About Us

As mothers of children, who suffered serious reactions to DPT vaccine in the 1980’s and as co-founders of the National Vaccine Information Center, we have worked to prevent vaccine injuries and deaths through public education and defend the informed consent ethic since 1982. Our work has always been dedicated to the children, who had no voice and had no choice, and who lost their lives or their health because of one-size-fits all mass vaccination policies promoted and enforced in the absence of adequate scientific knowledge about how and why vaccines cause harm.

Our goal is to promote open public discussion about what is and is not known about vaccination in order to (1) encourage well designed research into the biological mechanisms of vaccine injury and death; (2) investigate the long term, chronic effects of the repeated use of multiple vaccines in childhood and throughout life; (3) identify genetic and other biological high risk factors for adverse responses to vaccination; and (4) develop therapies that will reduce or eliminate vaccine-induced neurological and immune system dysfunction. We are committed to defending the human right for all citizens to make informed, voluntary decisions about medical interventions which carry a risk of injury or death, including vaccination, because informed consent is the centerpiece of the ethical practice of modern medicine.

For us, it has always been about saving one life at a time. The witnessing taking place on this International Memorial for Vaccine Victims is about saving the lives of those now living and those who are yet to be born.

BARBARA LOE FISHER is co-founder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center. She is co-author of DPT: A Shot in the Dark (1985, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich) and author of The Consumer’s Guide to Childhood Vaccines (1997). She is editor of The Vaccine Reaction and NVIC E-News newsletters and a blogger at www.vaccineawakenings.com In the early 1980’s, she worked with Congress on the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 and coordinated public demonstrations at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and at the White House that year. She served on the National Vaccine Advisory Committee (1988-1991) and was appointed to the Institute of Medicine Vaccine Safety Forum in 1995, where she helped to coordinate five public workshops on vaccine safety issues through 1998. She served as the consumer voting member of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee of the FDA between 1999 and 2003 and was a founding member of the Vaccine Public Engagement Project initiated by the Centers for Disease Control in 2002. Since 1982, she has defined and led the national grassroots vaccine safety and informed consent movement in the U.S, representing consumers at scientific and government meetings; testifying in state and federal legislative hearings; speaking at health care conferences and participating in print and broadcast reports on vaccine safety and informed consent issues. The mother of three children, her old son was left with multiple learning disabilities and attention deficit disorder after a severe reaction to his fourth DPT shot in 1980 when he was two and a half years old.

KATHI WILLIAMS is co-founder and vice president of the National Vaccine Information Center. She opened NVIC’s office in 1982 and has been responsible for creating the administrative infrastructure and managing NVIC daily operations for most of NVIC’s history. As principal liaison with NVIC’s membership, she is an expert on the provisions and implementation of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986. She has represented NVIC membership concerns at meetings of Advisory Commission on Childhood Vaccines and other governmental meetings and legislative hearings. The mother of two children, her son suffered a severe reaction to his fourth DPT shot in 1982 when he was 18 months old and was left with learning disabilities and attention deficit disorder.