THE CANARY PARTY

Our Guiding Principles

In recent human history, mankind has created and witnessed unprecedented changes in the balance between nature and technology. With the advent of the industrial revolution, technological progress has led to profound improvements in human health and quality of life. Important benefits such as improved sanitation and clean water have combined to reduce human mortality and extend the lifespan. As we recognize these benefits, we also know that technology works best when it serves human needs and worst when it imposes new risks on human development, creating a greater distance between nature and man. Paradoxically, as we become more reliant on technology, we risk losing sight of the proper balance between the benefits and risks of progress, especially in those technologies that intervene most directly in human health.

In order to restore that balance, we must pursue a future based on a more natural vision of human health, happiness and development, one that focuses on wellness rather than disease. The definition of wellness that guides the healing professions should not be the absence of symptoms in the presence of medical intervention, but rather the pursuit of health without the need for drugs. Realizing this future will require a more natural approach to wellness, especially early in life, but also throughout the lifespan. To restore the proper balance of nature and technology, The Canary Party seeks to restore balance to our civil society.

We hold these Principles to be self-evident:

1. That awareness of the new man-made epidemics is the first requirement for ending them;

2. That when complexity clouds our understanding of health crises, our moral imperative is to first do no harm;

3. That the best measure of a safe environment is the total health and happiness of an individual human being;

4. That the individual’s right to choose or refuse medical interventions affecting them or their children must be defended;

5. That true empowerment requires that the individual is accorded and assumes responsibility for their own health, happiness and nutrition;

6. That full access to the healing professions and to truthful information is essential to liberty;

7. That when injuries occur as a consequence of institutional failure, the victims deserve justice;

8. That the cause of justice is best served when our governing institutions are free from commercial interests;

9. That a compassionate society has a duty to provide injured and otherwise disabled citizens with an opportunity for happiness and to treat them with dignity.

1. Awareness.

We must recognize and face the onset of a wide range of new childhood epidemics: autism and language delay, asthma and food allergy, diabetes and obesity. Over half of American children now have a chronic health condition: a deterioration in our standard of living that should concern all citizens and especially the healing professions. Sadly, we now live in a brave new world of excessive health intervention, a world that has newly forced vaccination and medication on infants and children while also overdosing Americans of all ages. Not surprisingly, the prevailing response of our leading medical institutions to the new epidemics has been complacency and denial. In extreme cases, these institutions suppress the problem by redefining conditions in order to normalize them, effectively erasing the historical record. To retain our collective memory, the development of solutions to this crisis in human health must start with clear awareness and recognition of the new epidemics, beginning in infancy and extending throughout the lifespan.

2. Precaution

Precaution is required when we govern actions that affect complex systems in which the consequences of progress and technology are poorly understood. Such complex systems include both our natural environment, where the widespread expansion of economic activity often introduces new and/or larger amounts of environmental toxins, and our own human biology, where poorly tested and documented health interventions championed by the medical industry can have unintended consequences. When such actions carry the potential for serious harm, the burden of proof lies on those arguing in favor of their safety and against evidence of harm. Furthermore, when these actions are medical, there is an even stronger social responsibility in favor of precaution, one that is enshrined in the Hippocratic Oath: first, do no harm. With the rising power of the medical industry and the growing pressure to defer authority to experts, there is an urgent need to strengthen our commitment to precaution and to reinforce our obligation to protect consumers, patients and victims from injury and abuses of power. In parallel, we must also defend the preference for more natural therapeutic modalities and nutritional choices in the face of scientific uncertainty.

3. Safety

The true meaning of safety is too often missing from the discussion of medical intervention. This discussion is frequently tangled up in regulatory processes, and is often defined from the perspective of the economic interests of hospital chains, insurance firms and pharmaceutical companies rather than being primarily concerned with the health of patients and victims. The proper definition of safety involves a clear vision of the larger goal of regulatory work, which is securing positive health outcomes for children and families. This vision of safety requires a commitment to a total health perspective, including chronic as well as infectious disease, developmental disability as well as episodic illness, and quality of life as well as the absence of disease. It embraces a philosophy that sets a goal of zero vaccine and other medical adverse events, where these events are treated respectfully, indeed, as a resource for prevention of future adverse reactions. Achieving this goal requires a strong and global commitment to safety science, especially the study of health outcomes in vaccinated and unvaccinated populations.

4. Choice

Health choices are a basic human right and must be the foundation of any system of medical care. Choice works at two levels; the freedom from mandates and coercive influences, and the right of all recipients of medical intervention to exercise informed consent in advance of any procedure. Freedom from mandates requires the right of citizens and parents to exempt themselves and family members from undesired procedures, including vaccination. Informed consent requires that unbiased information regarding potential risks and benefits of the procedure be provided to consumers. Society as a whole benefits from the cumulative impact of such free and informed healthcare choices. Anything less risks subjecting human populations to uncontrolled experimentation, financial self-dealing and the tyranny of medical bureaucracy all in the name of a poorly defined “greater good.” The only legitimate locus for determination of what is good for individual health is the informed choice of individual citizens.

5. Sovereignty

Empowering individuals with the ability to determine their own destiny without the interference of governing powers is fundamental to any free society.  In that respect, a government governs best when it allows its own citizens to be the true sovereigns of their own health and happiness. Realizing the full value of personal sovereignty requires a broader conception of both rights and responsibility: on one hand, the citizen’s natural right to be the controller of their own health, happiness and nutrition; and on the other hand, the same citizen’s responsibility to make informed decisions based on care, truth, and diligence in ways that guide their actions and choices. Personal sovereignty begins at one's skin, but the significance of threats to personal sovereignty extends far beyond that. Calls to intrude on personal sovereignty “for your own good” or “for the greater good” create a slippery slope to tyranny and must be resisted. The highest levels of collective health and happiness result from the sum of the choices of empowered individuals exercising free will, and reflect governing values based on generosity, tolerance, and kindness rather than on arrogance, presumption, and fear.

6. Freedom

In order to secure the right to health and happiness, a human being must be able to exercise his/her fundamental right to privacy and self determination, and the right to make personal choices in pursuit of nutrition, health, healing, well-being and survival. The right to choose requires that every individual holds the right to ultimately decide whether to obtain or reject any health treatment, research, or advice. Full access to health care practitioners healers, researchers, treatments, services, products, devices, substances, and truthful information is an inherent and fundamental right, and is independent of the actions of any government or other regulatory public or private bodies. The global diversity in healing arts theories, practices, treatments, substances, and modalities must be protected and available to all members of the human family.

7. Justice

With rising awareness of the tragic scope of the environmental injury incurred by so many citizens, young and old, will come a rising demand for justice on behalf of those injured parties. In a just society, restitution for these injuries must be provided: the injured individuals must be acknowledged and their suffering recognized; compensation must be provided to injured parties and their families; and ultimately, accountability for damage and failure must be identified so that important lessons can be learned and passed forward. One such lesson is that a new social contract is required that respects and honors past and potential victims of medical error, arrogance, and avarice. Therefore, we call for a new contract with parents and consumers, one anchored not on a grand gamble and utilitarian calculus, but rather from behind a veil of ignorance, where deference is given to all victims of medical injury and respect accorded equally to all forms of suffering, those that include the absence of intervention as well as its benefits.

8. Integrity

Public institutions have the responsibility to carry out public affairs with governance mechanisms that keep decisions free of conflicts of interest and the resultant self-dealing by interested parties. As our society has evolved, the influence of well-organized and well-funded interest groups has made avoiding such conflicts of interest more difficult. In the realm of medical science, we have seen the evolution of “economies of influence” that foster inappropriate alliances of government and industry, often euphemistically labeled “public-private partnerships.” We must restore scientific integrity to medicine by rigorously separating industry influence from the scientific process. We need to place the focus of science on its proper mission, that of affirmatively defending consumer interests and well-being, not provider ambitions and profits. This requires fighting back against the most egregious forms of corruption, such as bribery of doctors, censorship of science, and the intimidation of dissident scientists.  At the same time, restoring scientific integrity means reducing the medical industry’s economic leverage over politics and journalism by eliminating the roots of its economic power: direct-to-consumer advertising, regulatory capture, and the revolving door between business and government.

9. Compassion

The strength of human civilization is best measured by how well it treats its disabled citizens. This is especially true when the forces of technology and progress, and even mandated medical procedures, inflict injury on a segment of the population. We believe that civic virtue is founded on an ethic of responsibility and compassion for others. For injured citizens we therefore have a collective duty to support, care, assist, and provide resources that enable an acceptable quality of life. A benevolent society connects personal virtue with the collective consciousness and finds meaning through the wisdom of love.

The time has come for a change. The mounting crisis in the health of children and other vulnerable groups has not only been ignored by medical authorities, it has been suppressed. As parents, citizens and advocates for the health of future generations, we must rise up to call attention to this crisis and take action to end it. In nominally democratic societies, which sadly are increasingly corrupted by the power of entrenched interests and the economy of influence that surrounds the medical industrial complex, we can most directly effect change by mobilizing for political action in order take action against these corrupt forces. It is time to come together to form The Canary Party.

This position paper addresses three questions surrounding the mission of

The Canary Party

1. What is the problem?

2. What is the solution?

3. What is to be done?

What is the problem?

In 19th century coalmines, canaries were used for the first time to detect the presence of poisonous gas accumulation deep in underground tunnels. Because their metabolisms run faster than humans,

these small animals provided a crucial signal in dangerous times: the canaries would die from toxic gas releases before humans. Normally quite vocal, the silence of these songbirds was the signal of danger. Back then, miners whose lives depended on the absence of poisons paid close attention to the absence of the canary’s song. Today, as the rising power and spread of the medical industrial complex are taking an increasing toll on human health, we need to recognize the silenced canaries all around us.

What is this toll? Nothing less than a generation of sick, injured and dying children, children who are increasingly becoming young adults.  American children are over vaccinated and over medicated, over fed, undernourished and have record levels of chronic illness and developmental delay.

As well, there is a direct toll of injured adults, especially those who serve in the military, subjected to an increased burden of inadequately tested, compulsory and even experimental vaccine exposures administered over a backdrop of multiple toxic exposures from prescription and over the counter medications, foods made from genetically modified organisms and laden with pesticides and preservatives, and tens of thousands of industrial compounds that did not exist a century ago.

In simplest terms, the medical industrial complex has launched a massive and uncontrolled experiment on a generation of Americans. In an unprecedented intervention in human immune development, this complex has succeeded in promoting an explosion in medical industry revenues and profits; this explosion has been accompanied, however, by an epidemic of death, disability and chronic disease, much of which can be traced directly to these medical and chemical exposures.

What is the medical industrial complex? It is no simple thing to describe, but our working definition is the partnership between the medical and pharmaceutical industry on one hand and the public health establishment on the other. This “public private partnership”--one which includes vaccine manufacturers like Merck and GlaxoSmithKline, associations of doctors like the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association and the British Medical Association, and government agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health—has steadfastly resisted the rising evidence of a crisis in human health, denying its existence, defending its prerogatives in the face of the crisis and pressing its own expansionist agenda in spite of widespread evidence that the medical model its members are advancing has failed consumers. The moral failing of this partnership agenda becomes all the more egregious as one reflects on the notion that the primary precept of medical ethics was once, “First, do no harm”.

The human toll of these experiments affects us all, but most visibly affects the vulnerable in our society, those who have the highest rate of exposure to this uncontrolled experimentation. These groups are modern day canaries and we must heed their silent suffering. They include

• Infants and children exposed to the most dramatic escalation in medical interventions and toxic exposures in human history, and subject to the new childhood epidemics of autism, ADHD, asthma, and food allergy,

o Autism now disables 1 in 88 American children, 1 in 54 boys

o Peanut allergies put the lives of nearly 2% of children at risk

o Asthma affects over 10% of American children, putting their lives at risk as well

• Child and adolescent victims of new experimental vaccines such as Gardasil

o Gardasil recipients have suffered close to 100 reported deaths

o Meanwhile, there are thousands of additional cases of serious adverse events and disability, many of them unreported, uninvestigated and suppressed

• Countless deaths and disabled victims in the soldiers and families of our armed forces

o Uncountable deaths and disabilities from the use of experimental vaccine adjuvants

o An epidemic of suicides (commonly blamed on post-traumatic stress disorder) haunts our service men and women, with large numbers of these suicides occurring among those never deployed in combat

• Adults and children suffering from the epidemic increases in auto-immune disease, disabling and potentially deadly conditions where the body’s own immune system turns against itself.

o Rising rates of celiac disease, Crohn’s disease, irritable bowel syndrome and colitis

o Epidemic rates of ALS, Lupus, Multiple Sclerosis, Addison’s Disease, Guillain-Barré, Graves’ and countless other disabling conditions

In the investigation and management of these and other modern–day plagues, our leading medical institutions have done more than merely fail us, their conduct lies at the root of the problem. Their agents have censored important science, manipulated data, intimidated honest scientists, and deceived the public. Worst of all, they have cloaked themselves in the mantle of science and “evidence-based medicine” as they have circled the wagons to defend their policies, profits and programs. In the meantime, their conduct and behavior is perpetuating one of the most egregious and systematic episodes of scientific denial in human history.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned against this outcome half a century ago in his Farewell Address to the nation. In addition to citing the emergence of a military-industrial complex, he also cautioned that an unholy alliance of money, technology, and government power could corrupt public policy more broadly. “Scientific research,” he said, “could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”

Today, despite Eisenhower’s warning, that reality is upon us, and its consequences are devastating. Public bureaucracies, professional associations and private corporations – groups whose interests and leaders are all but interchangeable -- have triggered a public health disaster that worsens by the day. Eisenhower’s early warning has emerged in full flower as the medical industrial complex.

Along the way, the press has also failed us. The rise of corporate media and the breathlessly predatory 24 hour news cycle has led most of the mainstream media to swallow the talking points of the medical industrial complex while it continues to accept the advertising expenditures of its corporate members. They hide behind the technical nature of the evidence and meekly accept the claims of the medical industry’s “experts.” Increasingly, media celebrities have joined the attack, leading the inquisition against courageous scientists while denying media access to the many compelling leaders of critical consumer groups.

Most important of all, our political institutions have been failing us, at least so far. No major political party or movement has taken up this complex of issues. The blame for this failure of political will is broadly distributed and largely explained by the triumph of ideology over evidence. In order for our movement to succeed, we must ask advocates to check their political biases at the door, find ways to connect with the most helpful impulses of larger-scale movements while recognizing the ideological obstacles to embracing our agenda for change.

• The progressive movement. In principle, progressives oppose Big Business and the corrupting influence of corporate money. At the same time, progressives embrace the concept of activist government and reflexively support areas in which “good government” can be defended as legitimate. Under this guise, progressives have actively promoted the expansion of the medical roles of Big Government and the expansion of the vaccination program, all in the interest of “progress.” Progressives gloss over the corrosive effect on government regulators of the “public-private partnerships” that pervade this expanding mandate.

• The conservative movement. By contrast, the conservative movement reflexively opposes the program and activities of Big Government but looks past the ambitions and technological agendas of Big Business. Despite widespread evidence of the failure of the pharmaceutical innovation model, conservatives have failed to recognize the necessity of regulatory vigilance in order to defend consumers from the rising risk of palliative medical intervention; they have simultaneously failed to recognize how the free market can  break down when Big Business forges unholy alliances (“public-private partnerships”) with Big Government.

• The Green Party. A political movement dedicated to defending human populations against the excesses of industrial activity ought to be a natural ally of the victims of medical excess. Unfortunately, the environmental movement has narrowed its focus to the release of chemicals from industrial processes into the environment and has largely ignored the health effects of injecting toxic substances into vulnerable humans. Along the way, the environmental movement has allied itself with the progressive movement in its celebration of the effectiveness of regulatory intervention. Sadly, most “greens” have developed a blind spot when it comes to the silent canaries victimized by the medical industrial complex

• The Tea Party. Although the populist momentum captured by the Tea Party movement may prove receptive to the critique offered here, to date the movement’s motivating energy has stemmed more from concerns over the expanding economic footprint of Big Government than concerns over the health outcomes that have resulted from Big Government programs. Appropriately, the Tea Party has protested the rising intrusion of government in the issues that affect our lives and liberties; to date, however, the movement has been more concerned with reining in Big Government than the need for justice for the victims of expanded Big Government programs.

The unfettered march of the medical industrial complex is a threat to Western society as we know it: to the lives of children and those who serve and defend us in our armed forces, to our right to choose the medical procedures we receive and to our rights to participate in society if we dissent. This all must change.

What is the solution?

The first step toward political action is unity. As representatives of the silenced canaries, we can start by promoting a shared sense of identity. We have many advocates and impressive leaders, but our political movement is too often fragmented. Many different leaders pursue many different goals. This distributed model of advocacy is both a strength and a weakness. We can maintain our entrepreneurial spirit while also establishing a stronger sense of connection and shared identity.

Political power comes with numbers. And although the many potential constituencies coalesce within communities that provide their own strong and passionate cores, the problem we face is broader than any one of these communities. We can build a strong movement only by assembling the broadest possible base of support. There are many victims of the medical industrial complex who share similar concerns and sympathies and they are increasingly recognizing their shared concerns and interests.

In a broadly distributed movement of voluntary advocates, a command and control model of action will never serve. Rather than seeking compliance, we can concentrate our voice by coming together around a set of shared principles. We have seen the appeal of a principle-driven coalition in some of our political activity and can extend this approach to a platform in which we protest the corruption of our institutions while raising the alarm over the harm done to the canaries.

Refining our principles awaits the opportunity to meet, discuss and debate as a group, but defining them will surely involve this set of ideas: Awareness; Precaution; Safety; Choice; Freedom; Justice; Scientific Integrity; Compassion.

With the right statement of principles we can extend the reach of our efforts by forming a political party. This movement should appeal to a diverse constituency of advocates; it can and must be ecumenical with respect to political beliefs that don’t bear on our principles; by focusing on a limited set of principles, we can seek to influence the platforms of other leaders in political parties and movements; and although we may begin our efforts where our leaders reside, we must embrace a global vision in support for silenced canaries everywhere.

One source of strength in our movement is our broad base of advocates. We can exploit this strength by giving advocates the tools to begin engaging directly in the political and legislative process. Although our opponents have more resources to bring to bear at a national level and in the mainstream media, we can maximize our advantage if we extend our engagement to the broadest possible geographic base, including activities in Washington DC, all 50 states as well as county, city and local political and policy forums.

A broad based movement will help us in creating many occasions for victories including elections. These victories might be achieved through ballot questions, candidate questionnaires, legislative initiatives and even sponsoring candidates for office.

In addition to sponsoring our own agenda through the political process, the movement will also benefit from identifying high profile opponents of our agenda and taking the fight to them. Under the right circumstances, movements define themselves not only by what they stand for, but also whom they stand against.

In the long run, the solution to the problem of institutional corruption in the medical industrial complex will require wholesale shifts in policy, governance and representation in many areas. Part of our movement’s ultimate success will depend on our skill in laying out a detailed agenda for change and influencing the political process to implement those changes. This is a long-term process, one in which success may come slowly at first. Every journey, however, begins with the first step.

What is to be done?

The first steps of the journey require only a few simple steps. The first steps ahead of us are these.

1. Recruit and mobilize a core constituency. The leading groups from which this constituency might be drawn include, but are not limited to

• Parents and families of injured children

o Autism parents and high-functioning autistic individuals

o Peanut allergy parents and sufferers

o Parents of Gardasil victims

o Vaccine Injury Compensation Program participants, both winners and losers

• Adult victims of the medical industrial complex

• Military personnel and veterans

• Medical professionals and service providers who seek to provide an alternative to the failed approaches of the medical industrial complex

2. Hold a party convention, an occasion to convene a broad group of skilled and experienced advocates who can carry the Canary Party agenda forward.

3. Draft an initial platform, one based on principles around which broad agreement is strongest.

4. Develop a working vision of success and set goals and strategies to take the movement there.

5. Decide on a near term plan of action in order to generate early momentum and the maximum possible leverage for change. Possible action areas include

• Introducing local ballot questions

• Drafting questionnaires to submit to candidates for elective office in which they respond to The Canary Platform

• Designing and sponsoring legislative initiatives at the national, state and local level

• Fielding candidates for office, including local, state and national positions

• Engaging in impact litigation where and when the opportunity is deemed necessary and furthers the goals of the Canary Party.

• Beginning to meaningfully harvest, educate, and focus the current court of public opinion which legitimately questions the safety of vaccines and the schedule.

• Etc.

Early Signers:

Alison MacNeil, LICSW

Carol Stott, PhD, MSc (Epidemology), CSci, CPsychold

Ginger Taylor, MS

Heather Fraser, MA

Jane Winans, MA

Jennifer Larson

Jerri Johnson

Jim Navarro

John Oller, PhD

John Stone

Julie Obradovic, MA Ed

Kathryne Pirtle, MA

Laurette Janak

Leslie J. Manookian

Leslie Phillips, MBA

Marian Greene

Mark Blaxill, MBA

Michael Belkin

Rebecca Estepp

Richard Rovet, RN, BSN, Capt. USAF (RET)

Sherri Tenpenny, DO, AOBNMM

Sylvia Pimentel