Drug dealers selling lettuce, surely not!! As most of you know, I wouldn't even recommend eating the stuff as its of little benefit and may cause more harm then good. Yet it seems it contain psychoactive compounds, maybe thats its allure for salad fans.

The stems of lettuce plants ooze a milky juice when cut which is similar in which is similar in taste and appearance to opium. The ancient Egyptians used it and it was allegedly listed in the Pharmacopeia of the United States of America until 1916.

It remained popular throughout the 19th century but nowadays, other than a brief stint in the mid-1970s, lettuce opium as a legal mind-altering drug by the hippie movement its largely unused except by the herbal industry.

For those of you fancying a little "trip" into the unknown the journal Science states that lettuce contains 2 to 10 parts of morphine per billion. Which means that with a usual therapeutic dose of morphine being 0.5 to 50 parts per thousand (a million times more), that you'd need a lot of lettuce!

Firstly lets start with a definition of colic, it is a condition in which an otherwise healthy baby cries or displays symptoms of distress. Epidemiology suggests that various foods such as chocolate, onions, the dreaded broccoli and cabbage amongst other foods.

The crying often increases during a specific period of the day, particularly the early evening possibly due to most people eating the largest meal to late in the day when the digestive system is at its weakest (yours and the babies).

Like most things in life we prefer to find a pharmaceutical "cure" rather than track down the problem and eliminate it. Nowadays Infacol is king in the colic business, the oral suspension contains the active ingredient simeticone, which is a type of medicine called an 'anti-foaming agent. Like many medicines sold to the unsuspecting public it is touted as safe with no risk. I've posted in the past about the dodgy ingredients that have a number of side effects individually have numerous side effects yet according to the manufacturers have none when they are mixed ready to be used on children.

Should we trust the pharmaceutical companies that sell us products? Ideally no, one should look beyond masking the symptoms and try investigating the problems. One of my issues with drug companies is that they frequently claim things are safe, then bring out a new version when the old one racks up too many complaints (try investigating vaccinations). Just because something is claimed to be "safe" now, does not mean it will be in 5 years time. Think back, smoking was once sold as an asthma treatment.

Back in Victorian times (my favourite era) Godfrey Cordial was a patent medicine (don't want people copying the magic do we) given to children suffering colic. The recipe was sassafras, opium, brandy/rectified spirit, caraway seed, and treacle. There were various different preparations taking the Godfrey name.

Often referred to as "quietness" as they used it to drug their children into sleeping through the night was an acceptable way to avoid missing work. Godfrey's mixture of morphine and treacle had a tendency to separate after time, with the morphine sinking to the bottom. Sold out of large jugs so the purchaser of the final few doses from the jug invariably got straight morphine. 

Eventually medical officers became convinced that a major causes of infant mortality was the practice of children being dosed on narcotics such as opium. Local to me in Nottingham a druggist (wouldn't it be better if they were still called that nowadays), sold four hundred gallons of laudanum annually. In the Fenlands (Eastern UK) 'poppy tea' containing opium was popular and doctors reported how 'infants were wasted from it'.

As it still tends to nowadays opium killed far more through starvation than directly through overdose. Dr. Greenhow, investigating for the Privy Council, noted how children 'kept in a state of continued narcotism will be thereby disinclined for food, and be but imperfectly nourished.' Marasmus, or inanition, and death from severe malnutrition would result, but the coroner was likely to record the death as 'debility from birth,' or 'lack of breast milk,' or simply 'starvation.'

Will Infacol become the new Godfrey Cordial that some blogger is posting about in a few centuries? Probably not but their is a lesson to be learned, do not trust that a chemical concoction is safe and always investigate other possibilities. And be aware that any possible problems will no doubt be linked to anything but the drug.

Check the video below for a little experiment that shows just how harsh Infacol may be for little ones insides.

References

Wohl, Anthony S. Endangered Lives: Public Health in Victorian Britain. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1983. pp. 34-35.

In Victorian times a complete lack of regulation meant that the medical profession had a huge range of abilities and practices, many were highly dubious. Many apothecaries, supplied, prescribed and sold the drugs. Many of these drugs were deadly and contained poisons such as arsenic. A lot of the drugs had no proven efficacy as medical research didn't really happen.

Although a lot has changed we're still in a similar position, although we have regulation, their is no doubt that the pharmacutical industry has deep pockets meaning we may as well have no regulation. The medical profession still has a huge range of abilities and practices, many are highly dubious (statins, chemotherapy etc). Pharmacutical companies supply the drugs, they pay huge bonuses to Doctor's who prescribed and sell the drugs. Many of the drugs are still deadly and contain toxic poison's such as mercury. A lot of the drugs such as vaccines have no proven efficacy as medical research usually paves a path to profit.

Turns out we've not really left Victorian Britain after all...

Warranty of Vaccine Safety

I ___________________ ,GP Nurse, Medical Practitioner,

Degree _________________________, am licensed as a medical practitioner (GP, Nurse etc) in the United Kingdom.

I have a thorough understanding of the risks and benefits of all the medications that I prescribe for or administer to my patients.

In the case of (Patient's name) ___________________________ , age _________ , whom I have examined, I find that certain risk factors exist that justify the recommended vaccinations. The following is a list of said risk factors and the vaccinations that will protect against them:

Risk Factor ____________________________________________ 
Vaccination ___________________________________________ 
Risk Factor ____________________________________________ 
Vaccination ___________________________________________ 
Risk Factor ____________________________________________ 
Vaccination ___________________________________________ 
Risk Factor ____________________________________________ 
Vaccination ___________________________________________ 
Risk Factor ____________________________________________ 
Vaccination ___________________________________________ 
Risk Factor ____________________________________________ 
Vaccination ___________________________________________

I am aware that vaccines typically contain many of the following fillers:

* aluminum hydroxide * aluminum phosphate * ammonium sulfate
* amphotericin B

* animal tissues: pig blood, horse blood, rabbit brain, * dog kidney, monkey kidney,
* chick embryo, chicken egg, duck egg
* calf (bovine) serum

* betapropiolactone * fetal bovine serum * formaldehyde
* formalin

* gelatin
* glycerol
* human diploid cells (originating from human aborted fetal tissue) * hydrolized gelatin
* mercury thimerosol (thimerosal, Merthiolate(r))
* monosodium glutamate (MSG)
* neomycin
* neomycin sulfate
* phenol red indicator
* phenoxyethanol (antifreeze)

* potassium diphosphate
* potassium monophosphate
* polymyxin B
* polysorbate 20
* polysorbate 80
* porcine (pig) pancreatic hydrolysate of casein
* residual MRC5 proteins
* sorbitol
* tri(n)butylphosphate,
* VERO cells, a continuous line of monkey kidney cells, and * washed sheep red blood amongst others.

I hereby, warrant that these ingredients are safe for injection into the body of my patient. I have researched reports to the contrary, such as reports that mercury thimerosol causes severe neurological and immunological damage, and find that they are not credible.

I am aware that some vaccines have been found to have been contaminated with Simian Virus 40 (SV 40) and that SV 40 is causally linked by some researchers to non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and mesotheliomas in humans as well as in experimental animals.

I hereby warrant that the vaccines I employ in my practice do not contain SV 40 or any other live viruses. (Alternately, I hereby warrant that said SV-40 virus or other viruses pose no substantive risk to my patient.)

I hereby warrant that the vaccines I am recommending for the care of (Patient's name) _______________ _______________________ do not contain any tissue from aborted human babies (also known as "fetuses").

In order to protect my patient's well being, I have taken the following steps to guarantee that the vaccines I will use will contain no damaging contaminants.

STEPS TAKEN: ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I have personally investigated the reports made to the VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System) and state that it is my professional opinion that the vaccines I am recommending are safe for administration to a child under the age of 5 years.

The bases for my opinion are itemised and will be attached in Appendix A (Physician's Bases for Professional Opinion of Vaccine Safety). Please name each recommended vaccine separately along with the bases for arriving at the conclusion that the vaccine is safe for administration to a child under the age of 5 years.

The professional journal articles I have relied upon in the issuance of this Warranty of Vaccine Safety are itemised in attached Appendix B, (Scientific Articles in Support of Warranty of Vaccine Safety).

The professional journal articles that I have read which contain opinions adverse to my opinion are itemised in Appendix C, (Scientific Articles Contrary to Physician's Opinion of Vaccine Safety).

The reasons for my determining that the articles in Appendix C were invalid are delineated in Appendix D,  (Physician's Reasons for Determining the Invalidity of Adverse Scientific Opinions).

Hepatitis B

I understand that 60 percent of patients who are vaccinated for Hepatitis B will lose detectable antibodies to Hepatitis B within 12 years. I understand that in 1996 only 54 cases of Hepatitis B were reported to the CDC in the 0-1 year age group. I understand that in the VAERS, there were 1,080 total reports of adverse reactions from Hepatitis B vaccine in 1996 in the 0-1 year age group, with 47 deaths reported.

I understand that 50 percent of patients who contract Hepatitis B develop no symptoms after exposure. I understand that 30 percent will develop only flu-like symptoms and will have lifetime immunity. I understand that 20 percent will develop the symptoms of the disease, but that 95 percent will fully recover and have lifetime immunity.

I understand that 5 percent of the patients who are exposed to Hepatitis B will become chronic carriers of the disease. I understand that 75 percent of the chronic carriers will live with an asymptomatic infection and that only 25 percent of the chronic carriers will develop chronic liver disease or liver cancer, 10-30 years after the acute infection. The following scientific studies have been performed to demonstrate the safety of the Hepatitis B vaccine in children under the age of 5 years. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

In addition to the recommended vaccinations as protections against the above cited risk factors, I have recommended other non-vaccine measures to protect the health of my patient and have enumerated said non-vaccine measures in Appendix E, (Non-vaccine Measures to Protect Against Risk Factors).

 I am issuing this Warranty of Vaccine Safety in my professional capacity as the Medical Practitioner to (Patient's name) _________________________.

Regardless of the legal entity under which I normally practice medicine, I am issuing this statement in both my business and individual capacities and hereby waive any statutory, Common Law, International Treaty, and any other Legal Immunity from liability.

_______________________ (Medical Practitioner Signature)

_______________________ (Medical Practitioner Name)

_______________________ (Date)

_______________________ (Patient or Legal Guardian Signature)

by Barbara Loe Fisher

Memorial Day is for remembering those, who have fought and died to defend America and preserve our civil liberties, including freedom of thought, speech, religious belief and conscience. So every Memorial Day I remember the children, who have died after receiving state mandated vaccines, and honor their mothers and fathers, who grieve for them.

Death Has Always Been a Vaccine Complication

From the first human vaccines developed two centuries ago, smallpox and rabies vaccines, death has always been a complication of vaccination.1 2 In 1933, the whole cell pertussis vaccine's ability to kill without warning was first reported in the medical literature when two infants died within minutes of a pertussis shot.3 In 1946, American doctors detailed the sudden deaths of twins within 24 hours of their second diphtheria-pertussis shot.4 In 1986, the U.S. Congress passed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act and has awarded over $2 billion dollars in compensation for deaths and injuries caused by vaccines.5

U.S. Infant Mortality Rate High

According to the most recent National Vital Statistics Report, more than 26,000 American babies born alive in 2009 died before their first birthday, which gives the U.S. a very high infant mortality rate of 6 infant deaths per 1,000 live births.6 In 1960, America ranked 12th in infant mortality among all nations of the world. In 2005, we had fallen to number 30. Today in America, there are more premature babies than ever before and more full term babies die before their first birthday than in most European countries.7

Some people argue that not every country calculates their infant mortality statistics the same way, which artificially inflates the poor ranking for the U.S.8 Even if adjustments would boost the U.S. ranking up several notches, there can be no question that a nation, which spends more per capita on healthcare 9 and legally requires their children to get more vaccines than any other country, should have one of the best – not one of the worst – infant mortality rates, especially for healthy babies born full term.

New Study: More Vaccines = Higher Infant Mortality Rate

Now there is a new study published in a peer reviewed medical journal that NVIC has helped to make publicly accessible to everyone, which reveals that developed nations with poor infant mortality rates, like the U.S., tend to give their infants more doses of vaccines before age one.10 The study's authors found "a high statistically significant correlation between increasing numbers of vaccine doses and increasing infant mortality rates." To put this into perspective, doctors give American babies 26 doses of vaccines before age one, which is twice as many vaccinations as babies in Sweden and Japan get.

Is it really just a "coincidence" that the infant mortality rate is twice as high in America compared to Sweden and Japan, where half as many vaccinations are given to very young babies?

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and Vaccination

A mother and father's worst nightmare is to watch their baby die before reaching their first birthday. When a healthy baby dies unexpectedly shortly after routine vaccinations, often parents ask legitimate questions about whether the vaccines did it. They are usually met with quick denials by doctors and public health officials anxious to defend the safety of vaccines.

The death certificates of many babies, who die shortly after vaccination, list Sudden Infant Death Syndrome or SIDS as the cause of death, which means that no specific symptoms or other reason for death could be found.11 That was true in the 1980s, when I was interviewing parents of babies, who died suddenly after DPT shots, for the 1985 book DPT: A Shot in the Dark,12 which Dr. Harris Coulter and I wrote at a time when SIDS – a newly created medical term - was becoming the leading cause of infant mortality in the U.S 13

Vaccine Deaths Described in 1985 Book

What I found and detailed in our book is that most babies dying after DPT shots were not found dead in their cribs without any symptoms before they died. They were dying after suffering plenty of vaccine reaction symptoms within days of their DPT shot, symptoms like high fever; sudden collapse; hours of persistent crying or high pitched screaming with arching of the back that can be a sign of brain inflammation; severe diarrhea; redness, swelling and pain at the injection site and signs of seizures that too many pediatricians were blowing off as unimportant. Other babies, who received several DPT shots, were described by their mothers as suffering a progressive mental and physical deterioration that got worse after each shot before the baby was found dead in the crib.

Inconvenient Truth: More Full Term Babies Dying in America

Several studies in the 1980s showed an association between infant death and DPT vaccinations.14 15 Today, it is thought that genetic and environmental risk factors combine to leave SIDS babies with signs of petechial hemorrhages, lung congestion and brainstem and neurotransmitter dysfunction.16 Most doctors continue to deny that vaccination is a risk factor for SIDS17 and say that SIDS has declined since pediatricians launched a national campaign in the 1990s to put babies on their backs to sleep,18 but others point out that the only reason SIDS death statistics have gone down is because, today, fewer infant deaths are labeled "SIDS" by doctors and coroners.19

The inconvenient truth remains that the numbers of pre-term births continues to increase in America and there are more full-term babies dying before their first birthday than in most developed nations of the world. 20

Half of U.S. Children Chronically Ill

Health officials have no explanation for this horrible child death statistic. They also have no explanation for the fact that, today, an estimated 43 to 54 percent of all American children suffer with at least one chronic illness requiring health insurance reimbursement, including a staggering 26 percent of children under age six years at high risk for developmental, social or behavioral delays.21 Government officials now admit that, In the past decade, developmental disabilities among American children has increased by a whopping 17 percent and is led by a rise in autism and ADHD.22 23

American Children Used To Be Healthier

This is not the way it used to be in America when I was growing up in the 1950s and early 1960s. Back then, women were not getting vaccinated during pregnancy 24 and there were only a few vaccines given to babies25 and there were few children suffering with learning disabilities, ADHD, autism, asthma and severe allergies,26 27 diabetes,28 29 bi-polar disorders30 and taking a cocktail of prescription medications.31 And the U.S. was ranked number 12 among all nations in infant mortality, not near the bottom of the list.

Child Health Report Card: F

This is not a very good health report card for a nation that, in the last 50 years, has paid tens of trillions of dollars to the pharmaceutical industry, public health agencies and pediatricians telling us to trust their advice about how to keep our children healthy. More health insurance and more "medical homes" will not turn F's into A's on that bad health report card.

May 1986: Parents Reported Vaccine Infant Deaths to CDC

Exactly 25 years ago, in May 1986, I joined with mothers and fathers, whose babies died after DPT shots, and gave a presentation to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. We told physician members of the CDC's vaccine policymaking committee, who wanted state legislators to strictly enforce laws legally requiring children to get 23 doses of 7 vaccines starting at two months through age six, that doctors did not really know how many children were dying after vaccination. You can read the transcript of that 1986 CDC meeting32 on NVIC's website and decide for yourself whether anything has really changed in 25 years except the fact that, now, public health officials are ordering doctors to give children 48 doses of 14 vaccines starting on day of birth through age six, with half of those doses given before age one.

On NVIC's website at NVIC.org, you can also visit the virtual International Memorial for Vaccine Victims to read about or post a description of a vaccine-related death;33 you can research and read descriptions of deaths following vaccination made to the federal Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System;34 and you can learn more about vaccine reactions so, if your pediatrician does not educate you, you will be armed with that life saving information.35

Vaccine Safety Assumptions are Dangerous

A death is a death, no matter what the cause. Every death that occurs after vaccination cannot be automatically presumed to be causally related to the vaccines recently given. However, to assume that all or most infant deaths, which occur within hours, days or weeks after vaccination, are just a "coincidence" and not related to vaccination is both scientifically implausible and dangerous.

It is especially dangerous for individual families, as well as for our entire population, to make assumptions about vaccine safety in a vacuum of knowledge. When high infant mortality rates in America correspond with the high numbers of vaccines babies are being given in the first year of life, credible investigation into the child death and chronic disease epidemic should be our highest national priority and vaccination should not be left off the table.

We must remember these children.

Click here to read the new study by Miller & Goldman: Infant mortality rates regressed against number of vaccine doses routinely given: Is there biochemical or synergistic toxicity?

Click here to order the book A Shot in the Dark by Coulter & Fisher.

Click here to read a partial transcript of the May 12, 1986 Meeting at the CDC.

REFERENCES:

• 1 CME Resource. Smallpox Vaccination: An Update . 2009.
• 2 Time Magazine. Infectious Disease: Preventing the Incurable. August 14, 1964.
• 3 Madsen T. 1933. Vaccination against whooping cough. JAMA 1933; 101(3): 187-88
• 4 Werne J, Garrow I. Fatal anaphylactic shock occurrence in identical twins following second injection of diphtheria toxoid and pertussis antigen. JAMA 1946; 131(9): 730-35.
• 5 Health Resources Services Administration (HRSA). National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program Vaccine Injury Table.
• 6 Kochanek KD, Xu J. Deaths: Preliminary Data for 2009. National Vital Statistics Report March 16, 2011. 59(4): 1-68.
• 7 MacDorman MF, Matthews TJ. Behind International Rankings of Infant Mortality: How the U.S. Compares With Europe. National Center for Health Statistics Data Brief: November 2009.
• 8 MacDonald E. Financial Times Gets It Wrong on U.S. Infant Mortality Rates. Fox Business News. April 13, 2011.
• 9 UC Atlas of Global Inequality. Health Care Spending.
• 10 Miller NZ,, Goldman GS. Infant mortality rates regressed against number of vaccine doses routinely given: Is there a biochemical or synergistic toxicity? Human and Experimental Toxicology: Published online May 4, 2011.
• May 4 Press Release: Think Twice Global Vaccine Institute.
• 11 National Institutes for Health. National Center for Biotechnology Information. National Library of Medicine. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
• 12 Coulter HL, Fisher BL. DPT: A Shot in the Dark. 1985. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. (1991, Avery, Penguin).
• 13 See Reference #10, Page 5. 
• 14 Torch WC. Diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus (DPT) immunization: a potential cause of the sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). American Academy of Neurology, 34th Annual Meeting, 1982. Neurology 32(4).
• 15 Walker AM, Jick H et al. Diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis immunization and sudden infant death syndrome. Am J Public Health 1987; 77:945-951.
• 16 Hunt CE, Hauck FR. Sudden infant death syndrome. CMAJ 2006: 174(13).
• 17 Centers for Disease Control. Vaccine Safety: Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) and Vaccines.
• 18 Robert Woods Johnson Medical School. News Release: Study Identifies that Multiple Risk Factors Existed in 78 Percent of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Cases. February 15, 2010.
• 19 See Reference #6, Page 9. Also Reference #10, Pages 5-6. 
• 20 See Reference #7: Key Findings
• 21 Bethell CD, Kogan MD et al. A National and State Profile of Leading Health Problems and Health Care Quality for US Children: Key Insurance Disparities and Across-State Variations.Academic Pediatrics 2011; 11(3S): 22-33.
• 22 Boyle CA, Boulet S et al. Trends in the Prevalence of Developmental Disabilities in US Children 1997-2000. Pediatrics. Published online May 23, 2011.
• 23 Ostrow N. Autism Leads Rise in Developmental Disabilities in U.S. Kids. Bloomberg News. May 23, 2011.
• 24 Brooks M. Jump in Influenza Immunization Rates Among Pregnant Women. Medscape. December 3, 2011.
• 25 Immunization Action Coalition. Historic Dates and Events Related to Vaccines and Immunization.
• 26 Asthma and Allergy Foundation. Asthma Facts & Figures.
• 27 Enriquez R, Addington W et al. The relationship between vaccine refusal and self-report of atopic disease in children. JACI 2005; 115(4) 737-744.
• 28 Lee JM, Okumura MJ et al. Trends in Hospitalizations for Diabetes Among Children and Young Adults – United States 1993-2004. Diabetes Care 2007; 30: 3035-3039.
• 29 Boyles S. Type 1 Diabetes May Double in Young Kids. Medicine.Net. May 27, 2009.
• 30 Carey, Benedict. Bipolar disorder cases rise sharply in U.S. children. New York Times. September 3, 2007.
• 31 Mathews AW. So Young and So Many Pills. Wall Street Journal. December 28, 2010.
• 32 Partial Transcript of the May 12, 1986 ACIP Meeting, Centers for Disease Control, Atlanta.
• 33 NVIC. International Memorial for Vaccine Victims.
• 34 Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS). MedAlerts Searchable Database.
• 35 NVIC. If You Vaccinate, Ask 8 Questions.