by Barbara Loe Fisher
The discrimination begins, always, with the majority in a society pointing the finger at a minority for somehow endangering the public health and welfare. Individuals in the minority group are singled out as different - ethnically, biologically, spiritually, morally - from the majority. The human impulse to fear, judge, marginalize or eliminate those different from the rest has left a blood soaked trail winding throughout the entire history of man from the Great Inquisition to the Holocaust; from the killing fields of Cambodia to Rwanda, Serbia and Tibet; while the persecution of those with leprosy, TB, AIDS, mental illness, and handicaps continues in every society.
It was with a heavy heart that I read the March 21 New York Times article, "Public Health Risk Seen as Parents Reject Vaccines." Then I waded through the venomous comments posted on the NY Times website attacking parents of vaccine injured autistic children and those supporting informed consent to vaccination, specifically legal exemptions.
Some New York Times readers simply engaged in adolescent name-calling, angrily accusing parents of being "stupid" for questioning the wisdom of doctors in positions of authority and "selfish" for wanting to make informed vaccine choices:
"I'm so tired of these morons who refuse to vaccinate their children. It's stupid and selfish and, as usual, the kid suffers because of an hysterical, paranoid mother. What we need is a vaccine against paranoid conspiracy theory nuts. Oh, yeah....and by all means, let's trust a primary care doc from Arizona rather than the AAP and CDC. After all, what does some pinhead in private practice know that the best trained, most informed academic docs at some backwater like Johns Hopkins or CHOP or Children's Boston know, anyhow."
Others ridiculed parents for having faith in God but not in medical science, doctors and the safety of vaccines:
"The irrational decisions of adults, including parents and even physicians, supported by superstition, faith and magical beliefs, rather than data, evidence and proof, cannot stand in the way of science's obligation to create new knowledge to protect the members of a society, especially its most vulnerable members."
"Western religion's relationship with God requires a scapegoat. Since the Satan bit is worn a little thin they have once again decided that science and technology are to blame for all man's evils. As a civilized society we have given far too much deference to religion. Those not wishing to participate should simply not be included in schools, hospitals, etc. Not allowing their children to participate is the cruelist of abuse and should be removed from their "care."
"The parents whose personal beliefs cause them to fail to vaccinate their children should be seen clearly for what they are - child abusers. They are as monstrous as people that allow their children to die because they are convinced that if their god wants their children to live, he'll take care of it."
"Science is not infallible but it works. No one doubts that savagely beating a kid and offering "religious beliefs" as a pretext is a crime. These parents are doing the same thing. They should be prosecuted for endangering the health of their children - and ours."
The idea that the unvaccinated should be made "outcasts" in society and kept in isolation or even banned from being able to go out in public was a popular one:
"To those who demand an exemption, the choice should be clear and simple. No vaccine, no attendance at any public venue, schools in particular. Let these leaches live up in the woods as hermits."
" Parents of immunized children should not allow their children to play with [unvaccinated children]. Being an outcast is a powerful tool to use against these very selfish people."
Doctors defending their belief in vaccination weighed in, too, calling for elimination of the unvaccinated from society:
"As an epidemiologist who believes in the power and strength of herd immunity, I would like to ask these people who forgo vaccination to politely leave the herd."
Several more suggested the unvaccinated be publicly branded and forced to reveal their vaccination history to all who come in contact with them:
"Those making this decision [to not vaccinate their children] should be ineligible for access to public schooling. They should also be mandated to inform any and all people with whom they come into contact of their lack of vaccinations. They should also sign a waiver to any public or insurance pool funding for treatment of avoidable disease and/or long term damage caused by contraction of that disease."
"Should parents get to decide what happens to their child, even when that decision flies in the face of all evidence? Yes. But then should I have a right to know who these children are, so that I can keep my own child away from them? Indeed, I think I should......"
Another went further, calling for hospital and medical care to be denied to the unvaccinated:
"They should not be permitted in clinics and hospitals, where immunocompromised children and adults have the right to safety. No exception, whether based on religious faith or just garden-variety ignorance and superstition."
Several others believe mothers and fathers with unvaccinated children should be not only be charged with a crime but have their children taken from them:
"This should be a reason to notify CPS so that they can remove these children from parents who endanger their lives. This should be a crime."
There was a call for legislators who vote for vaccine exemptions to be punished:
"The parents who unilaterally decide to withhold immunization from their children should be sent to jail. The legislators who voted to condone this behavior should be identified and subjected to recall."
And some wanted to see parents and their unvaccinated children physically harmed:
.....Fine, so long as these parents are forcibly exposed to the illnesses themselves. And if their children either die, or are permanently injured, criminal charges should be laid. Then we'll see how much they still believe in their voodoo- science......"
Like sharks in a feeding frenzy, they gave public witness to their fear and loathing of fellow human beings who do not believe, think or act as they do.
I could not help but think of the children and parents forced to line up last November at a Maryland County Courthouse patrolled by armed police with dogs, a stark reminder that the parents were under threat of imprisonment and fines for failing to show schools proof that their children got chicken pox and hepatitis B shots.
I remembered the news report out of Belgium last month describing how a State court had sentenced mothers and fathers to five months in prison and a $4,000 fine because their children had not gotten vaccinated.
I thought of the persecution of Andrew Wakefield, M.D., who is being punished by his British colleagues for daring to report an association between the MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccine and neuroimmune dysfunction, including inflammatory bowel disease and autism. Like when the heads of heretics were impaled upon stakes on the Tower of London as a warning for all to see, the Wakefield inquisition is a spectacle designed to persuade all doctors contemplating questioning the safety of current mass vaccination policies to remain silent.
And then I thought of the Jewish orphan from Philadelphia, whose DNA I inherited from several generations back, and whose lineage in my mid-west Protestant family was not known to me for many years. Her blood is my blood, her genes belong to me just as the Norwegian and Scottish-Irish genes that predispose me and my children to autoimmunity and vaccine reactions are part of who I am.
I wondered how many of the readers of that New York Times article, who spewed fear, prejudice and hate into cyberspace and urged discrimination against and punishment of the unvaccinated, remembered that we are who we are because of the genetic strengths and vulnerabilities inherited from our mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers going back generations and generations.
I come from a family of doctors and nurses, physical therapists and social workers, historians and soldiers, artists and writers, pastors and farmers, public administrators and builders; feminists and teachers, who have made the world a little better because they were allowed to live. And all through our family there is a history of autoimmunity, including rheumatoid arthritis, thyroid disease, diabetes, asthma, inflammatory bowel disease, severe allergies to foods, prescription drugs and pollen, and vaccine reactions.
My mother died of lupus two years ago this week, her body unable to protect itself from self. A nurse who once took care of polio victims at Mayo Clinic, she left three children and 11 grandchildren, all of whom carry her genes.
We do not choose the genes we inherit that make us the unique individuals we each are, as different from one another as we are similar within the human species.
My mother would have gladly laid down her life for any one of her children or grandchildren in order to protect them from harm, as I and countless other mothers around the world would do. The biological imperative, which prompts mothers and fathers to willingly sacrifice their lives to ensure their children survive, dictates we do that in order to ensure the survival of the human race.
For what is the human race but a collection of individuals from individual families living in different communities, all joined together to make up the whole of humanity? When any one life is devalued and deemed expendable, by extension, the well being and integrity of the whole is compromised.
Individual health IS public health.
Vaccine policies issued by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) do not recognize the potential biological vulnerability of my family and many other families to be harmed by vaccination. It does not matter if we have a vaccine injured child: CDC and AAP policies turned into law by state legislators do not provide for vaccine injured children or the siblings of vaccine injured children to be medically exempt from vaccination. Children, who have had seizures and other health deterioration after vaccination, often do not qualify for medical exemptions.
In the past quarter century, the numbers of vaccines the CDC and AAP insist that children must get has increased from 23 doses of 7 vaccines to 48 doses of 14 vaccines by age six without any large, credible studies proving it is safe for all children. How many of those genetically vulnerable to repeated atypical manipulation of the immune system through forced multiple vaccine use are among the highly vaccinated American children who are chronically ill and disabled today: 1 in 6 learning disabled; 1 in 9 asthmatic; 1 in 150 developing autism?
The doctors in charge at the CDC and AAP have refused, for more than a quarter century, to acknowledge the existence of a growing number of vaccine injured children and so they have refused to identify and screen out children biologically vulnerable to vaccine-induced brain and immune system dysfunction. One-size-fits-all vaccine policies and state laws have become a de facto selection of the genetically vulnerable for sacrifice. It is a very small step from that kind of societal thinking to the prisons, concentration camps and killing fields that stand as chilling testimony to the human impulse to dehumanize others in order to control, exploit or eliminate them.
Holocaust survivor Elie Weisel has said "When you take an idea or a concept and turn it into an abstraction, that opens the way to take human beings and turn them, also, into abstractions."
Individuals harmed by vaccines are not abstractions. They are human beings who deserve to be spared a lifetime of suffering rather than being thrown under the bus to prop up forced mass vaccination policies that fail to acknowledge biodiversity within the family of man.
In the face of a medical community committed to the utilitarian rationale that a minority of human beings can be sacrificed in service to the majority, the only way parents can protect children from being injured or killed by vaccines is by the free exercise of non- medical legal exemptions for deeply held religious or conscientious beliefs.
Doctors inside and outside of government, who have instilled fear of and discrimination against parents with vaccine injured children, bear responsibility for the hate and prejudice expressed on the New York Times website last week. It is a wake-up call for all Americans who cherish freedom and the human right to make informed, voluntary medical decisions that involve a risk of injury or death.
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"The very success of immunizations has turned out to be an Achilles' heel," said Dr. Mark Sawyer, a pediatrician and infectious disease specialist at Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego. "Most of these parents have never seen measles, and don't realize it could be a bad disease so they turn their concerns to unfounded risks. They do not perceive risk of the disease but perceive risk of the vaccine." Dr. Sawyer and the vast majority of pediatricians believe strongly that vaccinations are the cornerstone of sound public health. Many doctors view the so-called exempters as parasites, of a sort, benefiting from the otherwise inoculated majority.....While the picture of an unvaccinated child was once that of the offspring of poor and uneducated parents, "exempters" are often well educated and financially stable, and hold a host of like-minded child-rearing beliefs. Vaccine skeptics provide differing explanations for their belief that vaccines may cause various illnesses and disorders, including autism. Recent news that a federal vaccine court agreed to pay the family of an autistic child in Georgia who had an underlying mitochondrial disorder has led some skeptics to speculate that vaccines may worsen such conditions. Again, researchers say there is no evidence to support this thesis. Alexandra Stewart, director of the Epidemiology of U.S. Immunization Law project at George Washington University, said many of these parents are influenced by misinformation obtained from Web sites that oppose vaccination. "The autism debate has convinced these parents to refuse vaccines to the detriment of their own children as well as the community," Ms. Stewart said." - Jennifer Steinhauer, The New York Times (March 21, 2008) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/21/us/21vaccine.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin3/21/us/21vaccine.html?hp
"Two sets of parents in Belgium were recently handed five month prison terms for failing to vaccinate their children against polio. Each parent was also fined 4,100 euros ($8,000)....The parents can still avoid prison - their sentences were delayed to give them a chance to vaccinate their children. But if that deadline also passes without their children receiving the injections, the parents could be put behind bars.....The polio vaccine is the only one required by Belgian law. Exceptions are granted only if parents can prove their children might have a bad physical reaction to the vaccine.....Aside from Belgium, only France makes polio vaccinations mandatory by law. In the United States, children must be vaccinated against many diseases including polio, but most states allow children to opt out if their parents have religious or "philosophical" objections. In the U.S. state of Maryland, prosecutors and school officials in one county threatened truancy charges against parents who failed to vaccinate their children.....People who refuse to be vaccinated are "free riders," Harris said. "They can only afford to refuse the vaccine because they are surrounded by people who have fulfilled their obligations to the community." - Maria Cheng, Associated Press (March 12, 2008) http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080312/ap_on_he_me/polio_vaccine_prisonp/20080312/ap_on_he_me/polio_vaccine_prison
"One of the most reprehensible weapons being wielded in the witch-hunt against Wakefield is the claim that anyone who gives any credence whatever to his concerns is responsible for the incidence of measles amongst children whose parents are as a result too frightened to give them the MMR vaccination. There are two obvious points to make in response to this piece of moral blackmail: 1) the whole panic could have been avoided by offering single measles, mumps and rubella jabs rather than the triple MMR, and 2) it is surely just as important as avoiding cases of measles mumps and rubella to avoid causing the kind of catastrophic damage to the brain and gut displayed by the children at the heart of this controversy. And there is a further and quite appalling point to note. This whole saga started because parents of such children found that their family doctors were dismissing out of hand their children's gut and brain problems, accordingly refusing to alleviate their suffering. Now, as a direct result of the animosity towards Wakefield that has been whipped up - and the fear that any doctor who suggests he might be right will similarly find him or herself at the receiving end of the medical establishment's fist - children exhibiting this combination of gut and brain damage are finding it difficult to obtain treatment." - Melanie Phillips, The Spectator (March 21, 2008) http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/568226/the-wakefield-witchhunt.thtmlillips/568226/the-wakefield-witchhunt.thtml
Hepatitis B: Discrimination and Vaccine Damage
by Barbara Loe Fisher
A news report out of China, where about 125 million people are hepatitis B carriers, reveals that any child or adult found to be hepatitis B positive faces severe discrimination and societal sanctions while news reports out of Japan reveal that mandatory hepatitis B vaccination programs have transmitted hepatitis B infection. In France, families of hepatitis B vaccine victims are suing drug giants GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Sanofi Pasteur for aggravated deceit and involuntary homicide for the crippling and killing of children and adults, who were required to take the vaccine. The families have been barred from suing two former French government health officials who initiated and promoted the mandatory hepatitis B vaccination program.
For more than 20 years, the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) has been receiving reports that adults,children and infants are suffering serious reactions to hepatitis B vaccine. Hepatitis B vaccine reaction reports began to come in to NVIC's Vaccine Reaction Registry in the late 1980's from adult health care workers, who reported extreme fatigue, muscle weakness, joint pain, loss of vision, memory loss, heart problems, and development of multiple sclerosis after hepatitis B vaccination.
When the CDC recommended in 1991 that all healthy newborns at 12 hours of age be given hepatitis B vaccine in the newborn nursery, reports of infants dying after hepatitis B vaccination started coming in and continued all through the 90's. When states started mandating the vaccine for all school children in the late 1990's, parents began reporting that their bright, healthy, honor roll students and star athletes were becoming brain damaged, bed ridden and unable to attend school.
In 1999, NVIC published a report that in the U.S. there were more reported cases of hepatitis B vaccine reactions than reported cases of hepatitis B disease in children under 14 years old, an infection that is primarily transmitted in the U.S. among adult high risk groups such as IV drug users and those with multiple sexual partners.
The U.S., Europe and Canada have had historically low rates of hepatitis B disease. In 1990, one year before the CDC told doctors to give every American child three doses of hepatitis B vaccine, there were 21,102 cases of hepatitis B reported in the U.S. out of more than 300 million Americans. In 2005, there were 5,119 hepatitis B cases reported (MMWR, March 30, 2007)
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5453a1.htm
During the past century, medical doctors in positions of power inside and outside of governments around the world have developed an irrational fear of infectious microorganisms, such as hepatitis B virus, and have instilled that fear in the people they counsel. When irrational fear overtakes rational thought, the first casualty is usually the truth; the second is freedom.
The people in China, who are facing cruel discrimination for testing positive for hepatitis B infection, are being persecuted because of myths and misinformation perpetuated by doctors pushing mass use of hepatitis B vaccine and pharmaceutical drugs. The hype that surrounded CDC-inspired mandatory hepatitis B vaccination laws in the late 1990's had doctors declaring to the media that hepatitis B is highly contagious and could be transmitted in school settings, even though they knew transmission was impossible unless there was a direct exchange of blood. When questioned in a public hearing in 1997, CDC official Eric Mast, M.D. admitted "although [the hepatitis B] virus is present in moderate concentrations in saliva, it's not transmitted commonly by casual contact."
Infants who contract hepatitis B, either from their infected mother or infected blood transfusions, are at highest risk for chronic infection. But for the majority of healthy teenagers and adults, who come down with hepatitis B infection, symptoms include nausea, vomiting, low grade fever, pain and swelling in the joints, headache, and cough for two weeks before the onset of jaundice and enlargement/tenderness of the liver that lasts for three to four weeks. Fatigue can last up to a year but "most patients do not require hospital care" and "95 percent of patients have a favorable course and recover completely" with the case fatality ratio being "very low (approximately 0.1 percent)" according to Harrison's Principles of Medicine (11th Edition).
Those who recover completely from hepatitis B infection acquire life-long immunity. One medical textbook (Robbins Pathologic Textbook of Disease) points out that among those who do not recover completely from hepatitis B infection, fewer than 5 percent become chronic carrriers of the virus, with just one quarter of these in danger of developing life threatening disease later in life. For more information on hepatitis B disease and the vaccine, go to http://www.nvic.org/Diseases/hepbnlr.htm
The tragic consequences of doctors promoting mass hysteria about infectious diseases, like hepatitis B, and insisting on "no-exceptions" vaccine mandates, are becoming clearer every day. The only hope that citizens of every country have to protect their health and the health of their children is to stand up and pass laws which allow informed, voluntary use of vaccines and prohibit discrimination against those who have a disease or are vaccine injured.
No forced vaccination. Not in America.
A news report out of China, where about 125 million people are hepatitis B carriers, reveals that any child or adult found to be hepatitis B positive faces severe discrimination and societal sanctions while news reports out of Japan reveal that mandatory hepatitis B vaccination programs have transmitted hepatitis B infection. In France, families of hepatitis B vaccine victims are suing drug giants GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Sanofi Pasteur for aggravated deceit and involuntary homicide for the crippling and killing of children and adults, who were required to take the vaccine. The families have been barred from suing two former French government health officials who initiated and promoted the mandatory hepatitis B vaccination program.
For more than 20 years, the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) has been receiving reports that adults,children and infants are suffering serious reactions to hepatitis B vaccine. Hepatitis B vaccine reaction reports began to come in to NVIC's Vaccine Reaction Registry in the late 1980's from adult health care workers, who reported extreme fatigue, muscle weakness, joint pain, loss of vision, memory loss, heart problems, and development of multiple sclerosis after hepatitis B vaccination.
When the CDC recommended in 1991 that all healthy newborns at 12 hours of age be given hepatitis B vaccine in the newborn nursery, reports of infants dying after hepatitis B vaccination started coming in and continued all through the 90's. When states started mandating the vaccine for all school children in the late 1990's, parents began reporting that their bright, healthy, honor roll students and star athletes were becoming brain damaged, bed ridden and unable to attend school.
In 1999, NVIC published a report that in the U.S. there were more reported cases of hepatitis B vaccine reactions than reported cases of hepatitis B disease in children under 14 years old, an infection that is primarily transmitted in the U.S. among adult high risk groups such as IV drug users and those with multiple sexual partners.
The U.S., Europe and Canada have had historically low rates of hepatitis B disease. In 1990, one year before the CDC told doctors to give every American child three doses of hepatitis B vaccine, there were 21,102 cases of hepatitis B reported in the U.S. out of more than 300 million Americans. In 2005, there were 5,119 hepatitis B cases reported (MMWR, March 30, 2007)
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5453a1.htm
During the past century, medical doctors in positions of power inside and outside of governments around the world have developed an irrational fear of infectious microorganisms, such as hepatitis B virus, and have instilled that fear in the people they counsel. When irrational fear overtakes rational thought, the first casualty is usually the truth; the second is freedom.
The people in China, who are facing cruel discrimination for testing positive for hepatitis B infection, are being persecuted because of myths and misinformation perpetuated by doctors pushing mass use of hepatitis B vaccine and pharmaceutical drugs. The hype that surrounded CDC-inspired mandatory hepatitis B vaccination laws in the late 1990's had doctors declaring to the media that hepatitis B is highly contagious and could be transmitted in school settings, even though they knew transmission was impossible unless there was a direct exchange of blood. When questioned in a public hearing in 1997, CDC official Eric Mast, M.D. admitted "although [the hepatitis B] virus is present in moderate concentrations in saliva, it's not transmitted commonly by casual contact."
Infants who contract hepatitis B, either from their infected mother or infected blood transfusions, are at highest risk for chronic infection. But for the majority of healthy teenagers and adults, who come down with hepatitis B infection, symptoms include nausea, vomiting, low grade fever, pain and swelling in the joints, headache, and cough for two weeks before the onset of jaundice and enlargement/tenderness of the liver that lasts for three to four weeks. Fatigue can last up to a year but "most patients do not require hospital care" and "95 percent of patients have a favorable course and recover completely" with the case fatality ratio being "very low (approximately 0.1 percent)" according to Harrison's Principles of Medicine (11th Edition).
Those who recover completely from hepatitis B infection acquire life-long immunity. One medical textbook (Robbins Pathologic Textbook of Disease) points out that among those who do not recover completely from hepatitis B infection, fewer than 5 percent become chronic carrriers of the virus, with just one quarter of these in danger of developing life threatening disease later in life. For more information on hepatitis B disease and the vaccine, go to http://www.nvic.org/Diseases/hepbnlr.htm
The tragic consequences of doctors promoting mass hysteria about infectious diseases, like hepatitis B, and insisting on "no-exceptions" vaccine mandates, are becoming clearer every day. The only hope that citizens of every country have to protect their health and the health of their children is to stand up and pass laws which allow informed, voluntary use of vaccines and prohibit discrimination against those who have a disease or are vaccine injured.
No forced vaccination. Not in America.
Aluminum in Vaccines: Dr. Palevsky Joins NVIC's "The Doctor's Corner"
by Barbara Loe Fisher
In an article entitled "Aluminum Adjuvants: What Do We Know, What Don't We Know," pediatrician Lawrence Palevsky, M.D., FAAP, joins NVIC's new internet forum for pediatricians, "The Doctor's Corner" at www.nvic.org. Dr. Palevsky, who is co- founder and president of the Holistic Pediatric Association and past president of the American Holistic Medical Association, questions whether aluminum in vaccines is affecting the health of our children and contributing to the burden of chronic disease and disability.
In his referenced article, Dr. Palevsky explains the importance of maintaining a healthy immune system capable of initiating and resolving inflammation in response to challenges from viruses and bacteria, as well as reviews what is known and not known about the effects of the heavy metal, aluminum, on immune and brain function. He asks "Does aluminum play a role in impairing the overall synergistic, balanced activity of TH1, TH2 and TH3, which is a requirement for a healthy immune system response to the natural environment?"
Dr. Palevsky received his medical degree from the NYU School of Medicine in 1987. He completed a residency at Mount Sinai Hospital in NYC and a fellowship at Bellevue Hospital before joining Our Lady of Mercy Medical Center in the Bronx. He served as Chief of the Pediatric Acute Care Unit at Lenox Hill Hospital for four years and later was in private practice as a holistic integrative pediatrician for the Center for Health & Healing, an integrative and complementary care medical facility affiliated with Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City. He provides wellness care for families at the Northport Wellness Center in Long Island and in New York City and participates in community health education programs in New York and nationally.
The Doctor's Corner, sponsored by the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), was created for enlightened pediatricians to publish referenced articles and stimulate dialogue about how and why vaccines cause reactions, injuries and death; why some individuals may be at higher risk than others for suffering a vaccine reaction; and ways in which vaccine risks may be reduced. The discussion on NVIC's The Doctor's Corner will also examine the relationship between infectious disease and vaccination and how early childhood experiences with both can influence immune and brain function.
The National Vaccine Information Center has long supported the forging of a new and more enlightened partnership between pediatricians and parents when it comes to making vaccination decisions for children. Parents in the 21st Century are becoming educated about vaccination and they want something more from pediatricians than inflexible administration of one-size- fits-all vaccine policies that fail to respect bio-diversity or the informed consent ethic. Parents are looking for intelligent, open-minded, compassionate and courageous pediatricians offering an alternative to calls by physicians inside and outside of government issue for forced use of multiple vaccines by all children.
The two pediatricians who have written articles for NVIC's "The Doctor's Corner" - Edward Yazbak, M.D. and Lawrence Palevsky, M.D. - demonstrate that there are enlightened pediatricians who respect and understand parental concerns about vaccines and the risks associated with inflexible vaccine policies. We thank them both for their courage and commitment to preventing vaccine injuries and deaths through public education.
To learn more about Dr. Palevsky and to read his article on aluminum and vaccines, go to http://www.nvic.org/doctors_corner/doctors_corner.htm
In an article entitled "Aluminum Adjuvants: What Do We Know, What Don't We Know," pediatrician Lawrence Palevsky, M.D., FAAP, joins NVIC's new internet forum for pediatricians, "The Doctor's Corner" at www.nvic.org. Dr. Palevsky, who is co- founder and president of the Holistic Pediatric Association and past president of the American Holistic Medical Association, questions whether aluminum in vaccines is affecting the health of our children and contributing to the burden of chronic disease and disability.
In his referenced article, Dr. Palevsky explains the importance of maintaining a healthy immune system capable of initiating and resolving inflammation in response to challenges from viruses and bacteria, as well as reviews what is known and not known about the effects of the heavy metal, aluminum, on immune and brain function. He asks "Does aluminum play a role in impairing the overall synergistic, balanced activity of TH1, TH2 and TH3, which is a requirement for a healthy immune system response to the natural environment?"
Dr. Palevsky received his medical degree from the NYU School of Medicine in 1987. He completed a residency at Mount Sinai Hospital in NYC and a fellowship at Bellevue Hospital before joining Our Lady of Mercy Medical Center in the Bronx. He served as Chief of the Pediatric Acute Care Unit at Lenox Hill Hospital for four years and later was in private practice as a holistic integrative pediatrician for the Center for Health & Healing, an integrative and complementary care medical facility affiliated with Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City. He provides wellness care for families at the Northport Wellness Center in Long Island and in New York City and participates in community health education programs in New York and nationally.
The Doctor's Corner, sponsored by the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), was created for enlightened pediatricians to publish referenced articles and stimulate dialogue about how and why vaccines cause reactions, injuries and death; why some individuals may be at higher risk than others for suffering a vaccine reaction; and ways in which vaccine risks may be reduced. The discussion on NVIC's The Doctor's Corner will also examine the relationship between infectious disease and vaccination and how early childhood experiences with both can influence immune and brain function.
The National Vaccine Information Center has long supported the forging of a new and more enlightened partnership between pediatricians and parents when it comes to making vaccination decisions for children. Parents in the 21st Century are becoming educated about vaccination and they want something more from pediatricians than inflexible administration of one-size- fits-all vaccine policies that fail to respect bio-diversity or the informed consent ethic. Parents are looking for intelligent, open-minded, compassionate and courageous pediatricians offering an alternative to calls by physicians inside and outside of government issue for forced use of multiple vaccines by all children.
The two pediatricians who have written articles for NVIC's "The Doctor's Corner" - Edward Yazbak, M.D. and Lawrence Palevsky, M.D. - demonstrate that there are enlightened pediatricians who respect and understand parental concerns about vaccines and the risks associated with inflexible vaccine policies. We thank them both for their courage and commitment to preventing vaccine injuries and deaths through public education.
To learn more about Dr. Palevsky and to read his article on aluminum and vaccines, go to http://www.nvic.org/doctors_corner/doctors_corner.htm
Federal Government Concedes Autistic Child Injured by Vaccines
by Barbara Loe Fisher
Ever since the historic National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Reagan, federal health officials at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) have fought most vaccine injury claims in the U.S. Court of Claims. Even so, special masters in the Court have awarded nearly $2 billion to vaccine victims since 1988. Over the years, there have been several awards quietly made to children, whose autistic behaviors began after DPT vaccine induced brain inflammation, but those awards were vigorously protested by DHHS officials who insisted that vaccines do not cause autism.
This week, however, the news is that DHHS officials have finally "conceded" that vaccines given in 2000 to a 19 month old girl with a pre-existing mitochondrial disorder did, in fact, cause brain inflammation that resulted in a spectrum of permanent brain dysfunction, including autistic behaviors. The child was given DTaP, HIB, MMR, Varicella and polio vaccines all at once and suffered classic vaccine reaction symptoms within 48 hours of the shots and subsequently regressed and was left with permanent disability, including autism.
The parents of the child, Dr. and Mrs. Jon Poling, participated in a press conference in Atlanta today, which was broadcast on CNN. The Poling's attorney for the case was NVIC Board member Cliff Shoemaker, who has represented the vaccine injured in the federal vaccine injury compensation program (VICP) ever since it was created in 1986. Tonight the parents will appear on Larry King Live at 9 p.m. on CNN and there is an on-line poll on autism and vaccines on CNN's website. CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta explains what he thinks the VICP award means.
On tonight's 5:30 p.m. WJLA-TV7 (ABC) News in Washington, D.C., Vicky Debold, PhD, RN speaks out about how her son regressed into autism after his 15 month vaccinations. Vicky's son, who received 7 live virus and killed bacterial vaccines on one day in 1998, suffered nearly identical reactions as the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Poling. During the interview, she said, "I did something stupid. I gave my son 7 vaccines on one day. " She went on to say "I regret this but I can't take it back." Like Terry Poling, who was formerly a pediatric intensive care nurse, Dr. Debold recalls that she was a pediatric ICU nurse and completely trusted the vaccine recommendations by the CDC and AAP. Both Terry and Vicky fully vaccinated their children. Vicky, who is on NVIC's Board, has served as NVIC's Director of Patient Safety for the past few years and has counseled many parents reporting vaccine reactions and regression into poor health to NVIC during the past few years. (View some of these reaction reports at http://www.vaccinememorial.org/)
For more information on the history of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act and NVIC's long- held position regarding need for reform of the Act to make the system less adversarial and compensation less difficult to obtain for the vaccine injured, go to http://www.nvic.org/Loe_Fisher/blfvicp82899.htm
Ever since the historic National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Reagan, federal health officials at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) have fought most vaccine injury claims in the U.S. Court of Claims. Even so, special masters in the Court have awarded nearly $2 billion to vaccine victims since 1988. Over the years, there have been several awards quietly made to children, whose autistic behaviors began after DPT vaccine induced brain inflammation, but those awards were vigorously protested by DHHS officials who insisted that vaccines do not cause autism.
This week, however, the news is that DHHS officials have finally "conceded" that vaccines given in 2000 to a 19 month old girl with a pre-existing mitochondrial disorder did, in fact, cause brain inflammation that resulted in a spectrum of permanent brain dysfunction, including autistic behaviors. The child was given DTaP, HIB, MMR, Varicella and polio vaccines all at once and suffered classic vaccine reaction symptoms within 48 hours of the shots and subsequently regressed and was left with permanent disability, including autism.
The parents of the child, Dr. and Mrs. Jon Poling, participated in a press conference in Atlanta today, which was broadcast on CNN. The Poling's attorney for the case was NVIC Board member Cliff Shoemaker, who has represented the vaccine injured in the federal vaccine injury compensation program (VICP) ever since it was created in 1986. Tonight the parents will appear on Larry King Live at 9 p.m. on CNN and there is an on-line poll on autism and vaccines on CNN's website. CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta explains what he thinks the VICP award means.
On tonight's 5:30 p.m. WJLA-TV7 (ABC) News in Washington, D.C., Vicky Debold, PhD, RN speaks out about how her son regressed into autism after his 15 month vaccinations. Vicky's son, who received 7 live virus and killed bacterial vaccines on one day in 1998, suffered nearly identical reactions as the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Poling. During the interview, she said, "I did something stupid. I gave my son 7 vaccines on one day. " She went on to say "I regret this but I can't take it back." Like Terry Poling, who was formerly a pediatric intensive care nurse, Dr. Debold recalls that she was a pediatric ICU nurse and completely trusted the vaccine recommendations by the CDC and AAP. Both Terry and Vicky fully vaccinated their children. Vicky, who is on NVIC's Board, has served as NVIC's Director of Patient Safety for the past few years and has counseled many parents reporting vaccine reactions and regression into poor health to NVIC during the past few years. (View some of these reaction reports at http://www.vaccinememorial.org/)
For more information on the history of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act and NVIC's long- held position regarding need for reform of the Act to make the system less adversarial and compensation less difficult to obtain for the vaccine injured, go to http://www.nvic.org/Loe_Fisher/blfvicp82899.htm
Grassroots Vaccine Freedom Movement Gears Up
by Barbara Loe Fisher
The grassroots vaccine safety and freedom movement in America, which was launched by parents of DPT vaccine injured children in 1982, has been gaining public support during the past quarter century as the numbers of vaccines medical doctors force children to get has more than doubled. From New York and New Jersey to Missouri and Mississippi Americans young and old in big towns and small cities around the nation are joining together to talk about how to change the increasingly oppressive mandatory vaccination laws in their states so they can make informed, voluntary decisions about vaccination.
It is no surprise that decades of collective denial and neglect by the medical community has led to a demand for fewer and more flexible vaccine laws. The calls jamming the phone lines and the emails and letters from desperate parents pouring into the National Vaccine Information Center have never been more alarming or heartbreaking than they are right now.
Mothers describe how they took their child to a pediatrician or public health clinic for a scheduled well baby "check-up" or sick child visit and witnessed nurses and doctors injecting their child with 5 or 8 or 12 vaccines all at once, Then, they say, they watched their children regress into chronic poor health and disability. Many of the children have suffered previous vaccine reactions, which were ignored or dismissed as "a coincidence" by doctors insisting the children be re-vaccinated. Other children are sick and on antibiotics. Others have been born premature or have personal or family histories of severe allergies and autoimmune and neurological disorders.
Over and over again, mothers describe in identical terms what they witnessed, their babies and children suffer following vaccination - seizures, high pitched screaming, collapse, unconsciousness, high fevers, body rashes, head banging, flapping, profound personality changes - cognitive and physical regression that changes the child physically, mentally and emotionally forever. And over and over again, mothers describe how their pediatricians stubbornly deny the vaccines just given had anything to do with what happened.
As someone who has witnessed the proliferation of vaccines and vaccine laws devastate the health of three generations of children, there are no words to adequately describe the pain, despair and fear that has destroyed the once joyful time of young parenting in America today. Children and their parents have become unwilling victims of a medical- industrial complex driven by the profit motive and powered by an ideology that has a callous disregard for individual human life.
It is no wonder that more and more Americans, young and old, are demanding the right to make informed, voluntary vaccination choices for themselves and their families. The grassroots vaccine safety and freedom movement in America is taking root in many states, particularly in those with the fewest exemptions and most vaccine mandates inflexibly implemented.
The conscientious belief exemption to vaccination should be added to the religious exemption in every state and medical exemptions should be widened to provide enlightened physicians with the power to write exemptions for those who do and do not have medical conditions conforming to the narrow one-size-fits-all contraindication guidelines of the CDC and AAP.
The right to informed consent to use of any pharmaceutical product or medical procedure, which carries a risk of injury or death, is a human right. Vaccination should be no exception.
NVIC supports the efforts in every state to change vaccine laws to allow informed, voluntary vaccine decision-making. In Mississippi, parents will be meeting March 17, 2008 at 6 p.m. at the Flowood Public Library, 103 Winners Circle, Flowood, MS to talk about adding a conscientious belief exemption to Mississippi state laws, which only allow a medical exemption. Go to http://parents.meetup.com/465/ for more information.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The grassroots vaccine safety and freedom movement in America, which was launched by parents of DPT vaccine injured children in 1982, has been gaining public support during the past quarter century as the numbers of vaccines medical doctors force children to get has more than doubled. From New York and New Jersey to Missouri and Mississippi Americans young and old in big towns and small cities around the nation are joining together to talk about how to change the increasingly oppressive mandatory vaccination laws in their states so they can make informed, voluntary decisions about vaccination.
It is no surprise that decades of collective denial and neglect by the medical community has led to a demand for fewer and more flexible vaccine laws. The calls jamming the phone lines and the emails and letters from desperate parents pouring into the National Vaccine Information Center have never been more alarming or heartbreaking than they are right now.
Mothers describe how they took their child to a pediatrician or public health clinic for a scheduled well baby "check-up" or sick child visit and witnessed nurses and doctors injecting their child with 5 or 8 or 12 vaccines all at once, Then, they say, they watched their children regress into chronic poor health and disability. Many of the children have suffered previous vaccine reactions, which were ignored or dismissed as "a coincidence" by doctors insisting the children be re-vaccinated. Other children are sick and on antibiotics. Others have been born premature or have personal or family histories of severe allergies and autoimmune and neurological disorders.
Over and over again, mothers describe in identical terms what they witnessed, their babies and children suffer following vaccination - seizures, high pitched screaming, collapse, unconsciousness, high fevers, body rashes, head banging, flapping, profound personality changes - cognitive and physical regression that changes the child physically, mentally and emotionally forever. And over and over again, mothers describe how their pediatricians stubbornly deny the vaccines just given had anything to do with what happened.
As someone who has witnessed the proliferation of vaccines and vaccine laws devastate the health of three generations of children, there are no words to adequately describe the pain, despair and fear that has destroyed the once joyful time of young parenting in America today. Children and their parents have become unwilling victims of a medical- industrial complex driven by the profit motive and powered by an ideology that has a callous disregard for individual human life.
It is no wonder that more and more Americans, young and old, are demanding the right to make informed, voluntary vaccination choices for themselves and their families. The grassroots vaccine safety and freedom movement in America is taking root in many states, particularly in those with the fewest exemptions and most vaccine mandates inflexibly implemented.
The conscientious belief exemption to vaccination should be added to the religious exemption in every state and medical exemptions should be widened to provide enlightened physicians with the power to write exemptions for those who do and do not have medical conditions conforming to the narrow one-size-fits-all contraindication guidelines of the CDC and AAP.
The right to informed consent to use of any pharmaceutical product or medical procedure, which carries a risk of injury or death, is a human right. Vaccination should be no exception.
NVIC supports the efforts in every state to change vaccine laws to allow informed, voluntary vaccine decision-making. In Mississippi, parents will be meeting March 17, 2008 at 6 p.m. at the Flowood Public Library, 103 Winners Circle, Flowood, MS to talk about adding a conscientious belief exemption to Mississippi state laws, which only allow a medical exemption. Go to http://parents.meetup.com/465/ for more information.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"As states move to require more vaccines for school-age children, an increasing number of parents are saying no to some of the inoculations. They are seeking exemptions from the state in growing numbers....Rita M. Palma, of Bayport, N.Y., sought a religious exemption from vaccines for her three sons but was turned down after a hearing with school officials. She said she had become increasingly uncomfortable with the vaccines the boys were getting.....After submitting a written request for a religious waiver, she was questioned at a two-hour hearing by the lawyer for the Bayport-Bluepoint School District and turned down last February by the school board. The New York Civil Liberties Union is now pursuing her case. "It is unbelievably traumatic to have your religious convictions questioned," Mrs. Palma said. "For schools to be in the religious sincerity business is just outrageous." Sue Collins, co-founder of the New Jersey Alliance for Informed Choice in Vaccination, said parents often face a variety of roadblocks when seeking vaccine exemptions in the state. "We see schools decline letters, or tell parents that clergy must write letters," she said. "Parents are being harassed and being asked to do things above and beyond the law." Assemblywoman Charlotte Vandervalk, a Republican from Bergen County, who introduced a conscientious exemption bill for vaccines, said parents shouldn't have the burden of proving a religious or medical reason to refuse vaccines. "This is America; you don't force it on everybody," Ms. Vandervalk said." - Fran Silverman, New York Times, (March 2, 2008)
http://www.nytimes.com/ 2008/03/02/nyregion/nyregionspe
"The point of it is the parents should be in charge of the health care needs of their children," said Drumright, whose daughter is 8 and sons are 6 and 4. "It's not up to the state to dictate to parents how they should make important health care decisions about their children." Sen. John Loudon, R-Chesterfield, said he's considering backing a proposal for a personal exemption. He has headed similar efforts in the past, most recently in 2003. "I am always open to it," Loudon said of the idea of a personal exemption. "I think when a parent does their diligence and has cause for alarm, they should have the authority over government to control the health of their children."......Missouri parents once had the right to exempt their children from immunizations without needing to provide a reason. But the law changed in 1992, and now parents can only opt out of their kids' shots for religious or medical reasons....."As more and more vaccines are being added to the list, that is where you're getting some pushback by parents, and legitimately so," said Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center, a vaccine safety watchdog agency in Vienna, Va. She said parents are feeling pressured and powerless with all the vaccine mandates. "The one- size-fits all approach to vaccinations ... is simply not medically responsible," Fisher said. "Parents have to be given more flexibility." - Andale Gross, Associated Press (February 29, 2008)
http://www.stltoday.com
"Tyler's father, Chris Holzinger, said, "After his 2-year-old vaccinations, he became less verbal; eye contact ceased. He started swaying, head-butting, doing a lot of these autistic characteristics." Tyler's parents and 200 others are active in an online support group backing a bill giving Mississippi parents the choice to not have all vaccines....Kellie Bischoff, president of the support group, said,"Well, that's a scary thought, but if you look at the other 48 states with nonmedical exemptions, it really is not an issue. They do not have outbreaks." Just like the other 48 states, the support group wants religious and philosophical exemptions added to the bill. Mississippi and West Virginia are the only states without the exemptions. Even though it's risky, the support group president stopped vaccinating her oldest daughter, Emma, at 2 years old because she had seizures. Her youngest, 2- year-old Addie, hasn't been vaccinated yet. Bischoff said, "If something were to happen and there were a serious vaccine reaction, the parent is ultimately responsible for taking care of this child, not the doctors, not the state, not the school board." - WAPT-TV (ABC affiliate in Jackson, MS) (February 11, 2008)http://www.wapt.com/news
CDC Committee Vote on Flu Vaccine Endangers Chlidren to Age 18
by Barbara Loe Fisher
Without scientific evidence that it is both safe and effective to repeatedly administer influenza vaccine to children, the members of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices(ACIP) voted Feb. 28, 2008 to vaccinate all infants and children up to age 18 with influenza vaccine every year. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/health/28flu.ht ml? em&ex=1204261200&en=a727f3655a7f32cc&ei=5087 %0A The vote came in the middle of a flu season that has seen widespread outbreaks of type A and type B strains of influenza that were not included in this year's influenza vaccine. http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN0 850501820080208? feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews&sp=true A report out of Canada last fall indicated that influenza vaccine strains contained in last year's vaccines appeared to be mutating. http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNe ws/20071024/flu_shot_071024/20071024hub=TopSto ries
The questionable safey and efficacy of influenza vaccine has been a subject of controversy for decades, despite the insistence by the drug industry and doctors selling the vaccine and government health officials promoting its use that most Americans should get a flu shot every year. Often public health officials at the World Health Organization (WHO) and in the U.S. fail to choose the right influenza strains for the vaccine. http://www.nvic.org/History/News letters/%203770Reaction.pdf
In the past few years, comprehensive reviews of influenza vaccine studies published in the medical literature revealed a stunning lack of scientific support for the safety and effectiveness of giving influenza vaccine to not only children but also to the elderly http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/333/7574/912. The truth is that (1) only 20 percent of all respiratory flu-like illness in a normal flu season is, in fact influenza, and misdiagnosis often occurs; (2) the CDC has never provided published documentation that 36,000 Americans die from actual influenza every year versus respiratory illness that looks like influenza but is not; (3) there is little scientific evidence that influenza vaccine works or is safe for anyone; (4) government policies targeting all infants and children for annual flu vaccination may well endanger the long term health of this and future generations of children by atypically manipulating the immune system with repeated vaccination in an attempt to prevent all natural experience with type A or type B influzenza; and (5) these misguided flu vaccine policies could not only weaken the ability of future generations to experience and successfully heal from a bout with the flu without severe complications or death but also could put pressure on influenza viruses to mutate into more virulent, vaccine resistent forms that will cause future virulent epidemics in populations.
The majority of the American public, including doctors and nurses, refuse to get a flu shot every year despite the millions of dollars spent by the pharmaceutical industry and taxpayer money spent by the CDC to vigorously promote its use. http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/influenza/general/news/jul0207 acip.html
Recently, there have been calls by doctors advocating a cradle to the grave approach to vaccination that would require all 300 million Americans to get an annual flu shot. http://www.abcnews.go.com/Health/Flu/s tory?id=3781181
The drug companies selling flu vaccine have one goal: making profit on the millions of doses of vaccine produced every year rather than throwing it away because of poor uptake. CDC officials, eager to help the drug companies out, keep issuing ever widening recommendations to qualify more Americans for getting a flu shot. What began as an effort decades ago to protect those over 65 from complications of influenza that can be deadly for the elderly, has become a boondoggle for drug companies selling and doctors making profit on administering influenza vaccine to everyone, including babies, children and adults.
For the past four decades, every time the CDC has recommended a vaccine for "universal use" by children, those "recommendations" are translated into vaccine laws at the state level. Last year, New Jersey became the first state to mandate influenza vaccine for children as a requirement for attending school. Most states now require nearly three dozen doses vaccines that the CDC has "recommended."
The majority of Americans may not want to get a flu shot every year but the time is soon approaching when they will have no choice. Strident calls by vaccine makers, administrators and policymakers for more vaccine mandates and societal punishments for refusing to comply (" No shots - no education, no health insurance, no job) are paving the way for the day when rolling up your sleeve for a flu shot will become as mandatory and punishable as drinking and driving.
Increasingly, the CDC is guilty of endangering the public health, not protecting it. There is no excuse for issuing vaccine policies not supported by scientific data. The only recourse the public has is to change vaccine laws in the states to allow exemptions for conscientious and religious beliefs, as well as widen the medical exemption to allow enlightened doctors to exempt those with health conditions that are not acknowledged by the CDC as a reason for deferring vaccination. If vaccine laws cannot be made more flexible by allowing wider exemptions, then the day will come when the public will have no choice but to work for the repeal of all vaccine laws.
The National Vaccine Information Center remains committed to working to insert vaccine safety and informed consent protections in vaccine laws in America.
NO FORCED VACCINATION. NOT IN AMERICA.
Without scientific evidence that it is both safe and effective to repeatedly administer influenza vaccine to children, the members of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices(ACIP) voted Feb. 28, 2008 to vaccinate all infants and children up to age 18 with influenza vaccine every year. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/health/28flu.ht ml? em&ex=1204261200&en=a727f3655a7f32cc&ei=5087 %0A The vote came in the middle of a flu season that has seen widespread outbreaks of type A and type B strains of influenza that were not included in this year's influenza vaccine. http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN0 850501820080208? feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews&sp=true A report out of Canada last fall indicated that influenza vaccine strains contained in last year's vaccines appeared to be mutating. http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNe ws/20071024/flu_shot_071024/20071024hub=TopSto ries
The questionable safey and efficacy of influenza vaccine has been a subject of controversy for decades, despite the insistence by the drug industry and doctors selling the vaccine and government health officials promoting its use that most Americans should get a flu shot every year. Often public health officials at the World Health Organization (WHO) and in the U.S. fail to choose the right influenza strains for the vaccine. http://www.nvic.org/History/News letters/%203770Reaction.pdf
In the past few years, comprehensive reviews of influenza vaccine studies published in the medical literature revealed a stunning lack of scientific support for the safety and effectiveness of giving influenza vaccine to not only children but also to the elderly http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/333/7574/912. The truth is that (1) only 20 percent of all respiratory flu-like illness in a normal flu season is, in fact influenza, and misdiagnosis often occurs; (2) the CDC has never provided published documentation that 36,000 Americans die from actual influenza every year versus respiratory illness that looks like influenza but is not; (3) there is little scientific evidence that influenza vaccine works or is safe for anyone; (4) government policies targeting all infants and children for annual flu vaccination may well endanger the long term health of this and future generations of children by atypically manipulating the immune system with repeated vaccination in an attempt to prevent all natural experience with type A or type B influzenza; and (5) these misguided flu vaccine policies could not only weaken the ability of future generations to experience and successfully heal from a bout with the flu without severe complications or death but also could put pressure on influenza viruses to mutate into more virulent, vaccine resistent forms that will cause future virulent epidemics in populations.
The majority of the American public, including doctors and nurses, refuse to get a flu shot every year despite the millions of dollars spent by the pharmaceutical industry and taxpayer money spent by the CDC to vigorously promote its use. http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/influenza/general/news/jul0207 acip.html
Recently, there have been calls by doctors advocating a cradle to the grave approach to vaccination that would require all 300 million Americans to get an annual flu shot. http://www.abcnews.go.com/Health/Flu/s tory?id=3781181
The drug companies selling flu vaccine have one goal: making profit on the millions of doses of vaccine produced every year rather than throwing it away because of poor uptake. CDC officials, eager to help the drug companies out, keep issuing ever widening recommendations to qualify more Americans for getting a flu shot. What began as an effort decades ago to protect those over 65 from complications of influenza that can be deadly for the elderly, has become a boondoggle for drug companies selling and doctors making profit on administering influenza vaccine to everyone, including babies, children and adults.
For the past four decades, every time the CDC has recommended a vaccine for "universal use" by children, those "recommendations" are translated into vaccine laws at the state level. Last year, New Jersey became the first state to mandate influenza vaccine for children as a requirement for attending school. Most states now require nearly three dozen doses vaccines that the CDC has "recommended."
The majority of Americans may not want to get a flu shot every year but the time is soon approaching when they will have no choice. Strident calls by vaccine makers, administrators and policymakers for more vaccine mandates and societal punishments for refusing to comply (" No shots - no education, no health insurance, no job) are paving the way for the day when rolling up your sleeve for a flu shot will become as mandatory and punishable as drinking and driving.
Increasingly, the CDC is guilty of endangering the public health, not protecting it. There is no excuse for issuing vaccine policies not supported by scientific data. The only recourse the public has is to change vaccine laws in the states to allow exemptions for conscientious and religious beliefs, as well as widen the medical exemption to allow enlightened doctors to exempt those with health conditions that are not acknowledged by the CDC as a reason for deferring vaccination. If vaccine laws cannot be made more flexible by allowing wider exemptions, then the day will come when the public will have no choice but to work for the repeal of all vaccine laws.
The National Vaccine Information Center remains committed to working to insert vaccine safety and informed consent protections in vaccine laws in America.
NO FORCED VACCINATION. NOT IN AMERICA.
FDA Panel Approves Rotarix Safety 11-1
FDA Panel Approves Rotarix Safety 11-1
Consumer Member Vicky Debold Votes "NO" on Proof of Safety by GSK
by Barbara Loe Fisher
NVIC's Director of Patient Safety, Vicky Debold, Ph.D, RN, who is the consumer voting member on the FDA Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, cast the sole dissenting "NO" vote when the Committee was asked whether GlaxoSmithKline's pre-licensure clinical trials had proved that rotavirus vaccine (Rotarix) is safe to give to infants. The FDA Panel voted unanimously that GSK had proven effectiveness but voted 11-1 on the safety question.
Debold noted that there were more deaths among the healthy infants who received Rotarix compared to those who received a placebo. She pointed out that the clinical trials did not inlude premature, sick and otherwise biologically compromised infants and asked "What is going to happen when this vaccine is given to children in the real world?" An FDA staff report analyzing GSK data revealed a statistically significant increase in deaths related to pneumonia among infants who got Rotarix versus the placebo.
Rotarix vaccine will directly compete with Merck's Rotateq vaccine for market share. Rotateq, a genetically engineered hybrid live virus vaccine containing human and bovine strains, has been associated with bowel blockage (intussusception). Bowel blockage does not appear to be a problem for live virus Rotarix, which contains genetically engineered human rotavirus strains, although serious adverse events associated with the new vaccine have included not only pneumonia and death but also bronchitis and convulsions.
"GlaxoSmithKline Plc's infant vaccine to prevent diarrhea caused by the rotavirus appears safe and effective, based on available data, U.S. advisers said on Wednesday.........In a briefing prepared for the meeting, FDA staff had noted a statistically significant increase in deaths related to pneumonia compared with placebo in Glaxo's largest trial. The panel was unanimous the vaccine appeared effective and voted 11-1 that it appeared safe.....Vicky Debold, patient safety director at the National Vaccine Information Center, was the sole panel member to vote that the data does not support the vaccine's safety. She noted the infants studied were all healthy and asked: "What happens when this vaccine is given to children in the real world?" - Kim Dixon, Reuters, (February 20, 2008)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/feedarticle?id=7324731
"Steven Rosenthal, an FDA medical officer who presented the agency's review of the vaccine, said there was a higher rate of pneumonia-related deaths and convulsions among vaccinated infants in one of the main studies. The overall death rate from any cause, however, was similar between infants given the vaccine and those in placebo groups. In total there were 118 deaths among all infants in the studies with 19 pneumonia related-deaths among those receiving the vaccine and 10 among those not receiving it. He said if Rotarix is approved in the U.S., Glaxo would conduct a post-marketing study of the vaccine to monitor for potential side effects such as pneumonia, convulsions and intussusceptions. In briefing documents prepared for Wednesday's meeting, an FDA staff review said it wasn't clear what role, if any, the vaccine played in the risk, while Glaxo officials said there didn't appear to be any link to the vaccine. Clare Kahn, Glaxo's North American vice president of regulatory affairs, said, "The risk-benefit ratio is favorable for the intended population." One panel member voted against the vaccine on safety grounds. Vicky Debold, a nurse and the panel's consumer representative, said she was concerned about not just the pneumonia-related deaths but the overall death rate." - Jennifer Corbbett Dooren, Wall Street Journal, (February 20, 2008)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120354110915280781.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Consumer Member Vicky Debold Votes "NO" on Proof of Safety by GSK
by Barbara Loe Fisher
NVIC's Director of Patient Safety, Vicky Debold, Ph.D, RN, who is the consumer voting member on the FDA Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, cast the sole dissenting "NO" vote when the Committee was asked whether GlaxoSmithKline's pre-licensure clinical trials had proved that rotavirus vaccine (Rotarix) is safe to give to infants. The FDA Panel voted unanimously that GSK had proven effectiveness but voted 11-1 on the safety question.
Debold noted that there were more deaths among the healthy infants who received Rotarix compared to those who received a placebo. She pointed out that the clinical trials did not inlude premature, sick and otherwise biologically compromised infants and asked "What is going to happen when this vaccine is given to children in the real world?" An FDA staff report analyzing GSK data revealed a statistically significant increase in deaths related to pneumonia among infants who got Rotarix versus the placebo.
Rotarix vaccine will directly compete with Merck's Rotateq vaccine for market share. Rotateq, a genetically engineered hybrid live virus vaccine containing human and bovine strains, has been associated with bowel blockage (intussusception). Bowel blockage does not appear to be a problem for live virus Rotarix, which contains genetically engineered human rotavirus strains, although serious adverse events associated with the new vaccine have included not only pneumonia and death but also bronchitis and convulsions.
"GlaxoSmithKline Plc's infant vaccine to prevent diarrhea caused by the rotavirus appears safe and effective, based on available data, U.S. advisers said on Wednesday.........In a briefing prepared for the meeting, FDA staff had noted a statistically significant increase in deaths related to pneumonia compared with placebo in Glaxo's largest trial. The panel was unanimous the vaccine appeared effective and voted 11-1 that it appeared safe.....Vicky Debold, patient safety director at the National Vaccine Information Center, was the sole panel member to vote that the data does not support the vaccine's safety. She noted the infants studied were all healthy and asked: "What happens when this vaccine is given to children in the real world?" - Kim Dixon, Reuters, (February 20, 2008)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/feedarticle?id=7324731
"Steven Rosenthal, an FDA medical officer who presented the agency's review of the vaccine, said there was a higher rate of pneumonia-related deaths and convulsions among vaccinated infants in one of the main studies. The overall death rate from any cause, however, was similar between infants given the vaccine and those in placebo groups. In total there were 118 deaths among all infants in the studies with 19 pneumonia related-deaths among those receiving the vaccine and 10 among those not receiving it. He said if Rotarix is approved in the U.S., Glaxo would conduct a post-marketing study of the vaccine to monitor for potential side effects such as pneumonia, convulsions and intussusceptions. In briefing documents prepared for Wednesday's meeting, an FDA staff review said it wasn't clear what role, if any, the vaccine played in the risk, while Glaxo officials said there didn't appear to be any link to the vaccine. Clare Kahn, Glaxo's North American vice president of regulatory affairs, said, "The risk-benefit ratio is favorable for the intended population." One panel member voted against the vaccine on safety grounds. Vicky Debold, a nurse and the panel's consumer representative, said she was concerned about not just the pneumonia-related deaths but the overall death rate." - Jennifer Corbbett Dooren, Wall Street Journal, (February 20, 2008)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120354110915280781.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Flu Vaccine Misses Flu Strains.....Again
by Barbara Loe Fisher
Every year, officials at the World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) look into a crystal ball and try to figure out which strains of Type A and Type B influenza will be prevalent in the U.S.. Sometimes they guess right and sometimes they guess wrong. This year, they guessed wrong as more than half of the influenza virus strains circulating in the U.S. right now are Type A and B strains that are not covered in this year's influenza vaccine.
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN0850501820080208?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews&sp=true
In a typical flu season, only 20 percent of all flu-like illness is actually influenza. In 2003-2004 a mini-epidemic of a more severe type of influzenza caused by the A/Fujian strain occurred around the world, including the U.S. In spring of 2003, federal health agencies and the pharmaceutical industry knew the genetically mutated type A flu was emerging out of Asia and causing significant complications, including death, but chose not to include it in the 2003/2004 flu vaccine formula after the WHO voted to stay with strains that had been included in the previous year's formulation (A/Panama, A/Caledonia and B/Hong Kong). Without informing the public that the flu vaccine did not contain the strain of flu causing severe flu that season, the CDC heavily publicized child flu deaths in the fall of 2003 and Americans stood in long lines that fall and winter to get flu vaccine, which caused a vaccine shortage and subsequent CDC-recommended rationing of flu vaccine supplies. (http://www.nvic.org/History/Newsletters/%203770Reaction.pdf). The FDA stated that "between October 2003 and early January 2004, the deaths of 93 children younger than 18 had been reported to the CDC, according to preliminary data" and eventually the CDC would state that 152 flu related deaths occurred in children younger than 18 that year.
This year, the CDC is wisely admitting that this year's influenza vaccine does not match the circulating strains and is advising common sense strategies for prevention and management of flu, such as hand-washing.
http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/news/20080208/flu-vaccine-most-flu-bugs-dont-match?src=RSS_PUBLIC
Those who are suffering with an especially nasty bout with the flu this year can take comfort in the fact that natural experience with type A or type B influenza will produce immunological memory that will help minimize the risk of a severe case of that same strain of influenza when it circulates in the future. In fact, pandemic flu planners are counting on the superior, longer lasting cell mediated immunity of those Americans, who have actually recovered from influenza infection in the past, because drug companies won't be able to produce pandemic flu vaccine fast enough to provide doses for everyone for up to a year after the pandemic begins.
Many Americans are taking steps to deal with influenza or flu-like illnesses by enhancing the functioning of the immune system through diet, exercise and other positive lifestyle and health care changes. And if they do get the flu, they are taking a common sense approach. To prevent and treat influenza or flu-like illness that does not involve a fever over 103 F, pneumonia or serious complications which may require special medical intervention, here are a few non-toxic suggestions:
1. Wash your hands frequently.
2. Avoid close contact with those who are sick.
3. If you are sick, avoid close contact with those who are well.
4. Cover your mouth if you cough or sneeze.
5. Drink plenty of fluids, especially water.
6. Get adequate sleep.
7. Eat a healthy diet rich in vitamins and minerals, especially foods containing vitamin C (such as citrus fruits) and vitamins A and D (such as cod liver oil) and spend a few minutes a day in sunlight to help your body make and store vitamin D.
8. Exercise regularly when you are well.
9. Lower stress.
10. Consider including holistic alternatives in your wellness or healing plan, such as chiropractic adjustments, homeopathic and naturopathic remedies, acupuncture and other health care options.
Every year, officials at the World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) look into a crystal ball and try to figure out which strains of Type A and Type B influenza will be prevalent in the U.S.. Sometimes they guess right and sometimes they guess wrong. This year, they guessed wrong as more than half of the influenza virus strains circulating in the U.S. right now are Type A and B strains that are not covered in this year's influenza vaccine.
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN0850501820080208?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews&sp=true
In a typical flu season, only 20 percent of all flu-like illness is actually influenza. In 2003-2004 a mini-epidemic of a more severe type of influzenza caused by the A/Fujian strain occurred around the world, including the U.S. In spring of 2003, federal health agencies and the pharmaceutical industry knew the genetically mutated type A flu was emerging out of Asia and causing significant complications, including death, but chose not to include it in the 2003/2004 flu vaccine formula after the WHO voted to stay with strains that had been included in the previous year's formulation (A/Panama, A/Caledonia and B/Hong Kong). Without informing the public that the flu vaccine did not contain the strain of flu causing severe flu that season, the CDC heavily publicized child flu deaths in the fall of 2003 and Americans stood in long lines that fall and winter to get flu vaccine, which caused a vaccine shortage and subsequent CDC-recommended rationing of flu vaccine supplies. (http://www.nvic.org/History/Newsletters/%203770Reaction.pdf). The FDA stated that "between October 2003 and early January 2004, the deaths of 93 children younger than 18 had been reported to the CDC, according to preliminary data" and eventually the CDC would state that 152 flu related deaths occurred in children younger than 18 that year.
This year, the CDC is wisely admitting that this year's influenza vaccine does not match the circulating strains and is advising common sense strategies for prevention and management of flu, such as hand-washing.
http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/news/20080208/flu-vaccine-most-flu-bugs-dont-match?src=RSS_PUBLIC
Those who are suffering with an especially nasty bout with the flu this year can take comfort in the fact that natural experience with type A or type B influenza will produce immunological memory that will help minimize the risk of a severe case of that same strain of influenza when it circulates in the future. In fact, pandemic flu planners are counting on the superior, longer lasting cell mediated immunity of those Americans, who have actually recovered from influenza infection in the past, because drug companies won't be able to produce pandemic flu vaccine fast enough to provide doses for everyone for up to a year after the pandemic begins.
Many Americans are taking steps to deal with influenza or flu-like illnesses by enhancing the functioning of the immune system through diet, exercise and other positive lifestyle and health care changes. And if they do get the flu, they are taking a common sense approach. To prevent and treat influenza or flu-like illness that does not involve a fever over 103 F, pneumonia or serious complications which may require special medical intervention, here are a few non-toxic suggestions:
1. Wash your hands frequently.
2. Avoid close contact with those who are sick.
3. If you are sick, avoid close contact with those who are well.
4. Cover your mouth if you cough or sneeze.
5. Drink plenty of fluids, especially water.
6. Get adequate sleep.
7. Eat a healthy diet rich in vitamins and minerals, especially foods containing vitamin C (such as citrus fruits) and vitamins A and D (such as cod liver oil) and spend a few minutes a day in sunlight to help your body make and store vitamin D.
8. Exercise regularly when you are well.
9. Lower stress.
10. Consider including holistic alternatives in your wellness or healing plan, such as chiropractic adjustments, homeopathic and naturopathic remedies, acupuncture and other health care options.
"Vaccines & Infant Death (SBS)
“Vaccines & Infant Death (SBS): Pediatrician Speaks Out on NVIC’s The Doctor’s Corner
by Barbara Loe Fisher
The Doctor’s Corner, sponsored by the National Vaccine Information Center, is a new internet forum at www.NVIC.org for pediatricians to publish referenced articles and analyses evaluating vaccine risks. Today, F. Edward Yazbak, M.D., FAAP, has published an analysis, “Multiple Vaccinations and Shaken Baby Syndrome,” that reviews the relationship between administration of multiple vaccines to infants who die and parents are subsequently charged with “Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS).
Dr. Yazbak provides a review of death reports of infants 6 months of age or younger to the federal Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS). He describes individual case histories and the history of vaccine deaths which are misdiagnosed as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) and discusses vaccine deaths which may be misdiagnosed as Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS).
When an infant dies after vaccination, often pediatricians are reluctant to consider the possibility that the vaccine(s) recently given to keep the child well have killed the child. In 1985, Dr. Coulter and I described the misdiagnosis as SIDS of infant deaths, which have occurred within 24 to 72 hours after DPT vaccination, in our book, A Shot in the Dark. The fact that coroners often misdiagnose vaccine deaths as SIDS is further evidenced by compensation awards made in the U.S. Court of Claims to parents whose babies died within hours of DPT vaccination but the coroner initially diagnosed the death as “SIDS.”
Dr. Yazbak’s article about the misdiagnosis of vaccine deaths as “Shaken Baby Syndrome” and the subsequent persecution and imprisonment of parents, whose babies died after vaccination, is an important one. No parent, who commits the crime of shaking a baby to death should be held unaccountable.
However, it is well known that vaccines can cause brain inflammation and catastrophic brain damage in some children. Until all of the biological mechanisms for vaccine injury and death are fully understood and described in the scientific literature, parents should be given the benefit of the doubt when babies die after vaccination.
To read Dr. Yazbak's article, click here.
by Barbara Loe Fisher
The Doctor’s Corner, sponsored by the National Vaccine Information Center, is a new internet forum at www.NVIC.org for pediatricians to publish referenced articles and analyses evaluating vaccine risks. Today, F. Edward Yazbak, M.D., FAAP, has published an analysis, “Multiple Vaccinations and Shaken Baby Syndrome,” that reviews the relationship between administration of multiple vaccines to infants who die and parents are subsequently charged with “Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS).
Dr. Yazbak provides a review of death reports of infants 6 months of age or younger to the federal Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS). He describes individual case histories and the history of vaccine deaths which are misdiagnosed as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) and discusses vaccine deaths which may be misdiagnosed as Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS).
When an infant dies after vaccination, often pediatricians are reluctant to consider the possibility that the vaccine(s) recently given to keep the child well have killed the child. In 1985, Dr. Coulter and I described the misdiagnosis as SIDS of infant deaths, which have occurred within 24 to 72 hours after DPT vaccination, in our book, A Shot in the Dark. The fact that coroners often misdiagnose vaccine deaths as SIDS is further evidenced by compensation awards made in the U.S. Court of Claims to parents whose babies died within hours of DPT vaccination but the coroner initially diagnosed the death as “SIDS.”
Dr. Yazbak’s article about the misdiagnosis of vaccine deaths as “Shaken Baby Syndrome” and the subsequent persecution and imprisonment of parents, whose babies died after vaccination, is an important one. No parent, who commits the crime of shaking a baby to death should be held unaccountable.
However, it is well known that vaccines can cause brain inflammation and catastrophic brain damage in some children. Until all of the biological mechanisms for vaccine injury and death are fully understood and described in the scientific literature, parents should be given the benefit of the doubt when babies die after vaccination.
To read Dr. Yazbak's article, click here.
Mercury Study Released Early to Help AAP Bash ABC
by Barbara Loe Fisher
The AAP leadership is just not going to give up insisting that it is a very, very good thing to inject mercury into infants and children. They are going to twist themselves into pretzels trying to defend the indefensible premise that a known neurotoxin belongs in childhood vaccines, as evidenced by today's early release of a methodologically questionable "study" by Michael Pichichero, M.D. purporting to exonerate the mercury-based vaccine preservative, thimerosal, from any responsibility for children developing vaccine- associated autism. http://www.pharmalive.com/News/index.cfm?articleid=510116&categoryid=40
The study, originally scheduled to be published Feb. 4 in the AAP journal, Pediatrics, was released "early" in an effort to blunt the impact of tonight's broadcast of a fictional drama on ABC-TV that highlights the ordeal of a family whose son developed autism after receiving mercury-containing vaccines.
http://www.forbes.com/forbeslife/health/feeds/hscout/2008/01/30/hscout612206.html
Here is what all the fuss is about (for today at least): Pichichero claims his study of about 200 babies and children, who were injected with vaccines containing ethyl mercury (thimerosal), showed that measurable mercury levels in the blood of the children were gone within 3.7 days. This, says Pichichero, is much quicker than the average 44 days it takes for methyl mercury (found in fish) to be undetectable in the blood. Ergo, he says, exposure to thimerosal does not cause brain damage or autism!
Not so fast, says Thomsas Brubacher, M.D., a scientist who studies the biological effects of ethyl mercury on primates. "Just because it came out of the blood doesn't mean it is excreted from the body. It could have gone to the brain. In primates, you actually get more mercury in the brain after exposure to ethyl mercury than with methyl mercury - it has an easier time crossing the blood brain barrier."
http://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/news/2008 0130/vaccine-mercury-leaves-blood-fast
Now, whether you think that all or part of the autism epidemic has been caused by children getting too many mercury containing vaccines or whether you think that a subset of children suffering with autism have been affected by mercury containing vaccines or you believe mercury containing vaccines do not play any role at all in the autism epidemic:
MERCURY IN ANY FORM DOES NOT BELONG IN VACCINES OR ANY OTHER PRODUCT CONSUMED BY HUMANS.
News Flash for the AAP and pediatricians everywhere: there is no mother on this planet who would, willingly, ask you to inject her baby with mercury. It does not matter if ethyl mercury has been "proven" or "not proven" to be the cause of the autism epidemic. It is simple from a parent's perspective:
WHEN IN DOUBT, TAKE IT OUT.
The AAP leadership and doctors inside and outside of government, who have become apologists for unsafe vaccines and one-size-fits-all vaccine policies, are dancing like clowns as they threaten freedom of the press and attempt to cover-up vaccine injuries and deaths not only potentially caused by thimerosal - but also potentially caused by many other biological mechanisms involved in vaccine induced brain and immune system dysfunction, including autism. The dance would be almost comical if their stubborn defense of mercury in vaccines did not reveal so much more about a cavalier disregard for scientific truth and human life.
***********************************************************
"The latest chapter in the debate over whether childhood vaccines can cause autism was written Wednesday with release of a study that showed the controversial mercury-containing preservative thimerosal is rapidly excreted from babies' bodies and can't build up to toxic levels....."Though it's reassuring to affirm that these immunizations have always been safe, our findings really have greater implications for world health," Pichichero said. "Replacing the thimerosal in vaccines globally would put these vaccines beyond what the world community could afford for its children." The study findings were to be released Monday in the February issue of the journal Pediatrics. But they were released early by the American Academy of Pediatrics, which is requesting that the ABC network cancel the premiere episode of a new show Thursday dealing with the thimerosal-autism controversy...... Still, at least one vaccine critic worries that inoculations are making children prone to autism, a developmental disorder characterized by impaired social interaction, communication problems, and unusual, repetitive, or severely limited activities and interests. And if it's not thimerosal, then it must be some other vaccine-related interaction, said Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center. "There are many biological mechanisms involved in vaccine-induced brain and immune system changes that could quite well lead to autism," she said. "Mercury doesn't belong in any product," Fisher added. "Mercury doesn't belong in vaccines whether it's proven or not proven that mercury is a problem in vaccines." - Forbes (HealthDay News) January 30, 2008
http://www.forbes.com/forbeslife/health/feeds/hscout/2008/01/30/hscout612206.html
"One of the few researchers who studies the effects of ethyl mercury is Thomas Burbacher, PhD, professor of environmental and occupational health sciences and director of the infant primate research lab at the National Primate Research Center, University of Washington, Seattle. Burbacher's studies of ethyl mercury and thimerosal in primates are cited by both sides of the thimerosal debate. Burbacher says that just because ethyl mercury is gone from an infant's blood soon after it receives a dose of thimerosal -- a half-life of just 3.7 days in the Pichichero study -- doesn't mean it's gone from the body. "Just because it came out of the blood doesn't mean it is excreted from the body. It could have gone to the brain," Burbacher tells WebMD. "In primates, you actually get more mercury in the brain after exposure to ethyl mercury than with methyl mercury -- it has an easier time crossing the blood-brain barrier." Sallie Bernard is co-founder and executive director of SafeMinds, an organization that advocates "sensible action for ending mercury-induced neurological disorders." Bernard says the Pichichero study is valuable because it makes it clear that the body handles ethyl mercury very differently from the way it handles methyl mercury. "That is why we need real safety studies to look at the effects of ethyl mercury," Bernard tells WebMD. "We need not look at blood levels and excretion times, but at what goes on in the brain and what any ethyl mercury-induced changes in the brain are doing to children." - Daniel DeNoon, Web MD (January 30, 2008) http://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/news/2008 0130/vaccine-mercury-leaves-blood-fast
The AAP leadership is just not going to give up insisting that it is a very, very good thing to inject mercury into infants and children. They are going to twist themselves into pretzels trying to defend the indefensible premise that a known neurotoxin belongs in childhood vaccines, as evidenced by today's early release of a methodologically questionable "study" by Michael Pichichero, M.D. purporting to exonerate the mercury-based vaccine preservative, thimerosal, from any responsibility for children developing vaccine- associated autism. http://www.pharmalive.com/News/index.cfm?articleid=510116&categoryid=40
The study, originally scheduled to be published Feb. 4 in the AAP journal, Pediatrics, was released "early" in an effort to blunt the impact of tonight's broadcast of a fictional drama on ABC-TV that highlights the ordeal of a family whose son developed autism after receiving mercury-containing vaccines.
http://www.forbes.com/forbeslife/health/feeds/hscout/2008/01/30/hscout612206.html
Here is what all the fuss is about (for today at least): Pichichero claims his study of about 200 babies and children, who were injected with vaccines containing ethyl mercury (thimerosal), showed that measurable mercury levels in the blood of the children were gone within 3.7 days. This, says Pichichero, is much quicker than the average 44 days it takes for methyl mercury (found in fish) to be undetectable in the blood. Ergo, he says, exposure to thimerosal does not cause brain damage or autism!
Not so fast, says Thomsas Brubacher, M.D., a scientist who studies the biological effects of ethyl mercury on primates. "Just because it came out of the blood doesn't mean it is excreted from the body. It could have gone to the brain. In primates, you actually get more mercury in the brain after exposure to ethyl mercury than with methyl mercury - it has an easier time crossing the blood brain barrier."
http://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/news/2008 0130/vaccine-mercury-leaves-blood-fast
Now, whether you think that all or part of the autism epidemic has been caused by children getting too many mercury containing vaccines or whether you think that a subset of children suffering with autism have been affected by mercury containing vaccines or you believe mercury containing vaccines do not play any role at all in the autism epidemic:
MERCURY IN ANY FORM DOES NOT BELONG IN VACCINES OR ANY OTHER PRODUCT CONSUMED BY HUMANS.
News Flash for the AAP and pediatricians everywhere: there is no mother on this planet who would, willingly, ask you to inject her baby with mercury. It does not matter if ethyl mercury has been "proven" or "not proven" to be the cause of the autism epidemic. It is simple from a parent's perspective:
WHEN IN DOUBT, TAKE IT OUT.
The AAP leadership and doctors inside and outside of government, who have become apologists for unsafe vaccines and one-size-fits-all vaccine policies, are dancing like clowns as they threaten freedom of the press and attempt to cover-up vaccine injuries and deaths not only potentially caused by thimerosal - but also potentially caused by many other biological mechanisms involved in vaccine induced brain and immune system dysfunction, including autism. The dance would be almost comical if their stubborn defense of mercury in vaccines did not reveal so much more about a cavalier disregard for scientific truth and human life.
***********************************************************
"The latest chapter in the debate over whether childhood vaccines can cause autism was written Wednesday with release of a study that showed the controversial mercury-containing preservative thimerosal is rapidly excreted from babies' bodies and can't build up to toxic levels....."Though it's reassuring to affirm that these immunizations have always been safe, our findings really have greater implications for world health," Pichichero said. "Replacing the thimerosal in vaccines globally would put these vaccines beyond what the world community could afford for its children." The study findings were to be released Monday in the February issue of the journal Pediatrics. But they were released early by the American Academy of Pediatrics, which is requesting that the ABC network cancel the premiere episode of a new show Thursday dealing with the thimerosal-autism controversy...... Still, at least one vaccine critic worries that inoculations are making children prone to autism, a developmental disorder characterized by impaired social interaction, communication problems, and unusual, repetitive, or severely limited activities and interests. And if it's not thimerosal, then it must be some other vaccine-related interaction, said Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center. "There are many biological mechanisms involved in vaccine-induced brain and immune system changes that could quite well lead to autism," she said. "Mercury doesn't belong in any product," Fisher added. "Mercury doesn't belong in vaccines whether it's proven or not proven that mercury is a problem in vaccines." - Forbes (HealthDay News) January 30, 2008
http://www.forbes.com/forbeslife/health/feeds/hscout/2008/01/30/hscout612206.html
"One of the few researchers who studies the effects of ethyl mercury is Thomas Burbacher, PhD, professor of environmental and occupational health sciences and director of the infant primate research lab at the National Primate Research Center, University of Washington, Seattle. Burbacher's studies of ethyl mercury and thimerosal in primates are cited by both sides of the thimerosal debate. Burbacher says that just because ethyl mercury is gone from an infant's blood soon after it receives a dose of thimerosal -- a half-life of just 3.7 days in the Pichichero study -- doesn't mean it's gone from the body. "Just because it came out of the blood doesn't mean it is excreted from the body. It could have gone to the brain," Burbacher tells WebMD. "In primates, you actually get more mercury in the brain after exposure to ethyl mercury than with methyl mercury -- it has an easier time crossing the blood-brain barrier." Sallie Bernard is co-founder and executive director of SafeMinds, an organization that advocates "sensible action for ending mercury-induced neurological disorders." Bernard says the Pichichero study is valuable because it makes it clear that the body handles ethyl mercury very differently from the way it handles methyl mercury. "That is why we need real safety studies to look at the effects of ethyl mercury," Bernard tells WebMD. "We need not look at blood levels and excretion times, but at what goes on in the brain and what any ethyl mercury-induced changes in the brain are doing to children." - Daniel DeNoon, Web MD (January 30, 2008) http://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/news/2008 0130/vaccine-mercury-leaves-blood-fast
U.S. Doctors Club ABC-TV Show on Autism & Vaccines
by Barbara Loe Fisher
I sighed with recognition when I learned that the leadership of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) had written a letter and issued a press release on Jan. 25 calling on ABC-TV to cancel tomorrow's premiere episode of a fictional drama about a family whose child regresses into autism after vaccination. On the same day, the American Medical Association (AMA) called on ABC to "mitigate the harm this episode may do" such as re-writing the script.
The CDC-funded Immunization Action Coalition (IAC) also piled on ABC-TV, urging doctors to put pressure on the network to cancel the broadcast while seven former directors of the CDC maintained in a Jan. 29 March of Dimes press release that "The implication that vaccinations cause autism is irresponsible and counter productive."
This latest coordinated attempt by physician leaders of America's medical establishment to muzzle the media's exploration of vaccine risk issues that have been making headlines for nearly three decades is reminiscent of the coordinated denials of vaccine risks by these same physician leaders in April 1982 when NBC-TV broadcast the documentary "DPT: Vaccine Roulette." It was a landmark documentary which earned television journalist Lea Thompson an Emmy and initiated a public dialogue that would change the course of medical history.
In 1982, when the NBC-TV documentary exposed the dangers of DPT vaccine, physician leaders in the AAP, AMA, CDC and other medical organizations joined together to discredit Thompson and everyone associated with the broadcast. An article in the July 1982 Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) labeled the NBC-TV documentary "biased, histrionic and inaccurate" and even "amoral and psychopathic."
William Foege, M.D., then director of the CDC and one of the seven former CDC directors who endorsed the March of Dimes press release now criticizing ABC-TV for airing a fictional episode about vaccines and autism, in 1982 declared that the NBC- TV report about DPT vaccine risks was "an unbalanced view - bias, in my view, and inaccuracies to carry its destructive message.....not an example of responsible journalism."
In 1983, a year after the documentary aired, reporter Thompson explained "The AAP put out the word the day we did our story that the story was inaccurate and not to worry. When a reporter calls a local doctor or hospital or medical center, he speaks to doctors who have been told by the AAP and AMA not to worry. To my knowledge, pediatricians in this country have heard absolutely nothing from the AAP on DPT since then." (quoted in DPT: A Shot in the Dark)
Three years later, the U.S. Congress would acknowledge the reality of DPT and other vaccine brain injury and death by passing the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986. This societal acknowledgement was followed by the publishing, in 1991 and 1994, of four reports by the Institute of Medicine that DPT vaccine can cause brain inflammation and permanent brain damage and that other childhood vaccines can cause varying degrees of brain and immune system dysfunction, as well as death. In 1996, after parents of vaccine injured children had lobbied industry and government for 14 years, the FDA licensed a purified DTaP vaccine for babies.
To the credit of the owners and management of ABC-TV, the network has so far refused to cancel the premiere episode of Eli Stone that features a family struggling with issues familiar to parents whose children regress into autism after vaccination. Since 1982, Americans have depended on members of the Fourth Estate to illuminate for the public the scientific, medical, economic, political, social and ethical issues involved in the vaccine safety and informed consent debate. Hopefully, ABC-TV and all print and broadcast media outlets will hold the line against this latest threat to freedom of thought and expression by a medical community determined to silence people crying out for recognition and help for their vaccine injured children.
Parents deserve more from the pediatricians and doctors, who they entrust with their children's lives, than denials, hostility and disrespect. They deserve to have their questions about vaccination answered honestly; their concerns about vaccine risks taken seriously; and their children treated with the same compassion that doctors would treat their own children. They expect that, when their children regress after vaccination into poor health, pediatricians will leave no stone unturned, including exploring the possibility that vaccine(s) played a role in their child's development of autism, learning disabilities, ADD/ADHD, epilepsy, asthma, diabetes, arthritis, intestinal bowel disorders and many other kinds of brain and immune system dysfunction.
Mothers and fathers expect that - whether or not mercury preservatives in vaccines have or have not been "proven" to be the cause of the autism epidemic - that pediatricians and all doctors would instinctively adhere to the "First do no harm" precautionary principle and support the immediate removal of a known neurotoxin from vaccines they inject into babies. Parents do not expect doctors to collectively stick their heads in the sand and turn away from their responsibility to find out why the biggest epidemic of chronic disease and disability among children in the history of our nation is associated with the more than doubling of the numbers of vaccines doctors give to them in the first few years of life.
In 1983, when pediatrician leaders of the AAP Redbook Committee met with co-founders of the National Vaccine Information Center to discuss DPT vaccine brain injuries, I begged them to take seriously the reports by parents that their children were regressing physically, mentally and emotionally after vaccination so that steps could be taken to minimize the risks. I warned them that "a system that will not bend will break."
In 2008, after 26 years of waiting for pediatricians to open their eyes and realize that leaders in the AAP, AMA, and CDC have betrayed their trust by denying the truth about vaccine risks, parents are taking matters into their own hands. If the mass vaccination system breaks, the blame can be put squarely at the feet of doctors who have waited too long to stand up and say "The lie stops here and now with me."
ABC-TV CONTACT INFORMATION:
Nicole Nichols
Senior Vice President of Entertainment Communications for "Eli Stone"
Email: Nicole.Nichols@abc.com
Phone: (818) 460-5267
Charissa Gilmore
Vice President of Media Relations for "Eli Stone"
Email: Charissa.Gilmore@abc.com
Phone: (818) 460-7950
"ABC said on Monday it would include a disclaimer about the plot line of the debut episode of the drama "Eli Stone," which links childhood vaccines to autism, and direct viewers to a government Web site that discredits such a link. The decision follows a call by the American Academy of Pediatrics for ABC to cancel the opening episode of "Eli Stone," which is scheduled to be broadcast at 10 p.m. Thursday." - Edward Wyatt, New York Times (January 29, 2008)
I sighed with recognition when I learned that the leadership of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) had written a letter and issued a press release on Jan. 25 calling on ABC-TV to cancel tomorrow's premiere episode of a fictional drama about a family whose child regresses into autism after vaccination. On the same day, the American Medical Association (AMA) called on ABC to "mitigate the harm this episode may do" such as re-writing the script.
The CDC-funded Immunization Action Coalition (IAC) also piled on ABC-TV, urging doctors to put pressure on the network to cancel the broadcast while seven former directors of the CDC maintained in a Jan. 29 March of Dimes press release that "The implication that vaccinations cause autism is irresponsible and counter productive."
This latest coordinated attempt by physician leaders of America's medical establishment to muzzle the media's exploration of vaccine risk issues that have been making headlines for nearly three decades is reminiscent of the coordinated denials of vaccine risks by these same physician leaders in April 1982 when NBC-TV broadcast the documentary "DPT: Vaccine Roulette." It was a landmark documentary which earned television journalist Lea Thompson an Emmy and initiated a public dialogue that would change the course of medical history.
In 1982, when the NBC-TV documentary exposed the dangers of DPT vaccine, physician leaders in the AAP, AMA, CDC and other medical organizations joined together to discredit Thompson and everyone associated with the broadcast. An article in the July 1982 Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) labeled the NBC-TV documentary "biased, histrionic and inaccurate" and even "amoral and psychopathic."
William Foege, M.D., then director of the CDC and one of the seven former CDC directors who endorsed the March of Dimes press release now criticizing ABC-TV for airing a fictional episode about vaccines and autism, in 1982 declared that the NBC- TV report about DPT vaccine risks was "an unbalanced view - bias, in my view, and inaccuracies to carry its destructive message.....not an example of responsible journalism."
In 1983, a year after the documentary aired, reporter Thompson explained "The AAP put out the word the day we did our story that the story was inaccurate and not to worry. When a reporter calls a local doctor or hospital or medical center, he speaks to doctors who have been told by the AAP and AMA not to worry. To my knowledge, pediatricians in this country have heard absolutely nothing from the AAP on DPT since then." (quoted in DPT: A Shot in the Dark)
Three years later, the U.S. Congress would acknowledge the reality of DPT and other vaccine brain injury and death by passing the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986. This societal acknowledgement was followed by the publishing, in 1991 and 1994, of four reports by the Institute of Medicine that DPT vaccine can cause brain inflammation and permanent brain damage and that other childhood vaccines can cause varying degrees of brain and immune system dysfunction, as well as death. In 1996, after parents of vaccine injured children had lobbied industry and government for 14 years, the FDA licensed a purified DTaP vaccine for babies.
To the credit of the owners and management of ABC-TV, the network has so far refused to cancel the premiere episode of Eli Stone that features a family struggling with issues familiar to parents whose children regress into autism after vaccination. Since 1982, Americans have depended on members of the Fourth Estate to illuminate for the public the scientific, medical, economic, political, social and ethical issues involved in the vaccine safety and informed consent debate. Hopefully, ABC-TV and all print and broadcast media outlets will hold the line against this latest threat to freedom of thought and expression by a medical community determined to silence people crying out for recognition and help for their vaccine injured children.
Parents deserve more from the pediatricians and doctors, who they entrust with their children's lives, than denials, hostility and disrespect. They deserve to have their questions about vaccination answered honestly; their concerns about vaccine risks taken seriously; and their children treated with the same compassion that doctors would treat their own children. They expect that, when their children regress after vaccination into poor health, pediatricians will leave no stone unturned, including exploring the possibility that vaccine(s) played a role in their child's development of autism, learning disabilities, ADD/ADHD, epilepsy, asthma, diabetes, arthritis, intestinal bowel disorders and many other kinds of brain and immune system dysfunction.
Mothers and fathers expect that - whether or not mercury preservatives in vaccines have or have not been "proven" to be the cause of the autism epidemic - that pediatricians and all doctors would instinctively adhere to the "First do no harm" precautionary principle and support the immediate removal of a known neurotoxin from vaccines they inject into babies. Parents do not expect doctors to collectively stick their heads in the sand and turn away from their responsibility to find out why the biggest epidemic of chronic disease and disability among children in the history of our nation is associated with the more than doubling of the numbers of vaccines doctors give to them in the first few years of life.
In 1983, when pediatrician leaders of the AAP Redbook Committee met with co-founders of the National Vaccine Information Center to discuss DPT vaccine brain injuries, I begged them to take seriously the reports by parents that their children were regressing physically, mentally and emotionally after vaccination so that steps could be taken to minimize the risks. I warned them that "a system that will not bend will break."
In 2008, after 26 years of waiting for pediatricians to open their eyes and realize that leaders in the AAP, AMA, and CDC have betrayed their trust by denying the truth about vaccine risks, parents are taking matters into their own hands. If the mass vaccination system breaks, the blame can be put squarely at the feet of doctors who have waited too long to stand up and say "The lie stops here and now with me."
ABC-TV CONTACT INFORMATION:
Nicole Nichols
Senior Vice President of Entertainment Communications for "Eli Stone"
Email: Nicole.Nichols@abc.com
Phone: (818) 460-5267
Charissa Gilmore
Vice President of Media Relations for "Eli Stone"
Email: Charissa.Gilmore@abc.com
Phone: (818) 460-7950
"ABC said on Monday it would include a disclaimer about the plot line of the debut episode of the drama "Eli Stone," which links childhood vaccines to autism, and direct viewers to a government Web site that discredits such a link. The decision follows a call by the American Academy of Pediatrics for ABC to cancel the opening episode of "Eli Stone," which is scheduled to be broadcast at 10 p.m. Thursday." - Edward Wyatt, New York Times (January 29, 2008)
Virginia House Votes to Delay HPV Vaccine Mandate
by Barbara Loe Fisher
On Jan. 15, a House health subcommittee in the Virginia legislature voted 13-9 along party lines to approve legislation introduced by Delegate Bob Marshall (R) to delay until the fall of 2010 implementation of a new HPV vaccine mandate approved by the legislature and Virginia Governor Tim Kaine (D) last year. Governor Kaine disagreed with the move to push back the date because he said that parents can "opt-out" of giving the vaccine to their daughters for any reason. It is anticipated that the bill to delay the HPV vaccine mandate deadline for implementation will face stronger opposition in the Senate.
The bill to delay the HPV vaccine mandate in Virginia was supported by parent groups concerned about rushing an HPV vaccine mandate when serious adverse events following administration of Merck's GARDASIL to young girls continue to be reported. Since GARDASIL was licensed in 2006, serious health problems reported to VAERS and NVIC include sudden loss of consciousness, seizures/convulsions, head injuries and fractures, Guillain Barre syndrome, joint swelling, blood disorders, abnormal cervical smears, spontaneous abortions and other adverse outcomes following receipt of GARDASIL.
http://www.nvic.org/Diseases/HPV/HP VHOME.htm
Parents opposed to the Virginia HPV vaccine mandate also question whether most parents will be informed there is an "opt-out" provision which does not require filing a medical or religious exemption and whether the bureaucratic process for "opting-out" will be easy or complicated. There have been no clear guidelines issued for how the "opt-out" process will work.
The Virginia legislature stands alone as the only state government to mandate GARDASIL vaccine. Every other state has rejected proposed mandates aggressively pushed by Merck last year. Major medical organizations, including the American Cancer Society and the American Medical Association, have declined HPV vaccine mandates in favor of legislation encouraging parent/child education about HPV infection and the vaccine, as well as cost reimbursement for those families who want their daughters to get vaccinated voluntarily.
An American Cancer Society official was quoted as saying "It is one thing to endorse the use of a vaccine against cervical cancer, but altogether another thing to require children to get it."
In the 1970's, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommended that doctors give children 23 doses of 7 vaccines (diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, measles, mumps, rubella, polio) and most state legislatures mandated 4 or 5 of them for school entry. With the addition of 3 doses of HPV vaccine for girls, by 2008, CDC recommendations directed doctors to give children 56 doses of 16 vaccines (girls) or 53 doses of 15 vaccines (boys).
Most states in America currently mandate about 10 of the federally recommended vaccines (diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, measles, mumps, rubella, polio, HIB, hepatitis B, chickenpox) for school attendance. Some states are also instituting daycare and school mandates for pneumococcal, meningococcal, hepatitis A and influenza vaccines.
The New Jersey health department, under rule making authority handed over by the state legislature, recently imposed new pneumococcal and influenza vaccine mandates on children attending daycare as well as meningococcal and Tdap vaccine requirements for children attending middle school. New Jersey becomes the first state to mandate influenza vaccine and also the state with the highest number of mandated vaccinations for children: 35 doses of 13 vaccines.
The more vaccines state governments mandate, the greater the potential for a backlash from parents weary of their children being made pincushions by federal health officials who automatically recommend for universal use every vaccine the pharmaceutical industry creates for children. HPV vaccine - whether marketed by Merck or GlaxoSmithKline - should not be mandated. The ACA spokesperson is right: it is one thing to make HPV vaccine available for those voluntarily choosing to use it. It is quite another matter to force HPV vaccine on a child under threat of exclusion from school, particularly without the voluntary, informed consent of the child's parents.
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"Legislation passed by a House committee would stall Virginia's unique requirement that girls be vaccinated against human papillomavirus, or HPV, to fall 2010, instead of fall 2009.....Gov. Tim Kaine said yesterday that he didn't think it should be pushed back because of the opt-out clause, but that he won't stand in the way if that is what legislators want. "It is available and yet no one is required for any reason to get it," Mr. Kaine said. "Since it really is an opt-in, I don't know that we need to push it back." Several national medical organizations, including the American Medical Association, the American Cancer Society and the American Academy of Pediatrics, support giving the vaccine to girls but have not endorsed mandates. "It is one thing to endorse the use of a vaccine against cervical cancer, but altogether another to require children to get it," said Robert A. Smith, director of cancer screening for the American Cancer Society. Mr. Smith and others said it would have been better for Virginia to promote education on the vaccine and for funding to ensure availability for those who want it, rather than require it. " - Dena Potter, Associated Press, January 16, 2008
On Jan. 15, a House health subcommittee in the Virginia legislature voted 13-9 along party lines to approve legislation introduced by Delegate Bob Marshall (R) to delay until the fall of 2010 implementation of a new HPV vaccine mandate approved by the legislature and Virginia Governor Tim Kaine (D) last year. Governor Kaine disagreed with the move to push back the date because he said that parents can "opt-out" of giving the vaccine to their daughters for any reason. It is anticipated that the bill to delay the HPV vaccine mandate deadline for implementation will face stronger opposition in the Senate.
The bill to delay the HPV vaccine mandate in Virginia was supported by parent groups concerned about rushing an HPV vaccine mandate when serious adverse events following administration of Merck's GARDASIL to young girls continue to be reported. Since GARDASIL was licensed in 2006, serious health problems reported to VAERS and NVIC include sudden loss of consciousness, seizures/convulsions, head injuries and fractures, Guillain Barre syndrome, joint swelling, blood disorders, abnormal cervical smears, spontaneous abortions and other adverse outcomes following receipt of GARDASIL.
http://www.nvic.org/Diseases/HPV/HP VHOME.htm
Parents opposed to the Virginia HPV vaccine mandate also question whether most parents will be informed there is an "opt-out" provision which does not require filing a medical or religious exemption and whether the bureaucratic process for "opting-out" will be easy or complicated. There have been no clear guidelines issued for how the "opt-out" process will work.
The Virginia legislature stands alone as the only state government to mandate GARDASIL vaccine. Every other state has rejected proposed mandates aggressively pushed by Merck last year. Major medical organizations, including the American Cancer Society and the American Medical Association, have declined HPV vaccine mandates in favor of legislation encouraging parent/child education about HPV infection and the vaccine, as well as cost reimbursement for those families who want their daughters to get vaccinated voluntarily.
An American Cancer Society official was quoted as saying "It is one thing to endorse the use of a vaccine against cervical cancer, but altogether another thing to require children to get it."
In the 1970's, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommended that doctors give children 23 doses of 7 vaccines (diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, measles, mumps, rubella, polio) and most state legislatures mandated 4 or 5 of them for school entry. With the addition of 3 doses of HPV vaccine for girls, by 2008, CDC recommendations directed doctors to give children 56 doses of 16 vaccines (girls) or 53 doses of 15 vaccines (boys).
Most states in America currently mandate about 10 of the federally recommended vaccines (diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, measles, mumps, rubella, polio, HIB, hepatitis B, chickenpox) for school attendance. Some states are also instituting daycare and school mandates for pneumococcal, meningococcal, hepatitis A and influenza vaccines.
The New Jersey health department, under rule making authority handed over by the state legislature, recently imposed new pneumococcal and influenza vaccine mandates on children attending daycare as well as meningococcal and Tdap vaccine requirements for children attending middle school. New Jersey becomes the first state to mandate influenza vaccine and also the state with the highest number of mandated vaccinations for children: 35 doses of 13 vaccines.
The more vaccines state governments mandate, the greater the potential for a backlash from parents weary of their children being made pincushions by federal health officials who automatically recommend for universal use every vaccine the pharmaceutical industry creates for children. HPV vaccine - whether marketed by Merck or GlaxoSmithKline - should not be mandated. The ACA spokesperson is right: it is one thing to make HPV vaccine available for those voluntarily choosing to use it. It is quite another matter to force HPV vaccine on a child under threat of exclusion from school, particularly without the voluntary, informed consent of the child's parents.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Legislation passed by a House committee would stall Virginia's unique requirement that girls be vaccinated against human papillomavirus, or HPV, to fall 2010, instead of fall 2009.....Gov. Tim Kaine said yesterday that he didn't think it should be pushed back because of the opt-out clause, but that he won't stand in the way if that is what legislators want. "It is available and yet no one is required for any reason to get it," Mr. Kaine said. "Since it really is an opt-in, I don't know that we need to push it back." Several national medical organizations, including the American Medical Association, the American Cancer Society and the American Academy of Pediatrics, support giving the vaccine to girls but have not endorsed mandates. "It is one thing to endorse the use of a vaccine against cervical cancer, but altogether another to require children to get it," said Robert A. Smith, director of cancer screening for the American Cancer Society. Mr. Smith and others said it would have been better for Virginia to promote education on the vaccine and for funding to ensure availability for those who want it, rather than require it. " - Dena Potter, Associated Press, January 16, 2008
Action on Virginia "Opt-Out" GARDASIL Mandate
by Barbara Loe Fisher
Virginia Delegate Bob Marshall has introduced a bill in the Virginia state legislature which would repeal a law passed by the General Assembly last year requiring sixth grade girls to get three doses of HPV vaccine (HB 89) by October 2008. Governor Kane has indicated he will not support a repeal of the mandate. Delegate Marshall has also authored a bill to delay the HPV vaccine mandate implementation until 2011 (HB 188).
The health subcommittee of the Virginia House Health, Welfare and Institutions Committee will hear HB 89 and HB 188 this afternoon (Monday, Jan. 14). It is a possibility that the full Committee might hear the bills at a later date if they are not passed out of subcommittee.
If you are a Virginia resident and would like to contact health subcommittee members (all of whom sit on the full Committee) and make your views known, following is contact information for committee members:
Chairman, Delegate John O'Bannon deljobannon@house.state.va.us (804) 698-1073
Delegate Jeff Frederick deljfrederick@house.state.va.us (804) 698-1052
Delegate David Nutter deldnutter@house.state.va.us (804) 698-1007
Delegate Chris Peace delcpeace@house.state.va.us (804) 698-1097
Delegate Ward Armstrong delwarmstrong@house.state.va.us (804) 698-1010
Delegate Algie Howell delahowell@house.state.va.us (804) 698-1090
Delegate Lionell Spruill dellspruill@house.state.va.us (804) 698-1077
Virginia state Senator Ken Cuccinelli is working on similar legislation in the state Senate and it is important that the Senate legislation be compatible with HB 89 and HB 188. You can contact Senator Cuccinelli's office at:
EveMarie@cuccinelli.com and district37@sov.state.va.us
Virginia Governor Tim Kane signed the HPV vaccine mandate into law last year after it was revised to include an "opt-out" provision that did not require parents to claim medical or religious reasons for the "opt-out." Merck's GARDASIL vaccine is the only HPV vaccine on the market and Merck lobbied aggressively in Texas, California, New York and more than 20 states in early 2007 to push through HPV vaccine mandates. Texas Governor Rick Perry (R) issued an Executive Order in early 2007 to try to force GARDASIL to be given to sixth graders in Texas but the Texas legislature rebelled and later passed legislation over-riding the Executive Order.
Virginia and New Jersey were the only two states to vote for an HPV vaccine mandate for pre-adolescent girls and both states modified the mandate to include an "opt-out" provision.
Merck's GARDASIL has been associated with collapse episodes, seizures, Guillain Barre syndrome and other serious health problems among young girls and women since the vaccine was licensed in mid-2006. During 2007, the National Vaccine Information Center published three analyses of GARDASIL adverse events being reported to VAERS, which indicated that GARDASIL is far more reactive than methodologically flawed pre-licensure clinical trials revealed. http://www.nvic.org/Diseases/HPV/HPVHOME.htm
A quick review of GARDASIL adverse health outcomes, which Virginia girls and young women aged 5 to 26 suffered and were reported to VAERS, revealed reports of loss of consciousness, seizures/convulsions, head injuries and fractures, joint swelling, blood disorders (ITP), abnormal cervical smears, spontaneous abortions, and medical errors (5 year old given wrong vaccine). The VAERS reports also included events labeled as life threatening or causing disability.
The NVIC staff continues to receive reports from parents of young girls, as well as young adult women, living in many different states that indicate GARDASIL is causing atypical fainting/sudden collapse within several hours of vaccination, as well as other neurological events. Many of these health problems following GARDASIL are being written off as "coincidental" by nurses and physicians without any evidence the health problem would have occurred if the vaccine had not been administered.
If you would like to work in the state of Virginia on educating Virginia state legislators about vaccine safety and informed consent issues, contact NVIC at NVICinfo@gmail.com
Virginia Delegate Bob Marshall has introduced a bill in the Virginia state legislature which would repeal a law passed by the General Assembly last year requiring sixth grade girls to get three doses of HPV vaccine (HB 89) by October 2008. Governor Kane has indicated he will not support a repeal of the mandate. Delegate Marshall has also authored a bill to delay the HPV vaccine mandate implementation until 2011 (HB 188).
The health subcommittee of the Virginia House Health, Welfare and Institutions Committee will hear HB 89 and HB 188 this afternoon (Monday, Jan. 14). It is a possibility that the full Committee might hear the bills at a later date if they are not passed out of subcommittee.
If you are a Virginia resident and would like to contact health subcommittee members (all of whom sit on the full Committee) and make your views known, following is contact information for committee members:
Chairman, Delegate John O'Bannon deljobannon@house.state.va.us (804) 698-1073
Delegate Jeff Frederick deljfrederick@house.state.va.us (804) 698-1052
Delegate David Nutter deldnutter@house.state.va.us (804) 698-1007
Delegate Chris Peace delcpeace@house.state.va.us (804) 698-1097
Delegate Ward Armstrong delwarmstrong@house.state.va.us (804) 698-1010
Delegate Algie Howell delahowell@house.state.va.us (804) 698-1090
Delegate Lionell Spruill dellspruill@house.state.va.us (804) 698-1077
Virginia state Senator Ken Cuccinelli is working on similar legislation in the state Senate and it is important that the Senate legislation be compatible with HB 89 and HB 188. You can contact Senator Cuccinelli's office at:
EveMarie@cuccinelli.com and district37@sov.state.va.us
Virginia Governor Tim Kane signed the HPV vaccine mandate into law last year after it was revised to include an "opt-out" provision that did not require parents to claim medical or religious reasons for the "opt-out." Merck's GARDASIL vaccine is the only HPV vaccine on the market and Merck lobbied aggressively in Texas, California, New York and more than 20 states in early 2007 to push through HPV vaccine mandates. Texas Governor Rick Perry (R) issued an Executive Order in early 2007 to try to force GARDASIL to be given to sixth graders in Texas but the Texas legislature rebelled and later passed legislation over-riding the Executive Order.
Virginia and New Jersey were the only two states to vote for an HPV vaccine mandate for pre-adolescent girls and both states modified the mandate to include an "opt-out" provision.
Merck's GARDASIL has been associated with collapse episodes, seizures, Guillain Barre syndrome and other serious health problems among young girls and women since the vaccine was licensed in mid-2006. During 2007, the National Vaccine Information Center published three analyses of GARDASIL adverse events being reported to VAERS, which indicated that GARDASIL is far more reactive than methodologically flawed pre-licensure clinical trials revealed. http://www.nvic.org/Diseases/HPV/HPVHOME.htm
A quick review of GARDASIL adverse health outcomes, which Virginia girls and young women aged 5 to 26 suffered and were reported to VAERS, revealed reports of loss of consciousness, seizures/convulsions, head injuries and fractures, joint swelling, blood disorders (ITP), abnormal cervical smears, spontaneous abortions, and medical errors (5 year old given wrong vaccine). The VAERS reports also included events labeled as life threatening or causing disability.
The NVIC staff continues to receive reports from parents of young girls, as well as young adult women, living in many different states that indicate GARDASIL is causing atypical fainting/sudden collapse within several hours of vaccination, as well as other neurological events. Many of these health problems following GARDASIL are being written off as "coincidental" by nurses and physicians without any evidence the health problem would have occurred if the vaccine had not been administered.
If you would like to work in the state of Virginia on educating Virginia state legislators about vaccine safety and informed consent issues, contact NVIC at NVICinfo@gmail.com
Fomboning Autism Increases in California
by Barbara Loe Fisher
The Canadian child psychiatrist, who helps out drug companies and US vaccine policymakers by testifying in civil court and in the D.C. Court of Claims to deny vaccine injured autistic children compensation for their injuries, got it wrong again. Endorsing the conclusions of an ecologic analysis by California public health officials of California DDS data from 1995 to 2007 published Jan. 7 in the Archives of General Psychiatry which stated that “The DDS data do not support the hypothesis that exposure to thimerosal during childhood is a primary cause of autism,” Fombonne declares “Parents of autistic children should be reassured that autism in their child did not occur through immunizations. Their autistic children, and their siblings, should be normally vaccinated…” http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-autism8jan08,0,3935663.story?coll=la-home-local
Apparently unhappy that children with vaccine associated autism have been healed through use of alternative therapies that do not rely on expensive prescription drugs and visits to child psychiatrists, Fombonne goes on to add that “as there is no evidence of mercury poisoning in autism, they [parents of autistic children] should avoid ineffective and dangerous “treatments” such as chelation therapy for their children.” He points an accusing finger at “powerful advocacy groups” that have lobbied “decision makers to influence decisions about which autism research to fund and even how to conduct it.” He ridicules “best-selling writers, journalists and politicians” who are “unaware of scientific studies, or worse, doubtful of their results” and have been “drawn to embrace conspiracy theories that portrayed vaccine manufacturers and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as public enemies.”
Fombonne also attacks vaccine victim lawyers for trying to help parents of vaccine injured autistic children obtain compensation for their vaccine injuries under the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act created by Congress and condemns the constitutional right to a jury trial as “the viscous US legal process allowing for fermentation of misconceptions.” Finally, in a pathetic attempt to mimic an earlier attempt in 2004 by a misguided Institute of Medicine (IOM) Committee to shut down all scientific investigation into vaccine-associated regressive autism, the psychiatrist laments “How many more negative study results are required for the belief [in vaccine induced autism] to go away, and how much more spending of public funds on this issue could even be justified?”
Rick Rollens, co-founder of the M.I.N.D. Institute – UC Davis, and the man most responsible for putting the autism epidemic on the map in the late 1990’s, said it best: “Although this study by California's vaccine establishment clearly sustains the fact that California is in the midst of a growing autism epidemic and that California's system of reporting professionally diagnosed cases of full syndrome autism is the gold standard in the country, the conclusions in the study are flawed and premature, and does nothing to exonerate vaccines, particularly mercury containing vaccines, as a cause of California's autism epidemic….. If by 2009-2010 there has not been ANY change in the rate of increase of new cases of autism entering California's developmental services system, then we can scratch mercury in vaccines off our list of agents contained in vaccines as a cause, and; then begin concentrating on the numerous other poisons and toxic agents in vaccines such as aluminum, formaldehyde, MSG, live viruses, etc., and most importantly, the interaction of these and other toxic agents contained in the 34 doses of vaccines children receive from birth to two years old today.”
As usual, it is not the M.D. or Ph.D. “experts” but parents of vaccine injured children, who understand the bigger picture involving accumulating clinical evidence that many children are regressing and becoming chronically ill after receiving both mercury-containing and non-mercury containing vaccines. Parents know well that this one study cannot negate the fact that the medical establishment has refused to conduct the methodologically sound basic science research into the biological effects on immune and brain function of injecting infants and children with multiple vaccines containing many potentially toxic ingredients, including mercury.
Over the years, many parents of vaccine injured children have reminded public health authorities of their duty to protect the lives of all children, including those who are at high risk of becoming vaccine injured. The contentious debate about vaccine-associated autism and whether or not mercury has played a major role in the development of regressive autism in record numbers of children since 1991 will not be over until at least 2010. Even then, it will be complicated by the continued use of thimerosal containing vaccines, such as influenza vaccine, that may be affecting a smaller but significant subset of children. Whatever the truth turns out to be with regard to how big or small a role thimerosal has had in creating an autism epidemic, the more than doubling of the numbers of vaccines children are given during the past quarter century, is a questionable national public health policy that is definitely not off the hook.
Science is not a static enterprise but a dynamic one. Unlike Fombonne, the authors of this latest study at least acknowledged that “the hypothesis that a modifiable risk factor, such as thimerosal exposure, is a major cause of autism offers the hope for prevention through reduced exposure. Although our analysis of DDS data shows an increased in autism in California despite the removal of thimerosal from most vaccines, we support the continued quest for the timely discovery of modifiable risk factors for autism and related conditions. Continuing evaluation of the trends in the prevalence of autism for children born in recent years is warranted to confirm our findings.”
Those maintaining that autism is simply a matter of genetics rather than a matter of genetic diversity dependent upon potentially modifiable environmental triggers will not be happy with that statement. It is an acknowledgement, however small, by California public health officials that development of regressive autism may well be about more than DNA.
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“The estimated prevalence of autism for children at each year of age from 3 to 12 years increased throughout the study period. The estimated prevalence of DDS clients aged 3 to 5 years with autism increased for each quarter from January 1995 through March 2007. Since 2004, the absolute increase and the rate of increase in DDS clients aged 3 to 5 years with autism were higher than those in DDS clients of the same ages with any eligible condition including autism….The DDS data do not show any recent decrease in autism in California despite the exclusion of more than trace levels of thimerosal from nearly all childhood vaccines. The DDS data do not support the hypothesis that exposure to thimerosal during childhood is a primary cause of autism.” – Robert Schechter and Judith Grether, Archives of General Psychiatry (January 2008)
“Although the mercury burden in vaccines has been reduced over the years, we know that even very small amounts of mercury can cause serious, life altering neurological damage. California's ban on mercury containing vaccines for pregnant women and children under three did not take effect until December 2006. Today, those children born after the ban took effect are between 4 months old and one year of age. California's developmental services reporting system DOES NOT include children under the age of three years old.” – Rick Rollens
“Steve M. Edelson, an experimental psychologist who is director of the Autism Research Institute, a nonprofit organization in San Diego, said the study, along with evidence from previous research, argued against thimerosal as the major culprit in autism. But, he added, it still does not rule out all blame. Edelson said such large-scale analysis could overlook smaller groups of children, who for whatever reasons have a particular vulnerability to mercury. He said more solid evidence can only come from laboratory studies, such as postmortem analyses of the brains of autistic children.” - Jia-Rui Chong, Los Angeles Times (Jan. 7, 2008)
“Shih said the study methods are "robust," adding that the authors appeared to address limitations of earlier studies. However, he said, the research "doesn't address the possibility that there might be a subpopulation who might be particularly vulnerable to a vaccine with thimerosal." If just 1 percent to 2 percent of children were especially sensitive to the effect of thimerosal, the study wouldn't be able to pick it up, he said. Schechter agreed, saying it was true that the research didn't address whether thimerosal might cause problems in a small number of cases. As for a possible link between vaccines and autism, Shih said, "the jury is still out," especially considering that children are exposed to a large number of vaccines before age 2. And he added, "Some people in the community feel that they might lead to immune problems that could either exacerbate or lead to autism. All this is purely hypothetical, but this is an area where we need to continue to do more research." – Randy Dotinga, U.S. News & World Report (Jan. 7, 2008)
http://archpsyc.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/65/1/19
ABSTRACT
Continuing Increases in Autism Reported to California’s Developmental Services System
Mercury in Retrograde
Robert Schechter, M.D., Msc; Judith K. Grether, PhD
Arch Gen Psychiatry, 2008;65(1):19-24
Context Previous analyses of autism client data reported to the California Department of Developmental Services (DDS) have been interpreted as supporting the hypothesis that autism is caused by exposure to the preservative thimerosal, which contains ethylmercury. The exclusion of thimerosal from childhood vaccines in the United States was accelerated from 1999 to 2001. The Immunization Safety Review Committee of the Institute of Medicine has recommended surveillance of trends in autism as exposure to thimerosal during early childhood has decreased.
Objective To determine whether trends in DDS autism client data support the hypothesis that thimerosal exposure is a primary cause of autism.
Design, Setting, and Patients Study of time trends in the prevalence by age and birth cohort of children with autism who were active status clients of the DDS from January 1, 1995, through March 31, 2007.
Main Outcome Measure Prevalence of autism among children with active status in the DDS.
Results The estimated prevalence of autism for children at each year of age from 3 to 12 years increased throughout the study period. The estimated prevalence of DDS clients aged 3 to 5 years with autism increased for each quarter from January 1995 through March 2007. Since 2004, the absolute increase and the rate of increase in DDS clients aged 3 to 5 years with autism were higher than those in DDS clients of the same ages with any eligible condition including autism.
Conclusions The DDS data do not show any recent decrease in autism in California despite the exclusion of more than trace levels of thimerosal from nearly all childhood vaccines. The DDS data do not support the hypothesis that exposure to thimerosal during childhood is a primary cause of autism.
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STATEMENT BY RICK ROLLENS, Co-Founder, M.I.N.D. Institute – UC Davis
“Although this study by California's vaccine establishment clearly sustains the fact that California is in the midst of a growing autism epidemic and that California's system of reporting professionally diagnosed cases of full syndrome autism is the gold standard in the country, the conclusions in the study are flawed and premature, and does nothing to exonerate vaccines, particularly mercury containing vaccines, as a cause of California's autism epidemic.
Although the mercury burden in vaccines has been reduced over the years, we know that even very small amounts of mercury can cause serious, life altering neurological damage. California's ban on mercury containing vaccines for pregnant women and children under three did not take effect until December 2006.
Today, those children born after the ban took effect are between 4 months old and one year of age. California's developmental services reporting system DOES NOT include children under the age of three years old.
It will not be clear what impact California's law banning mercury in vaccines has had on the rate of new cases of autism until at least 2009-2010 and later. Historically, the majority of children with autism enter California's developmental services system between the ages of 3+ and 9 years old.
If by 2009-2010 there has not been ANY change in the rate of increase of new cases of autism entering California's developmental services system, then we can scratch mercury in vaccines off our list of agents contained in vaccines as a cause, and; then begin concentrating on the numerous other poisons and toxic agents in vaccines such as aluminum, formaldehyde, MSG, live viruses, etc., and most importantly, the interaction of these and other toxic agents contained in the 34 doses of vaccines children receive from birth to two years old today.”
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Study challenges drug's role in autism
by Jia-Rui Chong
Los Angeles Times
January 7, 2008
The prevalence of autism in California children continued to rise after many vaccine manufacturers started to remove the mercury-based preservative thimerosal in 1999, suggesting that the chemical was not a primary cause of the disorder, according to a study released Monday.
The analysis found that from 2004 to 2007, when exposure to thimerosal dropped significantly for 3- to 5-year-olds, the rate continued to increase in that group from 3.0 to 4.1 per 1,000 children.
"If mercury exposure in vaccines was a major cause of autism, then the number of ... affected kids should have diminished once they were no longer exposed to thimerosal," said Dr. Robert Schechter, lead author of the study and a medical officer at the state Department of Public Health. "That is not what we found."
The study, published in the Archives of General Psychiatry, is the latest in a series that has investigated the connection between thimerosal and autism. The majority have found no association.
But the latest findings failed to convince some parents and advocacy groups that have long blamed mercury, a neurotoxin, for the disorder.
"This study presents a greatly over-simplified explanation of a very complex problem," said Claire Bothwell, chairwoman of the board at the National Autism Association, which works on behalf of families with autism. "Rising numbers do not confirm that thimerosal never had a role."
Autism is a severe developmental disorder in which children seem isolated from the world around them. There is a broad spectrum of symptoms, marked by poor language skills and an inability to handle social relations.
Over the past two decades, the number of cases has boomed for still-unexplained reasons. Psychiatrists estimated that 20 years ago there were 0.2 to 0.5 cases for every 1,000 children. In 2007, the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that there were 6.6 cases per 1,000 schoolchildren, based on a study of 8-year-olds.
The latest study was based on data from the California Department of Developmental Services, which provides services to about 36,000 people with autism and has one of the country's best reporting systems.
The researchers looked at all reported cases in the state starting with children born in 1989. They found the number of cases per 1,000 children has been steadily increasing from that point to March 2007, the end point of the study.
In a commentary accompanying the study in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry, Dr. Eric Fombonne called the data "a clear and unambiguous test."
"Parents of autistic children should be reassured that autism in their child did not occur through immunizations," wrote Fombonne, a psychiatrist at Montreal Children's Hospital who was not involved in this study.
Fombonne has provided advice to vaccine manufacturers in the past but has received no research funding from them, he said.
Steve M. Edelson, an experimental psychologist who is director of the Autism Research Institute, a nonprofit organization in San Diego, said the study, along with evidence from previous research, argued against thimerosal as the major culprit in autism.
But, he added, it still does not rule out all blame. Edelson said such large-scale analysis could overlook smaller groups of children, who for whatever reasons have a particular vulnerability to mercury. He said more solid evidence can only come from laboratory studies, such as postmortem analyses of the brains of autistic children.
The National Autism Association criticized the study, saying that some children still might be exposed to mercury through either flu shots or trace amounts in other vaccines. The group also said that some vaccines containing thimerosal had expiration dates as late as 2005 and might have been used up to that point.
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Study Casts Doubt on Vaccine-Autism Link
Research adds to growing body of evidence that finds no connection between the two
by Randy Dotinga
U.S. News & World Report
January 7, 2008
(HealthDay News) -- Adding to a growing body of evidence that rejects the idea that immunizations boost autism rates, a new study finds no proof that incidences of the disorder dropped after makers of most childhood vaccines stopped using a mercury-based preservative in their products.
Researchers found that autism rates in California continued to rise over the past several years, even though the preservative -- known as thimerosal -- had vanished from almost all vaccines by 2001.
The study makes clear that "thimerosal cannot be the major cause of autism in California," said its lead author, Dr. Robert Schechter, medical officer with the Immunization Branch of the California Department of Public Health.
Another expert called the study limited and said it did not prove that vaccines have no connection to autism.
Still, the new research "adds to the body of existing evidence in which there is no causal connection that demonstrates thimerosal is a primary cause" of autism, said Andy Shih, vice president of scientific affairs for Autism Speaks, an advocacy organization.
Thimerosal, a preservative once used in contact lens solutions, was frequently a component of childhood vaccines until around 2000. Today, it's still used in flu vaccines recommended for infants, but researchers think children are still exposed to much less thimerosal than in the past.
In recent years, some parents have blamed their children's autism on the preservative, which is derived from mercury; others have accused the parents of creating public panic and threatening the health of children by casting a bad light on routine immunizations.
One government study released in 2007 claimed that thimerosal exposure in the first seven months of life didn't appear to affect the brain function of children aged 7 to 10, although there was some evidence -- perhaps the result of chance -- that connected thimerosal to later development of physical tics. Even earlier, an Institute of Medicine report released in 2004 found no evidence supporting a link between thimerosal and autism.
In the new study, published in the January issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, researchers from the California Department of Public Health examined statistics about children in the state from 1995 through March 2007.
The prevalence of autism among kids aged 3 to 12 grew each year, the researchers discovered after looking at numbers compiled by a state agency that provides services to children with the disorder.
For example, the prevalence among kids born in 1993 was three in 10,000 when they were checked in 1996, compared to 13 per 10,000 among those born in 2003 and checked in 2006.
The highest rate -- 4.5 cases per 1,000 births -- came among 6-year-olds in 2006 who were born in 2000.
The study authors pointed out that autism rates among kids aged 3 to 5 continued to grow for each birth year after 1999, even though thimerosal use dropped.
Shih said the study methods are "robust," adding that the authors appeared to address limitations of earlier studies. However, he said, the research "doesn't address the possibility that there might be a subpopulation who might be particularly vulnerable to a vaccine with thimerosal."
If just 1 percent to 2 percent of children were especially sensitive to the effect of thimerosal, the study wouldn't be able to pick it up, he said.
Schechter agreed, saying it was true that the research didn't address whether thimerosal might cause problems in a small number of cases.
As for a possible link between vaccines and autism, Shih said, "the jury is still out," especially considering that children are exposed to a large number of vaccines before age 2.
And he added, "Some people in the community feel that they might lead to immune problems that could either exacerbate or lead to autism. All this is purely hypothetical, but this is an area where we need to continue to do more research."
The Canadian child psychiatrist, who helps out drug companies and US vaccine policymakers by testifying in civil court and in the D.C. Court of Claims to deny vaccine injured autistic children compensation for their injuries, got it wrong again. Endorsing the conclusions of an ecologic analysis by California public health officials of California DDS data from 1995 to 2007 published Jan. 7 in the Archives of General Psychiatry which stated that “The DDS data do not support the hypothesis that exposure to thimerosal during childhood is a primary cause of autism,” Fombonne declares “Parents of autistic children should be reassured that autism in their child did not occur through immunizations. Their autistic children, and their siblings, should be normally vaccinated…” http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-autism8jan08,0,3935663.story?coll=la-home-local
Apparently unhappy that children with vaccine associated autism have been healed through use of alternative therapies that do not rely on expensive prescription drugs and visits to child psychiatrists, Fombonne goes on to add that “as there is no evidence of mercury poisoning in autism, they [parents of autistic children] should avoid ineffective and dangerous “treatments” such as chelation therapy for their children.” He points an accusing finger at “powerful advocacy groups” that have lobbied “decision makers to influence decisions about which autism research to fund and even how to conduct it.” He ridicules “best-selling writers, journalists and politicians” who are “unaware of scientific studies, or worse, doubtful of their results” and have been “drawn to embrace conspiracy theories that portrayed vaccine manufacturers and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as public enemies.”
Fombonne also attacks vaccine victim lawyers for trying to help parents of vaccine injured autistic children obtain compensation for their vaccine injuries under the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act created by Congress and condemns the constitutional right to a jury trial as “the viscous US legal process allowing for fermentation of misconceptions.” Finally, in a pathetic attempt to mimic an earlier attempt in 2004 by a misguided Institute of Medicine (IOM) Committee to shut down all scientific investigation into vaccine-associated regressive autism, the psychiatrist laments “How many more negative study results are required for the belief [in vaccine induced autism] to go away, and how much more spending of public funds on this issue could even be justified?”
Rick Rollens, co-founder of the M.I.N.D. Institute – UC Davis, and the man most responsible for putting the autism epidemic on the map in the late 1990’s, said it best: “Although this study by California's vaccine establishment clearly sustains the fact that California is in the midst of a growing autism epidemic and that California's system of reporting professionally diagnosed cases of full syndrome autism is the gold standard in the country, the conclusions in the study are flawed and premature, and does nothing to exonerate vaccines, particularly mercury containing vaccines, as a cause of California's autism epidemic….. If by 2009-2010 there has not been ANY change in the rate of increase of new cases of autism entering California's developmental services system, then we can scratch mercury in vaccines off our list of agents contained in vaccines as a cause, and; then begin concentrating on the numerous other poisons and toxic agents in vaccines such as aluminum, formaldehyde, MSG, live viruses, etc., and most importantly, the interaction of these and other toxic agents contained in the 34 doses of vaccines children receive from birth to two years old today.”
As usual, it is not the M.D. or Ph.D. “experts” but parents of vaccine injured children, who understand the bigger picture involving accumulating clinical evidence that many children are regressing and becoming chronically ill after receiving both mercury-containing and non-mercury containing vaccines. Parents know well that this one study cannot negate the fact that the medical establishment has refused to conduct the methodologically sound basic science research into the biological effects on immune and brain function of injecting infants and children with multiple vaccines containing many potentially toxic ingredients, including mercury.
Over the years, many parents of vaccine injured children have reminded public health authorities of their duty to protect the lives of all children, including those who are at high risk of becoming vaccine injured. The contentious debate about vaccine-associated autism and whether or not mercury has played a major role in the development of regressive autism in record numbers of children since 1991 will not be over until at least 2010. Even then, it will be complicated by the continued use of thimerosal containing vaccines, such as influenza vaccine, that may be affecting a smaller but significant subset of children. Whatever the truth turns out to be with regard to how big or small a role thimerosal has had in creating an autism epidemic, the more than doubling of the numbers of vaccines children are given during the past quarter century, is a questionable national public health policy that is definitely not off the hook.
Science is not a static enterprise but a dynamic one. Unlike Fombonne, the authors of this latest study at least acknowledged that “the hypothesis that a modifiable risk factor, such as thimerosal exposure, is a major cause of autism offers the hope for prevention through reduced exposure. Although our analysis of DDS data shows an increased in autism in California despite the removal of thimerosal from most vaccines, we support the continued quest for the timely discovery of modifiable risk factors for autism and related conditions. Continuing evaluation of the trends in the prevalence of autism for children born in recent years is warranted to confirm our findings.”
Those maintaining that autism is simply a matter of genetics rather than a matter of genetic diversity dependent upon potentially modifiable environmental triggers will not be happy with that statement. It is an acknowledgement, however small, by California public health officials that development of regressive autism may well be about more than DNA.
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“The estimated prevalence of autism for children at each year of age from 3 to 12 years increased throughout the study period. The estimated prevalence of DDS clients aged 3 to 5 years with autism increased for each quarter from January 1995 through March 2007. Since 2004, the absolute increase and the rate of increase in DDS clients aged 3 to 5 years with autism were higher than those in DDS clients of the same ages with any eligible condition including autism….The DDS data do not show any recent decrease in autism in California despite the exclusion of more than trace levels of thimerosal from nearly all childhood vaccines. The DDS data do not support the hypothesis that exposure to thimerosal during childhood is a primary cause of autism.” – Robert Schechter and Judith Grether, Archives of General Psychiatry (January 2008)
“Although the mercury burden in vaccines has been reduced over the years, we know that even very small amounts of mercury can cause serious, life altering neurological damage. California's ban on mercury containing vaccines for pregnant women and children under three did not take effect until December 2006. Today, those children born after the ban took effect are between 4 months old and one year of age. California's developmental services reporting system DOES NOT include children under the age of three years old.” – Rick Rollens
“Steve M. Edelson, an experimental psychologist who is director of the Autism Research Institute, a nonprofit organization in San Diego, said the study, along with evidence from previous research, argued against thimerosal as the major culprit in autism. But, he added, it still does not rule out all blame. Edelson said such large-scale analysis could overlook smaller groups of children, who for whatever reasons have a particular vulnerability to mercury. He said more solid evidence can only come from laboratory studies, such as postmortem analyses of the brains of autistic children.” - Jia-Rui Chong, Los Angeles Times (Jan. 7, 2008)
“Shih said the study methods are "robust," adding that the authors appeared to address limitations of earlier studies. However, he said, the research "doesn't address the possibility that there might be a subpopulation who might be particularly vulnerable to a vaccine with thimerosal." If just 1 percent to 2 percent of children were especially sensitive to the effect of thimerosal, the study wouldn't be able to pick it up, he said. Schechter agreed, saying it was true that the research didn't address whether thimerosal might cause problems in a small number of cases. As for a possible link between vaccines and autism, Shih said, "the jury is still out," especially considering that children are exposed to a large number of vaccines before age 2. And he added, "Some people in the community feel that they might lead to immune problems that could either exacerbate or lead to autism. All this is purely hypothetical, but this is an area where we need to continue to do more research." – Randy Dotinga, U.S. News & World Report (Jan. 7, 2008)
http://archpsyc.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/65/1/19
ABSTRACT
Continuing Increases in Autism Reported to California’s Developmental Services System
Mercury in Retrograde
Robert Schechter, M.D., Msc; Judith K. Grether, PhD
Arch Gen Psychiatry, 2008;65(1):19-24
Context Previous analyses of autism client data reported to the California Department of Developmental Services (DDS) have been interpreted as supporting the hypothesis that autism is caused by exposure to the preservative thimerosal, which contains ethylmercury. The exclusion of thimerosal from childhood vaccines in the United States was accelerated from 1999 to 2001. The Immunization Safety Review Committee of the Institute of Medicine has recommended surveillance of trends in autism as exposure to thimerosal during early childhood has decreased.
Objective To determine whether trends in DDS autism client data support the hypothesis that thimerosal exposure is a primary cause of autism.
Design, Setting, and Patients Study of time trends in the prevalence by age and birth cohort of children with autism who were active status clients of the DDS from January 1, 1995, through March 31, 2007.
Main Outcome Measure Prevalence of autism among children with active status in the DDS.
Results The estimated prevalence of autism for children at each year of age from 3 to 12 years increased throughout the study period. The estimated prevalence of DDS clients aged 3 to 5 years with autism increased for each quarter from January 1995 through March 2007. Since 2004, the absolute increase and the rate of increase in DDS clients aged 3 to 5 years with autism were higher than those in DDS clients of the same ages with any eligible condition including autism.
Conclusions The DDS data do not show any recent decrease in autism in California despite the exclusion of more than trace levels of thimerosal from nearly all childhood vaccines. The DDS data do not support the hypothesis that exposure to thimerosal during childhood is a primary cause of autism.
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STATEMENT BY RICK ROLLENS, Co-Founder, M.I.N.D. Institute – UC Davis
“Although this study by California's vaccine establishment clearly sustains the fact that California is in the midst of a growing autism epidemic and that California's system of reporting professionally diagnosed cases of full syndrome autism is the gold standard in the country, the conclusions in the study are flawed and premature, and does nothing to exonerate vaccines, particularly mercury containing vaccines, as a cause of California's autism epidemic.
Although the mercury burden in vaccines has been reduced over the years, we know that even very small amounts of mercury can cause serious, life altering neurological damage. California's ban on mercury containing vaccines for pregnant women and children under three did not take effect until December 2006.
Today, those children born after the ban took effect are between 4 months old and one year of age. California's developmental services reporting system DOES NOT include children under the age of three years old.
It will not be clear what impact California's law banning mercury in vaccines has had on the rate of new cases of autism until at least 2009-2010 and later. Historically, the majority of children with autism enter California's developmental services system between the ages of 3+ and 9 years old.
If by 2009-2010 there has not been ANY change in the rate of increase of new cases of autism entering California's developmental services system, then we can scratch mercury in vaccines off our list of agents contained in vaccines as a cause, and; then begin concentrating on the numerous other poisons and toxic agents in vaccines such as aluminum, formaldehyde, MSG, live viruses, etc., and most importantly, the interaction of these and other toxic agents contained in the 34 doses of vaccines children receive from birth to two years old today.”
---------------------------------------------------------------
Study challenges drug's role in autism
by Jia-Rui Chong
Los Angeles Times
January 7, 2008
The prevalence of autism in California children continued to rise after many vaccine manufacturers started to remove the mercury-based preservative thimerosal in 1999, suggesting that the chemical was not a primary cause of the disorder, according to a study released Monday.
The analysis found that from 2004 to 2007, when exposure to thimerosal dropped significantly for 3- to 5-year-olds, the rate continued to increase in that group from 3.0 to 4.1 per 1,000 children.
"If mercury exposure in vaccines was a major cause of autism, then the number of ... affected kids should have diminished once they were no longer exposed to thimerosal," said Dr. Robert Schechter, lead author of the study and a medical officer at the state Department of Public Health. "That is not what we found."
The study, published in the Archives of General Psychiatry, is the latest in a series that has investigated the connection between thimerosal and autism. The majority have found no association.
But the latest findings failed to convince some parents and advocacy groups that have long blamed mercury, a neurotoxin, for the disorder.
"This study presents a greatly over-simplified explanation of a very complex problem," said Claire Bothwell, chairwoman of the board at the National Autism Association, which works on behalf of families with autism. "Rising numbers do not confirm that thimerosal never had a role."
Autism is a severe developmental disorder in which children seem isolated from the world around them. There is a broad spectrum of symptoms, marked by poor language skills and an inability to handle social relations.
Over the past two decades, the number of cases has boomed for still-unexplained reasons. Psychiatrists estimated that 20 years ago there were 0.2 to 0.5 cases for every 1,000 children. In 2007, the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that there were 6.6 cases per 1,000 schoolchildren, based on a study of 8-year-olds.
The latest study was based on data from the California Department of Developmental Services, which provides services to about 36,000 people with autism and has one of the country's best reporting systems.
The researchers looked at all reported cases in the state starting with children born in 1989. They found the number of cases per 1,000 children has been steadily increasing from that point to March 2007, the end point of the study.
In a commentary accompanying the study in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry, Dr. Eric Fombonne called the data "a clear and unambiguous test."
"Parents of autistic children should be reassured that autism in their child did not occur through immunizations," wrote Fombonne, a psychiatrist at Montreal Children's Hospital who was not involved in this study.
Fombonne has provided advice to vaccine manufacturers in the past but has received no research funding from them, he said.
Steve M. Edelson, an experimental psychologist who is director of the Autism Research Institute, a nonprofit organization in San Diego, said the study, along with evidence from previous research, argued against thimerosal as the major culprit in autism.
But, he added, it still does not rule out all blame. Edelson said such large-scale analysis could overlook smaller groups of children, who for whatever reasons have a particular vulnerability to mercury. He said more solid evidence can only come from laboratory studies, such as postmortem analyses of the brains of autistic children.
The National Autism Association criticized the study, saying that some children still might be exposed to mercury through either flu shots or trace amounts in other vaccines. The group also said that some vaccines containing thimerosal had expiration dates as late as 2005 and might have been used up to that point.
------------------------------------------------------
Study Casts Doubt on Vaccine-Autism Link
Research adds to growing body of evidence that finds no connection between the two
by Randy Dotinga
U.S. News & World Report
January 7, 2008
(HealthDay News) -- Adding to a growing body of evidence that rejects the idea that immunizations boost autism rates, a new study finds no proof that incidences of the disorder dropped after makers of most childhood vaccines stopped using a mercury-based preservative in their products.
Researchers found that autism rates in California continued to rise over the past several years, even though the preservative -- known as thimerosal -- had vanished from almost all vaccines by 2001.
The study makes clear that "thimerosal cannot be the major cause of autism in California," said its lead author, Dr. Robert Schechter, medical officer with the Immunization Branch of the California Department of Public Health.
Another expert called the study limited and said it did not prove that vaccines have no connection to autism.
Still, the new research "adds to the body of existing evidence in which there is no causal connection that demonstrates thimerosal is a primary cause" of autism, said Andy Shih, vice president of scientific affairs for Autism Speaks, an advocacy organization.
Thimerosal, a preservative once used in contact lens solutions, was frequently a component of childhood vaccines until around 2000. Today, it's still used in flu vaccines recommended for infants, but researchers think children are still exposed to much less thimerosal than in the past.
In recent years, some parents have blamed their children's autism on the preservative, which is derived from mercury; others have accused the parents of creating public panic and threatening the health of children by casting a bad light on routine immunizations.
One government study released in 2007 claimed that thimerosal exposure in the first seven months of life didn't appear to affect the brain function of children aged 7 to 10, although there was some evidence -- perhaps the result of chance -- that connected thimerosal to later development of physical tics. Even earlier, an Institute of Medicine report released in 2004 found no evidence supporting a link between thimerosal and autism.
In the new study, published in the January issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, researchers from the California Department of Public Health examined statistics about children in the state from 1995 through March 2007.
The prevalence of autism among kids aged 3 to 12 grew each year, the researchers discovered after looking at numbers compiled by a state agency that provides services to children with the disorder.
For example, the prevalence among kids born in 1993 was three in 10,000 when they were checked in 1996, compared to 13 per 10,000 among those born in 2003 and checked in 2006.
The highest rate -- 4.5 cases per 1,000 births -- came among 6-year-olds in 2006 who were born in 2000.
The study authors pointed out that autism rates among kids aged 3 to 5 continued to grow for each birth year after 1999, even though thimerosal use dropped.
Shih said the study methods are "robust," adding that the authors appeared to address limitations of earlier studies. However, he said, the research "doesn't address the possibility that there might be a subpopulation who might be particularly vulnerable to a vaccine with thimerosal."
If just 1 percent to 2 percent of children were especially sensitive to the effect of thimerosal, the study wouldn't be able to pick it up, he said.
Schechter agreed, saying it was true that the research didn't address whether thimerosal might cause problems in a small number of cases.
As for a possible link between vaccines and autism, Shih said, "the jury is still out," especially considering that children are exposed to a large number of vaccines before age 2.
And he added, "Some people in the community feel that they might lead to immune problems that could either exacerbate or lead to autism. All this is purely hypothetical, but this is an area where we need to continue to do more research."
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