Autism - Cut The Crap
by Evelyn Pringle

http://www.opednews.com/

In their public statements, officials within the FDA and CDC, are always claiming that researchers and scientists who conduct studies, not funded by drug companies or the government, are making unfounded claims about a link between thimerosal-laced vaccines and autism, and other neurological disorders, which they claim could lead to reduced vaccine coverage, resulting in preventable outbreaks of disease affecting the entire planet.

I say cut the crap.

Think about it. Why would so many highly respected scientists, researchers and physicians go to such great lengths to concoct bogus studies and issue false reports, in essence putting their professional reputations on the line, if their was no connection? I want these officials to do two things. First I want them to give me one good reason why these professionals would make this up, and two, I want them to give me one logical alternative theory for the current epidemic of disorders.

Lets look at a few of these experts.

Dr Jeffrey Bradstreet, is a practicing physician who treats children with autism and other brain-damage disorders. While in the Air Force, he was trained in toxicology and environmental health. His duties as an Officer included the responsibility for military personnel who had exposure to a wide variety of toxins, including mercury.

Dr Bradstreet has evaluated well over 2000 children with neurological disorders. He also directs a school for children with neurodevelopmental disorders where his responsibilities include supervising occupational therapists, speech and language pathologists, and applied behavioral analysts.

Dr Bradstreet is a Harvard Certified Medical Education Instructor in autism and has written three peer reviewed papers regarding the relationship between thimerosal, developmental disorders and biological markers for Mercury-Susceptibility.

In addition, he has conducted research regarding these disorders and has worked with some of the most highly respected professionals in the country, including Dr Jane El-Dahr of the Tulane University Medical Center; Dr V.K. Singh of the Utah State University Biotechnology Center; the University of Michigan Department of Pharmacology; Dr Vas Aposhian of the University of Arizona; Dr Anne Connolly of the Washington University Hospital; Dr Walter Spitzer of McGill University; the Department of Pediatrics at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School; Dr Jim Adams of the University of Arizona; and Dr Jill James, a former FDA researcher, now with the University of Arkansas, Department of Pediatrics.

Apparently the FDA, CDC, and vaccine makers expect us to believe that this long line of highly respected professionals from Universities all over the country somehow got together and conspired to conduct fraudulent research for decades and then authored 1000s of false reports and other publications.

I do not buy it. What would be the payoff?

Dr Mark Geier is a medical doctor who holds a PhD in genetics and is board-certified in medical genetics and forensic medicine. He was a researcher at the National Institutes of Health for 10 years and was previously a professor at Johns Hopkins University. He has studied vaccines for more than 30 years and has published over 50 peer-reviewed papers on vaccine safety, efficacy, contamination and policy.

He was instrumental in convincing officials to switch from the whole-cell Diphtheria-Tetanus-Pertussis (DTP) vaccine to the safer version (DTaP). In fact, he wrote the article, “The True Story of Pertussis Vaccination:
A Sordid Legacy?” which in 2002, won the first annual Stanley W. Jackson award for the best paper published in the Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences during the period of 2000 to 2002.

Dr Geier has made several presentations to the Institute of Medicine on the adverse effects of vaccines including one on thimerosal in 2004. He and his son, David Geier, are the only independent researchers who have ever been permitted to study the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) database of the CDC.

Dr Geier has testified before the US House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform Investigating Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic to critique the Hviid study, conducted in Denmark on autism and thimerosal exposure and he has also addressed the FDA Advisory Committee regarding vaccine safety.

Finally, Dr Geier has testified as an expert witness in about 100 cases before the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program in the US Court of Federal Claims.

In one such case, on November 25, 2003, the Special Master French issued an opinion in which he praised Geier’s credentials and vast experience and said in
part:

Dr Geier “ranks high among those who have studied vaccine issues through the medical literature on vaccines, databases, studies, articles and information on vaccine safety and efficacy in vaccine policy.” ...“The tenor of his testimony in this case addressed the importance of statistical databases in providing statistical reliability and validity in interpreting the epidemiology and issues relating to autism and various vaccines. . . . Dr Geier has recently proposed a data-sharing process that would improve the reliability of present statistical data that would include the present VAERS statistical database. It would be helpful in interpreting the epidemiology and issues relating to the autism controversy.”

Give me one good reason why this world renowned scientist would put his professional career on the line by lying under oath, not only in court 100 times, but also before a congressional committee?

The drug makers and government officials have waged an all out attack on this particular expert in attempt to discount his opinions because Dr Geier speaks in term most people understand. He has reported on the staggering statistical numbers showing the rise in brain-damaged kids who were vaccinated with thimerosal compared to the children who received very little mercury, or mercury-free vaccines, and were not injured. When he speaks, people “get it,” and the powers that be know it.

Then there is expert, Dr George Lucier, who in the year 2000, retired from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences where he was Director of the Environmental Toxicology Program and Associate Director of the National Toxicology Program. In that capacity, he was responsible for coordinating toxicological research and testing across federal agencies as well as conducting risk assessments for exposure to toxic substances including mercury. He has authored well over 200 scientific publications involving toxicology, pharmacology and risk assessment, including ten articles on mercury.

In 1998, Dr Lucier was appointed the Chair of the Organizing Committee for the White House Workshop on Scientific Issues Relevant to Assessment of Health Effects from Exposure to Methylmercury. He has presented his opinions on numerous occasions in various forums and for 28 years, he was the co-editor in chief of the prestigious scientific journal, Environmental Health Perspectives.

Why would this guy lie under oath?

Another renowned scientist expressing the same view on thimerosal, is Dr Boyd Haley, who is currently a Professor and Chairman of the Department of Chemistry with a joint appointment in the College of Pharmacy at the University of Kentucky.

He teaches a class on mercury toxicology and has published more than 110 articles in the peer-reviewed literature including the toxic effects of elemental mercury. Since 1989, his laboratory has been conducting research on the relationship between mercury and neurological diseases, and has performed experiments with thimerosal. In 2001, Dr Haley made a presentation on “In Vitro Studies of Thimerosal Toxicity,” to the IOM.

So why would this guy spend 25 year of his life conducting bogus studies, rendering fraudulent results and authoring a 100 dishonest articles?

An expert I consulted during my initial investigation of this issue was Dr David Ayoub, MD, who when asked how certain he was of the link between autism and thimerosal, told me, “I can state that the certainty of the science supporting mercury as a major cause of autism is probably more overpowering than the science behind any other disease process that I studied dating back to medical school.”

Dr Ayoub is the Director of the Prairie Collaborative for Immunization, an organization that is self-funded, which aids organizations, journalists, and legislators obtain accurate information to assist their work. He is also the author of the report, “Pregnancy and the Myth of Influenza Vaccination-Is it safe, is it effective, is it necessary? What the CDC documents reveal.”

When asked why so many scientist were now conducting research Dr Ayoud said, “I think a disease that effects more individuals than AIDS or cancer, in previously normal infants and children, has created a sense of urgency amongst researchers.”

Flu shots with a toxic dose of mercury are still being given to pregnant women and Rh negative shots with thimerosal are still being given to pregnant women. Even though recent studies have shown that lower IQ levels linked to mercury exposure in the womb costs the US $8.7 billion a year in lost earnings potential, according to a study released in February 2005, by researchers at the Mount Sinai Center for Children's Health and the Environment, who combined a number of previous studies to determine hundreds of thousands of babies are born every year with lower IQ associated with mercury exposure.

Lead researcher and pediatician, Leonard Trasande, said annually, between 316,588 and 637,233 infants are born with umbilical cord blood mecury levels linked to IQ loss and about 4% of babies are born with mercury levels between 7.13 and 15 micrograms per liter which at that level, causes an IQ loss of 1.6 points.

The drug makers have been marching their own experts into court so lets look at the credentials of some of their experts to see how they match up with those listed above.

In the case of Vera Easter verses Aventis Pasteur, although Harvard-educated and the author of some 80 peer-reviewed articles, according to his deposition, Dr Philip Wang’s specialty was epidemiology related to antidepressants. Prior to being retained as an expert for the vaccine makers, Dr Wang had not done any evaluations associated with vaccines, had no specific training whatsoever regarding mercury, and had written no articles on the effects of heavy metal exposure.

Dr Wang has never investigated any illness claimed to be associated with heavy metal exposure and has never been asked to do a formal epidemiologic evaluation of the hypothesis that the thimerosal could cause neurological disorders or autism.

He claimed that he did know that the VAERS database existed prior to being retained as an expert, but had never conducted any analysis on the Vaccine Safety Datalink. Dr Wang’s knowledge of vaccines and thimerosal was limited to what he learned in 30 to 35 hours of meetings with defense attorneys and reading the relevant medical literature, most of which was provided by the defense attorneys.

Finally, Dr Wang only offered an opinion on the link between thimerosal and autism and not on the issues relevant to the case relating to other neurological disorders. For some reason, I don’t think Dr Wang would fare too well if called upon to take the stand to disprove the opinions of the many established experts on the plaintiff’s team with their combined decades of research experience in this area of expertise. Another drug maker expert in the case was Dr Chris P Johnson, who in her deposition agreed that, prior to the case, her experience with mercury poisoning cases was zero. She has had no experience related to mercury or its neurotoxic effects and conceded that she was not an expert on mercury or the effects of mercury exposure on the human body.

I hardly think Dr Johnson is a match for the experts above. In fact I think it would be grossly unfair to even throw this gal in the ring with the other heavyweights. I guess it just goes to show how much humiliation some people are willing to endure to make a buck.

Partnerships Between Industry and Regulatory Officials

In reaching decisions, officials within regulatory bodies seem more concerned about the impact of their decision on global vaccination policies than making an unbiased appraisal of the scientific evidence. In reviewing statements by these agencies, people need to consider the inherent conflicts of interest between the CDC, charged with investigating medical issues; the FDA, charged with regulating vaccines; the Institute of Medicine (IOM), which examines policy issues; and the vaccine manufacturers. After an on-going investigation of several years, the Mercury in Medicine Report was published on May 21, 2003 by the Subcommittee on Human Rights and Wellness of the Committee on Government Reform, and included testimony from numerous experts. The report rendered a number of specific findings.

Most significant was its statement that, “The CDC in general and the National Immunization Program are particularly conflicted in their duty to monitor the safety of vaccines, while also charged with the responsibility of purchasing vaccines for resale as well as promoting increased immunization rates.”

The report went on to say that the CDC due to its “biases against theories regarding vaccine-induced autism,” had chosen to fund researchers “who also worked for vaccine manufacturers to conduct population-based immunologic studies. . .” But most importantly, it identified Thimerosal as the culprit in plain language and in no uncertain terms:

“Thimerosal used as a preservative in vaccines is directly related to the autism epidemic. This epidemic in all probability may have been prevented or curtailed had the FDA not been asleep at the switch regarding a lack of safety data regarding injected thimerosal and the sharper eyes of infant exposure to this known neurotoxin. The public health agencies’ failure to act is indicative of institutional malfeasance for self protection and misplaced protectionism of the pharmaceutical industry.”

The CDC’s decision to promote the publication of research supportive of the vaccine industry to refute this report by a congressional committee, demonstrates just how far it will go to support its partners in crime.

Blatant evidence of this partnership can be found in a CDC plan to promote flu vaccine sales which detailed a “7 step recipe for generating interest in, and demand for, flu (or any other) vaccination.” The document discusses the “best recipe” that would foster interest and demand, including use of terms like “very severe,”“more severe,” and “deadly” to “motivate behavior” and increase sales. For any doubters, this evidence should confirm that the interests of the CDC and the industry are one and the same.

In addition, numerous articles published in medical journals between 2001 to 2004, were quoted as key studies relied upon by the Institute of Medicine, which as it turns out, were written by authors and researchers with direct conflicts of interest and real biases in favor of claiming that thimerosal did not cause injuries or autism. Many of the conflicts were not revealed by the authors at the time the articles were written in direct violation of policy rules pertaining to medical journals.

For instance, one article relied upon by the IOM, although not a population study, was Pichichero et al. Mercury concentrations and metabolism in infants receiving vaccines containing Thimerosal: a descriptive study, published in Lancet in 2002.

Pichichero did not declare any conflicts, despite the Lancet’s strict policy requiring that conflicts be disclosed. However, in a subsequent New York Times article, Pichichero admitted that he had done work for Lilly and other drug companies. But a fact that must have slipped his mind was that in an earlier article in American Family Physician, Pichichero had declarated:

The author has received research grants and/or honoraria from the following pharmaceutical companies:
Abbott Laboratories, Inc.; Bristol Myers Squibb Company; Eli Lilly & Company; Merck and Co.; Pasteur Merieux Connaught; Pfizer Labs; Roach Laboratories; Roussel-Uclaf; Schering Corporation; SmithKlineBeecham Pharmaceuticals; Upjohn Company; Wyeth-Lederle.

In defending thimerosal, officials will often refer to the World Health Organization as a body that has found it safe. Well in a June, 2001 WHO report, the agency itself refers to vaccine manufacturers as a full and equal “partner.” When the WHO was worried that regulations had affected drug maker’s costs, it stressed the need to get them to stay in the market, and even proposed a “communication strategy that would take account of public concern about adverse effects of vaccines.”

So, in a subsequent WHO meeting on April 15-16, 2002, a decision was made to “lobby Ministry of Health and senior regulators” on the thimerosal issue and to “develop a strong advocacy campaign to support the ongoing use of thiomersal.“ It can readily be seen that the WHO has similar reasons to those of the CDC to support the industry’s position.

As thimerosal containing vaccines continue to be shipped to countries all over the world, its becoming more and more apparent that these cozy “partnerships” wield a considerable amount of power when it comes to making decisions related to vaccine safety.

Who Knew What And When

The well-documented sordid history of thimerosal, including the continuing misrepresentations by its inventor, Eli Lilly, confirms that the product should never have been used in childhood vaccines, and should have definitely been removed prior to the doubling of the content that resulted from the addition of the HIB and Hepatitis B vaccines in the late 1980’s to mid-90’s.

Mercury in vaccines was tested and shown to be lethal many times over the past 40 years. In May of 1967, an article was published in Applied Microbiology, titled “Enhanced Toxicity for Mice of Pertussis Vaccine When Preserved with Merthiolate.” The abstract states:
Pertussis vaccines preserved with 0.01% merthiolate (thimerosal) are more toxic for mice than unpreserved vaccines prepared from the same parent concentrate containing the same number of organisms.

In this study, twenty mice were injected with a vaccine with no thimerosal and none died. 30 others were injected with the same vaccines, plus thimerosal, and 5 died. The article stated that “it would not be surprising if injection of this vaccine influenced the susceptibility of the mouse towards a mercurial preservative.“ The authors also noted that “other laboratories” had observed toxicity of final lots of preserved vaccine when the vaccines themselves were “atoxic or only slightly toxic.”

In 1972, Lilly received an article that confirmed that thimerosal had caused 6 deaths when too much of it had been used, which said: “The symptoms and clinical course of the 6 patients suggests subacute mercury poisoning.”

In 1975, autopsies on squirrel monkeys treated with thimerosal-containing nose spray, determined that mercury accumulated in the brain “which may represent a potential hazard in the chronic use of thimerosal as a preservative in products intended for human use.”

By the late 1970’s, vaccine companies realized the need to remove thimerosal because of its poisonous effects. In an October 12, 1979 memo, Merck scientists discussed the “potential problem” of having mercury in its flu and meningococcal vaccines, as well as the Hepatitis B vaccine that was under development and asked: “Should a program of replacement be initiated now to guard against any spontaneous rally to avoid its (thimerosal) use in injectables?”

This memo proves that the industry knew about the dangers long before the mercury-loaded Hib and Hep B vaccines were added to the schedule in the 1980’s and 1990’s.

In 1986, an article titled, “Organic Mercury Compounds and Their Toxicity,” noted that thimerosal had caused problems and stated that it was “now accepted that multidose injection preparations are undesirable, and preservatives should not present in unidose preparations.“

In the early 1990’s, the level of thimerosal in vaccines increased drastically, and in many cases doubled. The drug companies knew that adding 3 or four HIB vaccines and as many as 3 Hep B shots would substantially increase the level of mercury injected into infants at a critical period of brain development.

We now know that by 1991, Merck absolutely knew that the increase was harmful. A 1991 internal memo, recently revealed by the LA Times, concluded that exposure in infants within the first six month of life could be 87 times the level determined safe. The memo‘s damning revelations said:

For babies: the 25 ug of mercury in a single 0.5 ml dose and extrapolated to a 6 pound baby would be 25 times the adjusted Swedish daily allowance of 1.0 micrograms for a baby of that size. The total mercury burden in a baby is unknown, but it has been stated that the blood level of a newborn may exceed that of the mother. If eight doses of thimerosal-containing vaccine was given in the first six months of life (3 DTP, 2 HIB, and 3 Hepatitis B) the 200 micrograms of mercury given, say to an average size of 12 pounds, would be about 87 times the Swedish daily allowance of
2.3 micrograms for a baby of that size.

In the memo even acknowledged that “the best way to go is to switch to dispensing the actual vaccines without adding preservatives.” However, it went on to say that while this was the best solution, there was “a cost consideration the head of Health Services has to consider. Several large ampoules or bottles are more expensive than a smaller number of larger packages.”

So in essence, this Merck memo proves that by 1991, vaccine makers knew that they were injecting poison into infants and decided that profits were more important than the country’s most precious asset, an entire generation of children.

The vaccine makers are fighting hard against the removal of thimerosal for two reasons. The first is the usual suspect, greed. But the second reason is now higher on their list. The industry knows that if thimerosal were to be completely removed from all vaccines tomorrow, the public would not be able to ignore the corresponding decline, not only in cases of autism, but in the epidemic of all the strange disorders that have engulfed the public school system in all 50 states over the past 15 years. The decline is already happening in California, one of the first states to ban thimerosal.

In attempt to confuse the issue, officials have tried to avoid any discussion of the evidence establishing an association between mercury and a host of other neurological disorders.

In addition to autism, the epidemic includes attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADD/ADHD) and speech or language delay and each has its own spectrum of symptoms. For example, autism is characterized by impairments of social interaction, communication, and behavior. ADD/ADHD is typified by persistent patterns of inattention and/or hyperactivity. Speech and language delay are characterized by sensory and auditory processing disorders impacting on communication. See Immunization Safety Review, Thimerosal-Containing Vaccines and Neurodevelopmental Disorder, IOM 2001.

Officials should quit using scare tactics to infer a threat to the vaccine program as a whole. The issue is not the vaccines, its the preservative that has to go. And its not just contained in childhood vaccines. Thimerosal is in other products given to unsuspecting victims.

The flu vaccine is probably the most commonly used product that still contains the preservative, but there are other shots that have it as well. For instance, I just found out that a shot given to stop contractions in pregnant women who go into labor too early contains thimerosal.

I traveled to Wisconsin to be sure that I would be in the hospital at the time of delivery to protect my first grandson from any nurse with a needle looking to stick him with a Hep B vaccine. A few days ago, my daughter began to have early contractions. The doctor told her not to worry, to just come in for a check up. She came home with the great news that a shot stopped the contractions, only to find out a few hours later that the miracle shot may have contained thimerosal.

That was three days ago and I am still in shock!

While adverse effects of vaccines to a small number of susceptible individuals might seem justified in the interest of the greater good to mankind, the brain-injuring effects arising as a result of the government forcing parents to inject a known poison into their precious children should not be tolerated.

Evelyn Pringle epringle05@yahoo.com The author is a columnist for Independent Media TV and an investigative journalist focused on exposing corruption in government

American Academy of Pediatrics Unleashes Hysterical Attack on Fictional Television Show about Vaccine / Autism Link
by Mike Adams

(NaturalNews) The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has gone ballistic over a fictional television program airing on ABC that shows a family successfully suing a vaccine manufacturer for their child's autism. Not satisfied to push dangerous vaccines onto children in the real world, the AAP now feels it must also control the thoughts and ideas of people living in fictional worlds by pressuring television networks to censor their programming. Only television shows that conform to the pro-chemical, pro-pharmaceutical, pro-vaccine point of view will be tolerated by the AAP, it seems.

A letter signed by AAP President Renee Jenkins warns ABC that it will "will bear responsibility for the needless suffering and potential deaths of children from parents' decisions not to immunize based on the content of the episode." This is tantamount to saying that ABC's television program will kill children! The AAP letter goes on to state the usual conventional medicine propaganda line that there is "no evidence" of any link between vaccines and autism.

Of course, that's only true if you limit your "evidence" to whatever dogmatic beliefs are currently being circulated in the minds of the promoters of western medicine. To these doctors, there's no such thing as a dangerous injection, drug or synthetic chemical! It's all safe for children: Mercury fillings, chemical fluoridation of water supplies, 37 different vaccine injections, antibacterial soap in children's toothpaste... need I go on? The American Academy of Pediatrics seemingly hasn't met a corporate-sponsored chemical it didn't like.

Why the AAP has no credibility
This is the same association, you have to remember, that pushes ADHD drugs like Ritalin onto children. Children who show "symptoms" of ADHD (a fictitious disease invented by the drug companies) should not be treated with nutrition, according to the AAP. They should be treated with amphetamines that used to be sold on the street as "speed." (ADHD drugs are amphetamines.) Is this a children's health organization that parents should really trust?

Consider this: The 2002 cover of the American Academy of Pediatrics breastfeeding guide featured the name and logo of Ross Products, the company that makes Similac, the top-selling brand of infant formula. I recently picked up a bottle of Similac "Go & Grow" formula. The front of the product claims, "Balanced nutrition for older babies. Improved formula!" I checked the back of the product and was shocked to see the ingredients, which listed the following as the first five ingredients:
42.6% corn syrup solids, 14.7% soy protein isolate, 11.5% high oleic safflower oil, 10.1% sugar (sucrose) and 8.4% soy oil
That's over 50% sugar! Don't believe these ingredients? I took a picture to prove it: http://www.naturalnews.com/gallery/articles/similacingredients.jpg

Let me go on the record right here, right now, and say that any doctor or medical organization that recommends a diet of corn syrup, soy protein, sugar and cheap oils to an infant should be arrested for malpractice. To think that the American Academy of Pediatrics actually promoted this company tells you everything you need to know about the AAP. The organization, in my opinion, is a disgrace to medicine. Its remarkable lack of nutritional knowledge demonstrates the organization's complete lack of credibility when it comes to talking about children's health. In my opinion, the AAP is nothing more than a Big Business front group that pushes junk infant formula products and dangerous medicines onto unsuspecting parents and children.

But intelligent parents know better. Reasonably-minded persons are increasingly questioning the sanity of injecting children with vaccines containing mercury preservatives, and they're tired of being lied to by drug companies, the FDA and medical "front groups" that are really nothing more than propaganda organizations for Big Pharma. Did you know that the entire medical community calls vaccines "mercury free" even when they still contain trace amounts of mercury? It's just one of many lies told to the public about vaccines.

The links between vaccines and autism is real
As anyone who has been paying attention already knows, autism rates have skyrocketed in direct correlation with the rise in vaccines. Take any nation in the world, and you'll find that autism rates are near-perfectly correlated with vaccine rates. The conventional medical community acknowledges that autism rates are extremely high in the United States among those children who are vaccinated, but they insist there's "no proof" of any causal link between the two.

Sure there isn't. They're not looking for any. It's like asking Big Tobacco to find proof that cigarette smoke causes lung cancer and heart disease. The idea that vaccines might be unsafe goes against their whole distorted belief system of pushing more and more injections onto infants and children -- all while enriching the profits of powerful drug companies. You, the consumer, are not supposed to pay attention to the inconvenient truths that children are being killed by vaccine shots. Two more young girls just died last week after receiving the Gardasil HPV Vaccine shots, and the body count will continue to rise as long as children are subjected to these radically unsafe substances.

The reason the AAP has so viciously attacked ABC for airing a fictional television show on this topic is because the AAP recognizes the danger in inviting parents to wake up and start asking commonsense questions about the safety of vaccines. If there's one thing conventional medicine absolutely does not want to see, it's a mass revolt against the synthetic chemicals that pay their salaries and keep them in power. Just like any dynasty that exercises control over its population, the AAP doesn't want the commoners questioning the King. In fact, the peasants cannot even be allowed to read, view or think thoughts that might question the declarations of the King.

But the truth, of course, is that the Emperor has no clothes. The pro-vaccine push is more about pseudoscientific marketing than scientific medicine. It's about corralling people into a belief system, not about actually saving their lives. Any intelligent review of the literature on the safety of vaccines and the history of modern civilization will reveal, for example, that the sharp drop in infant mortality over the last one hundred years was due almost entirely to public health measures (better hygiene, better sewer systems, cleaner water, etc.). The vaccine-pushing industry would love to take credit for these improvements, but they really just stem from basic improvements in the hygiene practices of the nation.

How vaccines harm children -- even when they work!
The vaccine-pushing doctors in this country would also like to take credit for "saving the lives of children" by protecting them from diseases like the measles, mumps and chicken pox. And yet, even here their logic is flawed: Vaccinating children against these non-fatal diseases actually weakens the immune system, denying it the ability to expand its function via an adaptive response to the chicken pox, for example. Vaccines actually impair future immune function, causing that child to be increasingly susceptible to future infectious diseases. A truly healthy child is one whose health is supported through wise nutritional therapies and is exposed to the live chicken pox virus. After a few days of uncomfortable symptoms, the immune system "learns" to overcome the infection, and by doing so, it expands its ability to more strongly protect the body from future infections.

Vaccines deny the child this experience, handing them a dead chicken pox virus combined with a stew of toxic chemicals. The result? An immune system that learns very little. It's like giving a child the answers to a math test before he takes the test, and then declaring him to be a brilliant math student when he gets an "A".

Pharmaceutical-trained physicians don't understand (or even acknowledge) the important role of the immune system in experiencing and overcoming infectious disease, and they think that all health must be accomplished through intervention. Essentially, modern doctors don't trust Mother Nature, and they have no faith in the ability of the body to keep itself healthy. They do trust, however, in Big Pharma's chemicals, and they believe that virtually no chemical is too dangerous to inject or implant into the bodies of children.

Notice, for example, that most pediatricians don't even speak out against the toxic mercury used in dental fillings? To them, mercury is perfectly safe to put into the mouths of children. So why on Earth would we expect these people to be alarmed over mercury being injected into the bodies of those same children?

Vaccine-pushing pediatricians are a threat to the health of children
Conventionally-trained pediatricians, it's sad to say, are the real threat to the health and safety of our children. While they're the ones blaming ABC for airing a television show, the truth is that they are the ones directly responsible for the deaths and suffering of countless children and families. The brand of scientifically-retarded medicine practiced by modern pediatricians today is solely based on financial motivations and power struggles (as in, who controls the health of the population). For every vaccine shot given to an innocent child, there's a profit. And the reason the industry is attacking ABC over this television program is because every shot that's avoided is a loss of that profit. This is about money, not public health. Want proof? Consider this:

What do you think would be happening today if an herb (instead of a vaccine) taken by millions of children was correlated with a huge rise in autism? The "scientific" community would be all over that herb, airing accusations of toxicity, calling for its ban, and the FDA would no doubt immediately ban the herb and criminalize anyone importing it or selling it. But what happens when it's a vaccine instead? The medical community defends it, insists there's no evidence of harm, and attempts to censor television shows while pushing its propaganda to the hilt.

Do you see the double standard at work in conventional medicine today? It stems from the unstated assumptions of our "drugs and surgery" system of medicine today: That all natural medicines are dangerous unless proven safe, and all drugs are safe unless proven dangerous.

Vaccines, then, are safe until someone proves them dangerous (at least according to those docs who keep pushing them). And nobody from the conventional world of medicine is really looking for hard for evidence of their danger. Furthermore, if someone from outside the realm of conventional medicine finds evidence of the harm of vaccines, their evidence will be rejected on the grounds that those people aren't part of the "recognized medical community." This is how these medical types circle the intellectual wagons and protect the status quo while rejecting any new evidence that goes against whatever "scientific" positions they've already announced are true.

The safety of vaccines cannot be questioned -- EVER! -- because the system of medicine practiced today depends on those vaccines as its primary myth-carrier. What myth is that? The myth that human health requires chemical intervention, and only specially trained doctors are smart enough to know what the body really needs. Mother Nature is an idiot, these doctors think, and they're determined to inject every child in the world with dangerous substances just to prove themselves right.
The arrogance is nothing short of astonishing.

Spread the word
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Vaccines : Untested, Unsafe and Unnecessary.

(c) Dr Leo Rebello & Jagannath Chatterjee ,

(Published in Medical Journal "Homoeo a' fair", December 2006)

Presented personally to Swami Ramdevji on 01.01.2007

http://washingtontimes.com/op-ed/ed-letters.htm

The link between autism and childhood vaccinations
Heather O'Brien's letter "Flu shots and autism" (Saturday) should be cause for national alarm when she writes that a 6-month-old baby receiving the recommended flu vaccine for this year will receive mercury levels that can be handled only by someone weighing 275 pounds according to the Environmental Protection Agency's standards.

 Six years after the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Food and Drug Administration all recommended that vaccine makers eliminate the mercury-based neurotoxin thimerosal because of the potential for neurological damage, it is still in 90 percent of the flu vaccine for this year.

 Dr. Kenneth Stoller, a Santa Fe pediatrician and assistant professor of åpediatrics at the University of New Mexico, addressed the State Pharmacy Board of New Mexico on Nov. 14 and told the board that "giving a three-year-old child the flu vaccine will raise their blood level of organic mercury beyond what the CDC has defined as a chemical poisoning."

During the past 20 years, the autism rate has gone from one in 10,000 to one in every 166 children. Furthermore, one in every six schoolchildren has a diagnosis of attention deficit disorder or some other learning disability. This increase has directly coincided with the increase in mercury-containing vaccines in the childhood schedule. The best our federal health agencies can tell us is that these numbers are all because of "better diagnosing." These agencies continue to deny that the neurological disorders are in any way connected to the increased use of mercury.

The vaccine program is truly the sacred cow of health care, and to challenge safety claims requires a great deal of courage. Too many of those who should have had the best interests of our children at the center of their professional work sought primarily to promote the interests of the drug companies. Our federal health agencies are rampant with hundreds of conflict-of-interest waivers for direct financial ties to the vaccine makers.

    ANNE MCELROY DACHEL
    Media relations coordinator
    National Autism Association
    Chippewa Falls, Wis.
 

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles
/2005/07/01/autism_mercury_and_politics/

Autism, mercury, and politics
By Robert Kennedy Jr.
July 1, 2005
THE BOSTON GLOBE

MOUNTING EVIDENCE suggests that Thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative in children's vaccines, may be responsible for the exponential growth of autism, attention deficit disorder, speech delays, and other childhood neurological disorders now epidemic in the United States.

Prior to 1989, American infants generally received three vaccinations (polio, measles-mumps-rubella, and diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis). In the early 1990s, public health officials dramatically increased the number of Thimerosal-containing vaccinations without considering the cumulative impact of the mercury load on developing brains.

In a 1991 memo, Dr. Maurice Hilleman, one of the fathers of Merck's vaccination programs, warned his bosses that 6-month-old children administered the shots on schedule would suffer mercury exposures 87 times the government safety standards. He recommended that Thimerosal be discontinued and complained that the US Food and Drug Administration, which has a notoriously close relationship with the pharmaceutical industry, could not be counted on to take appropriate action as its European counterparts had. Merck ignored Hilleman's warning, and for eight years government officials added seven more shots for children containing Thimerosal.

Mercury is a known brain poison, and autism rates began rising dramatically in children who were administered the new vaccine regimens. A decade ago the American Academy of Pediatrics estimated the autism rate among American children to be 1 in 2,500. Today, the CDC places the rate at 1 in 166, or 1 in 80 boys. Additionally, one in six children is now diagnosed with a related neurological disorder.

In 2000, the CDC met with pharmaceutical companies and the FDA in secret to review its findings linking Thimerosal with the dramatic rise in neurological illnesses. According to transcripts, participants were alarmed about the undeniable links between the Thimerosal and widespread brain damage in children. Dr. Bill Weil told the group, ''You can play with [the results] all you want. They are statistically significant." Dr. Richard Johnston admitted he feared his grandchild getting a Thimerosal-containing vaccine. But the group was most concerned with keeping the findings secret. ''Consider this embargoed information," said Dr. Roger Bernier, a senior director at the National Immunization Program, at the meeting's close. The CDC now says it has ''lost" the data that supported the crucial study and has persistently defied congressional requests and federal law requiring it to open up the federal Vaccine Safety Database to scientists and the public.

Numerous animal, DNA, epidemiological, and other studies point to Thimerosal as a culprit in America's epidemic of neurological disorders. Autistic children have been shown to have higher mercury loads than nonautistics, and there have been reports of significant improvements in some brain-injured children by removing mercury from their brains. Most of the symptoms of autism are similar to the symptoms of mercury poisoning. Scientists have been able to induce autism-like symptoms in mice by exposing them to Thimerosal. A recent study by an FDA scientist, Dr. Jill James, found that many autistic children are genetically deficient in their capacity to produce glutathione, an antioxidant generated in the brain that helps remove mercury from the body.

Government health agencies who green-lighted Thimerosal have turned a blind eye to the hundreds of studies linking Thimerosal to a wide range of neurological disorders and joined the pharmaceutical industry to gin up a series of flawed European studies to exonerate Thimerosal. Those studies examined children exposed to a tiny fraction of the Thimerosal given to American kids and took advantage of the autism spike that resulted from deceptive data-gathering in Scandinavia to argue that autism rates are unrelated to Thimerosal use.

Drug makers wary of liability reduced Thimerosal in most children's vaccines in recent years, but the preservative remains in flu shots, tetanus boosters, and over-the-counter drugs. Mercury-laced vaccine stocks were given to American children until the end of 2003.

Government officials who continue to champion Thimerosal should recognize that this is not just a theoretical exercise in bureaucratic face-saving. Their wrong-headed defense of Thimerosal safety in the face of overwhelming science is discouraging testing of promising treatments which may be effective. They are depriving vulnerable populations from being identified to avoid Thimerosal. They also cannot escape responsibility for their failure to warn international health agencies and governments who, based upon American assurances, are now injecting the developing world's children with this brain-killing chemical.

Robert Kennedy Jr. is senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
 

Vaccinating For Profit - From Cradle to Coffin
February 2, 2006. By Evelyn Pringle


Due to the flooding of special education classrooms, along with the rising medical costs of treating injured children, local taxes will soon go through the roof, at which time the public will be forced to face the unthinkable truth about the poisoned generation.

And when that happens, government officials had better not even think about trying to feign ignorance because parents, scientists, and medical experts have been screaming about the epidemic in vaccine injuries, from one end of the country to the other, since the 1990s, and the fact is that lawmakers knowingly allowed it to happen.

Over the past twenty years, our government has facilitated a nationwide experiment on our country's youngest citizens via the Mandatory Childhood Vaccine Schedule, and the tragic results of the experiment can be equally credited to the joint efforts of compromised regulatory officials and politicians, and the pharmaceutical industry that stood to make billions.

In a perverse twist of fate, the vaccine program has evolved into a grand profiteering scheme, second only to the military industrial complex's war on terror fiasco. Instead of prevention, the program has resulted in an epidemic of serious health problems for an entire generation of children and at the same time, produced an infinite market expansion for the sale of other prescription drugs, for the scheme's developers.

The start of the epidemic can be traced to the late 1980s, when public health officials dramatically increased the number of vaccines, which contained the mercury-based preservative thimerosal, without taking into consideration the impact of the cumulative mercury load on developing brains of infants.

Once the mercury poisoning was discovered by the FDA in 1999, vaccine-makers claimed they were eliminating thimerosal from vaccines but they never recalled the vaccines already on the market and children continued to receive mercury in vaccines for several more years. Even today, the flu vaccine recommended for 6-month-old babies and pregnant women still contain a full dose of thimerosal.

Instead of ordering drug companies to get the preservative out of all vaccines, Congressional Republicans and President George W Bush spent much of the past 3 years working on strategies to give the pharmaceutical industry protection against lawsuits from vaccine injured children. A handful of shameless Congressional Republicans remained lurking around in the shadows for years, just waiting for the right moment to attach the protective provision to some "anti-terror" spending bill until they succeeded in December 2005.

Before the age of two in this country, children receive at least 20 injections involving twelve diseases. By the time they reach first grade, they have had at least 24 vaccinations, if they are in compliance with the CDC's 2005 Immunization Schedule.

For good reason, many parents do not want their children to receive 24 injections for diseases they have never heard of. However, government officials use every trick in the book to force them to inject these poisonous concoctions into their children, including economic sanctions for refusing to comply.

Refusing vaccination can result in citizens being denied enrollment in daycare, elementary school, and college; denial of health insurance; denial of employment; and denial of federal and state benefits for poor children including cutting off medical care under Medicaid, and food, under the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program.

Medical professionals have been trying to get lawmaker to take notice of the health problems caused by vaccines since the 1990s. On June 14, 1999, Jane Orient, MD, Executive Director of the Associating of American Physicians and Surgeons, testified before the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources of the Committee on Government reform and said:

"Striking increases in chronic illnesses have occurred in temporal association with an increase in vaccination rates," she said. "Asthma and insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus, causes of lifelong morbidity and frequent premature death, have nearly doubled in incidence since the introduction of many new, mandatory vaccines."

"There is no explanation for this increase," Orient added.

"Even more alarming," she told lawmakers, "is the huge increase in reports of autism and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, with devastating, life-long impacts."

"Measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis B, and the whole panoply of childhood diseases are a far less serious threat," Orient warned, "than having a large fraction (say 10%) of a generation afflicted with learning disability and/or uncontrollable aggressive behavior because of an impassioned crusade for universal vaccination."

About 3 years later, across the country on the West Coast, Barbara Loe Fisher, President of the National Vaccine Information Center, testified before the California Senate Committee on Childhood Immunization Mandates: Politics vs Public Health on January 23, 2002. Fisher acknowledged that the CDC, and American Academy of Pediatrics, vigorously deny that the vaccines could have anything to do with more children being chronically ill.

“Yet, the haunting question remains,” she said, “if we have wiped out polio and almost eliminated measles, mumps, rubella, whooping cough and other childhood diseases with vaccines - why are so many of our children stuck on sick?”

“Why are our special education classrooms so crowded that we can’t find enough money or train teachers fast enough to care for these learning disabled, hyperactive, autistic, asthmatic, diabetic, emotionally disturbed, sick children?” Fisher asked.

Since 1982, she charged, “the numbers of American children with learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder and asthma have doubled; diabetes has tripled; and the incidence of autism has reached epidemic proportions, increasing 200 to 600 percent in every state, marking a staggering 3400 percent increase in the prevalence of autism in our children.”

Scientist have also been warning lawmakers about the vaccine injuries. Dr Mark Geier, holds a PhD in genetics, and was a researcher at the National Institutes of Health for10 years. He has studied vaccines for over 30 years. Dr. Geier and his son, David Geier, are the only independent researchers who have gained access to the Vaccine Safety Datalink database controlled by the CDC, to conduct studies on the connection between vaccines and the epidemic in neurological problems.

In a March 22, 2003 letter to Senator Hillary Clinton, the Geiers reported: “we have concluded in our studies that a causal relationship exists between mercury from thimerosal in childhood vaccines and neurodevelopmental disorders.”


“Our best estimates are that the thimerosal contributed to about 75% of the cases of neurodevelpmental disorders while the MMR contributed to about 15%,” they said. “The remaining 10% of the cases were related to mercury in Rhogam, a shot given to Rh-negative women, and to other sources of neurotoxicity.”

On June 18, 2004, Representative Dave Weldon (R-FL), a doctor by calling, was on the floor of Congress waving red flags, and literally begging Congress to recognize the seriousness of the epidemic in children with neurological disorders all over the country.

“Mr. Speaker, something dreadful is happening to our youngest generation, and we must sound the alarm and figure out what is going on with our children,” he said.

He quoted the Department of Health and Human Services when explaining that one in every 167 children was being diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. “Furthermore," Weldon reported, "one in 7 children is being diagnosed with either a learning disability or a behavioral disability."

On June 19, 2002, James Bradstreet, MD, Clinical Director of The International Child Development Resource Center in Florida, testified in Washington before the Government Reform Committee, and warned lawmakers about the cost of the autism epidemic back then.

“ICDRC estimates the minimal cost in present value, to care for those 420,000 existing children with autism is $1,260,000,000,000 (based on $3million/lifetime and 420,000 children affected)."

"So a little over a $1 trillion in the next 50 years would be required if we stopped creating new cases today," Bradstreet said.

"Because autism is doubling every four years, this is likely an overly conservative estimatem" he added. "The societal cost could easily be $3-4 trillion.“

On June 20, 2005, Robert F Kennedy, Jr, a relatively new advocate calling for the removal of thimerosal from vaccines, appeared on the Don Imus Show on MSNBC, and warned the public that our government is allowing drug companies to ship thimerosal-containing vaccines for use on children in other countries.

"They're giving this now to kids all over the third world," Kennedy warned. "In China, autism was unknown five years ago," he said. "They started giving them American vaccines containing thimerosal and now they've got 1.8 million cases of autism," he added.

Autism is also exploding in Argentina, India, and Nigeria, Kennedy said.

"What's going to happen when our enemies around the world realize that the United State's most heralded foreign policy which is vaccinating the children of the world is poisoning the brains of developing third world children?" he warmed.

"This is just a disaster," Kennedy told Imus.

But it gets worse. Over the past 15 years, the vaccine scheme has resulted in a full-circle cycle of profits for the pharmaceutical industry. After poisoning an entire generation, drug companies are now making record profits from drugging their victims.

And the true irony of the situation is that due to their partnership with compromised officials and lawmakers, they were able to pull most of it off on the tax payer's dime. Federal and State government programs, are the largest buyers of vaccines, administered "free" beginning with pregnant women all the way up to seniors citizens in nursing homes.

The vaccine racket is raging on at full-throttle. In 2005, more vaccines were administered to infants under the age of 1 in the US than in any other country. The current immunization schedule calls for 3 doses of Hepatitis B, the first at birth, 3 doses each of DTAP, HIB, IPV, Prevnar, and one dose of flu vaccine before a child's first birthday.

The first year of childhood vaccines costs $620, and the second year costs $340, according to Pediatric Preventive Care Cost, Estimated US Average, 2005, by Patient Age, Recommendations for Preventive Pediatric Health Care (RE9939) and Recommended Childhood and Adolescent Immunization Schedule, US, 2005.

For the year 2004, the CDC reported the US birth rate to be 4,115,590. Without an industrial size calculator, it would be impossible to do the math to multiply the birth rate by the vaccine costs above. Suffice to say that the total amount represents major profits for vaccine makers especially when most of the bill is sent directly to the tax payers.

As for making money off the vaccine-injured children, between 2000 and 2003, the number of children treated for "severe behavioral conditions" related to conduct disorder and autism rose more than 60%, according to Behavior Drugs Lead in Sales for Children, New York Times, May 17, 2004.


Tax dollars are being directly funneled to the pharmaceutical industry through the damaged children. Public funds currently account for 63% of all mental health spending and Medicaid spending has risen more than 50% since 2000 to more than $300 billion per year, according to Parity-Plus: A Third Way Approach to Fix America's Mental Health System, Progressive Policy Institute, June 22, 2005; Medicaid Largest US Payer, Daily Health Policy Report, March 30, 20005.

Drug companies have also been raking in major profits from the sale of attention deficit drugs, with much of it coming from the public trough. The National Center for Health Statistics, reports that the number of children aged 3 to 17 with ADHD went from 3.3 million in 1997 to 4.4 million in 2002. Between 2000 and 2004, use of attention deficit stimulant drugs rose 56% among children, according to data compiled Medco Health Solutions, one of the largest prescription benefit managers in the nation.

According to testimony at the February 18, 2004, FDA hearing, by Dr Gianna Rigoni, of the FDA's Office of Drug Safety, a combined total of approximately 10.8 million prescriptions were dispensed for SSRI antidepressants and atypicals antipsychotics to the 1 to 17-year-old population in 2002, and children between 1 and 11-years-old, accounted for about 2.7 million of those prescriptions.

In 2004, SSRIs and antipsychotics became the third-and fourth-biggest classes of drugs in the country, with sales of $20.7 billion. And much of that cost was borne by government health-care plans, according to the July 27, 2005 Wall Street Journal.

As for the continued use of thimerosal-laced flu vaccines with infants, according to the ACIP report of July 29, 2005 / 54(RR08);1-40, actual deaths from influenza are uncommon among children with and without high-risk conditions. A study that modeled influenza-related deaths estimated that annually, an average of 92 deaths, or 0.4 deaths per 100,000, occurred among children under 5 during the 1990's.

So, are the risks associated with injecting a full dose of thimerosal into 4,115,590 six-month-old babies worth it when weighed against the benefits, if any, of flu vaccines? More and more parents think not.


http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/articles/vaccine-profit.html

A Childhood Miracle Slips Into Controversy
Gannett News Service

At the end of the century, public health officials are gratified with their progress in the war against several diseases, mainly through the "silver bullets'' of immunization: vaccines developed against a wide variety of serious illnesses from polio to whooping cough. In the United States, the last case of naturally occurring polio was in 1979. Whooping cough, which once killed 12,000 a year, now claims only five or 10 people. But with that good news comes bad. In rare -- but dramatic -- instances some vaccines trigger dangerous reactions resulting in lifelong disability or even death.

Because vaccines are the only substance the government forces Americans to put into their bodies, Gannett News Service has undertaken a four-month investigation, using the Freedom of Information Act and government computer databases, to provide insight to these little-known effects of a public health policy of immunizations:

Part 1: Shaken baby syndrome, when a baby can be literally shaken to death, is a serious social problem. But its symptoms match the reaction of a controversial childhood vaccine. When is a death caused by abuse and when is it caused by a vaccine? Many parents, including some who face prison, may never find out.

Part 2: Sudden Infant Death Syndrome can be a source of fear or guilt for parents. For almost a decade, a federal claims court has been drawing a significant association between mysterious deaths attributed to SIDS and a controversial vaccine.

Part 3: World health officials hope for a polio-free planet by the year 2000. But lurking under that great success has been the rare, but real risk of contracting polio as a result of the oral vaccine.

Part 4: Pervasive government efforts to immunize every child are prompting some privacy advocates, vaccination critics and lawyers to warn: Parents Beware.

Part 5: The government's National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program was set up to compensate children injured by their childhood immunizations. But it is sliding into controversy, as critics label it unfair, ineffective and a corruption of congressional intent.
 

 Dear Ms. Strassel,

I am writing in response to The Politics of Autism piece, which I understand that you authored, in the December 29th edition of the WSJ.  I must admit I was surprised to find out that the author was an employee of the WSJ rather than a PR rep for one of the  pharmaceutical companies.

I am the parent of a child that has been diagnosed with Pervasive Development Disorder (PDD) or Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD).  First, I want to say that I respect your opinion and your right to publish it.  I hope you do the same and publish some of the better responses you have received on the topic.

I am in strong disagreement with the opinions expressed in the piece, in particular with the conclusion that civil rights should be compromised in order to protect the greater good.  One of the bigger problem is that the opinions are expressed as though they were fact, when in actuality they are simply opinion.  Secondly, with all the scandal in the financial industry recently regarding conflict of interest (analysts and investment banking), how can you completely ignore the multitude of conflicts in the studies you reference?  I have many other issues with the piece, I have enclosed my original response which details them all.  I would appreciate it if you would  take the time to read the original response.

This is not a threat but I want you to know that eventually you will be proven wrong and your article will be viewed as another in a long line of "pharmaceutically-sponsored" rhetoric.  I have never been so sure of anything in my life. 

My son has mercury in his urine.  I would be glad to show you the test results.  Where did it come from?  He has never eaten fish in his life and he has never had any other exposure to mercury.  My son developed so normally for the first 15 months of his life that my  wife had to beg our family doctor to discuss her concerns about autism. Our doctory continually refused because Jack had always met all his milestones and hadn't shown any of the "signs".  We have video tapes of him acting very normally and then running in circles and screaming 3 months later.  What are the differences between ethyl mercury and the other types of mercury that make it less harmful to humans, specifically babies? 

Yes, we have much passion regarding the issue because the issue is our kids.  I hope that you have the same passion for your side of the argument because your piece could have bearing on the lives of alot of young children. 

For the good of us all, your reputation and the reputation of the WSJ, I am imploring you to take another look at the information with a more open mind.  I would be very happy to open my home to you so that you could take a detailed look at our situation and decide for youself.   I am serious about the offer and would be very glad to meet you. 

Sincerely,

Edward Bowden Jr.

Tuesday, December 30, 2003 2:31 p.m.

REVIEW & OUTLOOK

The Politics of Autism
Lawsuits and emotion vs. science and childhood vaccines.

Response from Ed Bowden Jr. – Yardley, PA 19067

Believe me, as a parent of a child diagnosed with autism; I would rather that this not be a political issue.  I would rather "science and medicine" initiate impartial and meaningful research into the causes of autism and the undeniable increase in the incidence of autism that are truly free of any conflicts of interest.  Hopefully that would lead to breakthroughs in treatment that would help my son get better.  Unfortunately I have yet to see any research from "science and medicine" that meets these simple criteria.  In this case the definition of "science and medicine" seems to be anyone on the payroll of the pharmaceutical industry.  The only research I have seen from "science and medicine" are biased studies with a clear conflict of interest that set out to disprove what is considered by many to be an unpleasant theory. 

I have always enjoyed and appreciated the WSJ but allowing this piece of obvious pharmaceutical industry propaganda to be published without identification or context is irresponsible at best.  Please have the guts and commitment to print responses that you get on this piece in order to maintain the integrity of your publication.  I'd like to offer some points of rebuttal on the information contained in the piece.  Caution: I am not a scientist just a parent who is trying to stay on top of the subject matter in order to best help my son.  However I think my rebuttals are relevant and present points that should be addressed.

If autism's origin is solely genetic, why has the incidence rate skyrocketed over the last decade or so?  Could there be an environmental trigger that pushes genetically susceptible kids into autism?  The environmental trigger would have to be some toxic substance that kids have been almost universally exposed to over the last decade or so at an increasing rate for this theory to be plausible.  Any ideas?  Nonetheless this is great news; please list the studies that have isolated the genes. 

Could the sudden growth spurt of the head be related to inflammation of the brain due to mercury toxicity?  Even Courchesne, the lead author of this study was quoted in the LA Times as stating that this theory is not incompatible with an environmental trigger to autism. 

In the Rochester study, why was blood tested when we know that mercury toxicity cannot be accurately measured from blood samples. Mercury only stays in the blood stream for a relatively short amount of time before it seeks out and inhabits tissue (like the brain for example)?  Were these children tested directly after receiving mercury-containing vaccines?

Thimerosal has not been completely removed from vaccines, flu and tetanus vaccines both still contain it.  Why is this so hard to get straight?  It is listed as an ingredient on the package inserts for God's sake and included in the Physician's Desk Reference for 2003.  Also thimerosal-containing vaccines were not recalled, they were simply allowed to exist until they were used up.  So thanks to its preservative powers, thimerosal-containing vaccines were still administered to children long after it was considered to be removed from other vaccines.  Thereby clouding the removal date for many vaccines and potentially skewing future analysis.

The CDC and Denmark studies are so flawed and laced with missing information, presumably in an effort to protect a conflict of interest, that they are transparent and have really helped to raise the issue more than anything else.  For a very well constructed analysis of both studies please refer to the Safe Minds website. (http://www.safeminds.org)   

What deal are you referring to regarding Senators Snowe, Collins, are Chafee?  I am not aware of any deal that was made.  The proposal was removed from the legislation because it was politics at its worst and didn't represent the best interest of the people.  We all welcome an open and honest review of the issue, regardless of the outcome.  However we demand integrity in the analysis.

Regarding Senator Frist, he is a very large recipient of pharmaceutical industry funds, near the top in the Senate.  Think he may have some "passion" about why the vaccine makers are innocent?  Think he sees things clearly or is he seeing things through green-colored glasses?  And how is his motivation any better than the motivation of the trial lawyers?  At least the trial lawyers motives  are clear and upfront. 

The piece completely ignores the multitude of research that does support the theory that mercury causes developmental disorders, such as autism, in children.   The piece suggests that parents are overly emotional and ignoring science. Go to the medical search engine "Pubmed" and type in thimerosal. You will get over 900 references to peer reviewed medical papers. All of these papers deal with the toxicity of thimerosal. The only science that defends thimerosal are the studies you reference in the piece and all of these are fraught with questions, debate over the conclusions and
conflicts of interests. 

Autism is a condition that now affects about 1 in 150 kids by most estimates.  Shouldn't autism be at the top of everyone's list in terms of funding for research, awareness, and treatment?  Yet autism continues to be a "dirty" word, surrounded by uncertainty, denial and  a lack of focus.

I am not against vaccination.  I am against the use of thimerosal until is proven to be safe.  (Why are we so concerned with ingesting tuna, which may or may not contain trace amounts of mercury but we don't think injecting mercury directly into our children is a  problem?)  I would like to see more testing of vaccines in general to ensure safety.  However if vaccines are tested with the proper level unprejudiced thoroughness and deemed safe it is obviously a great scientific achievement and universal benefit to society.

Its funny, this is not the first time I have seen the suggestion that some parents of kids with autism are using their child's affliction as some sort of get-rich-quick scheme.  I can't think of another childhood affliction where the victims (children and parents) are so vilified.  My wife and I did not have our son or any of our children as part of some sort of get-rich-quick scheme; to the contrary children are expensive.  Children with autism are very expensive; they need therapy, special diets, dietary supplements, medicines, vitamins, and numerous medical tests (none of which are usually  covered by tradition health insurance).  Not only can't we get an answer on what has made our children sick we also can't get any guidance (other than from a select few healthcare practitioners and researchers) or financial assistance for treatment.  Maybe this has  something to do with our "passion". 

If mercury from vaccines, increases of which have paralleled the increase in the incidence of autism, is not the cause then what is?  What studies are being undertaken by "science a