The first and last time I got a flu shot was when I was working at MUSC in Charleston in 1990. I remember it vividly. My husband and I were just a few days away from moving from SC to Ohio, and my new daughter was just a few months old. I got a flu shot at work because a co-worker encouraged me to and they were free. Two days after I got the flu shot, I ended up in the ER because I had a seizure. I had never before had a history of seizures and in the following years every time I had a case of the flu, I would have seizure. I sought help from a neurologist and mentioned the flu shot/flu connection but he dismissed that as a possibility.

I have had migraines all my life, and when I finally couldn’t deal with the constant pain any more (in my early thirties), and found a neurologist that actually cared about the seizures. She immediately put me on an anti-seizure medication that was also shown to be effective in helping prevent the occurrence of migraines. Since then, I have not had another seizure, and the daily incidences of migraines have been decreased, but I am now on daily medications for the rest of my life, and at the mercy of insurance companies for supplies of medications to deal with breakthrough migraines. Plus there are other side effects.

I’ve known about thimerosal since my college days (preceding my working at MUSC) since I’ve worn contact lenses since I was in grade school and I’ve had reaction to the solutions containing thimerosal. I was appalled to find out that the solutions used to store and clean a lens that was to go in my eye contained a mercury solution. And now I’m finding out that the vaccinations and the flu shot that changed my life contains/contained it.

I think I may have found the cause of all my health problems.

I think my new slogan is going to be “Just Say No to Flu Shots.”

I’ve just launched a new site http://njvaccinationchoice.org for the New Jersey Coalition for Vaccination Choice. We are working to repeal 4 new vaccine mandates for Sept. 2008 and to pass a NJ law for Conscientious Exemption from Mandatory Vaccinations.

Please consider adding a link to this site to the home page of your blog – this would really help to spread the word about this cause by increasing our search engine rankings as well as showing other people interested in this issue where to go to learn more and make a difference.

Just add link to http://njvaccinationchoice.org or get link code or graphics from http://njvaccinationchoice.org/linktous.html

Thank you so much! If you have any questions contact me, Lisa Mazzuca at webmaster@njvaccinationchoice.org

Carla Coleman