Dear Governor Brown,

My name is Caitlan, and I have an 11-month-old daughter, Maggie. Prior to my career as a stay at home Mom, I worked in the financial sector for over ten years. I am the type of person that eats as much organic and unprocessed food as I can, I do yoga and Pilates every day, and I lean toward acupuncture and herbs for non-medical emergencies.

I moved toward this “natural” lifestyle in my late 20s when I was having trouble sleeping. I went to my General Practitioner who proposed putting me on a low dose of Paxil. Instead of putting a Band-Aid on the problem and embarking on a lifetime of pharmaceutical dependency, I turned to acupuncture.

Within a week, I was sleeping fine. Though I loved and trusted my GP, I am a person who does my homework and asks questions. When a doctor tells me I should do something, I do not just blindly follow.

Early in my pregnancy I set the intention to deliver my baby naturally and drug free. To the surprise of every nurse in the hospital’s labor & delivery unit, I did it. I am 11 months into nursing my baby, and have been feeding her homemade organic baby food for the past five months. Now, I’m not some air-headed hippie Mom. I prefer Chanel to patchouli, and the BBC to Bravo, but I will take Chinese herbs over Advil any day.

I like to believe I am an informed and intelligent person. I took my pregnancy seriously and researched what would happen when the baby was born. The vaccine issue had never occurred to me. I was fully on board with the benefits of vaccines and never once considered the downside. When I heard that my perfectly healthy newborn was to be injected with a Hepatitis B vaccine within 12 hours of life, a red flag went up immediately. I began voraciously learning about the vaccines and have spent well over 1,000 hours on this.

When I told my husband about my vaccine concerns, he laughed at first. I then asked him, what’s so bad about the measles? Our parents all had it. He began the research and found that it occurs as a runny nose, and a rash in most people. We started the discussion and began looking at the seriousness of each diseases, the likelihood of contracting them versus the need to inject our baby with the neurotoxins, heavy metals, and other nasty ingredients like aborted fetal tissue, on the vaccine schedule.

Please trust me when I tell you how much this research has consumed me, how we’ve had to suffer with family members and friends that question our sanity, and how heavy the choice has weighed on us. I am not saying we will never vaccinate her. I am saying we are not on board with the current schedule of 49 doses by the age of 5 years old and I believe we have done the right thing for our baby by questioning, and delaying. I am justifiably scared of SB 277, which seeks to remove our rights.

While I can only hope the lawmakers pushing this policy are doing these things in the name of public health, and I’m happy that they have our “best interest” in mind, these efforts are a sacrifice of my liberties. While I am very happy for every parent and grandparent whose children never suffered from the adverse effects from vaccines, I strongly believe they would have a different opinion as to the safety of these pharmaceutical wonder drugs, had one of them been the unfortunate sacrificial lamb suffering for the “Greater Good.”

Governor Brown, I’m sure you recognize that children today are subject to no less than 3 times as many vaccines as the previous generation. Parents today are facing a much more significant question about vaccines than parents 30 years ago were facing.

Something is broken, Governor Brown. Our children have never been sicker, and our requirement for vaccines has never been higher. I understand correlation doesn’t equal causation, but please point me to a study that shows the benefit of heavy metal exposure on the human body. Children in the U.S. are fraught with auto-immune diseases, deadly allergies, asthma, eczema, perpetual ear infections, and childhood cancers. Autism rates are staggeringly high (1 in 68).

According to the CDC, our infant mortality rate is higher than any of the other 27 first world countries! This wasn’t the case 30 years ago. Don’t you think we should figure out what is happening to our babies? I personally know four people that have lost their baby to SIDS. Is that normal?

While frightening facts like “28 percent of children younger than the age of 5 who contracted measles in the United States between 2001 and 2013 had to be hospitalized. Measles can cause pneumonia, lifelong brain damage, deafness, and death,” flood the media, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) data, 0 deaths have occurred resulting from the wild measles in the last ten years.

Meanwhile, according to data from the Vaccine Adverse Effect Reporting System (VAERS), a government-run program, over 100 deaths have occurred from the MMR vaccine. Any day of the week, I’d prefer to be “hospitalized” than die, or begin a lifetime of suffering a debilitating auto immune disease.

You probably had the measles as a child, did you not? I’m sure you did, everyone did. According to the public records, there were 3 deaths out of 10,000,000 cases in 1955, prior to the start of the measles mass vaccination campaign. (Source: MWR. Achievements in Public Health, 1900-1999 Impact of Vaccines Universally Recommended for Children - - United States, 1990-1998. April 02, 1999 / 48(12); 243-248.)

While the lawmakers backing this bill deem it in the interest of public safety and to protect the weakest members of the herd, with rhetoric like “Measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases can also be devastating to unimmunized children, such as infants who are too young to be immunized and children who are medically unable to be vaccinated because of cancer treatment or a weakened immune system,” according to St. Jude’s Hospital Inpatient visiting guidelines, the recently vaccinated are the real danger to children with cancer and weakened immune system as they walk around asymptomatic, shedding the virus.

A common cold is also a serious threat to an immunocomprised person, as is the asymptomatic person strolling out of Walmart loaded up on vaccines.

The mainstream media loves to state that science has conclusively and repeatedly found that vaccines are safe for the overwhelming majority, but this is simply not true! Never has a true independent, double-blind placebo study been performed on the safety of vaccines.

Currently, the vaccines are not tested against placebos; they are tested against aluminum -- or other vaccines! These studies are often funded and published by companies like the Lewin Group, a consulting firm that lists major vaccine manufacturers as clients. As you know, this is not how scientific studies are to be performed. The science is not in, Governor Brown!

As I’m sure you’re aware, since 1986, vaccine manufacturers have been immune from liability in the United States and victims of vaccine injury must file with the VAERS system in attempt to be compensated through the federal program. Despite the lengthy and arduous process, the government has paid out over $3 Billion to the vaccine injured.

The payment for death is $250,000. Do you think that would suffice to comfort you if your baby was the unfortunate statistic? SIDS is the usual suspect. Who knows how many infants have been sacrificed for the “greater good” with their unsuspecting parents not knowing that their infant had actually died from toxicity caused by vaccination.

My life would be easier if I simply agreed with statements like this from Senator Feinstein: “[P]ersonal beliefs about vaccines should not supersede public safety and the need to protect against these serious and potentially deadly diseases.”

However, I have found flaws in the way these studies are conducted, the way they are refuted, and the science that is handed down in order to make policy.

The disgraced Andrew Wakefield and his retracted article in the Lancet, are often referred to as proof positive that this is a case-closed issue. I’m sure you are aware that the manufacturer of the MMR vaccine, Merck, is currently facing federal court due to falsifying their data as to the efficacy of the Mumps vaccine.

You probably also heard that the Italian courts just determined that there is indeed a link between MMR and autism. You probably heard of the whistle-blowers from the CDC that came forward with the cover up of the MMR study showing 300% increase in autism in African-American boys. You’re probably aware of another vaccine manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline, recently settling with the Chinese government to the tune of $500 million for bribery and falsifying data.

Please consider how certain you are that vaccine manufacturers are acting in the best interest of public health? If vaccines are so good and so safe, why did our government have to create an unconstitutional protection for drug companies? Why are they immune from liability? Why do we have to spend taxpayer dollars to pay out unfortunate victims, meanwhile the pharmaceutical companies are raking in billions of dollars a year off of vaccines? If the vaccine is so effective, why do vaccinated people get the measles, the whooping cough, the flu? If the drugs are so effective, and the companies are so wonderful, why are billion-dollar lawsuits being rewarded?

Please ask yourself before casting your deciding vote, am I sacrificing the people’s liberty for a real threat? Do you really know better than me what is best for my child? There is no reason for us to be blindly supportive of the vaccine initiative.

I understand that this is a tough position for you to be in, but that doesn’t waive your responsibility to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, to which you swore an oath. You are in a position to make a unique and lasting change to protect our children, and the way to do this is to demand answers, not force these unsafe, untested, pharmaceutical drugs on our children.

We are all worried about making the right decisions for the protection of our children. Governor Brown, you were always the champion of a women’s right to choose. There should be NO disconnect on this issue. Women should not only have the right to choose, we should have the right to protect our children once they are born!

My understanding is that the Democratic Party is the party that champions itself as being a protector of individual rights and liberty. I ask you to look at this issue through those eyes. Removing the philosophical and religious exemptions to vaccines is akin to declaring martial law. Do you really want to be imposing a medical police state over cold and flu-like symptoms?

I know you are a highly educated, and thoughtful man. Please think about this! Again, I truly appreciate you taking the time to write me on behalf of this issue and welcome any response.

Sincerely,

Caitlan Sullivan

Photo Credit: Adam Gregor / shutterstock.com