Vaccination: Federal Health Agencies
Continue to Deceive Americans
Congressional Report on a Vaccine
Mercury-Autism Link Ignored for Six Years
by Richard Gale and Dr Gary Null
http://globalresearch.ca/, November
13, 2009
Under normal circumstances, when a public
health measure is advocated or mandated, and it is accepted without
question by all Federal health agencies, state and local health
departments, and promoted by the mainstream media with unquestioning
support from the orthodox medical community, then it is assumed
that such measures at the very least meet basic scientifically
proven criteria. Foremost should be public health safety and that
the proven efficacy of a health program be implemented according
to rigorous scientific gold standards. When this standard is ignored
and denied, as is now being done by our health officials, then
the wellbeing of the nation is placed at risk. Consequently, we
see the concerns regarding the swine flu vaccine focusing upon
supply rather than health. For our government health officials
at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Department of
Health and Human Services (HHS), vaccines have been baptized safe
and, therefore, there is no reason for further debate. In fact,
so certain are those in charge of the nation's vaccination programs,
even democratic discourse about vaccination controversies has
been marginalized and smothered. There is no dissenting opinion
published in any major industrial medical journal or magazine,
nor found on any of government health websites.
When put to the test, a meticulous review
of the scientific literature finds that virtually all of the Federal
health agencies assumptions are held in error. Furthermore, we
are shocked that the CDC, FDA and HHS, with all of their resources,
refuse to take into consideration the large body of clinical evidence
that contradicts their biased vaccine policies. Our review of
the scientific literature is at two levels. First, there is a
direct relationship between vaccination and Autism Spectrum Disorders
(ASD). This evidence, as we shall see, was taken under oath during
a three year Congressional investigation, which clearly shows
that Federal health officials were complicit in covering up the
associations between vaccines and neurological damage.
The second level shows irrefutable evidence,
from peered reviewed journals in immunology, neurology, toxicology,
etc., that the very same mercury used at high toxic levels in
the flu vaccines, as well as in trace amounts in other vaccines,
is toxic in all circumstances. The pronouncements by the CDC and
HHS, promulgated by tabloid medical writers at the New York Times,
Wall Street Journal and other media outlets, are deceptions based
upon medical denialism. We believe it is a crime to inject mercury
into the bodies of any pregnant woman and child, while knowing
that thimerosal is extremely toxic.
During a televised interview to prepare
the American public for a massive campaign to inoculate the population
for the H1N1 flu virus, President Obama's HHS Secretary, Dr. Kathleen
Sebelius, told the nation, "study after study, scientist
after scientist, has determined that there really is no safety
risk with thimerosal."[1] Glancing at the foot-high stack
of published clinical studies on the desk, years of independent
research identifying certain neurological impairments, such as
Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), and cellular organ damage resulting
from vaccines containing the toxic ethylmercury preservative commonly
known as thimerosal, it is incomprehensible to fathom the depth
of scientific denial in Sebelius' statement. Was the Secretary
blatantly lying to Americans, especially parents of small children
six months and older and pregnant mothers, to convince us to line
up for flu shots? If we unpack Sebelius' misleading propaganda
and properly rephrase her pronouncement, we can uncover a semblance
of truth in her words. Instead it would have been proper for her
to inform the nation that "study after study of spurious
and flawed research that would likely never pass a graduate school
examination, scientist after scientist affiliated or with financial
ties to the vaccine industry now dominating our academies and
health agencies, have determined that there really is no safety
risk with thimerosal."
This should have been the Secretary's
response if she were honest in addressing many people's concerns
about vaccine safety. Yet, this is not just our interpretive spin
about the lack of scientific integrity within the CDC's and FDA's
pharmaceutical-friendly stance regarding the vaccine-autism controversy;
rather it accurately reflects the conclusions from a three year
investigation conducted by the Subcommittee on Human Rights and
Wellness in the House's Committee on Government Reform, spearheaded
by Rep. Dan Burton (R-Indiana). Published in May 2003, the Committee's
80-page report, "Mercury in Medicine: Taking Unnecessary
Risks," is a clear indictment charging the CDC, FDA and HHS
with scientific bias, prejudiced financial interests with vaccine
makers, and administrative incompetence and indecision that puts
Americans' health at risk.[2]
It is a sorry state of affairs when a
Congressional committee is forced to undertake a more thorough,
concise review of the scientific literature related to a national
health crisis, i.e., thimerosal as a causative factor behind the
epidemic scourge of neurological and developmental disorders in
America's children, because our Federal health agencies prefer
to not upset their clients (or masters) in the pharmaceutical
industrial complex. But what is even more disturbing is that after
six years since the Committee's report, nothing has fundamentally
changed. Instead, the CDC, FDA and HHS continue their rogue campaigns
to spread unfounded medical propaganda and have done next to nothing,
aside from issuing promises and marginalizing opposing medical
views, to fund and launch the independent research necessary to
determine once and for all vaccine safety in young children, developing
fetuses and pregnant mothers. And as we wait for medical sanity
to descend upon our government agencies, more and more children
are injured from the increasing number of scheduled vaccinations,
while the burden of health costs continue to mount on the shoulders
of parents with neurologically and physically damaged children.
Therefore reviewing some of the Committee's
major findings is warranted to bring them up to date with recent
information showing the thimerosal-autism link and to provide
evidence for the CDC's, FDA's and HHS's ongoing medical denialism
about vaccine safety and their laxity in preserving and addressing
public health.
Committee Finding 1: "Mercury is
hazardous to humans. Its use in medicinal products is undesirable,
unnecessary and should be minimized or eliminated entirely."
Mercury, in its two most common forms
that threaten human health--methylmercury and ethylmercury (thimerosal
used in vaccines)--is the second most toxic substance perhaps
after uranium. It is over one hundred times more toxic than lead.
Therefore ask yourself the question, would you submit your child,
or even yourself, to having lead injected directly into his or
her bloodstream, permitting it to pass through your child's neurological
system? If you answer in the negative, then know that the mercury
in that flu shot being offered at Costco is far more toxic than
the lead you just refused.
Although more research has been conducted
showing methylmercury's severe health risks, the Committee, basing
its decision on sound scientific evidence, concluded that thimerosal's
toxicity is the same as methylmercury. Among the more serious
adverse effects are multiple organ system disorders over the course
of a lifetime, neurological and behavioral defects, renal damage,
cardiovascular effects even at very low dosages, increased susceptibility
to infectious diseases, autoimmune disorders and injury to the
immune system, and adverse effects on the reproductive system.
Contrary to Sebelius'denialism, a pregnant mother's exposure to
thimerosal due to vaccination runs the risk of mercury crossing
the placenta and affecting the developing fetus. The CDC's current
stance that it makes no difference whether vaccines with thimerosal
are given to pregnant mothers flies in the face of biomolecular
reason and the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) own warnings.
Medical evidence for methylmercury disturbing the neuro-development
of an infant in utero has been conclusive for many years.[3] The
EPA's website states that for women in reproductive ages, there
is the risk of 300,000 newborns each year incurring learning disabilities
due to in utero exposure to mercury. Even the FDA acknowledged
mercury's toxic risks to infants back in 1994. According to a
National Institutes of Health document, "For fetuses, infants
and children, the primary health effects of mercury are on neurological
development. Even low levels of mercury exposure, such as result
from a mother's consumption of methylmercury in dietary sources,
can adversely affect the brain and nervous system. Impact on memory,
attention, language and other skills have been found in children
exposed to moderate levels in the womb." Do any of these
symptoms sound like ASD? And if eating a can of tuna fish poses
a potential risk, how much greater are the potential neurological
injuries when vaccine mercury is injected intramuscularly?
The EPA, unlike the FDA, has conducted
research into mercury's toxicity and health risks. While the EPA
sets a limit exposure of mercury at 0.1 micrograms/kg, the FDA
in its favoritism towards mercury's use in vaccines raises the
stakes to 0.4 micrograms. The FDA's figure has no valid supporting
scientific data and is arbitrary in order to continue sanctioning
the use of in vaccines. The World Health Organization (WHO) sets
the limit higher; this may account for the WHO's aggressive campaigns
to inoculate the world's poorer populations with heavily laced-mercury
and stockpiled vaccines from the drug makers. The Committee, however,
found the EPA evaluation to be "scientifically validated."
Consequently, a person receiving a single flu shot, with 25 mcg/kg
of thimerosal would need to weigh approximately 550 pounds for
it to be considered a safe quantity. Therefore it is no surprise
that the series of four thimerosal-laced flu shots, or 100 mcg/kg,
can lead to long-term cumulative damage for any age group, including
the later onset of dementia conditions such as Alzheimer's.[4]
Dr. David Baskin, Professor of Neurosurgery
at Baylor College of Medicine, told the Committee that brain tissue
absorbs mercury five times more than other body tissues. And infants
and small children are furthermore five times more sensitive to
mercury's toxicological effects compared to adults. Dr. Baskin
reported on his own studies at Baylor:
"We have the opportunity to actually
grow human frontal cortex cells in cell culture. So these are
cells from the front part of the brain. We incubate these cells
with thimerosal at various doses [then] detect cell death and
cell damage. [showing a slide] These are the cells committing
the suicide program and breaking themselves into tiny little pieces
with a very low dose of mercury. Don't forget, we did this in
adult brain cells. Remember that infant brain cells are much more
sensitive, so there's a real cause for concern."
Similar studies conducted at Columbia
University have confirmed the Baylor findings.
So why can't the CDC and other government
agencies reproduce these clinical studies to confirm whether or
not there is a clear thimerosal-autism link? Well, the CDC, and
other research agencies such as the National Institute of Allergies
and Infectious Disease (NIAID), simply don't perform gold standard
clinical science. Instead, the CDC relies upon statistical analyses
and mathematical algorithms to arrive at their conclusions about
vaccines' and thimerosal's safety. Preferring to cower in the
back of Plato's cave, concise scientific protocol and biomolecular
studies in a laboratory is almost anathema to them. In addition,
the kind of studies the vaccine orthodoxy hail as proof to deny
a correlation between thimerosal and autism rely upon dreadful
research design and ridiculously low numbers of participants.
For example, a University of Rochester study comparing children
injected with mercury-vaccines versus vaccines without mercury
only enrolled 40 subjects; yet, this single study remains in the
pro-vaccine orthodoxy's arsenal against vaccine skeptics. If autism
at the time of the study affected 1 in 150 children, then enrolling
40 children is baseless for achieving any valid data. For this
reason, another finding by the Committee states:
Committee Finding 2: "To date, studies
conducted or funded by the CDC that purportedly dispute any correlation
between autism and vaccine injury have been of poor design, under-powered,
and fatally flawed. The CDC's rush to support and promote such
research is reflective of a philosophical conflict in looking
fairly at emerging theories and clinical data related to adverse
reactions from vaccinations."
The Committee also reports, "Upon
thorough review of the scientific literature and internal documents
from government and industry, the Committee did in fact find evidence
that thimerosal posed a risk. The possible risk for harm from
either low dose chronic or one time high level (bolus dose) exposure
to thimerosal is not 'theoretical,' but very real and documented
in the medical literature."
Furthermore, the report continues,
"Of additional concern has been the
CDC's bias against theories regarding vaccine-induced autism.
Rather than aggressively working to replicate clinical findings
with laboratory data that showed a relationship between vaccines
and autism the CDC funded researchers who also worked for vaccine
manufacturers to conduct population-based epidemiological studies
to look at the possible correlation between vaccine injury and
a subset of the population that might be injured. The CDC to date
has relied too heavily on epidemiological findings. While epidemiological
studies are important, they are not a substitute for focused,
clinical research."
And independent clinical research exists.
There is lots of it from prestigious institutions such as Harvard,
Johns Hopkins, the Cleveland Clinic, Massachusetts General Hospital,
the University of California at Irvine, Baylor Medical School,
Prof. Boyd Haley at the University of Kentucky, and the dozens
of studies by Dr. Mark Geier at the Institute of Chronic Illnesses,
all providing evidence for thimerosal's adverse effects in adults
and in the developing brain of a child.
Committee Finding 3: "Manufacturers
of vaccines and thimerosal have never conducted adequate testing
on the safety of thimerosal. The FDA has never required manufacturers
to conduct adequate safety testing on thimerosal and ethylmercury
compounds."
For many decades, the FDA has known about
the neurotoxic effects of thimersosal. A review of internal documents
from Eli Lilly, the original inventor of ethylmercury in the 1920s,
reveals that only one study has ever been performed to investigate
thimerosal's safety in humans and it was "woefully inadequate."
During the actual Committee hearings, Rep. Burton remarked, "You
mean to tell me since 1929 we've been using thimerosal and the
only test you know of is the one that was done in 1929, and every
one of those people got meningitis and died?"[5]
In the 1940's, thimerosal was used in
teething powders for infants and resulted in fatal outbreaks of
Pink's Disease (severe mercury poisoning) before being removed
in the 50's. Since many children today receive vaccines with trace
amounts of thimerosal, in addition to vaccines containing adjuvant
aluminum compounds, an important 1972 study published in the British
Medical Journal noted that mercury increases aluminum's oxidation
and produces abnormal heat. In recent years, there is growing
evidence of mitochondrial oxidation and cellular damage that may
be due to this interaction between mercury and aluminum in vaccines.
With a child now receiving 31 and more vaccinations during its
first 18 months of life, it would seem that this barbaric practice
would have been fully investigated by our health officials to
account for the epidemic rise in neurological and behavioral disorders,
adult diabetes and asthmatic conditions in American children.
Instead, our health officials continue to pump out junk science,
for example the recent, seriously flawed NIAID study on H1N1 vaccine
safety in pregnant women reported over the major media, to deceive
Americans and enroll them in their national vaccination campaigns.
The protocol in that study listed any pregnant woman who had a
history of alcohol or drug abuse during a 6 year period, diabetes,
compromised immune systems, asthmatic and allergic conditions,
history of cancer-treatment drugs for 3 years, prescription to
psychiatric drugs, and many other conditions as unqualified for
the study. These conditions alone would disqualify the large majority
of the nation's pregnant women. Furthermore, any pregnant woman
who enrolled in the trial, who spiked a temperature of 100 degrees
or greater during the first 72 hours following vaccination, were
excluded from the trial. Nevertheless, the CDC and its cronies
in the media, particularly the pharmaceutical shills at The New
York Times, touted this deranged trial as conclusive evidence
that the swine flu vaccine was safe for all pregnant women. These
are the kinds of medical distortions we have come to expect from
the Federal health agencies.
The Committee's report states,
"It appears that our Federal regulatory
framework (the FDA and its predecessor organizations) failed to
require manufacturers to prove thimerosal was safe. They failed
to require industry to conduct adequate testing to determine how
thimerosal is metabolized. The FDA failed to require that industry
conduct studies to determine the maximum safe exposure level of
thimerosal. These basic issues should have been proven prior to
the introduction of thimerosal into the marketplace, but more
than 70 years after its introduction, these issues have still
not been adequately addressed... It is clear that the guiding
principal for FDA policymakers has been to avoid shaking the public's
confidence in the safety of vaccines. For this reason, many FDA
officials have stubbornly denied that thimerosal may cause adverse
reactions. given the serious concerns about the safety of thimerosal,
the FDA should have acted years earlier to remove this preservative
from vaccines and other medications."
Nevertheless, even during this so-called
flu season, the Federal agencies continue to remain entranced
in a stupor of scientific denial, perhaps acting in a criminally
negligent manner, as thimerosal remains at highly toxic levels
in the flu vaccines, and remains in trace amounts in the DTaP,
some Hib, and Hepatitis B vaccines.
Although the FDA has repeatedly agreed
that mercury is unsafe for over-the-counter medications, one would
think that the government could arrive at the simple deduction
of an elementary school pupil in agreeing that intramuscular injection
of thimerosal would be far more dangerous. During the Committee's
proceedings, Dr. Bernard Schwetz, former Director of the FDA's
National Center for Toxicological Research, has stated, "
the fact that we know that ethylmercury is a skin sensitizer when
its put on the skin, and now we're injecting this IM (intramuscularly)
at a time when the immune system is just developing, the functionality
of the immune system is just being set at this age [infancy].
What is the effect on the functional development of the immune
system when you give a chemical of that kind repeatedly IM?"
Committee Finding 4: "At the same
time that the incidence of autism was growing, the number of childhood
vaccines containing thimerosal was growing, increasing the amount
of ethylmercury to which infants were exposed threefold... The
FDA and CDC failed in their duty to be vigilant as new vaccines
containing thimerosal were approved and added to the immunization
schedule."
The Commission report states, "There
was tremendous reluctance on the part of some officials that a
mistake had been made in allowing ethylmercury to be used in vaccines."
The FDA damns itself in a 1999 email by a former FDA official,
Dr. Peter Patriarca, then Director of the FDA's Division of Viral
Products, who opines that hastening the removal of thimerosal
from vaccines would "raise questions about the FDA being
'asleep at the switch' for decades by allowing a potentially hazardous
compound to remain in many childhood vaccines, and not forcing
manufacturers to exclude it from new products."
While the Federal health agencies and
the professional medical organizations serving the vaccine industrial
complex, such as the American Pediatric Association, repeatedly
tell us there is no causal relationship between ASD and vaccine
mercury, there is a growing body of prestigious scientists, researchers
and physicians who feel otherwise. Last October 2009, a Harvard
survey reported in the journal Pediatrics the US's ASD rate needs
to be upgraded to 1 in 91, a greater than 30% increase from the
previous 1 in 150 ratio several years back.[6] Consequently, the
thimerasol-autism debate is far from over and should be pursued
with aggressive due diligence and urgency. Moreover, the past
history of CDC negligence and its reliance upon poorly designed
and flawed science indicates there is no reason why any rational
citizen should believe any statistical declaration or medical
claim about vaccine safety from government health officials. These
are people with severe allergic reactions to real science.
The Autism Society of America (ASA), the
world's largest autism organization and heavily funded by private
industry and CDC support, continues to rely on archaic treatments
not too dissimilar to BF Skinner's behavioral work with pigeons.
The ASA and the National Alliance for Autism, another advocacy
organization supporting research to discredit vaccine-autism links,
have been accused of conflict of interests and biased studies.
In early 2009, Alison Singer, the senior executive of ASA and
an advocate of the fanatical vaccine multi-millionaire and former
advisor to the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practice,
Dr. Paul Offit-who believes in a fantasy vaccine heaven where
children can survive 10,000 vaccinations unscathed-resigned in
protest over her organization's recent leanings to reconsider
a vaccination-autism connection. Each organization's platform
fundamentally ignores a possible vaccine-caused autism and instead
favors genetic etiology that has yet to be conclusively discovered-instead,
blame the parents' DNA, not the drug makers and their government
collaborators. Yet while the search for a mysterious autism gene
persists, more and more children are being neurologically and
developmentally damaged. Furthermore, even if such a gene is found,
it would be many years before anything medically practical could
be done with it.
Committee Finding 5: "A growing number
of scientists and researchers believe that a relationship between
the increase in neurodevelopmental disorders of autism and the
increased use of thimerosal in vaccines is plausible and deserves
more scrutiny."
In fact, the CDC in June 2000 discovered
"a statistically significant positive correlation between
the cumulative exposure" of thimerosal and ASD symptoms.
The CDC's analysis of approximately 110,000 records of children
with adverse reactions to vaccines, flying in the face of federal
health officials' previous claims about vaccine safety, led to
a secretive meeting between top government health officials and
vaccine industry representatives at the Simpsonwood Retreat Center
near Atlanta. The transcripts of that meeting were later obtained
by Robert Kennedy Jr through a Freedom of Information Act. During
the meeting, the CDC study's chief scientist, Dr. Thomas Verstraeten,
stated, "This analysis suggests that in our study population,
the risks of tics, ADD, language and speech delays, and developmental
delays in general may be increased by exposures to mercury from
thimerosal-containing vaccines during the first six months of
life." The Congressional review of the Simpsonwood conversations
concluded that "It appears that many who participated in
the thimerosal debates allowed their standards to be dictated
by their desire to disprove an unpleasant theory." Indeed,
this is what eventually occurred after the meeting.
The clandestine Simpsonwood gathering
decided to withhold its findings from the public and, instead,
proceeded with a new investigation to doctor the same data by
employing confounders (subjective, unscientific criteria used
to bias a study to prove a desired result). Consequently the CDC's
subsequent study released several years later denied any relationship
between thimerosal and ASD. At the end of 2009, this remains the
policy position and mindset of the CDC, FDA and HHS while a large
body of independent research, with no conflict of interests with
government or the vaccine industry, continues to mount against
our policy makers reliance upon tabloid science and futile efforts
to find causes unrelated to vaccines. And Dr. Thomas Verstaeten?
Last heard he joined the vaccine maker GlaxoSmithKline and continued
to deny the truth of the CDC's original Simpsonwood findings.
Since then, Dr. Mark Geier at the Institutes
of Chronic Illnesses, through a Freedom of Information Act, obtained
all the CDC's vaccine injury data in its database. After conducting
an independent epidemiological study, based on tens of millions
of vaccine doses administered in the US, he confirmed the Simpsonwood
findings and significant other data to show thimerosal and the
DTaP vaccine as contributing causes behind the country's autism
epidemic.[7]
Today, our tax dollars are being spent
by our health agencies to sidestep the entire question of vaccine
safety and efficacy, and are trying to project autism's causes
on genetic factors. This was the case in 2003, as it is now, when
the Committee raised concerns over the NIH's $27 billion budget,
investing only $56 million into autism research, and the majority
of that towards genetic causes. Compare that with the $2.2 billion
spent on HIV/AIDS research that affects only a tiny percent of
the population compared to the hundreds of thousands of children
across the nation suffering autism spectrum disorder and neurological
damage that they will live with for the remainder of their lives.
In 1975, the FDA undertook a five year
review of mercury's dangers in over-the-counter drugs and topical
medicines and ointments. The advisory panel's report to the FDA
concluded that not only "mercury compounds as a class are
of dubious value for anti-microbial use" but also "thimerosal
was 35-times more toxic to the heart tissue it was meant to protect
than the bacteria it was meant to kill." So why is thimerosal
still used in vaccines? Rather than manufacturing single dose
vials, which would not require mercury, vaccine makers have found
it more cost effective to manufacture multi-dose vials and simply
add mercury as a preservative for longer shelf-life. A story in
the Columbus Dispatch unveiled that Ohio's decision to purchase
larger quantities of thimerosal-laced flu vaccine rather than
the alternative thimerosal-free version was purely based on a
financial decision.[8]
Committee Finding 6: "The CDC's failure
to state a preference for thimerosal-free vaccines in 2000 and
again 2001 was an abdication of their responsibility."
After reviewing the CDC's long-standing
habit for promoting illness and staging a war on health, there
is a case of one vaccine manufacturer offering to remove thimerosal
from its vaccine but being denied permission to do so from the
CDC. This incident led the Committee to state, "The CDC's
decision not to endorse thimerosal-free vaccines in 2001 is particularly
troubling. Just as disappointing, and even more difficult to understand,
is the fact that the CDC, on two separate occasions, refused to
publicly state a preference for thimerosal-free vaccines."
Testimony by Federal health officials
before the Committee included a litany of excuses based on financial
rationales for not concerning itself with the health of American
children. The statements by Dr. Roger Bernier from the CDC exemplifies
the dangerous level of denial and Federal officials' refusal to
accept preventative health measures, a dire negligence that continues
to plague government health agencies in general, and the unproven
and potentially unsafe H1N1 vaccine in particular:
"It [removing thimerosal from vaccines]
could entail financial losses of inventory if current vaccine
inventory is wasted. It could harm one or more manufacturers and
may then decrease the number of suppliers"
"The evidence justifying this kind
of abrupt policy change [immediate removal of mercury from all
vaccines] does not appear to exist, and it could entail financial
losses for all existing stocks of vaccines that contain thimerosal."
The Committee's interpretation of the
CDC's vaccine policy includes, "The financial health of the
industry should never have been a factor in this decision [thimerosal
removal]. The financial health of vaccine manufacturers certainly
should never have been more important to the Federal health officials
than the health and well being of the nation's children. The CDC
has a responsibility to protect the health of the American public.
If there were any doubts about the neurological effects of ethylmercury
in vaccines on children-and there were substantial doubts-the
prevailing consideration should have been how best to protect
children from potential harm. However, it appears that protecting
the industry's profits took precedent over protecting children
from mercury damage."
Committee Finding 7: "Thimerosal
should be removed from these vaccines. No amount of mercury is
appropriate in any childhood vaccine."
Although thimerosal has been removed from
most vaccines, mercury remains in trace amounts in some vaccines,
as noted above, and remains at high toxic levels in the flu shots.
Studies show that in the presence of aluminum compounds mercury's
toxicity increases dramatically. Vaccines that contain aluminum
compounds include the DTaP, Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, pneumococcal,
anthrax, and the HPV vaccine. Unfortunately, no studies have been
funded by government agencies nor have the vaccine makers undertaken
efforts to determine adverse neurological effects when multiple
vaccines are given together, as is so often the case when small
children visit their pediatricians.
A comparison of the FDA, CDC and HHS claims
on thimerosal and multiple vaccination safety with documents from
the Department of Defense (DoD) leaves one with the feeling that
our national health service is a madhouse, a leper colony of welfare
scientists and indecisive medical bureaucrats torn between their
allegiance to pharmaceutical firms and the health of the nation.
Medical journalist David Kirby has reported on DoD documents he
received showing the military raising legitimate concerns about
vaccines (thimerosal and the DTaP vaccine) as causative factors
for the critical epidemic of ASD among military children.[9] In
her article "Autism in the Military, " Angela Warren
calculates the military autism rate at 1 in 67, substantially
higher than the recent Harvard study for the civilian population.[10]
In addition to thimerosal's dangers, the military claims its ongoing
studies suggest that "a relationship between adverse events
and multiple vaccinations exist." The Armed Forces Institute
of Pathology also acknowledges that "exposure to mercury
in utero and children may cause mild to severe mental retardation
and mild to severe motor coordination impairment."[11]
Why would the military health officials
take a completely different stand on thimerosal and vaccine safety
from that of the CDC and HHS? During a recent conversation with
a retired Colonel and former Command Surgeon of the US Army Special
Operations Command in Africa, Dr. Frank Anders explained why the
military health policies and recognition of scientific facts are
more accurate and medically humane than that of our Federal health
officials. According to Col. Anders, the "power and money
these pharmaceutical companies wield [on the FDA and CDC] is awesome."
When he was asked whether or not there is any conformity or agreement
between the Department of Defense's health divisions and the Federal
health agencies, including President Obama's appointments, he
stated there was nothing that could affect preventative and therapeutic
health policy. There are far more financial incentives, including
funds from Congress at the behest of pharmaceutical lobbyists,
for FDA and CDC personnel to forge relationships with the drug
and vaccine makers. On the other hand, since military health personnel
are solely employees of the DoD removed from the vaccine industry
and Big Pharma lobbyists, there is less bias and greater scientific
integrity towards medical facts and sound science.[12]
Curiously, David Kirby reports that the
military health clinics are adopting alternative treatments for
ASD--methyl B12, chelation and glutathione--which are not actively
promoted by the FDA in their preference for pharmaceutical and
psychiatric drugs and behavioral modality treatment. When we asked
Col. Anders why this was the case, he responded that it is simply
because these alternative treatments work. For example, independent
studies show convincingly that thimerosal depletes glutathione
in vaccinated children with autism. Glutathione provides cells
with the primary defense against heavy metal oxidation, a condition
that has been observed extensively in children with ASD. Without
glutathione, heavy metal oxidation inflicts severe neurological
damage. Alternative treatment for autism includes glutathione
replacement; however, this form of treatment is not recognized
by the CDC and the orthodox autism organizations in bed with the
pharmaceutical industrial complex.[13]
Committee Recommendations: There were
two important recommendations made by Rep. Dan Burton's Committee
that Americans should demand from our government and Federal health
agencies. First is the recommendation that "studies be conducted
that pool the results of independent research that has been done
thus far, and a comprehensive approach should be developed to
rid humans, animals and the environment from this dangerous toxin
[ethyl- and methylmercury]."
The second urgent recommendation is that
Congress "enact legislation that prohibits federal funds
from being used to provide products or pharmaceuticals that contain
mercury, methylmercury or ethylmercury unless no reasonable alternative
is available."
Today, neither of these recommendations
have been acted upon. Instead the Obama administration has continued
the previous Bush act to provide sanctuary to vaccine makers from
lawsuits due to vaccine injury. Our health officials have sunk
themselves deeper into dangerously reductive and determinist views
about infectious diseases, such as the swine flu, and have strengthened
their denial that their entire vaccination program might be leading
America's health to further ruin.
It is unusual for our government and Congress
to get anything correct these days and to make sincere, thoughtful
decisions that truly benefit American citizens. However, there
are those rare occasions when a spark of wisdom actually flares
briefly somewhere in Washington. The Rep. Burton's Committee report's
final statement is as relevant today as it was in mid 2003. Perhaps
even more so as we witness the CDC's public relations campaign
threatening citizens with misleading statistics, distorted science
('science' being a term that can barely be applied to the kind
of tabloid research that Federal officials rely upon today), and
unproven fears to shepherd us towards the H1N1 and seasonal flu
lines.
"Thimserosal used as a preservative
in vaccines is likely related to the autism epidemic. This epidemic
in all probability may have been prevented or curtailed had the
FDA not been asleep at the switch regarding the lack of safety
data regarding injected thimerosal and the sharp rise of infant
exposure to his known neurotoxin. Our public health agencies'
failure to act is indicative of institutional malfeasance for
self-protection and misplaced protectionism of the pharmaceutical
industry."
As we have witnessed during the recent
CDC's public relations campaign behind the H1N1 vaccine, and the
uproar of dissent that questions the safety and national need
for mass inoculation, medical discourse has been shut down. This
raises the serious concern whether America's health sciences and
democracy can co-exist any longer in the United States. The words
of H.H. the Dalai Lama are apropos for understanding the fish
tank Federal officials and their sponsored cohorts settled into,
"To deny authority of empirical evidence is to disqualify
oneself as someone worthy of critical engagement in a dialogue."
Nothing has changed within the US government's vaccine policy
programs, six years after Congress indicted our health leaders
with medical denialism.
Notes__[1] Kathleen Sebelius interviewed
by Katie Couric on CBS, July 30, 2009._[2] All statements in quotations,
unless noted, are from the House of Representatives' Subcommittee
on Human Rights and Wellness report, "Mercury in Medicine:
Taking Unnecessary Risks," published May 2003. _[3] Magos
L, Brown AW, Sparrow S, Bailey E, Snowden RT, Skipp WR. "The
comparative toxicology of ethyl- and methylmercury." Archives
of Toxicology. (1985) 57: 260-267._[4] Haley, Boyd (Professor
and Chair, Department of Chemistry, University of Kentucky). "The
relationship of the toxic effects of mercury to exacerbation of
the medical condition classified as Alzheimer's disease."
Presented at Autism One Conference. May 26-29, 2005._[5] Kirby,
David. Evidence of Harm. St. Martin's Press, New York, 2005._[6]
Kogan MD, Blumberg J, Schieve LA, Boyle CA, Perrin JM, Ghandour
RM, Singh GK, Strickland BB, Trevathan E, van Dyck PC. "Prevalence
of Parent-Reported Diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder Among
Children in the US, 2007" Pediatrics. Published online October
5, 2009._[7] Geier M, Geier D. "Neurodevelopmental disorders
after thimerosal-containing vaccines: A brief communication."
Experimental Biology and Medicine. (2003) Vol. 228, n 6, 660-664._[8]
McCoy, Roger. "Some See Threat in Ohio's Flu Shot."
The Columbus Dispatch. February 17, 2004._[9] Kirby, David. "The
Pentagon: A Voice of Reason on Vaccines and Autism?" Wellsphere.com
December 4, 2008._[10] Warner, Angela. "Autism in the Military"
Age of Autism. July 8, 2008._[11] Kirby. Op cit. _[12] Private
conversation with Col. Frank Anders, November 2009._[13] James
SJ, Slikker W, Melnyk S, New E, Jernigan S. "Thimerosal neurotoxicity
is associated with glutathione depletion: protection with glutathione
precursors." Neurotoxicity. (2005) Vol. 26, 1-8.
Richard Gale is the Executive Producer
of the Progressive Radio Network and a former Senior Research
Analyst in the genomic industry.
Dr. Gary Null is the host of the nation's
longest running public radio program on nutrition and natural
health and a multi-award-winning director of progressive documentary
films, including Vaccine Nation (2008) and Autism: Made in the
USA (2009)
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