PRESS RELEASE: 14 March 2001
Contacts: Barbara Alexander Mullarkey: 708-848-0116
Mary Gorski: 708-442-5915
Connie Roux: 217-355-6506

State Board of Health meeting: Thursday, March 15, 2001, 11:00 am, 525 Jefferson, 1st Floor Training Room, Springfield

Re: "Illinois State Board of Health's Immunization Public Hearing Held in Carterville (August 22, 2000) Chicago (September 14, 2000) and Springfield (October 5, 2000)" Executive Summary by Dianne Rucinski, Ph.D., Health Policy Center, University of Illinois at Chicago

This summary stated the following opponents' views:

• Chickenpox disease is a mild, childhood illness, rarely leading to complications and threat of serious complications is insufficient to justify government intervention; vaccine's risks outweighs disease risks;
  
• Right and responsibility of parent over the state to determine vaccination because parents bear vaccinations' consequences
  
• Objection to mandatory chickenpox vaccination; mandatory vaccination would push chickenpox virus into adults
  
• Vaccine's effectiveness not established through peer-reviewed, published research but through vaccine manufacturer funding;
  
• Vaccinated children getting chickenpox;
  
• Vaccine's fetal tissue would cause parents to go against their ethical and moral principles;
  
• Process for medical or religious exemption arduous and demeaning; need for philosophical exemption;
  
• Doctors' lack of reporting vaccines' adverse reactions;
  
• Financial conflicts of interest of Illinois Immunization Advisory Committee members.

IVAC spokeswoman, Barbara Alexander Mullarkey, says, "Opponents views are clearly and accurately stated. Omitted subject is lack of peer-reviewed, published safety studies on ingredients and long-term vaccine effects. IVAC is troubled by the statement, 'Another key issue is whether parents who decline to have their own children immunized have the right to put other children at potential risk for illness in school and day care settings.'"

"Before parents can debate this onerous issue, public health officials need to determine: How many vaccinated children transmit the disease, for which they are vaccinated, to unvaccinated children? How many vaccinated children get the disease for which they are vaccinated? Why do vaccines fail to prevent disease in vaccinated children?"

"From 1995 to March 6, 2001, the federal government received reports of 12,635 adverse reactions to the chickenpox vaccine, 31 deaths and 590 serious complications. This is the tip of the iceberg since 99 percent of serious drug reactions go unreported to the Food and Drug Administration."