 Re: Pharma's Poisoned Generation
Here is another side of the scare tactics which prompted a SMDH war.
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/514585
Evidence Suggests Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism
Linda Little
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Oct. 14, 2005 (Washington) — A vaccine safety expert reiterated once
again that there is no scientific proof linking vaccines to autism or
other diseases such as diabetes or asthma.
Current scientific research does not implicate thimerosal-containing
vaccines or the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine with autism, asthma,
or infection, according to Walter Orenstein, MD, professor of pediatrics
and director of the Emory Vaccine Center at Emory university School of
Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia. He spoke to a packed crowd here at a
plenary session of the American Academy of Pediatrics National
Conference and Exhibition.
Still, many parents are questioning the safety of such vaccines. Dr.
Orenstein cited a 2004 survey of U.S. physicians in which 92% of
pediatricians and 60% of family practitioners reported at least one
parental refusal of one recommended vaccine.
Parental concerns expressed to physicians included possible links
between autism and thimerosal-containing vaccines, autism and the MMR
vaccine, and the possible link between the use of multiple vaccinations
and diabetes, asthma, and infection.
It is imperative that the medical profession ensure the safety of
vaccines, but it is equally important that the science behind studies is
examined, Dr. Orenstein said.
One study in his review that raised parental fears of the connection
between thimerosol and autism was a California ecological study that
showed an apparent connection between children with autism in special
education classes with estimated mercury exposure from vaccines.
"This was an ecological study," Dr. Orenstein commented. "This could
have been due to a change in diagnostic codes as well as the number of
available educational services for autism. This would be easily studied
in a better epidemiological study."
He also pointed to a National Institutes of Health and Harvard study
that compared the features of children with autism and nonautistic
children with mercury poisoning. The study found few similarities
between the groups in motor function, vision, speed, sensory perception,
and psychology.
There are major differences between traditional mercury poisonings and
thimerosal, Dr. Orenstein said. "Not all mercuries are the same."
Methyl mercury implicated in the usual mercury poisoning is quite
different from the ethyl mercury contained in thimerosal, he explained.
"Ethyl mercury has a shorter half-life and is less associated with
poisoning."
Dr. Orenstein cited a study conducted in Sweden and Denmark that did not
find a link between thimerosal and autism. When thimerosal was removed
from the vaccines in Sweden and Denmark, there was no correlating change
in the rates of autism reported in either country, he said.
In reviewing other pertinent studies, it was found that three studies
showing a link between thirmerosal and autism did not meet any of the
eight established epidemiologic study quality criteria, while four
studies finding no link met between five and seven of the quality
criteria.
In addition, when an Institute of Medicine committee reviewed published
and unpublished studies in 2004, the group found no supporting evidence
for a causal relationship between thimerosal-containing vaccines or the
MMR vaccine and autism.
Current vaccines given during the first six months of life have
essentially no mercury, except trace amounts, Dr. Orenstein said. "There
is virtually no mercury."
Vaccines today are much more highly purified than in the past, he said.
"They are not being overloaded with antigenic proteins."
In addition, Dr. Orenstein concluded, "epidemiological evidence shows no
relationship between those with multiple immunizations and asthma nor
infections."
"There have been enough studies done trying to link autism to vaccines,"
Carden Johnston, MD, past president of the American Academy of
Pediatrics of Birmingham, AL, told Medscape. "Ever since Ed Jenner
started smallpox vaccinations, there have been public groups trying to
link vaccines to morbidity." Research funds should be spent on more
productive areas, he concluded.
AAP 2005 National Conference and Exhibition: Plenary Session. Presented
Oct. 11, 2005.
Reviewed by Gary D. Vogin, MD
Related Links
Conference Coverage
American Academy of Pediatrics 2005 National Conference and Exhibition
Resource Centers
Autism Spectrum Disorders
========================================================================
Alan wrote:
>
> http://www.opednews.com/articles/op.._ge.htm
>
> by Evelyn Pringle
>
> http://www.opednews.com
>
> Pharma's Poisoned Generation
>
> A growing number of professionals in the health care field are reporting t
hat a
> relationship exists between the epidemic in neurodevelopmental disorders o
f
> autism, attention deficit hyperactive disorder, and speech or language del
ay all
> across the country, and the use of thimerosal, the mercury-based preservat
ive
> used in childhood vaccines.
>
> Vaccines are the only medicines that Americans are mandated to receive as
a
> condition for attendance in school and day care, and for some types of
> employment. Parents who receive federal assistance are also required to sh
ow
> proof that their children have been vaccinated.
>
> While the mandate for which vaccines must be included on the vaccine sched
ule is
> a state mandate, it is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC
) and
> its Advisory Committee that make the recommendations to which the majority
of
> states adhere when determining mandates. The current epidemic actually beg
an in
> the late 1980s when a large number of new vaccines were added to the sched
ule.
>
> The blame is at least partially attributable to the failure of government
> officials to keep track of the cumulative amounts of mercury as they added
> triple-dose-vaccines to the schedule and the amount of thimerosal was mult
iplied
> by three.
>
> Each new vaccine contained 25 micrograms of mercury and according to Profe
ssor
> Lynn Adams, of Radford University, who specializes in autism, by 1999, a s
tudy
> determined that the average child received 33 doses of 10 different vaccin
es by
> the age 5.
>
> Elected lawmakers first became aware of the problem in 1999, when the Hous
e
> Committee on Government Reform initiated an investigation into the dangers
of
> mercury exposure. An alarm rang early about the exposure of children to
> thimerosal.
>
> By October 25, 2000, Committee Chairman, Dan Burton (R-IN), was trying to
get
> the substance out of vaccines as quickly as possible and sent a letter to
the
> Department of Health and Human Services, asking the director to get the FD
A to
> recall all vaccines with thimerosal.
>
> “We all know and accept that mercury is a neurotoxin, and yet the FDA has
failed
> to recall the 50 vaccines that contain Thimerosal,” Burton wrote. “Every d
ay
> that mercury-containing vaccines remain on the market is another day HHS i
s
> putting 8,000 children at risk,” he said.
>
> “I implore you to conduct a full recall of these products,” he wrote. “If
the
> only action .. is a gradual phase out, children will continue to be put a
t risk
> every day,” Burton warned. “These vaccines will continue to be injected in
> children for years to come - putting our nation's most vulnerable populati
on ..
> at risk for mercury poisoning," he added.
>
> The Reform Committee soon discovered that regulatory agencies were still
> allowing thimerosal to be used decades after the recognition that it was
> harmful. The Committee was told that the Food and Drug Administration, (FD
A),
> uses a subjective barometer in determining when a product that has known r
isks
> can remain on the market. According to the agency:
>
> "at the heart of all FDA’s product evaluation decisions is a judgment abou
t
> whether a new product’s benefits to users will outweigh its risks. No regu
lated
> product is totally risk-free, so these judgments are important. The FDA wi
ll
> allow a product to present more of a risk when its potential benefit is
> great—especially for products used to treat serious, life-threatening
> conditions."
>
> The argument that the known risks of infectious diseases outweighs any pot
ential
> risk of neurological damage is one that has continuously been used by offi
cials.
> The FDA claims that any risk from thimerosal is theoretical because no pro
of of
> harm exists.
>
> However, after its review of scientific literature and listening to the
> testimony of witnesses, the Committee found plenty of evidence to support
the
> fact that thimerosal posed a grave risk. "The possible risk for harm from
either
> low dose chronic or one time high level (bolus dose) exposure to thimerosa
l is
> not "theoretical," but very real and documented in the medical literature,
" the
> Committee said.
>
> The Committee also discovered that regulatory agencies have never required
drug
> companies to conduct studies on the use of thimerosal. During a June 20, 2
002,
> hearing, Burton questioned officials from the FDA and CDC and said, "You m
ean to
> tell me that since 1929, we've been using Thimerosal and the only test tha
t you
> know of is from 1929, and every one of those people had mennigitis, and th
ey all
> died?"
>
> In his opening statement at a July 18, 2000, hearing, Burton said:
>
> "We assume that the FDA would protect our children from exposure to any le
vel of
> mercury through drugs. But that hasn’t been the case. Thimerosal was first
> marketed in 1930 and has become the most widely used preservative in vacci
nes.
> It is present in over 50 licensed vaccines."
>
> "The FDA recently acknowledged that in the first six months of life, child
ren
> get more mercury than is considered safe by the EPA," Burton noted. "The t
ruth
> is that sometimes kids go to their doctor’s office and get four or five va
ccines
> at the same time," he added.
>
> "My grandson received vaccines for nine different diseases in one day," Bu
rton
> said. "He may have been exposed to 62.5 micrograms of mercury in one day t
hrough
> his vaccines."
>
> "According to his weight, the maximum safe level of mercury he should be e
xposed
> to in one day is 1.51 micrograms," Burton advised. "This is forty-one time
s the
> amount at which harm can be caused," he added.
>
> In his opening remarks at a June 19, 2002, hearing, Burton described the
> devastation of witnessing the correlation between vaccines and autism.
>
> "My only grandson became autistic right before my eyes – shortly after rec
eiving
> his federally recommended and state-mandated vaccines. Without a full
> explanation of what was in the shots being given, my talkative, playful,
> outgoing, healthy, grandson Christian was subjected to very high levels of
> mercury through his vaccines. He also received the MMR vaccine. Within a f
ew
> days he was showing signs of autism."
>
> People often wonder why regulatory officials would protect drug makers. In
large
> part, because the CDC and FDA policy decisions are made through advisory p
anels
> whose members have financial relationships with the same companies they ar
e
> charged to regulate.
>
> The decisions of the 300 experts who sit on the FDA's 18 advisory committe
es
> affect billions of dollars in sales. The panel members play a crucial role
in
> determining what drugs will be approved and participate in just about ever
y
> major decision related to industry regulation.
>
> When it comes to vaccines, the large population in the USA transforms into
a
> lucrative customer base when our government makes vaccines mandatory and k
eeps
> adding more and more to the list. Between 2003 and 2006, it was predicted
that
> the annual global market for vaccines would rise from $6 billion to $10 bi
llion,
> by Mark Benjamin for United Press International on July 21, 2003.
>
> Investors follow the decisions made by the advisory panels closely. A favo
rable
> vote by a committee can add hundreds of millions of dollars to a company's
stock
> value which also means the potential for corruption in the panels is enorm
ous.
>
> In a July 18, 2000 hearing, Burton mentioned the problem. "We have a lot o
f
> doctors who serve on Federal advisory committees who have serious
> conflicts-of-interest problems. They’re allowed to vote on vaccines made b
y
> companies that they get money from."
>
> An analysis conducted by USA Today, of 159 FDA advisory committee meetings
that
> took place between January 1, 1998, and June 30, 2000, revealed conflicts
of
> interest were wide-spread:
>
> At 92% of the meetings, at least one member had a financial conflict of
> interest.
>
> At least one committee member had a financial stake in the topic under rev
iew at
> 146 of 159 advisory committee meetings.
>
> At 55% of meetings, half or more of the FDA advisers had conflicts of inte
rest.
>
> At the 102 meetings dealing with the fate of a specific drug, 33% of the e
xperts
> had a financial conflict.
>
> Many parents are now refusing to vaccinate their children because they bel
ieve
> there is an on-going conspiracy by government officials and the pharmaceut
ical
> industry to boost profits by mandating unnecessary vaccines, while at the
same
> time, denying their potential for harm. Congressman Burton addressed this
issue
> in a June 19, 2002 hearing:
>
> "Parents are increasingly concerned that the Department may be inherently
> conflicted in its multiple roles of promoting immunization, regulating
> manufacturers, looking for adverse events, managing the vaccine injury
> compensation program, and developing new vaccines. Families share my conce
rn
> that vaccine manufacturers have too much influence as well."
>
> Burton also noted the need to get honest about the current epidemic. "As
> representatives of the people, we have a responsibility to ensure that our
> public health officials are adequately and honestly addressing this epidem
ic and
> its possible links to vaccine injury," he said.
>
> In May 2003, the Reform Committee, released a report that said the "FDA an
d the
> CDC failed in their duty to be vigilant as new vaccines containing thimero
sal
> were approved and added to the immunization schedule."
>
> As an example the report cited the Hepatitis B vaccine. "When the Hepatiti
s B
> and Haemophilus Influenzae Type b vaccines were added to the recommended
> schedule of childhood immunizations, the cumulative amount of ethylmercury
to
> which children were exposed nearly tripled." The report identified thimero
sal as
> the cause of the autism and chastised the FDA:
>
> “Thimerosal used as a preservative in vaccines is directly related to the
autism
> epidemic. This epidemic in all probability may have been prevented or curt
ailed
> had the FDA not been asleep at the switch regarding a lack of safety data
> regarding injected thimerosal and the sharper eyes of infant exposure to t
his
> known neurotoxin. The public health agencies failure to act is indicative
of
> institutional malfeasance for self protection and misplaced protectionism
of the
> pharmaceutical industry.”
>
> Many people have not yet recognized the seriousness of the epidemic, large
ly
> because the majority of people have not seen many autistic children due to
the
> fact that parents seldom take their affected children out in public becaus
e of
> the difficulty in trying to control them in a strange environment.
>
> However, the rising numbers in special education classes in the nation's p
ublic
> school system provides a clear measurement of how wide-spread the epidemic
has
> become. State by state statistics for students with autism from the Depart
ment
> of education for the 12-year period between 1992-93 and 2003-04, are almos
t
> unbelievable. For instance, in Ohio in 1992-93, there were only 22 cases o
f
> autism, by 2003-04 there were 5,146. In Illinois, there were only 5 cases
twelve
> years ago and 6,005 in 2003-04. Wisconsin had 18 cases of autism in 1992-9
3 and
> the numbers rose to 3,259 in 2003-04.
>
> The true reality of these statistics will register in the not too distant
> future. "With eighty percent of autistic Americans under the age of 18, th
e
> dramatic impact of this crisis will be felt by taxpayers in the coming yea
rs
> when these autistic children become adults," says Anne McElroy Dachel, Med
ia
> Relations Coordinator for the National Autism Association.
>
> Most vaccines on the immunization schedule now are said to be thimerosal-f
ree
> but some still do contain trace amounts. "An exception is the flu shot, wh
ich
> the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends for pregnant wom
en and
> for infants 6 to 23 months old,” advises Don Olmsted in United Press
> International on November 19, 2005.
>
> For 6 to 23-month-old infants, the schedule calls for two flu shots that c
ontain
> 12.5 micrograms of thimerosal each to be given a month apart. “That total
of is
> the same amount that was in vaccines some parents believe triggered their
> child's autism," Olmsted advises. "And some of them believe in utero expos
ure to
> mercury via the pregnant mother might be the most dangerous exposure of al
l,” he
> said.
>
> When deciding whether mercury-laced flu vaccines are safe for children, pa
rents
> had better think long and hard before rolling the dice.
>
> Evelyn Pringle
> epringle05@yahoo.com
>
> (Evelyn Pringle is a columnist for Independent Media TV and an investigati
ve
> journalist focused on exposing corruption in government)
>
> http://www.opednews.com/articles/op.._ge.htm
>
> Alan
>
> "Can't you see we're still here,
> Can't you see we're still here,
> Singing loud; Singing clear,
> We shall not go under,
> We're still here."
>
> Nemesis Peace Centre
>
> http://www.veloceraptor.free-online../protector.html
>
> Abuse of Women and Children
>
> http://theoriginalfirebird.blogspot.com/
>
> Nemesis News
>
> http://lordcerneabbas.blogspot.com/
>
> Absolute Anarchy
>
> http://lordcerneabbastoo.blogspot.com/
>
> http://www.john-lennon.com/
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