don’t want us to know about an increase in vaccine-linked illnesses like GBS, because awareness could lead to even more claims coming out of the woodwork. And there’s little doubt that’s the reason VICP is working so hard to avoid reporting information on recent vaccine victims and settlements.
Fortunately, for now, some vaccine claim numbers can still be found buried in reports issued by the Department of Justice. And I’m going to keep bringing you those numbers — and the faces behind them — for as long as I can.
Because with their own data showing a tremendous spike in a condition as supposedly rare as GBS, our government’s assurances that these shots are perfectly safe sounds as phony as a lead nickel.
Sources:
“Government wipes recent vaccine injury data from website” Sharyl Attkisson, May 31, 2015, sharylattkisson.com
“Advisory Commission on Childhood Vaccines” March 5, 2015, hrsa.gov
“Lehigh County woman paralyzed after flu shot wins $11.6 million for treatment” Peter Hall, The Morning Call, articles.mcall.com