Unethical Doctor-Pharma Experiments

"The Israel Defense Forces will provide the ethics bureau of the Israeli Medical Association with all the details of secret experimental anthrax vaccine trials it carried out on over 800 soldiers since 1999. A committee will be established to probe whether the trials adhered to World Medical Association ethical requirements relating to human clinical trials as set out in the Helsinki Declaration....Years after the receiving the experimental Israeli vaccine, soldiers continued to suffer unexplained skin tumors, severe lung infections, serious migraine headaches, bronchitis and even epilepsy symptoms.....One of the soldiers who took part in the experiment told Uvda "They said that one group would receive the American vaccine, and the other group would receive the experimental Israel vaccine. "They specifically explained to us that the vaccine is not dangerous and that we were not being injected with the actual virus, not even the dead virus. Instead, they said they would inject us with the altered DNA of the virus. They said it was very advanced," added the soldier." - Yuval Azulai, Israel Haaretz

"The federal government is undertaking the most ambitious set of studies ever mounted under a controversial arrangement that allows researchers to conduct some kinds of medical experiments without first getting patients' permission.......We will never know the best way to treat people unless we do this research. And the only way we can do this research, since the person is unconscious, is without consent," said Myron L. Weisfeldt of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, who is overseeing the project. "Even if there are family members present, they know their loved one is dying. The ambulance is there. The sirens are going off. You can't possibly imagine gaining a meaningful informed consent from someone under those circumstances." ............."This just seems like lazy investigators not wanting to try to get informed consent in situations where it is difficult to get it, so they say it is impossible," said George J. Annas, a Boston University bioethicist. "I don't think we should use people like this." Annas was particularly disturbed that children as young as 15 might be included in the research. "Suppose a 15-year-old child is in the back of a car that is in a terrible accident," Annas said. "The EMTs arrive and say: 'We are doing an experiment with two techniques. We think they are about equal. Is it okay if we flip a coin to see how we treat your son? Or would you rather we just give him the treatment we think is best?' Unless you think all parents would have the EMTs flip a coin, consent here is necessary." - Rob Stein, Washington Post , May 27, 2007

"The [Nigerian] government alleges that Pfizer researchers selected 200 children and infants from crowds at a makeshift epidemic camp in Kano and gave about half of the group an untested antibiotic called Trovan. Researchers gave the other children what the lawsuit describes as a dangerously low dose of a comparison drug made by Hoffman-LaRoche. Nigerian officials say Pfizer's actions resulted in the deaths of an unspecified number of children and left others deaf, paralyzed, blind or brain- damaged.......Parents were banned from the ward where the drug trial occurred, the suit says, and the company left no medical records in Nigeria. Pfizer and its doctors "agreed to do an illegal act," the criminal charges state, and behaved "in a manner so rash and negligent as to endanger human life." - Joe Stephens, The Washington Post , May 30, 2007

"The former head of China's top food and drug safety agency was sentenced to death today after pleading guilty to corruption and accepting bribes.....the government said that while serving the agency he took bribes worth about $800,000 in exchange for approving drug production licenses. Worried that many of those drugs may be substandard, China is now reviewing over 170,000 production licenses issued by his agency over the past decade." - David Barboza, The New York Times ,May 29, 2007

"The number of drug marketing presentatioins delivered by doctors across the United States rose nearly threefold between 1998 and 2006, according to Verispan, a company that tracks drug marketing efforts. In some cases, consulting doctors are so well recognized that they offer drug makers far more than the chance to influence their own prescriptions. For drug makers, among the most prized consultants are those who write guidelines instructing their peers about how to use drugs......Drug companies are like lions," Dr. Grimm said of his sponsored talks. "For lions, it's their nature to kill zebras and eat them. For drug companies, it's their nature to make money. They're not really trying to improve anybody's health except if it makes them money.......A 2002 survey found that more than 80 percent of the doctors on panels that write clinical practice guidelines have financial ties to drug makers. "It is critical that the experts who write clinical guidelines be prohibited from having any conflicts of interest," said Dr. Marcia Angell, a former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine. "Since they have no data themselves but are just making judgments based on their expertise, they absolutely must be impartial or it undermines the whole enterprise." - Gardiner Harris and Janet Roberts, New York Times , May 21, 2007

Barbara Loe Fisher Commentary:

We have trusted medical doctors, government health officials and medical researchers to protect us individually and collectively from harm. We are conditioned from childhood to view educated health care professionals inside and outside of government as acting selflessly in our best interest because they are supposed to be dedicated to protecting and preserving human life.

In the past quarter century, medical doctors employed by government and the pharmaceutical industry have used ideology and the public trust to persuade citizens, without giving them informed consent, to take licensed or experimental drugs and vaccines. In some cases, they have wielded their power and influence to force children and adults to use vaccines and drugs they know have the potential to kill and injure. And when harm is caused, these same doctors and government officials either deny responsibility for the harm done or justify it in service to the "greater good."

There is a disturbing pattern of compromised ethical standards among too many medical doctors and government health officials, who are being lured into financial relationships with drug companies making and selling pharmaceutical products. The public trust, once freely given to them, is in crisis. That crisis of confidence has been fostered by the bad behavior of those who have lost their moral compass and exploited human beings in search of financial gain and career advancement.

The crippled Israeli soldiers subjected to anthrax vaccine experiments without their informed consent; the innocent Nigerian children injured and killed in antibiotic experiments without their parents' informed consent; the unsuspecting Chinese citizens hurt by toxic drugs and food without their informed consent; and the critically injured children and adults, who will be experimented on by Johns Hopkins researchers without their informed consent, are all casualties of an ethically compromised medical profession with unchecked power that needs to be curbed.

Trust but verify is the wisest course to take when following medical advice of any kind. The human right to informed consent to all medical interventions and use of pharmaceutical products, including vaccines, in non-emergency and emergency circumstances should be codified into law in the United States and all nations.

Bioethicist George Annas is one of the few remaining American biotethicists, who continues to defend without compromise the informed consent ethic and speaks out against incremental erosions of it by medical researchers seeking to conduct medical experiments on individuals without their permission. There is no moral justification for medical experimentation or forced use of pharmaceutical products by human beings without their informed consent or the voluntary consent of their parents.

At our peril, we allow doctors and government health officials today to violate the Nuremberg Code, which was issued by the judges of the Nuremberg Tribunal after The Doctor's Trial following World War II and served as the guiding ethical principle of informed consent protections governing medical interventions carrying a risk of injury or death. The first principle of the Nuremberg Code is:

"The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, overreaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision."

The moral and economic leverage available to people of all countries to keep medical doctors and government health officials honest, is to legally secure the freedom to exercise informed consent to medical risk taking. Bioethicist Hans Jonas reminds us:

"Let us not forget that progress is an optional goal, not an unconditional commitment, and that its tempo in particular, compulsive as it may be, has nothing sacred about it. Let us also remember that a slower progress in the conquest of disease would not threaten society, grievous as it is to those who have to deplore that their particular disease be not yet conquered, but that society would indeed be threatened by the erosion of those moral values whose loss, possibly caused by too ruthless a pursuit of scientific progress, would make its most dazzling triumphs not worth having."

Merck's HPV Vaccine: Paralysis and Deaths

" The FDA adverse event reports on the HPV vaccine read like a catalog of horrors," stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. "Any state or local government now beset by Merck's lobbying campaigns to mandate this HPV vaccine for young girls ought to take a look at these adverse health reports. It looks as if an unproven vaccine with dangerous side effects is being pushed as a miracle drug." Judicial Watch filed its request on May 9, 2007, and received the adverse event reports from the FDA on May 15, 2007. Judicial Watch has posted the adverse event reports on their Internet site at: http://www.JudicialWatch.org." - Judicial Watch, May 23 statement

"Student Natasha D'Souza said she collapsed and was left paralysed for six hours after being injected. "I couldn't move at all. There were girls dropping like flies, basically," she said. Ms D'Souza said she had been vaccinated in the past but her reaction to Gardasil was different. Fellow student Brooke Levy, who was taken to hospital, said she thought she might pass out or vomit after she was vaccinated. But authorities believed their reactions were likely to be related to having an injection not the vaccine itself." - Danialle Cronin, Canberra Times, Australia

"Her legs are paralyzed, her arms are affected. She is very weak in her arms," said Tondra Vees a family friend. "She has to use a walker. Even with that, she can't get to the bathroom. She can't stand up at all." Vees said the girl has been determined by her doctor to have Guillain-Barre syndrome, an acute, autoimmune condition that can lead to paralysis. The girl.....received her first booster shot of the cervical cancer prevention vaccine Gardasil on May 2....Vees cites a report on the National Vaccine Information Center Web site, nvic.org, in which NVIC president Barbara Loe Fisher states, "There are twice as many children collapsing and four times as many children experiencing tingling, numbness and loss of sensation after getting a Gardasil vaccination compared to those getting a TDAP (tetanus-diphtheria- acellular pertussis) vaccination. There have been reports of facial paralysis and Guillain-Barre syndrome..." - Jo Rafferty, May 17 Nevada Appeal

"Assembly Bill 16 would require pupils to receive shots recommended by the federal government's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices -- a list that happens to include Gardasil -- after approval by the state health officer. Rick Rollens, a longtime Capitol staffer and lobbyist, pleaded with the Assembly Education Committee to hold up AB 16, saying his son "suffers from vaccine-induced regressive autism" and citing increasing evidence that childhood vaccines play a role in autism. He characterized AB 16 as "an outrageous and arrogant attempt" to shift vaccination mandates from the Legislature to a "non-accountable bureaucrat" and a remote federal committee. Nevertheless, the bill sailed through the Assembly's education and health committees...." - Dan Walters, May 17 Sacramento Bee

"In an editorial published in today's New England Journal of Medicine, the UCSF doctors suggest that there are still too many questions about both the efficacy and the long-term safety of the vaccine, called Gardasil, to warrant making it mandatory for all girls -- as has been suggested in several states, including California. "At this stage, vaccination can still be considered experimental," said Dr. Karen McCune, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at UCSF, who co-authored the editorial. "To be discussing mandatory vaccination when the main clinical trials are still ongoing seems extremely premature. We're feeling like the enthusiasm is driving policy rather than data." - Erin Allday, May 10 San Francisco Chronicle

Barbara Loe Fisher Commentary:

In June 2006, NVIC issued its first press release providing evidence that Merck's GARDASIL vaccine had not been thoroughly tested for safety and efficacy in young girls. In February, NVIC released two detailed reports analyzing vaccine reaction reports filed with the federal Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS), which documented that many girls were suffering atypical collapse with seizure activity and subsequent brain dysfunction, including three cases of facial paralysis and five cases of Guillain Barre syndrome (http://www.nvic.org/Diseases/HPV/HPVHOME.htm). NVIC has led the opposition to HPV vaccine mandates based on product safety concerns that there is inadequate scientific proof the vaccine is safe and effective for 11 year old girls, who are being targeted by the CDC and Merck for mass use.

And it just keeps getting worse and worse. Now three deaths have been reported, along with more reports of paralysis in girls who have gotten the poorly tested HPV vaccine. As usual, the vaccine maker and public health officials are in denial mode, using the unscientific "coincidence" argument in an attempt to cover- up HPV vaccine-related death and neuroimmune dysfunction. And, still, politicians in California, New York and other states press forward to get GARDASIL mandated even as politicians in many other states are wisely backing off from adding it to state vaccine mandates for school entry.

For those who have watched industry and government cover-up harm caused by DPT, DTaP, MMR, HIB, hepatitis B, chicken pox, pneumococcal, influenza, anthrax and other vaccines during the past quarter century, the HPV vaccine risk cover-up is just another deja vu experience. Same story, different vaccine.

When will it end? When will industry and government health officials, along with pediatricians and nurses injecting children with reactive vaccines, like GARDASIL, stop deluding themselves into believing the public is going to blindly trust and buy the "coincidence" argument forever?

For more information about GARDASIL and HPV infection, go to www.nvic.org. If you or a loved one has experienced a reaction to GARDASIL vaccine or any other vaccine, you can post your story (and a photo) on the International Memorial for Vaccine Victims at www.vaccinememorial.org.

Did DPT/HIB/OPV Kill Sally Clark's Child?

"Harry was eight weeks old, the regulation age for the first of three injections against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (DTP) and Hib (a bacterial infection that can cause meningitis). He was also given an oral polio vaccine. His biological age was five weeks, as he had been born three weeks premature. Because of the previous sudden death of his brother, Christopher, his breathing was being monitored. He was uncharacteristically dozy from the time of his jabs to the time he died. Not many people know these facts, because at Sally's trial the defense did not mention immunization as a possible cause of death. Two prosecution witnesses, including the pediatrician Professor Sir Roy Meadow, assured the jury it could be discounted. Their statements went unchallenged, and the issue did not form any part of the appeal hearings. Professor Meadow, a former member of a Department of Health sub-committee on adverse reactions to vaccines, told the jury that he could not think of any natural explanation for Harry's or Christopher's deaths. Yet the DTP vaccine they both received can unquestionably cause alarming and occasionally life- threatening reactions in susceptible babies. The pertussis (whooping cough) component, made from whole cells of the microbe, has been especially implicated as a cause of permanent brain damage and death." - Neville Hodgkinson, The Spectator Magazine, UK, May 19, 2007

Barbara Loe Fisher Commentary:

Unfortunately, pediatricians around the world have stubbornly refused to acknowledge the ability of vaccines to cause brain damage and death and their collective denial is endangering the lives of countless children. The tragic story of Sally Clark and her infant son, Harry, who died after receiving DPT, HIB and OPV on one day in 1998, illustrates just how dangerous it can be to blindly trust what medical doctors say when it comes to vaccination.

DPT vaccine is among the crudest and most reactive vaccines humans have ever used on a mass basis. DPT vaccine contains pertussis toxin (PT), which is one of the most lethal toxins in nature. It is thought to be the main component of B. pertussis bacteria responsible for both stimulating the production of protective antibodies after natural infection or vaccination, as well as for causing brain inflammation during pertussis infection or after injection of pertussis-containing vaccines. Because PT can cross the blood brain barrier when conditions are right, encephalitis has always been the most dreaded complication of both whooping cough and pertussis vaccination.

The authors of the British National Childhood Encephalopathy Study noted in 1993 and IOM confirmed in 1994, that DPT vaccine-induced brain inflammation is associated with a broad range of long term brain dysfunction that affects the physical, social, behavioral and educational outcomes for children. Signs of brain inflammation within seven days of DPT or DTaP vaccination include a high fever, irritability, high pitched screaming, prolonged crying, drowsiness, vomiting, seizures, collapse and unresponsiveness, followed by immediate frank regression or progressive changes in mental, emotional and physical health. Death, or a diagnosis of mental retardation, seizure disorders, learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder, autism and other chronic neurological and health problems often follows.

Since the 1950's, scientists have injected the lethal pertussis toxin into lab animals whenever they want to deliberately induce histamine, serotonin and endotoxin sensitivity or experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis. PT induces lymphocytosis, leukocytosis, stimulates insulin secretion and sensitizes histamine, which is involved in an inflammatory response and CNS and allergic reactions. The newer DTaP vaccine still contains pertussis toxin with the ability to induce brain inflammation which could lead to brain dysfunction or other kinds of chronic inflammatory disease in vulnerable children.

The role of genetic factors in vaccine injury are highlighted in the work of pediatrician Mary Megson, M.D., who identified a g-alpha protein defect in some children which makes them vulnerable to pertussis toxin-containing vaccines. Lawrence Steinman also identified genetic susceptibility to pertussis vaccine induced encephalopathy involving genes of the major histocompatibility complex correlating to genetic regulation of antibody response to bovine serum albumin (a cow's milk protein).

The first reports of brain inflammation and chronic brain damage, including death, after pertussis vaccination were published in 1933 by Madsen and in 1947 by Brody, followed by numerous reports during the next 40 years. Finally, after nearly 50 years of evidence in the medical literature, the 1981 National Childhood Encephalopathy Study (NCES) confirmed that the DPT vaccine was causing brain inflammation and permanent brain damage in previously healthy children.

In the 1985 book, DPT: A Shot in the Dark, which I co-authored with Harris Coulter,Ph.D., we examined the history of pertussis and the pertussis vaccine within the larger context of the medical, scientific, legal, social, and political issues involving mass vaccination policies. The book, which was the first major critique of the mandatory vaccination system, includes more than 100 case histories of DPT vaccine associated brain inflammation and immune system dysfunction. Several of the cases describe children who developed autistic behaviors after DPT vaccination, making it the first published report of an association between autism and vaccination.

Children diagnosed with autism today have much in common with the children described in A Shot in the Dark (now published by Putnam and available on amazon.com), who reacted neurologically to DPT vaccine in the 1970s and 1980s. Many of the DPT vaccine injury cases in the book revealed children with a personal and/or family history of allergy, particularly milk allergy. Some had been vaccinated while they were sick with a coinciding viral or bacterial infection. Others were on antibiotics or recently completed antibiotic therapy before vaccination. In addition to neurological damage following DPT vaccination, many were also left with chronic gastrointestinal dysfunction and new allergies, as well as autoimmune disorders such as asthma. A personal or family history of inflammatory autoimmune disorders appeared to outweigh a history of neurological disorders in terms of being a high risk factor for reacting to DPT, although a history of convulsions in the family was also a high risk factor.

In 1996, a child with mental retardation and autistic behaviors, which developed after DPT vaccination, was awarded compensation under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act despite vigorous protests by federal health officials that there was no proof DPT vaccine caused the autism. The child had been healthy with above average intelligence before he reacted within four hours of his DPT shot at 19 months of age with a convulsion followed by days of fever and screaming. The U.S. Court of Claims made the award, agreeing with the plaintiff's lawyer that autistic behaviors can be the result of brain injury from any cause, including the DPT vaccine.

Fourteen years of lobbying by parents finally resulted in the licensing of a second-generation DTaP vaccine for American babies in 1996. Introduced in Japan in 1981, this purified vaccine reduced the amount of endotoxin and the bioactivity of pertussis toxin through chemical inactivation with formaldehyde and/or gluteraldehyde (both formaldehyde and gluteraldehyde remain residually in the vaccine). Because the DTaP vaccine still contains pertussis toxin, (10 - 25 mcg per dose) with varying amounts of bioactivity, it is still capable of inducing brain inflammation. A company producing a genetically engineered DTaP vaccine in the early 1990's, Chiron, explained why chemically inactivated PT will always be a problem: "Genetic detoxification ensures that no active form of the pertussis toxin is present, while chemically detoxified pertussis toxins may revert to toxicity."

In addition to brain inflammation, acellular pertussis vaccine can cause extensive swelling at the site of the injection. Some vaccine researchers think this swelling may be due to a hypersensitivity reaction or be related to DTaP vaccine-induced Th-2 type cytokines, Th2 skewing of the immune response and a subsequent delay in Th1 development in some children.

Although brain inflammation is thought to occur less frequently with DTaP than with DPT, because DTaP vaccine is associated with the same kind of brain inflammation and other central nervous system complications as the whole cell DPT vaccine, the same contraindications and precautions that were in force with DPT vaccine are also applicable to DTaP vaccine.

How many more vaccine deaths and brain injuries will occur and how many more parents' lives will be ruined because pediatricians refuse to acknowledge that vaccines can cause brain inflammation, permanent injury and death? Every licensed vaccine on the market has the inherent ability to injure or kill, depending upon the vaccine or combination of vaccines given simultaneously, as well as individual genetic and biological high risk factors, including a personal or family history of autoimmunity or neurological disorders, prematurity, coinciding viral or bacterial infection at the time of vaccination, co- exposure to other environmental toxins and other factors.

The DPT vaccine-induced death of Sally Clark's infant son, for which she was unjustly prosecuted and cruelly imprisoned with the enthusiastic assistance of pediatricians determined to hide the risks of vaccination, has apparently now led to Sally Clark's untimely death several months ago. Sally's friends say she died of a broken heart. The viciousness with which she was persecuted by doctors, who knew they could have defended her but were too afraid to admit vaccines could have played a role in her baby's death, speaks volumes about the moral decay among those who care more about propping up one-size-fits-all vaccine policies than defending truth and justice.

TX Gov Rants About Failed HPV Vaccine Mandate

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"I have never seen so much misinformation spread about a vital public health issue: whether it is the effectiveness of the vaccine, the impact of the order on parents' decision-making authority, or the impact this will have on the behavior of young women....I have wrestled for a few days with whether to veto this bill, or let it become law without my signature. But the fact of the matter is, it will become law no matter what because the voice of the Legislature is clear. And rather than allowing this issue to be held captive one more day by legislative politics and the inevitable posturing that will ensue during a veto override debate, I have decided to let it become law without my signature...." - Texas Governor Rick Perry

"A veto almost certainly would have been overridden by Texas legislators, who have questioned the vaccine's safety, efficacy and cost and complained that the governor's mandate would intrude on families' lives. Lawmakers also were outraged that he didn't consult with them before issuing the order.....Republican Rep. Dennis Bonnen bristled at the governor's criticism of his bill. "We should not and are now not going to offer the 165,000 11-year-olds in Texas up to be the study group for Merck to find out what the implications of this vaccine would be for these girls," he said." - Liz Austin Peterson, Associated Press, May 9, 2007

Barbara Loe Fisher Commentary:

Texas Governor Rick Perry, who crowned himself King back in February when he issued an Executive Order mandating HPV vaccine for all 11 year old girls, had a public tantrum yesterday at a press conference in which he castigated the Texas legislature for having the audacity to override his abuse of executive power. While he ranted and called the legislators who dared to defy him names, he again failed to mention that his former chief of staff is now a lobbyist for Merck, the only drug company with an HPV vaccine (GARDASIL) on the market. Adopting Merck's favorite public relations strategy to deflect attention from the legitimate product safety issues, Perry once again tried to make it all about parents being upset about kids having sex too soon rather than parents being upset about their 11 year old daughters being forced to use a vaccine that was only tested for a few years in a few hundred 11 year old girls prior to licensure.

The National Vaccine Information Center, as well as the federal vaccine adverse events reporting system (VAERS), continues to receive reports that young girls are experiencing serious reactions to GARDASIL. Young girls are collapsing into unconsciousness and injuring themselves, having seizures and suffering facial paralysis, Guillain Barre syndrome, speech and vision problems and other severe health deterioriation that leaves unable to function normally after being injected with GARDASIL. Yesterday, the Governor of Texas engaged in the worst kind of political posturing to make excuses for trying to force girls entering adolescence to use an experimental vaccine to prevent an infection that cannot be transmitted in the school setting for a cancer that has declined by more than 74 percent in the US since the 1950's and, today, causes fewer than one percent of all cancers diagnosed in the US and fewer than one percent of all cancer deaths in the US.

Appropriately, the elected representatives of the Texas legislature have spoken, not just to slap the hands of a Governor who abused his executive power, but they have spoken on behalf of the majority of Texas citizens who elected them. The only way the American people can exercise their will in a democracy is to make their concerns known to the men and women, who they elect to represent them in state legislatures and in Congress, and ask them to act.

The people of Texas have spoken on the subject of HPV vaccine mandates through their elected representatives in the state legislature. The people of California would do well to think twice before they give up their power to speak through their elected representatives about future vaccine mandates and hand it over to unelected public health officials in the executive branch.

Autism Skyrockets in California

"In 1971,California included autism as a qualifying condition to it's developmental services system. During the 16 year period from 1971 through 1987, California had a total caseload of roughly 2700 persons with autism. Rick Rollens said "During the past nine months alone, from July 2006 to April 2007, California added roughly 2700 new autism cases. What used to take 16 years in caseload growth now takes 9 months!" Twenty years ago in 1987 there were 2700 persons with autism in the California system. Today, there are nearly 34,000 and 92% of the children were born after 1980, with 84% under the age of 21 and 78% under the age of 18. "We are still waiting for the missing 14,000+ adults with autism that should be in our system if there has not been a real increase in autism to show up now that we know what autism looks like," added Rick. " Still no sign of them. "

"Just before his third birthday, Eric was diagnosed with autism. He is now 9 and his younger brother Jack is 7. Jack was not vaccinated and shows no signs of autism. Today, 1 in 150 children are diagnosed with autism. Most agree that the disorder is caused by both genetic and environmental factors. For the Estepps, they believe the genetic cause for Eric was a family history of weakened immune systems, and the environmental was the vaccinations. Doctor Kurt Woeller, who treats autistic children thinks pediatricians should look at each child, and their family history, before recommending how many vaccines they receive. "What I know personally, as a physician, is the stories parents tell me, over and over again. How their kids regressed into autism sometimes a day after getting a series of shots. I believe that we are looking at an overuse and indiscriminate use of vaccines." - XETV-Fox 6, San Diego , May 1, 2007

Barbara Loe Fisher Commentary:

Another report from Rick Rollens in California confirming what parents of children under five already know: America's autism epidemic is not slowing down because America's children are being overvaccinated. The autism epidemic is not just about mercury or aluminum or formaldehyde or phenoxyethanol or gluteraldehyde or sodium borate or any other single component of vaccines. Vaccine induced brain inflammation and chronic neuroimmune dysfunction is a complex, multi-factoral interaction between genetic and other host biological high risk factors and one or more live virus and killed bacterial vaccines given simultaneously and repeatedly in the critical first few hours, days, weeks and months of life.

All of the biological mechanisms and high risk factors have yet to be identified. But we know that during the past 25 years, as the numbers of doses of vaccines public health officials insist on giving children have more than doubled, we have fundamentally changed the way that humans experience their environment in the critical developmental period when the brain and immune system develop most rapidly.

Doctors in leadership positions in the CDC and AAP had better get their collective heads out of the sand and take a good look at the chronic disease and disability epidemic that is thriving because of their utilitarian approach to mass vaccination policies. They had better get off the idea that there is a difference between individual and public health. There is no difference. Because when you believe it is morally acceptable to harm one in the community, you eventually end up justifying harm to many in the community.

Look at what has been done in the name of the greater good.

California Reports Another Record Autism Increase

Rick Rollens, co-founder of the M.I.N.D. Institute at UC- Davis, reports that California is continuing to experience record numbers of cases of children being diagnosed with the most serious form of autism.

According to information released last week by California's Department of Developmental Services (DDS), during the 91 day period that was the first quarter of 2007 (Q 1), 886 new children with a professional diagnosis of full syndrome DSM IV autism, which does NOT include PDD, NOS, Asperger's Syndrome or any other autism spectrum disorder, were added to California's developmental services system.

There were a total of 1570 total new intakes during the first quarter of 2007, which included children with autism, cerebral palsy, mental retardation, epilepsy, and a myriad of rare genetic conditions such as Fragile X, and Down's Syndrome. Of the 1570 total new intakes, 886 or 56% were full syndrome autism cases.

The 886 new intakes during that 91 day period represents the second highest number of new intakes for a quarter reporting period in the 38 year history of California's developmental services system. On average, California is currently adding 10 new children a day, seven days a week with full syndrome autism to it's system.

In 1971,California included autism as a qualifying condition to it's developmental services system. During the 16 year period from 1971 through 1987, California had a total caseload of roughly 2700 persons with autism.

Rick said "During the past nine months alone, from July 2006 to April 2007, California added roughly 2700 new autism cases. What used to take 16 years in caseload growth now takes 9 months!"

Twenty years ago in 1987 there were 2700 persons with autism in the California system. Today, there are nearly 34,000 and 92% of the children were born after 1980, with 84% under the age of 21 and 78% under the age of 18.

"We are still waiting for the missing 14,000+ adults with autism that should be in our system if there has not been a real increase in autism to show up now that we know what autism looks like," added Rick. " Still no sign of them. The fact is, they do not exist. In California's system today. Less then 2 out of 10 persons with autism are 22 years of age or older, the remaining 8 1/2 out of 10 are between the ages of 3 and 21."

Pharmaceuticals, Brain Dysfunction and Violence

"Details continue to emerge about the lonely life of [Virginia Tech] killer Seung-Hui Cho, who had a history of mental illness. Among Cho's effects, officials found prescription medications related to the treatment of psychological problems.....There are dozens of other examples of violence at schools and the presence of antidepressants, but the carnage hardly is limited to our campuses. Countless families have been destroyed around the world through homicides and suicides committed by adults on antidepressants.....The list (which can be found at www.drugawareness.org) encompasses hundreds and hundreds of cases.....Most antidepressant drugs, including Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Luvox, Celexa, Lexapro and Effexor, are known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, which alter brain chemistry in an attempt to manage depression......A recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that half of all Americans take at least one prescription drug, and that antidepressant use has nearly tripled in the past decade...." - Ty Phillips, Modesto Bee, April 29, 2007

"Despite efforts to curb drug companies' avid courting of doctors, the industry is working harder than ever to influence what medicines they prescribe, sending out sales representatives with greater frequency and plying physicians with gifts, meals and consulting fees, according to several new papers. One study published in the New England Journal of Medicine last week found that 94 percent of doctors have some type of relationship with the drug industry -- most commonly accepting free food or drug samples, which about 80 percent of physicians did.....28 percent said they had been paid for consulting, giving lectures or signing up patients for clinical trials......"We now know that virtually every doctor in the United States has some form of relationship with the pharmaceutical industry," said Eric G. Campbell, lead researcher of the New England Journal of Medicine study and an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. "They are common. A quarter receive honoraria or some form of payment for their services, and that was much higher than we expected." - Christopher Lee, Washington Post, April 29, 2007

"The researchers found dysfunction in common brain regions in reviews of brain imaging data from 41 murderers, from a study group suffering from aggressive impulsive personality disorder, and from a group diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder. They also reviewed data from two individuals who suffered early damage to the two regions of the brain in question. Those individuals, injured early in life, both showed histories of verbal and physical abusiveness and intermittent, explosive bursts of anger. The research paper also described a large group of subjects who have a genetic deficit that causes a disruption in the brain's serotonin levels. The serotonin system employs many of the brain regions described earlier and a disruption of the system has been linked to increased aggression. Davidson's analysis showed that these emotion-controlling brain regions showed less activity in the individuals who carried this genetic abnormality. Davidson stresses that the research points to both genetics and poor environmental history as potential contributors to impulsive violence, and together they present a "double whammy" that put people at much greater risk. "These parts of the brain are particularly responsive to experiential shaping," Davidson says." - Science Daily, August 15, 2000

"A retrospective study of brain investigations of 372 male patients in a maximum- security mental hospital patients is described......In the most violent group, 20% had focal temporal electrical abnormalities on EEG (slowing and/or sharp waves) and 41% had structural abnormalities localised to temporal lobe on CT....These results suggest that high violence rating scores are associated with temporal lobe abnormalities on CT and abnormal temporal electrical discharges on EEG." - MT Wong et al, Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavia, August 1994

Barbara Loe Fisher Commentary:

A significant portion of the US population is now using multiple prescription drugs and vaccines from infancy through adulthood, even though there has never been an evaluation of multiple drug and vaccine use in humans to determine the effect on long term physical and mental health. If Americans have become drug and vaccine junkies, then medical doctors who promote and prescribe biological and chemical products made and sold by the pharmaceutical industry have become their suppliers. Although drugs and vaccine(s) prescribed (or mandated) by doctors can sometimes cause profound negative changes in brain and immune function, there is little effort made by the pharmaceutical industry and doctors profiting from mass drug and vaccine use to evaluate potential negative effects or take steps to minimize them.

Vaccine induced brain inflammation, which has been the hallmark of severe reactions since the first vaccine - smallpox vaccine - was used on a mass basis can be mild or severe and damage the developing brain of a child, permanently altering behavior, personality, intelligence, emotional stability, and physical ability. Drug induced chemical changes in the brain can also negatively affect important aspects of normal brain function. Instead of spending more research dollars to create new drugs and vaccines, the pharmaceutical industry should first find out why drug and vaccine complications occur and who is at high risk for suffering them.

An epidemic of chronic physical illness and disability, along with an epidemic of depression and violent behavior, in American children and young adults has developed during the past quarter century. Although economic and social factors influence health and behavior, the possibility that environmental insults are causing significant damage to brain and immune function in a growing minority of children is very real. Too much prescription drug and vaccine use cannot be discounted as one of those environmental insults, which could result in greater or lesser damage, depending upon genetic and other biological variables.

If a substantial minority of violent inmates in prisons and mental institutions are brain damaged, we ignore at our peril the potential role that prescription drug and vaccine-induced brain dysfunction plays in the epidemic of chronic illness and violent behavior plaguing America. We owe it to future generations to find out just how big that role may be before more drugs and vaccines are prescribed and the epidemic gets worse.