Tuberculosis Skin Testing for School Admission
A Scientific Opinion and Political Commentary
by Leonard G. Horowitz, D.M.D., M.A., M.P.H.
Introduction and History
A dangerous national precedent to give state and federal officials free access to your children’s blood is being set in Hawaii. This call to action begs your attention.
The core question here is, “Are children state properties—to be injected, infected, intoxicated or otherwise assaulted by pharmaceutical prostitutes operating above the law as ‘health agents,’ or are they spiritually sacred beings and/or sovereigns?”
For the benefit of humanity, freedom, and health, listen-up and lend your helping hand. . . .
Two years ago, on behalf of Hawaiian families and a national healing ministry, I filed a civil challenge against Hawaii Department of Public Health’s (HDPH) tuberculosis (Tb) “Control Program,” charging officials had overstepped their legal authority by administering skin tests without gaining proper informed consent and without honoring religious exemptions. Dr. Jesse Wing, the program’s director, had also violated recommendations issued by her federal employer, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She falsely alleged urgency in Hawaii’s Tb case rate, breached public health practice standards, and unethically (an quasi-legally) mandated Tb skin testing (TST) for all school children in public and private schools—children at very low risk for Tb. By her authority, all parents in Hawaii have been forced into TST, or home-schooling, disrespecting parents’ religious, spiritual, and/or philosophical values. What most intelligent people would consider a gross violation of civil rights and religious freedoms, this experimental physical assault on the public’s health is assumed the legal right of Dr. Wing and her supporting staff.
Senator Kokubun’s Investigation
To diagnose these inadequacies, Hawaii State Senator Russell Kokubun ordered an investigation into Dr. Wing’s public health malpractices. The legislator’s legal team determined that there are serious risks associated with the state’s unusual TST program. High rates of false positive tests among low risk children, and side effects from follow-up treatments (including chest x-rays, that may increase the risk of cancer, and long term antibiotic usage, that may cause chronic intestinal mal-absorption, body chemistry alterations, and myriad related health problems) outweigh the benefits of the program according to federal reports and scientific journals.
Religious exemptions for vaccinations are honored by public health and school officials in Hawaii, but so are waivers for Tb testing in most states. According to Dr. Wing, the non-epidemic tuberculosis case rate in Hawaii, and frightening death rate globally, warrant her strict, effectively fascist, testing program. How does she and other program proponents rationalize their action?
A report compiled by the Senate Majority Office’s legal team answers this question and details the points of potential opposition to Sentaor Kokubun’s Bill 2808.
In defending their Tb testing requirement for school admission, the HDPH officials allege that “TST works very differently from vaccination” for which religious exemptions remain available. Differences are emphasized and similarities are entirely neglected. For instance, officials claim the test is exclusively intradermal, and reaction exclusively local, but this contradicts their own false allegation that “TST only produces an immuno-reaction if the body’s memory cells recognize the TB germs.”
The body’s memory cells (i.e., white blood cells) mainly circulate in the bloodstream. Therefore, the test obviously involves the blood and circulatory system, not simply the skin.
The HDPH’s “intradermal” delusion is also obvious from determinations by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and American Thoracic Society experts. These organizations published high false positive rates among low risk children “caused by nonspecific reactivity or exposure to non-tuberculous mycobacteria . . .” Yet, local officials falsely claim, “TST does not . . . cause the production of antibodies in persons who do not have a Tb infection or active Tb disease.”
How do they suppose the test “response” occurs? They refer to the “lump, swelling, or blister at the site of injection.” Obviously, some amount of antigen/antibody complex forms within the blood to yield these reactions that also involve white-blood-cell (lymphocyte and macrophage) infiltration in and around the site of injection/assault/injury. This is a similarity to vaccinations the HDPH prefers to ignore.
The Tb test might earnestly be considered “medical experimentation.” The injection is locally injurious to the extent of the lumping, swelling, or blistering, but similar intradermal injections have been known to cause systemic reactions as documented in immunology. The full measure of systemic side-effects remains unknown. Thus, Tb testing might be reasonably considered unethical, if not criminal, as “experimentation without fully informed consent.”
The opposition recklessly and irresponsibly omits consideration of CDC’s aversion to TST of low risk children. An important question raised by this debate is “Who authorized CDC official Jesse Wing to pioneer a program in Hawaii that violates official CDC policy, international public health standards, and why?”
In her defense, Dr. Wing proclaims a Tb rate of “11.9/100,000” for “Hawaii.” This too is false. HDPH officials reiterate this inaccuracy when, in fact, local epidemiologists acknowledge this rate is heavily skewed exclusively by Oahu, with far lower rates on other islands, including the Big Island.
Might Dr. Wing’s medically contraindicated and bizarre approach to blood-letting be part of a more insidious plot against the people? With the stalled Akaka Bill, Hawaii’s informed citizenry generally favors sovereignty, reduced reliance on untrustworthy Anglo-American enterpirses, a U.S. military withdrawal along with their toxic wastes, and native Hawaiian government recognition. Thus, is a deadly, coercive, and experimental Tb injection program in Hawaii related to the genocides decimating native people globally? Is this concept too ugly for you to contemplate despite the medically objectionable nature of the “Tb Control Program,” and the fact that U.S. Government officials ordered native North Americans to be infected with smallpox a century ago as a population control measure? How else shall we explain the dramatic reduction of our native Hawaiian population which its total remnant currently estimated at merely 8,000?
Exposing More Official Lies
HDPH officials say they can find “no reports that TST seeps beneath the skin to enter the bloodstream.” A more thorough review of the pertinent scientific immunological literature proves the opposite. Google search the terms “intradermal immune response sensitization.” It returns more than 30,700 documents addressing this well-researched phenomenon. This determination alone disqualifies HDPH officials as a source of intelligence in this matter, and critically undermines their opposition to Senator Kokubun’s Bill 2808.
Furthermore, some members of HDPH falsely claim individuals who have positive TST readings, and even false-positive readings, are not subject to mandatory further treatment. “All treatment from that point forward would be subject to the patient’s choice of treatment and state informed consent laws,” they say. Yet, I have personally interviewed at least a half a dozen individuals, mostly parents, who were not informed of their choice as per HDPH’s allegation. Instead parents were verbally coerced into submitting to chest x-raying and six months of toxic antibiotic therapy.
In fact, upon closer examination, this claim is an insult to everyone’s intelligence. The test along with Tb negative certification is mandated for school admission according to vaguely-worded current statutes. Do public health officials and Tb test administrators tell individuals testing positive for Tb that no further treatment is indicated or mandated? Ridiculous! It is just the opposite! HDPH officials state this elsewhere by writing, “The second aspect of prevention consists of treating people with a positive tuberculin skin test who are not yet ill.”
Absurd allegations continue with HDPH’s blanket statement, “The risks of serious disease from not vaccinating are far greater than the risks of serious reaction to a vaccination.” First, I thought they said, TST was not equivalent to vaccination. Second, no acceptable vaccination for Tb is currently available. Third, I am able to cite numerous vaccination initiatives, even recent ones, which resulted in devastating increases in morbidity and mortality among trusting recipients who would have been better left alone. The vaccination debate regarding efficacy, cost/benefit, and risk/benefit is altogether a different subject than the one Senator Kokubun is advancing simply to secure religious freedom and proper informed consent with Bill 2808.
Official Negligence and Malfeasance
HDPH heralds the TST as “one of the best ways to stop it [Tb] from spreading.” What are the other “best ways?” These were omitted and neglected to advance their TST agenda. Officials disregard the efficacy and cost benefit of basic respiratory examinations, medical history taking, and recent advances in electrodermal testing technologies. All of these non-invasive, inexpensive, and risk-free options are religiously acceptable.
It is puerile propaganda to claim, as HDPH officials do, “when U.S. infrastructure for Tb control deteriorated in the 1980s, it caused a resurgence of Tb cases to occur in the 1980s and early 1990s.” In fact, increased rates of Tb in the U.S. were universally ascribed to the onset of AIDS and other immunodeficiency disorders during the 1980s, not to Tb testing shortages.
Ironically, Tb Control officials recklessly neglect their own advice that, “local public health action should be based on the local pattern of disease.” Unfortunately for families with children at low risk for Tb on all islands expect, perhaps, Oahu, this advice is entirely neglected.
Health officials’ propaganda neglects the “litmus test” for measuring “success” for any public health policy. That is, definitive risk/benefit analyses to assure more people are helped by the program versus harmed. This multi-factorial measure must take into consideration parameters beyond current data collection and reporting. Undetermined risks include those from long term antibiotic usage, increased cancer incidence from x-raying many falsely positive children, and psychopathology including phobias and aversion to medical care from the test trauma, resulting in higher morbidity and mortality. Thus, to claim any state’s Tb program is a “success” is misleading at best, and recklessly irresponsible and fraudulent at worst.
In support of the drug cartel, Dr. Wing and other HDPH officers provide frightening global Tb statistics courtesy of the Merck Pharmaceutical Company in service to the company’s financial interests. “Three million deaths occur due to Tb . . . worldwide per year.” The statistic is irrelevant to this discussion of religious exemptions and informed consent statute violations.
Moreover, without comparative data on iatrogenically-induced illnesses and adverse reactions to drugs prescribed for the prevention and treatment of Tb worldwide, global Tb statistics are meaningless other than as threatening and persuasive communications intended to alarm the public, largely unnecessarily, and gain blind compliance with the TST agenda.
Criminal Fraud
It is altogether deceptive for health officials to reassure Senator Kokubun, and other legislators who may vote on Bill 2808, that “vaccine risks are being properly communicated.” In fact, Hawaii’s informed consent statute is routinely violated by Dr. Wing and company. To quote from the Department of Public Health’s Tuberculosis Control Program website, TST administrators misinform the public by stating, “A small amount of harmless fluid will be put just under the skin on your arm.”
For at least two reasons, this statement is false, misleading, and even fraudulent. First, as discussed previously, the TST is not supposed to be injected “under the skin,” but “intradermally” (i.e., within the skin). Subdermal injections of Tuberculin Purified Protein Derivative (Mantoux)–Tubersol produced by Connaught Laboratories is considered extremely risky.
Second, this product is not harmless. It contains phenol and Tween 80 (polyoxyethylene sorbitan monooleate), both well established chemical toxins and suspected carcinogens, along with other potentially harmful substances. These additional ingredients include foreign proteins that may trigger allergies and even autoimmune reactions in some persons. Accordingly, the company’s literature provides appropriate warnings of the potential side effects of TST ignored by Hawaii’s test givers. There are a significant percentage of people for whom the tuberculosis skin test would not be a “harmless fluid.”
Black’s Law Dictionary defines “fraud” as “2. A misrepresentation made recklessly without belief in its truth to induce another person to act.” Given this, and the preceding scientific, historic, and commercial facts, the behavior of HTCP officials who authorize the circulation of this material, and administration of this test, is arguably fraudulent and possibly criminal.
Last, but not least, HDPH officials assert the federal National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act is effective in assuring their compliance with state informed consent statutes. In fact, parents and legislators should know that the NCVIA is an abysmal failure in its alleged mission to protect children from vaccine injuries. The Act does not address TST, and it does not assure compliance with informed consent laws. It best protects pharmaceutical companies from vaccine-injury lawsuits. It has left hundreds-of-thousands of families with vaccine-related injuries and fatalities uncompensated and unrepresented despite approximately $2 billion in justifiable disbursements since its contrivance by pharmaceutical industry lobbyists in 1986.
The Solution
Senator Kokubun’s Bill 2808 offers hope. It seeks to clarify the statutes being violated by Dr. Wing and company, and defend us and our children against future breaches by returning religious freedom and proper informed consent to the people. Senate Bill 2808 proposes the ambiguous state statues be clarified with more honest communications to achieve a reasonable level of informed consent and better disease prevention programs that empower people with knowledge, choices, and the freedom to make them. By passing Senate Bill 2808, health officials will be forced to stop taking advantage of lawmakers’ and the public’s ignorance. Senator Kokubun’s bill clarifies this ambiguity in the law, and shuts the door on abusive public health officials who exercise excessive control over our children’s bodies and access to schools.
Currently, Bill 2808 sits in committee awaiting approval and advancement to the Senate floor. Below is a list of State Senators in the health and educational committees that are the gatekeepers for this legislation. They will vote on whether Senator Kokubun’s Bill 2808 sees the light of day. Thus, we need your help and political activism: Write, e-mail, and/or call the following Hawaiian State Senators to courteously voice your favor for Bill 2808. Inform them that they can make a huge difference in restoring integrity to public health practice, religious freedom in Hawaii, and deserved respect for our children’s bodies. Alternatively, those who oppose this prudent legislation will develop the infamous reputation of having terminated religious freedom, risked children’s health and education, and supported a fraudulent, virtually fascist, pharmaceutical state.
Regardless of the state in which you live, state health officials are coming for your children’s blood in advance of national DNA blood testing data banks and identification cards. Bill 2808 can turn this local urgency into an international victory for families with children.
Rosalyn H. Baker 5th Senatorial District
Hawaii State Capitol, Room 220
415 South Beretania Street
Honolulu, HI 96813
Phone 808-586-6070; fax 808-586-607
From Maui, toll free 984-2400 + 66070
E-mail senbaker@Capitol.hawaii.gov
Suzanne Chun Oakland 13th Senatorial District
Hawaii State Capitol, Room 226
415 South Beretania Street
Honolulu, HI 96813
Phone 808-586-6130; fax 808-586-6131
E-mail senchunoakland@Capitol.hawaii.gov
Colleen Hanabusa 21st Senatorial District
Hawaii State Capitol, Room 214
415 South Beretania Street
Honolulu, HI 96813
Phone 808-586-7793; Fax 808-586-7797
E-mail senhanabusa@Capitol.hawaii.gov
Shan S. Tsutsui 4th Senatorial District
Hawaii State Capitol, Room 206
415 South Beretania Street
Honolulu, HI 96813
Phone 808-586-7344; Fax 808-586-7348
From Maui, toll free 984-2400 + 67344
E-mail sentsutsui@Capitol.hawaii.gov
Paul Whalen 3rd Senatorial District
Hawaii State Capitol, Room 223
415 South Beretania Street
Honolulu, HI 96813
Phone 808-586-9385; fax 808-586-9391
From the Big Island,
Toll free 974-4000 + 69385
E-mail senwhalen@Capitol.hawaii.gov
Norman Sakamoto 15th Senatorial District
Hawaii State Capitol, Room 230
415 South Beretania Street
Honolulu, HI 96813
Phone 808-586-8585; fax 808-586-8588
E-mail sensakamoto@Capitol.hawaii.gov
Gary L. Hooser
7th Senatorial District
Hawai’i State Capitol, Room 207
415 South Beretania Street
Honolulu, HI 96813
Phone 808-586-6030; Fax 808-586-6031
From Kauai, toll free 274-3141 + 66030
E-mail senhooser@Capitol.hawaii.gov
Suzanne Chun Oakland 13th Senatorial District
Hawaii State Capitol, Room 226
415 South Beretania Street
Honolulu, HI 96813
Phone 808-586-6130; fax 808-586-6131
E-mail senchunoakland@Capitol.hawaii.gov
Clarence K. Nishihara 18th Senatorial District
Hawaii State Capitol, Room 208
415 South Beretania Street
Honolulu, HI 96813
Phone 808-586-6970
Fax 808-586-6879
E-mail sennishihara@Capitol.hawaii.gov
Bob Hogue 24th Senatorial District
Hawaii State Capitol, Room 204
415 South Beretania Street
Honolulu, HI 96813
Phone 808-587-7215; fax 808-587-7220
E-mail senhogue@Capitol.hawaii.gov
About the Author
Dr. Leonard Horowitz is an internationally known authority in the overlapping fields of public health, behavioral science, emerging diseases, and natural healing. An award winning author of more than 15 books, including the national bestseller, Emerging Viruses: AIDS & Ebola—Nature, Accident or Intentional?, he received his doctorate in medical dentistry from Tufts University School of Dental Medicine in 1977, was awarded a post-doctoral fellowship in behavioral science at the University of Rochester, earned a Master of Public Health degree from Harvard University, and another Master of Arts degree in health education from Beacon College, all before joining the research faculty at Harvard.
Dr. Horowitz is best known for his exceptional work in the field of vaccination risk avoidance which has helped save thousands of children’s lives. His latest book, DNA: Pirates of the Sacred Spiral, covers the science that evidences human spirituality.
With his extensive background in natural healing methods, Dr. Horowitz currently oversees the development of the Steam Vent Inn & Health Retreat on the Big Island of Hawaii. The mission of this ministry-directed project is to develop one the world’s foremost centers for creationistic education and energetic healing. (See: www.steamventspa.com)
Dr. Horowitz’s websites, contact information, books, audiotapes, and video programs are available through www.healthyworlddistributing.com, or by calling 1-888-508-4787.