Recently, some articles related to vaccine medicine have been removed from medium.com. A reason has not been given to the authors. This level of censorship is disturbing, and this is my letter to medium.com.
 
Dear Content Editor (yourfriends@medium.com),
 
Have you read the book, The Radium Girls? It details how, during the late 1800s and early half of the 20th century, radium (a highly toxic, radioactive substance) was viewed as a wonder drug. It was sold in chocolate bars, face cream, enemas, and more. It was ALSO used to create “glow in the dark” paint, which was helpful during WWI and WWII. Planes flying over Germany, in the dark, needed to have dials that could be read by the pilots…and so, we have The Radium Girls.
 
Young, poor women with small hands that could paint extremely fine lines on watches and dials were thrilled to be hired to do this work. Why wouldn’t they be? The whole world was convinced that radium was awesome (see attached photos). These girls would wear their “dancing dresses” to work, so that when they left the factory, their clothing would glow. Of course, their skin and hair also glowed and…many of them began to die.
 
For those same decades, the corporations that made a HUGE profit (and the government/military/industrial complex that wanted those glow-in-the-dark devices) conducted the most egregious smear campaign one could imagine. You could almost say they “wrote the book” on how to manipulate public opinion, control government regulations, intimidate doctors, economically ruin lawyers, and otherwise control the narrative until…as always happens…the truth came out.
 
I have studied the issue of vaccine medicine & our human right to informed consent for twenty years. On both fronts, we have big problems, and the lessons of the past century will be lost if we do not take them seriously. Every new generation must be taught, or repetition becomes inevitable. Right?
 
When it comes to vaccine medicine, things are not as they are being made to seem. Full disclosure: my family uses vaccine medicine, but we do so by choice, not compulsion. We are a medically educated family. We do our own research and make our own decisions. We are not anti-vaccine. We are pro-informed consent, and this means two things: (1) You are honestly informed of possible benefits & risks of using or declining a recommended medication (and you are offered alternative options), and (2) all of this happens in a 100% non-coercive environment (this means, whatever you decide, you are treated with respect and there are no penalties).
 
Mis-information IS a problem, on both sides of the issue. Yes, some of the “little voices” offer crazy or extreme viewpoints, but they are a drop in the bucket compared to the massive propaganda campaigns being conducted by Big Pharma. The problem is that Big Pharma messaging is so strong, so demanding, so pushy, that even highly accurate & valuable scientific information is being shut down, removed or otherwise censored – simply because it runs counter to the preferred corporate narrative.
 
The women written about in The Radium Girls fought the good fight, for decades, and we have all benefited from their determination. OSHA* regulations hearken back to these brave women. Those who survived voluntarily allowed themselves to be studied by the US Government for the rest of their lives – as they were the only known, living specimens of “ingested radium poisoning.” As a result, protections for soldiers and scientists, during the Manhattan Project (for example) were created BECAUSE of what these women had endured.
And now, a book has been written about their experience, detailing the travesty of intentional, immoral, illegal, unethical and greed-driven behavior on the part of the corporate employees who valued profit over people. Which is great, except for the fact that it took ONE HUNDRED years for this book to finally be written.  
 
Question:  “What books will be written, in 2100, about the vaccine industry of today?”
 
Last thought. If you believe you can trust Big Pharma…and that providing a medium for out-of-the-box, critical thinking/writing on the topic is unnecessary…ask yourself, “how did the modern opioid epidemic come into being?”
 
Sincerely,
March Twisdale
* The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is an agency of the United States Department of Labor.
** Listen to Kate Moore’s interview on Prose, Poetry & Purpose here: https://www.marchtwisdale.com/2018/01/22/kate-moore-interview-ppp054/