On November 4, 2014, the website Medical Kidnap told the tragic story of four month-old Kathryn Hughes, who was stolen by Child Protective Services (CPS) after she suffered an adverse reaction to a vaccine.
Kathryn was a fragile baby, suffering from a wide range of complex medical needs. Born with Pierre Robin Sequence, a condition in which an infant has a smaller-than-normal lower jaw, a tongue that falls back in the throat and breathing difficulties, Kathryn certainly has had her fair share of problems.
Despite her daughter’s problems, Lorie, her mother, had always trusted the doctors and tried to do the best that she could for her daughter.
[adrotate banner=”9″]Baby is Vaccinated Without Her Mother’s Permission
Due to her own problems with vaccinations, Lorie requested when Kathryn was born that her daughter would only receive the vitamin K injection. Sadly, her requests were ignored and Kathryn was vaccinated with the hepatitis B vaccine. A few weeks later, Kathryn began suffering seizures, a common side effect of the vaccine. [1]
Medical Kidnap reported:
“On September 4, baby Kathryn had an ALTE (acute life threatening event) where she stopped breathing. Her family took her to the local hospital, where they airlifted her to UMC in Lubbock. That is where mother and baby would spend the next two weeks. It was determined that they would do surgery to insert a gbutton in order to insert a long-term feeding tube into her stomach. It would remain until she could have surgery to correct the cleft palate.” [2]
(Note: G-button or Gastrostomy Button is a tube placed directly into the stomach of a child who needs supplemental feeding or who has difficulty swallowing. This allows feeding to be given directly into the stomach.) [3]
The surgery went well, and despite the many tests, medications and wires, Kathryn remained a happy and secure little girl. However, despite her apparently happy disposition and the constant love and attention given to her by her mother, the reasons behind her seizures remained a mystery.
Before leaving the hospital, the nurses instructed Lorie how to give Kathryn the correct dosage of medications, via the G-button, and they returned home on Thursday, September 18.
Sadly, their happiness was short lived and just two days after returning home from the hospital Kathryn seizures returned and she was rushed back to the UMC.
Medical Kidnap stated:
“The next day, CPS and the staff at UMC informed Lorie that they were taking custody of Kathryn over the medical condition. She was only out of the hospital’s care for two days between September 4th and the 21st. Her mother had to beg to be able to at least say goodbye.
Lorie was stunned and devastated as they literally took baby Kathryn out of her arms, accusing her of not giving her the medications. She insists that she followed their instructions on how to give it to a T, detailing every step of the complicated process to me. The basis for the accusation was simply a test that showed that the level of phenobarbital in her bloodstream was 9.5 mg, but it should have been at least 10 mg.”
Since her kidnap by the CPS, the state of Texas has been trying to terminate all parental rights and they have reduced Lorie’s contact to just twice a month.
Lorie is reported to be distraught by their decision. On October 19, 2014, she wrote this heart-wrenching post on Facebook:
“Can’t sleep. Everyone is asleep but me and all I can think about is my baby girl. Just have this gut wrenching heart twisting feeling something is wrong … don’t know why but I just do. And I know she is crying extremely bad I can feel it in my breasts … still every cry and severity of cry I feel … and feel milk fill up … Even though there is very little milk left …
Miss her and love her so much and would do anything to comfort her and hold her skin to skin on my chest and let her listen and relax to my scent my touch the sound of my heartbeat!!!!
Please pray that she is okay! That God keeps his protecting arms wrapped around her and heals her!!!!!”
Sadly, Kathryn is now a ward of court and that doctors have asked the judge in her case to grant permission to vaccinate her fully, against her parents’ wishes, which, as we understand, also includes participation in an experimental ebola vaccine trial.
Given her medical conditions, I feel that her life is now in danger.
Did Kathryn’s mother fail to care for her daughter by failing to give her the medications prescribed as suggested, or was there something else behind Kathryn’s continued ill health and seizures?
What Really Happened to Baby Kathryn?
If we look at the history of this case, there is one detail that jumps out and that is the fact that Kathryn was vaccinated with the hepatitis B vaccine against her mother’s wishes. The hepatitis B vaccine can cause seizures.
In a lengthy report on the hepatitis B vaccination and possible adverse reactions, the Vaccination Liberation Army wrote:
“After many newborns died or suffered seizures, brain swelling and permanent brain damage following their hepatitis B injections, the dangers of the vaccine were brought to public attention by a documentary on ABC’s 20/20. Finally in July, 1999, the CDC reversed its ill-advised mandate on giving the hepatitis B vaccine to newborns.. Nevertheless, despite a decade of problems, and virtually no clinical control studies proving safety or efficacy, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices once again recommends in its 2002 immunization schedule that newborns be injected with the hepatitis B vaccine.” [3]
Their paper is full of facts and includes information written by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS).
In 2000, the AAPS became concerned that children were being vaccinated with too many mandated vaccines that they felt were unnecessary. One of the vaccines mentioned in their report was the hepatitis B vaccine. They wrote:
“’Our children face the possibility of death or serious long-term adverse effects from mandated vaccines that aren’t necessary or that have very limited benefits,’ said Jane M. Orient, MD, AAPS Executive Director.
‘This is not a vote against vaccines,’ said Dr. Orient. ‘This resolution only attempts to halt blanket vaccine mandates by government agencies and school districts that give no consideration for the rights of the parents or the individual medical condition of the child.’
Forty-two states have mandatory vaccine policies, and many children are required to have 22 shots before first grade. On top of that, as a condition for school attendance, many school districts require vaccination for diseases such as hepatitis B — primarily an adult disease, usually spread by multiple sex partners, drug abuse or an occupation with exposure to blood.”
They continued:
“And yet, children under the age of 14 are three times more likely to suffer adverse effects — including death — following the hepatitis b vaccine than to catch the disease itself.” [4]
Their report had little effect.
CDC Called Liars For Stating That the Hepatitis B Vaccine is Safe
In 1999, obviously shocked by what he had discovered, Michael Belkin, a former quantitative strategist at Salomon Brothers and Director of the Hepatitis B Vaccine Project of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) wrote:
“The NVIC has studied Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act covering the last nine years on hepatitis B vaccine adverse events — and in 1996 there were more than three times as many reported serious adverse reactions as reported cases of the disease in the 0 to 14 age group. Of the total 2,424 adverse event reports made between 1990 and October 1998 in children under age 14 who only received hepatitis B vaccine, there were 1,209 serious events and 73 deaths. Thus, one half of the reports for children under age 14 who received only hepatitis B vaccine were for serious events that required an emergency room visit, hospitalization, or caused life-threatening health problems or permanent disabilities.
As a UC Berkeley graduate and advisor to some of the largest financial institutions in the world, I am qualified to analyze and make conclusions about statistics. Based on that experience, I am astonished that the scientists on this Committee would disregard or cover up data showing the number and severity of adverse reactions to this vaccine. Science is observing and learning from what is observed. The assertions of the CDC that the many reported adverse reactions to this vaccine do not exist or are a coincidence violates the basic principle of science, which is rooted in the observation and analysis of data.”
Mr. Belkin concluded by stating:
“At the NVIC, we are overwhelmed following up constant new reports of deaths, seizures and autoimmune reactions following hepatitis B vaccination. Because the CDC refuses to acknowledge this large number of serious adverse reactions, hospitals and doctors who have been misled about the risks continue to administer the vaccine and then deny any vaccine connection when children die, get ill or have seizures within hours or days. CDC officials tell parents they have never heard of hepatitis B vaccine reactions.
That is a lie. For this government to continue to insist that hepatitis B vaccine adverse reaction reports do not exist is negligent, unethical — and is a crime against the children of America. It is a sad day for the US when the nation’s children need protection from the official medical authorities who are charged with protecting them from disease.” [5]
Yet Another Professional Speaks Out
Registered nurse Patti White became so concerned over the growing number of babies and young children being damaged by the hepatitis B vaccination, she wrote a letter to the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources of the Committee on Government Reform, U.S. House of Representatives, asking them to reconsider their decision to vaccinate newborns with the hepatitis B vaccine. She wrote:
“For the past three or four years our school district has noted a significant increase in the number of children entering school with developmental disorders, learning disabilities, attention deficit disorders and/or serious chronic illness such as diabetes, asthma and seizure disorders. Each of the past four years has been worse than the year before. There is only one common thread we have been able to identify in these children: they are the children who received the first trial hepatitis B injections as newborns in the early 1990s.”
She continued by adding the following two very powerful and worrying paragraphs:
“As the hepatitis B compliance rate in newborns has gone up in our community, so has the percentage of damaged children. This is very alarming. Because of having so many damaged children we have tried to find the long-term clinical trials that ruled this vaccine “safe and effective”. We discovered through an exhaustive Medline search that the FDA based its decision to approve hepatitis B vaccine for administration in the first hours of a newborn baby’s life upon clinical trials and upon post-marketing surveillance studies in which patients and their doctors were asked to report any adverse effects they noticed within 4-5 days after each injection [4 days for SmithKline, 5 days for Merck].
The problems being reported in increasing numbers as occurring after hepatitis B vaccination appear to be autoimmune and neurological in origin. Such problems take weeks to months to produce noticeable symptoms, and cannot be spotted in a 4-5 day observation period. These are the only clinical studies that have been done by Merck or SmithKline. There is not one long-term study that we could find.”
In other words, she believed that the vaccine damage suffered by these children fell into two categories: it was either autoimmune or neurological in origin, and, through its very nature, was unlikely to show up for several weeks or months after the vaccination.
Nurse White continued with possibly one of most damning and worrying paragraphs in her letter. She wrote:
“The CDC and FDA have no idea what the long-term effects will be on the newly developing neurological and immune systems of the infants who are injected with this vaccine. They seem to only be concerned with denying the connection between these damaged children and the hepatitis B shot they received within a few hours of birth. The CDC even admits the lack of study and states they do not even know how long the vaccine will be effective. We found this amazing since the vaccine was developed for a population at risk for hepatitis B: IV drug users, high-risk medical professionals and those who are involved in high risk sexual practices.” [6]
If White’s statement is true, and there is no reason to suggest that it is not, there is evidence to suggest that new born babies are being vaccinated with a vaccine that has not been fully tested for its safety or its long-term efficacy.
Looking back at the number of professionals raising concerns over this vaccine, one has to wonder whether or not Kathryn should have been vaccinated in the first place. After all, Kathryn had already had her fair share of medical problems and a mother who had reacted adversely to vaccinations.
Conclusion
For many years, I have been writing about such cases. There are now a growing number of parents who have been falsely accused of harming their vaccine-damaged children. Sadly, this case is yet another example.
Loving, caring parents are having their children taken away from them because the majority of health care professionals and social workers are burying their heads in the sand and choosing to ignore the fact that no vaccine or medication is one hundred percent safe. All vaccines have the potential to cause adverse reactions.
When you have such groups as the AAPS stating, “And yet, children under the age of 14 are three times more likely to suffer adverse effects — including death — following the hepatitis b vaccine than to catch the disease itself,” you have to wonder what on earth is going on.
This story highlights the need for reform and the need for change. It is highly unlikely that this mother harmed her baby, and in my opinion, this baby should be returned to her mother as soon as possible.
[feature_box style=”8″ only_advanced=”There%20are%20no%20title%20options%20for%20the%20choosen%20style” alignment=”center”] If readers would like to help Baby Kathryn be returned to her mother, her family has found a competent lawyer and they need to raise $20,000. Please see the GoFundMe campaign titled Bring Baby Kathryn Home and consider giving as generously as you are able.You can also like and share the Facebook page Bring Baby Kathryn Home or follow Kathryn’s story on Twitter.
Please sign the petition asking Governor Rick Perry and Governor-Elect Greg Abbott to intervene on Baby Kathryn’s behalf.
[/feature_box][feature_box style=”17″ title=”%20References” alignment=”center”]
- http://medicalkidnap.com/2014/10/22/4-month-old-texas-baby-seized-from-parents-in-medical-dispute/
- http://iuhealth.org/riley/gastroenterology-hepatology-nutrition/gastroenterology-services/g-tube-g-button/
- http://www.vaclib.org/intro/hepbinfo.htm
- http://www.aapsonline.org/press/nrvacres.htm
- http://www.nvic.org/vaccines-and-diseases/Hepatitis-B/michaelbelkin.aspx
- http://www.health101.org/art_vaccination2.htm