National Vaccine Information Center
| Founded | 1982 |
|---|---|
| Founders | Barbara Loe Fisher, Jeff Schwartz, Kathi Williams |
| Type | 501(c)3 |
| Location |
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| Slogan | Your Health. Your Family. Your Choice. |
| Mission | The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) states that it "is dedicated to the prevention of vaccine injuries and deaths through public education and to defending the informed consent ethic in medicine." |
| Website | http://www.nvic.org/ |
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Formerly called
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Dissatisfied Parents Together (DPT) |
The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) is a U.S based nonprofit advocacy group. While NVIC says that they do not "advocate for or against the use of vaccines" they are considered an anti-vaccine group. NVIC was founded in 1982 by parents who blamed the DPT vaccine for the illness or death of a child and describes itself as the "oldest and largest consumer led organization advocating for the institution of vaccine safety and informed consent protections".
The National Vaccine Information Center was co-founded in 1982 by Jeff Schwartz, Barbara Loe Fisher (aka Barbara Loe Arthur), and Kathi Williams. In 1985, Barbara Loe Fisher and Harris Coulter co-authored a book, DPT: A Shot in the Dark, which asserted an association between whole cell pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine in the DPT shot and brain and immune system damage falsely believed by anti-vaccinationists to cause autism.
In the early 1980s, NVIC co-founders joined with the American Academy of Pediatrics to draft the original legislation for the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, which created a federal vaccine injury compensation program, mandated that doctors give parents vaccine benefit and risk information, and required the recording and reporting of vaccine injuries and deaths (see Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System).
Journalist Michael Specter has described the NVIC as:
NVIC asserts that there has been inadequate research into the link between the rise in the number of children diagnosed with autism and mass-vaccination programs. There have, however, been a number of peer-reviewed studies and meta-analyses which have shown no correlation between vaccine administration and autism diagnosis.
The NVIC received criticism in April 2011 for ads that it placed on a jumbotron in Times Square. The ads criticized childhood immunization and promoted an alternative medicine website. In a letter to CBS, the owner of the jumbotron, the American Academy of Pediatrics stated, "By providing advertising space to an organization like the NVIC . . . you are putting thousands of lives of children at risk."
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Wikipedia